City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It's great to have you all here. Welcome to the People's House. And tonight we are calling this meeting to order at 7 p.m. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you.

I'll pass it over to Council Member Wrist. Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If this is your practice, I invite you to rise with me and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you so much. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Here. Thank you so much. We're going to start with our ceremonial items. And our first reading is with Council Member Cook. We'll get these celebratory items out of the way, which tonight is gonna be a little different, I'm really excited about. And then we'll get on with the meeting and we'll be out of here in 35, 40 minutes. Plus about three hours, no, we'll see.

good evening everyone so i'm going to be reading the proclamation on national disability empowerment awareness month is there anyone here that wants to miss gloria or Whereas National Disability Employment Awareness Month is observed annually in October to celebrate the contributions of people with disabilities to America's workplaces and the economy and reaffirms the commitment to ensure equal opportunity for all. The 2026 National Disability Employment Awareness Month theme celebrating value and talent encourages employers and communities to recognize the strength of a workforce that provide

All right. Thank you for that proclamation. And the very young lady who was reading her comments is also a former Marine. So thank you for your service. All right. I have the distinct honor here of recognizing Harper's home. So Heather Hendon and Harper, will you please join me up? So just briefly, he's a good friend of mine. And we recently, there were some community members who live in a local housing establishment and they came together and they said, we want to have impact on our community, not just a big old building downtown, but we wanna come together and truly support our community in

Great people. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call forth Jimmy Leandia, come on, for tonight's proclamation for Energy Efficiency Day.

Whereas the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers

ASHRAE, advances energy efficiency of new and existing buildings, including through its research, standards, publishing, and continuing education. And whereas ASHRAE standard 90.1 has served as the benchmark for commercial building energy codes in the US, and a key basis for codes and standards worldwide for almost half a century. and whereas improved energy codes for homes and commercial buildings can reduce energy consumption and utility costs while supporting local economic activity and workforce opportunities, and the City of Durham supports increasing building energy efficiency through th

Good evening, everyone. Buenas tardes a todos. I'll be reading the proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month. I'd like to invite members of the comité to come up. Those who are being honored this evening, if they could also please come up, and then anyone from either Governor Stein's or the consul offices that are here. And if the folks who are being honored could be towards the front, that would be really great. And we don't want to, if you're being honored this evening, go ahead and kind of. Okay, thank you. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated annually from September 15th t

Thank you. And after folks take their seat, we have some performers here this evening who are going to celebrate with us.

Thank you all so much. All right, Vivian, I think we're ready.

Thank you all so much. And that is our meeting tonight. We can all go home now. Should have held you guys to the end of the meeting. Thank you all so much. All right, I will now start with council comments. And I'll start to my left with council member Kopach.

Thank you first. Good night. And I would like to wish you all a happy month of spama heritage. Good evening, happy Hispanic Heritage Month to everyone. And I look forward on Wednesday to having the honor of delivering the keynote at Durham Center for Senior Life in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month and also in recognition of the incredible contributions of the Hispanic, Latino, Latinx community to the Durham community. So looking forward to that. I want to congratulate and thank A Bike Durham, the city and partners for putting on another incredible movable Durham. Open Streets event, and

Thank you. And Councilmember Kobach did not leave any announcements for anyone else. Just ran the gamut on everything. Council Member Baker.

That is true. That covered everything. Council Member Kobach, congratulations. Thank you for that. I'd like to associate myself with those comments. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to all who are watching at home for your participation in your local government here at the City of Durham, our Monday night meeting. Also want to give a shout out as well to the amazing organizing around Durham Pride this weekend and prior. I saw many of my colleagues out having fun. There was rain, but it didn't deter people, many people out in the streets and it was beautiful. A beautiful way of demonstra

to pay their fair share so that we can all thrive together and i look forward to a productive meeting thank you good evening and thank you all who are joining us in council chambers and those who are watching us online virtually i'm excited to be back after spending the week in china i had the opportunity to go to our sister city in kunshan china where i got to visit various industries with our young entrepreneurs for our sister cities so many thanks to the coordinators of that trip Got to visit some electric vehicle manufacturers, small business incubators, their local hospitals, and of cours

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, colleagues, staff, residents, and those online as well. Good to see you all. Yeah, my colleagues touched on a lot of things going on. It's been an exciting couple weeks. I did want to note that it was a bittersweet weekend. Two folks died from gunshots over the weekend. A third person succumbed to wounds today. That's a tragic result in the Bull City, and my heart goes out to the families involved. We do have a violence reduction plan in the city of Durham with the county, and we're moving forward on that, but we can't move fast enough. As we saw last week,

I don't have anything to add, but I want to thank all my colleagues for touching everything that I had on my list, and I look forward to a good meeting. Thanks, everyone, for being here.

