City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

But this one here, you have a good view on it. Wow. Congrats, man. That's huge. That's awesome.

I would like to call to order the Thursday, September 10th, 2026 Concord City Council meeting. It's good to have everybody here tonight. There are some empty seats up here on the front row if anybody would like those. We're going to start out our meeting tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance and followed by a moment of silence.

America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. OK, do we have any members of the Concord 101 class with us tonight? If you would, please stand. And we'd love it if you would introduce yourself. and there's a microphone over there. Tell us a little something about your experience in the class so far.

I've really enjoyed the class. My name's Paula Ferguson-Kenzel.

Hi, my name's Chris. Yeah, the class is very informative. A lot of things I just never thought about with the city government. It's fun, yep.

Great, thank you.

Geraldine Plott, a lot of information and so little time to take it all in.

Diane Alley, I'm a new resident. I moved here in May of last year, so it's been very interesting to learn everything that goes on in this city.

Great. Well, you got one more back there.

I'm Donna Kinley, and I've lived here all my life. And I just wanted to find out a little more than I knew about the workings of our government and the facilities and everything that we have in Concord. And it helps me know whenever it comes time to decide who I'm going to vote for to know what I'm voting for.

Excellent, well we thank you very much for making the commitment. It is quite a time commitment to participate in the class and we appreciate you being that invested in the city of Concord and glad that you're here with us tonight. Okay, we have several presentations tonight. Hmm? Oh, the minutes, yes. You have three sets of minutes that you have been provided with. So do I hear a motion to approve the minutes or is there any corrections? Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. And now we will move on to the presentations. And I'm gonna come down front for those. And the first one is presentation of a proclamation recognizing Constitution Week. And I think Councilmember Clay is going to join me for that one.

Mm-hmm.

All right, and I will read that proclamation now. Whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, the guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government and a republic dedicated to rule by law, and whereas September 17th, 2026, marks the 239th anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention, whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. Whereas Public Law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America designating September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week, now therefore I, Stephen M. Morris, Mayor of the City of Concord, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through September 23rd as Constitution Week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the Constitution had in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties. And Councilwoman Clay is a member of our local DAR chapter and so please add any comments you'd like.

Well, I really don't have any other than to thank you so much for this, and I will be excited to share it with other daughters of our Cabarrus Black Boys chapter of the DAR. So thank you so much.

Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Okay, next up we have a proclamation recognizing September 15th through October 15th as National Hispanic Heritage Month. And is Sandra Torres there? Both of you are here. Welcome. Okay, and I will read that proclamation. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is an occasion to commemorate the countless contributions of Hispanic people that enrich American life, and whereas this year's theme, Together We Are More, celebrates family, resilience, creativity, faith, and service. and honors the diverse stories that help strengthen our nation. And whereas this month recognizes and highlights the significant strides of Hispanics in the economic, political, and social growth of the United States, and whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is a call to every citizen to reflect on the contributions of Hispanic people, which are woven throughout American history. Now therefore, I, Stephen M. Morris, Mayor and the City Council of the City of Concord do hereby offer this proclamation in honor of September 15th through October 15th being recognized as National Hispanic Heritage Month. Congratulations and thank you.

Yes.

And please feel free to make any comments you would like.

We appreciate the council and the mayor for this recognition. This is very important for us as El Puente Hispano. It's the only nonprofit organization in the Cabarrus County helping the Latino community here in our city. So we appreciate it and thank you so much.

Absolutely. And we have another one for you ladies as well. And this is... Recognizing October 3rd, 2026 is Concord International Festival Day. Whereas Concord has a thriving international community that has greatly contributed to all facets of the American culture, and whereas community members from different origins and backgrounds enrich our communities by sharing their vibrant culture and heritage, And whereas the Concord International Festival is an event to celebrate the many diverse cultures in our community and to promote understanding amongst different races and ethnicities through music, food, art, community bonding, and sharing among all cultures. And whereas this will be the sixth year, the Concord International Festival will be celebrated and presented in partnership with El Puente Hispano. Now therefore, I, Stephen M. Morris, Mayor, and on behalf of the City Council of the City of Concord, do hereby proclaim Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 as Concord International Festival Day. And if any of you have not been there, you certainly don't want to miss it. It's a wonderful event. I was recently talking with a new merchant at a ribbon cutting downtown Concord. And I said, so what brought you here? They had talked about their previous, they said, we came to the Concord International Festival, and we loved what we saw, and so we moved our business here. So you're making a big impact on our city.

Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to know, who has been at the Concord International Festival? Amazing. Thank you. So this year, be prepared because we have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful show. We're going to have six hours of live music from groups from Greece and Germany to African groups, obviously Latin American groups, groups from Laos region, China. It's going to be an amazing event. Everything, you can go there and don't spend any money, but I'd rather you spend some money. But you can just go there and listen to music all day. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be right on Union Street. We have between 5,000 to 8,000 people, depending on who's counting. And Natalie is going to tell you a little bit about the food that we're going to have.

So if you love food and you want to try food from different countries, this is your event. So we're going to have food from Philippines, Haiti, Jamaica, Latin American, Puerto Rico, Korea, China, and what else am I missing? I think Philippines, if I mentioned it already. So we are super excited. We're going to have like 16 food trucks a bunch of stands, like food stands from different countries. So just come here just for the food or for the entertainment, or for both. So we hope to see you. And for the drinks, we're going to have an amazing margarita and piña colada at the Puente Hispano's bar. So come see us. Visit the event. It's going to be from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. all day, full of events and full of entertainment. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. All right, and next up, I'm going to call on City Manager Lloyd Payne for presentation of the Employee Award.

All right, thank you, Mayor, members of council. So as you see in your agenda item, Joe Atwater Continuous Core Values Award is the highest award presented to a City of Concord coworker. Joe Atwater's life was synonymous with heartfelt service to others in our community and the highest dedication to our organizational core values. Joe Atwater served for the city from 1994 until her passing in 2004. During this time, she became a respected friend, an inspirational teammate to all coworkers. This award continues Joe's vibrant spirit and valued legacy by annually recognizing one coworker that best embodies our organizational core values and commitment to serving others in the community. This year's Joe Atwater Award celebrates a coworker who doesn't just talk about the city of Concord's core values of accountability, communication, and teamwork. She lives them. Our nominee proves each day that these values are not just words printed on paper, but standards we can actively carry into our daily work. She has built a well-earned reputation across Team Concord for being both compassionate and principled, approachable, but transparently honest. When staff identified a gap in leadership preparation for employees with no prior specific experience, she didn't just listen. She spearheaded a brand new training and enrichment program. She brought the right people together, respected everyone's input, and strengthened our city's internal leadership pipeline. Her commitment to service stretches far beyond her standard professional duties. She is known throughout Cabarrus County as the ultimate go-to person whenever a need rises. From organizing food drives, coat drives, and litter cleanups to extending vital health resources to underserved communities, she actively protects the quality of life in Concord. She looks to the future by hosting free resume and interview prep workshops, building long-term confidence and economic independence for our residents. What makes her impact so meaningful is that she never seeks to spotlight or recognition. She serves purely out of a deep belief in people. She treats others with genuine respect, anchors difficult situations with fairness, and chooses service over convenience each and every single time. This year's winner will have her name added to the Joe Atwater Award plaque that hangs in the city hall lobby, an engraved crystal award, recognition in the city circular, a $500 gift card, and one day of administrative paid leave. Please join me in congratulating our 2026 Joe Atwater Award recipient, City of Concord's Human Resources Director, Ms. Chantel Thompson.

So I have a personal rule, no crying at work. I'm so surprised. Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, we do a lot of work here at the city. And our city manager never lets us forget that we get to come to do this work. We don't have to come to do it. So with that, No matter how hard the days are, we just don't forget what we're here for. And we're here to support the team of people who keep the lights on, keep the streets going, keep the water going. And that's super important. So I just really appreciate it. I thank you for thinking of me. So I appreciate it.

up here.

We would welcome you to introduce some of your family members that are here, Chantel.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Now that you're composed.

I'm so shocked. So I have all of them. So this is my husband, Titus. He's put up with me for 20 years. My daughter, Aubrey. So if anybody at work talks to me, everybody knows who Aubrey is. I'm either fussing or excited. My best friend from college for over 20 years. This is unique. Thank you. I have my cousin Erica and my sweet little cousin Chloe. Excuse me. And my stepmom, Dr. ,, my little brother Ricky ,, my dad. Ricky Sr. If you know me, I talk a lot about him, too. My best friend from college, Dory. So she drove here. I don't even know how Titus pulled that off. My godmom, Myra, and my Aunt Audrey. And then I see Kim standing back there, and I'm wondering how she knew. I'm just so surprised. So everybody knew but me.

Well, congratulations, and thank you for what you do. Okay, we move now to departmental reports, and we're going to hear from Jay on a Parks and Recreation bond update.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Skoczynski, Ms. Jenkins. Happy to give the September bond update. We'll start off with our financial slide. And the only difference from last month is their increase in investments earnings, which equated to $60,653. Moving on to projects under construction. Our first project is J.E. Jim Ramseur Park. Some big improvements that we've seen over the last few months. Wanna focus on the top left and the bottom right. Those are the two of the playgrounds that are currently being installed right now. And it's kinda neat. There's gonna be a transform platform that'll go from the top one to the bottom one. So you kinda see that a little bit in the bottom right. That picture on the top right is the foundation for the maintenance building and the bottom left is the foundation that's going in for the restroom over at the basketball courts. So everything's still on schedule for summer of 27. Moving on to the next park, David Phillips Park. We broke ground two months ago on this and really continue to see more clearing and grading for this as well as making some improvements to the shelter that'll be expanded, which is on the bottom right. You'll see that and that'll be expanded over the next few months. We'll continue to show pictures of that. So for next projects that are in final design or out to bid, currently we have the Academy Gibson Skate Park Pump Track Sculpture Garden out to bid, and the official bid opening is scheduled for next Thursday, September 17th. So hopefully have that to bring to council next month. Next up for Hartzell Park, continue to work on plans for that. Our final survey came in earlier this week. We're meeting with the consultant next week to go over some final design plans and hope to bring that to you for final design approval in probably November, potentially December. And then for projects that are in design right now, Poplar Tent Trailhead Park, the improvement for that one from last month is we received yesterday our final approval for the erosion control plan. And our next step is our encroachment agreement with NCDOT. Just a reminder, we're doing that internally as well. So working very closely with engineering department, as well as the Wilson Street Park, working internally for this project as well, which we hope to bring design to you next summer and then begin construction after that. For WWFLOW, last month, the approval for the schematic design contract went through. So we're starting to see that. So we'll bring improvements to that as we see fit for giving you more updates. And then there are no current updates on the Academy Recreation Center, but we plan to work on the RFP that'll go out in the new year in January. And I'd be happy, oh, I'm sorry, skipping ahead. So we did add another picture to our completed projects. So with the grand opening of the Academy of Gibson Athletic Fields, this moves over to our slides of completed projects, along with Academy, or I'm sorry, along with Caldwell, Dorton, and the pool. And no changes to the timeline, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Questions for Jay. All right, thank you very much. OK, we move now to persons requesting to be heard. We've got our regular public comment tonight, plus we have three public hearings. So if anybody determines that they signed the wrong list when I call out their name, just let me know and we'll make adjustments. And I will read our guidelines for public comments. This portion of our meeting is our time to recognize persons requesting to be heard and provides an opportunity for anyone wishing to address the City Council to do so. Each person will receive three minutes to address the Council. This is a time of listening for the Council. subject will be noted and if it requires action or a request the city manager will note as such and provide steps for any required response or after action and I think everybody has left their contact information when they signed in so our clerk can get in touch with you if there needs to be some follow-up and so the first speakers signed up are Bob Bennett and Larry Shaheen.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Manager, Madam Attorney, the rest of the Town Council. We've come before you enough times at this point that we've now gotten them to allow us to do it together so that we can save you an additional three minutes. As many of you know, my name's Larry Shaheen. I'm an attorney at the McIntosh Law Firm working on behalf of Stanley Martin here today to ask you for a highest rating of five on the Royce Croft request for sewer water allocation for the second phase for their project. I know you've heard a lot from me and from Bob and from a lot of our team, but we just wanted to come up one more time and say thank you so much for everything that y'all do. We really appreciate the opportunity to be here, to be a part of the city of Concord community, and be able to provide some much needed housing in the future for the citizens that we anticipate will be continuing to choose this wonderful place to live in North Carolina. And I will now turn it over to Bob.

Yeah, Larry pretty much said it all, but I just want to thank everyone. You guys have been great. I really appreciate everything. Great.

Thank you.

All right. Thank y'all.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Margaret Puckett.

Good evening, Mayor and members of Council. My name is Margaret Puckett. I'm here on behalf of Toll Brothers to respectfully request sewer allocation for 137 single-family homes. Our proposed project is located at 4460 Weddington Road. I know that Council has a difficult job when it comes to sewer allocation. There is more demand than available capacity, so I think the important question is simply not whether a project needs sewer. It is what the city is getting in return for allocating that capacity. The property that we're proposing, or property that we're looking at, consists of 75 acres on Weddington Road, immediately adjacent to West Cabarrus High School. It's surrounded largely by existing residential communities and Cabarrus County Schools. One of the most important things that I'd like to point out to Council tonight is that this property is zoned already for much higher density than what we're proposing. There have been previous plans that have consisted of over 350 homes on this property. Toll Brothers is proposing something very different. Our plan is only for 137 single family detached homes across 75 acres, roughly 1.8 homes per acre. So rather than maximizing the density that the existing zoning will allow, we're intentionally proposing a much lower density community that we believe is more compatible with the surrounding area and represents a better long-term outcome for the City of Concord. We're making significant investments outside of just the homes themselves. Our traffic study that we've completed now includes two left-hand turn lanes and two right-hand turn lanes into our proposed community. We're focused on connectivity to the adjacent schools. Our plan proposes walking trails and connectivity to all of the schools in the surrounding area. The homes that we're proposing will reflect the architecture, materials, interior design, and outdoor living, and the overall community quality that you would expect from Toll Brothers. Our objective is to create a community that adds lasting value to the area and to Concord. We recognize that sewer capacity is extremely valuable for the city, and we don't take our requests lightly. We believe that if this council is going to allocate capacity for residential growth This represents a very thoughtful, low density, high quality development that will have meaningful return for the city of Concord. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Ryan Kinney.

Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Ryan Kenney, and I'm with New Branch Real Estate Advisors, and I represent the sellers of the approximately 75-acre property at 4460 Weddington Road. We are here tonight seeking your support for sewer allocation. This is the same project that Margaret from Toll Brothers just recently spoke on. We have appreciated the opportunity to speak individually with each of you, and we value the input and feedback that each of you have provided to make this a better city. From these discussions, we learned how low density executive level housing was a need and a city initiative, so we intentionally sought out builders capable of delivering that quality, which has led us to Toll Brothers. We also understand the two primary concerns of this project are schools and traffic. To address traffic, Toll Brothers has already invested significantly into traffic impact analysis with professional traffic engineers to evaluate roadway improvements. The proposed plan incorporates dedicated turn lanes and Toll Brothers has expressed a willingness to work with Cabarrus County Schools on sidewalk connections to nearby schools that would help reduce vehicle traffic. But perhaps the most important consideration regarding both traffic and schools is what this property could otherwise become. This property is currently zoned for eight units per acre or roughly 600 homes. Based on our discussions with city council and the mayor, we knew that lower density was important. So Toll Brothers, listen to our direction and our proposal before you tonight is only for 137 executive level single family homes. As the process stands today, city council must approve the sewer allocation. If the process returns to a first-come, first-served basis, this property could see a much higher density. We believe 137 homes provides Concord with a higher quality and more thoughtful approach to development. As a resident of Concord and one that lives less than a mile from this property, I have a vested interest that extends beyond my role as the seller's agent. I believe this proposal strikes a reasonable balance between allowing the property owners to realize the value of their land while delivering a lower density, high quality development that council and the mayor have asked for. We sincerely appreciate your consideration and respectfully ask for your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Austin Boyd.

Hello, Mayor, members of council. Thank you for having us tonight. My name is Austin Boyd. I work for Johnson Development Associates, and I'm here to ask for sewer capacity approval for the 4495 Global Avenue property in the International Business Park. Our plan is to develop a speculative Class A industrial building that will be high finish Class A and in keeping with the existing buildings in the park. This is also the last full-size development site owned by the original master planner of the park, the Nolum Group. And we would like to ask that you grant us the ability to put that final piece into production. I would like to address a few potential questions that you might have. This is the second time that we have come before you for quarterly allocation. What's different? We reduced our flow request from 4,350 gallons per day to 2,600 gallons per day. We've also included a note of support from the Nolum group. Another question might be who's going to occupy this building? where you see yes next to logistics and distribution on your sheet. I'd like to stress that this building is not a fit for large format distribution that's associated with low wages and low job count. It's a much better fit for size and economic reasons for a manufacturer who may value the security of their own facility or a warehouse group that would like to build out significant office to house executive sales and R&D functions. And the last question you might have is why does it have to be speculative? Build-to-suit projects are not very common for users in this size range. They often have an occupancy timeline and need that is shorter than it would take to design, entitle, and construct a building. This is well evidenced by the fact that no build-to-suit project has selected this site in the 20-some years that it's been out and available in the park. We believe in this project. We think it'll be a win for Concord, and I hope we're able to go do it. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Elizabeth Roden.

Hello, I'm not here to talk about toilets, but good evening Mayor and members of the council. My name is Elizabeth Roden and I live off of Short Street. I'm here tonight out of deep frustration and concern for the safety of our neighborhood. Short Street is a tiny residential zone with a 25 mile an hour limit. It is a neighborhood where families walk, not a highway. Yet drivers routinely fly down our street at 35 or 40 miles an hour. Last weekend, I was almost run over twice while walking my dog. Tragically, this reckless speeding has already cost the life of my cat. As a driver who has previously received a speeding ticket in Concord for going 65 in a 55 on a highway during working hours, I know our laws can be enforced. But right now, that enforcement is entirely missing where it matters the most, inside our neighborhoods where people actually live and walk. Instead of seeing active traffic enforcement or physical police presence in our streets, we see the city pouring funding into automated surveillance like flock cameras. To make matters worse, according to the crowdsource data and my journey over to McGee Park today, the flock camera closest to me is aimed into McGee Park. This park is publicly recognized as one of the safest parks in Concord, and if these devices are truly meant for automated license plate reading and traffic monitoring, Why is the camera pointed away from the street and aimed directly at the children playing? What kind of traffic are we watching? It makes absolutely no sense. We do not need passive invasive surveillance grids watching our safe parks and playgrounds. We need a visible active police force that prevents real traffic crimes and stops reckless drivers before they hit a pedestrian. Tonight I'm asking the council to do two things. One, Just some targeted speed enforcement or a traffic calming study on short street and to reevaluate our budget priorities We need to shift funding away from invasive flock cameras Watching parks and redirect those resources into putting actual police officers on our streets to keep our neighborhoods safe Giving them raises and using actual humans not robots to watch us. Thank you.

Thank you Okay, that concludes everyone who has signed up to speak tonight. So we will now move into public hearings. And our first one, I'll ask Kevin if he'll give us the background on that one. I thought I'd do that when we open the public hearing. Before he gives his report. That's not the way I normally do it. OK, so the attorney is telling me that I need to open the public hearing before Kevin makes his comments. So since we have quite a few people here tonight, and we have, I think, three public hearings, I'm going to very quickly read our rules of procedure on public hearing for the benefit of everybody in attendance. In order to promote discussion, allow public input, maintain order and fair allotment of time to interested parties, and to avoid unnecessary repetition, the following general time limitations shall be observed for all public hearings. The city staff will begin the hearing with a brief description and the staff recommendation. The proponents will present their case. A total of 21 minutes shall be allocated for the presentation. The opponents will present their case. A total of 21 minutes shall be allocated for their presentation. A total of five minutes will be allowed to both the proponent's side and the opponent's side for rebuttal. In the event multiple parties on either side cannot agree to a reasonable division of rebuttal time, the council shall assign a time limit to each. Individual speakers who are not speaking on behalf of a group shall be limited to three minutes each. Unused minutes may not be yielded or transferred to other speakers. Groups having the same or similar objectives are encouraged to select a spokesperson. A spokesperson may use all or any portion of the 21 minutes as agreed by the side for which the group advocates. In the event agreement cannot be reached by multiple groups, councils shall assign a time limit for the spokesperson representing each group. In the event the total speakers wishing to present testimony exceed the 21 minute timeframe, each additional speaker will be allocated three minutes until each speaker signed up has been allowed to speak. Additional time equal to the time allotted to these speakers shall be granted to the other side in an effort to promote fair access to both sides of any issue. City Council would generally refrain from asking questions during the speaker's allocated speaking time, reserving any questions for after the expiration of such allocated allotted time. And so with that being said, I will now open the public hearing on item one and ask Kevin to speak on that matter.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kolchinski, Ms. Jenkins. This item is a rezoning request, 285 Palisade Drive, Northeast. A little bit of background, it went to Planning Commission. It did not receive the three-quarters vote to come to you for approval, and that's why it did not receive the three-quarters vote for Planning Commission final approval, and that's why you were hearing it tonight. A little bit of background. It was purchased by the current owners in 2024. It's a single-family home built in the 1960s, about 1,600 square feet. And the applicant is Lorena Romero. About half an acre. Current zoning is RM1 residential medium density. And the proposed zoning is C1 conditional district light commercial and office for use as an accounting office only. And you see it's on the southwest corner of Burge and Palisade. This gives you an idea of what the subject property looks like. A couple of drone photos. The one on the left looking west toward the site, you see the subject property in the foreground at the corner of Palisade and Burridge. The Atrium Health Campus is in the background. To the right is a large medical office complex, which is also zoned. See one, photo on the right looking southwest toward the site, you see the Beverly Hills neighborhood in the background, the Cornerstone Condominiums to the right at the corner of Lake Concord Road and the subject property there in the foreground. So the petitioners, after they bought the property, they did concrete an existing driveway, which is shown on the left. That's the current drone photo, 2024 photo to the right, but it was an existing driveway. So the proposal from the developers, there is now building up on the, you see on the upper left-hand corner of the page that they're proposing to take part of that down as well as a ramp in order to facilitate a circular access for the vehicles coming in. You see they were coming off of off of Burrage and exit off of Palisades, so there would be a circuitous motion there. The site plan that went to Planning Commission is on the left. Petitioners made a request that they continue it a month, if you recall last month, so they could work with DRC and come up with the site plan I just showed you, which is the one on the right. And you see they're taking out that portion of the OUT BUILDING ON THE NORTHWEST OR THE UPPER LEFT-HAND CORNER OF THE PAGE IN ORDER TO FACILITATE THAT PASS THROUGH TRAFFIC. SURROUNDING ZONING TO THE NORTH IS C1 LIGHT COMMERCIAL AND OFFICE AND THAT HAS THE MEDICAL OFFICE LAND USE THAT I MENTIONED TO YOU. IT'S A PRETTY GOOD SIZED C1 PARCEL. TO THE SOUTH, YOU HAVE THE RESIDENTIAL USES IN THE BEVERLY HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD ALONG along Palisade to the east, also RM1. There's residential land uses there. There's one vacant lot along Burge Road right across Palisade from the subject property. To the west, you see the Cornerstone Condominiums. That's the RCCU zoning. To the west, a fairly high-density residential development. And further on to the west, you see the Public Interest District, which is the atrium hospital facility. The 2030 land use plan designates the property as a mixed-use activity center. It's a very large mixed-use activity center. It extends all the way along Copperfield Boulevard and up to Interstate 85. And basically, the mixed-use activity center and your major intersections, you want more intense land uses there and sort of flaring out lesser intensity as you go further out. But the Mixed Use Activity Center gives you a number of zoning districts that you can apply for. Typically, they are site plan controlled. C1 is listed as a corresponding zoning district in the Mixed Use Activity Center, so they are allowed to rezone to a conditional district C1. This is the notification map. The Beverly Hills Neighborhood Association was noticed with the initial rezoning petition going to Planning Commission there have been subsequent notices to adjacent property owners With with all the public hearings that we have scheduled So at Planning and Zoning Commission P&Z recommended the zoning the statement of zoning consistency that supports approval which is the one on the left and And we also, as typical with rezonings, we also draft one for denial if you wish to use that one. The only difference is the last bullet point. So they voted to support approval four to three for the item on the left, but when it came to the vote, they deadlocked three through. I think I got my math right there. So there are several suggested conditions. One is the compliance with the rezoning site plan dated 8-6-26, of course compliance with their sewer allocation policy, addition of a backflow assembly, bicycle parking. If the petitioner decides to put up a sign they have they have agreed that they would not put a freestanding ground sign that's lit. It will not be a lit sign. It will be just a standard ground sign with no power to it. Of course, technical site plan review and approval is required after should this rezoning be approved, and of course, all approvals from all local, state, and federal agencies, and if they were to modify this site plan at another use, they would have to come back for an amendment to the rezoning petition. Again, it is a request only for an accountant's office. And your next steps would be to approve or amend the statement of consistency and approve or deny the zoning map amendment with the conditions. So does anyone have any questions?

Any questions for Kevin? All right, thank you, sir. And so we have opened the public hearing, and we have the first person signed up to speak is Chris Hughes.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, members of the council and staff, my name is Chris Hughes. I reside next door to the proposed zoning change at 271 Palisade Drive. I come in support of the change. I believe it's in line with what the city has proposed for our area. I have met with the owners. I find them to be open and honest and straightforward with what they want to do. And I don't see any downside to me as being their neighbor. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Nancy Faggart. Are these on?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I am so excited to learn of the unanimous city council commitment to CCM's Tucker Rebuilders Campus. It is good to invest in people, families, and communities. Thanks to all of you for your commitment to find solutions that will strengthen Concord for generations to come. I hope tonight that Council will address the future of the Beverly Hills neighborhood in the same spirit. Stability, community, relationships, sustainability, these are all qualities that the Beverly Hills neighborhood hopes to retain as well. It is concerning that significant changes to the property of 285 Palisade Drive Northeast were made before the required zoning and site plan approvals were obtained. This is undermining to the city's development review process and sets a dangerous precedent. Citizens in the Beverly Hills neighborhood deserve the peace of mind that their residential neighborhood remains just that. It is a reasonable expectation. Please be committed tonight to protect the neighborhood from the encroachment of business. Government, business, and neighbors can all come together to preserve the residential character of Palisade Drive and Beverly Hills. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, next is David Phillips.

We have not heard from the proponents.

I was going to ask that same question.

So we've got Chris Hughes.

Who is the applicant? Who is here for the applicant? David, would you mind if you have the applicant?

I have a presentation that staff Can you tell us your name?

Yeah, my name's Travis Gingra, Latitude 35 Design Group. Do you not sign up on the sign-up? Generally, doesn't the applicant, don't they usually have a slot to speak?

It's all right, it's all right. Thank you. Yes, that was very confusing.

Please proceed with your presentation.

Is there, how do I get that? Okay.

Yeah.

All right, good evening, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Travis Gingra. I'm with Latitude 35 Design Group, 845 Church Street North is where my office is located at. I have a quick PowerPoint here that we'll go through, just some quick little table of contents. We'll go over the Location, current conditions, some project highlights, and then some of the project site and changes as well there. Talk a little bit about traffic. Real quick, the site is located off on the corner of Burridge and Palisade. You'll note from my map there, blue and white are residential, that is the Beverly Hills community there. And then in the green, those items there are commercial businesses. along with the red that is the institutional and civic uses. We got the David Phillips Park that is on Burridge, as well as a church across the street, and we know of Atrium Health. You will know in the white and the red, those are actually home businesses. And I do want to put the caveat in there that our client stuff is well aware. They could keep this RM1 zoning, operate this, live out of the house and operate it as a home business as well. But they have opted to try to get the conditional zoning. And then these are just some site photos. This is off of first one upper left. That is Burge Road. That is looking down Burge Road from Lake Concord Road. You can see that that is a collector street. The image below that would be Palisade Drive. That is a local residential street. And then two images of our subject property, both from Palisade Drive and from Burge. The some project highlights again, we are in the Beverly Hills community. There are nine ingress and egress points into the Beverly Hills community with Palisade Drive off of Burridge that is one ingress egress point. The Beverly Hills community is a mixture of single family homes with some modest multifamily surrounding the community. And then the community is also flanked by mixed use corridors. The 2030 growth concept, we are within the medical district as well as the 2030 plan highlights this area as an adjacent, or it is within the activity center. Again, we are proposing light commercial about the project. It is gonna be a bilingual CPA office, something to note, although Concord and Charlotte Metro is a thriving a Latin culture, there are still areas that we are lacking in providing that community. I did a web search of 20 CPA firms within Concord. Only one is advertising that they are bilingual and speak Spanish. So we see a major need for this type of service that is being proposed. The traffic impacts of this site, we would be generating approximately 16 trips per day. That's a net difference. It's a net increase of six trips. A typical residential home sees about 10 trips per day. And then as Mr. Ashley stated, one of the conditions that we have agreed to is that there will be 0% light illumination on any kind of ground signage. The business is gonna operate about two to three employees and they have strict operating hours, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Again, this business is gonna be bringing in jobs that have an income range of between 41,000 to 90,000. It is a professional service. And again, Charlotte Metro is ranked by AARP as one of the top 10 best cities where Latin culture is flourishing. And the future 2030 plan does put us within a activity center. The future 2030 plan recommends some of the options that it recommends in an activity center, indoor retail, services, office uses, suburban offices, mixed use neighborhoods, Again, we feel that the office use within this activity center and especially being on the being on the limits of that activity center where we're transitioning into residential neighborhoods, that this professional service is a good use of this property. The client is planning on keeping the existing features of the home so that way it looks and feels like you're entering still a residential neighborhood. And then the site, and as Mr. Ashley had alluded to, looking at this, the existing building, the existing structure that sits plan center, to the left of that was a parking lot that was installed prior to any sort of plan or any sort of development approval. And then as well to the north of that, we have existing driveway and an existing parking area along with the existing garage, existing patio. There is an existing sidewalk that goes from Palisade Drive up to the front of the existing home today. and the proposed changes of the site. Again, the parking lot that was installed prior to plan approval, that needs to come up to current code, current code restrictions. So, Again, we're going to have to verify a couple things when we re-break ground and install and demo as the site plan shows. So there are going to be some things that are going to be verified that they were installed correctly. I do want you to note there is a landscape buffer that would be planned west on the left-hand side. It is a 15-foot buffer. We are following the existing ordinance requirements with that buffer. We are requesting for a reduction in that buffer. We have received neighboring properties, their approval and a signed letter stating that they understand the buffer reduction. One thing that I'd like to know about the buffer reduction is that We are not going to be reducing the number of buffer plants that are proposed in that buffer. The same amount of plantings are gonna be planted within that buffer and we are also adding a six foot landscaping privacy fence due to that buffer reduction. And lastly, I just wanted to talk about during our planning and zoning commission meeting, We talked about, there was a few things that came up from that and one was that the neighborhood was concerned about traffic and concerned about traffic impacts that are gonna be felt within their neighborhood if this does become rezoned. So a couple things that we know and even from the images that you saw earlier in my slides is that Burge Road and also Palisade Drive have great sight distances. So what that means is that you can be sitting at that intersection and see hundreds of feet to your left, hundreds of feet to your right, see any oncoming traffic and be able to safely go through that intersection safely use that intersection. And then as well from our access points from our ingress, egress into and out of the site, again, great access point or great.

