Town Board - Regular Meeting

GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. I'M GOING TO CALL OUR SEPTEMBER 1ST MEETING TO ORDER. THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE. I ALWAYS START OFF OUR MEETING BY REMINDING EVERYONE TO SILENCE THEIR CELL PHONES SO PLEASE DO THAT NOW. IT'S JUST NOT TO DISTURB THE FLOW OF BUSINESS. IT NEVER FAILS AND SOMETIMES IT'S ME WHEN THE PHONE GOES OFF. WE ALSO ALWAYS BEGIN OUR MEETING WITH A MOMENT OF SILENCE AND SO I WOULD LIKE FOR YOU TO JOIN ME IN A MOMENT OF SILENCE, PLEASE. 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.

Mr. Smith, announcements.

Yes, good evening. Just two quick announcements for everybody this evening. I wanted to make everybody aware of a volunteer opportunity with the town and the Environmental Sustainability Committee and Caterpillar Ministries. There is a lake cleanup day in Huntington Green on September 12th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The meeting place is at Lake Haven Community Church. Participants will be required to sign a waiver, but if you're interested, want to sign up, or want to learn more, the form is available on our website. And lastly just a reminder to please take our hundreds of police Department community survey. It's confidential and helps improve the department the survey is live and open until around midnight on October 16th and the survey link is public input dot com slash J 7, 4, 4, 0, 5.

Thank you the other announcements board. We have one proclamation this evening for Patriot Day. Whereas this 11th of September marks 25 years since the unconscionable attacks on September 11, 2001 claimed nearly 3,000 lives and irrevocably changed our world. And whereas every year since we have observed the somber anniversary as Patriot Day to remember those we lost and honor the courageous first responders and men and women from all walks of life who took action to protect their fellow Americans. and whereas we reflect on these past years we also commemorate the service members who answered our nation's call in the aftermath of attacks we will never forget their sacrifices to protect our charities freedoms and way of life and whereas on this day of remembrance let us pay tribute to the american heroes we've lost and recommit to the values of equity opportunity and freedom our nation stands for now therefore i christy clark mayor of huntersville do hereby proclaim september 11th as patriot day in huntersville north carolina WE HAVE TWO PUBLIC COMMENTS THIS EVENING. THIS EVENING. IF YOU ARE SPEAKING TONIGHT AND IF YOU ARE SPEAKING TONIGHT AND NOT SPOKEN BEFORE, JUST A NOT SPOKEN BEFORE, JUST A REMINDER. REMINDER. HOW ABOUT WE DO CALENDAR AND HOW ABOUT WE DO CALENDAR AND RAPTOR FIRST? RAPTOR FIRST? WE WILL LET YOU GUYS GO.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today about a gem of Huntersville, a world-renowned organization, the Carolina Raptor Center. My name is Gabor Zupan, and I am relatively new to the Carolina Raptor Center, or CRC, as we affectionately like to call it, having started there as the executive director just less than a year ago. While I may be new, the organization has been here for 40-plus years and has been one of the many things that make this town and this region special. Many people know about it, so tonight I'll talk a little bit about our priorities and our impact, and then get into some updates that I'm excited to share. But before I do, I wanted to thank you, the Huntersville Town Board, for your support. In my short time here at the Carolina Raptor Center, we've been glad to host you, Mayor Clark, Commissioners Quarles, Smallwood, and Cornett. We're also grateful to receive a $10,000 grant last year in help with our Huntersville focused engagement program. And we were recently approved for $15,000 to fund our education programs. CRC is a 501 nonprofit. And so we rely on the support of our community to operate. Thank you for your continued partnership. The work of the Carolina Raptor Center is described first by our mission, to ignite a passion for raptors and a responsibility for our shared natural world. This work can be further placed into three categories, rehabilitation, education, and conservation. As a direct line to our origin story, our raptor hospital takes an injured birds of prey, including falcons, eagles, hawks, vultures, owls, that are brought in or called in by members of our community. and gives them the care that they need to get them back out into the world. These amazing creatures have crucial roles, so we want them to be healthy out in the world and playing those crucial roles to ensure a rich and balanced ecosystem. The second area of focus for us is education. And it begins with the Raptor Trail, a raptor zoo that features the largest number of raptor ambassadors in the southeast United States and maybe even beyond. Programming both on the trail and out in the community and in schools provides opportunities for people to learn about raptors and their important place in our ecosystems. Just as a quick story, I was recently talking with a family on the trail after one of our summer bird show programs. The oldest daughter, about 10 years old, told me that she loves birds and loves coming to the Carolina Raptor Center to learn about owls, her favorites, especially Dumbledore, a great horned owl. She was excited to come regularly so that she can learn more about them and wants to be maybe even be an intern when she gets older. Through our conversation, she told me about the importance of not throwing trash out the window of a car. Because we know that it attracts rodents, which then attract raptors, right? And so cars and raptors on the road is not a good thing. I got goosebumps just thinking about the impact that this young lady is already having by sharing this knowledge with her family, her friends, and her neighbors. A third priority for CRC is to be an active participant in conservation, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. The Carolina Raptor Center's contribution to our field is at the top of its class. Go to any raptor center or zoo focused on birds of prey around the country, and they will wax poetic about all the way that they admire and learn from the Carolina Raptor Center that's right here in Huntersville, North Carolina. Just last week, one of our board members was telling me about visiting a center in Wyoming, and they not only knew about CRC, but spoke about them with great respect. Of course, the Carolina Raptor Center's impact starts locally. As you can see, CRC took in 795 sick or injured birds of prey last year. and gave them the world-class care to help them recover from all kinds of injuries. This care included medication, orthopedic surgery if necessary, wound care, further transplants, blood analysis, food, and a safe place to rest and recover. This is one of the largest numbers among organizations that do this type of work, and it's a testament to the staff and the operations of the hospital, including the volunteers both in the building and out in the community. Additionally, more than 48,000 people attended a program or visited the Raptor Trail from July 2025 through June 2026. And during the same period, 10,000 plus students visited the Raptor Trail on a field trip or welcomed us into their classroom. Additionally, 54 professionals from around the country attended one of our professional development sessions about Raptor medicine or Raptor training. I'm also happy to report that the people who engage with us come both from Huntersville and beyond. As you can see, the organization was a feature for town residents and a draw for out-of-towners to come to Huntersville. As a result, we've estimated $848,000 of economic activity as a result of people visiting the Carolina Raptor Center. And finally, if you'll permit a humble brag, the Carolina Raptor Center community of local supporters and out-of-town fans have elevated the organization to be the number one thing to do in Huntersville on TripAdvisor. And we agree. For those of us who live in Huntersville or the surrounding region, the Carolina Raptor Center improves our quality of life, gives us an opportunity to be immersed in the natural world, and offers lifelong learning opportunities. For people visiting the region, Carolina Raptor Center provides a different type of attraction from any other, and a reason to come to Huntersville and its businesses to see some amazing animals. Finally, as I mentioned, the Carolina Raptor Center is a world-class leader in the field of raptor rehabilitation. In addition to offering professional development for similar organizations, just over the past year we have been involved in two publications to advance the knowledge of the field. One, that you see up on the slide there, was measuring the ecological impact of raptor rehabilitation, confirming that the more than 10,000 birds of prey that have been released by the Carolina Raptor Center over its history have positively and sustainably strengthened the ecological balance of our region. We also have a pending publication which outlines a case study we did testing the feasibility of using fish skin grafts to speed up the healing process for raptors. The great horned owl pictured here was the patient who benefited from this study. He came in with a multitude of wounds. Multitude of injuries including head trauma, an eye injury, parasites and a nasty leg wound. The hospital team provided exceptional care along with the fish skin graft treatment and the patient was released upon passing mouse school and five months in care. Both of these publications are just more reason to be proud of this facility we have right here in Huntersville.

So what's next for CRC?

