City Council Work Session - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening. We like to call our city council meeting to order, our March 23 meeting to order. We welcome those who are joining us in the audience, those who are joining us remotely, we welcome you as well. At this time, as with every meeting, we start with the invocation of the prayer. Gonna ask that pastor Theresa McAllister from Ralpha Ministries Family Center, if she would come to the podium and give us our prayer, ask that all would please stand for the invocation. Immediately following, if we we could repeat in unison the pledge

of allegiance.

Pastor? Good evening, everyone. Proverbs four and seven states, wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore, get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. Exalt her and she shall promote thee.

She shall bring thee to honor and when thou embrace her. Therefore, I pray for our mayor, Mitch Colvin, and the city council staff. I pray that they enter into this meeting with wisdom and understanding that will rest upon each one of them, guiding them how to use effectively what they have among one another. Give them discernment that focuses on getting a productive, compassionate tone in this meeting, fostering collaboration, and guiding decisions towards the well-being of all residents, concluding with a focus on peace. We are grateful and thankful for all leaders in this great city of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Help them to work together in harmony to hear all perspectives and to make decisions that bring order, justice, and prosperity to our great city. May their efforts make a positive difference in the lives of our neighbors. Amen? In Jesus name, amen. Amen.

Very good.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America, to every republic for which he stands, one nation, a God, an epistle, with liberty, justice for all.

Pastor MacAlister, we many of us know you, but if you can tell the listening audience a little bit about yourself and your ministry.

Yes, sir. Rockford Ministry is a ministry that's now presently been going through the city doing works in the community for seven years. We just celebrated seven years in this February. Our vision statement is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. So we're indeed on board with whatever promotes love and kindness. And we believe in the word of god in John ten and ten that the thief cometh not but to steal, kill, and destroy. But I've come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. This is why we gather tonight. This is why we come together that people may be able to live a full life, a large life full of love. So that's our aim to reach out into the community.

We now have a pantry that is transitioned to 2604 Southern Avenue, where we serve our communities every first and third Saturday. We give out groceries there. We are also pending on building in that location. So continue to lift us up and pray for us as we join together to make sure our Fayetteville City is a greatest city in the name of the Lord.

Thank you.

Thank you, pastor McCall.

Donations to build them.

Thank say we take donations to build Alright.

So absolutely. Take money to minister then. So but thank you, pastor, co pastor. Thank you for leading us into prayer and thank you for the great work you're doing in our community. At this time, we would like to acknowledge a couple special well, we have all of you are special. We have some other special guests that are joining us tonight, miss Fayetteville and miss Fayetteville team. And would ask that mister Darren Thompson will introduce our special guests. And would miss Fayetteville and miss Fayetteville team please come forward? Well,

good evening.

Good evening. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Emma Taylor, and I am miss Fayetteville's teen for the Miss America program. I am here to introduce myself in hopes of creating an ongoing partnership and a joint commitment to helping our veterans right here in Fayetteville.

My relationship to veteran affairs is very personal. My father served twenty three years in seven deployments. But when he came home, he was still fighting a silent battle with PTSD. In his honor, I founded a five zero one c three nonprofit called Battle Buddies to give grants to charities connecting vets like my dad with service dogs. To date, we have raised over $30,000, and I have lobbied on Capitol Hill to make legislative change. It might sound like a lot for a teenager, but I believe it's the least we can do.

We've gotta give you a hand clap right there at 30,000.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And I will shamelessly plug that I have a website at battlebuddiesnc.com. And so if anybody would like to donate, they can. One day, I hope to become a congressional committee staffer for Veterans Affairs to continue my advocacy into my career. Through Miss America, I've had the opportunity to earn over $6,000 in scholarships towards that goal. But until then, I'm a local constituent here to connect with you. Thank you so much for having Thank

you so much.

Thank you.

And we we understand today's a special day too? Yes. Is

my my seventeenth birthday.

Wow. Happy birthday to you. What a wonderful

So it's great to be here.

Wonderful thing you're doing. Alright miss Fayetteville.

Good evening mayor and city council my name is Haley Jo Baker and I am miss Fayetteville. I'm very honored to be here tonight and I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to speak and for your continued service to our community. Education is deeply personal to me. Since sixth grade I knew I wanted to become a math teacher because I loved helping others understand and believe in themselves. When I'd entered the classroom as an educator I quickly learned that teaching requires far more than delivering lessons.

Teachers service mentors, counselors, role models, and sources of stability for students who need it most. Yet despite their critical role, many educators are asked to do more with less. Less support, less respect, and less pay. I witnessed teachers spending their own money on supplies, staying long hours after school to help struggling students, and carrying emotional burdens that extend far beyond the classroom walls. Many feel undervalued and too many leave the profession they once loved including myself.

That is why I created my community service initiative putting the pro back into professional advocating for North Carolina's teachers. This initiative is dedicated to restoring respect, increasing compensation and support, and elevating the voices of educators who shape the future of our community every single day. To turn that advocacy into action, I am currently launching my five zero one c three nonprofit organization Be A Rose. Be a ray of sunshine for educators. Through this organization, I will award a $1,000 classroom grant to teachers right here in Cumberland County because no educator should have to choose between supporting their students and supporting themselves and their families.

This is about more than funding it's about restoring dignity dignity, recognizing sacrifice, and shining a light on educators who pour so much into others every single day. Teacher retention is not just an education issue, it is a community issue. Strong schools build strong communities and supporting educators ensure stability, opportunity, and success for our students. Tonight I respectfully ask for the opportunity to continue to partner with Cumberland County to support and retain our outstanding teachers in the ways that matter most through recognition, compensation resources and community collaboration together we can ensure that Cumberland County remains a place where educators feel valued supported and proud to serve Because when we invest in teachers, we invest in stronger schools, stronger families, and a stronger future for Cumberland County. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to speak.

Well, ladies, we we will be remiss if we didn't ask for a picture. So shamelessly, I'm I'm coming down to get my picture. And then city council will stand up, and we'll meet you right in front of you.

We're going down or we're standing here?

No. We're standing here. He's gonna go down. And happy birthday again.

Yeah. Yeah.

Let's give our Ms. Fayetteville, Ms. Fayetteville team another round of applause. We wish you well in the upcoming pageants as you represent the city. We hope you take it all the way to Miss USA and don't forget about your hometown Fayetteville. Okay? Alright, at this time we also have another very special person we'd like to acknowledge, Miss Angelica Johnson. And Mr. Johnson, if you can meet me at the podium at this time and I'll tell you why she deserves a great round of applause in this recognition. So I'll meet you right there.

Yes. Yes. Come on up.

Now we just heard that we have miss Fayetteville concentrating on education and how to retain teachers. And great teachers make good great products in our in our school system, which makes our community great. Miss Angelica Johnson is the new spelling bee champion of Cumberland County. So let's give her a round of applause. And to be the champion, you have had to work very hard and your hard work has paid off and you represent us well.

So you can spell better than anybody in Cumberland County. So that is amazing. So with that being said, we would like to present to you a few things. A letter has been prepared. It says, dear miss Johnson, on behalf of the city of Fayetteville, it is my pleasure to extend heartfelt congratulations to you on earning the championship title in Cumberland County Schools Spelling Bee.

This remarkable achievement speaks to your dedication, your perseverance, and exceptional academic talent. Your accomplishment is especially historic. You are the first Filipino student to win this distinguished title, the youngest student at seventy first Classical School to win this title, the youngest student from Fayetteville to advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. These are milestones are extraordinary, and they serve as an inspiration to students all across our community. We are proud to celebrate your advancement to the twenty twenty six Scripps National Spelling Bee, where you will represent Cumberland County Schools and the city of Fayetteville on a national stage.

This honor is a testament not only to your hard work, but also the strong support of your family, your teachers, and your community. And on behalf of the city of Fayetteville, I commend you on this outstanding achievement and wish you the greatest success as you prepare for the national competition this summer in Washington DC. We are confident you will continue to excel and continue to make our community proud. So we thank you. And so as a token of our appreciation for your efforts, we would like to present to you our certificate of excellence and our city coin. So we thank you.

Know, but thank

you. That's okay. Well, she said thank you. She'll do her talking on the national stage. She'll be thank There you go. Let's give her another round of applause. Well, thank you so much to each of you. And we would also like to acknowledge very happy ninetieth fifth birthday to the mother of our own council member DJ Hair, miss Isla B Hair. We wish you many, many more happy 90 birthday. May God continue to bless you see many more. So let's acknowledge that.

Good birthday, mom.

March 31. So look forward to sharing with the Hare family in that wonderful milestone, ninety five years. But tonight, we have covered a multitude of generations of great people who've accomplished so many things in our community, spelling bees to our federal teen and and miss Fayetteville, educators who are doing great work for our veterans, for our teachers. So thank you for indulging us for a few moments just so we can acknowledge some of the good work that a lot of people are doing in our community. So thank you to all those guests that came tonight. Thank you for your hard work and continue to do great things in our community. It is appreciated. So we thank you. Counsel, with that, we will move to moving to the city manager's report, mister Hewitt.

Good evening, mayor, members of council, and thank you. Just wanted to remind the public that we will be having another dug in the district at Bill Chris senior center on, I think it's Tuesday, March 31. Moving into the month of April, we will be changing around dug in the district a little bit with a focus on trying to get all of the council districts covered before June. We wanna use the dug in the district not only for a stated purpose, which is to solicit feedback from the public, but also share ideas. But we want to be more targeted with our resident engagement focused on capital improvement plans, which the city council will be presented at your next work session.

Our annual budget process, kicks off somewhat tonight when you hopefully be able to go ahead on the work that you've done on your strategic plan, as well as having citizens go through a variety of exercises to have them help us focus the parties on how they might want us to spend or present the budget to them in the upcoming months. We will also focus on out front to host small group sessions as well and these sessions will allow residents to review key projects and participate and get an interactive budget exercises that reflect real fiscal constraints that we have. This effort will help us better understand the community parties and ensure our planning investment decisions remain aligned to what matters most to our residents. Also, a time in the next couple of weeks for celebration. We are sending note out to council today and we'll be solidifying that with a date for first look event for the courts at Glenville Lake.

We had originally targeted next Tuesday but because of some scheduling conflicts, we're gonna look to see if we can possibly ask council to move that to Wednesday the first. And if Wednesday the first won't work, we may pivot to try to see if we can ask council to do the Monday of your work session that morning sometime to really go ahead and reflect all the work that we've done at the courts at Glenville Lake. We also want to in April, we'll be doing a groundbreaking for the MacArthur Sports Complex. Counsel had some conversation about that upstairs in our dinner meeting, and I know that you'll see on the agenda tonight under consent, we have an award for that contract as well for thirteen point six million dollars. And I suspect that council has some questions and mister Gibson's here to answer those.

But along with the hopeful approval of the contract tonight, we'll be able to go ahead and set a date for the groundbreaking for that important project as well. And lastly, the city well, two last things. The city will also be closed in observance of Good Friday on April 3 with more information come out about that. But is mister Watson here tonight from the airport? Okay.

If I could ask him to stand, I'd like to recognize deputy airport director Deontay Watson, who has been named vice president of the North Carolina Airports Association. He has served. Thank you. He has served on the board of directors since 2022, and this appointment reflects both his leadership and the strength of our whole entire airport team. So thank you so much for that, Diantic. And that's all, mister mayor.

Thank you. Thank you, mister Watts. Congratulations again for that, and we know you represent us well. We're not talking purple and gold tonight. Alright.

And also too, we have to acknowledge the birthday of one of my colleagues, council member Lynn Green, celebrates her birthday. We thank her for for joining us on your birthday or shortly thereafter. And also, we did, on a more somber note, wanted to acknowledge the passing of a of a visionary, mister Menno doctor Menno Menno Penick was a visionary who invested a lot of his time and treasury into the downtown and making our downtown into what it is today. So certainly, our thoughts and prayers go with the Pinnoch family during this difficult hour. But thank you for a life well lived and contributions made to our community, doctor Penning.

And so we'll continue to keep their family lifted up. Counsel, as we go through that, we'll move to the approval of the agenda. Entertain a motion for that.

Motion to approve.

Alright. Motion by council member here to approve. Is there a second by council member McNair? I believe I heard. I see the sure systems and I do

Yes, sir.

