Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. We'll call the uh September 23rd, 2025 planning board to order. Um let's see. We'll note that uh Jody Wright is uh not present. Uh the first order of business will be the approval of the minutes from the August 26th meeting. Motion to approve the August 26 minutes.

Second a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor? Lee, I'm assuming you already made. All right. All right. First case is consider a recommendation on petition R2511 Creek Retail request by TA and S Enterprises of NC disclosure. You're right.

My fault. I got ahead of us. We have two speakers signed up. Um, sorry, Brian. The, uh, first one will be Janet Webb. You want to, uh, come to the podium. You could state your name and you will have three minutes once we get the timer started. I'll start it once you Okay. Thank you. You may proceed.

Good evening. planning board members and others present tonight. I am Janet Webb and I live in Ransom Pastor. Do you know where that is? It's a residential. It's zoned residential and it's exactly what it has been until Greenfield Park began developing in n in the 1920s through 2016 with Carol Pavers Home being built on Hillrest Drive across from the proposed home to Hilton Hotel. Greenfield Park is a stable community with long-term residents and I live on Joyce Avenue with uh in the 250 ft distance of the proposed hotel for the last 27 years. Lovely neighborhood. I am uh I've got the staff report. Um I'm reading from that, so you've probably seen or heard this before. Um and it's about the reszoning of 2.6 6 acres plus or minus located at 13830 Statesville Road from corporate business and general residential to highway commercial with conditions to be approved for a fivestory 70ft tall hotel to be built adjacent to the current Best Western Hotel. U three um ordinances are not in compliant and number one is the hotel separation article 9.45.1 45.1 states a hotel must be separated by at least 250 ft feet from the hotel building to the nearest residential property. The measurement is actually only 100.4 ft. The applicant of this resoning request is asking for egregious modifications to ignore the Huntersville zoning ordinances which will adversely impact our neighborhood. Staff does not support this. Number two, hotel separation based on height, article 9.45.2A 2A of the zoning ordinance requires that a hotel be separated by a distance no less than three times the height of the proposed structure closest to the common lot line of the adjoining residential zone but in

no case less than 100 ft. The proposed hotel is 70 ft which would require a 210 ft separation. The applicate is requesting to allow the hotel to be only 100.4 ft from the nearest residential zone. Staff does not support this. the hotel height. Article 9.45.3 of the zoning ordinance states that hotels may exceed the permitted height of the district only if it is subject to a conditional reszoning. All the requirements of article 9.45.2 are met and it does not exceed six stories. The highway commercial district building type has a height limit of 36 feet. The applicant is requesting a building height of 70 feet made up to five stories. staff is not in support of this modification. These are the facts defi defined by Huntersville zoning ordinances and report who has the power to abi abide by these ordinances. You sit on the planning board and you do have the power to make decisions as well as the Huntersville Town Commissioners as you make your decisions base them on the facts defined in the the ordinances not what you think.

Thank you. Thank you very much for the time. Thank you. Carol Paver. Just state your name and uh you will have three minutes as well.

Okay. Hi, I'm Carol Paver. Thank you for giving me three minutes. I live at 502 Hillrest Drive. Um I strongly oppose this. I have to read it. Sorry. I strongly oppose their proposed reszoning of the residential home sites on Hillcrest Drive within the Greenfield Park neighborhood. Disregarding established city ordinances sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the long-term safety of our community, strains infrastructure, and undermines the well-being of residents. Ignoring the clear risks and irreversible harm to both our neighborhood and its people is unacceptable. I urge those responsible for voting on this matter to personally visit the site. That would be monumental if anyone voting or talking about it would come visit the site and view the area from the perspective of those who live here. It's crucial to fully understand the potential negative impact on property values and overall quality of life rather than on focusing solely on short-term economic benefits such as increased tax revenue. Furthermore, to date, I don't know if this is possible, but we have not been presented with any independent third-party impact assessment to adequately evaluate the consequences of this potential resoning. This decision will have enduring and irrevicable consequences on our neighborhood. I urge you to consider these impacts and act in the best interest of the community that you serve. Thanks for letting me stumble through.

Thank you. And that's all of the public comments. So, we'll move on to the uh first item. This is consider a recommendation on petition R2511, Long Creek Retail, a request by TS Enterprises of NC to reszone 4.396 acres from highway commercial conditional district to highway commercial conditional district and rural. And Jay, before you go on, I'd like to disclose that my firm represents the adjoining property owner, the Cathy's, but it will not affect my decision on this. the adjoining property owners of the to the north. Okay. Does anybody have a question for Scott regarding that?

Yep. Okay. We'll continue on.

All righty. Uh go ahead and enter our staff report to the record. Uh just quick note that there have been no changes to the plan since the public hearing. So I will be brief and then turn it over to the applicant and their team. Um as Mr. Hansen said this is a conditional district reszoning of about 4 acres down on the corner of Mount Holly Huntersville and Batties Ford Road. Back in uh 2008, the site was originally uh zoned from rural to highway commercial conditional district for a drugstore with some outuildings. That's been that way since 2008. Uh you can see the context map here located on that uh northeast corner of Badies Ford Road in Mount Holly Huntersville. Uh to the west of there, you've got another approved plan for some commercial. And then south of Batties for or Holly Huntersville, City of Charlotte, you see the shopping center there with the food line. And on the southeast corner, there's going to be some construction as well. Uh to the north, we've got the Oakrove Hill Farm uh subdivision that's under construction as well as some other projects in the area. Um this is the original site plan from 2008. You can see it was for a uh pharmacy. I believe it was a Wraid at the time. Um, here's a current site plan is just for a sea store. Uh, the parcel to the to the north will no longer be part of this. It will drop back to its original base zoning of rural as part of this application. They are requesting some modifications. The largest modification is for impacting the 30-foot buffers. Buffers are supposed to be untouched, but in this case, due to grading, they're asking for that modification. staff has some concerns with the uh slopes and the ability to replant as well as the ability to have a connection back up to the north uh if that partial will to come back in for our development. Again, just some more context on the uh buffer impacts and you can see the steep slopes that are going to be in that area. Uh one thing that's noted on the plan is they are not uh providing a full

side path along their frontage. They would need to ask for an additional modification. Again, that hasn't been turned in yet, but that would be needed to not extend this side path across their whole property. Uh here are the elevations for the proposed buildings. Uh they've gone with some very good architecture. Uh don't have any comments against that. We're uh I think they did a great job here. Um in relation to how does this plan fit into the Huntersville 2040 plan? It's a great spot for this use. Um so it's in support with land use policy uh 5.1 not supported for and and several items there listed as well. The biggest thing is the you look at the small area plan the 2040 plan this is supposed to be an urban village. Those things are supposed to be connected. This pro this uh property and this u project is isolated. We do have concerns about its ability to connect to the north. So that all being said staff is not in favor of this at this time. if they were to make some changes to the plans, uh, we could be in support, but that's where we stand today. And I'm here if you have any questions for me. If not, the applicants are here as well.

Thank you. Uh, questions for staff. Michael, could you elaborate a little bit on the grading? Sure. The nature of the issue?

Absolutely. Let me see if I can find that grading plan. This is probably a great site. You can see um as this is on the northern part of the parcel, there's a nice hill right here that kind of slopes back down to their driveway, very steep slope. Uh when you look at tying in projects, uh when you set the new grading for the proposed site, you do have to look at off-site impacts. In this case, the elevation this driveway is going to be at, it will be very difficult for this neighbor to tie in along this um adjacent parcel right there. So you do have to look at how when you grade this site, how does it affect the next site and how can it get developed as well. Right now they're proposing a retaining wall all along here. So you would have to break through that retaining wall and have lots of grading back in this area just to be able to tie in those driveways, which then yields less developability area for the parcel to the uh to the north.

So it's not that they can't develop it, but it simply takes extra effort on the it makes it a lot harder to develop that one. Correct. Thanks. So, your suggestion would be to raise the grade of the convenience store, the entire lot. Is that is that your solution? Is that what you're thinking? I am not an engineer. Yeah. Uh and I don't want to play one on TV. Yeah. But there are things you can do to look at to manipulate the earth to make it less impactful or a better situation. um kind of a middle ground between the two parcels. I'll ask the uh

Sure. On that subject though, would how do you determine the onus of the grading? Would not the property to the north have more ownership because they own more of the slope or whatever if they went to develop that? I mean, how do you put the onus all on current?

Good planning and engineering practices. Um we've been in the past we have been at a fault only reviewing the um applicants and not really looking far enough offsite and so there could be negative impacts on those properties. Um there are several cases where we had you know we've been um challenged with that. So we have under my regime taken it under consideration to look at off-site impacts or potential future off-site impacts to try to mitigate those to a reasonable level. And again, that's just professional judgment. In this case, the crown is on the on the I'm sorry.

Oh, in this case, the crown is on the property to the north, right? Correct. They could shave off I don't know how many uh topo lines that is. That's like five lines and to get to the same grade as the back of this lot. There's more than that cuz remember you've got a retaining wall that extends down along here right there. Okay. So, that's quite a bit more. And is this property to the north the same property that was included in the last application? It is included in this application. You can see right here, this is just going back to rural. Oh, it's going back to rural. It's not being developed, right? They had to join this um because we're not allowed to downzone property. So they had to join in and ask to go back to rural. Okay. Okay.

Because I'm just trying to muddle through the differences because when it first came to the planning board last whenever that was November Mhm. planning staff recommend against it because of this connectivity. The time it got to the town board staff recommended for it because the connectivity issues had been addressed. Correct. If you look back at the original plan here from 2008, you can see there's a public street back in this area. Um when this came back to us last year, there was some challenges with the ability of that devel that project to deliver that public street. Um they ultimately chose to provide that which allowed the staff to be in support of this project.

Okay. So that that public street has been approved and is on the books. This would go away. this public street. Oh, this whole parcel right here, right, goes away back to rural. Oh, that's on the new parcel. Correct. Correct. So, this this kind of just kind of goes like that right now. So, this parcel to the north all goes away. Street goes away. Back connectivity goes away. Okay. Okay. Correct. All right. Thank you. Part of our challenge today. November. Correct. and we still have that issue today. Um, we're waiting for the applicant to give us updated information. Sorry, I went from off. Yeah, appreciate it.

So, when you're talking about development of the larger site, I'm just looking at the current zoning map. You've got the neighborhood residential parcel to the north, correct? um this parcel that's going to be reverted back to rural and then the rural parcel correct existing to the north. Right. So that's kind of what in an ideal world that's kind of our development sphere there. Okay. So we're just trying to preserve the ability to develop that as a larger parcel by this future looking I guess. And we again we'd be fine if this parcel were to develop but we want them to address the the grading issues, the connectivity issues and again the tree issues. Okay. Thank you.

Did you have questions? Um on connectivity. Yes, sir. I know there's the Dr. Horton I believe project and Thank you. And have they stubbed in the road on the south side of their project? Right. That's right there. Yep. And then I think on again disclosure, we represent the Cathy's. I think there's a connectivity is that's that parcel right there. Yep. And I think there's connectivity through there. Correct. Well, it would tie into this property right here. Correct. Just south of the Kathy property. Okay.

Thank you, sir. Michael. Yeah. Just uh just trying to align what we're doing at the town level with the state because usually uh the state building code would normally dictate what's required in grading. How does that out of what we're doing align with what the state building code will call for when it comes to grading? There's no issue with state building code and grading state building codes due to the structure and how it's occupied. No, specifically it says that grading should be done to avoid creating hazards and adverse effects.

Grading is uh grading in isolated areas which would not damage the public or negatively affect the neighbors. So they they go into a great deal of detail about what grading is uh to how it's to be considered. I uh and it's a whole section. Yeah. at the state level. I would think the context may be don't create something that would be negative to but the connectivity not being able to connect this is probably a a local zoning code negative issue rather than than like if you were to create something that would maybe wash onto somebody else's property.

That would be a fair I think that would be a fair assessment. So if you were to grade this in the water then change direction it would cause a flooding condition downstream or negatively affecting your negative your neighboring parcel that could be considered in that context. But you also made reference to a bit of a policy change by making reference under your regime. So under the prior regime how was it considered?

Uh we very we looked at it very isolated. Uh we made sure the project before us was um kept whole, but we did not really look how it could have possibly affected the developability of the parals next door. Again, we've run into some situations um where some neighbors came to us saying that I can't develop as much of my land now because of where that road was set. We're just trying to be very conscious as to where those roads are set elevation wise to not necessarily maximize but create a good situation for the public because you do have to consider slopes of streets. there are maximum pitches, ADA accessibility, those types of things. So, we have to kind of look a little bit offsite.

So, just kind of reflecting on kind of Chris's initial question, that is then what's the recommendation back to the, you know, to the property owner? What do they do to, you know, to resolve this? Again, I would just ask that their engineers takes a look takes a look at that. So, we don't work with our engineer and try to you find there there's a middle ground right there. So we don't have a firm recommendation back to them in terms of how to resolve. No, it's not our job to to do their work. We tell them that they need to improve the situation, but it's not our job to do the analysis, to do the cut and fill, those types of things. Let's just play the scenario. If these two properties were owned separately,

would we still basically penalize the applicant because of the property behind them was at a higher grade and didn't offer the opportunity to someday have connectivity to a a road other than port road.

We can we always analyze and see where connect, you know, connectivity makes sense. It makes sense to go to the north here, go back to the west. Um there's a steep slope down to a protected creek. Obviously, we're not going to connect that creek just to the north if there's going to be a connection hopefully with the public street at some point in time. It makes sense to connect to the north. Um we can't control all situations, but that's our professional recommendation that that stub should go to the north and they do make bulldozers. So, okay, we we have to tie it in somehow. That's part of the solution here, I guess. Absolutely. Yeah. Did it just seems to me you're offsite on somebody else's property in theory.

Very normal for a project to grade offsite. So, and now we're not asking them to grade offsite. What we're saying is consider your design and how it may affect the neighbors to the north and how do we get that connection to work. So, let's just cut to the chase. I guess if they were to dig to the retaining wall and drop down a road out the side of their building that's you know however many feet lower into a bank of the uh adjoining property to the north that you know someday may be graded down to that same level would that be would that satisfy

yeah I mean and and in my limited knowledge of grading I we we'd probably want to raise this area up just the scoch so it infect you know doesn't affect that to the north as much that's Does that make sense? Yeah. Yep. You see there? Yeah. You see there because then again pointed out you can only have this at a certain slope going back into the street the driveway. So it's this game and that's what the engineers that's what they've got their AutoCAD and their models. They can raise this up and affect you know those those effects are rippled throughout the site. So you have to tie that in in other places. Okay.

It is a challenging site. There's no doubt about it. You know we've known about it since 2008. It was a challenge then. It's going to be a challenge today and it'll be a challenge until someone gets out there and starts, you know, grading the site. Was there ever a a profile submitted to show like to say, hey, this can't work or or a centerline profile to show that by doing this the grades exceed a certain engineers here. I have not seen that. That does not mean that just a way to say put this to bed and say you can't do it or it won't work safely or and again I have not seen that but our you know our engineers would be more than happy to meet with the applicants engineers. Okay,

further questions for staff before we have the applicant uh come up. Great. Thank you. If you all could um Yes, sir. If you all could state your name and once you're finished with that, we'll start the clock. You'll have 15 minutes for your presentation, but we'll wait till you introduce everybody if you would like.

