Town Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. I'm going to call our February 3rd meeting to order. Um for those of you who are here and have been here before, you know that I always ask you to silence your devices before we begin our meeting. Um, please make sure that all the beeps and things and things that go off are are silenced. Um, we also always begin our meeting with a moment of silence. And so, um, please join us in doing that before we begin our meeting. Thank you. And now, if you're able, please stand for the pledge of

allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Escobar, announcements.

Good evening, board. Black History Month. Join us on Saturday, February 6, 2026 from 6 PM to 8:00 PM for an evening celebrating Black History Month. The event will feature live performances and poetry readings from Drums for Life, Jay Ward, and Arcina Todd. The program is free and will be held at the David B. Way at 1408 Hullbrooks Road. Also, we have treasure tree nominations. This program seeks to locate exceptional Huntersville's trees and tell their stories. The goal is to recognize our special trees and share their importance to our town and the environment. Treasure trees can include a champion tree, a physically unique tree, a rare tree, a tree or collection of trees with verifiable cultural or historical significance, or several trees in a notable grove, avenue, or other planting. You can find that application on our website. Just search treasure on huntersville.org. And then waste connection collections. The snowstorm has delayed waste connections work. Trash and recycling collection started back today, Tuesday, February 3rd, causing a 2day delay for Huntersville routes this week and a one-day delay the following week. The new schedule is posted on our website at huntersville.org. Pickup will be dependent on weather and road conditions. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

All right. Um on our printed calendar we had um a recognition of the Huff High School Huskys, but they were not able to come tonight due to the road conditions. We just wanted to keep our kids safe. So um we'll do our Black History Month proclamation. All right. A proclamation for Black History Month. Whereas in 1976, Black History Month was formally adopted to honor and affirm the importance of black history throughout our American experience, which dates thousands of years and includes some of the greatest, most advanced and innovative societies that we can draw inspiration from. And whereas the second week of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln and was celebrated by black people in the United States. And whereas the Huntersville Board of Commissioners takes pride in recognizing February as Black History Month, celebrating the many notable contributions that people of African descent have made to our community, state, and country. And whereas the emission of much of the history and contributions of black people from textbooks, and other literature has impeded awareness and appreciation. And whereas the celebration of Black History Month is a positive way of recognizing the culture and history of black people vital to the core beliefs and values of this society. And whereas black people living and working in Huntersville from the time of legalized slavery to the present day have shown a steadfast determination to live freely and equally and to press the town and the community to make manifest an equitable Huntersville where race is not a determining factor of outcomes. And whereas the contributions of black people have played significant roles, it made lasting contributions to our town's history and the history of our economic, cultural, spiritual, and political development. And while working tirelessly to contribute to every aspect of American society, including business, education, politics, science, and the

arts. Now, therefore, I, Christy Clark, mayor of Huntersville, do hereby proclaim the month of February as Black History Month in the town of Huntersville. Want to give a shout out to our two commissioners, um, Commissioner Latoya Rivers and Commissioner Edwin Corals, who are celebrating their alma modders as well for Black History Month. So, make sure you acknowledge them and give them a handshake later on. We also have a proclamation for random acts of kindness week. Whereas the town of Huntersville recognizes the value of acts of kindness that are performed without prompting or reason and how these acts can positively impact the person offering kindness, the person receiving the act of kindness and those witnessing. And whereas acts of kindness can be performed by any person regardless of age, origin, education, gender, religious beliefs, lifestyle or abilities for the good around them. And whereas kind individuals can create a more caring community and help to perpetuate genuine acts of kindness within their city and state and throughout the world. And whereas we seek to cultivate thoughtful and compassionate residents by teaching our youth to make a difference through random acts of kindness. And whereas the positive effects of kindness are contagious, which creates a domino effect of paying it forward. And whereas random act of kindness week is recognized as an international celebration intended to encourage all of us to practice acts of kindness in our homes, schools, businesses, and communities. Now therefore, I, Christy Clark, mayor of Huntersville, do hereby proclaim the week of February 14th through February 20th as a random act of kindness weeks. So I'm looking forward to seeing all the things that y'all do that week. and now Miss McInness is going to present us with the fiscal year 2025 financial statement.

Yes. Good evening board. Um I have with me Kang Moa. I probably messed that up. I apologize. um with Martin Starns and she was on our audit this year and she's going to give you a just a brief synopsis of what happened with the audit and some of the results. I've also put in front or placed in front of you the printed financials. The printed financials I will send an email out to everybody tomorrow with a an email version electronic version and it will also be on our website sometime tomorrow. So, and if you do have like any detailed questions about why stuff went up or down or any of those questions, it's probably better you could ask Jackie or Rod those questions later. So, just let me know if you have any. Good evening, uh, mayor and commissioners. Thank you for allowing us to continue to serve as your auditors. Uh we value our relationship and look forward to serving you in many years to come. We have issued an a clean onmodified opinion for fiscal year 2025 audit. An on an on modified opinion is issued when an auditor can state without reservation that the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects. Due to the delayed in the OM compliance supplement release, the LGC delayed the reporting timeline to February 12, 2026. We have already submitted your report to the LGC and have received a confirmation that your report has been approved. And lastly, we appreciate Patty and the city staff for being prepared. They have been a pleasure to work with. And here is an overview of the general

fund expenditures budget to actual public works makes up majority of the budget difference. It was about $31 million under budget due to capital projects. And this is an overview of the general fund revenues budget to actual budgeted and actual revenues were lower in 2025 compared to 2024. Other ex taxes and licenses is the largest overbudget revenue of $4 million followed by Avalar taxes of $1 million. And this slide shows the fund's actual financial results for the year. There was appropriated fund balance planned of 46.9 million. Um, but the town didn't have to use any of that in 2025. As a result, it reflects a positive increase in fund balance driven by revenues exceeding expenditures and transfers. And this slide breaks down the general fund balance into non-spendable, restricted, and statutory required amounts to show what is truly available for use. Please note that the non-spendable includes prepaids and leases. As a result, there was an increase of $846,000 in available fund balance in 2025. Available fund balance has a p as a percentage of adjusted general fund expenditures including transfers out.

Total debt issued and power bill has a slightly decrease or has a slight decreased of 2.2 28% from prior year. And once again, it has been a great pleasure working with Patty and the city staff. Um, this concludes my presentation. Are there any questions? Any questions, board? No. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And now we have two people signed up for public comments. We'll start with Elaine Karns. You have three minutes. Hi, good evening. Oh, let me pass this. I'm Elaine Karns. Um, I'm back to talk about the old town home. We all want our downtown to thrive. I think the goal is to have volume to get people to come downtown, stay downtown, shop, eat, etc. You mentioned last time you're thinking about if you sell selling to a developer who would put a high-end restaurant in that location. I don't think a high-end restaurant would bring the volume that we want because I don't think it would serve the local community. I don't know about you guys, but most of the people that I know that live around here don't routinely visit expensive restaurants. And I think we need something where people it's become habitual for them to come down and and use it. Um the other thing we do have a lot of commuter traffic and it will see the restaurant but would they really stop on their way home to have a relaxing evening because if you're going to an expensive restaurant I think you're going to stay a while and relax. Also, there's going to be a lot of traffic when all these units that are being built are filled to become the level of draw, elegance, and notoriety needed to attract customers from larger from the larger region. I think that would take time. I'm wondering too, we don't know anything about this restaurant, but have you seen a performer for it? Um, it would be helpful to see financial projections for the next five years to see if it would succeed. The last thing, this is this is quick. I, as you know, I've spoken a couple times to a community economic

development practitioner. That's a mouthful. Um, I was very clear with them that I don't represent the town in any official capacity that I'm a citizen excited to see her downtown thrive. I've been very impressed with them. They took the time to review the 2004 and the most recent downtown plans, and they have some great ideas. They're offering to do a complimentary Zoom meeting um with you guys. It can include citizens, any configuration you want. So, I just want to encourage you to please check out what I've handed you and give them a call. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Karns. And now we have a very special guest. Um Commissioner uh County Commissioner Ela Powell is here. Miss Powell, you gonna have three minutes. Three minutes is going to go by very quickly. So, I am Mechmberg County Commissioner Elaine Powell. I am serving my fourth term elected by you. This is my eighth year. Um, I want to congratulate all of you. I didn't get to come to your swearing in. I haven't been into this building yet until today. It's beautiful. So fancy. Um, I really like it. So, congratulations to you. Um, and I wanted to tell a little story about Huntersville. So, I moved here 40 years ago to work with the Sisters of Mercy. I worked at Mercy Hospital Maine. We opened Mercy Hospital South. Then I went to work at Presbyterian Hospital. One night, one of the nurses that I work with on 7A was driving back to Huntersville. Huntersville. like it was in 1991. It was just out there like farmland. And we said and she said her husband was out of town and she they lived on a farm and there were no such thing as cell phones. We're like, "Judy, call us when you get home so we know you're okay in Huntersville." So, she didn't call. She forgot. And we were so worried and we thought, "What are we going to do? Like, how who's going to go to Huntersville to see if Judy's okay?" So, here we are. Here we are 35 years from that incident and everything is different, you know. So, um, very different. And I just want to talk about how important citizen voices are to me and the difference making sure that we all, me, you listen to citizen voices, how important they are, how important different perspectives are,

how important environmental stewardship is. And so my specialty areas on the board of county commissioners, we all have specialty areas. I am the chair of environmental stewardship. I will have that in my heart for eternity. My heart is green. I serve on health and wellness. My background is healthcare. I serve on committee for aging. It is a very important priority in North Meckberg because we have such an aging population. Uh and I have several passion areas. Emergency management is one of them. I just want to um tell you that I am here and you guys know it, but I want to make sure that Commissioner Cornet and Commissioner Smallwood know like I am here to help. We have some of the best experts in the county working here in Meckllinmberg County that can help for any questions that you might have. There have been some decision ma decisions made that I was unaware of, but we're here and I only have 21 seconds, but thank you for everything and let's collaborate more. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Pal. And next, uh, do we have a motion to adopt the agenda? I make a motion to adopt the agenda. And is there a second? I'll second it. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? And the motion is carries unanimously. And now I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda. Motion to adopt the consent agenda. And is there a second?

A second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. Now we're on to public hearing 9A. Conduct a public hearing for the traffic calming on Central Avenue between Delwood Drive and Fullbooks Road. Miss Man. Oh, I'm gonna mess it up. Mastro Franchesco. Perfect. Yes.

Good evening, madame mayor, commissioners, Mr. Roberts. I'm here to present on the trafficcoming for Central Avenue. So, you don't know where Central Avenue is. Um, the star is where we are right now. Central Avenue is south of there and just east of 115 Old Statesville. If we zoom in, the area that was studied on Central Avenue was between Delwood Drive down to Hullberrook's Road. So that's about 2,250 ft. That's almost half a mile long. So this is what Central Street looks like today. It's unmarked ditch section. Um this is going southbound. What I want to bring to your attention is the large trees very close to the travel lane. Now, if we're looking northbound, I'd like to bring to your attention the utility poles right at the edge of the pavement. Um, again, just an old mature um development. Uh, the road width that you're looking at is 18 to 20 feet wide. So, anything we would do to widen this road or add any sidewalks, let's say, we would be relocating trees. We would be relocating utility poles. So, let's start with the study. The community asked for uh traffic calming. So, we started with some radars out uh they were out for two weeks and it came back with 33 miles per hour. That was the 85th percentile. uh that is above our threshold. So then we continue on with the process. The community also provides um information out to their community uh breaking people aware of speeders and how we should respect the speed limit.