Have to confess that I actually have to wear glasses. So if you see me put this on, so I have to do that tonight. But there's a motion and a second. Counsel, any discussions on approval of the agenda? Alright. Counsel, I look to you for your vote. Alright. Motion carries unanimous. Council, moving to seven point o to consented items. There was a few items that council wanted to pull. I know seven point o eight five council member McMillan. Was that one of your items, sir?

Yes, mister mayor. I move that we pull item 7.085 from consent agenda.

Alright. So there's there's a motion to approve with exception of seven point o a five. There was also discussion about seven point o a seven. And how about seven point o eight nine? Was there some explanation on that one? Correct. Yep. Alright. So there's a motion to approve with the exception of the items listed by council member McMillan, seconded by Hondros. Any discussion? Alright. Council, I'll look to you for your votes on that. Alright. Motion carries unanimous. Item seven point o a five. I'll go to you council member McMillan.

Yes, mister mayor. Thank you. Move that we pull this item for further discussion. This is a proposal to accept a parcel of land. There were some issues identified with the land and even some considerations that should be taken into account prior to moving on the acceptance. Would appreciate from the staff just a rundown of where how we got to this point and then points for the council of consideration before accepting this parcel.

Alright. Thank you, council member. Mister Hewitt? No. Okay. I see him coming. Mister Byron. Good evening, sir.

Good evening. Thank you. So as part of our Lion And Ivy stormwater improvement project, there were several easements that we needed to acquire to facilitate the construction of this project. This is a parcel that when we approached the property owner about obtaining a permanent drainage easement and a temporary construction easement, they were reluctant to grant us the easement. They would have rather donated the entire parcel to the city.

The parcel is two and a half acres. So it's a fairly good sized parcel. We were only needing point o five acres for an easement. So the reason we needed the easement is is we have to take the culvert out under Ivy Road and put a larger culvert in. And to put the larger culvert in, we have to do some regrading upstream.

So that was the purpose of the easement. I believe the, the the property owner, like I said, wanted to donate the land instead. It went to, council at a work session, through a city council member request, where it was to, move forward with, accepting the property, accepting the property donation. So that that regained consensus during that work session. And then since then, staff has looked at a number of different things.

We look went back to see, could we do anything with that two and a half acre parcel? Was there any modifications that we could do where we may get some additional flood storage? There really is no stormwater benefit to accepting that parcel. There's nothing we can do on that parcel that'll help downstream flooding. Our project is is mitigating all the the drainage issues.

So another thing that we did was a best practice whenever the city is gonna accept or acquire any any property is we did a phase one environmental assessment, where, we had a environmental consultant, go to the site, visit a site, look at relevant data, and that was kinda where we mentioned in our in the cam. Some things that they found in some neighboring properties, so to be clear, there's there's was no identified issue on the site, but neighboring sites potentially could have had issues where you might have some some underground water plumes that that kinda go on that property. So the environmental consultant, I think, had in here recommended that they perform additional investigation to determine whether there's any hazardous substance on-site. So that would be doing actual testing, groundwater testing, soil testing. But at that point, we brought it to council.

We did not have recommendation on it because there is some considerations if you want to move forward with the phase two that that's gonna cost money. If you want to condemn the property to get the easement, that's gonna cost money. So it's ultimately up to council how you tell us to move forward.

Council member here. Thank you, mayor. I'm familiar with this item. I'm familiar with this property, the location I've gone by there. I sort of wanted the same thing why we would not just move forward with the all of the acreage. But now after hearing what you're saying tonight, those additional things for the other for the rest of the acreage, put is it two point something?

Two two and a

half acres is the end

acres, who would have to pay for the additional studies to check about the runoff? I mean, whatever the the, you know, the request, you know, that you stated

Yeah.

Those items.

Any additional environmental studies the city would have to pay for.

K. So the city would have to pay even if the property owner wants to give it away, that doesn't fall to the property owner.

Yeah. Don't believe the property owner would wanna incur that call.

Right. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. I I I understand. Thank you, mayor. Alright. Council member Green.

Thank you, mister mayor. If we needed the portion of the site for the easement, what's the alternative workaround for that?

We we cannot perform the work without the easement. We did look at that as well.

Alright. Counseling, other questions or comments? Alright. With that, entertain a motion to approve or to move this item forward. Councilman Mahondro, is that a at a motion?

Thank you, mister mayor. Yes, I move that we accept the property from the owner.

Alright. It's a motion by councilor Majadros, seconded by council member Davis. Discussion on that? Alright. Council, I look to you for your votes.

Alright. Madam clerk, unanimous.

Clarification. Just one thing, please.

Yes, sir.

Was your motion council member.

Speaking to the mic. Okay.

Was your motion council member just the 1.53 or are you saying the entire parcel?

The entire parcel. I think when we requested the easement, the owner said just take all of it.

So Right. Right.

The motion is to take all

of it. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Alright.

Some point o a seven. Access item to be pulled. Mister Manager, this pertains to the MacArthur Road Sports Field that you mentioned earlier. This was a part of the 2016 Parks and Rec bond. Mister Gibson's coming forward. So talk to us so kind of give us give the public a a history lesson here about how we are where we are and where we are tonight.

Good evening, council mayor. This is a long journey, and we're here now with the sports complex, one of the the last largest projects that we have.

Let me make sure.

Here's the site on this pathway to getting to this point and so many iterations of where you put a sports complex. And when we first started this project, February was just a thought in how people were gonna do things and to get around Fayetteville. And and we were blessed enough to get the property from the military, and we negotiated the land lease for fifty years on this 72 acre parcel that you're seeing now. We we got through that with some help. And we're here now to to do one of the biggest pieces of this project.

And this is how the project's gonna look. We'll have 12 ball fields here in various sizes from 300 foot fences to 275 foot fences to all the way down to two hundred and two hundred to 210 foot fences. It's considerable parking. A very nice concession area that's air conditioned. And and when people park their cars, there'll be enough food inside here for preparation so that they don't have to leave.

But this site, we believe, gets Fable into an an area of marketing and sports tourism that we haven't had as well as some local ability. And I talk to people when they say, you know, if you got multiple children, a parent can come to this, this spot and everybody get out the car, just remember where we parked. But this piece that we have now that we're asking council to accept so that we can go ahead and finish this is a $13,000,000 piece. It's that'll allow for the construction of the the site to build all the ball fields, put the parking lot in, do the grass, do all the storm water, irrigation. The piece that's missing from here is the lighting, which is about 2 you know, anywhere from 2.5 to about 2,800,000.0.

That piece is being done by a cooperative agreement that council has allowed us to use on Sourcewell, a competitive bid, and and getting that piece like we did over at Jordan Soccer Complex. So this piece just adds to that what gets us around with design to about 18,000,000. But this $13,000,000 piece is the the piece that makes this thing happen. So we're asking the council allow the city manager to negotiate and finish this piece. We believe we have a responsible bidder through a bidding process so that we can move this project forward and get this done. Thank you, miss Gibson.

I did have a couple questions. I see a couple other questions by council members. This was originally originally when the voters passed it, it was $7,000,000 for the score sports complex, if I recall. Then the council changed it and and split that investment to three and a half when MacArthur was chosen because the government was gonna give us the the contributed land. We didn't have to purchase the land. So now we're 18. Can you can you explain that?

It's just the fact that the the size of the the the complex that we're building, it's just over time with the the parking spaces and the amount of fields. The original budget when we first started was about 9,000,000. And it was gonna be over at Fields Road and and we went through that whole situation and found out that that wasn't a suitable property. And now we're here and just escalation of the years past and inflation and we're here now with this number.

When when did when was that when the project shifted from Fields Road to

Oh my goodness.

It was before it was before COVID. So 1819?

1819, somewhere in that neighborhood.

Okay. And the last part, this is probably more of a city manager question. So, you know, we've been down this road before. Lowest responsible bidder. Yes, sir. Right? Lowest doesn't necessarily mean by the law, it gives you some leeway for responsible. Mhmm. So what's the background of the recommended group that's been recommended? So that we don't have a problem down the road? So it have we verified previous jobs? Do they have good references? Do they have insurance? Do they have bonds? I mean, all the kind of things that have have come up before because you you given us a recommendation which is, you know, and just for the listening audience, this is the role that we play.

We set aside, we say do it, and then you bring us a list of recommended persons. So I'm asking about this company. What what's the vetting that's been done?

Yes, sir. So they were not originally the lowest responsive bidder ordered. The one first one were not their lowest bidder was not licensed in North Carolina, so they had to be disqualified. And so that's part of our vetting process. Once we received the bids, we verify their GC license that they are North Carolina, and we ask also for references. So once we realized that they were not North Carolina certified GC, we moved to the second bidder. And in that process, we started doing the same vetting process. We vetted them. We checked their references. They have extensive experience.

They're working on Fort Bragg. They've done work in Benson and all over North Carolina. They're out of Kinston, North Carolina. They have a they've got graven references. They are getting bonds. We once we are awarded this contract tonight, we will collect their performance and payment bonds before they move forward.

Okay. So they've they've built sports fields before? They have. What kind of work are you saying they're doing in these other places?

They have done they built, like, for the housing authority. They've done work for the housing authority. Now this project here, they have partnered with a parks and Rec director out of Carolina, who they've hired on their staff that will be their project manager for this project for the sports complex fields. But most of their projects have been buildings.

Okay. So this is a grading project, which is a different set of license Yes. Than than just a regular general contract license. So what what is the experience level of them to do grading work that you're making them your recommended person other than the price?

Just their experience and their references. They did have some grading work in there, in some of their projects. I don't have that exactly to tell you which project included the grading, but I can get you that information. But they did have some site work experience.

Alright, okay. Thank you. Doctor. Jones.

Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Very quickly, just to piggyback, you already hit one of my questions about the bidding. This may be for you, Mr. Gibson or you, Mr. City Manager, in regards to just letting the public know what do we have in place currently that we not can assure but let the public know that this particular project will stay on task and any that that we're able to identify any major issues early.

Well, I think one of the things and and just to go back to what the the mayor had asked about. Once you break this project into its parts, it's one of the reasons why we took the lighting out because we wanted the professionals who actually do lighting to do the lighting parts so we wouldn't we would have that assurity that that would be done correctly. It's no different than the subs that are gonna be doing this work. And and and and I wanna be careful because I've been rough roughing people up over this. The subs are the people who make the difference.

Yes, sir. If you don't have a good grader, then don't don't expect the fields to drain well. The people who put in the irrigation, if they haven't had experience in putting in irrigation, then the the city of Fayetteville should say something about that before we accept their subs. It's the same thing as so going so far to say, we wanna be able to go to the place that you're gonna buy the grass to go on the field and we wanna inspect that over the period of time so that when we get to that that time period of you going to get the sod and put on the fields, we wanna make sure that we've seen that that situation, the farmer, over a period of time so that you just don't go get grass from anywhere. So so all of those safeguards from a city staff standpoint, we're gonna be working this over the next eighteen months to make sure the product that we when we finish with it, that it's something that we can be proud of.

And it and to me, if you don't have quality subs, then you can't have a quality product.

Yes. Absolutely. And then could you just speak to that a little further, city manager, as far as the the layers because I want to

Yes, sir. Thank you. And thank you for doctor Jones and thank you mayor and council for these questions. The if you if the public would also take a look at the city council's agenda package, which is available online, That also includes the bid tab of, as Debira referenced, about all of the prospective bidders that we looked at. And many of the questions that the council members have asked all the way down to, do they have specific experience building athletic fields where conversations that the city staff had internally.

And again, this is still a recommendation of staff to move forward with group three out of Kinston. But specifically, if you look at the agenda package under executive summary as well, the general contractor is group three management out of Kinston. The architect is a local firm, Dale Crawford, Crawford Design, who we have extensive experience with, who has worked with us since we identified this site some eighteen to twenty four months ago, easily, at least, or longer. The owner's adviser is also Turner, Townsend, and Henry or Hiri. I think I got that right this time, miss Tune, which is also going to be the extra layer that the council and the staff believe will give us not only the eyes of Dale Crawford who will be there for us as our architect and also overlooking general contractor, but also be able to help us work through some of those issues and give an additional layer of support.

And then we also still have both city staff, which Joseph Staton, who should be back to work, we hope and pray soon, fellow if I can find it here. Roger Hunt, who's our project and contract manager as well at Metropolitan Center. A pleasure meeting him yet. And then we're also supported by Friesen Nichols. And so we have a tremendous number of staff here who are helping us.

