Joint City County Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning everybody. Thank you all for being here. I know we've got a couple committee members who are running uh a bit late, but we do have quorum. So I think that we can uh start through the agenda. Um so let's begin with a call to order. Chair Baker here. Vice Chair Dr. Lee present. Mayor Prom Cabierra excused. Planning Commissioner Chair Shagaris here. Commissioner Jacobs, she's running late. Council member Copek here. Commissioner Valentine also running late.

And also um Council Member Burus I think is in replace of Cababiro also running late. All right. Thank you so much. Um, so adjustments to the agenda. I have one which is just under the city count and county managers priority items. I'm going to to um turn things over for a couple minutes to uh Director Young to give us a little bit of an update on the UDOLC um situation. Then we can then we can move on from there. Are there are there any other adjustments to the agenda? No. Okay. Thank you. Uh, any announcements?

No announcements. All right, approval of the minutes for February 4th, 2026. Move approval. Second. All right, we've got a move to approval and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those against, nay. All right, approval minutes are approved. Um, city and county managers priority items. You want to go first? Good morning. Abram Miles with the Durham City Attorney's Office. This um there are no priority items except for the ones that Miss uh Council Member Baker has added to the agenda.

Curtis Massie of the County Attorney's Office. No priority items. Thank you so much, Director Young.

Good morning, everybody. Uh wanted to just give a little status update of where we are with the new UDO uh LDC land development code project. Um as you all know the project has been paused for the moment. Uh we did have uh kind of anformational meeting. We turned the planning what should have been the planning commission public hearing last week into kind of anformational meeting uh so that residents could still you know ask questions um and get a brief update. Uh we did receive I think quite a number of comments during that time. Um I shared at that uh event that the project uh was paused and uh that we were working on we would be working on kind of how we might move forward. But at the time we did not have a timeline. We still do not have a timeline. We're exploring ways that we might be able to move forward. But as of yet there's no decisions, no direction. So this is kind of an unsatisfying update, but I think it was important to kind of get it out um on the record. Understandable. Do colleagues, do you have any questions about that? TBD is the status update. Thank you for that, Director Young. Um, all right, moving on. Uh, item five, consol consolidated cases summary. Uh to Chair Baker, uh Vice Chair Dr.

Lee, uh members of the uh JCCPC, good morning. Um I'm Javar Jones, obviously with planning and development. I'm before you this morning to present the consolidated case preview. Uh for this quarter, we have two uh applicable cases. Um just want to take a moment to provide some information for you. The first case is Laurel Creek. Um the proposal includes reszoning from residential rural to plan development residential 4.402 to allow for up to 1,520 single family townhouse or apartment units. Um, also included in the proposal is 25,000 square ft of commercial space and a fire station. Uh, the location is this is an assemblage of parcels around Carpenter Pond Road, Kemp Road, um, and Old Kemp Road. The site acreage is 323.79 acres. The existing use is single family residential, uh, agricultural and, uh, parts of it are undeveloped. Uh current jurisdiction for these parcels are within the county. The applicant is proposing to be annexed into the city. This would also be a satellite annexation. U the place type it is currently mixed residential neighborhood and mixed use neighborhood. The proposal includes keeping those two current place types and adding the additional recreation and open space. I would just like to pause there if there are any

colleagues. Any questions? Obviously a very very large case. Yeah. Javar, did you say that they had profered a fire station site? Yes. Okay.

And uh Commissioner Jacobs and Commissioner Valentine are now here. Good morning, everybody. And colleagues, we are we are on item five currently. [snorts] Ch, did you have a question? Baker, is this site inside or outside of the UGB? Um, it is inside the UGB. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. [clears throat] What's the expected timing uh for this case to come to planning commission uh and to council?

Uh council member Copek, that's an excellent question. I'm not entirely sure since it's still under review. Um I believe it's still in the first cycle of staff review. Um, so it I imagine it will be just a little bit of of time before um it gets scheduled, but I'm sure that we can provide an update as the case progresses. I'm just curious, do we know who um who is the applicant on this one?

Yes, the um applicant is Pamela Porter of TMTLA um representing the owners of the parcels in the in the area. Okay. So, is it is it um is there an option on the site? Do we know that kind of thing? I don't think I'm I'm my answer would be no. Okay. It's just the land owners bringing this forward as far as I'm aware. Okay. Any other questions, colleagues?

Yeah. I I I have some I'll make some further comments at the end of our meeting today, but I I and I have some work to do to follow up with planning staff from our work session on Monday, but um I just want to make sure that and this is in East Durham um that that the whatever report is done on this includes um impacts to EMS. Okay. Um, and Commissioner Jacobs, you said you have some additional comments. Do do you want to set aside a little bit of time after item eight?

Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Okay. Any other questions, colleagues? All right.

Okay. And the last case that we have is Massie Chapel Road Assemblage. Oh, excuse me. It uh the proposal is um the applicants wanting to reszone from residential rural um to plan development residential 18.021 to allow for up to 470 townhouse or apartment units. Um it is within the area of Cool Springs Road, Ellison Drive, Massie Chapel Road. The total acreage for the proposal is 35.52 acres with existing uses of single family residential and undeveloped. It's currently in the county. They are um asking to be annexed into the city. Um they are not changing the place type. It's currently mixed residential neighborhood and recreation open space. Yeah. questions, colleagues. Yeah, [clears throat] just so I can um I know what I'm looking at here. Um is that connected to the city of Durham line or is that over a little bit? Like is there a space between the city of Durham line and this I I can't really tell.

Dotted line up here. I I don't think that there are any spaces. I believe that it is contiguous with current city limits. Those two parcels are okay. Sorry. Okay. Let's continue. Sorry. Okay. All right. Thank you. That I couldn't really sometimes. Hard to tell. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Any other questions, colleagues? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

All right, moving on. Item six is the multimodal traffic impact analysis project introduction. Good morning everyone. Lisa Miller with the planning and development department. Um I just want to give a quick uh introdu introduction and then hand things over to Jennifer Baldwin, our consultant. Um some of you may recall uh within our budget for this year uh we requested and received uh funds to pursue uh a methodology for multimmodal traffic impact analysis. This is something we've been wanting to do for a really long time and are really excited about essentially uh giving us more opportunity to look for pedestrian bike transit kinds of improvements uh through the TIA process. Um, so I we just are here today to introduce you all to the project. We will be coming back later on uh once we have a draft methodology to get input um and answer questions about that. Um today we mostly just want to hear if there's anything you want us to consider as we're going through things, questions you want us to be um thinking through as we do that. But I will hand things over to Jennifer Baldwin from Three Oaks um who's our consultant on the project to walk you through this.

Great. Thanks, Lisa. And good morning, everyone. We're excited to be working on this project with you. Oops, I think I hit the wrong button. Sorry. [laughter] Um as Lisa mentioned, I'm Jennifer Botton with Three Oaks Engineering and we do a lot of TIA work across the state. have worked really closely with NC DOT on their TIA process. Thank you so much. Um, and so really to sum up why we're here, Lisa kind of summed up the intent of the process, but it's also a direct recommendation from the 2025 vision zero action plan as well as the 2030 comp plan. So, we're our purpose is to find a legally defensible approach and those are key words that I'll mention a little bit later. Um, and we want to find a way to emphasize safety, [clears throat] equity, and accessibility for all roadway users. Um, and then, you know, looking into and investigating options to tie recommendations to the high injury network or other previously identified routes and recommendations. So, what's that mean? We wanted to set the stage with like some basic knowledge on what the traditional TIA process looks like versus what a multimodal TIA process could look like an existing national best practice. And so to sum it up, and I'm sure most of you know, you know, the existing process is predominantly focused on vehicle traffic. So the only real way to measure and to identify improvements when they're needed is through a level of service analysis. And so the state uses the LOS analysis to identify if a development comes in, they're required to do XYZ based on that projected level of service. In a best practice multimodal approach is you're really starting to think beyond the curb and also for all users. So we're not just focused on how to improve service and safety for vehicles and drivers. We're looking at all modes. And so this allows you to tie and require improvements such

as crosswalk, speed management, traffic calming, transit access, and then beyond the curb for um curbside management. So the current process in the city, this is I don't need to go into detail on this. This is just to acknowledge we are looking into and aware of the current process. And I think one of the early goals of our process is we don't want to remove what y'all are already doing really well. We just want to enhance this, you know, as needed to be able to provide that extra level of identification and requirement for multimodal access and safety. And so here's the legal constraints. We did want to set the stage that when you look nationally for national multimodal best practice, you most are going to find and site cases from California and West Coast cities and locations. And that's because their state legislation is set up very different than ours here is in North Carolina. And so we just wanted to highlight some of our limitations are going to reflect our current general statutes and the legislators um action. And so we don't want to flag and require legislation action. We want to work within the system, but do as much as we can. And there is some flexibility. So often, you know, when it says here restricted impact fees, you know, we have had success here in Durham getting those in, it's just case by case. So we're just trying to tighten up what, you know, the city and the county is able to do. Okay. So, a little bit of an overview of what we're doing as part of this scope of work. On the technical side, we are conducting a literature and background research. So, we're looking at three different case studies um from across the state as well as a couple national mainly east coast so that they can be a little bit more of an applesto apples comparison. And then we're diving into developing an administrative process as well as a detailed calculation and methodology for how you could go about updating your TIA policy. And then the final technical output will be a draft ordinance. And then on the engagement,

because we know we don't do this in a silo, we want to make sure that we are collaborating with multiple different city and county staff. And so we have a series of staff meetings that where we're going to work through this process together. And then here is just a bullet list of the different stakeholders that we've identified that we want to bring in and have conversations with before we get to the end of the process. And then the overall schedule we just kicked off last month and so we're kind of in the process of doing those case studies as well as having the collaboration with different agencies and stakeholders like yourselves. Um, and we're working through an early process um, our and methodology approach. The general schedule, we're trying to keep this fairly tight. So, we're looking at a six-month schedule where we do a lot of the technical work and have the right stakeholder involvement throughout um, and ultimately trying to have a draft recommendation that can go before council um, and the board of commissioners in August. And I'm going to turn it back to Lisa to talk through some of the questions. Thanks, Jennifer. Um, so as Jennifer mentioned, we kicked off last month with our internal staff group. So, we've got representation from the county transportation department, uh, city transportation department, as well as, uh, all of the parts of our department that are really involved in, uh, different aspects of the development process. Um we will also be bringing NCD dot in uh in uh short order. [snorts] Um but we did have some initial conversation around these questions. So wanted to kind of share the questions with you all share some of our initial thinking um get any feedback or or thoughts that you all want to share on this as well. So some of the things that we'll need to decide as part of this process and in in establishing the methodology is where this will apply. um

