Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening and welcome to... Recording in progress. Now that we're being recorded, good evening and welcome to the September 1st, 2026 meeting of the Chapel Hill Planning Commission. We usually start our meetings by taking attendance or roll call, so I'll do that real quick. Mike? I'm here. Chuck?

Here.

And I'm John Mitchell, the chair. I'm here. Those are the only members in attendance that I can see right now. I know that Libby couldn't be with us. Jeff may be able to drop in between work presentation commitments tonight. And I think that's the other three that I mentioned. So hopefully those will show up in the next few minutes, in which case we'll have a proper quorum. The agenda tonight is straightforward. We approve the minutes or not approve the minutes. And then we go into new business. which is part two of Taz's presentation on the LUMO and discussion of that. Is everybody okay? I'm looking at you, Mike and Chuck with that agenda. You just thumbs up if you're okay with it.

Yes.

Okay, good. I looked at the minutes from the last meeting and they looked correct. To me, did you guys have any issues?

Sorry, one note from staff. Without a quorum, we can't do minutes.

That's a good point. Okay. Are there any announcements or petitions either from members of the public who are dialed in or from planning commissioners? If you're a member of the public and you're dialed in, welcome. And you can... raise your hand and we'll bring you in if you have an announcement or petition. And also just for the benefit of members of the public, our main agenda item tonight is the LUMO item. The order of operations from that is that we'll receive a presentation from town staff immediately after that presentation. We'll take public comments and questions. The questions may not be answered, but you can ask questions. And then after that, we'll bring it back to the Planning Commission for discussion, whether comments or questions. I see a hand from Jake Freiberger.

I just want to note two things logistically. One, staff's not received any petitions. I think we received one email noted to you all in your last meeting that we forwarded on. If you're here to speak on LUMO, we'd ask that you wait until the item. If you're here to speak on something other than LUMO, please keep your hand up.

Okay, hands still up. So Josh, you want to bring in Jake?

I'll say if you're for Zoom, it's trying to promote to panelists. So if you're receiving that invitation, please accept it. If not, then I'm afraid we won't be able to hear you.

Okay, the hand went down. Okay, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Taz if you're presenting tonight.

