Town Council - workshop

one and welcome to the july 28th town council work session thanks everyone for being here tonight uh deputy town clerk please call the roll mayor pro tim dellinger here council member matthews here council member singleton here council member stallings here council member vance here And now we need a motion for Mayor Gupton's excused absence this evening. So moved. Second. Motion by Councilman Stallings, seconded by Mr. Vance. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? And motion passes. Next item is adoption of the agenda. Anyone have any questions or comments about the agenda this evening? If not, I'll invite a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved.

Second.

Motion by Mr. Matthews, seconded by Councilman Stallings. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? And motion passes. We have no presentations this evening. Our first item of business this evening is Development Preview CZ26004 Bennett Commercial. I will recognize our Assistant Planning Director, Aaron Joseph, to introduce the project to the panel.

good evening pro tem council members and members of the public it's good to see everyone this evening i'll give a brief introduction and pull up the developers presentation here so this first developer preview is for a tier one conditional rezoning. The applicant, Beth Blackman of Timmons Group, has submitted the rezoning on behalf of the property owner, Bennett Land, NC LLC. And this request is to rezone seven acres from multifamily B conditional to commercial mixed use conditional. This parcel is a part of the original Bennett assemblage that includes a mix of residential types. However, after town council discussions with the developer regarding the Blue Ridge tax exemption, it was requested to include commercial within that Bennett assemblage project. And so the developer has submitted this tier one conditional rezoning. They have received one round of comments from staff to date and those comments are generally to ensure that conditions exceeds the UDO standards and that commitments are meaningful. There are some comments related to site and building design enhancements. So without further ado, I will turn the microphone over to Ms. Beth Blackman to give you more details on this proposal, thank you.

Thank you, Erin. Good evening, council members. Beth Blackman with Timmons Group, 5410 Trinity Road, Suite 102, Raleigh. Happy to be here. So yeah, just a brief overview and I, went ahead and dropped in a few things y'all probably know you're very familiar with this site um so yes it's right next to uh the rest of the bennett subdivision which is apartments townhomes and single-family cluster it's across the street from exchange at 401 just north of the costco 1010 mccullers intersection so a little bit of background from your garner forward plan character typology is mixed use center it is very close to retail areas some residential and employment as well it's located within a neighborhood activity center it's also just outside of a community active activity center that is located at the intersection of ten ten Current zoning, Ms. Joseph covered this, but multifamily B conditional, it was rezoned in 22, all for residential at that time with a reserve strip for some commercial later. But yes, this parcel is created on the south side of the new entrance road, and so we were looking to rezone all of it to CMX, Here you can see it, so there will be an entrance road coming in off of 401 through, but the property on both sides would then be zoned to the commercial, the CMX. driveway access obviously dot will not allow any additional accesses on 401 so we don't have any site plan for this but we know that the driveway accesses will be off of the interior subdivision streets and we did as part of the subdivision design accommodate entrance locations so you can see on the north side of the screen there is a left into the site from the proposed subdivision street there's obviously can be an entrance on the south on the west side from that street that parallels the site and then also an entrance could be on red red oak hill road on the south um Permitted uses, so we recently did Exchange at 401 commercial as well across the street. So these uses were very similar to that. Things that we had already taken out of that development, we went ahead and took out of this. I think there was one or two new uses that had been added to the UDO, so I made sure to pick those up off of the text amendments that had been added. Artisan shop was one of them. I don't remember if there was any others. But tap uses, these have been adjusted after our staff review because a few of them were the S, you know, for a special use permit versus a P. So I made sure to update those. But happy to discuss these or read through them if you want. But very neighborhood commercial type uses is what we're aiming for. And we can certainly go back to this page. zoning conditions that continue on after the permitted uses being number one we did talk about adjusting the retail allowable to prohibit like tobacco stores like shops smoke shops those sorts of things may want to after the Our attorney looks at this, makes sure it's worded correctly, but that was our first draft of adding that condition as staff requested. We talked about the building entrances, making sure that entrances were prominent and had a covered walkway area adjacent to their facade. One of the things that staff asked was a recommendation for building height, minimum of one story with a maximum of three stories in height. The pet waste station was carried over something we had in Exchange at 401 commercial, as well as the 75% landscaping native and adapted species. There was talk about building orientation and parking, so we did add a couple of conditions, seven and eight, regarding to landscaping and parking. Obviously, it's a very small site and it's not very wide, so we want to be careful about restricting where a building has to go and where parking goes from being able to fit everything into the property, because we have not done any layouts on this site at all. So, but we do want to make sure we're offering enhanced landscaping, you know, additional attractive plantings, not so much that's just totally 100% blocking of view. We're not looking for that, but a very pedestrian friendly streetscape. So that's seven and eight. And then carried over from exchange at 401 was the transit easement. This would give you one on both sides of 401 then. And then obviously the property owner is committing to ongoing maintenance of all the exterior areas. So that was everything I had. We're here. Danny Copeland with RC Development is here as well. And so if you have any questions for us, we're happy to get your feedback.

Thank you very much. Let's start down here. Mr. Matthews, do you have any questions for staff or applicants?

I know the permitted listing, what your tenant didn't want to put in, do you have any, excuse me, any businesses or companies already kind of committed to come in at this time, or is that still open at this point?

We do not, that is still open at this point.

Okay.

Mr. Singleton.

Ms. Blackmon, on the, the part that has the light blue, the rezoning area, it includes the piece that Red Oak Hill divides, and on the bottom, this is future development.

that is part of the reasoning it is so that map is a map from the approved subdivision plan so in the approved subdivision plan that area was labeled as future development and so when we did the blue hatch on top of it i didn't edit the approved plan that was literally the approved plan from before so yes all that future developments included that's just the partial label that was on it from 22 when we did our approved subdivision

Okay, and I reckon right now, because it's future development, there's no access to anything. Let's just wait for another day.

Yeah, so the reason that came about in 22 was actually thinking that the property to the south would actually tie into that commercial and continue commercial down. We can obviously come in and put an access in it. These would be time to garner streets so we can work with engineering staff to put an access if something would go on that parcel or that property may be one day merged with the property to the south when it's redeveloped.

Just curiosity. Thank you.

No problem.

Stallings. Why a tier one rezoning request rather than a tier two?

Well, mainly because I don't have any users. I don't have a design. I don't have an actual design or layout or plan for this point. So I can't give you the map that would normally go with a tier two rezoning. So when we do a subdivision or a have a user that comes in and knows exactly what they want, then it's very easy to commit to a map and a layout. But because I don't have users at this point, I don't want to do a layout and commit to that, speculatively. And then when it doesn't work with an end user because it was a rezoning, we would literally have to rezone it again.

I'll pass along. How does the traffic compare with the previous approved residential development?

How does the traffic compare?

Yes.

Not knowing the uses, I couldn't tell you exactly, but residential, this was apartments, 171 apartments, if I remember correctly. So that would have been a decent traffic generator. So I would think that neighborhood commercial and also hoping that the residents in this neighborhood would also be able to walk, that the traffic should not be anything more significant than what was previously proposed, because there are turn lanes that were in the median cutover that was included with the subdivision, so none of those would change. And when you think about the traffic that's on 401, I don't necessarily think your end users are gonna be people who are driving specifically to this, it's more gonna be they're stopping because they were driving by it already. that would be my thoughts anyway okay one other question how will the neighboring communities be protected and so that was some of the buffering the extra buffering um that we added in and it wasn't like i said i don't want to make a dense solid perimeter buffer because people also need to be able to see that they're going to this commercial area but we definitely wanted to screen it so we did add conditions to enhance the landscaping on the um west side so that would be up next to the town homes and on the south side when people are coming in so you would still and you still have the 401 buffers that you know we were previously proposing So it's not, and it's also with the one to two, three-story height and the apartments are three stories.

Apartments are three stories.

Yeah, so the apartments to the north are three stories already. So this should be the same or blend in. with your townhomes that are then two stories next door to be less intrusive and majorly commercial and also planning for neighborhood commercial type uses by restricting the permitted uses list.

So one quick question stormwater doing above ground surface level stormwater.

So this site was accounted for in our original storm warning with the subdivision. So that intention would be to carry over that this site would drain to the existing, the ones that are under construction for the subdivision at this time. If for some reason the impervious numbers didn't work out the same, then they could do some underground attention if needed.

Another round. Anything else Mr. Matthews? Mr. Singleton?

No, not at this time.

Mr. Stolling.

You said a lot of this is contingent. The reason why you went to Tier 1 rather than a Tier 2 is contingent upon the end users. What about this project would drastically change based off of the end users?

I mean, a building layout or design, like whether or not somebody wanted a standalone building or you were doing a strip with multiple tenants in it. I mean, commercial is... Some more of like national type chains, franchise type things or anything like that, they have a set building design. They have a set kind of program that they want. Or then you do more of just like a retail, like you're getting on Timber Drive going out towards the Target and stuff. And so then you get people who come in and rent a space, lease a space. and that's all they need like if it's more medical office or something like that but depending on your user they could have a very specific kind of building program why do you have a dedicated transit transit easement there so that was a comment on exchange at 401 commercial and that was requested by staff and so i carried it over to this one it is totally optional and at this moment, excuse me, at this moment it has a location to be determined by staff later. I just assumed that since we did one on the north side of 401 that it would make sense to do one on the south side of 401.

Mr. Vance, we're envisioning a day that we would probably have more bus service along the 401 corridor because of the growth that's happening. Currently, the only service goes direct to Wake Tech, but we're working in the long-range plan with Go Raleigh to provide service in other areas. So anywhere that our staff thinks is likely to ever have bus transit service, we're asking for those easements to be included so that we don't have to go back later and either negotiate them or be limited by where we can have bus stops if we're able to add to our transit network.

just have a couple more questions for me I noticed in the presentation there's a clear reference to the character typology map from a comprehensive plan why did you include that why did I include it well because it was a map that y'all look at when you're doing your review and it was mixed use center which you know we did the mixed residential previously and so adding the commercial to it adds to Finishing out that mixed-use area. It was piece by piece instead of all together at one time, but It's all the reference to the growth framework map as well.

Why did you include that?

Covering the parts that staff will present on at the end and making sure that we are setting up to answer the questions and know what areas we're in and so this will be part of staff's presentation when this comes forward as a public hearing so i wanted to go ahead and look at it make sure i'd accounted for it this was actually in my neighborhood meeting packet as well um i covered this all both of these maps during that presentation i don't see the development intensity map in here why is that not included i did look at it and did not include it um that is one that I have looked at lesser in my previous experience here, but I did think that we were at a compatible, and so I did not include them.

You're compatible with the other two, so you included those.

No, I didn't. I didn't think that it was a big factor one way or the other, so I did not include it. But I can certainly, it will certainly be in your staff presentation at the public hearing.

It does say the prevailing building height should be 3 to 5 stories. Okay. I just want to make sure. I was trying to understand why it wasn't included. Anyone else have any other questions for staff or applicant?

No, but I will support the easement for transit if the project moves along that staff had mentioned. So you have the easement for one day when it may happen.

So you do like that condition?