So they completed that sent us uh copies of everything. I then send the speed report to the police. I asked them if they could increase uh police presence in the area. And finally, we put up uh temporary radar feedback signs. So those are the signs while you drive, it will flash your actual speed. I will say that the community I had two separate people stop me and say that they love those and they wish they could keep them there forever, but I told them they were just temporary. Um so then we go back and we restudy again. Now this time the 85th percentile was 32 miles an hour. So, it did decrease by one mile, but it's still over the threshold. So, what happens next is we come out with a layout of traffic calming options. Um, we work with the community to see what they think and uh I usually ask the fire department and the police what their thoughts are on that. So, our first option is a standard speed hump and the second one is quite different. Um, so I will say that fire department was completely fine with this second option. Um, our police chief was a little bit hesitant. Um, just wanted to make sure we put out a lot of education and appropriate signage. So, we'll start with our traditional speed humps. So, speed humps would be put in uh within the rightway. We don't have to get any uh property acquisition. And down this street, I would suggest that we would put three and they would be somewhat equally spaced, no more than 500 ft. Um, this could be done in-house with our public works crew. The cost of three humps would be around $18,000. This is what it would look like on a road that has a ditch section, no curbon gutter, and no sidewalks, and then the appropriate signage. Again, you can see on this one, utility

poles very close to the edge of pavement, trees very close to the edge of pavement. All right, so now for the second option, it's definitely not typical. And with working with the planning department and their small area plan for the Pottstown community, we came up and thought that this might be a good solution. It's called Advisory Shoulders. It's also known as Edgeline Road. And so if you look at my sketch, you're really not gonna get a feel for it yet, but that center that red line is a center lane with two ways of traffic and then on either side of it is a lane for pedestrian or bikes. Now, we discussed this with a few community members um and they were pretty interested in it. So that was in August. Then we met with a larger group in October to discuss this and the community was on board. They they really think this could help them. So this picture I'm hoping is a better illustration for you. So that center travel lane would be for vehicles going in both directions and then the outside lanes are for bikes and pedestrians. In this layout, you cannot have on street parking because the bike lanes are considered travel lanes. So if you are driving down the center and a vehicle is approaching you, what you do is you move to the right. Both vehicles move to the right onto the shoulders and pass each other and then continue back into the center lane. Um what we would do is we'd stay within the existing pavement. We put down some pavement markings and the signage. This helps with traffic coming because we're narrowing the road, plus gives the community sidewalks, per se, for people

to walk on and feel they have a designated space to walk in. This option would not require any property acquisition, no relocation of poles or cutting down the trees. In the past, the community has asked for sidewalks on on Central Street, but we would have to then acquire some of their property, and that's not something that they were interested in. So, the planning department thought that this would be a great fit for both options. All right, so let's talk about the data because I'm an engineer. the speed and volume from the small area. Uh the FHWA has a multimodal network report. And so here's the graph. The the dark green is the preferred area that this option, this method would be good for. So if you see it's 3,000 cars a day is still within is is their top limit. Central Street only has 280 to 300 cars a day. So, we're well within that limit. And the speed of it maxes out at uh 25 miles per hour, but there is still a hatched area where there's a potential that you could still use it for other areas. So, here's an example of the road. Um you see the car driving down the center. The edge lines are marked and that's where people and bikes, scooters would be f driving in. Um, again, no on street parking with this option. And I want to show you that there. Again, the trees are at the edge of pavement. We've got utility poles, edge of pavement, and everything just stayed the same here. Here's another picture. Um, hopefully you can it's clear. There's a bicycle

coming towards us on the left and the vehicle's going away from us. The vehicle actually moved over. Not it wasn't necessary because they had the center lane, but just moving over, giving lots of room for pedestrians to cross. Now, let's talk about let's go back to my existing Central Avenue. Remember I told you it was 18 to 20 feet wide and I observed people just driving down the center. just today just driving down the center, not necessarily staying to the left or the right. Um, and when a car approached, they simply just moved over and moved across. So, in fact, the actions are already there. And right now, all we want to do is put some markings down. So, this is what it would potentially look like. Um, again, no moving of the utility lines, no acquiring of property. the beautiful trees get to stay. The center lane we would recommend at 10 ft wide and the side lanes for pedestrians and bikes would be four to five feet wide on each side. That's all stays within the existing right ofway. Um you might say, how do you start this? Because when you're coming off of Delwood or you're coming off of Hullbrook, you're like, oh my gosh, it's one lane. So that's not how it would be laid out. You would turn onto it as it was a two-lane road and it would be marked as such. And then the skip lines, the dash lines will neck you down into the center lane and be the same way all the way to the end where it would feather back out. There is such a solution in Matthews. Um it is on Matthew Chapel Road. It is only 500 feet and the road is 16 feet wide and it is to connect you anyone traveling on it to their their trail. It's only on one side because the trail connections are only on one side. Um

for our option we don't think one-sided only would be a proper solution. So the community has told us they were interested in trying this and that could be a solution that we tested out first. and then if we would keep it going on for three to six months and then restudy the area and then go from there. Do you have any questions for me? Commissioner Rivers.

Um so with the advisory shoulders, what is the likelihood of decreasing the miles per hour by using this technique? So when you narrow the road, your lane, it is helping in the traffic calming. So you feel tighter. You would have the sense of slowing down. So when on So have a sense but not it's not a guarantee. No, it's not a physical measure like a speed hump. Right. Okay. Um what is the cost for the advisory shoulders in comparison to the speed humps?

Right. So, I said the speed hump was um around 18,000. If we were to mark this and put the uh signage on, it's roughly 12,000. Um and so there are no other neighborhoods or communities in the town of Huntersville that has um an advisory shoulder.

No. No, ma'am. This would be our first street. Um, I don't have a question. I just have a comment. And I'm I mean, I'm going to support whatever the community decides. What I will say is that in the past, many years ago, there was a child who was hit by a car that was speeding through Central Avenue. and to witness it and to only get a stop sign placed at David Street that did nothing. So, I hope that whatever compromise the community comes up with with the town that it's in the best interest of the residents. I like the concept, but I hope that we can take some other measures as well. But again, that is we will we'll support whatever the community wants. Any other questions, Commissioner Smallwood?

So, when the vehicle shifts over, are they actually moving into the bike lane? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, let's say you saw a person walking, I would shift over and probably slow down or stop, let the other vehicle come in, and then I cruise back into the center lane. Thank you, Commissioner Walsh.

Um, I actually find this an interesting concept. I'm I'm on central two or three times a week headed back and forth to the um way center and I'm one of those people that kind of go down through the middle. Um, and quite often I do see people walking and riding bikes. In fact, I'd bet you nine out of 10 times when I drive it, somebody's walking or riding a bike. So to give them a dedicated place to walk and ride, I think makes sense. And and same thing, I kind of go down the middle and people just shift around, but it would it would clearly demarcate where they can walk and ride. So I I think it's an interesting concept. Commissioner Cornet.

Yeah, I also find it really interesting. I I do like what uh Matthews had done with um adding the the color. I think it actually kind of sets it apart and makes it really shows that that is for that bike path and trail and I I would hope it would slow people down. And if we did paint it, um it could be like a community involvement so everyone has a sense of ownership to it as well. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. I think we have some speakers. We do. Yep. We have four public comments. Augustine Henosa.

Augustine. I'm sorry. I read that it's printed there, but that that was not what came out of my mouth. Um, you have three minutes. All right. Can I get a restart? I said, "All right, too soon." Okay. Hello. My name is Augustine. I'm an advocate for the Pottstown neighborhood and community as well as a 20-year Pottstown resident. I've said it before and I'll say it again. To the unbeknownsted, Pottstown is just another black hood in America. So, Central Avenue is just another street. We are here to speak about pedestrian safety on Central, but the reality is far more grave than people walking on street. In order to understand what Central Avenue needs today, I believe it is crucial to understand what it was intended for in the first place. It helps to know some history. Unfortunately for us here today, the third rail is a real thing. and speaking about certain social issues, historical events causes strife and misunderstandings. Something that really complicates advocacy here today. I'd like to start by defining an avenue as a road that connects streets by running perpendicular to them. Most often used to facilitate travel and connectivity. In the case of Pottstown, the history is evident. Central Avenue served as a connection between black communities, their churches, schools, and businesses. Segregation did happen. It happened here and Pottstown is a result. But somehow something happened. Something more. Neglect.

A lot more happened. But please don't let me be the one to tell you all of it. I wouldn't be standing up here if it wasn't for the list of legends, too many to name during the time I have right now. The simplified reality is that Pottstown is a historic black community on the east coast of the United States of America with a living lineage that extends well beyond the 150 years that Huntersville has experienced and well before Craighead. Pottstown is exactly what the American flag represents past, present, and future. So what does Central Avenue need in terms of pedestrian safety? The answers may be simple, but the simple solutions are far more complicated than logistics and budget planning. Let's be real, we wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't about if it was only about pedestrian safety and property lines. As someone currently experiencing a small-cale version of what construction could look like on Central Avenue, I highly advise this board of commissions to take further steps in addressing the third rail. We're standing on it. Happy Black History Month. Pottstown is somewhere where you can experience black history all year round. Very proudly, very loudly. Any day, anytime, any shade, any color, all year round. Thank you.

Thank you. And next we have Ingred Hooks. You have three minutes. Good evening. I uh didn't really plan to speak tonight, but I wanted to be part of the community as always. I'm talking about the Glendale resoning proposal. Um I know this is a meeting for a meeting for it, but I want to get ahead of it. Um I'm asking all to consider Ma'am, are you speaking about the Dellwood Glendale? Dellwood. I said Glendale.

Right. So, this is this public hearing is for the Delwood Street. Are you Glendale on my um did you intend to talk about the Statesville resoning or the Samur Huntersville Concord Road Glendale resoning of the um one home that's proposed to be four homes? Okay. Yeah, that's next time. Oh, I apologize. I wasn't really thinking, but come back. Janelle Harris. Yeah.

First time. All right. Good evening, Huntersville residents, board, and staff. I'm wishing everyone a happy Black History Month and I hope you had a fine Groundhog Day. And speaking tonight feels a little like Groundhog Day because around this time last year, I spoke to the previous board stating that Maaboo Live, a nonprofit organization that I'm president of, had been hosting monthly meetings with residents and the Penultimate Town Board for over a year. When speaking last year, I expressed that the town the Pottstown community had discussed and was in favor of some raise grant funds that had been appliesed for to address the church street connection and bring millions of dollars for infrastructure into Pottstown. And that board consisting of some of you uh decided to forego applying for the funds in order to conduct a meeting with us residents to again be told that we were in favor of the application. But now that's gone. it wasn't funded and the the progress has kind of been delayed and we just want to make sure that our progress doesn't get delayed anymore with these um talks that we're having. So today I'm standing here to say again that the penultimate board in Mabu Live did conduct meetings discovering a community voice crying out for sidewalks. An independent study was done. Funds were put aside. meetings were hosted by the town staff were showing schematics to determine where we wanted the sidewalks to go to, where we wanted them laying, the north side or the south side. And you guys gave us feedback about what was going to happen. And while knocking on doors today along Central Avenue, I do know that there isn't a unanimous desire on Central Avenue or in Pottstown for any uh calming devices. However, the previous board and this this board now is talking about having uh what you call them advisory lanes coming down and um the future of Central Avenue has drastic changes coming about with the entrance with a potential entrance to a Pottstown

Park on that street. Definitely the Delwood Drive getting ready to close, bringing more traffic to that street as well as the red line. So, all of that would make me again say, please revisit what you said that you would do and you put you said it would be on the shelf until people came up and said that they were going to be interested in having the sidewalks. And I just think about the future of Pottstown, not needing temporary solutions, but needing some concrete laid down. I'm asking you tonight to find the funds. Please find the funds and give a fair price to the long-standing homeowners on Central Avenue. It's a small street. Central Avenue doesn't have that many long-standing owners on that street that you could ask them and tell them give them a good price and pay them for their land and build us some sidewalks. Please, we don't want you to experiment with the detriment to the detriment of our elders and children's safety. Just budget the price. Put the sidewalks along Central Avenue between Hullbrooks Road and Delwood Drive. Thank you. Thank you. And Leslie Rachel's with you have three minutes. Hello, my name is Rachel Zwiff and I live on Central Avenue and I have a uh 14-year-old son that loves to play on Central Avenue. I actually was the petitioner of this project um bringing it to four light to be done and we have I want to thank the board and the staff on um the amount of time it took to um lay this out and actually offer us the proposal for the um advisory side uh shoulders um in the meeting in December.

