Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

says where it's not personal up here it's about what fits the documents and the ordinances that are in front of you plenty of times where I voted for a project or recommended approval for a project that I did not like and didn't think it belonged there and there are other times where I love the project and I recommend a denial and that's just the way it goes on this board When it's over the gavel comes down at the end of the night Go to 760 go to crafty go home, but don't take any of that stuff with you personally Just leave it right there and move on to the next one. So thank you everyone for your service And you I don't know what you're gonna do now But thank you Thank You Jeff

okay next item on the action agenda is to make a recommendation on rezoning petition number r2604 a request by tory thompson located at 7601 babe stillwell road the request would permit the development of a school at this location Before we get started. I would like to disclose that That I have knowledge of the project our firm has worked on this project So I would see that as a definite conflict and wanted to bring that up I'd like to make a motion to recuse Jay Henson Second all those in favor Mr. Farber I'll turn it back over to you.

All right. Thank you Before I begin I'll submit my staff report into the record

And okay. Um, so the applicant Tory Thompson, uh, is proposing a rezone 7.8 acres of neighborhood residential. So neighborhood residential, uh, with conditions for a school. Here's the aerial view of the site. Uh, it's surrounded by residential properties and running through it is a 250 foot Duke power easement. Um, No TIA was required for this project, and the applicant has provided us a approved stacking plan. Additionally, the 30-foot buffer that is required along the perimeter of the property, there is a portion of that buffer that is not currently vegetated, so that will need to be planted as well. Any portion of that planted buffer within the Duke power easement will eventually be trimmed and kept to 15 feet in height, which is required by Duke power. All other landscaping and tree save requirements have been met. Additionally, the applicant has provided staff with our recommended larger and more functional urban open space as a green. It is also fronting on each and every one of the four buildings that are being provided and the buildings will front on that urban open space as the project is built in each phase since it is being proposed within four phases. The main modification request is an ask to not front on the road and instead be set back 260 feet at least to the rear of the property. Staff's in support of this modification given that the Duke power easement makes the area in yellow along Babe Stilwell Farm Road almost impossible to develop. Modification two is a new request since the public hearing is to allow the proposed building's facade to exceed 30% maximum for the use of metal paneling. Staff is in support of this modification given that the building is gonna be at least 260 feet back from the road and will be partially screened by the required landscaping on site. Since the public hearing the applicant has removed the conceptual elevations that were recently or that were submitted with the rezoning site plan and instead they proposed this note which essentially states that during the construction plans uh... the applicant will provide elevations that comply with article four point one four and she'll meet all the recommendations of huntersville's design guidebook uh... this is kind of a uh... a rare situation where staff is in support of this uh... given that the building is gonna be 260 feet back from the road. And given that they are stating that they're going to meet all the recommendations of the Huntersville Design Guidebook, which lists out many recommendations in order to create a high design building. And then finally, an additional modification that has also been provided is a ask to allow for the phasing of the required buffer plannings so that not all of the plannings are installed in phase one. staff is not in support of this modification given that the majority of the buffer that needs planted is already within the general proximity of phase one and also to ensure that all the surrounding residential properties are protected so with that yeah we can't support this modification The 2040 Huntersville Community Plan does support this project. This project's located within the moderate density feature land use character area. And the following policies do support this project, particularly policy LU 7.1 and policy LU 8.2, given that the applicant has provided the upgraded larger and more functional urban open space, meeting more of our higher design standards. And then on the do not support side, currently we have policy LU 11.1. Given the buffer modification request, we don't feel that not providing all of the buffer plantings in phase one is gonna protect the existing housing stock. And then with that, staff could be in support of this project as long as the following conditions are met. Uh, the first is that the entire buffer is planted in phase one and then two, all other minor staff comments are addressed. And if you guys have any questions, I can answer those. The applicant is also here and has a presentation. Um, so yours, we'll start with staff.

Anyone have any questions of staff before we Jennifer.

Hi. Yes, I have a question. Um, they're asking for. not to exceed the 30% for the metal. Do we have a percentage of what they want to have on the facade? No.

They're essentially stating that they may go above the 30%. Everything else is going to have to follow all of the zoning requirements of Article 4.14, the design guidelines, as well as all the recommendations that we have set out within our Huntersville design guidebook.

Is there a different percentage in the design guidebook for a metal facade?