Last summer, the board of directors of the Carolina Raptor Center decided to forego a previously held plan to move the Raptor Trail to Quest Nature Center. Instead, we will focus on evolving and refining and reimagining our current experience at 6000 Sample Road Huntersville to ensure that our facilities and our experiences continue to lead the way for the Carolinas and beyond. We've begun this work by addressing some immediate needs, which you may notice on your next visit to the Carolina Raptor Center. For example, we recently rebuilt the stage that features our very well-attended programming, thanks to one of our corporate partners, DPR Construction. One of those programs is our Summer Bird Show, a must-see experience if you live in Huntersville or the Lake Norman area. We've also recently erected three new enclosures, three newly designed enclosures for Ares or Peregrine Falcon. Bash, the red-legged Siriama, and as of this week, Gaia, a red-tailed hawk. These were all made possible by a combination of staff, volunteers, partners, and supporters. To set out our vision for the next five to ten years for the Carolina Raptor Center, we're embarking on a master planning process. to ensure that we maintain and exceed the standards that have been set before us, and continue to be a feature and a draw for Huntersville, the Lake Norman area, Charlotte, the Carolinas, and beyond, well into the future. Our vision for this work includes many of the amenities on the left-hand side of this slide, all intended to grow the ways in which we serve our community, care for Raptors, and stay on the leading edge of our field. As we move forward, we'd love this relationship with Huntersville to continue to elevate the importance of conservation through education and action. We hope that we can continue to ask the town of Huntersville for financial support as we have through the external agency grants for the past two years and perhaps through other channels in the future. We'd also love to build on existing programming partnerships to find more opportunities to share this Huntersville gem with residents and guests as a feature of living in or visiting Huntersville. For example, we'll continue to attend town events and programs like Hello Huntersville and Vines on the Green. CRC is actively involved with the Lake Norman Chamber and seeking to grow partnerships with Huntersville businesses. We're always looking to connect with new partners and would be grateful for your support in making those connections. Additionally, we'd love to see every single student and camper right here in Huntersville get to visit this amazing place at least once so that they can see that this is happening in their hometown and the impact that it already has. We would, of course, also welcome the support of time, treasure, and talent as our master planning crystallizes the vision of the community for what's next for the Carolina Raptor Center. And last but definitely not least, I'd like to invite all of you and the town of Huntersville to join us this weekend at the Carolina Raptor Center for International Vulture Awareness Day. Mayor Clark, I know that Sadie, our turkey vulture, is a favorite of yours. As you know, we have a saying at CRC, you either love vultures or you don't know vultures. Whichever camp you fall into, we'd love for you to join us this Saturday to celebrate these amazing animals who are both nature's cleanup crew, incredibly charismatic, and dare I say, beautiful creatures. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Board, any questions? Sadie is my favorite bird there, I'm not gonna lie. I love a turkey vulture. Any questions? Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, we have the Environmental Sustainability Committee update.

Hi, there. Let me get this. OK. All right. As I know you know, the purpose of the Environmental Sustainability Committee is to serve as an advisory committee to the Town of Huntersville Board of Commissioners on matters related to environmental sustainability and actions that the Town of Huntersville may take to support environmental sustainability.

Can you guys hear me okay? There we go.

To move forward on that purpose, the committee has defined committee areas of focus, has identified goals for each area, and continues to make progress on these goals. I'm here today to give an update on what we've done this year. I think last time we were here was in December of last year, and kind of what we've got coming.

Let's see.

So one of our goals is increasing visibility. This year we held three table events at the Huntersville Growers Market. The group provided information about recycling, composting, we gave updates on our treasure tree program, We had information about our community cleanups and also tree canopy care. We had lots of enthusiasm at the growers market. We gave away lots of composting buckets, lots of discussion about both recycling and composting. So it was really successful. We felt we're really happy about that. We also launched the environmental sustainability page on the town of Huntersville website and then worked with the town to confirm the colors that we'll be using to put on our collateral and committee materials. Okay. The next goal is planning and organizing community cleanup days. This year, we held one back in April in Pottstown. It was a great success. I think you can see pictures. There's a crane. There's lots of people volunteering. Great help from the town in getting coordinated around that. It's really good. And they've already scheduled that second one. I think Ethan gave the information about the date in September. And then they're also targeting a cleanup in November They've also been looking at, or we have also been looking at opportunities for developing wildlife corridors. Again, working with the town, looking at road accident information with collisions with wildlife, even looking at migration information and that sort of thing. So it looks like the next step, and we'll talk about it a little bit more, Once they've got this map, which they've started, taking that to a public forum, which they're working on scheduling. Another one of our goals was implementing a treasure tree program. We worked over last year to kind of get the details nailed down, and we honored our first treasure tree in April on Arbor Day. That first tree was the grand oak tree, a very appropriate, I think everyone felt it was a great, great event with kids and lots of enthusiasm, a beautiful day. We also planted a tree that day Commissioner Hunt did a Arbor Day proclamation, so it's a grand time for all. It was great, really. Okay, so that's our kind of key accomplishments so far. In terms of upcoming activities, Back to visibility, we want to continue to enhance that sustainability page on the website to, you know, collect all the content related to the things that we've done so far and then also continue to grow information about composting, recycling, the treasure tree program, our upcoming cleanup events, just, you know, expanding all that as a central place to come for information about sustainability. Another one of our areas of focus is waste education and management. Some of their goals upcoming are educating and encouraging community participation in composting. They've been working pretty closely with Meck County Recycling to get information that we can help educate the community on recycling. And there's been, you know, upcoming changes with recycling and that sort of thing, getting the word out about things that, you know, can now be recycled that hadn't been able to be recycled in the past. And then just working through, you know, what is good recycling or composting information we can get. Link to our page, you know, if you go to huntersville site you can get to recycling information as well so just kind of figure out how do we how do we take what's out there and and Tie it into our page Okay community cleanup days Like we mentioned there's the Huntington green Event coming up in September and then they're partnering with Catawba River keeper keepers potentially in November for the next event and Around energy, there's some research taking place around potential for biodiesel or solar energy sources being used in the community, you know, looking at where's the best place to plug something like that in and what benefits can we gain from that. As far as wildlife, continuing gathering information around that green network plan, And like I mentioned, holding a community input forum around that one. For the treasure tree program and also for tree canopy in general, we're going to launch our next nomination period, you know, advertise for next round of treasure trees. There's also some discussion around doing, figuring out a good place to do a tree planting. And then also what we'd like to do is submit an application to make the town of Huntersville a tree city. And so I know that folks on the town staff are working on that. And that's it. And then I'd just like to end it with a thank you. You know, of course, thank you to the board for your continued support. Thanks to the town for, you know, lots of things we do require help from folks on staff. And everybody's always just very helpful and positive about, you know, our thoughts and ideas. Very supportive. So thank you.

THANK YOU. ANY QUESTIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY UPDATE? NO? OKAY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT. NOW WE WILL DO OUR PUBLIC COMMENTS. I STARTED WITH THAT REMINDER, IF YOU ARE IN THE AUDIENCE AND YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HERE FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS BEFORE, WE DON'T RESPOND TO THE PUBLIC COMMENTS. IF YOU WOULD LIKE A RESPONSE FROM US, PLEASE E-MAIL US. YOU WILL HAVE THREE MINUTES WHEN YOU TALK. WE WILL START WITH MICHAEL FITZGERALD.

My name is Michael Fitzgerald. I'm a resident of Huntersville. Mayor Clark, commissioners, thank you for your service to our town. I also want to thank the dedicated officers and staff of the Huntersville Police Department. As we approach the 9-11 anniversary and Huntersville Patriot Day, it's important to reflect on the sacrifice our police officers make every day, risking their lives to keep our community safe. My comments this evening are about the automated license plate readers, otherwise known as flock cameras. that our town has used in recent years. These cameras are installed in various intersections in Huntersville and many other municipalities across our country. Private businesses also use them. If I understand correctly, these cameras scan every car's license plate as it passes through the intersection and then stores this data on servers for 30 days. The vehicle and location data is accessible both to our police department and with other cities by agreement. Now, it's important for the town to provide our police with the best tools and equipment needed for public safety. And many law enforcement officers nationwide have noted how these cameras are an effective tool for investigations. However, in recent weeks, numerous media outlets have reported about the misuse of these cameras nationwide. In various locales, the camera data has been misused by officers to track family members, ex-wives, girlfriends, even an actress. Most victims are women. Locally, misuse has been reported in Mooresville and Charlotte. These violations are also unfortunate because they don't represent the majority of dedicated law enforcement, but the abuse highlights and exposes the risks. The Post article also reported that Flock has a vehicle fingerprint feature which could identify a car simply based on characteristics such as bumper stickers, raising the question of profiling. These devices have raised concerns across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, municipalities, governors, and state legislatures of different states, Congress, and even the Vatican. To prevent such incidents from happening here, I would like to ask the Board to consider holding a public hearing examining the pros and cons of these devices And providing information such as how many cameras does the town use? How much have these cameras cost? Have they helped? Have there been any violations or abuses? What safeguards are in effect to prevent abuses? Is this data safe from hacking? Who has access to these cameras? Does the FBI or ICE have access? Is a judicial review helpful? Is there any liability, especially with a case pending at the US 4th Circuit? And to recent Supreme Court decisions carpenter versus us and shot reverses us by getting ahead of this issue. The town can lead a discussion over both the ethics of these cameras while assuring Huntersville residents that both are safety and privacy are being protected.