Yes, we did not have a clear consensus, but the understanding was that um we would go forth with the advisory shoulders as a template to see how they did and then um if we needed speed humps after that, revisit that. Um that is kind of what the the community is looking to happen. We were hoping we had that meeting in October. Uh we were hoping it would have happened by November, but we understand time got away from us. So, um, my ask is that we go forward with that pro, um, with what we originally talked about, uh, as far as laying down the temporary, um, shoulders and then if we needed them to go forward with the speed humps. I know one of the issues with the speed humps as they are on Delwood Drive is that, um, they may need to be a little bit higher because they're not actually slowing down people on Delwood. And that's definitely been brought to me as a community advocate for several um several times by people kind of everywhere. Um a lot of people do walk down Central. That's why they're um some people that walk their dogs and different and just walk up and down the street really want the advisory shoulders to help with help uh mark out what those lanes would be. And I think that traffic would you know follow as they always do in different type of neighborhoods from moving from one side to the left. Um, my other ask is that um, hold on, let me find my thought. Give me one second. Oh, the thing that uh Laura did not bring up is one of the other reasons that we um talked about the advisory shoulders being a positive is because with the issues with DOT on Hullbrooks, this could lay way for the possibility of a crosswalk then proceeding to happen to walk over to over Hullbrooks to the Dell Wood Center, which would make it a little bit safer if she wants to come back up and bring that guys that to you. um that that that's one of the things that could um help possibly move DOT forward with

something like that. I would said I'm even willing to to paint them uh myself, but you know DOT has their own regulations, but that is in their um in their standards of having something there. So, she wants to bring that back up is I know one of the things that um really sparked interest for me. And then also I want to kind of put a shameless plug in that um the Pottstown Heritage Group along with History by Us will be featured on PBS tonight as their first story. So please check this out on uh what is it? PBS Charlotte 8 o'clock. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Yep.

If you'd like I can explain a little bit more what Rachel was talking about. So at um Hullberrook Street, Hull Brook's road, that's a DOT road. And what we would like what the the the community would prefer is down here at the bottom. They would like to be able to cross the street safely so they can get to the Delwood Center. Um so we asked DOT if we could, it is already a allway stop. We asked DOT if we could mark the crossings on the ground and they said no because there is no receiving sidewalks. So if we put these advisory shoulders, they said they might entertain them to let us be able to put the um markings of pedestrian crossings on Hullberg Street.

Okay, thank you for that. Any questions around that part? Yeah, I'm confused. So, you said DOT the ask was to make a crosswalk to make it safer to get to the Dwood Center. Yes. To cross over Delwood like just the the hatching the marks. Okay. From Central to Delwood. Oh, I said the wrong word. I'm sorry. You're right. Waymore center. Way. Okay. I was I was like I went to the wrong street. Yeah. Okay. No problem. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um if you wanted to know more about the grant that um I have um Okay, Heather Maloney can talk to that.

Yep. Thank you, Heather. Um to address the concern from the residents about uh pursuing the build grant, um we are actively working on a reapplication to that as a long-term strategy to fund sidewalks on central Delwood and Hullbrooks. So this is kind of an interim solution um that isn't necessarily doesn't mean that we're not pursuing that long-term vision. So Thank you, Heather. And I will say that um this was also discussed at the budget meeting, correct? If I'm correct in saying that the bill grant was presented to us at the at the budget retreat and we all agreed that we would revisit and open up send in an application for that. So, thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions on this?

All right. Thank you. We will proceed to item 9B. conduct a public hearing on petition R25-15 Old Statesville Road, Mixed Use. Mr. James, you have the floor. Thank you and good evening. Before I start, I'd like to uh please enter my staff report into the record for R2515 Old Statesville Road mixeduse conditional district resoning. So, to start, let's go over the basics of the resoning request. on the screen you see in the hatched area the proposed resoning development and that uh purple area is uh currently highway commercial conditional district that's currently where uh deerness gardens exist today um that is zone highway commercial conditional district and then the three parcels below that to the south are zone neighborhood residential those are vacant pieces of of land the proposed reszoning is to go to U neighborhood uh center and conditional district for a mixeduse development. Um and that would consist of some apartments, town homes, um some vertical mixed use in the front along Old Statesville Road. Um, and neighborhood center is a district that is intended to have an interconnected street network with uh shops and commercial uses um as and residences, civic uses and kind of an interconnected network. You see um across the street you do have some uh neighborhood uh center districts. There's some neighborhood residential to the south, some general residential to the west, and some more general residential and neighborhood residential to the north. Um, neighborhood center is in the general vicinity. So, it is an appropriate

district in this area. Um, and also the uh total area of this resoning would be appropriate for its own neighborhood center. Uh on the screen you see the context map with the site plan, the proposed site plan and then the area. It isn't a mixeduse center. That's the uh the the radius around uh kind of the uh the roundabouts there and it encompasses most of this site. There's a little corner that is not within that mixeduse center. Um to the south you've got congregate care, senior living and then um kind of surrounding to the north, west, and to the south there's large lot single family uses. Here's the proposed site plan. Um the proposed site consists of seven total buildings. The two along Old Statesville Road, they're on the the right side of that plan. Uh those are vertical mixeduse apartment buildings with commercial some commercial uh on the ground floor. Uh the one to the north has approximately 5,000 proposed commercial square foot and the one to the south is approximately 3,000 square feet of commercial space. Um there's another two other apartment buildings within the middle of the site and then two um town home buildings and a clubhouse there in the middle. you see some uh stream buffers. There's an intermittent and a perennial stream uh going through the site. So, this site would propose uh to disturb um those buffers. I'll get a little more into that and and some of the uh next slides. Um this proposal is for up to 254 total residential units. Um the applicants are

offering 10 attainable houses, housing units. Uh four at 80% AMI and six at 100% AMI. So moving into some of the modifications that uh are requested in order to make this plan happen. Um number one, uh we've gone over this in a couple of plans previous to this one. They are requesting 100% attached housing in this district. 30% attached housing is allowed by right. Uh so the applicants are asking for 100% attached housing and those are in the form of apartment buildings and town homes. Um staff does recommend a higher percentage of town homes and that is uh the two smaller buildings there on the west northwestern part of the site plan. Uh we are requesting that that quadrant of the plan be more of a mix of of town homes as opposed to um mostly uh apartment buildings. Um the second modification request is in uh mixeduse buildings. That's the the type of buildings that they are proposing along the frontage. The ordinance require requires se 60% of that ground floor space to be commercial square footage. Um this plan offers around 17 to 20% of uh ground floor um commercial percentage. Uh staff uh recommends a revision to get a little closer to that 60% um commercial space for those two mixeduse buildings. Uh moving into the next modification request um is tree save 30% uh specimen required. This plan proposes uh about 8%. Um as we all know the the mitigation

requirements changed um a few months back um in which if you now mitigate higher than uh 50% in this this case then uh it would go to a reasonzoning. So this is a modification request. In this case, staff is in favor of m uh mitigation through the tree bank fund since a majority of the trees um that would need to be saved for tree safe are in the northern section of the plan uh where that street connection is needed for connectivity. Uh the fourth modification request, there is a 30 uh foot vegetated buffer requirement to adjacent properties. Um this plan proposes disturbance with a couple of small areas disturbance within those 30-foot buffers. um one to the uh north along uh where you see that town home uh to the northwest of the property and then another would be there where the uh SCM um retention pond is to the south uh west corner. There's some encroachment into that buffer. Staff is requesting that the plan be revised to be fully out of those buffers. Um, we are okay with a small amount for grading with replanning, but as the plan currently uh uh as proposed, we're not in favor of those encroachments. Um, the next modification to the plan is intermittent stream encroachment disturbance, and I'll get uh more into depth on that in the next slide. Um staff can can support this because the ordinance does allow uh mitigation with mitigation credits.

Um there's actually a variance request for um disturbance of the 100 foot perennial stream buffer. And this kind of delineates the difference between the two. In the light blue area on the screen that kind of goes right through the middle of the the de proposed development is an intermittent stream and there's a 30-foot stream buffer on that. Um this plan does propose to uh develop within that area, but again it does allow that mitigation in the ordinance uh if the town board would decide to approve it. Um the perennial stream however is a dark blue area to the uh western side of the properties. Um that has a 100 ft uh stream buffer and in order to um disturb that uh you have to go through a town variance process uh possibly a state um variance process as well. Um staff uh doesn't usually make it a habit to allow any disturbance in a perennial buffer. Um nor do we um believe that there's a hardship to to have to build into that area. So staff is requested has requested to the applicant to revise the plan to stay out of that red hatched area which is within that 100 foot perennial buffer. On the screen you see the uh vertical mixeduse building and the apartment building on the bottom. Uh the vertical mix building on the top as you see uh does propose up to about 20% of that commercial space on the ground floor. Uh while staff does uh appreciate uh the design of the building and it does meet our standards, uh we are asking for a

bit more commercial build uh commercial space on that ground floor of that mixeduse building. And then it's the same style of the apartment buildings to the uh bottom of the screen. um that is a three-story building and on the street frontage is the fourstory uh mixeduse buildings that do meet um uh ordinance requirements for maximum height. And the other style of building is the town homes which is in the uh far uh west quadrant north west quadrant of the proposal and it's a two-story uh same similar design uh which meets our uh standards. Uh we have requested the design of the clubhouse um for the next middle moving forward. Uh we'll get into the 2040 Huntersville community plan and what this plan proposal does support and what it does not. Um it does support quite a few initiatives in the community plan. Um the plan as on the screen you see the the red area is the proposed site and it is within the mixeduse center in that uh dashed uh circle area. Um and it is also within the the town core. Um, so the 2040 plan does call for this area to have higher density um, and to center the density around uh, transportation networks, which this is on uh, Old Statesville Road, Highway 115. This plan does encourage a mix of of uses. Um, however, I also have it does not support this initiative as well because we would like a higher mix of commercial space. Um it does encou encourage um commercial area in that core as well. Um it follows

our guiding principles for design which is building on street frontages um or or urban open spaces. It has interconnected streets. There's street stubs to the uh west and to the south. Um there is a diversity of housing options. There's the 10 attainable units. So, they've gone above and beyond for attainable housing and like I said previously, it does improve connectivity. Moving to where the plan does not support and the community plan initiatives uh is a a mix of of land uses too. It's too low of commercial uses. The again the ordinance requires 60% ground floor commercial. They're at about 17 to 20%. We think that that area can can support more retail and service uses. Um mix of housing types. We feel that um getting a lower density towards the the back uh corner against some of those single family homes and getting more um mix of the town homes at two floors would do the plan some uh justice and the community plan some service as well. um higher design standards as far as urban open space goes. Um go back to the site plan. In the middle of the screen in between the two front buildings, you've got a small urban open space and then there's some behind the parking lot that's in that green area on the screen. Uh town is asking for um a more integrated urban open space and usable plan. um one that's more activated for the urban open space. Um protect existing housing stock. Kind of went into that before with the lower density to the back of the proposed development. And then um encourage the

protection of wetlands and stream buffers. Uh as previously noted, it does encroach upon intermittent and perennial stream buffers. uh the town is requesting the town staff is requesting to get out of those perennial uh and not encroach in those perennial buffers. So, as far as staff's recommendation, um at this point, um staff does not recommend approval of the resoning request for the the items previously spoke on. Um it is worth mentioning that this plan has come a long way since the beginning of that submitt. um they've added more street connectivity. Um the plan is laid out more to what our guidelines and our principles would say, but at this point um as far as the makeup of the housing, um the amount of commercial space, the the stream buffers, um some of the open space detail, um and some of the buffer adjacent buffer issues. uh staff at this time is not um in recommending approval for the plan.

The applicants do have a presentation, but um I'm here for any questions you may have before that. Commissioner Walsh. Yeah, I just have a couple. Um in the staff report under LU8.2 talks about encouraging the achievement of higher design standards. You mentioned you like some of the design but then in the report says the current plan I won't read the whole thing but the current plans for architecture of the multif family units are lacking minimum design standards of the ordinance. What what what's I think that was I think that was a typo and what it was what it was meant to talk about was urban open space design. Okay.

