City Council - Regular Meeting

I am going to get everybody's attention. Can everybody please be quiet? Thank you. We're going to do things a little bit differently today because we were in the middle of a work session talking about the curfew proposal. We were not able to finish that discussion. So what we're going to do is I'm going to gavel close the work session, regavel in for this meeting. We're going to say the Pledge of Allegiance. We're going to recognize our Raleigh Poet Laureate. And then we are going to reconvene on the curfew topic out of order, and then we will go into public comment. So apologize for those of you who this is causing inconvenience, but at some point these are big topics and we did not want to shortchange the things. So first off, gaveling out of the work session into this meeting, and then can I ask Jonathan Lambert-Melton to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

of the United States of America and to the Republic

One more just public announcement because of late changing. We had a lot of people that were very interested in the data center that was originally scheduled for a hearing today. The petitioner withdrew their petition for that. So we will not have a data center. On the agenda today, if you are here for that, you may go. You have free time now. You can go enjoy your afternoon. But I'm going to hand it over to Sarah Powers with Raleigh Parks and Recreation.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, City Manager's Office. I have a really fun job here today. We're gonna meet our new Poet Laureate, the city's inaugural Poet Laureate is here today, Mr. Johnny Lee Chapman III. We have a short video. We have a short video to introduce him and the program a little bit. And we'll have a quick photo opportunity afterwards. And we will be back with more time for Lee to be creative as he works with our community. Thank you.

My name is Johnny Lee Chapman III, and I am proud to be Raleigh's inaugural Poet Laureate. A lot of my poetry growth and experience has happened in Raleigh. It's been a wonderful experience to not only go through that, but now be in a position where I can steward that.

It's exciting for Raleigh to welcome our first poet laureate. This is a unique opportunity to celebrate the creative voices that make our city so special.

There's so much magic and power in what already exists. So my goal is to not necessarily wipe the slate clean and start fresh, but to be working with the spaces and the people in the communities that have gotten me to this point. So I'm really looking forward to giving back to those people. You know who you are, and you'll be getting a call from me sometime soon.

We want you to be a part of it, too. Head over to RaleighNC.gov and search Poet Laureate to check out Lee's work and see what this next chapter brings. Congratulations. Do you want to say anything since you're a poet? Any words to share? And I will say, I got the great opportunity to work with Lee over at Dick's Park, where if you want to see his poetry, on the wall of the House of Many Porches is the full poem. And then there are those oak leaves that you saw in the video around the site of a poem that he wrote specifically for that site when we were building Gibson Play Plaza. So it is great to see that he was chosen as our poet laureate.

I mean, hello everybody. Do I have like a quick time to do a quick poem right quick? Yeah, go for it, man. Okay. I wrote this this weekend, so it's very new, but it's for y'all and it's for me. Thank you all for choosing me to be this individual. Let's see, all right. Inaugural, meaning the first, a pioneer or trailblazer, an explorer of the unknown, and a companion of uncertainty. Inaugural as in the progenitor, the founder and the namesake, the soon to be ancestor, but also the initial failure, the errors of trial and error, the one who determines how to improve for the future. the first in flight to grace the clouds and also to lose gravity, the guinea pig, the test dummy, the one whose experience becomes a lesson for those who come after, inaugural as in a standard bearer, a standard to break beyond, a believer who moved with faith, a postmark sent to no destination, an origin point, a home and a settlement, a goal always being moved, and a container of communal trust. The first voice to discover echo, the first echo to respond to voice, the holder of the pen, and the story hidden in the sheets, and as the inaugural, there will be eyes. watching waiting whispering eyes eyes unaware to their witnessing is a weight is a pressure but is also a proposition give me the spotlight and i will give you a show give me the microphone and i will tell you what i know give me a dream and i will tell you we should go slow and if you trust me as those who chose me to do, then give me the opportunity. I'll show you what I can do with space and support. Watch this position become a place where all can find a moment of inspiration for the inaugural is the result of tangible imagination. Thank you. I want to thank my parents in the back, Johnny and Tammy Chabot. Thank you to Southeast Raleigh. Thank you to City Soul Cafe. Thank you to Fuqua Verena for also birthing me. All right.