So we don't have a percentage, but we have some... fairly open and subjective asks like one of them would be that a minimum 50 percent of the first floor front facade should be made up of windows and doors to create visual interest a minimum of three high quality building materials should be used so while they may go above 30 percent they're still going to need to be other materials provided so there could not be

100% of the facade, you know metal couldn't just be a metal wall essentially, okay But you're asking for a modification on a percentage that we don't know what that's gonna be Correct Chris just to touch on the plantings just a little bit if you go back to a landscaping plan So you're not in support of them only planning part of can you point out like? exactly what they are saying they don't want to plant.

So this is the ask that they provided with us, but they didn't provide an actual, like a specific plan for what portion of that buffer would be in what phase. I got you. So I don't have anything to go off. I got you.

And the town wants them to plant all of this that's in dark green here and here. Correct. And I guess we'll get with them on what they don't want to plant and why. Is there any plantings back here? Because isn't there a Everything else is all existing vegetation. Okay. So that would have been touched. So they're not planting anything in this buffer? Correct. Everything would be undisturbed. And then you would require them to plant everything in this open field here, even not have built phase two? No. So the ask is specific for the buffer. Okay.

Sounds good.

Marshall.

Yeah, could you talk a little bit about how the phasing works with this project? What's required? What's the timeline? Is it optional? Just how does that all work?

Yeah, so this is the phasing plan that they provided us. Phase one would include all of the infrastructure, which would be the driveway, a portion of the parking lot, a portion of the urban open space, and the side path along Babe Stilwell Farm Road. And then as they have enough capacity, they would expand the project.

But they're not required to build out the other phases?

No.

Okay. It's all just optional, just depending on the growth of the project, I suppose. Essentially, yeah. Are there any, I know that there's no specific requirements as to parking for this project?

Yeah, Civic doesn't have a minimum parking requirement.

Are you just comfortable, knowing that there's no requirement, are you comfortable generally with the proposed parking that they've got?

With what they provided us, yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Brent.

So my, so the tree canopy, right, with the Duke power Eastman, it doesn't count towards the tree save calculation, right? So let's say it were cleared by Duke. So how do we, how does that look into, how do you factor that with the tree save?

Yeah, so that, we remove that from the total. Area that they're doing their calculation calculations from because it's out of their hands It's not something that they can control if Duke wants to come in there and clear those trees There's nothing the town or the the applicant can do about it. So we're not going to penalize them for for Duke's control of that area Okay Anyone else

Let me make sure I got this right. So we've got Duke with a transmission valley that's going through the property, is that correct? And we're asking for metal facades. I know that the state kind of controls what's in proximity of transmission lines, or at least Duke and the state control that. What, if any, assessed measures are being taken to confirm that there's no increase in risk from this building, given that it's metal, relative to any other structure-type material?

Any work has been done? We haven't looked into that. We don't have any regulations or requirements for that. If Duke does have any requirements, they would certainly need to get in touch with them.

I recognize that there's no... There's nothing that's been done on our part. Okay. And maybe this is something that the applicant can address. But I'm a big believer in trying to keep kids ultra safe. And that means even going a little bit beyond what typically is called for. When I see, you know, high intensity transmission lines and I see schools close by, I'd like to think that there's some extra measures taken to ensure the safety of the children that's actually going to be in the structure. There's not, you know, I know for sure there's no local ordinance, and I suspect that Duke is going to say you're okay as long as you're within X number of yards of the particular structure. Yeah. That being said, though, children will be children. So I'll just wait to hear what the applicant says in that thing.

Any other questions before we invite the applicant up? Applicant, if you'd like, if you have a presentation. If you could just state your name. Yeah, anyone that's going to speak, you can state your name.

Hi, good evening. I'm Tori Thompson. I'm the founder of Elysium School of Innovation. Elysium is a hybrid micro school that combines in-person learning and remote learning. Oh, that's, hi. Okay. And experiential education. So we intentionally keep enrollment small to provide personalized support and flexibility for families while maintaining a limited impact on the surrounding communities.