Yeah, thank you, John. Can we just a second to get my screen share going here and I'll get started. Sure thing. While I'm doing that, just as a reminder, as John mentioned, this is the second of two or potentially three, if the Planning Commission chooses to have more, but the second kind of informal discussion regarding the draft LUMO that was shared earlier this summer. And the goal of these informal discussions is to give everybody, Planning Commission and then Town Council and members of the public, a public forum in which to discuss the draft outside of the kind of more formal trappings of the official legislative process. And so with that, just a quick tech check. Are folks seeing my shared screen? Okay, cool. Thank you. So similar format to last meeting, I'll walk through some slides, kind of discuss two major topic areas and how the LUMO is addressing some of the trade-offs associated with those. Just as a reminder, for these kind of informal discussions were using the kind of policy framework that council had agreed to earlier in the year in which they identified five broad categories of goals that they wanted to see reflected in the draft LUMO. And then within each of those goals, they highlighted more specific interests. And so at the last meeting, we discussed three of these five goals, user friendliness, economic development, and the built environment and the public realm. And so at today's meeting, we're going to focus on housing diversity, attainability, and supply, and environment and resilience. I'll kick things off with discussing housing diversity, attainability, and supply. As I mentioned, again, this is just pulling from the broader policy framework the council agreed to earlier in the year. Within that broader goal of housing diversity, attainability, and supply, They encouraged or they identified a range of more specific interests and the goal of the LUMO is to really try to hit each of these interests. We know that meeting these interests is going to implicate some really significant trade-offs. To talk through or to identify just some of those trade-offs, I think we can really only get the tip of the iceberg in terms of identifying all the trade-offs that a document of this sort has to wrangle with. But we know that some of the really big picture trade-offs associated with work of this sort are, first and foremost, there's kind of this inherent tension between supporting housing that's affordable to low and moderate income households versus supporting more market rate housing. There are trade-offs between supporting residential infill development and preserving existing or established neighborhoods. And similarly, There's these trade-offs between housing diversity and, again, kind of protecting and preserving the character of established neighborhoods. So these are all, again, just kind of the tip of the iceberg in terms of the types of trade-offs associated with making changes to how LUMO regulates housing in Chapel Hill. Some of the ways in which the draft LUMO looks to address some of these trade-offs are by updating the town's inclusionary zoning ordinance and creating new incentives for affordable housing, updating residential occupancy limits, allowing more density in some residential zoning districts, And including standards to limit the size and impact that some of these new types of housing or more diverse types of housing might have on, again, we established that like established or existing neighborhoods are part of that trade-off. So new standards that limit how new development could impact some of those established neighborhoods. And I'll speak about each of these in a little bit more detail. The first one I wanna talk about is inclusionary zoning. And I think it's helpful before jumping into what's a pretty detailed piece of the ordinance, just to offer kind of a quick reminder of what inclusionary zoning is in the current LUMO. and then contrast that to where we're going with the draft. So inclusionary zoning, for those that aren't familiar, is a set of rules that are really aimed at getting affordable housing out of market rate housing, incorporating those affordable units into development that would otherwise really just be market rate. And so our current LUMO includes rules that include mandatory requirements for subdivisions and mandatory requirements for multifamily development. But each of those come with a couple of caveats. So the mandatory requirements for subdivisions, only apply to subdivisions with five or more lots, of which in the little over four years I've worked for the town, only seen one subdivision come through with more than five lots. There are obviously modifications and amendments that have been made in the LUMO and that are proposed in the new LUMO where we hope to see more subdivisions, but historically we just haven't seen many in recent years. And then we look at multifamily development. The mandatory provisions in LUMO only apply to for sale projects. They, as a matter of state law, cannot apply to rental projects. So that's what existing LUMO includes. The draft LUMO looks to maintain those mandatory requirements for subdivisions. It actually removes the mandatory requirements for for-sale multifamily, and then it adds a set of voluntary incentives for both subdivisions and multifamily development. It might look like we're creating this hole in the new LUMO, a gap in our capacity, which would be very much antithetical to what our real baseline directive as we're making changes to our inclusionary zoning rules is to really not get rid of meaningful tools in our toolbox, right? We're proposing these changes, but we're doing so with an eye towards making sure that we're not reducing the town's ability to get affordable housing out of new development. We very much want to make sure that we are building on our existing kind of toolbox. And so that gap for mandatory requirements for multifamily, it's really important to keep in mind that conditional zoning has been really, regardless of what Lumo has said, conditional zoning has been the tool, right? The operational tool that we point to when it comes to getting lasting uh obligations um for affordable units out of multi-family development whether that's rental or for sale right conditional zoning is able to accommodate both of those in a way that the existing lumo just hasn't been able to do so we're really again kind of reshuffling reorganizing some of the tools in our toolbox and then adding some new really robust incentives for affordable housing I'll just briefly touch on what some of those incentives look like. First and foremost is this notion of higher buy-write development thresholds. Where that really comes into play is the scale of development that would be required before a conditional zoning kicks in, right? How much development can you do based purely on whether or not your project complies with the rules on the books? An example of kind of how this set of incentives would work. In many of our proposed multifamily districts, right, districts that allow multifamily development, that buy right threshold is going to be about 30 units. So you could build 30 units or up to 30 units of multifamily development without needing a council approval. If you're doing more than that, you obviously need to go to council for a conditional zoning. These incentives kick in though at two different tiers, right? If you meet kind of the lower tier of targets for the incentives, that 30 unit threshold gets kicked up to 48 units. And if you meet an even higher tier, it gets kicked up to 75 units. Each of those are intended to kind of address different segments of the market. That lower threshold is really kind of your typical market rate developer. And that higher threshold is really targeted at promoting and supporting projects that use the low income housing tax credit or LIHTC. um we found that 75 units is just about the sweet spot for light tech projects and so what this does is create ideally a totally by right pathway for light tech projects which is um you know one of the remaining really robust sources of funding outside of town funding to support affordable housing So those buy-right thresholds are a key part of the incentive package. We're also proposing that the draft LUMO would allow basically fourplexes buy-right much more broadly than they'd be allowed otherwise if they include affordable units. So if at least two of the units are affordable, the draft LUMO would allow a fourplex to be built in parts of town that would otherwise be limited to just two units. And then we've got kind of the more standard bonuses, right, dimensional bonuses. So things like an increased floor area ratio, taller height limits. And similarly for subdivisions, we would provide really generous bonuses in terms of smaller lot sizes. Generally speaking, when it comes to these bonuses and incentives, we know that in order to induce developers to provide affordable housing, we've got to put a lot of value on the table. We've got to make a strong business case for them to provide affordable housing, which is why you see really generous bonuses tacked into this new set of incentives. But the inclusionary zoning piece is only one part of how we're looking at addressing housing in town. Another element of housing regulation are residential occupancy limits. Just for context, LUMO, in a pretty roundabout way today, limits residential occupancy to no more than four unrelated individuals. In contrast, the state building code limits residential occupancy to no more than eight unrelated individuals. And so what the draft LUMO is proposing is that basically except for the Northside and Pine Knolls neighborhoods, which are closer to campus, that occupancy limit would be increased from four to eight unrelated people. There's a couple of underlying goals here. One is obviously affordability and attainability of housing. We know that as housing costs are increasing, co-living potentially among unrelated people is a strategy that folks are using to make housing costs. fit in to their daily budgets. So affordability and sustainability are definitely important goals here, but so is equity, right? We know that today's four unrelated person occupancy limit is all but impossible to enforce. It is exceptionally hard to enforce that four unrelated people limit. And what that means is that we know that there are folks out there that are getting by without following that rule. Because of the dynamics involved, they know that there's limited opportunities for the town to enforce against them, and the consequences are not particularly dire for certain individuals. That involves kind of this willingness to skirt the rules, a willingness to be okay with law enforcement or code enforcement potentially knocking on your door. And we know that there are a lot of more vulnerable households in Chapel Hill, more vulnerable communities in Chapel Hill, where there's much less willingness, right? There's much less risk tolerance to drawing the attention of code enforcement or law enforcement. And it's those families that are likely to be unequitably burdened by a rule that we know we can't enforce equally or with particular consistency around town. And so again, those are kind of our two major rationales for updating the residential occupancy limits. Couple more things I wanted to talk about in terms of housing, and this is something we've talked about in various contexts, is this notion of allowing additional residential density in some zoning districts. And it's really intended to be guided by where the complete community strategy directs the town to add more residential density. Complete community talks about adding residential density along transit corridors, along infill sites with existing infrastructure, and near greenways. And so what DraftLumo will propose to do is that in some of our lower density zoning districts, really that top row that you see here, the R1, R2 zoning district, where Under today's rules, the baseline permitted zoning density is two units per lot. That baseline density doesn't change in the new LUMO. But what the new LUMO does propose is that for certain properties in those districts, if they're along larger roads or if they're near Greenway entrances, you get that next increment of density. So you go from two units per lot to four units per lot. And you'll see that logic kind of carries forward with each of the successively more dense districts in town where there's a baseline level of density and then there's an additional density that's allowed if you're, again, along a large road or near a greenway entrance. I do just want to kind of briefly kind of display the map of arterial and collector streets. These are the larger roads in town. I know in this meeting format, it's probably impossible to really interrogate this map, but I do just want to kind of plug that the map is available. A high resolution option is available for download. on the town's website, ChapelHillNC.gov slash Lumo update. It's just kind of a snapshot in time of our current classification of arterial and collector streets. And so this starts to give you an idea of where that additional level of density could be allowed. We haven't yet published a map around greenways and greenway entrances, but that is coming soon and so could really start to provide, again, that complete picture of where these density bonuses would be allowed. And then I just wanted to briefly touch on this notion of we've identified in some of these trade-offs that allowing more housing or new types of housing has to be balanced against what's the impact on existing or established neighborhoods. So the draft LUMO attempts to do that in a couple of ways. First of which is limiting the size of these new housing types. And the size kind of scales based on what type of housing we're talking about. So in the R1, R2 zoning districts, where we're really talking about single family homes up to four units per lot, the largest multi-unit development that would be allowed in those districts would be 6,000 square feet if you're doing three or four units, or 5,000 square feet if you're doing two units. And then in the more dense residential districts where you could do five or more units, those districts will also come with some limits on the total size of the development. If you do the math on kind of how these shape out, generally speaking, we're trying to promote smaller and smaller units as you add more units. So between a duplex and a triplex and fourplex, the kind of average size of those units starts to go down as you get bigger. So size limits are a key part of how we're controlling the impact of these new missing middle housing types. We're also looking at the external features of these developments. We know that parking is one of the exterior design features of any type of development that can really shape how it impacts the neighborhood. All of these development types would be subject to front yard parking restrictions. They would say that no more than 40% of the front yard could be used for parking. Similarly, thinking about what does the exterior look and feel of these projects do to an existing neighborhood? Once you get into the five or more units, we would start to have street tree requirements, so some pretty clear landscaping requirements in, again, the front yard of a property. And then we're also being really mindful about stormwater management for these types of development. Stormwater management, as I'll discuss in kind of the second half of this presentation, where we're focusing on environmental protection, is something where we've really got to balance these trade-offs of making sure that the type of development we want is financially feasible. but also environmentally responsible. And so for things like duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes, if they're small enough or if their footprint is small enough or their land disturbance is small enough, they won't be subject to stormwater management requirements. But once they start to get larger, the stormwater management requirements kick in and then any development with five or more units would be subject to stormwater management requirements. So that is, again, I think in these conversations, we can really just touch kind of the tip of the iceberg, but we try to focus on some of the most important elements of what the LUMO can do. So that's kind of a quick recap of what the draft is looking to do when it comes to those goals of housing, attainability and supply. I'm gonna spend the next, just a little bit of time talking about environment and resilience, which again is one of the five core tenants the council identified with the draft LUMO. And within that, identified kind of a wide range of more specific interests. And I think with a lot of these interests, what they really boil down to is of a single very significant trade-off and that's promoting densification and infill development on the one hand and then supporting other forms of really critical environmental protections on the other hand um i mentioned you know kind of other forms of environmental protection um intentionally, right? We know that densification and infill development is a form of environmental protection in and of itself, right? It is a sustainability goal in and of itself. But so are things like tree canopy, stormwater, stream buffers. Those are also critical parts of how Chapel Hill organizes itself and protects the environment. And so we're really trying to find a good balance between these goals that are all ultimately wrapped up in our environmental resiliency and sustainability goals. And so again, we'll just kind of briefly list some of the ways in which the draft LUMO attempts to address these trade-offs and then talk about each one in a little bit more detail. So one thing, as much as we're talking about changes in the draft LUMO, one thing that is not changing are our CD buffers, right? Our stream buffers are not changing. We're adding new tree canopy coverage standards for single family homes. We are proposing to reduce canopy coverage standards for missing middle housing and mixed use development. But as I'll explain in a moment, we're looking to balance that out by adding several new tree protection mandates and incentives um also looking to expand stormwater standards um and that's just how we get fit on this slide you know lumo's also looking to to do things like add electric vehicle charging standards, mandatory EV charging standards, add incentives for energy efficient building design, really baking in environmental resilience and sustainability goals throughout the ordinance. But I think the things I've mentioned here really represent some of the most significant trade-offs for us to grapple with. So I'll just talk through each of these briefly, and then it'll be time for me to stop talking and listen a little bit more. So first off, like I said, RCD buffers are not changing. Chapel Hill, for more than the last 20 years, has had really some of the most stringent and protective stream buffers in the region. And we've seen really, you know, clear results of that type of policy. And we are not changing that policy, right? The stream buffers are staying the same. The amount of development or the amount of impacts that are allowed in those stream buffers are staying the same. We are making a couple of little tweaks, and I'll mention those just briefly. bolstering the the stream buffer rules by adding on an element of light pollution standards right we know that our stream buffers aren't just about protecting waterways they're also about protecting habitat and so The new LUMO would introduce lighting standards that actually require development to moderate their lighting levels or the light pollution that they might create near these, in many cases, very critical habitats. And I mentioned some smaller tweaks in the ordinance. We are proposing that the very small residential project would be exempt from permitting requirements. And when I say very small, I try not to use too many adjectives or adverbs in these presentations, but we're talking 30 square feet of impervious surface would be exempt from a permit requirement. What that really looks like is somebody that needs to put in a new HVAC system might need to add a whole home generator and really small stuff. This is just making sure that we're not asking folks to jump through more hoops than are absolutely necessary. And it's particularly important for a lot of our older neighborhoods because a lot of existing single-family homes, a lot of times homeowners don't even know that they're in RCD buffers, but a lot of existing single-family homes are actually well within. In some cases, the entire home is within an RCD buffer. It can become a real challenge for some of these small projects. Another kind of tweak, it's mentioned in more detail, and I can certainly discuss it more tonight if there's interest. We're updating how floor area ratio is calculated for projects that have RCD buffers on their property. One thing I just want to be very clear about, it doesn't change anything about what can be built in the RCD. It only has an impact on how much density would be allowed outside of the RCD. Moving on to tree canopy standards, I mentioned there's going to be some updates there. There will be new requirements for single family homes. So current LUMO has zero requirements for tree canopy in new single family homes, but we're going to be adding those with the draft. We are proposing to lower some of those canopy requirements for mixed use and missing middle development. And I'll just kind of briefly share what that looks like. A version of this chart was shared in the memo for tonight's meeting, but just kind of identifies right along the top row, You'll see single family homes, they're getting this new 30% tree canopy requirement if the home is more than 1500 square feet in floor area. So that's kind of the one area in which we're proposing to increase the canopy requirements. A couple of areas we're proposing to moderately decrease those standards are going to be for missing middle homes, right? So properties with two to four units and then five to 12 units would be subject to slightly different standards. And then mixed use development or development in some of our more intense mixed use districts are going to see some decreases in their overall tree canopy requirements. But in the vein of, you know, this is all a balancing act, right? the justification for kind of reducing some of these tree canopy requirements is A, there's been this interest from council of having a more tiered system of tree canopy requirements that has lower requirements for the more dense type of missing middle housing that we're trying to incentivize in town, and then either new or higher or maintained standards for other types of development that we're not really kind of stumbling over ourselves to try to incentivize or get more of. And so, again, this is a balancing act. There's that set of interests at play. And then there's also the fact that the new LUMO adds a lot of new, much more meaningful tree protection standards than our current ordinance includes. So already mentioned, and this is just the stuff we already talked about, the new and updated standards, but there's going to be these new mandatory tree preservation requirements for larger sites. The draft was also going to include mandatory protections for trees on properties that are adjacent to a developing site. There are going to be mandatory biodiversity requirements when a project has to plant new trees. Speaking of planting new trees, there's going to be mandatory requirements that percentage of any new trees that are planted on a site are native or adapted species. And then there's going to be these really strong incentives for protecting rare and specimen trees or so-called significant tree stands. And so I think what's really important to kind of keep in the context of some of the reductions to treaty and fee standards is that we're adding this whole suite of new standards. So it's not just about the quantitative element here or the qualitative element, right? What's the basic tree canopy standard. There's also this qualitative element, right? How meaningful are the standards that we have? And there's been a real push to add more meaningful standards to the ordinance. And then the last thing I just wanted to touch on again is stormwater. We are looking to strengthen our stormwater standards. The 100-year storm requirement, which is basically a requirement that development design its stormwater management systems to deal with much more severe and unfortunately much more frequent storms. That standard is going to apply to subdivisions with four or more lots or any development with more than 40,000 square feet of land disturbance. And just for reference, at 40,000 square feet, it's about an acre of land. We're also going to have more stringent stormwater standards for single-family homes. Basically, the threshold at which stormwater management standards kick in for those homes is being reduced, so it's going to apply to more new single-family homes. And then there's going to be these graduated requirements for duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. The theme here is that for duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes that are on the smaller end of the spectrum, they're not going to be subject to new stormwater standards. But once we start to see larger versions of these development types, the stormwater standards are going to kick in. So again, that's kind of a run-through of these two major areas the council has identified, goals for the new LUMO, housing on the one hand, environment and resiliency on the other, and as I mentioned, just kind of the tip of the iceberg in some of the ways in which the ordinance draft is trying to address those trade-offs. At this point, John, I'm happy to turn things over to you all and I'm available to answer questions whenever you need me to.