Thank you. And next we have in this called well the Jay Caldwell.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to come and speak. I have too many notes so I'm going to start with my notes that I wrote today. Morale, the spirit of the organization is important when working as a group whose responsibilities affect the lives and livelihoods of others. The stakes are high if the town wants to be a winner. With elevated morale, all goals are possible. Without that important element, it's just a game that a group of people are playing. I want to give a special shout out of thanks to the planning department and staff. They have created a map of Pottstown that depict our 191 years of having been relegated to that space. And I'm so excited about it, I don't know what to do. Thank you. I want to call attention to the traffic on New Haven Drive. I'm not sure whose responsibility that is because it's a State maintain road, but the traffic is getting almost unbearable because she can't see in the cars are coming so fast. You can't see them coming and I don't want to be a statistic, so I don't know who I need to call to try to get some help when I called the OT. They were in the ETJ, so it makes it kind of hard for people to decide whose decision it is to do something with the speed limit. And then last but definitely not least, we're going to walk to restate a claim to what was the colored part of town. And it's going to take place Labor Day Monday. We're going to stage it at Waymers parking lot and we're going to walk the area. Many of you do not know where the colored part of town was. You just think, well, just come. It was here. But no, there are certain little pockets. There were 10 churches that came out of the plantations that were here in this area. So I can't give you much more because I've got to get to my copy. Not so long ago, blacks were considered colored. In America, all humans lived in a segregated society, supposedly separate but equal. There was so much unfairness in this system. Some openly spoke of the graveyard talk of ending segregation. And I, for one, dream of the day when I could enter any door, not just the back door or the door that had a sign on it that said colored. I believe that everyone like me, would be welcomed and accepted in Maine society. But as coloreds, my delusion of grandeur became the dominant race nightmare because their lives benefited greatly from our servitude. But as coloreds, we were relegated to the bottom, and the only way to change was to get help from the top by rescinding local laws, state statutes, and national laws that moved us from the bottom towards the top. 61 years ago, the winds of change set us on a different trajectory that moved us forward, but not to the top of the finish line. Some agreed that change was overdue and necessary, but not to the point where the playing field was completely level. So hidden in some of our upward mobility were roadblocks with knees on our necks to continue to hold us back. Being resilient people, we excelled and found a seat at the top in many fields that had always been out of reach. Once those plateaus were breached and reached, a rewrite of the brutality of Americans' chattel slave system had to be retold in order to set the record straight. So onward we go, marching all the way, with one group warning what they had privilege of being at the top and the rest of us continue to fight for our God given right. Thank you so very much this was not intended to make anybody feel bad. This is just where people are in America today. Thank you.

Thank you miss Caldwell. Next we have any agenda changes or a motion to adopt the agenda.

I make motion to adopt the agenda is there a second second.

Any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand any opposed. The motion carries unanimously. Do we have a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

Make a motion to adopt the consent agenda is there a second second.

Any discussion. All those in favor please raise your hand. Any opposed the motion carries unanimously. And you're on to a public hearings item 10 a conduct a public hearing on petition are 2, 6, 0, 6, a request by veer development.

Good evening. Like to enter my staff report into the record, please. So just a bit of a history for the application that's before us today. I'm sorry, R2608 is proposed to rezone from NRCD to TODRCD, which is transit-oriented development. This is a continuation from the public hearing that was originally scheduled last month where the application was to go to neighborhood residential conditional district. The applicant asked to continue it to change the request to transit-oriented development residential. And so that's where we are today. So just an update on the meetings for the public hearing is today, the planning board is scheduled for September 22nd, and a potential final action for the town board would be scheduled for October 20th. So just some context of where we are. The subject property is located with a star. So the main road adjacent to the property is Old Statesville Road, Highway 115. Going down to the south, again, you have Highway 73, Samford Road. circle and we'll talk about this a little bit to the discussion on the circle of represents the potential location for the commuter rail stop that's proposed and so that's a proposed location there development surrounding immediately to the north of the property is Caldwell station that was a traditional neighborhood development with apartments and townhomes Caldwell crossing to the north northeast that's also a traditional neighborhood development with mixed use going down immediately to the south right next to the train stop is called Station South. That was approved, let's say, a year or two ago at this point. And then our recent TOD development, also Knox Crossing, the mixed use development was approved just a few months ago. So just give you some context of the development that we're looking at right now. So the rezoning plan is shown here before you on the left, the site plan. The plan that we're currently looking at is 101 attached units, so townhomes. So they are rear-loaded, 100% of them are rear-loaded. During the last rezoning plan that came in, Before it was changed, when it was neighborhood residential, there was a cap on attached units. The ordinance says that only 30% of the units can be attached, and so the applicants were asking for a modification to 100%. In the application today, under transit oriented development, 100% of the units can be attached units. Just wanted to point out also the elevations to the top right in the picture that are currently proposed. And staff wanted to give some commendation to the applicant because some of the open space that is proposed, it's in a very good location. We feel a lot of times when you look at a neighborhood, the open space can be kind of tucked away and away from the public realm. But this open space is front and center. It's near the street. It's near the units. And so it creates kind of like a cottage-like type atmosphere. And it's very enclosed. So it creates a good location and urban design in that regard. They also improved connectivity from the last submittal. The alleys were kind of dead ends, but they've worked those through. So the connectivity has improved on the site plan. So we wanted to commend the applicant in that regard. zoning ordinance modifications that are proposed. The only one that's proposed currently officially is the request to have the townhome building type in the transit-oriented district, development district, and staff supports that. There were other ones modifications under NR but again with the TOD that's no longer requested. The one potential one the the density for TOD there is a minimum density of 15 units an acre and the applicants right now on this one are 14 units an acre. I believe they're trying to add some units to get to that minimum 15 units per acre so that modification might not be necessary. So again, with the TOD, another ordinance change and requirement with TOD, you don't have a buffer requirement adjacent to residential development unless the development is a large 20 lot or above subdivision. So there's what used to be a buffer modification under NR is not under the TOD. And that is same as the true for the planting requirements. So some zoning site plan considerations that staff has concerns about and we'll talk about these a little bit individually. So the 2040 plan calls for this area to be a mixed use activity center. So the individual housing types and the lack of mixed use is a concern. The transit oriented development. The pedestrian connections are a challenge. It's staff's belief that there's a separation a little bit from a walkability standpoint to the potential train and to the mixed use. So we'll talk about that. Compatibility, again, we mentioned the buffers and not being required. So making sure that the development is compatible. with adjacent single family development is a concern. And then just some thoughts that we'll share and describe about putting some constraint on perhaps the flexibility of adjacent redevelopment. So talking about the transit-oriented development pedestrian challenges, the intent of the transit-oriented development district is to allow for, instead of people to drive everywhere, it's for people to walk. walk to the transit station, walk to the services that they need to go to and do it in a way that's going to encourage that design and have the urban design of the development to encourage that. When you look at the development across the street, that's where the rail is. And you see highlighted in red, you have the proposed application. uh... the the the site in question in order to walk to this facility in order to walk to the station uh... the shortest distance we believe from a staff perspective is highlighted in red so coming out on old statesville road walking to the north all the way to coach lane then crossing the highway to the east and then going back down uh... probably about another six to seven hundred feet down the greenway that will be built potentially in the future to the to the trade to the uh... transit stop there that the train stop that's about point four miles the ordinance says that you can be a t o d r inside a half-mile so a point five radius walkable area so this property qualifies The concern that staff has is that catchment area, the physical barrier that the highway, the train, the proposed bridge that's going to exist for the train is going to become an impediment to that walkability and cause or discourage people to want to walk there. So you can have a TOD district here, but what you're saying when you do that, when you're assigning a TODR label to this property to the west, you're saying that this is part of the train station to the east. And so that's the concern that staff has, is that from a relatability, a walkability standpoint, there's going to be some conflict there. So and then adding on to that, you don't have mixed use on the west hand side. On the east side, you will. The projects that have been approved are very mixed use, even with a grocery store. So the high amount of mixed use is going to encourage that walkability. On the west side, you don't have that. So the concern is, even if this is approved as a TOD, it's not going to serve the intent, which is to have that walkability and less traffic trips. To contrast, just briefly, again, we mentioned the east side. Highlighted here, the red station is circled. The green, though, is the highlighted network of areas that make the development walkable. You have the Seam Trail Greenway, you have the Church Street Extension multi-use pass, and you have a network of urban open spaces. that make the walkability of this area very accommodating and encouraged. And so when you take this type of walkability, even though the .5, the .4 miles are similar on both sides of the street, you know, the apples and the oranges start to show themselves in that they're not the same. One encourages it to the east. The west, there's a little bit more of a hampering and a discouragement there for walkability. So another issue that staff is concerned with, the compatibility with adjacent development Again, the proposed townhome unit and then highlighted in red is the area of very low density residential. So currently no buffers are proposed to kind of transition the high density to the low density, even though the ordinance doesn't require the buffers. Staff is recommending some landscaping be provided that soften and kind of visually separate the two drastically different type of land uses. So the applicant has talked about doing some of that, and we're in discussions with them, but that is one of the concerns. And here's something that staff is looking at from a future perspective, looking at the project as a whole. The quadrant that we're looking here at Highway 73 and 115, the whole segment including the property to be redeveloped has a high likelihood or a capability of redeveloping in the future. So what's happening though is the proposed development is coming in and proposing to establish infrastructure in a small fraction of that. So the concern that staff is having is, is the infrastructure that's being proposed in an optimal location for the future development? And we put a rough graphic together just to kind of illustrate that concept. So if you look at the development and you look at the townhomes and where the infrastructure stops, right? Right here, right here. So this is where the townhomes are. When you look at the property to the south and you think about a potentially mixed use development coming in there, what we have learned from history is that, well, one, you've got to, we're going to extend these roads. So the road is going to extend somewhere down here. There's probably going to be a connection down here. And then the green boxes that you see are likely out parcels where commercial or multifamily out parcels may want to go in the future. So if you're thinking if this area is potentially capable or accommodating for a larger use, maybe a grocery store, something to that effect, most likely that's going to go in the area of the blue box. That's our guess, right? May not, but that would be our guess based on our experience. Now, when you go back to the circles and you look where the infrastructure stops, that infrastructure needs to continue. So the dotted line represents how does this work? With our form-based code, with extending it through this area, is this gonna be the most ideal location for this infrastructure to make that adjacent development work? Another example of that is to the north where you have, if you think of this access here, this is where at the corner of 115 and Coach Lane, that's where our proposed traffic signal in the future would be. So most likely, if you're wanting to go take a left turn, that's where you're gonna wanna go in this development. So the question becomes, when this whole area redevelops to the south, does it make more sense to have a road that comes immediately through here that continues on down into this development you see so because this lines up immediately with the multi-family public street that comes up and goes to coach lane so does that make sense That's the question. But the problem is that street would go right where the stormwater pond for the proposed development is. So some of these things that we're bringing up may not be big issues, but they could be. And so we're wondering without a plan, without an understanding of what the infrastructure needs would be in the future in this area, we're just taking a chance that some conflicts may present themselves in the future.

