Town Council - Regular Meeting

Wow. Black. and welcome to the March 31st Town of Garner works town council work session. Good to see everyone here tonight. Um we'll start tonight off with a calling of the role by our deputy town clerk.

Mayor Perim Dinger, I'm here. Council member Stallings here. Council member Vance here. Council member Singleton here. Council member Matthews here. The mayor has duly informed the council of his absence this evening. I'd like to make a motion to excuse his absence. So moved. Second. Motion made by Mr. Matthews, seconded by Mr. Vance. All in favor? I. It passes unanimously. Next item of business is the adoption of the agenda. Uh, do you have a motion to approve tonight's agenda for the work session? So move. Second.

Motion made by Councilman Stalling, seconded by Councilman Vance. Any discussion on the adoption of the agenda this evening? Hearing none. All in favor, please vote by saying I. I.

All opposed? No. Motion passes. We have no presentations this evening. Next item of business is Bennett North Apartments presented by Assistant Manager John Hodes. Good evening, Mayor Proam and council members. Um, we have an item on the agenda tonight that council had asked to defer to tonight's meeting. This is a requis a request for a resolution authorizing affordable housing bond issuance for an affordable housing apartment complex. Um information is in your packet. I'll be glad to answer any questions if I can help with that.

Any council members have questions for Mr. Hodes? I'd like to make a comment if I may, sir. Matthews, anybody here from the uh developer tonight?

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Okay. Uh this has been interesting and an ongoing project and I I won't drag it out. I just just want to make a few brief comments that uh uh initially the project I was fine with. I supported and voted for it. Then we come back and uh did want wanting to uh not pay the Garner taxes uh but still wanted a police and fire and all the services come with it and uh where everybody else in Garner has to pay their property taxes. me and people on limited incomes and some people in $500,000 houses, some in $200,000 houses or less. But uh my biggest hangup and we're talking about workforce housing, you know, in Garner Try and Pawn Apartments, we got like 176 Habitat uh 450 when finished. Uh Chadwick senior, we've got 40 units over there. Timber Springs of 75. And we participate also in preserving homes program which uh our last contribution was $100,000 which allows if somebody an elderly has a house and it's paid for but they got limited income and the the roof is bad they need some work on it. this money pays for that so they don't come out of their pocket and the intent is let them stay in their home and they've earned it all their life and uh plus we've got a lot of older apartments at it's much less rate but uh I just hey it has come down to this that uh this development where it's turning now that the taxpayer is gone are going to have to cover your cost of services and I have a big hard time with that and uh we represent the people uh uh Mr. Mayor Pro Tim and I know we all have a hard time with this and everybody can speak for it ourselves. So, uh, but but people of Garner, we we're here fighting for you. Thank you for the time.

Yes, I agree with Mr. Matthews. Our concern has been raised not only in Garner but in other towns and on news reports regarding um tax-free projects that was passed in state legislature several years ago. Mr. Hodgees on page uh 16 on our agenda there with the proposed supplemental accommodations from Ben Apartments North. Is that still active or is that just something that's included in the agenda? I'm sorry, Miss Jones. I was going to suggest that that would be a question for the the developer attorney.

Okay. Can can he come to the mic microphone and speak? Please state your name and address for the record.

Thank you. Uh Martin Warf. Home address uh is 313 Bonniewood Drive in Kerry, North Carolina. Formerly a resident of Garner and Sheldon Place. Um uh thank you Mr. Prayer, Mr. Payer, excuse me, Mr. Mayor Prom and commissioners for the opportunity to speak. I know that's a little out of line, but I'm happy to answer your questions. Um, some of the questions that you have raised about the project are certainly those that may go to uh the general assembly and the ability for um uh developers to create the opportunity for limited income housing in certain areas. But the town of Gardner has approved a special use permit. And the question before the board tonight is whether they will agree to the notice to the Wake County um housing authorities bond referendum. And we believe that that is an up or down vote here. And it is a sort of a yes no question. But there are opportunities for um if this were a reasonzoning issue that may come before the board later to where there are opportunities to do that that there may be sort of a dimmer switch approach where we could look at other opportunities to um work with the town on those special use permits or reszoning. But this particular uh vote is an up or down vote.

I understand that. My question is, are the three items listed as proposed supplemental accommodations still something we can discuss? Not tonight, but at a later date. At a later date. Yes. That's what I need to know. Thank you, Mr. Collings. No comment. Mr. advance.

Uh just a short statement and in reference to what transpired here was a unique situation in which this project changed in it not in its uh in it the number of dwelling places or the configuration of SUP. However, it changed in the financing of it which was very unique for us and it was one that caught our eye particularly because we are working in the area of affordable housing and as we as we as a council say we support affordable housing. It's a matter of how we do it. And also, I would say thank you for going back out to the public and to present this to the public to have them opportunity to look at uh the proposed affordable housing development versus the one that was market rate. And in looking at that, I know that it reveals several things. One is that we found out about the Blue Ridge loophole there that one that could impact future future um projects. And it's imperative now since we are looking at uh having our legislative liaison talk to our delegation. It's imperative that we express our concerns about what this can do to future projects be coming before us and pre preventing this from happening again. Knowing our current economic situation within the country and how it may impact our taxes and things of that nature going forward, things of this nature can be detrimental to the town unless we're able to plan this out and look at it strategically. And this one caught us off guard. But my key thing is here now is to look at it from a perspective of how do we prevent this from happening? how we are part of the planning process early and how we can maintain our current uh level of passion for affordable housing while at the same time not impacting the residents in a negative way. So we want to make sure that happens because more developer developments that come and use that loophole uh it can be detrimental to the uh the financial stability of the of the town. Just want to make that statement. That's all I have.

Matthew,

just just one followup. uh two items and I think as we talked earlier realistically sir this is not affordable housing it's going to be the same cost as apartments and people across the street and secondly the lack of those taxes where we pay $100,000 to uh to people with the preserving homes programs to make up for what you you guys are going to be doing. It's got to be made up somewhere. It's not a free ride. And uh and and if I was in your shoes, that's good money. I I don't I jump all over it. Hey, I'm not going to lose anything. So, uh uh but don't worry, we'll get through it. People are going to pay for it. And that's all I got to say. Thank you. Anyone else?

Thank you so much. Thank you. So, we county Housing Authority have any any input or feedback on I don't believe they're represented tonight. Okay. All right. I know there are council comments uh accept a motion to take action on resolution 2026 2687. So I request a roll call vote. Mr. President, let's get our second our motion our second first. Motion made by Mr. Vance.

Second by Mr. Singleton. Any other discussion by council members, comments? Hearing none, Mr. Matthews has requested a roll call vote. We'll start on this end with Mr. Matthews. Nay, Mr. Singleton, very hesitant. Yes, Mr. Stallings. I, Mr. Vance, I. And I vote I four to one. All right, motion carries. Our next item of business this evening is our legislative agenda update from again Mr. Hodgees.

The mayor and council members um some time ago we brought you a draft legislative agenda uh that we were proposing to use for the short session uh that is coming up to begin soon. Um we have uh spent some time as staff um consulting with with uh the League of Municipalities and others um to bring back some edits to this. So before you tonight in your packet um you will see that there is uh uh a revised version for your uh review tonight. Um a little bit of order that we've changed a reorganization. Our 2026 priority initiatives are at the top of this. Um there has been some work done by House Select Committee on tax reform um that um among other things has been talking about uh the the Blue Ridge loophole that was mentioned previously as well as some other statewide tax reforms. Uh there have been four recommendations that have so far come to light from that. Two of which we uh believe is are appropriate to support. Closing the Blue Ridge loophole and then broadening eligibility for property tax relief programs which balances the impact on revenues. There are two things that have come out of that that committee's work that we believe is appropriate to oppose. Um and that is constitutional amendment to cap property tax increases and limit local control of property tax rates and tamper with property risk reassessment timelines and methodology. So staff is propos proposing to strongly support the first two uh strongly oppose the second two. Um the third item on your bullet there is not new to us. It is supporting a legislative fix to unintended consequences for the downzoning limitations. In state law 202457, we've talked extensively about these impacts and have actually had to go back and make amendments to UDO or changes to read UEDO amendments that were impacted by this. Um, since the drafting of this, uh, the league has let us know that the there is a Senate bill that was proposed, Senate 587, they believe has the appropriate levels of fix for this.

And so with your approval, we will add um a support statement under this to actually support or encourage passing of the Senate bill 587 so that that can take effect and reverse those u what uh the impacts of the downzoning bill. The other bill the other bullets under our priority initiatives were um carried over from the beginning of the the banium session. We used those last year in the beginning of the session. So there's no changes to those. We continue to include local initiatives and the one that we're focusing on is one that you've seen before which is to request a a charter amendment to increase settlement authority for the town manager. Um and through some research Miss Jones has done um we have added that that has been unchanged since uh 1977. So I think that's a a good indicator that that a lot of things have changed since then and opportunities for us to readress those. We have slightly reordered our next section um to oppose threat of of propose threats to municipal authority and responsiveness to local issues. We've added property tax reform and we've brought down the two items from the top that we were opposing so that they're there within our opposition section. Uh we have taken what was previously listed as building codes and inspections in our previous draft. We have added planning and to that is because we have uh we've kept the first bullet which is our ongoing continued desire to see building code uh changes move forward and implementing new codes and not make decisions that would uh risk the safety and welfare of our structures and the people that live in them. We've added a second bullet to oppose bills which impede local government authority over zoning development so municipalities can continue to implement local preferences, protect property values, and ensure safe quality of life for residents and businesses. So that note that was mentioned previously uh in our legislative agenda, but we think reordering these and regrouping them makes a stronger statement of our uh what we are concerned about. And the

last section are things we're supporting. And right now this concludes the uh North Carolina League's 2025 2026 goals that they adopted at the beginning of the benium last year. And so those are included again uh as we included them last year. So those are the proposed changes we have uh for the legislative agenda. Um happy to answer any questions that you have. would also just let you know that um we'd also seek your approval to place this on the April 7th agenda so that we the council can adopt it and then share it with our legislative delegation ahead of the session that is scheduled to begin later in April. I'll be glad to answer questions about our legislative agenda and then also we've got Sam Bridges um our lobbyist who's here tonight and he's got some some updates he wanted to make but I was going to to see if you have any questions about our legislative update first.

Any questions for Mr. Mr. Hodgees from council. Start here with Mr. Bay. Not for Mr. Hodes. Stallings. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Well, uh, with that, we will add the citation for the support of Senate Bill 587. Um, and we'll add this to your agenda for April 7th for adoption. Yes, sir.

I do have, um, one expansion. I think we mentioned if you go back, there's a some support for public education on there, loosely worded. Um, and this may impede our ability to get this on the consent agenda, but I'd like us to look at the North Carolina State Constitution, Article 9, Section 9, where it actually guarantees free uh tuition at our public universities. And as the legislature has reduced tuition at several of our public universities, but not all of them, uh I kind of want to, you know, the cost of college is a barrier for a lot of individuals and they assume a lot of debt even as an instate student. So if we could look at that and see if there's a way we can advocate for tuition reduction or other public universities so that we're continuing to honor that constitutional right, that would be great.

Okay. Um, if I may, one of the things that we we will do throughout the rest of this session is we will periodically bring back updates for council as bills are introduced that we feel like we should either support or oppose. So, there will be tweaks to this that we will reissue this as the session goes on. Mr. Dillinger, would it be would it be okay for us to adopt asis for April 7th just so we can get it in the hands of our delegation before the session and then bring that to you as an amendment throughout the session?

I think that would work. I think what I've been hearing a lot of feedback uh from folks and there we always have a commitment to education and public education in the community and I think oftentimes we feel like as a local as a town they're not our schools but they're our kids and so I think we need to as a council sort of look at that lens again as to what can we do from a legislative perspective what can we do within the community to support our public schools here in Gardner. Um, so I think there's a lot of interest in in getting galvanizing the town and the council and local communities into strengthening our schools in Garner and the opportunities for our students once they graduate from our schools. So, uh, we can work on that, okay,

a little further, but yeah, we definitely want to have something in hand for our folks. Thank you. I think the timing of that would be important for us to be able to have that to our delegation as early as possible. Thank you. All right. Thank you, uh, council members. I'll turn it over to uh Sam to come up and give us some updates on his perspectives um on our legislative uh efforts.

Good evening everybody. Um so I wanted to first give you some context uh about the uh nonprofit loophole. And I I shared an article in my journal with uh you all in March that came out earlier uh in March. Let me just read a little bit of this. So uh this came out of a a state law that basically creates an a rent a nonprofit structure. Um, for-profit apartment complex owners can hand over fractions of ownerships to nonprofits to qualify for generous tax exemptions. Uh, and exemptions in Wake County have nearly doubled from 66 in 2020 to 136 in 2025. Uh the the exemptions for low and moderate income housing account for a projected 776 million reduction in taxable property value, the equivalent of $4 million in revenue for the county. So this this law was adopted in 2010 to help increase the supply of low and moderate income housing by giving the owners a break on property taxes. Uh the loophole was created in 2013 when the court of appeals ruled that Cane Creek Village, a lowincome project in Mitchell County up in the mountains, one of the hundred that that I've been to, uh a low-income housing project in Mitchell County owned by a for-profit limited liability company but controlled by a nonprofit was entitled to a property tax exemption.

Northwestern Housing Enterprises, the nonprofit in that case, owned only 0.1% of Blue Ridge Housing, which held the title to the property. A for-profit partnership, North Carolina Equity Fund Limited Partnership, owned 99.9% of Blue Ridge Housing. Um although the loophole has existed since 2013, uh apartment owners have began taking advantage of it in greater number starting in 2023 after several law firms and real estate brokers have begun marketing it to apartment owners. That gives you some context about the loophole. Um this is uh one of the things um uh manager Miller and I will go talk with uh Representative Par about in April. She said she was interested in in this and was concerned about it and would would talk to us about it along with the uh issues regarding the property tax committee. As you may know, Representative Par, who represents one or two precincts in the town of Garner in the southern part of Garner, is one of the three co-chairs of the property tax reduction committee. So, and let me give you some other context about revenues uh in general. can get to my my cards here. So, you may know that in 2015 200 uh or 16 uh the tax rate in North Carolina was a flat 5.75%.

This is personal income taxes. In 2017 and 2018 it was 5 a.5%. 2019 to 21 it was five it came down to 5.25%. As you know this has been the legislator's policy to bring it way it's come way down over the past 10 years. And as you can imagine how it has flattened out the budget. 2022 the rate is 5%. 2023 the rate was 4.75%. 2024 again personal income tax rate is 4 and a.5%. This year 2025 is 4.25%. Next year it is scheduled to be 4%. And there are a couple of other steps down. So the consensus forecast came out last week done by the office of state management and budget and the fiscal research division. And one of the things that uh controls that tax rate is there is a in the law there is a trigger that if uh the the uh revenue comes in above 33 roughly $ 33 billion in 202526 the tax rate is going to come down further. in 2027. Again, there's another trigger set in that law that would be 30 roughly 34 billion for 2026 2027.