Thanks. Thanks, Taz. Great presentation as usual. And I'm sure we'll come back to you for the planning commissioner discussion portion with some questions and ideas. I'm going to open up the floor for public comment at this point. We have it looks like a dozen folks who have dialed in. Welcome. You can raise your hand using Zoom and we'll bring you in one at a time or a couple at a time. We just ask that you keep your remarks to three minutes and I'll just keep time on my cell phone here. I'm not going to bother you or interrupt you until after three minutes. I won't give you any signal, but at three minutes, I'll probably just hold the phone up so you can see. And Josh, are you able to bring people in? I don't think I have permission to do that. Okay, so I see Kimberly Sanchez.

Hey, Kimberly.

There you are. Okay.

I came in and I heard my name. I thought, oh no, am I on?

No, you're perfect timing.

Okay, well, thanks so much. And good evening to all of you. I am back. And just wanted to focus my comments a little bit today on the question of the incentives, because obviously Taz's presentation was really clear, and I'm really grateful for that, that what it is that the LUMO really is sort of getting rid of, and it's the mandatory provision of inclusionary zoning. And as you all are aware, that really only applies to for sale, and that's what Community Home Trust does. So Kimberly Sanchez with Community Home Trust. So we're really very focused on the for sale product. And the question that I just wanna pose to the commission and the public and so forth is whether or not the incentives that are being suggested to make sure that affordable housing continues to be built, whether they have enough financial value for developers to actually build affordable housing. I understand all the criticisms from developers about having a mandatory requirement, but in the five years that I have been, oh my gosh, almost seven years that I have been the CEO of Community Home Trust, we have been able to obtain a lot of development because of the mandatory requirement. And no developer has left the table because of it. And I think that's a really important point to make because this community is, people really want to build here. And so making sure that there's some level of requirement for that affordable housing. And I heard Taz talk about how the town really doesn't want to lose affordable housing. In fact, they want to make sure that these incentives or that these changes are providing not even just the baseline, but more affordable housing. So I think we need to make sure that we understand the economic trade as to whether or not developers really will use these incentives and they are valuable before removing something that is in fact required. The conditional zoning process is a negotiation table. And I will say that that is where, you know, there's always variation. There could be if you have a different council member today than you do tomorrow. But with the mandatory requirement, that's sort of the floor and the baseline that they're negotiating from. And so another reason why we believe it's really important to continue that. We think that there's been some work done by council to allow for expedited review of affordable housing projects that have 25% or more affordable housing in them. And that has allowed the conditional zoning process to reduce from years to four to six months. Community Home Trust went through that process with our J Street project, and it did work. So that tool still exists. And we do think that mandatory and voluntary incentives can work together and that there is a world where that can be done so that there can be more rentals, even though rentals are being negotiated through the conditional zoning process in abundance currently. And so the idea of removing something that's working in order and providing voluntary incentives, I really would urge this commission to think a lot about whether or not you have enough evidence from the town to really make sure that there's enough value to developers to build affordable housing if they're not required to. As I said at the last meeting, all you have to do is look next door because Carrboro is voluntary inclusionary housing and Chapel Hill has required. And we have about 50 inclusionary homes over in Carrboro, 250 here in Chapel Hill, and looking at another 150 that have already been approved.

Thank you, Kimberly. Appreciate it.

If anyone's looking to speak, please raise your hand. Kimberly, you're going to move back over to attendees.

give it another 10 or 15 seconds josh in case people are searching around for the button so the bottom of the screen for those who have dialed in there's a hand icon that says raise hand you can just click that and we can see that okay looks like some observers tonight josh we'll bring it back to uh the planning commission for discussion. Sorry. Oh, is there a hand?

Yeah.

See you in two, three. Just needed to wait 20 seconds, not 15.

Okay.

All right. Bringing in Jenny followed by Jake. Hey, Jenny. Can you hear us?

Now do you hear me?

Yes.

Taz was talking about light pollution and habitat on top of stormwater management, and it seems to me That for the I mean you're trying to set up an incentive structure for the missing middle by reducing the tree canopy and you're also allowing it to go on connector roads and near greenways which are critical habitat. It seems to me like and I know you've talked you talked about it being a balancing act, but it seems like. you're in and maybe this is your plan to incentivize four plexes near critical habitat i think that's what you're going to end up with which with more light pollution and less tree cover and yet you're acknowledging that there's a lot of uses of those green spaces um It just seems to me that you might just have different outcomes than you're expecting. Does that make, am I making any sense?

I think we get the gist.

Okay, and that's just my question.

Okay, thanks, Jenny. Bring in Jake, followed by Caroline.

Hey, Jake, can you hear us? Yeah, I'm here. Thank you. I appreciate the presentation and thank you for all the hard work. Question, I guess my first question would be the property on Kenmore that has 13 acres that's just recently been sold to an out-of-state developer. So those 13 acres could conceivably have four units per acre. Is that correct? It's an R1 in the R1 district off of the Connector Street, which is Kenmore. And if there are four units per acre, did I understand that those those units would be exempt from stormwater regulations because there's only four units per acre and tree canopy regulations. And my concern is that that's part of the watershed for Eastwood Lake. And a lot of the sort of wild spaces that we have here in this beautiful town, Am I correct in my assumptions that that is a potential amount of development that we could be faced with?

Okay. We'll come back to that probably after the public comment period, Jake. Appreciate the question.

So, excuse me, when would that When is the public comment period going to end?

It'll probably end within the next 10 minutes, and then we're going to come back to a planning commission and sort of staff discussion, and I'll make sure that we touch on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Caroline?

Last call for folks to raise your hand if you're looking to speak. Hey, Caroline.

There we go. So sorry. I think Jenny articulated my question very clearly about the areas near that were in fill that were up to four units. And again, I understand the the rationale for incentivizing, but I am very concerned it might be counterintuitive. Like you might get the incorrect, the unintended consequences of being in critically, in canopied areas without canopied, with less canopy, with less stormwater. Because was that also an incentive? They didn't have to follow stormwater management at that size? I'm not positive about that. I thought that was also... a lesser requirement for them and the light. I'm just very concerned because a lot of this does fall near greenways and in places where there is a lot of wildlife and a lot of collecting before it goes downstream into, I'm thinking of the Elliott, you know, that whole general area with the older neighborhoods, Coker Hills, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I echo what I believe the previous people just said. And I've lived in my home for, gosh, 30 years. And the storm water is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, as you all know, through named storms. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you for your time. And thank you very much for a very clear presentation. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Last call, if any other folks would like to speak.

Okay, so let's bring it back to the Planning Commission. I do want to touch on the questions they were asked, and Taz, I'm going to ask for your assistance here. As I understand it, Jenny and Caroline are asking about the additional density that's allowed in currently low density residential areas like R1. The draft LUMO allows up to four units, and this relates to Jake's point, not per acre, it's per parcel. And there's a minimum lot size, but it's four units per lot, whatever that is. And compared to today where you have a maximum of two units per lot in most of these areas, that is additional density. And it sounds like the concern is that it could come at the cost of some tree canopy and some stormwater protections, which may be important, particularly in some localized areas like the Eastwood Lake sort of drainage up Kenmore Drive and also, you know, Elliott area, I guess, drains down to, you know, Blue Hill area. Although I think Elliott, the part that's above Whole Foods, I think that's an NCD, Coker Hills NCD, so it wouldn't be subject to the four unit additional density there. So maybe that's a nuanced we can point out, but it is, um, how, how I think you touched on this in your presentation. It's just pretty complicated to grasp to us. There are certain, um, allowances and protections because we're trying to balance a couple of things. So when we go up to fourplex, staff's proposal is, um, take down from 40%, I think to 20%, the required tree canopy and There are some stormwater requirements, but they're maybe lower at a 25-year flood level versus 100. I'm probably getting this somewhat wrong, but there's a balance we're trying to achieve. And could you add a little color to what protections we're left with after all this in these areas?