We can erase that AV, thank you.

For the Huntersville 2040 plan consistency, the consistency really, the land use plan talks about the big pink circle that you see here, the mixed use center. It highlights in the description in the 2040 plan vertical mixed use. It talks about apartments. It talks about town homes, cottage homes. So intensification is on the table, right? making it more dense development is on the table. And so the 2040 plan basically highlights that potential is available here in this area. So staff is not opposed to that at all. The inconsistencies, what we point out, is how that intensity takes place. So land use 6.1 encouraging a mix of uses, 7.1 encouraging a mix of housing types, and then again going down to land use 11.1 protecting and enhancing existing neighborhoods. So those are the things that staff is concerned about currently. our recommendations for this application we don't support it uh... because of the issues that we've discussed at this time uh... and so uh... that concludes my uh... presentation i'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have for any questions for brand but left by l u eleven point one protect and enhances this neighborhoods with uh... planning tools

neighborhoods there or you talked about the future in your presentation?

Mainly for that one, we're talking about the existing, right? The high density to the low density and making sure that transition is appropriate.

Any other questions? No?

Very good. Yes, the applicant is here and they have got a presentation for you.

Looks like the formatting might have got messed up a little bit here. But good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I'm Robert Urban from Urban Law Group, and we're here representing VEER Development. And from the development team tonight, we have Parmeet Singh here, and then we also have Nick Bouchon from DRG. Thank you very much for your time, and thank you, Brad, for the presentation. I think I don't need to retread on anything that Brad mentioned, but I do think it's important to go over kind of how we got here, how we got here from NR to TOD. So when we got involved in this project, we were already in the NR zoning designation, and that NR zoning designation brought about this staff report where we had four significant modification requests. And the main concern from staff was asking for this 100% townhome development. So after we got this staff report, we worked with staff. We tried to revise the plan to make it fit a little bit better within NR. We found out that it really just wasn't vibing with NR, so we looked back at the guiding principles, the guiding documents. We looked at the 2040 plan, and we looked at the SAMFR land use corridor plan, and this is just taken from Brad's staff report, but the mixed-use center where the property is located, mixed-use centers are for dense, mixed-use developments. NOT NR. SO NR DIDN'T FIT HERE. NEXT WE LOOKED AT THE LAND USE CORRIDOR PLAN FOR SAMFUR ROAD AND IT'S ACTUALLY IDENTIFIED AS A TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT AT THIS LOCATION. SO BETWEEN THOSE TWO GUIDING DOCUMENTS AND THEN THE FUTURE TRANSIT STATION, WE SAID I THINK TODR IS THE WAY TO GO. SO OUR TODR SUBMISSION Only had one modification, and Brad mentioned that it wasn't a big deal because it was actually a carryover from a mistakenly removed permitted building type in TODR. So townhomes are actually, you know, technically should be allowed in TODR. And so we got the staff report back and we had some similar comments But the main issues were what Brad said the lack of mixed-use we had the TOD density requirement along with the pedestrian connectivity requirement and the incompatibility with adjacent properties and then finally limited public benefit and so We, I think, have been able to address these first four issues to some extent. The lack of mixed use. TODR in this distance away from a future transit station is actually not permitted to have commercial based on their distance away from their future transit station. And furthermore, the mixed use node is really just a mix of separate uses. So taken as a whole, this TODR fits within this mixed use center. The density requirement, we were able to meet that. We squeezed a couple units floor plans down, so we added five units to get to an average of 15 units per acre, so we've met that. And then the pedestrian connectivity issue, I'll quickly go to this one, and you can see this is similar to kind of what Brad had. This is Brad's diagram. That dotted line up to the north is the gap between Coach Lane and the rest of the sidewalk, so the applicants willing to explore what that would be to construct that extension. And so that's about 270 feet of sidewalk. It would end up costing about $50,000 and some coordination with NCDOT and the town would be required there. And I wanted to quickly get to this topic on going above and beyond and adding public benefit to the project because this is something that was included in both staff reports and it's something that We've attempted to address, we have some affordable units that are on the plan, but we wanted to look to see if there was something else we could do to reach this public benefit. So when we first started working with the town and planning staff, we really, and I think Parmeet can talk about it a little bit more, we really wanted to make sure these open spaces were viable and accessible and able to be used by the residents that live there and even people that are visiting. So we thought, can we enhance these open spaces? And so in order to enhance those open spaces, we looked at some of the Environmental Sustainability Committee's goals and Actually, earlier tonight, there was a presentation where they went over some of these goals, and the two goals that stuck out to us were the community engagement goal to increase the visibility of sustainability issues, and then the environment and infrastructure goal to determine opportunities for developing wildlife corridors. So we looked at those two goals, and then we looked at the National Wildlife Federation, the NWF, and we looked to see if there were any programs that promote environmental sustainability, and would you know it, there were some. There's a community certification program that would allow communities to get a certification from the NWF that would help to promote greener communities, healthier communities, and promote wildlife-friendly developments. And some of you are probably familiar with this. There's the NWF Certified Habitat Program, and that is just on a smaller scale. You can get your individual community garden certified. You can get your backyard garden certified. You can get your house certified. if you reach some of these goals required by the NWF. And then if you are a community based on your population, you can be certified as a certified wildlife community. And so that requires a little bit more work. It's not just signing up for something and paying a fee. There's more to it than that. And it's not something that a lot of individual projects do. It's more something that an actual REGION OR COMMUNITY WOULD DO. SO CHARLOTTE, FOR INSTANCE, IS ONE. LAKE NORMAN, FOR INSTANCE, IS ONE. BUT THERE'S NOT ONE ON A SCALE LIKE 100-UNIT TOWNHOME PROJECT. THERE'S A COUPLE IN CHARLOTTE. THERE'S ONE IN CHARLOTTE STONEHAVEN. THAT'S ABOUT 4500 PEOPLE. AND THAT'S A MUCH LARGER PROJECT THAN THIS. BUT THEN THERE'S ALSO ONE IN PLAZA MIDWOOD. IT'S CALLED WINEDALE. AND THEY HAVE ABOUT 200 PEOPLE IN THAT So going off of that, there are these requirements to certify habitats. And so this project would be required to meet these goals that are required for certification. So that's promoting food for wildlife, water, cover, places to raise young, and sustainability actions. And these habitats can include common open space and developments. And if you have enough of these habitats that are qualified then you can register to become a community and Finally the last and I think most important thing about the community certification is not only the outreach and education But there's also a recertification process, but I see this as the public benefit for the town This is where the town's environmental sustainability committee gets involved and helps and partners with with Parmeet and very development and doing organizing cleanup, organizing informational sessions. They do have a proclamation here at a town board meeting. And just getting involved in the process and sharing the example of this project is like a trailblazer example for sustainability in the town. And lastly, we spoke with a couple people from the NWF in Raleigh and Charlotte. just to get an idea of, hey, is this a good location to include one of these communities? And they said this is actually a great place to have a national wildlife certified community because it's a place of development. It's a place that needs to consider this and have these outreach and have these community events and have this informational outreach. So that's kind of where we're you know, set up on a public benefit. And I'm going to let Parmeet get in here and talk a little bit about this. Yeah.

