Joint City County Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody. Thank you all for being here. We are having some technical difficulties. The monitors are not working. So colleagues, you have copies of some of the presentations in front of you. And we have some folks who are working on that right now, might not get up during this meeting is my guess. Um, so let's go ahead and, uh, also I will need to step out at, uh, 1145 if we, if we get there. Um, so then I'll have to turn things over to someone. Um, so let's try and keep things, try and keep things rolling. So let's start with item number one, call to order. Roll call, please.

Baker.

Yep.

Lee. Caballero?

Here.

Chigueras? Here. Jacobs? Here. Copac?

Here.

Valentine?

Valentine, let me know that he's going to be here in 10 to 15 minutes.

And Burris? Here.

Thank you. Any adjustments to the agenda? Any announcements?

Is it possible to reorder some elements of the agenda? I may have to leave. I'm not sure how long we're going to take today. So the request would be if we could move seven and eight up above five and six. If any colleagues are okay with that. I'm happy with that. Thanks.

Any announcements? Approval of the minutes for May 4th, 2026. Can I get a motion?

So moved. Second.

All right, there's been a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. All against? City and county managers' priority items.

Good morning, Aaron with the city attorney's office. The city has no priority items.

Curtis Massey from the county attorney's office. We have no priority.

All right, thank you both. All right, let's go ahead to item number seven, EAR policies.

Good morning, everyone. Aaron Cain with the Durham Planning and Development Department. I am filling in for Peyton, who is out of town this morning. As the memo you have in your packet notes, and I do not have a presentation for this item, as the memo in your packet notes says, We met with several members of this committee in an ad hoc subcommittee about six weeks ago, looked at the policies, discussed the ones that are proposed to be changed through the EAR process. There were several that we made some minor adjustments to and some expansions of, especially regarding One policy on the commentary, the staff commentary, to make sure that was clear. Otherwise, there were no other changes that came out of that committee. This item has been to Planning Commission and did receive a favorable recommendation, though we have made changes based on your input since then. And I'm simply here to take input, comment from you, any additional adjustments you'd like made to any of the language, and then would ask for your direction to bring this forth to the elected officials at the appropriate time. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Colleagues, comments, questions?

Matt. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. So does this also include the item that was referred back to JCCPC from Council with the discussion around the Treyburn adjustment to the EAR?

No, it does not.

This is different. Okay, when is that coming to us?

so do you want to okay um that was an item brought to you at the request of the county economic development department the uh after the city council meeting i had a conversation with staff from that department they were going to consult with the county manager and get back to me as to whether or not they wanted to move forward on that and i have not gotten a response to date

So in effect is what we did refer back to staff rather than send it back to JCCPC or we sent it to JCCPC, but staff isn't yet ready to bring it forward to us here.

My understanding was it was sent back to staff.

So the conversation was for it to come back to JCCPC. However, if the County has decided that they do not want to move forward with it, there's no sense in bringing it back. It may be one of the things we talked about was that, um, It's possible that in the next EAR cycle, we will take a bigger look at areas that may warrant some adjustments and we could do it then as part of a bigger package relooking at the UGB. So that was the conversation that we had with them because there is no pressing development matter in that area. They're kind of rethinking their strategy as to whether or not they want to pursue that now. That's why we have not docketed it for this meeting.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Jacobs.

I just wanted to thank the staff. As I had said at our last meeting that we had a really good process. Council Member Burris and COPAC and Commissioner Valentine and I met with staff as like a little working group and we really went through all of the items. We went through every single policy basically that is being proposed here and really wordsmith the language and made sure all the concerns were addressed. It was a really great process. So I want to thank all the staff involved with that and all the elected officials involved with that process. And I just want to say it also made me really appreciate The changes that we do see in the commentary section especially, it really made me understand how we want to, and when you really dig in and look at the commentary, and especially things that have been further clarified, What I see is basically staff trying to help applicants understand that this is what you need to do to actually go beyond what is expected of you. And this is what the intent of this policy is. This is like what we expect you to do. And if you wanna actually proffer something, especially around rezonings, if you wanna improve your project, this is how you improve it, but you don't get credit for doing what you're just supposed to be doing. I'm just interpreting how I felt like it was, I appreciate what staff is really trying to be very clear about what the policies are. And I don't know if that, am I interpreting correctly, but that's, and I read it again last night and that's, it really, That's what I took away from rereading it all.

Absolutely. That's our intent. And it's not just for the applicants, but for the public as well. Yeah. We want to make sure that the public is aware as to how we're interpreting these policies and how we're making our determinations as to whether or not Applicants have met the policies, have exceeded our standards, and we want to be as transparent as possible. So everybody, applicants, members of the public, elected officials have as much of that information as possible to make their decisions.

Right. And then the other thing that I really learned from that was the things that are being removed from here, you know, that have the D removed is because they are, everyone has to do that. And that's part of the process, this, you know, site plan review or the project development plan review process. And again, not to give the impression that we're giving credit to people for things that they just have to do. So I think that's really important for the public to also know. And then I'd also want to raise the issue, though, that we are being constrained by what is in the current UDO. And there also was in commentaries like especially related to environmental protections. I noticed that in the commentary, this we can only, this is not, we are not able to actually explicitly require this in the current UDO. And so I just really want to lift that up because it just raises how important it is whenever we can to move forward with the new LDO, because we are also not, we're not being able to fully implement our comprehensive plan within this current UDO.

Council Member Kopach. Thank you. So I'll also just add appreciation for staff and my colleagues for the process. I want to raise one point. It was a concern or a question raised, I think, in a prior JCCPC meeting when we heard this, that some of the changes being made by staff, there was concern that they may be changing policy. And I just want to say from my perspective of having dug into that with my colleagues, kind of gone line for line, that I do feel like what was being proposed by staff were in fact corrections to help with understanding. And I do appreciate the work that was done by a number of community groups to really dig in line by line, really study it and look for ways to make improvements to our policy. And so I encourage us to kind of hold on to some of those recommendations so that either when it comes to the new LDC, when it comes to the rules that are being written, or the next phase of the comprehensive plan when we're doing a rewrite, that those I think would be the time to look at some of the suggestions that were being made for new policy. But I do feel like what staff has done for me was in the scope of what was being asked. So thank you for that work.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate both of your comments.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just real quick. I appreciate all the work and Director Young, you and I had a conversation. probably about a month ago, when we were thinking about the policies, and it did come up with a recent rezoning where there was a pretty large affordability component. And because there was pieces of it that were in the natural heritage site, folks were interpreting the, and part of it was where they had to put certain things by other, like there was competing policies. And so, we discussed a prioritization of sorts, because I know I got frustrated with the fact A, I felt like folks who don't live in Durham manipulated some of our policies to gain favor. These were not residents who were, they might be Durham County residents, but they're not city residents. And when I say city, I mean, they were residents of Chapel Hill. They were very wealthy. And we're kind of gaming our systems and our things around environmental protections, and we're using that kind of natural heritage and protection of. And so we talked about how do folks, how, to me, the affordability piece is going to be number one. It was a 20% affordable project that was going to require very little city subsidy out of it, right? And so we talked about that kind of prioritization exercise and how can we approach that. And so I was just curious, I know not with this, but is there a kind of a timeline or an idea of how that could be approached?

I'll say that I think from staff's perspective, we want to finish this, right, and then we can look at perhaps in the fall working through kind of what that looks like. I think there may be differences of opinion about, you know, folks may prioritize different things, and so we may not be able to come, I want to recognize we may not be able to come up with a consensus thing in terms of prioritization. However, I think we can... probably take a stab at looking at existing city and county other policies, strategic plan goals, et cetera, to try and help with some of that, to align it to other goals that both the city and the county may have, to help with that prioritization. Because we have said from the very beginning, there are absolutely competing things in the comprehensive plan, right? You can't necessarily have a denser development and save every single tree on the site. That's just not realistic, right? But I think working through some methodology to help you all more clearly communicate with the public in terms of what aligns with higher priority goals and what doesn't is something we can work through.

