Joint City County Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody. Thank you all for being here. This is the Joint City County Planning Committee. It's 9.30, September 2nd, and we have quorum. So can we go ahead and do a roll call, please?

Chair Baker? Here. Vice Chair Lee? Mayor Pro Tem Caballero? Planning Commissioner Chigaris? Commissioner Jacobs? Here. Council Member Kopach? Here. Commissioner Valentine?

Here. And I have heard from Council Member Burris and Commissioner Lee that they will be a few minutes late, but they are intended to be here. Thank you for that. Adjustments to the agenda.

yeah staff has one adjustment we would like item number eight the neighborhood meeting guidelines be referred back to staff so we could do um some additional engagement on that before we bring it back to y'all okay yes um I just did you receive the comments that we received about that item okay just want to make sure all right thank you for that uh any announcements

All right. All right. And can I get them. Are there any comments on the minutes from August 5 Can I get a motion to approve the minutes for August 5 so move. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those against. All right, approval the minutes passes city and county managers priority items.

From the county

All right, thank you both. All right, item five, moving right along, state legislation omnibus.

All right.

Good morning, you all. My name is Robin Schultz, Planning and Development Department, here to present to you all on TC 260003, Omnibus 20. Perfect. Just as a reminder, an omnibus is a specific type of text amendment. They're intended for clarifications, corrections, technical revisions, or legislative updates. They're not meant for larger policy shifts, right? So they have a bit of a faster timeline and we don't have a ton of engagement on them because they are things that should just not change the actual direction of the ordinance unless the state has told us that it must change. And so through Omnibus 20, there are updates to nine different UDO articles. A majority of those are technical revisions in response to legislative updates. So I will say that there are some responses to those legislative updates that affect our administrative processes instead. So some of the ways that we interpret and administer the permit choice application, fee transparency, things like that. So there are some things that were adopted that you won't see here, but that's because we are doing them administratively, such as like posting the fees and changing how we look at those applications. The sort of big state, excuse me, like three sort of state legislative bills that we got that we are trying to incorporate are the Appropriations Act, which essentially changed the process for appeals of administrative decisions. Those no longer have to go to the Board of Adjustment. They can go straight to the state superior court. We also got direction to remove the ability for municipalities to require permitting for most home-based businesses. Though I will say that right now, The language reflects that in what you've received. We may clarify it a bit, just so it's clear that you can still sell home-based foodstuffs, things of that nature. We have a lot of urban ag, and we want to make sure that it's explicit that you can do that. And lastly, the regulatory reform act limited the amount of glazing that local governments can impose on commercial or mixed-use development. So those are sort of the bigger shifts. And I'm here to answer any questions.

All right, colleagues, questions or comments? Go ahead, Councilman Kopek.

Thank you for that brief overview. So a couple of questions. Is this where the proposed changes to the TIA come in?

Yes. Okay.

So I was wondering if you could describe the proposed TIA change around textual versus graphical development, sort of what the origin of that was?

Sure, I'll take that one. And I think there's been some confusion. We've seen some emails that you all may have also seen. When we created the Textual Development Plan, in its first iteration, it only allowed folks to commit to specific uses. In the second kind of iteration of that, we did kind of an overhaul of textual development plans a number of years ago and allowed many more things to become a textual development plan. The whole premise behind that, if you go back and look at the agenda items, for those of you that were here, was to really reduce the burden and the financial cost of doing a development plan to folks. You know, it can cost... you know, $60,000 to $100,000 for someone to hire somebody to produce a graphic development plan. And when those graphic development plans mostly just show basic ordinance requirements, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So it was never the intent to require that all development plans, including textual ones, always have a TIA. So what we've done is we've clarified that a TIA is required for a graphic development plan, regardless of the amount of trips that that plan is generating, right? For a textual or for site plans or anything else, it would still be required if it goes over 150 peak hour trips. So this is one of the things that I think I've heard in the community, some confusion thinking that now this would be undoing or overriding the trip threshold and not necessarily requiring it for a textual. So if a textual development plan does tell us how many units and we can run the numbers and see that it's going to be over the 150 peak hour trips, a TIA would still be required for a textual development plan. What it does is it clarifies that it's not always required, even when there's not sufficient information to warrant it. And we can make that clearer moving forward and particularly in some of the memo materials to clarify that. But it was never the intent for textual development plans to require that level just de facto of design. And again, those folks that were here when we did that will remember that a big thing was the cost driver. So adding a TIA to a development plan can run another five to six figures.

Thanks for that clarification. Sure. Is this related? Okay, I'll let Commissioner Jacobs go. Mine is a text clarification of 3.1. So, why don't you go and if you're able to pull that up.

Yeah, well, first of all, I really appreciate the comments that we got from residents that people are, you know, really paying attention and putting time and effort into trying to understand what's on our agenda. So, thank you so much. I think one of the... If you could clarify, though, the role that this information plays for a rezoning. I think that is one of the key issues. Just thinking through, that's one of the things picking up that I read from some of the comments was the concern that where in the process would the TIA information be available to the city council members who are making the decision on the rezonings which would impact the conversation and decision-making about the rezoning. I think that was an area of concern that I picked up from comments. So if you could clarify that, because I think that is the key issue.

Sure, and that's a great question. So I'm going to back up and just reiterate again for the folks watching at home. A TIA is a technical analysis of the amount of additional traffic that will be potentially placed on the roadway network and what mitigation measures to deal with that additional traffic are necessary. And so a TIA, at whatever stage it occurs, it is binding. If the TIA bears out that you need turn lanes or you need to put in a traffic signal or you need to widen the road or whatever it is, folks have to do that. I have not seen, particularly as my time as director, I have not ever seen a case where the council, particularly since they see the most rezonings, has asked for additional roadway improvements beyond what was required through the technical analysis. So I think this notion that it's used as a negotiation piece, whatever's required is still going to happen, whether it happens at rezoning or at site plan, because it's a technical analysis. the i understand that uh for the community and for elected officials the more information that you have at that big decision point the better i think we're trying to strike the balance of how much do do people have available at that point right and we do get a lot of um i won't say speculative but A lot of rezonings, they don't have everything worked out. They may not know exactly the unit mix, right? And the amount of peak hour trips are dependent on the types of units, not just the numbers. They generate different amounts of traffic volume. So if someone doesn't have all those things completely planned out at that very early stage, and a lot of developers don't, they are not able to tell us that information. So we do see a lot of textual development plans where they're committing to certain things, but they're not necessarily committing to like how many units they're going to have because they're not sure yet. And without knowing that, we can't actually, you know, someone can't generate a TIA. So the question, I think, from a policy standpoint is, you know, how much leeway do we want to give the development community? Do we want them to have everything fully baked before it comes for rezoning? Or are we willing to let them kind of, you know, have a little more freedom and flexibility as they plan out their projects? And a lot of folks may not have financial means to go through that level of planning with the uncertainty of not knowing if they're going to get an approval.

yeah well that makes sense and obviously it also depends on the scale of the project right i mean so that that's one thing that comes to mind and also just to clarify are we saying in what is proposed that a tia doesn't need to be referring to the tia does not need to be included with the text only plan but it is it does need to be included with a visual okay okay and can you explain why it is for one and not the other

So, and part of where staff landed on this was going back and looking at that last change that we made to the textual development plans and the reasons which were discussed at this body, and I know some folks maybe were not part of those discussions, as to the purpose of the textual development plan was to kind of reduce the cost for prospective applicants and make it more accessible for them to go through that process. So we felt like that was a clarification that we missed that we should have made at the time, but staff missed it, right? We do think that a graphic development plan, which we typically see for larger projects, right, where people are providing us more information, they should be able to have if they have that enough level of information where they can provide a graphic plan then they should also be able to have that level of information to provide the tia or to make the determination you know about the amount of impacts that the project could potentially generate okay so that makes sense to me we're kind of the assumptions here and the comment i just made about except if it was the large is that a larger developer will go with the graphic

plan and more of the local smaller scale. developers will go with the text only. Okay. So okay. Yeah.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. But yeah, if you all will recall in the LDC draft, that's also how we had we had set a threshold for large projects would be required to do a graphic development plan. See, to even make that distinction clearer. Yeah, if you will recall from the draft that came out.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that that is very helpful. Thank you.

Just on that point, just one clarification. I don't think it's always the case that larger developers, larger projects necessarily go the route of the graphic. There's a choice about which one they'll use. So I just wanted to clarify that one point. So on 3.3.1, do you have that there? Well, I would just make a request. When I read it out loud to myself, I can't tell if it reads as a complete sentence or not, and therefore it confused me a little bit when I was reading it. So we don't need to read it together now, but I ask if you could just have a look at that and just make sure. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. And so this is just about all of the state legislative omnibus right now, right?

Everything included there.

So I guess one question is when will we vote on the amendment?

on the omnibus yes on the omnibus so right now you know we are taking your initial feedback um from here we will then schedule the planning commission they have the ability to you know delay etc hopefully they will not because it's an omnibus um and then it will likely go before you all before the end of the year okay all right that timing is helpful and then um

I also would just say in the residential use categories, I love the addition of the childcare and domestic chickens. So thanks for calling those out. That's great. And then just seeing the language around flea markets, farmers markets, pop-ups, and informal economies. You know, it's just for me, just a call out from what we've heard from residents about swap meets and flea markets and just making sure that, you know, our existing, you know, enterprises are kind of following the rules as we have them. I know planning has been deeply engaged in that, but that just made me think about particularly when I saw flea market, that that's something that we should be attuned to and think about how the proposed changes impact some of what's happening locally as well. So thank you.

Absolutely.

All right. I've got a, I've got a couple of questions here. Um, I think I am going to come back to the TIA in just a second, but I'm curious about the change of language from action by planning director to action by the interpreter. Um, isn't the action by planning director already implying that the planning director is the interpreter? And maybe I missed it, but do we now have a new definition for interpreter? Or are we just referring to the state?

To the way this, thank you. Okay, that's helpful because I didn't hear the echo. So the way that the state identifies it is anyone making an administrative decision. So we're referring to the state's definition.

Okay, got it. um thank you and then um glazing what a weird thing for the state legislature like uh of all the problems we face they're like we have too many windows they're too big um is there um i i didn't take a look at the ldc but i'm curious because i know that there are some general regulations that um specify more instead of like a percentage it's more of like you know when you're walking past along the front of a building it's like pretty much between your knee and like a little bit above your head um that you really want that um you know to be able to to look through a window do we have that in the LDC or are we keeping with um kind of the percentages

I believe right now that it is still a percentage within the LDC. Okay. But I can, I can double check that.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, might just because of this might just be something to, to take a look at, um, just to prioritize where pedestrians walk past the building and actually look through the window. All right, back to the TIA, just so I can wrap my head around this. How does this change through the omnibus change our current practices? Like what is happening now that would change after this?