Any questions, council? There appears to be none. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, sorry for that confusion getting started, so now we'll ask David Phillips to come back up.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, Ms. Kolchinski, Mr. Payne, Leslie. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. I'm gonna talk to you about one aspect of this issue concerning rezoning. I am a member of Epworth Methodist Church. I am not here to speak on behalf of the church. I want that understood. I do want to tell you about something that happened recently that I think factors into this whole issue. A couple years ago, we bought the house next door to Epworth. And at the time, we also wanted to put up a digital sign in front of the church. We could not put up the digital sign because the church property was zoned residential. So we went through the process, we went through the city, and had the property rezoned from residential to OI. At the same time, it was suggested to us that we, because we did own the property next door, and it was also residential property because it had been a single family residence, it was suggested to us that we probably ought to rezone that at the same time. And so we did. So we had both the church property and the, what we call the Newton property next door, rezoned to OI. As we got further down the road, we realized that if we ever were going to need that property next door to the church, it was going to be many years down the road. And so I was on the board of trustees at the time, also church council. We made the decision we were going to sell that property because we didn't think we would possibly need it in the foreseeable future. So we put the property up for sale, and then some of the residents of Beverly Hills asked some questions about it because of the OI zoning. and they were concerned that as long as the church owned that property, that was one thing. But if we sold it, they didn't know what would be there. So after a lot of thought and deliberation and discussion on the board of trustees, we came back to the city of Concord, zoning requirements, and rezoned the property back to residential. We didn't have to do that, but we did that because we have always tried to be a good neighbor to the church, I mean to the church. community, and we actually sold that property for less money than we could have gotten if it had stayed OI. But we did that because we're committed to be a good neighbor to the community, and we felt like that's the right thing to do. So in that spirit, I'm here to ask you tonight, please consider, do not approve the reason on your request. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, next is Karen Miller. Okay, Diane Norwood.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Diane Norwood and I live in the Beverly Hills neighborhood for the last 10 years. I serve as the secretary to the Beverly Hills neighborhood. It's a recognized neighborhood and I've previously also been their president. This is not an HOA. It's a recognized neighborhood. Our goal is to communicate to and on behalf of our neighbors. Well over 100 neighbors, after we found out about the rezoning, contacted me to directly voice their objection. Many contacted the council directly. I think you got a bunch of emails, didn't you? We value the council's time and service, to our community and we hope to keep the number of speakers representing our 300 homes here tonight. Our request, please deny this rezoning request. We have concerns about the impact to the families in the Beverly Hills neighborhood. The recently modified site plan shows parking for seven vehicles, and they've said that they're only going to have hours 10 to 7. I also understand it's a tax prep office. How many people can get and do their tax filings from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday? That's kind of difficult for people who are working. So we have a little concern on whether that would be able to be maintained over the long period of time. Planning on Burridge Road then I think needs to be restricted adjacent to that property. You've got a lot of property, cars going back and forth. We have a high volume of vehicles that turn off of Lake Concord by the hospital onto Burridge Road and they would have limited time and visibility if we've got cars parked on that road. That's one issue. My other issue, it's probably a bigger issue, is that we found out about the 2030 land use plan when we started investigating this rezoning. Didn't really know about it ahead of time, but now we're worried that this could create a domino effect if this property, this first property that's listed on the 2030 plan is approved. We've got, according to the map that I've read, there are seven properties on Burridge Road that are currently residential tracts. All of those parcels are currently a residential, except for the Epworth Church and the David Phillips Activity Center, soon to be a park. On the side streets, there are 12 properties, six on Palisade, four on the Klein, and two on Suburban. One is mine, didn't know about it. If this rezoning is approved, we're worried about any additional rezoning tracks could be easily rezoned in the future because they're now on that. We value our neighborhood. We have a strong local community. We look out for our seniors. We look out for the children. We welcome new families. We have families with multiple generations here. Almost 75 years ago, the Beverly Hills neighborhood was the first World War II planned community in Concord. Most of the homes were built mid-century for surgeons and doctors and working people at the hospital. Several have exceptional, exceptional architectural features. All are designed for families. I bought my home 10 years ago to live next door to families. I got one more second. I made a point to meet my neighbors and be a friend to them. I want to continue to live in family with next door. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, next is Lee Schumann.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. I think it's evident in the communication that you've received from many of the neighborhood members, the opposition to this rezoning. You might kind of ask why that is. I think simply put is that we need to be selective. about rezoning requests like this. It's somewhat confusing for neighbors when they see the 2030 land use plan and it says mixed use activity center. That sounds really good until you start talking about what the rezoning can possibly be. The presentation on this case, I want to make sure I make something clear. I think at the work session it was mentioned that this house was not conducive or attractive any longer for residential users and had been on the market for seven to eight years. I believe that was either some misunderstanding or just some bad information. This house was occupied by a family from 2019 to 2024. They did improvements to the outbuildings on this parcel, improved landscaping. They were great neighbors. This has always been a very good residential use, hasn't been a derelict use at all. I think the current owner is only the fifth owner in the last 40 years in this community. I think that's important. As a matter of fact, this community's been a consistent, attractive residential neighborhood for 75 years. I've lived at Grandview Drive for going on 20 years now, believe it or not. Raised three children there. I think all of the vibrancy of this neighborhood is really interesting. You've got people who've lived here for decades. I mean, original homeowners. You've got new families moving in with children. When you're walking down these streets or driving up and down the streets, we have to slow down. People are walking in the streets, kids are riding bikes. That community hasn't had that in years. It's amazing what that community has continued to do over the last 75 years, and I think it'll continue to do more for the next 75 if we protect it. I don't have any issue with the applicant. I do think a home occupation here would be totally acceptable. We have numerous home occupations up and down Burge Road. But if you've ever driven down this road, you come down Burge, it's all residential property, all the way to Concord High School. My kids ride their bikes down Burrage because they can go underneath Highway 3 and get to their friend's houses on the other side of 3. Closer to my house is Miramar, and that's a really dangerous intersection going across to the high school. My daughter, who actually drives, goes that way because it's safer. She can drive down Burrage and underneath. All of those uses are residential other than the David Phillips Activity Center, which has been a great addition to our neighborhood. That's the kind of activity center I think we all thought we were getting when we saw that 2030 land use plan. So I think we just need to be selective on what we're doing here. Just because the land use plan says we can, doesn't mean we should. I don't think it's the right time, and I don't think it's the right use for this particular parcel. So thank you, I appreciate your time.

Okay, our next speaker is Suzanne Smith.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for letting us speak tonight. So my name is Suzanne Smith and I've lived in the Beverly Hills neighborhood now for 10 years or a little bit more. I'm respectfully asking you to deny the rezoning request for 285 Palisade. My neighbors and I have been talking with you for a couple of months now about concerns with traffic safety, the domino effect, and the perils of spot zoning. So I'm not gonna go into that more this evening. One of my biggest concerns is actually the petitioner's conduct with the property before seeking approval from the city. Significant concrete improvements specifically for a business were made without permits or city review. When questioned at the zoning meeting in July, two explanations were offered. First, the petitioner said that gravel previously existed in the side yard, and so she simply replaced it with concrete. However, the photos from the real estate listing when the property was purchased showed that there was actually a lawn. The driveway has always been behind the house. Secondly, the petitioner stated she was unaware permits were required. However, she's owned and operated a masonry and concrete company in Winston-Salem for more than 20 years, given that the zoning process and regulations of our city. This matters because rezoning decisions depend in part on trust and credibility. The council must be able to rely on the representations made regarding traffic, number of employees, hours of operation, and any future use of the property. Yet throughout this process, there have been inconsistencies. For example, the number of employees was proposed to the APOs in March as one to two. But in the zoning meeting in July, it became no more than four. And tonight it's now two to three. The hours of operation ending at five are questionable when during tax season, I've never seen a tax office that is not open late. When significant changes have already been made without approval and information is inconsistent or questionable throughout the process, it becomes difficult to have confidence in those assurances. If a property owner chooses to make substantial changes before obtaining the necessary approvals, the answer should not be to new businesses. I'm certainly not. I'm certainly not opposed to growth. I do believe that commercial operations belong in areas that are already zoned and planned for commercial use. So I respectfully ask that you deny this request. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, next is David Christenberry.

Hello, all. Mayor, members of city council. The house at 285 Palisade was designed as residence, and it's best used as a residence in the future. This is a map showing the nine traffic concerns that I have. I'll quickly go through them. When you come off of Lake Concord Road, you don't really have to slow down when you come onto Burridge. You just basically ramp off into Burridge. You'd likely be able to rear end someone turning into the drive at 285 for this property. Number two is the actual drive itself there at Burry going on at this area. Number three is the medical drive. It's a right in, right out, but people don't abide by that. Number four is Palisade. Well, Palisade's not a 90 degree term, and any DOT expert will tell you that a 90 degree intersection is a safer intersection. Number five is a second medical office entrance. Then you turn on the power side, and number six is a driveway to a house. Number seven is the driveway out of 285. There's just too many intersections here. I've also added two other areas, number eight and number nine. Number eight, keep in mind, Burridge Road is going to get, it's a very busy road, and As someone else earlier today said, people aren't abiding by speed limits. When you go down Burrage Road, you're going to have 25 new houses and 60 new patio homes. Also, when you go down Palisade, you're going to have 300 students at the Mary Frances Wall Center. So again, I do have safety concerns, traffic concerns. So please, please deny this rezoning.

Thank you. Thank you. And those are all the persons that we have signed up to speak.

So Valerie, you want to walk us through the... We'd like to ask Mr. Griggs if he has a rebuttal.

Okay. Okay.

It can take five minutes.

Okay, yeah, not a problem. Yeah, I just want to just talk again back about the traffic. With a entrance only and then an exit only off of Palisades, that changes things quite a bit. Our access point off of Burge, people are only gonna be turning into our site and not exiting and causing, as the gentleman just said, a lot going on. We understand that, so again, we are creating that as only an entrance only. DRIVEWAY STANDARDS AND SPACING BASED ON BOTH THE CITY AND ALSO THE STATE. THAT DRIVEWAY THAT IS OFF OF BURRIDGE DOES MEET THOSE SPACING REQUIREMENTS. SO I DO JUST WANT TO STATE THAT. AS FAR AS THE COMMERCIAL ZONING AND IN RESPECTS TO THE BUILDING A COMMERCIAL, ZONING THIS AS COMMERCIAL, WHAT THAT DOES TO THE BUILDING STRUCTURALLY IS THEY HAVE TO MEET DIFFERENT STANDARDS THAN WHAT THE RESIDENTIAL STANDARDS ARE FOR STRUCTURES. SO ACTUALLY THE BUILDING WILL BE REFORTIFIED. THERE'S GOING TO BE ADA TYPE BATHROOMS AND THAT SORT OF THING INSIDE OF THE BUILDING. Again, some of the construction of the building has an engineer and architect go through it and they make those revisions. And then I just wanna state a little bit about the home occupation. It sounds like everybody is in favor of it. of a home occupation being there, but they're not in favor of the commercial zoning. And from my understanding is that they don't want this to be opened as a Pandora's box, right, if you will. I totally get that, but in these types of conditional zonings, right, we are stating conditions that it has to remain a CPA office. If something else comes in, it has to come back in front of the board and it has to get approved as such. Zonings are you know, these types of zoning meetings are it's not just a blanket blanket zoning and We we understand that that there are checks and balances and that's that is why why we're here today. So Other than that, I think that is all the rebuttal that I have Thank you

So the opponents can also have a brief rebuttal. Is there anyone on the opposition side that wishes to say anything more? It would need to address what the proponent had just said. Okay, hearing none.

I think we can close the public hearing.

For Kevin? Yeah, okay.

I need to do that before you close public hearing, right?

Go ahead, Jennifer.

Good. Two for you, Kevin. First would be hours of service has been discussed. Is that a condition that can be, I mean, I know an applicant or a developer can place any condition they choose, right? We cannot do that. Talk to me a little bit about the enforcement of that because I understand a buffer. I understand. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

I mean, that could be something that could be suggested to the applicant. They would have to agree to that. Of course, it would be like any other zoning condition. It would have to be enforced by code enforcement or someone.

So they say 10 to 5, it's 7 o'clock. we have to call Jimmy, excuse me, we have to call the chief and code enforcement will get involved.

Correct.

Okay. Second question is can you talk also a little bit about operating a home business, because that's a little bit. Certainly. If you could expand on that of, You know, because I know that that's also, I just want to be clear, too, there's a lot of parameters around operating a home business, and there's a lot of people sitting here, and I don't want them to think that it's open season on just let me go and open a business, too.

So home occupations currently, we have a whole list of those, top of the list accountant's offices. So you could have a home business, no more than 25% of the floor area could be devoted to that use. No more than one non-resident employee could be there. But there was recently a bill passed by the legislature as of like three weeks ago. House Bill 372. And a lot of the planners don't even know this came about. It's something called a no impact home business, which basically says we have to allow them, numbers of employees would be based upon, from what we're reading, from residential occupancy. So if you could, if eight people were allowed in the house based on number of bedrooms, you could have eight clients and eight, a total of eight people with clients and residents. I mean, but this is a bill that just, just came out. So those are the big things about a home occupation, basically low impact, not meant to have a lot of traffic.

I have a question for Kevin as well, because that was one of my kind of thoughts. Can a home business still essentially be ran, and if it goes by occupancy, you can still have five, six, seven cars parked there?

Certainly.

So the traffic wouldn't change.

Right.

And you also don't have to do any significant repairs to the home because it's a home business, or how would that work?

I do not believe that a home occupation has to be brought up to ADA compliance. So that's the difference. It wouldn't have to have the handicapped ramp. so on and so forth.

Kevin, I'm just going to ask a blunt question. What's the difference and why? We've got a lot of folks that are complaining, not complaining, but opposition, I should say, of the commercial side. Weigh it out for me.