in our initial discussion uh essentially including the city everything within the UGB and then there was some conversation about including uh RTP and Treyburn within the county. So if there are other parts of the county that you think would be important to to include that's something that's great feedback. Um, another piece is when this comes into play, what triggers the the multimodal TIA um what point in the process that occurs uh as well as what's the um amount of development uh and how's that quantified in order to trigger this. Um and then are there some specific locations where we want this to always apply. Um another piece is kind of how we transition. We have kind of a traditional model now. We could do a full replacement of that. we could do some sort of hybrid approach. Our initial thoughts in the staff meeting was that because so many of our corridors are NC DOT um maintained that we likely need to do some sort of hybrid approach. Um although it did sound like there's openness from NCDOT to kind of learn from what we're trying to explore here and see if there are things that um could be pulled into their consideration as well. Um, and then the last piece is kind of what level of complexity is realistic or desired. Um, one of the things that Jennifer and Mark walked through with us is kind of, you know, you can have this really complex regression model where you like put in all these data points and it, you know, spits out an answer. Or you can have kind of a a point system where you have a bunch of different people who could assess something and come to the same general conclusion that has a little bit more combination of qualitative and quantitative um understanding of of uh the circumstances around the development. So those are our initial thought was that something more towards that point system um seems both more user friendly as well as more um likely to yield us good results that are

understandable. So um those are our initial kind of thoughts around any of those things. Um that's the last slide other than just the next one just says questions on it. So, I can leave this slide up um leave it open for you all to give us either any feedback around kind of our initial thinking on these questions, things that you want us to consider or look into, um other information that you'd like. We're happy to do our best to answer questions or or get you more information. Thank you so much, colleagues. Yes.

Well, I think this is great. Um, and one stakeholder that I don't see on here is the Triangle West TPO. I really strongly recommend that we work with them. Um, also to look at the 20 destination 2055 um, MTP that was just approved because what we have done in that plan is to try to change how we measure um, mobility.

Okay. And [snorts] so the kind of shift that we're trying to make here completely aligns with what's in the MTP. We are trying to measure the movement of people, not cars. And I mean I think that's that's for me is the central change that I think I want to see us align with that is that we're that's what we're talking about.

Absolutely. Um and there are um in terms of the goals in the MTP, we directed the staff to come up with new ways of measuring how people how we move people around. So I think that could really be helpful um for what we're doing here. Um and I think this should be involved with every every part of our planning honestly. [gasps] I mean, we should have this kind of, you know, mobility focus and safety focus when we're looking at everything.

Yeah. So, um, and the other thing that I would suggest, and I'm glad to hear you mention that you're working with county transportation staff is, um, I would suggest, um, and this came up, um, Javier, uh, Coun Mayor Prom is now chair of the, um, TPO and at our last meeting, we discussed, um, all of the governments inviting um, Triangle West to present on the 2055 5 um plan. So I would suggest we get that on a invite them to come and present on the agenda. So but this is great. Thank you so much colleagues questions comments compliments.

Yes on that last one just a compliment. Excited to see this moving forward. Uh thank you for exploring it and for the three Oaks team. Um uh I think it's particularly important you highlighted the intersection of this work with our high injury network um as well as vision zero and the comprehensive plan but I think the high injury network is is really critical piece of this as we u think about trying to prioritize reduction of of traffic incidents besides just cars but also bike and pedestrian uh as well and really centering that and how we think about road safety. Um so I appreciate that that element. Um, you know, I'll have to learn more about how this would appropriately intersect with our various processes. Uh, I'm inclined to, you know, agree with, uh, with, um, Commissioner Jacobs, uh, about the value of integrating this everywhere. Um, but I'll want to learn as we go about what that that looks like and understand sort of the kind of the resourcing for staff as well and and what that means for for y'all, too. Um, but excited to to pursue this and see it integrated wherever we can. So thank you. [snorts]

Thank you chair. So thank you for your work and uh I guess my question is the deliverable is a draft ordinance and so our work with NC DOT and their considerations. Do you see that causing any barriers to like the final work product? I mean they they control primarily all of the terrain we're talking about largely.

You want to Yeah. Yeah. I can answer that and we're still we're going to work through that more so I don't have an actual answer. I think in general in the ordinance and that's what Lisa was talking about at a hybrid approach is the ordinance is going to have to address what we do on city maintained roads versus statemaintained roads. I think it's going to be especially important to make that connection to vision zero and the high injury network. Most of the HIN is on statemaintained roadways. So working with them, I think our early conversations with both the division and the central office is they've also been looking at ways to improve their process. They are just more directly tied to state law. And so any change that they make in their process is going to require state law and I think we can all agree that that is always an open-ended question mark and you kind of got to be careful what what you ask for when you take something there. So that's just going to take a different thought process and likely a much different timeline. So, we're going to work to acknowledge that and address it, but still stay focused on what what y'all can move forward with, you know, first.

Uh, thank you for that answer and thank you for acknowledging that the the date for the deliverable might be pushed back depending on circumstances. All right. Thank you. [clears throat]

Any other questions, comments? I've got [clears throat] a couple questions. Um can you tell us just high level what what might we see different um through the implementation of something like this at kind of like a project level? So um because we can we can require uh trails um we can require certain street crosssections when those come in um that that do implement a multi more multimodal design. And in fact, that's kind of what we have drafted in in the new LDC. Um, can you just kind of lay out what would it look like potentially?

Yeah, I can lay out big picture, but we're still working through the answers to those questions. So, we're still very early on in the process. But what we're thinking about now and what Montgomery County, Maryland does is they have a process when a development comes in or something is under consideration. You have identified elements that you want to measure or assess either qualitatively or quantitatively. And if the developer is meeting so many different elements and they can all have different point system, then they can buy back points in terms of other requirements. So if they're achieving everything on the multimodal front, maybe that reduces some of the requirements on the vehicular front. So that's a very elementary way of looking at it. There's some legal, you know, constraints with with doing that, but that's that's kind of what we're the give and take. And I think what's been identified early from staff is we don't want to reduce any of the great requirements that you're already doing, and we don't want to put more restrictions on staff to be able to have to spend too much time. So, it's finding the right balance of a lot of structure and detail, but then also still having flexibility as it relates to how um you know the development [clears throat] size, where it's located and and other elements.

Thank you so much. Add one other thing um is just the applicability. So, like within downtown right now, we don't require TAS because it didn't seem appropriate to be adding, you know, traffic lane, turn lanes and travel lanes and things like that. So, ever since that was removed, we've been talking about trying to do this sort of thing so that in a place like downtown, this can apply and we can get some of those improvements.

Yeah. I just want to also add in terms of applicability, you know, the whole purpose of this is when a development comes through, right, a normal TIA determines the impacts of that development on the road network and then what improvements, additional improvements need to be made. So if now we're talking about potential other improvements in terms of pedestrian and bike and other infrastructure, we need to make sure that um this is applied in places where there's a mechanism to keep that maintained, accepted, etc. Which is why I think the county issue is such a delicate one that we need to deal with since we just recently agreed that we would even be rolling back our sidewalk requirements in the county. So, I think this is um something that we're going to have to like wrestle with as you all kind of work through this. Where exactly should this apply uh because I think it will be challenging to apply it wholesale everywhere. So, I just wanted to kind of add that. I'll also add which I skipped over it but part of the scope and process is once we have a draft process and methodology we're going to test it on different um case study examples so that you'll be able to see before it's approved how that would look what would that would have changed from previous requirements to under this new process. So I think that'll help and you know we haven't decided yet but that could probably be a location in the county so that we can understand what those look like downtown and then maybe somewhere in between.

Cool. Yeah, thank you. Um we are a very autocentric city. Um and so I think on the one hand we could take an approach of being as aggressive as possible everywhere all the time. Um, I think that also uh the the the concern there is are we are we watering down our our potential if we are pretending like we're trying to be walkable in places that we're not versus an approach um that's more in line with um the uh what's it urban triage and trying to determine what are those places where we can really maximize the potential and build out different parts of our city to become and transition ition to to become more more walkable and more multimodal. So, um, as far as I'm concerned, these are great questions for me. There's still questions and I'm I'm very excited about moving forward with this process and um, getting a little closer to some answers in the future on on what these look like. Any other questions or comments from colleagues?

Yeah. Well, and we've talked a lot about this at the um TPO level and as we've worked on the major transportation plan and a lot of it is like what do you value, what do you measure and you know a lot of most of our measurements again are focused on cars and moving cars quickly. Um, and so I think it's really important that we are very thoughtful and that's why I've suggested looking at the measurements in the MTP because we do want obviously we're part of that and we want to be in alignment but again if we flip and we have to work with NC DOT and I think we do have a really good partner with NC DOT. Um but if we start, you know, looking at what are we what are we measuring if we are lifting up things like safety and people's ability to be able to cross the street um you know or to walk or ride a bike safely, things like that. We're we we have to have different ways of measuring those things, right? and not just the speed of cars getting through somewhere. So, uh I think this is going to be a really important process and it really does align with our comprehensive land use plan um and it's even things like um you know roundabouts um and how how do we use things like roundabouts and also make those bike and pedestrian safe? Um, so I I think it opens up a lot of opportunity to just try to look at things differently and

um, yeah. So

that point I'll I'll just add to um, and I love your your focus on coordinating with the TBO. We can definitely do that. Um, in terms of measuring and part of the multimodal which I'm sure you guys know, data collection has been limited. we have just as a society focused on vehicular data and so we don't have that much bicycle and pedestrian and so that'll be good to work with the TPO to identify if there's opportunity for data collection because I'm I'm assuming that throughout this process we can identify ways we could measure but may not have the right data point to be able to do that immediately and so just identifying some of those missing gaps because data outputs are only as good as your data inputs and that's going to be that's the challenge of making it too data driven and it's still going to need some sort of qualitative while we're navigating that.