It actually does not change our current practice. This is the current practice. And you all constantly see cases that fall into this. So this is just clarifying what the original intent was and what staff has continued, how staff has continued to apply this.

Do you think that this would discourage a graphic development plan since, you know, they say, well, textual development plan, I don't need to do a TIA graphic. I need to do a TIA, so I'd rather do the textual.

I don't know that it would discourage it because if someone is in a textual, if they're telling us, if it's a large project and they're telling us their mix of units, what type of units they're going to have and how many, that is still going to, if it trips that 150 peak hour threshold, they still have to do a TIA even if it's textual. So I don't know that this discourages the use of a graphic development plan. I think for large projects, it could still result in a TIA. It would just save them the expense of hiring a land planner or civil to draw the graphic development plan, but it would not get them out of TIA requirements if those warrants are met.

Is there any way we could, because I think I think a graphic development plan is generally, for a large project, a good thing, something we'd want to encourage. And we've already had this conversation about the LDC. Is there a way of making the graphic development plan, encouraging it, but also making it a little bit easier to do? So I think one of the big concerns would be you know you you come forward with the graphic development plan and then things change down the line and now you have to go back and essentially do a rezoning right um like it would be there be an easier way of amending the graphic and i'm not sure how this relates to the way that plan development or puds kind of function as well um but like amending and maybe it gets amended at the planning commission or something so that it's easier to do that just Are there just ways that we can explore to encourage graphic development plans so that it's slightly less burdensome?

So I will say that because a development plan is essentially like a site-specific custom zoning district for that project, under state law, and Aaron or Curtis can correct me or add to this, changing that is technically changing the zoning and requires going back through the entire process.

So it can just be approved at Planning Commission.

Now, what we have done is we have put in the ordinance a list of... how much you can vary from the approved development plan and not have to go back through and get it amended. And because elected officials, both bodies approve that list of, you know, kind of flex, if you will, that's deemed okay and not requiring you know an amendment to go back through the entire process so I think what I would recommend is maybe we look at that list of you know how much you can vary before tripping having to go back through the process and seeing what our elected officials are comfortable with in terms of flexibility you know maybe there are things that are you know more important to you you know less important to you and we can talk about those when we revive the LDC particularly

I was just gonna add, I mean, those are things you all could look at what you want to incentivize, like affordable housing, you know, just some of some of the things that could help streamline the people and incentivize. I think that's an interesting idea.

So the way, so there's the practice and there's the way it's written in, in the UDO. And usually those things are aligned. Sometimes they're a little bit different. Um, the way it's currently written in the UDO with the TIAA for textual development plans, would it apply? Would you have a textual development plan for like, would the TIAA be based on the maximum potential build out under textual development plan? unless the textual development plan is setting limits?

So that is not, let me find the wording in here. Hang on one second.

And then are there also TIAs for just base zoning, like without any textual or graphic development planning? No.

So the way that this section is worded, and I think people fixate too much on the first part of the sentence and miss the second part, blah, blah, blah. TIAs shall be required for... change of use to determine if roadway improvements will be required, zoning map changes, utilizing a development plan, site plans, preliminary plans, that can be anticipated to generate at least 150 vehicle trips at the peak hour. the operative part and where staff has stayed is can be anticipated to generate. If someone does not have to tell us how many units, right, like in a general zoning or in a textual, because that's not required in a textual, then we cannot anticipate. And using whatever the maximum allowed by the zoning, that's not really anticipating because that's not realistic of like what they're planning, what will be built there. So we have... We have tried to stay on the right side of the law and not create a situation where we might be exceeding our authority by requiring more than what the project is gonna ultimately generate. Because if we went to like the maximum possible under the zoning, we would put ourselves in that position. So, and I'll defer to my friends across the table if they wanna weigh in on any of that. They do not wanna weigh in.

And then for projects that fall below the threshold of a TIA, the smaller ones, how do we know what they're required to, what's their rough proportionality and nexus? Is it just what's onsite versus TIA can require things offsite?

Correct. So the ordinance has basic requirements for things like, you know, sidewalks. We also have requirements like in the reference guide for development that may require some basic road improvements associated with the development. But I think that the main thing that a TI gets us is offsite improvements a lot of times. Yeah. And we can't, we can't require that through the ordinance formula.

Any other questions or comments from colleagues? Yeah.

I'm also wondering because we do have, for instance, BPAC will do development review. I think EAB is starting to, but especially BPAC will look at projects that are coming for rezonings. And do you see any impacts to what they are going to be looking at related to this?

BPAC typically makes, lately they make very similar comments on almost all cases. They typically ask for a 12-foot multi-use path instead of the 10-foot that's required by ordinance. I will tell you that most developers decline that and just do the 10 foot that's required by ordinance. The other thing that they ask for very frequently are raised crosswalks at intersections so that the pedestrian, the sidewalk stays level. That works fine internal to development, but we really are transportation professionals Do not agree with BPAC's recommendation on that because when you are coming from a major thoroughfare, you know, turning in or turning out of the main development entrance, that can cause some serious traffic issues. So they definitely, those are the typical things. They rarely make any comments related to these larger traffic improvements.

Okay. And, of course, some of the things that they recommend are in the LDC. Okay. and they would just be required when we can get that approved.

And we are currently working on a multimodal TIA, so how does that play into this?

Yes, the project originally, and I don't know, Lisa, do you want to maybe say a couple of words? Lisa Miller is the project manager for that project, so I'm going to let them chat briefly about that.

Good morning everyone, Lisa Miller with the Planning Department. I believe we're anticipating bringing an update on this to you all in October, so you'll be seeing more. But in the meantime, the way that the tool has kind of shaped as we've gone through with our staff working group, and now we've had a chance to do some testing with applicants who would actually be having to use this. The way that it's structured is that at the site plan stage, because that's where people are going to have the design level needed in order to get into some of these improvements, there is essentially a similar tool to how If any of you recall in the LDC, there was a sustainable development matrix that was proposed. So moving it's not a traffic impact analysis. It's a point system where there's a list of different improvements that we want to see. We've got some screening questions to help understand the context within which that development is being proposed to determine. Whether those improvements should be. um folk whether there should be a certain amount of improvements focused on bicycle pedestrian transit or general street design and kind of dividing that out and that there would be a certain number of points that folks have to get they've got a list of things there would be conversation with staff to try and help understand what are the city's priorities and that those would then be provided through the site plan so that's like really quick version hopefully that's helpful

That would apply here, basically, when we say TIA, we're referring to both traffic as well as multimodal.

So one of the things, I won't get into this next month more, but that project, what we had originally envisioned as kind of a TIA type process really doesn't work as a TIA process because there is no data that exists about the impacts of potential developments on like how many more pedestrians or how many more bicycle riders is it generating, right? So that's why there was the pivot with the consultant. The consultant said, well, we can't really do it this way. So we pivoted to this point system. So it would just be requirements in the ordinance now.

yeah we have had some discussion about four projects where there is a rezoning uh and this actually came out of our conversation with applicants last week is that some of the bigger opportunities would be worth discussing at that point and so we're now kind of trying to work with what we heard from them to see what modifications to what we've got proposed would make sense before we bring that to you all for feedback

Colleagues, questions, comments? All right. Still wrapping my mind around the TIA question. Do a little more research. Thank you. Thank you so much for that presentation. And let's go ahead and move on to Item 6, the Consolidated Cases Summary.

All right. Chair Baker, Vice Chair, Dr. Lee, members of the committee, good morning. I'm Javar Jones with Planning and Development. I'm here just to take a few minutes to present the consolidated cases preview. This past quarter, since the last time I've done this presentation, we've had three qualifying cases come in as of August 11th. And I'll get started. I will just kind of pause in between each case just so the chair can facilitate any questions. Okay, first one is 2123 Page Road. They are proposing to rezone two parcels of land totaling 32.893 acres from residential, rural, and commercial general to planned development residential 10.105. to allow for up to 308 multifamily residential units consisting of a mix of apartments and townhouses. Also adding 5% affordable units at 80% AMI for 30 years. The current place type is apartment and townhouse neighborhood. They are not proposing a change to that. And I was supposed to preface all these cases by saying None of these cases are outside of the UGB. All of them are inside the UGB. None are within a future growth area. And as far as I'm aware, none require a TIA as well. Any questions on that case before? Sure.

Yeah, I just had 2 questions. 1 is I've noticed that they're offering at this point 5% affordable housing. I'm wondering what are you all at city council members seeing typically now with rezonings? Is it. Typically 5%, or is it more when when things come forward? Just curious.

Depends on the case sometimes it's 5%. Amy Nunez- Eight is probably the media sometimes i'll do 5%. Amy Nunez- Mike Mike is on yeah.

Amy Nunez- Sorry.

Amy Nunez- we'll figure it out.

Amy Nunez- Okay um. But often what we see is that that additional profit is going to come at the, if they give everything away, then they have nothing to profit on the night of. That's my guess. So we often get that last 3% or so at the rezoning.

And quite frankly, probably the right approach.

And then I'm just, oh, go ahead. To repeat what Mayor Pro Tem said, she said about 5% to 8% just for folks who are watching at home. I agree with that.

Yeah. And I remember when we did our inner city trip to Minneapolis, that was one of the things that we learned is that 8% seemed to be the sweet spot for what you could really expect. I just also had a question. I'm not looking at a... actual photograph to know but i'm wondering the um the land use just like right along page is there actual existing commercial right now where that because obviously with the rezoning there would not be commercial right up against the page at this anymore just do we do we know what's there now i'm just wondering

So I know that a long page in that southeast corner is currently residential, I think multifamily. Okay. Just to the north of that, I believe it is also residential. So a long page within that stretch. I do not recall any existing commercial.

Okay. And I know, I see the future place type is apartment. So, okay. Thank you.

yeah just to clarify one more point on typical proffers around affordable housing when it's rental the standard is 60% am I. And it looks like this one at this point is proffering everything at 80% am I but it's rental 60% for sale 80%.

Real quick, Commissioner Jacobs that the parcel on page that big yellow one that's actually a place of worship. A place of worship.

Any other questions? So I don't have a question, but sort of a statement as we continue to grow around the county. We still, in my humble opinion, neglect the infrastructure needs that should follow hand in glove with these projects. And so I just hope that You know, both bodies can be mindful as we grow so that we grow smart. I don't think that community or the leadership is necessarily against growth in our community, but how we grow really matters. And we should pay particular attention to that point. Thank you for those comments.

Anything else? Let's move on.