Um the architecture does meet our minimum standards. um the the amount of commercial space on the front on the first floor uh could introduce more uh shops or retail service type businesses. But as far as the actual design goes, it it does meet our u our expectations. Um the uh 8.2 uh what the LU 8.2 in the staff report should have dug more in depth with was the um the urban open space requirements. Um those were touched on in the uh body of the of the um the staff report. Um but that's what that intention was for 8.2.

Okay. I was actually going to have a followup is the um urban open space. I was reading the staff. What what exactly you guys looking for? So, in so in a in a development in a subdivision as large as up to 254, I believe that's the the number units. Uh we're looking for um urban open space that's more usable. Um, I I think the area the the the area of the urban open space meets the minimum sizes, but when you have 254 units, we're looking for a more activated urban open space, a more usable urban open space, somewhere where kids can play um or you know, if diners can go um sit for um for the commercial areas for restaurants. So like a courtyard or place

courtyard an open green. Um this is a more urban form. So you know a large green probably wouldn't fit here but um more of an activated urban open space with just more usable space for the residents as well as anyone visiting. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner Rivers. Um, can you go back to the map because I'm just trying to picture this like where specifically Sure. are we looking? So, this is the southern uh roundabout, new roundabout on Old Statesville.

And uh the northern two three parcels are the Deerness Gardens properties. Yeah, should have elaborated on that a little more at at this slide. But then the three um parcels to the south are uh vacant property. I think there's three owners of these properties now, but it's right after the uh the southern roundabout. You're welcome, Commissioner Corles.

You say LU10, diversity of housing. The project itself is mixeduse. And then in another another word, you say you wanted to um convert apartment D to townouses. So, from apartments to town houses, if we're trying to attract more beds downtown as we're trying to bring in more businesses, give me the why to convert building D from apartments to town houses and also you because you can't see that building from the main street.

Sure. Um, I'll go back to the site plan, give a little more reference. So, the diversity of housing can go into also attainable housing. So, you've got um 10 attainable units. Um it it does it does meet that, but as far as the mix of housing goes, what we'd like to see is more density up towards the road and it just teeter back to less dense along uh that northwestern section where there are single family homes. Um and you know, diversify the the type of housing we're getting. There's there are a we do have a lot of apartment buildings coming online and not as much uh town homes currently. So, a plan like this would would be would would give some positive uh diversity of housing in this section of town by introducing that other type and not just apartment buildings because what you have here is 254 units where uh 244 approximately of those would be apartment buildings and and units and only 10 as town homes.

So, you say other apartments coming online but they're after this project here. So would we not look at having them to give us their town homes versus this true mixeduse project?

We could. This is this is what um through months of work staff is uh basically through our research what we found would be a better mix in this general area with you've got single family currently and you know that could develop in the future but currently there are single family homes there um and that kind of density fourtory apartments on the front uh and then three uh all the way through to the back. It just seems too dense for us currently with no other density around there.

And then you didn't mention uh infrastructure, but I know when we first met with the developer, it was one um road coming out. Now we have two. I know all of us ran on infrastructure and I see that they have additional infrastructure. there'll be a lesser burden on our taxpayers. But also, are they not proposing to watt in part of 115? There are some improvements on 115. Um, I believe there's a turn lane. Yeah. Northbound turn lane, but it doesn't uh it doesn't widen Old Statesville Road necessarily other than the turn lane. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. But it does, like you said, it does introduce a grid type network with infrastructure, which is a positive, a definite positive plan. Um the the first renditions of this plan were main it was mainly a driveway coming in with with a couple of large buildings. So they've added that kind of grid network that we're looking for in a neighborhood center. Thanks, Commissioner Cornet. I'm just looking at this. It looks like there there is a fairly substantial impact to the wetlands and the the the area here. I know some of these streams are not permanent, but it looks like there it's very substantial. Am I am I reading this correctly that the will this have a an environmental impact?

Well, there's environmental impacts currently for disturbance into the the stream buffers. As far as wetlands go, the the core of engineers has not um fully assessed that at this point. that usually comes at the construction level. Um, so I can't get into the specifics of that now, but we did touch on our recommendations against um developing in that uh 100 foot perennial buffer. Um, so yeah, there are some environmental impacts for sure. Thank you.

Any other questions before we have the applicant? Okay, can have the applicant come up. All right,

there you go.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Prom, members of the board. My name is Bridget Grant. I'm a land use consultant with Moren Van Allen, and I'm pleased to be here tonight on behalf of High Street District Development. It's always hard after I watch a staff presentation, I want to redo my entire presentation. So, I'm going to skip through a lot of the highlights. Jesse did a great job describing the basics that you all are familiar with and I'm going to start with this slide. I always like to say that conditional zoning is an iter an iterative process. We go through a series of changes. We work with staff, elected officials, stakeholders, and residents. So, you can see we started with our original plan submitt back in June of 2025. We had another submittal in November and then a resoning and sketch plan resubmitt, the current plan that's on file in December. What you will note is that we increased our number of affordable units from none up to 10. Our commercial square footage from none up to 8,000. We were originally proposing 270 multif family units. We're down to 244 with up to 10 town homes. We've also worked on the access in the network to really meet that overall goal of connectivity in this area. As Jesse mentioned, we've got uh seven building site. You can see our multif family buildings are on the front. Sometimes it's a little easier to read in color than the black and white ones that you are looking at. So the orange buildings on the front are fourstory. One has 5,000 square feet of potential commercial on the ground floor. The other has 3,000. The two buildings in yellow are threetory multif family. And then we've got the two town home buildings to the back. We're working through a number of changes that that staff has been recommended that we make. And so you're going to see some adjustments to this plan. Based on what you're looking at right now, this is our attempt to incorporate the street network and meet that goal for a mixeduse development.

When we had our community meeting, one of the biggest topics we spent time on was the distance of the proposed building to the adjacent single family residential. So, it was most helpful for us to do a cross-section showing you where if you were in one of the homes, the closest home to the proposed development, it's about 345 ft till you get to the face of the proposed multif family buildings. So, it gives you a pretty good distance at the rear of their lots, but also the existing tree buffer that's there. And then you've got about an 80 foot public street rideway before you get to the building. So, we just thought it would be helpful to share this graphic. We have gone through our traffic study and we are making that improvement to Old Statesville Road. I'm sure staff or one of our traffic engineers is here that can help us answer any of your questions specific to the traffic study. And Jesse did a great job of describing the elevations and we appreciate the recognition that we meet all of the standards. I think what you'll notice is that we've got varied roof lines, articulated massing, a change in materials. We've got those active ground floor uses and balconies throughout. You can see our goal is to really create something that engages the pedestrian realm, the public street. This is just another example showing you the overall quality that we intend to develop on the site. This other slide shows you that tearing down how you've gone from the four-story elevation you saw in the previous slide to the three-story elevation as we step back down to the two-story town homes. And we appreciate the comments about urban open space. We are working on that. I think a lot of the community today when you're looking at urban open space, it's not necessarily activation the way we think of like a kid going out and playing ball. A lot of us like to just find a place to sit outside. Those places where you can engage, be outside, you can use the spaces in a flexible manner. Um, let me go back to my site plan. So, we've got a couple of open plazas,

but we also have area E, which is behind the pink clubhouse, which is another amenity area. In addition, we basically have a lot of natural area that we think the residents will be able to enjoy in its natural state. So, we think we've got a good combination of natural vegetation, amenity area near the clubhouse, and then two urban open spaces. I promise I will not read all of this, but this helps me get my thoughts together. When we were going through, there were, as Jesse mentioned, about six comments left for us to address. One of them was the idea of converting one of our apartment buildings to additional town homes. And and to your point, Commissioner Quarlles, we would like to keep it as a multif family building. We think it's important for us to support the 8,000 square feet of small business and incubator type space with rooftops. We also think it's an opportunity for us to provide more rooftops for the businesses you're all trying to attract in the downtown area. So, we think we've done a pretty good job of meeting the goals of the comp plan, which is to have a mixeduse development here. And this is where density has been identified. And so we think that tearing down from four stories to three stories to two stories helps make that transition, but also gives us that critical mass of residential units to support the businesses that we're trying to attract. Um that falls in line with increasing the commercial percentage for the mixeduse development. In our experience, we like to look at a mixeduse district in its entirety, not just on a parcel by parcel or development by development basis. So we think for the amount of density that we're proposing here, it's the right amount of retail. We don't have a big anchor, a grocery store or a big drugstore to support. This is really the types of space that you would imagine for a small business or incubator. And that does better when it's scaled to this amount. So this is where we're most comfortable. We definitely have concerns with not having um with having vacancies. Anyone would

be concerned with having commercial vacancies. So, we feel like this will fill up and be a complement to what's happening downtown as well as a resource to our residents. Um, I think it's also important to mention that we're filling out the spaces. We're delivering commercial space in a finished condition so it's more achievable and attainable again towards small businesses that don't want to take on the burden of trying to upfit everything. Move development out of the perennial stream forthcoming. We're taking care of that change and we are no longer going to need a variance. I've already touched on the redesign of the open space to be more active and functional. We're just really trying to keep these multiple public open spaces, you know, as our gateway and really benefit from the flexibility of active and passive spaces for gathering and simply getting outside with curated experience to connect people in their surroundings. Um, we are going to maintain the vegetation in the 30-foot buffer. So, that's going to be taken care of on our revised plan and we're going to address all the outstanding issues. So, I think when it comes down to the staff comments, the two places we aren't easily able to address is the decrease in the number of units and the increase in the commercial space. And I'm happy to answer questions about that. At the end of the day, through great collaboration with staff and stakeholders, we've been able to check a lot of boxes. We are bringing forward a project that has affordable housing, infrastructure wins with connectivity, job creation from the construction perspective, but also long-term small business opportunities. We're looking at an increase to the tax base, proximity to public transportation. It's always nice to be able to say we're consistent with the adopted land use policy, and we think that's a plus on this. We're very happy with the quality of architecture that we've worked through to get to this point and we think that we've got thoughtful and varied residential options with that flexible commercial space to serve a wide range of small businesses. And with that, I am happy to answer any questions.

Commissioner Walsh. Yeah. You mentioned that you're going to have some um we'll call it retail space, but the um the u commercial space. What do you expect? What kind of businesses are you expecting to attract? I mean, retail's different than office space. It is. I think we're looking for anything. I think when you think about small business spaces, you can see a small boutique, a small retail shop, but you can also see an architect's office, a small insurance office, and I think we're setting it up to be able to support all of those non-residential uses. There's even an opportunity, we talked about a small sandwich shop, maybe where you're not necessarily preparing food on site, but selling prepared foods. We looked at the full range. Thank you, Commissioner Hunt.

I have a couple of questions. So, first I just want to clarify that you are not planning to disturb the 100 foot buffer anymore. Correct. We're planning to send in a revised plan that addresses all of the comments related to the stream buffer and um the 30 foot buffer. Okay. Thank you. I have a couple of questions from the streams and wetland report. What is a non-jurisdictional wetland? I'm gonna ask one of our engineers to answer that specifically. Yeah, Craig Bwick. You can come up to the microphone. Craig, state your name and who you're with. Thanks, Craig.

Yeah, I'm Craig Burwick with Seaman Whiteside Civil Engineer. Um, a non-jurisdictional wetland is a wetland that basically the state doesn't have requirements of. It's usually connected to a perennial street perennial stream directly. So these wetlands are not connected. So they would not be jurisdictional. Okay. So then in terms of the impact to them, there isn't one or how does that work?

Um they don't consider there's a certain threshold where if you impact it below like 5,000 square feet, you don't have to do any mitigation for it. So we are below that threshold. Okay. Okay. And then uh the streams and wetland survey also talked about doing a professional land survey of the flagged features on the site. Did you do that? Uh I think that's being in works. I'm not positive on that one though. When would we know?

Um if it's required, it will be done. Um, I think what happens is they go out and they flag it and they send it to the state with their findings and then the state has to verify that their flagging of the features is correct. So that is being worked on to my knowledge. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, in the community report, it also talked about how um, the reasoning doesn't require the section 404 or section 401 permits like through the Army Corps of Engineers, etc., but you would still need one if you were to do construction.