And the other question is the role of transit. Yeah. Right. Because if you are and again it depends if you we're talking about a transit corridor, if we're then making it possible if we're we're prioritizing the transit investment there, then there's going to be less need for those road improvements. So yeah.

Yeah. This is yet another example. I mean um we over the past hundred years collectively as a nation forgot how to build cities um that for for people rather than for cars and for traffic. And we forgot how to build for people and places. And it's not just one thing. It's not just zoning. It's not just your cross-section. It's not just how financing works and parking minimums and this and that. It's all these different pieces. And this is just one one of those pieces and steering the ship away from complete domination of automobiles and and for other ways of getting around. So, thanks for taking this on. Uh we definitely want to be bold um and have great outcomes. So, thank you. Look forward to more updates in the future.

Thanks so much. Thanks y'all. All right. Item number seven, Durham Parks and Recreation Acquisition and Acceptance Policy. One second.

Yeah.

Good morning, uh, Chair Baker, Vice Chair, Dr. Lee. My name is Austin Bowman. I'm a senior planner with DPR. At the January JCCPC meeting, um we co-presented an item with our colleagues in planning regarding park access in the city and in the county. And at that time, we kind of previewed for you all that DPR was in the process of updating um several kind of planning tools that we have at our disposal. One of which is our land acquisition and acceptance policy. Um we have updated that. It has been reviewed by the recreation advisory commission who voted in favor of endorsing the policy. So we wanted to take that opportunity to present an update to you on that policy and other planning work that we're doing that will supplement that policy. So to kind of contextualize kind of why we're doing this, obviously the city is growing rapidly which is presenting us a lot of opportunities through development to expand our park system. And at the same time we have 66 hopefully soon to be 67 parks that require ongoing operations and maintenance as well as um significant investment to modernize and make sure those are relevant for the community. So that presents kind of an an inherent tension between our commitment to our current system, our opportunities to expand the system and make sure that we're doing that in a judicious way and when we are taking in new land and considering the development of new parks that we're doing so in a way that aligns with the broader goals of the system. So um I'm going to cheat a little bit. This is why I print these. Um so the other thing that's happened since um our initial acquisition and acceptance policy was adopted was that the parks comprehensive system plan was adopted in 2025. So our original policy was drafted and adopted in 2024.

And uh the other kind of driving force to updating this was the adoption of the comprehensive plan and a need to kind of integrate the the values, the goals and the mission of that plan into our policy. So that when we are reviewing opportunities that come through particularly from development or whether we're going out to acquire properties that we are ensuring that there is alignment with that plan. There's also a specific action item in the comprehensive plan that I think this policy fits is a a piece of a larger effort which is to develop a land acquisition strategy that can expand our system strategically. So the old policy um that we are trying to update, the issue that we've run into with this policy is that it focused almost entirely on suitability of land. So the ability of the land to be developed into a park, which is certainly important. We don't want to be taking in land that we can't do anything with. Um but it doesn't answer kind of broader questions of is this profer in an area that's a priority for Durham Parks and Wreck? Is this land um is there alignment um with accepting this land in DPR system plan? Is there alignment in the citywide comprehensive plan or open space plans? So, it kind of lacked those clear criteria that assessed alignment more at a policy level and a long range planning level. The new policy still considers suitability. Like I said, that's very important. We don't want land that we can't do anything with, but it introduces some new criteria um that consider community need um strategic value alignment with city adopted plans and it kind of puts suitability as a secondary factor. So if land that's being offered or sought isn't in

alignment with our plans, whether or not it's suitable is kind of irrelevant, right? If if it's not meeting those higher level overarching goals, then we don't really need to evaluate the suitability because it's it's not of interest to us. But it does retain that so that if land does meet those alignments, we can then go and say, okay, can we actually do something with this? Um, is it developable? So those things are still there. It provides clear criteria to guide staff evaluation. So, prior to this policy, I think some of that alignment with plans was being articulated, but it was more ad hoc. It was not very clear to applicants or to other staff um what they should really be taking into account. So, this again kind of crystallizes that. And something new with this is we've um got or developed now with director Young and members of planning and development a clear integration into the development review process so that when these profers are being made there is a clear way for DPR to evaluate them get involved and then provide that information back to deliberating bodies whether that's the planning commission this body or city council. So the way the policy works um is again we now have that first kind of layer which is our need criteria. So this is looking at factors in the comprehensive plan that we're really looking at um need-based investment based on socioeconomic conditions and demographic conditions. There's a uh one of the guiding principles of the comprehensive plan is fairness first. And so this is really meant to embody that and make sure that we are keeping an eye on areas of the city and the county that really do um need investment that have maybe been overlooked in the past. The other

component of that is strategic value. Like I said, those are criteria that are meant to assess how well the opportunity aligns with city planning policy both for Durham Parks and Recreation and um city county planning. Once that's been evaluated, it's the suitability criteria. Is the site developable? Are there um environmental features that would preclude us from developing? Is it too steep? Um things of that nature. And then that results in a staff recommendation. The process that we have worked out with planning and development is that evaluation will come in the form of a memo that will be included with the staff report as well as comments provided back to the applicant. So they are aware they've made this profer. This is how it's being viewed by DPR. They still have their entire review process to revise it based on that feedback if they choose to. If they choose not to, obviously that's at their discretion. But again, it gives us a tool to communicate clearly to the applicant and to you all as you're deliberating these cases what is the likely outcome of this from our standpoint. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right, so again, visually I think this makes more sense than me talking about it in the abstract. this kind of tiered process where a project is evaluated against need and strategic value at the same time. So we are putting these on equal footing. So a project that is in an area of low need is not necessarily precluded from this, right? Because we could have a project in an area that hasn't demonstrated high need based off of the criteria in the system plan that provides a ton of strategic value for the department. It allows us to install amenities that are a high priority for us. it allows us to expand into an area of the city where we don't have a footprint. So, I just want to be clear that just because it doesn't check one of those boxes does not mean it doesn't move on. There's a reason they're on the same level.

Can I just interact here? Um when in the top box there it says profered or sought land. You just say what does that mean? So, the policy applies to profered land from private um developers, applicants or land that we are seeking. So if we are if we're presented with an opportunity or we find land, let's say adjacent to a park, we're also going to evaluate our wish list, if you will, against these same criteria. We want to play on the same playing field that everyone else has to play on so that when we're bringing a budget request to purchase that land, we can say that it is in line with the same policy that we hold everyone else to.

Yep. just to f because I was going to wait and ask this anyway, but when how are you is that I mean because this happens with us at the county side and we also know there is another opportunity like this for the city but when you just have somebody who moves forward and says it's not part of a development plan or it's not something you're out seeking but it's an opportunity

that a landowner says hey I want to donate ate this land or I really would like to see my land protected. I'm not going to sell it on the open market. Um I want it to be preserved and you you know how does that fit in? So it would go through the same exact process. So it's any opportunity whether it's brought to us or we have sought it out any opportunity to increase the land ownership of DPR will now go through this evaluation. So I would really suggest that you broaden that top category. Sure.

Because when you say proper or sought, it doesn't include the opportunities that may come before you. Yeah. Then we can update that to make it clear. That is the way it is functioning currently is that it's any land that's brought to us through any mechanism. But we can update the lang or ensure that the language of the policy makes that clear. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. So, I've talked through this a little bit, but the the updated policy now has two layers. The first layer again, community need and strategic value. I won't belabor this point, but again, is it meeting a need or is it furthering um goals or policies of the city? The second layer, whether the land can realist realistically be developed as a park or trail corridor. And I should say part of the suitability, a lot of these criteria really are about constructability, but it's also about can this park be developed in a way that is in alignment with DPR standards for other parks in our system. So if we're getting, again, this is a complete hypothetical, a profer of 2 acres and 1 and a half acres is in the riparian buffer, well that leaves us about a half an acre to realistically do something more intense with for recreational purposes. and that's not really in line with our standards for the rest of our system. So while we could physically build on that half acre, we couldn't build something that offers what we would like to offer and what the community expects of us. So that's part of that as well. So how these criteria are used, they're meant to guide evaluation, not serve as a checklist or scoring system. So you're not going to get like a scorecard in this memo. We're actually working through our first um evaluation using this policy and it's just your typical memo that kind of goes through this in broad strokes and calls out where there's alignment or if there's an area where there's a a real conflict that needs to be considered. Not every criteria applies to every site and some sites may offer value in ways that are not explicitly captured in this policy. So again, we're not closing the door on anything. We really recognize that no one has monopoly on good ideas and that to try to develop a policy that captures everything would take forever and it wouldn't really change outcomes.

