Joint City County Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Good morning everyone. Thank uh welcome to the November 5th, 2025 meeting of the joint city county planning committee. And um we'll first start with the roll call. Chair Jacobs here. Vice Chair Baker here. Council member Caviierro, I know she texted me. She's on her way. So, planning commissioner Shagaris here. Commissioner Lee, Mayor Pro Tim Middleton, Commissioner Valentine here.

Okay. Okay. And um vice ch uh chair Lee um is also on his way, he said. So, okay. Are there any adjustments to the agenda this morning? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to announcements. Go ahead. Yeah. I want to uh recognize Grace Smith to just make a few staffing announcements to share with y'all.

Good morning. Uh Grace Smith with the planning and development department. So good to see you all. We have some new staff members here today. Just want to call them up. Um John Sandor, if you'll come on up. John is our new AD over development infrastructure. John, if you'll just say a few things about yourself because I don't want to get anything wrong. Hey guys. Uh I know some of you from my previous role with the state, the specifically the NC DOT. Um came over here to the city of Durham hoping to continue the trend of uh making things better. Um I enjoy that aspect living here in Durham and and continuing to contribute in whatever ways that I can. So found myself a little closer to the action so to say. So that's it about me. Um awesome. Welcome.

Thank you. I'm gonna put everyone on the spot here. Brianna Fatal um was one of our interns that's um working with us right now.

Hi, my name is Brianna. Uh like Grace said, I'm the kind of the intern right now. I'm currently a student um at UNC Chapel Hill, a masters in public administration in city regional planning. Uh really excited to meet you all and yeah, just a little a little bit about me. Fantastic. Welcome. And last but not least, Tessa Maguire. Hi, my name is Tessa Maguire. I'm the new historic preservation planning specialist um working with the historic preservation commission. Um I come from a public history background. I used to work for state historic sites for a few years. So I'm super excited to be joining the historic preservation team and the community planning team.

Wow. Fantastic. We love having all of the state talent coming here to Durham. Awesome. Yeah, we like to snag people from all over. So, yeah. Um, so lastly, I just want to uh take one a point of privilege if you don't mind um to let everyone know that after almost well about 31 years of working and 20 almost 21 years here, I am going to retire. So, I'm out of here. December 31st. Yeah. So, I'm here a little bit longer.

Thank you. Thank you. It's um I will say I think I'll just keep this brief, but I told Sarah when I came here in 2005, I was so scared. I was so worried because I was leaving a job where I really loved the people that I worked with and I didn't really want to leave that job, but I just needed to go somewhere bigger so I could grow and do some other things. And so I came here and I walked in to this department. I came from a department of like five people before there and there were more people in this department than there were in city hall where I used to work. And um and I was a director in a small town. So I, you know, things were different for me. I had done a little bit of everything, but I had not done what Durham was doing. So I walked in and I was just like, "Oh, there's so many people here and there were so many cubicles and so many people." And um after the first like four days, I knew I had found my home. It was just everybody was so wonderful. And um yeah, it's sad, bittersweet for me, but it's time. And I'm excited about this next chapter, even though I will be trying to keep up with my 85-year-old dad. That's going to be fun. Uh he's a he's a handful, but I'm looking forward to spending more time with him and my family and just thank you all. It's been a great ride. So, I appreciate it.

Well, thank you for your many years of service to the planning department, but also to Durham City and County. We appreciate you and wish you the best. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So, I'll see you around there. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, we joke that I'm going to bring her back part time so she can clean up the file room. She'd been threatening to do that for years. That sounds good. [laughter] All right. Next, we have um and I want to recognize that um city council member Cabier is here. Um chair, can we also get an excuse absence for Mayor Prom Middleton? Absolutely. Um can I have a motion? So move. Second.

Uh moved by um city council member Baker, seconded by city council member Kabier. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? And that motion is unanimously approved. Okay. Um we have our um minutes from October 1st, 2025. Any adjustments, revisions? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion to approve. Motion to the minutes. Moved by Council Member Baker, second by Council Member Gabiro. All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed? and the October 1st minutes are approved. City and county managers priority items.

Okay. Well, thank you also. [laughter] Thank you so much. Um okay. Um we now have an exciting item. the Durham Housing Initiative Task Force Report. And we have Aaron Kane to um help with this item.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And my help with this item is simply to introduce the uh person who's actually going to be giving the presentation. I'll turn it over to Ted Halurn who is a principal with Kelly Development and was the chair of the land use uh subcommittee for the uh housing task force initiative. And with no further ado, I'll turn it over to Ted as soon as we get the AV working. Good morning everyone. Thanks [clears throat] for making time for me to speak. Um I hope we'll obviously get the presentation rolling in a second but I think this morning is meant to be as much of conversation as it is a presentation. So we're going to talk a little bit about what we did for the last uh year as a part of the has an initiative task force but some of the concepts that we'll talk about today questions discussion feel free to stop me at any point. Um oh great thank you uh a little bit of background about myself. some familiar faces here and some folks that I have not had a chance to meet yet. Um, I am an affordable housing developer only in every other community except for Durham. Um, we build with a low-inccome housing tax credit. Uh, in Durham, we're under construction in Garner. We just built in Rocky Mount. We are under construction in Wilmington. And in most communities that we work in, there is not the political will to push developers to include affordable housing in resonings. So we don't see it in our pier city here in the triangle. I don't see it in Wilmington. I don't see it in many of these communities that we work in. And so in those communities, the only way to get projects done is to build with income housing tax credit and get tax credits from the state and resources from, you know, the city if they're available. Um, what led me to be a part of the task force was we got involved in a project now almost five years ago in North Durham that was so big that it was

never going to be just affordable. It required a ton of work with the community. It required a ton of work with staff. It required ton of work with planning commission and council. Some of those folks were on planning commission and council at different points when the project came through. Um and it sort of served as this wild education in how to try to tie affordable into marketer rate projects in ways that can actually lead units to get built. And so um the main purpose of the uh zoning subcommittee within the task force was to answer the question, how can we get more affordable units built without city subsidy? right there. Without putting words in any elected officials mouths, there I'm sure will be a housing bond at some point in the future that voters get a chance to decide on, but there's not enough resources to fill the entire gap. And because Durham is Durham and incredibly unique and awesome in its willingness to push the development community for affordable, there are opportunities in the way that I think development work is processed in the city. So, and county. Um, so with that, let's dig in. So, uh, number of recommendations were made. We'll start with the easier ones. Um, I think there's going to be a lot of head nods and consensus on these next couple and then we'll get into the more complex and meaningful one at the end. Um, yeah, here we go. Uh the simple off the top um first recommendation was if there are projects that are UDO compliant, trying to get them into the ground sooner rather than later is a good thing. Um having spent a ton of time working projects with planning staff and other departments, there's great work that happens here at the city. Uh but if there's an opportunity to find ways within reason, within budget

realities to make approvals go faster again on projects that still get full vetting and still meet all of the requirements that any other project would otherwise uh receive. Getting those projects to move faster would be a good thing. Um [snorts] and so the recommendation was to find an outside third party that had done this kind of consulting work that sort of had a good grasp on sort of best national practices that understood North Carolina state law which obviously is quirky and very unique um and try to come up and have a chance to understand sort of the resources and limitations that exist within the community here and with staff. Um, so anyways, being respectful of all of the uniqueness, uh, that governs the approval process. How can we get it to move faster? Uh, Sean Egan was a part of our subcommittee. Um, so I'm going to do a disservice talking through these slides to Sean because he knows this cold and I'm sure you all have heard it from him um, repeatedly, but he's right. We uh I'm thinking specifically in the context of the um tax credit project that we hopefully will break ground on the next month here. It's up in North Durham. There's not currently a bus stop. We're working hard to work with transportation to have one added or come up with a plan for how one can be brought online when the project's already open. Um but it's severely limiting. We have 198 tax credit units. 51 of those will be Oxford Manor residents that move into our project. A number of those folks need transit. So, um Sean's big push was Durham has one of the best utilized transit systems in the state and continuing to invest in it alongside of the affordable housing gets built as necessary. You just you can't have one without the other. Um we don't have enough people living by transit then it's tough to get the pencil. If you don't have enough transit by where the housing is, then you limit who can live

in that housing. So, um, not anything rocket sciency there. I think everyone agrees there's just budget realities to how much money can be committed to it. Um, we had the benefit of having Toeer from Quorum on our subcommittee. Um, who's great and knows ADU development cold and better than probably anyone in Durham. Um, I do not build ADUs for a living, but there are a lot of great reasons why Durm continues to push ADUs uh in its code. And you know, the program that I think the pilot program that the city committed to recently to put funds towards Cororum's effort, all great. Um, [snorts] it's, you know, again, no one's disagreeing on the role that ADUs can play. Um, there were a couple ideas that I would say Toeer brought forward. I would absolutely not say that uh planning staff 10,000% agrees and these are the things that need to get changed. These were um things that Toeer in his um very informed perspective as someone that lives in the ADU world thought might make it easier for him to get a few more ADUs uh stood up. So um again leave these here for consideration uh not as sort of final um requests from planning to have incorporated into say like the new UDO. So, uh, before we get into the last and the big recommendation, I would say, um, I think it's important to have a bit of a level set on the amount of units that need to get built and a take on, and again, very rough numbers, but the sort of finances needed to accomplish all the affordable development that's built because it informs the need to get creative and find more ways of getting affordable built without city and county subsidy. Um, these numbers are from a

report from last year that was done by state HBA on a county bycounty basis across the state looking at housing gaps that they projected would exist by 2029. So that was now a year ago. So this report's a touch stale. Um, and 2029 is in sort of development timeline terms like yesterday. There's no project you're going to start today that's going to be open by 2027. Um these are the sort of rough round numbers that the report indicated represented gaps. Uh the sort of low-inccome housing tax credit bucket is that middle one and to some degree uh the 50 to 80% AMI. Um uh the 80 50 80% AMI also includes sort of entry level for sale product and obviously everything below 30% AMI um is the hardest product to build. it gets rolled into lat deck deals at a small scale um and it requires a ton of gap funding. So rough numbers if you're assuming 75k a door in subsidy and that averages out 30% units which need more and 80% units which need less and you just said what is the size of the check that would have to be cut to build 12,000 units starting tomorrow which obviously is not a realistic endeavor. Um but it's a huge number. it's never going to get bonded and if you know obviously there's a lot of serious people here in this room and elected officials that are not here that care deeply about solving this gap and I think it requires a recognition that we can't spend our way out of it that it requires some continued creativity and continued efforts pushing the market rate development community to bring more affordable forward. Um how we go about doing that is sort of the crux of the rest of the presentation.