Yes, you would need one. It would still be under that threshold for the stream buffers. Um, so there's a few different types of 4144 permits. We're on the like minor side of that. Um, but you would need those permits. Okay. Is there a chance you wouldn't get them? I have never seen not getting them. No. Okay. Okay. Understood. And then this is more of a staff question, but um if there was to be a buyight project there, they wouldn't be able to disturb disturb the streams or the wetlands. Correct. Correct. The intermittent disturbance is through a reasonzoning and the perennial is through quasi judicial variance.

Right. And the same would be said for the tree mitigation because of the ordinance we just changed. Correct. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Jesse. You're welcome. Any other questions? And I would just say that um to continue to work with staff on the um building D uh request to have a more varied housing there and to continue to think about um more um expansive mixed use um you know something more than a real estate office or an insurance office. Things that are are active spaces where people would come and go versus places that would close at 5:00.

Absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions? We have a few public comments. James McCarthy, you have three minutes. Hello. Uh my name is James McCarthy. Um I am the adjacent land owner uh to this property. Uh I uh own the property at 133 uh Old Statesville Road and the two other properties that are adjacent to it and I am uh in support uh of this project. Um I am a land owner and a business owner. I've worked here in Huntersville uh for 26 years building entry monuments for National Home Builders. And um during that time in 2017, I decided I would save up uh my money and uh found an opportunity to purchase land here in Huntersville. And I purchased uh nine buildable lots uh in Monteth. Um I bought those, I built those, I sold those and I liked it so much here I saw an opportunity right next door and that's how I came to own 1333 Old Statesville Road. So I purchased that and uh and other lots became available. So I purchased those as well. When I saw this development, when it came across uh and I saw it and uh the nature of it um it was it was exciting because I saw an opportunity for um you know the mixed use uh which creates more opportunities. Um there's a lot of improvements that they're doing as it relates to the road and I would like at some some point in my future to do the same thing here uh and develop that site which is adjacent to it. So when you talk about it uh the property that's next to it that's mine and I own it and I saved my life savings to

purchase it and uh and seeing something like this I would I would welcome it and I hope that everyone in the commission will as well. Thank you. Thank you. Bob McCaulay, you have three minutes. Mayor Clark, board members, I'm Bob McCauley. I live at 109 Mount Holly, Huntersville Road. I own 107 Mount Holly Huntersville Road, which I I live in 109. I grew up in 107 and also in 105 Mount Holly Huntersville Road and also own a lot behind that. U so I've lived on this property my entire life. Dearness gardens was actually my grandparents. The 11 acres there. The whole project they're talking about was actually my uh grandparents uh farm until I was about 15 years old. And then when they passed away it went to one of my uncles and uh my dad actually helped the Strickland start deer gardens. Uh I'm probably the property owner that's most impacted by this uh resoning. Like I said, I live and own the uh five acres adjacent to the northern boundary of the property. I went to the community meeting and I have reviewed the resoning application. Although I know we already have a lot of apartments in Huntersville coming online, I understand the plan for higher density along Highway 115 in the 2040 plan. Although like many others, I wonder if and when the light rail will actually happen along the corridor. It is also disappointing that so much of the new development is rental property instead of home ownership. With that being said, I understand the uh buildings A, B, and C which are along 115, those three fourstory apartment buildings u which that includes those three buildings 102 apartments I

believe. But my concern is the uh apartment D which is back into the property and u that one has more impact on me. Um if that building D is built, I'll have a three-story apartment looking right into my backyard and my neighbors as well. So, uh so I'm asking that building D be changed back into the two-story town houses. Um, there's no buffer that you can build that's going to stop a three-story apartment building looking in your back of your property. And I'm sure most of y'all probably don't live adjacent to a three-story apartment building. Uh what I'm proposing is you do something similar to what you did behind Discovery Place Kids where you built the apartments out on Gilead Road and then back behind there it felters back into the twotory town houses to have some respect for the existing neighbors. Um, I've also looked at the uh transportation impact analysis and I was surprised that there's no right turn lane into this project. Right down the street into ARG, the 55 plus, there is a right turn lane. So, I'm not sure why there's not a right turn lane into this one. And also look I was I thought it was kind of odd that the uh traffic analysis looked at Hullbrook Road the road into Bonteth Park Burhoff Drive but it didn't all look at the uh roundabout at 115 and Mount Holly Hunter. I don't understand why you're looking at things south but nothing looking north of that which the roundabout there is actually closer than any of those others. So thought that was kind of odd.

Mr. McCauley, your time is up. Okay. Thank you. Jake Lert, you have three minutes.

Jake Lauard. I'm Bob's neighbor at 2011 Mount Holly, Huntersville Road. Um, you know, I'm more in line with what he and the staff are are saying. You know, like the impact that we're going to face is not just our privacy, but the wildlife that lives back there, the light pollution, the noise, uh, there is an impact to it, the stream. Um, I don't really I mean I I work in commercial construction, so I understand the need for growth and and staying employed and stuff like that, you know, until it hits your backyard, obviously, but um this is a little excessive. The traffic is already overwhelmed. Our infrastructure is already, you know, highly burdened. Our schools are overflowing. And now we're looking to, you know, more density, but we we haven't really addressed the issues that that we're really facing. you know, like and we put our kids through school here. The schools are crowded. You know, I there there needs to be a little bit more balance before we just pack everybody in here and and then try to deal with everything afterwards. I mean, we're already 20 years behind on all of our infrastructure. And there just doesn't seem to be a plan on addressing those issues prior to building everything up. Um, you know, I'm trying not to be emotional about this. you know, this is our our home that's impacted, but it's also our community, and you know, everybody here is impacted the same. Um, so, you know, before you guys vote yes to do this resoning, I would just ask that we do a bigger, more in-depth environmental study, you know, versus just putting shovels in the ground. You know, we have a pond, we have a stream, we have wildlife, you know, our kids play here, we live here. Um, you know, let's just be responsible about it, please. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Christine Woolak, you have three minutes. I'm Christine Wak. I live uh in the south side of Vermillion. Just want to say first, happy Black History Month, everybody. And the snow has been lovely, but maybe next year you can kind of make it for Christmas time. That would have been really nice. Um, this I have a lot of uh weird comments here. They're just not written out. But, um, stick to the commercial space requirement here. I was so excited to hear that there was going to be development there, which is kind of maybe scary, but I heard there was going to be commercial space there, and I thought that would be wonderful. And then the applicant was talking about the amount of commercial space to support that building. there's other places that are nearby that would like that commercial space as well. So they, you know, getting they should have to get closer to that requirement of uh 60%. Um traffic, how is anybody going to turn left out of that place in the morning on a school day? If you've ever been down Old Statesville Road, it's just jam-packed with cars because of the schools that are farther down to the south. And sure, getting into there is going to be easy. The senior community are, I'm assuming, mostly retired people and can make their schedule so they don't have to leave at that time, but people that have to commute are going to have to come out during all that traffic. Um, the other there's there's really no outdoors to hang out here. I appreciate the part about the sitting areas for restaurants that aren't even going to exist because there's not going to be any cooking. Um, I was hoping for some restaurants over there. So, that is also kind of weird. Tree save. Cutting down

all the big trees. That also seems like a bad idea. I appreciate the picture that had the trees in the parking area though because that definitely prettied it up because I was really not happy with the picture before that. Um, but a big plus on the affordable and attainable units. Um, if we could just make sure that they're not isolated to one area. that's been brought up in various other um talks about different projects and maybe if we can especially if that building D gets converted to town homes if we can make sure that there's one of them is a town one of the town homes as opposed to just the apartment units. Thank you. I think that was it. Thanks.

Thank you Beth Pel. You have three minutes. Hello. Thank you so much for serving us in our community. U my name is Beth Pel and I and my family live on 13500 Mount Holly Huntersville Road. Our property backs up um to the back end of this. Our we have a 1acre pond or lake right behind it. So all the uh land in the this district is going to funnel into our lake and we have a healthy lake right now. We had a a river otter visit last week. We were very happy to see them. So we're really really we would like to keep this area beautiful and clean. So my greatest concern is that these properties are part of the protected mountain island water lake whed and this is crucial for our future drinking water, clean water supply for our community. I'm concerned about the large amount of imperous surfaces in the proposed development that would have an adverse effect on the current and future water supply. Um, from our previous meeting with Moren Van Allen, I learned that there has not been a environmental impact assessment and I believe that that would be necessary since we do have these concerns about this development um, and the detrimental effect on the watershed now and in the future. I would love it if we got experts in to evaluate the impact so that we can make wise choices that we can steward this land well that we could preserve it for future generations and we are now the current caretakers of this land and we in the water and we need to balance this growth

with the conservation for the sake of of all of us. So, as a part of the protected watershed, I would like to hear from you, our town council, and our planning board, that we've done our due diligence by requiring an environmental impact assessment and that we believe that this type of development that's being proposed for this pro protected wershed is ideal for this watershed. um that you've sought expert advice who agree that this project is ideal for this wershed and that this is not if it hasn't been done I ask that we pause the process to have it done and by the way we have a treasure tree in our yard has been marked for the last 30 years lobly pine was marked by the mechberg county it's a treasure tree it's huge so we'll add it to the list

thank you very much thank you any other questions for staff for the applicant. All right, we'll close. Oh, yeah. Mayor Pertim Hun, is the attainable Are the attainable units floating? Yes. Yes. Okay. I don't know if you wanted in the microphone, but yes, they are floating. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. We will conclude item 9B and move to item 9 C. Conduct a public hearing on petition R25-16, a request by the property owners to reszone 44 acres at the northwest corner, northeast corner of Sanford Road.

Good evening, Brian Richards for the staff. At this time, we'd like to enter our staff report to the record. As the mayor has pointed out, the location of this for this resoning, you can see highlighted there in the hatched area to the northeast corner of Sanford Road and 115. The applicants are requesting to go from corporate business conditional district to highway commercial conditional district as well as tor conditional district. Just give some plan highlights. Uh the applicants are proposing about 71,000 ft of commercial for this project. 324 apartment units, 96 town homes. At this time uh of the report, the applicant uh was proposing to offer 5% of those units as obtainable units. That's about 21 units. We have had further uh discussions about potentially opening that number. So, they can speak to that tonight. Um there have a a little bit of a list here for modifications that we're working through to narrow that down as the plan gets revised. Currently, there is a swim buffer impact that will result in some mitigation credits. They're requesting a block length waiver. We're discussing having that be removed by potentially introducing pedestrian pathways. We'll need to work through that through some design uh revisions. Um building drive-through locations on the south side adjacent to uh highway 73. Need to work on some of the screening requirements for that. Uh there is currently a requirement for a double row street trees on all thorough affairs. The double row would remain along Sanford Road. The internal street north south is a minor thoroughfare. They're asking to remove these second row street trees. We're on board with that because this is a tod situation very similar to what we had to the north%. So we'd like to get those numbers up a little bit. You can see uh some plan infrastructure highlights. The extension of Seagull Church Street up through the north that ties into this the station south and um Cobalt Crossing project that will complete that all the way up to Maze Road. Uh we're gonna have uh NC73 has proposed the super street design that will begin construction in

the next several years. Catz will be installing a bridge over Highway 73 for the passenger rail. Uh freight rail will stay at grade through this area. Uh so it it limits uh the connections that are possible over to 115. So you're going to have the one penetration point to the south as well as connecting up to the north and then over to Coach Lane where there will be a new signalized intersection. And of course, the seam trail runs through this project and we're working through that uh design with the applicants as well. Speaking of the seam trail, currently they're showing it running through uh a couple different scenarios up Seagull Street and over and then north into one of their over and open spaces. Uh we were doing a study uh about the possibilities of having a tunnel under Highway 73. You can see the colored rendering up in the upper corner there. That was from one of the town's consultants that came up with that plan, showing a much more emphasis uh on that plan and drawing it more toward uh more of a focal point for the development. Uh in speaking with the applicant yesterday, they are open to redesigning some of their project to help incorporate these concepts at a more grander scale. So, we'll be working with that uh with them over the next week or two. And of course the highway commercial development um working with them about screening some of their parking areas and breaking those up a little bit more to be more in line with what a traditional TOD would be even though this is zoned highway commercial on the lower section towards Highway 73. Um kudos to them for as we've gone through the design process uh creating better o urban open spaces. We're still working with them to get these clarified and and brought up to a higher level of design and really nailed down as to what we're going to be getting uh in these areas. Uh again, uh one of the challenges we have is the storm water on this site and with the the balancing of the the earth work. Um there is going to be a resultant storm water pond over in the southeast corner. So we're working with them to amenitize that and make it as attractive of a feature as it can be. Uh and then we're also working with them and we had a good discussion with them yesterday about what we would expect

from the high level design for the architecture for these buildings in this project. Um you can see it's uh smack dab in the middle of one of our mixed juice nodes over here off of 73 and 21. So staff would uh anticipate intensification over time. Again we got um back in uh again we had the Carwell crossing project from a few years ago that uh introduced multifamily as well as um some commercial as you come south where the actual station will be. We'll have the station south project was just approved a few a few few weeks ago. So this is in line uh for intensification. Some things that we need to work a little bit on are the design principles of the project upping that to a high level of design. Again we've had very productive conversations with the applicant over the last few weeks. Um again uh increasing some of those commercial uh activities that are there and again we we're always striving for that excellence design. That's our job to push them. um opportunities for excellence. I just give a quick list of things that we would look for. Again, we went over these with the applicant just yesterday. Um and they've agreed to have a meeting with us next week to uh work out some of those details to increase this project. And here overall, we are in support of the intensification of the land uses in this area. Um we're just working with them to nail out some of those details. and I am here to answer any questions that you might have and I know the applicant has a presentation as well.