So there is still that flexibility for staff discretion. Sites are not automatically rejected if they only meet a few criteria. So that's something we want to be really clear about. This isn't like you meet 11 out of 20, move forward, you meet nine out of 20, get lost, right? It's really about the value that you're bringing in the criteria that you're meeting and that you're not posing real conflicts with our existing system and the criteria that you're maybe not meeting. So, uh, as part of the need criteria, we developed something that we're calling the investment priority indicator. So, the comprehensive system plan had about 11 different indicators that were included in that that can assess need. So, are you more focused on environmental burden? Are you focused on health burden um socioeconomic issues? And the issue with that, while that is all great information, is that which one of these do you look at? Which is more important? What if they're all important? So, what we did was try to take the big indicators that are included in the system plan and integrate them into one tool. So, every parcel in the city and county have been scored by where they meet on these various indicators. And then it's kind of superscored. So if you have high health vulnerability, you might get two points for that. If you have high environmental burden, you might get two points for that. And then that score is totaled up. It's um it's again just giving us a way to identify areas where park investment both from the city side and from the development community should be prioritized, particularly in historically underserved neighborhoods. It's meant to inform decisions. It does not automatically exclude any site. Um, again, we are working through cases right now that are a low priority on this tool, but we very much have an interest in moving forward with. So, again, it's just an additional tool for us to quickly say, set off an alarm bell for us. Hey, this is one of those high

need areas. We really need to stay on top of this. We need to stay involved and make sure that we're getting what we need in this area because that's what our system plan says we need to do. This is what that indicator looks like. Uh in the memo, I think it was attachment um B or C. Um I can't remember which, but there is a link to a um draft version of this map that you can zoom in, zoom out of and see which areas are um high, medium, or low priority. But again, just because something's in that lighter purple low priority area, by no means does that mean we're not interested in any land in that area. So I talked a little bit about this but again to reiterate how this works in development review DPR evaluates profers early. If there is a profer made when an application comes in then we will review it and assess it in the first round of review. If it is made later in the process we will work with planning and development to figure out a timeline for us to evaluate that and get that to whomever is deliberating on that case currently as quickly as possible. The feedback will be included in staff reports. Um once we um kind of work through this review process with you all and potentially at a city council work session, we will publish these criteria publicly. They will be made available to applicants during the presubmitt process. We're also working with planning and development to update the um kind of template profer language for parks and open space so that it's more in alignment with this policy and that um for applicants who are choosing to use it and hopefully they all are. We have um detailed enough profers that we can really make a uh strong assertion to you all whether or not that's something we're interested in. Because one thing we're limited by right now is we'll give Durham Parks and Recreation 5 acres where um where is that going to be?

What's that going to look like? It's really hard for us to use anything other than those really high level things. So, we're giving you kind of a gut check almost of if generally this is a good idea versus this specific project is something that we think is a good idea. The benefits to this hopefully transparency. Again, I think we as much as this is a tool to kind of expand our system. We also want to be clear to the community how we're viewing these cases so that there's a very clear understanding of where we're coming from, reducing ad hoc decisions or decisions that are made, you know, one-on-one between staff members and applicants. And then, you know, we get situations where not everyone is aware of everything. better coordination between us and planning and development and hopefully all of that leads to stronger outcomes so that when votes are taken on cases again it's very clear what DPR is and is not going to do moving forward and what projects are a priority to us. Um again I this just takes that that flowchart and talks about how things are being evaluated at each level. I don't think I need to again dwell on that. So, what we feel like this update accomplishes and why we've done it, it centers equity, which is really one of the guiding principles of the system plan. It supports at the same time it supports all 66 of our parks. And it does that by making sure that before we bring something into a system that we've really thought about that and that it's a good idea and that we're not just opportunistically taking up land which then we've got to give time and resources to which may be to the detriment of our current parks. It aligns with adopted plans, reduces ad hoc decisions, and it builds the foundation for proactive planning. So this is a reactive tool, right? This is

to assess opportunities as they come to us through um through whatever manner. But there is still kind of a gap for a proactive tool that can really articulate from DPR from planning, hey, this is where we're looking for parkland and if you are in this area where we're looking for it, this is what we're looking for. And that's what we're working on next. So, we are continuing to develop a more robust land acquisition strategy that will include a park access and deficiencies analysis. So, this will show where we need land the most, a park classification system, which we do already have, but we are working on updating our minimum design and development standards so that when these projects come along, we can more confidently say this fits with our system. It fits within our classification system. it can accommodate the amenities that we want in different types of parks. The thing we've talked most about today, the policy and criteria articulating how potential new land is evaluated. Um, clearly defined and prioritized search areas for future land acquisition, profers and strategic planning and then a summary of available funding and recommen recommendations for potential new funding mechanisms for acquisition. We recognize that we have a lot of tools at our discretion for how we can acquire land, for how we can develop it, but I think there are some areas that we could try new things um to kind of bolster our ability to move quickly and efficiently on expanding the park system. So, uh, my last couple of slides, I want to zoom in just a little bit on the, um, the fourth bullet, the proactive part, the clearly defined and prioritize search areas. This is still in draft form. We we have not created maps yet. So, what we're really working on right now are identifying those tiers. So, right now, our our draft tier one is

critical access and equity areas. Um these are areas where people lack parks in conditions are the hardest. Um so the purpose of this tier is to direct investment to communities with the greatest current deficits and vulnerability. Uh the core factors here are access gaps um per DPR's level of service standards um high or medium equity and socioeconomic need per the system plan and environmental burden or stress. And I think one thing to think about when we're talking about these tiers is tier one isn't necessarily a higher priority on tier 2, but our expectations for tier one and tier 2 might be different. So for example, tier one, I would say that's an area where we should be expecting the city or DPR as well as other outside parties like developers to come to the table and help us fill these gaps. Whereas tier 2 high growth areas, this is where we should really be looking more to the development community. Right? These are areas that are growing. They're bringing a lot of new residents here, which is great. But they have needs when it comes to parks and recreation and as such, we should the expectation there should really shift away from the city to the development community. So tier 2 again, high growth areas, areas that'll need parks soon if we don't act now. So, if these developments come on, larger developments come online without parks, they will be in a gap in the future once they're fully built out and and people are moved into those. Those are areas that we are then going to have to go look for vacant land or land that we can purchase to develop a park. Tier three, we're calling amenities and system refinement. So, these are areas where we may not have a gap in park access, but we have a gap in popular amenities. So areas where we can look to really um more robustly develop the offerings of DPR and make sure that people in different parts of the city

have access to the same high priority amenities, not just a park. Tier four strategic opportunity areas. So this is kind of that really opportunistic but highly valuable rare or catalytic sites. Sites that offer something that it's kind of hard to articulate through policy, but you kind of know it when you see it. And those are sites that offer key partnership opportunities, unique features, or surplus land that we have that we can't do anything else with. So again, that's a it may not fit into those other tiers nicely, but it offers an opportunity to do something. And then the last one, and this is the one that will continue to be defined the least for the foreseeable future because we're really going to look to the city county open space plan to help us develop this tier, is high conservation value. So sites that aren't necessarily the most appropriate for a park or recreational opportunity, but there is absolutely value in protecting them whether or not they ultimately become publicly accessible or we're just holding that land in conservation for protection. So we do intend to include that. A lot of that is going to be dictated again by that city county open space process, the open space plan process and what comes out of that. And I think that's something that the consultant has already um demonstrated through their other work that they have the ability to do which is give us these criteria that we can then synthesize and say these are the areas we're looking for this. So that is my update for you all. I know that's a lot. It's a dense presentation and a dense memo but I am happy to take questions colleagues.

Thank you. Go ahead. No, you go first. You you and then you go. Uh thank you for this uh thank you for this presentation. Um um how often do you all reject land? Is it about the same as you accept it? I mean is it how is that? And um

so I would have to we can follow up on that. We have been working to kind of develop a um a running list of profers that we've received. I I think it's not so much whether we accept or reject the land, it's whether we end up with land we can actually do something with. And I think more often than not in a lot of cases we are getting profered land that is not sizable or enough or not suitable enough for park development. So we have these holdings in these developments that we're kind of hamstrung with that we can't do a lot with. Um I think the goal here is in light of that is to start accepting andor rejecting more so that we don't have land where an expectation has be been created that there's going to be a park or some type of um recreational open space that we can't actually do anything with.

So um in that in that train of thought um is there [clears throat] a minimum size? The reason I asked that is I would imagine um there's different size of different sizes of activities you can put on land. So, you know, of of course large large parts could have like the big slides and the big so and so and the big track or whatever it may be, but then smaller land may be something, [clears throat]

you know, some some other activity that may be smaller. So, I'm curious about that. Yeah, that's an excellent question. There there both is and isn't a minimum size. So the park classification system is broken up typically by the size of the parks and the amenities that can be accomplished. So you know the difference obviously between a neighborhood park and a pocket park. One is the size but also what can be accomplished in those. The other kind of issue at hand there is there are areas of the city where a twoacre profer that's fully developable is a great opportunity and there are areas of the city where that's not a great opportunity. So like recent cases that we've had that have been a smaller profer in terms of land but are really close to existing parks. Well that means we can just be really strategic about that two acres and provide an amenity that those other parks aren't offering and that one park doesn't have to do it all. Part of the land acquisition strategy though once we publish that it will include our current park classification system which is very clear about the size ranges for those types of parks and the amenities we expect to see in them. Um but I think again back to what you asked there is a minimum size depending on what we're trying to do in that location.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you Commissioner Jacobs.

Okay. I have a lot of questions. [laughter] Uh this is great. Um I I appreciate all of the thoughtfulness uh and work that is going into this. Um so um one of my questions is around how you all are working with the county on this because we're doing the bike pad plan. We're doing the open space plan and we I think we need to also get a way I'm wondering how are you guys going to look at some of the county parks and how that serves city residents for instance on our agenda on Monday we got an update on the Santi road park that the county is doing in East Durham 289 acres we are doing a Santi road and now it's going to be more of a natural park, but it's going to have fishing. It's probably going to have [clears throat] boating. There'll be trails and I think u you know we've got the Little River Regional Park which has you know bike u bike trails and things like that. So, h how are you all going to look at I know I saw you know I've seen the map and all that but I think it's important that we think about those relationships as well.

Yeah. So, a couple of points there. One, the when we did the system plan because it was really focused on the city's responsibility, the scope of that was really limited to within the city. So when we were looking at service areas, for example, we were only counting city parks because those are the things we exercise the most control over and can guarantee things like access and maintenance. When we're doing this process, we're going to expand that. So we will be looking at access to any type of park. that includes the Eno River State Park, um natural areas like Horton Grove um in North Durham and the the county parks that you mentioned that again are more passive and have more of a I would say natural um uh set of programs and amenities but that are providing some level of access and recreation. So those will be included. They won't be discounted in any way. We'll also include them when we're looking at that amenity refinement so that we can say, "Hey, these activities are really popular. Here are some other areas across the city where we might be best served by looking for a site that can accommodate that." Terms of the open space plan, I am sitting on that um core team with Celeste um from county open space as that is developed. Um we are in communication a good amount as opportunities come up. I think something that she and I have discussed is particularly through the development of that open space plan is a goal for both of us through that process is to find ways where we can interlock a little bit more and function um simultaneously as opportunities are being evaluated and there have been opportunities brought to DPR where I we have both immediately looped each other in just because we felt like the other party might actually be the best person to carry that forward.