Second case is Conover-Rondelet. The proposal is asking to rezone from residential rural to residential suburban 8 to allow for the development of 4 to 8 single family homes. I believe this is also over two parcels totaling 1.13 acres. The current place type is established residential. They're not asking for a change to that as well.

Comments or questions?

And lastly is 134 Robins Road development. The proposal includes rezoning from residential rural to commercial general with a textual development plan to allow for a hotel with an event venue. The size of the single parcel is 8.87 acres. The current place type is community institution. We recommend a change to neighborhood services. yeah okay yep councilmember burse so for this case i've heard from residents that in whatever it's the forward-facing tool is that it's not reflected that it's actually going to be a hotel that's going there and so just wondering when you all will update that so it'll be matching transparency it is currently under review and we're working with applicants so i think like in the short term i think within the next two weeks of the first review will be due so we'll advise them to kind of update it i know we had a pre-sub with the With the applicant that Aaron Cain is coming up for additional comment, it may be able to provide some clarity.

Aaron Cain with the Planning Department. I think this has been a technical issue. We should be able to get that wrapped up today and have it fixed tomorrow.

Yes.

Council Member Kopach.

So I can reach out to you, Chair Baker and Vice Chair Dr. Lee. We've talked in the past about at some point in time in the future, we want to have on the agenda kind of updates to the application and just want to make a plug for that. Every time I look at existing use and see undeveloped, I always think there's got to be a better term than that for something that, you know, like there's probably other terms, but it just makes me think more broadly that in this body as a group, we've talked about broader updates. And so, you know, looking at the agenda, when would be the appropriate time in the future. So.

Yeah, we can certainly look, and just to clarify, it's not updates to the application. It's a way we've talked about looking at staff reports and the information that's provided to you all.

Yes, thank you. Yeah, just wanted to, yes. That's what I meant.

So we can look, we have some pretty full agendas coming up the next few months, but let me have an internal conversation. We have not lost the thread on it. There's just some other things and limited time each meeting, so yeah.

yeah i certainly understand that it may not be our most urgent priority so thank you um what was council member birth's um question i didn't i didn't hear the statement and the question

So basically residents use a tool, I don't recall the name at this point, to kind of monitor rezoning cases. And so I was advised that for this case in particular, it's not reflective. The use is not updated in the tool that they're using online. So that's what they said they would update today.

Okay. And this map here, I'm guessing to the right, is going towards Wake Forest, right? There's a golf course around in there, right? Right. That's part of the... Because that's Grove Park right around there, right? Okay. Where here is the library? To the right? It's further west. Then to the left.

It's just off of Map 3.

Okay.

Oh, it's that blue.

The purpley blue? Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay, so it's before the library. Okay. All right. Thank you.

All right, I think that's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, let's move on to item seven, evaluation of use regulation barriers during permit processing.

Good morning members of the Joint City-County Planning Committee. My name is Amber Egodan. I'm with the Planning and Development Department. I'm a Business Services Analyst with the Business Services Team. And so today I will be presenting the evaluation of use regulation barriers during the permitting process. So to begin, we'll first discuss the comprehensive plan alignment with this. So again, the comprehensive plan was adopted in 2023, which includes a list of actions intended to implement the plan's policies. So these actions stem from the jobs and these actions I'll be presenting today stem from the jobs and training policy topic of the comprehensive plan. So just as a reminder and a reference, the Jobs and Training Goals states, by 2050, Durham residents will have access to affordable and supported training opportunities that lead a variety of stable and sustainable living wage jobs. So the two actions that I'll be discussing today are Action 12, evaluating regulatory barriers such as permit applications and financial requirements for food trucks, flea markets, pop-up stores, and home businesses. And then Action 18, which states evaluate regulatory barriers, such as permit applications and financial requirements for cooperative spaces, such as commercial kitchens, workshops, or informal economies that serve communities. All right, and so this slide, Robin discussed earlier about the impacts of House Bill 372. So that's a Home-Based Business Fairness Act. So I'll just discuss a few items, because you just heard a little bit of that. So a business would qualify as a no-impact home-based business, as long as it complies with the following listed below. So with this, I was able to engage with the community, and so here I'll just discuss an overview and the purpose of the engagement. So what we did was summarize the business owners experience with Durham's permitting and regulatory processes, highlight the barriers and opportunities for improvement, and identify themes to guide future engagement and service enhancements. So going over to who we engaged with. So we were able to engage with local business owners through digital surveys where we received 20 responses, in-person conversations, phone interviews, and email correspondence with over 90 business owners to identify any barriers they've experienced throughout the permitting process. So their feedback helped us identify the barriers that they've experienced, gather recommendations for improvement, and understand both their concerns and positive experiences. So here in this chart, you can see the types of businesses that we were able to receive feedback from. So going from the bottom up, we had five home-based businesses respond, nine food truck owners, two commissary kitchens, one informal economies, five listed as other, and one listed as a pop-up. And then going into some engagement demographics. So we asked, what is your race and ethnicities? And these were open-ended questions where we had 19 respondents, and nine of those identified as Black, African-American, or African. One identified as Black, Hispanic, six identified as white, one Middle Eastern, one mixed race, and one Asian. Then we also ask another open-ended question. What is your gender? Eight responded male, 12 responded female. then we go into the age groups where we received 19 responses and ages 46 to 55 we received the most responses so 10 of them responded and then next we asked how many years they've been in operation where we got 20 responses and the majority of those responses have been operating for 11 to 20 years And then here's an overview of some positive experiences that were shared. So many business owners described the processes as smooth and straightforward. Some had prior familiarity with permitting, which helped reduce any confusion. So several owners reported helpful and responsive staff interactions. And you'll see here a direct feedback was everything, One business owner stated, everything has been more than amazing. We love all the things that you guys do to keep us busy with support and love. We only had to apply once and it was smooth and easy and no complaints, complications, excuse me. With positive experiences, there comes barriers as well. So some identified that they experienced barriers with wait times, communication and staff accessibility, communication quality, and multi-agency coordination and application navigation. where a survey respondent stated that having two separate portals to complete the process, like the payment versus submittal and having to complete one before the other, and also having to go to a third place for the home occupation permit. And then also just with that, So currently they would have to go to the Paymentus website, pay the $11 plus processing fee. They would save the receipt, then go to the application and include their health department inspection date and upload a copy of their payment receipt. And then lastly, another barrier that was mentioned was online system and technology improvements. So I wanted to display this table here and each column within the four columns. The first, the process area. Second is the requirements. The third is the engagement feedback that we received. And then I also wanted to include what operational implementation that we're doing. So beginning with fees and permitting. So right now food related and food related uses and food trucks, there is an $11 annual registration fee. plus processing. So business owners stated that the fees were fair and reasonable. So what we're doing operationally, so it's a low-cost fee, we're transitioning into the permit administration into Clarity. And so Clarity is a permitting software that will provide a centralized portal for permits where applicants can submit their application, pay their fees, and track the statuses all in one. And then going down to the website and application access. So online application forms and receipt submissions. So applicants found it difficult to locate where the food truck permit is on the website, on our planning and development website. And then navigating a two-step process. So paying separately like stated earlier and then uploading the receipt. But just to preface on our planning development website, we do have an application and fees tab. And then the tabs are in alphabetical order with a description and hyperlink to the direct application. So again, what we're doing, the implementation of clarity will replace the current two-step process. And then lastly, the application renewals. So there is a July 1 annual renewal. So some business owners were stating that the annual renewals involve manual back and forth emails, lack of automated renewal links or expiration reminders. Clarity, again, will be a centralized permitting portal, so applicants can just have one space to do all of that and check the statuses of their application. So in response to the feedback received, I wanted to highlight the fiscal year 2026 operational performance metrics. So beginning with review times, and this is all coming from our customer service staff team's metrics. So two to three business days is the average, which exceeds the standard review time goals. And the standard is five days. and their average is two to three business days. Total workload, so they received 1,000 permit applications processed, 727 were zoning, 250 were signs, 23 were common signage, and they received 14,128 inquiries via phone, email, and walk-ins. As far as staff capacity, 250 permits per full-time employee. So right now the customer service staff has four full-time employees and they are working on hiring two more full-time employees while taking on clarity at the same time. And then lastly, response and ratings. So on average, the first response time is 19 hours, which exceeds the department standards. And then with that, the customer service team did receive a 4.58 out of five stars based off of 668 customer service ratings, where customers mentioned friendliness, timeliness, clarity, and professionalism. And so next wanted to get in to understand how Durham compares to neighboring jurisdictions. So it's an analysis of use standards from UDOs and code standards for Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Cary, Greensboro, and Chapel Hill. So in this table here, you'll see the permitting topic, our UDO or city code standards, and then the pure city frameworks. So beginning with food trucks and carts. So within the food trucks, the code standard, the city code standard section 54 through 91, only vendors selling food and periodicals are permitted to conduct sales within the public street right away. So, in comparison to other cities, such as Raleigh, Cary, Charlotte, and Greensboro, they have more developed food truck frameworks that address event-based operations, vendors list, commissary requirements, operating hours, and district specific rules. So, for example, the Town of Cary uses an integrated electronic permitting portal, which is specific to submit electronic applications where food truck operators can apply, upload their documentations, pay their fees, and track their approval processes all in one. And then going down to temporary uses and pop-ups, So for our UEDO, Section 5.5, residential limits, is a max of two consecutive days and four sales per year. In comparison to Winston-Salem, their standards state that during outdoor display of merchandise, sales outdoor displays areas are not to exceed 10% of the gross square footage of the building, tenant space, or 10,000 square feet. Whichever is less, outdoor display areas must meet the required setbacks for the underlying zoning districts. and then lastly we'll get into the commissary kitchen and artisan workshops and the pure cities also follow similar multi-agency review processes but often identify permit pathways by business size or occupancy type so for example raleigh has a commissary permit and they would charge a 250 primary permanent facility fee plus, in some cases, an additional secondary permitted facility fee as well. All right. And so now I would like to present some short-term recommendations to you all, one beginning with House Bill 372 implementation to make amendments to the UDO, continue updating the planning and development website, and customer guidance documents to reflect the recent House Bill 372 affecting home-based businesses. the clarity permitting software, as I mentioned, and then also customer education resources. So we want to continue expanding business owners' resources by partnering with OEWD to develop more startup roadmaps, permit checklists, and address frequently asked questions. and then also to evaluate the need for the street vendor registration. So I would recommend to you all if we could reassess whether the $11 registration fee and yearly renewal are necessary given the administrative burden and eliminating the registration requirement can reduce costs and streamline administrative processes. And then lastly, amendments. Amend the UDO to comply with House Bill 372. Continue ensuring that local regulations remain consistent with state legislation.

Okay.

And then one long-term recommendation to evaluate the customer service and permitting data following the implementation of clarity to identify opportunities to further improve customer satisfaction and online permitting resources based on operational performance and customer feedback.