Okay.

anything else all right if not thank you so much thank you our next item of business is czmp 25006 4800 auburn nightdale road apartment and we will see ms joseph again for staff presentation

Okay, thank you. So this request is a tier two conditional rezoning, 14 acres along Auburn-Nightdale Road and US 70. The applicant is requesting commercial mixed use for the development of a mixed use development. Now this request was presented to you previously at a work session back in May and so stemming from those comments and the feedback that the developer received and also a follow-up meeting on June 11th with the two on two or two by two meeting, the applicant has made changes and would like to present those changes to you this evening to receive further feedback, and so I will ask the development team, Mr. Tobey, okay, all right, to step forward. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Dellinger, members of council, Toby Coleman here on behalf of the applicant Brown Investment Properties on the 4800 Auburn Nightdale Road proposed rezoning. As mentioned, this is one that came before you back in May. um and um and we are back uh mainly just to get just because we've made a couple of changes and before we resubmit this for the second round of review we want to make sure we're on the right track on a couple of specific issues that we heard for quick background you can see there on the screen this the location of this rezoning it's at the corner of us-70 on the north side of us-70 and AUBURN NIGHTDALE ROAD, IT'S RIGHT ACROSS, MORE OR LESS ACROSS THE STREET FROM WHERE THE NEW GREGORY POOL EQUIPMENT COMPANY HEADQUARTERS IS GOING TO BE. AND THE PROPOSAL HERE IS FOR VERTICALLY MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT. and we got a number of comments at the may 26 hearing um and we've been reviewing them uh we really appreciate the feedback um and a number of the comments that we got were clear and we don't we're not gonna necessarily follow up on all of them um for instance um there was some discussion about the uh bloom ridge loophole and would we commit to that and we're sort of working on on that issue um we don't need any further clarity on that we understand the council's position on that and some of these other things. But we're back on two issues. The first is that we heard some feedback both here at the development preview in May as well as in our follow-up two-on-two meeting about the amount of commercial or non-residential space in the development. We're gonna show you that we've worked to increase that. We wanna make sure we're on the right track. We also heard comments from Councilor Singleton, among others, about a desire for more open space. We have worked on that as well, wanted to show you that just to make sure we're on the right track. As background, this is a site that's currently owned by the State Employees Credit Union and is being sort of developed in partnership with the State Employees Credit Union. It's currently actually already zoned CMX. It's just that it's got some really old zoning conditions on it, 30-year-old zoning conditions that basically really restrict what you could do on the site and so there's really two reasons that we need to rezone the site even though we're going from cmx to cmx uh one is basically to sort of lift these restrictions that wouldn't allow you to do vertically mixed use zoning that the garner forward plan calls for and that we think and we understand council really wants to see here The other reason is that our plan calls for a little over 300 apartments. And under your UDO, either we have to do a tier two rezoning or we'd have to get council approval via a special use permit process. So after talking with staff, it was decided that the best route was to do this rezoning. So that's sort of just a little bit of background. So as I said, here are the two sort of big issues. The first is we doubled the amount of non-residential that we're proposing. When we came to you back in May, we highlighted that in building one and building two, which is at the bottom of the plan, we're gonna have a bank for the state employees credit union space, that's in building one with a drive-through facing 70, and then we're gonna have a restaurant space. And that total non-residential space on the ground floor of those two buildings was going to be about 12,000 square feet, a little under. After conversations at the two-on-two and after the work session, what we want some feedback on is that we're proposing to take what originally were the two buildings that are both labeled Building 3 there on the right side of the plan, They were originally going to be townhome apartments, and we're converting them into non-residential space. Office, commercial, sort of not really determined what it would be. And so that about doubles the non-residential space. One of the reasons why we wanted to come back to you now with this, even though it's sort of extending our review time, is that in looking at this and really sort of putting the green eye shade on, so to speak, The development team has determined that it would be, it probably would be fairly difficult to get a lot more, it would be difficult from a financial viability standpoint to get a lot, to put a lot more non-residential space in there. The main concern would be that you'd end up with a lot of empty non-residential space, to be really frank with you. um and and you know then you get into lending and other things like that which we could you know if you need to we can talk about um as part of that you know i don't know that this really factors into y'all's consideration we didn't hear a lot of comments about wanting to reduce the number of apartments i think in some cases uh i think mayor partem delinger mentioned you know hey go denser and you know and you can maybe achieve some of our other other goals like affordable housing and things like that But in this case, we are proposing to reduce the number of apartments down to 310 apartments. In part, that's just sort of an exchange that has to happen because of increasing the amount of non-residential. We just wanted to sort of make it clear that sort of exchange that we're doing. In terms of the increased open space, it's there at the bottom of the site. And let me, here's sort of a bigger version of that, if that's helpful. um at the in the southwest uh corner of the site um the plan that you all saw two months ago uh that was where the stormwater pond was and so what we are proposing is to basically underground the stormwater pond and allow that will allow for more open space uh in this development we heard obviously uh counselor singleton uh indicated that he would like to see more open space and we know that a number of you really sort of look out for that. So we wanted to make sure on those two things we're on the right track and we wanted to make use of this process so that if there were significant concerns about this, that we had that heads up now as opposed to sort of going through the full process. and sort of hitting a wall after we had invested a lot more time and money into it. So with that, we have a full team available for questions, happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you so much. Mr. Vance. Oh, yes. Thank you for the consideration of Council's concerns, and particularly with the two business buildings that are now going to be commercial. Appreciate that. And I want to know what types of businesses are you targeting?

Do we have a specific, we do not have a specific target. I mean, we've got a long list of permitted uses in the conditions, but we don't, to be frank, because it is on the side of the site, it's not facing 70, we're gonna sort of have to learn what the market want, what businesses want to be there. Gotcha.

One more question. Why is six stories appropriate here?

Why is six stories appropriate here in terms of the conditions? We are proposing a six-story max height because that's consistent. The Garner Forward Plan calls this a mid-rise area, which I think is six stories, a little bit of six stories above. So we wanted to address that. To be really frank with you, if Council said we'd like to see that be a little shorter, We'd be happy to address that. I just know that both in this case and in other cases, I've started to hear concerns from Mayor Pro Tem Dellinger and others, a desire to really make sure that zonings and other developments are consistent with that guidance in the Garner-Ford plan. So we wanted to sort of acknowledge that in our zoning conditions.

Thank you. Mr. Stallings.

No question.

Mr. Singleton.

Yes, Mr. Coleman, thanks for switching the townhomes out to commercial space. Also for relocating the stormwater ponds. What's the appropriate size of that section listed number six? I'm just curious, do you know how big that area is roughly?

I was just looking at Matt Ansley with ISG.

And it will be relatively flat.

Yes.

I get the nod, that's what I want. Yes. Okay, in question about the height, you showed us some elevation, the local mix used in buildings one and two. You talked about six stories. Those that are shown here on the elevations that we see on our agenda package show two four-story ones. Yes. Is that just there, and the ones in the back may be taller? Is that what we're speaking?

Well, again, I think at this point, I think that in the planning stages, the focus has been on four-story buildings in terms of what's actually going to get built. But again, we wanted to, because of the guidance in Garner Forward, that was why we put into the conditions a maximum height of six stories. Again. If there's guidance that you guys want us to go a few lower, that's something we're happy to take under consideration. We were just sort of responding to some of the concerns that we had heard a little bit in this case and that I've heard in some of the other cases that I've brought before y'all recently where there's been some discussions about wanting taller buildings.

I mean, you're using the space, the density, you might as well go up. I go through Greenville a lot and Ain't nothing on that four-story, the housing. I mean, of course, everything else is on the road now, but everything, six, seven, I'll drive by and count them. Sometimes I make stories. I know it's a lot of student housing, but I mean, if we're going to put it here and have density, we might as well make it as vertical as we can. We've lacked that, in my opinion. I mean, if you're going to develop it and people say we need housing, okay, then let's go up a story or two. So I appreciate that. Thanks for the changes that you've made that I have seen. And the right in, right out on Highway 70. The entrance to Hall 70, right in, right out?

Yes. That's right. We initially thought that, we initially had some hope that we were going to get it locked in, and then DOT took, I think, a second look at it after initially giving us some hope and said, yeah, you've got a left-hand turn lane, you know, not too far away at Auburn-Nightdale. So that was sort of the determination by DOT.

Yeah, and it queues up pretty good in the afternoon. It sure does. I'm getting the cart before the horse here. Maybe I shouldn't ask this. Well, anyway, you don't know if this moves forward, if any improvements have to be made to the intersection.

To the Auburn-Nightdale and 70. Yeah, there are some improvements that are going to be made. And forgive me, I'm happy to follow up with you and get you more information. I don't have all the details right in front of me at this moment.

There's one thing that just happened. It queues out into the Eastbound lane.

I've experienced that cue.

All right, thank you.

Mr. Matthews.

Thank you. I'm glad we can have these meetings like this. It's helpful. We've started, staff come up with, and I appreciate what they did to do this to, so the whole board can get good feedback, and you guys have taken advantage of it, which speaks well of you, to go back and say, well, this is what concerns, and we can fix that, we can do that, we're gonna do that and do that. And so, in the spirit of cooperation, making a project that you can be proud of. And I agree with my colleagues. Let's go high with this thing. Set an example out there and let everybody else follow your example. And I think you'll be glad you did because that is a really nice gateway coming in. And especially people, it's going to be that new loop coming through down there. We're going to see a lot going on out there, even more so inwardly. gregory pool and who knows what else is going to be going that's a high growth area and i think you picked a great spot and i was wondering how long that driving range was going to last through the years but you might find a few golf balls out there but and uh and you had made mention on the blue ridge issue so i'm sure the attorneys and i will get together and work through that and you understand our concerns on that i do and i've worked with miss jones on a separate matter on that exact issue so i have actually tried to wrestle that beast at least once And like my colleague, I appreciate all the response that you guys have. You heard us, and we heard you, and to make all these changes, which will hopefully make things run really smooth. So other than that, I like what you're doing here, and I like the spirit of cooperation and talking. This is really good, and I hope those other developers watching this will work if everybody can get together. Thank you.

It's a few comments, a few questions. I reiterate wholeheartedly what my colleagues have said, particularly Mr. Matthews, on having this dialogue and exchange and working with our expectations and our existing plans to produce a good product and understanding You know, we're flexible to site constraints and that type of thing, and you can't set a precedent here for what doesn't fit here, so we appreciate that. We're appreciative of taking the Tier 2 route as well, setting expectations very clearly for us and the community, future revenues. I do have a few questions. Also, stormwater, like, great, we need more of that. Those are the types of examples you guys set that help us. it with future projects um in the verticality that i think that you know i think you're kind of hearing consistent we're okay with going higher i know you won't go six you know because you gotta do a whole bunch of other stuff you go over five but don't shy away from five if that's where you all want to go um but overall it's good that you've met all the criteria on the kind of first and second pass I have kind of a question on, you mentioned the affordable housing, and again, we're kind of in flux in figuring out what we want to do, but we're open to all kinds of creative types of relationships and engagements, and it'd be probably another conversation for another time to reach out to the State Employees Credit Union and see if there are ways they can work with us for creating products or something like that not attached to this rezoning of course but just saying there are other ways we can tackle that problem we'd still like to work as you go through the process with staff having conversations with maybe ways we can include some units in here if it's economically feasible and those types of things that 300 is a weird cutoff point because it's kind of big but it's not really big So just to continue that conversation so when you come back there's some dialogue and maybe some type of productive outcome from that. Other than that, thank you guys for engaging with us and helping us get as much clarity as we can provide to you as you all move forward.

Thank you very much.

Anyone else have any other questions?

Mr. Vayner. One last one. What amenities will the residents have?

So what's shown here, and I may be giving an incomplete number, but you've got the pool and the clubhouse shown there sort of in building four and the horseshoe. There's also plans for a dog park. One of the zoning conditions calls for an enclosed bike storage facility. Am I missing anything? Okay, I think that's, I think those are the main two, and then obviously having a commercial space where you can have restaurants and other things also provides some additional sort of practical amenities.

No further questions.

Mr. Stoll? Just to echo my colleague's comments, thank you for being receptive to our feedback.

I'll skip the line on the, for the height, is there gonna be a condition minimum, or are you gonna come back with a minimum of four?

We haven't talked about that, but certainly we will talk about it now, given your question.

I just raised the flag. I think there's kind of been some consistency on council over the past year or so around elevators as an accessibility concern.