If revenue comes in above that trigger, the rate will come down personal income tax rate again 2028 to 3%. So that is what has happened to revenue in the state of North Carolina over the past 10 years. It's come steadily, steadily, steadily down. And as you know, this year we don't have a still don't have a budget. That may change in the short session. It may not. And meantime, uh, teacher raises, state employee raises or or or you know, nothing's being done about that. But that is the context. a substantial decrease. Um so um so in uh the consensus revenue forecast um it's projected to go up a little bit um this year after not budgeting anything new. Um, so it will it will come in at about 35 billion and uh the general assembly will have maybe $350 million to do something extra with this year. Starting next year because of those tax rate decreases the revenue forecast is going to decline. It's not because of the economy, but because of this tax rate decline. We've come all the way down from 6%. In 2028, we could very well be at 3%. And uh and now to the property tax

reduction committee. Um they've had about four meetings monthly since December. Uh and as you can imagine uh there are varying viewpoints. There is the viewpoint that you know we need to do what we can to protect property tax revenue because it supports fire and police salaries, clean water, all those things. The the other opinions are um folks on the committee are of course concerned about the widow or the elderly person who can't afford to pay their property taxes when they get to a certain age and don't have as much income. And that's a concern. And as you and as you may know, there are two exclusions built into the law now. uh one for the elderly uh or disabled. Uh elderly being defined as 65. I'm gonna qualify for that this year. And um and but there's a link an income limitation. If you make less than about $35,000, you can qualify for that exclusion, but it is a bare minimum uh relief. So what it means is you get to exclude maybe about $100,000 from your property tax bill. That exclusion is also available to a second category uh disabled veterans who are uh permanently or totally disabled uh and and they also get that bare minimum exclusion. So, so the constitutional amendment uh is that is the goal to uh put that on the

ballot during this short session, come up with a legislation to do that. But as you as you could imagine and as um Miss Jones could probably tell you, the general assembly can go ahead and do whatever they want to do with property taxes without a constitutional amendment. you know, if they can revoke our charter, they can set the property tax rate. And and as you can imagine, um throughout North Carolina, uh there are varying different situations in every county. I've been all the way to Graham County, the most uh western most uh poor county in North Carolina in the mountains, who has virtually no tax base. And then there's Raleigh and Charlotte. So, and as you can imagine, the rural counties have to set their tax rate a little higher. Then we may have to to try to come up with some revenue to support their limited budget. And as you can imagine, their budget is very limited. I've been in 100 courouses. Some of them are very nice and and some of them are I think indicative of the the lack of wealth in the county. Same with their schools. Um so um so so that again um I I've spoken with the folks at the league, the League of Municipalities, and they encouraged us and I've of course shared this with Miss Miller um that since Aaron is represents part of Garner and she's one of the co-chairs of this committee, we would they would love for us to spend a lot of time with her explaining our position and also

talking to her about our budget process, our challenges, our opportunities and our pressures, you know, so that she knows going in uh our our viewpoint. So, I I will continue to follow that work of that committee and the legislature will come back on April 21st and we'll see if they do anything else other than the constitutional amendment. Um, the other thing I wanted to tell you about just was about the county commissioners. uh when you saw those two new folks on your ballot, uh you may have seen um in March, uh the county commissioners now uh are going to have two more at large seats. So, they're going to have two more folks sitting at the table. Would you have enjoyed that, Mr. Matthews?

Oh, no.

Two more people talking. So that is why that is what those two seats uh you may have seen I think in the Democratic primary a lot of people running for those two seats. Uh so two new atlarge seats bringing the total from seven to nine. There are also um four other um seats on the ballot this year uh including our district two. Um if y'all have met Miss Jackson, she is our fairly new county commissioner. Uh but um district 1, two, three, and seven are also on the ballot. and and uh and so what has changed uh is used to the county commissioners were running countywide. Now they've changed it so that they're like the schoolboard members and they're running district by district. District are the roughly the same, but we have the two new uh folks sitting at the county commissioners table. See if they can lengthen those meetings a little bit.

Thank you, Mr. Bridges. Uh, council members have any questions for Mr. Bridges? As it Thank you for the briefing. Appreciate that. As it relates to the, uh, the Blue Ridge loophole? Yes. Uh, is there a strategy that the council can put into place that could possibly help with strengthening the argument as to why this loophole needs to be closed? Any support from the council? Yes. I'm asking a question. Well, tell me tell me the question again. I'm not the question. Okay. The question is reference to the the Blue Ridge loophole that that's that's going to come up in the short session as well. Any any type of strategy that the council can can assist with in helping to try to close that loophole.

Sure. Absolutely. And u John can answer that too. So I know y'all have been having discussions with the property owners and developers about this already, right? You want to go ahead and answer

your Mr. Vance. Um, I think um the manager's office, we're already working um on some strategies to do that. I think the work that the the um the House committee is doing is the best place for us to focus those efforts and we'll continue to do that. I think this has um there there's a lot of uh attention on this countywide. The impacts all over Wake County are significant. Um, we have some properties, uh, in addition to ones that have been discussed tonight, but there's other properties that are applying to use this strategy that are already existing properties. Um, far fewer in Garner than in other parts of the county, but nonetheless, it will be very impactful to all of Wake County. So, I think u the Miss Miss Miller is working on a committee with the league. She'll continue to do that. We'll continue to communicate with our representatives, but that will be our focus going into the session that's coming back. Does that answer your question, Mr.

That answer my question. Thank you, Mr. Stallings. Um, yes. So, in terms of the the constitution, and this is for Mr. Br. In terms of the constitutional amendment, I know you mentioned that they could take action without having a constitutional amendment. Are we hearing any timelines in regards to the constitutional amendment during short session or them taking action otherwise? Yeah, I think what you're asking is uh the legis legislature wants to try to get that on the ballot this fall and uh so it'll be on your November ballot. So I guess my question was is is there any are you hearing because I you said they've been meeting since December. I know they have a meeting coming up on April 15th. Have you do you know a timeline in terms of the piece of legislation

timeline for having it heard in the general assembly? Yes. Well, the general the short session starts in April. uh uh middle of April and it goes as long as it goes could end the end of June usually goes through August. So but uh as I said that will be top of mind for all of us singing comments

in regards to that Mr. Bridges uh they they have they'll have a end time end date where they'll have to get that so it can be put on the ballot. So and if you can find out when that was or if Mr. Hodgees know whatever it may be candidates can file through July in July but I mean is that the end date on the November ballot that's just will they move fast enough right we'll work on that and uh as well as the property tax committee issues too. Okay thank you Mr. Matthews, thanks for the report and uh quite informative and we got our work cut out, but at least we got a unified effort here. Sounds like between all the municipalities in Wake County and probably statewide also.

All right, so y'all hanging in?

Um, Mayor Proam and members of council, if I could just add um a little bit more detail. Um, as you're aware, we've already reached out to the Garner delegation with some initial impacts of what this looks like in terms of the town's budget. Um I'm serving on a committee of with other managers across the state working with the league to pull together our information so that it's very clear the impacts on local government. And so we're working through that now. Um you know my understanding is that they're expecting this legislation to move pretty quickly. So the next meeting in April, I think they're looking to be able to move it forward for consideration in the short session, which would take it through, you know, late to midspring and work on getting it on the ballot for this November. So they're they're on a pretty quick timeline to move forward in particular with the constitutional amendment side of it. So um the the work that we're doing on behalf um of the town and sharing information and data, working with the league, working with Mr. bridges is going to be very important over the next few months.

Thank you. And I'd just say that, you know, investing in dirt is not investing in our community. And it's really inspiring to see this whole this all hands approach from residents and council and staff um around this issue and other municipalities because our residents when they move here expect a certain level of service delivery. They want to feel safe. They want nice parks. They want services and we have staff that want to provide those services. Um, and fundamentally we need to understand that part of that investment is you want to be a part of building this community up, not just extracting out of it what you will. So, it's good to see the collaboration and cooperation across so many uh levels of government and hopefully our elected officials will heed and pay attention to these concerns particularly as we transition into our budget discussion. uh there are pay there are costs associated with growth and our existing tax base is the foundation for that. When you start chipping away at what we already have, it makes it very difficult for us to maintain the quality of life that we expect and want to provide as elected officials and staff want to uh effectuate in their daily work. So, thank you all so much for the work y'all are doing and bringing people together. Um, thanks for leadership and being involved with the general assembly's committees and continue to engage them and and the rest of our municipal partners on this. It it's going to make a big difference, but only if we come together and and let them know uh this affects everyone. So, thank you all so much for this time and commitment. Our next item of business is an update for the fiscal year 27 budget development and our budget director Sarah Warren will lead us through that conversation.

So, Mayor Prom, before Miss Warren starts the presentation, just wanted to give a little context um and background for the for the presentation you're going to hear this evening. uh during your retreat in February, we started talking about the FY27 budget and some of the opportunities and challenges with that uh with the information that we knew at the time. And so, one of the things we agreed to as part of our budget process this spring was to develop an opportunity to check in again with council before the recommended budget comes out in May to update council any new information that we would have that would shape uh the recommended budget coming forward. It also provides an opportunity for council to provide any comments and feedback directionally on expectations for the recommended uh budget which will be presented to you in early May. So, tonight is the um uh is provides that opportunity for that check-in that we agreed to to share uh information of things that have been updated or now we have firmer numbers on, but also to share with you some new things that we've learned that we are still working and working through and reviewing in terms of putting the pieces of the recommended budget. So, with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Warren and she's going to kick us off.

So, good evening, Mayor Prom and members of council. Um, as Miss Miller indicated, this is just a check-in on where we are in the budget process. Um, update you on some information and developments that we've we've gotten thus far. We'll talk a little bit about what we're seeing um on the economy side and how that may or may not impact the 27 budget. You just heard some legislative updates, so we'll briefly discuss that. Um and then we'll get into uh what what we're seeing with the current or the uh FY27 working budget and we'll have opportunity for questions and comments and discussion. Um these uh next few slides are the slides that we we typically share with you. Nothing has has changed on this one from um your February uh work uh retreat. Um but it is important to note the big uh jump from our revaluation in FY25 that captured the growth that we were seeing in Garner. Um but prior to that we we have steady growth. Um and then we've had steady growth over the last few years as far as our assessed value. Um while our tax rate has remained somewhat steady. Again, looking at our sales tax year-over-year, this is also has not changed since you saw it in February. Um, sales tax continues to be uh one of our more volatile revenue sources is it's it really is market and consumerdriven. We've been fortunate in and garner and that we continue to see increases related to that. Um, but we anticipate some level of slowing. Uh we also talked to you about some of the changes uh related to sales tax and how we are receiving money from the per capita um that resets every August and it did reset this past year and we will

we will start to see a decline um just related to that and then here are historical revenue uh trends over year-over-year. Um, we have made some budget amendments since your February retreat. So, you will see a little change on that FY26 amended. But it's important to note here the largest revenue source um more than 50% of the total revenues are our property taxes. So, we are continuing to monitor um everything that's happening in the economy and how that will impact the budget. Um, as many of you are aware there, uh, we're seeing gas prices um, increase. There is a sense that that could push other indicators higher, um, and consumers will start feeling that um, in other areas of their uh, day-to-day living. Um, we have here uh some gas prices, although I think for many of us just within the last couple of days, we may be seeing some difference, some even higher prices at the pump. Um, we do have some indicators of what our wholesale costs are for the town and that may that may impact future fuel prices that would impact our budget. And then we also are are starting to see uh the real estate market is softening a little bit. So here we are looking at um an average home price has decreased a little bit over the past year. So we are seeing some of these things that will be but will impact our growth. Um you just heard from uh Mr. Hodgees and Mr. Bridger. Um the we are continuing to monitor what's happening at the state level with the

property tax reforms. Um the general assembly has assembled the tax committee um to look at property tax reduction reform. The the items here that could really continue to impact the 27 budget and any future budget would be the p proposed legislation on the modifications to low and moderate income housing property tax exemptions as well as the constitutional amendment. Um, so we are really, um, you all heard all the work that's being done on those, but any changes there could really, uh, impact what what we're able to do with our revenues in the future. Let's move into where we are with our working budget. Um, our current working budget revenue is $90.6 million. We do anticipate an update from the county uh within the next couple of weeks. Um that is pretty standard. We usually get an update on any um after any appeals have been settled as well as some of the tax exempt filings. There should be some settlements there. So we'll have we'll have a a better picture from the county on what property taxes will look like for FY27. We've also made a few changes uh in our base budget. Um the first, this is not a a change, but we did want to call it to your attention. Um every year the state uh treasurer's office releases the employer contribution for uh retirement. Those costs continue to go up. Um it's usually about a percentage or so every year for both the elders and LEO retirement systems. So, we put the the rates for FY27 here as well as what that what that cost looks

like. Um, and I'll show you in a slide just the increases um every year, but the the employer retirement contribution, we get that information in the fall and we do build it into our base budget. So, that amount is included in the 90.6 million. We've also received some updates on our town insurance and workers compensation. Um and so that total is about 327,000 that would cover the town and fire uh for both those categories. We presented in February us estimates on the health benefit increases. We've now locked those in within CHIP. Uh so the total increase there is about $222,000. And lastly, we do want to talk to you a little bit about uh fire apparatus. Now that the town, now that the fire department is part of the town, the town is now taking over the purchase and replacement of fire apparatus. And if anybody knows, those are very expensive pieces of equipment. Um they will not impact the FY27 budget, but there will be an impact to FY28. And that's also a new item that you'll see as part of the budget. Um, myself, Mr. David Beck, and our fire chief, Barrett Penny, have been working together um to get these numbers settled. So, I think we've gotten to a good place um to be able to present some information to you today. Uh so, here are those contribution rates. You can see that in just a 7-year period, it's gone up five and 7% um respectively to the law the local government retirement system and the law enforcement retirement system. Um we anticipate continued increases year-over-year related to that contribution.

So looking at programming fire apparatus FY27 uh we will be purchasing a pumper and heavy rescue truck. The total for both those vehicles is approximately $3.4 million. We will we are committing to debt financing to purchase those two vehicles that will occur in FY27. Um but we will not begin paying off the debt until the subsequent fiscal year and that we expect that debt service um to be about $441,000 annually. Um you received an item in December to look at uh entering into a municipal agreement with the county for apparatus replacement. That annual contribution from the county towards the apparatus replacement is 187. So, that will be the county's contribution. They will also uh issue a one-time payment of approximately $411,000 for the debt that we paid off in FY26. And that was action you took in February to pay off some existing debt. So, the the we'll be paying $441,000 annually and of that amount, the county will pay 187. So the town will be um will have to pay the difference there. Um because this is a new endeavor for the town, we've not done this before. We will be utilizing Davenport to help us assist with that management um and that debt financing.

A question and I have this on my list after doing a budget review. Is it possible for us to get a separate breakdown for the fire department budget in salaries, equipment, all that and broken out from the rest of the budget? I think it was kind of a cons concern or observation of mine on the merger to fully realize the implications on the budget. Is it possible for us to get that broken out into its own budget and five-year projection and capital costs? because it sounds like some of these expenses are falling into a capital category outside of firehouses and that type of expansion.

Yeah. So we we can look at providing that level of information for you. I think the in the sooner rather than later would be better I think just given with the breadth of expenses that we have in this particular budget. Anyone else have comments on the fire at this time?

Thank you. I want to remind you that when we presented um the information at the retreat, we had we had put uh everything that was requested for funding in four categories. One was the obligations. So these are the things that we have to fund um due to existing commitments. We had a classification of expectations where we're strongly recommending it because of some commitments that have been made. The demonstrated needs and service enhancements really represent what departments have requested and the demonstrated needs are what has been identified by departments that continue to meet the service level standards whereas service enhancements are looking at investments to expand the scope or increase the effectiveness of that service delivery. So those are the four uh categories we've grouped things in. And this was the chart that we presented in uh February with one exception. We've now added the town insurance and workers compensation to this line item. Um we are still working through the pay and class update. Um and that final amount should be available next month.