I think we need a photo. So do we want to get up with the... Why don't you get your parents to come? All right, next we will turn it back to our city attorney and police chief and the council who had just received the draft ordinance and we're starting to discuss it. Anything that y'all want to come back and just say before we let council start? I don't. Conversing, okay. Councillor Patton, I believe you were next up.

Thanks for this. A couple questions I have. You have a slide in there on peer cities in North Carolina that are also doing curfews. Do we have any, I'm curious, when did they enact these and what results are they reporting? Do we have any data on that?

I'm only familiar with Winston-Salem. Theirs is fairly new within the past couple of months, and I know they are up for a review of their ordinance. That's the only one that I'm familiar with.

So for a review, do you mean they did like a pilot or six-month or what? Kind of what was the situation there?

It appears that they just had a pilot, and they were just going to come back and look at it. They wanted to extend for an extended period of time.

Thank you. And then there's also, I guess what I'm trying to understand is how this core view adds a new tool to your tool belt. You showed us a slide that has increased incidence of aggravated assault, et cetera, year over year. and the numbers are higher for sure. All of these things are already crimes, so how would the curfew change what we're experiencing here?

Yes, I gave an example about the amount of vehicle break-ins that we're having here in the city of Raleigh in the time of day or time of night or when they are occurring. They are occurring late at night. We understand that. What we have seen is that the vehicles have been broken into, the weapons have been stolen, and then those are used in violent crime. If we had a curfew in place during the hours of where this reported crime has occurred, maybe that is a way to decrease our violent crime. We're trying to get kids off the street and keep them safe and protected during those late night hours.

OK. Yeah, I guess, I mean, one thing that I, when I see the number of rounds fired, I find myself less thinking, well, we better get those law-abiding children into their houses and more that, like, the presence of, like, just a preponderance of unsecured weapons in our communities is, like, the real source of the problem. And I guess I just wonder, the kids who are stealing out of cars, I mean, what's happening to them today? If police are uncovering a kid who's stealing a weapon out of a car, what's going to happen to that kid now in the current circumstances?

Right. We're going to file a juvenile petition. We obviously, depending on the circumstances of the case, you know, ask for secure custody. So each case is different, but that's one of two avenues that we would take is to file a petition or seek secure custody.

And then if a curfew were in order, how would it be handled differently?

We will make contact with the parent, have the parent come take Kasia's child, and maybe that child is not out any later than the time that we have interactions with them. So it keeps them safe as well as keep this community safe by not having someone that's going to commit a crime out on the streets late at night.

So is it the contact of the parent that is the primary concern?

It is the engagement with the officer and that juvenile and trying to prevent that behavior from occurring.

I'll pass the mic for a second.

Yes.

Councilor Ford.

So I have a couple of questions. Chief, I'm looking at your peer city comparison. How did you settle on 18 and under when the other cities primarily look like they're 16 and under for the most part. Winston-Salem's at 17, Charlotte's at 15. How did y'all come to the age of 18?

Yeah, these are just the largest cities that have a curfew here in the state of North Carolina, and that's why we used them.

No, I'm saying in terms of how did we come at 18 and under when the other cities are 16 and under or 15 and under and Winston-Salem is 17 and under?

easier to enforce when they're already a juvenile under the age of 18. So instead of, like, you look at our peer city, Charlotte, with 13 to 15, and we know that their chief just went before their council asking to amend that to just one particular age under the age of 18 to make it that much more easily enforceable.

OK. And getting back to some of the enforcement, you know, policies, how are you really going to be able to enforce it? And let me just be clear about where my comments or my questions are coming from. You know, one of my concerns is making sure that children, particularly black and brown kids, are not being targeted and making sure that there's equitable treatment with this proposal across the city. When you're talking about the exceptions, I mean kids coming from work, going to the movies, things along those lines. How do we know kids aren't going to be pulled over or targeted just because they're leaving the movie theater? They've got 10 o'clock shows now. I didn't realize that until I looked for one for a movie last weekend. Kids are working in the theaters and stuff like that. How are you going to be able to do the enforcement is a question that I have.

Yes, ma'am. This is complaint-based. This is not just RPD driving around looking for a kid who they think might be committing a crime. This is an actual crime has been committed or alleged to be committed and then a stop has occurred and then that interaction between the officer and the individual will occur. So complaint, like an actual violation has occurred, a criminal act has been alleged to have occurred and then that which the officer, in the presence of that individual, determined that they are a juvenile, determined that they are out past the proposed curfew hours, and had that conversation about a curfew violation, as well as what was the original violation. Was it a traffic offense? Was it some other crime that was alleged to have been going on?