So, um, we're going to get into what we're proposing in more detail to start at the end and then work our way to the beginning. The recommendation is to significantly strengthen the density bonus. Uh, the density bonus incredibly well-intentioned. Like many other communities, it got brought forward um and just didn't get used for a variety of reasons. I think the biggest one, at least here in Durham from my experience, is that if you already have to go get a resoning, why not just go pull a resoning for the density that you need as opposed to resoning for less and then using the bonus subject to all the stipulations that are in it. Whether that's the reason or whether there are other reasons, I think the math pretty well evidences that it hasn't been used all that much. Um again, starting at the end and working our way back to the beginning, um the recommendation is that the city and county collectively work together to try to find ways of making more buy residential approvals as opposed to resonings. And we'll get into why, but the crux is to give developers the leverage to buy land at prices that enable them to build more affordable housing. So, um, to understand sort of why we thought this was important, I think it's worthwhile to have a conversation about what it's like trying to put a project together that eventually ends up at city county 18 months later for a reasonzoning. Um, I think everyone agrees with point one or understands it at least, which is if you're incurring market rate costs of real estate and construction and capital, um, being able to offer the project at say rental rents below 60% AMI or sale prices below 80 does not work without subsidy. Um, if it did, more of these units would get built. Um, Durham can't tell Home Depot what a stick of wood

costs, right? And interest rates are interest rates. Um, but how the city goes about structuring its entitlement process impacts what land is worth. So, you know, rough numbers, a piece of real estate zoned to include two market rate town homes is worth less than a piece of real estate that is entitled for four market rate town homes. Um, and a piece of real estate that is entitled for four market rate town homes is worth more than a piece of real estate that is zoned for four market rate town homes and one affordable town home. So, including affordable housing decreases the value of a piece of real estate. Um, but more density obviously increases it. And so the city and the way it sets up its entitlement, when I say city, I also mean city and county. I don't want to discriminate, but if I keep doing that, someone's going to tear their hair out. Um, the way the city goes about approving projects uh can lend itself to trying to find ways of compressing real estate valuations to enable folks to build more affordable. Um, everyone gets this, which is a project that ends up in front of council truly starts a year and a half plus earlier. a broker is retained and there's a bake off, right? And the developer who plans on doing the least amount of either affordable housing or green space are the things that detract from what would otherwise be the value of a project is the one who wins the opportunity to bring the project forward. Right? So, if I'm the developer who says, "Well, I want to build 25% affordable housing as a part of this, you know, 100 acre property, um, and a competing developer decides that they want to push a project with four and a half, obviously, it's up to the seller to decide who they pick, but oftent times they're going to pick the person who proposes the highest price." And so

there is a weird um uh the projects that you see the developers that are proposing the types of projects the city might be more interested in seeing didn't have a chance to put the land under contract. And then the timeline that it takes even if you are under contract at a number that makes sense with a project that passes muster. 18 months is a long time to figure out to have certainty over say like what your interest rates are that you'll be able to borrow at or like what construction costs are, right? Um and so what ends up happening is folks over bid for land. And so bizarrely enough, the biggest beneficiary from the last at least in the 5 years that I've been in this community um aren't developers, it's land owners. Right? the the value of a vacant piece of real estate obviously is different depending on what part of the city and county you're in, but rough numbers, the reval from this year indicates that the value of a piece of real estate, a vacant piece of real estate in Durham has doubled. Um, and we'll get into a real example of where we've seen that and experienced that. Um and then the last piece to this is that if if there's a process created by which projects could exempt themselves from having to get resonings in return for committing to the types of you know whether it's affordable commitments or let's just say more broadly density related commitments green space parks etc. For projects that are willing to exempt themselves from resoning avoiding a reasonzoning is incredibly valuable. They're super expensive. They're very timeconuming right so I know that there is you know expedited reviews for projects that commit to certain levels of affordable that is helpful but kind of window dressing avoiding a reasonzoning entirely is quite valuable and we think

uh a sufficient incentive for projects to try to program themselves to fit whatever the definition is that would allow them to exempt themselves. Um because at the end of the day again, if projects choose to exercise the density bonus as a means of moving forward, they avoid a reasonzoning. If not, they're welcome to come in front of council and plead their case. The bar for those approvals would likely be higher. Um so talk about a real life example and this is a bit of a candidly a trustwalk because this is a project that I'm involved in. We're going to do a little bit of storytelling and some cander about numbers and sort of ways in which having a density bonus that existed at the time this project moved forward could have proved incredibly valuable in the city getting a project that it wanted to see more than where this project is today. So, uh this is a 40 acre site that got reszoned in fall of 2023 at the bottom of Fagatville Road. It's just north of 751 South. Um and couple miles south of South Point Mall. Um the in late 21 I was approached by a market rate apartment developer uh who was under contract for $15 million to buy this site and willing to of that 15 commit three to subsidizing an affordable housing development out here. That would be 50 units. the total density of the project including the affordable was supposed was reszoned for 490 units. The site's existing zoning was rural residential. So suffice to say the site without the zoning was worth far less than it was with it even with the affordable commitment that was made. Um the you know year plus long process unfolded the site was successfully reszoned at a time when the market was turning. So rent stayed flat, rates went up, construction costs went up, project

that pencled no longer did, and so the market rate developer moved to drop the site. Well, the problem was that the zoning commitments made in this deal didn't include a timing mechanism for delivering the affordable. So, if this deal got dropped and the seller decided that they wanted to, again, in a world in which you have a market rate entitlement and you aren't required to do the affordable, that site is worth more than it would be if you were required to do the affordable. So the challenge is from my perspective as someone that participated in the resoning. If I didn't find a way to solve this, then my name would be attached to a site that committed to build affordable as a part of a reasonzoning effort and then got dropped and got site plan to include affordable. It was never going to get built and a market rate developer would have built the market rate part of the project and the couple acres set aside for the affordable would have just collected dust or the city would have had to gap fund at some point in the future. So we ended up taking we my group ended up taking an assignment of the contract worked to find a new buyer and worked to renegotiate the price of the land with the seller. So in the form iteration of this seller was making $12 million. What ended up happening was the seller ended up making 10. The new market rate developer paid 11. So there's a million dollars of gap funding that's been created sitting in a bank account. It is not sufficient to gap fund a 50 unit low-inccome housing tax credit project out there. So I will be coming forward at some point in the next I don't know 12 18 plus months whenever an RFP comes out to seek gap funding to make the project tie out. So better than no affordable. We own the land at no basis and there's a million dollars sitting in a bank account to support the development of these units. Had there

been a density bonus that this project was allowed to use as opposed to seeking a reasonzoning that was structured in a man stepping back for one second because the entire market rate portion of this project was intended to be apartments. It is really really difficult to tether the delivery of a LITC project with the delivery of a market rate project because if you are the market rate developer you're going to take out a construction loan. you're going to put personal guarantees on tens if not nine figures worth of money and if the affordable development does not happen you'll be sitting there with a built project that you cannot pull cos on. So the structuring of the zoning condition was not intended to be slippery was intended to solve around what is a challenging problem. Um but regardless if the developer who made the commitment drops the site then the units may not come forward. So had there been a density bonus, the underlying seller would not have been able to sell the site unless the market rate developer knew that the affordable was going to pencil and work. So as the market compressed and rates stayed flat or rent stayed flat and came down and the value of the real estate decreased, the sale price that they would have been able to achieve should have decreased in kind, right? So a site that sells for 11 that needs 3 million of gap funding should have sold for eight. But the leverage wasn't there to enable me to push the seller hard enough to do that, which then now creates this gap. So hopefully, these are a lot of words. Hopefully this is an illustration of the fact that on these larger projects, which take a long time to put together and the value of this piece of real estate bumped around throughout that process, the use of a large powerful density bonus as opposed to a reasonzoning creates the leverage for

the developer to buy the real estate from the seller at a price that allows the affordable to pencil. So, um there's a $110 million, uh apartment and rental town home project that's moving forward. The market rate developer is a great group that worked well, the new group worked well with us to sort of allow us to find a way to make sure the site got bought. Um, but they are making absolutely nowhere close to the call it $10 million that the underlying seller is making. And so the question is is do we have a process that is getting the results that we all want which is we want to be able to see affordable get built alongside of market rate deals in every corner of the city and the county. Um and the largest impediment from my perspective right now is that the process does not give developers the leverage they need to buy land at prices that enables projects to include affordable and get built. Um so at its core this vignette is intended to illustrate the degree to which taking um more sites out of resonings and pushing them through a density bonus type process and allowing folks to start site planning immediately um puts developers in a position to bring more affordable forward than is the case now. Um, we did not, you know, redline the UDO draft to come up with exactly how this would be incorporated, but conceptually at 30,000 ft, the density bonus would need to be strong enough so that 100% residential projects could proceed without a reasonzoning. It would need to allow town homes and multifamily units um to [snorts] be allowed by right on land that's currently zoned single family. Uh and this is you know the nuance if this is a path that the city and county decide to

take is where do you strike the balance on how much affordable and that allows projects to move forward. If if the requirement is 20% no one will use the bonus. If the requirement is zero then that defeats the whole if it's 1% it defeats the whole purpose of doing this right. And so in a world in which some portion of this is incorporated, it's going to require tinkering over a longer period of time to figure out sort of how much affordable it's not even just affordable that could be put into this, right? It could be green space commitments, it could be anything else that a zoning process would either would identify and sort of prompt in the form of uh a profer. So um but the idea is that if developers know with certainty exactly what's going to be required of a project, you can price the real estate correctly um and not let sellers exist in this environment where there's uncertainty for 18 months. Folks over bid for land and then projects don't work. That is the that is the presentation, not the book. That's the entire presentation. uh happy to answer questions, happy to uh tell more long-winded stories about projects that are continue to, you know, get worked towards affordable getting built. Um but yeah, thank you for the time this morning and uh we speaking on behalf of the subcommittee. I genuinely enjoyed the process of engaging and thinking about crazy ideas to get more affordable built because again there's a lot of people in this room that care deeply about that. [snorts] stuff.

First of all, thank you [clears throat] so much, Ted, for um for the presentation today. Um for being so engaged with this issue and our community um for being a part of the task force. Um I also want to acknowledge city council member Cavier for her leadership on this um report. I hope everyone has a chance to really look through the entire report because we're only looking at one section today. This is a tenth of what's in there, right?

There's just so much. I've looked at it several times now. Um I also just want to highlight the dashboard that um is um part of this which is on the chamber website. I I looked at it again this morning and was since I just came back from Portland, I was using the um option to like do comparisons with Durham and Portland. But there's also these incredible reports you can generate on a lot of topics. Um I think this is separate [clears throat] conversation maybe I'd like to have at the end about how we what we need to do about the report. But um anyway, getting back to your presentation, I just want to say that, you know, the information you shared with us, we we need to be having these conversations in our community. We need to be transparent. We need to educate our community about what is happening, the reality of what it what the real world is. um and try to address some of the misinformation that frankly we have seen really uh a lot in this election that just happened. Um we're doing a disservice to our residents when we don't have these this these types of conversations and sharing information. Um we're really hurting our community. And so I hope that we will all work together um in every way we can to bring everyone together and discuss the reality of what it is to do business um in our community. So I'm going to open it up to questions and comments.