Okay. I'm also wondering how you put a value on the different types of recreation and um for instance you brought up the Eno River State Park. I mean, one of the most special things about Durham is that we have a river going through the middle of the city. And I think one of the one of the really, you know, you talk about connectivity, but I think how are you going to value the ability to connect city residents better to those natural areas?

Yeah. So, I mean the the acquisition acceptance policy also covers trail corridors and that's really where the connectivity piece comes in, right? Is when we're looking at a um I think far more frequently than we get park profers, we do get profers to build trails. And so that's an area where we can articulate that connectivity. Um I think we're also thinking right now um in the you know somewhat near term about how we can update our planning documents related to connectivity and greenways and trails in particular and modernize those. Um as you all know the most recent greenways master plan was adopted in 2011. A lot has changed in 15 years. So, I don't have a perfect answer for you there other than to say that's something that we're really trying to work through right now and figure out how we evaluate that because that 2011 plan doesn't really give us the strongest foundation to evaluate connectivity because that to some extent wasn't the goal of a lot of those trails. It was purely recreational and connectivity was almost a secondary consideration. And I I really think this takes on more importance with the new LDC. I mean, if we're going to be developing more densely in the city, it's going to be even more important, I think, to focus on the connectivity piece.

Um, and and making sure that people have access not just to active recreation, but passive recre recreation, to nature. I mean, we know the health value of both both of those. Absolutely. Um, we saw that during the pandemic and I think Durham has really changed since the pandemic more and more use of, you know, and and just some of the things that limit people's access, not just being able to walk to things, but parking.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think again I don't want to get ahead of any future planning process but I would say that objectively connectivity would be one of the most important factors in refining and developing a new trail network.

Um I also like the fact that you are it feels like focusing on qualitative and quantitative and also building in a lot of flexibility. Um I think um I used to work for a com company that did conservationoriented real estate development and um and then I personally was involved with the creation of the um Hollow Rock Nature Park, New Hope Preserve. And um I think the one thing we have to recognize is that this is what a then county commissioner said to me. God ain't creating any more land,

right? And so, you know, when we say, "Oh, yeah, we're not going to follow up on that opportunity, um, we, you know, we have to recognize that that's what we're saying because if a land is not protected, then it's that basically it could be developed."

Yeah. And so um I I think one I guess one of my questions is because you were saying about not taking land to your question have has there any thought about well maybe the city can't see any need for this now it could have value in 50 years. Is there any concept of just land banking for the city saying okay we're going to take accept this donation but we're not going to do anything with it for a long we don't know when we're going to do anything with it and it may just sit here for 50 years and understanding yeah we don't have the resources to put anything into it now

but we'll we'll we'll land bank it

yeah there absolutely is consideration for that and I one of the most recent cases where a a profer was part of a case that DPR are viewed favorably. It was for the purposes of land banking because it is close to two other parks. That development is going to take a long time to go online. So, we can't forecast right now what the best thing to do with it is, but we do recognize that it has value. The also the policy in the um strategic value criteria does ask staff to evaluate whether not accepting the land, even if it's not usable at the current moment, would would pose a long-term disadvantage in terms of the reach of the system. So that's absolutely something we're taking into consideration. I think given the amount of projects we're currently working on and you know funding constraints that most of the land that we would accept, especially for these larger projects that are going to take decades potentially to build out, those most likely are land banking um land banking opportunities at this time. We're not moving on those as soon as you know council votes to approve those development cases just because it wouldn't behoove us to do that and we don't really have the resources

and does the city park property which is currently 4% and one of my questions is how what is the benchmarking for that do we have related to that? Um

we do we have a couple benchmarking sources. So the nationwide median regardless of jurisdiction size is 15 acres now. But again that doesn't take into account apples to apples. There's a lot of apples to oranges and apples to like watermelons in there, right? um we could we the system plan did do um benchmarking through um NRPA which you can kind of narrow down so that you're only looking at jurisdictions and I can't remember the number off the top of my head but I Durham was between the lower cortile and the median cortile in terms of held lands. Um, and one of the recommendations of the system plan that recognized that was because a lot of these jurisdictions that are reporting this out, that's not developed parkland. It's developed parkland and land they're holding on to for later. So, I think there is definitely recognition in the system plan and in the department that land banking is absolutely something we should be doing more of. Um, and that we don't have to act on every opportunity as soon as it comes through the door. We can take it and then see what happens. and relate and will this um fit into the goal of is this part of the goal of 30% open space?

Yes, part do count towards that. Okay. Because that would be another reason to do the land banking. Absolutely. Um and then I just want to also raise up you mentioned the importance of coming up with a funding system. Mhm. Uh I think that's really critical. If if there is if the city doesn't come up with a real strategy around funding, then it's all for not

in certain ways because um and and I again I've said this before, you know, looking at what the county has been doing. Um, and seeing how um, and also even having somebody, you know, having the capacity for grant writing and stuff like that because the partnerships, the leveraging all of the funding opportunities is is really key and and um Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree. Yeah. Um, thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. Um and thank you Austin and team. Uh so and thank you Commissioner Jacobs uh for raising issues around connectivity, land banking, um you know, funding. There were questions on my mind and I appreciate you raising them and and the answers you provided thus far. Um some of the questions I have uh first of all regarding the investment uh index. So I understand that the objective here is not to develop a checklist or a scoring system, but I'm trying to get a better sense of how we'll think about evaluating the opportunities that come before us. Um um you know you know quantitatively and qualitatively you know there's the the information around the investment index

um which gets you know more quantitative but that seems to be of like kind of multi-pages of potential criteria that seem to only relate to community need 1A. Yes. Okay. So the the goal there was really not to create this, you know, all-in-one scoring system that can immediately say yes or no. It was really meant to synthesize all that stuff in the system plan into one place, which is why it's only one subriteria. It is a large tool that takes into account a lot of data, but at the end of the day, it is only one indicator. It's only one tool that's really zoomed in on evaluating need at a very nuanced and data heavy level. Okay.

Yeah. Because there's like a lot of criteria in there. And so how do you get from kind of a long list of potential ways of evaluating to actually it being a really like effective kind of decision analysis tool even if it isn't going to give you like a yes or no or like a top tobottom ranking or scoring.

That's a great question. So, um, two of the biggest kind of data sets that feed that are indices that were formally published by the federal government that looked at social vulnerability and environmental vulnerability. And the way those worked and the way we can kind of distill that down is that those um resulted in scores that were that already took into account all the underlying data and generated a score that ranked a census tract based on how vulnerable it was compared to all other census tracks. So it seems like there's a lot of data in there and it is true that there is. But some of these already have data components that we can just use as a single score. So for example, if a census tract is 85% more so socially vulnerable than all other census tracks in the country, that's a high priority. We're not really thinking about necessarily, we can look at it, but we're not thinking about the things that got them to 85% just that super score that got them there. So, I think that's part of the reason uh that we're able to kind of rely on it is because built into the underlying data, there's already rankings in there and we're not having to call balls and strikes on, okay, what is vulnerable if you have this level of transit access or if you have this many people without health insurance. That's already kind of been done for us. If that makes sense.

I think so. I think it'll be helpful to get into examples, you know, as you further refine it and seek to deploy it. Yes. To better understand how we're going to going to use it, right? Absolutely. Because when we when we report out like, you know, oh, this parcel is medium priority, we can tell you why. We can in addition to the medium priority, we can say it's medium priority because it has um it has good park access, but it has high health vulnerability. We can we can get to that level of granularity if you want. It's just been rolled up into this high, medium, low really for efficiency and to not get too far in the weeds on census data basically. Okay. Yeah. All right. We look forward to hearing more about that. Um

I'm curious how this evaluation tool will intersect or does intersect the work you've done in the past around community engagement. Yeah. Um how do we think about cases where there are opportunities um that are high priority uh high need strategic um but you know perhaps we get feedback that you know residents who are close by would prefer to not see it be located there. How does this impact our evaluation assessment of the opportunity?

So I I I guess two answers to that question. The first is that some of the criteria direct staff to refer back to the engagement that was done as part of the system plan as to what people are looking for in parks. But again, that is operating under the baseline assumption that people want a park there. I think in an instance where DPR expresses, you know, great interest in a profer and you are getting community push back, it then kind of moves out of DPR's hands, right? That's more of a decision on on the deliberating bodies part as to what needs to kind of rule the day. I certainly don't think, you know, we not we may not be the most interested in developing a park where people don't want it. Obviously, we would always like to be doing things that people always want, but to Commissioner Jacob's point, it may not be developed for 15 years, and those people who are highly opposed to it may not live there 15 years from now. So that could be a case where we're directed to land bank it and hold it and maybe do more engagement. Obviously we would do more engagement as part of any planning and design process to ultimately develop it into a park. Um but in terms of how like on a case-byase basis engagement would factor into the evaluation. It wouldn't factor into the evaluation but it would obviously impact your deliberation and we would at that time be happy to work with the community or work with you all to identify ways to move forward in a way that's satisfactory.

Okay. Thank you. So, next in terms of opportunities that come before us through profers, you know, conversations that council member Baker and I've been having uh lately with um developers bringing cases forward. Um we've had a number of instances where developers will just basically ask us like what do you want us to do? Right? Like they are not park developers. Sure. It's not their expertise. um they're willing to respond to resident interest, council member interest around that area, but they're not really sure how to approach it. Um how do you and your team think about

um kind of DPR's kind of like role or your comfort at kind of providing kind of more proactive guidance? Yeah. And what would you be looking for either from this body, JCCPC, uh or from council and and the county commission? Sure. to sort of empower you to give more direction. Yeah. Since you do think obviously a lot more about this and what would be beneficial than many of the developers coming before us.