After listening to the testimony, It sounds like the concern is the fact of setting a precedent for future rezonings coming down the pike. And then, of course, I'll paraphrase our wonderful city attorney who has basically said before there's not really a precedent. Everything sort of stands on its own. But I think their concerns are that, you know, I think a couple of the people talked about the domino effect.

Well, I think Alvarez asked my question, really. And I guess I'm sort of trying to formulate in my head what's the difference between having a home business and having this, I mean, it doesn't sound like to me there's going to be much difference, right? Just to make sure I understand correctly.

There would have to be a resident that lives there full time.

But assuming that.

It's also the operator of the business that could be. I mean, I guess a home occupation doesn't have to be a property owner. It could just be someone. Because we do have homes that are rented where people run home businesses. One difference that I don't think anyone's brought up is if it were a home business, there would be somebody there 24 hours a day. Right. That's my question. So potentially, I mean, I guess someone could have parties, could have a lot of visitors after 5 o'clock. So it's sort of. you know, the other end of the coin. So I think those are the two big differences. Okay.

Any additional questions? Terry, did you have an idea?

And I'm sorry, Kevin. I just want to make sure that I fully understand this. So with zoning, there is a little bit more, I say, control of what can run in and out. But with the home business, there's not.

Correct. The home occupation could be, there's no site plan review involved. It's basically just the home occupation permit from us with the commercial zoning. There would be landscaping required. And of course compliance with ADA and all of that.

But if we were to bullet point the issues, I mean obviously the one about the domino effect is one that stands alone in my opinion. But the issues of traffic and so on and so forth, there's no difference. Am I hearing that? Or could not be different?

I mean, if they, I mean, potentially they could have the same number of people there with the home. Did I hear you right?

If it's classified as a home business, does the person have to literally live there?

Yes. Okay. Yes, one of the operators would have to live there. So that's a big difference. Right, that's the big difference. And the zoning would stay residential.

But did I understand she said she would live there? If this didn't? No, ma'am. She did not say that. Okay. All right.

Thank you. Is the individual that's running this business here? Is anybody here? She didn't speak, so I just want to say thank you for raising your hand.

Okay. Any other questions? John.

Yes. Kevin, thanks for taking service on this. I just have a question about when you have a home business, and we've had a lot of change in signage, is there any signage allowed? And it's not, if I understand right, it's not part of this neighborhood, it's not an HOA controlled. So is there any signage allowed?

Well, we talked about that earlier today. There is a gap in our sign ordinance that does not address signage for people home-based businesses particularly, so it would fall under the residential signage requirements, which would probably be, you know, I haven't looked at it, but fairly similar to what they're proposing.

Okay, any other questions?

I don't have a question, just a comment, but my takeaway from this is, like it was shared before, I believe the main concern is the damaging the fabric of the neighborhood. Is that And when I think about, I looked around the city, and I don't know if everyone here is familiar with the stretch on Church Street between Buffalo and Killarney. Now, looking at that, it appears that years ago it was all residential, and now it's mainly commercial. But the houses, you can tell by the structures that they were once residential. So that's my comment.

All right, we will close the public hearing. And Valerie, I'll ask you to guide us through the process.

All right, if we could please get the statements of consistency back up there. Previously, yeah, there we go. So if you are, you have two suggested drafted statements of consistency. The first three bullet points, excuse me, on both sides are the same. And The bottom bullet point on each side is different. One side supporting approval of the rezoning and one side supporting denial of the rezoning. So what you would need to do now is we need a motion to adopt one of these statements of consistency.

Thank you.

Mayor, I'll make a motion if time to do that we deny this for the zoning amendment. It is not reasonable and it's not in the public interest of this area.

I would second that. We have a motion and a second. Supporting denial.

I have a comment.

Yes, ma'am.

And my comment is in reference to the land use plan, because it actually does reference that in here. And so a lot of you guys brought that up tonight. And I would also like to say there's a lot of full chairs in here, which is really nice to see, to be completely honest with you. It's part of the process. I would also say that we discussed on Tuesday night the upcoming land use plan is going to be looked at. that would be a great time to give feedback because understand that a lot of times the only time we get feedback are in these situations. do know that when we do these land use plans, there are meetings, there are hours and hours of public open input. And I got to tell you, there's about the five people that are sitting on the front row that give the input. So it would really be beneficial for us from a standpoint of that, because it was brought up several times. So I just wanted to make that comment. I think it's a real opportunity for people to give us input. instead of it coming to this place. So, thank you. Thank you.

And I am assuming there would be some community meetings as part of this plan.

Yes, sir. There will be a lot.

Lots of opportunities for citizen input, for sure. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Yes, sir.

So I want to thank Kevin Ashley for his walking us through this and the ramifications of all this. I want to thank the representative of the owner for presenting well. You did that. I also want to thank the members of this community who had spoken very clearly to us in many different forums. This has been a much better meeting than I feared. this evening, and I am thankful for everybody's participation in this, but I really do think at this stage, it is time for us to deny this rezoning.

Any other discussion? Okay, hearing none, we will move to a vote. We do have a motion and a second supporting. Yes, ma'am.

Can you make sure you say which motion it is? Because this is on the statement of consistency. And then, Valerie, the next vote that we'll take is on the rezone.

Correct, correct, correct. We are at the stage of adopting the suggested statement of consistency. There is a motion and a second on the table for the rezone. supporting denial, one with the red caption. Not reasonable, not in the public interest. That's where we are.

If there's any confusion about that, then we got a problem, because we've said it three times.

And after we take that vote, there will be a second vote where you vote on the rezoning itself.

Okay, does anybody have any question about what they're voting on? I think it's crystal clear. Yes, so we have a motion and a second supporting denial. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. Okay, so we've got three nos and four yeses, correct? Right, so that motion passes. Next up, I'll turn it back to you Valerie.

So the next step in the process is to approve or deny the rezoning itself. If you are for some reason going to adopt the denial statement of consistency but approve the rezoning, I don't suggest doing that because it's inconsistent, you would due with the approval with the conditions. If you're denying, the motion can just be a motion to deny the rezoning.

All right, so council, any questions on that? So do I hear a motion to either approve or deny the zoning map amendment?

Mayor, I'll go ahead and make that motion as well to deny the zoning map amendment.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to deny the zoning map amendment. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor please say aye and raise your hand. One, two, three, four, five, that is unanimous. So that motion passes, thank you. All right, we move now to the next item on the agenda, which is another public hearing, which I will go ahead and open up. I think Autumn is going to brief for Kevin.

Okay.

And if you want to wait for just a moment until council chambers empties out a little bit so everybody can hear. Okay, I think we're good to go ahead.

All right, good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Golchinski, and Ms. Jenkins. So this is a text amendment for the neighborhood infill residential district. And then we had one part that was added about the signs that we missed last month. So I'll go through this relatively quickly. So the article to be amended is Article 9.5, which is the neighborhood infill residential district. And this basically looks at our tiny homes and our cottage homes. And then we're going to quickly look at incidental signs, directory signs in Center City. So the background of this very quickly is that in October of 2023, City Council amended the CDO to create the NRD. And during that time, the past three years, we've gotten a lot of input. The planning department has that some of the current development standards, there are some challenges to coming up with a site plan for tiny homes or cottage homes that are fully compliant with the standards that we've set forth. So in an effort to make it more friendly and make things more flexible, we have come to you with these amendments to the CDO. For the purpose here, we did remove the adequate on-street and or off-street parking because as of January, 2027, minimum parking requirements will no longer be allowed in North Carolina. So we are removing that from the CDO. The NRD district currently is only in urban neighborhood. We've asked that it be changed to village center and mixed use activity center just to help with, with both of these land use designations, you see more connection to surrounding neighborhoods, being more pedestrian friendly, bike friendly, neighborhood serving, and there are also transit facilities. So for these tiny homes and cottage homes, that would be a positive for these. There were a couple changes in definition. Essentially, we went from heated floor area to gross floor area, and that just aligns more closely with other municipalities and our CDO as well. And 9.5.5, which is the application procedure and approval process is where We see most of the changes. So we removed the minimum and maximum number of dwellings. We have defined maximum building height a little differently. Not only can it be two stories, like on a slab, but it could be an elevated two-story so that parking can be underneath. So it's just a different flexibility in providing parking for these neighborhoods. We decreased the minimum open space just, again, for that flexibility and understanding that there may not be a need for such vast amounts of open space in these smaller communities because they should be your more tight-knit communities. We went, instead of buffers, perimeter plannings, So that's a 12 foot average width with one shade tree per 100 feet and then there won't be any additional plantings within the site itself. And you can see for the most part with cottage homes the same information that I just noted on the tiny homes with the removal of the minimum and maximum number of dwellings as well as the building height and then those plantings. So, going on with the application procedure and approval process, we have clarified the types of amenities, we have added that there definitely needs to be a pedestrian network to connect all buildings, parking, and sidewalks, because again, you want these communities to be traversable, removal of minimum parking requirements, common open space should be accessible to all. We've added that solid waste collection can now also be done by private companies and fire code standards need to be met. So that's all for the tiny homes and the cottage homes. With the incidental signs, we did discuss this and it was just left out of the ordinance from last month. Essentially, we want directory signs to be permissible. In CC only, this is one sign per exterior entrance, not exceeding six square feet, and this is for multi-tenant, multi-story buildings, and this does things like list the tenant, their suite number, hours of operation, et cetera. So here is your suggested statement of reasonableness and consistency. The top two bullet points are the ones that were approved by Planning and Zoning at their August meeting, and there is that denial language if you choose that. So your next steps are to consider the text amendments to the CDO, approve or amend the statement of consistency, and approve or deny the proposed text amendments. And I can take any questions that you have.

Questions for Autumn? All right. Thank you. Thank you. I do not have anyone that has signed up to speak during this public hearing, so we will close the public hearing. And council members, what's your pleasure on this item? If we could get that motion back up on the screen, it might be helpful, yeah.

So Mr. Mayor, I make the motion that we do the statement of reasonableness and consistency, the top two bullet points in blue. I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. In support of these changes is their discussion. Hearing none, all in favor of the motion, please say aye. All opposed, please say no. That motion passes. And then do we have another step on this one?

Yes, sir. The next step is to approve or deny the text amendments.

Great. So do I hear a motion to either approve or deny the proposed text amendments?

Mayor, make that motion to approve.

I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the proposed text amendments. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. That motion passes. All right, and then we will move to the next item three. We also have a public hearing on that item. Ms. Seed. Did I close the last public hearing? I think I did, yeah. And so I'll open the public hearing and I will invite Fred to come up and brief us on this item.

Good evening, Mayor Morris, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Glachynski, Ms. Jenkins. The item before you is a conditional rezoning application, case number ZCD2325. And this rezoning request is for a single parcel consisting of approximately 4.879 acres, located at 190 George Lyles Parkway, basically the southeast quadrant of the George Lyles and Weddington Road intersection. And the applicant for this request is TWP Acquisitions, LLC. And the request, again, is to rezone the property from light commercial and office conditional district to general commercial conditional district to construct a 5,600 square foot convenience store with gas, as well as a 1,330 square foot car wash. Staff captured some drone photos of the subject property. As you can see, aptly labeled there, look, Slide to the left is looking south toward the site with Sheffield Manor on the left side of that particular slide with the Willow Oak development on the right side of that picture containing varied commercial uses including BP, Publix, and several other retail uses. Looking east toward the site is a picture on the right which again shows those two uses just from a different angle. For a little bit of history on this parcel, this parcel was annexed into the city in 1995, and when it was, it was zoned R2 for residential uses. Once the CDO was adopted, the property was converted to residential village. But prior to the construction of the George Lyles Parkway in 2015 and 2016, the parcel was a part of a larger property to the west, which is labeled C2CD immediately across the Lyles Parkway right-of-way. and also the land use plan at the time, characterized the parcels as village center and commercial. In effect, when the George Lyles Parkway was constructed, it impacted the development character of the areas nearest this newly created George Lyles Parkway intersection with Weddington Road. The parkway's construction itself bisected a large parcel, the larger parcel that eventually was developed to the west as a Willow Oaks commercial development with the Publix BP and the other retail. And it also left the remaining parcel, our subject property, to the east as undeveloped. Regarding the zoning surrounding the subject parcel, to the south and east are RC zone parcels that are residential in nature and in use. and to the north and west, there are C2 conventional and conditional zoning properties with some RV residential village as well. These parcels are comprised of a mix of commercial uses and undeveloped areas. For additional background regarding this conditional rezoning application, staff has, we basically created a brief timeline of the subject property and the detailing how we got to this point. So in November of 2023, staff received the initial conditional rezoning application for the property, which was proposed to be developed as various commercial and retail uses, including a daycare and a quick serve business. In December of that same year, the DRC received and reviewed a sketch plan for the application. This time it showed a childcare center, a retail use, a drive-through restaurant, and an oil change facility on the property. So from one month to the next, we got a little bit deeper in terms of more specificity with the proposed uses. Following that, the applicant applied for and received a preliminary sewer allocation for those aforementioned uses in January of 2024. In November of 2025, we received a new conditional rezoning application site plan, which actually showed a 3,000 square foot car wash and a 5,600 square foot convenience store with gas. Fast forward to August of this year, the Planning and Zoning Commission heard the rezoning request for this particular petition, which is for a 1,330 square foot car wash and a 5,600 square foot convenience store with gas. And they voted unanimously to recommend denial of the zoning map amendment request at that time. On this next slide shows the site plan that was considered by the Planning and Zoning Commission at that aforementioned August meeting. And as I mentioned previously, the applicant proposes to develop a 5,600 square foot car wash with, excuse me, convenience store with gas and a 1,330 square foot car wash facility on the property as shown here on the site plan. But as you can see, the site plan proposed to create three lots, lot one being the principal convenience store, lot two is designated as a future and unspecified commercial development, and lot three is labeled as a stormwater management area. And the proposed development will have vehicular access off of George Lyles Parkway, as well as Weddington Road via two separate right in, right out driveways. which were recommended by the applicant's traffic impact analysis, as well as reviewed and approved by City Transportation and NCDOT. The site plan additionally was recommended for denial by Planning and Zoning, and it actually showed a 20-foot Type C buffer along the western property boundary, basically where the parcel, the subject property abuts the RC and RV, residential village properties, of Sheffield Manor. This slide shows an actual revised site plan that was submitted by the applicant. to address the concerns that were brought forward at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. The most significant revisions to this site plan are that the applicant's now proposing to increase the buffer yard between the proposed use and Sheffield Manor from 20 feet to 30 feet, and that the applicant is also proposing to install a 10-foot high masonry wall along the western edge of the drive aisle nearest the subdivision. It should be noted that these proposed changes have not been reviewed by DRC for adherence to CDO standards. This slide is just a colorized rendering of the applicant's preliminary landscape plan that they first introduced at last month's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. We didn't want to leave you guys out in that. But in regards to the 2030 land use plan, the land use plan characterizes the subject property as urban neighborhood. and the requested C2, General Commercial Conditional District, is not a corresponding zoning classification. Therefore, a land use plan amendment will be required. The subject property is located adjacent to a large commercially designated area, however. The Willow Oaks development to the west I mean, as defined by the 2030 land use plan, and if approved, staff would recommend that the land use category be amended to commercial as C2CD is a corresponding zoning classification within that land use category. As with all rezonings in pursuant to the CDO, the applicant notified formally recognized neighborhood organizations, as well as HOAs within a half mile radius of the subject property as shown here on this map. Council also should be advised that the applicant did conduct a virtual community meeting on August the 3rd of this year at 6 p.m. and also provided staff with a transcript of that meeting. Additionally, Planning staff notified adjacent property owners and recognized neighborhoods and APOs and HOAs with APO letters as well as newspaper advertisements for both the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting as well as for this Council meeting. as most recently as letters dated August the 24th, with ad runs of August 29th and September the 5th for this particular meeting tonight. Council can see this suggested statement of consistencies here on the screen. The one on the left is if Council supports approval of the application, or on the right, supporting denial, which was the attack of the Planning and Zoning Commission. As with all rezoning map amendment applications, planning staff presents both approval and denial language for council's consideration and adoption. In regards to the suggested conditions, staff recommends the following conditions, and these conditions have been shared with the applicant. We'll hit them in brief compliance with the TWP Concord Retail Site Plan, dated 8-25-26. The applicant has been notified that any signed permits will be permitted separately. per Article 12 of the CDO. Any building materials and elevations will meet Article standard 7.10 design standards of the CDO at the construction review level. A dumpster detail shall be shown and shall be installed pursuant to 8.3.6 of the CDO during construction plan review. Additionally, although a preliminary sewer allocation was granted, The scope of the site development and the rezoning does not correspond with that which was previously approved. So therefore a new preliminary sewer allocation application request may be requested per the adopted sewer policy. Items condition six and seven were recent adds. Again, these were conditions that were added to address some of the concerns that were brought forth in planning and zoning. The applicant shall provide a 30-foot undisturbed buffer along the eastern property line where adjacent to the residentially zoned or developed parcels. And this doesn't include the stormwater management area or the service company parcel, which is a little gas outlier area. I wanna say on Weddington there. But a 20-foot uninstalled buffer shall be provided there. Additionally, the applicant shall provide a 10-foot masonry screen wall alongside the driveway of the property to be developed as the convenience store. And as with most conditional rezoning, conditions eight and nine are standard fare. Regarding technical site plan review, that will be required. and approval by any local, state, and federal agencies. Additionally, any future modifications or additions would require further approval by Planning and Zoning Commission. I think I made it through, and I'm glad to take any questions that Council may have at this time.