So good evening, Mayor, pro tem members of the board, town manager, and attorney. My name is Pramit Singh. I'm representing Redevelopment here. We are a Charlotte-based development firm. Most of our projects have been in very highly desirable locations, including South Park, Waverly, and Foxcroft. This will be our first opportunity for development in Lake Norman. And we're excited about this opportunity to be able to deliver value and add to the success here in the Huntersville region. BRAD DID A GOOD JOB COVERING THE OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT, BUT A COUPLE OF POINTS TO CALL OUT FROM AN OVERALL TRANSITION STANDPOINT, THE DEVELOPMENT DOES A PHENOMENAL JOB TRANSITIONING FROM A WEST SINGLE FAMILY DETACHED DEVELOPMENT TO A MORE INTENSE DEVELOPMENT TO THE FAR EAST WHERE ALL THE APARTMENTS AND THINGS ARE. And then the second point I did want to call out is that there aren't a lot of for sale development opportunities in this corridor. You have 1600 plus apartments for rent in this region. I think this development intends to provide additional home ownership opportunities that are not there today. From a site plan standpoint, over the last eight months, we've done an extensive collaboration with Brian, Brad, and team to really balance the questions around connectivity, access, density, open space, and we feel they'll agree that site plan is in a really good spot. I think the use case that Brad brought up today around what may or may not be able to be enabled south of us, that example could be applied to any parcels where there's development happening or possible development to the adjacent. You could orient a building to each of the four sides of any adjacent parcels and you could come up with a use case which may or may not be able to be developed adjacent to it. Couple things to call out. The new public street coming north-south and east-west actually unlocks the development potential of those parcels adjacent to us. And something to consider there, from an open space standpoint, Brand can attest to it. Highly visible, usable, accessible. Brad brought up in his presentation as well. From an internal site connectivity standpoint, all pedestrians have direct access to sidewalks that allow us to go to the future transit station. From a parking standpoint, the development actually has 30% more parking than the adjacent developments that were recently approved on the east side of Statesville. So from a parking ratio standpoint, we're in a really good spot. We've continuously heard that in terms of getting a conditional rezoning approved in town, what is the developer really trying to deliver in terms of public benefit and going above and beyond? Robert did a good job covering two aspects of the environmental certification and our willingness to contribute in the pedestrian connectivity. But the two other points for your awareness is our commitment towards attainable housing So these are for sale attainable housing opportunities, which are significantly more investment than for rent attainable housing opportunities. And then while the development is not required to contribute to the tree fund because the tree canopy mitigation requirements are not applicable, we're honoring that same commitment that was part of the previous petition under NRCD zoning district. So if you look in entirety, you have a development that has an exceptional site plan, you have a high quality townhome product that has abundant high quality open space and overlay the benefits around certification, home ownership opportunities, attainable opportunities, tree fund contribution. We feel that it's a compelling value proposition for town board to consider in the upcoming weeks. Now in terms of, this slide just does a double click into all the work that's gone to getting us to this point. So we'll not go through every single item on this page in terms of what has been done. But some of the concerns that were in the recent staff report in terms of density, buffers, pedestrian connectivity, those are within our control and can be easily and we're hoping to address. In terms of future development flexibility to the west and lack of mixed use development as part of this plan, We definitely anticipate some discussion and hoping to gain alignment around it because there is a lot of possibilities to the south of us and we have validated that through our discussions with NCDOT because what we really wanted to understand is if we're thinking about commercial development opportunities to the south, which is town's preference, Are we limiting any access on Statesville Road to potentially block that future development? And the answer is no. This development does not in any way prohibit any future development possibilities to the south. Any development that might be planned, like in Brad's example, a really big box, you know, commercial store which is actually not preferred in the TOD zoning district right next to an adjacent single family, it will be reviewed in isolation in terms of access and requirements. So we are pretty confident that the current site plan meets the preferred block length requirements from Statesville to the first public street coming through the adjacent development and in no way will limit any future development potential to the south. Nick here from DRG can further confirm that. I know we're running short on time here, but a couple of other quick points just for awareness. There was point brought up about squeezing the two properties to the west. Those two properties currently are landlocked. If those property owners, and they decided to develop that in future, were unable to develop. So this development actually unlocks the development for those two homes to the west. So I wanted to highlight that point. And then we agree with them in terms of future potential of commercial development to the south. I think that's an opportunity for us as a development team to consider. And we're hoping that there will be a few questions around that as we get through this. Thank you.

All right, I can see the board taking notes over here, so I think they probably have some questions. Who wants to go first? Mayor Pertin?

So first, I like the intention behind the NWF certification. I have certification in my yard, and I know there's no enforcement. So I was just curious if there's any sort of enforcement for the community certifications beyond just people caring about it.

For the community certification, there is a recertification process that you have to do. I'm not sure to what exact extent that is, but there is some documentation that you have to submit to show that you're meeting these goals. I think with the outreach goals and educational goals, it's not something that's just done, you know, somebody comes in and certifies everything. It's something that takes, it would probably take, you know, six months to 12 months to, you know, get through all the registration goals, the outreach goals, the education goals. There's a big rubric of things that you have to follow.

Let's commission small and thank you for the presentation and can you can I go back and see the slide regarding the sidewalk, please. Thank you so 115 feet is that correct.

No, it's just measuring it on the GIS. It was about 270 feet along 115.

Okay. And this might be a question for staff. Brad, the question that you or the statement you post about the difficulties with pedestrian connection, would this mitigate that?