Thank you. Council Member McCoy, Mayor Pro Tem.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for all my colleagues and their great comments. Pride was great. Lots of fun activities are happening right now. It is one of the busiest times of the year in the Bull City because cooler weather has finally arrived. I just wanted to share this very quickly. This is about voting against the amendments. It's also in Spanish, which I thought was excellent. And so this was a resident brought it during the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. And so I just thought it was great that we're seeing bilingual and other languages. We all know how dangerous these

Thank you so much. In regards to those, you all are hearing us talk about these Constitution amendments and saying, vote no. Some people may not know what the heck we're talking about. I will be holding a press conference about some of these things, just providing general information to the public. But basically, it's about some things that are already in place as a law or a practice, but the General Assembly is moving to cement some things into the Constitution, which will make it really hard to manipulate or adjust if needed. Prime example, if we run into a natural disaster, we'll need to, a

Thank you so much. I'll now read the consent agenda. Item number two, Citizens Advisory Committee appointment. Number three, Durham Board of Adjustment appointments. Number four, renewal contract for state and federal lobbying services.

Number five, it's been pulled. I'd like to pull number four.

I should probably review that list. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Matter of fact, Mayor Pro Tem, can you just?

And I pulled it as well. Wait, which one did you? Pulled number four, and I think there's a speaker on it as well.

Yeah, it is. 4-23-24-16, in person 16. Item number four, renewal contract for state and federal lobbying services, which was placed on GB, it's been pulled. And there's a resource person.

cooperative group purchase contract change order to 3, custom pumper fire trucks. Number 7, eminent domain action to obtain one temporary construction Eastman at 710 West Cornwallis Road for the SW45 bike and sidewalk project. Number 8, eminent domain action to obtain one temporary construction Eastman at 3414 Hillsboro Road. for the SW52 sidewalk project. Number nine, amendment two to structural maintenance improvements for parking facilities, design agreement with Kimberly Horne and Associates Incorporated. Number 10, consultant contract for compensation classification study. Number 11, appr

I don't know why it froze. All right, item number four, renewal contract for state and local federal lobbying services.

Thank you and thank you Mr. Freeman. I don't have too much to add. I think that this is something that I've been looking at since the contract for renewal came back. This was something that we started early on in my tenure as a council member and so I just want to own that I was really excited to have a lobbyist and I thought that that was going to be a great thing for this city and I will say that exactly as our public speaker has stated, the federal lobbying has had an amazing return on investment. We have seen incredible appropriations, almost to the tune of $3 million last year alone. Far

Any other comments? Yeah, she'll go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I appreciate the comments from the audience and Council Member Cook. Yeah, anytime we're working with the Republican legislature and asking lobbyists to help us, it's tricky stuff, right? This is sausage making. It's a big investment we've made. We made that decision several years ago. I will say that part of the work that our lobbyists do is to defend us from bad legislation. It's hard to quantify that. The one thing we did get this year was a local bill passed for Durham that gives us that we're the only city in the state

So I just have a question for Attorney Miles. Hello. So I heard some mention about some like basically having some metrics in the contract. Is that out of the question to amend the contract to add those metrics in so we can see kind of like, I just want to know more about what my colleagues want because what's the solution in this case, right? And so if you're saying like this, you're not satisfied with the production, the work and the outcomes, is there a way to make it better? better that we move forward because I do know that in my mind, in theory for our state legislators, like our delegat

And I'll just clarify, my comments are specific for Checkmate. I don't have the same concerns at the federal level. The tension for me also is that we invoke certain folks' names, but then we also did pass the resolution around the Trump the Trump credits for the kids, the accounts more so. So it's just kind of thinking about the, this is like for everyone to think about, like when we're naming things about we don't want to be affiliated with certain people, but then we voted unanimously for a resolution to do those accounts. So it's kind of like, where are we really standing with this more so

ANY OTHER COMMENTS? OKAY. COUNCILMEMBER BAKER, YOU ALL GOOD? ALL RIGHT. GO AHEAD.

THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE PEOPLE'S COMMENTS. I MEAN, WHEN THIS, SO FIRST OF ALL, THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE RAN AN RFP PROCESS. probably two years ago now. And so within that process, these were the two firms that were kind of brought to the front of the line. And then ultimately the legislative committee made a decision and then brought it to council as a recommendation, essentially. So it wasn't just willy-nilly, it was with actual research. And Checkmate was picked partly because of their relationships. There are certain legislators who don't love them either, right? It was a mixed bag. And w

Yeah, thank you. This is one where I appreciate hearing the comments and the dialogue from my colleagues. I agree. I think this is a very difficult one to quantify. I feel like the federal government lobbyist is a little bit easier to quantify because the nature of their work is different. and can be different, especially potentially next year could be different as it was two years ago, it's different. So those relationships are different and the way that they operate are different and the way that we can quantify and measure their success is different. I do think that there's a lot of gray ar

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I'll just say as a newer council member, this is the first cycle I've gone through of the legislative process on council. And so I appreciate hearing from my colleagues in work session and again today to sort of inform my thinking about these relationships and how to sort of maximize and optimize what they can do for us. I would certainly welcome additional discussion among my colleagues about ways to try and be as clear as possible about metrics. I also acknowledge you can't quantify the bad not done. And this is quite different than federal lobbying in terms of the

Thank you. I do want to remind folks that legislative committee meetings are open, and everyone, whether you are on the committee or not, welcome to join, and then we can make sure on that committee that some of the updates that they're providing are getting sent to the full council. So that's the one next step that I heard, the ask around, and I just want to make sure that we're closing the loop on that. So for those members who can't, Council members who can't join because of the time, then we can make sure to send that information to everyone and just reminding colleagues that those meeting

Thank you. You know, in democracy, there is a lot that goes on in the sausage-making process that is just not attractive. You just want to be able to be free. And that includes being able to come and say some things that just may not make the most sense. It may be immature. It may be whatever. But I want to be able to protect the space where we can always say and do what we need to say and do. And that goes for folks in the public. no matter how it comes off. And that goes for here on council as well. Madam Attorney, do you know Do you have the rating of the lobbying firms in the state? Who's

So sometimes I ask the question that I know the answer to, but I wanted to come from you. But they were ranked the number one lobbying firm in the state of North Carolina. And the organizations that work alongside of us to get actual things done or protect us from being damaged even further, considering the city votes nearly 85 percent Democrat with the supermajority in the General Assembly of Republican, If you have the number one law firm that has all of these partners that are represented along with you, where you can get more things in than just what you're asking for, sometimes it's best

So moved and properly seconded. Quick discussion, colleagues feel free to vote. This doesn't determine anything. Our quick question one more time for you. Do we know about the average that people are paying for cities our size? I'm sorry, would you? Do you know about the average of what people are paying around our size cities?

I'll also entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute the contract for federal lobbying services with the Ferguson Group, LLC, Washington, DC, in an amount not to exceed $346,000. So moved. Second. Moved and properly seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote.

Thank you. All right, we're ready for our first public hearing. Consolidated annexation, MIS Durham Headquarters 2.

Thank you, you've heard the staff report. Are there any questions, technical questions or comments for staff? Council Member Cook.

Thank you. Just to, well, actually, I'm gonna, two and a half. Will you speak up a little bit more? Sure. And then, thank you. So my two questions are, can you just tell me the requirements for recreational and open space on a place type map?

Yeah, if you could just talk right into it, that'll help.

And then can you talk about the additional floodplain protections that we have?

Okay. And so this fits the recreation and open space simply because it's got a floodplain that's going to remain undisturbed due to protections on it? And why else would it be generally consistent with that place type?

I'm going to probably follow up on that line of questioning with the next case, too. But I'm interested in this, the consistency with recreation and open space. If we have requirements in the UDO that are going to make everything consistent, that it seems kind of strange to me that we would then have it be designated on the place type map and then have a conversation about consistency, right? If the UDO requirements in themselves sort of require the consistency with that place type map designation. Do you see what I'm saying? I'll defer to him.

One question for you. You mentioned that there cannot be development plans in direct translational zoning cases. Why is that?

And that's all it is. But if they wanted to add a development plan, they couldn't?

Okay. Because that's our mechanism for being able to ensure greater accountability to the comprehensive plan.

And without the development plan, we can't ask them if they'd like to do anything.

All right, thank you. So at this time, I'll declare the public hearing open. Mr. Ghosh, are you? Mr. Parker. No, Mr. Park.

Oh, I see, Larry Barker. Madam Clerk, we're gonna sit down on this sheet. We're gonna figure it out.

How much time do you think you need, sir? How much time do you think you need?

All right, we'll put five minutes on the clock.