Any questions for Fred before we hear from the proponents and opponents? Oh, no. You know what? Great. Thank you. Okay. We have only one proponent that has signed up to speak, and I think that's John Mack.

Mock.

Mock.

Yep. Good evening, Mayor and members of Council. My name is John Mollick, and I'm here on behalf of TrackWest Partners, the developer for this project. Thank you for your time tonight. It's been a pleasure getting to know some of you over the last several weeks, and I really appreciate it. I hope when you all were, to hearing our plans and the improvements we've been working on to make this a project worth your support. I'm here to request a rezone of the 4.8 acres at 190 George W. Lyles Parkway from C1CD to C2CD Conditional District to allow a 5,600 square foot dash and convenience store with the fuel canopy and a 1,300 square foot splash and car wash. The Planning and Zoning Commission heard this case on August 18th and recommended denial on an advisory basis. Being completely honest, after attending the Planning and Zoning meeting, I'm not surprised the Board recommended denial. We were caught flat-footed. We weren't expecting the depth of feedback we heard from the neighbors. We weren't ready to provide concrete solutions that we could stand behind during that meeting. What I'm about to present today is what I believe solutions to all the comments we heard. Everything I'm going to walk you through tonight is our direct response to what was raised at that hearing, what we've improved, what we've committed to in writing, and why I believe this plan deserves your approval.

I'll hit the next one here.

I'll do that. Is that the arrow button? It's not working. Before we get into the plan itself, I want to be clear about where we stand right now. We held a community meeting on August 3rd. Planning and zoning heard the case on August 18th and recommend denial. That recommendation is advisory. Tonight, council makes the bonding decision on this project. Since that hearing, we haven't stood still. The masonry wall has been drawn into the plan. 10 feet tall, 400 feet of brick. The landscape plan has been sealed with a 90 foot buffer, 30 feet of which is an established and mature tree line. And the photometric plan is complete, showing 0.0 foot candles at the rear property line. That means our project won't have any light spilling onto the neighboring properties. Council has two actions in front of it tonight. First, to amend the 2030 land use plan designation on this parcel from urban neighborhood to commercial, and second, to approve the rezoning itself from C1CD to C2CD. So what is exactly being proposed? The 4.8 acres at the southeast quadrant of George Lyles Parkway and Weddington Road, vacant since Lyles Parkway was built in 2015. The plan is a 5,600 square foot convenience store with the fuel canopy and a 1,300 square foot bay car wash on three lots. The first lot is the dash and parcel, the second is a future commercial lot, and then a lot entirely dedicated to stormwater. For the future commercial lot, we are in deep discussions with the local credit union to open a branch on that parcel. I do want to note that any plan for that parcel will need to come back in front of council for your approval. So voting yes for the dash-in tonight does not give us any approval to develop a second parcel without your review and approval at a later date. Accessing the site is right in, right out only on Lyles Parkway. On Weddington, it's right in, right out, and left in. No left turn out in either direction at any point. And where the site touches residential zone to the rear, we're providing a type C buffer, 30 feet completely undisturbed, and over 90 feet total, which I'll walk through in detail in a few minutes. What we're asking for is a straightforward rezone from C1CD light commercial office to C2CD general commercial as a conditional district. I think it helps to see what's actually around this corner today. To the west across George W. Law's Parkway is C2CD, that's Publix, an operating BP convenience store gas station and other retail. To the north across Weddington Road is currently zoned C2. To the south is Sheffield Manor and to the east is Moore Residential along with Weddington Hills Elementary and West Calvary's High further out. The point of this slide is simple. Two of the site's four boundaries are arterial rights away. The third boundary is already C2 commercial. The corner sits inside the same commercial node as the grocery anchored center and operating gas station. We are not introducing a new use to this intersection. We're just completing the intersection with the same uses. Here's why we're in front of you asking for C2CD specifically. C1CD, the site's current zoning, does not permit a convenience store with fuel sales or car wash. C2CD is the district that allows both. This is a conditional district which matters. It means only the uses and structures shown in our approved site plan can be built there. This property will be bound to those conditions permanently. We've offered several conditions voluntarily on top of the conditions staff has recommended, and the Development Review Committee has reviewed this plan and recorded no objections to the petition. I also want to walk through the zoning history because I think it matters for tonight's decision. The parcel was annexed into the city in December of 95. In October of 2015, it was rezoned to C1CD for a 36,100 square foot Lidl grocery store who is still the current owner of this property. In 23, a mixed commercial case was submitted but later voided, and today we're asking for C2CD for a 5,600 square foot community store and a 1,300 square foot car wash. The reason that matters, that parcel has been zoned and approved for commercial development since 2015. The question in front of council tonight isn't whether this corner becomes commercial, it already is. The question is which commercial use and under what conditions and protections. I make that distinction because this property being developed isn't a question of if, it's a question of when. I want to address the land use plan question directly because staff's report is honest about it and so are we. The site is designated urban neighborhood on the 2030 land use plan. C2CD is in a corresponding district under that designation, so staff finds that rezoning request inconsistent with the plan that's currently written. That's exactly why an amendment to commercial is part of tonight's action. But I'd also ask you to look at what staff's own suggested finding says because it's not neutral on the merits. It says the amendment, and I quote, is reasonable and in the public interest as it is consistent with the existing zoning to the north and west and would be an extension of the neighborhood commercial development pattern at the George Lyles Parkway-Weddington Road intersection. And the plan itself anticipates exactly this kind of site. It says lots at intersections of collector and arterial streets within or at the edges of urban neighborhoods may support neighborhood and community serving commercial uses. That's a precise description of this corner. An intersection at the edge of a neighborhood directly adjacent to C2CD and C2 Commercial to the west and north. I WANT TO SPEND A FEW MOMENTS ON THE PROCESS BECAUSE I THINK IT SHAPES HOW YOU SHOULD WEIGH EVERYTHING ELSE TONIGHT. PLANNING AND ZONING ADVISES BUT COUNCIL DECIDES. YOU'RE NOT BOUND BY THE RECOMMENDATION. I HEARD THE QUESTION ASKED ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON DURING THE WORKSHOP MEETING ON WHY THIS WAS STILL BEING PRESENTED TONIGHT. THE REASON IS WE'RE PRESENTING A MUCH IMPROVED PLAN WITH CONCRETE SOLUTIONS VERSUS WHAT WAS PRESENTED TO THE PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD A FEW WEEKS AGO. The development ordinance asks you to adopt two statements, whether the amendment is consistent with the adopted plan and whether it's reasonable and in the public interest. And critically, inconsistency with the current land use plan is not disqualifying. Council may approve the amendment and the rezoning in the same action, which is exactly the path we're asking for you to take tonight. I note again, staff drafted the finding that supports approval. The development review committee recorded no objections. What's actually in front of you is the land use plan amendment, which is squarely within council's authority and the conditions that will govern how this site gets built. This is our current site plan. It was prepared by engineer. It shows the 4.8 acres across the three lots. The dash in itself is 2.58 acres. The future commercial lot, which would have to come back for approval at a later date is 1.08 acres. And the 0.61 acre lot is purely for commercial. This is the sheet bound by condition one and whatever gets built here has to match what's on this page. This is an elevation of the store that we are proposing to build. The store itself is 5,600 square feet, standing about 18 feet, 10 inches to the parapet. Here are the elevations for the car wash. On the left is the entrance, which faces toward the property line. On the right is the long side elevation. The building is 17 feet, six inches overall, and the entrance end is screened by the 10-foot masonry wall running 400 feet across the property. The neighbor's views will stop at the wall. I don't want to ask council to take these elevations on faith, so this slide is photographs, not renderings, of a Dashing and Splashing store already built and operating to the same prototype. The fuel canopy, the storefront glazing, the materials, the lighting standard, this isn't a concept. It's a store that exists today, and it's the same design proposed for George W. Law's Parkway. I know several of you took the time to visit the existing Dashing on Vinehaven, and I truly appreciate you guys taking the time to do that. This is what's inside the store. It's a fully staffed food and beverage operation, a made-to-order kitchen, packaged grocery, frozen and dairy cases, and a full beverage program. Fueling positions sit outside the building. Inside, this functions as a neighborhood convenience market. This is the store type we're proposing here. I'd point out specifically that food here is prepared on-site by the store employees. It's a fully staffed kitchen line, a bakery case, daily produce prep, The kitchen runs during store hours along the retail floor. That's what separates this from a conventional fueling station with prepackaged goods on a shelf. This is closer to a small grocery with fuel service than a typical gas station. This is not a food program you'll find at traditional convenience stores that are currently in the market. Dashing has built its reputation on fresh, high-quality food and ingredients. For example, the eggs are cracked fresh, not poured from a carton, prepared food doesn't sit for hours under heat lamps, and the baked goods and chips are made in-house. Now I wanna walk you through the buffer in detail because this is the single biggest thing that changed as a direct result of what we heard from the neighbors. The ordinance minimum for a type C buffer here is 20 feet. We originally committed the 30 feet undisturbed with the existing tree line left standing. Tonight we're offering 90 feet total in the dash and parcel, undisturbed plus planted plus the 10 foot masonry wall. THAT WALL IS 10 FEET OF BRICK, 400 FEET LONG, DRAWN ONTO THE PLAN. IT WON'T BE AN OPTION THAT WE MIGHT EXERCISE LATER, BUT A COMMITMENT ON THE RECORD. AND IT'S NOT PLACED AT THE OUTER EDGE OF THE BUFFER FOR SHOW. IT'S SET AT THE DRIVE AISLE WHERE IT ACTUALLY BLOCKS HEADLIGHTS, WHICH IS THE POINT SOME OF THE NEIGHBORS RAISED DURING THE LAST MEETING. THE LANDSCAPE PLAN ADDS 54 RED CEDARS. THEY'RE 10 FEET TALL, PLANTED 15 FEET ON CENTER. Cedar and holly are both evergreen, so this green holds throughout the winter when a deciduous buffer would go bare. Currently the trees out there go bare and one of the complaints we heard during the last meeting was that during the winter time you can see straight to the public's. This is a solution that would end that and we'd have the continuously blocked view for the neighborhood in the rear. Here's the revised landscape plan itself. You can see we've added the red cedars in the rear to really buffer the view from the neighbors and we have also added the 10 foot masonry wall. This is just the data sheet that goes with the landscape sheet. Lighting was one of the top concerns we heard, so I want to go through this carefully. This is the photometric plan that was prepared by Red Leonard and Associates. The number that matters most, 0.0 foot candles minimum beyond the paved area. That's the light level at the property line where it borders the homes. Average across that zone is essentially imperceptible. We're using 111 LED luminaires, all with zero uplight BUG rating on every single pole and canopy fixture. meaning none of this light throws upward or outward past where it's needed. 18 of those fixtures use house side shielding aimed specifically away from Sheffield Manor. Pole height is 17 feet, canopy fixtures amounted to 15 feet, and the wall fixtures at eight to 10 feet. The blue on this map means zero foot candles. That's the reading at the property line adjacent to the homes. This was all calculated before accounting for the additional evergreen plantings and masonry wall, so I can confidently say that our project will not have any light intrusion nor to the neighborhood. Our traffic impact analysis was prepared by DRMP, their third-party traffic engineering firm, and reviewed and accepted by NCDOT on March 20th of this year. This site, according to their study, will only add 111 trips in the morning peak and 121 in the evening peak, after internal capture and pass-by reductions are applied. That's only 3.1% of the total volume that's currently moving through the George Lyles and Wellington signal. So our development is not gonna add any meaningful additional traffic to this intersection. This is a convenience store, it's not a destination. Again, this study was done by a third party traffic engineer and it was reviewed and approved by NCDOT. This is not our gut feeling. This was done by actual data and actual engineers who know what they're doing. On access, George Lyle Parkway is right in, right out only. Weddington is right in, right out, and left in. No left out in either direction, and we are building this at our own cost. A concrete median on Weddington that physically prevents the left out of the site, a right turn lane and a left turn lane with a dedicated storage, a five foot sidewalk on George Lyle's, a shared use path on Weddington, and a pedestrian connection toward Weddington Hills Elementary. NCD is not requiring us to make any kind of signal improvements with our plan. I also want to point out a number that came up during the last meeting. There was a question on how far our property is to the entrance to Sheffield. We went ahead and measured on the GIS map and it says the rear property line, not the entrance we're proposing, but the rear property line is 621 feet from Stonehenge Lane, which is the Sheffield's main entrance. On stormwater, what we can commit to tonight is no stormwater runoff will be directed to the residential properties at the rear. All site drainage is captured on site and routed to the lot three stormwater facility. Post-development flows will not exceed pre-development rates as required by both the city and NCDEQ. Lot three, it's .61 acres, is reserved entirely for stormwater and cannot be developed for anything else under this petition. The final pond, storm design, detention volume, and discharge point gets set through the city stormwater permit review, not here at rezoning, but nothing gets built here until the city and every outside agency signs off. Approval tonight does not waive a single engineering standard. I want to spend some real time on the fuel safe because it's a fair question to ask about any site with underground storage tanks. This system is inspected in full by a third-party consultant every 30 days. EPA only requires that inspection once a year. We're doing it monthly. Every tank is double-walled with leak monitors in the space between the inner and outer walls. There are sumps with leak sensors at every critical piping joint and elbow, so leaks get caught at the connection points, not just at the tank itself. It's a pressure line leak detection system, and it constantly monitors any change in fuel line pressure. Monitoring is continuous and not periodic, and the system watches line pressure, tank space, piping sumps at all times, on top of that with the 30-day inspection. If a sensor trips, the alarm goes to two places simultaneously, one at the local store where it operates, and two at the Wills Group headquarters in La Plata, Maryland. Another question was about air quality. Air quality is managed through vapor recovery. Fuel vapor is recaptured at the pump and recondensed back into the tanks. These are sealed tanks, not open containers. It's the same concept your own car uses, and it's why a car sitting in a closed garage with 15 gallons of gasoline in it doesn't fill the garage with fumes. None of this is waived by rezoning. Fuel systems are regulated independently by EPA and NCDQ, and this standard of monitoring applies every single day the store is open, not just at approval. On operations, the store and fuel and car wash operate 24-7, but deliveries and service will be restricted by time. Vendor deliveries only between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., trash pickup only between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., and fuel deliveries only from the front of the site, never at the rear. For staffing, the kitchen has four employees and the front of the house has four employees during the day, two kitchen and one front of the house employee at night, plus 24-7 there's always a dedicated exterior attendant whose job is specifically to clear clear any litter move along any loitering or non-customers the idea is to keep the property as safe as possible and and continue to keep it a clean and walloping environment the car wash is fully enclosed with doors closed on both sides during the operation I want to talk about the outreach because I think it's where we fell short. We held a virtual community meeting on August 3rd before the planning and zoning hearing. 18 neighbors attended. We listened to what those 18 residents told us and we attempted to change the plan because of it. They raised concerns about separation between the store and the homes. We widened the buffer from 20 to 30. with the tree line retained. They raised concerns about noise from the rear drive aisle, dumpsters, and early deliveries. We repositioned the fence at the time to the rear drive aisle where it actually blocks headlights. They raised questions about light spilling, and in the meantime, we completed our lighting plan and put it on the record for tonight. I'll be honest about what we didn't do well. 18 people came to that meeting and we did not go back to the neighborhood after we approved the buffer. That's a completely fair criticism and I want to own it directly rather than gloss past it. We own that mistake and we've worked diligently over the past several weeks to improve our plan based on the feedback we received during the neighborhood meeting and the planning and zoning meeting. We want to be good neighbors and add as much protection as reasonably possible to support the neighborhood behind us. The result we have is a plan that's built around the homes behind us, the woods stay standing, a 10-foot brick wall blocks all the headlights, and we have a lighting plan that's designed to stop at the property line. No vendors arrive before 7 a.m., and all of it is enforceable as a condition of disapproval. I think this next comparison is the most important thing I'll show tonight, so I'll slow down a little bit. In October of 2015, this exact 4.8 acre site was already rezoned and approved for a 36,100 square foot Lidl grocery store. That approval is the benchmark for what this corner is already entitled to build, with essentially none of the protections that we're offering attached to our project tonight. Look at the comparison. Building floor area, 36,170 square feet approved in 2015 versus the 6,930 square feet total proposed now. About one-fifth of the building size. Access on Lyles, full movement was approved in 15. We're offering ride-in, ride-out only. Building placement, the 2015 legal plan was set the building against the east property line at Blackstone Court. Hard against the residential edge. Ours is set to the northwest away from the homes. Overnight deliveries, legal's policy is they do pickups at 11 p.m. and they have to be done by 5 a.m. So that's the middle of the night when those deliveries would have been happening. We've committed to nothing before 7 a.m. And the rear buffer here was only 35 feet of planted. That means all those trees were going to go away in 2015. We're offering 30 feet of undisturbed with approximately 90 feet of total buffer from any improvements for the dash in. So we're offering less building, less access, more separations from the home than what the plan this city has already approved for the same land. This is that 2015 from Bowler Engineering, a 36,100 square foot grocery store, 156 parking spaces on the same 4.8 acres. Look at where this building sits, 36 feet off the property line with only a 35 foot planted buffer. That means all the trees back there would have been removed and the loading and service side of the building pointed directly at the homes. Our plan puts a 6,930 square feet of building, one fifth of the approved building size here on the far side of the site with more separation than the plan the city has previously approved. I want to run through some specific concerns that were raised at the planning and zoning, one at a time with our response to each. Light spilling into the rear yards, our photometric plan now shows 17 foot poles, 15 foot canopy fixtures, zero uplight fixtures, and 0.0 foot candles at every property line. Noise from the rear drive aisle. A 30-foot undisturbed buffer at that existing tree line retain. A fence at the drive aisle is what we previously proposed. Tonight, we're committing to go further. 90 feet of total buffer on the dash and parcel and a 10-foot mason roll instead of a six-foot fence. Early morning dumpster and truck noise. Our hauler agreement limits pickups to after 7 a.m. Vendor deliveries begin at 7 a.m. Fuel tankers stay on the front of the site. The cut-through traffic on Sheffield Manor, I think we've answered that with the traffic impact analysis as well. We're not adding significant traffic with this project, and I don't foresee any reason that people will be cutting through. If it does become an issue and it's something that you guys want to talk about, we're open to suggestions between speed bumps, stop signs, something to help mitigate people from trying to cut through if that is a concern. The traffic study being done in the summertime, people asked when that traffic study was done. The counts were taken in December of 25 and January of 26 while schools were in session, so we got the highest traffic counts available for the study. And the car wash doors of the property line, the answer is the bays are fully enclosed with both doors closed during the wash cycle. A word on who actually operates the store, because I think it's a fair question for Council to ask, even though it isn't a rezoning criterion. Dashing and Splashing are brands of the Wills Group. They're a family-owned company celebrating their 100th year, and it's still held by the founding family. They operate Dashing across the Mid-Atlantic, with North Carolina being the focus of their continued growth. Before they had a single store in the state, Wills Group gave $50,000 to the Second Harvest Food Bank and Metrolina Charlotte for hurricane relief. They've distributed over 350 pounds of food across 14 North Carolina counties through the same grant.