We do have a condition requiring elevators in enclosed halls.

Okay. I didn't see it in this particular one. I didn't remember from before. I just want to make sure the elevators is included. Yes.

Okay. We are very aware that that is more or less. I know it's a zoning condition, but I've come to regard it as what a former journalism teacher used to call a non-negotiable necessity. A little bit. So just think of it.

I know that this is different than the previous, which is a tier one rezoning. This is because you're rezoning up something that CMX already. This is a conditional rezoning. So it's nice to see a footprint of what you're planning to do. That helps. The tier ones are very frustrating because they're so broad. And once you approve all the permitted uses, all the permitted uses can go there. So anyway, it's nice to see what y'all have brought. You brought something similar, of course, to the earlier meeting, and this is just refined, so thank you.

Mr. Matthews? Yeah. All right. No further questions from council, none for staff? All right. Thank you very much. All right. Next item of business code revision project, proposed police and fire amendments. I will recognize Attorney Spain to present the proposed ordinance amendment.

Good evening everyone, I'm Assistant Town Attorney Diamond Spain, and I will be presenting our proposed amendments.

Attorney Spain, could you pull your microphone? Yes, please. Thank you.

so the last time we were present we have since then we have added additional language and kind of worked through some of the maybe the kinks we needed to address so we're going to start with chapter four and i did just want to make sure that mr paul paget is online and available he's good to go yes okay uh because he will be joining us for this chapter four portion So our additions to chapter four include the adoption of the North Carolina Fire Prevention Code, also prohibitions on interfering with or driving or congregating where fire rescue is assembled to extinguish a fire and essentially just carry out any of their duties, use requirements for recreational fires, outdoor fireplaces, and fire pits and bonfires, This is going to be included in our open burnings section. Also, of course, the duties of fire rescue and the fire chief, because they were previously not considered to be a part of the town, we have to address that. So we've included language to address those changes to the dynamic and also address central station monitoring system issues. service alarm system requirements and that is where we will have a description and breakdown of what that is we did remove reference to negotiations between council and the volunteer fire department again to address that change after the merger also as a note this is One of the changes that is applicable to all of the chapters is we have made an effort to remove gender specific language throughout. So that is a change that you will notice in all of them. So the biggest change I would say of all of these aside from addressing the change from the merger is going to be central station monitoring service we are implementing a requirement for utilization of that but it will be applied force the future not retroactively and so at this point just so that we can have an understanding of what we're saying people will need to use I'll have mr. Padgett give us a breakdown of what this system and service is Do I need to do something?

Good evening, Council. Can you all hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you all for the time to clarify on this topic here. So we're looking to add a little bit more depth within the ordinance that kind of lives very vaguely within the fire code. It gives us the ability or gives fire alarms the ability to be monitored under an approved supervising station. um currently what we see most is remote by us saying uh that that what's acceptable to us or what is approved to us is going to be central station service it adds in a higher standard for these fire alarm systems so keeping in mind that their purpose is to get folks out of the building and to notify the fire department as quick as possible so they can respond to support life safety and property conservation this change what it does is it then requires these alarm systems and we put a date of january 1st 2027 so that we can work with contractors and building owners so they're aware of what this addition means. So the biggest picture is that each of the systems being installed would have to be certificated from a service like UL, FM, or Intertech. And that means that the alarm company holds a certificate. They have been vetted by one of those companies and they get audited on an annual basis. They actually come through and do stops in your jurisdiction and look at buildings. So it's holding the installation and the maintenance at a higher standard. The other thing that it'll help us do is it'll help us cut down on nuisance alarms. So every time the fire truck heads out to a call and, say, somebody... let's say a system's not being maintained properly and we've got a device that is sending signals when it shouldn't. So it's putting an apparatus out of place where it should be available to a life-saving call or something like that. This maintenance that goes along with the certificate program actually requires the fire alarm companies to have runners. So as soon as that alarm goes out, They're going to initiate a runner service to have someone on site within two hours to help either get the system back in service or to correct that issue. Currently, most of our systems in town, other than Amazon, do not have that service. Most of the time, it'll go to a business owner or somebody on the call list. And then whenever they get around to it, they'll call a technician to come out and look at it. This actually requires them to send a runner. The other part is that it actually, if a system or a portion of it is out of service for more than eight hours, that alarm company has to notify either the fire department or our inspection department where the fire prevention office currently lives. So we're being notified within a very short period of time that we have a system in our jurisdiction that is not functioning properly. The importance of that, and I'll give you an example. We had a shopping center a while back that upon our routine inspection, we found that their fire alarm was not communicating. When we pulled the service records for it and the monitoring reports, The company had changed from the old copper lines, always over IP. The fire alarm didn't know how to communicate. So for six months, that system was not communicating properly. We're not sure where the trouble calls were going to, probably maintenance or property maintenance. But by putting this in place, it helps us bridge that gap. The verbiage within the ordinance, it really supports the three E's of code compliance. Education engineering and then lastly enforcement. It addresses if we have existing systems that are that continue to be nuisance problems. We can work with them to transition it to a certificated system. We also will build out a course which we kind of already do with new construction to make sure folks know how to how their system works in their building. how to try and reduce nuisance alarms and those types of things. And then lastly, the fire code allows us to give civil penalties if needed. Of course, we would much prefer that folks spend that money to fix their systems than have to issue that civil penalty. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have in regards to this portion of the ordinance change.

I have two questions. One, it says the owner of every building regulated by this article shall provide an approved operable fire alarm system. Who's required to do this?

And so I can answer to all. So this change is specific to commercial property. We're not imposing this on commercial properties that already have systems that are not a nuisance. It's at the point in which they become one. And so when we get to and I'll break down when we reach the point in which a commercial property that has not been a nuisance in the past reaches that level and the process for then being required to utilize this. But if there is a new commercial property that it has to install, then moving forward, they are going to be expected to have this particular system. So any existing systems that are not of issue right now are not gonna now have to go out and U-haul their entire system.

yeah i guess my question was where is i was trying to find it and it may be in here and small but where does it say commercial and where does it reference so the buildings that are regulated by the article so i believe that is in section 447

because there's a breakdown in the penalty section. It first states that it references residential properties first, because they are not gonna be required to do this. The second portion then references the commercial properties, and after, I believe it's their third false alarm, that is the point in which they would need to.

Unless I'm missing, I think it might be helpful to define the scope of who needs to do this, because I'm not seeing it directly spelled out. It's kind of spelled out in kind of the consequences, but it should be these types of buildings need to have these systems. I guess my other question was, I get it's all for new, nobody has to go retroactively, but is there a threshold at which they have to go, if they're doing renovations, will they have to upgrade to the new code?

any kind of lose their grandfathered status so we included that one year grace period but the inspections department would address any new permit so if they're gonna have to implement installing a new system it's we put in the time frame that it would not be essentially effective until a year from when the ordinance is adopted so there's still a grace period for everyone even in that instance

Even for renovations and things like that? Yes. Okay. Anyone else have any questions at this time?

My question may be for both police and fire under the same thought process. Are these amendments expanding authority or are they just clarifying?

So we previously didn't have these included anywhere. We had a false alarm ordinance specifically for burglary. We did not have it within the context of fire. And so it's not necessarily expanding the authority. We just hadn't previously addressed it.

That was my question.

Yeah, just to make sure I understand. Okay, so as far as new commercial, and you might have covered this and I didn't understand it, but so any new commercial type buildings coming in, is there size of it requirement? If it's this size, you gotta have monitoring. If it's this size or smaller, you don't have to have it? Or is this across the board?

This is across the board for commercial, yes, sir.

Okay, thank you, that's what I know.

Miss Spain, I can kind of please give a little bit more detail there. Yep, so so the requirements for when fire alarms are needed are based out of the international building code and fire code. So there's specific threat thresholds either on type of use square footage or. There may be some special occupancies out there require it, and all of that comes out of 907. 90766 is actually the section that deals with the monitoring that requires every fire alarm to be monitored. Us taking this step here is just clarifying that portion of the code, saying this is what we're going to accept and garner moving forward. And it's to provide that higher level of life safety and property conservation to the

Anyone else have any questions right now? Mr. Singleton.

Just to clarify, on residential property, we have some multifamily. That's not in residential zoning, but it's in CMX zoning, or commercial zoning that's used. So I'm assuming, are they treated differently?

Yes, sir. So apartments or multifamily dwellings are they actually fall under the commercial building code. So they would fall under this as well. So there are main ones is making sure that that that fire alarm system is is top notch all the time.

Okay, I made that assumption, but I just wanted to make sure that that was the case. Okay, thank you.

Yes, sir.

I have another question along those lines. I know the commercial requires the fire alarm, so if you have a neighborhood that was a full rental commercial property, and every unit's rental, even if it's a single-family home, it's required to have a fire alarm. Does that go for like...

full rental townhome communities are they required or are they governed by the residential code when it comes to this no uh the townhomes fall under one and two family dwellings so they are built out of the residential code and the fire code does not apply there so they would just have the normal single multi-station uh smoke alarms like what you have in your home just to clarify

the townhome that's one, two, three, or four units in a building, that those are regulated as residential, like single family. But if you would get a larger string of townhomes, they would fall under multifamily.

Thank you. All right, back to you, Ms. Fain.

So we've kind of gone over some of these in part, but just to do it all at once. So we've addressed that it's not going to be retroactive application and there's a grace period of one year from the adoption of the amendment. Residential enforcement options are more lenient, as Paul stated, and alongside the fire department. They wanted to make sure that education was included. They don't really want people to end up having to spend a ton of money on this. And so residential, we are starting with, I believe it's their third warning. We're not immediately jumping to requiring them to take action that first step of action whether it is residential or commercial will be to take the alarm awareness class and we have the ability per the proposed amendment to either create one or if we can locate a class that meets the needs of the ordinance then we can utilize that but fortunately paul has uh they've essentially already done this in one form or another and can tweak it for this particular purpose hopefully in the instances that this does come up this class will enable especially just general residents the opportunity to figure out how to work their systems and avoid this and as well for commercial properties that currently have an older system to avoid having to transition to a new one so there's opportunity there to rectify the issue without actually having some sort of negative impact on the business. We did space out and provide them with more opportunities to fix it. And so after, I believe it's the fifth instance in which there's a false alarm, that is when for commercial properties, they will then need to a new system that falls in alignment with the new statute. If they continue to have false alarms and not bring their alarm system into compliance, and then that is when we see our civil penalties come into play. So there is a lot of leeway in terms of opportunities to fix it before we get to the civil penalty. So it's spaced out, and hopefully they will take the opportunity to get the education and avoid needing to deal with civil penalties at all.

Question on that subtle penalty. Yes, sir. If it's continued, it costs the chief and his apparatus and that crew a heck of a lot more than $100 to go out there continually. Where did you come up with that figure, and is that enough to get somebody's attention? 20 years ago, $100 meant a whole lot more. Now, you know, for what they got to do to make it an attention getter because, like I said, you can't run that call for $100. You can burn that much in diesel.

So that figure comes from section 1-8. That's kind of our general range of civil penalties is the $100. So that's where we got that range from. And again, we don't really want people to end up having to spend this money in civil penalties. Another provision that we are including is that if they do make a good faith effort to bring their system into compliance, transition it. Even if it takes time, we will not enforce those penalties and the money that has approved can be put towards them actually fixing their system. So the fire department and inspections really, we took the time to try to craft something to be fair and provide the community with opportunities to fix it.

they're being nice so yes 100 it's not a ton of money but the goal wasn't for the money it was really safety and to have a better standard for the town for it council may recall that our civil penalty system it's 100 for the first offense and then it escalates as you go to repeat offenses for the same violation and then each day or each time this occurs constitutes a subsequent

So that's in writing somewhere?