Have a question on this section. just briefly. So, the health insurance increase would be a recurring expense, correct? Additional pay period. That's a one-time That is a onetime expense. Onetime expense. The paying class would be recurring when that comes in. And then what did you say the timeline was for the paying classes study information? So, I think we will be finalizing that uh within the month of April. And I'll have to defer to Miss Miller on when that will come to council for review. So, um the the report's being finalized now. We'll have a sense of the number to plug in for the budget in April. And I anticipate the report being available in early May.

Anyone have any questions on this particular slide?

So, we we do have a little bit of information on the classification and compensation study. Um, as you know, Baker Tilly was hired to complete this study. Um, we, the last time we did this was part of the FY24 budget. We committed to doing an update every 3 years. Um, we are coming to an end of the project. We've completed the data collection, position review, and the market assessment, and are is we are currently working on the pay plan development that would be included as part of the FY27 budget. So, as Miss Miller indicated, we are hoping to finish that project up in April with uh a report ready in May.

Another quick question on the health insurance increase. So, the increase is actually the an increase above what our projection was. It's not an total increase. Is that correct? This this 222. So that is uh we we brought to you in April, I mean I'm sorry, February a projected rate increase that the town would absorb. This is that final amount. It would be recurring

and and it it's less we when we originally put the base budget together, we were anticipating a higher rate. So when we put numbers together, so this this actually the the rate that the 5.2% increase is a reduction and we were able to plug that in as a more final number for FY27. I guess I'm trying to figure out if did we already have a projected increase in our five-year plan like why would we

uh we we did not we um on our salary our salary and benefit projections we uh typically include a general increase that would cover any increases seen with salaries and benefits in the five-year projection. As we were building the base budget, uh we did not include an increase, but we were waiting for final numbers that occur that have now occurred to plug those in as part of the the budget.

So, in our five-year projecting, do we do annual incremental increases for this line item? We we typically do not do uh incremental increases for specific line items uh related to um health insurance. We we really look at a general increase for all of our salary and benefit lines as a goal. Okay. Anyone have any questions?

Thank you. Any questions on the classification and compensation study? Okay. Um so the second category is our expectations. Um so these are some items that we also presented. Um we are still looking at a merit adjustment which would be up to 4% for employees. That cost is about 938,000. We mentioned at the retreat Maria talked about the Jurgen Homestead project. uh to meet some state standards uh for mothballing that that building at a million. We also have some additional operating impacts related to the park opening of 416,000. Our fire equipment and upgrades uh this is um I'll say the Jurgen Homestead project would be a one-time cost. Uh fire equipment and upgrades. Uh that's that would be county cost shared. That 344,000 is the town's portion. It would also be a one-time cost. The Peacock Dam Remediation Project, again, a one-time cost. And the White Deer Splash Pad, these are ongoing operating impacts.

Yes. And when I was looking at the numbers before that, the first line item was merit and market adjustments and was 1.4 four million. This is just saying merit adjustment up to four and 938 where the take that one.

Yeah. So, um I I'll can answer that one. So, um if you recall um Mayor Pro Tim Dinger few years ago with our our most recent paying class study, we adopted a sort of a new compensation philosophy for staff which looked at uh committing ourselves to more regular paying class studies and implementing those studies as funding was available. the results as well as um in in between the study years um looking at providing not only merit uh increases for employees based on performance but an annual market adjustment. So pay and class studies in and of themselves are designed to review market um market needs and costs for employees and make recommendations for those adjustments as needed. So in years where we're having a pay-in-class study completed, the the uh 3% market adjustment that we have been doing the last two years was not needed because the paying class results and recommendations that we'll be looking to implement will cover what we need to do to make sure we're staying competitive in the market.

Okay, Mr. Singleton to follow up on that paying class update is projected on on the previous slide was one and a half million and this has dropped to half a million. So that half a million is included in planning, but what you're saying is the paying paying class update that half a million has gone up to that line. Yes. Yes. So, but we were still looking at as potentially including that has um been reduced in terms of what we need for FY27, but the paying class update line is still the same. It's still the same. We've still kept that in as a placeholder until we get the final results. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay.

Yeah. Similar questions on these. So the market the merit adjustments would be they're not technically recurring because we have to vote on them every year but they kind of get built in Jurgen Homesteads one time additional operating impacts for Jurgen. Are those recurring? Those are impacts and the mult the see I've got a multi-year approved positions on my list of three FTEEs at 383,000 and what we had produced before where did those positions

we've actually moved those to demonstrated needs so looking re re-evaluating um what we identified as an expectation and a demonstrated need um we always assume that some multi-year positions uh we do those if the revenues are available. Um given our current picture, we wanted to drop those to the demonstrated needs for evaluation under that category. Okay. And the fire equipment is the same. And that the fire equipment and upgrades that's a one time. Yes.

And the peacock DM is one time. and the splash pad operating that's recurring as well. Okay, thank you.

Uh and our next step we uh budget requests were submitted on January 19th. Um staff began reviewing what was submitted and then we held the budget uh department budget meetings on March 17th through the 19th. Um based upon those meetings, we've uh add categorized our demonstrated needs um with 18 positions and a total of $2.4 million. And our service enhancements are six positions at a total of $2.1 million. So we're still working through some of these to determine if revenues are available, what would what could and would be funded under these categories.

Yes. question on that slide on our our agenda package the 18 FTEEs are 2.1 million tonight it's 2.4 and the service enhancement has gone from four to six

yeah so we've we've moved we've re because of the budget meetings information came out during those meetings so we've made some adjustments to what has been requested thank you 22 an hour. So we started with 22 new positions under budget and management service and then service enhancements. Now we're at 24.

So the three that moved from the multi-year where are those three of those new four? So, three of those are in the 18. I'd have to go back um and verify what was how we kind of recalibrated everything. Um but everything that was presented was preliminary. Now that we've had budget meetings, these are kind of in the next step of being reviewed. So, this this is where we're at today. So, where we're at with the demonstrated need positions, you can produce for us that list of positions by department and the positions and salaries and and the service enhancements as well. Okay. Yes, I can do that. Okay, we can do that. Thank you.

Any other questions from council members? And and if I could just add Mayor Protend Dinger, um part part of the work tonight is to get some feedback and direction from council. So happy to always provide information to council, but there's still a lot of work that we're doing uh as a staff level to put together a recommended budget, there's still some outstanding important information that we need in order to um provide a recommendation to council. So I just want to make sure that as we're as we're sharing information, as we're refining details, as um we're providing information that we understand that it's still very much a work in progress. And so I want to make sure that that's in alignment with council's expectations.

I think for me what what's helpful is to break these into recurring and one-time expenses so they don't look like just blanket budget increases so that we can also try to delineate where we want to pull the revenue from to meet those needs and aren't just stacking the budget to be bigger next year. So I think that would be helpful. I think my rough numbers are we're at one time of about 3 million and recurring touching around 8 million. Yep. So all of the um service enhancements and demonstrated needs those are all recurring dollars.

Yeah. And but then we've got all the peacock dam and all those. So between those breaking all those out is going to be helpful because otherwise, you know, we just need to see do we need to pay stuff with onetime money or do we need to build out the budget revenue model so that we can meet those recurring needs. Um I think I had a another question um on our debt service. So when we shifted from the revenue savings plan, we went to the eight and a half% 8 and a half cents. Um and I guess on feedback from the town manager and from you and maybe Mr. Beck on

it doesn't seem like that flat 8 and a half is growing in proportion with the budget to meet some of our capital needs. So, are we looking at at maybe it doing more than 8 1/2 cents or doing a percentage of the budget because that it increases when we get a reval, but it's not really meeting growing in tandem with the operating costs. I think that's Go ahead.

So, the the 8.5 cents grows with the value of the penny. So, every time the value goes up. Um the current plan is set up to the model currently that Davenport put together was that was modeling existing debt service um on capital projects. Um it did not include anything related to fire apparatus and it does not include necessarily anything new. Um so any new capital is not modeled in that 8 and 1 half cents. So we would I think we would have to pull Davenport in to do some modeling for us on that.

Yeah. Because I think it you know our our budget's getting bigger. Operating side of our budget's getting bigger, but our capital needs are increasing in tandem, but the resources to pay for those capital improvements and that debt service doesn't seem to be keeping up with what our capital needs are. So, I'm not I'm kind of putting out there, do we need to look at doing a larger percentage of our budget going to debt service to build out our our debt capacity for other programs and and fire trucks and other things that may need because I know with the revenue savings plan, it was optional to use that money for one-time capital improvements. We never utilized it that way. We use it just for debt service, but to have that capital fund there and available for really oneoff because I'd be interesting in in doing the modeling for the the pumper truck or whatever, but at the end of the day, you end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more for it by financing it than just buying it. And I I don't know anything about financing fire trucks, but there are certain things that may be better oneoff expenditures. And so we need to also have that resource other than fund balance. that's dedicated to those um those types of purchases. So, I think that maybe a thing for discussion at our budget meeting um is how are we going to increase with the limited budget increase our our debt service capacity for all of our capital projects over the next decade. and

and we will um council will be hearing more information about the CIP at your April work session and then we'll be talking about it again at your May budget work session as well. So, um, we've made a note of that in terms of, um, looking at some modeling to see what that looks like because as Miss Warren says, the the 8 and a half cent is modeled towards current program projects, but how do we with the growth we're seeing in the needs? How do we keep that capital funding um, up with the what we need to do in order to to maintain vehicles, properties, those kinds of things? Okay, a question. Yeah,

that's weren't on uh our agenda here. The 18 FTS are 2.4 where in here they were 2.1. Just curious where did $300,000 why did it increase $300,000 the I'm sorry the the on the FTES here 18 are 2.4 million but in our agenda package they're 2.1. I'm just curious how to increase $300,000. Is that from Are you looking at the slide from the February retreat?

I'm assuming that's what it is. Um, so yeah, from the February tweet, so then the the number shifted a little bit because we've done some additional work. Um, so that's why uh this this presentation you just got this morning. It was not included in the agenda packet. I think the one in the agenda packet was from February. So there is some shift as we continue to uh work through all of the requests, have budget discussions with the departments. Okay. So, so the we added two FTEEs, but the total number has increased from 3.9 to 4.5 million. So, it's increased $600,000. That's just that's a lot for adding two more employees. So, anyway, we'll discuss it further later.

Um, from the department meetings, we do want to give kind of an update on what we heard and what we're seeing from the request. There is a lot of um desire to improve operational efficiencies. Um, this looks a variety of different ways, including streamlining our workflows, reducing some administrative tasks, and using better tools um, to do the work that we do. We've also seen some requests that continue to utilize data for decision-m and increasing effectiveness. A desire to align um, our staffing and resources that help us keep up with the service demands that we're seeing, as well as address any gaps that we see. As always, we're trying to build our capacity um through the through additional resources um looking at uh you know just from an internal perspective, how do we meet the needs of the organization so the organization can continue to meet the needs of the community. And then another item that you saw at the retreat was the storm water utility. And so we do have some expansions there related to that project. FY26 um included two priorities that really yank y anchored our budget development and that included opening of Jurgen Park and our fire merger. Um but we find ourselves in a really interesting situation for FY27. Um we've seen some significant changes in our national economy that really is driving some consumer decisions. Um, as we mentioned earlier, we could really see some impacts to sales tax. Um, and we know that the cost of gas really is a big indicator of how consumers feel about the market. And then as you heard earlier as well, the uncertainty with property tax exemptions and reforms. Um, because property tax is such a large

portion of our revenue base. Um, any changes there could significantly impact our upcoming budget. And we are hearing from our neighbors that they are they're looking at cutting budgets. Um and so they're they're having to reduce service levels. And so we are looking at how do we maintain our existing service levels. Which neuros are you speaking of? Is doing some significant budget cuts. Um Jody, are you aware of a couple others? I believe some of our other communities. Um Apex might be another one. And so there's several that are looking at having to cut their base budget. Yeah.

Have a a question and maybe it can be produced outside of this meeting. We approved a lot of positions in last year's budget. I know Mr. Singleton has done some work on this, but can we get a breakdown of what the hiring and filling of those positions are and what sort of this lap if there's lap salary, how do we um apply that in a constructive way? Um that'd be good conversation for our budget meeting to look at those numbers. Um yeah. Anyone else have any questions at this point? All right.

Okay. Um so with the quagmire we find ourselves in we're we're looking at five five items that we want to um consider as we continue the budget development is one is limiting property tax as a solution for balancing the budget. We've talked about using one-time uh funding sources where appropriate and so we've already started to identify those as well as continuing to maintain our service um levels in FY26 and thus the budget levels. We also need to make sure that we address our required expenses such as the additional pay period, our insurance increases, retirement increases as well. We've also got a number of um ongoing commitments that we need to to make sure that we fulfill including uh the projects at the Jurgen property uh the park and then the homestead uh the operating impacts for White Deer as well as the remediation at the Peacock property dam. And as always, we leverage our partner resources, so our fire cost share uh equipment. um that would uh we would we would be getting some funding from the county to cover that. But then we also want to maintain our compensation strategy and that looks at our pay and class which we have just described as a market focused um project as well as continuing to fund our merits for employees.

I have a question for number one. Um can you explain to me a little bit limiting property tax increase as a solution? Uh so essentially we would we are looking to not propose a tax increase as part of the FY27 budget. I guess I'm asking more of the as a solution part. Um I know costs are increasing and we have outstanding projects. Um have we looked at what we would need to cover um and what it would take to cover some of those items as prices are increasing?

So that that's part of what we're we're working on now. So the whole um as we move through this process, part of the work is looking at where we have levers um to continue to cover our services and our costs and what those options look like. So we're still identifying what those could be. I think um one of another thing that would be helpful in evaluating this year's budget is looking at next year's budget in fairly decent detail to see what what are we going to incur this year as an expense and what are we going to wait until next year. I know we sort of do that as part of our fiveyear, but I've I'm always sort of I don't know if this year's budget's good if I don't have an idea what next year's budget is. Um because I think there and that goes, you know, all the way through the five-year where you're doing all these capital improvements and we kick some of those cans down the road, but we've got interest in transportation expansion in the town and these things cost money and so we have to have sort of an idea of what are these looming things that we don't want to kick down to next year. What do we want to absorb this year? So I think looking at the this year budget we got to pass, but we also need to have really good eyesight on what next year's budget is. I think and part of that is we also need to look more granularly line item by line item on some of these expenses to say what if gas goes up a bunch this year. What if property taxes uh you know, we're bringing a lot of homes online that continue to get built, but if they're coming in and getting appraised at a lower level than our expectation level, we got $270,000 town homes that aren't helping us, and we're not bringing on $600,000 homes that are actually going to add net revenue to our bottom line. That's the kind of variability we want to do and scenarios we want to be able to play out. Um, so I think we are entering sort of a flattening revenue period regardless of how much we grow. And that is

unfortunate. Um, but sort of looking at those two years that is is helpful because I think we can suck it up this year and do what we need to do or if we want to wait to do something next year. But we want to be very explicit about those decisions. Sure. Um, and know what they are. So we're coming into the next year with a really good handle on what challenges we face and how we're going to address them. We can absolutely do that. Anyone else have any comments on All right.