Yeah, I think you had some technical difficulties, so you've got some additional time.

I've got a couple more things to go through. None of that is rezoning criterion. I'm only asking to weigh in as one, but it answers the question council may fairly ask, who's still going to be here in 20 years? This is a century-old family company that invested in this region before it even had a store to protect. They are dedicated to the communities that they operate in, and they want to be good stewards in the neighborhoods they operate within. Here's everything we're prepared to accept as binding and writing tonight. All seven conditions recommended by staff. On top of that, everything we've committed to on record since August 18th. A 30-foot understory buffer with the existing tree line retained. Over 90 feet total in the dash and parcel. Masonry wall and loo of wood fence set at the rear drive aisle. Dumpster pickups between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. NO VENDOR DELIVERIES BEFORE 7 AM OR 8 PM, FUEL DELIVERIES FROM THE FRONT OF THE SITE, AND FUTURE USE ON LOT 2 RETURNS TO COMMISSION FOR REVIEW. IF THERE IS ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS THAT COUNCIL THINGS COULD STRENGTHEN OUR PROJECT, WE'RE OPEN TO HEARING THEM AND WE'RE OPEN TO MAKING CHANGES IF IT STRENGTHENS THE PROJECT. I WANT TO CLOSE WITH THE CHOICE ACTUALLY IN FRONT OF YOU TONIGHT. THE 2015 APPROVAL IS THE BENCHMARK FOR WHAT THIS CORNER CAN BECOME WITHOUT CONDITIONS. KZCD 1515 already put a 36,100 square foot grocery store on these same 4.8 acres. With its rear wall and loading area just set 36 feet off the Black Sun Court property line. None of the protections were discussed tonight were attached to that approval. No 90 foot buffer, no masonry wall, no delivery hour limits, no lighting held to 0.0 foot candles at the property line, and conditions don't follow the land on their own. If this petition is denied, a future application arrives with its own plan and every commitment we've offered for tonight disappears. So here's the ask. First, adopt the statement of consistency using the affirmative finding staff itself drafted. Second, amend the 2030 land use plan for this parcel to commercial. And third, approve the ZCD 2325 with all staff conditions, our application conditions, and every commitment made on record tonight, including the 90-foot buffer and masonry wall. This corner is going to be developed. It already carries an approved entitlement for something larger and closer to the homes that we're proposing. A conditional district is the only tool this council has to decide how that happens. Denial tonight leaves the neighborhood with the ordinance minimum and whatever plan comes next. Approval makes the 90 foot buffer the masonry wall the 0.0 foot candle lighting standard and every delivery limit We've offered binding on this land tonight.

Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any of your questions Thank you Okay, we have three people signed up speaking as opponents to this project first is Sarah Murphy and

Good evening to you all. We talked about this a lot at the rezoning hearing. I'm sure you've read through those minutes, so I don't want to belabor the point. I'd ask you focus on two things, complete lack of community need and 24-7. Those are the two key pieces they can't argue a thing to you about because that's the reality of this project they're proposing. We did the math too. There's a Speedway gas station we're expecting to be developed right across the street. We don't need another gas station. Speedway, Willow Oaks BP, that's half a mile away. Riptide Car Wash, that's less than a mile away. Harris Teeter Fuel Center, 1.2 miles. Amoco Gas Station, 1.4 miles. Running out of hands. Quick Trip, 1.6 miles with a food prep hot food station already there. Circle K, two miles. A Circle K Car Wash, two miles. And if you go to the end of Weddington in the exact opposite direction, guess what you run into? Another QT. We don't need another one. There is no community need. that this would be establishing. We do not need another gas station. So we'd ask you consider that. They talked a lot about precedent. I'd like you to focus on the complete lack of precedent. The station they mentioned on Copperfield has zero residential homes on that lot. There are apartments, absolutely zero residential communities, and this is hugely impactful to our neighborhood, to our city, and to these families who live on Weddington. The number is in the hundreds. So I'd ask you focus on that. They mention future unspecified use that is deeply concerning to the residents of this community and that I hope is concerning to this council. Not being able to tell you what they want to use it for down the line is not sufficient. 24-7, again, I'd ask you focus on that. No matter how many pretty brick walls they put up, that is not going to change that. Car horns, the lights, I get the map, the lights are gonna be there. The lights in the stations are over 10 foot tall. So I'd ask you consider that as well. I would also ask you to consider the deep invasion to all of Weddington Roads those long established neighborhoods and to the schools. Those are hundreds of homes. This is a huge traffic impact. I have no clue where that study came from. Anyone who's driven on Weddington any time of day knows it is nearly impossible to get in and out anywhere on that road without about a 15 minute delay. Heaven forbid if school's in session. And we want to make sure the children are protected as they get on and off the bus and in and out of those neighborhoods. The zoning board took about three hours with us. Deeply appreciate their time and consideration. And they asked amazing questions. Please ask those same questions ask us any you have we're here in and your request not to approve this That's what we're asking of you The traffic, the noise, the lights above 10 feet, and the odor. I've never been to a gas station where I didn't smell gas. That's a new one on me, but it's a very clever thing to say. The last thing I'd ask, I'm a lawyer by trade, not by disposition. They use the phrase convenience store with gas. Couldn't have written it better myself. That's a legal term. It's a gas station. That's what this is. There's about 12 ports. This is a gas station. We'd ask you deny that approval.

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Jennifer Holmberg.

Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Jennifer Holmberg. I live at 1228 Blackstone Court, Northwest, and my property sits directly behind the land we are discussing this evening. In August, the advisory board heard our concerns and voted unanimously against this rezoning. Tonight, we ask you to respect that recommendation. Since that hearing, the applicant has added what he presented tonight, a 10-foot wall and a 30 to 60-foot buffer between our homes in this 24-7 open, dash-in, convenience store, gas station, and car wash. Lastly, the brand new cedar trees that will take multiple, multiple years to grow. This does not address our concerns. In an effort to not beat a dead horse, I'll skip over the amount of gas stations that are already in this vicinity, the amount of car washes that are in this vicinity. It's a proposed sheets. It's already zoned for sheets. They can build it there. It's just a matter of when that happens. And then we also heard tonight that another development residential community of 135 homes might go directly across the street. This is a two lane road. How are we adding so much traffic and business and more single family homes to this direct area without having the appropriate traffic impact analysis done that also adds that into the equation? I appreciate the representative for addressing my concerns that were around the UST, which I brought up in the meeting in August, especially about the control of benzene exposure. And I appreciate the dates that he gave that the traffic impact analysis was done. However, the question still stands. You know, it's still a huge risk, especially for the homes that are directly on Blackstone Court. That exposure is still going to be there. And minimizing it, you know, is not. There's still a risk. The other thing that I would like to talk about is I am a realtor and homeowner here in this community, obviously concerned about property values. This is our biggest financial investment. Placing this commercial fueling operation directly behind my home and in this community raises legitimate concerns about their future desirability, marketability, and value. This is our financial risk, it's not the developer's. Council members, you have also received numerous emails opposing this rezoning and your advisory board unanimously recommended against it. For a $30 million project that needs rezoning approval, they seem to not want the community's feedback that it directly affects. No additional communication has been given to us aside from our community meeting at the beginning of August. If you guys would please raise your hands. Sorry, can I have like two seconds? Anybody that is in favor of what I just said, please raise your hand. These are all the people that don't want this. Thank you.

Okay, we have next speaker, and all I can make out is Ed. So if you'll state your name when you come up, please.

LAST NAME TAKES A WHILE, SO DON'T START THE COUNTER YET. FIRST NAME IS ED, LAST NAME IS NJ. GOOD EVENING, EVERYBODY. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I SPOKE LAST TIME IN FRONT OF THE CITY COUNCIL HERE, BUT I JUST WANT TO BRING A FEW POINTS HERE FOR EVERYBODY. IT'S MENTIONED THAT THERE'S NOW A 30-FEET BUFFER. I HAVE A SIZE 14 SHOE, SO I'M GOING TO WALK OUT AN EXTRA 10 FEET THEY'RE GRANTING US. Wow, that's 30 feet.

It's a lot more now.