That's in Section 1-8 of the code a few years ago when we had to go through the decriminalization process. Council increased, I think it started at $25 or $50 at that time. So increase that. But we can certainly evaluate it. At some point, we can't raise it higher than what our costs would be, so there would have to be an analysis of what sort of the average cost is and... because particularly this is a new enforcement program, we'd wanna get some data on that. And the efforts that it's, the efforts that we put into it and the resulting benefits we get by reducing the number of false alarms. At some point, you'll have fewer, in theory, you'll have fewer and fewer violations.

This $100 just didn't seem like an attention getter.

Chief, I think you were... Well, I just wanted to provide some context from an operational standpoint from the fire department. So the goal in this is not for anybody to have civil penalties against them. The real essence is life safety. So it's to bring all of these antiquated alarm systems that we have in the town that we deal with We run approximately, in the half a year that we have data on this year, we've run almost 500 fire alarms, okay? So out of 8,000 calls last year, you can say about an eighth of those were responses to fire alarms. And so a context is to get these systems up to date, the reality is it takes more units to respond to commercial fire alarm activations because we have a big building to investigate. We have to confirm that there's no hazard present and so forth and so on. So the reality is, is this central station that's being proposed, it really captures the essence of making sure that all of the life safety and the life protection devices in the buildings are up to date and they're cared for and they're inspected by a registered agency. So I think that's the reality of it. And, you know, we have some things in there where the civil penalties, if you choose to get your alarm system up to date, then that's the avenue we'd rather see you go. So it's about reliability, reducing risk overall for not only staff on the roads responding to the calls, but also to citizens that are in the commercial occupancies.

I have a question. How big of a problem is this now? And is it,

erratic or they're like some standard consistent well so the reality is is the the term false alarm or uh nuisance or whatever a lot of times we respond to fire alarms and the fire alarm is maybe categorized to the public as a false alarm but it's really not a false alarm the the system operated and it detected something the reality is This gives the opportunity for the system to function properly and reduce the numbers of times that occurs. We run commercial fire alarms daily. So it's a daily occurrence that we run, go to a building, there's actually no hazard, but we're not saying it's a false alarm because it could have been anything that triggered that that actually gave an alarm.

Anybody else have any other questions at this time?

I just want to say from the fire department standpoint, I appreciate Diamond's effort, Terry's effort, and Paul on this. I think it's a very important step for us. This is not something you're going to see this year, but 30 years down the road, the data will show a much safer overall commercial occupancy. Thank you.

All right, we will move to chapter 10 now. So chapter 10 is our motor vehicles and traffic chapter. So we are adding reference to the traffic control map. We also added a proposed amendment for making sure that grass or weeds are not left in drains or on the sidewalks or in streets. Also restrictions on obstructing access to mailboxes and mail zones and then electric assisted bikes. So I will go into a breakdown for those. Then as far as portions that we are removing, because we are adding the traffic control map, there will be a significant portion that is removed because it will be addressed in the actual interactive map. And so that includes a list of stop sign intersections, intersections which require vehicles to yield the right of way to vehicles on through streets, the list of speed restrictions, and no parking zones. So presently, in our code there's a long list that states what each one of these are and so that will end up causing a decrease in a significant amount of the pages in our ordinance and it's i think you know it's visual it's more interactive and we will have alex bone discuss that that will be the next portion that we go into and so alex thank you

While he's pulling that up, I just want to clarify, you'll still have to adopt these traffic control measures by ordinance for any new subdivision or development. It's just that we will lose pages and pages of our ordinance book by not having to list everything out in a text format. But you'll still be adopting ordinances. They just won't get codified into the code of ordinances. They'll be codified basically onto the map instead.

Good evening members of council you previous saw this at a previous meeting and in all honesty There's probably not much change. This is more of a refresher of what we're doing here So biggest thing in terms of reducing page number is stop and yield sign conditions. I believe it's around 800 or so stop sign conditions that we're putting on a map instead of a large list This also includes yield sign conditions School zones in which we have a few on the books parking restrictions speed limit ordinances And What I've called miscellaneous restrictions for now, but are mostly just through street restrictions I Can go through each of these or take any questions? I

Anyone have any questions?

Just to clarify also, once the map, once we get to a public hearing, are ready to adopt the map, everything that Alex has been able to map, we will go through. So you'll see additional proposed deletions as some of these other traffic control ordinances are placed on the map.

so all of these are I mean the maps just a data set so they're all logged in like they're like a what's the process for adding and removing and just out of curiosity so again you would adopt an ordinance and I believe on the map you'll be able to click into the ordinance

adoption so for instance if you wanted to change a speed limit then eventually you adopt that that ordinance and then it will get mapped and codified in that way it's the same process except instead of putting it in a textual format through our muni code service it will go it will be done in-house and put on the map and then hopefully more readily available for both staff to use and the public to deal with.

Yeah, and to be clear, I also keep that textual context in there. Each of these points, each of these road segments, they have that context, including ordinance number and its date enactment, the stop street, through street, things of that nature for each of these ordinances. Excellent.

Any other questions for council? Thank you very much.

Thank you In section 10.3 every person propelling a push cart shopping cart or similar advice upon a way so they'll be subject to the to the job of any vehicle except those provisions chapter by which their very nature application. When we say upon a roadway, we're talking like a major roadway, correct? We're not talking about like a road that's adjacent to like a store.

This is meant for any public roadway, so a driveway would not necessarily, or a private drive through a shopping center, that wouldn't apply to that.

Okay, thank you.

But this is out if you're on basically streets where the motoring public is in vehicles.

Okay, thank you.

And if you notice, that goes back to 1959, that this was adopted at that point, so my guess is there were a lot more less cars on the road and more people using carts to transport goods

we now move to electric assisted bicycles this section uh previously when we came the state had not actually created these classes it had been proposed but now they have actually passed it and it will become effective as of december 1st of this year so the three categories of electric assisted bicycles this is based on a national standard So this is not just something we'll see here. It's already been used in a lot of other places. So it's broken down into three classes in that those three classes are based on the speed, the whether or not there's pedal assistance and also the wattage of the motor. The baseline is that the motor must be no more than 750 watts. And so that is your starting point if we exceed that then we are no longer looking at an e-bike we are looking at something that will have to fit into another category if there is motor assist only uh e-bikes This means that it will actually accelerate when the rider is pedaling and there is a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour, that is class one. In instances where it is motor propelled but the rider does not have to actually pedal, so it will accelerate using the actual motor and has a maximum speed of, again, 20 miles per hour, this is a class two. The difference is, the rate at which it's um will increase to a certain speed and then class three is that the motor assists only when the rider is pedaling and has a maximum speed of 28 miles per hour and in researching this because i am not familiar with e-bikes i i did find that there are some e-bikes that exceed that 750 watts but they by standard will cap them at 20 miles per hour so in that instance we are looking at A motor driven bicycle, which North Carolina statute also addresses. And so we may not be able to categorize everything, but for the most part, we will. A town attorney, Terry Jones, did remind me of your question, Mr. Stallings, about slingshots. So slingshots are considered auto cycles. which technically per the statute are motorcycles, but there are a lot of exclusions that apply to motorcycles. So in our ordinance, I did not utilize every single definition from the statute. This one is coming up a lot across the state in a lot of different places, specifically Holly Springs comes to mind. And so I focused on the e-bikes, anything that might fall within that range of categories where we may encounter some gray area, those were the focal points. We also got quite a few public comments on what should and should not be regulated or where people think that e-bikes should be used. And so What we've come up with, and I did speak to, of course, police on this as well, is that class one and class two, those are the ones that have a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour. Those will be permitted on sidewalks, greenways, and multi-use paths. So pretty much most pedestrian right-of-ways, they will be permitted. Class three is where they will only be permitted in bike lanes and roadways. Now I understand that right now Garner does not have a ton of bike lanes, but the concern is a balance for safety for pedestrians. And so we also did include language as far as how class one and class two e-bike riders should operate their e-bikes when they are on those pedestrian right-of-ways they are still required essentially yes sir i have a question as an enforcement question yes sir someone's riding an e-bike how do you know what kind of e-bike they're riding So that is going to be a matter of whoever is enforcing is gonna have to determine that. Most e-bikes do have names. We do have Mr. Tyler Rose here for the police department to give you more insight on that as well.

We're doing research on this. Even though it's governed on some bikes to 20 miles per hour, people can bypass that. So it's going to be on an individual base of us going up there, seeing what the bike is, getting more familiar with each bike and seeing what kind of ways that they can be manipulated. It's still new to us. We're still trying to figure out that part of it. But it's going to be tough on enforcement action. It's going to be very rough on us trying to get used to it.

Yeah, I think that when we were, this came up before and we were just talking about it, it was really speed was the issue. And so I'm not sure, like that's an enforcement issue, but I think there's something we need to do with speed and figuring out how to regulate that. I think about like the sidewalks and greenways and people aren't used to people flying by on even bicycles, you know, on some of these greenways in the park. Anyway, Mr. Singleton, you had your hand up.

Yes, I've read Trying to learn more about this and some of these motorized bicycle motorized bicycles or vehicles can go faster than 20 miles per hour and cause problems also, you're seeing videos of and this may not all be motorized and young people getting up on bikes, driving, doing the stuff. Now, we're not addressing that right now, right? Are we addressing the threat of people in the middle of the street who are causing, I might be getting a little blind here, but I've seen that. I saw somebody had arrested the town for going up to people and doing that and creating a nuisance and the threat that people felt. Are we gonna address that sometime?

Yeah, a lot of times when we come across as police officers, more like an impediment of traffic and stuff like that when we're dealing with that. And a lot of it's education. A lot of it's getting up with the parents in different areas, you know, of people, you know, doing them violations. So we're really starting to educate and really talk to the family members and people that are on them bikes about the dangers to both the citizens on the sidewalk, if this is the case, and to the people that are driving cars down the roadways.

And if I might add, the important thing in section 10-135B is prohibiting those faster, the class three e-bikes, motorcycles, mopeds, we're prohibiting them from the greenways, sidewalks, multi-use. I mean, we need to define these things so we are able to also do that prohibition. And then where it's shared facilities, there are some regulations in how bicyclists may use the sidewalks with pedestrians. So it becomes somewhat subjective. Are they exceeding a safe speed? Are they not yielding the right of way to pedestrians? then how are they passing those pedestrians so while it doesn't address your sort of maneuvering kinds of things i mean i think a police officer who's able to observe this behavior that might be harmful to pedestrians or other users could cite under this proposed ordinance so i i think for me it's like take a normal bicycle

normal bicycle, you don't have a, this is a 10 mile per hour bicycle, this is a 30 mile per hour, they can do whatever the user wants them to do. So somebody with a Class 3 riding a bike path at 10 miles an hour is illegal, but someone doing it at 20 in a Class 1 is, oh, you're good to go. And so I'm wondering if there's a behavior aspect that's more enforceable in a recklessness threshold, because it's really about how somebody's using the tool versus what the actual tool is, which we can't. tell and people can bypass and stuff so uh i'm just thinking that from a enforcement it's what people are doing less so than what they're using i don't know another class three okay

Well, as long as they don't go over 20 miles an hour, they can actually go anywhere. But if they want to get on the highway, they can gas it up and go faster. Since we're going to be on a highway, do they have to have... I'm reflecting back on a golf cart ordinance we talked about some time back. It's coming back to haunt a lot of us here now. What can go where and speeds and what have you and we'll go we got an unknown right here right now I don't know how the police is gonna deal with a class three to a class two because actually Well, it's a class three, but I'm not running for 20 miles an hour on the sidewalk. So How does that work? Is there liabilities gonna be involved here with class threes, you know, you get out on the highway with this thing that changes everything and At least I'm looking at it. I'm sure you guys, you and I can't afford pouring our hair out trying to figure this thing out, but you've got some issues we're going to have to figure out. And I don't know what the answer is, but I like the bikes. I think it's a wonderful thing, but there's a lot of unknowns here, so I don't envy you what you've got to do.