All right.

Well, thank you for your time. And any questions?

Colleagues? No.

Thank you so much for this report and congratulations to all the staff are really a lot of the positive feedback and all the documented work that you all are doing. So related to the recommendation about looking at. the $11 fee and permitting. I'll just share. Years ago, we got rid of the, with animal services, we used to do an annual registration and fee for pet owners. And we realized that it was costing more to implement and run that program and it was a big burden for pet owners and we got rid of that program. So, I personally support that. Obviously, $11 is not... what's the purpose really? So, that sounds like a great idea to me. And I'm really curious, it sounds like a lot of improvements will be made, that some of the issues will be addressed with the clarity system. Could you tell us a little bit about what that is going to be like or the differences with that system?

Yes, I will gladly pass it to Sarah Young.

So, you know, Clarity will replace our current LDO land development office, which was a kind of proprietary platform that was built for us for our permitting and approvals back in 2000, it launched in 2007. The, without going into, you know, I could be here all day talking about the merits of Clarity, but it will A lot of the benefit that it will bring is it will combine into a unified platform. It will talk to the payment system. It will talk to our accounting system so the financial stuff won't have to be separate transactions. It will be a much more streamlined user interface for the public. It will also be publicly accessible so anyone can search for any permits on any property anywhere. You can sort of do that now, but not easily. So it's going to have a lot of benefits in terms of streamlining, in terms of coordinating and making sure that things don't fall through the cracks, which right now we have to work extra hard to make sure those things don't happen, and this will make it a lot easier. People will be able to, you know, apply directly online. Like right now we're using multiple systems, right? We do digital review, but people have to pay in one portal. They then have to submit their documents in a separate, different portal. They have to attach their receipt because our systems don't talk to each other. Then staff reviews it in yet another digital platform. We have to do intake and do data entry in LDO. It doesn't talk to the other platform. Like it's a nightmare.

right so it'll be one system doing all the things that sounds amazing yeah go ahead just a quick follow-up and then go back to you um so we talked about the administrative burden of the per of the permit um would clarity kind of solve some of that

Yes, I do believe that clarity would solve a lot of that because it's allowing the staff to then not have to take the time out for that. So then it would be able to help more customers with other questions that come up as well. And Sarah, if you had anything else to add to that.

Yeah, I mean, I will say clarity will help that. I think there's still a question about whether for something this nominal, what is, you know, because it's also requiring like annual renewals, et cetera. And so is it worth it even in a more streamlined system to continue to track that? Got it. All right.

Yeah. When will this be implemented?

I believe the Clarity Go Live date is about a year and a half away. So we're about a little more than six months into configuring the system.

Okay. And I'll just share a little anecdote. My, one of my cousin's son is in a business, a laundry business, and he actually, in different states, and he came here to open up one of the businesses here in in north carolina actually part of it is related to doing work in durham and he was staying at my house and i watched him when he was doing this and he told me that he could not believe how antiquated the systems were in north carolina for people to you know small business owners to go through every process related to starting a business here and how like in new jersey he could just do it all on his phone and it was all just seamless and it was really eye-opening for me so this sounds really great after what i learned from him going through it so that sounds wonderful um i'm wondering um one of the issues that was raised was about just looking at other municipalities how they had that one about um they're the top one about how all information was like in one place for people, how will that be addressed?

So with that one, the example I provided was with Carrie's IDT platform that they use. And with that, it would be very similar to what Clarity is planning on doing. So they already have a one-stop shop portal, basically, for applicants to apply, pay, and then keep track of where their application is and the status of it.

But also, I mean, everything that's listed there, The requirements, blah, blah, blah, like that would also be there as well.

Yes. So the requirements would also be there as well.

Because one of my questions was just the interface with public health, because obviously public health is who does the food safety inspections. So could you talk about how that is integrated into this?

how public health is integrated into the clarity system.

Sorry, I just want to... Yeah, just the whole process and related to food-related businesses with... Yeah, with clarity or whatever. How is that integrated? Am I making sense?

Yeah. So the health department still will maintain their separate process, right? That their processes are not coming into clarity. However, I think one of our goals is to... streamline and condense all of our processes to make it as simple as possible. One of the recommendations also was to update, if I'm remembering correctly, customer guidance documents. And so like the information, we have some startup roadmaps online that we created with some of our partner departments to help people understand like all the different requirements from different agencies and where to go to, you know, to handle those things. So we've talked about looking at those, seeing if they need to be updated, looking where on our website, you know, how to make them easier to find and access and make them a little more prominent. So those are the type of improvements that we can make, I think, towards what you're talking about. Because we won't be able to wrap in all processes into clarity. The county health is still going to have their separate process. But we can make sure that the information that we're providing is giving folks all the things they need to do and where to direct links and whatnot to get there so they don't have to hunt around for it.

Yeah. I mean, cause like the requirements, right? That's yeah. And my last question is you, so looking at how the customer education resources, great to see you mentioning, you know, OEWD, obviously that makes sense for small businesses, but you also referenced that, you know, artisans and people, artists are again, can be vendors. And I just was wondering, I was thinking, and I don't know who's an appropriate resource for that. Would it be the cab? But thinking about who can be reaching out to artisans to be helping them with this process or clarity or whatever. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think one of the things related to the artisan topic in particular is, you know, the Home-Based Businesses Act, which is the House Bill 372 that Robin also talked about earlier, that really is saying, hey, if you're one of the, you can do your art or, you know, make your crafts or whatever from home, and you can sell it, you know, within limitations, and we can't require a permit for that. so that really broadens the list of things that can be allowed essentially by right as a home-based business and reduces that burden so i think that issue is mostly covered by that legislative change um larger things where if someone is particularly having a workshop that is of the scale that it is now a commercial enterprise that would fall on as a commercial enterprise so um

But I just think it is going to be incumbent on us collectively to really get this out into the community. So I guess my question is, how can we really educate the community? Like, this is a great opportunity. These were these are barriers that are being removed, whether you are an artist in an artist or have a small home based business, like, I guess that's my question. I think that's something for us to think about not just us internally, but with the planning department, just city and county government. That's my question.

We can certainly look at a communications campaign to kind of get the word out so people know what they can and can't do and like all the additional flexibility that they now will have.

Just to reflect on what Commissioner Jacobson stated, I think you answered your own question with CAB because they are thinking about the artist community as we're exploring a cultural roadmap. And so a big part of that conversation was the artist economy. So maybe they would be the appropriate vehicle to go through to actually inform the community, broader community, about these services and resources they already had a relationship. So I just wanted to opine on that.

Thank you, Amber, for this. I appreciate it. And congratulations to the High Marks as well, just like Commissioner Jacobs said. In the application process, you said it was like three days or so, and the goal is two to three days. What's in that review? Do food trucks have inspections and things like that as part of the application or I'm just curious, just overall, food trucks, do they get inspected or anything like that?

So they do get inspected, but it is not enforced. So things like having inspections from the health department, if that's what you're referencing. So they would have to have that within the application. They do have the date of their health department inspection as well.

Okay. Okay, I was curious about that. So it is, that's part of the application, right? It's not, that means it has to happen before the application goes, right?

Yes.

Yeah, health inspection. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. I was just thinking, with the OEWD's kind of economic plan update, I forgot what we're calling it, if there's going to be conversations with that. You stated in the presentation that there's going to be conversations with them, but just if that's a place to highlight in their work kind of this, for lack of, the informal economy and what are the opportunities for residents. Because I think as, you know, it's a, We want to make this type of employment work, whatever we want to call it, as streamlined and easy as possible because we know the economy broadly is not great. And people are going to turn to this. You're starting to see a lot more vendors on the streets, on corners. Reminds me of Chile. So making that as easy as possible. I am definitely like the street vendor thing. I don't want to charge them $11. Just let them sell their things as long as they're following the other rules. I don't really care. And honestly, I think it adds a vibrancy to a community. It makes it feel less sterile to have people out and in the streets. It makes it less, quite frankly, organized. I think urban spaces tend to be chaotic and I think we should promote it. And folks who don't like that can pick a different community. So that's kind of where I'm at with it. I think that we have sterilized our urban spaces out of, you know, noise, and we don't like to look at that. And that's actually what makes an urban community interesting. And so anything that we can promote, anything that, you know, anything within our processes that hinder that, I'm not really for it. think that that's kind of it and then any other guidance you need from us and and looking at you know you've lifted up some other communities in north carolina but if there's any other communities outside of north carolina that really i remember this was years ago when we were having the pop-up issues in some communities around in the pandemic um i remember like la's uh street vendor process was really straightforward and easy and um That was lifted up. This was several years ago. But anything we can do to make it easy, cheap, and straightforward, I'm for it. Thank you.

Council members? Thank you, this is a very cool project. I agree with a lot of what's been said. I definitely think it's important to make this process as easy and user-friendly as possible for everybody, which I think Clarity will do. Are we going to get any emails from brick and mortar businesses from streamlining this and maybe they think that this is creating additional competition to them?

So I'll say that when we did the street vendor registration, originally we did get there were concerns from brick and mortar. What would not be going away is the regulations. Right. And we would still be enforcing those. So I don't know. And I think that I know that is what the brick and mortar places cared about. I don't think they were necessarily hung up on us needing to have them register as long as we're enforcing it, which we would continue to enforce the rules. But of course, I can't predict what people might.

Okay, cool. That was all. Thank you so much. Great project, great work. Look forward to more to come.

Yeah, I think I've heard explicitly from two JCCPC members how they feel about the street vendor registration, but before staff, you know, goes one way or another with it, it would be nice to hear or if you all want to take a formal vote on how you feel about it. But that is explicit direction that we're asking for, whether folks are in favor of removing that registration requirement, not the standards for them, just the registration.

To yes I explicitly support that as well, to reassess whether the $11 registration fee. Okay.

find that it's not.

I support reassessing.

Let me just say part of what we did is when we did that assessment, we found out basically in this case, it would be does the $11 fee even cover the cost of doing the permitting requiring it in the first place? So that's like pretty basic.

And would you all come back to confirm that or is this the point where we kind of make that decision?

Well, if we're able to make a decision, great. But if not, I'm more than happy to come back and share more and discuss if you'd like.

Yeah, I would say I think that, you know, we certainly can do the analysis. And I think if we're comfortable that it really is not worth the amount of staff time and effort that it's taking to process these, then we should be able to move forward.

Okay.

Thumbs up. All right. Sounds great. Oops, sorry.

Yeah, go ahead.