Thank you. Good morning, Ted. I just really want to thank the subcommittee. Uh Aaron was on the subcommittee. Ted was on the subcommittee. Sean was on the subcommittee. uh and a few others. Um uh and they also some of the subcommittees cross- met uh and if you'll see um what I found really illuminating was regardless of the subcommittee there were similar recommendations. So even the gap subsidy yes

which is that's all they're doing is providing gap subsidy. They're not quote developers making money. These are the folks who are out there trying to build affordable housing. and when their recommendations line up with the land use recommendations and the what we call the 80% and above really thinking about workforce housing, right? I think it needs to be taken seriously. I think that we c we have to get beyond uh the the narrative right now uh and just say we need to be a house a community that is pro- housing. Um that is my lens. I really want to thank Ted. Um his commitment to affordable [clears throat] housing is is real and clear. Uh I think that it is uh I think it becomes very challenging to say that uh these folks don't care about affordability. Um so thank you for stepping up. Thank you for pushing on hard questions. There were certainly conversations on well how hard do you want us to push? What ideas do you want us to generate? And it's up to us who are policy makers to have those hard conversations and then communicate effectively and honestly and transparently with community around what does it mean to live in a community in a in a region that is one of the most quickly growing regions. And as a person who has traveled to cities where they are on the other side, they are in decline. They are losing population. I will pick our challenges any day of the week. Um, so they are challenges. They are hard. I really appreciated that transit piece that you included because we really we knew that from the beginning. Transit and housing have to be linked. Um, so I look forward to the conversation. I know on council we will be having subsequent conversations and I hope um, county commissioners will too around what are the other pieces of the report and um, that's all. Thank you. I don't have any questions.

Yes. So, I just wanted to say thank you for your commitment uh in this lane around affordable housing. I've had an opportunity to work with you in a different capacity in the past as a member of the planning commission and so I know your heart is in the right place and uh this is a very uh difficult um issue for our community. Uh the need is there and I think it's coming upon us as uh policy makers um to come together on what makes sense uh for our community. And so I look forward to having that uh conversation collectively and and also on the county side. Thank you.

So I have some followup questions. Um [clears throat] I think this issue about um the the the issue about buy um housing that we need to talk about that um because one of the things that I've seen pushed out into our community is this idea that anything that is not being done by resonings is bad. And there's been a lot of fear generated um uh that I've seen in the community, this sense that um everything has to be done by resonings. And so I think we really need to talk about this. Um so um and I I think that it would be really helpful to understand especially um you know what the cost is. So I I one of the things that I want would would be great to understand also because you made you made a point that so we we've there's options to which is we're going to be talking about it in our next item and these items I mean ironically we're supposed to have this last month but it's really good that is this month um because the next item is on density bonuses that we'll be talking about and so trying to understand what is the benefit when things are done administratively. um streamlining things um reducing the administrative costs and then this being another approach which is what what do we gain when we have things that's that are done um through without reszonings and really understanding this issue of the cost of the land being one thing that we can really

influence um and of course we have other restrictions in the state. I just I just came back from this conference in Portland um impact transit and community and one of the things that I learned there is that from a friend who lives in Portland who renovated a house and he told me that certain developers in Portland are been pre-qualified. This is just an example. they have been pre-qualified that they if you use one of these um you know builders or developers whatever you don't have to have like the the permitting and inspection process it's just literally he said he met they their builder met with somebody in the beginning they did everything and then at the end that's it was so fast so I think there are a lot of examples out there like that but I guess it would be helpful ful if you could help us understand. I think the community really needs to understand the cost of resonings and also the cost of the administrative process. I think for us to understand how much that adds to the cost of housing in our community. Is there a way that we can get that information?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean the um the the budget from a developer perspective for reszoning is relatively consistent regardless of the size of the project which you know informs some of the conversation about why SCAD was necessary right like spending a couple hundred,000 to push you know a duplex through resoning doesn't make any sense. Um the projects that I've worked on are larger developments, call it 40 plus acres where there's market rate and there's affordable. Um between attorneys, civil engineers, surveyors, um traffic engineers, at least on the front end, um it's a couple hundred,000. Also, that in this category of costs that are incurred by a developer, when you put a piece of land under contract for at least 18 months, you're going to be required to put down deposits that at some point become non-refundable. And so, the full total bill by the time you end up in front of council is a couple hundred,000. removing that is helpful on the margin, but you know, to use the example of the project on Fable Road, if I save $300,000 by skipping resoning, that still doesn't solve the budget gap. So um to me the amount of money that gets spent the challenge is that that ends up getting weaponized against the developer if say no reasonzoning process that you go through is council pushing you to add components to projects that make it more valuable, right? And so everything that comes up as a profer on zoning approval is going to reduce the value of the project. Well, your instinct as a developer is going to be to go back to your seller and say, "Well, the land's worth less because I need to add more affordable units." And the problem is that the seller who knows that you've spent a small fortune to get that far

and likely has some non-refundable deposits from you has leverage to push back and say, "Well, you know, tough, too bad." Right? So to me, the amount of money that gets spent um at least from the developer perspective, the administrative burden I can't speak to and obviously the city's well aware of what that looks like. Um but to me, so much of this comes back to the uh subsidy that is needed to build more affordable housing as a part of market rate projects. There needs to be a process in place that allows that to come from the cost of the land. If if developments are paying less for land, there is more money to be spent on the kinds of components to projects that council wants to see. And so setting up a process that gives developers leverage to buy land correctly to incorporate that stuff up front um and have that certainty, right? Like you can guess where you think council is going to be and how much affordable it's going to want, but it's 18 months out and some group from Dallas who doesn't know Durham could show up and pay an extra million bucks for the real estate, not know what they're doing, and then they're the ones in front of you saying no or pushing back or, you know, not producing the type of project that that council would want to approve. So, um, this is a long way of saying I think that the costs matter, but they matter just as much as leverage that gets used against developers to find purchase prices that make sense, and that is where the big dollars are. It's the cost of the real estate um, more so than it is the cost of actually seeking the zoning approval. So, I guess what I hear you saying is that we're instead of city and county government, which we have limited, very limited resources, and let me just say our our experience with the county on the 300 and 500 East Main Street projects. I was absolutely hearing what you were saying. I mean, we

on our 500 East Main Street, we had the market rate being built first, and it's been it's been very challenging to deliver both of those projects and we've had to continue to go back and put in public money to make these projects work. And so I guess what I hear you saying is let's um be able to um deliver the same thing but having the private developer do it and have it come through the price of the land. And um I I guess what I would how would you see us doing upfront what we know city council members would like to see from these projects like h how would we structure that so that that's happening right at the beginning not through the resoning process so we end up with the same outcome but we're doing we're doing it at the front end right

I think it's a both And moving more projects out of a resoning process and moving them through a density bonus will not inch by inch across a 40acre site yield the exact same project that a resoning process would because resonings are bespoke by nature, right? And someone could wake up tomorrow and be an important vote and decide they want something and that might end up getting incorporated as necessary to get approval, right? the um the ask would be to see more of what council wants in projects in the UDO so that folks know upfront exactly where the lines in the sand are. Um I definitely would not say that there is a process that would preclude the need for resonings and simultaneously end up with the exact same work product that comes out of resonings. portions of it absolutely certainty. But the the push would be as much of what the city and county wants to see if it can end up in its development ordinances so that folks program that into projects day one versus sort of finding out where that lies 18 months later. That's where this leverage on pricing sites correctly would come from. I also have the benefit of not having to be the person that writes the UDO. So, it's easy for me to just say

and we know what the community wants because it's in the comprehensive land use. The community has told us what they want and so that's that's what would be our job is to put make sure those things are in the UDO. Yes.

Thank you. I just want to chime in a little bit. I think the thing that we just have to have courage to do is to say here are the rules. We have a comprehensive plan that is our northstar. we already know what the policies are, what are the rules, make them predictable and understandable and in lay person terms so that other community members and that's what we're doing with the UDO you know regrouping it in a way that makes sense using language that is more plain so it's not as technical and then just making that commitment and instead of hiding the ball around uh well we said a thing right we're using politics to to drive land And there's a lot of ugly politics in that. There's a lot of racism, classism. Uh there's a lot of bad politics in land use in this country. And I don't think it's to our benefit. And I certainly don't think we can say that we are the city and county that we say we are if we're just going to continue that. And I think it's really challenging because in our society in general, the the little person doesn't have a lot of power, right? And so it's counter. But I've been on this council for a long time. Depending on who shows up in the room is often how that goes. And to say that that is democratic or somehow better is just inaccurate because whose voices often get heard? Homeowners. Homeowners with a lot of interest. Neighborhoods who want protection, who don't want renters living near them, who don't want those kinds of people living near them. And we've seen it. We've heard it as council members. We've heard all kinds of nasty and coded language. And we have to have the courage to tell folks no. And that's that's what you say when you decide to run for office and take the seat. You have to be able to have the courage to tell folks no when they are wrong. And that is a hard thing to do, especially when it's your friends and neighbors. That's a that's the the the plus and minus of being in local office. You're going to run into people at your

kids soccer game or at Costco or at the coffee shop and they're going to be mad at you because they didn't like what you did. But that's the challenge and you said yes to that when you decided to step up in this space. So, um I really appreciate what you're saying. It's what I've asked staff. Is there a way to do a report card of sorts? Whatever the value is, whatever we've already said, open space, affordability, tree save, whatever it is, if you make the points, you go forward. You don't have to come to a resoning because you've already committed to the thing that we said and we're not going to use the resoning to relitigate and politicize something when we all have agreed through the comprehensive plan of what we want. And that's not why you're here today. But I'm just saying that as an elected official and I think it's really important that we stand by the comprehensive plan. That is very clear that we put out in community and not use the UDO to relitigate. And that's something we've heard pretty consistently from other communities uh that people will use the UDO rewrite to relitigate things that they didn't they don't like. And I think especially when we said yes to the urban growth boundary, there are two ways to grow out or in and we chose in and that means density everywhere.

Thank you, Council Member. Go ahead.

Yeah, I want to make sure this is a productive conversation. Um I disagree with a lot that has been said and and the way things have been framed. Um however I do want to lift up a few I think really key concepts. one that you raised which is sort of this expectation around land and the fact that land owners one of the key problems that we're facing here is that land owners are benefiting handsomely by taking advantage of situations and uh speculating on their land and upselling uh and then developers are on sort of on the back end on their on their heels um trying to pick up the pieces and make the numbers work and I think that's really really important and We do need to dig into that issue is this issue of of land owners taking advantage of speculation sort of expectations getting developers deep into a process where they've invested a whole bunch up front and then they are so deep into into those investments that they now lack the leverage to be able to implement better projects and more affordable housing. And I think that that's a really really critical piece. I'm really glad that you brought that up and I do think that that's something that we we need to address and talk about. And I also think that another big piece here and one that I agree with is um just a basic principle that we need to make things that we want to have happen easy and easier to happen and things that we don't want to have happen. Exclusionary housing, sprawl, low density, uh neighborhoods with nothing to get to or walk to. um make that more difficult and make the things that we want easier. And so I I think that um there are a lot of different ways to get there and that there is this balance and um infill uh especially on smaller parcels should be should be for the most part by right especially on smaller parcels should be

should be by right and I think a lot of that's going to happen with the UDO rewrite

um and the comprehensive remapping um and I also think um I really liked I love this concept that that you brought up around um kind these creative little mechanisms you mentioned in Portland kind of this uh registration of developers or whatever who you kind of uh can expedite certain certain pieces. I also think that kind of thinking about like pre-approved prototypes, you know, we've seen that with accessory dwelling units around the country, including in Raleigh. Um, I would love to take that to the next level. Kind of career- approved prototypes for missing middle housing um that can be uh implemented in neighborhoods. Um, I mean, how many uh really cool, you know, multif family, small multif family quadlexes do we have in many of our neighborhoods that we never see get built? Um, that I think frankly would be major major benefits in in a lot of our neighborhoods. Um so I do think we need to have some good productive conversations about um both carrots and sticks in how we move uh in the right direction of creating a more dense sustainable walkable city that is uh ultimately is is built by private developers. So thank you for the the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. And I I think as a add-on to that or sort of fitting into sort of I think we're you're drawing a distinction. what is challenging and it's easy for me as a developer who works a couple projects over a few years to stand up and say every site should be by right right it doesn't not every site is the same right there's different strategic reasons why different parcels should be getting different uses the challenge is that if we say it's only the small lot stuff that should be by right those projects if we're going to build a couple duplexes don't generate large numbers of affordable units they might not even generate any Um, it's larger projects where there is enough market rate profit that's happening that can get recycled back into portions of a site where there is not money being made that at least from my perspective and I don't speak on behalf of the subcommittee or the entire task force but just boots on the ground trying to find ways of getting large enough sites to have market rate subsidize affordable. The large sites I think are where more affordable can get generated. Um but again so long as the leverage is there for developers to not be spending more money than the right project should be able to afford if that makes sense. But I again I very much get like blanket by zoning across the city you know also leaves gaps as well.