You're right, sir. There's a lot of unknowns early on in this. We felt like this was a good place to start with defining these different classes and trying to start with who can go where, and then we may need to branch off from this eventually and talk about some of those maneuver aspects of it and what kind of enforcement we could have on that degree.

Because every town has got to deal with it.

Yeah.

One way or the other, and they're everywhere right now. They are. It's like Mr. Dillinger mentioned that some of the kids get on their little gray one into parking lots, and kids are kids, you know, it's a bicycle.

They can be very dangerous.

But we've got to start somewhere, I agree with you, and I think this is a good start. I've learned a little bit how fast a Class 3 can go. Mr. Stoll?

I have a comment. I think Councilman Matthews makes a great point. With a class three being able to go up to 28 plus miles per hour, would it make more sense to have a General speed limit of you can't go above 20 because he's right I mean if you have a class 3 that's going 20 in town while nobody is looking and then once they get by themselves They're going above that They can they can pretty much go anywhere in town, but it would it be better to have just a blanket general speed limit

I think the intent was to exclude class three from being on sidewalks, period. Of course, in terms of enforcement, they're not necessarily going to be able to know that, but we wanted to say this is not prohibited to avoid that. altogether uh we can still the town is still permitted to put speed limits but the intent was not to then remove class three from that list we don't want it to be permissible for them to do that because again anybody can violate a speed limit we would much rather we have more teeth and be able to say that was not prohibited period

So I have a follow-up question to that. What would preclude a Class 3 from being on the sidewalk if they're going 20 miles per hour?

The intent is that they wouldn't be. They're prohibited from using the sidewalks, not the speed. So Class 3 e-bikes, motor-driven bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, and golf carts cannot be on sidewalks. sidewalks, greenways, multi-use path.

From a police enforceability standpoint, looking out at the e-bike and it's going 20 miles per hour, how would they know that that's a Class 3, I guess is my question.

I think that's applicable to a vehicle as well. They're not able to just look at it and tell. It's a matter of perceiving whether or not they're acting in a manner that's inconsistent with what's- But I think that's his point.

We don't say you can't have a Lamborghini in Garner because it can go 150 miles an hour. We base our enforcement on what the Lamborghini does.

I think that not including it leaves it open for debate as to whether or not it's permitted. If somebody chooses to violate it, that is their choice to violate it and be subject themselves to enforcement. Whereas excluding it, we're saying, you can do it as long as you do it this way. We don't want the opportunity for them to have the defense of it being legal. We wanna remove that from the table, period.

Yeah, I see where the, I think maybe it's like I'm leaning in the direction of maybe on sidewalks and greenways when there are pedestrians, you need a speed limit, right? Because that's what we do with vehicles. We say this type of maneuver, this type of maneuver or this velocity is illegal. We don't care what you're driving. you have to drive that instrument responsibly, whether it's a class one, two, or three. Somebody could take a class one. I could get a normal bicycle and drive, go 30 miles an hour down the sidewalk, knock people over. So I think we got some work to do on.

Both of them can be done simultaneously. The speed limit can still be done. I'm not saying no, that we can't do that. I think that still is a great idea as well.

And I see what y'all are trying to do, too, is to prevent opening the opportunity for that velocity. 28 is very different than 20. It's much more dangerous. Mr. Vance, did you have any comments or questions? None at this time. Mr. Matthews? Anything else right now?

I'm glad we're dealing with it. Under 1035 operation, you have, and this might have been in there before, I like the fact that you put in here in regards to town property and so forth so people won't go on the parks, the meadows, the ball fields, and tear up stuff that might have been in there before, but, you know. I appreciate that it's on there and then on under one ten one thirty five subsection b does specify is the attorney read what cannot be driven on greenway sidewalk multi-use pass side path walkway or any other area designated in use for pedestrian activity and it also states in here that uh how someone should be driving uh class one or class two and I think we need to invite the opportunity for more bicycle classes. I think this gets adopted somewhere along the line. And someone mentioned that in comments too, and that's not, I mean, you know, people understand. And it makes you wonder on the e-bikes and the motorized bikes, is this a fad? I really, I really think it's a fad. I mean, you know, we had all these rental bikes, all these free bikes three or four, five, six years ago, and they were going to change the world and wear all these green bikes. Where are they at? Not around anymore. So it just makes you wonder. But we have to put rules in place because they're out there.

Is a minimum age going to be a thing of the future here? Can a 10-year-old get a Class 3 and get out on Timber Drive?

That's something we can certainly consider.

You just brought it up. I got a thing of you.

Well, I mean, it's difficult. Because when I was growing up here, and you're going down Park Avenue or Lakeside, I mean, you're flying. I mean, it's actually a big time going. You're about 2,405 miles an hour, but it's a totally different world than it was back then. But that was fun. But nowadays, we're specifying where pedestrians are. We're trying to make it safer. So it's just a lot of change. I appreciate y'all. This is a good start, that's for sure. And as y'all learn more... There was a Raleigh had something on I forgot re over news observer a month or so ago and had also explaining about community video the differences what people should do etc etc and Maybe once we get this adopted maybe police will do something that and communications can get it out just to have it out there and

Yes, sir, I was gonna mention that. We're gonna work with the communications team to put out some information. Early on, it's gonna be all about education, not only to the public, but to us. We've gotta learn what these different classes are and what they look like.

Yeah, the education is important. Have we seen injuries yet related to e-bikes in town?

Oh, here in town?

Not necessarily in town, but you see it around.

There was a recent incident, and I apologize. The city in North Carolina escapes me, but there was a child who was hit. I want to say he was 16 years old, was hit head-on by a car while driving his e-bike. It's mainly kids. That's where the primary safety concern comes from. um but i i wanted to come back to a few of your statements in regard to the behavior there that shared facility section i can certainly go in and continue to work with the police department even between now and then to see what changes can be made because that section really kind of addresses the behavior so we can add some more teeth there as well

i think in concert with the general education like signage at the parks like about them saying be courteous that kind of stuff once we get that in there um thank you all for being proactive i do have a question now yes sir how were these amendments compared with other municipalities yes absolutely sir and they're similar

Yes, sir. The one that I want to say was done the earliest was Holly Springs. There have been, I want to say, two more that were recently adopted. I want to say Raleigh has one as well. They're coming up fast because the e-bikes are becoming issues throughout cities. And so what we're really trying to do is be proactive before it gets here.

Okay, thank you for the questions. All right.

And then the last thing about e-bikes is the helmet requirement. And so the statute addresses it in the sense of 18 and under. And so for us, we're saying 16 and under, regardless of the e-bike class, they are required to wear a helmet. And so we're only applying that essentially to minors.

Did it come up before on bicycles? Do we have an ordinance on helmets and bicycles or not?

We do not.

I mean, I was like, not about it, but I think e-bikes for minors, I think for bicycles, I don't know. Any council members have thoughts on regular bicycles?

It says there, age versus 16, years of age or under, operating an e-bike, moped, motorcycle, bicycle, inline, roller skate, skateboard, or scooter, or a similar vehicle, so it's covered.

We would be adopting that with this ordinance.

All right. Thank you.

Of course.

We now move to chapter 11. This is our offenses and other miscellaneous provisions. And so we added provisions for prohibiting urination and defecation in public view, regardless of whether on public or private property, it cannot be in public view is the point there. There was also language added to clarify the authority of the town manager at the direction of the mayor or council to opt into Wake County declarations We removed the littering section because since Garner adopted its current littering ordinance, North Carolina has adopted one that is much more comprehensive and covers all of our bases essentially. And so that's under 14-399. The current littering ordinance that we have is it's you know it says do not litter essentially it's not very specific but the state statute is and so there was really no need to to retain that uh section 11-20 was fire alarms and it had been previously removed but we're going to put it back because it speaks to burglary false alarms the language that was previously there is not likely to change significantly So when we came last time, we talked about the noise ordinance in public comments. That was one of the most significant comments. I do believe last time we were here, Councilman Dillinger, you mentioned the mufflers and exhaust, and that definitely came up as well. And so the police department does want to take some time to continue to do research to gain more information, and I'll let them speak on that. And so as of right now, we are not abandoning changing the ordinance. We are just not proposing specific language right now today. I know, I know, but I will let New Carter PD speak to that.

Yes. As far as the mufflers and stuff, I think in our current ordinance it does have any loud sounds coming from vehicles and stuff like that where we can address some of the muffler items on cars, loud popping and stuff like that. As far as the decibel meter ordinance enforcement, when we were doing research on this, I know, of course, you hear about people that are close to us like Raleigh and places like that. They had decibel and then decibel meters, and they went away from it in 2024. Now they're back because it seems like there's a lot of news on the – downtown area as far as noise for amplification, amplifying of sounds. But when we were looking at this, it appears that noise decibel meters are very straightforward. But implementation presents significant challenges and some of the challenges that we researched and found from talking to other people and other agencies is when you enforce these kind of things with a decimal meter, environmental variables amplified sounds outside that are normal that you don't realize during the day that could affect the readings when whether anything like that that affects the units that they do have also measurement standards officers of course We have to have strict testing procedures, calibration, training, all these that goes in the factory because we don't want to make an ordinance just to make an ordinance. We want to make it so we can defend it and be able to go out there and do it correctly every time. So that's going to take a lot of research and the best way to go about that at that time. then uh and that goes into training and we were looking through some of the equipment to get some of that the decibel meters or noise meters and they can start there's low budget ones couple hundred dollars the ones that are typically used for like professional can go up to three to four thousand dollars per unit that's with and then doing calibrations with that adds on the cost and we were just trying to make sure we were doing the right thing before we you know jump straight into that on as far as with the cost factor and with what really is required to be able to do the sound meters on that as a as a department

Any questions from council?

Well, I think there's no doubt that we're hearing from citizens. I got a whole list here. And a lot of people have that concern. Of course, when somebody starts up on the street and drives away, and they call the police, that's, you know, you're there in 5 minutes. You don't hear it. So. There are, but something I think needs. You're starting somewhere. We have other noise issues like the noise issue. We got a complaint emailed about Forest Hills. We've had issues over in North Garner. How do you measure those and the times? I know our times are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., But some of the excessive sounds, we've got to tweak that. I think it's 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Is that still what it is? We've got to tweak that because people are making sounds at parties and so forth. Some of the issues in downtown, Linwood South, are long before 11 o'clock. Well, the issues on July 4th they had at Brow Creek and so forth. So I think that's something we're going to definitely have to address because loud noise can happen at any time of the day. I know that... Construction and so forth, they're not supposed to start 7 o'clock. It does happen. Sometime I hit the trash people long before 7 o'clock and don't bother us. He used to it and understand in the summertime and our public works are working before 7 o'clock sometimes because it's 100 degrees that day. They should be out there early. That's not a problem. Most people can see by that, but to see. Continual loud vehicles and other. Parties or neighbors amplify loud music to aggravate everyone that I think we need to. do something during daytime hours you can't just bypass it and say well you know everything's seven to eleven there's there's some issues that had to be addressing again i realize y'all get called and i won't get called y'all get there and the sound may be gone and so that's um you know i think i'm assuming some people take their phone and record it so you can hear it i don't know but i'm assuming that happens but anyway uh i know this takes some time and you want to try to get it as right as possible but I think we need to continue to seek out some type of changes to what we're doing or additions to our noise ordinance of how to address it because If we're growing by Wake County 65 people a day, it ain't gonna get anywhere. It's not gonna get any better. And all this, some of these dense projects, dense housing, residential projects in Garner and our surrounding towns that can bring more people and more loud, potentially bring more people and more loud vehicles and more people riding electric bikes. So it's stuff that, it's a continual evolution that y'all are dealing with. And ordinances have to kind of try to keep up with it. So I think I'm not speaking for everybody here, but I think all of us agree that we've heard from people about loud noises for a long time. And y'all have to. No surprise to y'all.