Yeah, that's a great question. Um and a a multi-layered response coming your way. So, um I think the goal I will say zooming out of developing this broader land acquisition acquisition strategy is to answer all of those questions without staff having to without DPR staff having to work closely with applicants to develop their text commitments. Not that we're not willing to meet with applicants. We're happy to discuss things with them, but I think what we're really trying to avoid is the applicant coming to us and saying, "Hey, what do we write in this profer?" Like, tell us exactly what to write. Tell us how big. Tell us what it can be encumbered by and tell us what's in there. Because that starts to kind of blur the lines between a voluntary profer and an involuntary situation, which we want to stay clear of. So the goal with the land acquisition strategy publishing the park classifications again those include size but also what amenities we expect in them part of that strategy will make very clear from the system plan process what the high and medium amenity priorities are from the community um and updating like I referenced earlier that template profer language so we are getting hopefully profers that are able to be evaluated thoroughly I'm hoping that all of that kind of gets us out of the situation where we're on a case by case basis meeting with applicants and saying you should really write A or you should really write B because that's not a comfortable position for us in terms of what we need you know moving forward from this committee or the council. Um, one obviously feedback on things like we're bringing you today, but that land acquisition strategy is something that we are trying to finish developing by the end of the summer. Um, I imagine that will come to this committee. We'll come to a council work session and hopefully at that point we

can get some type of vote of endorsement or adoption. That way we then have the authority to use that as our guidepost and our operating kind of procedures and we can refer applicants back to that. And like I said, if they have clarifying questions like, "Hey, I'm in this area. Um your your strategy or your plan says that you need fields and um a playground and a shelter, but I only have room for two of those things." we can work with them to identify which two things would be the most beneficial for that area. But what we don't want to do is if an applicant is coming in the door just saying we are willing to profer 5 acres. We don't want to get into a position where DPR is saying okay you're going to profer five acres none of it's going to be encumbered by riparian buffer. It's going to have these amenities and you're also going to have $250,000. That's not the space we want to be in if that makes sense. Um so I hope that answers it. Again, I'm hoping the planning work can really get us out of that situation in an eventual endorsement or adoption. Um, but I also think by adopting this, we have very clear guidelines. So, if an applicant does come in and needs maybe some more handholding, we have something that the council has authorized and adopted and endorsed to pull from instead of just kind of playing it by ear or um doing it situation by situation. All right. Thank you. Um, what specific kind of feedback would be most helpful to you from this and other bodies as you go through this kind of refinement process?

Sure. So, uh, I think two things. One is whether or not you feel what's in front of you is robust enough. if it's if you feel like it is giving if it's thorough enough to give staff kind of clear direction on how they need to move forward and evaluate these things and that it's providing you the information that you want or need during your deliberation. So, if there are things that you expect to understand about a park profer when it's coming to you that is not currently in any of the material we've provided for you, we need to know that because if it's not in there, we're not going to give it to you more than likely. So I think that's one piece of it. I think the other feedback particularly once we have the whole strategy developed is to make sure that at a at a policy level and a vision level that it is in line with your understanding of this the comprehensive plan and that it is furthering the goals and the actions in both our system plan and the comprehensive plan. that we are not out of sync or out of step with your priorities and the priorities that have been set forth in these really large governing documents.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. And then last question. Um, you know, obviously it's going to be critical to expand the amount of land we have available. I think land banking sounds like a terrific strategy going forward if we don't have the resources to develop. Um, we're also think about like proximity of our residents to parkland. And so I feel like we talk most when it comes to like a park system plan and I apologize I have not read it yet but I do

long. Yes. Uh uh it seems like the conversation often is about how do we have new parks that are closer to people and I'm just curious how DPR and the parks plan and planning and as we think about the OBC right we think about having more people near where we have parks. Yeah. as another way to meet the objective of having more people with that sort of park access. How does that fit into our strategic thinking about how we're going to grow in the future?

Yeah. So, I can I can give that a go and then uh director Young can supplement me. So, some of the criteria and even the for example the investment indicator look at proximity to transit or proximity to other non-vehicular um connectivity options. So, like if if a piece of land is already adjacent to a greenway, that's great. Hopefully, more people can get there. Um, if it's adjacent to a transit stop, that's advantageous for us because we don't have to expand infrastructure to do that, right? There's already some of that built-in access there. We can also look at the future the planned transit network because parks don't come online overnight. And if for example a transit route is being expanded and a stop is being developed next to a land a piece of land that we have interest in in three years then maybe we hold off the park development so that those are coming online around the same time. Um I think also we're involved pretty heavily in other like transportation plans. So the bikewalk plan, the draft bikewalk plan that I think is coming to you all soon. a lot of the connectivity recommendations in there were vetted by DPR because they're adjacent to or near a park and enhance that connectivity. Um I think from a regulatory perspective and again I'll let Director Young get in on this one is obviously and the the criteria even speak to this. We want land being profered to us by developers to be fronting right ofway, major right ofway preferably. It's not in the back of the developments. You don't have to walk down neighborhood streets to get to it. It's accessible by conventional methods um as well as uh pedestrian or bicycle traffic through existing or proposed new rightway.

I second that. Um I will also say that from the perspective of the LDC and I welcome you know Bo or Robin if they want to add anything else that uh a tenant of the comprehensive plan that we were trying to implement through the LDC was trying to intensify in areas that already had infrastructure services etc. And so putting more people in the areas kind of in our more urbanized areas where we already have these facilities does support I think what you were what you were mentioning right I think where we're coming up with the biggest gaps are uh areas uh our suburban areas on the fringe that are growing where we don't yet have those resources. So um that has been a challenge. But I do think that the LDC by promoting more uh density and intensity in the areas where we already have development and already have um these type of facilities supports that.

Yeah. And I would just add to that too. I think part of what we can look at when we're looking at the particularly the funding mechanisms is I there are grants that are um where it is permissible to use the funding to build supportive infrastructure to the park in addition to the park itself. So, if a park is fronting an area that doesn't have sidewalks, there are some grants that allow you to use that money towards building those sidewalks because it's considered a supportive amenity or piece of infrastructure for the ultimate park development. So, that's something we can maybe crystallize a little bit in that funding section is funding resources that are really just for the park or where we have opportunities to have a larger impact by also improving connectivity as part of the development. Sure. Sugar, will you want to have any questions?

I have a quick question. Um, so uh specifically on your uh example of the smaller piece of land that was proper like 2 and a half acres, two acres is in a riparian buffer, only needs a half a acre for potential park development. if that 2 acres is and if the whole chunk is specifically in an area that would help prevent urban heat island. Is there is that scored as part of the uh resident's needs versus a park or is there like a subsection of DPR where that could just be hey we're just going to land bank this so we don't have to spend the money to do the halfacre thing but the whole two and a half acres gets credit for helping with the the urban heat island effect.

Sure. So the the strategic value criteria there is a subsection that looks at environmental considerations strictly not with without any kind of caveats as to whether or not it could ultimately be a park and urban heat island is certainly one of those things. Um I think a lot of times that it ends up not being an issue ultimately whether or not DPR chooses to accept the land or forego it because a lot of profers for the land are written such that if DPR does not want it it will be it will just be community open space right so part of what we're evaluating is is that safeguard there if for In your case, if it was just the profer of the land and this has happened recently, they say if we don't accept it, we're going to develop it. Then that might entice us to just land bank it and again signal to the community that we don't have any intention of doing with it anything with it, but because it would prove to be a disadvantageous for the residents that we're just going to kind of basically ad hoc hold it in conservation. So yes, that that is a pathway that I think could be accomplished through the policy.

Yes, Mr. Bowman. Thank you. And I want to go back to a great question posed by my colleague, Council Member Copac around our engagement with developers, particularly as it relates to parks and recreational opportun um recreational activities in our community. Um I think it's crucial that this body and our bodies individually uh send a clear message um to development community about the things that we value. Often times we get caught in a situation where people are apprehensive about our engagement with uh developers around things that that we value.

Sure. And so I want to make it clear that at least from Commissioner Valentine's parchment parchment that I believe we should be aggressive about the things that we value and we communicate those things to the development community in hopes that they would consider those things and if we don't do that then we miss out on on opportunities. You look at other municipalities, other uh counties around the state who are very aggressive in this regard. They say our community values schools. You you want to come here and develop. We love that. That development is going to lead to things. It's going to lead to to jobs, right? It's going to lead to people coming to our communities. And so, we shouldn't be afraid to express that value. And so to the extent that it's helpful, I think that we should also be uh sending that message and sending those signals uh to uh to the community, right? We can work together

to ensure that uh our residents get the the services that they need, right? The recreational opportunities that they deserve and we play a part in that. And so, uh thank you for pointing that out and thank you for raising the question because if you didn't, I was going to. All right. Thank you. Love that. Um, thank you so much. Um, and thank you colleagues for some really really fantastic questions and comments.

Um, sometimes we we get caught up in a specific conversation that we're having. We talk about building a school, bu building schools or building, you know, fire uh stations or building the right kind of street design or building housing or uh child care or jobs. And I want to always challenge us to think about how we build a city because a city needs all of these things. And it and if we want a walkable city, they all need to be close together and close to transit stops and and transit infrastructure. And so we always need to be thinking about how do we put things close to uh people uh and people close to things and and parks is one of those pieces. It falls it falls uh within that within that space. Um obviously this this conversation it's happening on um here uh you guys have already been working on this but here kind of on the back end of couple interesting reasoning cases that we had where we had they were large scale reszoning cases 80 acres each um developers who really wanted to contribute parks and was not a smooth process. They were coming to us saying please just tell me what to do. Tell me what you want and tell me what to do. Um, and we didn't have we didn't have a process in place to make it that a smooth to make that smooth. Um, and so, you know, kind of muddled our way through and they made uh profers and they they profered um you know, one of them profitered quarter million dollars uh right in the in the middle of the meeting. And so um voluntarily and so um so yeah moving toward a proactive process I think would be extremely helpful. Um I would love for us to be in

a place where a largecale resoning uh comes to us and parks uh parks and wreck feels confident to be able to say this would be our absolute preferred route. um we're not requiring it, right? Uh but we know that this is what we want. Uh and here's that information for you all and

run with it and um take take this information. Um I think that would be an ideal place for for us to be. And I know we're not quite there yet, but I do want to I do want to I want to push I do want to push um for us to to get closer to that and for you all to feel confident in um really being able to and feel empowered to to be able to seek what you all think is best y

for for the perks network. And I know that and you've already mentioned you're working on the proactive tool. You're you're about to be working on the proactive tool. So I appreciate that and and you know hearing from my colleagues I think um and and speak up if you disagree but I think that my colleagues are also uh excited about that. Um a few other things um so I also think that context and edges of parks are important. Um, that's something that we haven't had really deep conversations about, but uh, great spaces are defined by their edges. Um, and so are our parks accessible on their edges or is there sort of one entrance that's a long entrance that you have to drive down to to get to to actual facilities within the park? I think the these are also important questions. are this the edges of the park are they um accessible from the public or are they behind houses and private land um and therefore kind of exclusionary from certain directions?