Yeah, definitely, John. And I'll start by just kind of offering the... the like policy context of why we're even thinking about a density bonus near greenways. And it all goes back to the complete community strategy. One of the four kind of explicit areas in which the complete community strategy says that we should be adding new density, that we should be directing growth is to areas along greenways. And so that sets up, I mean, it's kind of like one of the mothers of all trade-offs of how do you get more density near areas that may be environmentally sensitive, right? We know that many of our existing greenways fall along streams, but that might not always be the case, right? A greenway isn't inherently going to be near a stream, especially as the town starts to build out the everywhere to everywhere greenways network. So we've got this kind of inherent tension that complete community sets up for us. Some of the ways in which we're trying to balance that out is to not provide some sort of unequivocal exemption for things like stormwater when it comes to fourplexes, triplexes, or even duplexes. For duplexes, what we're saying is that If a duplex construction involves more than 20,000 square feet of land disturbance, so if you're touching more than a half acre thereabouts of dirt to build your duplex, you're going to have to include stormwater management. That 20,000 square foot limit would also apply to constructing a triplex or a fourplex. And it becomes a more significant constraint, right? When you are trying to put more units on land with the same land disturbance threshold, that's gonna be, again, just more of a constraint because you're potentially having to deal with more parking, potentially a larger structure so it is a more significant constraint on those triplexes and fourplexes and intended to be uh you know a pressure for them to keep their footprint and their overall land disturbance as small as possible so there's that land disturbance threshold that applies again to duplexes triplexes and fourplexes And then the triplexes and fourplexes have an additional kind of threshold that they've got to be mindful of. And that's tied to impervious surface. So triplexes and fourplexes, because they're technically considered multifamily development, under today's LUMO, a triplex and fourplex can actually go up to 70% impervious surface. What we're proposing is that if a triplex or fourplex is built out, anything above 50% impervious, which is what a single family home is currently allowed to do. anything above that 50% impervious would be required to be treated. So they would have to have stormwater management on site that deals with that additional impervious surface. So again, just to recap, there's kind of two important triggers for when a triplex or fourplex would be required to do stormwater management. There's the land disturbance threshold of 20,000 square feet. And then there's that impervious surface threshold of 50%. If they surpass either of those, they'd be required to do on-site stormwater management. And then the other thing I'll just mention, because it It's still related to stormwater. And I think another question that was asked is around what if somebody is coming in and doing a lot of units or if they're doing a lot of making new lots, right? You're in a subdivision. All of these standards that I mentioned, 50 percent impervious, 20,000 square foot of land disturbance. All of that is superseded by our subdivision rules. So if you're coming in and subdividing land and creating more than four, or excuse me, if you're creating four or more new lots, you're doing stormwater management regardless of how much land disturbance might be involved with the individual properties or how much impervious surface would be involved with the individual properties. So the example of a property in Kenmore at like 13 acres was mentioned, land at that size, would almost inevitably be going through a subdivision process. And so they would be, again, regardless of what they're building on that site, they'd be subject to stormwater standards. And under the new LUMO, they'd be subject to the 100-year storm requirement. Again, kind of regardless of what

type of building they're putting on the property just by virtue of how many lots they would be likely to build or likely to create on that land yes i think you touched on this but um because jake mentioned explicitly i think jenny and caroline did as well the tree canopy i think i'm right in saying that um currently in r1 on a property with a single family house on it There's no tree canopy requirement.

Correct. Yeah. There's, there's no canopy requirement and there's no, uh, like protection of existing trees or anything like that.

Right. So that's the current, uh, baseline under the, um, proposed changes to the Lumo. Um, that would change if, and if a new, I mean, obviously older properties are grandfathered if they're not redeveloped. Right. But for a new, for a new, um, single family unit. on that property, there will be under this proposal a 30%. So from zero to 30% is an increase in tree canopy requirement. Now, if the property is developed or redeveloped into two to four residential units on the property instead of a single family house, that standard, instead of 30%, would be 20%, 20% of the property tree canopy requirement. But I just wanted to make sure I had the facts right there.

Yes, no, that's absolutely correct.

Okay. Thanks, Tess. So I hope that helps address the questions. So now let me open it up to Mike, Chuck, Liz, and I guess myself too. ask questions or talk amongst ourselves or provide comments to Taz on the draft LUMO. I suspect we'll probably want to limit it to the two headers, affordable housing and environmental protection resilience. But if there are any other LUMO related things, you know, that's fair game to bring up as well.

John, I'll go first. You were kind of leading the conversation that was in my head as well. The two, I think, are also very related. We're trying to improve the supply, the attainability, okay, in one case, and then environmental impact because now we've got more density. I think what I'm hearing, even from the public too, is I think TASI has done an amazing job trying to balance, in one sense, increasing the canopy and in another case, decreasing so we can get more done, build more. But maybe it's the fear of unknowns, right? At the end of the day, it's just the fear of unknowns. But is it really going to have an impact on the environment when we have more density? I was wondering if a study was done to say, hey, listen, if you create a baseline based on the new LUMO, we know we have properties that we can choose in different areas of Chapel Hill and make assumptions as those properties are going to go from, some of them are pre-existing, they had the two-plex, now they're going to be four-plex and some are single and they're going to be two-plex and some are just pure raw land that are going to be now four-plexes completely put in because they can and And then what would be the environmental impact because of it? It's almost like doing a sampling and kind of making a decision, looking at the data to say, hey, now this is better or not. Maybe it's not better in the future. has that been by any chance done, you know, based on the new tasks? I mean, I guess the question, based on, you know, the stuff you guys have been working on, the new guidelines that you have to say, hey, looking at this baseline, based on this set of properties, what, you know, currently would have been, and look, based on the new draft, it's gonna be better. It's gonna be more trees, it's gonna be less runoff, something like that.

Yeah. We have thought about it, Mike, like ad nauseum. I would really like to be able to provide a study like that or do a study like that. Because just like you said, there is a very legitimate, well-founded fear or concern of the unknown. And we generally like to be able to provide as much information as we can to address that concern. The reason that we haven't undertaken that effort is just the dizzying number of variables that would come into play with trying to come up with anything close to an accurate forecast of what the impacts would be, right? And one of the biggest variables that we're dealing with is just individual choice, right? And so that's both kind of a limiting factor of how much new development we're likely to get as a result of these changes, right? When we're talking about modifications to the rules that allow, you know, redevelopment of really small projects or small sites. The number of individual property owners that are involved, each one of those property owners is an individual set of decisions, an individual set of circumstances. And what I think other communities have found is that when they allow things like missing middle housing, is that the rate of redevelopment or the rate of new development is pretty slow. It's a gradual change over time. And so that, again, the more time, as you know, anybody that's done forecasts of any type, right? The longer the time scale, the more fuzzy the forecast looks, right? Because there's just even more variables that come into play as you're dealing with longer and longer time scales. So we've really looked into the possibility of doing that analysis. And I think it just, it's too fuzzy to be informative, I think is part of the problem. And the other thing that I have to be very upfront about is that you mentioned increasing tree canopy or reducing runoff. Those are goals that a land use ordinance by and large cannot achieve, right? Especially in a community when it comes to tree canopy, By many estimates, we've got town-wide tree canopy levels of about 64%, but individual census tracts in Chapel Hill have upwards of 70% tree canopy. It is an unfortunate, like a hard truth that any new development is going to, or maybe not any new development, development on a very scarcely wooded lot might actually increase tree canopy, but development on a heavily wooded lot is almost always gonna result in some decrease of the canopy coverage. And then on the stormwater front, when it comes to runoff, we're really kind of focused on this do no harm. kind of mantra of standards where at baseline, a development is not allowed to make things worse, but putting the responsibility on an individual developer actually to improve conditions, right, to make things better than they were before is a pretty monumental undertaking. The amount of infrastructure that we'd be asking individual developers to provide is really significant. And that's like the perfect kind of lane for the town to occupy, right? Investment in more significant infrastructure that starts to kind of undo some of the mistakes of the past and undo some of the development patterns. You know, one of the biggest challenges that we've got when it comes to stormwater and managing runoff is that large portions of the town have developed without any stormwater management requirements at all, right? Or predate existing stream buffers, right? So there's a lot of existing development in areas where it wouldn't be allowed today or built out in a way that we wouldn't allow today. So undoing the impacts of that development is really up to the town when it comes to new investment in infrastructure.

Thank you, Cass. Thanks.

John, can I respond to that?

Yes, and Liz's camera's broken. That's why we can't see her.