Yeah. No I appreciate that. And also there's the by right is also confusing because we also are exploring these I think really creative opt-in options I think which is yeah correct this is not intended to trip any inclusionary zoning wires right

and this is uh unrelated to this specific conversation but I do think that there's a lot of irony in um in the push back from many developers against uh inclusionary zoning mandatory inclusionary zoning because I do think that we do a lot of dances is to try and, you know, avoid that. It's a legal gray area, right? It's not like it's not like specifically enabled. It's not specifically prohibited. It's this legal gray area that we don't want really want to play in. Um, and in some ways, it could help like expedite a lot of different things if we if we did have this, you know, uh, ability uh, very specifically laid out to have mandatory inclusionary zoning, right? Um, so anyway, just something that I think is interesting. Thank you. Um, yeah, I I know we may go a little over on this, but I think it's this is an really important conversation. Um, and I appreciate your comments, Council Member Baker. I do want to ask you though to elaborate because you said there's a that you disagree with a lot of that's been said. And so I think that it's really important that you share here in this as us as policy makers together in as members of the joint city county planning committee that you share right now what are the things that you disagree with with everyone here so that we can have a conversation about that. So

yeah no I I I think that we have a lot of opportunities to make a lot of things by right. I also think that we need to make sure that we hold on to some discretionary opportunities across our city uh particularly on kind of these major sites. Um, I also think that uh I also think that increasing density by right um which we've had this conversation uh before as well um without including kind of these opt-in options or uh or including voluntary well uh well-written voluntary uh uh density bonuses. I think that that would be a major giveaway and mistake. Um, I also think that they would apply differently across our city. So, I think that that wealthy neighborhoods wouldn't feel the same impact even if we kind of treated all neighborhoods the same. I think that we would end up seeing major changes and and increased displacement in kind of the lower income neighborhoods. um and that we just need to be intentional about avoiding uh major gentrification displacement issues to the extent that we, you know, have some leverage over that. Um so I think that those are really important things for us to do.

Okay. Um yes. And then I'm going to ask Sarah to respond to kind of what the concerns raised by Council Member Baker. Yes.

I just have a follow-up question. I mean, my understanding is a lot of this conversation that we're being is about green field development. So, it's not about established established neighborhoods, which is what you're raising, Council Member Baker, that the the the pressure is on the spaces that are the the land that is available, these larger sites, these multi-acre sites, that isn't going to be infill. So, that's where we're going to see and that historically is where we are seeing some of these the Braggtown um development. We've had a few now. Yes, it's in city limits where it's getting annexed, but it's not core core. It's green field development. So, I just am curious about what displacement you're referencing because um all of these kinds of projects are hundreds of units versus smaller kind of what I what I hear your concern being.

So, the question what what's the question? Okay, there we go. um you're raising a concern around gentrification and displacement and I'm saying that the the mechanism or the the conversation we're having today uh is around development that is often green field development which is not infill which is not where where neighborhoods are. So you're saying that something like this could impact poorer neighborhoods and wealthier neighborhoods but that's established residential. This is really I think trying to tackle green field development. So it wouldn't be established neighborhoods.

Thank you for that. I appreciate I I wasn't aware that we were only talking about large greenfield sites. Um sure. I think that there are some interesting things that have been raised. Um I would want to learn more about about this issue. Um annexations tied tied to these things. How we make sure that we uh are paying close attention to uh key infrastructure and services. Um, I mean, there's just there's just so many more issues that are involved with with Greenville because you are literally expanding a city outward. You're you're constructing um a neighborhood, but you're also constructing uh outward the the city itself. So, I'm sure I'd be interested in in learning more about what that does look like. as a developer who's annexed and needed to solve infrastructive infrastructure endeavor. Um, we go through a pretty comprehensive vetting of that infrastructure, the traffic, utilities, etc. as a part of the site plan and the CD process. Um, obviously there's nuance in every conversation. No doubt some of that stuff may benefit from having a conversation as a part of a zoning effort. But I think there is a mechanism in place to make sure that projects aren't just like not building traffic signals because they got access to a density bonus that precluded them from having to reszone, right? There's still an opportunity to, you know, run traffic during a site planning process and have NC dot weigh in. though I again it's so difficult because this conversation is sort of at 30,000 ft um as opposed to sight specific but um but yeah from my perspective there are ways of making sure that's vetted sufficiently not as a part of a reasoning.

Yeah. No, I I appreciate that. I'm glad I I love the work that you you know we've sat in church basement before with community folks um talking about this work. the reasoning before you was rejected um to get to get to you to to provide a really great project out there and I'm I'm glad you're working out there.

I will say as it relates to the Braggtown project, right? So that initial resoning was in 2019. It's 2025 today, we hope to break ground on the 198 units of affordable in a month. Hope to see you at the groundbreaking. Um we won't deliver these units until like late 27. Best case, it'll take 12 months to lease up. So really, we'll be filling these units by like middle of 28. So that's nine years. And I think the the it's a perfect illustration to this question, which is if there was a density bonus that would have enabled and let's just pick affordable housing at the Braggtown project ended up representing 20 to 25% of the massive percentage. On the same side, the city's putting $10 million into that project, right? And the seller made money selling the site. good money selling the site. Um, couldn't be more thankful of the support the city's provided to make that project happen. It doesn't happen without the city. You know, I'm not a miracle worker. Numbers have to pencil. But the the sort of core crux of the question is with that project if it had to build 10% of the units as affordable and it had to be funded by the market rate developer and they could have started site planning in 2019 and stuck a shovel in the ground in late 2020 and we had people living in 600 units of which 60 would have been affordable. I'm not saying again there's a right and a wrong but that is the core of the question which is you know sometimes we spend a lot of time planning we get a great project and it also takes 10 years to get built in finance and the city participates heavily in the process. So that to me is sort of this and again there's not one single right answer here but that is sort of what we were thinking about and grappled with as a part of the subcommittee work. Thank you again for the very real world re examples of what this means and I

really hope that we will moving forward have more of these conversations where we're not just being theoretical. We are getting people together and sitting down. I I think our community really needs to be able to meet with people like you and um you know understand what what the realities the economic realities are and what the impact is and what the choices are. Um and I would just like to hear from Sarah with the UDO revision process. Uh and we're going to talk about this in the next item. What the opportunities we are going to have to implement the comprehensive land use plan which is our the voice of our community. What are the opportunities we're going to have to really implement some of the things that we're all t that we all really want? Um, and also to address uh what I'm trying to also shine a light on, which is this whole issue that I've seen in this election around the fear that um the UDO is just going to be a blank check for developers, that there's going to be no more resonings, developers going to be able to do whatever they want. Can you please speak to that? Sure, I'd be happy to. Um, so I'll start with with that point first because I I just went through our case files while we were sitting here just to pull some numbers out. Um, it's important to note that uh projects to build at any sort of density if they are not in the city will need to be annexed, right? And so that is a legislative process. those come whether or not the zoning changes it's

still an initial zoning that has to go before council. So to to build at any density those green field projects which I think maybe what you were alluding to council cab um need to will need to go to council. So I wanted to look at okay so what proportion of cases is that today to give us a sense of like what we might expect right so these are calendar year numbers and they may be off by you know a case or two because I literally just went in our files and counted okay but in 2025 um so far we've had 39 zoning cases submitted 28 of those required annexation so the vast majority of those last Last year there were 47 cases total submitted. 20 of them required annexation. The year before, so 2023, and I stopped there, we had 53 cases. 35 of those required annexation. So the vast majority of cases we're seeing require annexation. I don't see that trend changing, right? Because in order to build on these green field sites at any density, you're going to have to be annexed. So, I think the uh the fear that people have that council will no longer see any more cases is just it's misinformation. I don't think that is correct. Um so, I just wanted to kind of set the record straight there that there will absolutely still be resonings. There will absolutely still be decisions for council to make in the land use space. Um, in terms I think the another thing that's been brought up that is a really good discussion point that is one of the main ways that I think you all need to help inform the UDO is we are trying to implement the comprehensive plan and the place type map. Uh, but the place type map uh the place types are not necessarily a onetoone to the zoning districts, right? There are always multiple in most cases there's multiple

districts that can be used in a place type and so staff has been going through the exercise and we've shared with you in the past um some of our logic for mapping and how we you know have recommended that certain things be mapped when there was a change that needed to happen to align with a place type map. But there are still places where, you know, a decision needs to be made whether something should be a slightly higher district or a lower district to incentivize um either using, you know, one of the optin options. Um or even just whether that, you know, going to a slightly lower district, a CX-5 instead of a CX8 for instance, and you know, if someone really uh wants to, then they could get a reasonzoning. those fine decision points still need to be worked out and we're still looking for input on like just calibrating the map correctly. Um so I I don't I think that that is uh a critical thing that we're going to be continuing to seek y'all's guidance on. Um but for council members, you are still going to be in the resoning and annexation space for sure because there's still a lot of land inside the UGB that is unincorporated. Thank you. I really appreciate I want to say it loud and clear for our community that the UDL rewrite will not be a blank check to developers. There will be plenty of resonings and for large projects they will continue to be resoning. So, um, except if we do come up with a way for to incentivize affordable housing and other benefits that we want to see from the UDO like access to walkable communities, green spaces, all the things that we are the priorities of the access to transit. um

they they if we can figure out a way that will make it um so that we get those things on the front end um that's something for us to look at. Um and I just also want to highlight everything we're talking about today. You know, we've to me it what's screaming out at me is the land that the city and the county and the schools control. that is where we could really try some of these um approaches the land that we control to your point about it where that's where we can make a difference is with the the land. So hopefully we'll have the opportunity to do that.

Did you want to say something?

Oh yes. So um Madam Chair, I actually agree with that. So we have the ability of the land that the city and county uh possesses to to make that happen. Um but I also want to go on record uh and this is probably not uh something that's uh foreign to you respect to the annexations. I believe that uh the way we're handling annexations right now um doesn't give voice to uh many of our residents who live in the county and so um I mean as the policy makers were the ones to decide but I think engagement around these and these projects which is why I'm for administrative processes. it's the the last guard rail for our residents uh to be heard and then we then then we decide and so I think that's important and we've had a decision I mean we've had a conversation about um by right zoning I think conceptually that that that that makes sense based on the size and the scope of the project um but I think um on the one hand administrative uh procedures and then on the other the by right zoning it's going to be incumbent upon us to come up with, you know, I think what will be a compromise uh between both of those sort of concepts moving forward and I think we can do that.