All right. So, with all that being said, um we're starting our working budget at 90.6 million. So, there's a slight deficit there. Um if we were to fund our obligations, the things that we have to do at approximately 3.6, we're looking at a need of $3.6 million. If we wanted to add to that any of the expectations, the things that we would commit to. Now, some of this does require does in some things in both these categories are onetime costs. Um, that would be $6.5 million. Getting into the demonstrated needs, that's 18 FTEES and an additional 2.4. So, that deficit there is 8.9. And finally, uh, any service enhancements totaling $2 million, we're looking at, uh, a need of $11 million.

Questions? Okay, just a question. So, the obligations are we went through those as additional expenses, right? The Is that what those were? Those were um the obligations are the additional pay period, the health insurance, um those those items. Um the paying class are the obligations and the expectations. What bucket is that coming from? The expectations those are that would be the merit, the Jurgen Homestead, the operating impacts. Um that was the second table. The expectations right here.

Okay. Okay, you can go back and then the demonstrated. Okay.

Okay. Um, so we'll end with we do have the budget portal open. Um, we did open it a little bit earlier this year to allow more time for public input. It did go out to our subscribers and almost 300 hundred of them have opened it. Uh and the page itself has received about 147 page views. Um you did get an updated um list. We did have one comment come in yesterday. Um we will continue to uh redistribute it through the newsletter and social media post to continue to encourage uh the public to submit their comments um and input. and we will keep that open um until uh the end of May as we round out the budget process.

I have a question. I see the budget court of comments have grew from one to four. Um my question is what is the process when a member of the public submits a question um feedback through the budget portal? Do they receive a response? Um I just want to know what that process is like for my edification for the public's edification. So historically if there has been um a question we do provide an opportunity to to um give them feedback um we usually do that um as needed or sometimes they reach out directly to you but we we do try and answer questions as as they become available.

Okay. Yeah. Can we get this updated information sent to us, the updated presentation? Yes, we will we will provide that to you electronically.

And just a reminder of where we are today, we're doing our budget check-in. Um we will have a CIP work session in April. We will also we are also in the midst of working on um developing the budget book which will be delivered to you at the end of the month in preparation of the manager's recommended budget presentation on May 5th. The work session on the budget is scheduled for May 15th and we will hold a second public hearing May 19th with June is uh our target adoption. And with that, if there's any other discussion,

any council members have any comments, questions? Thank you, Miss Warren, so much for all the hard work. We really appreciate it. Uh, next on the agenda is our code revision project update. I will turn it over to our town attorney, Terry Jones.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Prom uh the code revision project's been an ongoing project of the legal uh services department to um go through various ordinances in your um town code of ordinances. So, I'm um pleased to have presenting today our legal intern Ammani Henderson, who has worked very diligently with the police department in looking at um proposed amendments to the animal control ordinance, which is chapter three of the town code of ordinances. Some of these um amendments are being prompted by a proposed interlocal agreement with Wake County, which has to do with the operation of um the animal center being the place where stray animals and other animals that have to be impounded are are being housed or sheltered.

For the benefit of the public, could you overview just very briefly our legal intern program?

Absolutely. So, I'm um been pleased with council support of having a legal intern program since I believe I started this in 2022. U it started with a paid summer intern. It has expanded to a part-time intern in the fall and spring semesters. Uh that is al also our paid positions. Um we've been fortunate to have interns from uh Campbell uh which is where um Miss Henderson is a thirdyear student will be graduating uh and taking the bar this summer. Uh we've also had interns from um Central and um University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

At least one has been from Garner. Is that true? Um, a couple have either lived in Garner or at some point um currently lived in Garner or while they were attending law school. Thank you.

So, with that, I will turn it over to u Miss Henderson. Good evening, council. Again, my name is Imani Henderson and I'm the spring legal intern. I'm joined by Captain Castalon. Um, together we're here to present chapter 3 animal amendments. Animal control is an important government function. Uh Wake County operates uh the Wake County Animal Center for the purpose of reducing general animal control problems in the county. Garner has an animal control program with a similar purpose in mind and Wake County and the town of Garner entered into an interlocal agreement uh which allows the town of Garner to utilize the Wake County Animal Center to help Garner um address animal control problems within the town limits. uh town staff recom um asked that the legal department um working with the police department to um recommend revisions to address the animal control program to strengthen the town's relationship with Wake County. And so the goal of the amendments is to align the town of Garner's animal ordinance with Wake County's animal ordinance. And as long as it's aligned um this will ensure that the interlocal agreement can be carried out smoothly. And so this is reference to where you'll find all the amendment the sections where you'll find all the amendments. And it's in order but I did reserve a section 317 and section uh 343 for the end where we'll go deeper into what a dangerous animal hearing uh should look like. Good evening, uh, council, management,

uh, citizens of Garner. Like Ammani said, my name is Dave Castle. I'm a captain with the police department. So, from a public safety viewpoint, just some key considerations as we go through this presentation. Um, you'll see what you'll see across all of this is it's about being fair, consistent, and making professional decisions during problem solving. So these updates will help clarify make some clarifications in our ordinance so that they align with state law and also with the best practices within our region within Wake County. So that will ensure that our enforcement is clear, consistent, and is legally sound when we make those decisions. Public safety is a focus here. So clear definitions and guidelines, as you'll see, will allow our officers to make those professional decisions when they are interacting with our citizens related to animal related concerns, helping us pro protect both our residents and also the animals to further that with professional and consistent enforcement. This this these changes allow for a stronger guidance which re reduces sub subjectivity and ensures that in similar situations we're handling it the same way. So that allows for that fair and professionalism. And just to close out before we continue on here, overall these changes will help us balance public safety with fairness while meeting the expectations of our growing community. And it also allows us a good point to provide education to our public related to these changes so they they can be good um and responsible pet owners. So I'll turn it back over to Ammani.

And so as a means of an overview, these are the North Carolina general statutes that um govern how the town should run their animal control program. And so I'll be referencing these throughout the presentation. More specifically, uh we'll look at chapter 67 later on in the presentation as well. I also had the opportunity to read other local government or animal ordinances. And in reading those ordinances, I got to to look at what language was used in those ordinances that will be beneficial to add to our ordinance and more specifically, how can we use different language to align our ordinance with the Wake County ordinance. Moving right into the amendments that are found in article one. Abandon abuse and empoundment came directly from the Wake County ordinance for bite. A 5day threshold was added um so that could be merged with the Wake County ordinance. And so um next the own the definition of owner was made broader than the legal definition of owner. Uh specifically, for example, um if if the legal owner is away and they have someone taking care of their dog, they would be responsible for the care, action, and behavior of the animal. So, there's some changes in some some language in our ordinances, and that was um at large, what does that mean? and then um restraint. So, previous ordinance it um wasn't as clear. So, we wanted to make sure it was clear and un understandable, not not just for our officers that are going out there, but also for the public in the community to

understand. So, at large here means that when an animal is off the property of its owner and not under the restraint of a competent person. And then restraint means an animal under restraint within the meaning of this chapter would be controlled by a chain, a leash or an other device secured in a vehicle within a secured enclosure or within the dwelling house. So an actual leash law um previous ordinance before this just allowed for subjectivity for that as far as like voice command meaning you could be in control. just felt our residents would feel a little bit safer and understand what the actual leash law is. So, just to find it a little bit more clear and and it it seems like common sense, but putting it into the ordinance allows for everybody to understand. The current ordinance already prohibits owners from allowing their chickens to run at large. And so this amendment will uh move the prohibition up into a more appropriate section uh which would be section 36. So this is pretty straightforward uh amendment. Moving on to section 315 and more specifically to subsection uh B9. Uh in the current ordinance it's per um is currently prohibit prohibits maintaining any roosters that loudly and habitually crows. However, per section 36 backyard hens, it's actually pro um it's we're not allowed to have roosters within the town limits. So, as a means of organization and clarity, we wanted to remove that subsection and further clarify that roosters are not permitted within the town limits. Further in that section, the new the uh nuisance animal uh notice uh the amendments would pretty much

um each report each reported could result each report could result in a civil penalty. And in addition, if a warning is issued instead of an actual report being issued, then that warning would count toward the number occurring within the 90-day period. So now we get to our our civil penalties. The changes made here will make it more structured and aligned for fair, like I said before, and consistency among violation. That doesn't take away that we're first going to try to educate and ask for compliance with with any type of violation. but it gives the the residents an opportunity to correct the issue while still still holding repeat and serious violators accountable. So, it allows for a more structured and consistent um enforcement. Rolling right into art um amendments that were changed in article 2. The proposed amendment would be adding subsection C, which again is directly from the Wake County ordinance, which requires owners to provide proof of vaccination if requested by an animal control officer. In addition, uh the other amendments would establish an assumption that if a bite did occur, uh it would um establish an assumption that if a bite did occur, then if evidence um if evidence establishes that it did. So there's like an assumption that if there's evidence that a bite occurred, then it did in fact occur. Next, if animal control confirms rabies symptoms as rabies, then the um animal control must euthanize the animal. And

lastly, people must report when an animal bites a person um and also report the whereabouts of the animal. and then moving into the amendments in section three.

All right. So, always always a sensitive topic. Um, a lot of people are animal lovers, myself included. So, but we know sometimes um they animals um can become violent and vicious and unpredictable. So in those times, our our officers that respond need to act in these rare situations quickly to protect uh our people in our community, our children and animals themselves. So this just allows some of some verbiage and guidance in those situations, allowing, you know, our officers to put down an animal when it's dangerous and it may harm somebody in our community. So it sets these clear and uh responsible standard but let it be known that this is a this is a last resort if we if we aren't able to to trap that animal or secure it in any other fashion. So then I'll just move uh forward into into animal trapping. Okay. And this is just some additional verbiage that says that the the only people that should be setting out these these traps to handle nuisance and stray animals are the people that are trained professionals, our our animal control officer. And that prohibits uh people in the anybody else other than a professional from disturbing those tracks, moving them. that avoids interruption in the process that we're going through and it and ensures that animals are handled properly and humanely. So just just some verbiage to um to add to the things we're were already doing that was kind of there just more redefined and structured. And so turning our focus to dangerous animal hearings and procedures, the UNCC

School of Government created a guide for local government officials on how to develop and administer a process for determining when a dog fits North Carolina's legal definition of a potentially dangerous dog. And so this is a side byside of what is required by North Carolina versus what the Garner's ordinance specifically states. And so you'll notice a few differences between the two. And this is specifically because under the general statute, the town of Garner is permitted to adopt their own animal ordinance. And so the town has merged the definition of dangerous dog with potentially dangerous dog in order for more organization and clarity of what that looks like. And so this is important because according to North Carolina General Statute 67 section um 4.5, it's um 4.1, excuse me. So owners are um going to be impacted by a determination of a dangerous animal. And because their rights may be limited, it is important that the hearing be structured in a way to process the animal owner's uh due process. And so the amendment found in section 317, confinement and control of dangerous animals, add this notice requirement as required by the general statute to determine that an animal is dangerous. And even further, just as I mentioned that dangerous animal proceedings may result in limitation of an owner's rights, this specific these amendments

um speak ex uh specifically to once an animal is deemed dangerous, the the notice requirement that is now pressed upon the owner of the dangerous animal. And so these amendments establish a notice requirement when an owner moves from Garner to another jurisdiction, when an owner transfers ownership from a of a dangerous animal to another owner within the town limits, as well as when an owner transfers ownership of a dangerous animal to another jurisdiction. And so again, you'll see that due process requirements are really important and you'll see that the town of Garner actually goes further to ensure that an owner's rights are fully taken serious. And so you'll see the state requires 3 days for an appeal whereas Garner will give 5 days and then a hearing is required by state within 10 days but the hearing in in here in the town of Garner will be within 5 days as well. And so while some of those limitations may give people pause, you know, we want to we do want to establish that Garner is in fact looking out for an animal owner's rights. And so putting everything together, uh, the responding animal control officer will investigate an incident and if necessary, they will based on an admit provide written notice to an animal owner with a form outlining why the animal was determined dangerous. In addition, the owner will be be provided with a separate form which will inform them of their rights to appeal the determination. the appeal will um the appeal will um go before a board and the board will make a decision and then even if they don't like that decision, they have further recourse. And so to ensure

a fair and impartial process, the hearing will be held by the assistant town manager and two other employees of departments other than the police department. And so the owner will have the right to present evidence and as to why maybe the determination was made an error or whatever may be the case, but the board still has the authority to determine if the evidence is relevant. And so some of these things, the board may not be completely familiar with the legal lease, which is why the UNCC government's guide is such an important resource to help the board administer the process um efficiently. And so again, the guide also has these forms that I'm referencing to, which is what um the board is encouraged to use those standardized forms um to ensure everything is proceeded successfully.

And so with that, quick quick question, how often would that would this board meet? Just if it just if there is an appeal. So again, once an animal control officer comes to a scene and if they determine that an animal is dangerous, they'll be provided with the forms and if they appeal that determination, then the board will be made to um address that appeal. If you wanted to speak more on that, attorney

um thank you for that question. So, um, state law requires us to have an appeals board and it has to be separate from the individual or agency that issues the dangerous dog declaration or determination. Um, while I've been here in the last five years, we've only had one appeal. Um, and then it was withdrawn before we had the ab the um board hearing, but it did result in a court case. Um, in this situation, um, what I envision happening if council adopts these amendments is we would go ahead and and, um, determine employees who are interested in serving on this and then training them for it because of the short turnaround. It's difficult to get, um, you know, a more citizenoriented type appeals board to be able to meet and uh, render a decision on this. Um, and what's not amended, we went through this a couple years ago. We did some substantial revisions to address dangerous animals um including um dogs as well as um exotic animals that might be in the town. Um so once that dangerous um dog or animal declaration is upheld, certain provisions go into effect like having to maintain that animal in a secure a more secure enclosure, having to keep them on a muzzle, you know, if they're out in public and those kinds of things. And in um in the really serious um situations where there's been a fatality or a very serious injury, there may be a call to to euthanize the that dog. And because we don't want a long drawn out appeals process because there are significant costs in sheltering um the the dogs and and keeping them you know secure from other animals that that they might inflict um further damage on. U so that

would be like the second phase of this if these amendments are adopted by council is to develop that board so that it's ready to be appointed by the manager and meet as needed. Thank you. Yes. So, the next step would just be if you guys want to consider this at a subsequent public hearing or adopt the um adopt the amendments on the consent agenda. Thank you. Any other questions?

Thanks so much for your presentation and all the hard work that went into this. This is a fairly emotional work. Um, we set up here through a situation that was really terrible and awful. And it's good also to see that we're not just trying to protect garden or residents, but also other communities of our situation. We had a family

remove their animal from our jurisdiction to another jurisdiction. Um, and so it's good to see this type of collaboration and cooperation to try to make sure these animals are known. Um, and also appreciate the support for the owner's rights, but also the swiftness that we can can do something that was very I thank our town attorney for guiding us through that emotional experience. Um, questions from council you, Mr.

Well, first like to echo again what what mayor promised. I appreciate the work that's gone into this. Uh, a lot of work that's happened in a short period of time. Uh it is an important step to making sure that we're protecting the public safety as it was reiterated here. And one question for you, how will we ensure that the public knows about these changes that are being proposed?