It's not much at all. So just to make sure that's clear, the space deprived us really isn't that much. We'll talk about gas. Gas stations release benzene, a known human carcinogen. THIS EXPOSURE CAN INCREASE HEALTH CONCERNS AND RISK AND POTENTIAL CANCERS. WHILE SOMETIMES THERE'S DEBATE IN THESE STUDIES, EVEN IF THERE'S A DEBATE, A LITTLE BIT OF DEBATE, WHY WILL WE KNOWINGLY PLACE ADDITIONAL SOURCE OF EMISSIONS AND BENZINE NEXT TO OUR HOMES NEAR OUR CHILDREN AND NEAR WEDDINGTON HILLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. THE EPA SCHOOLS CITING GUIDELINES WERE CREATED BECAUSE CHILDREN ARE UNIQUELY VULNERABLE TO VULNERABLE POLLUTION. THE EPA SPECIFICALLY RECOMMENDS AVOIDING SCHOOL LOCATIONS THAT ARE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO POLLUTION SOURCES WHENEVER ALTERN Well, why are we putting a gas station where a school already exists? It's the opposite of what we're doing here. I like to talk about property values. Property values do not add value to the local area or the local community. We talk about oversaturation already. We'll continue to talk about oversaturation. I think it's extremely important. Across the street, there is already a BP with a car wash. Going across the street where this dashing is, there's already approval for a Sheetz, a 24-hour operation with a gas station. Up the road, there's a Harris Teeter Fuel Center, an Exxon 711, a Citgo, and also a QT that was priorly mentioned as well. The impact and the noise, gas stations are not quiet. As much as they say they drop off at seven in the morning, the previous zoning, there could drop off packages at night, it's not 24 hours. There's gonna be tons of doors slamming, loud stereos, delivery trucks, fuel tankers, garbage pickup, idling engines, and people stop in all hours of the evening. That's not compatible with the quality of life that residents expect in the residential community. I mentioned about traffic and safety. They mentioned they're gonna make a right only out of the neighborhood. If you make a right onto Weddington Road, because you can't make a left, so I'm making a right. If we need to pull up the map out of Weddington Road, very, very next right is Sheffield Manor. And yes, it's only 600 feet ahead. So what do you think most people are gonna do? Man, I can't make a left out here. It's too busy. I can't make a left. I'll just make a right. Where's my quickest turnaround? Right into Sheffield Manor they go. And they're going to loop back around, turn around, and try to make a left out of Sheffield Manor, causing additional traffic for us, which is already challenging enough to get out of the neighborhood. Finally, most importantly, it doesn't meet the 2030 plan. The zoning package itself acknowledges there's concerns and consistency around the zoning goals. Concord's long-term vision emphasized healthy living, walkability, community gathering, and village-style development. Gas station is not a village center. It's not walkability. It's not farm-to-table. Gas station is not the vision residents were promised. So tonight, I respectfully ask you vote no on every zoning request. Thank you.

Okay, that's everyone that has signed up to speak. And Mr. Monk, you get five minutes of rebuttal if you would like.

The first question I'd like to answer is why do I think this area needs another convenience store? I don't think need isn't the finding before council tonight, and this parcel has been entitled to commercial since 2015. The question is which use and under what conditions? But on the merits, this isn't another version of what's at this intersection. There were already grocery stores serving this area when Publix opened across Georgia Isles, and the city still approved the Lidl on this very parcel in 2015 with all the existing grocery stores in the area. Food Line, Harris Teeter, Publix, and then Lidl. Because the question was never how many grocery stores they had, it was what kind. Counting fuel canopies tells you just as little about whether this offering exists here. Those are fueling sites with prepackaged food. This is a fully staffed, made-to-order kitchen. Eggs are cracked fresh to order, a bakery case baked in store, produce prepped daily, eight employees on the floor by day with fuel outside the building. And the demand question is answered by whoever carries the risk. THIS IS A CENTURY-OLD FAMILY COMPANY POINTING MORE THAN $10 MILLION OF ITS OWN CAPITAL INTO THIS CORNER. THEY BELIEVE IT. THIS IS WHAT THEY DO. THEY'VE DONE HEAVY ANALYSIS ON THIS AREA AND THEY KNOW THEY CAN BE SUCCESSFUL HERE. The next was someone brought up, it was a 30-foot buffer. I think I just want to correct that as a 90-foot buffer. The lighting issue, I think we've heavily addressed by showing that by how it's designed by the engineer, it's 0.0 foot candles to the property line, so our light is not intruding onto the neighboring properties. Someone mentioned the cedar trees. When they're planted, they'll be 10 feet tall from the get-go. So we're not planting little tiny shrubs. We're planting 10 foot tall trees from the start. And those trees will end up growing to 40, 50, and sometimes 80 feet tall if they're left alone long enough. So when that's said and done, it will be a full buffer and visual block for the neighborhood. On the traffic study, again, that was an independent study. It was approved and reviewed by NCDOT. It's not just us saying it. So I don't know how it can get any more objective than that. And then the last was the Weddington Road. I drive a lot because of what I do for work. I can tell you if I was leaving the gas station to go back on the other way, I would not turn on Weddington. I'd just go back to the right in, right out that's gonna be on George Lyles. It makes no sense to make a right and then do a U-turn where you can just go in and do the right turn onto George Lyles. Again, I think we've answered most of the concerns throughout this process. I think tonight is just an opportunity to work with a development that's willing to put in the protections for the neighborhood and also allow a high-quality operator to continue to invest in the city of Concord. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Valerie, I'll let you lead us through the process from here.

Well, to begin with, I thought maybe so. The opponents get a an opportunity to rebut the rebuttal. I assume you're, yes.

Very, very briefly.

Oh, are we having two?

You got three months as well with her, five minutes. Then we share five minutes, correct? I'll be quick.

Yes. Five minutes total.

First and foremost, we're not opposed to development. We are opposed to this development. There are so many great uses for this land. Our community needs so many things in that land. A daycare, a coffee house, a boutique. I mean, even another smaller grocery store across from Publix would be fine. There are so many good options that do not intrude onto this level as a 24-hour gas station would. Second thing I want to point out, people coming off George Lyles are going 55, 65, sometimes 75, they shouldn't, but they do, miles an hour through that green light, slowing if it's red, but that's just going to make it an impracticability, excuse me, for people to turn right off of that. So I'd ask you consider those two things. I want to reemphasize, we are not opposed to development. That is a great thing. This city is hugely booming. It's wonderful. We're opposed to this development.

So the gentleman said, who's gonna be here in 20 years from now? Well, I can guarantee that I'm mostly gonna be here in this community, still living in that community. I can't guarantee he's gonna be in the area after this meeting this afternoon for the next 25 more minutes after this time period. So we talk about the right. I'd love to use the clicker if I could to go back. Can I go back to the presentation to show the actual roadways? Is that possible? And someone pulled that up where it shows the actual strip of George Wallace Parkway and Weddington Road. That would be really helpful. Let me go back again. Sorry about that. So you'll see, if I can put a pointer on here, I cannot, but in this area here where we're talking about, where we're exiting out, there is going to be no right-hand turn into that space. You're going to be literally coming off George Wallace Parkway and diving right into Dashen. That is the first space right through here. So if you imagine, if you were pulled out of George Wallace Parkway where the current Harris Teeter is on George Wallace Parkway about two miles up the road, If you're pulling out of there to get all the way to the right-hand lane, you're going across this right-hand lane here that's going to be turning this way. You're going to have traffic making the left going this way into this intersection. And also up here, you have a median up in this area where two people, two cars are going to be going double lanes here to get to your left-hand turn lane to turn down to Wellington Road. So what we're explaining to me is that why would I come out here and make a right, why would I go over this way to make a right and go into a U-turn around? Well, because it's going to be feasibly impossible to make a right-hand turn lane all the way out of here to go this way to make my left. What will be easier is I come out here, because people will learn you can't do that when I'm trying to come back down this way. People will make a right out of here, go 600 feet right here to our entrance. Turn to our entrance, U-turn back around, make the left, and come down this way. This is what most people are going to do. People have common sense. I do whatever by 45, by exit 23C over 45 is I go down and turn around a little apartment complex, come back around. That's what people do. That apartment complex must not like me because that's what I do all the time. So people do this. So that's the first piece there. And also just talk about the buffer and the trees. I mean, a 10-foot tree that is a root base or a trunk 10-foot tree will be about this big. So I'll be here for 20 years to see those trees grow. Our friends from Dreschen will not be. And lastly, they can promise us that they've been here for 100 years. We've had three gas stations in the last two years change over name usage. Why is that? Well, if they were successful, they'd continue with that same name usage. They wouldn't be bought out. They wouldn't be closing. They wouldn't be turning over. We've got consistent turnover. There's still a gas station on 29 that is still sitting vacant. It is something that can happen. And once we have that, we have blight. Then we have challenges. And then after that, what comes next to use that gas station? So just want to provide that information as a rebuff to the comments provided. Thank you.

Okay.

Of course, we still have the public hearing open.

Yes, I was just going to say, we need to figure out.

So council members, any questions before we close the public hearing? All right, the public hearing is now closed. Oh, you did? I'm sorry. Turn your green light on. I'm sorry?

Yeah, just open the hearing again. Sorry.

Okay, the hearing is open. Sorry.

I tried to catch you. Fred, questions for you, sir, please. Boy, I circled them in all of this. Okay, here's my first question. It was referenced, so thank you for the history. I think I told you that Tuesday night. I never knew that the George Law was bisecting this property. I always wondered why we ended up with this funky, corner of there so why go from c1 to c2 i understand the conditional use and i'm going to ask about that in a minute but uh i think the our our gentleman referenced full fuel and car wash is that the only two or is it size store as well like is there anything i have the use chart here but i

Yes, ma'am. Pursuant to 8.3.6, I want to say H, in dealing with convenience stores, there's a maximum size requirement for C1, and I think that that's, if I'm not mistaken, 2,000 square feet. Here we're talking 5,600 square feet. Ergo, we're going with C2 where there is no maximum requirement there.

Okay. My other question is, can you expound a little bit on the development of the parcel? I know it was mentioned that there's Does that scare us that there's not? But can you explain, since it's a conditional use on the second parcel that is showing undeveloped right now, can you explain what that process would be? Yes, ma'am. For that to be developed one year from now, 20 years from now, please.

Yes, ma'am. Any change to the site plan that's been presented to you tonight would be, would be required to come back to planning and zoning commission for, uh, you know, an amendment to the conditional rezoning. So the conditional rezoning is bound by site plan, the site plan that we have in front of us and the uses that are proposed or what are to be decided upon. Anything future would have to be, uh, relitigated for lack of a better term. We'll look at again, um, for an amendment, an amended, um, conditional rezoning.

Hence the conditional.

That's correct. Okay.

Here's my final question. Let's say this rezone gets turned down and Monday morning Lidl knocks on the city's front door and says we would like to build our 36,000 square foot store with, I'm going to go off the site plan because I have not looked at the site plan, the 35 planted buffer which does mean that every tree could be torn down. I would assume that site plan being a little older there would be revisions that may have to be made or would there be revisions that had to be made?

Depending on if there were many ordinance changes between that time and now. Correct. However, I mean, in all likelihood, if they made it through the civil review process or the permitting process, I mean, whatever was approved previously could be constructed.

Okay. I think that's my question because we have been here before, and I'm letting you guys know there was a Walmart that was proposed with a 100-foot buffer. The rezone was turned down. And the first call I got Monday morning was from a person that wanted to know where their 100-foot buffer was. And I say that just to say I think this is a really complicated process, and I just want to ensure that you guys understand that Lidl could turn dirt on Tuesday. Now, I don't know. Some of you have said, I don't care. I just don't want this. I'm going to end it with this. If you say no to something, you are always saying yes to something else. Always, always. And in this case, and in most cases, you just don't know what that is, right? In this case, it could be the Lidl. I don't know that, right? But there will be, this land will be developed, right? It's just a matter of what will be developed on it. I just want to make sure that's my duty to ensure you guys understand that. The only way it cannot be developed is if you purchase it and then you develop it with whatever you want to do. So thank you, Fred.

John? Yes. About the same thing. So Lidl comes up next week, wants to do it. Is there sewer approved or do they still have to go through their process again?

I think their sewer is still, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's still valid. It should be still valid. Okay.

So it's valid for that type of situation. Okay. Last thing I just want to clarify, I think Jennifer may have covered it, but I just want to, from my understanding, that additional lot we're talking about still has to go through the whole process we're talking about right now. Correct. It can't just be turned dirt and put an extra park on it. It has to come through all these processes, approvals, again, for planning zoning, then to us, if not.

That's correct. Yes, sir.

That's correct.

Lori. I don't have a question for you, but I do have one for you, John. Just out of curiosity, How can you guarantee these neighbors that deliveries would only be between 7 and 8 o'clock at night?

Well, we can make it into the condition similarly how we can, and it would just be up to code enforcement to enforce it, but it's also written into the vendor agreements that they can't show up before 7 a.m. Because you know it's easier to ask forgiveness. Definitely, but it's written into the vendor agreements currently. I mean, even on the store in Vinehaven, they're not showing up in the middle of the night now.

Okay. Thank you. I just was curious how you would. make that good on that promise. So thank you.

Okay. Any additional questions before we close the public hearing? I don't see any lights. And John, yours is down so low I can't see it anyway. All right. Hearing none, we will close the public hearing. And Valerie will guide us through the process.

Okay. If we could get the statements of consistency back up, please. Thank you. So here are your suggested statements of consistency staff drafted for you. We have the one supporting approval with the green caption and the one supporting denial with the red caption. And we would need a motion to adopt one or the other of these.

So, council, what is your pleasure?

So I'm happy to kick it off. My decision is solely based on this does not currently line up with the land use plan. We just had this discussion before. I do want to commend the developer. This is how this process is supposed to work. You give feedback, the developer responds. I gotta be honest with you guys, I hadn't seen a lot of developers that have responded in this way. So I just, I need to put that out there. But my decision is solely based on land use and also just similar projects. I do think that was mentioned and that's where mine is. So my... I would say to support the denial would be what my recommendation would be.

Mayor, I'll second that.

Is that a motion, Jennifer? Jennifer, that's a motion to adopt the statement of consistency supporting denial.

And we do have a second on that motion. Okay, is there further discussion? Lori?

No, I do not, I'm sorry.

Okay, any other discussion? All right, we do have a motion on the floor supporting denial. So all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. Okay, that motion passes four to two. Five to two, excuse me. Excellent, so next step.

So now the next step is to approve or deny the zoning map amendment. Obviously, if you're approving, you need your conditions. If you're denying, you do not need your conditions.

Okay, council, do I hear a motion?

Mayor, I'll make a motion to deny the zoning map amendment with condition.

I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second to deny the zoning map amendment. Is there discussion? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. Okay, same vote, five to two. So that motion does not pass.

And because the map amendment was not passed, there's no need for a land use plan amendment.

Great, thank you. All right, we move to the next item, which is item four, which is also a public hearing. And I will open the public hearing and ask Fred to explain this item. All right, sir. All right.

Good evening again, Mayor Morris, members of the council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kolchinski, Ms. Jenkins. The item before you is a voluntary annexation petition for a single parcel consisting of approximately 32.927 acres located at 9511 Benjamin Walker Lane. The property is owned by the City of Concord, and the applicant for this annexation is the City's Parks and Rec Department. The proposed annexation would be for the construction of a greenway to connect the J.E. Ramsor Park to the nearby neighborhood. The zoning map shows the property in the Red Cross Hatched Area that it's currently zoned, Cabarrus County LDR, which is Loden City Residential. And if the annexation is approved, the request for zoning would be to City of Concord Office Institutional for the proposed greenway use. In regards to the 2030 land use plan, the proposed office and institutional zoning is consistent with the suburban neighborhoods land use category. And the park and greenway use is a compatible use within, in regards to the surrounding zoning. If Council approves the annexation petition, the property will become a part of District 4, as shown on this map here. And as with all annexations, both internal and external entities were notified and given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback on the proposal, and no comments were returned. Additionally, adjacent property owners and recognized neighborhoods and HOAs were notified via mail of the annexation by planning staff with letters dated August 24th of this year, as well as with an advertisement run in the Independent Tribune on August the 29th of this year. In regards to Council's next steps are to consider the annexation request, to adopt or deny the annexation, and if adopted, consideration before planning and zoning commission for the recommendation for the rezoning will be held at their October 20th meeting. And I'll gladly take any questions that Council may have at this time.