Yes. And madam chair, I I have to leave at this particular moment. Well, we'll miss you for the next item. Thank you. Um any other comments before we move on? Yes, I have a question. On section 4.5, page 15 of 74 of the report says access the comprehensive plan to potentially identify expanding areas for sensitive housing development. What is sensitive? Is it a sensitive house or are we putting houses in an environmentally sensitive area?

I'm gonna have to circle back with you on that. I do not know the report page by page and there might be a section um that you're referencing. Do you know what subcommittee it falls under? Uh section 4.5. It is under the land not not the land use subcommittee was workforce housing subcommittee. So I I unfortunately had nothing to do with what was written there. Um, and I'm sure Dan Juul, who is closely connected to that effort, would be happy to come spend some time with you guys, but um, but yeah, sorry to not have the answer for you. [snorts] Thank you. Yep.

Thank you again so much, Ted, and glad to have you as a partner in our community. Um, are you sticking around for the next item or are you leaving? I I'll stick around, but just to close, I thank you honestly again, but we do work in a bunch of different communities. Durham gives a hoot. Other communities not at this level. There's a disagreement on sort of how that hoot manifests itself obviously. Um but it's cool to be a part of communities that care. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Um well appreciate the conversation. Um and um moving on to the new UDO infel infill development with Robin Schultz.

[laughter]

Anytime I look nice, I get uh made fun of. All right. Uh Bo V Boinsky, uh plan development department, uh Robin Schultz and I are going to present this item to you on infield development. um and sort of related to uh proposed new UDO standards. Uh so, you know, first thing we'll talk about will be the affordability and compact percentages. These are for the opt-in options that council member Baker alluded to earlier. Uh we will also discuss infill standards that we'll be carrying forward. And then the third item will be a sustainability de sustainability development matrix um for projects to required to meet. So, as as you all have seen, the new proposes uh an opt-in uh set of regulations for developments that include either uh compact units or a percentage of affordable units. Um this here is a a model that we've shown to you all. We have uh different versions of this um in the RD district. This is uh being a proposed to be applied in the established residential place type. Um consistent with comprehensive plan uh there is uh an acknowledgement or an acceptance um that there will be some amount of duplexes or town homes or smaller apartments to be constructed in this place type. Um this is both because the current um many of our current existing neighborhoods have this mixed housing types and of course we want to encourage this um along um existing infrastructure and as a part of building in and further against guns fine.

You'll see here uh if the uh development chooses the compact option which is very similar to the small house small lot option uh in today's UDO which applies in our urban tier um you can uh construct up to u [clears throat] one unit per 1250 150 square feet of lot area as long as you commit to a uh structure 1,200 units or less or a unit size 1,200 or less. The idea here of course being that by requiring uh smaller units um typically rent or own or home prices are uh at a per square foot level. So this would sort of deflate um the cost of these housing units which we have seen that flesh out in the small lot small house option in the urban tier. So, we're essentially expanding a version of that um throughout uh the RD district. [snorts] Um one thing to keep in mind when looking at this option and also that third option that I'm about to talk about um the the uh structure structures themselves or the massing could vary. These are just two examples of how they could be developed. Um so there is some flexibility in terms of you know it wouldn't have to be those four. It could be two duplexes and it wouldn't have to be uh two units of four. there could be, you know, two units of three or uh some some flexibility there. Uh talk a little bit about the third option um for afford if they choose the affordable opt-in. This would be one unit per 625t of lot area. So on a typical 5,000 foot lot, which is what we see uh or which is most common in our urban areas in RE5 and would be the the base lot size in the RD. Uh this would allow up to eight units in that um opt-in option.

Here's just uh showing one example. Um in all of our mixed use districts, um we would allow similar um set of opt-in standards. This is RX5. You'll see here uh if you opt in um with compact, smaller units, 425 ft will allow additional height. Uh and of course uh if you choose the affordable option um we would lift the height restriction entirely. This of course gets at both um allowing further density which is uh some something you know that is decided we want in the comprehensive plan as well as getting those affordable or smaller units uh to get at a a mix of price points. little bit of research here just to provide some background um and actually some additional context to the conversation uh earlier. Um we've gone through and looked at uh the profers that have been provided for incomerestricted housing um and approved uh by council during the last five years. um we did not go through obviously as you all are aware um these include uh sometimes 80% AMI sometimes 60% AMI um sometimes it's 20 years or 30 years there's a lot of variation there so this didn't um this doesn't get into all of those particular variables um this also we uh does not include um existing structures that converted for example like some of the hotel conversions that provided um some uh percentage of income restricted units simply because uh that's a pretty unique um in terms of uh like Ted was talking about terms of making the money the the the numbers work. Uh it's completely different set of calculus when you have an existing structure and existing units that you're just refurbishing. Um and so we we

remove those from this math. You'll see that the average profer for income restricted units is is uh roughly uh 5.7%. [snorts]

Um and then al also one other thing just to note is we for this number and when we talk about um affordable density bonuses that have been used uh we typically are removing um projects that have public subsidy that are 100% affordable. Those projects would have moved forward anyway, right? the funding mechanism there is, you know, we're not using a carrot in that instance to to get those affordable units. Any questions here before I kind of get into the details of the so talk a little bit about the uh details of these opt-in uh development standards um and and how we've got this proposed. Uh the first thing I want to to say to you all is we're here to to get direction from you, right? like we you know this is uh this is the opportunity for us to receive feedback from you all to make sure that um that's incorporated in uh the proposed UDO and the second thing that I'll note is because every property is different and every uh the [clears throat] values of all the properties are all different obviously you know we had a big discussion the last hour about all those variables there's not really a perfect science right in terms of uh hitting um the a particular number, right? That would be, you know, just enough incentive while providing just the maximum amount of units that we could um see from a development. So, just we we acknowledge that. Um, one thing we do know is we would like to in these instances because this would be by right development, we would like to see more affordable units, right? Like so if we're getting 5.69 now, we'd like to see an increase from that. Um, we know that our current affordable density bonus is at 15%. Um, we've had that for longer than um, some people in this room

have been alive and we have seen uh, eight eight units approved. Um, our slide here shows zero units have been CEOed. We've actually got five, I just found out recently. So, that's good news, but it's also kind of sad because it's only five. Um, and so one thing we know is that 15% is is probably not high high enough, you know, or [snorts] I'm sorry, is probably too high and and we know that we'd like to reduce that to actually see um this number to use. Also, you know, to hearken back to a presentation that Scott had put together um earlier this year, you know, when looking at some of the other jurisdictions, the ones that had used more had lower or the ones that were producing more units were had a had lower um percentages that were were required. So um what we're proposing here is in the RD um the option you'd provide uh 8% of the units at u 80% AMI or less or [snorts] you could provide a deeper affordability at 30% AMI or less and have 4% of those units in order to u exercise that affordable option.

One second. Um, council member, I want to say that what we heard in Minneapolis last year was that 8% kind of is almost the sweet spot where they can actually get production.

Yeah, I I will absolutely admit to um hearing them loud and clear. So, in in Minnesota or in Minneapolis, they've got inclusionary um zoning and if you provide a certain number of units, they're requiring that 8% and uh 4% very similar to what's being proposed here. Um we are not applying that minimum requirement because of course this is an up option. This is up to um the development or the applicant to to choose. Um but absolutely in Minneapolis it was um both from the studies that they had put together and and in terms of how it um uh they had seen it play out was was sort of the sweet spot in terms of not uh stifling development while also uh getting the affordable units u throughout their committee. Okay.

Um so yeah, similar model. Um the one difference here uh because we'll allow this uh option in the RD which does have some of these infill situations, right? So if you got one um 5,000 foot lot, theoretically you could come in and you would uh propose to densify and see that you know the slide that we've shown several times with multiple units. Well, one of those units would be affordable. And certainly we would love to see just admittedly maybe more than one, but right now we're seeing zero. And so um by by giving that uh ability um there one distinction from Minneapolis of course is um seeing that at that smaller scale and then I'll just in terms I'll stay with the affordable option. We can talk compact afterwards. Um for the RX and CX districts which are uh typically apartments and rental obviously they don't have to be but um this would be 8% at 60% AMI. this is more in line with um what we've seen uh profered um with with rental developments and then of course still the deeper affordability um with uh 4% of 30MI.

One quick question are those percentages app applying above the existing base height or would that be throughout the entire building?

It would be uh throughout the whole building. So the of the overall and of course we uh you know we have sort of internally talked about you know in some of these instances especially with the uh in our TOAS right like in those areas we want to see this great density anyway and so it's there's a little bit of acknowledgement that um the the applicant is providing those units um and and getting the additional height right the the in some instance [clears throat] unlimited other instances it's just you know slight increase three to um 5 to8 for the compact. Um what what we're getting or what we're seeing in those instances is density where we want it to be. And so that's a little bit more uh precise. So if it's in these districts and it's non-residential, [clears throat]

is there any is there like a fee in L or something or is it just not applicable? Current

currently it it there is not an option for them to which we are open to some feedback from you all on that because essentially what we're saying is in order to to build that maximum height you have to give us uh those affordable units otherwise there are those caps for the non-residential developments sold non-residential and and that is um again something we've talked about a lot but really just looking back at the comprehensive plan in terms of ways to uh further encourage those types of units Any other questions on again this is you know we acknowledge that there's you know it's a bit of a balance right like we could probably increase that number but then see it used less and we could you know decrease the number but then then we may be giving um more favorable [clears throat] development regulations when uh it wouldn't be appropriate. So, um, any direction from you all or any agreement or disagreement? Um, we'd love to hear that.

Um, I my question is, um, have have this been discussed with affordable housing developers to get their input onto what would be financially, you know, work because at the end of the day, that's what we want to be successful. Making it happen based on the fact that our incentives in the past have not worked. financially. So, um, has that has this have has there been like pulling together like some local affordable housing developers?

Commissioner Jac, I would absolutely I'd welcome Ted to speak if you if you want to come back over, but one thing I want to just stress is uh these incentives and these bonus programs, right? Like in that instance, we are trying to attract developers that are not affordable housing developers to provide those units and to get into that space or obviously partner with others that are. I think that the the affordable housing development community is not necessarily going to be interested in this because that that's their mission anyway, whereas we were actually uh aiming for others. And we have thrown um these numbers out in front of um various developers in the developer community just sort of letting them know that this is what was proposed. Um one thing that and again I I don't want to repeat the same presentation. Um did not hear any you know yay or nay to particular numbers or you know and I imagine that they're not going to say because there's such varying conditions right the initial land price being a big one. Um but to go back to the conversation about this being by right and predictable, they they have all uh confirmed that they can go higher than 5.6% if they know it will be a yes when they submit the plans. So that's part of the justification.

And then in terms of the affordable um option, will that be regulated like the city normally does with tracking? Correct. Yes. Okay. And okay and it would be like 30-year. Yeah. What we the way we've currently proposing it is similar to the affordable density bonus that's in today's UDO with 30 years um being the tenure.

