Remarks by Geoffrey Green
92 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
- Play at 1:42:59
“I have to say, from my perspective, the details would be important. Yeah.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:43:07
“Oh, yeah. That's the slide. The yellows, those don't mean anything different, do they?”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:43:14
“There's like a darker yellow and a lighter yellow.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:43:30
“I mean, just myself, I don't know the thinking behind the subdivision two to three lots, but there are plenty of people who just split their lot. And so requiring the same sort of engineering work for a lot split as for somebody who's doing four or more lots, that's a big ask, I think. We've had some lot splits come before us where people split their lot in two for two single family homes. And if you're going to require them to do 100-year stormwater for building two homes on what was previously a two-acre lot, that's a lot. My other point would be with regard to the housing, I'm not sure…”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:46:12
“So I'm looking honestly I'm looking at the actual table in the ordinance and there's residential units There's subdivisions and then there's other development and there's one category which is 20 less than 20,000 there's one that's 20,000 to 40,000 and then one that's greater than 40,000 there seems to be a different commercial development one.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:46:50
“Looking at the ordinance, under 20,000 does not need to do a downstream analysis, but does need to account for the 25-year, 24-hour storm. Between 20 and 40, still does the 25-year, 24-hour storm, but does have to do a downstream analysis. Yeah, that's consistent. And anything above 40,000 needs to do 100-year and downstream analysis. That's consistent. But there's that other development less than 40,000 square feet. I don't know what that's referencing, the second from the bottom.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:47:23
“That's the 20 to 40, isn't it? Yeah, but that requires a downstream analysis. Oh, I see. That says it doesn't.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:47:32
“Yeah, but I'm just. You're saying it says it in there? You know, this is section 7.4.2D applicability, which has the. And it's possible that there's a difference between what this table says and what specific standards elsewhere say. So I don't want to attest that it's entirely consistent.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:49:05
“But here, I think you need to think through. So somebody could subdivide 20 lots and then build single family houses on each. If you don't have those rules for subdivisions, then none of those houses need to provide stormwater management. But of course, these days, whenever you have a larger subdivision, you have development-wide stormwater management. That's why that's there separately. So I find it perfectly consistent.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:49:38
“I mean, the commercial is a, I'm not sure, a commercial under $20,000. I mean, again, we're trying to make residential development that's missing middle housing to be as close as possible to the development of single unit housing.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:50:18
“I'm thinking, so what I'm saying is that on a single lot, you can basically, under the current limo, under most communities development codes, you can build a single family house, you don't need to get any approval. And that continues to be the same. If we are serious about missing metal housing, we need to have similar rules for two to four family homes as well, or else because of the increased cost, especially if you layer on top stormwater management rules that don't apply to single family homes, then you're not going to get those. And so I think that's possibly the reason why it's treated…”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:53:09
“I have a couple of thoughts. Yeah. So I think your presentation was very helpful. Thank you for laying it out that way. Certainly understood it better than I did reading it here. That's not, sorry. I didn't mean to. I agree. It was a great presentation, so thank you. So I think no one would doubt that Chapel Hill has a stormwater issue. Anybody who was around two years ago, one year ago, July, whenever Chantal was, can attest to that. At the same token, the genesis of the increased stormwater issues are manifold. Obviously, development plays a role. Obviously, climate change and the increased…”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:06:07
“I'd be interested, actually, to learn what types of housing floods. Camelot Village obviously floods all the time. Camelot Village would flood all the time, even if there'd been no other development in Chapel Hill, because it was built in a god-awful area next to a mall that was built by chopping down a hill. So I mean, that's... I hear a lot of, I think anything new that the town is building affordable housing-wise, certainly anything they've built in the last 20 years, has modern stormwater controls and is not flooding.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:06:57
“The only point I'm trying to make is that a lot of these older homes that have flooding issues were built before there were stormwater controls.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:07:12
“Oh, absolutely. But there are stormwater controls, even developments that are at no risk of flooding, have stormwater controls to address flooding on their side.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:08:03
“Well, I mean, I'll say construction has challenges.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:10:51
“I mean, speaking only for myself, I think your two and three seem to be getting at a little more of looking into a more risk-based approach, which you talked about. And then also, you talked about the stormwater. In some way, getting at at areas of town or pieces of land which are at higher risk of having impacts from stormwater runoff, either through some sort of an overlay that identifies property or additional standards that establish criteria for the manager to apply. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I think I would probably get behind that. at that level of detail. I mean, obviously it…”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:13:14
“Well, I mean, they rely on it. I mean, the town manager... Well, it doesn't mean they're going to do it without that.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:13:19
“I mean, they rely on stormwater experts. Right. Yeah. Understood. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:13:26
“I mean, I would prefer that it come back to council for them to adopt criteria rather than... giving sort of an open-ended delegation to the town manager. That's the role of town council is to set the role.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:13:52
“But I still think you need clear criteria that are in the statute that establish what the town manager or whoever on staff is making the evaluation needs to consider and not just potential impacts.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:14:07
“Yeah. If the manager determines that there might be more impacts. That's just delegating a whole lot of authority. Right.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:14:23
“Yeah, possibly. I haven't read. I'll admit I haven't read that part.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:18:47
“Liz, I can, oh, go ahead, Jay. Just a clarifying question. I was curious, were you interested in the manager's discretion with respect to the downstream analysis, or more generally, this is, you know, given the circumstances of this development, it should comply with the 100-year rule and not the 25-year rule?”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:19:17
“Oh, it was just one part. So we've talked about the manager having discretion with respect to requiring a downstream analysis, but the question I had was whether the manager should have discretion to say, well, because of the special circumstance of this commercial development that's less than 20,000 square foot, it should comply with the 100-year runoff rules and not just the 25.”
Planning Commission · Oct 6, 2026