Any questions for staff? Commissioner Walsh. Yeah, Brian. In in reading through the staff report and I was trying to understand it the the location of the grocery store and you made some comment about the Harris ter and Davidson and wanting to move that. Can you walk us through that?

Yeah, so if you look there's actually a picture of the Harris ter and Davidson right there in the upper right corner. Um really it's more like the layout and the function how it works. Um it's a challenging site with the topography and the requirements of the grocery store. This is going to be backing up to the rail bridge. Okay. So the service area is going to be limited how they get in and out of there. Um one thing that we did like about this project um in Davidson is the grocery store wasn't as front and center. It was pulled back a little bit. Um, there are market realities uh that the applicant can speak to about where the grocery store wants to be placed in a center. Um, ideally, does it go up a little bit further north? Possibly. You would then want some liner buildings along 73. Uh, we do have limited land, limited area that we can work with. So, it's I would not suspect you will see a significant change in the location of the grocery store from what's being proposed, but are there things that we can do, minor shifts? Can we screen um can we screen the uh pharmacy a little bit better? How do we treat these? How do we treat a design? Those types of things. That's what we're looking for.

Gotcha. Then also it said staff recommends limiting the extent of automobile dependent uses within the HC portion of the development. Correct.

Um if money were no object. Okay. And it is. You can see that little green space in the middle. That is a a stream with a buffer on it. And when you impact that there are there are mitigation fees and credits you have to purchase changes the economics of this whole design center. Of course they can they can speak to that. If money were no object they would mitigate for us we would want that to be mitigated out and you could put a wonderfully wrapped potentially with a parking deck building. Uh it would just really tie these two projects together. Unfortunately money is a reality. Um, so they have to work around this feature and they are doing a I think they've got some images in their presentation. You'll see some perspectives as to what they're proposing to do for this area. Um, we would love to see the mixed juice buildings that's up the L-shaped buildings that are up on the corner of the roundabout transition into more of an urban area uh where that uh ravine is down to more of your traditional suburban shopping style center. But again, that's just not on the cards. Not in the cards for for right now. They will I know part of their presentation is going to speak to the evolution of this project past what you're going to see today.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? All right. We're ready for the applicant. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you.

There you go. Good evening. Thank you. I'm Susan Irvin with Urban Law Group. Um my first time presenting here, so this is exciting. Kind of a little scary because it's so big, but um I uh I'm not going to say too much about this presentation. Uh, but I and Brian did such a great job. I mean, we were just saying he just presented our whole um case for us. So, I'm only going to touch on the things hopefully that he has not uh talked about. Um, first I just want to introduce a team, the development team who's here. Um, Kevin Rogers with WRS, principal. Um, also Frank Peters with WRS. uh De Dimmitri Bakas who is with Metriccology. Dmitri is the master planner on this project. Uh Kelly Wagner with foresight and Bob Bennett and Elizabeth Brown with Prestige. So they're all here to answer any questions you might have. I'm going to talk briefly about WRS. And I'm doing this because I think I can brag a little bit. Um I don't think that uh Kevin would do this but one of the things that he was asked at the community meeting were some projects where they have done mixeduse developments and he spoke to those projects. One of them was um a project in Charleston. Uh one of them was um a project in Gaithersburg. And it what we have done together with the planning staff on this um project has really been uh a an evolution. Uh

Kevin and his team started working and talking with the planning department about a year and a half ago and I think after uh several months he decided that they needed to bring in uh Dimmitri as the master planner and kind of make this project more sophisticated and go to another level. Um they've spent many hours and iterations um at least you know a hundred variations but 12 major site plan changes since they started and it's been an evolving focus uh very important site uh for the town um and so um we have been mindful of that. I asked Kevin to send me an example of the Gaithersburg project. He sent me an over 100page design book today. Now, this was the construction level design book for the project in Gaithersburg. Um, it is a 100 acre site. It is a um repurposing of an old mall, a 1 million square foot mall. And um this is a high um view of the entire project with various component parts. Um and again all of this work was done at the construction stage, not necessarily at the zoning stage. And one of the things that we've been talking with the planning staff about is providing more than just the basic concept images that they're accustomed to doing at zoning. And I think just from purposes of their understanding, you know, they know they're going to do a good job. But what I said is, you know, you need to show the town board

what kind of work you do. And um what these images show you is an attention to detail. Um this is the um the lake forest um more kind of downtown section of um of the project. Uh this is the lake district which is the mixeduse commercial district. Um you can see there it's it's there's a markets and there's common open space and community areas. Um these are just some examples of other areas um in the actual project which is breaking ground now. Um these these images really show the character of the development, the quality of the development and how they have established that character through architecture and landscaping. So, um, some of these images here, you know, Dimmitri was the master planner on this project, too. And so, um, that's why, you know, I've asked him to present really the plan for this project. Um, we don't have to go over all the things that Brian talked to you about already. Uh, he did a great job talking about the community plan and, um, all of the policies. This just shows kind of an overlay of all the various um parts of the community plan into uh this project and the fact that this property is really a nexus for so many important elements of the community plan. I'm going to ask Dimmitri to come up and Kevin is here to answer any questions you have.

Take away.

My name is Dmitri Bachis. Um, I live in Savannah, Georgia, 215 East Cordon Street in downtown in the historic district. Uh, thanks commissioners, mayor, and staff for your time this evening. Speaking of, I wish I had the time to share a Huntersville story as engaging as Commissioner Powell, I think, yet. I got a great one. I can tell later. Um, I want to begin by saying that it is our intention to use all the advantages made available by this site to add to the quality of life and standard of living of Huntersville. We had a presentation that Brian actually gave which is fantastic. So I'm going to quickly go through some other components which will hopefully leave you with a lot of questions that we can answer in more detail. The actual site as we get down into the detail what we want to do is make sure that as as we were saying earlier that we we make sure we add to the quality of life standard of living by tying all the pieces together that we've read about in the comp plan. The site itself is very challenging and this is what I hope will spur a lot of questions shortly. Our constraints are are significant. We are limited as our access off of Sam Fur which is being reconstructed into a super street. The cat's bridge which goes over Sam Fur, I don't know if you know this yet, but it will be 17 feet above grade and will descend slowly until it gets off of our site to the north uh as it gets to the peak development site. which is over here. As you can see, this entire stretch is basically walled off by a concrete wall that's averaging about 10 to 12 feet high. So, we had to be very careful how we stage this project and put units on this project because we didn't want to butt town homes and residential or basically anything against a a 15t tall wall. Uh we have significant topography about 80 ft from Sam Fur going in. That area in green that you see there is the most significant part which is the stream. We began to think about what we could do in there in terms of parks and storm water. The elevation next door to the

industrial park is also quite challenging. We actually looked down over their roofs in some point. So we had to figure out what we would be able to do there that was of significance and that could be sellable and memorable. And then the drainage and the existing creek are also constraints. But having said all that, the location in the Huntersville is fantastic. Proximity to the red line, less than a 10-minute walk. That's the red emblem at the very top of that fiveminute walk line. So, it's it's actually even closer. Um, we're in a designated TOD area, which is fantastic. And we also complement the development just to our north that was reszoned, that Peak Development submitted. And of course, we have the Carolina Thread Trail that comes through the site. The zoning map, we have a series of mixeduse buildings that frame our roundabout. The main entry drive seagull continues through and connects to the north. As uh Brian was saying, we're looking to zone the first part of it, the third the bottom third highway commercial to relate to the highway 73 and then to be as close to the actual transit stop which is just off the top of this map. So we wanted all the residents to be within a very short and pleasant walk of that station. You want that station to be very used. Obviously, it's going to be a regional transit stop and you have a a TOD designation. The illustrative plan is going to get to the part that I think is the above and beyond that we're trying to instill into this and we've been working with Brian and staff for quite a while now going through iterations. Susan said we had about a dozen major ones, but internally we've been playing with this thing like a jigsaw puzzle for about a year with all these constraints trying to make sure that we not only do we create a great place, but that it's marketable. What we're what we try to do, especially when you're designing urbanism, is you want to create a series of memorable places that people can choose to use depending on what they feel they're they feel like during the day. Do they want a passive space where they can just go lay down, play with the dog, read a book? Do

they want an active place to go where they have a dog park or a children's park where they can hike the kids up, throw frisbee? Do they want to go to a plaza or a space where other people are also going to and be engaged and maybe eating outdoors? Maybe there's a festival of some kind, a food truck uh situation could be happening where there be some commercial users. We've incorporated all of those into this. And what you'll see here is from the lawn which we have at the very northern end abuing the Peak Development property, more of a quiet area. We have a dog park located in this spot fronted by um town homes. As you come around, we have the park. This is a very large long triangular neighborhood park that actually is going to be the foundation for the thread trail that comes through. Brian mentioned that we have two versions of it. We can choose either one. We're now working with them very intently to get this middle one, which is the preferred one activated, and we'll show you that in just a moment. But this park has a playground in it as well. It's fronted on all sides by buildings and streets and street trees. It's a wonderful space. Adjacent to it and connected through pedestrian passages, which you'll see here, is the community garden. That was the only thing we could figure out that had enough hump.

Yeah. Four minutes.

Yeah. Enough hump to get through in terms of providing a space that doesn't have depend on marketing because right next to it is the bridge for the rail and the diesel train. And then we have our large square, which is the one that is the center. It actually is anchored by the similar square that Peak has to the north at the transit stop. We've been working with staff to incorporate the mixed use. The buildings along our roundabout will all be commercial ground floor facing the roundabout. We've been working on a pedestrianoriented gas station and the inclusion of that garden as we said at the at the buffer. And we're working right now to redesign our version of this part of the plan to incorporate the town's preferred version and the potential of a tunnel underneath Sam Fur. Our architecture is all preliminary as you saw in those other previous plans that we did for Lake Forest. We worked through those in increments. This is the town home example that we would have. We'll be doing the same thing with the apartments. The renderings here are in progress. Again, these are mostly for us to figure out if our spaces are correct. This is the stream, the creek that runs through the area that Brian was saying. In a in a perfect world, if we had the money, we could fill that in and make a a highdensity uh project there. Because we can't do that, we're looking to incorporate it as open space that would activate the larger open space that we're designing here. This is an ground view of the coming into that uh roundabout. The commercial building, the apartments are on this side and the commercial buildings are on this side of the roundabout. The retention pond would be on this side, which we also intend to landscape and make an amenity. Uh, one of the streets that we're looking to incorporate the design so that when they close down, all this would read as one open space that you could have uh, food trucks or festivals in. This is the large neighborhood park with the

children's playground, and this is the lawn at the top with the dog park. I'm gonna let Susan go over the community benefits and then leave the rest of it up so we can answer questions. Thank you.