Is there a way, you know, sometimes things live in multiple places. So if there's a possibility, especially with OEWD and planning to have like mirrored, like maybe you show up in one place thinking, oh, this is small business information, that it could guide you straight to the thing. Like it's not just in the planning department, right? Because I could think about... as a, you know, I'm a small business, I should go to this department. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, the information isn't there. So however, it ends up being that there's like multiple places that people can get into the, you know, to access information. Okay.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? We already did the consensus. All right. Thank you, Amber.

All right. Thank you.

All right, next on the agenda, number nine is Lakewood, West End, and Lyon Park small area plan. All right, good morning.

oh do we oh do we okay number eight okay all right yes good morning sarah long project manager for the lakewood west end and lion park small area plan and i'm excited to share with you information about our full draft of the small area plan this is ready it's okay Okay, great. Just as a quick review, small area plans primarily serve as a way for us to implement the comprehensive plan in a specific geographic area. This is our second small area plan, and we chose this specific area primarily because of the potential redevelopment of the shops at Lakewood. The comprehensive plan identifies the shops at Lakewood as a transit opportunity area, so that's an area where we think that transit-oriented infill development is appropriate. And we recognize that transit-oriented development can impact the shopping center as well as a commercial corridor along Chapel Hill Road. And we included the neighborhood around that and then also the West End and Lyon Park neighborhoods as primarily black, historically black neighborhoods as areas that could also be impacted by that transit-oriented development. So as a brief timeline, the project can be broken up into four main categories. We had the initial phase where we identified community stakeholders, and we also finalized the borders of the project area. We had the project launch that began in August of 2025. And during that time period, we identified the primary topic areas for engagement, as well as scoped out the engagement plan itself. Phase two began with our engagement, primarily beginning with transportation in December, and that lasted through June. We are finishing up our draft plan review. So we had a draft engagement review prior to this meeting. We're finalizing that, and then we're beginning the adoption process in October of this year, the planning commission meeting in October 13th. Just briefly, our project methods can be broken down into two main categories. First, we had the land use analysis where we looked at city parcels. We examined paper streets for their viability. We also looked at vacant properties and we looked at potential areas for zoning and place type changes. Then we have the synthesis of an analysis of community input. So, like I said before, in that first engagement launch, we identified with the community we're interested in terms of engagement topics. We identified specific concerns in those topic areas, did our own verification of those concerns primarily through site visits and also at looking at existing projects. We coordinated with respective departments, particularly with concurrent projects that were happening. And then we had sort of a special process for the shops at Lakewood. And that specific process we did, we focused on visual feedback. So we had engagement around the design of a potential redevelopment of shops at Lakewood. And then we also looked at some of the best practices and did our own staff analysis in terms of what that redevelopment could potentially look like. Just a couple of engagement highlights. Again, we started a project launch in August. For transportation and for parks and open space, we did map-based engagement. So we actually had maps of the project area and we allowed community members to give direct feedback so they're able to identify specifically on the map where they had concerns or recommendations and we incorporated that into the project. And as I mentioned before, we had a couple of different engagements specifically on shops at Lakewood, the map-based design work, the virtual height preference survey, and also an online survey. So for the small-year plan itself, I have it pulled up in case we want to go through the specifics of the plan. We broke it down into five chapters. We have the intro chapter where we lay out the history of the area as well as existing conditions. In the second chapter, we look at The plan process as well as engagement. The third chapter focuses on the topic area recommendations. So, as I mentioned before, that includes transportation, parks, and look at zoning recommendations and a couple of other topics. And then we have chapter four, which focuses on the shops at Lakewood specifically and our recommendations for that. And then finally, chapter five, we have an implementation schedule that looks at how we're actually move forward with implementing the recommendations for policies and actions. So when we looked at the existing conditions of the area, we included community assessment map, so that was looking at what organizations, businesses, and sort of education and faith-based organizations in the areas that, and we specifically note that the primary area of concentration is at Shops at Lakewood and also that corridor along Chapel Hill Road. And so this was just a way for us to map out all the areas that were all the organizations and locations that were specifically referencing in the plan itself and get an idea of geographically how they're distributed. So getting into the recommendations, I'm just gonna go over a couple of highlights for each section. First, we have the transportation recommendations and we had sidewalk improvements, traffic calming measures and transit stop improvements. So this was guided in part by direct community feedback. We also took a look at what existing projects that are happening. A lot of them actually aligned with the bike walk plan. And we had a couple of extras to supplement the bike walk plan and sort of existing plans for the area. And we focus mainly on that primary corridor, which is here, which is really starting at Chapel Hill Street, going down Kent Street, including Morehead Avenue. And then again, that Chapel Hill Road corridor that's directly adjacent to shops at Lakewood. And then for parks, we had a couple of recommendations for Carroll Street Park and Maplewood Park, a few recommendations for additional amenities in the area. And for Lyon Park and Wrightwood Park specifically, we're looking at improving bike and pedestrian access for those parks, so less so in terms of additional amenities and more specifically helping residents get to those areas. So as I said before, we did an analysis of public lands. The majority of the public land really are the cemeteries in the area. So we have some specific recommendations for the cemetery, primarily the Fitzgerald and Henderson cemeteries, which are historically black cemeteries. We recognize there are areas or the city-owned land where there could be some unmarked graves. So we have recommendations for grants for ground penetrating surveys to determine where those unmarked graves are. And then I mentioned before we have a potential connection to Wrightwood Park through two city-owned parcels on Jersey Avenue. In terms of paper streets, we took a look at all the paper streets in the area and there were two in particular we saw there was a potential for some improvements. One along Norwood Avenue, you can see that on the left of this image, it's in red. That was an area we believe that could be a potential for bike and pedestrian access. And then also along Dean Street, there's a connection potentially between Dean Street and Gunter Street for bike and ped access. A lot of the other alleys and paper streets are in areas that are not wide enough to have actual streets or there's some other pretty significant environmental barriers. So in those areas, we have a recommendation for closing those paper streets. In terms of place type and zoning, we had a couple of small place type corrections, primarily in areas that serve as open space and recreation. And then we have a specific zoning district adjustment that we're recommending for an area along Chapel Hill Road. So you see kind of in the center of this map, that's the line where Morehead Avenue is. And so that section in sort of the pink speckled area is currently zoned as office institutional. And so we recognize that this area on the play site map, a lot of these this area is made up of neighborhood services and existing residential. So some of these areas are small. So small businesses, small organizations, buildings that are single story and a couple of two story residential properties. So looking at this area and particularly looking at what zoning is going to look like in the LDC, we recognize that oi is a bit too permissive and doesn't actually represent the character of the area so we're recommending a zoning change in future so that could be through the ldc or other methods that would be for a mixed use recommendation for three stories or less and so that's just something that will match the other areas and we recognize in particular this is this is something that should be improved to match the the area character In terms of historic resources, there are two properties that we recognize that are historic and they could benefit from having, again, a zoning that encourages adaptive reuse. So that's a mixed use zoning that would encourage either putting in office buildings or sort of small residential areas and build uses. And the purpose of that is to encourage adaptive reuse and renovation as opposed to having them be tore down. And then specifically, we thought that the West End and Lyon Park areas were good candidates for heritage communities. And so we currently have our first heritage community, which was the Merrick Moore neighborhood. And the West End and Lyon Park similarly have some great history that could be captured through these programs. And for housing, we have a couple of recommendations specifically in the area around existing buildings and how to support people who are low income or have fixed income and seniors. And so just working with the Housing and Neighborhood Services Department to make sure they're having access to those existing programs. We recognize that just in terms of timing, that Housing and Neighborhood Services are working on their own affordable housing plan and that this area would be incorporated into that. So guidance for shops at Lakewood again, this is sort of the main area where we could have the most influence on this plan. And so we focus on this and we particularly want to make sure that we had visual representations of that. So we broke it down into several sections in terms of the recommendations. First connectivity and transport. So this is a couple of key takeaways. We prioritize non-vehicular modes of transportation. So we looked at areas where there could be better pedestrian and bicycle access. And some of these areas were identified through residents in our engagement process and some that we identified as places that could be improved. So in addition to that, we wanted to make sure there were safe paths for pedestrians and cyclists throughout the shopping center. And then also designating specific access points for automobiles. So areas that we know cars already enter and they're sort of ideal for that, the entry of automobiles. We also looked at green space and tree cover. So, you know, one of the big items of feedback that we got was the fact that the shopping center is so large and there needs to be a way to sort of break that up and also provide shade instead of green spaces for people to be in. We recommend expanding the centralized green space. So there's a strip of land there where there's some trees and sort of a median. We recommended expanding that to allow for more recreation. And we also recommended improving the tree canopy throughout the parking lot. And one extra piece was adding a pedestrian path along the service road right behind the shops at Lakewood. And we have some images within the plan that I can show you that actually are a representation of what that could potentially look like. So a few other items of guidance. We got some feedback about interest in improving public services. So things like trash receptacles and water filling stations and public restrooms throughout the site, particularly the expanded recreation site. Improving transit stops along the shops at Lakewood area in that Chapel Hill Road corridor. including mixed-use development. And so that's something that's outlined within the comprehensive plan, particularly in the transit opportunity area. So we wanted to make sure we emphasize that. And then also providing affordable units based on the comprehensive plan's recommendation of 20% of all residential units being affordable within the TOA. In terms of building massing and transitions, we recommended guidelines based on commercial buildings to be no more than five stories and there's a couple of areas where the recommendations were for three stories and that's because those areas are adjacent to existing single story commercial and also existing neighborhoods so we wanted to make sure that from the perspective of the road or from the perspective of those neighborhoods they're not seeing more than three stories just to help for that with that transition And one of the purposes of increasing density is to allow for affordable housing to be in the area. And lastly, we had input on info opportunities and we specifically looked at areas where there are vacant buildings and they could potentially be portioned into micro retail. So taking a larger building footprint, breaking into smaller footprints that will allow for more affordable space for small businesses. And so this is just an image that really represents the direct community feedback that we got in that mapping exercise. You can see the areas in green that designate the green spaces, additional green spaces. The areas in blue represent general spaces where we think there can be building footprints. So they're not meant to represent the complete footprint of a building, but rather spaces where we see there could be additional infill. We have the existing buildings marked and we specifically wanted to include those existing buildings and not tear them down in our own image because we wanted to emphasize that this is for improvements of the area. We got direct feedback that there was not interest in or there was interest in maintaining those buildings. So we wanted to incorporate ideas about what the redevelopment would look like if we included existing buildings, but we also made space for more info. And then I mentioned before, in our final chapter, we have an implementation schedule that breaks down the topic area, whether or not it's a policy or an action, the responsible party, and the rough timeframe we think this can be completed. And so briefly, I wanted to show the renderings we created. And so again, this was based on community feedback and also just a representation of what the shopping center could look like if it were built out to what is allowed in the recommendations that we have. So again, you see the larger green space in the center. There are also some areas for kiosks if there were interest in having sort of a small marketplace. We have a couple of areas where we recognize there could be potential building footprints. And we also made sure that this also represents the height recommendations for the plan. This is just two more views. One of the purposes of these renderings is also just to show folks what it would look like if we did have a five-story building next to the existing single-story buildings. So the next steps after this presentation, our next presentation will be to the planning Commission on October 13 and that will be the beginning. Of the adoption process so between then between now and then we'll be finalizing the plan and then submitting that. We also have the City Council work session, which will be on November 5 and then the expected date or the expected time period for that City Council meeting for adoption is December of this year. Any questions.