As as mister Gibson said, one of the issues with the fields is drainage, and a lot of that is the prep work. But we'll also be focusing quite extensively on the building. It doesn't have a tremendous amount of interior space, but there is a lot of hearth and hard and softscapes there. And as you can imagine, mister Gibson and his team will also be all over the site all the time. And Indeed.

This is also not only visible from as we had you saw the kind of attention we had from the tennis center on the courts of Glenville Lake. Imagine what it's gonna look like when we are getting exposure from McArthur and two ninety five as well. So there'll be a lot of eyes on this, and there will be a lot of hands to make sure that nothing goes awry as well. Did that answer your questions, doctor Jones? Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. Councilman first.

Thank you, mister mayor.

I just wanted to make a motion.

Well, Hondros had asked Okay. For one. We're still we're still digging into this.

Okay. Did

have a follow-up to some of that. Don't wanna belabor this. Okay. Councilman councilman here also. So, you know, being familiar with this space, building construction has a license, residential has a license, and and building has a license to cover everything. And then you have utility contractors that have license.

Mhmm.

This is mostly great in utility work. My my concern here is is that who is being recommended, I don't really see based on or have heard that there's a tremendous amount of work on the utility side. Because as you said, drainage is everything. So catch basins and and a lot of grading has to be done because it's mostly grading. You don't have a lot of buildings here.

Mhmm. So that that's a big piece. And and and what you said too, you now you described the process that I've heard us use before that, you know, we're talking about where they're buying the grass and we're we're breaking this up to to where the lighting is different, and it goes so you're kinda sounding like the GC versus hiring someone who's responsible for this whole job working properly. Right. And then when it doesn't work right, then there's you know, I thought he did it and she thought I did it.

So would, as counsel digs into this, I'm I'm hoping that maybe I don't wanna belabor this tonight, but maybe this can come back for a little further discussion at a at a work session because we've gotta get this right. I appreciate it now. So what's we don't want to set anything up where it's not clear. I appreciate it. And and would like as procurement may have an opportunity, we need to to be able to to have you explain it with some detailed references in this space because building a building is different from what what you what you're proposing. So but council member here and then Hondros.

Thank you, mayor. And for the questions that went before me, thank you for those concerns. I don't want a mishap on this project. I don't want a mishap on this project. I don't want a mishap on this project.

I have no problem with us, and I think we understand why you're getting the questions that we have tonight. I have no problem I like to hear all the the catch basins, the the folks that are doing the catching. I was gonna ask ask about freezing nickels. I was gonna ask about Dale Crawford that I'm familiar with. I was gonna also ask who checks our minority contractors.

I was also going to ask and I'm asking that we make sure that we still try to reach our minority contractor inclusion percentage as much as we can with this project. But once again, I don't want us to have a issue with this contract or any other contracts going further, and we have to be 100% on checking, rechecking, checking, and rechecking again. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Councilman Hunter.

Thank you, mister mayor. And just to echo some of your comments and other colleagues, we can't afford to get this one wrong, and our residents, tax paying residents deserve us to get it right, get it right the first time. I think we're ten years in from the 2016 Parks and Rec Bond to today. So I don't think two more weeks is gonna spoil the broth. So my motion, and I'll defer to Councilman Ferguson since I believe this is in his district, but my motion is gonna be to send this back to a work session for April either as this project solely or I think there's another project, the River Park either jointly.

Have them both come in April or have whatever the consensus of council is. But I would like to have at least this one come back to counsel in April's work session.

Alright. So, just a second. Alright. So most of my counsel from Hondros is a second. I agree, maybe time is of the essence with these bids and so whatever we have scheduled already for that work session, need to make room for this.

We can do that.

Even if you delay something else but We we can. Okay. We can. Alright, any discussion on that counsel?

One more thing. Yes, sir. Is it possible whenever we bring this item back, those that are gonna be doing the second, third, and fourth checks, is it possible them being at the meeting or on Zoom or?

Well, what we can do What

you think?

What we could do and I can say that having looked at been with council where we've presented to you, Friesen Nichols, and you've met Dan and Blair. We have gone through the process with the owner's adviser, and we have them on the group. We're familiar with Dale Crawford. We're happy to allow counsel whatever level of scrutiny or detail you want. This was noticed in December 2025.

The opening date was on February 12. Two weeks will not kill the project. And so in the interim, if there are questions that you have, please let us know. This is an important project, but it is not a complicated project. You all know better than I do who actually do construction work as well.

The grading has to be tight, but that is also on the architect and that is also plans and approved. As I mentioned, when we started, we go at council speed, but we were ready to begin discussions with Fort Bragg to schedule their dates as well with so that because we are on to for groundbreaking so that we could do it in partnership with Fort Bragg. But two weeks won't kill us. But if you have questions in the interim, doctor here, if there are things that you wanna see at the work session, we can definitely do that. But to say that staff checked and rechecked, we've the bonds, we've discussed that with council before how we verify those the bonds.

Missus Toome mentioned about how we and it's in the CAM, city council action memo that the first the lowest responsibility was Eastern Builders, and they were disqualified. So if there's additional information, I'd like to be able to touch base with all of you individually to make sure that you are all up to speed and are comfortable So that if you all are interested and inclined when we have our work session, which includes the CIP, which is gonna be probably an hour. And we also have the data centers, could be an hour long as well.

Let's let's break up something. Yeah. Even if we need a special meeting to deal with, I think we gotta spend there. Okay. Alright. So, mayor Portillo. Thank you, mister Mayor.

My question is, and I don't know if it's legal or I don't know if we're authorized to do it or not, But most of the problems we have with most of our CIP projects come from our subcontractors. Is there any way possible we can get a list and vet those subcontractors as we discussed this meeting? I don't know if that's legal or not.

Anybody? Well, you know, again, as a GC, you you hire that person. Right. Right? And so when you get down to vetting the GC's people, I think that's that's a pro a process, but that's the person that you're holding accountable because that's who you're hiring to run the job and to make sure it's on budget and to make sure that they're using the proper and licensed trades.

So I I I think what we're doing, you gotta be careful not to be playing GC. Like I said, you know, Michael said, it it it's not legal for someone to use a license, and then they do all the buying material and going to schedule the subs and doing all of that because you're really doing what a general what the general contract is. So that's gonna be your person that you need to make. Exactly. Yeah. And and I think that to answer that. But, councilor, there's a motion. There's a second. I know we've belated it. I I did wanna add this. This is important. I know you said mister Hewitt, it's not complicated, but it but it is. The tennis center was all grading.

Oh, yeah. Right? Are

are we finished with that?

Oh, yeah. We're just about we're putting in the landscaping now.

But Here you go.

Well, yeah. Yeah. You understand? So you can't grading is an important component.

And we will make sure. But yes. Definitely need that.

I just want to emphasize and you're dealing with a lot of money so I just

Oh, no doubt.

It it behooves us just to be careful. Alright. There's a motion second. Counselor, to you for your votes and let's go to the upcoming work session on April 6. Thank you all. Thank you. Miss Gibson, thank you, miss Toon. Thank you. Who who are we missing? Madam Clerk?

Council Member McMillan.

Oh. Alright. Motion motion engineers. Alright. Good job. Alright. Council moving to the other one, 7 0089. Miss doctor Hewitt, I guess you can do this one. This is one that or I see airport directors here. Yes. They are renewing Andrew, could you

Thank you.

Authorizing the execution of use agreements with the existing airlines. The airport is a very important asset in the community. We have a lot of discussion about it. We've got a committee that's talking about our transportation needs and any gaps. And so can you we've got a guy that's on the national board here, so we wanna hear from you. We're proud of

that too. Thank you, mayor mayor pro tem and council. So for tonight, this is a standard renewal agreement to retain our current air service that we have right now. It's a standard airline use agreement, mostly obviously for a signatory, which is what we have right now. It's a five year term with five one year options.

So that's what we're working through tonight. But in addition to that, let me just touch on what we're doing in moving forward. First and foremost, thank you so much for the 400,000 you all approved for airline incentives. That's been a real big push during my airline meetings with network planners. I also want to mention as well that we're working with our neighboring municipalities as well to get some additional dollars and support in addition to yours to include also the chamber and the tourism development authority as well.

So we've got a network of municipalities working together here to up that number to to to a a more solid number that we can speak to the airlines. Now in June, I'll be in Chicago talking to network planners as well. What we're doing right now is we're working with American and Delta, of course, and then, of course, the other legacy carrier, United, as well. We're going to be speaking to them to get some additional service. With American and Delta, what we're working with is getting either larger aircraft or another destination, another hub, if possible.

In addition to that, we're working with the low cost carriers. I'm sure you all know the low cost carriers out there, I don't need to name them. But those are for our leisure destinations to the North and also to Central Florida as well. So that's what we have right now. We're working on. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, sir. I did have a question, and also Councilor McMillan does too. On page 10 of the agreements here for Delta and American says a covenant not to grant more favorable terms. Now we just authorized 400,000. We're trying to make that number 1,000,000 between contribution from the county and others.

How are you gonna solicit another airline? And why do we set aside the money if you can't offer more favorable terms if you're gonna be bound by this contract? Because what this is saying, I'll read it, city agrees not to enter into any contract or agreement with any other certified air transportation operator containing more favorable terms than this agreement or to grant any other certified air transportation operator any rights, privileges, or concessions that are not accorded to the user agreement unless the same terms and concessions and privileges are made available to this contractor. And it shall not charge any non signature carriers a rate that is at least 25% above the rate charge. So in other words, they're saying that how would you get a a discount carrier in here that offers prices here if you bound by this contract if you sign it?

Yeah. It's a great question. So first and foremost, favorable terms is really, FAA standard and mandate. So, basically, you can't give something to one airline different than you would other airlines. The reason why there's a 25% increase if you are non signatory versus a signatory is because a signatory will give you a commitment of five years.

Where if we have a non signatory, let's say, a low cost carrier that's just starting out and they don't have any any passengers yet or any kind of commitment that people are traveling, they don't wanna commit to a five year agreement. So they're gonna have to naturally pay an increase. So that wouldn't be considered favorable or non favorable. The favorable, everyone gets treated the same. So if you come in here as an airline and you wanna commit to a five year, you'll get the same price as American and Delta.

Now with your point on the additional airline dollars, American and Delta are also available at the table too. If they want access to those dollars as well, they would have to give us a destination either to a hub, and it would be two two flights a day, seven days a week, just like another carrier would have to do, getting the same amount of money as well. So it's fair across the board, whether it's legacy carriers on the signatory side or non legacy carriers on the low cost carrier side.

Okay. Let me make sure I understand this right. So if you got a a someone who's not here, a low cost carrier, they are

considered signatory or non? So signatory means if you commit to the five years and you lease space and you are rooted in here and you're you're here to stay Mhmm. Then you'll get those signatory rates is what you're seeing in front of you now. But if you wanna come here and not have any commitment at all and you wanna operate on an operating agreement with no commitment, well, then, naturally, you're gonna pay a premium because there's no commitment there. And, you know, we have to offset our cost to operate the airport as well. And you do just come in and then leave when you want be.

No. I'm I'm gonna get that. It's like having an agreement versus not. So I guess where I'm I'm not making the connection is, so if you find someone, low cost carrier that agrees to a certain term commitment, how are you using, if you've got to offer that same thing according to this contract to them, how are you going to use the incentive money to attract them? Because the point was to use that to get someone who's not here. Sure. Or to get them Mhmm. To offer that. Right? And so I think we've got a lot of leakage to Raleigh because you have just more than USA and, I mean, you than American and Delta.

You have the Breeze and you have JetBlue and some of the other carriers who have a lower rate. How do you plan to get them here? And how do you use the money if you're restricted unless they sign this agreement?

Okay. So we just have to separate the airline incentive dollars remember, that's not airport money at all, so that's nothing that belongs to the airport versus given an airline nonfavorable agreement. Those are two different things. So for instance, if we get an airline that wants to use these incentive dollars and then we have another airline right behind that, I'm going to probably be here at this counter talking to counsel again asking for more additional dollars. But in the FAA's eyes, once you run out of dollars for incentives, you run out of dollars.

It's Okay to run out of dollars and and not have more dollars for another airline, because, again, it's not airport money. It's community dollars. So those are different than me giving an airline or us, the city giving the airline, a favorable agreement over one versus the other. It has nothing to do with the incentive dollars. If we once we run out of incentive dollars then

I I I get that. But so what you're saying, just to make sure I'm this will not restrict you from being able to offer an incentive to another kid?

Absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not.

Alright. Correct. Alright. Alright. Council Member McMillan.

Yeah. Thank you, mister mayor. I'd like to move the city council approve commercial airline use agreements and authorize city manager to execute contracts. And thank you.

Second. Alright. Thank you. It's count it's a motion by council member McMillan, seconded by Davis, I think. Alright.

Question on the motion.

Yes, sir. Mayor Proteo.

Thank you, mister mayor. Mister Andrew, mayor brought up a good point that I like clarity on.

How

long do we give a new airlines that wants to come before we give them or they offer a five year contract? So they just can't come and go as they please.

Two separate points there. So an airline committing however long they wanna stay here is the difference between a signatory agreement, non signatory agreement. Here in Fayetteville, it's gonna be five years. And the second part of that question, repeat that with

How long do we give them before they want to have a five year commitment?

Oh, they they can they can continue to operate without a an agreement or a long term signatory agreement for as long as they want. They just have to pay the premium rate.

Right. So it will save them money to join

That's right.

Five year agreement instead of just having a premium rate. That's right. And my next question is, once you run out of incentive money Mhmm. For a specific airlines, does that annotate that additional airlines will wanna come if they are fulfilling their obligation by two routes, full loads per day, whatever the case may be?

So a couple things there. One, an airline, to get the incentive dollars, have to perform a certain schedule. So whether, let's say, it's a low cost carrier on weekly service, then they'd be able to draw down those funds over a period of, let's say, two years or three years depending on the frequency and what they offer. But if you're a legacy carrier or you come in as a low cost carrier and you operate two a day, seven days a week, then you can draw down that money, quicker in the one year period. But to your question, once we run out of dollars on that one, another airline can come here without any incentive dollars and just ask to operate here, and and we would definitely be open to that. A lot of times, it's to offset startup cost risks, and that's what the incentive dollars are for.

Which normally total how much?

I'm not an airline. Okay. But we don't operate an airline. But what I'm hearing in the industry, especially now in today's world, a million will get you at a table, but, you know, they're they're looking at multiyear, commitments, whether it be let's just say, and I'm just talking regular, a million and a half the first year, it could be a million the second year, and probably a half million the third year so they can establish a customer base.

And the reason I'm asking that question is I'm trying to determine whether it will be a tidal wave once you get the first one and they fulfill theirs. Well, another low carrier come and fulfill their routes and then another one, so forth and so on. So do is it necessary for us to raise or get that $1,000,000 incentive for those guys to come?

In this industry, when it rains, it does pour. Exactly. And we need to be prepared for that. But our goal right now is not to only get one or another carrier, but I'm trying to look two and three carriers down the road. I know it's optimistic, but we need to be prepared. Should the first one come break the ground and start to do well, it it's it's gonna be noticed in the industry, and there's gonna be others that may wanna take piece of that. And that's why I

want our community to know this would be easier to fly Fayetteville.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, mister mayor.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. So we got a motion seconded. Council, if we had discussion, we'll to you for your vote.

Good job.

Alright. Thank you, council. Thank you. Good job. Alright. Council moving to the public hearing items listed for tonight. This time we are preparing to hold public hearing where the city council formally seeks your input. Individuals designed to speak in the hearings must have signed up to speak with the city clerk by name and address before the beginning of tonight's meeting. We'll begin with a staff presentation, then we'll move into the formal hearings. Fifteen minutes will be allowed for those in favor and for those opposing of the items of discussed in the hearing.

Individual speakers, however, will be limited to three minutes each unless by previous arrangement a single spokesperson is designated in which case the spokesperson may use the entire fifteen minutes. When the city clerk calls your name, please come to the podium. Please clearly state your name and address for the record. You may then address the council. When the light changes from green to amber, that means you have thirty seconds and the timer will ring at the end of your allotted time. So with that, I'll turn it over to you mister Harmon.

Thank you mayor. Good evening mayor and council. The only zoning case we have for you tonight is P 2605. Mister Arland some bogo is the owner and applicant. The request is for SF 10 to MR 5. The staff and zoning commission recommended SF 6 instead. The property is located at 5210 Arbor Road. It's just under a half acre. This is in Council District 1. Just to give you an idea of where the property is located, you've got Ramsey Street here.

You've got this is Aldi and Applebee's here, and the bowling alley here in that shopping center. I think there's also a church at this end of it and you've got sheets right here. So this property is right here in the neighborhood. You cannot get from the neighborhood or that property to those. There's no connecting roads without coming back out to Stacy Weaver.

Currently it is owned again SF 10. You can see there's LC Limited Commercial all with this kind of a reddish pink. Then you've got Methodist University here and some SF6 zoning back here. Our land use plan calls for low density residential on this property with commercial around it and some heavier density residential back here and the office and institutional where the university is here. Just a photo of how the property currently looks.

It is undeveloped. Surrounding properties, again, there's the the Applebee's, the the old bowling alley here. Like I said, you can't there's no roadway that gets you from this property into that development there. And then just some of the other homes in the neighborhood here at the bottom. So just a couple of things here about what the zoning change does.

Again, it's SF 10 currently lower density residential. There's 30 foot, 35 foot height, 30% like lot coverage, single family detached 10,000 square foot unit lots. SF6, the recommended, is a little increase with low density family. It's 35 foot height and 40% lot coverage and 6,000 square foot lots for single family and then for attached which are your townhomes it gets down to 5,000 square feet a unit and your duplexes up to four plex is the 6,000 square feet a unit again. The request from the applicant is MR five or mixed residential five.

It's a bigger jump. One, you can go up to six stories. Two, it's up to depending on how the the 70 yes six stores are 75 feet, 55% lot coverage, there's more density allowed for the townhomes, You're looking at you're looking at where you can get about four units of townhomes, multifamily four units, four units of is basically the density you could get on that half acre with the MR five. Some of the concerns that came out of the zoning commission meeting is that the property is not only a subacre parcel but even a sub half acre parcel. MR 5 is more of a blank check with no concept plan.

This is a straight rezoning. And no commitments on unit count, building placement, height, buffering, lighting, just the general things that are required by the UDO would be required.

And

currently today the site is undeveloped so it is kind of a vegetated buffer between the rest of the subdivision there and the commercial behind it. The MR 5 could introduce taller buildings, more lighting, more activity. Arbor Road's character is low speed residential, very small scale stuff. Key potential risk or traffic parking spillover, loss of screening, and out of scale development for what is beside of it. That concludes the staff report at this time.

If you would hold any of your questions of staff until after the hearing, we would appreciate it.

Thank you mister Harmon so with that we'll open up up a hearing madam clerk

mayor we have one speaker mister Tim Peppers

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, mayor. Good evening, council members. Again, my name is Tim Peppers. I'm with Tim Peppers Design Consulting, and I am here with mister Sudoku and we are we're appealing from his first application for rezoning. Unfortunately, I wasn't part of the first application but I understand even from the comments that were in that presentation that he didn't have anything to show the zoning board as to what he was going to do.

So what we've done is we've proposed five duplex units or pretty much a a one unit building with five units that would generally be two stories 1,600 square foot apiece And the granting of the SF six allow for three units, but what we'd like to do is at least get four units like the ones on Candlelight Drive. Candlelight Drive has approximately the same density and I'm aware of that because I actually designed those townhomes about twenty years ago at Mesmer And West and so if you look at the map, if you're looking at the map, you'll see that it's actually at the end of Kenwood which isn't very far from other properties with that same density. And so basically what we're asking is to go to a MR 5 so that we can at least do four units rather than three units and possibly do five units under the the multifamily because it allows, it requires 1,500 square foot per unit plus thousand square foot per additional unit so we could we could potentially under mr five do five units so I'm here to help the client maximize his investment and hopefully raise a little bit of tax money.

Yes, sir. Alright. Thank you. Matt, hold tight for any questions. Let me see if there are any other speakers or if he has the full fifteen minutes.

He has the full fifteen minutes.

There are

no other speakers. Okay. He is speaking in place of mister Spogu.

Okay. Alright. So thank you for for that. Did have a couple of questions. So what you're saying is that you wanna amend your application because, basically, I don't know procedurally. You what you described sounds like a conditional rezoning. So were you is your client okay with getting something approved based on what you just described? Because what staff's recommendation is saying is that that MR five covers a variety of things. So mister Harmon, you had something?

Just just to clarify that, mayor and council. So the MR five, it's it's not a new application. They went before the plant the zoning commission. Zoning commission suggested an in between zoning. It's SF 10 now.

They wanted MR five. They suggested the in between SF six. When they did that, the applicant then appealed that SF 6 to you to have another hearing so that you would relook at, you would look at the MR five possibility. So it's not a new application or anything. It's just a it's a little different than what we normally see, but it's something that's totally legal in what they're doing. But, yeah, he's appealing the zoning commission's thought of it should be s f six and not the m r five that they want.

Right. An understand that. But what I'm saying is what's before us is his request for m r five to be able to do what he's asking. Correct. But, I guess this is probably before this the attorney. If this is approved as is, does anything restrict him to what he just described? Or if if the counsel went with the MR five, it would include anything included in the MR fives zone?

Yes, sir. It would include any of the appropriate uses. And so you're asking him if his client would be amenable to to withdrawing this application and resubmitting an application for a conditional rezoning.

But because to me, what you're describing, right, makes more sense than some of the things that can be included in here, like building a six story structure next to a single Right.

And that that was never the intention. And and that's what we wanna make clear that that was not what we had in mind because we we we understand the scale and we understand it's it's pretty much single family residential and me personally I wouldn't want anybody building you know five stories next to my house so I wouldn't do that to other people but at the same time I would like to you know try to I guess do what the client is trying to do with that particular parcel.

You got two options. Sir. One you can withdraw it and reapply as a conditional that'll be considered based on what you just said or counsel will make a decision on granting you the authority, is wide reaching, which can do those things up to a six story, and it can do some of the other stuff. So, I mean, it's it's it's you and your client's choice. Right now, all we have to force is the application, which is to consider your appeal to MR5.

Okay. I think

All right.

I can speak.

Go ahead. I mean, go ahead and say what you're saying and I'll go to I got a couple other council members with questions.

Well, I was gonna say that I think I can probably speak on behalf of the client and if we can resubmit it or withdraw this application and resubmit it as an SF are you saying

SF it'll be a conditional for specifically what you're saying.

Okay.

So so in other words, you would get granted that authority if the council passed it, but you you agree to the things that you're saying you're gonna do.

Yes, sir.

It it it would have those conditions. Alright. So I do have a couple council members with questions. Got council member Davis here in Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. My question is, I guess, for mister Harmon. Were there any opposition to this and the zoning commission meeting by any residents that live in the area?

There were two at that. I don't. What was some

of the concerns?

Well, some of the things that we brought up a while ago that came out in the zoning commission meeting just it's a it's a small street. It doesn't have a lot of traffic on it. It doesn't. It only goes into the neighborhood. You have to go back out to Stacy Weaver. So they felt that, you know, a multi unit building there wouldn't fit the character of what's mainly a single family

neighborhood. Okay. Thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. Councilor Maher and then Hondros.

Yeah. Thanks, mayor. Mister Harmon, I don't know. It could be our legal attorney. If we went to the other. Zoning which they could put the. The four, five, whatever the storage higher storage was in the single home unit. If we and I'm only asking if we continue to move forward this evening, could we apply conditions? Okay. Then I'll pull it back. Because she's actually saying no. Because I was saying if we could keep moving forward, we could apply the conditions to what supports the community and but she's saying

Yeah. That's what I was saying that he would have to resubmit under a conditional request.

Just resubmit.

So now, it's just either approve it or disapprove it. Alright. Councilor Alejandro. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sir, I forgot your name, I'm sorry. Peppers. Peppers. Mr. Peppers, to the best of your knowledge, not only how far you are in design, although the MR 5 zoning would potentially allow for five or six stories, this particular parcel has, I mean, it's only 44 hundredths of an acre, so it has limitations. You couldn't probably do that. You couldn't fit that anyway with all of your other UDO landscaping parking driveway requirements.

Correct?

Please speak under the microphone. Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I I don't think that that point four four acres would be adequate for most large density applications like that simply because of parking and run runoff and all that other stuff. There there would be it would be hard pressed to do any commercial because of the buffers that are required and things like that. So I don't I don't know that there would be you would be doing doing live work or anything like that in that area.