All right, I have speakers virtually. Adair Salt?

Oh, okay. Agenda item 24, agenda item 23. Okay, I see, all right. The yellow is confusing me here, sorry.

Thank you. You really just needed 35 seconds. All right, there are no speakers for this. Colleagues, any questions for the applicant? All right, at this time, I'll declare the public hearing closed and back before the council. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just gonna make one comment. Just a general comment, not specific to this one. We've gotten a decent number of these direct translational rezoning cases with annexations over the past several months. And it really hamstrings our ability to ensure greater accountability and consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Sorry, Council Member, I'm so sorry. Is this pertaining to this item? Yes. Okay.

This is a direct translational rezoning case. Yeah, and so my hope moving forward is that when applicants like this one come and submit an application for a direct translational rezoning case that they are encouraged to include a development plan with it because I think that that's a really, really critical tool for us to be able to ensure greater accountability to the public and better development. That's all.

Thank you. I would like to have, not here, but would love to have an analysis by staff about whether that goes beyond the scope of our power because of its base zoning. And it's just including a, it's going from an annexation. The base zoning is the same. So, yeah, if that makes sense.

I want to make for the record That's why some folks choose not to do that because the only thing they're actually asking for is annexation right and that's my understanding of it for many years a lot of times what we see most often actually are just one or two homes the folks just really want access to city water and And I just don't believe at the end of the day that we should be putting a lot of onus on those kinds of property owners. That's a fundamental belief of mine. If it's maybe a more affluent one, I'm willing to have that conversation. But I'm not interested in essentially taxing the

Thank you. May I respond? Yeah, I agree. If it's one or two small property owners, I completely agree. Translational rezoning, just an annexation. If we are talking about some of the large ones, we had a 30-acre case. I think that that is a critical opportunity for us to encourage use of the development plan. Thank you.

All right. There are no more questions or comments. I will call our question here and entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance annexing MIS Durham Headquarters 2 into the City of Durham and to authorize the City Manager to enter into a utility extension agreement with DTM Properties of Durham LLC. So moved. Moved and properly seconded. Madam Clerk, please open to vote. Madam Clerk, please close to vote.

Thank you. And I'll also entertain a motion To adopt an ordinance amending the Unified Development Ordinance by taking property out of the Industrial Light Falls Jordan District B Watershed Protection Overlay County Jurisdiction and establishing the same as Industrial Light Falls Jordan District B Watershed Protection Overlay City Jurisdiction. Moved and properly seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote.

And I'll entertain a motion to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General Statute Section 160D-605. So moved. Moved and properly seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote and close the vote.

Some of these words just don't go together in the English language.

Yep, ready. Fantastic. Awesome. Item number 24. Thank you. It's probably going to be difficult to read also.

Thank you, you've heard the staff report. Council Member Cook.

I'm just gonna re-ask the question that I asked last time. Can you explain why this is consistent with the recreation and open space designation?

All right, no other comments, questions? I will now declare the public hearing open. How much time do you think you need? All right, please put seven minutes on the clock.

All right, thank you. I'll start with my virtual speakers. Adair Salt.

Yes, ma'am, welcome. You have three minutes.

Thank you so much, Ms. Salt. Next, I have Russell Florack. Mr. Florack, if you can unmute yourself. Madam Clerk, are you able to unmute them?

Okay, I'll go to the next person. Tamika Patterson.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Patterson. Katie Ross. It's a big floor right there.

Flo Rack. Welcome, you have three minutes.

All right. Did Russell Florek come back? Okay. Those are all of our virtual speakers. I'll now move to in-person. I'm going to call up so that you can just queue up. Michael Harris. Ukaku. Jacqueline Nelson Harris. Pam Andrews, Donna Stanback, Ava Pearson, Tammy Suwalia, Tina Motley-Pearson. You can all queue up, thank you. You have three minutes.

went into- Thank you. Thank you. Could you pronounce your name for the record for me?

Ms. Jacqueline, could you hold on one second? Ms. Pam is gonna help you out.

Thank you, Mr. Just to make sure I have, uh, Wanda Allen, Jason Sloan, Rebecca Freeman as well. Pablo Freeman.

Thank you. And following Pablo Friedman, I have Andy Lowe and Chris .

Thank you. And I will say, for the record, Mr. Pearson, you are actually correct. Our rules do say 15 minutes per side. I've never followed it. I try to give everyone, if you show up, I try to give everyone voice. But for the record, each side has 15 minutes or equal time. If there are 100 people that speak in opposition, then it's two people to speak in support. then 100 people spoke and two people will have that equal amount of time. So I try to be fair and let folks come out and voice their concerns to it. But I am stating for the record, you are correct, sir. And it is my prerogative to wh

I don't see it. Okay. Mr. Ghosh, would you like to respond?