I have a follow-up to that, if that's OK. Sure, Baker. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I understand that people interpret environmentalism different. Density, in my opinion, gets you better environmental policy because you're not sprawling out. That means that you're not going to be able to save every tree, et cetera, et cetera. I think that that would be helpful. I understand that's not today's exercise. I just wanted to highlight that. And then I think the other part that came up for me is even when, you know, the NC Heritage Program, it was renamed that that is not a regulatory framework. The state has told us flat out, no, you cannot make it a regulatory framework. And so that is, those are the things that I really need highlighted at some point, which is this might be a nice to have, But we cannot push further. And it's not just because of what we're saying, but because of what the state is saying. And at the end of the day, especially municipal governments, as we've seen, we are a creature of the state. And so we are. And I would say that our General Assembly is probably one of the most powerful as far as powers in the country and what they dictate and what they don't.

I will say I'm happy to have that discussion, but I do, for me, I know the status center issue is going to come up. To me, that's very time sensitive. And I want to make sure staff is focusing on that as a priority of the new ordinance and also getting the new LDO passed. So I also want to be conscious of that. where when we ask staff to do things and focus on things that it means that they could be not having enough time for other things. So I just want to put that out there as well.

Thank you. Mayor Britton.

Thank you. Commissioner Jacobs, to be perfectly polite, we have asked this body to do lots of things that you have asked for as an individual JCCP member, and there's been great staff response. So I would appreciate the same respect. Thank you.

you all um i would just uh mention um on on this topic anybody else have councilmember um The policies, I think, they are guiding. They are aspirational. They should be accurate in a lot of ways. Oftentimes, it's presented to us as this case is consistent with X number of policies out of such and such number of policies. But I would encourage all of us to look at that and then step away from it. I don't... I don't think that we should try and target and make this a mathematical formula. I think we should look at the policies and use our critical thinking skills to consider, hey, if this policy is not consistent with this policy on this particular case in this context, And so I know that we're looking at, in the next fiscal cycle, having a conversation about what goes into or what doesn't need to be in the current staff reports. It's always great to have really good, really accurate guidance, but I also just want to encourage us to put on our critical thinking caps, let the policies guide us, but not necessarily stick to kind of like a mathematical formula for the policies themselves. That being said, on the item that we are discussing, item number seven, EAR policies, I don't necessarily agree with all of the changes. So I guess I would ask the question, what happens if the city council approves something and county commission doesn't or vice versa on these? We don't wanna do that. And would colleagues be open to pushing this back? I don't think we have a meeting in July, do we? Pushing this back to August so that we can...

find some of the language so i would defer to sarah on if the county approves a change in policy but the city does not or vice versa um regarding the timeline as we've stated throughout this process there's nothing driving there's no there's no imminent deadline that we're needing to meet. We did kick off this process 10 months ago, so we would like to wrap it up as staff and move on to the next thing. But if this body is not ready to move forward, we will adjust accordingly. I think as staff, the one thing I would ask is that if there are members of this body that are not comfortable with the proposed policy changes you know we did have a meeting with a subcommittee who went through every policy gave us guidance we need that specific guidance as to what it is that you are not comfortable with so that we can try to address that either again in another subcommittee or in this body thank you commissioner Jacobs I was just wondering like what specifically do you have specific policies or I mean is this something that we can discuss here or

Yeah, I think, so a few items. So policy 48, encourage, incentivize a variety of, welcome, Commissioner. A variety of housing types and new developments. I wouldn't want to strike require. I think housing types instead of design accommodations is important. Affordable housing should be included in all new development proposals. I think sounds like stronger language than just encourage affordable housing. There are a few other items in here.

I mean, it sounds like things that you could just, you know, propose to staff and then copy all of us on it or something and see if everyone is okay with them.

Would folks be okay with that?

It may not be. I mean, if it's just, if they're, depending on what they are. I don't know, but I think.

I probably would, it's probably like three or four or five.

Yeah, it may not be a lot of things and they may not be, they could be just wordsmithing. I don't know. Yeah.

I would ask that if there are members who do have concerns with specific policies, please send that to us preferably within the next couple of weeks so that we can compile those, prepare a staff response, and have that ready for you at the August JCCPC meeting. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, it is on.

So one thing I will say, just because I heard, like, on 48, the issue about taking require out, one of the reasons for some of the word changes is recognizing that we cannot require. So these are applying in a legislative setting where folks are proffering things beyond what the ordinance is a thing that can require, right? And so I think if... if the issue was we want to require a variety of housing types in our ordinance, because that's the mechanism to do it, we could clarify that, but we can't, that's why I think why we took it out of here, because this is being applied in a legislative setting towards proffers essentially, and we can't require. So, but there may be some, so I think if you can email us and we may have some kind of back and forth and further discussion offline, that might be good.

Are folks okay with that? Council Member Cabrera and then Council Member Kopach.

So without understanding kind of the scope of what you'd like to review, I just wanna play a bit of a devil's advocate. because this has been going on for 10 months. And the working group was intended to get members from city and county from DCCPC to look at this in detail and walk through. And we had some similar questions and staff was able to give clarification for us on where we might like to see something, but there were some perhaps restrictions on doing so, or where there was a preference that actually was a change in policy where what staff was doing was just a technical correction. And just with all the things that are coming down the pike for us and for staff, I think there is benefit in considering moving forward what we have. Otherwise, I would see today's meeting is that time. If it isn't complicated, if you have them written, you wanna send them to us, perhaps that we can review them while we're here. Because I would love if there was any way possible to move it forward today, rather than having to have it come back again.

You know, and, yeah.

Understood, Councilmember. We'll think about that. Mayor Pro Tem Caballero.

Thank you. Councilmember's comment, I just, if it's, I'm not opposed to delaying for one more until August. I don't love it, partly to what Councilmember said. I do just want to make sure that I'm going to get to this. I'm going on break as soon as we pass the budget. And I see some other add-ons. That's my only concern is that, you know, I felt good. Thank you for those who served on that subcommittee. I did not want to. And getting into the weeds. And so I kind of just trusted that process. And so I do have a little bit of consternation that we're delaying a thing when there was opportunity to weigh in. That is my only, but if you're saying it's a few policies, I think what I'm concerned about, I'm just going to say, you're a planner, we are not. And so I don't want to be stuck in a position where there's lots, what was stated as a few is actually not a few, it's a lot. And then we are kind of in this space where we have to do a lot more analysis on a thing. If it is just a handful, when I say a handful, like no more than five policies that you're talking about, I'm okay. But if I get an email that there's like a lot of back and forth on a thing, I will be annoyed.

Council Member. I wonder, too, if and maybe trying to find a middle ground here, I would prefer to have not staff to not have to review this again after this meeting. But if it is just a couple corrections and if you are able to get your questions answered by staff, it may turn out that you don't have to come back for us because to us, because it may be that No changes are made like the one that was just raised it may be just getting questions answered and it doesn't lead to any changes. So once again one there may be a chance for us to review it today or two, it may be a chance for you to review a staff and not have to put it on the agenda again but it's another possible way forward.

i think after hearing everyone's comments i think it's better if we can try to get your think whatever you're concerned about addressed today so that we can move forward so not only you can have a break but staff can have a break too

Chair Baker, would you like me to come back up later in the meeting, give you an opportunity to go through? Maybe we can get to some of the other items that will give you an opportunity to get through those and then just leave this to later to maybe the last item? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Anything else before we go back to it? All right. Item number eight, moratorium text amendment.

Good morning. Robin Schultz, Planning and Development Department. This morning, just bringing back that language for the text amendment that was discussed at the prior meeting. Essentially what this text amendment would do would just remove all of those extra barriers that are within the UDO for the governing bodies to institute a moratorium and just default to the language that's already in the state statute. This text amendment will go before both the city and the county. This does not institute a moratoria. This is just to provide that flexibility so that when you do, if you decide to institute a moratorium either now or in the future, that there are less steps for that process. And so that is the extent of this text amendment. I just wanted to bring it back after the meeting last time, just so everyone could see the language. But unfortunately, the display is not working. So hopefully, you've gotten a chance to review the PDF.

If you can't see it, it's probably just a bunch of red lines through words. Are we also pulling it out of the draft LDC?

Because I know it was carried forward. Yep. So any change that you all make before the LDC goes before adoption, we will make in the LDC draft. So we will match whatever you all decide to tell us via a tax amendment within the LDC. So we're just tracking all those changes as they come up. For instance, like the RV parking amendment that was before you all in February.

Questions or comments, colleagues?