Thank you. I have a couple questions for mister Harmon. Mister Harmon, can you put the on your PowerPoint slide deck, can you put the subject property photo and then the surrounding property? So that's the subject property right now. If you back up one slide, one previous to that, that's the current zoning map. So the hatched area is the subject property we just saw was wooded. And to the east, which fronts on Ramsey Street, that red, that's Applebee's, correct? So if you go a couple slides forward

Yeah, this would be Applebee's, this would be where the bowling alley

Right, so if you go a couple slides forward, we see, yeah, right there. So, I guess my point, let me ask this question, Mr. Harmon. Doesn't MR five and O and I, Office and Institutional, doesn't that allow a buffer in the transition from your your red heavy commercial zoning to single family residential neighborhoods?

A lot of times it's used as a buffer. It's one of the districts, yeah.

Right. So, I don't know, for me personally, I think if I lived in the neighborhood, I would rather see I know most people would prefer the woods that are there today, but once the woods are removed for development, whatever development takes place, instead of seeing the back of the restaurant through the backyard of this single family home, if a single family home was built there, I'd rather have four or five units that were two or three story either townhouse or condos that would be the buffer so I don't have to look at the back of commercial. So I would be I'm prepared to move to to to make a motion. I defer to councilman from District 1 if he wants to. If not

I

do have one more question for mister Harmon. If if this if council approves or denies this zoning application today, is there a waiting period or can the applicant reapply? When can the applicant reapply?

Right. As you know, here recently within, I guess, the last year or so, state legislature changed the law and there is no waiting period to reapply for zoning.

Gotcha. So if there's no further questions mister mayor, I'm prepared to

Hold make

on a minute. Councilor Hondros, I think I need to go back to his original point that was it you and your client's intent to withdraw it and reapply as a condition to be considered or were you wanting us to

If that would be the easiest route to go. I mean but and then at the same time, I know the city council in good conscience doesn't want to rezone something and then the client ends up selling the property to somebody who has bigger ambitions less understanding.

Madam madam attorney, if a zoning is denied, what's the waiting period they've gotta wait?

There's no longer a waiting

period, sir.

If you deny So whether

you deny it or not, you can just keep reapplying and reapply?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Alright. Alright. So it's up to you. Did you wanna keep it as is or you wanna

We'll and just for the the sake of the community, because since there were people who who spoke against it and are concerned about scale of the project and and the effect on their neighborhood, I would I would agree that if we could do a SF six or excuse me, a special special conditions.

Okay. So you'll

withdraw it and resubmit under a conditional rezoning request. Okay.

I think that that will probably be the easiest way to do it so that everybody can sleep better.

Alright. Councilman John, do you have something, sir?

Yeah, just quick. I do know part of that concern is there is also another lot that was recently cleared along that area of a structure. And so I know the potential of another request coming down the line, so I can definitely understand the concern of the community in that aspect.

That's all.

Gotcha. Mr. Hewitt. Madam return.

Yes, sir. I was checking with the clerk, and we don't have anything on file that mister Pepper surfaces the developer. So it may be best if it's the council's interest to deny it, and then his client can just reapply as opposed to not acting on it at all since it's on your agenda.

Alright. Alright.

So, miss Andros, back

to you.

I move that we accept the application as requested, as submitted.

Okay. Yeah. That's a mundane. Alright. Is there a second to that? Second about Ferguson. Alright. Discussion. Alright. This motion is to approve it as submitted. Okay. Everybody clear this is what we're voting on. Alright. I I I understand it, but that's the motion that we gotta dispose of. Alright. Alright. So alright. Yeah. That's what you just seconded. Okay. Move against is.

That would be that would make Okay.

No conditions. So

the he wants to actually withdraw and then, re Reapply. Reapply with a conditional zoning. Yes. Okay.

That's That is

that is not the motion you seconded. Okay. Well, that's my bad because that's what I that's what I wanna wanna withdraw on your second?

Yeah. I withdraw my second.

Alright. Is there another second?

Alright. Second motion.

Alright. Council member McMillan. Alright. So council, just to be clear, applicant has said that he won't wish to withdraw, but the motion on the floor is to approve it as is, as discussed. So alright. Council, look to you for your votes on that motion. Alright. Motion fails eight to two. Alright. What you got? Accountant.

You, mister mayor. Mister mayor, I move that we deny this applicant for m r five and have him reapply with condition.

Second. Alright. Motion by mayor pro tem to deny the application. Seconded by council mayor. Just to explain this, this is to deny it as submitted. Again, we've gone through the process if it's denied that you can resubmit without a waiting period. Alright. Everybody clear on what we vote now? Okay. Alright. Council look to you for your votes on that.

Thank you.

Green is to deny eight two. Alright. So thank you. Thank you for your patience. Alright. Council moving to the next item. Mister mayor. Ma'am. Do I have

a question?

Yes.

We we found ourselves in that situation more than once.

Uh-huh.

Is there a way to for us and I don't want the best avenue to take. That's why I'm asking because we're in this situation. Several times, if we had had the CZ, the conditional zoning on the application, we could have dealt with it then and not keep bringing it back and troubling the citizens and bringing it back and us taking time and spending and refreshing every time. Is there a way to just make that conditional zoning part of the application?

So I guess that'll be a procedural question if I'm understanding it right. So when when a person gets the application, I guess right now there's two different forms. There's one for condition and there's one for mister Harmon, talk to us about procedurally and this this because this is not agenda but can you answer that quickly?

I can real quick. Yes. There are two different forms in our IDT system. One for conditional, one for just a straight rezoning. Both, though, require them to the applicants to have a pre conference with staff, and so, you know, like in one like this, a lot of times, we'll suggest conditional zoning to them, and it's up to the owner whether they decide they want to go and just try straight rezoning or throw some conditions on it or what, you know. So we can't make them do it one way or the other. It's up to them, but we try to guide them that here are your options at least.

Okay. I I just feel like there's something missing in our conversation from between staff and the citizens. Yeah. Because when we get here, they seem very clear on what they'd like to do. So somewhere, I feel like there's disconnect. So I would just like for staff maybe to bat that back and forth maybe with the city manager's guidance to just see if we can't make the process an easier process.

So so thankfully, it's a great segue to the fact that we just reordered a review of our whole process, which in our individual meetings with the consultant who's handling that review of our process, that'll

be a

good point to bring up. How do we make it easier that we detect options or give them options before it gets to this point? Okay. Alright. So we're clear on Thank you, sir. Mister Huld, that's that's Yes, sir.

We are happy to facilitate that with the conversations y'all are having. But staff does go above and beyond to almost to the point of, at times, I feel like pressuring the applicant to come with conditions. All of the contentious ones that have filled the council chambers in the past have been ones where people push straight rezonings and it only when they come here and look at council and y'all say we're not gonna budge on that, do they sometimes come back with conditions. But the I commend the the gentleman who was here because he's correct on such a small lot. If I were developing it, I would want the the greatest level of density I could because all the issues he mentioned about trying to develop it at a s f six or s s f 10 are true, but if he had been able to just walk in with a straight m r five, whether he plans to develop or plans to sell it, but I do know that staff does that, but we it's a very careful balance because many of you are involved in development or in the community and staff can't pressure the applicant because there's also zoning law that talks about we what you can't Right.

Right. To contract zoning. And but but we to the mayor's point and very briefly, you will be reached out to soon to by our group, Barry Dunn, to do individual feedback sessions, and we would really encourage y'all to bring that up as you just did there because that would be very helpful. Thank you, ma'am.

And to the applicant too if he's still here, we we have asked to collect feedback from anyone that has to go through the permitting process. Tell us how the experience was so that we can refine it and make it better. So if you can give us some as to your journey along the way, that would be useful information. But thank you. Thank you, counsel. Alright. Moving to 8.02, PwC Phase 5 annexation of Area 29. This is public hearing for '29, followed by thirty and thirty one. So good evening, sir.

Good evening, counsel.

Good evening, sir.

Mayor. Good evening. Not quite sure what a presentation is

This is '29?

Yes.

Okay.

My name is Lamont Hinson. I am a community relations specialist with PwC. Thank you for the opportunity to present today on phase five annexation the preliminary assessment for project 29. Through this presentation I will provide an overview for phase five annexation the background. I will provide details on project 29.

I will go through the project timeline and status. I will also talk about the cost for the property owners, payment and financing options, as well as next steps for city council. This project is something that dates back to 2005 with the construction starting in 2007. Over the past eighteen years, there are 25 projects that have been completed with over 6,200 connections that have been made available. As of today, construction is still ongoing with multiple project areas in various stages of development and design.

This timeline here provides a visual that represents the progression of phase five annexation from its start in 2005 through today. We're highlighting the continued investment in infrastructure as well as service expansion. To date there are 25 projects that have been completed providing availability of service for 6,200 properties or over 6,200 properties, and this reflects the continued effort to to expand reliable utility services across Fayetteville and Cumberland County. Here there's a cost comparison whereas infrastructure costs have increased over time. So for example in 2008 costs were approximately a little over 10,000 per property close to $11,000 and as of 2025 costs have increased significantly with projects reaching over 100,000 for some properties and this reflects the costs rising for materials labor as well as construction.

Here are the steps of annexation. So the annexation process follows several key steps design, preliminary assessment, construction, connection, assessment role, and finally the assessments being levied. And tonight we're meeting tonight's meeting is focusing on the preliminary assessment. Here we're taking a look at some of the projects that have been completed. This provides a listing of previously completed project areas throughout the community.

These projects demonstrate PWC's continued commitment to expand services in a structured and phased approach. Here we're taking a look at projects and there are currently several project areas that are either in construction available for connection or in the preliminary assessment stage like project 29. Additionally there are multiple areas that are still in the design phase. Here we're taking a look at an overview so project area 29 has been divided into three sections. Section one is the Montebello area.

Section two has been divvied up into Farrington, Lake William, Turnbridge and this is a continuation of section two. And then for section three, that has been divvied up into Clifton Road, Raleigh Road, and Haute Loop Road. That is a continuation of section three. Property owners were first notified July 2021 through survey and appraisal notification letters. This marked the beginning of engagement and communication with residents in this project area.

Again, this slide highlights where we are in the process. We are currently in the preliminary assessment phase which is an important step before construction begins. Next steps in the process include advertising the construction bid, seeking city council's approval, preconstruction community meetings, construction itself, connection availability, and ultimately final assessment confirmation. The typical cost for a single family residential lot is approximately $5,000 Other properties are assessed based on front footage plus an average lateral connection charge. Most importantly, no payment is due until construction is complete and the assessment role is adopted by city council.

In terms of payment options, residents have flexible payment options including paying in full within fifty one days and incurring no interest. There is financing available up to ten years. Interest will be capped at 8% Monthly as well as annual installment options will also be available and additionally in the past there has been financial assistance that may be available through the city for those who qualify. At this time, I wanna remind everyone no action is required from residents tonight. The next key date will be 04/13/2026 when city council will consider moving the project forward.

This concludes project area 29. I also have to cover project area thirty and thirty one but I can Well, I've gotta do it separate.

Yes, sir. So you may have some folks who signed up for 29 specifically, but hang tight. We'll we'll cover. Alright. Madam clerk, with that, I'll open it.

Mayor, we have two speakers for this item. Our first speaker is mister Andrew Hayden. Mister Andrew Hayden. Not present. Our next speaker is mister Wyatt Hair.

Good evening, Mr. Hair.

Good evening. How are doing?

Are we pronouncing that correct?

Har.

Har.

I thought so. Okay.

It's alright. It's

alright. Sorry

about it.

No worries. Good evening. Name is Wyatt Har. I'm here to speak on the phase five annexation in Area 29. Specifically I want to begin by clarifying that the issue before us is not about infrastructure.

It can be reasonably stated that most residents support modern utilities and responsible growth in Fayetteville. The issue, however, is how the city has chosen to fund it. Because the current funding model creates a clear policy contradiction, the city is demanding a substantial entry payment for homeowners for a service that already generates significant surplus revenue for the city every single year. Quite simply, PwC is quite the revenue engine. Under section six alpha dash one six in Fayetteville City Charter, PwC is required to transfer a portion of its revenue in lieu of taxes directly to the city's general tax fund each year.