Legal and the police department are having some discussions on enforcement that can be done when a police officer isn't able to actually observe the noise with the complainants giving affidavits. Again, we have a civil penalty issue. I know in the past, the courts, some of the judges have not been upholding criminal penalties on noise so by having civil penalties we're not going through the court system but we would want there to be someone who's willing to swear under oath that this noise was as the statute said or i mean as the ordinance says um you know unreasonable disturbing detrimental to their their health and welfare but noise is a troubling issue everywhere and so you know noise is sound that someone doesn't like and people have different standard you know and sensitivities to different kinds of noise there's also a difference between the occasional noise and the chronic noise that impacts certain individuals so so we will work on and again this may be a place where we try to do some more public education about being a good neighbor and you know, the fact that the level you play your music at may be disturbing to someone else, but we can think about also changing those hours because right now, I mean, we have one part of the ordinance that prohibits it between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. and another one between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Particularly for that, Amplified music.

Those kinds of issues.

And I will say on the department side, we have spoken to our officers. The first civil penalty is a warning. I think that's a good start with anything. We need to start addressing that more sooner. Even though some of these are one time off, a large majority of the noise complaints, most of them are one time, and it usually handles itself after we go over there and talk to them. Seems like people are pretty respectable. But then maybe just going ahead, because the first one's of course a warning, go ahead and get that started earlier. in some occasions which you know usually that's big parties where we're trying to work with people you know we're out there with 30 to 50 people and trying to make the best out of the situation um a lot a large majority of the time so any other comments how much more do you have um we're coming up on break time okay they're really really short okay really short you think they're going to be short we'll see

So we have our police chapter. We only have one major change, I would say, is just the deletion of the auxiliary police. And then we have changes to the language to align with our current government structure of council manner of reform. And so those were the only changes in that chapter. We then have chapter 18, which is our weapons and explosives chapter. And so because there have been new parks, we've added language. to include the specific list of parks. That means Greenbrier Park, Tennis Court, Garner Recreation Center, Garner Senior Center, Annex Gym, Jurgen Park Athletic Fields, and Jackie John Senior Community Park Basketball Court. Those were all added, and then we also added language to include swimming pools, because it did not explicitly state that in ours previously. So those were the only changes that we have for our Chapter 18. So we do have our public comments open. We are sending out requests to the public via social media to give us feedback. We want to hear from them. As of right now, the main comments are for noise, mentioning the loud exhaust mufflers and loud music during daytime hours and also e-bikes. But the topics for e-bikes vary from person to person. Any additional questions from council?

Anybody? Good job. All right, thank you very much.

Thank you. So now we will need to entertain whether or not we will proceed to public hearing, which has a proposed date of August 18th, if council finds that we are at a point where it is appropriate to do so.

That work is the proposal to put that on a consent agenda for the next meeting.

Well, it depends on whether you want a public hearing and allow the public to come in or want to adopt. None of these particularly require a public hearing. So council has that option.

I think we in favor of a public hearing for the yes. Right.

And then I would recommend that we would actually hold five separate public hearings. so that we can make sure that the comments are addressed to each, and we're not jumping back and forth between different ordinances.

Any comments from council, feedback?

Five separate public hearings on August 18th with the five separate categories.

Right, unless you wanted to separate them up into two different.

Yeah, right. That's fine. Whatever you suggest, yes.

Now, and as noted on the slide, there are a few places where there may be proposed new criminal penalties. And under state law, you have to adopt those twice. So typically, if you were to adopt after the public hearing, we would bring it back on the consent agenda for a second official vote for those.

Everyone OK with that? Mm-hmm. OK. All right.

Thank you. And quick question, quick question, please. Are we going to look at the speed limit suggestion that we had as well, too?

Yes, that's not a problem at all.

You'll just have to consider if you're putting a traffic speed limit, additional signage that would be required to notify people of what that speed limit is. or perhaps we adopt a traffic control ordinance and then map that as well we could consider doing that particularly for the greenways in the parks not maybe not possible for every sidewalk but a jet you know if you wanted a general prohibition of not exceeding and it doesn't have to be 20 miles per hour you can can put it lower than that yeah that sounds good so if you want to give us feedback on what you think the speed limit should be, or we can propose something.

And I think that would be great to have that as a part of a conversation during a public hearing as well too.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will do a 10 minute, we'll call it 13 minute recess and come back at eight o'clock. All right, we are reconvening to our work session. And up next, we have a proposal for affordable housing and housing preservation next steps. I'll recognize Manager Miller to outline the next steps.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Dellinger and members of council. I'm gonna kick off our discussion this evening in terms of proposed work plan for our affordable housing and housing preservation work. Our housing and community development specialist, Mr. Hurd, is going to review with you the proposal that was included in your agenda for this evening to be able to review specific recommendations on strategies as we move forward. This evening for your consideration is this plan of work. This plan of work was developed based on the recommendations and data from the Affordable Housing Task Force work that we've completed over the last two years. In addition to that work and those recommendations, it also looks at expanding some of the scope of work for affordable housing efforts within the town based on council's discussions. So before we dive into the proposal, I think it's important to remind us sort of where we have been to do this work to date. And so the work that the council and staff and the Affordable Housing Task Force members have engaged in over the last two years has really looked at housing affordability and affordable housing built on a foundation of data. So the Affordable Housing Task Force had the initial recommendation report that came to council for discussion in January 2025. Part of that report included an extensive best practices and policies inventory for us to look at in terms of who's doing this work, who's doing it well, what are lessons learned. And then part of that discussion and the recommendations that came from the Affordable Housing Task Force came the opportunity to look at an inventory specific to the town of Garner, and that was the Central Pines housing inventory that was completed last summer. In addition to that report, the task force met in the fall of 2025 and looked further at the recommendations in its initial report and provided next steps and recommendations to council on areas to focus on. Uh, in addition to the data and information we collected through the affordable housing task force effort, uh, we've also engaged in a resident survey back in 2024 and 2026, the national community survey information, uh, both of which have information on housing affordability and benchmark data that was included. And if you recall our 2026 survey, we actually added some custom questions around housing affordability. to our survey to get a better sense from our residents, their perspectives on affordable housing in our community. The county has also been busy in looking at this issue and collecting data and information. They are in the process of developing and reviewing their 2026 annual action plan, looking at affordable housing across the county. And then in the fall of 2025, they launched their housing data platform. So there's been a lot of work, information, and data that has gotten us to this point. As I mentioned, the Affordable Housing Task Force provided some recommendations earlier in this year based on the work and discussions in the fall of 2025. Specifically, the Affordable Housing Task Force group looked at three specific areas, resource investment, partners and collaboration, and community engagement. So we've done some of this work since January, but there's much more work to do in each of these areas. So as a quick reminder, we've been busy since January, hiring our first Housing and Community Development Specialist back in March, Mr. Hurd joined us then. Also looking at our partnerships with Preserving Home and FY26, we increased funding based on the need in Garner that they identified, and then increased funding even further for the current year budget in FY27. And then the work of the council over the last few months has really been on creating the Garner Housing Advisory Committee that was approved in June, and it's now going through the process of reviewing applicants for that. And so all that work has taken place over the last few months and directly reflects the recommendations from the Affordable Housing Task Force work. So I'm going to turn it over now to Mr. Hurd, and he's going to talk about what do next steps in this work plan look like.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Temp and council and the public. I'm gonna talk about what we're in motion as far as moving this program forward. We're establishing the bylaws for the Garner Housing Advisory Committee. We're creating an affordable housing plan based on the work that the task force has already provided to give us a good foundation for. We're looking to expand education and existing housing resources through educating the residents of Garner. And then we're reviewing the fight around. the federal housing legislation for new resources and opportunities. One of the things that we have been involved with is working with the North Carolina Housing Coalition. They do a legislative update every week on a weekly basis, and so we've been a part of that. The partnerships and collaborations, We've improved identifying affordable housing opportunities. We're expanding our relationship with a number of organizations and Wake County. And one of the things is this first grant that we have been awarded so far. We're setting up the affordable fund for developers. This will give the opportunity for those developers that may not include affordable housing units to make a contribution to the fund so that will support other affordable housing programs. Continuing to grow, growing the Township Partnership for Preserving Homes, which you have already been involved with expanding their financial commitment. We've been meeting with them to work with them to look to assist in shaping and having a more impactful program as also setting up systems to track what they're doing. Foster connections and housing opportunities, something I mentioned about looking at different agencies that we can partner with that are servicing the community. We're looking at financial institutions that can support our efforts and those are some of those new opportunities that we're looking to establish. and then establishing a housing stakeholder consortium. Just to give you a general idea, this won't be in the same line of the advisory council, but it's gonna be more like, I believe Councilman Stallings mentioned about having out some that doesn't live in Garner. but has a skill set that would be helpful in shaping programs. So this will incorporate anyone that has directly impact affordable housing or indirect, whether they're a social service agency, a church, a bank, preserving homes, all those type of entities would meet and to discuss best practices, have those lines of communication for other organizations to touch base with each other, and it'll really be a great networking system. community engagement, hold affordable housing plan sessions, and this will be part of the development of the affordable housing plan, where there'll be a number of listening sessions done within the community. DEVELOPING THE HOUSING DATA INVENTORY AND TRACKING SYSTEMS, WHICH KIND OF WAS WHAT MS. MILLER MENTIONED EARLIER IN REGARDS TO ALL THE WORK THAT THE TASK FORCE HAD ALREADY DONE IN REGARD TO THE OTHER LEWIS, LEWIS MUTTER, CREATING SYSTEMS TO TRACK AND MONITOR HOW EFFECTIVE OUR DOLLARS ARE AS FAR AS IMPACTING THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING OR LOW AND MIDDLE INCOME NEIGHBORHOODS AS WELL AS SEEING WHAT DOLLARS ARE BEING LEVERAGED. this next chart is gives you a visual effect of a timeline of what we're our Schedule is looking like as far as establishing the advisory committee the bylaws Developing an affordable housing plan, which normally takes anywhere between 8 to 12 months once they get started. So we're looking to go out to RFP very shortly to bring on a consultant to help put this plan together. Again, this is part of our relationship with Wake County, that they're providing a matching grant for that service to be provided. Once that plan is developed, it will open up a lot of other opportunities for us to get different grant dollars from the county through their different multiple programs that they have available. um for the housing plan community engagement and then uh the creation of the financial literacy program this is a program that we're going to look to incorporate where we're educating the residents on a number of different issues all related to financial education whether it's a home ownership rental budgeting credit We'll have presenters come in from the banking industry to give presentations to educate people on the different bank products that's available. So we're gonna look to start that in early 2007. And our ongoing activities. This is basically a summary of how each category is grouped. So we have the resource investments, which will expand housing resources site and staff assistance. review federal housing legislation. Then we talked about the partnerships and collaborations, guidance to developers, establishing a relationship with the developers early on. So I've been involved with a lot of meetings that have taken place with the pre-application process with the planning and engineering department. So I'm getting a step in early on to see what the projects are looking like. um growing our partnership with preserving homes as you know we talked about fostering connections and housing opportunities uh creating affordable housing stakeholder consortium all these are very important agreements to grow this program and finally the community engagement which is the uh developed affordable housing data inventory track system which i mentioned earlier and i'll hand this back off to myself

Thank you, Mr. Hurd. So tonight's presentation really just outlines the proposal that was included in your agenda packet. What we're seeking tonight is answering any questions that council may have on what's being proposed and then ultimately direction to make sure that we're going in the right direction based on council's guidance and conversations. A big part of the work over the next couple months is going to be working with the Garner Housing Advisory Committee scheduled to start meeting this fall. They're gonna be an integral part of this work in terms of working with consultants on our plan, looking at the engagement work. They're gonna be very important to get them activated. And then in addition to that, completing our agreement with Wake County, doing that within a short window of time so that we can make sure we take advantage of the grant dollars they are providing us in order to put the plan together. But more importantly, once you have that official plan, you can seek other funding opportunities and leverage that as well. And so all these things are important as we talk about what does next steps look like in terms of our work around affordable housing, housing preservation, and housing affordability within the town of Garner. So Mr. Hurd and I are available to answer any questions you may have on the proposal this evening.