Not 100%, no, I don't think so. Even if you had sidewalk there, you still have the need to cross the highway, to cross the railroad itself to get there and then walk back down. So in walking on the highway, What is that gonna feel like? Is it gonna be a DOT expansion when the sidewalk is immediately next to the highway without a planning strip in the future? How does that feel? So from the planning perspective, the accommodation of the walk is just as important, sometimes even more than the actual distance of the walk itself. So that is from the standpoint of staff is how is that going to function? We don't know yet. We know CATS is doing some plans for the station, a station plan. And to be fair, this is a concern for this whole quadrant, right? And we kind of mentioned that in the staff report. If we want this whole quadrant to be TOD, if we're saying this quadrant belongs with this quadrant, there has to be a marrying of the minds in the middle and there has to be good connection. And right now we don't feel that connection exists because the only real crossings are right at 73 and one 15 and then coach lane, which is a very large distance away. Um, so how does that work? We don't know, but the application to TOD, um, That's an essential aspect of staff's concern is how does this work? It was NR, it's TOD, it's higher density. How does this density work and become a part of what's across the street where it needs to be?

Right. That makes sense. Because honestly, when you're when you're looking at this, it's going to be a challenge for whatever goes there to try to get across to the train station across Old Statesville Road. Yeah. So I can see why that would be a struggle. Are you thinking maybe a tunnel or?

I mean, we talked about doing a tunnel under 73. The problem on the old Statesville side is the bridge and CATS. How does that work? And so this is the one good thing that we do appreciate here is we're starting to ask that question. And then we have to try to figure out an answer where we're going down. One thing I will point out too, there was a plan. I'm gonna go back to the end of my slide. This was the 73 corridor plan that kind of identified in the applicant staff report the area of transit-oriented development. So if you look in that circle, it says transit-oriented development, but notice those words afterwards, station area plan needed. And I think that's the missing element here is how do we take the west and connect it to the east? How do we make that all function? If it can't, That's a hindrance of the intent of the TOD. We got to get people to walk. We got to get people to bike. If they don't, it's another high-intensity development that's not functional there.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions, Commissioner Walsh?

Yeah, just to piggyback on the sidewalk, a couple things come to mind. When we had North Mac High School, we had a crossing that was down from the school. You cross, you had to come back. People didn't use it. So now we've got like this Hawk signal or whatever. It's called. I'm sure Stephen to correct me on the name of it But at any rate, yeah, I could see people leaving that development trying to bolt across Old Statesville Road so that that gives me some concern back to the question of parking you said there's 2.7 Spaces per unit. Does that include the two-car garages? Okay, my son lives in Charlotte and he has a two-car he lives in a townhouse community have a two-car garages, plus he has his driveway, and they've got some extra spaces, and they're always jammed up there. So that's like basically an extra space for every two units. So that seems a little tight. Robert, I wish I could have stopped you, but you said something, and it was a bunch of slides ago. You said something to the effect that And maybe I misheard it. You can't have commercial and TOD?

So in TODR, if you're within a quarter of a mile walk, in TODR, you can include up to 10,000 square feet of commercial retail office space. This is outside of that quarter mile. So this is about a third of a mile. So it's outside of that quarter mile catchment area. So you would not be allowed to put that 10,000 square feet of commercial retail space in a TODR specific area. zoning district with that length away from the transit station.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Just another point of clarity that

Just another point of clarity. I think that's a surprising part that TOD within quarter mile also there's a requirement of 250 dwellings. So if this was supposedly a non-attached product, maybe a stacked product, you could squeeze more density and then it would be eligible for commercial in terms of if it was within a quarter mile of the train station. Thank you.

Any other questions Mr. Cornett.

Yeah, just one quick one for this is more for our our team. As it was a Clark Street that's where they be crossing over the street. Coach Lane coach, I think you is that going to be upgraded to have like a a stoplight.

So you could have a crosswalk that's correct traffic signal would be there and you know that pedestrian accommodation in some fashion we don't know what that is OK.

Just just wanted to add to that question. So from Samford to coach lane. There is an elevated Railway track that's gonna come down at coach lane At that intersection is where cats have communicated to us will be the entry point to the railway station so anybody on the west side of the Old Statesville Road whether this this development or any development to the south or north will have to enter at coach lane and And Coach Lane is a five-minute walk, less than a quarter mile from the edge of the development. So just giving some data points here for consideration.

I ALSO WANTED TO SHARE THIS NEXT SLIDE THAT WE HAD TOO, JUST A QUICK EXAMPLE OF WHAT THAT ONE-THIRD MILE WALK IS LIKE. IF YOU WALKED RIGHT OUT THE FRONT DOOR OF TOWN HALL, IF IT WAS UNLOCKED, I DON'T KNOW, IT'S USUALLY LOCKED, AND YOU WALKED OVER THE DOWNTOWN GREENWAY AND YOU WALKED TO SHERWOOD DRIVE ON THE DOWNTOWN GREENWAY, THAT WOULD BE ONE-THIRD MILE WALK. AND THEN SIMILARLY IN OTHER TOD PROJECTS IN HUNTERSVILLE, THIS IS TOWN ONE. YOU SEE UP NORTH TO THE BACK OF THE PROJECT IS WHERE THE TOWN HOME SECTION IS. And to get, that's TODR, to get to the future CAT station, you have to walk through the neighborhood, albeit a little bit better walk than walking on 115, but you have to still cross Hambright Road. And in the CRTPO Comprehensive Transportation Plan, Hambright Road and 115 are both classified as major thoroughfares, so you're still crossing a major thoroughfare. So it's just a similar situation. Thanks.

can i ask a question about the buffer situation so it's not required in this circumstance but it did say it was addressed on your on the applicant's slide so what um what intent do you have to address the buffer situation there perfect thank you good evening my name is nick buchan i've been assisting the rezoning team uh yeah working with staff i fully intend to

locate a landscape area along the perimeter edges, mutual edges with existing single family. Probably be a mix of evergreen trees and evergreen shrubs within a planted width, probably 10 feet or so. And then I did wanna reiterate for the frontage. This site is proposing a 12 foot SUP, shared use path along the Highway 115 frontage. And then any development to the south to Sanford would have that continuation. And then of course the sidewalk connectivity to the north. Unfortunately, Caldwell Station, that's an eight foot sidewalk that's under construction right now. I don't know what happened with that. but that would be great if that 12 foot sup carried all the way through to coach lane but everything to the south of there and along this frontage will have that 12 foot shared use path all right thank you any other questions for the applicant

OK. We do have a couple of public comments, so thank you so much. We will begin with Bob Taylor. If you're still here, you have three minutes. And just a reminder that you're presenting to the board, but we will not be responding. And please keep your comments civil and directed to the board. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Clark and members of the town board. Appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all tonight. My name is Bob Taylor of Taylor Properties Group, and I've been a commercial real estate broker in Charlotte and Huntersville since 1982. and i was closely involved in the development of what ultimately became the birkdale village back in the day i'm here tonight representing the roy family and glory church world outreach ministries to support northline row rezoning and offer my perspective based on extensive real estate experience and my relationships with the individual property owners across the broader 40 acre track in the northwest corner of how we've 115 and Sam for Bob can you pull the Michael a closer to your mouth please yes, but you want me to start over now you're OK.

Thank you.

I'm sorry about that. First, just a little history. Most of you know that any time you try to put together an assemblage of 10 or more property owners, it's a challenge because each property owner has different circumstances, timelines, and expectations for their property. In my experience, expecting this number of property owners to reach the same decision and move forward at the same time is very difficult, and keeping them together over the sales cycle is even harder. However, in this case, while not everyone took part, we achieved remarkable unanimity on the sale price and the marketing strategy from those that did. From day one, after studying the Huntersville 2040 plan and after meeting with Jack Seminole and Anthony Roberts, it was clear that the best path forward would be to focus our efforts only on buyers who would purchase the entire site with one closing and be committed to building a unique walkable residential and commercial mixed-use community that turned out to be a challenge for those only interested in doing say for example apartments we were covered up with apartment Prospects who wanted to buy just the north side of the end of the property They were just not willing to buy the whole track and then take the risk that they could find someone Who quickly who would buy the retail portion from them? so We decided not to entertain any buyer who wanted to buy just part of the property. Once again, we made a firm commitment when I signed the listings with most of the property owners in this quadrangle The red line or the train, commuter train, was a long-term off. It wasn't something that was given serious attention at that time.