This is my last question. You kind of dovetail into one of the things I wanted to raise with you as well as the city attorney. Is there not a way to look at making something a little bit more tailor-made to address the complaints? If it's a particular area, like we did a lot of work, you were involved in for years with Glenwood South, trying to come up with policies to make that area more safe based on noise ordinances and people being able to... you know, get food and stuff at certain times and all of that to tamp down some of the challenges that the business owners were raising. So is there not a way to kind of come up with some policies that specifically address, you know, Council Member Branch, I'll refer to one of your issues as a particular homeowners association where they've had kids breaking into the clubhouses repeatedly. So we know that there's an issue there. Is there not a way to kind of streamline and have a policy geared towards what the issues and the complaints are without having such a broad policy for the entire city?

Make sure I hear you correct. You just want to say look at specific areas in the city.

specific areas where we've got complaints and what the issues are, so if it's a homeowners association complaining about people breaking into the clubhouse or if we've got specific business owners complaining about issues on Glenwood South, can we not come up with policies to address the actual complaints and what the issues are without coming up with something that's so incredibly broad and targeting kids across the entire city?

We can, I respect that, ma'am. What I would say is that also if we focus on one particular part of the city and they know that, then they go to another part of the city and then there's nothing in place at that part of the city that we really accomplish anything by just designating certain parts of this city.

I guess I don't necessarily mean just particular areas, but I'm just saying like, uh-huh.

Do you mean for the ordinances?

Or if we recognize, and maybe we don't necessarily need an ordinance, but it may just be that if you know there are more issues happening on Glenwood South, I mean, what are some of the things we need to put into Glenwood South? If you know that there's a particular community where homeowners associations are complaining that people are breaking in, or you've got like a rash or break-ins of cars or things along those lines, can we just not put more patrols or do more targeted investigation and enforcement in that particular area, and then have the flexibility so if things start popping up in other parts of town, you can respond to it that way, but... not necessarily having an ordinance for the entire city or targeting large groups of kids who, again, may be leaving Canes games or leaving the movie theater or leaving jobs or athletic activities or whatever it is that they're doing. I think that's just my concern that kids in certain communities could be targeted for just doing normal teenage activities if we implement a curfew along these lines.

We definitely can look at that and what is involved in that is just hearing from the community, hearing from the youth, giving us that perspective of what they feel, how they feel, and how they would like to see, if anything, put in place to restrict their movements throughout the city. But I think it's the feedback and listening to our community, which I hope they get an opportunity to weigh in on this important topic.

Okay. Counselor Jones.

Hello, Chief. Thank you for this. I want to speak to transparency of information. And so if you can put that slide up of the 800 just to start there. So you presented this earlier that in 2025 we had 821 juvenile arrests reported. ALL YEAR AND SO FAR WE'RE AT 894. THOSE ARE NUMBERS THAT ARE TANGIBLE. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET THIS QUARTERLY UPDATE THAT I KNOW YOU DO THAT HAS THESE NUMBERS SO THAT IT'S PUBLIC FACING AND IS IT POSSIBLE TO DO THAT HERE? IF I HAVE THE COMMUNITY HERE READY TO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION AND WE WANT TO KEEP TRACK JUST TO KEEP POINTS ON HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS A MORE TRANSPARENT PROCESS SO THAT THE PUBLIC KNOWS THE NUMBERS THAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT AS THEY'RE HAPPENING?

Great question, Councilmember Jones. Yes, it is an opportunity for us to be transparent and share these numbers with our community in a quarterly report. My team is here. We'll make sure that we include that in my quarterly report.

And where do we go to find that currently? Hopefully we can bring it to the table, but in lieu of that, is it just on the website? How can residents access your quarterly updates?

It will be on a website, RPD website. We can share that, obviously, with the City of Raleigh website as well.

Okay, thank you so much. Yes, ma'am.

Definitely thank you for the information, and this is our first time seeing it, so thank you for presenting it to us. My question is around parents. I know this is geared towards youth and the youth curfew, but what's in place to help us get support from the parents or the guardian of the youth to make sure they're safe?