Any questions for Fred? All right, thank you. We do not have anyone signed up to speak in this public hearing. Council members, do you have questions before we close? Terry? None. We will close the public hearing. And so our option here is to move to adopt the annexation ordinance and set an effective date for September 10th, 2026, or not?

Mayor, I move we adopt the ordinance and set that date of September 10th.

I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to adopt the annexation ordinance and set the effective date. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes unanimously. We now go to presentations of petitions and requests. We heard from Jeff and Alex on item number one on Tuesday night, authorizing the city manager to execute multiple change orders with Wesco. for the electric and water resources meter replacement and AMI project. Does anybody have any additional questions for them? If not, I would entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to execute multiple change orders with WESCO for the electric and water resources meter replacement and AMI project in the amount of $234,000 $20.47 and authorized the city manager to approve an additional $250,000 in future change orders as needed. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Next up, we heard on item number two from Eric regarding negotiating and executing a contract with J.D. Goodrum for the construction of the hangar in common at the Concord Paget Regional Airport in the amount of $13,229,824.96. Does anybody have additional questions for Eric? If not, I would entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a contract with JD Goodrum for construction of the hangar in common.

So moved, sir. I'll second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Next up, also from the airport, which Eric talked with us about approving the selection of Talbert Bright and Ellington as the selected firm for professional airport architect engineering consulting services for development projects, and special services at the Concord Paget Regional Airport as required for federal aviation administration compliance for a five-year period, and to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute the contract with Talbert, Bright, and Ellington, Incorporated. Any additional questions on that one? then I would entertain a motion to approve the selection of TBE as the professional AE for Concord Paget Regional Airport as required by FAA compliance and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute the contract with Talbert, Bright, and Ellington Incorporated. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Item number four, Jessica talked with us on Tuesday. Consider adopting a resolution concerning the approval of the execution and delivery of an installment financing contract with Flagstar Public Funding Corporation. Does anybody have additional questions on that one? If not, I would entertain a motion to adopt a resolution concerning the approval of the execution and delivery of an installment financing contract with Flagstar Public Funding Corporation in order to obtain funds to pay the cost of constructing, equipping and furnishing a new facility designed to support the city's communications and emergency management operations and the granting of a security interest and allowing the officers of the city to execute the installment financing contract and take other actions to implement the financing. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there discussion? All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Next up, item five. Rick talked to us about authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute a contract with Edifice Construction for the construction of the City of Concord Communications and Emergency Operations Center. Does anybody have any additional questions on that one? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a contract with Edifice Construction Incorporated for the construction of the City of Concord Communication and Emergency Operations Center in an amount not to exceed $7,523,869. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. And we move to item six. Valerie talked with us about consider adopting a resolution authorizing the transfer by private sale of 91 Coral Drive Southwest and 515 Honduras Street Northwest to Habitat for Humanity of Cabarrus County Incorporated for the purpose of development of affordable housing. Any additional questions on that one? Hearing none. I would entertain a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the transfer of 91 Crowell Drive Southwest and 515 Honduras Street Northwest to Habitat for Humanity of Cabarrus County Incorporated for the purpose of development of affordable housing and directing the city manager, city clerk, and city attorney to take all necessary steps and to execute the necessary documents order to affect the conveyance of the property okay we have a motion and a second any discussion all in favor please say aye all opposed no that motion passes next Jackie talked with us about item 7 considering a preliminary application from Daniel And I'm sure I pronounced this correctly. Sir Jay? Where is he? That's close enough. Okay, good, good, good. So does anybody have any additional questions on that item? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to accept the preliminary application and have the owner proceed to the final application phase excluding annexation. And this is for water service outside the city limits. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Next, we move to item number eight, which I spoke about on Tuesday night, and that is to appoint Carl Strominger to the at-large vacancy on the Public Art Commission with the term ending 9-10-29. And I would entertain the motion to do so.

I'll make that motion, please.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. We move now to the consent agenda. No one has made me aware of any concern or anything that anyone wanted to pull off. So I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. And we move now to advisory boards and partner reports. First up, we have Patrick from WeBuild.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Morris, City Council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kuczynski, Ms. Jenkins. I'm going to try to go through this as quickly as possible. I know it's been a long night for you all. But I want to just draw your attention to a couple of of data points from FY26. As you know, that our fiscal year, like yours, is from July 1 through June 30. And so what I'm about to present you is also based on audited numbers. If you look on slide three, you'll see that this year we had 16 homes sold or under contract, which resulted in $4.2 million in new home owner assets. Those individuals now have those assets in this community and they own them. And they are now tax paying citizens of the city of Concord. The average Webill resident saves now over $360 per month by living in or owning a Webill home. And so what we do is that we compare where they were before they were placed in housing, either in rental or in ownership, and then look at where they are after placement. So I'll give you an example. Many of you attended. Two of our sisters who both at homes live side by side. Well, She spends now less than $1,000 a month all in on her mortgage, that includes taxes and everything. She was spending around 12.50 for one bedroom. And I'll remind you too that she was actually having a child three days before closing. That child was born and our lawyers went over to the hospital and did her closing there. But she's an example of those type of savings. that come with ownership but come with affordability. The average age of a WeBuild homeowner now is 36. That means through our entire history. This is about four years younger than the national average for a first-time home buyer. First-time home buyers are averaging about 40 years old. And as of FY26, we have built 55 homes with 27 under development and several prospective developments. Economic impacts. During FY26, over 240 employees worked at Webill sites. This is confirmed through the subcontractors themselves. FY26, the overall economic impact of projects and housing developments was 15.2 million, according to the formulas of the National Home Builders Association. So what this really equates to is, for example, the city, your investment last year, 1.8 million, actually equals about 15.2, which means for every dollar that you invest, $8.45 goes out in economic development. And this is one of the ways that we measure our return on investment when we are trying to develop housing. And over the last three years, WeBuild developed, sold, or held over $28 million in assets. Neighborhood impact. FY26, over 50% of new WeBuild homeowners are 33 years old or younger, creating new generations for neighborhoods. I think that's very important. given the fact that it's becoming very hard for young people to own. But this year, over 50% of our homeowners actually were under the age of 33. Lincoln Street Townhomes and the sanctuary, and I want to thank you all, many of you who attended that opening, influenced new development in the Logan and Gibson neighborhoods. When I was at Lincoln Street a few weeks ago, A gentleman across the street was building some town homes. I believe it was one of the workers made the comment when he found out who I was and when I approached him that a lot of their decision was also made by the fact that they saw the Lincoln Street town homes there. That they had this desire but decided they would move forward. with it because they saw a new development in that community. So I think that that's an important part. So as you probably noted at the beginning on our first slide, we talk about building people, but we're also talking about reimagining neighborhoods, how you reimagine them. And with the upcoming developments like the cottages at Corbin, WeBuild would create greater access and beautify corridors to downtown Concord. I want you to think about the fact, if you go down Church Street, it tells you something as you're coming into downtown Concord, right? It is a business court. You see that. If you come down Union, it gives you a sense of grander old Concord, larger homes, canopies of trees, right into the center of downtown.

But when you come down Corbin into downtown, it doesn't have that, which is that Corbin

I think what you'll notice most about these is that they're slightly bigger than tiny homes. They are cottages. This will be the first to really test that ordinance. I'm actually happy to see some of the changes, too. It does help us a little bit with a site like that. And so there's some other things that we want to talk about moving forward. I would like to reach out to you about that development. And we have some others in the mills, there's four homes. We're trying to decide on how those would look. So we're currently looking around at some of our current developments as well as architecture. The Weddington Townhomes should be closing soon. And if you remember, that's a development, a private developer who provided eight of those lots at no cost. And of course, it also helps us sort of place affordability in areas that normally don't have it. Popular Tent will be our first metal home. Remember that this originally was going to be the site that we were going to take the home at Ramser, the Ramser home. That, if you remember contractually, was supposed to be the home that we would use as a development project. and those proceeds would go towards Corbin. We are still gonna honor that. So we're just doing it with a different building or a different structure. We were also able to get that property as well as the mills through private partnerships at 50,000 for all five lots. other single-family homes that are coming. And of course, the repositioning project, we still have reserved our one million. And why I think that's important is that I want to remind us that Webill is your sister organization. We're actually on your audit, which is important to remember. We are here to also look out as an organization even for the interest of the city. One of the reasons that we came up with the idea to have a policy around private developers that when they say they would build something affordable too, right, that sometimes not a real way for you to enforce it if they renege. But we can. And we've done that through contracts already. But it wasn't because we wanted land from them. That's actually a nice second thing to come along with it. It was because we felt we had to find a way to protect the city itself.

Why?

Because we assist the organization. We're probably the only nonprofit, too, that finds a way to get a million dollars back to you. Do you know how that came about? It came about because when you had some earmarks from Congress, they wouldn't allow the city to access some of that. But we said we can use some of that for affordable development. But we can also... work some of it back to the city for the same purpose. That's how that came about. And when things still took a little bit longer, what we said was, well, we'll take a loan out on Kerr and go ahead and proceed to use those funds somewhere else, but still honor the commitment. And now it will come with no strings at all. We have never stopped knowing who we are and what our relationship is. I have never forgot that. So as we move forward in fiscal year 27, we're going to make land acquisition and rehab properties a priority for us, because now we are getting close to where we will be running out of land for projects. And this environment is very tough to find land. So we're gonna be needing some support with you there. Single family home developments, we've heard it loud and clear. We're gonna slow down on town homes. We've been actually approached about town homes with private developers, and we influenced one so far to change the whole plan to single family, and then we can approach you together. So we are going to go into single-family currently. And we would like to also look at some mixed-use development. Identify private partnerships for low-income housing tax credits or other models. We've had some conversation. We want to increase the visibility of the North Carolina Community Land Trust Coalition. One of the things that we helped do is that we co-led the starting of a new statewide organization around land trust to help with permanent affordability, not just in urban areas, but also in suburban and rural areas. And we feel that that can bring some resource back to Concord and Cabarrus. And the Revolving Fund and Housing Development Campaign will be making an announcement during the annual breakfast We have a supporter now who will be helping us run a campaign to raise even more dollars for what is very important. Hardest thing that we deal with, so that you know, is when you're trying to build homes that are permanent, you can't just do them in one place. They're gonna be all over and they all can't look the same. because communities have different tastes, they have different aspirations, and we believe in what we call a seven-touch rule, that we touch you seven times, that tells us something about you, what desires are, and we do that. So we'll be approaching you for financial support as well as for partnerships around some of these type of developments. because we have a lot in front of us and we're moving pretty fast. 55 homes actually in three years, we almost made it to that 20 a year. And I want us to keep pressing that because at the end of the day, we can't do it at two and three homes a time if we're going to make a dent in this issue. we're gonna have to find a way to increase it more and more. So with that, if you have any questions for me, I know you've gotta be tired by now, I am too, I've been up since five.

I don't have any questions and I want to make it quick because I equally know some people here and it's probably past their bedtime, just like mine, but impressive. But I also feel honored that one, the council before me has actively participated in ensuring that there is adequate housing for all of our residents. and just the active participation now to know that that's still of support. I am humbled to even know the stats and that we are actually superseding national averages. And that shows the work that you have done, that your team has done, but also the commitment of the community in which you are in. And to me, what I see that as, It's a possibility for Concord to even become a model at the national level and to be able to showcase What are the success points? What is it doing in order to to have younger homeowners? Because a lot of people that is their pathway that is their dream to become a homeowner so I'm incredibly proud of you and what's been done and I really look forward to the continuous commitment and I'm sure whichever the discussion you're going to have, our leader as the mayor of this council, he'll make sure to have that with you. But I'm just proud to have an organization like WeBuild as part of our community.

Thank you for that. And I also thank you all for your support. As you said, being a model, we are speaking at four conferences between September and October. One more in November. Actually, that's five. on this model, our land trust. And that's because of your support, it's because of this community. And if you look over the last six months, we have been in the news more than any of the larger developers, even in Charlotte, for the work that's going on here. I had one reporter tell me about Kerr Street. He said it's the smallest, biggest development I've seen because of the attention that it garnered. And that's because of you all and the imagination of a town that is big enough to make a little noise, but yet small enough to pivot and make some moves. Thank you all.

Yes, sir, thank you. Okay, we are happy to have Brad Stevens from the Public Art Commission, who has very patiently hung in here with us and probably didn't anticipate speaking quite this late, but welcome.

It's okay. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of council. Good evening, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kolesinski, and Ms. Jenkins. Again, my name is Brad Stevens. I'm the new chairman of the Public Arts Commission. And before I get started on our little update, I want to thank Doyle Ducey, who has had this role previously for the past three years. So it's an incredible job that he has done. I'll be quick as I can as I go through this. I wanna talk about our recent bus wrap project. This was a successful installation and completion of buses for three buses that are now actually running around the city. These were three Concord artists that were selected for this. There's been a great positive social media presence and social media response for these. So we're excited to see that and to have that momentum. And the commission's right now exploring some possible little recognition for those artists, still TBD, but we'll send you an update once that happens. We're also looking at our fiscal year 27 budget. We've got some items that we've sort of delineated out, including artist stipends and installation for the new signal box project, which I'll talk about here in a moment. Also, continuation of the sculptures on the Union Street, the streetscape, which is a two-year term. There's a contest that we'll run this fall, and so there's a budget line item for that as well. Also, one new mural whose location is still to be determined. We have yet to vote on the final budget that will take place in our September meeting. Moving on to the signal box wraps. So if anyone's not familiar, we have a project where we're recruiting artists to wrap projects, wrap, excuse me, signal boxes across the city. We have 10 locations selected. Seven of them are representative from each district, as well as three that are specific to school sites. So we have, and we're working to partner with, right now, Arboreal McAllister, Central Cabarrus, and West Cabarrus to potentially partner with their art departments to wrap those specific signal boxes. Let's see, right now we have an artist selection committee established that includes three members of the council, so look forward to working with you guys on that. We have over 50 plus artists from Concord and surrounding areas that have submitted designs, and we'll be making that decision over the course of September, and installation, I believe, happens over the course of the next following months after that. Any questions? All right, thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us tonight. Okay, does anybody have any general comments that they would like to make?

That was a heavy lift on that one, and I don't know if that was your first one, but you did well, and every person that I talked to that talked to you loved you, so. Thank you. Professionalism is key when emotions are high.

We do have need of a closed session tonight. So at this time, I would entertain a motion that we go into closed session. pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 , in order to discuss the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by this public body. So we have a motion. Second. We have a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. We are now in closed session. Thank you.