Well, good evening everybody and good evening board members. Uh my name is Jeff Mafly. I'm the developer. I'm the president of TS Enterprises. We have exclusive development agreement with Circle K for the Charlotte market. We've been rewarded last year being franchisee of the year. I've been honored to be appointed to Circle K advisory board for two years term. We have tremendous experience in what we do and we didn't get this exclusivity out of nowhere because we deserve it. We developed class A stores. We develop beautiful stores and we're proud of what we do. On this challenged site, there is about 35 ft drop between my property and the neighbor's property. Staff recommended that we needed to grade into the neighbor's property property and the neighbor is not cooperative will not allow us to grade into his land. And if we do, it has to go about 50 to 60 feet deep into his property to to achieve the grade required for road safety. Which means we will be knocking out his house almost where family members live there. And if we have to just great for the road, we will create a valley from both sides of his property. It's undoable at this level. We have decided to go ahead and put the wall to contain slope and retain the dirt in its place. But we're willing to deed into our uh uh record to the land record an easement that gives cross access to the neighbor in the north and where we will also take out the retaining wall when they are grading and will give them access to grade. The only way to take that crown out is to grade it and push the dirt elsewhere where it is needed for us to come in and try to raise our side. It's undoable. We are already at the great at

the street grade. There is no way we can raise ours. If we raise it, it will be challenged to get in and out from Biswood Road and from Mahal Road. So, there is no way to raise our land. There is no way to grade into the neighbor's land. But we're willing to put in the record crossaxis easement with a commitment to remove the m the wall when the neighbor is required to develop his land. The staff always can ask for connectivity. And I think connectivity works in progress, not in reverse. Now they're requiring connectivity from a site that doesn't exist to a site that we're ready to break ground tomorrow. I think the process should be we create the site we develop it we we give the easement and the next person comes and develop they connect to the same and keep on going but to to to bless us and penalize us because the neighbors is not cooperative or the nature of the land is not allowed I think that's not a good position the staff have supported it in the past because of all that interconnectivity but they still can continue to support it for future developments when this or other parcels come for resoning, they can always enforce the same connectivity. That's all what I wanted to say. As far as tree save, in the past when we have two lots together, we would be right under 20% tree save. But now, since the math changes and since we're only doing our site, we are at 50% specimen tree savings. So, we meet the requirement when it comes to tree savings at 50%. We have six trees. We're going to save three and remove three just due to grading requirements. Okay, we have any questions at the moment?

So going back to in November 2024 when it came before us. Um I'm guessing because I know at that time the final plan did show connectivity. Yes. And we still will be committing to connect connectivity and deed it to the land record crossaxis easement and removal of the retaining wall. And I think beyond just connectivity, it actually showed the road being built through the Houston property. Is that right? the northern property. That was the old petition. Yes. And uh was that able to be accomplished because again you could grade both sites at the same time? I guess I'm just going back to you know if was it was possible then why are we not possible today? That's all. No, the challenge is the Houston's not willing to lose the structural and their land.

That's what I'm trying to understand. It takes at the very end of the process they said we're not allowing to take this house down and for us to do the grading. So it kind of stopped at that point. Okay. If you go back to the Houston's if you could say your name and go ahead and state that

Joe Sailors just helping to assist the developer in the project that we're speaking to. Uh but originally in 2008 when this came to the board, it was for a drugstore and a commercial building on the Houston property. They were at that point in time in order to have the commercial building on the Houston property, you had to have a connection on that end of the property. Well, the Houston's have backed out of the development. They no longer want to develop their property as quickly as was originally planned in 2008. They actually didn't get any takers and it went off the system. And that's why we came back a year and a half ago uh to get it back on the system and staff suggested at that point in time that we do the 2008 plan and go through that whole process. Well, as that process fulfilled through the through the time, it became apparent that the Houston had no idea that they were going to develop and couldn't afford to develop the building. So, when they figured out that they couldn't develop the building, we went to them and said, "Okay, back out of the proposal. We'll just develop our corner and leave your property as is. And when you get someone to develop your property, if you need an easement to get into our system,

we'll give you an easement. But if you don't want, if you decide you want to put a building where that road is because of the grading that you're going to have to do on the property, you go whichever way you want to go, but we will give you an easement to come into us if you want to. You have to realize at this intersection, it's almost 45 to 60 feet higher from where our building is to where the house is that we're talk have talked about in the past on the Houston property. And if you back up even beyond the Houston property to the Kathy property, that's probably another 30 feet taller. So you're looking at a grading a piece of property and moving thousands and thousands of cubic feet of dirt. That just makes no sense to be able to develop the corner.

So I have a question probably for staff and for the client. If if the Houston property were to be commercial, obviously that hill is gone. I mean, so if if there's a study to say approximately what is that elevation going to be in the future and then look at the the entrance road on the uh on the property in question here and figure out if it'll work reasonably and if it does put the easement in with with with language to remove the wall etc etc when that's developed for that bait for road is about 760

and I'm asking if that's an option that study it will be by the absolutely just to know if if it will work with the future ad and then uh that may solve that and just have an easement and grade it when it when they develop that parcel. Sure, we'd be more than happy. But we'd have to see a plan for that. Right. Correct. Take the one up, Brian. Yeah.

Uh my name is Brian Upton. I'm the civil engineer uh for the developer and um to provide a little bit of clarity on this we have gone through that exercise of studying the the grades that we have proposed for this development now are are basically the same grades that we had a year ago when we were coming through this process where everything tied out. uh where this retaining wall is coming in is because now that the Houston property is not part of this that without being able to get on and grade the Houston property to bring it down as uh as Joe and Jeff mentioned it it it doesn't work out without this retaining wall or without permission from the Houston which doesn't sound like we're going to obtain right now to be on their property doing the work. Uh but we had worked through an exercise where we had graded out the public road. We had graded the Houston property as it could be developed. Uh and all that went into where we were setting the elevations. The the site was also set keeping in mind the elevations coming off of Mount Holly Huntersville Road. That's lower. So it's coming up a steep driveway into the site kind of levels off through the middle and then continues to go up at a steeper grade to get to Batty's Ford Road. Um, so that that's kind of where all this is. But we have looked at how this all interconnects. It's just right now without being able to degrade on the Houston property that it's necessitating this retaining wall. And and I guess that's what kind of saying is if we've if if that's been done shared with staff knowing that in the future it will work but you still will need the wall obviously with provisions to have an access and remove the wall at a later date. Is that a

just to go a little bit deeper? Do you remember what that finished elevation was on the previous plan and what this one is? I know you say it's close. Yeah, I think that we had kept the finish floor elevations of the the convenience store the same from plan to plan. Um it's probably within a foot or so along the driveway. Um and some of that was just trying to mitigate retaining wall height and slopes and being able to install the wall. and we can still, you know, tweak and modify the grades as needed to and we also understand that this is conceptual at the resoning level.

We'll need to get into further detail when we go to construction if construction. There's two, you got to realize and remember there's two definite places we've got to tie into. Bad ward road already built, Mount Holly Road all the way built. We've got to get to their levels and we're stuck with that whether we like it or not. Sure. Um any other questions on that for now? Could move to another um what's the status? Oh, go ahead. You're up.

Yeah. So this could be for staff and my question or concern would be what's the environmental impact would that cause with the surrounding uh neighbors or communities? Uh no different than any other development. Uh they're, as you've heard tonight, they're offering to meet the tree safe requirement. Um we would obviously have erosion control measures in place so there wouldn't be any off-site impacts, but nothing unusual. Okay. Any other questions?

So, I pulled the plan up from last time. So, so you did kind of simulate it last time. I mean, I don't know how much you changed from last fall to to this time around, but you had the road running up the hill, I suppose, at that point, right? And it was all all modeled out. That's right. It it sloped up the driveway between the two properties.

So, does did it change a whole lot once you drop the retaining wall in? I guess everything above on the north side of the retaining wall, of course, went up the retaining wall. But what I'm getting at, if you just did your best to stub in a possible connection up to your property line, retaining a wall on both sides, wouldn't that pretty much satisfy the the requirement to have future connectivity when the next the property to the north develops? Well, I think what the issue we would run into trying to stub all the way to the property line is that we can only stub the driveway up at a certain slope. Whereas with it being dirt, it can go a lot steeper.

So if we're trying to take it all the way to the property line at a a flatter slope, it's going to create a much higher retaining wall. And then you also have to be able to put the support in behind the retaining wall. Right. So there's only so close we can get the retaining wall to the property line without crossing. Okay. Okay. But I mean it is possible to make grade once the the the commercial site to the north flips over once they develop and they're able to come in and grade because uh it was pointed out on one of the plans there's a there's a big null right basically in the middle of the Houston property. Yeah. So as you can kind of see there. Yeah.

So yeah where this um pink circle is that's and everything kind of goes down from there. So theoretically once that property is developed that null can be shaved off the dirt sort of spread across the property to level it out and then it makes connecting into this property a lot easier. Okay. All right. Anything else?

Same thing for the sidewalk point. The same thing we have great element is great. We will finish the Right. Yeah. I guess along those lines, the reason we didn't take the sidewalk all the way to the property corner is because of the the angle of the property line. It's not coming in perpendicular. It's at a a pretty sharp angle. So to get that sidewalk in without the sidewalk basically being a a skateboarder's dream. Um are you willing to ask for that modification tonight?

Yes. If we have to bond it, we'll go ahead and bond it until the Houston's developers will finish the sidewalk. For now, it's just going to be a steep sidewalk with chairs will be rolling down it. Okay, no other questions. Somebody have a motion prepared? Okay, take your time. Take your time. Take your time. We'll keep chatting.

Yeah. I'll ask a quick question on the uh the traffic impact analysis. I think last time I pointed out the storage as you're coming south on Batty's Ford specifically in the morning. It seems shorter. It's a lot shorter than the 2008 plan. Uh it was a couple hundred feet long then and you kind of truncate it right because of where you have to enter that property uh on the north side there. Uh what's the distance of that storage going left on Mount Holly Huntersville and do you think that's appropriate?

Yeah, good evening. My name is Patrick Monro. I'm the traffic engineer for the project. The storage length for the southbound left turn lane on were you talking Mount Holly or to left on Mount Holly Hunterfield? That about 225 ft and I believe the existing storage today is maybe 125. Yeah, it's not a lot. You're doubling it, but there's left turners that are further back than 200 f feet. Yep. So, we maximize that storage as much as possible um with where the leftover is going to be. We also are installing the right turn lane, which is 300 ft long. It's a significant right turn lane and that'll allow people to

somewhat, you know, get around this area. This intersection is uh, you know, it's at capacity today. So, uh, with some of these improvements, it will improve the situation, but it is at capacity. Yeah. I guess my qu my main question is why the dedicated left? Is that a requirement that dedicated left into your property? Why can't you just have that storage and then have a break in the median going into the north of your property? Uh, the left turn lane is a requirement from NC DOT in order to provide a left access into that intersection. So people can't take a left out, I guess. Correct. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay, I can try.

All right.

All right. Um, in considering the proposed resoning RU25-11, the planning board recommends approval with the conditions that future modifications to the grade and the retaining wall would be guaranteed upon further development of the property to the north. This is essential for guaranteeing connectivity. It is reasonable and in the public interest to approve this request because it is consistent with LU5.1 of the 2040 plan, allowing for more density where transportation infrastructure and utilities already exist. This gas station will provide valuable services to the existing community.

Second. You have a second. Um, okay. question. Um, would you mind adding something to your motion about Don't mind at all. And bonding the uh remainder of the sidewalk. We we rushed over real quickly bonding the remainder of that sidewalk for once that future parcel is developed. So, so then we would just add um just add that to the top. Yeah. to grade wall the retaining wall and

bonding sidewalk. Correct. Do you accept? Yeah. Second. Motion discussion. One quick clarification. I know you use the word connectivity. I'm assuming we're interchangeable for easement. Is that what we're just making sure that that's okay? You're fine with that. Okay. discussion.

I came in here fully prepared to say no. I I had to very quickly make some changes. Um thank you all for being very flexible. Um I feel like this is exactly why we have these um why we have the planning board um because we were able to work something out that really works for the town, works for you, and something that is a better product to take to the commissioners. Uh yeah, I mean I think it's a good fit for the location. Uh I think it'll do really well there. I think it's a super challenging site. It was last time and you know I I can't remember if I voted for or denied last time, but I think it's a good fit. It works and I appreciate you guys wanting to, you know, give up your wall and, you know, give your easement up to make it work and connect in the future. So I I appreciate that and I think Um I was like train I was actually probably came in here leaning to more towards a denial than approval. Um but again I'm glad we able to discuss it. Uh I would like to thank staff though because I've been here in Huntersville long enough that connectivity is crucial for our community. I mean we look at everything through connectivity. So for us not to require that is a big step. It's it's it's tough for us to do that. I'm sure it's gonna be tough for the town board to do that as well.

Yeah. Um and again, so yeah, I think uh it wasn't mentioned, but I know there's I think $750,000 worth of off um site road improvements, which again helps the community. Um I do support the land use. Again, I wish there was an easier connectivity, but I also understand that, you know, it's hard to penalize an existing land owner that wants to invest in the community just because the adjoining property owner doesn't. So, um, but again, thank you staff for pushing hard for connectivity. I appreciate that.

I just like to add on to what Scott had said. I think there's a lot of ancillary benefits that to me has great value for the community as a whole. Uh, one of the most significant ones is the transportation or the at least the traffic improvement is substantial. Uh in addition to that, the economic development benefits are also not talked about much, but certainly generates additional jobs, but more importantly, it provides a welcoming introduction into Huntersville. Right now, you just have an empty spot. Uh and I think as Huntersville continue to grow, we want to make sure people have the essential services that they that they need upon entry into the city. Thanks. Good job. Thank you.

Sure. I'll echo a lot of that. And yes, we absolutely do need a a gas station out there. And Circle K is a a great brand. So, this is the right the right thing for that spot. A tough to develop site. So, you know, kudos to to the engineers and everyone out there that did it. We did um approve this before unanimously, by the way. So, u read the motion, but and I was ready to approve it tonight as well. So, great use of the space. Uh connectivity will come when when it's time when we get some some develop to the north. So, all for it. Good. Okay. Um, yeah, I echo all your comments. So, we'll take a vote. All those in favor? Those opposed? Seems unanimous. So, thank you.

Okay. This time I would like to turn over the chair leadership to the vice chair to move to the next item. Yeah. Would somebody like to make a motion to recuse Jay Henson? Motion to recuse Jay Henson. Second. All those in favor?