Yeah. So what I tried to mention earlier, we have what's called a what I call a communication plan. You know, how are we going to let the let the community know, right, that these changes have occurred um to make them better educated. And you'll see um not only post on on social media, but you'll see our staff at community events uh handing out information and then havingformational sessions whether it's at uh homeowners associations or uh apartment complexes and just a variety of things like that to make sure that you know that that people know and understand. And it also opened up for maybe some good partnership with um some some private companies to maybe, you know, provide the right types of leashes for the for the particular dog that an owner may have so they can be more responsible um when they're handling that that animal. So yes, definitely a communication plan in place and we'll push that forward.

If I may follow up, um part of the code revision project, there is a web page. Um, it does have an alert feature that, uh, residents can sign up for and a comment form. Uh, and I've provided you with the comments that we've received, um, to date on on these proposed amendments. Um, if council should decide to have a public hearing, we will also push out that notification to anyone who signed up for alerts as well as through the town social media, uh, and allow them to use that form. um that's designed to alert people of proposed amendments and then to provide the adopted amendments until such time as they're um codified into our code of ordinances.

Thank you, Mr. Stallings.

Yes. I I have two questions. So I see in section 31 number eight it says the definition of abuse and this is new language. The definition of abuse according to the amendment if adopted would consist of placing or confining an animal or allowing an animal to be placed or or confining a motor vehicle under the conditions for the period of time to cause physical pain suffering or death to the animal due to temperature lack of food or drink or other conditions. So my question is would this penalize for say an individual who runs in the food line? I have seen this personally um but they'll call the police because they don't realize that the individual has actually cracked the window while they ran in the store and they may have their dog or animal in the back of the car. Would this person be penalized if if the individual calls the police on them um because they think that the dog is is is not duly um accommodated,

right? So that so that involves what I talked about as far as professional decision making, right? arriving and noticing what had occurred, you know, that that the window was cracked, speaking with the owner, you know, and it a lot of times it's that it's that educational aspect and having that conversation and not immediately going to strict enforcement. So, we'll look at the totality of what's going on if the animal was really at at danger or there has this occurred before. Have we had past issues with this particular person and making that that professional decision based upon um fairness and everything that's going on and not just going strictly to enforcement.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, and my second question, um, how many of those calls do we receive, um, around what people would consider undue accommodations for folks where they may have ran in the store? And

so, I don't have the exact, um, exact figures here. I know that in 2025, we responded to just under 800 calls for service that were classified as animal control calls. So, they could have been classified as as something else. the exact number related to the type of incident that that you're talking about. I I I couldn't provide you a a a good fair number right now, but I I do say that there's probably a there from just listening to the police radio and and reviewing calls for service, there is a significant number of calls related to animals in inside a uh inside a vehicle. Is is there anything um that would currently that would penalize somebody from for leaving their animal in the car um with the window down while they run into a store?

Yeah. If the conditions exist that were to put that animal, you know, at danger that we do have um statutes to cover that. So it's so it's at pretty much at the discretion of the officer responding to the situation that determines it's a it's a professional decision making based upon um what's occurred. This um our ordinance provides a guideline for officers to to look at right and um to make put that in their decision as far as how they want to enforce or not enforce. But like I said, it's it's we go it based upon professionalism and not emotion, right? So that's that's the big key that we push in the training of our officers. And then with with these updates, there's also going to be some training needs for our officers so that they're aware of what these changes are. they're aware of any new general statute that is on there. So, they're able to make the right decision and um let's per say not charge a person for something that's really not a charge. Make sure it's an actual current charge and they're following the elements of that crime and making that professional decision.

Thank you. Quick comment on that because it goes to the capacity and where are we with regards to our animal control officer capacity? I know for a long time we only had one. Do we still only have one animal control? Yes. So, we only have one officer, but the um the board has graciously approved for um these public safety aid positions, civilian positions, and some of that function is going to be responding to animal control calls and being another subject matter expert in responding to those.

Thank you, Mr. Singleton. Just want to thank you for the time and effort in updating our statutes here uh in Garner, our ordinances, I'm sorry, and particularly the diligence continued on dangerous animals and everybody's aware of the horrible situation that happened here a few years ago. So that was important for everyone involved to make sure that that information is out there and we can take it to the to the to the legal limit of the law to enforce it. and if hopefully it never happens again, but we've got it in writing in our ordinances. So, thank you all for that time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matthews.

Great presentation and uh thank you very much. And uh it unfortunately seems like when it gets 100° temperature, you go to a Walmart or or grocery store or anywhere, somebody's got to take the dog and the windows are rolled up and the car is not running, it's 100° and they don't think anything of it. And uh I'm so glad we're trying to be on top of that, make good decisions at the time because animals are very important. Thank you all so much for your presentation. I think one more question, Mr. Stall, one more question.

Just one more question. Um so in section 315 prohibited actions and this is just a clarification question. Why do we change the language from shell to may?

That's fine. Could you just repeat that? Sorry. So, so in in prohibited actions section 315, um it said the animal control officer, it used to say shall confiscate any animal found at large and compound animal and animal shelter in accordance with the provision of article 3. Why do we change the language from shield to may? Is it to give us more discretion?

Yeah. So, it allows for that that professional discretion. So, you know, those different situations, you know, this one time that animal runs off a property and it's captured, you know, by a neighbor, you know, that we're not immediately impounding that animal or finding the righteous owner, you know, and giving it back, you know, because we we understand life happens, things happen, but at the same time, we want to protect um anything that may be dangerous. So just given a little bit of that professionalism um um latitude there for that total circumstance so we're not just strictly doing straight to enforcement. Thank you. Yep.

Thank you all so much. I think the town attorney is asking council if it has a preference for setting a public hearing for this item so that the public can have some input prior to adoption. Is that correct?

Uh yes. So generally my recommendation is to allow for a public hearing to make sure that the public is informed of proposed changes uh to any ordinances. And so u if that's council's um inclination and concurrence then we would set it at a subsequent um meeting because these aren't urgent at this time. Although um some of these are prompted by overcrowding at the shelter. Uh which part of that that answer to that question of shell to may is to prevent those situations where if you read in the full thing it says to be impounded and shel at the shelter. This gives us a little more discretion on when to use those facilities. Um, but because none of these are time-sensitive, we'll look to put this on um a council agenda, you know, that's not already heavy with a lot of other public hearings.

Council council amanable to having the attorney bring us back for a public hearing? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Um, unfortunately, u Miss Henderson's time with us uh will be limited. Um, she'll be graduating soon. Uh but we'll let her know uh whether these do get uh you know adopted in the future and she can use that on her resume. I'm sure she'd want to come back. Where you where you going to go? Where you going? Where are you going? Uh looking at the time, I think this be a good opportunity for us to take a 15minute break and recess and then reconvene right about 8:00 is usually. Is that good for council? Sure. Yep.

All right. We'll come back at is that 10 after 10 after. All right. Thank you.

We've reconvened here at 8:10 uh with our work session this evening. Uh tonight we're going to do something a little different and new for us and we're going to do some development previews and I will turn this over to our town manager to help explain uh what we're doing.

Yes. So thank you Mayor Perm Dinger. So uh tonight uh we've added what we're calling our development previews to your work session agenda. Uh this comes out of council's discussion and requests to be able to provide information to developers who want to bring projects to the community, be able to preview them and see them and provide feedback earlier in the process. And so uh tonight we are starting uh a trial run at this process. Uh and moving forward, we're looking to include these types of presentations and requests at your work sessions monthly. There will also be times to schedule um individual meetings as well if additional information or questions um are still um uh if if council members still have questions as well. And so tonight um wanted to to sort of open with an explanation of what we're doing and um turn it over to our planning director, Mr. Trezenberg, to introduce the first project for this evening. So Mr. Good evening, Mayor Prom Dinger and council members. Um, yes, tonight we have um two applicants who would like to give you a preview of their projects. Uh, the first one is a project at 76151010 Road. That is um kind of basically the norththeast corner. Close enough. Um of Lake Wheeler and 1010 Road. So behind the Costco,

Strawberry Hill.

Yeah. Yep. Basically. And um we first met with these folks um back in actually June of 2024. Um that was when we kind of had our first official discussions with them about um a pre-application meeting. uh they kind of I think went back and and digested and and retoled a little bit and so we most recently met with them uh in October of this last year. Uh and so now they are coming forth with a tier one uh zoning request and they're here to present that to you tonight and Mr. Worth Mills is here. I'll pull up the presentation and the clicker should be on the podium. you could uh introduce yourself with your name and address, please.

Thank you, Mr. Kzenberg. Worth Mills with Longleaf Law Partners, 45509 Creedmore Road, Sweet 302, RaleighNC 27612. here on behalf of Liberty Healthcare who is the contract purchaser and the reasonzoning applicant for 76151010 Road. Uh we appreciate the opportunity to present to you and receive feedback prior to our public hearing which is uh to be scheduled. So the property itself is approximately 28.3 acres. We're proposing to reszone the property from rural agricultural to commercial mixeduse conditional. Uh the reasonzoning would facilitate a new mixeduse community. Uh up to uh 450 uh new homes. Um most of those would be sort of an apartment uh multif family style housing, age restricted housing. Um with the opportunity for town homes as well. uh those town homes could be individually platted or built on the same lot. I think we're still trying to uh determine what the ownership style or subdivision style of that would be. Um it would also permit up to 38,000 ft of non-residential uses, medical office, retail office, etc. Uh and we think that the policies within the Garner Forward land use plan support this type of mixeduse development here. So, Liberty Senior Living is a component of Liberty Healthcare. They have built age restricted communities throughout the southeast. Uh, three that I wanted to bring to your attention because they are nearby. Hayes Barton Place, which is in Raleigh, uh, Inspire, Brier Chapel Hill, which is in Pittsboro, and Templeton of Kerry in Kerry. and Liberty Healthcare and Liberty Senior Living

would like to develop a similar type of community here in Garner. So, just to highlight some of the changes in the area, I'm showing an aerial view of the property and the surrounding area in 2021. The property 761510 Road outlined in red. Uh at this point, uh this stretch of I540 had not been completed. And then shifting gears to 2025, uh you can see the construction of Costco, uh new homes and other commercial out parcels, and you can see the completion of this stretch of I540, which is a driver for this new development in the area. As Mr. Matthews mentioned, uh this has operated as a farm, uh Porter Farms for some time. Uh there is a single family home and some older structures on the property. Uh produce stand. And then uh you know as you turn your attention to the east closer to the 401 1010 road intersection you see the Costco building. Uh on the opposite side of 1010 road are the Royal Creek apartments uh which are within Fugquway. And then here's a look at the property sort of the easternmost u portion of the site looking inward. Then again, you can see the Costco lurking in the background. This map shows the current zoning, the current Garner zoning in the area. We're on the western edge of Garner's planning jurisdiction. Most of the undeveloped uh parcels in this area are zoned rural agricultural. The majority of the developed properties are zoned CMX conditional. Uh some other zoning districts in this area are multif family A and multif family B conditional. And then here just to get a sense again of sort of the split planning

jurisdictions in this area. Uh you see Wake County and Fugquway Verina zoning. Uh Wake County on the west side of Lake Wheeler Road and then predominantly on the south side of 1010 road is Fugquway zoning. Um, but Fugquway, similar to Garner, does have that sort of general commercial zoning at the intersection of 401 and 1010 road. So, a little policy uh overview here. Uh, looking at the Garner Forward general framework map. Um, most of the property is within a community activity center. Uh the Garner Forward plan recommends a mix of land uses that serve uh multiple neighborhoods. Um in terms of residential development, it recommends apartments, condominiums, and town homes um are appropriate surrounding the center. Um with that Costco serving as the anchor tenant for the larger area, um that's obviously sort of the uh the center and the regional attraction uh in this area. But this plan would also propose a mix of medical office, retail, general office uses that could sort of support and radiate out from that center. Then looking at the Garner Forward character typology map, um again the character typology map designates this area as a mixeduse area, which is again land that offers the opportunity to serve the broader economic and housing needs in the community. Uh we think that the proposed reasonzoning of age restricted housing and a variety of non-residential development helps to be helps to meet both the housing and economic needs of the community. And then lastly looking at the development and intensity change map, sort of a companion to the character typology map. This map designates the property as level four uh 4A areas to transform lowrise. Uh these areas provide

opportunities to reimagine Garner's future, introduce new energized activity centers. Uh the level 4A recommends a mix of uses, either stacked or sort of inblock mix of of uses with building heights between three and five stories. The reasoning here proposes both a mix of residential and non-residential uses with building heights not to exceed five stories. So we think we're meeting the map's intent there. Turning it over to the exhibit that we submitted along with our zoning conditions. This exhibit sort of breaks the project down into four distinct pods. Pods A and C which are in the yellow sort of in the center of the site. This is the primary residential pod where you'll have active adult multif family and group care. Uh town homes contemplated sort of in pod C on the north side of the stream buffer. And then pod B, which is at the intersection of Lake Wheeler and 1010 Road, is where you would find additional group care uh uses. You'd find medical office and retail. And then turning your attention east um to pods D1 and D2 uh collectively just pod D. Those are your commercial and retail out parcels. This plan shows internal private streets connecting the pods. I'll also note that this exhibit shows a small triangular piece sort of on the edge of pod D. Uh that is address 01010 road. It's not part of our resoning application, but Liberty is under contract to purchase that as well. That property has already been reszoned. CMX um part of a prior resoning application, I believe the same one that the Costco uh went through. And then uh just a slide that shows the zoning conditions that we've uh submitted to date. Uh we do plan to resubmit hopefully uh by the end of this

week. We've received staff feedback uh hopefully between the feedback from staff, feedback from council, we'll be we'll be able to uh substantially update these conditions uh and get this case ready for a public hearing. Um some highlights though that I did want to note. We do have uh conditions limiting the building materials. Uh we have minimum square footage for the apartment style multif family. We have a very large clubhouse uh 10,000 square feet that would be integrated into the sort of principal multif family structure. So it would not be a separate clubhouse but one sort of built within uh the footprint of that multif family building. Uh and then a list of permitted uses within each pod uh on the right hand side of the screen. I appreciate the time this evening. uh happy to receive any and all feedback and if any council member would like to uh meet with us following uh tonight we're we're happy to make that work as well. So again appreciate the time looking forward to being back here hopefully sooner than later.

Thank you. I'll start down here Mr. Matthews.

Thank you Mr. Dillinger. Um this is a great location. A matter of fact, I was driving through there uh on Saturday and uh this and had not reviewed this yet and I said I know they're coming out there, but uh these early meetings like this I think are going to be very beneficial because as we say we so we can still do the two ones with them if we want to. Okay. but where we work out the details before we get under the lights as we like to say and uh get a preview of what you got going and u but uh I like your presentation especially with senior retirement this is um if the facility looks like any of your renderings it'll it'll rival some of these places and uh and there is a big need for it as well as putting the the medical element in there as well as commercial activity and plus you're next door to Costco that's not a bad deal either so It it really is. So, uh uh great presentation. I like I like the direction you're going. Look forward to working with you.

Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Couple of questions. Uh and you know me, I'm going to ask about the green space, the green area. You do have the existing pond, of course, and it's got a a 50ft non-disturbed buffer and the existing stream that also would be a uh total buffer 100 foot. Correct. That's buffer. Yes, sir. the the the uh the one on the right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's we're showing 100 ft. Okay. And just to clarify the in the condition you you it's stated that for the fair housing uh act uh that'll be applicable here. So, it'll be 55 year and older project.