Okay. I just want to say um I love this table and this conversation um to start with. Um and I really like like I I haven't seen many zoning districts that do have the opt-in options and I think that that's really cool. Um I don't I'm not a huge fan right now of the compact the the entire concept of compact. I really like the affordable. Um, and I almost love something to the right of affordable that's, you know, like a nonprofit developer that's using LITC that is 100% affordable. Um, so that's that's where I'm at right now. And I'm I can't give you specifics, but but I'm just kind of playing with that idea of um I'm a huge fan of this affordable column and I would also be interested in kind of like how do we make it so that it is a huge incentive uh for lit and other kinds of um you know 100% or almost 100% affordable developments. I I will say that the incentive um [clears throat] the incentives currently I think for the way that the way it's structured right these three um is pretty favor is already fairly favorable for those and so I think the way to do what you're describing would be to pull back on the incentive for this for the current affordable option and of course then the concern would be how often would it be used or not so I I think that we've tried to get it what you're saying right for all the litec and like today our affordable 400 bonus we have hundreds of units that have been used from litec projects that are 100% affordable and so they're already using that and so I think our assumption was they would uh be very happy with this optin situation

I appreciate that um I also I want to come back to this idea and I don't think this needs to happen in the UDO rewrite but I I would I would love for us to explore this uh the pre-approved prototypes for missing middle housing at some point um in the near future. And again, I don't think but if if that is because I haven't actually I've seen a lot of these programs for ADUs in other places. I haven't seen a lot of them for missing middle housing. So, are you aware?

Yeah. So, I I did a bit of research on the ADU program in Raleigh. One of the things that I learned there was um that the majority of them are not used off the shelf. people want to customize and they want to change them anyway. So, that program hasn't panned out the way they thought it would. Um, I think that for a larger like ADU, I mean, I'm sorry, missing middle um program, I haven't heard of one of those. I think that the challenges would be um a little bit bigger because when you increase the footprint of a building, right, and this is the former architect in me talking and getting it on the site and you know there's just a lot more design that has to go into it even if you're pulling offtheshelf plans. So I think any benefit there would be nominal at best.

So you don't see that you don't really see that take taken off. Okay, that's helpful to know. Thank you. I just want to chime in as somebody who that's their bread and butter. Uh there has I mean I'm married to an architect. There has been a lot of there have been a lot of folks who bring a plan off a thing and they think they're going to save money and they don't. Um partly because of the site requirements that that jurisdiction has or the zoning or the whatever. So it makes it somewhat easier but not not a lot. Yeah, I appreciate that bummer. Um,

and then, um, yeah, I mean, we've had this conversation before, but I I I am interested in making sure that we because the legislature has says you can go up, but you can't go down. I want to be careful not to substantially, you know, start off at the base above what the base is today so that we can use this this table as a as a tool. So if the current zoning today says you can have three stories, I would like for it to be translated to the new EDO at three stories so that the table is applicable.

Thank you. But then that's what's by right. So that's what we're going to get, right? Because this is often. I mean, am I mistaken in that? So like if I'm a builder and I can only I mean my understanding from folks is people build what they're allowed to build and the easiest path forward for the most part. So if we are making the easiest path forward what we already have on the ground, then isn't that what we're isn't that the outcome we're going to get? Yeah. Yeah. Council member Baker, can you maybe elaborate a bit on um only because like in in situations like for the RD, it's not necessarily a height issue. It's a density on the lot issue. So could you maybe because trying to

right now I'm speaking I'm not speaking to RD when I say make that statement. Yeah. Y

and yeah, we um we know that there are a lot of districts that are proposed for like RX5 or CX C CX5 specifically that currently the height is there but the density is not. And so that's I think I think that the um situation there would be we would um probably the heights wouldn't necessarily change from how how what we're proposing here but not increasing the density in some instances. And so then I think it goes back to caviar where um are we going to allow dense apartment buildings to be constructed on our service parking lots or not by right? And so um and I'm just trying to take your direction and and how it would apply and what it would look like

but this whole table is by right correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. every column is by right. But ju yes, but if you can build to five stories but you don't have the um the the density per the the calculation trying to transfer over from today because you're comparing from today's regulations to the way the current UDO proposes. You're right. But um if you wanted us to stay with current, I think that would be limiting opportunities to develop entirely in some instances. Okay, I appreciate that.

I think the concern is if we really want to and remember this is infill development. Um I mean maybe even good to be looking visually at a map like where are we talking about this is going to be you know a lot within the urban core within our transit corridors because you know just getting back again from Portland we have to remember there's a lot of funding that is available for transit oriented development and we also cannot get funding for transit unless we have the density. It's a chicken and egg thing

and if we want money for BRT projects, if we don't have the density, we don't have the ridership, we won't get the funding. Um so it's it's you know we we also have to be thinking about this in a in a larger way. And so um you know there are different issues here around um yes we want the affordable housing we want to have the density because it's also going to help us with you know climate change with with many other types of benefits with reducing you know provision of services with reducing sprawl. Um, so, so let's remember, you know, all how integrated all of this is. And um again, just coming back from Portland, I um I did a tour missing middle housing and I saw some of the things that are happening there on single family lots um with density and also a BRT line there on Division Street where they've been able to pull in funding for affordable housing around their BRT stops, but it's because they're doing the density. Um, so anyway, just wanted to make sure we remember that. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, thank you for that. Um, I also think that for this to work, the process of going through and having affordable units that meet this requirement needs to be so easy and seamless. Um, and I have had and I I have not sort of had conversations with staff around that. I have spoken with some developers who said it was a little more challenging. Um, so I just I think that we need to really dig in and make sure that that that option is the preferred option um and is is the one that that is predominantly uh selected. Um, and again like I I completely agree. I I want density on all these sites and I want the vision to be that this is where we want to be. Um if we could just go ahead and do mandatory uh inclusionary units that would be fantastic. Um and but but this is the leverage that we do have. Um I do know that there are places that upzoned but said anything above what our old zoning regulations allowed is is effectively the density bonus requirement that you have to provide. Um, that's what they did in Alexandria. I have no idea what that would take here. Um, so thank you.

Um, Jacob, just to to what you said a minute ago, uh, in December our presentation, we'll be incorporating some information and looking for feedback on the map uh, additionally. So that that's coming. We we know that um the mapping of these districts is you know potentially just as important as the regulations uh that are within them. So for those of us who are not planners, pictures, lots of pictures. Thank you. Thank you. Um so just before moving on, we're comfortable with the incentive and the percentage requirements or the affordable. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um I mean

any looks fine to me but at this point any other any feedback on the affordable percentage? I I think when it comes to the affordable density bonus, the market is changing constantly and and we just need to be cognizant of that. Um, I still don't love the compact, but but also the compact, I mean that's Well, I mean, looking at the pictures, right, of the compact, um, I think helps. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at the pictures there, like I mean, that's kind of what we're already doing with with the uh, SCAD anyway,

right? Um, expanding housing choice, right? since 2019 um something very similar has been fermented in the urban tier. Yeah, that that um and then going to the other pictures that you had, right? Um so yeah, I mean honestly I think we're going to have to try this out and see what happens and then um you know it's You know, we may have to make changes as we see what happens. Are you? Yeah, Sarah.

So, you know, the the whole notion behind the compact is re residential real estate, all real estate, but residential real estate is priced at a per square foot basis. So, if you keep the unit small, they're going to be less expensive than a larger unit. So, we're ensuring some amount of smaller units

that may not be, you know, uh, capital A, capital H affordable housing that are going to be at other price points that are, you know, less than larger market rate units. So, it's just it's another way to try and get at that um without one of the things that we've heard I think council member Baker to your point about um hearing some feedback about how difficult uh procedurally the the process that people have to go for the annual reertification of income etc. that is a burden that is difficult for people. Um but we need that to make sure that you know those really are affordable those units stay affordable but that is a deterrent. So I think the compact is trying to provide another option to get at you know total rents total mortgages that might be smaller than maybe some larger units uh without this other burden which I think puts a lot of people off. I would just say also we've seen some success with the small lot option. I mean that's actually taken off more than ADU production, right? So we we have some evidence to suggest that it's a good tool and we're just kind of adding more on to that tool.

Yeah, with the with the small adoption, we've seen hundreds of units available at a much lower price point for sale in areas that otherwise wouldn't have been affordable to those folks. Now, obviously that's relative, right? because some of them are $350,000 or whatever those numbers are. Um but otherwise we would have had a $600 700,000 single family home

and we've seen that I mean recently there was a to get into the buy right thing we there was some chatter and I passed this development yesterday and there was a lot of chat I guess it's near Hope Valley old uh yeah clearcut I think there was some representation that had been a a reasonzoning when it wasn't it was a buy right they're luxury homes for $700,000 so I think that we have to again this this kind of notion oh if it's by right it's it's like you there's a lot that can be built by right that's not what we want so I think that it goes back to the the if you make certain things flexible and I think the smaller option is a great example of that then then we're seeing the innovation that we want from our building community and that building community is local it's not the the large you know we also hear well we don't want these out of town developers well then you have to make the sandbox one that is friendly to to smaller folks who do not have the capital to take risks. Um they they can't go to they can't risk an 18-month thing because they don't have a business big enough. Uh and so that I think that this is where we're going to get some of these smaller local builders playing, right?

And again, let's remember this is infill and what we're talking about and this really stuck out with me in Portland. this idea that making neighborhoods that are the most desirable and have all the amenities, you know, that are walkable and near some, you know, um, commercial places where everyone wants to live but can't afford to live that, um, and this is what I saw in Portland is that you by doing the infill and this compact, you actually allow people who would never be able to afford a home in that neighborhood, you know, who want to live in a safe place, who want to have their kids to be near the quote unquote good schools or, you know, walk to a a store, you actually create the opportunity for them to be able to buy or rent in that neighborhood. And I think I think that's that's what we want to see. So,

all right, we'll move on. All right. Uh recognizing um that uh well, let me just back up. Our current UDO has um what we call infill standards. These uh apply uh urban tier residential development less than four acres. Um we will we're proposing to carry over um those standards or some of them um in the new UDO. Um the idea is that we are uh you know we want to densify, we want to allow development and have more residential more residential uses in these neighborhoods just like Commissioner Jacob said, but we also want to be sensitive to the character and the context where they are constructed. And so uh the the two big ones we're carrying over is the the streetyard. And so if you are proposing a new primary structure, uh your uh streetyard setback will be established by the existing street yards along that block face. So we've got an example here, but you essentially the the new home will have to be in line with the other homes or the new duplex or the new town homes or the new whatever it is. Um [clears throat] the other uh uh requirement is is building height, right? So, new primary structures um are bound to being um in close proximity to the height of the structures along that same block face. Um this is uh for affordable. If if you're doing the affordable option, we'll let you go to the maximum for that district, which uh just to further encourage, you know, we don't want to limit if someone's going to build uh four affordable units on existing neighborhood uh street, we would like to encourage that. Uh these are again these are very similar to what we have in our urban tier today. I will um admit that they they help a great deal with uh more contextsensitive um development in those situations. It is a little bit of

an administrative burden uh both on the applicant and the staff. So you may hear rumblings, you know, sometimes folks will um and and so that may be a cause for that. Um any questions on infill those two infill standards? Yeah, I because some of our neighborhoods like their front yards are huge. So that setback is a lot of land like depending on where you are and so I don't I mean I understand why but I think that there there has to be that conversation of just you you you see it you see a a front yard that's what a streetard is that could have a whole other structure but because of the setback rule you're not going to be able it's not usable. So I guess that's Yeah. Um I feel like you you had a bug in one of our meetings. Uh

express the same concern while we were talking about this and so we put watch I just see the neighborhoods and I every single time I drive by it. I'm like oh we could have a unit there and it would be still kind of lower density but that's what middle missing middle housing is. It is that that you know what you what you see in Trinity Park. Quite frankly very interesting land use where you you some looks like a house and it's four or five units. Yeah. So, we've we've got a a carve out in the text that actually says, is it 30 ft? Yeah. If it's any more than 30 ft, you can go there cuz we don't want to waste land in theory. So, that was something we try to get out. So, funny.