Jay, if you'll step out, we will bring you back afterwards. Uh, moving on to item 4B. Consider a recommendation on petition R25-08, Second Street Village. A request by Jay Henson and Brian Hines to reszone 4.799 acres at 204 North Church Street from neighborhood residential to neighborhood residential with a conditional district for town homes and an apartment. Mr. Faber. All right. Uh before begin, I'll submit my staff report into the record. Um so the reasonzoning plan is proposing to add a 15-unit co-op apartment and 61 town homes. They'll be providing 128 parking spaces made up of a mix of surface lots, garages, and on street parking. The project will meet its tree requirements, and it will add a 12-oot side path, which will be part of the seam trail, along with a hardcape planting strip that will match the previously approved planting strip as part of the First and Church Street town home project to the south. Uh so the applicant entered into a purchase agreement with the town of Huntersville for 1.68 acres. Part of that agreement was to provide uh future affordable housing. And then for uh the resoning site, the applicant is proposing six urban open spaces. Two of those will be booners. Two will be pedestrian passageways. One will be a green and another will be a park. The two vuns will provide a multi-use access way that prioritizes pedestrians while still allowing slow vehicular usage. Um, additionally, those vuners will be placed within a public access easement to allow the community to use it as uh future connections. Um staff does recommend that the applicant uh provide on the resoning

plan how they're going to amenitize their van roof in order to meet uh ordinance requirements. And here are the elevations for the town homes and the elevation for the apartment building. So, the applicant does have six modification requests. Staff is uh in um support of all six modification requests. Um I'll quickly go through a few of them. Um the first is to the yard trees. The applicant does plan to provide yard trees only where space is allowed. Um, next the applicant is asking to increase the uh amount of attached housing from 30% to 100%. Uh, the next modification is to reduce the required buffer to zero. The next is to the rear setbacks which is to allow a variable rear setback that is less than the required 35 ft and additionally to allow less than the 20 ft of required separation from detached garages. The next modification is to increase the height from the uh max requirement to 3 ft and the last modification is to the on street parking. Um they are asking to not provide on street parking for this attached housing type. Um staff again is in support of all these modifications as they are consistent with the uh increased density proposed by the downtown master plan. And here is the location of the site over the 2040 Huntersville community plan. The site is located within the mixeduse center and the town core.

Uh these are all the policies that support the plan. Um I won't go into each policy. Um one I will highlight is policy LU8.2 which calls to encourage uh higher design standards. Um as part of that this site is only required to provide one urban open space. The applicant is providing six uh quality urban open spaces while also providing some additional aesthetic um uh elements to the project that go above and beyond the minimum standards of the ordinance. The downtown master plan also supports this project. Uh the red rectangular box shows the site of the project over the downtown master plan. This area calls for a mix of apartments and attached housing as well as uh allowing uh between two to three or suggesting two to three uh stories in height. The downtown master plan also goes into further con conceptual detail uh showing uh two connections, one of the mun roof as well as a park at the corner of Second Street and Walter Street. Um the the plan um the reasonzoning plan does meet the intent of this uh conceptual portion of the downtown master plan. Uh staff is in support um of this resoning. Um we do have just two recommendations. One is to provide um all of the amenities that are going to be needed for the von roof as well as uh answering all of the remaining staff comments and issues. Um and just to to clear things up because I believe there was a little bit of confusion, all the storm water um issues that were previously discussed at the public hearing have been um resolved.

And if you guys have any questions, I can answer those for you. Um, I believe the No, the applicant does not have presentation, but they are here. Thank you, Nathan. Any questions for staff? Lee, tell us what you're looking for in a minute. Sure. Um, I'll bring up a slide that shows what our ordinance specifically asks for as well as what our design guideline speaks to.

Perfect. Um, some of that is providing a uh a surface that's different than just a a paved surface. So, you know, pavers, something that uh is inviting to pedestrians and and users of the street. Um, as well as, you know, street trees within it or other um um landscaping items along the the vun. Those are just some of the few. Okay. So, you're looking for elevations or something for the wor. Yeah, we're just we're just looking to see what they're planning on doing other than just here's the location of the moon roof. Okay.

I think it speaks highly of the plan when the toughest questions that you come up with is for the wounders that um is there some way to uh at least add a design element to it that would reduce the likelihood of vehicular traffic going through more frequently. Sure. Yeah. So the the whole point of the boon roof is is mainly to provide safe passage for pedestrians and bikers, but also allowing um slow vehicular usage. And by doing that, you know, you're adding bricks which uh slow down cars. Um adding street furniture that that uh prevents speeding um along stretches of it. What's included in this application though?

Right. Right now we're asking for them to show what they're going to do to differentiate that. Yep. Thanks. So the termination was that TIA was not required. Correct. Correct. Y. So I see in the report it states that I guess the plan is submitted was for 58 town homes. Um and then in this current proposal it's 61 town homes. Is there is that just an error or was there a change in the plan? Uh there there may have been an increase from the previous um uh submittal. I'll have to to look into that for you.

Okay. Would and that I mean I know it's only three town homes, but I assume that wouldn't change the calculus of whether or not a TIA would be required. Um I believe if they do change it, they may need to look at it again, but I would assume it would not make a difference. Okay. Thank you, Brent. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure whether you went over the percentage of uh maybe uh low income housings uh the percentage of that um and also how the additional amenities that would be created

will maintain the character of the surrounding neighbor neighborhoods.

Yeah. So to to the last question, staff does believe that the the amenities, you know, fit into the to the neighborhood. It's also going to provide a use for uh neighbors other than just the people that are going to be living at this site as part of the the park and the the vun roof. So there will be a use other than just the people who will be living here. Um and then to the first question uh I believe the apartment uh which will be part of that affordable housing component is 18 units. Um and I believe what they decided at is 120% of the the AMI. Um anything other than that I would leave the the applicant to to discuss further.

Okay. I think the applicant is here if y'all have any questions for the applicant.

Mr. Mr. Hines, you didn't think you'd come here without getting up here, did you? I was hoping Thank you. Brian Hines, 121 Gillard Road. We're the applicants to this project. Um, Nathan always has to chime in because I don't know how to spell say vuner, but it starts with a W. I'm saying it right as well.

Um, so couple question I mean respond to a couple questions. the TIA. I believe we did go back to Steven Trot and the engineering department regarding the if a TIA if they increase by three units, you know, required additional look at the TIA. I do not believe it does do that. Um, and we were talking what we had a couple things with we are working with staff on what the amenities are. One of the things we originally started with, we were going to do use permeable pavers. Kind of like the project on walk 23, if you've seen that, where that's our entire storm water system. So, we're having to revise this because especially on the south side of Second Street. It's not conducive to permeable pavers because it can't be our a storm drainage system because it doesn't perk. It's pretty much that simple. So with the verers, what we plan on doing is doing, you know, some asphalt, doing sections that maybe can be printable pavers as well to, you know, hopefully to where we don't have to do such a large underground detention uh system which is going to be in the upper uh common open space area. Uh regarding the the park on the on the corner, uh that will be open to the public. Uh we are we've had conversations with parks and wreck about that donate donating that back over to the parks and wreck. We're planning on at this point just keeping it within the project because it's easier to manage with all HOA grass cutting those kind of things, but it will not be exclusive just to the HOA. Um what's here? Was there another question I need to address?

Well, we were talking about the um the attainable housing. like explain that process and there's apartment building that you're not going to build.

Correct. So, as part of our agreement with the town, we are committing to at least 15 units in a three-story building that would be between 80 and 100 120% AMI. So, we will entitle the property. It'll be part of our plat. We'll donate that improved partial which will include at least 24 parking spaces 24 parking spaces and we will donate that to a nonprofit. We've been talking to Lake Norman CDC. We've talked to we built Concord. We've talked to a couple of those groups that they would basically we would donate the value of that land improved which would, you know, whatever that value is. So, they got built-in equity. They can go and they get grants. They can go get financing, whatever it is, they will manage it. They will maintain it. They will lease it. They will be part of our HOA documents. Um, and they will also adhere to our architectural guidelines. So, it will look like it just fits in. You won't be able to tell a difference.

So, we did 15. We may be able to get 17 or 18 units because we're trying to get like maybe six units per floor, but we will also want to have people I've talked to that may be in charge of this program. Want to have like a open area, you know, like a meeting room or a kitchen or something like that. So, we may get more than 15. We're hoping to uh but overall the whole project's about 20% of the whole project is attainablely affordable. And then the church that kind of lies within you. I assume you've had conversations with them and talked about being a good neighbor and

absolutely we we're on great relationships. Uh some people have asked have we approached about buying them have not. Um but they are great neighbors. I I've owned the property around them for for years now. Um they're a nice small family church. They're very amanable with everything we're doing here. because I noticed in your uh your site plan that you're taking away what they're like little storage area parking. No, we're not touching their area. So, if you look at the little, you know, their building, they have a little storage building in the corner right beside that. So, this is entitle entirely on our property. We're not we're not removing anything.

I got you. So, that red building parking deck uh in the aerials, that's your property. They're just using it. Well, that that's a very thick line. I think that's just a representation of the property line is behind that. That building is not on it's completely on the town completely on the church's property. Well, I was talking about the red building. Go back to that area. There's a red building to the north of there. Red and white. Uh that's that's your property even though it looks like it connects to the church parking lot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, right where it says 100- 109, those two parcels. Yeah. Yeah. Those are those are currently on our property.

Okay. second ago. Yeah. So, is is this the uh apartments and is that going to be the footprint? Uh he probably the church. Oh, okay. The bottom left where Yeah. Right there. Okay. Okay. And that's the attainable housing building. Okay. Attainable housing. And that that is the footprint that that is to be. I mean,

it's roughly the footprint. It could it could deviate. We're done. We're donating at least a 7,000 foot parcel. We have got we have taken a building that represents exactly what will fit in that um with with a group that has shown a lot of interest recipient of this part. Yeah, this one of a kind I guess it's we hadn't seen one like this before. So what's the what's the the financial model there? just goes to a co-op and they they have it in perpetuity then and and I mean how long is the u the affordable tag on it for it's in perpetuity

we will continue to work with the town is when we when we end up purchasing the property which is next week there's there's clear guidelines of what we have to do is somebody that has to do at least 15 units we have seven years to do it they have to abide by 80 to 120 and then as we and we find that recipient that we work with, the town will have a say in some of those things. But right now, it's in perpetuity. It's not a 15-year, right? Okay. 20-year model.

Um, let's see. Uh, so the where we wave the u 30% attached. You got 61 town homes. I assume they're all for sale. Can I assume they're all Yeah. at this point, you know, taking it to the market for sale is definitely the problem this out. Okay. Okay. Good. Any idea how many you could have built if you divided by the 30% attached? How much how much did waiting that get you?

Uh you have you just look at I would say that we could only do well that 30% is also a mixture of mixed use and other building types. So if that's the if we had 61 I'd say 20 we'd be able to do right. Yeah. Okay. Um, that's all I can think of right now.

So, while we're looking at this map and drawing on it, right, one of the Warner whatever the W word goes through here, right? And it's like a clear turn here and I could see cars slowing down for this and I know you're going to add some amenities, maybe some speed tables and whatnot, but this one here seems to cut like straight through and I'm worried about somebody coming off of church. Although there's not a ton of traffic there, but somebody coming through there at a faster rate of speed than what we really want for a pedestrianfriendly area, that's where we would just work with them to to add amenities to that boon roof that slows down vehicular traffic.

Looks like there's almost a traffic circle down here in this area. right there. Yeah. So, that is one of the the pedestrian passageways that they're Oh, it's just sidewalk. Okay. Correct. Let's talk about the setbacks then. So, these are the garages up here that that are encroaching on the I guess the setback requirement. The ones up this way. U so those uh all of those town homes are uh attached garage. There's only uh one, two, five town homes where they may do detached garages and those can those are the dotted lines here. Okay. Okay. Okay. So then the setback off Walter Street there, right? That's that's

Yeah. So the setback that they're asking to um modify is the the rear setbacks. Currently, our ordinance requires 35 foot setback for attached garage um town homes. Um so I believe they they have a a varying setback between seven and I up to 20 ft I believe at some points. Feel like that's you know appropriate in this urban setting. Yeah, I got you. But the single family homes across the street might not think so. Street being only 12 feet wide. Okay. All right.

All right. Any other questions? If not, yeah. Can you just give a quick timeline on what construction might look like for this this project with respect to the town homes? I know that the co-op is a little bit of a different story. Uh it'll take probably six to eight months to grade it. By the time we get through permitting, it'll be this this time next year will be the earliest probably. And then from there probably once we turn over the parcels six or eight months after that you're talking about uh somebody building in five to seven months you're probably looking. Thank you.

The uh co-op aspect of it is interesting because those are different kind of creatures than what we typically would deal with. Uh and two things come to mind. One is the u the actual income constraint. Um always a little concerned when you hear income constraint because what it does it disincentivizes some people from ever making more money. So is the model to allow transfer of ownership? That's a great question. That's not something we're getting into on our on our level because that we're going to leave that up to the nonprofit. Um, you know, we our desire is for them to stay in it as long as they can. And I know there's other models where you get to a certain income level and then you're kicked out,

right? Um, those will be ones that conversation we have directly with whoever the authority is that we work with. I appreciate that. Not a zoning question, but certainly important as part of the project. Thanks. So, so what's going to be the criteria of selecting a nonprofit or do you have one in mind or

uh well we we love to work with local u participants and so we we started having a conversation with late on the CDC. I was on a committee been on a couple committees of local developers planning members trying to figure out an attainable housing model because everybody's tried it not a lot of people are very successful with it. You got a lot of grant money. A lot of the grant money goes to the big players down in Charlotte. So, a lot of people really have the heart and the desire and the passion to be involved even if they're a builder or whoever they are to provide something one or two years here and there. Um, you know, so we had we started that conversation which was the Cornelius CDC. Cornelius CDC changed their name to Lake Norman CDC. We would love for them since they represent the Northmech community. We'd love for them to be the participant. Right now they don't have that arm. Right now they just receive grant money, private funding from other people and they help and they they help people that are in need. They are in the process right now. And what the builder we use on Walk 23 right down Gilead Road um his name uh with Medi Street Homes, he is on that board. He's very interested in participating uh you know in this project in some some way. And I think Lake Norma CDC is our desire. Whether or not they have the the desire to do it at the end of the day, that will be up to debate. We have spoken to u um we build Concord u the director of that actually is a Hunsville resident. They have decid they have talked about rebranding and do like we build the Carolas. So again, we've talked to a couple other people. There's a couple foundations of larger national builders that would be interested in that, but we're looking for the small local builder. We're looking for the local participant that can touch it and see it pretty.

If there are no other question, if there's no other questions, I'll accept a motion.

Have a motion. In considering the proposed zoning application R25-08 Second Street Village, the planning board recommends approval based on the plan being consistent with policies LU1.1 2.1 5.1 5.3 7.1 8.2 9.2 D2 1.2 2 3.1 6.2 of the 2040 Huntersville Community Plan. It is reasonable in the public interest to approve the reszoning plan because the proposed resoning is consistent with the envisioned uses and development patterns set forth in the 2040 community plan and the downtown master plan. I'll second.

Point of clarification. Do we need to make sure that the modifications are also in the motion? Sorry, Chris. And I think you could probably just reference the modifications in the staff report if Yeah. Um um no approval. So you would like to amend your motion is what? Yeah, I would like to amend my motion. Considering the proposed resoning application R25-08 Second Street Village, the planning board recommends approval based on modifications and the plan being consistent with dot dot dot. Is that all I need to say? All all the modifications shown.

Yeah. and staff report. Is there a second to that modified? Second. Thank you. Um I'll open it up for discussion. Chris, you made the motion if you have any. No, I mean I think it's what we're looking for in the downtown, you know, master plan, right? It's uh you know, a little bit more density. Uh we want the rooftops. We want it to look good. Uh they're bringing the you know, affordable housing piece with it, which is nice. Uh, I want to see if a Warnerf works and looks nice. Um, and I like, you know, that they're tying in with the community with the open space and being good neighbors to the church, etc.

I I love this and I appreciate very much that this is not the first time you've brought um some um lower income housing to us. Um, I appreciate your heart for the community. Um, it's really clear and very apparent. So, there's not anything that I'm not a fan of on this project.

On the surface, if you just looked at it based on the old rules, we probably would be really still struggling with it. But if you look at it in the context of the community is being built in is spot on. You look at the location close to in proximity to transportation centers which may be active in the future, you need more density. So I think this is a clear signal that this is consistent with the growth of Huntersville, not just the fact that it fits a particular square. It fits within the context of everything else.

Yeah, just I'll echo what everyone else said and I'll say that I reviewed the purchase agreement. It looks like it checks all the boxes as far as the affordable component is concerned. So um I think this is what the town's looking for with respect to that piece. So, um, yeah, I'm in support of this project.

Yeah, absolutely. A great product and and and a lot of work done here to make sure all the boxes were checked and everything looks great. It's like you knew the rules already. So, appreciate that and looking forward to seeing it come out of the ground. Thanks. Yeah, lot same. I think it's a great example that they I'm not aware of another project that somebody has been able to incorporate 15 affordable units that will be in perpetuity. So, you know, this is something we can hope lean on in the future and maybe follow some other examples. And again, we the developers are known entities here. They live in the community. They work in the community. They've got a great project down the street. So, yeah, we appreciate you guys continuing to invest in Huntersville. If there's no more comments, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor? Any opposed? That passes. Would somebody like to make a motion to bring Jay Henson back?

Make a motion to bring Jay Henson back. Suppose I'll second that. All those in favor. Good. Give it back to him. There'll be no coup tonight. Yeah. Jay, I didn't screw it up. Oh, I don't think you didn't have to. All right, ready to move on?

4C. Consider a recommendation on petition 25-07, home to Hilton, a request by PM Patel to reszone plus or minus 4.698 69 acres at 13830 Statesville Road from corporate business and general residential to highway commercial with conditions. Mr. Farber,

thank you. Um I'll submit my staff report into the record and get started. So here's a quick aerial view of the site. Um to the east you have uh the existing single family homes. Um to the south you have single family homes as well as the existing Best Western Hotel and to the uh west we have across 21 we have the Ford car dealership. Uh so the reasonzoning includes a 70 foot 117 room home to Hilton Brand hotel. Um it includes 119 parking spaces with five van parking spaces. The access to the site will be off of Dallas Street and from the existing Best Western via the uh Highway 21. Um the picture here shown is the conceptual elevation um that has been provided to to staff. Um staff's generally okay with the the design. Uh staff does need the applicant to provide us the the full elevations. Uh, additionally, the applicant is asking for a conceptual note for the overall project and elevations. Uh, for this, staff does recommend the applicant use staff's conceptual conceptual language to ensure the site is generally consistent with the approved resoning plan. At the corner of the site at uh 21 and Dallas Street, the applicant is proposing a 4,000 square foot urban open space uh which is uh proposed to include a fire pit, gazebo, walking paths uh and some benches. Um this urban open space is currently shown to be located within a storm water drainage easement. So we do need the applicant to provide us confirmation that NC do DOT is okay with these items being placed here.

Um next is buffers. Um so the applicant is providing the full required uh 30 foot buffers. Um they are proposing to increase the number of plantings above the minimum ordinance requirements of the zoning ordinance. That includes uh increasing the four required trees to seven and the seven shrubs to 10. Additionally, they are looking to provide a 12t evergreen every 20 ft to add additional height to that uh buffer. Um the applicant is requesting a modification to grade within the buffer selectively. Um staff is could could be in support of this modification. uh we just need a little more clarity on exactly uh what existing vegetation is going to remain. Uh currently the landscaping plan shows that the entire buff buffer will be replanted. Um so we just need a little bit of clarity on that. Um additionally, the applicant is proposing to place a wall and a fence along the edge of the buffer. Um, in the blue you can see that's where they're proposing a six-foot masonry wall and the light blue is an eight foot opaque fence. Um, they would also like to run that opaque fence uh along the full uh rear portion of the Best Western property. Um, the applicant does own that Best Western Hotel as well. Um, a retaining wall is proposed along the eastern edge of the parking lot and that 30 foot buffer. Um, at the tallest portion of that retaining wall, it's about 10 to 15 feet above that 30-foot buffer. Um, that height does decrease the farther south you go along that retaining wall. Um staff does have some concerns relating to uh the the

retaining wall negating some of the benefits of that buffer. Um some of the initial buffer plantings um would be about the height of that retaining wall um and you wouldn't see some of that tall growth until full maturity. Um, and just for some context, provided a street view from Hillrest looking at the rear of the property where that retaining wall and that buffer would be. So, this shows some of that existing vegetation um that that's currently there. Um, applicant does have six modification requests. Um the first three requests involve um increasing the height of the hotel from the 36 foot maximum to 70 ft. Um that increase in height would require a separation between the hotel and the nearest portion of a residential property by 210 ft. The applicant is uh requesting to reduce that separation to 100 ft. Um staff is currently not in support of those three modifications as the increase in height is not commensurate with the decrease in that separation from the uh residential properties. Um then we have the remaining three uh modifications which we could recommend or we we do support in some cases. Um, as discussed earlier, there's the the buffer uh modification request, um, which we could support if they provide us some of that information uh, since they are uh, providing us an increased number of plantings that go above and beyond that the uh, minimum requirements of the ordinance. The next modification request is to the hotel location. The ordinance requires that

building to be up against the corner of that property along road frontage um because of that drainage easement that would uh make it impossible to place that building there. We are in support of that modification to set back the building away from that corner. And then finally a swim buffer impact modification. This was not on the resoning plan. Uh this was brought to our attention um by our engineering staff. Um so they are planning to impact a swim buffer that is a jurisdictional stream. Um Meckllinmberg County is okay with that impact occurring. Um and staff could support this uh modification request. Um what we would need is just a a mitigation uh plan uh an approved mitigation plan to be provided as part of a condition on these uh resoning site plan. The 24 20 240 Huntersville community plan does support the use and the general location um of this project. It is located within a employment center and on the edge of the mixeduse center future character area. The 240 Huntersville community plan policies LU6.2, LU5.2 2 and LU2.1 do support this project as the project's located on a major thoroughfare and within the um higher intensity uses that are allowed within the two-mile I77 and NC115 corridor. Uh policies LU8.2 2 and policies 11.1 do not support the project um as the current design doesn't go above and beyond the ordinance minimums and in order for that we need the full detailed elevations to be provided. Additionally, the uh decrease in distance between the

residential neighbors and the increase in the height of the hotel are not generally compatible with the nearby neighborhood. Um staff would not be able to support this project without a combination of the following recommendations being met. Um the first is to lower the height of the building. Seconds to lower adjust the retaining wall and grading so does not compromise the buffer. Another is to provide a wider buffer and then provide increased excellence in design and then to provide that uh stream mitigation plan as a condition on the plan. And if you have any other questions, I can answer those. The applicant is also here and has a presentation as well.

We'll start with questions for staff. Yeah. Um the Best Western to the south, do you have on hand an elevation of that building by chance or approximation? Exact elevation of that. Um I've been looking through all of our plans and I haven't been able to track that down yet. So that's something we're still looking at. Um, okay. So, that's all I have. Thank you. Just to confirm, so the house immediate that's currently there, that's immediately behind where this is going to build, that one is part of the reasonzoning, correct? The plan is to to remove that

remove that house. The next lot is vacant. Correct. So, the first house that we're talking about it being too close to is 503, correct? Uh, well, so for the actual zoning ordinance requirement, it's to the edge of the nearest residential property. Doesn't have to have a home on it, but yeah, the the nearest house um that won't be uh is right here,

right? Yeah. Yep. of a three hill crest and that house is closer to the best western than this one is going to be. Correct. Correct. Y all right. Just want to make sure I had that. Okay. Other questions? Michael, I'm still trying to form the question of take it down. I mean, the the fact that we're on Statesville, which is kind of a commercial corridor,

how does that fit into the full context? I'm in the context tonight. How does this fit into the full context? Because you look across the street, nothing but a bunch of Sure. dealerships and next door to it is another hotel. Just trying to get a sense for

Yes. We fully acknowledge that um its location along 21 is definitely a positive for the project and for a use of this nature. Um currently our general concern is the the um impact of the height of the hotel on the neighborhood uh behind the the resoning site. Um so it is just a challenging property given its location. So, I just want to say if this were like a smaller boutique style hotel, you would be for it. It's the

if it was 36 ft um and they wouldn't need that modification, then yeah, we would likely be for the project.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for the umitioner presents? Okay. Um yeah, we'll call on um client to make a presentation. Good evening. I'm Susan Irvin with Irvin Law Group. Uh first I want to thank uh Nathan for that presentation. Uh he included a lot of information that I have in my PowerPoint and I promise I will try not to repeat it. Um, one of the things I'm not going to spend too much time on is, uh, just talking about the history of the owner of this hotel. Um, Mr. Patel and his family. Uh, they are local family-owned business. Uh, actually, the very first hotel that he did was this Best Western, and it was, uh, 25 years ago. And, um, Mr. Patel and his family lived behind the Best Western uh for 14 years and a few years ago uh they moved to another neighborhood in Huntersville. Um but he has worked hard with his family on this business and uh they now own 58 hotels on the eastern seabboard. um his goal was to bring a high quality hotel to Huntersville and to provide some accommodations that Huntersville

doesn't have right now. Uh that's what this home to Hilton Hotel would do. Uh he has had this property and acquired this property for that purpose. And he's also worked with NC DOT on their rightway for the Dallas Street Extension. Um, one of the things that this Hilton brand will do is if he is allowed to build a home to Hilton, uh, they will then upgrade the Best Western and, uh, a complete upgrade. Um, this is information that I've already covered. I want to give you a little bit of details though about the difference between the Home to Hilton and many of the other hotels that are provided in this area. And that's really what this slide does. The home two is a hybrid suit hotel and it really provides a niche for corporate and other business needs. Say somebody who is going to work at the park or at the hospital or it also provides a place for people to stay here with private events. They might be coming downtown to attend a downtown event. So, uh, it is a higher tier hotel and, um, would also increase and upgrade the current Best Western. Uh, this is a little bit different view, maybe a little more pulled out view than the one you saw in Nathan's presentation. I did want to kind of explain to you kind of what's around it on a broader scale. Uh, quite a few uh, automobile dealerships across Highway 21. um and the uh fast food um uh out parcels there at the intersection of Gilead 77 and 21. Um and this also shows

you uh the ride ofway uh impact on this uh this corridor and the location of the Best Western really relative to uh the hotel. Um, I wanted to just touch a little bit on the site plan and just give you some high points. Um, I appreciate uh Nathan's summary of the staff report. I do think that after reviewing uh with the staff and um going through his staff report really most of the comments that uh staff has made uh applicant has or will be able to resolve uh working with staff. Um the one that we really can't do anything about is the location of this building relative to um the um lot uh lot I'm not sure what it's shown as lot five. Yeah. here. Um, that is that is something that we could change. Uh, and you could make the hotel more at a diagonal. But if you did that, the hotel would then be closer to the three lots that are on north um on the other side of Hillrest. Um, trying to Oh, yeah. Here. So, if you were to change the location of the hotel so that it was more like this location, you might pull it away from this lot, but then they would be much closer to the three lots that are here. Um the uh this lot as was pointed out earlier is already close to the existing Best

Western which has been there for um 25 years. Okay, just erase it what I said.

Oh, okay. Good. Um so but but the point being that ideal location for this hotel really is uh Highway 21 and being parallel to Highway 21, especially given all the roadway improvements that have recently been done to Highway 21. And one of the things that Mr. Patel is very adamant about is that the street address for the home to Hilton would be the same as the street address for the Best Western. They would share that entry drive right here so that no one is looking for a hotel on Dallas Street and trying to drive through the neighborhood looking for the hotel. So that was something that you know that was important to uh the Patels and that they addressed that with the community. Um another comment uh that Nathan had made was about widening the 30-foot buffer and I'll get into the details of that a little bit more but that is also something that uh Mr. Patel worked very hard on. Um this currently there are 19 trees in that buffer area. Um he's going to be putting in over 200 trees. Uh also the retaining wall which um Payton had has done some more deep dive engineering can reduce the height of that retaining wall. And I'll show that to you in in a minute. But uh the the buffer itself um is enhanced and with the retaining wall and a six-foot masonry wall along this boundary line to uh keep headlights out.

Uh that uh buffer will uh will be a benefit to the community. Um, this is just a little bit more of a view of the buffer and the open space. I think Nathan mentioned earlier that NC DOT needs to approve the open space. We have received approval from them. So, that is one more thing that um that we were able to achieve. Um, this is a cross-section uh of the buffer itself. Uh again, 75% instead of 50% evergreens and um every uh uh on the the buffer the there would be a 12-oot tree um every 20 ft uh in the second row. And so the purpose of that is to really provide more height initially. Um I wanted to just give you a view of the site from US21. You can see uh Dallas Street coming in here and um you know how that has really affected this site. Whoops. Okay. And this is another view from Hillrest. Again, many of those trees are no longer there uh if you know to the extent that they were before. So a total of 19 trees in the existing adjacent buffer area. Another view from Hillrest is you can see uh the intersection improvements and everything right now with no uh building there. Another question that was asked about what was the height of the um of the home too relative to the Best Western? And this gives you this diagram

gives you uh an idea of the height. Uh the best western the driveway itself is 10 feet from the street and then the height of that parapit is 68 uh feet 10 in from the driveway. So a total of 78 feet and 10 in from Highway 21. And uh the home two Hilton here would be uh 70 ft uh from Highway 21. Uh granted the um the highway commercial zoning does have a 36 ft height limitation, but really the purpose of conditional zoning is it's a unique zoning for each property. And we're looking at this property that is a unique property and and trying to come up with modifications that make this property uh work. And um this buffer cross-section is taken from the very lowest point of the buffer itself. Another concern that Nathan mentioned was the height of the retaining wall relative to the buffer. It's not a high retaining wall all the way across. It's really just a low point where um there's a a a deep uh area right at the lowest point. So, this cross-section is taken from that lowest point, which would be right here. And you can see there's the buffer itself, the trees, the maturing trees, the shrubs, the small maturing trees, and this orange um uh block is the six-foot masonry wall that would be again above that and blocking out the um the parking

lights. Another thing I do want to point out is that there are parking islands um on this site plan that will also have trees and those will be between the buffer area here. These trees along the um parking lot, but then also a row of trees along this island and trees along this island. So really additional trees uh to block out um the um you know any view of the hotel. Uh we did talk about full architectural elevations. To do full architectural elevations, you really need to design the entire hotel and that's a very expensive architectural uh cost. Um this is a uh photo of the hotel uh type that is from Boone that is existing now and uh Mr. Patel uh would like for his hotel to look exactly like this. Um significant enhanced buffer again between this hotel and the neighborhood whereas the hotel in Boone really doesn't have that kind of a buffer. I have another view of the hotel here where you can see the one in Boone. There is a fence directly behind the parking lot, but really no trees and no buffer to just to give you an idea of how that fits in. Um, another thing I haven't talked about is the sustainable design and construction materials. Um, this just gives you kind of an idea of what the layout is and why it's a unique um, hotel. uh LED lighting and green initiatives um energy efficient roofing materials a very very highly uh sustainable uh hotel and that's one of the things that's a requirement of the

Hilton home too um electric vehicle charging stations also um for all EVs um I think J uh Nathan did a good job of going over the um the the community plan. Uh this is a great economic development opportunity for the town. Um and we have, you know, met with staff and worked on um addressing comments and I believe really except for the height of the building um we've pretty much addressed all of the other comments and you know happy to continue to work with staff on any outstanding issues. That's it. If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to answer. And if I can't, Payton is here and um I'm gonna just make Payton answer all the questions.

Thank you. Okay, start. Chris, you want to start?

Yes. No, you're you're right. This building is a four-story building. The one that we would be talking about, let me go back to that diagram. So, the this Best Western, for instance, is really a threetory building. It's threetory. Yeah. And it's probably only about 40 foot tall, but it's got this huge mast on it. Is it is that what we're thinking with this 70 ft? That's what that was another one of my questions. Yeah. I think what you're looking at as far as the actual height of the entire Best Western building, it's these probably these roof pitches that you're looking at.

Um that measurement, uh Payton took to this parapit. Um if you were to just kind of go to the, you know, have put another um roof kind of here, you know, what that would look like. you know, you're probably looking, and I'm ballparking it, but let's just say it's 58 feet. Um, and then you have another 10 feet to the street. So, 68 ft even without this parapet, you know, element here, um, the height that you're looking at for the home too would be 70 feet.

So, that's what I was going to ask. So the height is it measured from the street or is it measured from the bottom of the building? The the height of in this diagram is measured from the street. I see that. Yeah. But but you're this 70 ft that you're talking about is measured from where? The measurement for the building itself is is uh generally you measure it from the uh floor elevation at the street grade. Correct. Okay. So

all right. So, I guess another question I have, if you go back to the plan view, uh, where you guys have the fireplace to the north, um, you know, you talked about turning it diagonally. Was there any thought in shifting it directly north, let's just say 70 ft, and getting rid of the fireplace and pushing it away from lot 5, you're still not encroaching on those ones to the east. Was there any thought there? cuz that that buys you a little bit more space in your ratio.

Well, the reason that we needed to get approval for this from NC DOT is because with all of the work that they've done over here, there's a storm drainage easement here. So, that would prevent the building from being built there. So, there's there's a storm drainage easement, you know, really considerable amount of work for that. Well, you're taking out that storm draining easement either way, right? No, the easement itself stays stays. You're just paving over the easement. Correct. Correct. And there's no modification for that. there's no way to go to the state and get an encroachment

building uh because they want to be able to repair and I've dealt with this before and Payton correct me if I'm wrong. Uh they need to be able to get to their drainage pipes and uh they would not want a building sitting on that if that makes Yeah, it makes sense. I'm just wondering if you can put the pipes somewhere else but that would be an NC do decision. It's a 48 inch pipe. It's a large pipe. There used to be a creek through there. He took that creek and piped it. We're actually going to have to take that pipe and continue it up to Hillrest to help pick up that storm water that's all flowing down through there site. Yeah. So, you see that dashed line?

Yep. Yeah. I see it right there. That's an actual existing pipe that's in the ground today. And why couldn't you move that to the north? were fixed under the highway there. We could talk with DOT. I don't think they're going to relinquish their easel. I don't see them. My understanding was that it has to do with the roadway improvements, right? May have had some more discussions. All of their systems tie into that plus pipe and creek, right? There's a lot going on in there. Yeah. Here.

Yeah. I just thought that would be a easier fix than uh I mean yeah it just seems like it's a massive building and you guys are trying to put you know five stories 70 ft somewhere where it shouldn't be. So that's not a question but you can move on. I'll come up with more questions.

My question is why are we insisting on five stories? Um so the home to uh Hilton requirement here is for that height. Um I had asked Mr. Patel if I'm trying to find that slide. I'd asked Mr. Patel if he could uh come down at all on the height and he could bury a floor like he could go down but you know to get to Hilton brand is very difficult to do and they chose him because of his experience and his reputation and um there were willing to give that brand to him and then also upgrade the best western at the same time. So, um, so they do have parameters for what they require, but he he could bury a floor. It's just, uh, not ideal to do that. I understand it's not ideal, but it might be a nice compromise and and especially to the residents nearby, it it might be a signal that, hey, we're we're working with you.

So, was it just because of the the population of Huntersville? Why was there a four-story built in Boone, but then a fivetory has to be built here? That doesn't make sense to me. I don't I don't know the details of home two's requirements, but I do know that's their requirement here.

It's the count. They're just trying to hit certain room count per floor to get the total of 119 I think where we're at. 117 or 119. So, the footprint in Boone is larger. So they got to the 119 and four floor fours. Can't speak to the actual room count in that particular area to hit the 119 rooms in that footprint that we have, it needs to be five stories that high to get there.

I don't know a lot about the hotel business, but I suspect that their business model is one that for this particular style and location because you look you're off off of Gilead Road I77. So a hotel guy, he's he's high volume. you got nothing comparable close by. So what are you going to do? You're gonna have a format and a footprint that suggests that they can capture as much business as they can. So it's nothing personal. It's just a business decision in terms of the economics of it. Yeah. So I see that you've got a lot of letters in support of your project. Can you talk about how you source those letters and where where those came from? And um

that's a good question. Thank you for asking that question. Um, as I said, Mr. Patel used to live in this neighborhood and many of the people that he talked with about this project over the last couple of months uh were his friends and former neighbors. And in the course of uh this application from the time that we filed it to now um he has gone through met with groups of people and agreed on additional concessions uh throughout that time period. I mean, one of them was the 6-ft masonry wall and the 8-ft wooden fence, and I think he volunteered to put an additional fence behind the current Best Western. Um, he also agreed to enhance that 30-foot buffer. Um, and um, and you know, various other changes. One of the more important things, well really two, I guess two other important things were uh not to shift the location of the hotel and keep it on Highway 21 and the other one was um not to allow a right turn out of uh the uh second entrance. uh to put a no right turn sign here to prevent people who are coming out of the driveway from turning right uh towards town. The And so he and those were just a few of them. Another one was a shared driveway access with the current Best Western. Um, so, so I think the answer to your question is that it's because he did the work that he did on this project and I'm can't take any credit for that. He did all of that.

So, so what you're saying is that you some of these residential properties back here, you've got some support within that community that you went out and sourced yourself. And obviously, you know, it's not true for everybody, but um I I at least understand that you put in the leg work to Absolutely. And you're correct. And I I believe um uh this property has signed a letter and a couple of the other properties in the back have signed a letter as well. I think you touched on it before, but you know, we're I think we're trying to get per ordinance 250 ft of separation.

How many residential lots are inside of that 250 foot? So, the one that's primarily affected because you'd measure it from here uh would be lot five. Um this is the other one, two lots. Um, so it's those two. We're we're at 100 ft from that property corner there to the corner of the building here. Okay. If you double that, it's Has lot should be these two lots. Has lot five or lot six spoke in favor or in opposition?

Um, I don't know if he spoke with the lot five. I I think that he did. I can't unfortunately speak um for him. Uh he was called away on a family matter tonight. And so what is that distance, Peyton? Maybe you from Do you know this one distance? We're right at 200 ft. Yeah.

And then what would they be down to the exist? It's 170 ft here. Gotcha. And then the existing from lot five and six down to the existing hotel. That's um so I actually measured this today and this is 116 ft. Okay. And then the ones on Hillrest obviously are outside of that 250. Yes, they are out of 250. Okay.

That's all I have right now. Have you guys produced any uh backup showing that it will not reduce the value of lot five and six? Is that part of your that? So, if we were doing a quasi judicial proceeding here, if this were a an appeal or a variance, that would be one a burden of proof. Um what you would have to do to do something like that is have an appraiser come here and testify. Y

and um and so I can't speak for an appraiser what an appraiser would say, but if you are really just talking about these two lots, then you're really talking about two lots that are already within that distance of a hotel. No, I I would agree. I just think it might help your case going forward.

Yeah. Well, that's a good point. I know I know an appraiser So, I know we've talked a little bit about the proposed height of the building um and what Hilton's requirements are. Have have these I obviously this isn't isn't a surprise to you that you know we have concerns over the height of the building. Have you had any discussions with Hilton specifically with respect to the height? I know you said you could drop a floor, but um you know is there any other concession or or workaround or or some sort of compromise there? So um we have talked quite a bit about that over the course of this application and um I have uh asked that question about whether we can do that and um you know they're very exacting about things like uh sustainability, quality um and and everything else. So, uh, we haven't had any, um, success in saying we want to change the building type or the rooms or the quality of the rooms or the size of the rooms or the height of the ground floor. Those are kinds of things that really add to quality as well. Um, so, uh, you know, I I had asked Payton earlier if we buried part of the floor on the first floor I mean, could we reduce it to say 64 feet?

I think so. If we drop that first story down like a three or a five six split, you know, we're five stories on the Statesville Road Avenue, six stories on the back. It's not ideal.

I'm sorry. Can somebody please do that math for me? Like what is that in relation to like what we need? Um does that make sense? Not close.

No, it'd be if you took 64 and multiplied it by three, you're at 192. And so we're still 100 ft from lot five. You know, you're going from 210 to 192. I mean it doesn't solve the issue. Um changing the building location solves the issue. Um but it is a concern to others and so we are really got to the point where this was the location that the and I believe Mr. Patel had spoken with many many many people and the location here on Statesville was the unanimous um location.

We we did look at rotating. We flipped and twisted this thing many many different ways for those very concerns trying to look at how we get that separation. In the end, it there was no better result.

And you know, honestly, when we're looking at the location of it and where it is, it lines up exactly really with the Best Western, which is kind of a existing condition. And so, um, he focused on the things that were important to the community members that he met with, his neighbors and friends. And one of those things was having the same street address as the Best Western. And another one was not allowing right turnout here and enhancing this buffer, putting in a six-foot masonry wall, adding a 8-ft wooden fence along the side in the back. So, um, and you know, also adding more mature trees as part of his enhanced buffer.

That that buffer is very lacking today. So what we are proposing is a significant improvement on what's existing today. I don't know if we can go back to that picture. You guys probably seen it multiple times, but there's very little vegetation. Yeah. Here is on that rear street looking back out. You know, the uh the hotel would provide some sound barrier and some visual barrier from7. You know, when you think about looking at this view, you know, you'll also have the two islands of um trees in the parking islands, plus you'll have the uh six-foot masonry wall and the the trees around the perimeter of the parking lot at the top, plus all of the trees in the buffer itself. Uh so, it's a considerable uh improvement. at least over that. So I think mine is just uh most like a comment. you know, one of the challenge um or opportunity that I think we want to look at in Honestville is, you know, bringing economic development which is very important because we are very close to shadow and what happens is that most often you know towns like Huntersville and other neighboring cities are considered baron city for shadow because the economic activity is going on in shadow. So what this does is that you know it create more economic you know impact for the town people work employment all those kinds of things but I also want you to consider you know the neighbors you know so considering you know talking over with Hilton how

you can modify something like maybe if it's a story down you know that would be good but we have to consider you know the character of the um you know like the best western that's fine and then city ordinance. So all those things has to be taken into consideration but we I think it's a good project. So we just need to work around and make sure that those things are put in place to you know take others into consideration.

I always believe you go ahead. I was just looking at so u have u have there been conversations with the community with regards to what the real objections are that they have? Uh and obviously everybody can simply say height but what's the objections that they have? Is it that they can't see anymore? Is that they think it's too much noise? They think it's going to be some other issue. What are those objections? and what is the response back to those people with the objections you've heard?

Well, I think that is an excellent question. Um, and I can't obviously speak for the people in the community who uh are do do not want this hotel here. But when he began the various discussions with the community members, their concerns were people who were coming to the hotel driving around the neighborhood. That was the first one. So the no right turn sign here um was a an agreement uh that he had that he would not that he would put that here. And another one was that he would have a street address that is on on Statesville Road and not on Dallas Street. And uh you know I think it was pointed out earlier he does you know he he could have connected to Hillrest and he did not do that. Um so uh those were that and the proximity of the hotel if it were put you know in a different location. you know, those were the things that, you know, he he addressed and also with the buffer. So, you know, I know this because he came to our office several times and said, you know, I've had these meetings. I want to change the plan and here's what I want to change. And that doesn't usually happen. It's usually me saying, would you make these changes? And so, uh, that that was a difference. It's a question for town. What's the uh tallest building that we have outside of Burke?

Town Hall 60 ft. Um the tower's 400 ft. So the tower 400 Southire Oh, I got you. Yeah. Yeah. The Southire tower. Easiest thing. The new town hall 60t tall. Yeah. The new town hall is 60 ft tall. But before that, like the tallest thing was probably like Discovery Place Kids in the Town. 5560s in in the business park. Some of the older buildings. around 60 65 ft. Yeah, correct.

Yeah, I'm just trying to wrap my head around 70 ft. I mean, it just feels very large even for, you know, a highway 21 corridor, it feels very big. Um, so all right, just wondering and I'm just going to add especially when you look at the ordinance and it says 35 when you're talking about doubling sorry

36 whatever. Yeah, we're in the 30s, right? And you're moving it to the 70s. Like that's Sorry, math is not feeling me right now. Um, but it just you're doubling it. It It just feels extreme. So, when we did the hotel at Burkale Crossing, that was the hotel height on that one was 59 feet. um you know, hotels typically um and and the the highway commercial building type doesn't really fit a hotel. So, when we say 36 feet as a highway commercial, you know, the ordinance itself doesn't say in highway commercial zoning, you can only have a 36 foot high building. But what it says is if you have a highway commercial building type, it can only be 36 feet. I would say that hotels really are not a highway commercial building like um a gas station or you know a food line. Um that would so that that would just be my comment about that.

And just to add to that, if they were to pick a different building type, say the urban workplace, that puts you up 48 feet. So it's a it's a choice. Um, previously before we did change to the CD, you know, CZ reszoning style of of government about a year and a half ago, uh, you used to have to go through that special use permit with these hotels which allowed for that increase in height. Again, to the boards had all asked us to limit those SU. So, we went through the CD process and that's what this is the proper tool to use today. It's just an exception.

And I appreciate that because, you know, I do have trouble with saying it's 36 feet. That's actually not what the ordinance says about a hotel. Um, when that special use permit provision was removed, it was replaced with conditional zoning. And the idea was that if you're going to have a hotel, um, it can be a higher hotel, but the conditional zoning process is the appropriate one to come up with a quality of design. And so that's really what we're trying to achieve here. And we're not just trying to achieve that in terms of the look of the building, which is this look, but we're also trying to achieve it in terms of a lot of the elements of the design that you do not have in hotels now. So,

can you go back to the Can you go back to the aerial and this is a hypothetical question for the staff? I'm sorry. Go to back that you were where we were showing the distance or go back. I'm sorry. Uh, wait. Stop right there. Um, hypothetical. If lot five and six were incorporated into this project and was just treated as green space, would the would would they meet the ordinance and the height be approved? They would. Y would they would meet the the requirements of the three times the height. Okay. Spacing.

That's what I thought. I'm just trying to get I'm I'm really trying to understand what the site constraints are here that is limiting their ability to develop what they want to. And um and I'm not discounting lot five or six by any means. I'm just trying to understand that again if they were incorporated then we would meet they would meet the ordinance standards. Okay.

Michael, this is just an observation. I think as a town and and as a zoning board, we're we're seeing some of the conflicts that's going to inevitably continue the conflicts is that we're building a huge amount of density in our downtown with no hotels. That's your challenge. We can say what we want, but in the end, the reason you're going to see these hotel proposals pop up is because people who are living in these apartments and condos and town homes that are all downtown, the ones that we're approving that are being built like crazy, are going to have folks, guests and visitors, and they're going to come in town, say, "Where can I stay?" And many of them will say, "I will not stay at the Best Western. I will not stay at the Super Eight. Where can I stay?" And the closest ones we're going to say is four miles that way. So, that's a challenge. Yeah. that we have to really address. I mean, we don't like what we see, but the reality is we brought, as the expression goes, we brought this on ourselves.

Can I just clarify real quick my my previous statement? Um, while we would still likely approve that, they would still need a modification to go above the three stories uh up to their their proposed um stories. Yeah, that this time we would just be in If that were the case, you're muting. Oh, you got a question. Motion conversation questions, I guess. Any more questions? Then we get a discussion. Okay.

Um staff, can you find me the slide on the modifications? I think you've got a slide on modification.

Hopefully, I won't butcher this. Um motion in considering the proposed reszoning application R2507 home to Hilton, the planning board recommends approval based on the plan being consistent with policies LU6.2, LU5.1, LU2.1 and EV2, which specifically states encourage existing economic assets in entrepreneurial business development. approval is subject to and it shall include the modifications listed in staff report. Um, also subject to the applicant working with the staff to agree on buffer details. It is reasonable and in the public interest to approve the resoning plan because it supports an existing small business in Huntersville, will provide needed alternative hospitality options for existing Huntersville businesses, and will provide a renovated and improved existing hospitality property in Huntersville. Thank you.

Second motion. Second discussion. Scott, you want to

I guess I'll start us. Um I don't take it lightly that, you know, we have some adjoining parcels that will be negatively affected by it. But I do sit there and look at it, they they're already affected by the Best Western. So I, you know, find some balance in that. Yes, there's no greater. Um, and also I think Michael said it that, you know, some of these amenities are are required. Um, and we're going to continue to see more and more density. And again, I've said this, you know, there's limited sites that to be developed in Huntersville. And, you know, we can continue to see more sprawl or we can find density on what we do have. Um, other pros, I think getting an upgraded Best Western during this process is huge. I think that's a big deal. I like the idea that it's a shared driveway on Highway 21. Um anyway, those are my the reasons for supporting it.

Thank you, Michael. Second.

I think I expressed it earlier about the economics of it. Uh I think that does weigh significantly because again we've generated a environment that creates a demand for these kind of products and the real question is at what point do we have an opportunity to actually acquire products like this in the general area? Uh again it's not to in any way suggest that the people who are impacted by this uh is being belittled but it simply acknowledges that the environment that we're in that's the reason one of the first thing I said is that you know statesville road is a highdensity quarter and when you got highdensity quarters next to an interstate next to a major east west quarter called Gilead Road it it generates a very specific set of demands. Uh, and I would suggest to you that this is just one of the areas that we have to have to be realistic about in terms of what will be able to address the demand in that area. So, with that, I'm I'm supportive of it.

I came in uh ready to vote a hard no on it and I've gone back and forth over the last, you know, 45 minutes. I mean, I can see, you know, the benefits of it, the upgrade of the Best Western, and it seems like he's trying to do the right thing as far as the shared driveway and not turn it into the neighborhood. Um, I'll have to take their word for it on reaching out to the neighbors and, you know, but, you know, my heart goes out to, you know, the neighborhood with a 70story building in your backyard. I I feel like we were we've been talking about 40story buildings in the backyard and I've been kind of on the fence on that. Maybe a 50story hotel. I mean, a 50ft hotel, but a 70 foot building is very big. And I get it. I did the math on the uh Boone uh home to suites. It's 70,000 ft². You guys are trying to get to 72,000 ft² on this one. I just wish we could lower it down by at least one floor and get closer to that 50 55 number as opposed to 70. It feels like it would fit a little bit better uh just in the town as a whole. 70 is going to stand out.

I don't disagree that we need a hotel there. I absolutely agree and I love the idea of the Best Western getting the upgrade, but the height is truly the the issue for me. If I'm somebody that I've said this over and over on this dice, um the exception becomes the rule. And so if we say, "Okay, 70 for you." Well, now that's where we're going to be at for all the buildings. And it's not just looking at your project, it's looking at all the other ones that follow. So for me, I have to be a no because it doesn't fit the character of the rest of the buildings in the town, not just that particular location.

I can support this as well. I've got to protect some of the the Greenfield Park residents again. They've been encroached on before with uh Hullbrooks one, as you know, going down into a GR neighborhood, the oldest in Huntersville, and reszoning it. Um it's it's a great product. We need it for economic developments. Yes, it's just uh round peg square hole for me. It's it's too high. It's still too close to the residents. I'm I'm sure, you know, attempt was made to to turn that land over, too. But I did look through the letters of support. Um there's only one in here that's somebody that's actually in Greenfield Park and there's there's two sections of them. The second section is all auto autopinned. So they they didn't put their address on there, but I know all the uh roads in that neighborhood and one and we heard two other speakers or two speakers speak tonight against it. The the comparison because Best Western's already there. Well, that the Best Western is only three stories. And yes, it's already there. And it was approved under a different set of ordinances. The people that are there, you know, knew what the ordinances were when they when they when they bought their place and and then saw them changed. So, you know, that's it's they thought they were protected and now we're saying, well, maybe you're not. Um, even like you you pointed out the example given the the elevation or the the photo was was a fourstory in Asheville. So still we're trying to kind of hide the fact that yeah, this thing's going to be seven stories. It's just it's too much to be impacting uh one of our oldest neighborhoods. So I cannot support it.

Yeah, I mean it's it's a close call from me, but at the end of the day, I really do feel like there's maybe a little bit more that can be done to drop the height. Um, I I know that I think that there's, you know, if push comes to shove, if Hilton's really serious about offering this product here, um, I think there's some wiggle room. It's a little uncomfortable not knowing what the actual proposed height is currently as designed. Um so you know I I would be in support of this I think if we had a little bit more certainty but I know I realize at this stage that you know design is expensive and that's a whole process but um it's really just come down to the height for me. So if there's any way to drop that height I think I would be in support of this project.

Yeah, mine is similar. You know we just consider the neighbors. So if we can reduce it a little bit one you know one story down if we can consider that you know we will support this. So uh if you can work with uh staff and making sure that you know that is considered I think then we will you know uh support you

staff um the applicant has approached us and and can come down to 64 feet. Okay.

I can amend my motion to make one of the conditions that the height will not exceed 64 feet. Who seconded it? Uh, Michael,

we second it. Um, any thoughts? I mean, it's u, you know, it's it I look at it, it's it's the right use there right on the road. Um, yeah, it it's it's at the height. I mean, it is at the limit and, you know, like like it's been said, you know, does it keep creeping up? I appreciate the 64 feet. I mean, it's a little bit. It helps. Also appreciate working with the neighbors, the buffers, the addition in the buffers. Um, I feel like they have tried to accommodate this um as best they can with what they have in front of them. And I I would support the 64 ft. Other discussion? We're ready to call vote.

Okay. All of those in favor? Those opposed? Two. What's that? Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you very much. Did you all want to take a five minute break quickly or are you ready? Keep on moving. Keep going. Okay.

With the finish line. Okay. The last item or the next item. Consider a recommendation on petition R2509. Request by Greenway Waste Solutions to Dormech to reszone plus or minus 220.9 acres near 15300 Hull Brooks Road from special purpose conditional district SPCD neighborhood residential NR transitional residential TR and corporate business CB to specialurpose conditional district SPCD. The purpose of the resoning is to expand the Northmech landfill. Mr. Priest, you've been patiently waiting.

Good evening. No problem at all. Just enjoying the discussion. Um, so I'll put my staff report into the record and u so yes, the the application before us is a conditional district reszoning u amendment really uh because this is a a resoning for a site that uh already has a conditional resoning and uh is looking to come and amend that conditional resoning site plan to expand some properties and to change the conditions of the existing resoning. Um so it's really in two parts. You've got the reszoning aspect, but you've also got a special use permit that is required. Um, this is for the greenway waste landfill expansion, excuse me, on on Hullbrooks Road. Um, again, I'm I'm kind of summarizing the the public hearing uh from earlier in the month, but um they're looking to expand the landfill. And so, two parts, reasonzoning and a special use permit. Tonight is only dealing with the resoning aspect. So the special use permit will be handled by uh the town board tenatively scheduled for October 21st. So just a lay of the land again again not trying to you know stay too long on the the aspects that we talked about at the public hearing but the landfill is at the the eastern most part of Hullbrooks Road to the south. Um, so you've got the landfill and uh you've got the Vermilion subdivision to the north of Hullbrooks. Um, way down to the south, you've got uh Commerce Station with the reszoning plan that you guys just saw and was approved um a few months ago for the big box warehouse uh that they were proposing to expand Commerce Station Drive there to the south there. Um just a highlight on what the application is. The the application

really is to expand um property to the west. Uh in order to move the stream that currently runs through the landfill. Uh to the north you see the the current stream in dark green. Um and to the the bottom picture you see the new location of the stream. And where the red arrow is, that would be an abandoned stream. And then um in the G the hatched area, I'm going to draw this will work. This area here, you would have additional fill into the landfill. So it's an expansion um almost internally, right? So they're they're not proposing to expand laterally or east west or north south out of their limits per se, but the expansion is to remove the stream and fill where the old stream was. No buildings are proposed. So in order to do that, there are some modifications to the ordinance that are needed. Um the currently technically still exists there. So until they go through the permits with the county, until uh they get all those permits done, um the stream still exists where it is. And so approving a reasonzoning and a special use permit when the stream's still there. There's some modifications in order to to make that happen. Um some of the buffers are being disturbed, the SP buffers in addition to that. So a modification is needed there and the applicants are asking not to uh fence in the entire landfill. So that's a modification as well. Uh Hullbrooks Road. So Hol Brooks Road um just again a quick history um through the development of the landfill. Um you know it's it's existed since 1993. So, as the the landfill has been used,

it's used Holb Brooks Road as an access. Um, article 9.23 addresses the requirements for construction and demolition landfills. One of which is that they have to be accessed through a commercial street or a thoroughare uh and not a residentially oriented street. So, this has kind of been like a non-conforming situation for some time. Um, so the town has has been working on trying to uh help and find ways to to get the applicant and the landfill off of Hullbrooks onto a different street. So back in 2016 when the current special use permit um and conditional resoning was approved, there were conditions that were approved that limited the use of the landfill to using Hullbrooks no later than 2034. that was the threshold date uh where they needed to find an alternative access and they agreed to that. Um, additionally, if one an access uh became available within one year, um then they would change their access to that new access. So, if you recall the new resoning that was done, um they're proposing to come and and stub to the south. So if they come and construct prior to 2034, it would be required that the applicants greenway waste make that connection within a year currently. So staff is asking for those conditions to to be rolled over, excuse me, to uh the new resoning here. And then also uh looking at the durability, one of the conditions was um staff at NC DOT, the town board wanted us to look at the durability, the condition of the road um to see what needed to be done in regard to maintenance. We're currently doing that. Staff had a meeting just this week uh with NC DOT. they're going to go and talk to their maintenance team and come

up with some recommendations in regard to what we can do to to better maintain and uh ask the the applicant to help maintain. So, that's currently a work in progress there. Now, just some site design updates in regard to the resoning plan. Um, this is in the staff report, so I I won't go into too much uh detail. Uh, but the current plan at the public hearing, uh, we needed to address the greenway plan. Uh the applicants have added a note to state that u they are going to build a multi-use path along their frontage on Hullbrooks Road. Um so that's good. That accommodates a need. They also added a note on the plan to accommodate that proposed north south con connector street uh to say that once staff identifies the location they would um uh reserve that ride ofway and include enough ride of way to have a north south greenway connection as shown in the greenway plan. So uh those notes kind of take care of that situation in the proposed resoning plan. also updated um the ULI study, the Urban Land Institute, and the East Huntersville Small Area Plan called for some residential um you know, again, Hullbrooks has been a a residential street for quite some time. So, those plans that we have in in in our library essentially call for um Hullbrooks Road to remain and stay residential in nature. Um, so the applicants did uh change their resoning boundaries to back off of reszoning the entire properties to leave some room for residential along Hullbrooks. Um, so though that's that's a good thing. We we I think that was something that was necessary to really uh be consistent with our long range plan. So they did that. still working with the applicant

to to get some notes to identify specifically um where specific uses are around the development to make sure we're we're we're concrete on what uses are proposed where. Um and then also um uh making sure the 80oot buffer along that new residential area along Hullbrooks is accommodated. Um so still working on that 2040 plan. Um this uh graphic shows the um area proposed. So a lot of it the existing landfill is employment center. So that's that's consistent with your warehousing, your industrial where you have the special purpose zoning district and where the landfill is really supposed to be. Um so that's a consistent uh character area. um the the residential the medium density there along Hullbrooks that's where the applicants have recently changed the plan to to save some of that residential along the Hullbrooks road corridor so we think that fits there the parks and open space um that was back in the time where the town owned that property and there was a general plan to perhaps turn that into a park but the town has since um sold that um to the applicant and um they've got some potential plans to to use this for for um industrial development in the future which would probably be appropriate per the ULI study that recommended that type of use in that location. So consistent policies um again just mentioned uh the future land use map all those uses especially with the updates are are consistent um with LU 1.1 and and using that future character map um EOS5 protecting water quality again um having a stream go through a landfill is

not the not the best for water quality right um so redirecting that out is a win uh for surface water quality inconsistent policies that we're working on again. So, focus more intense development in location that can support growth. Um, we're really in a situation where whole Brooks Road is not ideal, uh, to have access for for the heavy trucks and going through residential areas. Um, so the applicants are working on that. So, um, that's a work in progress. Um, same goes for LU11, uh, protecting existing housing stock. Again, the residential developments um that have been on Hullbrooks for a long time are are dealing with that uh truck traffic going through there, changing the character a little bit. So, working on getting that again taken care of. EOS one preservation enhancement of the environment. This is something where we're going to have to work through the special use permit because the site does have some chemical contamination on the site and cleanup is underway. Uh so we're asking the applicant and working with the applicant to to show evidence uh of the cleanup and evidence that the the location of the new stream and additional fill in that location is not going to hurt the environment generally. Um so that special use permit is is we're we're working on that information and accumulating that information from the applicant. Um so uh staff's recommendation again from a zoning perspective um you know the the principles of the ordinance are are we've kind of agreed to most of them. It's just a matter of getting the plan correct. Right. So we've got a little a few things to to correct there and then uh with the condition also that the SUP is approved by the town board because that would be an important one there. Um, I won't go through the the list, but those are in your staff report as well. Uh, also Klay Heath from our engineering

department is here. So, if you've got questions about the storm water, about the moving of the stream, uh, any of that, please ask him those questions because he's been patiently sitting here as well uh, to to help you guys and answer any questions you have. So, we appreciate Clay being here for us as well. The applicant is here and they have a presentation if you like to hear that also. Thank you. Um, first of all, question for staff. Uh, we'll start there. So, uh, just kind of slowly walk us through, uh, what has already been approved permitting wise besides our board and what has not been approved. I'm not real sure I follow all the approvals and not approvals yet. So the the first approvals that the applicant no no approvals from the town have been received

nothing. So, but what we did ask because this is a large project and and it's kind of um a very unique project, um we've asked them to really start looking at the feasibility and trying to get permits from the state to understand um if this is even feasible, right, to move a stream. It's it's the largest we've ever seen. Um, so what they did, they went to the state and they've got what's called the 401 and 404 permit to basically get permission from the state uh to go into a stream and disturb. And Clay would be able to answer a lot more questions about that. But those are the those are the two permits that have been received right now that I understand.