Mr. Taylor, your time is up. WAS IT THREE THREE MINUTES BOY THAT WAS QUICK OKAY SORRY ABOUT THAT MAYBE I CAN LEAVE SOMETHING WITH YOU FEEL FREE TO EMAIL US AT BOARD MEMBERS AT HUNTERSVILLE.ORG THAT WILL GET TO EVERYBODY ALL AT ONCE MY APOLOGIES NO PROBLEM NEXT WE HAVE CLINT GANDY YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES

Good evening. I had a bunch of stuff written down, but it doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of sense to read all that. I would just say that a few things. One, I live in a house and own two rental houses that adjoins this property. And I know all the neighbors who adjoin the property in question want to sell. We chose this buyer because we thought he could get this deal done. I understand the challenges that staff have and that all you guys have in making a tough decision like this. And I admire everybody for sticking with it. And I think we're close. And I think I'd like to see the deal get done. A couple things. THIS WHOLE TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT THING, I MEAN, FOR 20-PLUS YEARS, THAT'S BEEN THE IDEA IS THAT THIS WHOLE QUADRANT BEAT TOD ON BOTH SIDES OF 115. IT DOESN'T MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE TO ME TO SAY THAT THERE'S NO WAY TO MAKE THE WEST SIDE OF OLD STATESFIELD ROAD TOD BECAUSE WE CAN'T GET PEOPLE ACROSS THE ROAD. I MEAN, THERE ARE PROBABLY SOLUTIONS TO THAT. FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, THE WHOLE BUFFER DISCUSSION BETWEEN MY SINGLE FAMILY HOMES AND THESE TOWNHOMES IS A NON ISSUE. I MEAN, THAT'S EASILY DEALT WITH. OUR GOAL IS TO SELL THIS PROPERTY. SO DON'T LET THAT GET IN THE WAY, PLEASE. THE LAST THING I WOULD SAY IS THE, YOU KNOW, I DO THINK THERE'S VALUE IN HAVING homes that are able to be purchased by people rather than just a ton more apartments. And any of these goals that you guys want to achieve with mixed use and retail and things like that could be achieved in the southern development opportunities. Again, I'm here represent my wife and myself and all the other Jason probably under so I would encourage everybody just to push this deal through you know in one way or or and one. For matter another thank you.

Thank you Sir. And with that this public hearing is concluded. We'll move on to item 10 B. CONDUCT PUBLIC HEARING ON PETITION R26-11 OR REQUEST BY SECOND STREET VILLAGE. MR. FARBER.

GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. BEFORE I BEGIN, I'LL SUBMIT MY STAFF REPORT INTO THE RECORD. So the applicant Second Street Village LLC is proposing to rezone 1.147 acres of neighborhood residential with conditions to neighborhood residential with conditions in order to revise an already rezoned property for an additional four townhomes. And here's just to provide a little context of where the site is. It's at the corner of Church Street and First Street. To the south and to the east of the property, we have existing single-family residential properties. To the west, we have the Church Street and future Red Line corridor. And to the north, we have the Second Street Village townhome and apartment development that was approved last October. So the property in question was previously rezoned in July of last year for 14 townhomes, as you can see up on the screen. And as I stated, the applicant Second Street Village LLC is also the developer of the recently approved townhome and apartment project. And today's rezoning is directly to the south of this. So the applicant is proposing to increase the townhome count from 14 to 18 townhomes. This site will not require a TIA and all of the parking spaces will be within each of the townhomes private garages. Additionally, they'll be providing two interconnected urban open spaces, a plaza at the corner of Church Street and First Street, and a green directly to the north of the property, which will also connect with the already approved moon roof. Additionally, the 12-foot buffer That was previously approved will also be remaining on this project and there's no buffer to the North. The previously provided SCM is being replaced with that urban open space in the town homes and the stormwater will be piped to the underground detention of the 2nd street village project to the North. The project is providing a 21-foot pedestrian zone along North Church Street, which would be made up of a 9-foot planting strip with street tree wells and an expanded sidewalk, in addition to the 12-foot side path, which will be part of the future scene trail. And this is consistent with the already approved pedestrian zones to the projects to the north. And this is just a side-by-side of the currently approved rezoning project urban open space and the proposed urban open space for this rezoning. And again, just the change from the current to the proposed. These are the townhome elevations that the applicant are providing. They're consistent with what was approved to the Second Street Village project to the north. And the applicant is providing or asking for seven modification requests. Five of those modification requests are keeping in, are the same as the approved modifications from the previous rezoning. The two additional modifications are for the ask for the additional height in the townhomes from 30 feet to 33 feet and a request to mitigate 100% of their tree save. CURRENTLY THE ORDINANCE LIMITS THAT MITIGATION TO 30%. THAT WOULD REQUIRE THEM TO KEEP THE SINGLE SPECIMEN TREE SHOWN IN RED. GIVEN THE SITE DESIGN CONSTRAINTS, STAFF IS IN SUPPORT OF THEIR REQUEST FOR 100% MITIGATION GIVEN THAT THIS TREE WOULD PREVENT THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SITE. I believe most of the mitigation will be provided on site. And I forgot to mention, we are in support of all seven of the mitigation or modification requests as the site is urban in nature and it's consistent with the downtown master plan and the future land use plan. THE SITES LOCATED WITHIN THE MIXED USE CENTER AND TOWN CORE FUTURE CHARACTER AREA OF THE 2040 HUNTERSVILLE COMMUNITY PLAN. AND THESE ARE ALL OF THE POLICIES OF THE 2040 HUNTERSVILLE COMMUNITY PLAN THAT SUPPORT THIS PROJECT. I WON'T GO INTO ALL OF THEM. I WILL HIGHLIGHT TWO OF THEM WHICH IS POLICY LU 8.2 AND POLICY DT 6 WHICH ESSENTIALLY CALL FOR HIGHER DESIGN STANDARDS. WE BELIEVE THIS PROJECT IS PROVIDING A HIGHER DESIGN STANDARD THAT GOES ABOVE THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF THE ORDINANCE BY PROVIDING TWO HIGH QUALITY URBAN OPEN SPACES THAT ARE INTERCONNECTED AS WELL AS CONNECTED TO THE PROJECTS ALREADY APPROVED TO THE NORTH. The downtown master plan also supports this project. The site is located in the red box shown on the screen, which makes up the residential B multifamily zone, which calls for apartments and attached housing with a building height range of two to three stories, which is what this project is proposing. Additionally, the downtown master plan calls for a interconnected urban streetscape with a boon roof, which the project is respecting as well. And with that, staff is in support of this project as long as all minor staff comments are addressed. If you have any questions, I can answer those for you. And the applicant is also here as well to answer any questions.

Commissioner Walsh.

Seems to be my night to talk about parking. So 18 new spaces, all of them are gonna be internal to the unit, so? 36 spaces total, yes. So if somebody comes to visit, where do they park?

uh... so either on street parking or with the project or the parking to the north and one of those you said the exception i think was the six one was no one street parking required or something uh... so they're asking for a modification requests to not provide on street parking um staff was in support of that given that if that was provided that would eat into the ability to provide the 12-foot seam seam trail and that's also consistent with our approval from the previous rezonings as well well as my fellow commissioner quarrels would say i'm a little slow if if there's only two spaces per unit and they don't have to do on street parking where do people come who are visiting or is there something close uh so THERE WOULD BE STREET PARKING ON CHURCH STREET, NOT ON STREET PARKING, BUT THEY COULD PARK THERE, AS WELL AS ANY OF THE PARKING THAT'S OPEN FROM THEIR PROJECT TO THE NORTH.

OKAY. GOT IT. AND THIS WILL ALL BE CONTROLLED BY ONE HOA? THAT WOULD BE A QUESTION FOR THE APPLICANT. THANKS.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? DO YOU WANT TO ASK THE PARKING QUESTION TO THE APPLICANT? The HOA question, I guess.