Thank you so much. Exciting stuff. Just before I turn to my colleagues. Is there, I noticed that there was a blank space for additional a blank page in the draft plan for the final community engagement. Is there going to be like an open house or anything like that.

So we've we've completed that Community engagement, so what we had we had an in person engagement August 12 we had the virtual on August 20 and then we wrapped up a survey. Right now, there still is an open general feedback survey on the full plan that and will provide what feedback we receive on that in our meeting of planning Commission the 13th.

Okay fantastic i'll turn to my left. Commissioner, Commissioner Lee.

Thank you so much for this. This is, um, um, I think this can actually make a really big difference for the area there. Um, I'm gonna take a second here because I do have concerns. So I moved here in 1997 and I joined a church called First Calvary Baptist Church, which is on Kent Street. Back then it was a little building, you know, I was part of the church when we built the new building. Um, deeply involved, lots, lots of stuff. I was involved with the church when we, um, ended up buying Lyons Farm Elementary. Which was, which is right down the street and turn it into a community center. Okay. Very, very deeply involved in that. But the con, the, the constant thing was the blight that was in that area. In Kent Street, West End and so forth. Lots of begging the city and the county do what we can to help that area. fast forward to today we're talking about reinvigorating the area and in the presentation there's only two small little pieces about helping people keep their properties and there's people that are there that's been there for generations down there we all know sitting around in this dais that this type of development in the shopping center and even around it is gonna make things far more unaffordable than these small programs here. I think we're doing this backwards. We're doing this plan and adding programs to help prevent some of the gentrification. Now, obviously this is gentrification at its finest, I think this plan should have been, how do we keep people there while doing this? And I think we, as both governing boards here, have to think about this sort of thing differently because that area has been underinvested for a really, really long time. And now this is going to run people out. People are not going to be able to afford. You have these types of buildings at that shopping center. You all know the area is going to get wiped out and it's going to be these new homes and people are going to get bought out and the property taxes are going to be extremely high. And I know we have programs both in the city and the county to help with that, but I'm concerned about it. This is something I had hoped for for a long time and seeing this, I should be really excited about it, but I just know the area. I know it well, because I spent so many years in that community as a member of First Calvary Baptist Church trying to make this happen. And now I see this and it doesn't excite me because the programs I just don't think that's enough. I don't think that's enough to help what we all know is going to happen. We could talk about this and we can celebrate and we can say this is going to be wonderful and everything, but we know what it's going to be. We all know what it's going to be here. 10 years from now i bet you we don't see an ex a a house that's existing today at least not not some of the older ones and i bet you we don't see residents that are there right now that's been begging for this for over 20 years i've been here since 97. i bet you don't we don't see any of them there to to take advantage of this To, to enjoy this, to enjoy these bike paths and transportation hubs and all of this kind of thing. We're not gonna see anybody there. I think we're doing this backwards. I, I, I think we have to focus on them first and then build this, but it looks like this is already down the path, but we, we have to learn at some point we have to learn that. This is what we mean by, this is actually kind of the opposite of what we mean by people should be able to live and work here. They can work here, but they're not going to be able to afford to live in the places that they already own right now. So I don't know what we could do about this. Probably nothing because we're already down the path. But this is going to be devastating for the people who already live there. It's a great thing. It's great. It looks beautiful. It's wonderful. It's going to be great driving by there. I drive my bus by there every morning. But it's not going to be like this in 10 years. It's not going to be. The same people who are living there now are not going to. In that whole area that we highlighted, in the whole small area, nothing's going to be there. No one's going to be there that lives there now. And that should be a problem for everybody here. That should absolutely be a problem for everybody here. I didn't really have a question. I think you did a great job on the presentation. I just think we're doing this backwards.

Thank you to Charlie's point. Can you speak to what is in the plan regarding displacement gentrification? Is that something that we? I know that we have this adoption process. Is that something that needs to be explored more or do you? We can't require things through the plan, especially regarding displacement, but there are definitely tools in the toolbox to be creative about those things, especially if we're proactive, which is why doing a plan is good. Can you speak to the displacement issue in this project?

Sure. One second. I'm going to pull up the housing and neighborhood stabilization section. So we recognize that there are tools that can be used to address these issues, primarily for the small area plan since we're focused on land use. We are looking at opportunities where additional affordable housing can exist. We also do recognize that there is existing affordable housing. We want to keep that. We identified a couple of recommendations and we could collaborate with neighborhood services and where appropriate community partners and engagement to support existing homeowners. And that is again, what was mentioned before the existing programs. We also recognize a couple of areas where there is some additional affordable housing opportunities. I think the key thing here is that primarily the housing planning in the area is going to be addressed through that housing and neighborhood services affordable housing plan. And I think there is a timing issue that this was done before that plan is being completed. And that plan, I believe, is supposed to start this fall. This plan, even when it is adopted, isn't a guarantee that these things are going to be built. It's rather a representation of what could happen and what could be built. And in some cases, this is really representing what the LDC and the comprehensive plan has put forward, has identified for this area. So we're hoping that this plan sort of can represent what can be expected and that can be paired with the work that Housing and Neighborhood Services is going to do to come up with strategies to better support the existing affordable housing and the neighbors that live in the area.

All right.

You had your hand raised. Did you have any follow-up? Okay. If you have later, let me know. You have a specific follow-up? Is yours follow-up? No, follow up and then we'll go to.

I just have a question. The housing and neighborhood services, the housing plan that the city is working on, I assume that will include looking at things like land trust investments. I mean, for example, actually this part of Durham, that because of the existence of the Durham Community Land Trust investments are also self-help investments. has been involved in some projects here. The West End has actually seen less gentrification and more retention of you know, historic members, homeowners and members of the community than other parts of Durham. And when we look at when some studies have done looking at the rising market rates that we've seen that the West End, because of what the work that the land trust has done there, the market values have not increased as much there as in other parts of the city. So I hope that that will is that something that will be looked at as well the role of land trusts as In that plan, I just that was I can't speak.

You don't know what's going to be involved. Yeah. Okay.

But I didn't want to say we do. We do mention in the plan itself that there was that collaboration with the community land trust and self help. There were efforts in the 1990s and the 2000s to stabilize the area and they created a land bank. I think that that is something that could be explored further to see what the successes were and what sort of fell through the cracks in that process and what can be improved moving forward. But again, I can't speak to that. I understand.

And I'll just mention that the county, we used $1.5 million of our ARPA money to... um a lap basically funded self-help by i'm sorry dclt buying an apartment building right next to the lakewood elementary school and then an adjacent undeveloped parcel where they have the ability to build a future building so thank you commissioner jacobson yeah there's great dialogue about the community land trusts in in the plan document uh mayor pro temp

Thank you. I just want to say I appreciate what Chair Lee shared. I will say that this area has been gentrifying for 10 years, 15 years. To your point, this was a response to the community members that are there now, but it's not a response to the community members that were there 10 years ago. Yeah. So, I just want to just name that. So, I hear what you're sharing. All of our inner core neighborhoods, quite frankly, have gentrified. I mean, the folks have been, not always, and I would say that in West End communities, has fared better than many other. communities or neighborhoods in the urban core because they had more stable housing. I think it's a success to the DCLT work from the 90s and other work. If you look at that in comparison to East Durham, it is a very different story. I will say that our property tax relief program that both the joint both city and county fund that are our model for the southeast that the intent of that program is at least for homeowners it doesn't necessarily help renters but for homeowners it is to help folks stabilize their housing especially long-term residents. So all of these things, to your earlier point, aren't sufficient. But those are the tools that we have, especially in North Carolina. I will say that the scrap exchange, the city did fund the scrap exchange many years ago to stabilize their rents in the hope that that side of the parcel, which is significant, would be able to eventually develop affordable housing using that large surface parking lot. That's not the whole site. Maybe it's like two-thirds held by scrap exchange, one-third held by a private developer. You know, that's just me guessing. But that... There are some other opportunities in that corridor. But... I mean, it's kind of what came up with the Walltown Small Area Plan. And the former Mayor Pro Tem Middleton said it then, that the plan came... in reaction to a community that doesn't really exist there anymore. So it's a painful reality and a painful truth. I think that what we can do and hopefully we will do is the housing plan, and many of us on council have been meeting with the team, the consultant. I think they're planning on meeting with all council members and other critical stakeholders, including county folks, is what are the opportunities that are left in Durham? How do we buy the existing apartment complexes that are still affordable? You know, that naturally affordable, whatever, NOAA, Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing, another friggin' housing acronym here. But it is a painful truth. And I'll just say it, y'all. I mean, I don't think there's a, except for Councilmember Baker, and I'm gonna call you out, one generation in, there's not a single person in this dais that's from Durham. Right? I mean, we can say what we want about gentrification, but part of it is that we're the problem. Like, we moved to community, right? I mean, that's what a transient community does. That's what universities do to communities. They bring transient populations and people like the area and they choose to stay. I know that that's an uncomfortable truth, but it is a truth. um so i appreciate the plan i know that there's not a lot of um enforcement associated with it i think that that's an interesting um conversation it'll be interesting you know the brag town small area plan got presented at last i think our last JCCPC, again, that community has been able to stay intact in a different way. And I hope that that small area plan helps inform some of the decisions and opportunities. I'll say there's some wins there because of the quantity of affordable housing that's already being built in that area. That again will help stabilize some of this you know, hard reality of what we're facing in Durham. And I can also say, I don't think any of us could afford to live here now. For those of us who moved in the last 20, 15 years, you know, I know I couldn't afford to build or buy a house in Durham today, anywhere close to where I live.

Council Member Burse?

I actually have a question because I'm just going to try to be a better version of myself today. Did you all identify any vacant city-owned buildings in that area?

Yeah, vacant city property?

Yeah, like just properties or anything the city can properly use.

One major vacant building would be the former Armory site.

Okay.

But there were no vacant city-owned buildings. There were vacant properties, but there weren't a lot of them. And most of them were associated with the cemetery and some areas by the park.