Yeah. I just had a few questions. One is I just want to lift up. So basically, we'll go to what the state statute is, right? And with the state statute, then nothing will go to the Planning Commission going forward. I think it's important to raise, lift that up, especially for Planning Commission member here, and also for the public that our current ordinance does have the Planning Commission part of the process for decision making. And that is something that will not be going forward.

Is that correct?

Okay. Um, and then I know we have our two attorneys here. Um, I was just reading over the state statute and I think it would just would be helpful to get some clarity on some of the conditions that, um, I'm trying to understand in the end, the, um, the state statute, um, I know it talks about, I'm looking at it right now. I wish we could all be looking at it together. It's like the part A, it says the duration of any moratorium shall be reasonable in light of the specific conditions that warrant and position of the moratorium and may not exceed the period of time necessary to correct, modify, or resolve such conditions. I mean, that's just like in the first section. And we had a... We discussed this at our work session on Monday, and our board asked Sarah, like, how long will it take to do an ordinance? Because we don't have an ordinance around data centers. And could you, and you shared, and if you could explain it, you shared that probably would take six months to develop the ordinance and then another six months to go through like all of the necessary meetings between the two bodies to probably approve it. So, you know, a year would be under this authority talks about a reasonable amount of time necessary. Could you talk about like the process? Because we were asking, does she need any extra you know, support, you know, with all the things that are on the planning staff's work plan, any outside, you know, extra help, but I'll let you tell what you share with us.

Sure, so what I shared at the County Commissioner's meeting was that if you look at the average timeframe, once an ordinance is ready, I'm going to start at the end of the process and kind of work backwards, taking it to Planning Commission and then getting it on governing body agendas, that is a It ends up being four to five months, depending on how long the planning commission takes with it, of time, right? So that's almost half a year's worth of time. Before that, we would do, and we've already started doing this, not that we haven't, we do research to what other places have in terms of regulations. We call and talk to our peers and learn from them. We do some industry research and then we start drafting. And some of this we already have done because the LDC had some provisions in it. Granted, we're looking to beef them up. So that and some meeting with key stakeholders and some amount of engagement that we would do probably constitutes like another half a year-ish. So I think grand total, I feel very confident that we could do it in a year or less, understanding that we're already a couple months in because we've already been working on this a little bit.

Thank you. And also, the Planning Commission will be taken out of the equation. So that's actually would be. Well, they would go. Oh, that's right. Because the text amendment. Right. That's right. They would. I'm thinking of the moratorium. They would. They would be. They would still need to be weighing in on the ordinance. Yeah. Okay. So that's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's really helpful. Yeah. I'll stop. I have some other questions, but go ahead.

I just was going to say a text amendment would have to follow whatever process. So it has, it comes here, it goes to public. I mean, it goes to planning commission. They can hear it twice.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Commissioner Jacobs to do more.

Yeah. And I was just like, for the attorneys here, like for, you know, going through it, I mean, maybe could you all just walk through the statute with us? either like, I don't know, the required statements, it talks about how we have to, what we have to establish related to the process or to doing a moratorium.

Just have a second.

If you're not prepared to do it, it's fine.

Well, no, I just, because of this being a body and a lot of times, you know, these are things we might talk about with boards in their entirety.

Kind of split up how the city side versus county side, who's going to jump in. Sure.

But I mean, if you want to talk about starting with the required statements, which is in paragraph D,

So the way that the statute is written, you have to outline a duration. You have to identify why the duration is necessary. And then the statute also requires there be specific statements. There's four total statements. If the city decides to extend its current moratorium, there will be technically a fifth statement because there's an extension statement that's required that identifies either new facts or new facts and circumstances that led to the extension, and or whether or not the problem has been addressed. So the city extends, there will be a fifth statement. But the first statement primarily talks about what is the problem? What are the conditions that warrant the moratorium? The second statement is, I believe it's... There's a lot packed into the first one. So I'm trying to summarize it for everybody. What are, yeah. approvals that are subject to it, whether or not there's a termination statement that's included. So the way that the current city of Durham's moratorium is written, that if the work is completed, the ordinances are adopted, that addresses the problem, then the moratorium ends. So that statement is there. And then there's also a schedule, a statement of a schedule of actions that are going to be taken. And it doesn't have to be specific, like on Monday, we're doing this, on Tuesday, we're doing this, but it does have to identify a general schedule of activity that's going to be taken later. throughout the moratorium to address the problem. So for example, as Sarah was stating, like for the first six months, the city would do research, communicate with stakeholders to gather information. And then the second half would be drafting ordinances and getting it through the process of just a short example of what that would look like. So we have to, each ordinance will have to have those four statements. And then if the city extends, it would be a fifth statement as well.

Okay, that's really helpful because that helps me understand how this would be directly tied to the work of the planning department. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Anybody else, questions, comments? Yes, Chair Shigaris.

Yeah, I have a request that one of the attorneys or both of them. attend the June Planning Commission meeting. I've already received some comments or seen some comments about, oh, the Planning Commission is going to be voting on whether or not to take themselves out of the process. Is this a conflict of interest, a subversion of the political process, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So if one or both of you could be there to answer any of those potential questions about how we are just going back to what we have to do anyway, according to the general statutes of the state, it would be very helpful and appreciated.

Sure, I'd be there.

Cool, thanks.

Thank you, anybody else? Commissioner Valentine and then Council Member Kopach.

Thank you, Chair. The action that's actually before us dealing with the text amendment, I mean, all that does is bring us in line with the general statute. And so I'm okay with that. It sets up a framework for whatever comes next. But I would just like to give a general statement about some of the things we discussed in our meeting the other day. And so initially, I had been inclined to support a moratorium. And as more information becomes available and trying to make what we think is in the best interest of our community consistent with the statute, I'm quite frankly having a difficult time getting to that. We still have a lot of work to do. Staff has had some things out for us to consider. But I want everyone to know that respect to the decision to move forward a moratorium, I want to be very deliberative about how we move and the basis for the movement because of the unintended consequences that may impact on our residents based on the decision that we make. And so I'm going to take my time in arriving at a decision I think is best for on the county side.

great yeah and of course this would go cut this item item number eight which is the text amendment to the udo comes here planning commission uh would be adopted by city council and county commission so it is necessary for us to do this this part together a moratorium ordinance what isn't done together it's your jurisdiction our jurisdiction Doesn't even have to be the same language. Probably should be the same time length. County commission doesn't even have to do one. So you have autonomy as county commissioners on that, and we have autonomy as well as city council to an extent. Yeah. But thank you for sharing that.

Chair, I agree with everything that you said. I think it would be ideal in many instances that the city and county work hand in glove. Sometimes that's not always possible. But on a very important issue like the one we're facing right now, I think it's important that we move in a way that makes sense for the larger county.

Agreed, agreed. Council Member Kopach.

Yeah, a couple questions and thoughts. I'll come back to this, but I wonder if this is a good venue to sort of discuss in daylight what some of our next steps are, at least on the city side, and perhaps for county folks to share. I think Commissioner Valentine has indicated sort of some of his thoughts about it, but just what we anticipate. So for residents who are following along, what some of the next steps will be as we lead up to our June 15th council meeting. So I don't know, you know, Chair Baker, if you'd want to touch on that. But I also wanted to just ask the attorneys as well, we keep putting you on the spot, but just if you feel this is the appropriate venue to talk about the timeline as you see it, and then i just am reflecting on this this text amendment we're working on and i think it still will make sense to move it forward because there could be you know uh future questions of moratoria as well too but i just want to to acknowledge the fact that you know we were working on this so that it gave us the opportunity as a council on June 15th, if we wanted to be able to establish a moratorium longer than 12 months without having to go before planning commission, which would allow us to extend our moratorium um within the 60 days based on our last resolution right uh and so we wanted that vote to give us flexibility to go much longer um but we have not decided on the time length so it's also in theory possible that the time length may um Maybe shorter. And so we may not need the text amendment at this time for that vote, but it may. So it kind of gives us the option, right? It gives us that possibility to still work towards because I know that there is real keen interest on having a longer moratorium. But then but then I guess it still opens up options for us in the future. And so those are the reasons why it's still important to move this forward. So I guess it'd be, if the attorneys want to comment all on timeline, and then I guess for the chair, thoughts on next steps and also on timeline.