And for this fiscal year, the transfer is roughly $12,000,000 If we look at the full projected life cycle for phase five sewer expansion through 2037, the city will collect roughly $360,000,000 in pilot transfers from PwC. Yet this entire phase five project has costed only about 244,000,000. That means that the city will collect roughly $116,000,000 more in PwC transfers than the entire cost of the project itself. In other words, the city could fund every single inch of infrastructure in phase five using only the PwC dividend and still have more than $100,000,000 remaining for the general tax fund. That makes the proposed $5,000 entry fee and property lien against very different property lien something very different from a financial necessity.

It's simply a policy choice. And it is a choice that takes place that places a substantial financial burden on homeowners who already contribute to city's revenue in multiple ways. In effect, you guys are prioritizing the balance of the general tax fund over the bank accounts of the very homeowners who already filled that fund four times over. First, through direct property taxes, second, through monthly utility payments that generate PWC transfers to the city, third through future property revaluations that will increase city's tax base on the infrastructure as installed property values will increase and now fourth time is the entry fee of $5,000 or 7,200 for those who need to finance secured by a lean on air homes. The expansion is not voluntary for the affected neighborhoods.

It is being required by a government action. And when the government mandates an action, it should carefully consider whether appropriate why whether it's appropriate to place the direct financial burden of the mandate onto individual homeowners, especially when the city would collect a surplus of hundreds of millions of doll a $100,000,000 in utility transfers during the life of this projects, funds that could reasonably be used to cover the entirety of the infrastructure that is being mandated and then some. Because this is not simply an assessment, a lien is being placed on homes and our properties. It affects refinancing, selling, and it places government claim against the equity in a family's home. In that point, it stops looking like a standard utility charge.

This isn't just an assessment. This is a hostage situation for our property titles. Now to address the legal authority involved under North Carolina general statute one six zero alpha dash three one seven, you do have the authority to charge for connections, but you are not required to. That law gives you discretion. PwC may operate the utility system, but it is an appointed commission.

This council, however, is an elected authority accountable to the citizens of Fayetteville. When you confirm those assessments, you are putting your names on a policy that bypasses the will of the people who put you in these seats. We should stop using PwC as a revenue engine for general projects and start using those existing surplus transfers to pay for the very infrastructure update that is being mandated. The question before you is not whether you can impose the assessment. The question is whether you should, and ultimately, the decision answers a simple question for the homeowners of Fayetteville. Are we citizens to be represented, or are we revenue streams to be extracted from time and time again? I hope you choose representation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Madam Clerk.

Mayor, we have no further speakers for this item.

Okay. So the Andrew Hayden who that you had on the list?

Andrew Hayden and Wyatt Hart.

Okay. Alright.

Mister Hart just spoke to.

Alright. So, counsel, with that, we'll close the public hearing. Did Did have a couple questions for you. Explain so a couple things were mentioned there that that it'd be helpful if you if you clarified it. So the transfer that you that was referenced that gives to the city is from your electric fund, right? And so can do you can you explain what that is? So PwC PwC has an electric fund and they have a fund from water sewer service. Correct. The transfer comes from the electric fund, right?

I believe it comes from an overall general fund. It's like a payment in lieu of Of

tax. Correct. Yeah it comes from the electric fund because

that's the revenue maker.

Yeah and and so the question was because you know later on in the agenda we had brought the council, brought the council to consider expanding the amount of grants available to help these homeowners because that's a substantial charge and like you said, if if you don't have the money then it's a charge plus interest which is then secured by the lien of your home. Speak to a little bit about go back to the slide for me if you can that showed when this began because this predates all all of us that own the desk. I know DJ's been here since Christ was a kid, but it even it even predates him, I believe. No. No.

It doesn't. Okay.

I believe this is the one showcasing the What

I what I wanna do is go to the one with the cost right? What it cost back then. So you got 2,008 cost 2,025 cost. Next one. There you go. Next one. Next. There you go. Right. So so basically, over this last seventeen years, it was roughly $10,000 per property, and now it's a $100,000 per property. So 10 x. Yes, sir. When does PwC expect based on this current schedule to to be finished with all of the projects?

I believe they are scheduled about 17 or so more projects. The last timeline I recall hearing is that we should be complete by 2037. Tentatively I mean there's still a lot of variables construction biz things of that nature.

So it's ten, eleven more years, if it went 10x from that, it would then be from 10,000 when it started to a million per, basically if it kept the same trend.

Potentially, yes sir.

So I guess is there a way how many people what percentage of people connect, right? Because what you showed on one of these slides, showed the number of connections that you had. It was 6,200 and something 6,214 connections in 18 Correct. So what percentage does that represent? About 40%. So PwC puts the infrastructure in the ground at the rate and the only way you make the revenue back to pay for that particular infrastructure to that particular neighborhood is through the fees that you assess, water sewer fees, but you're saying only 40% of the people actually connect to the pipe that you put in the ground?

At the present time a great deal of the cost is incurred on the utility.

And if that number so that means 60% don't connect. So I guess they ride it out until something happens, until a septic tank gives way or something. So how would your revenue how would your installation process work if we got those connection numbers up? Would that help speed up that eleven year timeline that you're saying?

Well I believe the timeline is based on variables like finding people to actually do the work so I believe you're asking if we got more people to connect. So if money wasn't the restraint, right, because you're showing that time is not on our side

is what I'm trying to make that case to. Right. In 'five it was here, 2025 is here, You may not be finished till 2037 which is here. So time is not on our side for the cost, but you're saying only less than half of the people actually connect to the work. So even though you're spending a $100,000 per per lot to run this, only 40% of the people are using the service. I'm asking if that number was 100%, would you

be able to get

it in faster? So is money the barrier or so you're telling me if this was paid in full if there was a check to be delivered you would still take eleven years to get it all in you think?

Yes sir I believe the timeline for the project is based on materials, the design process. I think it's kind of like the natural ebb and flow of getting the process done and even with the ones that have yet to connect the work has still been done in the area. Okay.

Alright so it's not helpful for you for people to connect to the service?

I wouldn't say that. Yes it is helpful. It's always beneficial to make sure that you're providing reliable services for that area and increasing public health. But in terms of finance it's

kind

of like an equilibrium type of thing. The work is going to be done regardless and as mentioned a lot of the cost is already being incurred by the utility.

Alright. Counsel, any other questions on Area 29? And tonight what you're asking is this public hearing no action needed so tonight was our opportunity to hear both sides of it and then the council will come back for a later decision whether to grant you the authority to assess or not. Yes, sir. Right. Right, councilor, any questions? Councilor O'Hare.

Thank you, mayor. I didn't like this process then and I still don't. What and I don't know if that comes from our PwC representative. Can we also tell what supports if this is a time that that can be done, what supports are given to assistance is given to our residents to to tap in if there's any plumber support, whatever the names, the the technical names may be could we also make that statement because they're pretty sure it could be some residents out there that don't know that there is some form of assistance to connect and some plumber assistance for these connections into annexation. Is that something that can be given now or is that something would be out of order?

Yeah.

There's no action here. We're having the state require public hearing tonight. So I guess it's an opportunity to kind of weigh both sides of it and then the council will come back and make a decision to it. I think, know, but this is some good information, I did want to correct I think maybe 2031 is when they're projecting to to have it finished according to conversations you've been Mr. Bryant I think he's watching so I but

there are supports there are there are assistance I know this may not be the time but there is assistance for our residents whenever that period comes for connecting

the city does have a grant program just to reference and so but yeah we'll explain it a little bit more but we want to make sure we give fairness to Area 29 there's no other questions no action needed but thank you we'll turn over to you for Area 3030

Evening again now there will be some redundancy in this presentation for this area is also in the preliminary assessment phase. So for Project 39 again we will over we will look over the annexation background. We'll take a look at the details for Area 39, go through the timeline and status, again go over the cost for the property owners, discuss the financing options, and talk about next steps for council.

Area 30.

Area 30, this project annexation dates back to 2005. Construction began in 2007. And over the last eighteen years, there have been 25 projects completed with 1,600 connections made. For this area, there are nine project areas in various stages. As discussed before, 11 of those projects are still just in the design phase itself.

This is an overview of that timeline for the past eighteen years. As you can see, construction is still ongoing for multiple project areas, and there are various stages that are still in the development and design phase. As discussed for the overview for this areas completed, there are 25 projects that have been completed and over 1,600 properties that have connected. The property cost back in 2008 was close to $1,100 $11,000 per property. And as of last year, 2025, per property cost has reached over a $100,000 per property.

These are the steps for annexation starting with design, the preliminary assessment, construction, connection, the assessment role, and finally the assessments being levied. Tonight we are discussing the preliminary assessment stage. This slide again highlights the listing of previously completed project areas throughout the community. These projects demonstrate PwC's continued commitment of expanding services in a structured but yet phased approach. These are projects that are still in process.

They are either in construction available for connection or the preliminary assessment stage like project area thirty and twenty nine. Additionally, multiple areas are still in the design phase. Here, we have an overview of project 30, which is divvied up in sections again. For section one, you have Greenbrier Lake, MacArthur Road, and Ramsey Street. For section two, you have Carver Falls, Cedar Falls, and Ramsey Street.

And for section three, it is simply Gillespie Street. Property owners were notified back in February 2023 either through a survey or appraisal notification letter, and this marked the beginning of communication and engagement with residents in project area 30. Now we talked about the different annexation steps. We're revisiting it. Again, this slide highlights where we are in the process.

We are currently in the preliminary assessment phase, which is the important step before construction. Upcoming events, the next step in the process will be advertising the construction bids, city council approval, preconstruction community meetings, construction itself, connection availability, and ultimately, the final assessment confirmation. Typical cost for a single family residential lot is at $5,000. Other properties are being assessed either on front footage or an average lateral connection charge. Again, most importantly, no payment is due until construction is complete and the assessment role has been adopted by city council.

Financing options include they have the flexibility to either pay in full within fifty one days and incur no interest, finance it out to ten years, and interest will be capped at 8%. There's also the option to do monthly or annual installment payments. Additionally, as we've discussed in the previous area, there are financial assistance that may be available for those who qualify through the city. No action is required tonight from the residents and the next key date will be 04/13/2026 when council will consider moving the project forward. And that concludes project area 30.

Thank you sir. Madam Clerk.

Do you want to open? Mayor we have one speaker, mister Joseph Riddle.

Mister Riddle, how are you sir?

Doing Considering? Time is running by fast. I'm getting old. I'm Joe Riddle, resident of Fayetteville for almost seventy years and I've been a taxpayer and a voter for most of those years, I guess fifty or so. Out in this annexation, I actually, our company has a little bit of property in '29 but I have got some property I have had for quite a while in this area number 30.

And about three years ago, I bought six houses from Doctor. James Singletary, and I knew that this was a phase that was supposed to get sore. The houses weren't in very good shape, but I hated to tear down what I thought was pretty good low cost housing for people. There were people in them and I had to do a bunch of work to them. So I made a decision to keep them for a while anyway.

But I didn't realize how bad septic systems were. They're old houses. The soils are not bad there. So really, I build brand new septic systems and get by and make it work. But the systems are so old, they're not working good. So two of the houses now I had to move people out because the septic system wouldn't work. So I've been following it for a while. Realize that probably Councilman Hare is the only one that was here back when I guess we can thank Roger Stansel, former city manager who became the city manager in Chapel Hill and Mayor Pitts for the big bang annexation that shouldn't happen.

Yes I was there but please please don't add me to the bunch that supported there were two council members that did not support the big bang and this is one of them.

I don't blame anybody but you know I know I know the whole backstory the county the county the city didn't get along the way money was divided and so Roger Stancil became the city manager in Chapel Hill. I dealt with him in Chapel Hill. We have property there. He was a smart city manager. He he he he made the stance that I'm just gonna annex all these 46,000 people and and and get more taxes for the city.

It was an argument between the county and the city. That's where we get astray a lot in Fayetteville and Cullen County is sometimes we don't get along. Anyway, some of my questions have been answered. It's going to be eleven years at best before the project will be finished. So it means I'm gonna have to go ahead and rebuild my septic systems because so we're I'll be lucky

now was

that answer I'm sorry that eleven years is to complete all of it was what I asked now that's not for this is that eleven years for this particular project sir

no okay I was speaking for the completion of everything correct okay

alright so I wanted to make sure we

well this area didn't get priority I mean that's for sure so how long do you think it'd be before before this would be finished

again it would vary based on putting the contract out for bid council's approval is where in short the ball is rolling now by us being in this phase I would be remiss to actually put a time on it but all I can say is the process is moving.