Great question, Councilmember Branch. In this conversation, we understand that the curfew alone is not to fix. It's important that we have feedback from our parents, from our youth, from our business community as well, and just overall City of Raleigh community. We need to find those resources for our parents. There are some parents that are struggling just to make ends meet every day. And now you put another potential obstacle, as some have said, in place, it's gonna make it that much more difficult. But as a city, as a community, we still need to identify resources that can help our parents be a parent. You saw the presentation earlier from my other city department partners. That's part of that conversation as well. What are we looking at? What can we provide for our parents? Don't have an answer for you today, Council Member Branch, but it's definitely part of the conversation to help parents with this challenge.

Okay, and as we've seen this, I know folks are here. Please get a chance. Are we going to have this posted? So this will be posted for people to look at it. Again, we're not voting on this today, but definitely a chance. Please provide feedback. I know there are some that will speak during public comment on this as well. But I would say for me and Councillor Ford, hit it off. I have incidences where I've said in meetings at, at HOAs where people, young people, have broken into their clubhouses and places around 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning. Police have been called. We're just, you know, what can we do to try to hold parents? For me, it's all about the home, the parents. What can we do? What can we put in place? And hopefully also, if nothing else, the fact that we're having this conversation, hopefully it's a wake-up call for people to step up and try to help us solve this because I don't feel this is just an issue that only we can solve. It's going to take all of us.

It's definitely a community approach and a community approach is needed to address the crime here in Raleigh when it comes to young offenders.

Just to piggyback, could I just get clarity from the city attorney on process here? We've got an ordinance that you've given us. Where will it be posted? How do people know what's in it? And then what is the public comment opportunities? I know we've got some folks today, but could you just kind of outline how this rolls out from here?

The ordinance, as I understand it, has been uploaded and is available on the city website. It is certainly up to the council, but We would suggest that this not come back until September the 15th. That would create an opportunity for a public comment in September. You have the night meeting the second Tuesday in September, public comment session, as well as you will have another public comment session in September. We could bring it back on September 15th, or we could wait. It is certainly up to the council. Okay, thank you. Councilor Silver.

Could you go to the slide about the other cities? As we continue this conversation, and this is something that Councilmember Patten had asked, if we could just get some feedback to know, you said you're familiar with Winston-Salem. For those that put a curfew in place, if we could understand the pros and cons, some of the unintended, impacts or consequences would be helpful for us. So if there is a curfew, we can fine tune it. So that would be helpful. Clearly the hours are different and the age is different, but that would be very helpful just to know Winston-Salem was a pilot, but some of the others, what has been the implications, both positive and negative, as a result of the curfew. The second point is that you and I spoke before this was introduced, and I told you, for me, it's very important that we have a balanced approach. As you stated, the curfew is not going to solve the problem. It is just one tool of many efforts. For those that did not see it earlier, we had a presentation from Parks and Recreation, and then all the other partners that help our youth. My concern is that I did the numbers 10 to 19 is 12% of our population. That's roughly 60,000 people between that age. These programs are capturing at best a few thousand. And so from my perspective, I was very moved by Taisha Mosley's presentation, reaching out to the teens about what they're looking for. Some don't want program events. They want safe spaces they can hang out without adults. And so for me, it's very important that we take a good look at that survey because the teens, they want to be heard. They're sharing with us the experiences they want and want to make sure if we have a curfew, we have other programs, and we are now listening to create some of those safe spaces. I also shared earlier that when I was in New York, we created a yes lording project because we felt in New York City, teens were the most targeted population in public space and wanted to find how we can create More comfort if there were six teenagers walking down the sidewalk What is our first reaction to wave our hand or to shut down and walk the other way? So I think all of us collectively parents citizens really have to do all of the above I think we have to look at the option of a curfew look at programming, look at other ways we can hear teens, continue these teen summits. So I just wanted to know your reaction to have that balanced approach that it's not just a curfew to solve these problems. There's a broader approach that we, the community, the businesses, parents, nonprofits, have to collectively pay attention to.