Okay. So I'm just going to... My thoughts on it is there's a lot of interesting conversation and dialogue about gentrification, whatever. So, in being in Durham for 21 years, I think at some point you see how public policy has led us here, poor public policy has led us here, especially when it comes down to implementation. We can have all these great barriers in place about the tax program, but in my experience, I'm starting to feel like are these things designed to work and be effective, or is it just to say we have something on file? If you go down Kent Street, you will see those monstrosities that are there, those million dollar homes that just like stand like a sore thumb. And so I think that the reality is you do have some people who are still there. Some people are still maintaining homes in that area. But and then we do have a housing plan coming, which we in Durham love to study stuff. and then throw money at things and then reallocate to other places and we can't find where money went. So I think that it's really about being good stewards of public dollars at this point and just stop talking about it and do something to actually help our residents. So I really wanted to be intentional about thinking about how some decisions people who've been around for decades have made are finally starting to show up in this space and what the realities are. So I do appreciate you, Commissioner Lee, for uplifting that Aaron has changed and how it has vastly changed over, you know, and that we are really appealing to the new people here at this point in Durham. And so that's where we're at. We know that when you do transit-oriented development, as what happened with light rail that we never got, people came to certain communities and they bought up those properties because they knew they were going to return their investment. What's going to happen right now in Williams Village? that we have the BRT going there and that the developer is proposing to buy there. I don't know if they bought it already. You have people who live in these communities for decades who got no relief, but then when some out-of-town developer came in here, now you're going to finally get some change happening. So I just want everyone to think about their role and where Durham is right now.

Council Member Kupak.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Baker, and thank you for this presentation and the work you and your team have been doing. I also want to uplift and highlight the comments by Chair Lee and others recognizing the changes that this part of Durham and other parts of Durham have faced. I think it's an interesting conversation about when we do these, either the comprehensive plan or small area plans, you know whose needs and desires is it reflecting um and i think that's part of the engagement process and so i think it's interesting to look at you know who did you speak with right and i know that's something that you document you know like long-standing institutions um you know where the long-standing residents engaged as well as uh relative newcomers looking at you know how long folks have have lived here um it's i think it's probably a mix i would say i think my understanding is that you know planning is pretty intentional and the small area planning process is meant to be intentional about who is engaged, who we talk to, who we get feedback from, but then that's important to have another look at those engagement numbers. In some ways, in looking at the pictures, it makes me think of some of the debates or conversations we have around graphic development plans, or even visuals that are used in our rezoning and annexation cases, because um in some ways like if they're not just meant to explicitly reflect what is required by code they can give us an idea of what something will be when it is just i think an idea you know just a vision and so i think that there's an important role that you know we all have to play that the community still has to play to think about you know From what I'm hearing, there was a couple minor adjustments to underlying code. But otherwise, a lot of this is just vision, right? And that's what is being represented. There's no funding. There's no development plan. There's no real implementation that is behind this yet. And so I think that, you know, in seeing this, it isn't I don't see it as a representation of what is going to be. You know, I see it as a representation of the ideas of folks who came together for this process shared. They might like to see it might meet needs. I appreciate the integration of opportunities around affordable housing. around micro retail, around greater transit access. And I do think those sorts of steps do help us mitigate some of the worst harms of new development, of gentrification. And I think that having that input from residents who took part in this hopefully help inform and help us actually implement well. But I'd say we have a long way to go before this becomes something. Uh, and so I think, you know, hearing, you know, the, the experience, you know, shared by chair Lee and by many of our neighbors, um, you know, it's just a, a call to action for us that like, you know, what steps do we take to make plans a reality versus this council member versus just having another plan. That's where the rubber hits the road, where we have to be accountable to do everything we can to help, uh, mitigate those concerns. But I still see this as, you know, um, um, uh, valuable work.

um good engagement and and still just some just some ideas sure thank you i appreciate everyone's comments um i think that I think that what's helpful going through this process is that it helps us. I mean, it provides a lot of information. And then, of course, just being, you know, the question is, what is the follow-up? What do we take from what we learn from this? You know, what can be done, what can't be done? Things like that. I do want to just really highlight page 10. of the PowerPoint, but it's page 32 of the report, because it still is important for us to look at the actual data. So if we could go look at that, because I find this really, I'm sorry, it's the one that has the, it's in the introduction where it says area demographic trends. so bless you so i guess this page yeah that one so again i think we really have to look at the data honestly what you see with the change in population with the african-american population It has only slightly decreased according to this data. And I would go back again to the role of the Durham Community Land Trust, where we see the biggest shift demographically in the West End is actually a decrease in the white population since 1990 to 2020. And then there's been also a slight increase in the Hispanic or Latino population. I think it's really important to look at that. So where you see actually the biggest decline in the African-American population is actually in Lyon Park, according to this data, and where the biggest growth is actually in the Hispanic or Latino population. So, you know, I just think it's important to look at what this is telling us. I think some of the positives to me, to the question of what can we do at this point, what my takeaway was a few things. One is when I look at the to-do list, a lot of it is within the control of the city. Most of the things that are listed as the follow-up steps are things that the city can do that residents were asking for. They're related to pedestrian safety and changes in parks. Think about some of the parks now, one of them was having shade over a playground. I mean, with climate change, that's a huge thing. So there were a lot of things that when I looked at the to-do implementation, I was like, wow, this is great because this is not under the control of a private developer. This is under control of the city. So I'm very hopeful about that. And the other issue that's been raised is the fact that the shopping center, unlike Northgate, half of it is controlled by the scrap exchange. That is huge. And, you know, again, we know the city is invested in helping it make it possible that look who's there, El Futuro. You know, we've invested the county with the DOS grants in creating that amazing open space there. You know, if you got Lincoln, that's, you know, it opened a whole new clinic there. And we've invested, I'm on the Lincoln board, we invested in renovating that. um you've got black owned businesses there so like i'm actually inspired when i think about where we've seen creative place making happening in durham a lot of it is in this neighborhood you know so um i think The question is, and I know the housing plan you're doing is, you pointed out, Chair Lee, like that beautiful pictures, which I mean, I think it's amazing the ideas that the community came up with about creating some green space in there and all that. But how do we actually make that work with the developer? So in this case, the scrap exchange and whoever owns the other part, how do we engage them now on the front end? That's up to us. And to make sure that there is affordable housing there, that that is a place for everyone. You know, that's the question that I would ask. So, and the other question I have is... Before you get...

I wanted to make... You brought this slide up. And I think it's really important. I want to make sure that I was... clear what I said. I never mentioned race in my comments, and that was purposely. What's most important on this slide to me is what's at the very bottom, is the income, right, the socioeconomic status. So it's not necessarily about race. Because West End has always been a mix. That's not really my point. It is the socioeconomic status of the people there. And if we're talking about from 1990 to 2020 on the race, we're talking 2010 to 2023 on the socioeconomic status and that increase is what we really need to focus on there because that's what's going to keep going up. The race is going to be balanced because, you know, there's different races with different economic statuses. But that's what we need to look at here. And I just wanted to make sure I was clear what I said. I specifically did not mention race in my comments because of the diversity that's in the West End. I just wanted to point that out.

Yeah, thank you. I do think it's significant, though, just to compare the line. farm compared to West End in terms of the African American community. But my question is really also about who is going to, I mean, there's a long list here of to-dos. like to me my rea one of my thoughts reactions is like who's going to actually be responsible for kind of championing or implementing coordinating because it's many different departments and stakeholders and i feel like we have maybe some opportunity for being proactive as, you know, City Council Member Burris mentioned and Chair Lee mentioned, but it's gonna take also somebody who's actually staying on top of it and leading it. So I don't know what thoughts there are about how that is gonna actually happen.

Yeah, can we get an answer? I think that's a good question. Answer to that question and then I'm gonna go to Council Member Burris.

So something that we started maybe about a year ago or so is we have quarterly, what started out as comprehensive plan implementation meetings with partner departments that have action items in the comprehensive plan that we're all on the hook for. Those meetings are broadening to include other plans that are multi-departmental. the purpose of those meetings is to make sure that all departments are moving forward on essentially the homework assignments. So we have, and we have, you know, leadership from on the city side attend those meetings, high up leadership to make sure that there's accountability and things are moving forward and we work together. So there is a mechanism, an internal mechanism to try and prioritize. We can't do all the things at once, obviously, but to have conversations and prioritize. And one of the things that we do annually, and we will start expanding to other plans as well as we report out on, you know, progress made to implement like actions from the comprehensive plan or now actions from small area plans. And we're hoping that other departments will do it with their long range plans too.

um one just to follow up um two different kind of models that i've seen out there one i've seen a model where there's basically some sort of kind of advisory committee to a small area plan that lives on after the plan is adopted and becomes that kind of community champion group so i've seen that model And then I know Raleigh also has recently created within their planning department like a implementation division that implements the small area plan and other kinds of plans. Kind of addressing two different things, just wanted to raise those ideas. Council Member Burse.

Can you go back to the previous slide, the demographic slide? And Commissioner Lee got to most of the, but I just have some questions about like just the logic of it. So can you just help me understand why that we focused on a demographic trends from 1990 to 2020, but then you also did income to 2023 and we're in 2026. So is there no like updated data that we could use for this? I just want to understand the variances in how the information is presented in the timelines.

Yes, if I could just make one comment before that. I wanted to emphasize that this is general demographic trends. It does not represent displacement. So this is intended to show kind of what the area looks like and show what it's looked like over time. But these aren't data points that should be used specifically to represent displacement, especially as it relates to homeownership and rentals. There's a lot of things that can go into this and I think should be looked at fairly closely, and that's not the intent of this section. In terms of going to 2023, so that's actually because this is based on the census data that is the American Community Survey, which is an estimate that's done every five years. So we really don't have data beyond 2023 at this point. We will have it soon. But there are other indicators we could look at that can get maybe more specific, but this in terms of what's available at the census, that's what we have.

I'll just add one thing to that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but because you're looking at such a limited area, the accuracy of the ACS survey data versus true full-on census, the accuracy can be a little bit diminished.

That's true, yeah. And that includes sort of all the data that's here. Because we're looking at a small area and because we're not specifically looking at, say, for example, census tracts or census blocks, we had to do an approximation of the area. And also, that's not as easily represented in the census data. So we're only including a portion of the census tract that includes Lakewood. We're only including a portion of the census block that includes the West End. That type of sort of specific data would need to be looked at further.

And that's very helpful because we know the census was a mess in 2020. I don't know if people think back to how messy it was with the census in 2020 under that guy's administration. But also, is there space in the future to do like looks on displacement, like to examine that and include it in small area plans? Or is that like something we're straying away from?

I know the measure of that is really hard, but...