I'll say something, and then Director Ianni, if you want to say something, if... uh the attorneys want to weigh in so definitely from an outsider this is probably very confusing um we were moving forward with something discovered these provisions in our own udo which are very unusual which were also carried forward into the ldc the draft ldc that's sitting out there um so kind of everybody discovered this uh the the provisions um so we followed the provisions for the 60 days um and we did have this discussion about amending the ordinance language so that we could go longer so that we could go longer um and in the meantime there have been additional conversations and discussion uh the plane department has um met with council members met with commissioners balancing a lot um and you know has stated that under their proposed work program that they could do the work in a certain amount of time. And so the language in the state statutes does kind of speak to The amount of time being tied to the amount of time it takes to do the work that is that you're trying to achieve right to implement the new the new language for the regulations. So I do see this as one kind of a fix to our video and discovery only in the LDC. So that is what this language actually on our agenda is as far as next steps. So this is going to June 15th, right? We would adopt it, you know, they could follow this timeline. We would adopt it and then we would only be subject to the state statutes rather than the state statutes on top of our own provisions in the UDO. Once we get rid of those provisions in the UDO, then we have the flexibility to adopt something longer than the 60 days, right? Without having to go through planning commission, right? And then moving forward, of course, It's obviously very rare that we do a moratorium ordinance. Have you ever done one before in Durham? It's extremely rare. But, you know, I mean, we're a growing city. You don't have to do a citywide ordinance on certain things. It's a tool in the toolbox, and so it is something that could be used at some point in the future without the additional burden placed on us by the UDO provisions. So that's my crack at it. Director Young, if you want to speak to it.

Yeah, you said what I was going to emphasize, which is that removing this from the UDO is really for two purposes. It's not just to be able to do a longer moratorium, but it's to be able to do a moratorium longer than 60 days without having to go through Planning Commission first. And what we talked about last time was that in times where you may deem you need a moratorium, there may be some urgency to it, and the extra time that Planning Commission could add could be a detriment. So taking that out that is what allows you to do more than 60 days council members

Yes, for my colleague, Council Member Kopach, can you just provide some justification as to why the moratorium would need to extend beyond the, because I'm just trying to get some alignment here. In meeting with the planning department, I believe that they said they can do it within 12 months. And so because of the total time it takes to write an ordinance, the entire overwrite was like two years, right? So I'm trying to identify like what is the justification for the extended time beyond the time it's going to take from the planning department to redo the ordinance.

I think that's a great question, and it's part of what led me to want to raise the question I did, and I appreciate Chair Baker and Director Young's comments. I think that's something that we'll deliberate as a council, because as Chair Baker said, sort of the timeline that the... the attorneys will make a recommendation in terms of how long they believe we should take is based in part on the amount of time that staff says that it will take them. And they've told us that they think 12 months is an appropriate time. And so I think that that's information that we'll have to take in as a council to determine how long we think is appropriate for a moratorium. So, so I don't want to like, you know, make an argument for the council at this point. But I think it's a really, like, you know, important and good question. But I think that will help guide our ultimate deliberation as a council.

Thank you so much, Aaron, I have a question for you. So I remember talking about scrutiny. And so like, what's the buy in it would provide scrutiny if we don't have justification for extended time beyond 12 months, as you always indicated is the amount of time would take to make these adjustments?

So I believe what you're referring to, Council Member Burris, is a case. So there has been lots of discussion in the community about a 32-month moratorium allotment that came down from the Supreme Court in 2002. And that particular case is a Lake Tahoe case where they looked at where Lake Tahoe passed two moratoriums with a total amount of 32 months, and the request on the court was to set a specific deadline of when it becomes a taking, when the moratorium becomes a taking. The court did not do that. What they did was identify that anything over 12 months would receive a increase level of skepticism or scrutiny, and that would be a fact-based analysis based on the circumstances related to the moratorium. So I believe that's what you're referring to in the discussions that we've had.

Yes, thank you so much for that.

I will just also, and then I'll turn it over to you, just point out that The other way we could have done this is to follow our own provisions and go through a very similar process because the moratorium ordinance as written in our current UDO provisions follows an amendment to the UDO process. So it would go through planning commission and then it goes on to respective elected bodies. It's kind of doing the same thing, except in this case, we are also on top of going through the process of adopting a moratorium ordinance. Um, changing the, uh, the, the current UDO so that we are just following state statutes. So in my, in my view, it's kind of cleaning it up. Uh, mayor pro tem.

Yeah, I just think that the thing that's in front of us right now is pretty narrow. It's just fixing, in some ways, maybe we actually have more leniency. Usually we don't at the state statute level. And so since we have more leniency at the state statute level, I don't want to put anything additional on us because that rarely happens. So that's just like generally speaking around the current UDO and then the LDC. So I think that that's clean. What we're thinking about with what prompted this conversation initially, that that's a separate, to me anyway, a separate thing that we will have to deliberate on and we've gotten good guidance and figure out as council members and county commissioners. But I think the cleaning up language makes a lot of sense.

Commissioner Jacobs.

I do want to acknowledge that the current language does allow going up to 12 months. From how I read it, that if you have 60 days, you can then extend it up to a year. So I think it's important to acknowledge that. Yeah, I just... Yeah, I mean, I'm also fine with moving forward with adopting the state statute. I did wanna acknowledge though that taking the planning commission out of that, which is different. Everything else that we do related to land use planning in Durham goes through the planning commission. And I do wanna acknowledge it. I think that is a big deal. that we are removing that body, which is, you know, of course, the new, the state statute still requires a public hearing, but that is, to me, that is significant, removing the planning commission's role in a process, and I understand You're saying when there's an emergency situation, and I don't know, maybe our ordinance doesn't address the emergency situations, I don't know. But I do wanna still acknowledge that, removing that part of our process that we have for everything else. And I just wanna follow up also on... what City Council Member Burris raised and also Commissioner Valentine, we have to be very careful. We have to follow the state statute and be sure that whatever we do, we are not putting our community at risk. because unintended consequences are not only having unintended consequences, especially that we're thinking about on the county side related to economic development and jobs. and just impacting the existing economy that we have here, but also the cost of putting ourselves at risk that are very costly related to lawsuits and the consequence of not following a statute. We all have to be, you know, just very diligent, make sure we're, you know, we've asked what we've done. We gave direction at our work session to our staff and our attorneys to come back with, you know, recommendations related to just to share our next steps to come back with, you know, advice to us about what are our options and, you know, we already directed Sarah to help us work on a land use ordinance. We were like, there's nothing stopping us from working on this right now. And because obviously none of us want mega or hyperscale data centers, nobody wants that. And she informed us that she was already staff was already working on that, which we didn't know, which is great to hear. And, you know, again, I asked you, do you need any more help, you know, any outside help? And she said, no, because I want to make sure we're not putting too much on your plate. But so I know we're going to start working on the ordinance right now. We're working on it, but related to the moratoria, our, our body asked that we, you know, staff come back with what are the different options and the pros and cons and, related to the county. So that will be our next step.

All right, any other questions or comments?

Chair, just one last comment. So I wanna go back to something that Commissioner Jacobs brought up about removing the Planning Commission from the process. As a general sort of proposition, I am concerned about that. But I think that yourself and, Council Member Kopac, your experience on that board. I know that decisions that you're making are not ones that are made very lightly in considering that board. And so I'm confident that you'll arrive at what you think is the best. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you.

I'll just comment on that. I think given that this is the first time you've seen this in 26 years, means that it's not likely to come forward very often. And also when it comes to the actual writing of the rules, the ordinance, right? Like that will go before planning commission for input. And so I think because of those two factors, that gives me confidence with this approach, so.

as will LDC language. People love the language as it is and want to fight for it to be added back in, go through the LDC process, rewrite process.

I just want to, Council Member Kobach, you asked a question. I just want to make sure that you got the answer and you directed it to the attorneys, but then I think others may have answered it. So I just want to make sure you got an answer to the question that you had asked.

I appreciate you asking that. It was a bit of a convoluted way I addressed it as I think back, but I do believe that the chair and director have addressed it. Thank you.

Can I just add one small thing? So the Central Pines Regional Council has a working group with other municipalities that we are also in. So we are working with other municipalities right now and have been for the past couple of weeks trying to work on that land use ordinance. I know that Sarah has communicated that to you all, but just wanted to give you one small update that it's not just us in a room with a computer. We have folks that we are working with as well. That's great. Thank you. Thank you.