Could not have said it better, sir. That's exactly what it is, is having those conversations from all those different, let's say stakeholders in crafting whatever this looks like to keep our community safe, to keep our young folks safe. It is gonna take a community to get us there. and obviously partnering with other departments within the city of Raleigh, but also throughout this community. A lot of nonprofits, some of that are here, that are doing amazing work in our community. Do we need to look at, like you say, programming? What time are we offering these resources? Is that something we need to look at? Absolutely. So it's a conversation that we need to have, and I look forward to the feedback that we'll get today and going forward and what that looks like. But I just want you and everyone in this community to know that from the police department perspective, it's all about safety. It's not about targeting anyone, it's about community safety.

Chief, one question for you. In some of this debate, we have referenced that as mayor, I have the ability to call an emergency curfew. And that is in our current city ordinance. And I'm certainly, you know, with Stan willing to do that. And obviously we'll work with the chief to understand if that's necessary. But for you, what is the advantage of not relying on those emergency, you know, and having a more permanent response? What are the pros and cons for you of going this route versus just relying on this emergency tool?

One of the pros is that if it's already in place and something happens, we're not making phone calls in the middle of an incident where we need to enact a curfew. It's already there. We know what the protocol is. We can quickly address whatever issue and keep everyone safe and move on. If we don't have it in place, something happens. We're in the middle, let's use July 4th. I'm making phone calls with you, the manager. We're having a conversation. While we're having a conversation, things are happening. While we're having a conversation, someone might be getting hurt, and we're just in the middle of it, and we're trying to make a decision whether to enact a curfew. The biggest piece in this, in a situation like that, that's a con, is communication. How quickly can we get this message out to our community? Who's gonna be paying attention to, their phone at one in the morning when you have chaos going on. So we're gonna be behind the eight ball in just a communication gap of notifying our community that there is a emergency curfew in place. How quickly can we get that to our media partners to disseminate that through the media? So just be behind the eight ball and communicating that to our community.

All right, thank you. Yes, Mayor Patel. Yeah, thank you so much, Chief Boyce, for the presentation. I think what I have been really wrestling with are just the root causes of youth violence and when young people are involved in criminal activity. And I think a lot of us, we know where that comes from. It's a lack of opportunity. Sometimes it's a lack of structure. We don't have, in my opinion, state or national leaders that model what we ought to be seeing for Raleigh. We don't always have the investments and education in mental health and social services that we need. We do not have proper gun control. And so a lot of these topics, they go beyond the city of Raleigh and we need help from real leaders across our country. I do wanna just note, if you are looking for gun locks, you can get those at all of our RPD district offices. So please lock up your weapons. I do not wanna see more young people with access to guns because all of a sudden a fight just becomes that much more scary, that much more dangerous. I'm really looking forward to our youth programming options to increase, to add capacity to those, to work with our partners. And I know I felt really hot after Glenwood South, after Briar Creek on the 4th of July, a lot of us did. And so I'm looking now to, you know, be a little bit more, I'm gonna say thoughtful and hear from everyone about this curfew idea, how this could impact folks, and just wanna hear from residents on whether this feels like the right move, but we do have time before we would enact anything.

Okay, any other questions on this topic? Yes.

Maybe more of feedback, but I know we're eager to move on to the next. So a couple of things that I've been thinking about. I agree when right after the events of July 4th, we were all like very troubled and I think feared that that would happen again. But I think across the country, cities that experienced teen takeovers have not seen recurrence of that. And so I also want to be more thoughtful. Ultimately, this is a curtailing of people's rights to move around their city freely, and that should be done with extreme care and caution. And one thing that I'm ruminating on a lot here is that the thought is if we tell all the law-abiding children to be at home, then they'll be out of the way of any violence that might occur from other people who will not abide the laws. And I'm not sure that that is the approach we want to take to public safety. I think we could then begin to... I think about how we would apply that logic to like, should women just not be allowed in bars because then they won't get raped? Or should people just not go to school or to concerts because they might get, and experience mass violence? And I'm not sure that that's kind of a line of thinking we want. to guide our public safety approach. Another thing that I'm a little bit challenged by is these exceptions carve out moving from one private space to another, which I fear just rewards folks with money, right? If you are a kid who can afford to go to the Canes game and you're gonna go from your Canes game straight home, then you're... You know, you qualify for this exception, but if you are a person who can only afford a cookout milkshake and would like to have your unstructured time out of your parents' eye, then you don't qualify for an exception. And so I fear that there's a little bit of a social stratification that we're creating here through these exceptions. But the part that I do resonate with is that The parental accountability piece, I really do resonate with that. The idea that if your kid is going to get up to mischief, you're going to have responsibility there, and that... maybe there's more we can do. And so I guess the feedback I would offer is to explore if there are legal ways to amp up that parental accountability piece, which I do think is valid, without such a sweeping curtailment of people's ability to move around their city. So are there ways we can update our ordinance? If you are breaking into the clubhouse, we are going to detain you until your parents come or whatever. Like all these other mischief-making activities, can we just like...