That correct? Correct. Army Corps and the state manage it. Clarify. Yeah. So they have both the 401 and the 404 approved already for the the impacts to the stream itself and some wetlands that are also on site. You're saying just for the impacts, but is that to actually cons move the stream? What's the process to move the stream? Uh so there are a couple things that will be needed to move the stream. which being the modifications for the town, the 401, the 404 kind of a piece in the puzzle of all the different permits that would be and does it include also the swim buffers as well.

Correct. Yeah. So the uh so one of the modifications they're asking for is the modification to the swim buffer impact itself. So that's something that there would also be needed to impact. Now are these assessments or actually permit approvals as in a formal approval process? Uh so the 401 and the 404 are approvals that they have obtained already to to do what? I'm sorry I'm I'm a little slow. It's a little late. Yeah. To uh to impact the the stream itself um as well. So it's okay to move it for for the impact for the existing stream. Yes.

Okay. Uh so some other things that would still be needed would be an erosion control plan from the town to do the work on site, a storm water uh assessment through the county to to see what the impacts of moving it would be. Okay. I'm sorry. I'll ask a little differently then. Uh is there also a portion in that to talk about the impact study? The impact of actually moving string. Where is that taken into account? Somebody's got to be looking and say here's what it's going to do if we move the string, right? Uh so some of the the impacts of what it would the I guess the impacts to the the flood plane. Um I would I would think somebody would ask for an impact study to be presented to say here's what it does when you move the stream in this manner,

right? Um so there we can see the impacts from a couple of different things. U so there is a a component of the greater flood plane and the drainage area of where the stream I'm not asking what it is. I'm asking if anybody has done a formal study to say here's what happened when you if you've got an engineer to go out and say here's what's going to happen. Okay, that's why I was trying to figure out if it's final if it is approval by them or to go do the study and say okay you've clarified my question. Yeah, the study on the stream impacts is done and they have the the approval of that study to go study it. They have the they've done the study and they have the approval for bulldozing. Got it. Okay. Thanks. Sorry.

What does that look like?

Uh so the land the proposed landfill does have some measures to capture and detain you know any lee or runoff from the landfill. Um the it might be a better suited to answer some of those questions. I'd say too that part of the part of the application is new swim buffer, right? So if you see the the area, my big fat green arrows are kind of covering it, but there's there's green and orange area there that is swim buffer. So there'd be vegetation and that kind of thing. So they would re they would take swim buffer and then reestablish it in addition to the stream.

If I understand it correctly right now that existing stream is already piped, right? Is that is that is that is the the dark green one is open. Okay. A natural stream. Okay. The the light green one is piped. Understood. Thank you. Prince.

Yes. So why is I think the there have been some chemical I mean sipping into this the ground and have there been any comprehensive health assessment done to understand the uh impact for resident in the area and now that you want to add another uh landfill expansion. So have there been one? So, they are working with North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, NCDEQ, on the contamination cleanup. Um, so they're working on that and they're actively mitigating and trying to clean that up. Now they can talk to in regard to the special use permit staff is is kind of asking for that information in regard to okay we know we there's existing contamination we change the stream then we add fill on top how does that affect right so that that is during the special use permit process we're going to answer those questions and then have them present those answers to the to the town for we want to see that first to understand what's going on as to the extent of the contamination before we talk about approving or improving or maybe extending new expansion. Don't you think we should consider that first?

Yes. Yes. And from the staff perspective, that's why the recommendation for approval is conditioned on that special use permit being approved. And during that process, we would expect those questions to be answered. Now, yeah, that that's going to have to be submitted and we'll review it and then the town board will be able to look at it to see and make sure those questions are answered appropriately. Theoretically, we we could approve this tonight and then the special use permit gets denied and then nothing would happen. Correct. Okay, that makes me feel much better. Thank you. both. They need both.

Questions for staff? Yeah, we'll go back to the contaminants. So, apparently some testing was done to find the contaminants that were there. Now, so I assume there's a regular testing regiment and schedule and all that stuff that would that would find any of these things on a on a regular basis. Yes, it's it's very they they've been working with DEEQ for years. There's monitoring wells throughout the site and the applicants can go into that detail but they understand and things are getting better on the site. It's just that question becomes with these very large changes and with additional fill, how does that affect? And that's what we're trying to understand and we don't know at this point and we're working with the applicant on that.

And this is a lined landfill, right? It's it's lined. I don't think it is. The applicants can answer those questions. I'm not I'm not qualified to answer those question. So so with the okay so with the redirection of the stream so how do we know whether that will be uh affecting maybe the chemical or contamination is that any way you can tell whether it is within that distance or that radius or how do you know

in regard to how does the stream moving affect it? Yes. Like the current contamination, how does that affect like the redirection of the stream? Do you No. No. So that that would be my answer right now. But that is a question we've posed to the applicant because that would change the hydrarology and some of the the contamination is groundwater. So changing the hydrarology of the the the stream. The question becomes where does the groundwater go? Do monitoring wells need to be in different locations? Those are general questions that staff has asked and we have similar questions.

So that's why I think there's a lot of work to be done first. So if that can be done then we understand how we moving forward because I think first thing first you know that understand what the implications are and then we can be able to make decision on that. So I think we do not have enough information right here to you know be making decision. Prince, it's two separate things. So, this is just us discussing um whether or not this is allowed, the land use, but then there's going to be a whole other um hearing and and I mean there's going to be a whole other section to discuss the environmental impact. So what we decide tonight isn't going going to have that same impact that you're discussing that you're saying.

Okay. We want to hear from the uh owners. You can uh come on up to the podium and state your name, please.

Thank you. My name is Mike Griffin. Uh, Griffin Brothers Companies, thank you for your time, especially tonight, a long night. And thank you for your service to the town. And thanks to Brad, Brian, and Clay and the staff for helping. I'm going to blaze through this because this some portion of was at the um public hearing. But a family business started in 1961, Deep Roots in Long Creek. Father went to Long Creek and Northmech and I went to elementary, first grade at Long Creek. Um, I'm here really to talk about our involvement at Greenway Waste Solutions. We've been entrusted with management of construction waste in Northmech for almost four decades. Technically, this site started in the 80s as a land clearing inert debris facility and in 94 was converted to CND. And I won't spend too much time explaining what is greenway waste solutions except to say CN again I'm going to try to blaze through this but there are five sections we'll go through but we accept construction and demolition debris only not household waste not as and not asbestous etc. Um, and as you can see what we include with with materials. We do have a state-of-the-art MURF which is called material recovery facility as Brad mentioned that was approved in 2016 and that's operational now and we're we're proud of that. This is the most advanced MURF facility that manages CND in in the state. So how do we fit in the community? And that's a lot of discussion I guess more about reszoning. So I thought I'd just start quickly for regional map. Um back before 2000 um the leaders of the town uh designated commerce station as an opportunity for industrial development and actually it's an interlocal agreement when that's owned by town of Huntersville Cornelius and Davidson and we are attached to that as you can see in this map and some of the land as Brad mentioned that we own we look forward to um keeping residential and whole Brooks but you can kind of see regionally I think the vision Brighton was more mixed juice this is going to be more industrial and we also provide buffer around other things that are going to

happen as a point of interest. Um, Hull Brooks Road back in the ' 50s, '60s,7s was a garbage landfill, unlin garbage landfill that the county ran. So, Hull Brooks Road has always had some waste facility and that was a pretty negative plight in history because predominantly Pottstown was African-American community and they dumped in the back of that. Um, Sam Batilia who's a native Pottstown resident who started our facility and we partnered with him in the 80s as we mentioned. Um we've had we're very proud of our partnership with the community. So back in 2000 went to all 25 residents of the Pottstown community that live in Hullbrooks. We created a partnership. As you can see over now the decades there's been attrition. So as of 2020 I think there's now 14 of the 25 residents that remain. Um but we're proud of our our affiliation with the Hol Brooks Road Community Association and nonprofit. We've contributed a million dollars to that nonprofit that's gone towards scholarships, hundreds of neighborhood improvements, but also very proud of us continuing to manage senior citizens as far as cutting their lawns and having weekly pickup debris up and down Hullbrooks. We're we're proud of the condition of Hullbrooks and its its current form. As you can see from this letter, recently we the current Holb Brooks Road chairperson wrote a nice letter um recognizing the things that we do not just monetarily but also for the community. The road partnership has been gone going on uh for more than a quarter century as well. We paid for the Verhoff extension drive in hopes that would be our solution to get off Hullbrooks. Uh we paid paid for that study in 2000. Uh we've repaid for repairing potholes and improving the shoulders through the 90s. Much more formalized in the 2000s including adding a right turn lane contributing to town to help improvements. And then also just as a quick reminder, our our customers, our

haulers, they pay a pretty highway tax fee for roads. And we did an analysis. They're specific to the debris they brought us for the life of our facility. They have contributed more than $4 million to North County Highway fuel tax. And then we've contributed $400,000 ourselves directly for the management of Hullbrooks Road area. Heights. Um so this is kind of interesting. I know heights was the discussion day of the hotel. So the um the topography in the east honors area interesting. So there are natural heights of 820,840 830. The tower was mentioned too that's 1250 which is a different animal but our height existing now at if we closed without this expansion be 820. So it's that's why it's not really visible from the community. Um if we have approval in 40 plus years it would get to 8,000 another 25 ft on top of the current. I'm sorry 45 feet on top of the current. So, why are we vital? Obviously, we talked a lot about growth and and growth is is continued to come. Uh the that upper thing where Mecca County is expected to increase 400,000 new residents between 2020 and 2040 and 200,000. If you study how Meckmer County has grown, Southmech grew first and it's pretty dense. Northmech still has more upside growth than Southmech. So we would anticipate even more growth coming to north versus south as a result of the uh open space that we have here. The current waste management within the county is there's two facilities. There's our facility privately owned by my family and the county owned facility which is in the southernmost part of the county near Ballentine called Foxhole. So we always say what what happens if we go away? Well, there is a facility that we own in Harrisburg in Cabaris County and there is a facility with seven years remaining in Lincoln County on on that side of the lake. So, if we were to go away, obviously we have more than seven years capacity. So, that landfill would like

most likely go away. So, the the waste would come to our Harrisburg facility or go further in to Foxhole. So we did analysis what that would mean with the obvious heavier impact of truck traffic on the key roads as I mentioned but also air pollution. So having our type facility minimizes that because the way waste CND waste works it's one container in front of a house or commercial property being built that has to be picked up and taken directly to a landfill. It's not consolidated like household waste is. So that one pool allows us to do analysis. We we did estimate another 725,000 annual miles of truck traffic would be generated for not in existence. And by arithmetic, that's 2.4 million cubic CO2, additional pounds of CO2 that would be in atmosphere. And illegal dumping was more commonplace if you don't have convenient sites for waste. So what's next for us and conversation? Brad did a great job really explaining what we're doing, but I did want to kind of use a little bit more animation to better explain the technical stuff. And also, I'm happy that we have Todd Gingrich. Uh, one, if I screw up, he's my engineer to tell me where I screwed up, but two, he'll get a lot more technical with the the constituents that were mentioned. Um, I did want to talk about the cell tower that was approved a few months ago. The tower's up. AT&T would be first to have service. So if you live in Vermillion, AT&T is probably a better option soon after Verizon and T-Mobile will most likely be there. Our land is noted in the magenta and you can see cell one which is closed and cell two which is active. Um and I'm going to do some more animations. One Verhoff drive study that we approved that's where the alignment approximately would be but as we know now ends at Southwire. Um, also storm water regional management. The unnamed tributary that runs through our property overall manages about 350 acres of storm water. And that that's important to to do. As

mentioned, we've already received the approvals from the um key folks. Obviously, they did a tremendous amount of due diligence and and I will contend and we will prove during SUP that we're actually enhancing the uh storm water management and the surface water management. Um, so as you can see now, it runs through between cell one and cell two. This would eliminate that. It would eliminate the piping under cell two and it would put it around the landfill instead of through it. And that is a tremendous improvement too for environmental stewardship of our site. But it also gives us that chance of what you see labeled cell three. will be able to put a lined facility between the two cells and be able to capture the future growth of Northmech in a much more advanced uh designed cell structure. And there was a question about was is cell one and cell two lined? They were not lined with synthetic membranes there. Even at this moment, CND labels aren't required to do that. This is something we're voluntarily doing with with cell 3. Uh it was mentioned to the approval recently of the warehouses that will go um south of us in Commerce Station. That's given us this wonderful opportunity to get off Hullbrooks Road. So as you can see our few and I I think there's one more animation. Uh the trucks will come off Hullbrooks. The only access from Hullbrooks would be uh for emergencies. It would be gated and there would not be any access for employees and customers to come that way. All of our traffic will come off Verhoff Commerce Station Drive and to the drives around the new warehouse that's being approved. I did talk to the um applicant that's building that and they're expecting to close in November and start construction in January. So, they're actually going through the county process, the pool permits. So, that's just the update I got this this afternoon. Um the thing I do want to talk about, as Brad mentioned, the we do own a good bit of land on Hull Brooks