WNA Engineering representing Elysium. So I'll try not to reiterate on a lot of things that Nathan had already said, but as you mentioned, this is our project off of Babe Stillwell Farm Road. Existing conditions, we are zoned neighborhood residential. The land is currently undeveloped and inhabited by a very large duke right away and that's the reason we're here because schools are allowed in neighborhood residential zoning but what we're asking for is the condition that we would be able to push these buildings to the back of the property versus fronting the road and this is this would be similar if we were also proposing you know a church or a housing development that small triangle that Nathan had highlighted earlier is basically all you would be left with and I mean even a nice estate lot would probably not have enough room there so given the neighboring residential we think this could be a great use for this as well as what we're providing for the the school here so the proposed conditions here I'll just I can come back to this later but phasing plan and if you have any questions for Tori as far as like the timeline of the phasing but the idea right now is to just get their feet on the ground for phase one and as the students come in and more are needed because currently they have outgrown their school wet ladder plantation so they're needing another space and as the the need increases they will build out these future phases Since the town board meeting, we provided a stacking plan to ensure that we're not going to have any stacking on the main road. This calculation here is from the NCDOT queuing calculation for private schools, and the requirement is 696 linear feet, and the provided length is currently 856. So we have plenty of space here. And this is for all future build outs, not individually. This is for phase four. So just to dive into the site design features, as Nathan mentioned, we have the 30 foot land use buffer all the way around the property. Four 4,000 square foot buildings built out in four phases. the large urban open space frontage for all of the buildings, and also the required streetscape with the five-foot concrete sidewalk and a single row of street trees. In respect to the Duke right-of-way, we have to provide small maturing underneath the right-of-way and can provide large maturing outside the right-of-way. First modification request, like I mentioned before, is just to be able to have the building set back from the right-of-way. And the second modification request, as Nathan had mentioned as well, was the exceeding of the 30% metal facade for the buildings. That's it. Any questions?

Great. Thank you. We'll open it up for questions for the applicant.

Let me go back to Jennifer.

Yes, thank you. So thank you for the presentation. Just to follow up on the metal facade, do you have an understanding of what the percentage is for the facade that you're asking for? Or just that it's gonna exceed 30%?

No, so the current plan was mainly a sketch rendering image. We don't have an architect engaged yet, but like Nathan had mentioned before, you know, these images, you know, we have a lot of windows. There's a mixture of wood, metal, and I believe, what else did we have?

So think a lot of nature preserve.

But there's no, currently there's no architecturally designed plans for how much metal.

So would it be a stretch for you to commit to 30% metal?

We just wanted flexibility because we don't have that yet.

We were also trying to do a faster, I apologize.

The reason that we didn't submit the design is because we were told we could only make small modifications if we did submit the design. So we were trying to give ourselves some flexibility since we haven't engaged with an architect. So I didn't want to be pigeonholed to a design that I haven't actually gone through the proper Mechanisms, so I were committed to making it what the town has as far as civic building use We just wanted some more flexibility on the piece So it will definitely have all those windows and it will definitely have three different types of things and it'll It'll have to go through that whole process and be approved in that process So I can guarantee you it'll be something that you guys approve I just didn't want to have to be stuck with that when we haven't even hired the right people for it yet

Okay. And then I just have one follow-up question and that is, are each of your buildings going to be identical? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm done.

Yeah. Chris.

Yep. Uh, so going back to this phasing plan, if you can bring up the phasing plan, the way I'm seeing it and understanding it, the parking lot is going to be built in phases.

Yeah, we wouldn't need all of that parking in the first phase.

Right, you don't need all the parking, but you need some of the queuing, right? Has the queuing calculation been done for phases one through three?

We haven't broken it out in phases, but the first phase is, I believe, 40 students and two staff members.

Yes.

So, I mean, we can break that out. That's not a problem.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, my worry would be, you know, obviously some of these parking spots are going to be taken up by, you know, cars and where they're going to sit. Yeah, sure, jump in.

Yeah. So speaking with my engineering colleagues, They provided me with some of that information. One, they're going to ask for each phase to be broken out and show how it's meeting that. Excellent. And one example, because he wasn't able to provide me all of them, is that phase one right now, the requirement is 143 feet of linear feet of stacking, and they're providing 400 feet. So he assured me that they're compliant with it, but they're going to visually ask them to visually show that. Yeah, no, that'd be great.

Yeah, in each phase, that would be great.

Yeah.

And then timeline, I had written down, I mean, I know it's based on growth, but don't you have some kind of proforma or expectation about how much you're gonna grow and how long this project is gonna take?

Yeah, so we are, our feeder school is the community school of Davidson's ripple program that stops at fifth grade. And so as those kids matriculate into middle school, they come to us, they make up three fourths of who comes into our school. So we are very huntersville based and we are serving the students here But those are also students that are in huntersville that would have no place to go So we currently rent space with a lot of nature preserve But they only have one classroom for us to to rent so phase what each one is two classrooms each phase But that's over four days. So one phase can do four classrooms four classes and so basically once we hit that then if we so 44 kids or 44 people at phase one once we're over that then we go into phase two so you're looking about every two to three years to have a phase so we're looking at about eight to ten years depending because we just don't wanna overbuild. We're a micro school, we're very small, and so we also wanna be very cognizant of trying to make accessible, excellent education opportunity. So we don't wanna gouge anyone in Huntersville just to build buildings that we don't need.