Sorry, I tried to turn it on, and it looked like I was in a dark, you know. So my camera's broken. Apologies. Thanks, Taz. We did go into this whole discussion two weeks ago, and I'm not going to repeat the whole thing. But I just... want to push back again on this idea that this LUMO is do no harm as far as stormwater. I think that that is a good philosophy. And I also think that this LUMO revision is most definitely better than the LUMO that we are currently operating under. It definitely strengthens multiple different systems multiple different stormwater requirements, but it leaves lots of inconsistency and essentially loopholes in order to encourage lots of different things, the trade-offs you're talking about. When you say there's nothing that the LUMO can, a land use ordinance, can do about that. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the way you said that, but I just don't think that's true. I think there is the ability for us to actually do some serious modeling, not unlike what Mike was talking about actually, that is actually a very feasible, loads of communities across the country do that kind of modeling. and do overlays where we ask those particularly at-risk areas or places that are very important for infiltration or are having an inordinate effect on the downstream to actually operate at a performance level that's consistent with not having negative impacts. not saying that you have to change the density of what you can build there it's just we can identify those riskier places and develop an overlay so that it's that we deal with that and we discussed this in the last one i won't walk through it again i know there are new people in the audience but i i do think this is a better lumo than we're living in with right now but i don't think it goes far enough and um the next big chantal that comes through we're gonna say man i can't believe we haven't moved faster on all this So I just needed to push back on that. But let me ask a question, unless somebody else wants to pick up on that. It's a little bit related, but as I was looking at the subdivision question that has come up a couple times in today's presentation, I also started to see multiple questions multiple places where you could not subdivide, but you could subplot. where the plot still remains with the same owner, but then you have independent owners of the subplots. And I think that my understanding, if I'm correct, is that sort of the classic reason for this is if you have a mother-in-law in ADU that you wanna actually cut off and have somebody else live there, but it's still part of this, the same property, that would be a typical subplot, staying with the parent plot. But it seems like, and it seems like it retains a lot of the zoning regulations of the parent plot, which could create problems down the road. Like what if there's an impervious, you know, you have a 50% impervious, a building and you've sold off half of the plots and somebody uses up 75, then, I mean, how do you... It seems like there's certain things that it would be hard to continue to use the parent plot. And I'm wondering if you all thought about, I realized they had that in the current one, but as we continue to change the regulations, it seems like these subplots could become a loophole for folks that want to skirt certain regulations. So they just don't actually subdivide the property. Can you talk a little bit about that and the thinking that went?

Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it, it is, um, We definitely do not want to create a situation in which neighbors are racing to use up the impervious allocation for their parent lot. And so there are rules that we currently use, because the subplot or sublot rule is just an evolution of what we previously used to call a townhouse subdivision. And the way we address the kind of circumstances that you're talking about, Liz, is that when that sub-lot is platted, so the sub-lot still has to go through a review process. They still have to submit an official plat and that has to get recorded with the county to formalize the creation of those new lots. At that point, they have to allocate the different allocatable development rights for that property. So things like the impervious surface, the floor area maximums, those have to be allocated across the properties when they're platting the land. That's the way we get around, or not get around, but we get ahead of that potential arms race almost between neighbors. They've got to be very clear at the outset how that's getting split up among the sublots.

Is there some upper limit to how many of these sublots you can divide into?

Yeah, so the upper limit is always gonna be based on the maximum number of units that are allowed on that property. So in a zoning district or on a piece of property where you're only allowed to have two units per lot The most you could do would be to create two sublots so that each unit is now on its own sublot. If you go up to four units, you could do four sublots so that each unit is on its own sublot. And that really, I think, gets at the core distinction between a sublot And kind of the more typical conception people think about a lot or a parcel of land, which is that when you do a sub-lot subdivision, you are not increasing the number of units that you can build on a particular piece of property. The only thing that a sub lot subdivision allows you to do is it facilitates the sale and financing of the individual units. But it's always going to be that parent lot that determines how much total impervious or how many total units you can build on that piece of land.

And also things like, you know, recreation requirements. different requirements that you might have if you had a multifamily or if you, I don't know, it looked like there were all sorts of, as I was getting into it, it seemed like they were going down different trajectories depending on if you were subplot or if you subdivided. But anyway, so you've thought carefully about this not becoming a loophole.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay. All right. John?

So I just wanted to echo or express interest in a point that Liz made at the start, which is regarding stormwater overlays. I'm aware that the, and we did talk about this a bit last time, I'm aware that the LUMO has some overlays already related to stormwater that relate to, I think, drinking water quality, like the Jordan Lake drainage and that sort of thing. I don't think we have any stormwater overlays, the purpose of which is to protect human structures. I don't think that's a thing right now. And I'm not an expert on stormwater, but logically it seems sensible to me that given that some areas of the town pose more risk or are more sensitive than other areas, that you wouldn't necessarily want a one-size-fits-all regime everywhere. And one way to deal with that and to do more risk-based stormwater regulation is to figure out which areas are more problematic or where the stakes are higher. and apply an overlay to those areas, and you could do it one at a time. You don't have to solve this all at once, but you'd say, well, if we know that, for example, Booker Creek Watershed, the town has spent millions of dollars and has a fair amount of data, is never enough, but fair amount to conclude that this is a sensitive area and we have an issue there, as evidenced by Eastgate getting flooded over and over. We can't necessarily prevent that flooding from happening. It's in a floodplain, but it may be logical to have the standards upstream of they're a bit higher than they are in other places. I mean, it strikes me as sort of sensible as a non-expert. But of course, to put on that overlay, you have to calibrate it somehow, you know, how much higher a percentage do you want the restrictions to be? And then, so that's one piece, like you have to calibrate it and then you have to apply it geographically to which areas. And that's going to involve some work to see, you know, exactly where would you want to apply this thing? What are the borders, you know, of that application area for the overlay? I don't know how much work that is. And I don't know whether it might be possible to just create a kind of menu option. You know, now we're going to have this overlay and we'll figure out certainly where it applies later and maybe even some of the details of it later. But I just wanted to ask Taz, would it be possible, putting aside 160D downzoning questions, I looked at that statute and I didn't see anything that was clearly preventing this, although obviously it's up to interpretation, but I'm wondering how much do you need to know about what the standards would be, about how much tighter they would be? And also like geographically where you'd want to apply it to just put something like a placeholder in the LUMO to be deployed at a later time, if that makes sense as a question.

Yeah, I think at baseline, I think the type of study that Liz mentioned is definitely doable. We just know it would take time and resources. So I think at this point for a lot of, you know, requests or interests in additional analysis. There's some of it that is, like I mentioned with some of the, With some types of studies, I recommend that's not a tree worth barking up. But I think there are certain types of studies, like the stormwater study, that are doable. And they could really be very useful. They'll just take time. And so we've got to get that kind of clear direction of, is it worth taking the time? And what does that look like, right? I think I've already talked to my colleagues in the stormwater management team, and it's the sort of study that I think there is interest in doing. And we know it could be useful. To your specific question, John, about like, could we build out standards and have some placeholders before the study? yeah so i'm just saying to create the overlay and then apply it during the zoning math process and subsequently to that yeah i think it's possible um it would be i think it's it's difficult without knowing what sort of recommendations you know that sort of town-wide study might give us, right? So again, we could build a framework. Again, just like the study itself, it's doable to build out the framework and fill in the pieces later. But it would take, again, I think some pretty significant time and resources to get that framework in place. even if it is just a framework with some placeholders.

Okay, okay, understood. Thanks. Liz, oh, I see you're muted now. We were getting a little feedback. Mike, I see you're off mute. Did you want to chime in? No, I'm good. No, okay. Taz, I want to take us back to the housing portion. I forgot to raise for a discussion Kimberly's question about whether the incentives that staff is proposing to include for, it's called inclusionary housing for higher rates of designated affordable units in future development and future subdivisions, whether the calibration is sufficient to be economically attractive and impactful. I'm wondering if, I know, a year or two ago that staff had done, created a model or acquired a model and did some economic modeling of this sort of issue. And I just wanted to give you a chance to explain, you know, what sort of work staff has done or whether you're confident or not confident that the calibration of, I don't know if the question is mainly about dimensional standards, certainly partly about that, or also maybe about where the by right threshold is set. I think it's at least about the dimensional standards. Like if you include more affordable units, some are more affordable units, depending on how many, what tier you get in, tier one or tier two. It can be higher, it can be closer to the lot lines, it can be greater floor area ratio. My observation, just eyeballing those incentives a few weeks ago, was that they were like pretty aggressive calibration. You know, some things were like, 50% or 60%, not just along the margins. So that's just setting up the topic. But I wonder, Taz, if you want to add some color to that.