Okay that's a good thing. The other question I guess so the letters that went out recently stated that the assessment would be 5,000 for most of the single family residential lots. So you've already kind of priced it even though you haven't finished the plans and you've got to bid it and you really have no clue what your cost is going to be but it could be north of $100,000 a lot depending on how wide the lot is and how far the lines have to be and how deep the sewer is. There's a lot of variables there. So that won't be built until the work is complete.

Is that correct the assessments are billed when the work is complete

the assessment for the resident will be 5,000 regardless

okay that's all I got I just love to see the project move along and also, got one thing that doesn't relate to this. I could help with the baseball. So we have there there are plenty of baseball experts that are in Fayetteville. I have one that works for me that does Fayetteville Tech's fields. We built fields on Fort Bragg.

We built Freedom Christian Academy's field. We do all the maintenance on softball and the baseball at JP Riddle Stadium. And there are a lot of other people in Fevil that probably would give their time to make sure that that project goes down right and so I don't know if somebody's reviewed all these plans that have been done that, you know, I know you have an architect but you need baseball people to do baseball work and they are in Cumberland County. You can get some help.

Well, thank you. That is coming to upcoming work session for hope hopefully, you'll you can join us and we can talk a little bit more detail about it. But thank you,

mister Ridley. I appreciate y'all. Thank you for what you do, and d j added me to signal you out. So No problem. You and me are the older guys in the room. See you

later. Alright.

Alright. We are ready.

Madam Park, any other speakers on that this item?

No, Mayor. There's no other speakers for this item.

Alright, thank you, Mr. Riddle. Alright, so we'll close the public hearing. Councilman Jones.

Yes, just a quick question. Saturday was a beautiful day so I had the opportunity to go canvas Oakmont, Lakeside and Crystal, the part of District 3 that's disaffected by. So, I wanted to ask this question because I told them I would so that they can hear it as well. You stated it before, but again, just for our residents to know, whenever this does come to the area, it is not a requirement for them to connect.

No, sir.

Absolutely, thank you so much. I told them I wanted to ask that so that they can get their question answered. They're definitely looking forward to it. Back in 2022, 2021, they had mention of the pre construction community meeting way back then, and of course it's been four years then, so that's why I wanted to really personally go talk with them just to let them know what was going out. So I thank you for that question, and will definitely follow-up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Yes sir, Councilor Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. Quick question. So you had mentioned the eleven years and and the mayor kinda asked you about this. So when we did the previous public hearing for Area 29 and I heard the eleven years, didn't ask the question because I thought that answered it but now maybe it didn't. On this Area 2930, and 31, and I know we all know how construction projects go and they don't always follow a timeline but what's the ballpark? Are we looking at eleven years, two years, five years? If we had to look at something, what are we looking at? And what was the eleven years for if it wasn't for these three?

The eleven years that was being discussed with the mayor was talking about the completion of the total phase five us being done with the whole annexation process for this particular area 2930, We're 30 in the process of getting the ball rolling by having this preliminary assessment and seeking approval from council so that we can go forward with putting the bid out for construction and getting the construction phase done. For me to give a time at this time I would just be shooting in the air I can't say that the process will get started if approved.

Thanks.

Is Alright he part of here? No, sir. We can't do it like that. Would have had to sign up to speak. Yes, sir. Alright, counsel. So no action needed. We've had open and closed the public hearing area thirty now we're at thirty one.

Last one.

It's already right there.

Good evening again and thank you for the opportunity to speak on project area 31. Again, this is phase five annexation, your preliminary assessment for project area 31. Again, within this presentation, we will talk about the background for phase five annexation, the project area details for 31, go through the timeline and status, discuss the cost for the property owners, financing options, and next steps. Project the annexation phase five timeline began back in 2005 when it was agreed to go into effect. Construction began in 2007 and over the last eighteen years we've completed WeB and PWC 25 projects.

Over 6,200 connections have been made and there are nine project areas in completion with 11 areas still in design going into this year. This is a timeline, a visual representation of the progress that has been made for phase five annexation from the start of 2005 until today. We're continuing to try to highlight what the investment has been made for infrastructure and service expansion. As mentioned in the previous two areas with the 25 projects that have been completed and the 6,200 connections, property well the cost has increased from around $11,000 per property until today where it stems over 100,000 per property. For the steps of annexation, I think this is something that is coming up and trying to get an idea of how long it would take.

So the steps are the design phase, the preliminary assessment, construction, connection, the assessment role, and then assessments being levied. So as mentioned, tonight we're discussing the preliminary assessment. If approved, we can move forward with construction. This is giving a display of the projects that are being completed within the timeframe that it has started. So this demonstrates our continued commitment to expanding services yet in a structured but phased approach instead of just having the city be totally in whack and knowing that it's difficult to actually find contractors to do the work.

This is why we phased it out in the way that we have. Projects that are still in process are either in the connection, construction, or the preliminary assessment phase and there are still some projects, multiple areas that are still in the design phase. This has given an overview of project 31. It has been sectioned out into two sections. Section one consists of North Plymouth Street.

The second section is Reiner Drive in North Wood Estates. Property owners were notified in August 2024 either through a survey and appraisal notification letter. This marked the beginning of communication and engagement with residents in project area 31. We're highlighting the different phases and steps as discussed. We're in the preliminary assessment phase, the space right before construction.

These are some of the upcoming events that need to take place in order for us to move forward. So we have to advertise the construction bid, seek city council's approval, go through preconstruction meetings within the community, the construction itself, connection availability and ultimately the final assessment confirmation. Now typical cost for the resident for a single family resident is approximately $5,000 Other properties will be assessed based on front footage plus an average lateral connection charge. Most importantly no payment is due until construction is complete and the assessment role has been adopted by city council. In terms of payment options, payment can be made in full and incur no interest if made within the first fifty one days.

It can also be financed out for ten years with interest being capped at 8% as well as monthly and annual installments are available. There's also programs available through the city of Fayetteville for those who qualify. No action is needed tonight for project area 31. The next key date will be 04/13/2026 when council will consider moving forward with this project. And that is the conclusion for project area 31.

Thank you sir. Alright with that we'll open the public hearing madam clerk.

Mayor we have no speakers for this item.

Alright so with that we'll close the public hearing. Alright. No actions needed for that. We thank you. I know that was a long few minutes.

Thank you for your time.

Alright.

Thank you for the information.

No question, mister mayor.

Alright. Madam Pro Tem.

Thank you, mister mayor. I just want our residents to know that it is encouraged that you tap into PWC water. With the things that's going on now with the water conditions that some residents are feeling and and some contaminants that is in our streams, I think it's always good to make sure that you have reliable, safe water system in your home. And a lot of these wells today aren't doing that. So I encourage some of our residents, all of our residents, to look into tapping into PwC once you have that option for connection. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. And then just to piggyback on that before we move to the next item, the city council has also authorized us to review our grant program to help offset the cost. We understand these are tough times and it's a lot of money to come up with to connect it or to have it financed and liens are placed on the property. So we're trying to encourage more connections. And so the council, we've asked the manager to bring back to the city council what we're currently doing in our grant program, why it's underutilized.

We had to make some adjustments to other programs we had in our community development, but only one application last year to apply for the $5,000 connection grant. So we want to expand that, make it easier for more residents to qualify, and to get that 40% connection number that he talked about. What that what that means, basically, whether PwC is paying it or the city is paying it, they're both publicly owned by the citizens and and the ratepayers of this community, which are one and the same a lot of times. And we've got to get this done. We see that over the last seventeen years, the cost has gone up 10x.

And so another eleven years, 10x again could be a million dollars. So We want to make sure that we've heard tonight, which is reason the public hearing was there, but we want to make sure that the grants programs are working, if there's some adjustments that we can do. The council will be reviewing that in the coming days. The residents that came tonight, even though you may not have gotten an opportunity to speak, know you're here and interested. I talked to a number of you before the meeting.

But we are going to try to come up with some solutions to take some of that burden off of you to encourage more connections. Because more connections into the system spreads it out so there's not such a heavy weight on you, the residents or PWC or the city, which you own both. We thank you for your patience on that. It's a tough situation. We didn't create it, but we're trying to get through it. So thank you for this evening. Counsel, moving to the reports, we have reports not on 102 and 3 from SCEDC. Mr. Van Gens, there he is. Robo.

Good evening, sir. Good evening.

Excuse me. Yeah. There's a big big shift there on that.

I'm sure I'm here somewhere.

Now normally, I'm good, but Yep. There. Got it now. Sorry. There's a couple of them. Apologies there. And I just really wanted to pause so I could wish you happy birthday again there, councilwoman Green. Well, thank you for this opportunity. I'll be respectful of your time. Please know that at any point in time, always happy to meet with you individually or as a group to answer questions and discuss what we're seeing over at economic development.

As you know and for the general public, we're a five zero one c six supported with funding from the city, the county, and the private sector. This is our current board with some recent updates on it there. You appoint the mayor sits on our board along with three appointed by the city, the county commission chair in three, and then two from the private sector along with our three ex officio members. Catherine Cox is our current chair. So our primary activities are supporting and growing existing businesses, working with companies like Booz Allen Hamilton as they expanded here, recruiting new private sector companies, Yiddan Domes being the most recent, Amazon's distribution center, identifying and facilitating new real estate development.

Over the next couple of weeks and months ahead, that will probably be one of the most important and largest conversations we'll be having working with PwC and partners. Because as it sits today, we you know, with over a thousand folks working for Amazon, we don't have the capacity within or adjacent to the city limits to build another facility of that size. We need to be able to find that next ring of economic development opportunity. We market our community to business decision makers. They'd be brokers, companies, consultants, and we do keep a database of every single available commercial, industrial, and office property that we can get our hands on.

We do customized research and data. We actually have just tapped into some new research. We look forward to presenting you soon comparing Fayetteville and Cumberland County to an array of MSAs and competing municipalities around the Southeast. We work with you. Ultimately, what we try to implement is what you want.

At the end of the day, we are here to help you in achieving your goals for nonresidential development. And we do like OPM best and most other people's money. So wherever we can tap grants or funding, we work with you to do that. And working with our partners here to push forward on these goals that no one entity can do alone. And then I do like to say that we are kind of the d, all the above, or none of the above as it might be for any special project or initiatives that come up, working with the airport, investigating amusement parks or the like.

Whatever it takes, whenever y'all call, we try to do everything we can to help. Our value proposition, no shock to any of the things that we lean on, sixth largest city, sixth largest county in the Carolinas, our drive time demographics, the amount of federal business that can be done here, our younger than average age, and really the great opportunities we have. And I think my favorite talking point is the 85 native languages spoken in our schools. There's a lot of communities out there. But when I'm able to lead in with that, it gets a notice, especially when we're talking to international companies.

So over the last since our inception or, actually, I should say, since my arrival, we've done 1,300,000,000 in announced investments. That's 5,000 new jobs across Cumberland County. Many of those are here in the city of Fayetteville, or they will be within the city of Fayetteville as the projects are completed. I mentioned Booz Allen Hamilton working with existing industry, getting reused grants for companies like Philip Towing Service, bringing together our existing industry for networking and community groups there as they look to build connections within the local economy. So we do market our skilled workforce.

We get around to commercial brokers, industrial developers. We work with SelectUSA and our regional partners in the state of North Carolina. We also have had the privilege of partnering up on a relatively new program with the trade department, where we do one day or actually, do half day to three quarter day. One day and you move on to the next country, literally, you move from country to country, having the opportunity to meet one on one with companies looking to invest in The US with an interest in Fayetteville and North Carolina. Some of the projects we've announced, Project Arrow will be part of the city.

It'll be annexing in. We have a lot of things moving forward with that one. Amazon, I think we're all familiar with here in the city. Myron promos not in the city, sorry. NVR, which is here in the city, Annexed and growing in the Dunn Road corridor, and Yidden Domes, the newest project, as we talked about earlier. Again, these are often properties on the fringes of your city limits that are coming in to take advantage of what the city has to offer. So so far this year, we've had 10 new companies come and visit. We've generated another 13 projects in just since February 28 overall. And last year was our busiest year yet. I will say, though, it was our busiest year as having new projects look.

But it's a tumultuous time. We are still working. A number of those projects go on for over a year. It's a you look around the global landscape, the business landscape, trade and tariffs. Companies are having a hard time.