The elementary school is almost near 50% capacity.

All right, thank you so much. Colleagues, you wanna go right into questioning or you wanna take a quick break? As we can get out of here, we just go straight through. It's up to you guys. All right. Those are all the speakers I have. Thank you for your response. At this time, I'm going to declare the public hearing closed and back before the council. All right. Council Member Rivers.

Mr. Ghosh, can you come back to the microphone, please? Thank you. Thank you so much for your rebuttal to what's been offered by community members. I did want to follow up with you in regards to the groundwater contamination. And while you made the point that, you know, I guess the way to circumvent that would be for people to connect to city water and sewer, but God forbid someone wants to plant, you know, something in the soil actually if it's contaminated. So I see that there looks like on the site, I'm looking at the satellite view, like a lot of junk cars or just like various things there

I see like old vehicles there. So I'm just thinking about like, just thinking about the need to do a little bit of environmental analysis because like you made the point that, you know, hey, if you connect, you're not using well water, so you don't worry about contamination that was brought up. But I'm thinking about people, if you're in a townhome, you may want to plant things that are edible, right? And so trying to think about the impact of those things. So while you may fix and alleviate one issue, you have the other end. So I just want to make sure, like, comprehensively, how can we ensur

Yeah, I'm just looking at Google, which is accessible for all of us, the satellite view on Google right now, and that's what I'm seeing when I zoom in at this site, so I was really curious about just thinking about those, and we, just as a normal line question, so I'll move on to my next question, but just wanted to uplift that. Looking at it, so for affordable homes, the affordable units that you believe 8% proffer, would those solely be just townhomes, or would it be a mix of townhomes and apartments?

Okay. And so when you, I see that you had this for 30 years, have you all or the applicant be interested in, I'm thinking about just working with Durham Housing Authority, has it ever crossed you all to ensure that we're making sure people actually who need these housing units or affordable housing are through the voucher program? Have you all considered ever working with DHA on that?

And then the limitations on a Valleydale exit. So I do see that concern about, just in there, can you just give me a little bit more context on if you aren't able to put that exit on Valleydale, what would that look like for folks? I believe it's in the comprehensive package about the Valadol exits more so. Like it may possibly be two, but there are some limitations that if you discover it may not be two, how do you plan to mitigate that?

Okay, thank you so much for your time. I don't have any more questions for you. I'll just say in general that I am deeply concerned. I've said this a million times and I get that we all have different philosophies around housing and that we're all different ideologists and approaches more so, but some things are just very obvious and this area is highly congested. And it just, we're running into an issue where I think we're not, we're trying to justify things and painting these like visuals where if you're not the one living in that area in community, while respect everyone's voices, but if yo

Thank you. Just finishing typing. She's out so good. She speaks so quickly and I use up all my time talking too slow. Okay. You have a 12, I think a 12% minimum on townhouses. Is there any minimum on apartments? Are you requiring any apartment build at all?

Are they gonna be, do we anticipate them being for sale or for rent? And will it depend between apartments and townhouses?

Yes, but there's a different standard if they're for sale or for rental. There's a different standard for affordability if they're for sale or for rental.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just curious about if it's rental or for sale, so. but y'all don't have an answer to that necessarily. We think apartments will be for rent. Townhouses will be more for sale, but that's, you're just assuming.

Okay. Is there any more consideration on a step-down buffer for the higher potential apartment buildings? Yeah, you talked about that at... You talked about it at the Planning Commission that someone had suggested that to buffer the height of the buildings.

You also said at the Planning Commission, which was back in June, that you would look into further reducing impervious surface, that 65% at the time was the best you could do, but you were hoping that you could do more. Did y'all, were y'all able to do more than that 65%?

zoning restriction we can get comfortable enough that we'd be able to hit that okay so no no further commitment there um and i do appreciate the additional affordability commitment this is i think as y'all are sort of proposing it a high transit area that we're looking more at 10 to 15 percent affordability is there any way that we could increase um from that eight percent

And that's where we ended up at 8% on that.

said that you were interested in going higher than 75% native on the planting of trees. Why are we not just doing 100%?

I heard you reference this and it was in my notes to ask you about that there were potentials for additional safety measures like signage and extra signaling. I heard you say that y'all thought it was a good idea. Did you do any work since June to see if any of that is an option?

Okay, I'm gonna ask staff that question in one second, but I wanna ask the one remaining question that I have on my list, which is that I heard you raise the DPS amount. The 21.5? 21.5, okay. I calculated it for $2,500 a student, which would be at $107,500. Any interest in making it part of the way there? significantly more than what y'all have proffered here.

Okay, so no interest in going higher on that?

What would a potentially higher number be?

Okay, thank you. And can I have staff for one quick question on? I am interested in this idea of potentially having proffers around infrastructure support, safety support. So the conversation was around more like signage and signaling, if that was found to be an option. I think that there's a lot of conversation around the fact that there's no crosswalk there. and then also that it's a school zone, so there could potentially be more lighting, more signage, et cetera. Is there a way that they could proffer to fund that if it was found to be an option to add those signage or signals?

Can we get language for how one might do something like that? I feel like we've done somewhat comparable proffers previously. Is there language that

We haven't done it for signage, but we've done it for other things that required permissive usage, like bus stops, if a bus is going to be routed there, shelter, if there is going to be lots of potentials.

I don't, okay, thank you, those are my questions.

Thanks, Ms. Mayor. I have a couple more questions for staff. Staff, couple more questions. So just on that, I wanna go back to, I think Mr. Ghosh referenced the traffic counts. I wanna just make sure I understand in the zoning map change report If I can pull that one up. So what that shows is, let me make sure I'm reading it properly. So in the traffic counts, what it shows is that the daily traffic generated by present designation is about somewhere almost like 8,000 vehicles per day, right? But that's assuming that under the current zoning designation, you would have like potentially a resta

So that's a use that could be, so that could be, if this were not approved, that could be a use of the property. Yes, by right. And so, right. And so what I see on the, again, on the zoning map change report is that the potential impact of the proposed designation is less than that because of it being residential, not commercial. So that's how you get the lower traffic counts.

Okay, I just want to make sure I understood that. Okay, the next thing I want to ask about is on this sidewalk thing, because I think there's really some, and I think Mr. Ghoshy references in the beginning, you don't want to oversell the connectivity right there, right? But I do want to understand, there is a DOT project, right, that's on the Division 5 list. I was trying to get more detail on that today. So that's a project that's going to create right turn lanes at the Middle Springs 98 intersection. And that includes also sidewalks, And if so, how far do those sidewalks extend beyond the in

So then, Mr. Ghosh, you referenced a five-foot sidewalk that you would seek to build from your parcel. Would that be to the intersection with Mineral Springs?

Intersection, okay, yeah. So that would complete, so then from your parcel, you could walk continuously, if you can make that gap with the five-foot sidewalk, you could walk to the intersection there, you could walk then north to the bus stop.

And I also understand, I want to give a shout out to the manager here. So I understand that we did sign an interlocal agreement with the county, I think, back in August or something that would allow us to, if DOT does build that sidewalk, that we would then maintain it, because that is on county land, right? That's not currently city land, correct?

Okay, I appreciate that. So, you know, we're obviously, I think there's a sense there's a debate on the council about this project. We've debated a lot of projects on this council the last couple years. And we've debated many that had much less connectivity than this right here. So yeah, I did drive the site today, and I recognize, as you said, you don't want to oversell the sidewalk there. But I think what we have here, and I appreciate one of the speakers, Mr. Perilstein, this is actually, in our comprehensive plan, we've said we want to get more dense and more affordable, or more dense all

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, a couple questions for Mr. Gauch. So under the green building commitment, there's references to an array of standards that would qualify. And there are two, Green Guard and Duke Energy Hero that are not actually certifications. And so I'd like to know if you would strike those as options for what would qualify in meeting the policy under the comprehensive plan.

Yes, the Duke Energy HERO is also not a certification as far as I understand, so I may need clarification on that, but I think for the purposes of this evening, I just would want to strike that one as well, unless we can confirm for sure it's a building certification.

I will do some research on that from the dais. So next we've talked about the DPS contribution. There are a large number of students that would be added, which is a good thing when it's close to a school. But we have been seeing a standard of about $1,500 per pupil. I understand this is a larger development. And I'm curious if you would consider 1,000 per student in contribution.

All right, and then can you just talk a little bit more about the work that would be ahead to try and address the crosswalk issue?

I know some of the documentation is there's concern that there's a trade-off between greater safety and potentially slowing traffic down more, and it can be hard to do both of those, but I just am curious what's possible from a safety standpoint.

Yeah, and in this particular question, I'm not trying to solicit a proffer. I'm trying to understand what the steps would be towards having greater safety there in line with what we've seen from BPAC recommendations, which I know you can't commit to and deliver alone. you know, in partnership with DOT? Like, what would the work be to try and make that a safer crossing?

Okay, thank you. I have a couple questions for staff. And is this my clock or Mr. Ghosh's clock? Because I noticed about a minute and 40 ran off when he was speaking.

Okay, it was going for about a minute and 40 seconds when Mr. Ghosh was speaking, thank you. Question for staff about the sewer capacity. Is 67% concerning? How do we think about that as a number of capacity for sewer infrastructure in relation to what we've seen at Goose Creek?

Thank you. We've heard a couple of different comments around the financial impact of the project. And I know we have the cost benefit analysis. There's also the EMS projections. Just wondering if you can speak to on the record, what like the 10 year projection is from a financial standpoint to the city for this project.

I'll pause for now, thank you. Council Member Baker.

I actually had a long list of questions, and thanks to my colleagues, many of them have been either answered or addressed. I also had similar questions around the green building. One question left to staff is, will this be able to meet the block length and connectivity requirements in the UDO?

Okay, even with the graphic development plan, we think you can meet? Correct.

Okay, awesome. I recently saw an analysis that showed that I was the most no voting council member on zoning cases. And ironically, I'm a land use planner. I do that as my day job and I love urban development and I've lived internationally in cities where if you could get up high, as far as you could see, you would see tall buildings. And I loved living in those cities because there was activity and there were, small connected blocks and great spaces. And when you walk down the street, you were really just inspired by what you were passing by and the frequency of transit and the great parks an

Two years. So two years, and you've gone through this process, and you've gone to planning commission, and you've spoken with staff, and you've looked at the regulation. And on your side, you're also doing things, right? It's not just city government getting in the way. You're also doing things on your side and going back and forth. Your case is getting better. And then you come here, and as you work your way through that process, you're doing the financials, you're doing the pro formas, all of that, the Overton window is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. The things that we can actually

Thank you all right, I Want to give some remarks and then I'll come back around I I want to thank Mr. Baker actually for articulating that so eloquently. And that is the result of voting. That is the result. The folks in the city voted. And it's not a 4-3 split. It's a representative of the city. And that's what we have. My questions go back to the basics of just the logic of it. One, right on that corner is a used car lot. It's been there for years. And it's junky, but it's a used car lot there. The school across from it has a garden out there. And I was, like Council Member Burris, was reall

Sometimes this feels really performative. We can win tonight. You know, what is this, October 5th. We can win tonight and we get all of these things. And then I think about the neighbor who's gonna move in there. And when they get hit upside the head, it's like, what the heck just happened? Why is it so expensive here? I am trying to get what we can out of you guys, because this is, I mean, the way we're set up, that's where it is. We're gonna squeeze as much as we can. Sure. While also not overburdening the person or people or the families that are gonna move there. because that's going to af

Thank you so much. I don't need the whole three minutes. I just had a question for my council colleagues. For those of you who are on the TPO, is there ever a moment to advocate for changes and improvements in this quarter? I know that we have BRT coming to Wellands Village, but the numbers are the numbers, and I'm not going to go into all that, and everyone has a right to, the libraries are open, so we can all read books at this point. But it just seems that if we're going to continue to approve this development here, it needs to be more advocacy to DOT or whomever to make these plans to wher

Thank you. That's a great question. So part of the issue, so there are identified corridors and projects. Unfortunately, this is not one that is prioritized very high. I will say that NCDOT is in a very, very financially constrained position. We are not doing the next step. Is that correct? Right. So STIP is the kind of next call for statewide projects. That, a few years ago, that got suspended. It is going to get suspended again. Why? Because there is not enough resources because of Hurricane Helene. They have to rebuild all of that. They do not have the money. And the federal government has

And I just, I made that comment because I think that like, as you alluded to, like the damage done to West North Carolina, Hurricane Helene, if we have this notion that DOT cannot, if we have a massive natural disaster, they can't repair the roads. That's probably going to happen here someday. And so I just want us to think about like what we're setting people up for in these communities. Are we doing it for success? Because we can argue, I'm not gonna go into all the points of abundance and all those things like that, but well, I am. One of the major arguments of that is that we are using thi