That's correct. 55 year and 55 years and older uh uh persons will be allowed to live there. That's right. I think currently we're we're 100% committed to that for sort of the apartment style multif family. We may we may open the town home portion up which is maybe upwards of 40 town homes maximum as sort of not age restricted just market rate um housing. But you know we again we'll take any uh consideration or any advice into consideration as we move forward. Okay. Yes. The town homes will be focused more I think you said in C. The apartments would be more in the A, right?

Oh, that's correct. So that that stream buffer is sort of the the the line between C and A. All right. Okay. Thank you.

I'll hop in since I'm in the middle here. Couple of questions and then I'll pass on. There's a zoning condition that says the tree canopy coverage and open space should apply holistically to the site and not be divided by each pod. There 28 acres here. So what's the breakdown especially when you've got a mix of commercial and residential with residential having the higher threshold or requirement for free preservation. Help me explain what that holistically means. So I I think when we're looking at that in terms of open space um 10% required for um either sort of a residential subdivision or a development with residential uses. So wanting to sort of have the full 28.3 acres within which to sort of divide that open space up uh rather than concentrating it in just maybe one pod uh over the other. So trying to just create sort of a framework where we are evaluating open space and tree canopy over the course of the 28.3 acres as opposed to individual pods. Uh I don't have a breakdown sort of how that open space is divvied up or tree canopy is divvied up between pods. We can take a look at uh what our preliminary numbers are and bring that back um either in individual meetings or at public hearing.

So you've got Yeah. a 28 acre site and there's the two acres in the bottom southeast portion that is strictly commercial. So the tree preservation and open space numbers would be calculated off of the net 26 acres regardless of how it's developed. Would it be does that fall into residential or I'm trying to understand?

We were so we've been sort of working internally as we've gotten staff's feedback um on our first round of conditions. Uh again, I I think we're going to be looking at a condition that sort of that open space number is going to be based off of the 28.5 acre as opposed to just the 26 that would be residential uses. uh which which would lead to a higher number of acres set aside as permanent open space. There's a permanent open space, but there's also the tree preservation. They're two separate things. So my question is about the tree preservation. Is that calculated off of

the 26 that are potentially res have residential components per the use table that I I'll have to get back to the applicant uh and are civil to figure that out. Okay. Yeah, do that because it just not clear as a written condition what that means. And I think the default position should be if there's going to be a residential component, we are trying to use that residential reference point for that preservation and or that canopy preservation.

Um the other question I'll get to right now is the apartment what is the sort of what's the verticality on the apartment story-wise? the so I I know that we are going to offer a minimum story condition um no less than three no greater than five with uh a condition committed to sort of condition corridors. So you know everybody's sort of entering into one entrance and then going to you know down to air condition hall to reach their specific unit um within the pods B and D. Uh I don't believe that we have set any height limits to date uh in terms of those sort of commercial uses. Um but we'll we'll look to add some of that as well.

So I think there there been an inclination on the council to require elevators. Yes. And and and so I just have that thrown into the mix as to height your height decision because if you do three, we're going to probably want those. I think just based on the the the market for for who would be living here, we would absolutely make sure that each u sort of multif family building had elevators. Got a couple more, but I'll pass on to Councilman Stallings. Um I always ask why the tier one approach. Um that's my first question. And second question is can you explain condition 10 a little bit more?

Yeah. So, I think tier one um for us provided a little bit more flexibility at this point. Um and so we we've tried to thread the needle somewhat with the pod breakdown uh in terms of locating specific uses within different portions of the property. Uh as it relates to condition 10, um that is really a condition that just says we're going to market these to 55 and older individuals for uh the multif family buildings. Thank you, sir. Vance.

Okay. I think I my question was along the same lines in reference to why tier one instead of tier two and that's

yes I I I think it has to do more with the flexibility at this stage in terms of maybe not having as detailed of um sort of zoning plans associated with the reasonzoning so that we don't run into any issues at a site plan review stage where you know when you're at the resoning stage, you have not done sort of all of the necessary engineering work, grading work to, you know, feel as confident as maybe you would have uh with the tier 2. But um but again, we're we're trying to be as descriptive as we can with these upcoming sets of zoning conditions and then also provide some clarity as it relates to the different pods and where those uses would be located.

Gotcha. And the reason I brought that up is because I saw on the development uh website where it had the different areas laid out. Then I look at inside the packet, we have a reasonzoning master plan. So I was looking at that and saying, "Okay, we we have a we have a we are laying out what we want to do already." So in my mind, I'm saying tier two, you're already there, but understand what you're trying to do here. And I think we got feedback from staff that with a tier one, we don't need sort of that cover sheet um associated with the the pod exhibit, but we will still include this within our next submitt. Uh again, just to you know provide some assurances as to to what's going where.

Yes. And echo what Mr. Matthews said, I I find these u these early meetings helpful to help shape my thinking, my thought process as we go through the uh the planning process. We are a rapidly growing area and I believe it's imperative in order to be a responsible council person that we know what's coming in and to be able to hopefully help shape that type of growth. So, so I appreciate that. A question I have is uh at this early stage, have you started to look at the traffic impacts on 1010 knowing the

We have u we have a completed traffic impact analysis. Um I believe that is in the hands of Garner. Um, I can I can get a copy of that over to the council members if they would like to review that. I don't have a copy of it with me. Uh, so I I couldn't really speak to those counts. I I can refer back to it this week and and again provide more more information as to what those traffic counts are and what the existing and proposed levels of service at the studied intersections would be and the possible improvements to 1010. Yes.

Caused by this improvement. Okay. Next question is uh uh and I think you already answered this. This this aligns with our current uh development plans for this area. Does am I is that correct to say? I I think so, but uh obviously that's that's ultimately your decision to make.

Uh can I get the staff to help me out with this based upon what they presented here? Does this uh align with our current land use plans for this area? I mean, this it's still a little early, but as of right now, um I think the evidence that they've, you know, kind of shown you from the maps is something that staff would generally support, but that consistency review won't be completed until the um the public hearing. Okay. Or the planning commission meeting actually. So, we're guiding it toward that. Yes.

Okay. Gotcha. All right. One last thing. Uh, as far as the infrastructure that's there, we know that there was a lot been done along 1010. Do we have enough infrastructure there to support this development? To my knowledge, yes. Um, I don't think I've seen any concern from the town as to any sort of utility capacity questions. We'll confirm that uh before we get back to the public hearing, but um, as far as I am aware, everything has been acceptable. No further questions. Swing back around this way. Mr. Matthews,

good to go. Sir Singleton for rest into the uh the plan that you sewn shows the large uh area of uh rightway. That's just undisturbed right away for future improvement to Lake Bele Road, I'm assuming. Yes, sir.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh I have another question and a little bit of concern around the breadth of uses in pod B being a lot of residential options that are there. And I say that with the context in the within the context of our budget and the need to increase our revenues and the value of commercial property. And sort of a broader question is why would we want so much more traditional residential development when Fquway is right across the street building all the residential and why would we not position ourselves to have as much more commercial and benefit from that residential growth rather than incurring the expense of additional residents. I like I can see the transition from the D and the A core and the C, but I have concerns on a major road like Lake Wheeler and Tenton that based on the conditions that are here, the decision could be made to just do town homes for the whole thing. Now, I know that probably wouldn't be what you would do, but we again being a tier one, we want some type of asurances, whether it's another level of verticality and three, you know, built overs or whatever. I think the last thing we want to see out there are just a bunch more town homes.

Understood.

From a fiscal standpoint. Um my other question is more I think a staff question because again it goes to this revenue and service delivery question and what is the service delivery makeup of that part of the town with with Fugquway Wake County and the police departments and sheriffs and also fire delivery. what is our burden in that part of the town? I say that because again to add more residential here, we're sh we're need more revenue out of our properties. So what's the breakdown of the service delivery of public safety in that part of town and I know we're building fire station down there. Are we getting line share of the calls in that area? And if no one can answer tonight, I understand the first time we've kind of done this. Um, but I think that's a it's a question particularly this part of town is again why why do we do we want to lean on more traditional residential development when it's booming down there and this is a commercial corridor. So like I said I like a pods AC and D. I get those um but that also seems like there's a potential for some strong commercial or even stronger mixed use component in that one pod. So, I I just throw that out there for staff to kind of look at that perspective. Um, are we more burdened with calls out there than FUE is or what's that balance look like? Um, I'm going to got a couple more questions, but I'll go to Mr. Stallings. You have any questions?

Um, my first question would be, is there affordable housing element to this project? Uh, it's all it's all planned to be market rate, so there's no no affordable housing commitments. All right. Thank you. Um, do you have any, my second question would be, um, do you know currently what the commercial and retail office uses would look like from an architectural perspective?

Just in general, what are you thinking in terms of retail and office space down there? So, I I think you're going to be looking more at sort of out parcel retail in pod D just because of the sort of gravitational pull of Costco uh to our east. Um in pod B, I think is where you'll likely find more of that medical office or office type use. And um obviously A and C being the the thrust of the the residential component here. Um I don't know that we've necessarily tried to identify or target specific tenants within pods or really any pods at this point. Um, but I would have to imagine just given the square footage that we have, which is 38,000 ft max, uh, of of non-residential, that we're you're probably looking at a commercial use that is somewhat supportive of Costco. Um, I don't think you're going to see necessarily a a ger there, again, just given the the fact that Costco is next door. um a and because of the size of the square footage that we have sort of contained ourselves in uh but but no we'll we'll give some more thought to that in terms of you know maybe the types of tenants that we envision uh and can bring that back at a public hearing uh or in an individual meeting if you

me because I I definitely echo um Councilman Dillinger's mayor prom Dillinger's um sentiments in regards to commercial we would we were definitely in that area and and it's always booming. Would love to have a little bit more commercial in that area. Okay, the question couple more quick questions and I noticed that the breakdown of the units were studio, onebedroom, and twobedroom, no threebedroom. We we are updating our conditions for a three-bedroom option as well.

Okay, excellent. That's good. Um, make sure I got my notes here. The only other I would probably invest some thought into affordable housing and talk with staff on what that might look like. Um, it's part of it's deeply ingrained in our comprehensive plan as well. I'm sure you've reviewed it, so you're aware of it. we've invested a lot of time and resource in into that work and want partners who are willing to help us make contributions in some form or fashion to that need in the community. Um so just kind of be brainstorming with staff on on some of those elements. Uh last call. Anybody else have Mr. Matthews?

Were you here for the very first meeting we had tonight? Uh 605 610 the the the first agenda item tonight. Yeah, I think I walked in sort of mid mid conversation. I'll just leave it at that. Okay. Anyone else have any comments? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Me wrap up on that one. Mr. for treason. No,

nothing more to add, but um staff is is listening or will go back and um review the proceedings here tonight and we'll be u addressing comments with the applicant going forward. Thank you. And uh we have one more. This is village at big branch, Mr. Trezenberg.

Yes, we do. Um so Village at Big Branch, uh this is the northwest corner of the intersection of Auburn Church Road and Garner, East Garner Road. Um staff met in a pre-application meeting with this team back in August of last year. Uh so again, there's been a little bit of time that's gone by uh for them to kind of absorb those initial comments from staff and to be thinking about some things uh that were at least relevant at that time um in in our progression of things. Uh so again, I'll invite Marie uh Farmer uh to introduce her team and uh give you this presentation.

Yes. Thank you so much. Uh good evening, Mayor Prom Deager and members of council. My name is Marie Farmer with Parker Poe, 301 Fagatville Street, Raleigh. Uh here on behalf of the applicant, Saxs of Real Estate. Um so I'm joined by several members of uh the development team tonight who can be available to answer questions uh you may have. So this includes uh Dan Cervidado uh with Saxom. We have Will Swearing, civil engineer with Bolton and Bank. And then we also have Josh Reni who is our traffic engineer with Bolton and Bank. Uh before we go into the site and the purpose of this resoning, we would like to also thank staff and council for providing us with this opportunity to present the case while it is still under staff review. The goal for us is to receive your feedback tonight and digest it as a team so that when we do come back before you for our hearing, we're presenting a plan that not only reflects what your comprehensive plan calls for, but that also incorporates as much of your guidance as possible. So, we really do appreciate it. With that said, uh to orient you with this site, it includes three parcels again along Auburn Church Road just northeast of the 70 and 40 interchange and the White Oak Crossing Shopping Mall and totals approximately 55 acres. We are in Wake County and the Gardener ETJ. So, we would be annexing into the town as well. The again the property is located within the ETJ and we are just on the edge of a regional employment activity center. And so what the comprehensive plan calls for here is for neighborhoods uh that are surrounding these employment centers to support a variety of home types and lot sizes discouraging lowdensity suburban style neighborhoods and instead providing a variety of home types with

different sizes and formats to avoid design monotony. Uh this area of Garner is designated on the character typology map for neighborhoods and so the comprehensive plan does recommend that these areas are primarily residential. Again, different home types on different lot sizes to provide a range of choices within the same neighborhood, transitioning from smaller lots to larger lots as you're moving out. And this is compatible with the R8 zoning. This site is also designated as an area to strengthen on the development intensity map. And so this represents places that already have positive momentum but may need additional support to reach their full potential. And just for context before diving into the proposed reszoning, the site is currently zoned residential agriculture and we have that commercial highway overlay along East Gardener Road. uh along the the front edge. So, we do have a master plan uh with this uh project. And what we've tried to do here is really tie in all of those comprehensive plan recommendations from the general framework map and the character typology and development intensity map uh together into um this this project. So, as you can see here, we are providing a variety of home types to support that nearby employment center with the lots transitioning from larger to smaller with the town houses in the center. We have the active open space dispersed throughout with the amenity on along Auburn Church Road. Uh so, you can see here the darker green is the town houses. We have the duplexes in pink. We have the single families in yellow. And then that active open space as you move

through the community from Auburn Church throughout um that active open space is in orange and then you can see our uh passive open spaces in that lighter green. So in addition uh to committing to the basic project details like permitted uses and the maximum density, we have also included a number of conditions to address amenity uh and common area standards including how the open space will be activated as well as architectural conditions. And we have worked with town staff on this um to ensure these uh do meet town standards to bring you a quality development. But these are still a work in progress. So we do look forward to any feedback that you may have. Uh we will not go through all of these tonight um because we do have limited time this evening and we would like to focus on your guidance as it does relate to the overall project and the layout and the mix of housing types that we have here. But as we continue to move through staff review again, we can further refine these conditions as it relates to the design details. And finally, just to illustrate the type of quality you can expect from Saxum, we did want to provide a few representative images to show examples of what we think is a pretty unique product type that Saxum hopes to bring here to Garner um compared to what the town has today. So you can see these are some of uh the single family examples. We have the duplex examples here with the ranch style at the bottom. As you can see here, a lot of the duplexes are designed to look like larger single family homes. And then with the town houses, what Saxum is really trying to do with those is sort of go a step above in terms of

design and quality for that next stage of Garner housing. So again, we thank you for the opportunity uh to present this case tonight and we look forward to receiving your feedback.

Thank you so much for that presentation. Uh Mr. Vance. Uh yes, Mayor Prom. I would like to first say I apologize to the previous applicant because I made a mistake where I looked at the tier one and I was looking at the the uh the resoning master plan for your plan together the similar layouts. So I apologize for that mixup and if I cause any confusion, please forgive me for that. Um moving moving on to the village at big branch. Correct.

Yes. Uh my my question is it's a general question because we are in the early stages uh that how does this proposal specifically advance our comprehensive plan goals for growth near economic uh employment centers uh not just in concept but in realizable ways based upon how things are growing out there now. How does it how does it measure up?