Any final comments? All right. Thank you so much.

June 22.

I know what this is doing. When does... So then any future discussions on what council is doing will just be down the road. I know what we're doing on the 15th, but that doesn't... That's just changing it. This is a text amendment process, basically.

This is a text amendment process. Are you referring to the city's potential moratorium extension?

Correct.

Yes, that... That item is going to be entered into the system soon if it hasn't been already. For June 15th. For June 15th. So it will be on the agenda after this item so that you would approve this item first.

Like we had to do last time. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure I didn't lose it. And I just want to remind folks, because I think there's been a little bit of confusion, a text amendment process is staff driven. It is not community driven. There are community components and public hearings. And so for those who are in the, You know, we all know that community is very intent and hyper-focused and good, but this is now, you know, we have very good planning staff. We have very good attorneys. It is their process. And so all of us, electeds included, really need to honor that and honor their expertise. And we are on the train and we're moving and we are responding to community. But we've had text amendments processed before. It is staff-driven.

And I will also just one final thing I'll just point out is, you know, council's had a lot of deliberation on this. I think county commissioners, you know, you all are finding what you're comfortable with. And, you know, if you all end up not being comfortable with moving forward with something now, you can always join up later. and align that timeline. So I want to make sure you all are comfortable with where you're at. We are making separate decisions on that, but it doesn't mean that it can't become aligned at some point. Good? Did you want to add anything to that?

No, no, I think, I think you, you did that correctly where both jurisdictions would be passing their own moratoriums. And the city is currently under one. So if it is extended, then the County can, if they choose to do it along the same timeline. And I think I'm realizing that I think I'm the only one here who's ever been through a moratorium before.

Was that in Asheville?

In Asheville. Yeah. We had one when I was there.

All right, thank you, everybody. Appreciate that. Appreciate the conversation. All right, we've got a few more items. I'm ready to talk about, go back to the EAR policies if folks are comfortable with that. I have five. So I will just go ahead and walk through this in front of everybody. I would prefer to keep policy 40 language the same and policy 48 language the same. I think the current language is stronger than the proposed language For 48, I think design accommodations is different from housing types. I want to stay with housing types.

Okay, if I could make a staff response to both of those. Yes, go ahead. I'll start with 48 because I think we have a stronger case for what staff is recommending there. And what we have seen since the adoption of the comprehensive plan in 2023 is that housing types don't necessarily mean that... accommodations for those who need them are going to be provided just because somebody is doing single family and townhouses and garden apartments. does not mean that there will not be step-free entrances. It does not mean that there will be a full bathroom with a tub on the ground floor. And those are the kinds of design accommodations that we are seeing from the development community to address this policy. And we don't want to just assume that because I'm gonna do townhouses and apartments that anything for those who need those accommodations for children or the elderly or those with mobility issues are going to be addressed.

So to that, do we have a different policy elsewhere that also encourages a mix of housing types? We do. Okay. All right.

The point of this policy is not about the housing types, is to allow a mix of age groups when you look at the way it's constructed. Okay.

Perfect. I am comfortable with the way it's proposed for 48.

We're saying 48 is staying the same with the encourage and incentivize restricting and require so that we're all saying that that's okay.

Yeah, we can't require, and the not requiring is where staff was thinking with 40. Just really covering ourselves to make sure that affordable housing should be included is not being interpreted as you'd better do this because- But that's should versus shall, right? I'm going to defer to attorneys on should versus shall. We're just trying to be a little more- conservative, for lack of a better term, in the wording of our policy to make sure that this is something we're encouraging people to do and not requiring them to do.

What we have heard from the public, the way that they use this is they interpret it as it's a requirement because it says it should be there. And so we're also trying to be responsive to that and clarify for the public as well what we mean by should. And what we mean by should is we're encouraging it, but we're not requiring it.

Yeah, and that's absolutely correct, that we get comments during public hearings that affordable housing needs to be in there and we can't make them do it. Mayor Pretem.

Thank you. I have very strong opinions because I have had a problem with some of our policies on this. I am not an attorney, but I speak two languages, and so conjugation of a verb is a conjugation of a verb, right? Like, I shall, what you should, right? So... I think that I personally have, because I've seen it play out, and I would also say that we are being successful in our incentivization of affordable housing. So we are succeeding on the thing that we are trying to encourage. We get a staff report that shows the thousands of units that have been proffered voluntarily by the development community because they are trying to meet the goals of our community that are stated in many places, not just in our comprehensive plan. So I very much am in line with what staff is recommending, and I think that we are succeeding already with the word incentivize. Okay.

I would prefer to be should, but I don't think we're all going to agree on all the language here. All right. 101, just a question. Why pull out wildlife habitats? for encouraging development that incorporates native plants, wildlife habitats, natural landscaping.

Because I believe... He has these all memorized. She knows that I believe wildlife corridors is in another policy. And one of the things we're also trying to do, we'd heard concerns from members of the public that... Developers were double dipping, so to speak. They were proffering one thing that was mentioned in three or four different policies and getting an exceeds on all of those. Native plantings was kind of the poster child of this. It was mentioned in like four policies. And so somebody would say they do native plantings and all of a sudden their scorecard got really, really good. A pluses. So that was, I believe, the reason for the wildlife corridors because that, I believe, is in 83. Yes. Yes. And I think it might also be in, yes, and it's also in 70. So we added wildlife corridors to 79. So that is explicitly now in 79. Okay. It's also mentioned in 83, and so we removed it from 101.

Yes, you're not getting bonus points. You're just getting the point for the thing. You're just cleaning up your scoring rubric.

Rubric, exactly. That's what we're trying to do. Yeah.

All right, just got a couple more. Thanks for bearing with me, everybody. Policy 177, allow for rather than incorporate, what policy 177 allow for the incorporation of community institution rather than incorporate community institution kind of weakens the language there a little bit.

I can see that we're trying to be clear that again, it's not, we're not, we don't, we don't expect this policy to require and not require from a legal standpoint, but that we wouldn't, if you say incorporate community institution, institution, uses within mixed residential neighborhoods. Our thought was that that's implying that they all mixed residential neighborhoods should have community institutions. And so we're just trying to be, we're trying to say more, yes, we'd like this there, but we don't expect it everywhere. That's, that's staff's thinking. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, and I just, you know, this document is supposed to be aspirational, right? It isn't, like the rules are in, if we want the thing built a certain way, it has to be in the LDC. These are like... This is lovely, but it was never meant to be regulatory. And I think that what we're seeing is folks are expecting regulatory and it's just not. So when it comes to the LDC, if we want the thing, just put it in the rules and it is what it is. And either they get it or they don't.

Colleagues, would you be comfortable with saying, so right now it says incorporate, propose saying allow. Could we find a middle ground, say encourage?

I have no problem with encourage as staff. All right, thank you. Okay, let me just make a note of this.

Yes, thank you. It's policy 177. Yeah, also 177. That's what I thought we were still on.

Oh, yeah, sorry. It's located in different spots. Yeah, this is one that's in, I believe it's in several. I think it's in the mixed residential neighborhood, and then it's going to be again, I think, in community institution. Yes, it's going to be in community. So we'll make sure to make the change in both.

It'll be married in both. Okay, thank you. Are you comfortable with that, Chair Baker?

I am comfortable with that. Then the last one is just changing... So policy 172 changing from a greater variety of housing types and price points to a greater variety of housing and sizes. We cannot regulate price. Let's see 172, but this isn't a regulatory document.

It's an aspirational document. True. As Sarah was saying before, we have had issues with members of the public interpreting it that way. And so Our thought was that this is something we can then, even if we say we want a variety of housing types and price points, the development community is not going to give us what those price points are. If they do give us price points, there's no way to believe those are going to be accurate when they're actually turning dirt in four to five years at the zoning stage. There's no way for us to really

Yeah, you cannot commit to a price point, right? That's not a commitment that we get or can get. And so we're trying to use size as the proxy, right, for that. Because obviously, you know, residential is priced per square foot usually. And so the smaller, you know. So what we have seen people proffer is limiting, you know, a certain amount of the units to a certain square footage in order to ensure that they're offering something at different price points.

But you can commit. They can make minutes.