Um are there frontages onto the park facing onto the park either directly or across the street? Um are there sidewalks leading to the park? All of those things I think that those are all also very important. Um and I hope you know important considerations as we move forward. I know that I have seen a lot of parks um that don't necessarily uh have great edges but are great parks. And so um thinking about great parks and great edges I think I think is important. And we think about eyes on the street, right? and Jane Jacobson, people feel comfortable and safer and they are more comfortable and safer when they know that there are houses all around the park that are looking onto the park and and um vice versa. And so thinking about the context and the edges of parks is important as well. Um I'm also curious about kind of our more urban kinds of areas. I think um I I appreciate um Commissioner Jacobs talking about more passive and and these larger scale parks where people are going to I mean the people are going to it's almost an economic development. People are going to drive to go to Universe State Park and these other parks.

They're large scale. Um but not everyone's going to be able to walk to these places, right? Um so in our very urban kinds of contexts um are we looking are we looking at those? So instead of like an 80 acre where we want like a two or three or four acre park u maybe like a 2acre development or resoning case or something in in a more urban context um and there's maybe potential for like an urban plaza. Sure. Something like that. Is that is that part of the consideration here?

So, one of the action items in the system plan is to develop what at the time we called a downtown park typology for the classification system and acknowledgement that parks, not just downtown, and we don't necessarily have to call it a downtown classification, but parks that are in those more urban areas do not look like what people typically associate with parks. So, that is something that's in the system plan. Um, I think it'll kind of depend on timing and capacity as to whether or not that gets brought online at the same time this land acquisition strategy does, but I do think that's kind of lowhanging fruit that we could look at sooner than later. Um, to your point, whether it's a plaza or an alley or a street that can be activated in a more recreational or pedestrian oriented way, that's certainly something that um, broadly we have interest in.

That's great. Um and then yeah, so we're talking a little bit about kind of profers and the discretionary review process, reszoning and annexations and those kinds of things. Um, but I guess I'll, you know, this is obviously part of the LDC process too, but what can we build into the uh by right process so that we in some situations can um encourage or even require uh parks in in certain cases. Um, and I know that's an ongoing conversation. This isn't the first time that's coming up, but but I always want us to think about that and push forward on that.

Yeah. And I think on those any ideas or solutions that planning and development has we are certainly happy to consult on those and make sure that it's compliant with policies for the non-byite processes so that everything is singing the same tune and we are regularly involved in development review and collaboration with with uh director Young's group.

That's cool. Thank you. And then um you know we've talked also about how you know there are kind of large swads of our city now that don't have parks and you know would it be tough for parks and wreck from a financial standpoint to drive way out to maintain a park or is that a situation where even if a developer wants to profer a park we say listen this just the balance isn't quite right here but please build something that is looks like a park um but and also has an access easement. So, you know, you can't kick off someone who's carrying a Palestinian flag.

Sure. Sure. I certainly think that if a developer wanted to, and please correct me if I get way out of my league here, if they wanted to profer um privately owned and maintained recreational or active space that met DPR standards with a public access easement, and we're not the end owner operator. I certainly think that would be allowed. So I think to the extent when this full strategy is done and those standards are made public, I'm hoping that that's something if that's something the council's interested in, they could carry forward and and encourage. Okay, great. Uh and then um new development um pays park fees.

Can you just talk a little bit about at what point did they pay the park fees and what are they? And then also when was the last time we updated park fees? help me. [laughter] I'm gonna look to Director Young for that. I know there are two. So, there's the parks and recreation impact fee and the open space impact fee. I'm not entirely sure when those are collected. Um, Boinsky, plan development. Yeah. So, at the building permit stage per dwelling unit, there's a certain and I don't have it in front of me, please forgive me, but there's a certain amount of area that is 875.

That's Yeah. and then $150 maybe for the county. Um certain amount of area that is required to be provided there's a a fee in L that is being paid. So like for the by right development um as you were saying. So yeah there is a sum of money that is being contributed um with those by developments uh to go towards public parks. This is in addition to the open space requirement. And when was that last updated? I'm sorry. I believe 2009 I think.

Yeah, I mean I that is what I think I it maybe sorry the [snorts] date 2013 is also taken out of my head either but I know that it is not very recent.

Yeah. And I mean I will I will say I think uh an applicant um made the point at a recent hearing that when we were talking about finances for operations and maintenance they you know remarked that's what impact fees are for. I would certainly feel confident saying that the amount of impact fee collected is not a onetoone for what it would cost for us to plan, design, construct and maintain a park. It it certainly helps and we are grateful for it. But um I I do want to be clear because that kind of uh assertion was made that that it is not a one for one by any stretch. Appreciate that. Um go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Just to reinforce your question, I just would be curious to know from Mr. Bowman or from Dr. Young just what does that look like and to update that? Um, yeah, I'm just curious since the chair raised the question. So, I have not previously been directly involved, so I'm not 100% sure, but I know that other jurisdictions usually will do a study to determine what the new updated um impact fee should be.

Sure. I was I mean I don't know if this is helpful but um I was previously a planner at the city of Raleigh when we updated our impact fee schedule and there was a study done as well as subsequent engagement both with the public and the department as to I I would say that having the goal of it being onetoone is probably not something that is possible and that I would guess the legislature might not be happy with but getting it closer I think was kind of the the basis of those discussions with staff as to how do you get it close at least a one line item. If we can get it closer to what it means to maintain, not necessarily plan design and construct, then that might be an ideal outcome.

Thank you. Yeah. And I I do want to just um raise, you know, just another issue that I'm sure is on people's minds, which is that projects to to work, the the numbers need to work. Um and uh some things are trade-offs and some some things are not trade-offs. Um we we need parks. We also need affordable housing and we we need other things and and affordable housing is also sometimes profered and um and so and and in some cases you're you're not seeing a trade-off. You're just seeing maybe the profits aren't quite as high uh in in a certain um case. And so um we don't get to see those proforma numbers um from from their side. Um but one thing about parks is that developers like parks. They um they like having a park in within their development um because it makes it easier to sell. It uh makes it more valuable. Um there there are lots of studies that show proximity to parks and and and land value. Um and so that is one thing that I think is easier to get from from developers or easier to you know encourage developers to to provide um because it directly benefits them and they have to provide open space anyway. Um and so um we we do need to be thinking about these but but we do need to be thinking about these trade-offs of you know we we want things like affordable housing and new developments. uh we want other kinds of public goods and public benefits and development and so um just something for for us to be thinking about as we consider how to how to build and urbanize um and grow our city

um yeah I think that's something for I mean we don't want to have such a high fee that then that ends up adding to the cost of a project and that defeats I mean that can be counteractive also with the price of the housing in the project. So recognizing that dynamic, but it would be interesting to know from a study what would be considered an appropriate fee. And I don't know, maybe that's something we could talk about for a future work plan. I mean to put a pin on that in that. Um I just this has been a great conversation. And I I just a few other points I wanted to ask or raise is one is we haven't really talked a lot about just linear parks and how you know trails function like the rail trails the Durham Rock trails how they they also function as parks and even the way for instance I know the Durham Roxboro trail is being planned is with little pocket parks and things like that and the whole issue of engagement that came up. You can get adjacent property owners saying we don't want this, but it is something that is beneficial for the overall good of the community at large. So, I I think that's something to consider. Um the um you raised the issue about the environmental impact. I think that's huge and I did appreciate that you have that in there. So also storm water, you know, even if it's land banking, it

it could have a benefit for a neighborhood for storm water reasons. Um too, um I um and you addressed the issue about I was going to ask about private parks and how that can function to also take stress off of the requirements for the city to provide parks. Um, and I just wondered what your thoughts were. I I think one of the key things that it seems as important here is nimleness and just the I know you talked about this with the strategic value, but

with increasing land values, less van land being a available, Durham County is a very small county in terms of land mass. factoring in opportunity costs that may come up where there's a good financial opportunity for the city because of what a pro what a private property owners are offering or because for instance it's in the falls lake wershed and the city of Raleigh pays for land that's in the falls lake watershed things like that I mean how do you think you all are going to look at things like that.

Yeah. So, I mean, a couple of ways. one um like I I mentioned earlier, I think having a robust conversation as part of this process about funding mechanisms and opportunities to supplement that perhaps with funds that we have more um immediate or efficient access to outside of kind of a budget cycle where we do ask for land acquisition money. But at that point, it's usually we're asking for it because we have identified something that we want or need to buy. it's not discretionary um kind of like the the county fund is. Um I think the other thing that um we can do is look I think more closely um at partnering. So I think there are some opportunities that we've had for example I think that you're familiar with where it wasn't um you know financially possible or maybe the most realistic for DPR to be the end owner of something. So we tried to connect with the county or with the Eno River Association, Triangle Land Conservancy. So I think that's a piece of it too is if if the the site fits someone else's kind of portfolio nicely and we can make that connection and we can either supplement financially or um provide some type of endorsement to help with a grant process, for example. That's certainly something we can look into on a case- by case basis. We don't want to um I we don't want people to think that, you know, if they come with an opportunity, we just don't have the money at the time. That's it. The conversation's over. I think any opportunity we're given, if we think it's worthwhile pursuing, even if we're not the best party or able to do it, we are going to run it down in terms of trying to connect them with someone who can accomplish those things. Um like a a third party or someone in county open space.