I think that this site is actually pretty unique in terms of what the comprehensive plan calls for here in that it is asking for a higher density residential to support that employment center. And so what we really tried to do here is um uh provide that mix of housing that will support the nearby commercial. Um and so we think that the density and the housing types that we have proposed here uh do align with the with the comprehensive plan in terms of uh the general framework as well as that character typology.

Yeah. And there is a lot of development going on out in that area as you well know and u what are the projected traffic impacts on Auburn night church road and uh what are the infrastructure improvements would be necessary for that uh this particular uh project to be viable. So the TIA is still in the works and so we do not have uh the final conclusions on that. Um what we do know is that we will have frontage improvements and we are committed uh to making those frontage improvements and we are working with DOT to determine what if any off-site road improvements might be needed. Okay. All right. I'll hold my next question.

Yeah. Um quick question for the single family homes. What is the anticipated price point for those homes? So, the entire community is um right now the goal is for these to all be class A rentals and so they would be they would be market rate. Um but we do understand that affordable housing is a priority um for the town and it is a priority for this project. Um, and we were hoping to get feedback on the mix here um from from council in order to um determine what affordability commitment we might be able to include. Yeah, mine was not a a housing affordability question. It was a revenue generation question.

Okay.

So, I was trying to figure out how large these are going to be, what the price points are going to be um to try to project out revenue generation for the project. I think in Garner, this heavy of a town home type project on the lower end generates a lot less revenue and a lot more residents. Um, and I I will there's sort of an employment center loophole in this part of the town because the employment center is a quarry. It's not your sort of typical employment center that you would think to drive, you know, actual employment. So I think the RA is not the right fit for this part of Garner. It's not really close to commercial. It's commercial, but it's not walkable commercial. We're we actually working on amendments to that now. So I think the other challenge is already So I think that's the first thing is I think larger homes on lots is better for us. Um, and to go into sort of specifics on the R8 in the conditions, I see conditions for two car garages and onecar garages. Onecar garages are 10 ft by 18 ft, which is not really large enough to fit most modern cars. So then you end up with one that being storage and the car being in the driveway. Well, the setback in the driveway is usually wide enough for one car, maybe two cars. So then those larger vehicles that don't fit in the garage end up on the street. When you're already zoning and you have duplexes and town homes here, you end up with houses so close together. The driveway are so close together. If you go to your image of your town homes, townhouse representative image. There's no fundamentally there's no street parking

because RA zoning has really narrow lots already. So, I'm I'm fighting against R8 where it doesn't belong. Um because you end up with these parking issues. You end up with these houses like we want to live next to our neighbors. We don't want to live on top of them. And RA is designed for a transitional zoning between residential and commercial. And this is really residential next to residential with a quarry next to it. It's not really it it's kind of a not really the kind of commercial that is envisioned to be sub more compact and suburban uh more urban or urban transition. Um so I think that that's kind of an issue for me is just large the town homes. The duplex is an interesting pro uh product. I would like to get more information on on kind of how those break out. Um, I do have some I do have a question on the square footage though. So, we talked about price. What's the square footage of like or range for the single family, the duplexes, and the town homes.

Um, let me see if I have 1,600 to 2100 square feet roughly for the single family or just kind of general. across the board. Okay, that's helpful. Um, got a couple other questions, but Mr. Singleton. Yes. Could you pull up the reszoning master plan map again? Yes. Are you doing that uh these ponds on this property? I used to fish in when I was much younger, young boy. I had me and a friend would go out there and go fishing long time ago.

Yeah. Leave that one up if you would. Um, it's hard to read some of the things on here and I got a new lens yesterday. I had a cataract surgery and I still can't read it in 2020. Can you can I ask a couple questions here? The orange is the active open space. Yes. Up here to the in the right hand the upper right side. It's got the amenity which is the pool and the clubhouse. They get all that some kind of court. It says there's a 10,000 square foot play there as well. Play lawn. Okay, good. That's what I was asking if we had a a just a large area

grass flat area. The other two you have a smaller active space and then on the uh left hand side since it north and west uh is act another active space and are those going to be uh incorporated with some open just green space also or they going to I notic it talked about a playground and so forth and so on. I'm just curious if there's going to be we I know you have some passive open space, but passive open space is just narrow strips, but it's just a narrow buffer till you get some of the other areas. So, I'm just making sure we have plenty of just open green space, adults and kids, whoever's there. Uh you said 10,000 square feet and that's good, but that's a quarter of an acre. That's something so big. I'm just asking these other places going to be just open green space also.

Anything? I'll rephrase that. you may not know yet. Now, I'll rephrase that and encourage you to have open green space. How's that? Yes, that's definitely a better way of putting that. And also at the very uh top of this with northern that is the uh tree preservation. So, that whole area is undisturbed based off what we have here. Yes, that is right. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

Yes, sir. Uh couple of questions here. Uh have you got any idea as far as the uh pricing you're looking at on single family or town homes? Uh you say market rate is do you have a two from figure in there you're trying to achieve? I mean I want you to make all the money you can make off of it. I'm not trying to as low as you come to the mic.

Thank you. Thank um I'm Dan Cervido with Sax and Real Estate. Thank you everybody for the time tonight. Appreciate it. Um yeah, the price points uh will range, you know, on the rental side from as low as, you know, $1,950 a month to as high as 2,800 a month. It it'll vary by unit type, size, features, things like that. Everything's going to be rental. Was that is everything going to be rental? I thought that's what you said, but I'm quite positive. So it'll be from uh for example a twobedroom uh home would be what?

So it's it's going to be all three bedrooms and four bedrooms is what we're proposing. So it's it's it's really geared towards servicing uh you know a rental product for families um since so much of the apartment supply stock uh is is limited to studios, onebedrooms and two bedrooms. So, the thesis is to to kind of serve that missing middle, people who want to live somewhere nice, have a full home, um, and maybe don't want to put down the down payment for a house or something along those lines. So, for, uh, the smaller threebedroom ends will go from, call it 2,000 to 2,200. Again, depending on, you know, those features, the larger fourbedrooms will go 2600 to 2800. Again, it might have a fenced in yard. It might have upgraded fixtures, stuff like that.

Okay, thank you. That's all. Go around the horn. Mr. Vance, any other um quick question. Um looking at the the open space, the passive open space. Um have you thought about a dog park? We did contemplate a dog park and we landed on uh the playground for the active open space uh that you look towards. um the back of the site. Okay. Uh but we do have um a dog park shown along Auburn Church as well because I couldn't read. Thank you. Yep.

Um guess my last questions are for for staff not to answer tonight, but I think it it goes into that sort of um revenue modeling for this type of project. that's easy to do on a for sale project. You can kind of run those numbers pretty easily. Uh and I think they've sat through our whole night tonight and know what our main concern is making sure we have product on the ground that is generating a lot of revenue for us as much as possible. And we we as a we benefit primarily from fewer residents and higher value properties. Um, so I think that that's more work we have to do to help provide feedback to you on what form what buildout in this this model works best for us. Um, my other question make sure I go through my list here. Um, one again I would I would engage staff on some affordability conversation. We are hyper aware of margins and those types of things. We want you to be successful. We want you to come back and build great product. Um but we also want to have a dialogue and you know depends on the size of the project. But just engage us on that. That would be really helpful um to us and our residents. And the I have a question. Would it ever be a attempt to get a tax exemption for this project? No,

thank you. And and I will say we have to ask the last guy. We don't want to go through that again. It's not a joking question. That is a legitimate question. Yeah. Well, and I will say we have engaged with staff um on the town's cost of services study. That is something that um the team has looked at and evaluated and we have looked at it for this project and we do um believe that we are well above the break even point. Um but that is something that um we'll definitely take continue to work with staff and um would love to discuss further.

Yeah. And I think it's just a in addition to that just some other again with the commercial element property and rental figuring out what that model looks like. Um and I think the others really for me this R8 is not appropriate. So slightly fewer wider lots is is a better neighborhood and it might cut you back a few units but it actually is a better experience for those who live there and just driving through it. Um and again I had again not knowing his rental had a different model um and the town homes break out different they break out differently in in a sale situation than in a rental situation. So I can't really lean on what what research I did. So, um, again, for me, the feedback is mostly the lot widths. I like the duplex thing. I don't think we've seen that. We had duplexes like this come in recently. I don't know that we've had a It's an interesting product.

Recently, we have um else have any final put a lot of color on your houses so it's not that would be nice. White and tan. White tan. White tan. Make it nice out there. It'll help you do what you want to do. Master bedrooms on the first floor are quite popular in Garner area. I think 52 53% of their res in that 55 plus range. I'm a little higher and our legs aren't what they used to be at downstairs master. That'll be a good selling point. Hint hint. We do have a commitment for minimum 15% having the first floor primary. Smart move. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd say, yeah, look at the look at as an R4. See what that looks like for you. Um, a little more space. Mr. Stallions.

Um, I just want to say and and I understand especially if if it's going to be market rate that you have to make um profit and you have to make your money back. But I will say in terms of affordability, I know we're in a unique situation where we're right outside of Raleigh Car's MSA. Um, so I would say personally in my perspective, 60% of Raleigh carries MSA is not um, affordable. I think when affordable housing task force did their work, they looked at more at like a 50 50 to 55% um, lens when it came to affordability. So that's just my my my FI and my perspective on affordability. If you're looking at any units that you want to designate as being affordable,

Mr. Good. Any other questions? Any other staff comments? None. Right. Well, we really appreciate it. We'll take this back and digest it as a team. So, thank you. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate it. Also told them we'll we'll try to put them at the beginning of our work sessions in the future so they don't have to sit through all the other stuff. But appreciate your patience. When's the big day? When's the big day? May 11th. May 11th. But y'all better get busy. All right. Thank you.

Uh, thanks everyone for their engagement and participation in that. Uh, we will now go over to manager reports.

Yes, we have two reports for you this evening. First, your monthly development activity map update. I'll ask Mr. Trezenberg if he will walk us through any updates to the map. Yes, good evening again. Um, this month we have uh four projects to highlight for you. Uh, the first two are potential resoning uh resoning cases. Uh, the last two are just site plans, but again, we want to make sure that you're aware of these projects that are happening. Um so the first one that is in early discussions is an assemblage of property um again down off of we're back on back down off of New Bethl um opposite the Cambria development. Uh we've called it the Gentle Rain uh potential subdivision for uh the the street name that comes down through here. Um they are proposing um at this time anywhere up to about 350 uh single family units. Uh staff is is in discussions with them about um the different product types and mixes that may or may not be appropriate at this location. Um, I will bring up the current sketch that was reviewed during that pre-application meeting. See if I can Where's my 45 foot wide lots 215? Good gracious. Yes, I believe that number well no that's still the three

I'm read on on the chart to on the table to the left

but that there has been considerable discussion about lot sizes and variations and all of that. Um but this is currently again what was evaluated. The site is a little bit unique with the way Gentle Rain um comes down through this property and then is actually part of an adjacent parcel. Um it also backs up to Ren Road. Um so part of the discussions that we had with them is that until uh you know this property would be developed, there would need to be accommodations for traffic movement uh through the site uh from both directions, but still keeping in mind that in the future gentle rain would be connected through. There's the southern part of the site.

How many units are in that southern part of that development? Yeah, parcels. I'm going to guess it's close to half.

We've run into this before without having access even to projects like that, right? And this that may not get developed in the near future. It's a kind of a public safety issue. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's why the the Ren Road connection as well as the Gentle Ring connection were key. Um and then maintaining the two points of access with whatever they they ultimately decide to do going further south.

But that that gentle rain extension, the terrain, the topography there looks very treacherous. Yeah, I'm sure that the crossing would be expensive. Yeah. As as well, I say, but basically they got to do the same thing with the road because it's going through the same uh stream flood plane to call it. They have to Hey, so we got 350 units proposed. Aren't we getting close to maxing out the uh traffic capacity at New Beth Church Road? Yes, we are. we got to be all over it.

Yeah. And so that's been that's been part of the discussion as well. So that one again, just keep in mind this is this has been very early. Um just just one round of comments from the pre-application meeting um has been given. So we'll see how this one evolves going forward. Um, the next one for a possible reasonzoning is a potential subdivision off of Ballot Road.

I have a quick question before we leave uh New Bethl. Do we have or can you get to us what the traffic situation looks like at full B buildout for what we've approved in South Garner? Can we figure like

we should be able to um because we have all the we have all the numbers um as well as you know access to I'm not sure if the new traffic counts from DOT have come back out yet. Um but we certainly have the the older ones and we can ask the uh our consultant to do a little analysis of that using uh some other market data uh that's available. I go back to traffic capacity as a resource in that part of the town and you know we have got another other conversations with some other projects in that whole wide oak 50 corridor but we may have to pick and choose or there may need to be um concessions on size made for some of these projects.

Y either we pick one or two good ones or maybe we spread it out across several. So I think getting a snapshot of what we've already approved and what those maximum capacities are especially now also is it when are there any changes that would occur because of the roundabout in terms of flow and I know there there are but have we been able to assess

that that's always a possibility. Um, I need to talk with engineering a little bit about about that a little more, but um, it's possible that additional slip lanes um for certain movements could be added. Um, I know at one time there was, uh, a discussion of perhaps a slip lane uh, coming from either probably from Hebrin uh to White Oak headed east. Um, again, just depending on where the majority of those movements are expected to go. Um, but that is a possibility. There are there are other improvements that still could be entertained.

So that would be helpful because it's that 50 White Oak, Brian Road, all that. And they all got to go up there and that stretch of Timber Drive, I mean of White Oak between Timber and 70 has the highest traffic volume in the entire town already. and there's not probably not much relief coming for that corridor regardless of what we do. Um so that would be helpful. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else have any other

Okay. All right. Um so the ballot road proposal um that's being looked at this is uh just east of Guy Road uh getting closer to the Johnston County line um just south of edge of Auburn and Gatsby station here along East Garner Road. Again, this has just been to a pre-application meeting, so very early. Um but here they're looking at um what I would consider a fairly standard um residential subdivision here. Um approximately 104 right around 100 single family homes. Ballot Road is existing. Um so they would need to be you know extending the road network and stubbing out where appropriate uh for adjacent lots uh for future

45 foot wide lots. Y'all need to realize 45 foot's about Mr. the hardest exchange. I'll do that, aren't you? I'm sorry. What? I missed that. The lot widths are 45 foot again. I mean, that's about from Miss Jones. Other comments on this one

question on the uh Jeff looking here and looking at the left where there's a lot of extra space is that cannot be developed because the streams the buffer I'm assuming that's the stream is black but I'm is that's is that a stream or they're green but I'm just assuming that's what it was. Um that appears to maybe be just the limits of disturbance. Um there is a power easement or a gas easement that runs here. Okay. Um so that's a fairly wide kind of cuts off that northwest corner. I was just wondering why the corner was cut off. That explains it. Okay. Right. Yep.

I see one entrance down at the bottom. Is there another secondary entrance? Not in this drawing, but that would need to be looked at. Yes. Singleton said that a lot went west for 45. Where is the Because I don't think I didn't think 40 table. Here it is. I was looking for it myself. That's why I was I was having a hard time finding it.

Are 45 foot wide lots allowed in R4? So if they if they wanted to, they would need to propose that as a condition and come with some other type of offsetting uh some other alternative means of compliance for achieving the space uh on those side setbacks, which might be shorter block face lengths with more open space in between each group. um which I kind of see that to a degree here on this side, not so much on this side. Um so that would need to be something that they would need to look at very carefully as well.