Yeah, completely understand. Yeah, that's what I was kind of looking for was that six to eight to ten years, if you guys had thought about that. And, you know, I'd be, I guess, remiss if I didn't sit up here and talk about traffic because I talked about that, got talked to about that a lot. But no TIA required. Right now, Babe Stillwell does back up. Is there any kind of encouragement to turn left out of your property and go another direction besides trying to go straight to 73 where that's 10 cars deep almost every morning when I try and pass it?

Yeah, so there's a couple of ways that we are proposing to eliminate that because we don't want our families sitting in that either. So yes, we can when we're directing traffic out, we can direct them to go instead of going right to go left. We can also as the middle school versus the high school. So phase three and four would be like the high school. We can have different start times as a private school. We're not required to have a certain start time. so we are committed to making sure that there we are not adding to the traffic however Huntersville has a traffic problem that is not our we are not causing the traffic problem we will do everything we can to not be in addition to that already that already issue especially you know so yeah I appreciate that and the last thing you reminded me you are gonna have high school I remember hearing that so these parking lots account for

what will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 drivers or, I mean, if you're gonna have 11th and 12th grade?

Like probably 40, but we have way more parking than we need and we can even put more parking under the Duke power easement. Yeah, we are exceeding every requirement for the parking piece, yeah.

That parking, this is a question for town, that parking is calculated from a civic requirement or commercial space requirement? It's civic, which doesn't have a requirement. Right.

Sorry to ask so many questions. No, ask away. Anyone else? Further questions? You do? Go ahead.

I probably should have asked this when staff was up there, but, again, I keep putting my, you know, be worried about the kid hat, and this is a very strong one, unfortunately. That is that I notice you only have one egress. In the event that an emergency happens, there's no exit other than the one. So I'm very concerned in these days and times when you've got one way in, one way out in a school, that should raise some caution flags at a minimum. So help me understand and appreciate why I shouldn't be concerned.

Yeah, the only thing that I can speak to is that it didn't...

It's not a requirement. I understand that.

Yeah. I understand it's not a requirement.

It's not a statutory requirement, but a practical, life-saving effort could be what this represents. So I just want to make sure I'm clear that my concern is a big one. One in and one out for a school does not smell well for me. And I know it's not statutory.

Yeah. Adam, while you're there, I've got a couple questions. The current parking field, I understand that'll be phased in. Let's say, you know, they're tremendously successful and, you know, high school students are parking. Would they have to come back in for rezoning to expand that into the right-of-way, or?

Are you, sorry, can you repeat that? Yeah. Okay, so yeah, they wouldn't be able to necessarily

yeah they could as long as they don't mess with any of their tree safe yeah and where I'm going with this is let's forward think that if it does become a parking issue can we go ahead and put something or let them propose something that would alleviate that so they don't come back in and then on that same note you know and it sounds like the stacking is not an issue but I guess I know it's a cost but again you could also extend the stacking that way I'm just trying to think that's certainly something they could consider And would you recommend they do that now, even though it wouldn't be required? If they're going to do it, now would be easiest in terms of timing. Okay. And then for the applicant, you know, obviously the traffic and buffer, as you can read the room, is a concern. I'm guessing the buffer is because of just financial considerations of...

Yeah, well, because it's also under a power easement. We can't plant beautiful big trees. We can only plant smaller trees because we are limited by the buffer. But the other reason we asked for that was because Duke Power currently has that all plowed down. And so we would actually be impeding their ability to access their stuff by planting stuff there. So we did ask for it. you know, it would be nice not to have to do that in phase one and kind of work with them on how they get to their locations, because there's that second one that's not even on our property, but currently where the proposed buffer greenery would be is what they have plowed down. So that we were just asking if that was a possibility.

Adam, how do we typically handle that? I mean, again, I see your concern, but that's not really an answer to a phasing. That's a, we're not going to do it.

Yeah, I mean, we still feel that just because we're not going to get the height that we would normally get, that 14 feet that Duke allows is still a substantial amount of screening that puts a buffer in between the existing residential properties.