Great. Um, thank you so much, Dimmitri. Um, uh, I have already and Dimmitri and Brian have actually already talked about the 2040 plan. Uh, we've talked about the fact that this is really a keystone. Um it has it is the center of multimodal connections throughout Huntersville. Uh it will provide dedication of land for the seam uh trail and also um to you know design that entrance to the pedestrian tunnel and it works in conjunction with the developments to the north of Seagull and the transit station. Um it's a great destination for redline travelers. Um and uh it's also provides this pedestrian access to that transit station. A couple of things um that we haven't really talked too much about is the attainable residential units. As Brian said, we' originally discussed 5%. Um I think uh Commissioner Rivers may have a question about that. um economic benefits for the entire project. Construction would be 200 million for the entire project. Uh approximately 300 jobs. Uh that is just the construction expense. The actual valuation uh would likely be more. Um and uh so so that's a summary. I'm happy to answer any questions. I really think uh the experts here are Kevin and Dmitri on details. So uh would love to answer any questions you all have.

Commissioner Corps, I know you're going to get back with staff as far as uh the project designs and stuff of the facilities. Um I see you you have Whole Foods on here. Oh, that was um Whole Foods was on the Lake Forest Project. Yes. Um so yes,

what type of sorry um grocery store are you looking at bringing in? We're looking at a food line on Aldi. Another something that will compete with a Harris ter. Now you can't say which one, but is it a boutique style um grocery store? Uh my name is Kevin Rogers with WRS and whether it's your questions or anyone else's, I'm happy to do my best to try and answer them as straightforwardly as I can. Uh I'm not I'm not entirely sure what a boutique grocery store may or may not be. Uh but I can try to uh paint the picture for you. Um uh at a fairly high level, it has to be a ger that there there are three with whom we are negotiating. Uh creating a competitive environment for for who is willing to step up and absorb the uh no offense to Mr. Knox, the high land cost, uh the extraordinarily high site work cost, and what is very different than most other cities or towns, very high cost of architecture, green space, all the uh bells and whistles that you might not find in any town, USA. Uh so it has to be a ger that can afford to do that, do the sales volume, and have the profit margins to be able to support that. uh more narrowly attempting to answer your question, it's a ger any one of the three would be one that's not presently in the market. Um and uh uh you know I can give you examples of some of the types that cannot afford this type of project. Save a Lot cannot afford this type of project. Uh my experience people like Aldi cannot exper afford this. Ladle cannot afford it. Um I think those are fine grocerers. They all have their place and and uh they have a loyal customer base where they're built. Um this is going to be um you know someone that has to have a little bit higher profile, a good bit higher profile to be

able to um absorb everything that you've you you've seen here. Commissioner Walsh. Hey, I got a few questions. Um, what's the total acreage on the parks that you have? You like got like four of them, I think it was, or the total open space is is probably about 30 something% of the entire site. Usable is about 28%. I can't give you an exact park space, but it's a significant amount of open space. I gota one of the slides I and I may have misheard you. You were saying the ground floor was all commercial. Can you go back to the slide? I think it was around the um the roundabout. the roundabout. Yes.

Because it sounds like one of the challenges we have here is is again not meeting that commercial space requirements. If you go back one go back or whichever direction that was. Maybe it was the other way. Yep. So then go two slide two slides in one direction. I don't know which direction you're going. That one. This one. One more. This one. Okay.

Yep. So those are your two mixeduse buildings. So you're saying the where's the commercial space is those boxes. See the the darker u brown are the plazas. These are going to be hardscape and landscaped combination of materials and plantings and benches and so forth. Fronting on that and fronting onto the roundabout along the length of both of these L's the arms would be non-residential commercial space. Okay. So, those boxes I'm seeing are not just the commercial, but you're saying that whole ground floor. Uh, well, the how it go how deep it goes back, we're not certain, but the ground floor facing each of these would be would be commercial space. Yes.

Okay. Because the one to the left looks like there's two boxes and then the one to the right only has one box. So,

that's correct. I think the mixed juice was 5%. What was the 5,000 square feet is the code requirement. The two boxes you see on the left uh on the on the corner of the building is full rent, commercial space, coffee shop, floral shop, whatever it may be. The other box you see just to the left of that is amenity space, uh leasing office, uh gym for the apartment building. So it's uh doors that face outward. Um you know functions to the passer by much like a coffee shop or a floral shop might. Um but it in practice is residents of those uh multif family buildings who access their you know the gym and the leasing office and the whatever that is that they may have pool tables the all the grills that are set up outside. That's the second little rectangle you see there.

I gotcha. And so the non-residential commercial, I think somewhere in the report it says it's somewhere between 10 and 15%. I don't have a percentage number for you. I think what we've discussed with staff is up to 5,000 square feet of of for rent commercial space in those two buildings. I could just add one thing. Um the the shopfront building type under the Huntersville ordinance does not have a requirement of 60% um commercial on the first floor. Um a true mixeduse what's classified it it's not even mixed use isn't even a building type

in the Huntersville ordinance. So, um, this is something that we have just started talking with the planning staff about and I think we'll continue to do that and we've scheduled a meeting Monday to talk about any kind of outstanding issues like that. But I had not heard the 60% number until uh tonight because it's not a ordinance requirement for Shopfront. Okay. And then with reference to the project, the phasing of the project is All the site work going to be done at once? Is there a process where you say we're going to build, you know, this first, this second, you know, in three phases, two phases, four phases.

So all of them will be the first phase

because there's about 80 ft of topographic change, 80 ft in the back, 80 ft higher in the back, it drops down in the middle and rises back up a little bit towards Sam fur. We actually have to cut a significant amount in the back. uh bring it towards Sam fur such that the I don't know where the how to even work the clicker but the little buildings that you saw fronting on Sam fur code requires a front door that's serviceable so you step off the sidewalk from Sam fur you can walk in the door of those retail buildings we have to we have to pull a significant amount of earth dirt forward fill it in from the from San Fur the sidewalk as you step off off of the sidewalk walk from Sanford into this site. Currently today, you'd fall into a hole. So, we're going to bring all that dirt forward to bring it up to a level. To answer your question, all of the uh site work infrastructure, off-site work, it can't happen in anything but one phase. So, that would all happen in one phase. Uh given that we're probably, you know, this question came up in the community meeting. This same question, and I understand it. Um, we probably have post resoning. So, after the resoning, let's say that occurs in March, which is the trajectory we're we're currently on, there's probably another eight or 10 months, Brian may say 14 months of site plan approvals. That's before we can start construction. So, it's um, you know, from today, we're a year and a half away from starting construction. who who and what are the commitments we have from the marketplace, you know, to to first occupy any of the buildings. I can't sit here and tell you today that that I know for sure what the phasing of the vertical construction, the buildings would be. We'd love to see all of it

happen at the exact same time. Um, yeah, I mean, and I understand that. I'm not so worried about it happening all at once, but I want to make sure we don't get into a situation where, you know, apartments go up first and retail follows. So, I I would I would hope by the time we can get to decision time, assuming it's a positive one, that we would have some commitment to how we would be phasing this. Understood. I'm sorry, I have to make one correction. So, I got it backwards when I said that a minute ago. Shopfront is 60% firstf flooror commercial. the mixeduse building is the one that doesn't have the But anyway, we're going to work it out.

No problem. Thank you.

Well, since Miss Irvin called my name, I'm assuming that um she was expecting an attainable housing question from me, but all of us up here are advocates of attainable housing. So, anyone could have asked the question. Um so, what are we looking at 5% or has that number increased or what what are we looking at in regards to attainable housing units? So, we discussed it. A 5% number would be 21 units, which is I think the highest of any project. Um, so we went back and I asked Kevin to consider uh what higher percentage would he be able to do. I'll just let you answer what you've decided. um uh absent uh to my knowledge any requirement in code for there to be a x percentage of affordable workforce attainable. It has a different name in different communities. Um what we can do is 7 and a half% which gets to the roughly 31 or 32 units in the aggregate across the entirety of the project. And um you know, I'm a big fan of our neighbor to the north, the development that got approved uh you know, four months ago, three months ago. Uh I think they're doing five units, I I think. And no knock on them, dear friend actually. Um but we have figured out a way to uh to get that number up to 7 and a half% of of the total. And the attainable units, they will all be mixed in. There will not be anything separate or um in regards to the units, the attainable units, they will all

I think I understand your question. They're not separate. Yeah. No, no, they're all mixed within the correct. One of the slides Susan put up said finishes, same, you know, same Yeah, they're spread out. Yeah. Commissioner Hunt. One of the staff comments under policy LU8.2, they asked if you'd be willing to make a financial contribution toward the greenway tunnel beneath 73. Is that something you can do?

I can answer that question. We discussed that. Um it uh a project might like Burkeell, you know, might be able to handle that kind of infrastructure. Um what one of the things that uh WRS has committed to do is to pay for the design and construction of the entrance to the pedestrian tunnel. So, so that's something you know Dimmitri is going to be working on and um designing it with the topography which is considerable to create the entrance to that tunnel is something that they can commit to.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. It's not so much on this slide but on the previous slides it is a sea of parking like it is a literal sea of parking. Is there no way we can go vertical with some of that? The financial constraints are just so such that there's no way we could do anything vertical and maybe mitigate some of the sea there can anything can be constructed any anything could be built. Um we we at at at present date are proposing a project that um is envisioned in the in the in the town's 2040 plan uh to be very dense not just this project but this quadrant. So there's a big that big red circle in in in the 2040 plan very very dense uh served by the the forthcoming transit center in the future at some point and I don't know when that point in the future is um the world we live in today this is a suburban u endeavor we are implementing a lot of things that are forward-looking that are that that that that are not typically found in a in a suburban setting typically a lot of the design elements. Um, and what I'm getting at is that in a suburban setting such as this with a population density such as there is in the vicinity around pick the amoeba shaped uh polygon. Pick a circle a mile, two miles, whatever it is. The number of bodies that there are available to come shop at any of these retailers dictate the sales volume that a ger can do. Um, you know, uh, I lived in Chicago one summer, uh, when I when when I was in

college, uh, internship. Uh, you know, a grocery store can survive on about a quote trade area the size of this auditorium because there's 100,000 people that live straight up in the air. And we don't have that here. They can afford parking garages. They can afford parking on roofs. They can afford parking below stores. uh that is a black box and then we may have had this discussion the other day that is a black black box I'm describing to you that that you as as decision makers can't see inside I'm describing the black box to you and I understand that it's it's difficult for you to to accept words because words can be cheap you know come coming from a a developer right uh it is it is a it is a market-based reality today and I would say for a pretty reasonable time into the future that a project like this with all of the other things you see up on the screen can't also afford a tunnel and also afford um structured parking. The project to the north of us um immediately to the north uh unless my facts are incorrect uh they're not building a parking garage. They're dedicating a space for cats or some other governmental agency to come in, buy the land from them and build a parking garage with, call it what you will, taxpayer money, government money, um because they're faced with the same constraints we are. So I that may be an unsatisfying answer, but that's about as good as I can I can do. Um

one one followup. uh mayor prom the and we agree right parking is an issue if you from a bird's eye view you look over a lot of places and it looks pretty abysmal if you look at Burkdale Village for example it's a sea of parking as well but the great thing about Brookdale village is how you move through that space you don't really see the parking that much is event it's initially you actually did because as you're coming off Sam fur you're driving through a parking lot that's fronting all of those shops that are that are there and then you get into the little main street that's tucked in the middle. So, it's actually like a shopping mall without the roof, right? That's basically what Burkeale is. They've been filling in over time slowly and they're masking those parking garages. I'm masking the parking field. When you come into our site, the main drive up, you'll notice as you come in, the corner is anchored by the the retail that we were talking about at grade that uh Kevin was saying is going to be very difficult to build because that's really currently a 40ft drop. It's a pit. So, all that will be filled up. We're going to have plazas, open spaces, areas for people to sit out and eat at the restaurants or whatever business is there. You drive up, we have that park that's part of the stream, the drainage area, landscaped heavily. You get up to our roundabout and you have another node of commercial. And then you move up through and all the buildings screen all the parking just like they do in Brookdale. When you drive through and walk through this, the only place you're going to see a parking field is the one in front of the grocery store. And that's it. And that's, you know, how we mitigate the the example that at the moment the value is such that if we were to put a parking garage out here, we we wouldn't be able to get a tenant. And then all the amenities that we're talking about, we wouldn't be able to afford the the value. It's 5,000 per space at grade. It's 25 to 35,000 per space for structured parking. So, and that that's that's a number that comes directly out of the the revenue, right?

that they use fewer people u no housing affordable housing component. So it's a balancing act. But what we've done is in the future you'll notice the way we've done all of our parking is strategic. It's in squares. It's in blocks. All of these can be redeveloped. Those apartments can be knocked down and can be redeveloped with core parking at some point later. So as we as I said earlier we were talking to Brian, we're like a do no harm thing. We do what's what's possible now to get it built and to make it uh as as beautiful a place as can be had now even above and beyond actually and then later as the as the community grows and evolves and densifies it can malt and become even even more of what of what you're looking for.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner Smallwood. I have a question. Um, was there a traffic study done for this size project?