Yeah, but no one's going to because the amount of time it takes from the time someone gets rezoned to when they are turning dirt at best case is five years at the soonest, sometimes longer. They are not going to commit to a price point that five years from now, they may need to be radically different in order to make the project work. And so that's just, I'm just being realistic. That's not going to happen. That's why we don't ever get them. And that's why when you all do ask questions about, hey, what price point? They're always, they may say something, but it's super caveated, right?

Any other comments?

okay uh thank you for for uh entertaining this oh my pleasure thank you thank you for asking those those are good questions thank you yeah i'm good um all right item number six i'm sorry chair baker i've not had a motion or any i don't know if we need a formal motion but i need some sort of indication from this body to go forth and bring this to the elected officials Our folks. If Sarah's okay with a thumbs up on that, then we can just do a thumbs up. Okay, sounds good, thank you.

Item number six, 2055 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Colleagues, you have the printout of this presentation.

Thank you. Good morning, members of council, members of the County Board of County Commissioners and members of the Planning Commission and staff. I'm here today to present the Destination 2055 Metropolitan Transportation Plan on behalf of Triangle West. Great, thank you. A little bit about me. In 1995, I interned for the city under my predecessor, Felix Nwankwo. A lot of years in career and planning in both transportation and a lot of the things you've been talking about brought me back here four years ago. I wish I could say I'm the smartest planner to ever graduate from Southern Durham High School, but as you know, that is Sarah Young. So... I'm also joined here by our planning manager, Colleen McGue. Our organization is a membership-based organization of Durham City, Durham County, Orange County, and the three towns in Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carver, and Hillsborough, Durham County, or excuse me, Chatham County, GoTriangle, and the State Board of Transportation. Every four to five years, we update and deliver a Metropolitan Transportation Plan. We do this in concert with our neighbors to the east, our brother agency, sister agency, CAMPO, the Capital Area MPO.

No problem.

Again, I've already gone through this. We have some folks in the room, Commissioner Jacobs, Council or Mayor Pro Tem Caballero that are on our board and provide a lot of guidance to us. Here you'll see an overview of our actual region in green along with the yellow areas that are part of the Capital Area MPO. One thing we know over the next 30 years is the triangle region will continue to grow. People are coming at a staggering pace. Jobs are being created. There's all sorts of development. We are densifying our area successfully while still maintaining housing options for people at all points in our life and lifestyles. We obtain our growth estimates for population from the state demographer and our estimated estimations for jobs and economic development we obtained through buying third party data. Now, 30 years is a pretty long time. But just so you know, we've already started working on the 2060 plan. This plan has to be fiscally constrained with our anticipated revenues, both from the federal government and the state government, but also any local generated revenues like the transit taxes that are in Durham and Orange County. So the projects that we include in our plan have to be financially feasible within those resource constraints. And I should add, this is all modes of transportation. This is not just highways or rail or freight, pedestrian public transportation. Campo, more than us, is involved in aviation around RDU Airport. And we look at factors like safety, congestion, access to public transportation and to non-motorized transportation as part of our planning process. There are kind of four distinct phases. We fortunately have adopted the 2055 plan, but we started out with visioning and a lot of discussions with our board members and other stakeholders. We proposed some learning scenarios that we proposed where we move the dial on certain factors like density of development to get an idea of how our mathematical models would respond to those conditions. For example, we doubled the density for our high density transit oriented development areas as a test to see what that would do to mode share, congestion, and other performance metrics that we pull out of our model. went through those alternatives, were more informed for actual project alternatives with financing options, went through a series of review on those and pulled a preferred option out of that work. We actually took parts of two different of our alternatives and added them together to get our preferred option. because we generally limit our investments in highways in Triangle West, where our capital area friends have a lot more rural areas that are growing that the communities around their fringe would like to see road development. So that's the major difference between the two plans. So we have eight goals. These goals have been the same with exception of maybe some wording changes for a long time. And we do share the goals pretty much uniformly with our partners to the east. It's a lot of goals. So we can pretty much make any transportation project fit into some or all of these goals, which is great, but also problematic when we're really trying to be very tactical about our investments. The slide deck you have will go through the alternatives analysis and scenario planning information. I'm not really gonna go into these in detail with you, but the information's there. And you can see the plans and trends, which are based on our community's comprehensive plans and our estimates of that with a moderate investment in transportation. We have the shared leadership, which increases investment in ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION THAN CARS. WE HAVE LESS INVESTMENT IN HIGHWAY, MORE IN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND HAS A MODERATE GOAL IN TERMS OF LAND USE DENSITY. AND THEN WE HAVE AN ALL TOGETHER SCENARIO WHERE WE INCREASE FUNDING ACROSS EVEN MORE ACROSS ALL THOSE ALTERNATIVE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION AND EXPECT AN EVEN HIGHER LEVEL OF DENSITY. That scenario requires changes from our partners at the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It involves changes at the local level with updating the land use development ordinances or unified development ordinances of our partners. It includes more investment in inner city rail and a regional commuter rail system, increasing regular public transportation frequency and then also adding bus rapid transit lines across our region. So Durham, Chapel Hill, subsequent investments beyond the initial concepts that are moving forward now into the future. And those are all really significant and expensive projects. So our final scenario, we have about $8 billion over the 30 years invested in public transportation We have about $9 billion invested in our roadway operations and maintenance. So that is keeping our road system together without expanding it substantially. We have the largest share, about 13 billion in upgrading our streets to handle multimodal travel and improve safety. And then lastly, we have 4.2 billion dedicated for bicycle and pedestrian projects. We expect the bulk of these expenditures to happen in the last decade of our plan after 2045. This is because some of these factors we're including and the assumptions we base the planning on would include some legislative changes allowing local units or counties to increase sales tax to direct more investment into transportation. We've got a lot of fixed guideway projects that we included in our plan, including the Chapel Hill Rapid North-South BRT, the Central Durham line that's currently under development for BRT, BRT or some sort of express bus service connecting Durham and Orange County, and then several connections east-west across the region. We've got some, again, some transit revenue assumptions that include more aggressive growth rates and then increasing some revenue. Some changes to the state law that divides transportation resources up. So there's a quick perimeter and table about North Carolina's strategic transportation investment law. We have a map of our proposed inner city rail system, which includes new stops in Hillsborough and RTP along the North Carolina Railroad main line, and connecting Durham with Raleigh. The goal of this investment is to increase the frequency of trains, as well as opening up access to two additional destinations across the triangle. And we're very active in communicating with the rail division at NCDOT, to understand their upcoming planning. They are trying to make improvements to the rail line so that we can run more frequent service, not only from Raleigh to Charlotte, but between the Triad and Triangle or even within the Triangle itself. There's a lot of coordination because this is also the only east-west main freight line for rail across the state. Got a map of potential bus rapid transit corridors. Some of these we received preliminary funding encouragement from NCDOT. So we're working with the department to designate some resources to move forward into initial planning and conceptual design phases for these systems and how they interact with each other.

We also look a lot at different performance measures.

So with the performance measures we adopted, our models estimate that we will actually nearly double a mode shift from transit as seen in 2020 to 2055. So the investment does move the needle on public transportation. I think that's really critical to point out. There are some technical reasons we use the 2020 base. I won't get into those. We will be updating in the next, or the next MTP will use a 2025 base. It just has to do with the inputs that go into our modeling. Can I just ask a quick question here?

When you're saying mode share, you're saying the percentage of people who are commuting to work How are they getting there?