Yeah, absolutely. We knew at the outset that density bonuses only work if you're putting enough value on the table for it to move the needle for a developer. Developers are profit-seeking, and we've got to make sure that the density bonuses actually make the business case point to let's provide the affordable housing. And so we did have some economic analysis commissioned a couple of years ago. The kind of top line recommendation from them confirmed, I think, what many of us have been talking about, that you've got to put a lot of value on the table. They basically said that a density bonus of at least 50% in terms of developable floor area was gonna be required in order to do that, right, to move the needle. And so we've built in kind of a little bit of a plus factor even beyond that 50%. There's a 60% increase in FAR or floor area ratio, 60% increase just at that lower tier of incentives. There's a 60% increase in how many units or how much floor area you can build without having to go through a conditional zoning process. And How far we go above that is really entirely a matter of appetite. There's nothing but further trade-offs that keep us from making those incentives even more significant. I think the trade-off being, as we get higher and higher with that buy right option, there are more kind of issues around the margin that we wouldn't have as much control over. Things like greenways or other maybe hyperlocal concerns from neighbors. that we wouldn't have as much control over. But that's ultimately a set of trade-offs that I think we can pose to y'all. If there's appetite for making those incentives more generous, it is an easy dial to turn up as part of the draft. And I think the thing that gives us some comfort with this is that it's also an easy dial to to turn up at any point in the future, right? We know that monitoring how the new LUMO gets implemented is gonna be a really key part of what we're doing in the years to come. And so if we're finding that developers are coming through and just kind of taking a glance at the incentives and passing them up, Any developer that does that is a data point that suggests that we need to turn the dial up. And so I think we'll be monitoring it closely. And if there is a need in the future, we won't hesitate to propose increases to those incentives.

Got it. Thank you for that, Taz. I had just three other questions on the housing front. They're not all... extensive questions. Uh, so, uh, I really appreciated staff pointing together the map of collector and arterial streets. Um, I took a look at it a week or so ago, um, just eyeballing the arterial streets and made intuitive sense to me why, you know, densities would be higher there. Those are, um, higher watch, higher traffic streets, and they're the major type of streets, you know, your MLKs. And I can't remember whether SS Drive is one, but, you know, Weaver Dairy, I think, probably parts of the whole Franklin Street. I'm now putting myself on the spot trying to remember which they were. But when I looked at the map, they seemed like, okay, these are the really high traffic major streets that typically don't have single family houses or very few of them like directly fronting the streets. Normally you'd have like a neighborhood road that comes off it, like a cul-de-sac and that's where the houses are. Understood that. When I looked at the connector streets for a portion of them, I sort of understood why they're qualitatively different. And, but for a portion that's non-trivial, I just couldn't figure out like why they would have been designated as connectors even for public works purposes. So one example that jumped out at me was Caswell. So that's a little loop that comes down from Estes Elementary School, the other side of North Estes, and it sort of loops down and then reconnects further up on North Estes. And there's no sidewalks on the street. It's all single family. It's essentially the mirror image of, I think it's called Granville, which is further east toward the library. It's a little loop. Very similar loop that comes off of North Assis. Neither one of them goes through to anything. They're literally just loops from one street back to the same street. So almost like cul-de-sacs in terms of the style of building and the width of the street and infrastructure. It's like everything else around it. And I wondered, well, that'd be kind of weird. You can have a higher level of density on this one than the ones around it. I just don't understand what's different about it. Um, so a couple other sets of examples that jumped out at me where I think I brought this one up before Dixie. I can't remember his drive Dixie drive, uh, connects to Indian trail connects to Lake Allen. And those are all between MLK and Piney mountain. You know, those are pretty, pretty low traffic, uh, uniformly single family, except I think like there's an, the part where MLK connects to Dixie, I think it's There's some institutional uses, but by and large, the vast majority of those streets are under normal single family neighborhood type streets that we have in Chapel Hill. And the last one I want to mention is Kenmore slash Cedar Fork Trail. Kenmore is very similar to Shady Lawn. It's right next door. It's not a connector. They're very hard to distinguish. You could sort of choose one or the other. If you want to get up to, you know, between Lakeshore and Piney Mountain or wherever you want to go, or maybe Weaver Dairy. So those were three sets of streets that I just thought that we're using the street designation as a sort of surrogate for the sort of character of the street or the quality of infrastructure. And it just doesn't really work there. And this isn't a different point than I was making two weeks ago, but I just wanted to chime in with some further observations, the benefit of the map. Liz?

Just was wondering if you could put that map up while you're talking. I think it's much easier for everyone to understand what you're talking about if they could see it. Or Josh, would you mind putting that slide back up that Taz had?

Yeah, I can pull that up.

While you're pulling it up, Taz, one thing I meant to ask is it seems like another approach to this issue is to create a zone, call it RF, since we haven't used F yet. Actually, we haven't used E yet. Create a zone. that we think of as the, no, here's a better idea. Create an overlay that we use just for our RA and RB, like an RA and RB overlay. And the overlay would be, this is the four unit per lot overlay. And then when it comes time to redo the zoning map, after the new LUMO. So the new LUMO creates a zone that's just abstract. It's not applied anywhere yet. We apply it during the zoning map revision process. And at that point we decide, well, where do we want this overlay to apply? And we create some objective criteria, as objective as possible. I'm not saying we just walk around town and decide where we think it goes. I'm saying the criteria would be it's a higher traffic street or it's an area like a radius that's close to some sorts of amenities. And we just see what those criteria capture around town and apply it. I'm wondering what you would think about that alternative approach or whether it would even be feasible.

No, it's absolutely feasible. I think it's a matter of, do we want to go with the the classifications that we have today, knowing that they're imperfect, right? I've got some thoughts about Dixie, but I think some of these others that you mentioned, I think Ken Moore is probably a legitimate collector. Caswell, yeah, probably marginal, right? So there are definitely within this kind of existing dichotomy of arterials and collectors, there's definitely some oddballs out there. It's by no means a perfect classification, but it's the one we've got today and it's the one that we could implement more quickly with just adopting the new LUMO. The alternative, and it is absolutely a viable alternative, would be uh let's use this as just the start of a conversation right like you mentioned john there this this could point to where uh more density is appropriate it just doesn't have to be the automatic trigger for it um and we wouldn't even need new zoning districts to make that happen um it would basically be let's take the existing palette of um r1 through R4 or as that evolves, right, RA through RD or whatever the nomenclature might be. And let's start to use that more strategically. So it could be that if we strip out the density bonuses based on street classification, it's just kind of signaling that, again, maybe, right? The zoning map is its own public process that we haven't even started yet, but it is definitely feasible that we strip out the density bonuses based on street classification and then do all of that as part of the zoning map update.

Okay, gotcha. Liz?

So I want to add some questions about this map and appreciate that last comment. Taz, I also have some other thoughts on what maybe we could do going forward. But my first point is in looking at all this, I looked through the LUMO to find what these arterial and collector streets were used for. John was talking a lot about housing density and I think allowing three and four units, but I also found that it was used for neighborhood scale retail, food, beverage, food and beverage, permanent supportive housing, general civic facilities, places of assembly, religious assembly, daycare centers, cemeteries, car washes and fueling stations, subdivision access design, which very much has to do with transportation, and subdivision street improvement obligation. Those last couple of things make sense that you would, because it's really about transportation. But did you, like when you look at these, For each one of these categories, did you say like, oh, you know, cemetery as well? I mean, did you go through with each one and look at this map and think, oh, this really makes a good amount of sense? Or once we just had something, it was just everything?

Some of those might be legacy, too, in the old Lumo, right?

Yeah, that's basically everything other than the residential pieces. The density bonus that we've talked about. All the other uses that you mentioned are and don't I think I'm saying this accurately, but I'm pretty sure that all the other uses you mentioned, Liz, are in today's demo.

But what about small-scale commercial?

Excuse me, sorry. Small-scale commercial is the new one. The three new ones would be the residential density and then the two small-scale commercial. Everything else, again, I'm pretty sure are based on existing standards. The other thing I just wanted to, because I think this could be really problematic, car washes, fueling centers, things like that, those are only allowed in certain commercial zoning districts. Those wouldn't be allowed on like everything that's shown in green in the current map, either under the old LUMO or the new. So with the draft LUMO, the new stuff again is the residential density bonuses and then the small scale commercial. The small-scale commercial I think is a really interesting thing to just talk about a little bit more. What we want to do with the new LUMO is try to make sure that for things like entrepreneurial ventures, right? Small businesses. We really don't want to be the limiting, like the rate limiting factor that prevents kind of new commercial activity at that small scale. We want to kind of create a more permissive environment and allow some of these smaller businesses to build out over time. One of the things that we know is so critical when it comes to the success of a small retail operation or a small restaurant is visibility and proximity to activity. So it's highly unlikely that these new rules around allowing small scale commercial would lead to a restaurant I don't know if you guys can see my cursor kind of floating around, but it's very unlikely that a restaurant would pop up kind of in the middle of this vast block of residential development. The type of places where we might see this sort of standard kind of take hold is on the periphery of existing kind of commercial nodes where there's already some of that activity, that visibility but it's just on the margin. So I think there it's more of like a marginal benefit than something that would be, that we would expect to see kind of take hold town-wide.

So, Taz, that kind of leads me to my suggestion. And that is, as John said, these arterial roads, really, they all are pretty major. And there's probably commercial on a very high percentage of those roads. Why not? I think people are freaking out at some of just You can't see. If you move this down, you'll see there's a road, a couple of the roads down there, which goes for a very long way. The thought that we would be encouraging density way out in some of these collector roads, why not... say that these rules apply to the arterial roads plus the first, say, one-eighth of a mile where they intersect with an arterial. So that you're really encouraging nodes of development instead of just long corridors of development. And that way you're really trying to do a densification. So arterial plus, but not this whole build out, which just doesn't make a lot of sense for the reasons John was just going through and just looking at it. These aren't the places where you'd really be wanting to put little restaurants or densification or any of the other things. What do you think of that?