Mr. Vance? Oh yes, thank you very much for the briefing. Just several questions like the first one. How will success be measured?

When you speak of success, as it pertains to which category do you mean?

Overall, looking at where we are now based upon how we are going through the process of looking at our existing homes and keeping those affordable and adding on units and things of that nature and programs that are in place, how are we gonna measure that? How are we gonna have a matrix to be able to show that we are moving forward in affordable housing and what we are doing?

One will be the dollars that we bring in to provide impactful and meaningful measurement in our neighborhoods. The number of residents we help, whether it's through referrals to other agencies that help their needs, whether it's education, health, social service, It's going to be measured in a lot of different ways. We're preserving homes. One of the things that we're looking to do is to not just preserve the older homes, but do it in a way where you can visually see the impact of that neighborhood because three or four houses have been upgraded instead of one house on one side of town and another house on the other side of town. We want to be able to visually see the impact that our dollars are making. And then another way is Every dollar we expend out for our community, whatever dollars are being matched or brought in to assist our community. So those are ways that we would look to measure.

And how will the Wake County Municipal Impact grant support in that endeavor?

They're paying part of the cost of the consultant to develop this affordable housing plan, which will be the roadmap for this program to operate and to be most successful.

And will that plan, I'm assuming that plan will have a measure of success, how to measure success, how to look at how you hit your milestones and providing goals and objectives and things of that nature?

Yes.

Okay. Mr. Stallings. Yes. So, quick question. In terms of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act that just passed Congress, What is our timeline? I guess this is a question for the manager. In terms of hiring a grant writer for one so we can make sure that we're trying to apply for these dollars, there was a lot of grants put into that federal legislation. I know it's pretty comprehensive legislation. It's a lot to read through. But where are we in terms of hiring a grant manager so that we can apply for some of these funds that may assist with what we have planned for our affordable housing efforts?

So for FY27, both grant positions were funded for half a year. So we would start recruiting for those positions this fall in hopes of having them filled by the end of the year, beginning of next year, so we could take advantage of those opportunities.

Is there a scenario, follow-up question, is there a scenario where we may miss any timelines in terms of some of these grants? I know it's fairly new legislation, but we may miss some of these.

Yes, I think we're gonna have to take a deeper look at those timelines, and that's one of the things that Louis and Mari, both in the strategic initiatives, Department have committed to do in terms of these next steps. That's major legislation federal legislation That's going to have a huge impact on housing affordability across the country We need to understand what that means and looks like and then what are the windows of opportunities for the town? So we'll be doing that review and analysis

Because I know I see in the legislation some dollars for things like preserving homes and making sure that we're doing the housing preservation work as well, too. So I definitely don't want us to miss the opportunity to bring down some of those federal dollars.

I agree. And I think it actually, in my mind, reinforces the importance of doing the work through the Wake County grant on that plan. Because once you have a plan, that makes it a lot easier to be competitive in terms of applying for those dollars as well.

Singleton.

Yes, I was like staff for submitting the proposal for the funding To get the plan to get the funding and also get the plan because like with other grants as you just said miss Miller You got to add the plan in place before you can submit for the grants So I'm glad that we were able to get this and they can move forward with a matching fund or whatever It'll cost a consultant get things really going good. So thank y'all. I

Matthews. Thanks for the update. It's nice to see a plan and working that plan and it's taking some time but feedback I get from other communities is Garner's kind of leading the way on this thing. It looks like across the county and other areas and that's Some of the feel I'm getting back. So that's a good thing. It speaks well of what we're getting here and You you can't rush a good thing to make it work good and so I think you guys have got it laid in here and it's gonna be interesting to get once the Committee is formed and start putting that game plan together and where we want to go next so something got a good handle on it and I think as we move into the fall and first part of the year, we'll see some good things happen. So keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing where we go from here.

All right. I have just a few comments. It seems like a lot of work. And I think the one that caught my eye the most, as far, explain more what the vision is for the literacy program. So I'm not going off too far afield in what I'm envisioning.

I've run a number of literacy programs in the past, and I'm really going to tweak it toward what is the need of this community here. So I always start with a base education of banking, savings, and credit. Now, based on the response of the participants, we'll look at other categories, rental, home ownership. When you look to acquire property, you want a real estate attorney, you want a realtor, So it's really going to be tweaked to the audience that is active in the group. And that may change from year to year also, because you'll get different levels of education that is needed. So it's hard to say. Those will be the base. Education, credit, savings, budgeting, and then extra stuff that comes down the way.

So how many of those were you envisioning doing by the end of the, is this all of 2027 or is this in the fiscal year?

It's all 27, first, what, two quarters, January through July.

Oh, I see it at the bottom. Okay, yeah, so it goes through fiscal year. So how many were you thinking to do?

Well, ideally the situation would be you could do one, session on a Saturday morning for a couple hours having different presenters, and then you would follow that with class sessions, either a six-week session or, you know, a number, you either do it by weeks or number of meetings. Also, you can include virtual meetings. There may be some cases where there may be a need for one-on-ones. So the key point is to line up and identify the presenter. So I'm going to be looking to bring on or work with a HUD-certified counseling agency. I always include a bank or banks, plural, to be a part of that, just to get people who may not have even been in a bank before to go through that process. Just like I've done it for adults as well as I've done it for younger people, 12 years old. So one thing that I found out is the age really doesn't matter if you didn't have that exposure. And so it really comes down to reading your audience, who's participating, and providing that best service for them if you want to run a successful program. Because if the people that initially participate find success, the word will spread, and you'll continue to be able to grow the program.

So when I was doing work many lifetimes ago in Hurricane Floyd, and we employed a lot of certified housing counselors. And that's a lot of work. There's a lot of information. And I guess my little concern is with it being where we were at the very foundational parts of doing the plan, getting the plan done, getting the committee ramped up, and also trying to get some other fund stuff set up, that it might be kind of a heavy lift for the first part of next year as a full blown program that we kind of sustain over either multiple weekends or things like that. I think probably to kind of reduce the scope and go back to what kind of, weaves into one of my focuses, which is maybe doing something in the spring and focusing on staff, like small staff groups, because even staff can learn about some of these things. And because I think what I want to make sure we have enough bandwidth for the Housing Advisory Committee is to make, to think about policy, learn about, The market and come back to council with policy recommendations and sort of. Not rapid succession, but sort of vetting them and bringing them back, particularly as we. 1st, part of the year's budget, so if we're going to implement a program or policy idea, typically it requires a certain amount of funding. So, I want I'd like for that committee to get immersed in the habit of doing that kind of work because I, 1 of my priorities is is. finding ways to implement programs that give assistance to staff, whether it's working with a partner like State Employees Credit Union or somebody like that, or using some of our funds and getting some loan products or down payment assistance, things like that, where we can legally and quickly do some things that are really helpful to recruitment, retention, and also modeling for other places. So that's the one that jumped out as a, It looked like a real huge time commitment. And it is.

And I think what's deceiving is it says from January on, the first education session is not taking place in January. That's when we're going to start working to get it to that point. And that first session may not be until April, May, June. Because it's going to take time to put together a program, line up the presenters, market it to make sure you get a good turnout. So it's going to take time. If you said, I cannot tell you that I'm going to have an event on March 1st. I can't tell you you're going to have an event August 1st. It really depends on how the pieces come together.

Yeah, and I think that's what I was seeing is it's more work to plan it than it is to do it. Exactly. Yes, no question about it. So that's why. And we can talk more about it. I just think that one jumped out as a time thing. But I think, like, what has been proposed is that it'd be helpful to, once we get into more refined timelines, like specific dates and months on things, and that, you know, things suggest they shift. They always shift. I think this is good. I think, you know, continuing to be out in the community and making those relationships. Exactly. See some things we could do. That's in the community outreach piece, too. Like, I guess I think we're so. Behind is not the right word, but we still have a lot of community engagement to do, and that takes a lot of work. And so I think it'll take getting the committee together, getting them organized and helping you do that work too, and see what that looks like. Because this is a lot of work, and we appreciate it. We're glad you're here to do it, though. But we just want to make sure it doesn't get overloaded early before the committee even has a chance to weigh in and do some outreach and really get a different feel for maybe other community needs we're not aware of that they may bring to the table. A plan is good and being flexible will be helpful to everybody.

Anybody else have comments to advance? Yes. First of all, thank you for this plan of action timeline. At least it provides a broad look of what is anticipated to happen over the next year or so. My question is, how will we receive updates on what's going on as we move forward?

So there will be several opportunities for updates. So once everything gets up and started, we can look at a regular cadence of updates to the council. One of the recommendations that came from the task force was to be able to develop dashboards and be able to put information online that shows what we're doing, the timelines, the data points. And so we're actually working with our other staff member and strategic initiatives to create that platform and foundation. to be able to provide that information as well. So there's a variety of ways that we'll be able to provide information not only to the community but to the council. And then there's just gonna be opportunities where decision points are gonna come back to council, whether it's recommendations from the advisory committee, looking at potentially applying for grants and matching dollars, looking at setting up our affordable housing developer fund. So there's gonna be other points that the council is going to have to make decisions on policy related to this work plan.

Thank you. One last question. Again, going back to the timeline, which I really appreciate. I'm a visual person when it comes to looking at tasks to be completed over a period of time, and this is kind of out there. Knowing that schedules do change, schedules do adjust, things happen. Roughly one year from now, what can we say success will look like?

So from my perspective, success is going to look like accomplishing a few key things we need to do for the fiscal year. One is getting our affordable housing advisory committee sort of up and running and bylaws and sort of getting them, you know, at a place where they're able to do their work effectively, provide recommendations to council. Also, there's a timeline on the grant that Wake County has provided to us in terms of that plan. And so a lot of this work and a lot of the other ongoing activities are going to be dependent on that plan. And so we need to make sure that we continue to move that process forward in developing that plan, working with a consultant, doing the important community engagement work that needs to happen to make sure that when we are done with this work, we have a plan that we can then use to continue to develop policy, look for grants, leverage funding, and that does have a timeline at the end of the fiscal year. I would say from my other perspective, there are several ongoing activities, that are going to be things that are going to be ongoing. I mentioned developing the data inventory and the tracking system. That's the dashboard. That's going to be the piece of work working through our strategic initiatives team that we're going to be working on. That's going to be really important to be able to show the work that we've done, the information we've collected, the outcomes that we've achieved. And then also working to develop these continued partnerships. One of the great ideas that Mr. Hurd has brought to the town is this idea of bringing service providers who do this work to come together and talk about opportunities and challenges in the community and best practices doing that type of work. And so there's going to be some ongoing activities that we're going to have to really focus on. The other piece of this would be with the new federal legislation out, from my perspective, we'd be doing an analysis of that work, seeing what opportunities we're either eligible for now and can compete for or what's coming down the pipeline in order for us to be able to plan appropriately for those things. And so I see all those things being really important as we think about the next fiscal year and things that we're reporting back to council and the community as well.

Thank you.

Mr. Stallings. Really quickly, can you walk me through what does setting up the affordable housing developer fund look like?