That, yep. Excuse me. Thank you. It's Jay Henson, 121 Gilead Road. I guess the process here is we followed the previous rezoning and as we were doing the project to the north and a couple site constraints were with the stormwater pond primarily causing some of the connection to not work out because they had to raise that up so high. tried to work through some solutions and end up taking the project over and purchasing the property so that we could have more of a cohesive design there and i think one of the better things that we did we added a few units made them a little bit larger units but taking that pond out and be able to, you can see on that booner at the top, we've added some curves to it to kind of relate to the green space in between the units in there. So we wanted to really play that up and enhance that. We thought that was a little better add than to have the pond there. Other than that, I mean, it just connects with our project to the north and glad to answer any questions you may have.

I just had that one is this all going to be like one big a toy type of thing correct, it's kind of what I thought OK, thanks.

Any other questions. We do not have any public comments for this so that we will conclude thank you thank you. I'm number 10 see conduct a public hearing on petition T a 2, 6, 0, 3, request by Bradley daily.

Good evening like to enter the staff report into the record. So we have text amendment 26 dash 03 that was submitted by Mister Bradley daily regarding accessory structures. I won't read the entire paragraph. I know you all have it and you've read it. So this is the existing language regarding accessory structure rules. The final sentence is highlighted as that is the subject of the text amendment, which indicates that the total area of all of your accessory structures can't exceed the heated area of the first floor of the principal structure. And the idea behind that being the requirement currently is that your accessory structures are intended to be subordinate to your principal structure. So currently, if you have a large home on a smaller lot, you're advantaged because you have more heated area. However, if you have a smaller or moderately sized home on a larger lot, you're a bit of a disadvantage in terms of how much area you're allowed to occupy with accessory structures. The applicant is proposing to strike the final sentence of the existing definition and propose two different scenarios, one for lots less than five acres and one for lots five acres and greater. Lots less than five acres would continue with the existing rule, and lots greater than five acres would be allowed to have 200 twice the total area of the heated area of the first floor of the principal structure. For some context of the properties that we have in town, there would be a relatively significant impact to this text amendment. However, I do want to provide some details to the current map. Planning Board might see something slightly different because I think we're going to, and I'll explain what they might see. This current map includes areas that are open spaces in town, areas that are publicly owned in town, and areas that have not yet been subdivided but have existing development approvals. I don't know if I can draw, but there's Okay. Where do you do that? Here. That's fine. This section here is an approved subdivision. A lot of these parcels out in Mountain Island Lake, which I'm just haphazardly drawing over there or in Lake Norman are owned by public entities. Then you have here, which is a golf course. So just to give you an idea, some of those parcels may be, so the number might be slightly less when planning board sees it, but nonetheless, it would be a relatively significant impact. So, um, as we often do, we looked at our surrounding communities and communities across the state as a point of comparison. Um, Huntersville and Charlotte currently have the same rule. Um, the other municipalities here are, um, across a spectrum. Um, there are some that have very small limitations. like Concord, and then there are some that have sliding scales of what you're allowed to have based on the size of your properties. But for the most part, most other municipalities we found have allowed less than Huntersville does, except for Charlotte. Staff have a minor, um, revision that we, we are proposing to the language. So rather than having a general rule and a large lots rule, we're just saying lots less than five acres and lots five acres or greater. so as mentioned huntersville and charlotte are a bit different from other municipalities that we looked at so i'll address why staff is in support of the texas amendment so the texas amendment would allow an increase to the area of accessory structures for the larger lots we have found over many years that the property owners of larger lots have expressed a significant interest in having more area for accessory structures. One of the situations that these property owners are in is that some of them are not bona fide farms. We find that there are a lot of properties in town that are bona fide farms, and that matters because if you are a bona fide farm, accessory structures, that you have on your property that are used for the farming use are exempt from this rule. But if you're not a bona fide farmer, you just have a large lot. You don't have that exemption. And in some cases, people want those larger structures just for fun. In some cases, they want them because they have a large tractor and they can't store it in something as small as what their home might allow under the current rules. So that's one reason it's just the demand from property owners. Another is to prevent the subversion of the intent of the ordinance. So we want people to have a compliant way to get what they want as long as it is consistent with the ordinance. And we find generally that this is for where most of these properties are located. As you saw on the map, most of the properties that are larger are in our rural and transitional residential areas and so they're surrounded by other large properties as well and lastly the rules about the location of the subordinate structures the accessory structures would remain the same where most of your accessory structures are required to be in the rear yard or the side yard so they wouldn't be prominently featured in front of a home The next step for this text amendment is planning board recommendation later this month with town board final action potentially next month happy to take any questions and The applicants are here if you have any questions of them as well.

Thank you any questions? No questions right now I'm going to be the one with questions. So in this accessory structure type situation we're talking about like a growl like not garage, but maybe a crash for tractor or you know, maybe your collect vintage vehicles you need somewhere else to put them that kind of thing or with this count as a residence also could it be is accessory dwelling unit or no.

Sure so these rules would impact your Okay, so there are two parts to that question. One, accessory dwelling units are categorized as accessory structures. Per recent Changes to state statutes, staff are addressing that in a separate text amendment that will be forthcoming regarding accessory dwellings. We're working on a few text amendments with legal right now to address some changes from the state. But yes, accessory dwelling units are currently categorized as accessory structures and would be a part of that total area that you're allowed. Other types of accessory structures are barns or sheds or the carports, things like that. Usually what we see are sheds, the storage buildings for vintage cars, and just storage facilities for people.

Would animal housing be included in that?

It would and the same would follow if you're bona fide farm you probably would not count as long as it was with related to the farming use, but if you are not a bona fide farm and yes, it would count OK. That's all I have thank you sure so commissioners moment I just have a question with those structures be allowed to be heated and cold.

Yes, they would OK, thank you sure.

Any other questions or questions for the applicant. All right we don't have any public comments for this so thank you very much thank you. We're on to item number 11 a which is consider approving arts and science Council fiscal year 2027 budget amendment. Miss McGinnis.

This is the carryover from the August 18th meeting that we did for external agencies. This is for the arts and science Council and they requested $25,000.

Commissioner coronet I'm going to pass this to you if you're leading the charge on this one.

Yeah, thank you. This one kind of came in late breaking last two weeks, so I kind of took the reins on this one. This group has been awesome for Huntersville. They help us with Hello Huntersville. The Raptor Center, they do a lot of arts and education for the town, and I really think it's VALUABLE TO SUPPORT THEM BECAUSE OF ALL THE WORK THEY DO FOR US. SO I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE THEM FOR A $20,000 DONATION FOR THE ARTS AND SCIENCE COUNCIL FOR FISCAL YEAR 2027 AS A BUDGET AMENDMENT.

IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES UNANIMOUSLY.

THANK YOU.

And then we'll go to closing comments. Commissioner Smallwood, I wanna start with you this time.

Oh, it's my turn. I just want to thank Gabor with the Carolina Raptor Center for coming to speak this evening. Unlike Mayor Clark, I have never been a fan of vultures until recently, but I do have such respect for them after learning what an important role they play in our ecosystem. So I want to encourage our community to go and visit and see what an amazing place they have and what all they do. And lastly, I just wanted to say I hope our students have had a wonderful a week back at school and have a great year.

Commissioner Quarles. Mayor Pro Tem Hunt. Commissioner Walsh. Commissioner Cornett.

Just want to echo what Heather had to say. Heather and I went to get the Raptor Center together and learned all about it and it was a really cool place. So I think it's a great place to bring your kids and it's just kind of a crown jewel that I honestly didn't know we had until I went with Heather and I was so surprised. So I feel bad I didn't know that.

Yeah, so I'm a big fan of Sadie, the turkey vulture that lives at the Carolina Raptor Center, and so you happen to have a chance to meet her, take a chance to go meet her. She is an amazing creature, and I'm her biggest fan, I think, as you've probably heard before. anyway um i'm gonna give a shout out to all the educators and teachers that have had their first and second weeks of school um we are dog tired and so send love to all of us maybe starbucks gift cards to some of your ptas can work on those we're a little tired but it's going great and also keep an eye out for school buses on the roads make sure that our our children are getting from school and home and back again safely pleased and with that i'll take a motion to adjourn I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO ADJOURN. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND.