City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening everybody. This is our pre-aggenda meeting for the month of July. It is July 3rd and we are called to order. Uh we do have quorum here this evening. Um we are missing a few folks this evening and missing Mr. How and Mr. Muhammad and Miss is joining us by Zoom and Patty. We hope you are feeling better um or beginning to at least on your road to recovery. Um we will start with an invocation then the pledge of allegiance. So if you will we'll start with the invocation. Father God we thank you for this day. We thank you for this summer season and the chance to be with families and vacations. And we thank you for this weekend, the special weekend as we celebrate the independence of our country. and we thank you for your hand in that. We uh ask that you be with us this evening. We ask that you uh be with us as we make decisions for this town. Help uh keep our staff safe and all that they do and uh give this board wisdom and discernment in the decisions that we make um tonight and next week as well. Amen. Please join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, we have a few things going on this evening. In addition to reviewing our July uh 8th agenda, this uh meeting is lovingly dubbed the Steve Blunt show tonight. Uh we have three public hearings to to hold and uh so the first public hearing is going to be a resoning for a hearing for parcel 323A15

at 1835 Hollywood Drive and they are seeking resoning from SFR1 to SFR2 classification. Welcome Mr. H. Sorry Mike. No you're fine. Thank you mayor members of the board. This is obviously a non-controversial hearing tonight since we have no one in attendance. All three of these are very simple. Uh this one was a reasonzoning request based on a need for a subdivision. So I'll run you through some slides very quickly. It's 1.29 calculated acres versus 1.44. That's not unusual. The lot width, the frontage of the lot is 252 feet and that'll be critical in just a minute. Uh the owner of the property, there's one house existing. He wants to subdivide it all so we can build another house. And it's located in our ATJ but not in our municipal limits. U that little blue dot up the top middle is where it's located out on Hollywood Drive right past Grub. That's a little closer view of it. That's an aerial view. You can see the water treatment plant to the east of the site. If you could read that, you could see what the existing zoning is, but that one will actually show you a little better. Immediately adjacent to it is SFR1's, FF, SFR2s, a fair amount of AG wrapping around it, and then some civic for where the water treatment plant is. Uh, this is the problem. The property owner came to me requesting a subdivision of that property. And although it's a fairly large property being zoned SFR1, as you can see, if I divided it in two, you come up with two lots that are 126 feet wide each.

And for SFR1, they required to be 133 feet. So, he almost made it, but not quite. So he agreed to request a resoning so that the frontage would only be required to be 72 feet. And with 72 feet, he could actually get three lots. And he hasn't quite decided yet. Uh depending on the topography, he hadn't even had it surveyed yet to see exactly how it will lay out. Uh we did have a neighborhood meeting. Two neighbors showed up in addition to the owner and the contractor, and they were all in agreement that this would fit the neighborhood with no problem at all. Uh, so this was our schedule on running through this. We're up to the point now of having the public hearing and then Tuesday night we will ask you to approve the resoning. So I'll be glad to answer any questions or you can have your public hearing. All right. Thank you, Mr. B. Board. Any questions at this point? All right. Hearing none. Uh, the public hearing is open. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? No sir. All right. No one signed up to speak. That being the case and no additional questions or comments. Is there a motion to close this public hearing? Move to close. Motion by Miss Sledge. Second. Second by Mr. Hal. All in favor? All opposed. And that hearing is closed. Next public hearing is a text amendment authorizing zoning and subdivision administrator to assign street addresses as needed. I believe we've heard about this in the past from Mr. BL. We have no PowerPoint for this one. You do have a a copy of the proposed text amendment in your package. This was basically came up when in my normal course of duties. I had to rejigger some uh addresses and somebody complained about the process and said, "Where do you get your authority to do this?" And

I said, "Well, I get it from my board of alderman and from our development ordinance and state statute." And she said, "Well, I need to see a copy of that." And I went look looking for that. And lo and behold, I couldn't find it anywhere. And look through state statutes. And surprisingly enough, uh, this has been pointed out in various school of government blogs in the past. There is no statute that gives us the authority. Uh there is a statute that gives the county authority to set addresses, but the county staff will not set addresses within the municipal limits. So, it's sort of a no man's land to help avoid this question in the future. All we're doing is a simple text amendment to our development ordinance that will give me the authority to set these addresses. So, be glad to answer any questions. All right, for any questions? I do have one question. Um, it was I always thought and maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that the address of a location was um demonstrated by their its distance from a connector to a road. Um, for instance, when I in Davidson County, I lived at 3798 Horseshoe Neck Road and that was exactly 3.798 miles from or 3 point whatever from the highway 150 and that's the way the addresses were done out there. Is that the case inside the municipal limits as well? No. Um, I know that to be true on interstates that interchanges are labeled based on their mileage separation. Uh, again, as far as a search of the state statutes, there is a statute that gives counties the authority to set addresses. Our county has a a policy that basically addresses based on what side of the road you're on, odd and even, and then sequential

numbering, and then each block goes up a hundred. in in basic numbers, but as far as distance from anything, know there's nothing in me that a lot of times it'll be set by zoning, right? So based on the distance like within a block, how many houses could technically or or buildings could technically fit within that block on a particular Yeah. If there's a long stretch of road and it's not divided into blocks, then we we always defer to the county because we're trying to keep the 911 system logical and therefore if it's anything out of the ordinary, we'll contact their people, discuss it, they'll give us some ideas on what we need to do and we'll follow their suggestion in most cases. Yeah. Well, I know over the 37 years I lived there, the address changed three times and when it went to the 911, that's when it became the 3798. Just wondering. All right. So, do we have anyone signed up for this public hearing? No, sir. All right. With no public hearings and unless there are any additional questions, is there a motion to close this public hearing? So, move. Motion by Miss Moody. Second by Mr. Miller. All in favor? All opposed. And that hearing is also closed. All right. Next public hearing is the growth agreement between Spencer and East Spencer. As you know, we've already approved the growth agreement between Salsbury and Spencer. And this is the uh the next one on the list. So, Mr. Mike, if you'll queue me up on that one. There it is. Very similar to the philosophy behind the growth agreement with Salsbury that you recently approved. This one's actually been in the works about as long as that one. We've been sort of waiting on the Salsbury agreement to be finalized so we could steal the legal language that they

used and not have to recreate the wheel. Um, basically this is our existing municipal and ETJ line between us and East Spencer running from the railroad east out towards the interstate. Uh you can see where Long Fair Road is to give you some reference to what that line is. Uh the growth areas east of I 85 is basically what we're talking about. So the areas on the west of I 85, we will follow the existing ETJ lines as far as annexations in the future. uh to the east of I 85. This gets into our ETJs and beyond our ETJs and it was decided at some time that the fairest place to divide this was long fairy road on our portion of it. We realized that we can never annex the Duke Energy facility. So we stopped our growth boundary at that line. Um, and this was requested by Rowan County when they set us on this course is to not only figure out a dividing line between the two municipalities, but figure out some logical distance out that we might annex in the future. As you're aware, and we've stressed this and everything we've produced, we can't annex unless somebody acts as ask us to annex them. And we have no leverage to push that in any way except in our ETJ where we control connections to municipal water and sewer. So our green area there that we think will be our growth boundary is a reasonable one. It pretty much follows our ETJ. East Spencer has a little more ambitions and I asked them for their uh input before I created this map and this is what they said they wanted to show on

the map. Uh so that's that's up to them. East Spencer will have to deal with this in the future. That's a great deal outside of their ETJ and uh anytime you create a map like this from my experience, somebody's going to see it and get worried about something happening that they don't want to happen. Most people out there don't want to be annexed. So every time they ask that question, we say we're not going to annex you. We have no right to. Even the reasonzoning that I just showed you, the neighborhood meeting, that was the primary question was, are you getting ready to annex this into the municipal limits? Answer is no. So, the rest of the uh slides are just a little more clarification so you can see clearly. There was one area at the end of Mont Clair, which is a road that runs south off the Long Ferry parallel to the access ramp. At the end of Mont Clair, there's an area that's in East Spencer's ETJ, but based on our growth in that area, they have agreed to include that in our growth area, even though it's in their ETJ. So, in the language of the agreement, this is spelled out. Uh that slightly different lighter color of green is in their ETJ, but it will be in our growth area. If somebody wants to be annexed there, they would come to us. And that's what it looks like. That strange looking looking appendage down the bottom there. Again, another map showing more detail, more clarity. This is what will be actually attached to the agreement for future reference. So again, for the public's purposes, this is not a map showing what we are going to annex. It's a map showing if someone comes to decide they want to be

annexed, they will know who to contact, be it Spencer or East Spencer. And then East Spencer and Salsbury have initiated conversations to do this same process. Be glad to answer any questions or have a public hearing. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. Board, any questions at this point? I got a question just on that last slide. I'm just curious right there that white little what kind of angle that is. That's I guess county property as far as they go. Um let's get you back to right away and all that area right there. Um what is that? That's already in Spencer's town limit. Portions of it are already in Spencer's town limits. the the upper and I've forgotten my geometry from youth to tell you what kind of shape that is, but a parallelogram or something like that. Uh that was an 80 acre site that was annexed some time ago for an industrial plant that okay and then right below that is the medical office building property. So that the area down below it is also in Spencer as well. Is that correct? Uh it's either in Spencer or in our ETJ. Okay. All right. So again, what the basics of the language of the agreement is we will honor each other's ETJs and then outside of our ETJs will follow this map basically divided by long free road. All right. Any other questions? All right. We'll open that public hearing. Anyone signed up for this? No, sir. And with no one signed up and no additional questions, is there a motion to close public hearing? Motion to close the public hearing. The sledge

and second by Mr. How? All right. All in favor. All opposed. And that public hearing is also closed. We will now move to the review of the July agendy 8th agenda. I do have a um volunteer to give the invocation next Tuesday. I can do that. All right. Thank you, Miss Sledge. We'll have the pledge and then we'll have an opportunity for any additions or deletions and adoption of the agenda. Any recognitions that we need to be aware of to make on Tuesday? [Music] Okay. All right. hearing none. Uh if anything comes up between now and Tuesday, please let myself and Anna know and we'll make sure to recognize that. We'll have an opportunity for public comment. Then we have our consent agenda. Right now on our consent agenda list, we have minutes for June 5th, June 10th, and June 28th. And then we also have a proposed amendment to the personnel article. Um, M. Ward, do you want to cover that real quickly with board? I know Peter is joining us by Zoom, but I figured uh you're probably as familiar or more with this. [Music] That's right. So this is the um to add the personal holiday that uh Peter had um town manager Frances had um addressed in the proposed budget that was added for staff members. Any questions on that? All right. So

that is on the consent agenda. Um the next item will be to consider appointing two individuals to planning and zoning board of adjustment. That's Greg Beam and Donald Waler. Mr. Blunt, are they gonna be able to be here on Tuesday? Okay. Okay. All right. If they're not able to be here, um board, do you want to put that item on the consent agenda as well? Yes. Yes. Okay, we will do that. Mr. Mayor, if I may just I will be out of town on on Tuesday. I don't know if I know Mr. Wer, but I do know Lucas Um he's Greg. He goes by Lucas, right? Lucas is young, energetic. He's North Grad. Um highly recommend that we we put him on. Thank you, sir. All right. Next item is to consider adopting ordinance 25-12 which would amend the town's official zoning map which is dated September 10th, 2024 reszoning the Rowan County GIS system parcel number 323A15 located at 1835 Hollywood Drive from SFR1 to SFR2 zoning classification. Uh again board, we held the public hearing on that this evening. No one showed up for that. Do you want to put that on the consent agenda as well? Yes, please. Everybody good with that? Okay. Next item will be to consider adopting ordinance 25-13 which would amend the town's development ordinance authorizing zoning and subdivision administrator to assign and change addressing numbers. We also had that public hearing tonight and as no one was uh no one signed up to speak on that one. Is there a desire to put that on the consent agenda as well? Since there was a question about that from a citizen about the authority, I think we should leave that on the regular agenda. All right, we're good with that. Yep.

Okay. Um I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I see. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm more familiar with this, but with the zoning one, I know that there needs to be we need a statement of consistency and reasonleness. So, it can't be on consent. Are we sure about that? double you would have to include the language of the consent of the U consistency statement along with the language for the adoption of the ordinance. Let's just handle it on Tuesday as a as a as proposed as a separate agenda item. Okay. Sorry, that's that's the um item eight. Eight. No. Okay. Currently, C number nine will stay on. And then item 11 is to consider adopting ordinance 25-14, which would approve the annexation agreement between Spencer and East Spencer. Uh, since we're keeping the other two, I'd suggest we just keep that one on them other than moving it to consent. Good with that. Okay. Uh, then the next one will be to provide guidance to Mr. blunt on a potential text amendment for alternate uses of sidewalks and alleys. So, I assume we'll get a presentation about that on Tuesday. You will get what's in your package. Okay. And I will talk about it a little bit. Uh I really just need some feedback from you as a board before we bring an ordinance amendment back to you. Okay. Didn't we talk at one point or didn't we approve um one of the updates for the facade grant to Pinocchios to be able to serve food in the alleyway? Yes, possibly. I know they they was one of the things that was talked about. Can y'all can y'all hear me, Peter? Yes. Hey, this is Peter. uh the Pinocchio's

facade grant that was uh last approved or the commercial improvement grant that was last approved for Pinocchio's was really about their back property. Uh they were wanting to make a a pizza garden uh within their property limits. So it it didn't have anything to do with the alley per se. Okay. Okay. But this does have to do with alleyways and sidewalks, right? It'd be worth a little discussion. And it also has to do with placing any kind of retail product on the sidewalk too. Is that correct? Uh to some degree we addressed that in a previous amendment as far as the food line, wasn't it? Uh food line and then well food line was the one that after we did some research, we were actually going to cause some problems if we adopted the ordinance as it was originally suggested. But we had a few stores, the consignment shop and a few others that wanted to put their products outside. So we we've taken care of that. This is more uh tables and chairs for restaurants, more more of that than anything else. And we have some current situations where uh we have a couple different options and that's what I want to talk to you about. Get some feedback from you and then we'll come up with a text amendment, have a public hearing and let y'all approve some. Okay. All right. And then we have our departmental reports and town manager report. And that is it. board. Is there anything else that needs to be added to the agenda that we know of tonight? All right, Peter, any comments on your end? I'll just say hello and sorry to be missing uh time in person with you, but I'm having a wonderful time with my family on vacation this

week. Very good. Glad you're glad you're able to do that. Yep. All right. Board, any questions? I was going to ask some questions about a couple of reports, but I should do that Tuesday unless there is anything that they need to prepare in advance. Okay. I don't think so. Okay. All right. Very good. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn this evening. Motion that we motion by Mr. Miller. Is there a second? Second. Second by Miss Ledge. All in favor? All right. Post. All right. We stand adjourned. Thank you all.