Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

like to open the meeting. Everybody please uh please stand for the invocation. I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. Call the meeting to order. Approval of minutes 31825. The agenda. I think first

my move that we approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? I I Okay. Approval of the minutes from 31825. I make a motion that we approve the minutes from July 15th, 2025. I'll second. Well, all in favor? I think you're

This is This is the board of uh adjustments minute or agenda.

Sorry. Okay, just did that, right? We just did the agenda. Okay, we need to do the approval of the minutes for July 15th, 2025. I move that we approve the minutes from July 15, 2025. And I'll second that. Next U agenda is all in favor. Oh, I'm sorry. All in favor? I approved.

Item three, general resoning RZ25.06.01 Stallings Church Incorporated. Stallings Church Incorporated will request the general reszoning for 1125 Stallings Road from IND to CIV and for Stallings Road for SFR-3 to CIV. Hi.

Hi, planning board. My name's Bridge. If I haven't met you already, I know I have. I'll be presenting the general resoning for RZ250601. Stallings Church has submitted a general resoning request for two parcels, one of which is zoned single family residential 3, the other that is zoned industrial. Both will be reszoned to civic. They are 2.944 acres total in size. We had a community meeting on the 4th of August. today's planning board and then town council hearing will be on the 22nd of September. The two parcels are located at 1125 Stallings Road. As I said, Stallings Church owns them. They are currently zoned SFR3, this yellow one, and then Industrial, which is this purple one. The only current existing use on these parcels is on the purple industrial parcel. There is a single family residence that they plan to demolish and they are permitted to demolish it

today.

That started today. Uh as I said, the project size is 2.944 acres. This is an aerial and street view. Um this would be the single family residence that's on it that will be demolished is being demolished currently. Just a little bit of history for the parcels. These were reszoned in 2018 when we adopted the new development ordinance. They were originally general retail, which is this pink, and R10, which is a residential district, which is this yellow. As I said, they were zoned to industrial and single family residential. Three, for the future land use, both parcels are identified as suburban commercial centers, even though they are. Uh however, staff does not see any negative impacts of reszoning them to civic for the surrounding areas. This is in the small area, the town center small area plan. They are identified as mixeduse workplace and utility. Again, staff does not see any negative impacts with reszoning these to civic. Staff recommends approval of RZ250601 to reszone the property to Civic. The resoning will make the property consistent with the current use and bring a consistency to the parcels that are owned by Stallings Church. Um I have to read the statement of consistency for the record. So staff recommends approval for RZ250601 with a statement that the reasonzoning is inconsistent but reasonable because the change to Civic is consistent with the current use of the property and property owners. Any questions?

Can you share with us uh if there was any feedback from the community meeting? Yeah, there was not much feedback. They just wanted to know what the plans were for the site. And as far as we know, they don't have any current plans to do much with the site other than tearing down that single family residential uh house. Okay. Any other questions? No, but as a general reasonzoning, then any use by right, they'd be allowed to do without additional conditions imposed by the town. Correct. Yes, sir. Okay. Any other questions?

Nope. Nope. Have a motion. I make a motion that we um before we do that, since the applicant is here, can we hear from them? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Would you like to say anything? They

if you have any questions for them, they can. We we um we have owned that property since 1994, the end of the year. Um there's been there was a residential a resident on at 11:25. Um I think the house was 62 years old. We're not exactly sure why it ended up being zoned industrial up until up until maybe two and a half years ago. Um, we actually had people living in the home that were renting the home from the church. Um, we found out that, um, we had there was a a mold problem underneath the house, a water issue. So, we had to ask them to vacate the property. The property has been vacant since. Um, they started to today um, demolishing the property. So the property will be gone in the ne completely gone in the next couple of days and our only plan for that property for the foreseeable future is that it'll be made into a lawn. We don't have any plans to do anything. The reason that we requested the uh reszoning is in the rear of 1125 um Stallings Road and we believe it goes into the lot next to it and which is why we included that in our resoning request. We have um a prayer garden uh that was built several years ago um in memory of one of our longtime um members who passed. And so that's uh you know that's the only use the church has for the or the church is currently using those two pieces of property. We own other pieces of property I believe one two three more pieces of property um far uh one more down Stallings Road and

two behind. We're not asking for any changes for those pieces of property. If anybody has any questions we'll certainly do our best to answer them. Did you Did you have a survey done? Pardon me. Did you have a survey done? Um, not recently. No. Do you know how old the sur most recent survey is? Pardon me. I'm sorry. I can't. Do you know how old the most recent survey is? Um, no I do not. But you have the church has had the title this whole time to the property. Yes. Yes. You know, they were both deed to the church together. Both of those lots. They're on the same deed. Okay. Good. And that deed is dated December 30th, 1994.