I think just the narrow lots create street parking issues. Mhm. It just isn't enough room for a driveway and it it just creates cramped a cramped driving experience in these neighborhoods that have these narrow lots and small setbacks between the homes. The combination single family, you might get enough room for one one space in between. um 18 ft for the driveway. Yeah, you kind you can get one, but that Yeah, that is a that is an issue.

These the side setbacks on these Mr. Treesburg are five feet, right? I don't believe we have again they would that would have to be some kind of condition where they propose some other mitigating um because I feel like the smallest side setback we have in the ordinance now is six. I don't believe we have any place where five is a by right side setback. 12 for 45 is 33 ft wide. Okay.

Yeah. Anything else on this one project would because of the easements and so forth. That's it looks like an R8 disguised as an R4. Yeah,

that's what it looks like. Um on the site plan side, those that are being uh reviewed by staff, um two projects, um the church here at the corner of uh Rainer Road and Waterfield Drive, um Quest Fellowship Church, they are looking to do a considerable expansion to their facility. uh that includes uh a lot of uh needed additional parking as well. Um so this was one that normally might just be in some cases it might just be a site plan modification. Um but because this one is essentially doubling the size of the church facility and doubling the size of the parking lot, it actually does uh require a full site plan. And I don't know that this one's going to want to come up for me here. It says it's loading. I will send this one out to you all um just to let make sure that you do have access to it in case this is not working for whatever reason. And we'll take a look into if there's something about this PDF that's making it difficult to load. Oh, there we go. Okay. So, yes, the existing church facility is over here on the far right along with their existing parking. Um, so they are adding a a new a whole new sanctuary. Um, like I say, it's about doubling the size of the existing building and then all of this parking to

be added along the north side of the parcel. Uh so this level of investment in the property does require that they bring the whole property up to today's standards. Um so we will be evaluating um their existing parking to make sure that it meets current requirements. Um our preliminary analysis has revealed that things look pretty good. Um it's not doesn't appear to be one that's going to have to be reworked much if at all. Um, so some good some good planning back in the day, I guess, to set it up for the future. Um, but that will be will be something that staff is looking at to make sure that the entire site does comply with today's UDO. Questions on this one?

All right. And then the last one, um, just very briefly, hopefully y'all are very, uh, in tune here with the park, uh, project, but we do have a site plan, uh, in review for the Jurgen Park office and maintenance building. Uh, Jurgen Park continues to move along at a good pace. Um but this is now uh in review um to get the office building and maintenance facility uh squared away in terms of their location and access and parking and making sure that it's integrated into the overall site. And that's all I have for you tonight. Just one one more on the 4,800 Auburn night delro apartments. Is that new?

Newish 4800 right below Auburn station. Yeah. Um not new. I think this was one that showed up on an earlier agenda a few months ago. Um it's not a project that's moving particularly fast. Um but yeah, it has been on there for a couple of months. Okay. Yeah, that's the one that had the mixeduse component um in two or three of the buildings with the bank on the first floor and residential above.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. I remember that. Jeeoff on Highway 7 across from uh Ditch Witch next to a little convenient mark. They cut out all down in there. Is that a development they're trying to put down in? That is the I believe that is the uh senior apartments. Um the affordable housing uh senior apartments that the lady, if you'll remember, she was presenting and she had uh connections back to the old school commons project. Um and she presented that to y'all and the property was reszoned. Um yeah, I do remember went to school here, I think she said, too. Yes. Yes.

Yep. So, yes, that is a a I believe a fourstory um senior low-income housing tax. I remember that now. Yeah. Okay. That's any word on the out parcels at Cabela's or restaurants or what have you. You hear rumors about it, but um so they they have come in. There are I think they're dividing that old hotel site into three parcels. And I know that we've there's at least two of those that have been in review. One is Bank of America. Um the other one I think is a restaurant. Um I don't know that we have an identified user for the third one yet. What restaurant is that?

Don't recall. One's a sit down restaurant. The other one they hadn't clarified yet. I don't know the name either. I just know it was a sit down restaurant. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Trezenberg. Um, we will move on now to our town manager with pending agenda report.

Yes. Um, thank you. So, in your packet this evening, um, it's just a preview of your April meetings and I'll sort of walk you through um, each meeting. As a reminder, this is a little bit different format than we've seen in the past. This is the second month we've used this new format. Um it's because we are actually entering these items into our new agenda software as we're putting together and organizing the um the agendas at least a month in advance. And so um what you'll see instead of one one memo that has the three meetings on it, you're going to see three separate agenda sheets because these are actually pulling from the agenda system where we've we've sort of put placeholders in for some of these items. So, looking ahead to your April uh 7th meeting, uh you're going to meet our new housing and community development specialists. Uh Lewis Herd will be joining us. He started with us uh last week and um eager for you to have an opportunity to meet him. Comes with a lot of experience and housing affordability um and looking forward to the exciting work he's going to be um providing to our team here and working with the town. Under your consent agenda, we've got several items. We've already got placeholders for um everything from looking at um getting started on our Metobrook uh park pond area and sort of that design work that we've talked about and as a way to activate phase one at Meto Metobrook Park. um looking at amending our holiday schedule uh this year. The July 3rd um which is a big event, a big deal for us here in Garner is on a Friday. July 4th is on a Saturday. Typically that holiday would then be celebrated by employees on the 3 is in terms of our holiday schedule. We're proposing we move that to Monday because the third is such a big event. It's all hands- on deck for

that type of event. So we just want need to update the schedule for that. Uh we've got some additional information regarding national opioid settlement. Um opting into that um as well. Uh we've got some no parking at Edge of Auburn Streets that um our engineering team will bring forward. Um, I will highlight originally, uh, number five, we thought we were going to need to bring back, um, to the council, uh, for approval amendment to the LMG, uh, master agreement to extend it so we can continue to work on the this particular item. Um, council and previous actions has authorized me to go ahead and sign those extensions while we still work on putting the agreement together, of which that is in progress right now. So that'll be coming back in its full agreement to council in the near future. Uh and then reclassification of assistant fire chief position. Um the chief is looking at doing some reorganization with his leadership team and would like to move one of his assistant chiefs up to a deputy chief and we just need to amend the classification plan to allow for that. Uh we also have a reasonzoning ordinance um correction for rock quarry assemblage. We uh found that there was um a typo in what was approved by council and so we need to just go back and have that reapproved through your consent agenda. And then we've got some surplus property that we need permission to to replace. under your hearings. We have um uh one hearing coming back as an SUP Greenfield Parkway Light Industrial. So that will be coming back. special use permit requested by Hunter Winston um prompting construction company for the approval and use of

warehouse and freight movement on over 36 acres. So that'll be coming back to to council or coming to council for um a public hearing. And then under new old business, we have a tier one conditional resoning uh coming back. This is the Lawndale project and this is coming back to council for action. Looking ahead to your April 21st regularly scheduled meeting, uh we have a presentation from the fire rescue department. They are working on updating their strategic plan as part of their reacredititation process. And so they'll be sharing that work uh that um with the plan and that work with us um at the meeting on the 21st. We don't have any items plugged in yet for consent on the 21st, but as as you're aware, this is always a work in progress. Uh looking ahead at our agendas. Um looking under new old business, we've identified two uh updates we want to bring back to council. First, uh are the results of our 2026 National Community Survey results. um sharing that with the community, with council. Um also talking about how we use that information in terms of not only strategic planning work, but also um performance measures uh for the town and how that helps guide some of the recommendations coming forth for the budget as well. So, we'll be sharing some of those results. And then we've talked a lot about Jurgen Park today. Um we're getting close to um completing that project and so our parks and wreck um team will be providing an update as to what the operations of that will look like for our opening and use starting in fall of 2026. We also have several of our quarterly reports on your meeting on the 21st. Your quarterly financial report, your quarterly capital project update, and then your monthly talk of the town. and the attorney is um requesting a close

section close session as well on the 21st. And finally, your work session on April 28th. Uh we'll, as we mentioned earlier this evening, we'll be bringing back discussions for the FY27 uh CIP and Horizons project. So this will be a continued discussion from um earlier this year and from your retreat as we begin to narrow down what is programmed for FY27 but also how we plan for future horizon projects. Coming back for continued discussions and updates is the Lake Park master plan update. This is actually something uh two retreats ago council started discussing and working on and we want to bring that back uh for for final feedback and updates based on some of the community engagement work that they've done. Uh we've got to look at um um adding funeral homes to the NMX district and so we'll be discussing that. Our planning director, Mr. treason. We'll be looking at uh how we amend uh this particular district to allow for funeral homes and then we'll be doing our development previews just like we've done this evening. So, if we have uh projects who have reached out to us who want to have an opportunity to present their initial concepts to council, we will schedule and program them in for your work session and then we'll also go over the development activity map. So, those are that's just a brief overview of your uh what to expect for your April uh meetings. And as always, these continue to be a work in progress. And so, as we get closer to those meetings, things may move or shift a little bit just to provide um load balance for each of the meetings, but wanted to give council an opportunity to have a sense of what's coming ahead. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions for

uh just want to say thank you for all the hard work getting this information out there. Work in progress and progress is the key word and it's good to see um have some headlights out ahead at what's coming at us. So appreciate everyone's hard work on putting all that together. Uh next on our agenda are attorney reports.

Thank you. Um at your seat today you should see a laminated um Garner's priority of procedural motions. Um this came out of our essentials municipal government course uh where this um part of this well both of these items come from the school of government. However, uh I went through and made sure that they matched our newly adopted rules of procedure. Um, and then thank you to our deputy town clerk, um, Miss Murray, who put this together in a nice package that you can bring to council. Uh, if you have any questions about that, again, it it's to provide, um, rather than re um referring to the rules each time to have an easy way of looking at what are the priority of um, different motions as well as, you know, what can be amended, what kind of vote, what kind of reconsideration uh, is allowed. But um I assure you it meets our current rules of procedure. So any materials you received at that training, disregard that. These are our local um sheets. Um again, I just wanted to update you. Last week, um all three of your attorneys attended the municipal attorneys conference. Um Miss Spain and I in person and uh Miss Pierce did the online version. Um but um it was a a very good session. We went over um talked about the different methods of providing police services and police liability issues. Um the state bar grievance process for municipal attorneys uh which as council knows u there's been some recent uh prosay plaintiffs who have made some allegations. I was able to confirm um with the state bar uh deputy counsel who were there that none of them have filed any complaints against me. Um and then

um they will only provide information on that to each individual attorney. um also talked about emerging first amendment issues which uh really talked a lot about the public um comment period and petitions and comments and guidelines that have come out of some recent cases about what can and cannot be regulated. Um we talked about the new web accessibility requirements. So, there's new federal law that will go into effect in April for any uh municipality or government entity larger than 50,000 in population. And then our compliance deadline will be next year. So, it uh there's really a lot of work to be done, but I'd say in this case, the federal government was nice and they're letting the big jurisdictions figure out how to do this and then the smaller jurisdictions uh get some more time to implement those. Uh but it will make sure that all of our digital offerings whether they're on our website or any mobile apps we have uh meet compliance for those uh individuals with disabilities. And I was a little bit shocked to learn that 26% of the population have some type of disability. Um it will not only um transparency and accessibility for everyone but they do say that the more um digitally accessible uh an employer is then the more opportunities for for a greater diversity of employees. Uh we also um they discussed uh legal challenges in land use decisions um particularly with the challenges between legislative and quasi judicial um decision making and we received our typical legislative update that we give. So you'll be seeing some materials provided to both council and department heads um out of this

conference um and perhaps some additional suggestions about things we can do to improve our processes here. And then my last announcement is that in um increasing our uh legal capacity in the department uh assistant town attorney um Diamond Spain will be attending the police attorney's conference in April as well which is in Wilmington. So appreciate council's support of of training because these are very important that we stay on top of these emerging issues in different um both case law and legislative on the federal and as well as the state level. So appreciate that support. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that update.

Council, I just have a comment. Um I just want to say um it brought me a lot of joy to come to my seat and see um the priority of procedural moments motions anybody who knows me. So thank you so much attorney Joe and Deputy Clerk Murray for for this hard work because um it's this is important especially the maximum of two amendments. So thank you so much for this and it's big time we got laminated procedural guidance here. I mean this we're big time tonight. Fancy stuff man. I never heard the one about I move that we suspend the rules. We had to check that one out. Second. I don't recall hearing or seeing that in my time doing this. I move we suspend the rules.

Legislature does a lot of that one. That one they do. Yes. All right. We'll move along to council reports. We'll start down here. Mr. Matthews.

Thanks, sir. I'd like to compliment the staff and I' seen uh Maria, but what a great showing for the extravaganza this past Saturday. If you try to drive through there, uh it was about like the July 3rd, it the traffic was backed up and so it obviously is well attended. It's grown and grown and uh a a great thing for us and uh even the alpacas were trying to get over there when I come to nice little traffic jam. I know the chief is having nightmares over that one. And uh congratulations on all the improvements upstairs with the new offices. Anybody hadn't been up there, it's we you've taken space and put offices where offices normally couldn't go. Now they got offices and it looks good. So I know it's a temporary fix to get the third story built. So that's the way that goes. But that's all I got.

Singleton.

Yes. Like to pass along. Thank you for public works, all the uh time and effort on the spring cleanup. Uh it takes a lot of manpower, a lot of manpower hours. They get some uh interesting stuff by saw some of the piles by the uh where we had the polar plunge and they had stacks of chairs at the curves. I mean really drove by they had them stacked up and assuming that was to be picked up. I mean they were taking advantage of the situation. But anyway, I do appreciate that. I know citizens always are complimentary of that and uh we got it done before uh the Easter holiday. That was the issue a long time ago. We won't get to that, but anyway, greatly appreciated the time and effort put into that because we are one of the very few communities that even do something like that in Wake County. Uh so pass that along, please.

Thank you, Mr. Stallings.

Uh I want to say I'm excited to see the civic academy launching. Um I plan to be in attendance. Um, it's amazing opportunity for the community to get involved, engaged, and learn more about the inner processes of the of the town. So, I'm definitely excited. So, I want to thank the town manager and the staff for getting that initiative up and running, and I'm definitely excited about it. I just want to say that I had a great time with the Habitat elected officials bill that was held on March 20th out in the Gateway uh uh Gateway neighborhood, that area. Gateway Street, I think it's called. And uh it was just a great opportunity for bonding and building and and seeing uh the hard work that goes into uh putting in uh homes for people who need them need them dearly. So it was a great time to just bond and and network.

All right. Um I guess I still have cancel reports, too. Just want to um thank everyone who uh came out to the Garner Elite softball opening day on Saturday. It was cold in the morning, but uh I think uh Mr. Vance made it out there. Mr. Singleton uh assistant manager pool made it out. Our police chief and fire chief made it out. It was it was good. It was the first one they had done since picking up Wreck Ball. Uh it was good turnout. We've navigated a couple of uh situations out there with the weather and the wind. Um also give a shout out to public works for getting the field ready for that event in spite of the weather that had come through the night before. Um also looking forward to citizens academy as well. Uh and the habitat thing was great too. Uh if nobody has anything else, I'll refer to this procedures motion laminate here and I I guess I could call for a motion. The motion to adjurnn.

So move. I second. All in favor? I I I thought you say they all Happy honey.