So, if homes are have the deep setback like the big front yard, but the zoning that the o the infill standards don't override the zoning. So, like if if you're allowed to uh have a front yard of 10 to 15 feet, but all the houses are set way back, you can just meet the zoning. Is that right? No, they would override the infill standards override. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The again the idea being to try and so that the development is more compatible with the character of the neighborhood. And I saw in Portland people building ADUs in their front yards now.

Uh all right. Uh one other thing to note and we talked about this several months ago. Um we uh incorporating um a requirement for 7% tree coverage uh throughout. Um this is is new. Um well it's not completely new. We sort of stole it from uh one of the neighborhood protection overlay districts. Um so rather than having you know particular preservation standards for that neighborhood you know uh throughout RD we'll we'll apply that requirement. So and what is the current requirement for tree coverage uh unless you're in that NPO it's zero. Okay. So this

in in these particular areas that will be RD. So, this is actually a huge um increase and and I just want to note I think I read it in your report that this is based on feedback that you heard from the community. Yeah, I mean we [clears throat] and Robin, you may want to speak to this a little bit more, but just as we're trying to carry over our tree coverage requirements in different districts, not having the tiers, right? We're trying to find uh places, you know, where we can have those requirements. And I'll also note that uh some of these info info developments, we know that loss of trees is is you know the first thing that folks usually see and have a concern about. So trying to get at that.

Yeah, I actually thought that I was presenting this slide. So that was really fun for me actually. Um, but I will say that, yeah, the two things that we're really trying to get at here were the the tree coverage and the affordable height exemption because what we've sort of heard repeatedly throughout the process is that, you know, when people do want densification, they want affordability and they want trees to stay. So, what we tried to do was build that into these infill standards so that when this does come through the byite um process that, you know, you have the flexibility of those different options. But the things that we keep hearing are if you want if there's going to be more density that it'll be affordable and that there will be um trees on the lot. Um and that actually translates really well into the next slide. Um so within that we're also working on a sustainable development matrix. This is composed of quite a few different things. um it needs an array of options because we're trying to apply this across a whole range of different development types and scenarios and lots, right? Um but I wanted to sort of transfer over to this. Um because it does give you actual points if you can actually retain those trees on the lot as well. Um so it's 7% requirement regardless. Um but if you retain them, then you get points towards this matrix, right? So we want to make sure that it's an incentive but we don't want to make we don't want to create lots that are unbuildable. Um so

you're explaining what are the points go towards.

Yep. So right now it's sort of set up in which the there it's scaled so that RD options two and three you're required to have three points. Um and then in the non-residential and mixed use districts um at the smaller scale you'll have three points. um you're exempt when you're below 8,000 square feet because these are really small lots. Um and once you get above 50,000 square feet, you have to get four points. Um and so what we're trying to do is make sure that these match um essentially the scale and cost of construction. Um because what we've noticed is when we um provide too many regulations that exceed those things, we just get it taken away. Um, so we're trying to be cognizant of cost and scale and still provide those things that we have heard that folks want. Um, and so really trying to make sure that we're not only, you know, retaining appropriate development standards, but also not creating um massive increase in costs. So how do we get the things that we want? So more sustainable development without radically increasing the the price of of that housing. Um and so we have native landscaping standards, um increased conservation measures. Um a lot of these are things that we cannot uh require uh per state statute. Um but we can certainly ask that folks do it and provide them an incentive to do it. Um for instance, uh you know, increasing riparian buffers, um you know, things of that nature. uh additionally providing a field survey when they're actually uh natural heritage areas and you know providing a management plan. That's not something that we can require uh but it's certainly something that we would love if people did um especially for large sites. Um so trying to get at these things that are hard for us to uh regulate but still really want to see and keep hearing.

Uh and so the last are some things around building design. I think this is especially important as we start thinking about the compact options, right? Um I will say that we did try to um we did look at the Canapapolis example. We did try to veer away from things that could just be removed. Um so for instance, uh let's say that someone provided a bunch of Energy Star appliances. Um once that's COD, we have they could just take them out. Um so we really wanted to, you know, things that were easy to see. Um and so that if folks were driving around, zoning enforcement, etc. could be pretty easily called out should it be removed. Um additionally, there are uh things around urban agriculture and storm water. Um really trying to get the the things that we keep hearing right, but trying to provide green storm water infrastructure um which goes beyond uh what's required already. Um, I've talked a little bit about the issues with requiring gsi um ongoing maintenance, you know, state requirements for um nutrient and uh quality uh quality and quantity, right? All these things that we keep running into. So, trying to provide this as a bonus uh and then also trying to throw in that educational signage. One, so that people know what it is, but two, so it makes it much harder to remove once it's seeded. Um and so we're really trying to get at a few things uh to incentivize um you know really really sustainable development as we continue to densify um and really trying to take this from resident feedback the comp plan um the EAB uh which we haven't taken this to the EAB but we have gotten a letter from them um from some of their wish list and some of that is directly taken and um put right in here. Um and then I'll also say that this is very much still in draft form. Um, we're definitely seeking direction. Um, even if not today, if you are driving home and you're like, "Man, we should put that in there." Um, shoot us an email.

But just really trying to get an idea on, um, what are things that we can incentivize, uh, in good development practices that are sustainable and meet those goals. Um, and additionally, one last thing is that all of this is still in draft. So, not only the the the incentives themselves, but the the point system as well. So what are things valued? Um how many are we requiring? All of that is um very much still in draft.

Okay. Is this the this is the time for comments or questions? [laughter]

Um well, first of all, I just want to say I this is really great. I I really appreciate what I'm seeing here is, you know, that you all are are trying to respond to the concerns that you've heard with all of the sessions at the main library um where folks have come in um to engage with the UDO revision process. And I see this as really being an attempt to address the concerns in the community, you know, where we have a tension between people want sustainable development, people want to protect the environment, people want to see trees, concern about storm water runoff, and at the same time, people also want affordable housing. and you know so we this is you know these are all loud and clear again in the comprehensive land use plan. So, um, appreciate you all trying to come up with a creative approach to incentivize. And again, as you said, Robin, um, I think a lot of times, and we all have to really work on this, but that the public wants things that we can't require, that we we are not according to the statutes in North Carolina, that we cannot require. Um, and so this is a way, you know, hopefully something that might work. Um, so anyway, love to hear feedback from folks. Yeah. No, I I love the direction that this is going in. I'm very excited about this. I know Canapapolis has um the the sustainable development standards and the sustainable development incentives. Um can you just talk about how that

works here? Yeah, so these are this is this is these are just standards that I've said incentives but truly these are these would be requirements. And so when I mentioned incentives, it's just sort of getting at that some of these we can't require. So we are sort of incentivizing them. Um but it is still a requirement to meet. You just don't have to meet all of them.

I love this. I love the I mean the flexibility um and hope you know the the desire and the hope is that we'll see variety in in what uh folks provide. Um and I'm sure that you know the points are are so challenging to get to to the right the right number there. And I'm I'm sure at some point we'll we'll notice developers gravitating to one or the other um based on the points. But um that's something for us to think about down the line. But I I love the direction this is going in. Yeah. Um Yes, sure.

Hey. Um so um since I've been on this committee, uh little bit by little bit with my orientation as well, I'm learning more and more. And I think this is probably the most I've understood um you know since it takes a little while for me to you know kind of read through and it and understand things but it the the way it's laid out here in very clear language I just I want to show that appreciation. Now there's one term that I'm getting hung up on I just don't understand and it's uh payite. Okay. And I don't I don't really understand that and I was wondering if someone can explain it. And is pay right versus

what? Buy right. By right. Yeah. By right. I'm sorry. See that I'm saying I don't know. Yeah. Right. So by buy by right versus whatever is not by right. Y could someone help me understand that a little?

Absolutely. Um so by development is anything that you can do underneath the current ordinance. So we have the UDO and you are granted certain rights as a property owner and we have decided those rights through the UDO. Uh and any changes to that UDO go before the governing boards which is you all to make sure that that matches what you all think residents want. And so anything that is by means that it just goes to the UDO. People can submit it. Um we can review the permit. You all don't need to look at it because you've said it meets the rules that we have decided work best for the community and what we've heard from residents. Um the opposite is going to be legislative development. So this is a reasonzoning um special use permits, things like that. Well, actually those are quasi judicial. Let's not get into it. But those are things that need extra review. Um or they want to do something that does not quite align with the UDO. So they can't just submit a permit and go for it. Um for instance, if there's a vacant lot and you want to build a house on it, absolutely. As long as it meets the UDO, that's by rate development. Y'all don't have to review it. um they want to put a school there, y'all need they need to talk to you.

Yeah. So, it's it's basically every property has a zoning district, right? And you're allowed to develop following the rules for that district. So, you could tear down your house today and build back another house and just follow the zoning rules and you don't have to go get an approval by a board to do that. That's by right development. Now, if you want to, you know, put a used car lot on your property instead, you're gonna have to get a reasonzoning because that's not allowed in that district. So, that's that's the legislative. So, I just want to give like an example, a real life example how that plays out. Thank you so much. That see I can follow now. I can [laughter] I I get it now. So, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Yeah, I again I think um this is great direction. Um and again this is how it's supposed to work. You know, we have our boards and commissions, the EAB weighing in um the community weighing in and again how we can achieve uh what is in the comprehensive plan through the UDO process and um um thank you all so much for your great work. Thank you all.

So, um, this has been a really great meeting and I guess one thing I just wanted to bring up is how just to ask the our board um that this committee, what are some ways and I'm sorry that Ted left because he really was part going to be part of this. I feel like we need to figure out ways that we can have and I know you know you all are doing your part with the the you know happening at main library and whatever but I feel like we need to have think about h what are ways that we can help have more of these conversations in the community and more ways to kind of push out um the kinds of things that we talk about here and so to help people really bring people together with developers um with community members and and to really try to strengthen the communication and the back and forth and education and just all of that. And I'm just opening it up what ideas um I know, you know, just to push out really making sure people understand what is happening with the UDO revision process. Um I I think we need to we're not we're we're not doing a good job on that and I I just want to Yeah. Just want to see what ideas people have. Yes.