Yeah, I'll say this is a conversation that I've had with Sarah Vignes quite a bit. And one of the things that we're kind of a little bit holding off on is to see what comes from their plan in terms of displacement. Because honestly, in terms of land use planning, there's relatively very little that we can do to affect displacement, right? And so we have to partner and really work to support mostly housing and neighborhood services. I think potentially, yes. And we, Sarah and I, have started to have those conversations. Once she's got more information from their consultant, I think we'll be in a better spot to try and rethink that moving forward. So I think it's a yes, but let me see kind of where that goes and have further conversations with them.

I have seen other projects where there was an emphasis on anti-displacement measures. And there were some pretty deep conversations that took place with certain communities that were undergoing a large amount of displacement. And there was some interesting information that came out of those conversations like, oh, we've been approached by a lot of predatory buyers. um oh my neighbor passed away and it moved on but um but you know nobody was there to receive the the property so i do think that there there are some interesting conversations that could be had that could help inform um as far as like metrics around displacement yeah i will be interested to see what comes out of the affordable housing um strategic plan carry on uh comes member copac

second time this meeting um um with the parts around like improvements infrastructure improvements how is that tying back to our cip and what are the conversations and it's we have a lot of plans not not everything like the bike walk plan blah blah like when is council going to get a very clear here's what the plan says, if you want to implement it, these are the decisions you're going to have to make on the CIP, and it might reprioritize projects, and it might be really clear, and this isn't y'all's department, but there is city staff that listens to these conversations. And so that is, I feel like, and that's the place where residents actually get frustrated, because we keep asking them for engagement, and then we don't actually change the priorities on the things that they say that they want. And then the project gets more expensive because everything is more expensive every two minutes, it seems like. So that's the, and it's not just, it's really a council conversation. But I'm saying it here because I think I said it around this time last year that then we didn't actually do it during budget season in the level that I felt we needed to. We really need to dig into our CIP and have a better understanding of is it prioritized appropriately? Does it actually map to a plan? Is it in response to what residents say? I get that the staff may have priorities themselves, but sometimes you have to change things because that's what residents are saying they want. And to actually commit to a thing like Vision Zero or Transit Opportunity Area or this other thing, you kind of just have to, you know, make different decisions. And that's often what we hear from residents pretty, pretty verbosely is, you know, stop asking us stuff and get stuff done. And I want my park fixed.

Council Member Kupak.

Yeah, well, Mayor Pro Tem took a lot of the words right out of my mouth and said it better than I could have. So thank you. I think it's just a good reminder that nothing happens in isolation, that we have to be able to work across silos in the city to be able to affect change. I do think that decisions we make around land use and around development rules do play a role about how we grow and around issues of displacement and gentrification. I see our current UDO having played a big role in promoting the kind of both sprawl and gentrification that we've seen you know over over past years and you know that combines with you know national housing policies and you know neighborhood responses to integration and the fair housing act and you know that that pushed for restrictor zoning that tried to keep people out and so i think this is just a reminder that Our comp plan, the new LDC, these small area plans are all opportunities to be able to correct some of those, I think, problematic elements of prior comprehensive plans, prior or current UDO to be able to have an influence on land use that is hopefully helpful in this direction.

All right. I'm going to get to my comments now. Thank you, colleagues, for all of your comments and questions so far. Since 2017-ish, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later, we've experienced the greatest level of population increase in the history of our city. And corresponding to that, the greatest level of displacement Maybe ever, or at least since urban renewal, and that is reflected in in our neighborhoods and protect in particular some of our really interesting neighborhoods. I was going to mention, you know, you, you already mentioned this mayor pro town, but. When we were discussing the Walltown small area plan, Mayor Pro Tem at the time, Middleton, spoke to how he lamented that it was on the back end of an enormous amount of gentrification. I really think Walltown's probably gentrified more than anywhere. And how he wished that we'd done that work 10 years before. And we don't have a time machine. That would be a great tool if we had a time machine and could... could work on aggressive anti-displacement measures and not having a time machine you know what what can we do now and also what are the other places in our city where there is a lot of potential for imminent potential for gentrification displacement i think brag town and some of the Smaller plants that are in the queue can can be aggressive on on anti displacement gentrification issues. I. want to start with my productive criticism because I think that this is really great work. I want to applaud you for that you've been the project manager on this. I want to applaud you and the playing department for the work on on this project. So I'm doing an inside out compliment sandwich. Um, so plans are super productive for really two things one is the document the outcome and the other one is the process the process is almost if not more important than the document that results from it um and um i think that there were a lot of really good meetings uh i would just encourage um in the future just continuing to make sure that when you get a room full of people which this did packed uh lion park community center um full of people energized and excited to just make sure to use every little every minute as efficiently as possible and that requires just so much upfront work to um to make sure that every minute is used as efficiently as possible and bringing that energy and excitement um to those meetings and so i just want to make sure that we do that moving forward and also maybe take advantage i'm not saying do more community engagement but just um maximize the community engagement that is done and also if there are opportunities for for pop-up engagement i know that there was the latino festival that was in the parking lot of the shops at lakewood And there was a table there for the city of Durham and there wasn't anything about the Lakewood Small Area Plan. So just making sure that we take advantage of those kinds of events and catching people out where they are in addition to inviting people into spaces. And I know that I was happy to see Lakewood Montessori Middle School did that presentation. I was happy to see planning staff there talking with the school students there about their work. I am happy with this plan. I am much happier with this plan than with the Walltown small area plan, I think. major, major improvements. I think we learned from that process, which is good. The document itself, readable, accessible. I can picture people, our residents, picking this up, looking at it, reading the history, reading the demographics, being critical themselves of what's happening and recommendations. It's understandable. It's readable. It's approachable. I think all of that is really, really important. So I think That is really good work. We can really get a sense of what the challenges and the opportunities are in this area through the plan that's been created here. I think the Urban Design Center is going to be a really good opportunity in the future for multi-stakeholder charrettes. on large redevelopable sites like the shops at Lakewood, like Northgate, like pretty much any future small airplanes going to have one of these. And so I do think that once we fully craft and launch their urban design studio, that that's going to be a big opportunity to to really do an amazing vision on on these different kinds of sites around our city um yeah once that's up and running um we can't force a property owner to develop you know if if the property owner's on shops at lake winning what is the other property owner i'm forgetting brodyco brodyco thank you yeah scrap exchange and brody thank you um we brodyco I didn't make up the name. We can't force them to develop, but we can certainly add tools into the toolbox. We can certainly be prepared if at some point or when at some point they decide they want to develop or they sell their property to someone who wants to develop. we can prepare ourselves for that. So there are a lot of capital recommendations in the plan. Some of those would be addressed directly through the capital improvement program that the city has, capital expenditures, but also it gives us some potential recommendations or expectations for potential proffers in the future if there are redevelopment projects. So we're not left at the final hour trying to figure something out. There's been this kind of upfront work to look at what are those potential proffers that could come forward that we can at least talk with the developer about. I also just think that, yeah, making sure that there's some level of buy-in. So bringing that, that's why I mentioned the kind of multi-stakeholder. adjacent residents adjacent small businesses but also the existing landowners um what stake do they have um what kind of ownership do they have in redevelopment of these sites um And then the rendering, I know it's just a rendering, but I think renderings are really powerful. I think the rendering in here is really exciting and really powerful when I think about that potential park that's extending off from the existing little park that's there, I think is really, really cool. The buildings that are there kind of help illustrate some of our values and expectations. I think for me, I would probably, were I to develop the rendering, I'd probably have even more kind of infill and a little bit less parking if we're really trying to show the potential there. But again, I think that it is illustrating some important points there. And then I wanna lift up the emphasis on implementation. Implementation is really emphasized in this plan, both within the chapters and also the implementation chapter itself. And I think that that is key. That is something that comes up a lot is how do we actually make this work? And so I think that that was emphasized here. But they're, you know, how do we get Brodyco, how do we get all the different landowners and stakeholders to the table to actually make this work using carrots and sticks that we use in policymaking? Do we need to explore synthetic TIFs? Do we need to look at a vacant properties ordinance for some of these properties that are here? Do we need to... Figure out how we can work with the landowners to get them into discretionary zoning so that we can have a say in negotiation at the table. Do we need to put some skin in the game through some sort of expenditure or capital investment that could help bring the developer to the table to get those 20% affordable units? So those are my comments. Again, I really like where we are. I think we're making improvements. Could it be better I'm sure it could be, but I think that this is we've learned a lot from the wall town small area plan and moved in the right direction and I don't think that. You know, once we do launch the urban design studio that we can't go back and look at the North gate side or look at this side either to get into more fine grained detail so. Any additional comments or questions.

Just quickly, I also want to echo, I thought this was really great and very readable. And I enjoyed the background. I did not know that the Lyon Park School was originally a Rosenwald School. That was news to me. I was wondering about the 12% multifamily for this area. How does that compare? I don't think that was compared to Durham overall. I was wondering about the context for that. Is that high, low, and do you know?

That's a hard question to answer because it depends on how we draw the boundaries of an area, right? So the purpose of that inclusion of that information was just to give a number to the multifamily that exists around the shops at Lakewood, if that makes sense. I would have to have a comparable area within Lakewood. okay so i think what is notable is that it's primarily it's residential and there's a high concentration of multi-family around shop at lakewood and also just off of duke university road okay um i was wondering if there if you all went back and there was any documentation of the previous

assessment that had been done of turning the parking lot, the scrap exchange side, because I remember I was a part of those conversations years ago with Self Help and Duke and the scrap exchange with trying to do affordable housing in the parking lot. Did you all come across any of that in this work?

So didn't come across documentation of that. I understand that the scrap exchange is going to start their own design process for the buildings that they're going to do. Which would include that affordable housing that's required under their grant. But we don't have documentation of those previous contracts.

Okay because well for anyone who remembers one of the problems that came up was related to the infrastructure under the parking lot. sarah do you remember um and it was related to some of the utilities that are under the parking lot and i remember that ended up being one of the big barriers to moving forward but i just think if anyone can find you know it's like some things don't have to be recreated um i think building on that um is important so um Anyway, and I appreciate putting into perspective what the demographic data shows, but I do think it does sound an alarm for lime farm when you see that that's a huge decrease. When you look at the decrease in the African-American population, 30% in a 10-year period, that is a huge, huge alarm that we should all be very concerned about. Oh, and I also appreciate the comments about population change. When I came to Durham in 1979, the population was 100,000 people. So yes, a lot of people have moved here since that time. We're a very different place. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right. Final item here is, do you have anything?

We don't necessarily need to talk about that one. It's just on there, so it's a quick hold.

Okay. Okay. If anyone has any questions on item 10, colleagues, any questions? No? Just in there for reference. All right. Thank you all. We're only 27 minutes over. That's not terrible. So I'm going to adjourn us at 11.57 a.m. Thank you all.