Okay. Thank you. Is it is the primary benefit of going from industrial to the the new zoning just in the future if you did want to do something, it would be more in line with what the uses of a church are versus an industrial use? Yes, that's it's the same zone. We're asking for the same zoning that the actual church property is. We're just asking to extend it to those two lots. Right. as I saw in your application that you said, you know, we were unsure as to why that was changed in 2018 to begin with.

And and and and we the church need to take some um fault for the fact that um I guess we weren't paying attention well enough because we really didn't realize until we got our paperwork with the re-evaluation this year and we thought, "Oh, why is this industrial?" And then come to find out it's been industri. Actually, that property has been zoned industrial. It's been zoned residential. It's been zoned commercial over the years. I went back 15 years. I think it's 15 years um on the Union County website to look each year what it was uh zoned and it it changed over the years. Um uh you know, I haven't been involved in any of the administration part of the church all of those years. I have the last several years. I'm the treasurer at the church, but I'm not exactly sure of the reasons, but we just felt it needed to be zoned the same or have the same zoning as the church.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion. Yeah. I'll make a motion that we um approve this request uh as presented. Second. A second. All in favor? I I We need the statement of reasonable consistency. Yes. I find that the we find the board finds that the property is inconsistent but is reasonable and it is consistent with the uh property beside of it. Is it a motion? Yes. I'm sorry. I made a motion. I'll

second. All in favor? I thank you. I don't think who seconded it. Tony did the first one. I did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, maybe I did. Okay, I did. Thank you. That way. I know it was that way. I can hear him.

You just were in two different things. The same, but one says uh BOA and the other one was planning. All right, I screwed up. Okay, where am I?

Okay. Uh, item four is text amendment DX25.08.01- TIA ordinance amendment. Staff request an update on the TIA ordinance in article 7 stalling developmental ordinance to improve clarity, efficiency, and consistency of existing TIA process. Yeah, thank you. Evening planning board. I'm Kevin Parker. I'm the engineering director. Might be a new face for you. So, pleasure to meet you all. Tony, I know we we know.

Yep. Mike, we've met as well. So, good to see you again. um here tonight with uh with hopefully simple simple request and actually um given my ignorance on the process of amending our text uh our UDO um I already went to council kind of got their approval as well then Max was like wait a second we got to go the uh the legal route and go through planning board and all the formalities so um kind of jumped the gun now we're now we're doing uh you know put put the cart before the horse on that one But uh no, ultimately this is a request to just slightly amend our TIA ordinance to give developers the option to hire their own consultants to perform TAS. Currently, our process puts staff basically in lead of performing these TAs. Granted, we hire consultants to perform these TAs. the the developer hands over some funds that we give to consultants to perform TAS and we just get caught up in the middle and we can't meet developer schedules. So logistically there's just a lot of inefficiencies that arise from staff being middlemen in that TIA process. And so ultimately what this amendment proposes is that give the developer the option to hire their own consultant to perform to perform the TIA and then the developer would also be on the hook for paying the town to hire a consultant to review on behalf of the town. So we still have full authority to dictate dictate the process. uh the applicant, the developer will tell us who their consultant is. We can say yay or nay at any proc at any point in the process. We can say we don't like where this is going. Doesn't this isn't passing the smell test. We're going to restart this and we're doing the TIA. So, we still have full authority and full uh enforcement capabilities throughout this

process. Truly just trying to optimize the efficiency of this process. Uh because a lot of the times the developers, they have their consultants ready to go and they they can be out doing these TAs and collecting this data um next day next day of from approval from us. So taste there's a little more red tape on our end that we have to cut through to uh to get some processes going. So truly just um maximizing trying to maximize efficiency here. Yes, sir. Kevin, will the town maintain a list of like pre-approved uh contractors that can do these TAS? Yes. A lot of what NCDOT has got a list. okay,

of of approved consultants and we abide by that. Typically, we've worked with them frequently. Um, so we won't always cross reference that list because we we have experience with them. But yes, if there's somebody that we haven't heard of, they're not on that NCDOT list. We have the authority to be like, "Uhuh, you got to get somebody else." Yes, sir. the the skeptic in me worries that uh and this may very well not be the case but it could be you know if I'm a developer and like you know it used to be 10 out of 10 doctors recommend you smoke lucky strike of you know if if I get a a consultant for a TIA and it it happens to be favorable for me what's the point where you as the engineering staff say no this is a this has red flags to us