There was. There was. It was uh fairly certain we submitted it to town. We submitted it to DOT in the process of working on some of these refinements with with with staff. It changed some of the numbers. And when I say change some of the numbers, it changed some of the uses which in turn changed some of the trip generation uh calculations. Uh that traffic study is being revised um and should be back in the hands of the town and DOT but within couple weeks couple weeks. Um

I'll answer the rest of it there. It does call for two turn lanes and um NC DOT is uh reviewing they'll be the one reviewing the TIA um just because of the location. So, and one of the things that we'll add is a condition that that any um NC do recommendations will be followed. Okay. So, if they do rem recommend a turn lane that would be Yes. and and the TI actually does recommend too. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? We do have some public comment. Start with Michelle Edwards. You have three minutes. Good evening. My name is Michelle Edwards. Uh my husband and I, Jiren, are the owners of 102 PAR Drive, uh where our dance studio has served families of this community for 27 years. When we first built our business, Highway 73 Simur Road was just two lanes, and the Target Shopping Center at exit 25 was only taking shape in construction. to imagine life without target. Uh like many who live here today, we chose Huntersville for our business because we believed in its potential as a place for families, community, and long-term growth in Lake Norman. We understand that change can be uncertain and we respect the concerns that come with many new developments. However, after attending prior community meetings and reviewing the plans for the proposed Knox crossing at the corner of Samur Road and Old Statesville Road, we believe this project represents thoughtful and responsible growth. The design is intentional. The housing is well suited to the area and the inclusion of a muchneeded grocery store and community centered space will strengthen the surrounding neighborhoods. We also see the plan infrastructure improvements and future light rail as opportunities to improve connectivity and quality of life. Having witnessed Huntersville evolution for nearly three decades, we feel confident that this developer is committed to quality and to enhancing, not replacing the character of this community. For these reasons, we support this

development and we believe it will be a positive addition to the area. and being part of the property that is the uh uh suggested uh pedestrian tunnel. I feel like that we will be part of future conversations because that will be on the lower end of our property. So, thank you.

Thank you very much. Don Doerty, you have three minutes. Hey, I'm Don Dy on the property to the east side of the property. Um, if I can pull that back up. Can you comment?

Oh, I'm sorry. But, uh, anyway, I've I've looked at their plans and I think their plans look great. Um, I know Kevin had mentioned that if it didn't get reszoned to this, then it would be like, you know, buildings like to the to the right of me, and I think this development is going to be a whole lot better. I think it's going to look better. But I don't need three minutes, but but, you know, I think it's going to improve our building, too. You know, we have the CrossFit and we got some other things going on. So, you know, being able to go to the stores, grocery stores, you know, you know, commercial buildings. So, anyway, I'm good with it.

Thank you, sir. Charles Knox, you have three minutes.

I'll try not to tell too many stories because I'll take longer than three minutes. I am a Knox after all. Um, my name is Charles Knox. I live at 21415 Bethl Church Road in Cornelius. Um I'm one of the property owners. Um and uh for those of you who don't know me, I own the Knox Group, a commercial real estate firm here in um our region. And we're focused on the Lake Norman Northmech part of town. Um much like Burkeale, not Burkedale Village, but Old Burkedale, where my family owned that land, we picked a developer we felt like would do a great job. We've done the same thing here. We have identified we we actually went out and and sought developers and and took proposals from a number of them that we felt were top quality folks and we ended up picking Kevin's group and we've been super impressed. Um I've worked with Dimmitri before way back on uh I think was the antiquity project in Cornelius when I was the agent working for the town um up there and these guys know what they're doing. They're going to do a great job. And from my perspective as a as a Knox that really cares about our community. Um, sorry, I get choked up talking about it. Um, you know, we want to see something great. I mean, the site's zoned for a half a million square feet of industrial space. I build industrial space. I could go do that tomorrow in my sleep, but that's not what the community wants. That's not what this land deserves at that key intersection for town. So, I hope you guys will support it. Thank you. Thank you. And Sandy Knox, you have three minutes.

Hi, I'm Sandy Knox. Uh, I am a Huntersville resident for the last 28 years. I built my house in Burkedale when the golf course was still being built, if you can imagine. Um, and much along with what Charles said, over we've been receiving offers over the years off and on for 18 years or so. And I can tell you we've received a lot of offers that would not have enhanced the town. Um, I think we did find a developer that was willing to share our vision of something that would would leave a lasting good mark on the town of Huntersville and be enhance our entire community and I hope you'll support it.

Thank you. Any other questions for staff or the applicant? All right, we'll move on to item number 9D. conduct a public hearing on petition annex 255-03. Thank you, mayor. As you said, this is a petition by the town for annexation 253.

We'll go through all the fun slides here. Thank you. Almost there. There we go. All right. And at this time, we'd like to submit our staff report to the record. Uh this is just a small 1.2 acres of uh land rightway uh adjacent to Huntersville Concord Road that abuts existing town um

just to the sorry it's adjacent to the existing town core uh and our corporate boundaries. Um what we're doing is we're looking to annex this voluntarily to allow for some infrastructure projects to occur uh i.e. a sidewalk along Huntersville Concord Road. This uh by being in the town limits, we are able to spend town funds on said project. And I'm here if you guys have any questions. Any question? Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. As I um asked you earlier, I received a phone call about what 4:00 this afternoon about annexing and resoning. Just for the listening office, because I know the answer, could you explain what Annex is and the benefit to annex and to the town?

Sure. in Huntersville land falls into two categories. It's either in the corporate limits, which is in in town limits, or under ETJ or extr territorial jurisdiction. When you're inside the town limits, you receive uh additional services, police, fire, uh garbage, and a couple other services as well. Um neither are affected by zoning. Zoning is a is a land use tool that encompasses all 65 square miles both in and out of our town limits. But again, uh, when you're in the town limits, you receive a a different tax. Um, and you get those services. When you're outside, you also have a fire and police search charge. You get, but you do not have trash and a couple other services as well. So, when you come into the town limit, you pick up a couple services. And honestly, I think dollar for dollar, there's not much difference. Uh, today in the past there, the that search charge didn't exist. It was much lower, but now there's that police and fire sir charge out there. There's not a whole lot of difference as far as as cost. So that's the difference between the two. All right. Any other questions?

All right. All right. Should we go to item 9E public hearing on petition annex 26-02? Great. Uh as as the mayor said, this is for 2602. Like to submit this town the applicant staff report. This is KB Homes is pro uh proposing to annex these uh parcels here into the town limits. Uh this project was a minor subdivision done a number of years ago. Um this has just kind of worked through the whole system and and uh ultimately these residents would like to be part of our town and receive town services. So they have gotten together and through KB Homes their builder uh has asked us to voluntarily annex them into the town limits here. If you guys have any questions. No questions.

Hope not. All right. We'll proceed to item 10A which is consider adopting an ordinance approving petition annex 26-02 a request by KB home. Correct. As we just uh spoke these uh residents would like to become t of part of the town and have asked to be voluntarily annexed. I hear if you guys have any questions on this one and we add the staff report to the record. Any questions? All right. Is there a motion? I make a motion to approve petition NX26-02. a request by KB Home Charlotte, Inc. to enex 2.874 contiguous acres into the town of Huntersville. And is there a second? I'll second it.

Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. Item number 10B, consider adopting an ordinance approving petition annex 25-03. Again, we'd like to submit the staff report to the record, and this is the town who is the applicant and asking for this to be voluntarily annexed so we can provide some infrastructure services out here. Okay. Is there a motion or questions? Nope. I hope not. How about a motion?

Okay. I would like to make the motion that we approve petition NX25-03, a request by the town of Huntersville to annex 1.221 221 Contiguous Acres into the town of Huntersville. And is there a second? I second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Item number 11, closing comments. We will start with Commissioner Cornet. just like to say it was great getting to um uh meet with all you guys last week on our retreat and I thought it was a great use of our time and I look forward to working with you guys the next two years.

Commissioner Walsh, nothing for me. Thank you. Commissioner Rivers,

happy Black History Month. Um, so in lie of Black History Month, um, I wanted to highlight North Carolina ENT, um, well actually North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University, which is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. But what I wanted to highlight specifically was um the Greensboro 4, which on February 1st, 1960, four black freshmen from Agriculture and Technical College of North Carolina, today known as North Carolina entregated lunch counter at the Woolworths in downtown Greensboro and asked to be served. when that when staff refused to serve them, they refused to they refused, I'm sorry, to leave. This was significant because the Greensboro sedans um ignited the youthled nonviolent movement that spread across the South, catalyzing the desegregation of lunch counters and public spaces, capturing national media attention and leading to the formation of the influential student non-violent coordinating committee. By challenging segregation directly and peacefully, the cidians demonstrated the power of grassroots activism, inspired countless other protests, and marked a crucial turning point in the civil rights movement, shifting focus to direct action and youth empowerment. Again, happy Black History Month.

That's awesome. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Hunt. Commissioner Corals,

we see that there are attempts to remove our history. Knowledge is key, and one thing that can't never be taken away from us is what we have in our head. A little known black history. This evening, I take the moment to spotlight Latoya Rivers. Born December 6, 1980, Latoya Rivers is a fifth generation resident from the town of the town of Huntersville. Latoya Rivers was raised and currently lives in the historic Parkstown community. Latoya is a graduate of Northmech High School. She is also a graduate of the historic black college and university, the North Carolina Agricult North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University, the university that looks up to North Carolina Central University. On Tuesday, November 7th, 2023, Latoya Rivers made history by becoming the first black woman elected to serve as town commissioner for the town of Huntersville. That is history that will never be erased. So, as we look at the many black men and women who have shaped our country, state, and town, please share the phenomenal history of Commissioner Latoya Rivers. I enjoyed seeing the his huntersville history in the foyer of our old town hall. Who knows, years from now, there may be a portrait or verbiage of Commissioner Rivers, the town of Huntersville's first black female commissioner.

And she did not know it was coming. Your mom did. Thank you, Commissioner Corals. Commissioner Smallwood. Well, I can't follow that or top that. So, no, but thank you. Praying for no more snow.

All right. Um, I do want to conclude with um I'll go in order of at least importance first. Scott's birthday, Commissioner Cornet's birthday was yesterday. So, you want to say happy birthday to Commissioner Cornette. Um, hope you had a wonderful day. Um and also to thank our staff and everyone who um helped organize and put on our board retreat which was outstanding and we um was very wellrun and um we very much appreciate all the hard work that went into that. And then um lastly, of course, to wish everyone a happy Black History Month and to encourage and remind everyone in the town of Huntersville to explore the history of slavery in the town of Huntersville and to acknowledge that uh the beginning economics of this town started with the plantations that were here and that that's something that should not be overlooked or forgotten. And so make a point to educate yourselves on that part of our town's history as very significant and we want to make sure it's not forgotten. So, do we have a motion to adjurnn?

I will make a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? I'll second it. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. We are adjourned.