Thank you. I I just I want to lift up how important this conversation is because at the end of the day, this is about the health and well-being of people in our community and you know, Durham being a great place for people to live and parks and open space and also to your point if it could a plaza. It's also just about building community places where people can be together. um be in nature obviously get exercise but it is really fundamental um we think about people's quality of life

well put yeah we were ahead of schedule we are now 25 minutes over schedule I think sorry about that no yeah I think that I think that points to the excitement uh and interest on this issue um and so I hope that we've provided at least some clear direction for you all clear direction and enthusiasm is what we were looking for. So, we're good.

All right. Thank you so much and thanks for my colleagues for your great questions and comments. All right. Item eight, fiscal year 26 work program community planning projects. Good morning. I'm Scott Whiteitman with the planning and development department. Um don't have a presentation on this item. This is just something the chair had asked that we provide each month so that you have a reminder of what projects are in progress and roughly where they are in the process. So I'm here happy to answer questions about any of them. Uh I will say that we prepared this before the recent adjustments to the LDC schedules. So we when we come back next month, we may have to move some things around. Although some of these are are contracts tied to funding this fiscal year, so they're not going to move very much. Uh, one thing I wanted to highlight for you all since we really hadn't talked about it yet is uh, we started working on our second heritage community for the Orange Factory area in uh, North Durham, which if you didn't know was an area that was basically inundated to create the Little River Reservoir in the 80s. So, we're making that area is our first one was um, in Merrick Moore. So this our second one um should be ready for adoption by the county commission in August, September.

Thank you. Um Chris, can you click on the attachment for this one just so that we have it up on our screens? I just wanted um I had asked that um at all of our meetings that we have this as an agenda item. I don't think that we need to pull it off and and have discussion about it every single time, but I do just want it to be available to uh all my colleagues here and any me members of the public just to see um all of the different essentially long range planning projects that are being worked on and more or less where they are. Obviously, each one of these will have adjustments as they move along. It's dynamic, but we kind of get a sense of all the different moving pieces and that's available to people. So, thank you for having this on the agenda. Um, any questions or comments, colleagues?

Nope. Right. Thank you so much, chair. I just have I just have one quick one. Okay. This is really helpful to see. So, Oh, did you No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Thank you. Uh, yeah. Thanks for requesting this and and thank you for for for sharing this with us on a regular basis. I think it's helpful to see all the work that is in process. I think one uh important question always to ask too is you know as realities on the ground change like we're seeing with the LDC in one instance um in other cases you know work may intensify that we're not anticipating or need to be accelerated. I'm always interested to hear as appropriate where you feel the need to prioritize and make changes to this um move some things up, push some things out in order to be able to um you know deliver on perhaps like the most uh urgent items, important items, how those relate to each other. Uh and also manage it all within staff time that's available. So no question, but just to say that's always helpful information, too. All right. Thank you. Um, thank you for for showing us. Yeah,

I have a quick question about the labels. January, March, Q3 26 is so Q3 26 would be January and March. Is that like one of them is when it's going to start and then the parentheses is when that section is supposed to be finished or so this we broke it up by quarters since for long range planning projects you don't a weekly update is probably not going to be that helpful to you. So uh so Q it basically means that we're it's just showing that what we're doing during that quarter. So a fiscal year. Yeah. So we it's a fiscal year quarter.

Yeah. In city and county government our years start in July. We're still in FY26.

Oh, I see. Yeah. What we can do is we can change it to take the quarters off and just say January, the March, and the year. Mhm. [clears throat] to simplify. We're good on that one. All right. Thank you so much. Uh item 8 and a half, Mr. Jacobs.

Yeah. I just wanted to um comment on something that was when we were discussing uh the uh proposed resoning that is going to be uh project outside of the urban growth boundary. Um um that I I just wanted to raise here and I and I have a responsibility to follow up with planning staff on this. But um I think even um looking at you know the two projects here today that are both you know in the county in rural areas but they are now within the new urban growth boundary and they are going to be a lot of housing. Right. One of them is um several hundred acres. What is it? Um 328 acres for Laurel Creek. It's very significant project 35 acres Massie Chapel. So we are allowing a lot of intense development within the urban growth ground now um that is formerly county land. So I I just want to raise up that when um and I had asked for some changes in the staff report and also I think maybe it also will it sounds like from what we heard is this may be a conversation when we look at the E but right now there are 30 policies that were included in the staff report related to the cheek road project and I raised two I think for me two main issues I think well I guess three issues. One is that to look at what policies are being included and this is I think most important when it is a project that is

outside of the urban growth boundary. Okay. Because to me in those cases the policies that are specifically around the criteria for annexation to me those policies carry even more weight than other policies like they to me are at a not you know all policies are not created equal is what I'm trying to say. So I think those policies need to be really given more value or highlighted when in those when we're evaluating outside of the urban growth boundary consideration. Second is for us to really look at policies that are specific to the rural areas. um an evaluation of the impact of going outside the urban growth boundary and the impact to those rural areas because right now to me when I read that report and I look at the policies it's very city centric and I don't feel like the val the policies that are related to rural areas that we have in the comp plan around there's a specific policy that says we will we want to protect farmland for instance that's not in the report whereas this project is going to then impact the amount of farmland that we have and again as a county commissioner it it is really important I don't expect city council members to know this but when you're considering the impact to the rural area and farmland um That is a negative direct negative impact to investments that the county is

literally making. Like on our agenda on Monday was yay a $450,000 grant from the Golden League Foundation to have a new director of our farm campus. And Durham County is develing in a 100 acre farm campus. We're going to invest in staff. we're doing so because we want to create the local ecosystem and infrastructure to have local farms and then at the same time we're contemplating a project that takes away farmland. So that's diametrically opposed to the intentional investments that Durham County is making. So, I I just want to I'm just throwing that out as an example that we we've got to have a way to have our staff reports when it is specifically about these types of annexation that make sure we have the policies that help us evaluate that. So, that that is um the second thing. And then the third thing is, I know I've been a broken record on this and um we have to get everybody working together, but we've got to have the impact to EMS that are is in the report because that's a county function and there and I'm not going to place blame on why it's not happening, but it's got to be in there. Um and it's still not. and also understanding the interaction between county county first response and city because for instance on the cheek road project it's it's you know city fire saying oh we're fine meanwhile there's like the nearest fire station is like 13 minutes away but the re reality of how things work is the redwood fire department is like right across the

street there's no way that the redwood would because the way mutual aid operates then they're not going to be expected to respond. So yeah, and so I think again also how do we incorporate more qualitative analysis in our staff reports because like I would really like to see the farmland board on the county side being able to weigh in, soil, mortar being able to weigh in, Durham County open space and real estate being allowed to weigh in. And right now there is no space in those staff reports for that. And that's more again maybe qualitative. Um so I just want to throw this out. Um, I know it's more kind of topics for future discussion and I just wanted to put that out there and you're going to get a, you know, written comments from all of us, but so that you know to my city council colleagues, I am strongly opposed to this resoning. And um you know I think that um we may have we the three of us were the only ones at that meeting on Monday too. So uh but you know I think um anyway I'll stop there.

Thank you for sharing those comments. Um Commissioner Jacobs. Um I got a couple thoughts too. I I actually think that this is a really important issue that you raise. Um, and I do think that it is worth adding to a future JCCPC agenda to discuss staff staff reports, especially for really really large impactful cases because staff reports take a lot of work, right? They take a lot of work. That takes a lot of time to really thoroughly analyze everything. And um some of these are kind of check the box like you know there's tables fill in the fill in the table fill in the blank. Um but I do think that we would benefit from maybe perhaps some more robust um critical analysis in some of the staff reports again particularly the large scale ones where I mean 300 plus acre 80 plus acres is huge. I mean, that's a huge amount of of land and making sure all the pieces are coming together. Um, and that we're looking at all those different pieces and you named a few of them. Um, but all the all the pieces, you know, are there additional uses that we need in this area. Um, is there is this a food desert or a childcare desert? you know, are these the these are important things for us to know whether or not we're going to proceed, you know, vote yes or or vote no. Um, and in in conversation with with the, you know, uh, the applicants on these cases, it's just good information to have. Um, and so it is a bit above and beyond um, what I think is typical for staff reports or typical for the staff reports that we're that we've been seeing. But if we really

truly want to achieve some of the high level goals of our comprehensive plan, I think that that's another level of analysis that that we do need. Um, and yeah, parks, fire stations, EMS, all these different pieces. Um, I think it's I think it's important and I do think that it's important to have that qualitative side of it. Colleagues, any thoughts? Uh yes, Chair uh Baker. Uh I don't want the the point or let me just say let me highlight the point uh that this is also a matter of representation and so to the extent that annexations occur, the county really doesn't get an opportunity to vote on those matters. Although I wish that were not the case. Um but we are where we are and so to the extent that uh the residents in the county get consideration, this is where it happens. And so this is an important matter and I look forward to uh continued discussions about it.

That's a great point. I mean um county residents, your constituents who are both in the city and in the county are impacted by cases that we decide on, right? And so I do think that we need to I mean informally at least always keep that in mind and listen to those those those residents and and you your concerns as well. Um and thoughtful ways of building that in to the system I think is is important. But at the very least, we need to here in this space, we need to be thinking about your message um and how best to take your message to our entire body when we're making these cases that impact your your constituents as well.

I appreciate you raising this, Commissioner Jacobs, uh and both of your comments. um um Commissioner Valentine and and Chair Baker and I would look forward to having that discussion in the future. Staff need to understand how this comes into play in the staff report. So yes, thanks. Okay. And that's something um you know I have my conversations with um Director Young, so I will definitely make sure that this gets on a future agenda item for us.

County resident Yes, I agree that more information, qualitative, quantitative is needed if especially concerning the UGB because if you're going to move the UGB, you're going to set a precedent and then it's going to be used against you forever and then that's going to remove even more voice from the county residents. So unless there's like a life-threatening situation, completely against it for whatever that's worth.

Let's avoid those life life-threatening situations of needing to annex into the EGV. Um all right, any final comments? Well, thank you all for coming. Thanks for um this robust conversation. Thank you to staff and for all who have attended. And we are adjourned at 11:43.