A lot of tire kickers, not a lot of car buyers. But we do expect to see some of those move forward here in the next couple of weeks. Other special projects we've worked on, I know, Mayor, that you care a lot about, is the Next Generation Workforce Initiative, which we're coming together around providing opportunities for our students that are here, as well as building the talent we need to attract next generation companies. We've facilitated the Black Voices Museum conversation, which will be coming back to you for additional discussion. And we have some very positive updates from them and the fundraising they've started to be able to do now that the original planning is complete.

The Can Do Financing Program, providing funding for capital for companies here in the community that are low to moderate census tracks. And then we look at some of these larger projects and support you on bringing things like six eighty five here to Cumberland County, where it has to be, adding new product, the next generation workforce, the investment fund, standing up. I think I got to be the first person to speak against the inter basin transfer request protecting our water sources here in the Cape Fear River, and increasing our FDI work. Now is the time I think it's most important to rebuild and maintain and grow our international relationships. We do have some big news for FCDC, which is largely in part to your support and that of the county.

Thanks to federal funding, we were able to acquire 611 West Russell Street. These are not the newest pictures. I'm saving those for a hot minute, but we will be in here by the end of the week whether we like it or not. But you're going to have the FCC offices, along with a 200 person plus top secret clear briefing room. We're working on building out a 30 person skiff, which will be the largest here in the Southeast as far as we know.

We are receiving calls from companies literally daily about their interest in coming here and developing, if you will, a beachhead in Fayetteville and Cumberland County and working with regional partners from across the RTP and over to Charlotte and across the state. Ultimately, we want to build this ecosystem. Thank you. Thank you. So we're going to be the anchor in our new building, but we're working with private sector developers up on the All American to build the type of industrial product on spec, their investment that these companies are looking for.

And we're also working with property owners out on 295 to provide larger sites where they can build and they can develop to have what I believe will be the next round of headquarters and robotics companies and medical device companies that we'll have here in Fayetteville and Cumberland County. So I know we wanted to keep this short today, but we just ask over the coming year if you'll continue to work with us on performance based incentives. I think it's always important for everyone in the public to hear that no company receives an incentive until after they've created the jobs and after they've paid their taxes. And if they don't perform, they don't receive funding from the city. We will be looking to come to you in closed session to talk about those policies.

We'd like to brief you annually on on our strategy around that. And again, working with the airport corridor, we think that's incredibly important and laden with opportunity. It's something that we have championed and we think really is one of the best assets the community has, and then working with us to build this ecosystem around innovation. So with that said, I'm happy to take any questions you have, and appreciate your time.

Robo, thank you. You know, you and I talked a lot about this and particularly doing the FCEDC meetings, but I wanna make sure the council's up to speed on it. So you said something pretty significant. One is we have you out doing recruitment to find opportunities to bring back here, but you also said that we don't have or we're limited on the available sites. So I used this example this morning during the coffee with the mayor. So if Toyota said that I want to be in Cumberland County tomorrow, do we have a site that can deliver the power and the infrastructure ready to go?

We do not. No longer. That was taken by Project Arrow. Then the next largest sites were taken by Amazon. The county has one site, 159 acres, is way too small. So we need that next large infrastructure served site if we're going to compete for these companies that can be transformational.

And and that means delivering power, delivering water and sewers. So as the city prepares to build projects that that the voters said we won't, we we passed the bond, public safety, and we're looking to locate a nine one one. Hopefully hopefully, it's joint with the county. We heard heard what mister said about the impacts of city and county not getting on the same page years ago. And he he spoke, you know, for something that happened predating most of us except DJ.

But You know, I'm just messing with you. He didn't even look up, so I'll hear about that one later. So so but but the point is, is there an opportunity to to to be strategic and locate some of these capital projects that we have to have, that have to have water, have to have power, have to have sewer in a place that brings utilities like PwC so that you're not in a situation where you're trying to backfill and get services to something that we gotta build anyway. So so, you know, could you build a nine one one center or for or let's say a data center comes tomorrow that needs 200 or 300 megawatts of power that PwC has to run to a point, is it a place that you can locate that to something that opens up opportunity for other land somewhere else?

I think that's always the best way to do it is to layer the different types of infrastructure and your plans, to identify where you want to go, to work with our partners, to engineer out the costs, how it'll go, what's the capacity we could have. And then any time you're able to put in one project and get either grants or build out one piece of that component of infrastructure, you're then able to leverage whether it's extending a sewer line a little further, whether it's bringing in an access road that'll be able to open up a site. I think we were able to do that on Dunn Road with DOT. We got a grant from them to get the access road in. We now have a spec building.

But behind that are a couple 100 acres of what can be one of your best industrial parks here in the city. But we also have to have to find a way to get sewer out there. We have to get a way to get water out there. The city would like, as that happens, for it to come into the city limits. But it does. It takes a coordinated plan, and it's something that, you know, takes time and commitment and a lot of pregame, if you will, in being ready to take that down. But, yes, absolutely, you wanna leverage your investments.

Alright. Last question. I'll say, the council had blessed a plan the development of a plan similar to Charlotte with these corridors to help fill in some of our areas within the city limits. I know your office is working on that. Any idea when you may have something that I know you're still putting together. You were in a meeting today that I also attended, but just any idea when when maybe I'll come back for some discussion and and check-in with council about about those things. I know you're working with our community development folks too.

Yeah. I think we'd like to see that before you get through with your budget season. I think it's important to get those tools in place because I think we're going to have a lot of interest in it. But we're really looking to position the city to, quite frankly, be one of the most progressive and aggressive communities about attracting redevelopment to those corridors. I think that concept of those generationally exhausted areas where you have a strong downtown and growth on the other end, making sure that you have strength throughout that conduit, just like a body there, all your arteries have to be strong if you're going to be healthy.

Thank you. Mayor Protein.

Thank you, Robo. You and the mayor are thinking in my brain the same times that I'm thinking out loud. I think that and I've always told council this. The most important things that we need to do to grow the city is have a booming downtown and and have a booming airport. You talked about the airport corridor. Can you elaborate a little bit on how we're going to make that happen?

Yeah. I think it does. We're pursuing grants working with your team here, actually, that was actually the vehicle to get increased water and sewer utilities out there. There is some property where it goes in and out of the county and the city, I think, up and working together on zoning and what's going to happen out there, working with the airport to increase the number of flights. We've been working with them to identify aviation pads, both inside and outside the fence.

They've acquired some property. I think it just really takes it's one of the things that can have the greatest ROI. Jets don't put kids in school. They don't need police or fire protection that they don't pay for. So if you want to increase quality jobs, you want to increase your tax base and honestly, I think it's something that I bumped into somebody who was here many decades ago in this position. And the first thing he said to me was, have they have they maximized the airport yet? And so it really is just something out there waiting for us to take advantage of and grow. Thank you, mister mayor.

Thank you. Councilmember McMillan.

Yes. Thank you, mister mayor. And thank you, Robo. Appreciate all your work. Also appreciate your your very public stance on protection of the Cape Fear River Basin. Got a chance to spend some time with the community on Saturday. We were discussing AI data centers. Shout out to Fayetteville Freedom for All who led that community discussion. There was a lot of discussion about and concern about adverse impact on the water table, water sources. Also, concern about impact on the power grids and our rates.

There are also a lot of discussion about whether or not there will be community benefits plans as part of what's required of any AI data center that comes into Fayetteville and strong support for moratorium to figure this out and get policy right. And go back to your February meeting in public and your efforts to educate the public on data centers. During that meeting, you clarified, I think, a forecasted proposal from ESS for a data center in Fayetteville. You clarified that there was no serious resolution or or

That that was the the folks that proposed going up in no. No. That that project that was talked about on Dunn Road is that ESS? I apologize. I've blocked it out. They went ahead and they started posting on websites that they were coming here while not even having an offer in or a contract on the property. That project has never had any. They were claiming they were going to generate all their power with natural gas. There is not capacity, period, in that section of the line to do that. But they went ahead and said they were. So that project is not real.

I really appreciate that clarification. I'm wondering at this point, more than a month later, if there are any serious proposals to your office from any data center companies.

I will be honest and say that we've received in the last couple of weeks, months, we've received a number of calls from people interested. But putting together all the pieces for one to say move forward is a long way to go. Saying, is this property available? What's the power lines that are here? So we get a lot of, again, a lot of tire kickers. We have seen a number of calls from folks in the data center industry. I don't have one that has gone so far as working with us right now to bring to your project around those lines but I do know there have been some looking.

I appreciate your leadership on this you and your entire shop look forward to working with you as as we craft sound policy, a policy that's going to protect us and our resources.

And if I just may say too, not every project starts with the Economic Development Office. And that was why we were so adamant about encouraging adoption of regulations. Because if it doesn't ask for incentives, you don't have the ability through that vehicle to say, we're not going to support you. When Project Aero came, they asked for incentives. If you had said no, they would have said thank you, next. But with a data center, it's a very different conversation if they've identified a site on their own, which I think many that are looking around already have.

Alright. Council, any other comments or questions? Alright. Robo, motion to receive his report. To accept the report. Mayor. Second. Alright. It's a motion by mayor pro tem to accept, seconded by Hondros on the board. I heard Jones but see Hondros. Alright. Any discussion? Alright. Council, I look to you for your vote. Thank you. Alright.

Thank you, Robo. Great job.

Alright. 9.02. Mister Harmon, you own the arts commission too?

I am not owned, but I do I am the staff liaison for that. Let's see here. So this will be a fairly short little presentation here. The Public Arts Commission is a resident advisory board that you city council appoints. They focus on integration of art into the city's public spaces to enhance the community's aesthetics and economic vitality.

They curate a city space, recommend selection placement, maintenance of diverse public art installations, mainly in the downtown. When you see these little art displays, little pieces of art in the downtown, this is the group that picks those out. It goes through the Arts Council, sets up a bunch of them, this group picks out which ones actually will make it into the downtown. It's there to enhance quality of life, to create a vibrant, culturally rich public spaces, drive economic growth, strengthen local economy by supporting cultural tourism and increase foot traffic to local businesses, and bridge art and governance, serving as a liaison between local government and the Arts Council and the public. And again, the main thing that they do every year is pick out the art that you see around downtown.

There's a PowerPoint that's part of your packet tonight that was there last year's kind of PowerPoint for selection. They'll be doing that same thing, I believe it is, in May for the coming year. Again, last year, they only met once during the year. It was for that purpose. It was in May to review and approve that Artscape non exhibition.

You have appointed two new commissioners here recently to that board as you see in your PowerPoint, and we recommend the action tonight is just to accept this report from the council or

the commission alright just had a question I do see councilor Davidson McMillan so this is great. I like the public artwork. We started

this

a few years back, and the goal at the time, I believe it was a different maybe been when Ms. Mintz was at the Arts Council. Went a while back. But the goal was to maybe enhance some areas outside of the downtown area with it as well, some of the corridors and some just to kind of give a little bit of vibe. Vibrancy. Has there been any discussion about that? You know, this is a big wide city, you know? Exactly.

And it has moved out slightly. I know I think it was this past year, there was as you start up Murchison Road, where the city has all of our property there on the right hand side. There was a piece of art put there on the left hand side. So that's probably about as far as creeped out of the downtown right now, but that is a good point of getting it in other areas. Yeah. I mean, again,

we talked about the West a lot tonight. What what is it,

you know,

how often do they get an appreciation for it unless, you know, you want them all come downtown, but the fact of the matter is a lot of lot of our residents live out West or North Fayetteville. Do they end the last thing is, are all of the recommendations public art pieces or are they a part of some of the artwork we're seeing like under the bridge overpass on some of the the I guess some of the private buildings downtown are having some of the the local heroes from from here.

With this, it's just the art pieces. Okay.

Yeah. Alright.

Thank you. Not not the murals and things like that.

Alright. So I saw councilman Davis well, Macmillan first and Davis and Hondra. Oh. Oh,

okay. Oh,

okay. Alright. Councilor Davis. Yes, I was just

gonna move to receive the part.

Alright. Councilor Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. Real quick question. So in the PowerPoint, and I think it was just mentioned, the mural on the bridge at I 295 And 41, what if any role did did this commission play on that?

They did not.

They did not? What about if a building owner wants to put a mural on their building, is there a process that does that go through the commission?

It doesn't go through the commission it actually comes through development services there is and yeah that's where we get all the murals that we've had downtown and some other places like out there on Ramsey.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Councilman Davis? Yes, sir. Just moved

to receive the report. Alright.