Road. That yellow that you see is land that we own that's not part of the landfill operations. Uh there's two little lots that we don't own. And as you can see a little further to the um technically to the west there are a is a subdivided development that's never been built beside Waymer Fields. So we would obviously want to work with those land owners and we are we are horizontal developers. We've been doing this for 30 years. we would want to collaborate and partner with them and show that the sum's greater than the parts and come back to the town with a collaborative master plan that would include all that land. So, I'll just kind of show it in this this kind of pinkish color. Um, I have already met with some of the Pottstown legacy families that have some ownership in those lots. Um, and I found out recently that Nate Bowman owns a few. I don't really do business with him, but we'll we'll look to try to figure out how to do a collaborative master plan to to figure this out. The last subject is the greenway trail enhancements. This is something we've been involved with since that ULI study that we helped fund in 2017. The current plan through that study was to h have that greenway follow the tributary that we're redesigning and hit into Cane Creek and go up. We're super excited to say that we would want to offer what we would consider a quicker and much uh more improved plan and that would be to have that greenway follows all the way from the way we fields to the fly fields to King Creek and ultimately that runs into um South Prawn Clark Creek. So King Creek runs into that just as FYI. So this is something we would want to introduce as a master plan. So that would be a 10- foot wide multimotal path that would connect the fields. More importantly, add sidewalks to the Pottstown legacy uh community that's never that doesn't have sidewalks. You know, the the Vermillion things kind of got a hodge podge of sidewalks, but they're not all connected. This way, it'd be completely connected from the from the Weamer facilities to the creek

and add a nice enhancement. Most of that would obviously be coming back to the town for the collaborative master plan, but as Brad mentioned, the parcels that would be currently affected as a result of this proposal, we would do that as a part of this, but we'd hopefully have it all coordinated together. Just another cross-section of what this would look like. As you can see, cell one or phase one, phase two, or we call cell one, cell two, those are existing. This would be filling in between. As you can see, the first 10 years, we'd kind of start at that 680 mean sea level and come up, you know, 70 feet and you would keep coming up to eventually we would hit a peak of the 865s that I referenced. As you can see how that would be designed. All that area in purple would be lined. It's almost like the kind of equivalent of a bathtub. Any water that hit would hit waste would be captured through a pretty sophisticated system that you'll see in another slide. And that would be taken to a tank to a basically huge tank and it would be monitored and then it would properly be discharged in in the proper proper way. So to totally different state-of-the-art system. Um I do Todd will probably help me here but I I do want to recognize this I think is slide 20 that was that was modified. We shared I think Brad shared this slide with DEEQ. We also shared a letter that Todd wrote to Brad in preparation for the SUP and there was some clarities that were made. Um so ground I think the question groundwater is tested twice a year which is important to understand. Interesting thing about groundwater in our region it moves roughly five feet per year in this region. So with our minimum buffer of 200 feet there's a 40 years to remediate any type significant problems that may happen. Um obviously DEQ would would respond way quicker than that. They don't wait they wait days not years to respond to some issue. Um we a good example a decade ago we had a small trace of constituent called vinyl

chloride. Actually this is not the newest slide rabbit but I I can explain the the differences. This was that slide from the public but but but that but that's fine. That's fine. the um I kind of did so per DEQ's recommendation they did wanted me to give more information one that was one that um even though we have 40 years to remediate a problem the the remediation process happens immediately if there's a groundwater test that shows that there is a problem um one which was vinyl chloride a decade ago we spent over a million dollars putting in a remediation system that included methane extraction and um and as also as a cautionary measure the three closest the state homes to the south of our property. We added water and sewer at about a4 million dollars just to be extra precautious. Uh we a we were able to remediate that constituent below regulatory standards as of the most recent test. And I'm going to let I'm going let Todd come up and give much more detail. But before he does, I I will just give you a relative understanding. Often we talk about one parts per billion. So if you've got and just to give you idea a billion drops of water is Olympic size pool. So sometimes our standard is to make sure that the any constituent is below one part per billion. In other words, it's below one drop of water in a whole Olympic size pool. And that's the extent of that. Well, hopefully what we can do is answer questions in the uh I thought I was going to go quicker, but I didn't. But hopefully we'll uh be able to answer questions uh related to water quality and and highlight the things that the countyy's done as far as D2 has done with with water quality and the support we have from the river keepers. Thank you for your time. Apologize for taking so long.

Thank you. Okay. Do we have questions? Yeah. So currently your CND, you're not lined. Is there any aspiration to go away from CND now that you're going to be lined and have such a robust system? No. No. Matter of fact, I think by this SUP process, we would it would be well understood that would just stay construction and demolition. And any change like that would require a new approval by the town and obviously approvals by DEEQ.

This is more of a logistics question like so CND, right? put a dumpster out and it's supposed to all just be wood and lumber and, you know, occasionally somebody throws some household trash in there. How do you capture that? And I assume that has something to do with that high-tech facility where you're separating some stuff out.

Yeah, great question. So, um, probably 95% of our business comes from the same haulers, you know, they that manage construction at new construction houses. So, when they pick it up, obviously they do a quick glance of what they're picking up. If there's been a pretty big violation, they take that way straight to the MSW facility and the closest one is at Charlotte Motor Speedway run by Republic. So if there's been what I would define as negligence where somebody's put the wrong product in the container, they wouldn't bring it to us. Now when they bring it to us, they have a tarp and the tarp comes off and we have cameras so we can also make sure they're not bringing in the wrong thing. So that's kind of the second point of check. First the customer and their second. If our way master sees there's a mistake, they just U-turn them back out and they go. The third check is when they come to our facility, whe it's the CND MURF, if it's some contaminants, we'll just pull that out as a courtesy to them and we'll have them pay to take it to MSW at a later point. And again, on a worst case scenario, if that uh hauler goes straight to our open phase facility, our operators on the bulldozers would see that and they two-way back to the scale house and say, you know, that person needs to come back up. We have bulldozers there to load it back up. So, there's kind of a multi- check because, you know, we're we pride in our airspace is cubic yards of space and we'll over obviously over time we're going to fill it up one way or the other. We want to make sure it's the right is this the our approved type waste. So those those are kind of the measures how we try to prevent any wrong things going.

Yeah. Can can you go back a few slides back? Something I saw I just one of the maps. Uh just go back a little bit. Let me see a little bit. Okay. Somewhere here with this this one. Yes, this one. Sure. Yeah. You said ground water moves like um roughly 5 ft per year. And so can you explain down what you have recently you have has some emerging like 600 ft. Sure. Sure.

Across. That was one of my mistakes I made in the presentation. that that statement is slightly incorrect. So basically the monitor wells in question where we had a a constituent that showed up was actually more than 500 feet not more than 600 feet. So that was one of the errors I meant to correct. Um but just by arithmetic even that's true it still gives us more than 100 years to remediate the issue. And I'm I'm going to let Todd jump in about that specific issue and and what we're doing to manage that. Um so there's about 45 monitoring wells all around the site and so twice a year we have to monitor it and so back in prior to 2019 there was a hit of final chloride. This is one issue is just a byproduct from landfill decomposition. So as a result of that there were we were getting positive indications in you know maybe half a dozen of the wells put in the system in 2019 pretty much right when DEQ we saw there was an issue um and you know most recently for vinyl chloride at least there's only one well that maybe will test positive every two or three years out of the 40 wells. So we've really reduced that right and so when we say test positive the limit of vinyl chloride is one part per billion the concentration right so we may be two parts per billion or maybe 1.1 parts per billion and they actually set that requirement at the lowest level you could detect equipment so these are these are small you know when we talk about concentrations and contaminants it's important just to have some kind of context to it what I'd say is We're really proud of what we've done at the facility since 2019. Um, specifically with vinyl chloride, but over time you find there's new chemicals that may be

byproducts of waste. And you may have heard some of these. POS is one of them, which is also known as a forever chemical. It's in Gortex. It's in food packaging. It's, you know, Scotch Guard furniture. All kinds of stuff that could be. And it's really in a lot of places, right? So um there's POS and then there's one for dioxide which is another byproduct of chemical reactions. These are have been detected and these are constituents that DEEQ really has just started asking us to test for in the last few years. So we're going to be one of the first ones in the state really to move forward with this in ground treatment system. We're working with a company called Reenesis who's done this all over the world 40,000 different sites. basically a way that you can treat the groundwater in place with you're injecting carbon essentially filters in the ground. So the wells that were hot that we may have been hit by we'll put you know the material in there. Then we also put you know like a downstream barrier. Imagine lots of wells of this carbon like as a filter kind of at the base where this where the groundwater's moving. So, um I actually was looking at Genesis today and Time magazine gave them the award for one of the inventions of the year in 2024 for this material to be able to treat POS in place. POS is like a really big problem in in some military sites, lots of industrial sites. I mean you guys sort of hear about it and it's in a lot of different landfills just kind of and the state is working towards you know working with you know landfill owners municipalities and how we're going to take care of this. So we're really going to be kind of pioneers in it a little bit. So you know planning staff as has asked a lot of questions about what are we going to do with this contamination. You know, typically when we run through a landfill permitting process, we get local government approval first. They don't even want to

look at what we're doing until we get local government approval first and then they'll dig into it. But we've been talking to DEEQ for, you know, months about, hey, this is proactively. This is we want to treat this. We're not going to wait until DEQ DEEQ says you have to treat it right now. This is voluntary what we're doing. Um, and we really want to get ahead of it and and we understand, you know, when we see words like contamination. I mean, there's obviously concern, right? And so, we want to be on the forefront of treating it and makes, you know, maybe providing, you know, an example to other sites. It's not cheap. It's cutting edge. It's a patented. I mean, it's it's expensive what we're doing, but we really feel like it's worth it. The other piece is we are lining the new section where the stream was. This will be a liner in there. We capture all the shape and that gets pre-treated and then goes to waste water bar treatment. So there imagine this this you know the landfill's got wells all the way around it. That's why you say you know our waste has to be more than 200 feet from the property line so you can have a place for these wells so you can test it as it's moving slowly. the advant you know what we have is is just groundwater plumes do move slow over time so we have time to treat it in place and then also downstream that helps

any other questions yeah so um this is I guess a couple of questions here so first what's your you might have already answered this what is the current life left of cell 2 right now that you're working

yeah So there's two ways of looking at it. If the if the MURF is actively used um at least 10 more years and and that's it it kind of coincides with the time that we have to get off whole Brooks which is by before the end of 2034. Um this approval will and not 100% factoring how much utilization of the MURF is involved is about a 40-year expansion. So as Brad mentioned, we're not really expanding the active cell area. We're filling in between the cell as a result of moving the creek. And I did um I talked too long because the Mecca County water quality and the uh Kataba River keepers enthusiastically support the idea of moving the stream around the facility because obviously it gives less opportunity for waste water to hit hit that stream. So that that'll benefit too.

Okay. So my follow-up question then is assuming that you know you get your approvals and you move forward with cell 3. Um is that going to I guess increase the the volume or the capacity that you're handling in terms of traffic in and out on a day-to-day basis or is that going to remain static? Um I'm just kind of especially with respect to the traffic on Hullbrooks. Um

yes it's a great question. Of course we'll be offbrooks. One of the conditions here would be they will have to come through conversation but um our business is directly dependent on the local growth of the area. So so the more hotels the more houses you approve the more waste that could come in and we are basing our numbers kind of on historic data of the last handful of years and it's a pretty high growth time. Um so maybe maybe another way to answer this too there is no we will not have waste coming from far away counties into this facility because there's hundreds of CND facilities. It's economically impractical to haul that one container of five tons, let's say, of waste to another facility to our facility.

Um, you mentioned that cell three will actually be lined.

Yes. Yes. So, this is voluntary. So, technically current uh DEEQ regulations would not require this to be lined, but we we wanted to do this. I mean, one, I'm in a family business, 64 years old. We we hope and pray to have a perpetual family business. We want to make sure we're custodians of our facilities. And of course, we are from this area, so it's just a higher priority. Um, and and it's just something that we're doing. It could be that once we got to the actual heavy uh process of giving all this information, DQ, they maybe would have required it, but it's not currently required by by code. It's a voluntary All right. Anything else? Not we can entertain a motion.

I'll I'll spit this one out. In considering the proposed reasonzoning R2509 greenway waste expansion, the planning board recommends approval of the application with conditions as listed in part five of the staff report. with the with the listed condition. The application is consistent with policies LU1.1, EOS1, and EOS 5 of the Huntersville 2040 community plan. It is reasonable in the public interest to approve the resoning plan because with the conditions attached, the proposed application is consistent with the development pattern of the adopted and recommended plans is conditioned to limit access to Hullbrooks Road for the future compatibility with the residential neighborhood and it will mitigate the environmental challenges of the site with approved solutions. Second

discussion. Lee, anything you want to add? Yeah, I mean a great presentation and and explanations and all. We I think we all learned a lot tonight. Um this is something that's that's absolutely necessary. It's great that what you're doing along Whole Brooks Rose as you as you move through this expansion. So it makes total sense to me and uh wish it all the luck. Yeah, same. Yeah, doing the right thing uh you know for Hull Brook Road and the community and the greenways and I appreciate the uh give back to the community and you know we wish you luck in the uh CND industry

and I like that you've considered Pottstown as well. Thank you for for making sure that those residents are considered.

Yeah, I'll just echo what everyone else said. Um as somebody who drives Hullbrooks every day, I appreciate the work you guys put into cleaning it up. you know, on a weekly or daily basis. Um, I think for for the volume of commercial traffic that it gets, I think you guys do a great job with that. So, that's appreciated. Um, I thought the presentation was great. It was very cogent and helped me kind of understand the project a lot better. Um, and you know, I think in some instances it's not so much about, you know, what the project entails as it is about, you know, who's behind it. So, um I feel good about knowing that you guys are handling a sensitive portion of our community and a very, you know, um sensitive project in terms of the contamination and the environmental concerns and everything. So, thank you for what you do.

I would just say it's a necessary evil. it's existing and uh actually I you know hats off to you all for creative solution that you basically add four decades of capacity without expanding the footprint. So I think that's a uh great win-win for the again I believe that there will be improved water quality and at the end of the day after we get the traffic off of Hullbrooks it'll open up new residential development which sounds like you guys are behind. So yeah I support it else. No, thank you for doing what you do. It's a journey. I'll see you at the next turn.

Yeah. Thank you guys very much. Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, those opposed, unanimous. Thank you. Um, next item is very quick. We're going to welcome our new um planning board alternate members, Jennifer Davis and Alysa Miller, who are not here tonight, but u they will be joining us when uh we need, you know, a replacement. So, with that in mind, motion to adjourn. Quick question. Is Jennifer Davis has she served before? Yes, that's what Okay, just we'll welcome her back. Yeah,

I got another question on that. Do they replace in the event of a recusal or just an absence? Okay. Okay. A motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All those in favor? Those opposed? Done. Thank you all. Thank you, staff. Thank