So, this is clearly going to affect the next generations more than it is us. So, why don't we have focus groups at the schools? I mean, get the the next generation involved. They're much more electronically savvy than their parents or their grandparents. It's going to affect their parents or their grandparents land, but it's going to affect their lives. So, maybe get some of them interested in the process. go to some of the schools and then they can take the word home and you could spread it out that way instead of just going like to the Ruran clubs and then all the people that are already entrenched in their lifestyles say no no no you know maybe if they hear it from their kids or their grandkids hey this is how it's going to affect Mima or grandma or whatever but you know and then they can have those family conversations

so what I hear from you is is setting up opportunities for conversations where we're getting people together to, you know, really talk about these issues and of course having some expertise. I'm not trying to put more work on you guys. So I I want to be cognizant of of staff capacity. Um I mean it's really also on us as well, but um so thank you for that. or or I don't know if there's even like a a curriculum a class that you can put in the high schools or the grade schools or Durham Tech or something, you know, community development or involvement and then people could understand this process from an earlier age.

But I hear you too is that we have a we need to have a way to help to educate people about this. these issues are so complex and um you know I have to go to other places to conferences and things and site visits to learn about them myself but um yeah so any any other thoughts um yeah so when I joined the the planning commission in 2018 I looked at the UDO and after about 10 minutes I was like we need a new UDO. [laughter] So um first and foremost I think the message should be we need a new UDO. We need this process to succeed. Um and I uh I actually spoke with a group recently. I started putting together my own presentation of this process and and the UDO. Um, and that was the that was the first message was this is a huge opportunity. Here's all the problems with our current UDO. And I think that's an important place to start is here's what our current UDO is doing and here's here's what it does well and here's what it does poorly but we have to explain that in understandable language right I mean

thinking about by right and like we need to we need to translate that into very understandable language here's where uh here's what it does well here's what it does poorly here's why we need a new UDO here's what the new UDO is doing. Um, and then I also lay out kind of my hopes for where the new UDO will will end up. So, I think I think having good productive conversations with the with the groups that we are involved with is one way that we up here uh can have uh good productive conversations about the UDO with the community. That's on top of everything that the office hours, the consultant coming in and speaking. We haven't even had gotten a full draft of the UDO, which would involve like a full presentation. And I think having it all consolidated and being able to say this is what it does is even though it's so much information, I think that is going to in some ways help the conversation because right now it's sort of still in these modules. Yeah, I just had a couple questions for staff. I just first want to say I know y'all are, you know, working really hard to do community engagement. I also want to acknowledge that there are folks who have been very pleased with the community engagement that's happened, including from other communities where they were like, "Your staff's been excellent. I had questions um and wanted to have an understanding around a thing." So, I I do want to emphasize that. I I was curious where between participatory budgeting voting and the community conversations on the budget for next year if planning staff is maybe thinking about being in those spaces to also push upcoming um because you we're already there, right? We already have city staff

um and other community events where it might make sense. And I know it's an extra lift for y'all, but I I've seen engagement from the city do well when one department just kind of ponies up with another department that's already going to be out there anyway. um and starting to get some of these visuals like hey this is what we mean when right and promoting some of these other um module conversations and office hours and and things like that because I think that there is a lot of um churn right now uh and I feel like planning staff is unfairly um getting the brunt of it and I am interested in ensuring that morale stays high. Y'all are an excellent planning staff and we need to um really elevate that uh and really elevate uh the amount of community engagement you all are doing. Um and um so that's just a suggestion that I have that wouldn't maybe be that much extra work.

I just want to say that's a great idea. I remember years ago, it's been so long, that the city and the county and Durham public schools all joined together to do participatory budgeting. I think that was like in my first It was community conversations. That was community. Yeah, I was going to say, okay, my second term in office.

Uh, so it's kind of sad to say that it has been seven years since we did that. Um, but that was really great because a lot of it was people asking questions and getting clarification on things and it was just a great opportunity to your point Sarah people are sitting around at tables and staff is there to actually provide the actual information. So, um, you know, taking backing and making sure planning staff are are at the participatory budgeting. So, if something comes up, um, that that's that's a fantastic idea. And the visuals as well. Yes.

What's the ETA for the complete draft?

I'm hitting the wrong button. [laughter] Morale is low. Um, no, just kidding. Um we are we are shooting for end of year to get a full draft from the consultant. Um and calendar calendar year. Yes. But 25.

Yes. Correct. Oh gosh. Not fiscal year. [laughter] So I guess one thing to think about then is since maybe it to think about planning ahead for that to happen [clears throat] around the when it's completed some some situation where we can have small groupoup conversations with the help of all our county city staff not just um you know with facilitators or whatever. an opportunity for because we did it like at the we did it at the convention center um or I don't know something

three because we one was focused on city services, one was focused on county services and one was focused on schools. So we did the city one at the convention center, the county one at DSS and then the um school one at Brogden. God you really remember. Wow. But but even if this is just focused on the UDO revision um so that we can go in and you know have maybe one some event where that type of thing yeah but we're having our community conversations on the budget like there's one tomorrow eluturo um right so and I know that's short turnaround but that's one of the few I think we're doing bilingual in a space where people feel safe right um

but I I I know that the engagement and I don't remember their full title the engagement agement department is is doing a lot of that work and I don't I don't remember how many we're going to have and things like that. Yeah, we we can definitely look into that and see what we might be able um to do. We do have an in-person engagement event next week on the 13th specifically on the UDO. Um Okay. Yeah, I know some folks will be gone.

Yes, we'll be. Um the other thing that we are working on is uh you know we've used you all essentially as our steering committee throughout this whole project. Um and it is we're programming to come to both full boards to do a bit of an update before the public hearing process starts you know early next year just to bring up to speed the other members that are not part of this body so they feel like they have an understanding. Um we are also going to be you know offering some one-on- ones particularly for those members that are not on JCCPC if they want to get into deeper dive and understand more. Um so that will be coming. We're right now trying to think through um the timing and the sequencing of uh the getting the full draft. What does engagement look like? um what the timing of trying to move through the public hearing process looks like because it is not you know this is a largest project we ever do um and so it's not going to it's going to take some time at planning commission right um so we need to kind of uh plan for that I think just in full transparency you know our initial uh hope and dream of having this effective July 1 is not realistic right so we know that we're pushing that time frame out. We're just trying to figure out what that new time frame looks like.

Is there already a plan for community engagement come January or is that something that's still in the works?

That is still in the works. And so we're trying to frame it as more of like an education because what we've done so far is really engage or what we will be continuing to do is engage on the content in the first three modules which is the most impactful and it's the thing that folks are really wanting to hear about and then the last sort of set is more of the technical administrative stuff that is more important for our end of the house. So trying to have sort of a engagement in the new year of like here's what the whole draft sort of looks like and here is what you know it looks like moving forward. So sort of explaining what the adoption process looks like for folks so they can come. Um and sort of making it really explicit that we don't imagine that this will go to like planning commission in March and then city council in April, right? Like that there will be time to like go to planning commission. You know, I'm sure a lot of folks will come out of the woodwork and have comments. Um, rework the draft, potentially go back, you know, go to council, etc., but sort of make that process really explicit for folks so they know how to to follow along.

I [clears throat] think it's a really good idea. Um, are you thinking of like a openhouse style engagement like with I don't know boards and people standing around? Yeah, we did that in the initial um for some of the the first meetings where it was sort of focused around like what do you what do you want to hear? What do you want to see in the studio? And it was sort of focused around transportation, the environment and housing which are sort of the big three topics. Um and so we could definitely do something similar. Um so folks can sort of, you know, pick and choose. Um, we've also had a lot of success with having like small groups at tables, um, and have folks be able to like literally just ask planning staff questions. So, maybe there's some way to incorporate both of those. We've done a little bit of a few different things throughout this whole process just because there's been so much engagement, but definitely that's something we can we can consider.

For the modules that have already been developed, have those continued to have little tweaks and changes to them? Okay. Oh, yeah. So, that's one reason I Yeah. Once there's a full it'll be easier for everyone. Yeah, absolutely. I

mean, I I think it's more the education part. I mean, we've done the engagement. We've been doing you you all have done an amazing job at the engagement. I think it's I think it's the education piece that is going to be key. Um, and because yeah, you we've been working on this a long time and I'm even concerned to hear we won't even be able to get this done by July 1st. So I think maybe even could we see is it possible for us to see a timeline at our next meeting in December? Yeah, we can certainly rework the timeline. Um, I will say that I am hopeful that we could get it adopted by July 1st.

That would be Um the effective date though, we need to we usually build in some amount of cushion of transition for things that are in the queue to get flushed out or people just to have some certainty of the rules that they may or may not be working with. Um that's a made a little bit easier by the permit choice statute. Um, so I don't think we need as much uh transition time necessarily, but there's a lot of operational things that need to change on on our end, forms and whatnot and you know um making sure the mapping you know uh is live etc. So those are not things that a switch gets flipped overnight. We are going to do as much as we can in advance to be ready but we we also from a staff standpoint need a little bit of of time of transition. So the goal is still to adopt by next fiscal year from the boards, from the commit, from the county and from the city.

I would hope so, but we'll I just wanted to make sure that that's Yeah.

Okay. So I guess a couple things then on engage I mean I think now that we have a centralized office in the city I think utilizing that re I mean that was the intent of council and and one of the reasons we were really supportive of that and I think I can I think council member Baker and I think we're aligned on that um was to centralize that engagement and make it easier for departments to use it as a resource and um they're they're really good and so after PB and community conversations or maybe capacity. I would not want to put that on their plate now, but to think through some, you know, some kind of larger conversations where folks can really, they can ask their questions, do one in Spanish, you know, do a few um leverage partnerships that we have in our schools as well if that's what planning staff decides, and then just um lean on on us and other electeds to really get the word out and drive and other mechanisms to drive attendance. Yeah, I'll say that while their support is great, their support is mostly logistics because you know, uh, we still are the ones that have to answer the questions and do the presentation like the subject matter experts still. Exactly.

I'm just thinking of the lift of like getting out like getting the message out and the logistics of the thing I think doesn't have to be planning staff. That's all I'm saying. Okay, great. So, so next month you'll bring back a timeline for the board's adoption by July 1st. Oh, by by before we get a break. Oh, right. I mean, we [clears throat] go on summer break. Yeah. Oh, before just You mean July 1st, 2026. Yeah, but we're we adjourn in June, right? So, we're not adopting anything in July. We're adopting it in June,

right? Okay. before June. In June [laughter] in June because Right. Okay. June 2026 is

Yeah. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Before the new fiscal year. For the new fiscal year. Okay. All right. That sounds good. Okay. All right. That sounds good. All right. [clears throat] And what else should we expect for December meeting? Uh we will be talking to you a little bit about some of those administrative sections from module four. I shouldn't say module four but for the the end of the draft and then we'll be talking to you all about um plan district standards um and what that sort of may look like and get some direction from you on that. Um and I think that's mostly it. Yeah. Oh yeah, we will talk mapping again. Yep. And we'll have some maps to show you. And I know council member Cabier has asked this before um that in the comp plan we said that our goal was 30% protected open space and I just don't have we seen do we have the data on what percentage of open spaces actually permanently protected right now?

So I in the county that has been done. So Carl did like an initial analysis and presented to you all a few months ago on um there were some varying tiers of that of like you know whether it's in easement or owned etc. Um but uh we are working on a countywide open space plan to do that a little bit more thoroughly as well and that contract is currently um I think with the attorney's office. Okay. [laughter] All right. Thank you all. Have a great rest of your day. here.

Oh, maybe it was. Okay. Where was that? On the floor. Miss all my