It's not just work trips. It's all trips. So it's trips, home-based work, home to school, non-work-based trips, pull all of those collectively out of the model. And how we get to that is, I'll talk about some of the inputs real quick. We have household surveys where people talk about their travel patterns that are collected every two years. We have the demographic and economic development data We actually use everyone's comprehensive plans as the basis for our modeling. So we work with Scott from the planning department to verify the road network, future land use, zoning layers, existing, you know, what is committed development in the area. So this is actually how we coordinate land use and transportation growth development. That's an excellent question, thank you. We think that we'll see a significant per capita transit ridership with that additional investment, again, about twice what we would under the more traditional approaches to transportation financing. And we also expect to see quite an investment in bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Sometimes those will be standalone projects. A lot of times they'll be incorporated to make our existing street network safer and more accessible to people that are not driving. We have an overall timeline of some of the significant projects we're working on. We've worked with the county on and city together on a city-county bike plan. We've worked with our friends in Orange County on a few different projects. We led and facilitated the Durham to Roxborough rail trail analysis that wrapped up last year and will, knock on wood, result in purchasing the rail corridor within the next few weeks, which, thank you to the both the county and the city that have contributed money, but also the Department of Transportation, which I believe has about $11 million invested in their funds for that purchase. And right now we're investigating, it's called the J Line. It's a railroad line that connects just west of Hillsborough down through Chapel Hill and Carrboro. And there's a long history behind that. But that's another community-driven process that we're working through with those partners. Again, we also expect much more significant investment in complete streets and safety improvements after the first 10 years, although we still have nearly $1.5 billion of resources directed at those kinds of projects in the plan. Here's a list of some of the projects we have. Of course, there's a lot of A lot of debate and we are trying to work through individual characteristics with each of the projects because we would like to make sure that we are not widening through capacity unless it's a million percent necessary in our planning area. That list just continues. We have a map. Again, we have a long list. I think we start with around 80 performance measures through our modeling and other tools, and we whittle them down to try to get at performance measures that show the biggest changes and resonate best with our stakeholders. So we've got, for example, a reduction in vehicle miles traveled, a reduction or actually an increase in average congestion, a shift away from driving alone, more non-motorized and transit trips, and then also an increase, significant increase in ridership for both Durham, Go Durham and Go Triangle. All right, and this is the worst slide of the whole thing. It's a picture of me with the QR code getting to the webpage. So as I said, we're already working on 2060. We began our preliminary land use analysis and incorporating any comp plan and zoning changes that have occurred into that. So we have worked very recently with the Durham City County Planning Department, and we appreciate that partnership. We're also rethinking on how to engage staff better and maybe make the process less tedious for them, because they obviously have a lot of other things that they're working on, and we want to make it a partnership and not a, well... you signed off on this, so if there's a mistake, it's not our problem. That's not the point of the relationship. It is to be beneficial to each other. So with all that, I'm happy to answer your questions.

Colleagues? I have a question. I see a lot of buses, and I see them empty, and they're big. And I've often wondered why are there, what would be the drawbacks to having like more buses but have them be smaller other than having to have more drivers? Because, I mean, if you have to get on a bus to ride like an hour and a half or two hours to get somewhere, people are discouraged from doing that. I know I would be. I mean, not a train planner. Southern high school alumni, though.

Oh, great.

I don't know if that counts for anything, but I'm just curious.

Well, you must have graduated long after I did.

Atlas Road location?

Yeah.

Oh.

Oh, gee. So we primarily leave the fleet and route planning to our partners that go Durham and go Triangle and then Chapel Hill Transit and Orange County Transit. But you bring up some valid points. In some cases, running more vehicles is actually less cost effective, more vehicle types. It just really depends on the agency and what they're equipped to handle. Agencies try to limit their vehicle fleet to only a few types because of the parts, the service, everything else. Electric vehicles have thrown that upside down on its head over the past few years. But really, that's the vehicle when it comes to the service planning, there's a balance. You can either be fast and consistent or you can have a lot of stops. You can't really do both. It's very problematic because every time you stop, you're introducing a friction point into the bus running the route successfully on time. For example, some of the city of Durham's fastest routes, which I think are running it faster than a 15 minute headway right now, have consolidated stops. So the bus is not set to stop. as frequently as it was, but they're running more buses between those stops. Really, that's a balance. We at the MPO, part of our charge is a continuing a comprehensive and a cooperating transportation planning process. So with that, we have proposed establishing a transit operators committee where our operators can sit down and work through that coordination, not just with where they're stopping, but what vehicles are running and how to make sure that if multiple transit operators are in the same corridor, they're not competing for the same riders, and that should optimize some of the vehicles that are out there. For example, on 15501, Chapel Hill Transit runs up to 40. Go Durham runs... north and east of 40, and GO Triangle runs the whole corridor. So they're all stopping at the same places. The passengers don't necessarily care what color the bus is, but they run at different frequencies, and they all have a different, they have some of the same stops, but they also have many different stops. So depending on what bus you get, you could be going really quickly, or you could be stopping every couple blocks.

Okay, yeah. I'm sure there's a lot of moving parts to this. To me, it would seem to be the primary focus of a public transportation would be to get cars off of the streets and more people on the buses. So, I mean, however that can be accomplished best.

And the way to do that is to make the bus more frequent and more reliable and to have a pleasant user experience. Okay. You know, bus stop amenities, improving access of people in our transit oriented neighborhoods can safely get to the bus stop. You know, and as such, the city and the county transit tax are funding significant investments to try to rectify some of those known problem areas. Dearborn Drive, 15501. There's a favorite bus stop that is continuously pointed out on Junction Road. that is just a sign in a ditch. Not a great experience for someone waiting for the bus. The junction does not have a shoulder in that area. So there's a very, if you're waiting for the bus, there's going to be a lot of cars going by you fairly quickly. It's just not a good environment for that. So changing those situations are how we increase ridership. Of course, fare-free ridership does help in Durham. But in order to elevate and grow ridership beyond people that are dependent on public transportation and encourage choice riders and make it more habitual, it's that reliability. Like when you're trying to get to work and you don't know if the bus is going to come, that's not a good situation.

Thank you so much, Doug, for coming here. I think this is really important for everyone here to know about the MTP. I just want to emphasize that this is something that we have to do. It's required by the federal government. And it has to be fiscally constrained, meaning we have, you know, a plan how we're going to fund this. But also like anything that we want to do here locally in Durham, it has to be in the MTP to be able to, you know, for us to apply for funding. Like we have to be able to show that it's in our MTP. So it's also kind of a, requirement, bureaucratically, that if it's not in the plan, we're going to have a hard time getting federal funding for it. So I think that's also really important for us to understand. And I know you alluded to us, but I think to this, but I've also realized, emphasizing that what's in Our land use plan is hand in glove with this plan as well, because we can't achieve you know federal funding is all about proving that you have ridership even with state funding to so we can't go after money for things like brt. If we can't prove that we have the ridership and then we don't have the ridership unless that's where we're doing, you know transit oriented development or. you know, trying to do denser development around these quarters, we won't, that's just the way the federal funding works. And also state funding as well, a lot of times is linked also. You have to prove that you've got the people living in these places. So, you know, it's, I really, I'm very proud of, you know, how our MPO over the past number of years has been really, we've been leading the way in this state on linking together land use and transportation. And I think that's really reflected in this plan as well. Could you talk about though, being that this is fiscally restrained, this does say that we're going to get more money through other means, through increasing the sales tax. What year is it that we say we're going to get that funding?

2035. 2035, okay. That's when you see the big bump.

All right, so we've got like, just to keep that in mind, when we're thinking about our efforts at the General Assembly, and of course, Mecklenburg County has achieved that. And so it is something for us to think about both of our bodies and also regionally as we look at trying to get that we won't be able to do this without having that extra funding source. So I'd want to raise that. I also had a question. Since we're doing a local BRT study right now, is there a complete alignment with what we're looking at as possible BRT routes with what is in the MTP?

Initially, yes. We will refine the 2060 NTP with the outcomes of those independent studies because they're a little bit further out.

Okay. And I also just want to lift that up, too, because it's huge that NCDOT already is in support of the BRT routes that we're looking at. And I believe also the CAMPO, have CAMPO also, have they somehow incorporated ours as well? Yes. Okay. So that their plan also reflects what's in our plan is also really important when we look at how we fund these things. And could you, I noticed that 70 is not included on the list of the, when you were listening here, the charts that you included about the major roads, why is there nothing referring to 70?

Because that's still under study. The Department of Transportation, in its long-term plans, would like to convert US-70 from its format as we know it in between 885 and 540 to a limited access freeway. We have always held the opinion that that is a very expensive and unnecessary project and that there are better ways to move traffic through that corridor with less community impact. We're continuing to evaluate that. We think that there's an opportunity for some short-term access management improvements. It would score very well for state funding. And then we have, you know, when it comes to modeling and estimates, Sometimes they're useful, but they're always a little wrong. So it's our best guess with all the information we have. And we have disagreed with the department on how those project estimates should work, particularly on the 70 corridor. That said, in between the Durham County, Wake County line and 540, there is a funded project for that conversion. However, That portion of freeway, which I think is maybe a mile and a half, is already up to around $500 million. So as we look statewide and we see our transportation budget, I think $500 million to invest in a very short piece of freeway really doesn't make sense to me when you're looking at statewide improvements needed across the whole state. I mean, I-40 is still in the bottom of the river right now. There's a bridge in Wilmington that's redundant and working towards obsolescence that needs to be fixed, and that's going to be over a billion dollars. We've got... the news and the media about the I-77 project in Charlotte, and we've got other expansions around. So with a limited amount of funding, even though that project may at one point have been very attractive, now that we have a better idea of how much it will cost, I'm not certain it's going to move forward forever.