Yeah, I think it's definitely something that we could explore. I will just note for the old Lystra example, again, just because I don't want kind of misconceptions about what we're proposing here. Old Lystra is not, except for this odd little, you know, very small piece of land that fronts an old Lystra. Old Lystra, Mount Carmel Church Road, are not in a zoning district where this density bonus would apply. This is largely like RLD1 and LD5 land. And so we're not proposing additional density out there by any means.

Well, that's good. But why not? I mean, Part of the idea of doing it right at the very close to say an eighth of a mile down the collector street from the arterial is then you're really encouraging densification. Otherwise, you're kind of spreading density everywhere.

yeah i mean it it's again definitely something that we could um if there's an interest um from from you all and from council we could definitely put some of those uh kind of additional uh criteria in place here um i think one thing that um is kind of part of the thinking here is that especially as we start to think about what is um what's an appropriate density what what are appropriate travel times that we would base kind of different density um or different notions of what's an appropriate density on um most of chapel hill's residential zoning districts um are within a 15-minute bike ride of uh of an arterial street right most of chapel hill um at least the incorporated parts of chapel hill are already within kind of a 15-minute bike ride of um you know, some sort of business activity. So that kind of quintessential metric that folks use for aligning how easy is it to move around a town and what sort of activities should people have access to. We're really, we've got a good kind of compact form already that makes it appropriate to start thinking about more density.

But in which case, it should just be everywhere. If you're saying we're not dense enough, then why pick these collector streets that don't seem to make a lot of sense? I mean, that's just an argument for increasing density everywhere. Right.

Yeah. And some folks have made that argument. It's not the argument that we're making right now. But again, as with any of these things, if if there's an interest in going further and kind of like dialing things up or down, right, we can we can go up or down just depending on on what direction we're given.

OK, thanks. My other two questions. I saw in the density table, Taz, that in R3 and R4, the proposals that increase, I guess mainly in R3, existing residential density in R3 is two per lot, two units per lot. And the proposals that increase it to four or eight if it's near a Greenway entrance or along an arterial or collector street. And R4 stays the same except with the bonus. So it's really R3, I guess, that I'm asking about. It's an obscure zone. I don't know what R3, it just doesn't seem to come up in our planning commission discussions. How much of town is R3 and where is that?

Yeah, so let me bring up the map I was just on.

Because we're doubling the density as a baseline, you know, in the proposal. It just caused me to wonder, well, R3, where...

Yeah. So on this map, R3 is one of many kind of peach colored districts where you'll see it is primarily around or near the university. So, you know, kind of these large expanses near the university, they're mixed in. You'll see R3 and R4 typically as like partner districts, which is part of the reason of why we're proposing to kind of collapse them into a similar district. You know, it's kind of like they're converging.

So R3 and R4- You're leveling R3 up to R4.

Exactly, yeah. So R3 and R4 tend to be seen near each other. There's a very important caveat because we want to be really mindful about displacement pressure in Northside and Pine Knolls, right? Those are two historically black communities that have experienced kind of a very uneven and inequitable burden of development in Chapel Hill. And so there are explicit carve outs. You can see, and I haven't mapped the overlays here, but the north side district is largely this part of town, north of downtown, and then Pine Knolls is west of campus. That additional density that we're proposing for the R3 district would not apply in those two NCDs.

Okay. And that's actually a perfect transition to my last question, which is, put aside Northside and Pine Knolls. We have a panoply of other NCDs, something like 10 NCDs in the town. And my recollection is those were created between let's say early 2000s and five years ago. Maybe more than five years ago, but we had none as of like the year 2000. We created this mechanism and it's kind of like a historic district light. They're not necessarily all historic, although they tend to be more historic than like just built in the last 20 or 30 years. but they have customized preservation controls layered on them. For example, larger than normal minimum lot size or what have you, dimensional standards. You have to be further from the street than in surrounding zones, that sort of thing, the setbacks. I went back last week and looked through some of the legislative history of those being applied. And it was kind of like going back into a time capsule, like a lot of the qualitative discussions that happened around applying these districts and neighborhoods asking for these districts to be applied. You couldn't actually have those conversations in public today because the thrust of it was exclusionary zone. and making exceptions. And we really don't do that anymore. And I'm explicitly carving out Northside and Pine Knolls because that's a very different discussion. But in areas that are other than those two zones, it seems to me the more we densify the town in general, the more weird and inequitable, not in a racial sense, but inequitable in other senses, it becomes. that something like a sixth of the town's city limits landmass is carved out into these NCDs. And that's just my estimate by looking at the map. It's like a sixth of the landmass, residential landmass. And meanwhile, we're ratcheting up bit by bit density in neighborhoods that weren't organized enough to, or for whatever other reason, couldn't prevail on the council to apply an NCD to their neighborhood. I think we can't just, um, allow that to go on forever. Like these NCDs are not like evergreen where, you know, everything changes about the surrounding policy environment, but that doesn't change. Um, so my question is really what are the plans? I'm not suggesting it could or should happen during the Lumo rewrite, but subsequently to have a open policy discussion with the council with the planning department, with the public about the continued relevance of all the restrictions that we're applying through NCDs and whether we might consider modifying or removing some of them.

Yeah, so I'll start by saying that there are no imminent plans to modify the NCD rules for specific NCDs. I think that was something at the outset of the Lumo project, we identified as more or less kind of hands-off because each of the NCDs, as you mentioned, kind of went through its own kind of hyper-local process, a lot of engagement with those specific property owners. And so we're not, as part of this process, changing specific NCD rules. We have had discussions about the NCDs that I think touched on a lot of the topics that you mentioned, John. And what we've heard is, I think many of the sentiments that you voiced, we've heard similar sentiments when we shared this material with counsel. One of the ways in which the new LUMO is at least addressing NCDs is that the draft takes out any of the existing procedures for creating new NCDs. So we're at least kind of drawing the line in the sand of this was something that was on the books for a while. We're not seeing that continued need for new NCDs. The other thing I'll mention is that there are some NCDs, we've said that we're not changing the rules of any specific NCDs. That doesn't mean that the development that's allowed in some of these neighborhoods that are subject to NCDs, it doesn't mean that that development potential won't be impacted by broader changes to the LUMO. So for example, there are some NCDs that explicitly prohibit duplexes. They have explicit requirements around duplexes. We're not changing those rules. And if we are making a change to the underlying zoning district that that NCD is subject to, it's possible that the NCD rules would supersede and say, even though The underlying zoning district allows a duplex, the NCD rules don't. There are other NCDs that don't have those explicit prohibitions against other types of housing. And so in those NCDs, if there is a change to the underlying zoning district or a change to what's allowed based on the underlying zoning district, um those would largely still be effective like that that new development would still be allowed um and there would just be i think elements of the ncd rules that would kick in so things like the street setbacks or something like that might still kick in but if there's a broader allowance and it's not explicitly prohibited under the ncd rules it would uh still be possible in that in that particular neighborhood.

Yeah, understood. Thanks for that clarification. Yeah. Other planning commissioners, any additional remarks or questions or comments?

I'd like to say one more thing about the affordable housing. If possible.

Yeah, please. Go ahead, Chuck.

All right. My question, I mean, we're talking about trade-offs. If currently the LUMO is saying for multi-family units, there's a requirement for the affordable housing, but we're saying now we can get rid of that, offer incentives. Are currently the developers coming and saying, you know, we love to build in Chapel Hill, but this affordable housing thing is a deal breaker. And do we somehow feel like if we offer these, because I see the incentives look like they do look really strong and aggressive. But all of a sudden come running and say, look, yes, we want to build here now because This is just a deal we can't pass up on. I see the numbers there. The Tier 1 is like, what, 9% to 13%, and the Tier 2 is 40% or more. I think the town, I think we're currently shooting for 15%. So why is there such a gulf between Tier 1 and Tier 2? I mean, so I'd like to... Do you feel like the current system is broken and that this... by making this trade-off, there's just going to be gangbusters of developers come knocking on the door that we just have not been getting before.

Yeah. I think that's a really good question, Chuck. One of the things, again, we mentioned at the outset that We're not trying to propose changes to the ordinance that are going to take away tools that have been proven to be meaningful and proven to be successful at getting us affordable housing in the past. When you look at the mandatory requirements for affordable housing, for multifamily development in particular, today, They kick in for any multifamily development with five or more units. And we almost don't get any multifamily development with five to 45 units that's basically like a no man's land where currently folks really aren't building that scale of development um there's a couple of uh kind of one-offs um you know there's a project on on mlk um just north of uh town hall for example where the developer was proposing to do um somewhere between eight and 10 kind of rental cottages. So yeah, That was rental, so it wouldn't have been subject to the mandatory requirements anyway. But it was at least an example of somebody building or trying to build at that small scale. But that was really a one-off. We typically just don't see that five to 45 getting built at all in town. That's a big part of what we're trying to get more of. We're trying to get more of something that we just genuinely have not seen get built in town for a very long time. As we're trying to incentivize more of that development, trying to get both a mix of rental and for sale product at that smaller scale, we really do want to back off some of the standards that no one standard is a deal breaker. Nobody has ever told us, hey, it is just your floor area ratio or just your affordable housing requirement that's making the deal not work. But it's kind of a death by a thousand cuts in some cases. We just happen to know that some cuts are deeper than others. And so those are the ones that we're looking to back away from, but not at the expense of things that have worked. So I mentioned 45 units as this kind of like upper number. our smallest conditional zoning that wasn't an affordable project, right? There's two really small conditional zoning projects that we've seen in town, the Gaddis Court development from Habitat and then Peach Apartments. Those were four units and 10 units, but they're, major outliers. Everything else that's gone through conditional zoning, the smallest one was 47 units. It was a townhome project off of Homestead. So that's, again, one of those things that kind of gives us some comfort that we're not like robbing Peter to pay Paul here, right? We're not cannibalizing from the conditional zoning pool of developers or that type of project. We're really trying to add add development in a range where we just haven't got it in the past.