Mr. Mayor, if I could, I think it's a really good question. Yeah, I think, go ahead. And Council Member Cabrera addressed the MPO side of it. I think the other side is that we're also working on these things within the City of Durham, right? So we've got a bike and walk plan with the county. This is not one of the priority corridors right now in the bike and walk plan, just because there's other priority corridors where there's more PEOPLE, RIGHT? PART OF THE CHALLENGE IS GETTING MORE DENSITY AND THAT BRINGS MORE OF THE SORT OF SIDEWALKS AND TRANSIT. SO THIS IS NOT A PRIORITY FOR THE BUS, BIKE

And again, I want to add, I think that's a great question. And I wish we would spend more of our time talking about these types of policies because this is what folks are really asking for. I think Go Triangle could be a really good venue for this conversation as well as we are trying to have some of those fixed routes. The RDX that goes from downtown Durham to downtown Raleigh back and forth throughout the day, at one point it didn't exist, but now it does. And it is a really good resource. And We don't have to exhaust our resources here with our bus system, our transit system, considering Go

Okay, Mr. Ghosh, did you have a conversation about the 43,000 number for DPS?

Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions, thanks so much. Yes, I'm gonna echo a lot of what my colleagues have said um i talk a lot about affordability up here i feel like we've all sort of got our things that we talk about um and my my piece is affordability and i'm and i'm watching people right because i'm an eviction court every day and so i'm watching what is impacting people and what what it means to actually be able to afford your rent or your mortgage, because we see people losing their mortgages a lot too. We have a huge number of folks in the city that are cost burden for their hom

Thank you. I have a question for Director Young, and I'm going to put you on the spot, and I apologize. So this is a case from several years ago, South Durham, next to the Aldi. It was one of the first people who kind of did an off-site sidewalk gap fill. And I just want to know if that project was an annexation or not.

So I think it was. I'm just going to go with it. Yeah, it was down 751. There was two that night. There was one that the Planning Commission recommended and there was one that didn't. And the one that the Planning Commission recommended didn't make any sense to me because it was further out. And the one that they didn't recommend was way closer. And that, that, um, um, That case passed unanimously. And I remember Council Member Baker, who often says no. voted for that case. And I think that was a unanimous vote. And I think it was partly because it was around the sidewalk. It was like, I don't

Thank you. I will say that the piece around asking for more, that whole conversation, if we could only ask for more, if we were unified in asking for more. Our comprehensive plan is our document. It is our guiding star. We passed it. We did a robust engagement around it. We spent a lot of money to make sure that we got resident voice in there. It was not an easy process. And this applicant met 18 out of 20 of the relevant policies. So if we don't like the rules that we set up, then let's have that conversation. But let's not put it on every single applicant because we're responding to the peop

Mr. Mayor, you suggested someone was being performative.

No, I said that some of this feels performative on council. Meaning we're asking for this and at the end of the day, it's going to shift over to someone else. I'm not addressing anyone's personality or anyone's behavior.

So I've heard some great cases tonight for the LEC, which calls for dense infill development across the city where we have existing infrastructure. So let's keep that in mind when that comes back around. I would also point out that we have a Bull City political nerd, which was referenced tonight, that said this council has gotten more from developers than ever before. And I think we should keep pushing. You know, I'm willing to vote no. I voted no. And, you know, I always keep that in mind as I evaluate each case. You know, this was voted down 5-5 by Planning Commission, but it's also a very d

ANY OTHER COMMENTS? ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WANT TO THANK MY COLLEAGUES FOR A RICH DEBATE AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS.

COULD WE JUST MAKE SURE THAT WE GOT ALL THE PROFFERS FROM STAFF?

Yeah, we, I don't, I did some more research, we can keep Duke HERO in from my second review.

And then is impervious still 65% of it was impervious part of the?

All right. Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you to the applicant. Thank you to all the speakers. As I was saying, I really appreciated the conversation, the contributions. You're going to still get no votes? But those no votes got a lot out of you, and I'm appreciative for that. So as I stated earlier, the residents contributed to us having a policy for the water erosion and tree preservation. We have the comp plan, which was heavily community engagement. all the things that we've put in place, and you've met much of that, so look forward to it. I'll go ahead and call the question. I'll

Second. Moved and properly seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close to vote.

Thank you. And I'll also entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of commercial neighborhood. Residential rule, residential suburban 20 Falls Jordan Watershed Overlay District B County jurisdiction and establishing the same as planned development residential 18.410 Falls Jordan Watershed Overlay District B City jurisdiction. So moved. Second. Move the property seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote.

Thank you. And lastly, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the consistency statement as required by North Carolina General Statute Section 160D-605. So moved. Second. Move the property seconded. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Thank you all. That's all of tonight's business. We're adjourned.