regarding the consultant itself or regarding anything with the TIA

both well we're still reviewing it on behalf of the town. So truly this is just a really where this is I I certainly understand your concern and they still have to meet our standards and they have to meet our approval. So we go through a full review, they just go out and it expedites their data collection truly. So um if if we see red flags, we say no, we don't agree with that. That's why we've got our third party consultant reviewing on behalf of us to kind of look at that technical data on behalf of us and then staff still is negotiating on behalf of the town because there are negotiation pieces to these TIA what's feasible what's not feasible what mitigates this this traffic that this site's producing and we are still looking at that and making those requirements on behalf of the town. So there's always going to be red flags and that's through no matter what no matter what the process is. That's just something that that's part of the natural TIA process. So this this amendment wouldn't change that process. It would just get us to that point quicker if that makes sense.

Can you can you give us just a without naming a case in particular of like why this would benefit your workflow like what's slowing it down right now?

Oh absolutely. We had I I'll give a specific case. Uh the Cambridge Hall TIA um it took us about 2 years to get to get that approved. TIA should be approved and done in gosh 6 months. Um but it I came in I was new. I didn't know what was going on. I was coordinating with our consultant who who the developer I don't even know where we got where we started with that one. So it was just me caught up doing negotiating change orders between the consultant that's working for us and the developer. Um I couldn't meet to discuss the TAS and the proposed mitigation requirements. Um I was coordinating schedules and things like that. just kind of that that's where the holdup is. Just you the finer details of things that prevent the developer from actually getting the data, performing the reports, and truly just going through the finite details of everything. And I I know that wasn't a comprehensive answer, but it it's truly you get stuck with negotiations that really I don't feel staff should be a part of. discussing change orders and things like that.

So it removes you from having to be the middleman. Exactly. Yes. Okay. So you said um before our consultant had to our consultant did what did he actually do the TIA did? Okay. So that's what I I'm saying. So now if the developer picks somebody else so you have actually two sets of consultants eyes. Mhm. on this, which is probably hopefully better. Yes, ma'am. Maybe. Yeah.

Or either and then in that process say ours says it's a horrible thing. Don't like it. Then we have the option to say no, we're going to use we're going to do our own or we're going to Yes. Correct. Yes. That's the way.

That's correct. And if if it eases your mind, um there really are no major red flags that we see in these TAs. Um in the sense of a developer trying to get one over on us and try and sneak something by us, data is data. It's easily traffic counts are easily referenceable to NCDOT data. If something looks off, it's easy to see and it's typically just um a software error that was inputed incorrectly. So um we we don't see that frequently. It more comes down to the negotiation of mitigating the impacts of that development. Will this result in a net uh increase in cost to a developer

if since there now there's going to have to be a second consultant to review this and that I assume is at the developer's cost as well. Yes sir. So are they going to be paying for the initial study and the review and now that results in a more expensive process for the developer?

You know sir I can't I can't answer that for sure. I would definitely say it adds an additional cost. However, I I I think they have the also have the flexibility to get a cheaper TIA consultant to perform the TIA upfront. So, I think the cost offset a little bit. Um, but in the grand scheme of things, uh, a TIA review that we would do um, would be about seven grand and a TIA a full TIA is 40 to 50 grand. So it's it's not a huge impactful cost in the in the grand scheme of overall development site development. Is the savings to the town not necessarily a tangible number but more in manpower hours. Correct. Correct. Yeah.

It just get it just keeps the process moving and they can go out collect data ASAP and they don't have I don't have to sign off on anything. They can go out there and do do their data collection. Um, and it's truly just pass through funds that we accept from the developer, give to our consultant. So, yeah, there is no monetary saving. It It's just time saving. And you could argue time is money. What's the average time that it takes for a TIA to collect data or from approve for or from start to finish? Six months, give or take. The one that you were talking about was like two years. Yeah. Yep.

Any other questions? No. Good. No. Appreciate you all. Thank you. Have a motion, please. All right. I'd like to make a motion to approve TX25.08.01 and find that it is consistable consistent and reasonable with the town's comprehensive land use plan. I'll second that. All in favor? I I Thank you all. Nice to meet you. Thanks. See you again, Kev.

Like to um a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. I'll second. All in favor? I I Yeah. You guys good?