So I will start and then I may ask Ms. Jones if she can talk about some of the legal parameters for that. This recommendation actually came from the Affordable Housing Task Force when Council was having discussions with developers in terms of potentially having affordable housing units in some of their residential projects that were coming forward. Some of the feedback that we got from the development community was that was challenging to make happen in terms of their overall modeling of units. What was more challenging is not necessarily to do it one time but to maintain it. That becomes difficult because there's just not an easy way to do that. So their preference would be to actually provide some sort of financial contribution to the town in support of our affordable housing initiatives and programs. And so we've talked about this sort of conceptually in terms of that could be an opportunity for sort of seed funding for some other programs and projects or matching funds for grants if we can set it up in a way that the state statutes will allow us to do. So that is the work sort of conceptually that we've been talking about. This next step would actually be working with Ms. Jones and the legal team to put together the parameters for actually doing that. And I'll let Ms. Jones speak to what that may look like.

So there's two aspects to this. If the fund were to go into capital, we can have that as a project ordinance that rolls over from year to year. But if the fund was used for community engagement and some of these other operating type expenses, that becomes a little more complicated to segregate that money. It can be accounted for in the budget and things, but what I see is another part of this is for some of these voluntary commitments that were made as part of conditions to rezonings, may be difficult for the town to enforce long-term without the staffing that we would need to be able to do income verifications as properties change hands and that. Would there be an opportunity to convert those kinds of commitments for a few units in certain subdivisions into a payment without having to go through the full rezoning process? So we've talked about that. The trick becomes, What is a unit worth? What is a single family unit in this subdivision worth as opposed to. Maybe a townhouse and another or that kind of thing. So so that's part of setting up the fund as as well as. is how to get some money into the fund and then what are those expectations for new developments as to what would be their contributions depending on they would whether they would produce units or they would do something in lieu of units so there's a lot of factors that we have to like flush out the legality of depending on on what council wants the fund to be used for So again, if it's going for matching money to capital improvements such as like preserving home, those kinds of things, it's a little easier to make it a long-term fund because you might not bring in enough money each year to do something, but you may wanna build that fund up to where it does provide a good match or an incentive to some builder to bring on additional capacity. But we'll work on, you know, with the strategic innovations and also the finance department in giving you some options for what this fund could be. But again, like we need to know what the fund will be used for to determine what the right kind of accounting financial model is for that.

and staff will be providing recommendations on that based on what we feel like are realistic opportunities based on grant opportunities leveraging opportunities capital can provide some recommendations to council and sort of how do we best use these dollars knowing that we may not get the same amount every year that it's it's very similar to our fee in lieu with our parks very similar in concept where there's an opportunity to build a fund to then do to do projects, but it's not something you can count on every year.

So really we are having to model out several different revenue flows in either grant funding, this, council appropriation, and they all have different restrictions on how they can be utilized and pros and cons of those different revenue streams. That's kind of what I'm seeing in sort of a document that says, If money comes from here, this is what you can and can't do. These are the pros and cons. And then we probably have all of those revenue streams, but just knowing the differentiating between those and the limitations.

Right, and I think there's, you know, there's the accounting part of it, which I think the finance department can handle, but then whether this fund can be put in an investment account to accrue interest in those, we have to make sure the legality of all of those as well.

Any questions over here?

I just had one comment. Really quickly, I just want to make sure after hearing that description that if we are setting up this affordable housing developer fund, some of it's actually going to affordable housing because I say it all the time up here, housing affordability is different than affordable housing, so making sure that we are putting affordable housing developer fund towards something along the lines of affordable housing as well as housing affordability.

All right, so based on our conversation this evening, we are gonna proceed with everything that's been presented with sort of the key big things that I've mentioned in terms of getting the Housing Advisory Committee up and running and starting that work, getting to work on our plan through the grant process with Wake County, and then looking at that federal legislation and doing a deeper dive in that to see what opportunities may be ahead of us. Are there any more questions from council? Yes, sir.

I do have a question about the plan and the timeline for that and the consultant and then the end product. What is your vision of what that ends? How specific does it need to be? Is it 60 pages? Is it 20 pages? What's sort of your vision for that?

So for the plan itself, we have to expend all the dollars by the end of the fiscal year. So the work has to be done. So the next step would be developing an RFP with a consultant. So I think we need to look at that in terms of what can we realistically get accomplished within that timeframe in order to make sure we're able to utilize the grant. That's an important piece of it, but I also want to make sure that whatever plan is put together, that it's something that supports the work that we've already done and gives us specific strategies and milestones and outcomes. And so we'll be working with the consultant on that to determine sort of what that scope would look like based on what other communities have done and what we're able to achieve within the fiscal year.

Would we get an opportunity to see that RFP?

We'll share it with council. We're hoping to work on it the next 30 days or so and get it out.

Anyone else have any questions? Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you to council and thank you to Mr. Hurd and Ms. Howell for their work. affordable housing is is a team sport here in garner and so also want to say thank you to our assistant manager matt pool and assistant manager hodges who've also been part of pulling this work together and making sure we have a comprehensive approach into our next step so thank you

Thank you. See if I can recognize you before you get back to your seat, or you. Thank you for that. We are to council updates, and I will recognize the town manager for a manager report.

Yes, so I'm gonna ask Mr. Treisenberg if he will come to the podium and review our development activity map for July.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, council members. Yes, we have three projects to just briefly highlight for you tonight. I will note that these are all staff level administrative approvals. But we have two site plans and one subdivision, one commercial subdivision primarily. And so the first one is near here, downtown, very near downtown. near the corner of Garner Road and both Benson Road and St. Mary Street. This is the, I think, former transmission repair place that has been a little bit of a stop and start for a while. But upon looking at their site a little more holistically, they have proposed adding some flex space to the rear portion of the property. And so just to give you a brief idea of what they're looking at, potentially a building here in the back with office and storage space, variety of potential users that would be permitted in the district in which it's located. So the existing building they're still envisioning would stay in place here at the front, but adding some parking and a building in the back. This does have a few more technical hurdles than maybe some projects because it is infill and you have a situation there along Garner Road where it's pretty much been a barrier-free access. So there is a driveway permit process with NCDOT to try to narrow that up in places and kind of control that access a little bit better, as well as providing hopefully some better pedestrian access across the front of the site. Any questions on this one? Then the second project we have is contractor storage at 411 Loop Road, 411-511. This actually has been a project that we have been engaging with the owners and operators for a while, a number of years actually. This was a project that had originally been reviewed by Jenny Saldy when she was here, however many years ago, those of you that remember her, one of our former senior planner. And it's been the subject of some enforcement proceedings because they actually did not finish the project as approved. but we're continuing to make some use of the site. It is just primarily outdoor storage, but it does require primarily some buffer enhancements because the property did not have much in the way of perimeter landscaping buffers. It also required the installation of stormwater treatment, which was installed, but never certified as operational. or maintained. So they are now back at the table. This is pretty much the original plan that was approved the first time going back through review and hopefully we can get this to a point of not only just approval but completion and compliance with our ordinances. And then lastly, Those of you who remember the vintage Garner proposal here on the corner of 401 and farm road and they are. moving, keeping the process moving forward. Market conditions I think have softened, you know, to the point that they're having to take a little more time than they originally anticipated. But they have filed their major subdivision proposal to separate the commercial areas in front along 401 from the apartment portion in the back. So not a lot really to show for that, but they have filed that next step, and we look forward to them hopefully continuing as the market starts to rebound a little bit.

Now, this is... again the reform road there's an apartment complex correct yes it's just interesting to hear you say the market come back and they're sitting there on the news and they're talking about building build build build build and i'm just interesting all of a sudden the market doesn't work for it so you know anyway i remember the commercial up front yep yes okay all right yeah it's um

I've come to learn that the market has lots of sub markets. Um, and certainly even, even within Garner, it seems that some products are still in demand in certain parts of Garner, but in other parts of Garner, not so much. So yeah, we've reached that point. I think in our growth spurt that, um, we're kind of not a one homogenous market anymore.

Right. Okay.

Thank you. Yep. Anything else? Otherwise, I thank you very much. We'll see you next month. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Triesenberg. Final report under manager reports is just a review of your August pending agendas. Things are still moving around in your meetings for the August meeting, but I'll share with you what we have right now, but some things are subject to change. Looking ahead to your first meeting in August, which is next week, got a few items on the consent agenda regarding extending and renewing interlocal agreements with the county. under the legislative hearing, the White Oak storage, that will be moving to another date, so we'll be moving that. And then we're also bringing back an update on the downtown project and our partnership with LMG as well, talking about where we are with that, next steps, and we are gonna have to talk about and get an extension to be able to continue to do the work that we've been working on with them. Looking ahead to your August 18th Council meeting the Garner Youth Council is going to visit us during our meeting talk about Their experience introduce their new officers and and talk about their accomplishments and activities for the year we also have under public hearings and annexation for timber Thompson commercial that's that's under consent, that'll be coming back to set the public hearing. As discussed this evening, the work on our ordinance amendments and updates will also be coming back. This will be the official public hearing on the discussion and chapters that council reviewed this evening. So we'll be bringing that back for you on the 18th. Under new old business, coming back to council with information on the Lake Benson master plan report, This will provide an opportunity to give council an update on community engagement findings and updates on the overall plan. And then we've tentatively included cost of services discussion coming back to council based on some work that staff has been working on in terms of how do we think about this cost of services issue as it relates to some of the questions that council has had regarding revenue. And then our standard reports for August as well. And then looking at your work session on the 25th, doing our development previews. We'll also be looking at the Meadowbrook Park master plan update. We'll be coming back for further discussion with council. And then there'll be some codification reformat and minor edit changes to that planning we'll be bringing back and discussing with council in terms of the zoning ordinance. And so we'll be talking about that. And then we'll have our development activity reports and your pending reports as well. So that's where we are with next month's meetings. As I've mentioned, we have a few things that are still in flux and may move around, but that's what we're looking ahead towards in August. That's all the reports I have this evening. Happy to answer any questions that council may have.

Any questions from council? We'll move on to attorney reports. Attorney Jones.

So I am pleased to report that your three attorneys will be attending the North Carolina Municipal Attorneys Association Summer Conference in Wilmington starting Thursday through Sunday. We're looking forward to learning more about Chapter 19 nuisances, and I will be presenting on a panel on annexation. So probably at your next meeting we'll come back with some reports and information that we learn and particularly there will be the legislative update for all the recent changes that impact municipalities. So we will report that back to you next week.

Any questions for the attorney? All right, we're going to council reports. We'll start with Mr. Vance.

No report.

Mr. Stallings. No report. Mr. Singleton.

Well, we've been talking here. I sent one to our garden info at wet tall grass and I'm emailing one of our staff members right now and something that popped up here to remind me. So I'm addressing them right now.

Thank you. Mr. Matthews. I only have one. I was driving around Forest Hills and there's Phillips Street between Lakeside and Barbara Street. Right. Yeah, and again, I know we have like a heat map for roads that need. So resurfacing, but there's grass growing on that street. Down the whole street through the cracks is. Someone could just look at it and kind of give feedback on where it is on the. Repaving that would be great Nobody else has any other reports. We do have a closed session on the agenda and Pursuant to North Carolina general statute section 143 section 318 section 11 a 5 I make a motion we enter a closed session to instruct staff regarding acquisition of property. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Stallings. All in favor? Aye. And we will go into closed session. We are back in open session. I will ask the town attorney to summarize Council's actions in closed session.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Council met with town staff and gave instruction regarding the price and material terms of a contract for a proposed Contract for acquisition of real property and authorize the manager and town attorney to take necessary steps and execute any necessary documents to effectuate that direction.

Thank you. Anyone else have anything for this evening? I will accept a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Stallings, second by Mr. Vance. All in favor? Aye. And we are adjourned.