Thank you. I appreciate that context. And my last question is, could you define for everyone the difference, like what is modernization versus the ICM? And would modernization include complete streets also?

Do you want to?

Yeah.

Colleen and I were just talking about this, and she's had the question come up several times. Yeah.

We have been giving the same presentation to all of our member agencies, so thank you for having us here today to talk about this. So we define modernization as a project that doesn't necessarily add a new travel lane, but would add additional facilities for bike, ped, and transit. It also improves... intersection designs. And so if you've heard of the term super street, we're looking at safer intersections that reduce conflicts. You know, they might include roundabouts, those types of things. Complete Street is a street that serves the needs of all the users of that facility. And so this really varies depending on the context. So if you're in an urban area, hopefully it's serving people walking, biking, people taking transit. In a rural area, it might look very different. And certainly on a limited access highway facility, a Complete Street just serves transit and

vehicles so i hope that answers the question although if we have for instance the triangle bikeway plan does have a you know separate protected bike lane bike pedestrian along i-40 right which is that's true it would be separated though right it's separated yeah yeah okay we don't want the bicyclists and high-speed vehicles driving close together yeah okay Thank you.

Thank you, Colleen. I have a tremendous staff. I'm very fortunate for that. And oftentimes they know a lot more details than I do. So thank you again.

Thank you. Thanks for being here with us. We get in the weeds with this a lot. I do want to lift up, and this is something that has been a gradual change. I guess it was first with the 2050 MTP. It was essentially a compliance exercise. We had to do it by federal regulation, as Commissioner Jacobs has already stated. And we really started to, at that time, lean into and think about how do we drive, how do we use that process to really drive how we want things to be. And we have been, I think, successful as a board. And we've had a decent amount of board turnover at this point. And it's still very much a deep commitment. And I think that that's been one of the successes because when you're, it's multiple jurisdictions. And so to really do all of that work to really, you know, move in the right direction. And we're also working closely with Campo. And so I just want to lift up Doug and his staff because I know it's hard to manage that. And I feel like it's been one of our biggest successes I also want to lift up that our Vision Zero work at the city level has been critical, and we've done that very much in conjunction with the TPO, and I don't think we would have been as successful had that work not been as aligned, and so I just want to lift up that. The TPO staff for all of that and really willing to kind of work and change the culture in a way of, you know, for many years, it was just we've held the line on really big widenings in our jurisdiction, sometimes with the friction of residents. But that's what aligns with the goals and where all of the jurisdictions are in the TPO. And that's not always easy. So real proud of this work. The modeling that's done here is critical. I use it often. I think about it often even with our land use cases because I'm thinking about what are we trying to hit with transit? What have we said we were going to do? And what does that do to the density that we need in an area to get us there, even if it's unpopular in the moment? So thanks for being here. And I'm glad y'all are doing the rounds. I know that was something that the board asked of you. And so appreciate seeing you here today. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Sometimes when new businesses are relocating to this area or artists are coming to the area, they'll accidentally say, we're going to Raleigh-Durham, and people laugh at them. But this is Raleigh-Durham, I mean, and even more than that. I mean, we are a region. the economy, the environment doesn't care about our jurisdictional boundaries. We don't operate at that level. And sometimes you can't even tell when you're going from one municipality or county into the other. And so that regional work is so vital. And I know other states and other countries do much more regional and metropolitan level planning that goes well beyond just transportation. is more regulatory in nature on issues of land use and environment, economic development, those kinds of things. So again, this work is very important. Looking at the presentation, we are a society that is deeply dependent on cars to get around. And even if you just look at an aerial of our metropolitan area, I mean, what is the percentage of land that is designated to move and store private vehicles? It's enormous. What we have done over the past century to transform the way people live so that all you can do is get around by car. It would take... Herculean efforts to even slightly move the needle. And we see, you know, 2055, I mean, best case scenario, reduction of vehicle travel by 5% mode share. I mean, and that is under the constraints of the federal government, which loves cars and the freeway industrial complex and the state government that loves cars. And so we got to hold the line and be as aggressive as we possibly can to even get those small little wins. But we've got to stick to our plans. We've got to be diligent. And we need to be tough and aggressive because the infrastructure is here. We're not going to change anything anytime soon. But we got to move things in the other direction because people want that too. And of course, we... We think about, I mean, we're a society that fetishizes the comfort of drivers and air conditioning and heating and leather seats and what's your experience like in your vehicle. And once you get out, you're kind of forgotten. I mean, and getting the details right with having shade and street trees and the design of sidewalks and what you're walking past and looking at, that's not... it's not just some luxury. Like we've got to get all that right. We've got to get the density right and the design right. So that just goes to show how important your work is. It's at a very high level, but coming down to those details really, really, really matters. So appreciate all that, Commissioner Jacobs.

Commissioner Jacobs- Yeah, I appreciate your comments and also emphasizing that transportation is the biggest source of carbon emissions. So, you know, it's also about how do we literally address climate change. Yeah. And I also want to emphasize the, as you talked about us being a region, the triangle regional model that this plan is based on that Mayor Pro Tem was referencing, it shows that most of the job growth in the future will be east of us. It will be in RTP and it will be in Wake County. And so we have to be thinking about how we are going to make sure Durham residents have the opportunity to get to where the jobs are going to be.

Any final comments, questions? Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having us. All right, last item. Oh, I'm sorry, item five.

Okay, good morning. Chair Baker, members of the JCCPC. I am Javar Jones and before you to present the consolidated case preview for this quarter, we have two cases. The first is Highlands. The proposal is asking to rezone from residential rural to plan development residential 3.618 to allow for up to 320 single family detached, attached house, duplex, multiplex, and or zero lot line units. with a minimum of two housing types, also a 5% affordable units at 80% AMI for 30 years. There is also a annexation petition along with this rezoning request. It's located, there's several parcels along Baptist Road, 908, 938, 1000, 1034, and 1078 Baptist Road. A portion of 1101 Baptist Road and 278 and 1202 Santee Road. I think a portion of that one as well. The total acreage included in this proposal is 88.44 acres. The current existing use is single family residential and undeveloped. It is in the county. They are asking to be annexed into the city. It's also a non-contiguous annexation as it is adjacent to a current satellite portion of the city limits. And the applicant is not proposing to change the place type, which is currently mixed residential neighborhood. I just want to pause in between just in case anyone had any questions. Okay, and the second case that you see before you, I will apologize in advance. There was a detail omitted in this report. Please charge it to my head, not my heart. The proposal is they are proposing to change it to residential, suburban, multifamily, but it's also accompanied by a textual development plan, so it should read RSMD. Okay. The proposal overall is to take it out of residential suburban, put it into residential suburban multifamily with a textual development plan, RSMD, to allow for up to 40 townhouse units. There is an annexation petition including this as well. The two parcels are located at 3513 and 3515 Cheek Road, totaling just a little shy of four acres, 3.99 acres. It is currently in the county. They want to annex into the city. This would also be a satellite annexation. They are proposing no change as well to the existing place type map of mixed residential neighborhoods.

And just for anyone listening, these are both within the urban growth boundary, correct?

Correct. Both cases are within the UGB.

Thank you.

Of course. All right. Thank you so much.

Now we're on the last item. Item number, are we, we're.

Go ahead, Scott. Good morning still. Scott Whiteman with the Playing Department. The only update on the community playing projects I have for you all, I would show you on the Gantt chart, but you're just going to have to imagine what it looks like. Our multimodal TIA, we're still working with our consultant to come up with some workable alternatives to present to you all, so it wasn't quite ready for today, so that'll be... We're planning to bring that to you in August, which will mean the adoption will move to the fall. But all of our other timelines are the same as you've seen before.

Thank you. Any questions, comments? All right. But we... Credit to the people coming up with the timelines here because we stick to them pretty well, especially today. So thank you, everybody. Appreciate you coming here to the meeting. And we are adjourned at 1136.