And Taz, what about Chuck's question about the gulf between tier one and tier two? You were saying, I think earlier that tier two was like basically Terala made for LIHTC projects.

Yeah. Yeah, we could. I think we wanted to kind of keep it relatively simple, which is why there is that like 13% and then all the way up to 40. Again, if there's interest in an intermediate tier, that is an easy thing to drop in there. So we could definitely look into what some sort of in-between tier looked like. Or it doesn't even have to be an in-between tier. It could just be bringing that 40% standard could be lower, right? It could be 20% or 25. So we could definitely dial any of those numbers up and down just based on direction we get from you all and from council.

Other comments? Chuck, Mike, Liz. Liz?

This is my last one, unless Taz said something really provocative and I have another. So Taz, over the long history of you working on the LUMO, you've mentioned many times that the LUMO is not the solution to all the town's problems. And often we talk about it specifically in the context of complete community, where we want to really encourage these nodes of development, which are walkable and et cetera, et cetera. So my question is, when this is passed and you take a vacation and then you get back to work, what What is the planning department and the town staff in general, what are the other things that you're planning to do that have to accompany this to really reach the goals, the things that you can't put in the LUMO but have to happen at the same time? And do they need to happen before we get around to zoning or at the same time or after? Because I assume now that you're hopefully like seeing that this is getting close to end game, you also don't want to, you can't let this horse out of this table without, you know, also doing the other important work that needs to be done at the same time. So I'm wondering, have you all started talking about that? What does it look like? What are the thoughts on that?

Oh, yeah. I mean, we've basically got, My work plan is essentially sketched out for the next many, many years. So immediately after the LUMO gets adopted, whenever that might be, we get to work on the zoning map. That's the major accompanying piece to the LUMO. And then after that comes comprehensive planning. And like we mentioned at the last meeting, Liz, that comprehensive plan update um part of what we might identify there is the need to do some small area plans right like there's there's a lot of different directions that that could could go in once we really start to dig into it um but that's just on the planning side of things right um so much of what you're talking about i think speaks to the need for public investment right new infrastructure In some cases, it's going to be things like building out our EDE Greenway network. In other cases, it's going to be, you know, there's already been public discussions at council from our stormwater team and public works about what it means to really start to dig back into major stormwater improvements around town. That's all part of this constellation of how do we build out a complete community. I think the point around timing is just, it's very difficult given the slow pace at which some of these really big rocks move. When we're dealing with major expansions of greenways and other bike and pedestrian infrastructure, when we're dealing with major investments in stormwater infrastructure, that's just necessarily going to move really slowly. We're going to try as hard as we can to move it as quickly as we possibly can, but they're just massive rocks to be moved. And so I wouldn't suggest waiting until that stuff is on the ground because we would be waiting for just an inordinately long time. I think it's really about doing as much as we can but being careful about not getting like out ahead of our skis do no harm john that's all my questions you're muted sorry thanks uh mike and chuck are you are you good for now i'm good for now um

Okay, thanks. Thanks again, Taz. We really appreciate you joining us, especially this week. I think our next LUMO-related meeting will be in October, correct me if I'm wrong, when the Council's legislative session on this subject will be open. Am I right about that?

That's the next kind of meeting that we had sketched out as something that we would definitely be coming back to you all with staff. Yeah.

I don't think we want to add an intervening meeting. I think we've had a great opportunity and used it the last couple meetings. So I think, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, Chuck and Liz, I think we're in a good position and prepared for October now.

Yes, I feel as much. I'm sorry that Libby and Jeff weren't able to come to either meeting, but that's too bad.

Yeah. And in September, Josh, I think you were saying that there is some sort of business for us to attend to. Well, this is September, but I mean, the next meeting in September, third Tuesday, we'll meet.

Yeah, you're not getting out of September 15th. We do have a number of development projects that we expect to come through. So we'll have some items for the meeting. We'll get y'all out the agenda next week. I will say one note, this meeting may come through Teams instead of Zoom. That's something that the clerk's office has been trying to work on. So there may also be an intervening training session to just get used to it over the next two weeks.

Okay. We have one other thing to attend to, but I should have said explicitly, Taz, You can have a great rest of your night. We really appreciate it, but there's not going to be any return to LUMO in tonight's meeting. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Sean. And thanks for the flexibility in making the remote meeting possible this week.

Of course. Happy to. So I just want to tie up a loose end from the beginning of the meeting, which is voting on the minutes from the last meeting. I took a look at them. They looked fine. so uh liz i'm just gonna do a roll call vote since we can't see liz are you okay with the minutes from the last week yes okay mike yes and chuck yes and i'm a yes so we've approved the minutes from the last meeting and that was the last uh last thing to uh to wrap up tonight so uh anything else on your end josh or sneha okay um thanks everyone always Interesting, discussing this LUMO stuff. Yeah, go ahead, Mike.

Just one clarification. It was the next meeting, not September 15. It would be in first Tuesday in October.

So we are going to have a meeting on September 15, but it's not going to be related to the LUMO. Okay, gotcha. It'll be, I don't know exactly what, some like conditional rezoning related stuff, I assume, right? What else do we have anymore? Okay. And then we'll also meet in October. I'm not sure which, it will be the first Tuesday in October, Josh?

First Tuesday in October, that is October 6th.

And for that meeting, do you think there will be any other agenda items besides Lumo?

Unsure at this point.

Yeah.

I will say the LUMO schedule definitely creates time. We're looking to give you all time when we have LUMO on the agenda.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to productively use that meeting as it relates to the LUMO since we just had two substantial meetings.

It sounds like that's when we might try and put any thoughts together that we would pass on to the Council. Is that right, Josh?

Right.

Yes. Ultimately, state law requires that you have at least a month to provide your report to Council. So on October 6, we will formally ask you to make a recommendation to then trigger us so that we can ask Council for a vote in November. If you want to take more time to assemble your thoughts, you have the month. We don't need you to have everything written out on October 6th, but that's likely to be the action of that meeting.

And what do you anticipate as far as the sequence of council meetings? So they're going to start meeting on Lumo publicly. Is this in work sessions or in public, you know, council chambers, full business meetings in October?

That's a good question that I do not know off the top of my head.

It doesn't matter. But they're going to start meeting in October, and staff is prepared to do multiple sessions with the council, I guess, with a view to their potentially voting in November. I guess they could vote whenever they want to after the legislative session is open, right? Is there some minimum waiting period for them?

The one thing that they cannot vote, the one delay that they cannot vote on is the planning commission has a month to make a recommendation. So once we ask on October 6th, there's a month that you have to provide them a report and council can't vote until you either provide them that report or that month is passed. Therefore, the earliest we expect council to vote is November.

And Josh, what that report is, is up to us. Like it can be their thumbs up or it could be a 20 page document with all our, our specific ideas.

That's I'm saving.

Pat just couldn't leave us.

He didn't take my invitation.

Well, you said we were going to talk about the Luma. Yeah, that's true.

I lied. I lied. No, no. I'm sorry for not stepping away, guys. But I just wanted... I can throw a schedule up on the screen if that's helpful just to kind of map out what the sequence of events would potentially look like. So I think this is actually... what'll be shared at the next council meeting. We'd already shared this slide before, so I think you guys have seen it. We are obviously right here, September 1st. Council, just like y'all have had two opportunities for informal discussions preceding the official legislative process, council will have two similar opportunities, one next week and then one the following week on the 16th. Those meetings will be ever so slightly different, or there will be different formats. The 9th is a typical business meeting, so there will be opportunities for public comment on the 9th. And then the 16th, just with the way the calendar works out, the 16th is already scheduled to be a work session. So it'll be at the library, and there wouldn't be the normal opportunities for public comment. And then just like you all had kind of a placeholder opportunity for another informal discussion if you need it, council will have that other opportunity on the 23rd if they are not as kind of efficient with their conversations. And then we get into what we're calling the official legislative process. And so that's what Josh was talking about in terms of you've got your first planning commission meeting on the 6th. There is an opportunity for more meetings, but we just have to then get more creative with the schedule. So you all have your October 6th meeting, and then council would kind of officially be scheduled to take it up on the 21st. And those would be, you know, the legislative process with all the bells and whistles and constraints that that comes with.

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

Thanks, Taz. All right.

So we'll noodle on how to productively use the October 6th, I guess it is, Planning Commission meeting and maybe the one after it. But I think we're all set for tonight. So thanks, everybody, for coming. Thanks to Josh and Sneha as well as Taz. And we'll see you on September 15th. Good. Thanks, Taz. Good night.

Thank you.