crank up the parental accountability piece i do want to give you that tool and i do resonate with that as an important piece of the pie thank you any other comment on this topic okay and as you heard more to come but thank you chief thank you city attorney and uh we will uh move on to other items on our agenda do we need to do anything

So is the direction that we would bring this back in September or wait until October so that you have two full public comment sessions?

I think we want the two public comment sessions. I mean, that's kind of what my understanding. So whatever date that leads us to.

Okay. So we would. I think we can still accomplish that on the 15th, because you'll have some that can speak today, and then you'll have the dedicated public comment section on September 8th. And then on the 15th meeting, there's a public comment opportunity as well, and we can put it on the agenda so that it can come after the public comment section.

Okay. Sounds like a plan. Thank you. All right. All right. We have the consent agenda. We had no items pulled, to my understanding. So is there a motion? All in favor of that motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. So that is unanimous. We will now move into public comment. And I have Justin Clifton. And this is one minute per person because we have 40 folks signed up, so yeah.

Testing.

Yep.

Well, I wasn't nervous to go first, but after hearing the poem earlier, I maybe need to reevaluate. Good afternoon, council members. You may have noticed as you walk or drive our city that a legion of cameras have appeared on our roads and streets. These automated license plate readers photograph every passing car, log where it was and when, as well as images of the vehicle into a searchable database. Driving here today, cameras on US 70, I-40, and 540 logged my route. And they do the same to everyone here today and every citizen of Raleigh without good reason. Despite their proliferation, to my knowledge, Council has never voted on this powerful surveillance technology. These devices are in desperate need of oversight. Here's an example of what happens without oversight. In Mooresville, North Carolina, right down the road, an officer logged into Flock 31 times to stalk her boyfriend's ex-wife and falsified the reason for 29... All right, thank you so much.

Tatiana Cooper.

Perfect timing.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell and members of Raleigh City Council. I am Tatiana Cooper, and I am here to represent Saving Adolescent Girls Everywhere, also known as SAGE. SAGE is a weekly mentorship program. We currently serve 30 girls from the ages of 12 to 18, with a current wait list of 386 girls. For three years, we've been a reliable partner with Raleigh Parks and Recreation, receiving funding and transportation in kind. Recently, the partnership ended due to Raleigh Parks adopting a new co-op model, leaving us only the summer to find alternate funding resources. This is an unexpected decision for an organization that consistently serves and mentors adolescent girls. Today, we asked that the City of Raleigh consider grandfathering Sage into a three to five year contract or establish metrics that would allow us to qualify for longer term funding. In light of the recent teen takeovers, we are stressing the importance of supporting our teens. SAFE provides a safe environment with a 99% retention rate, zero suspensions, and a 100% graduation rate. We guide our girls through both middle and high...

Thank you. Shane Stanley.

Hello, council members. My name is Shane Stanley. I'm a Glenwood South resident, former NC State student, and former Raleigh teenager. I'm here to challenge the ongoing narrative of simply dismissing this incident as a teen takeover. I was on Glenwood South on the 4th of July, and I would not describe the agitators as teenagers. Rather, they were grown adults. Calling it a teen takeover is a deflection so you all can slap a curfew on the issue and don't have to address the controversial topic of gun violence in our city. The gun violence in Glenwood South has been happening and increasing long before this so-called teen takeover event. The police chief himself said, we were prepared for the crowds. What we weren't prepared for was the amount of guns we recovered off people. Yet we're still supposed to blame the crowds, not the proliferation of guns for the violence. WRAL reported 27 adults, mostly from out of town, were arrested. So why are we punishing our city's teenagers? Implementing a curfew increases workload on our police force, increases citizen interactions with police officers, and wastes our city resources, all while not actually addressing the gun violence issue. My question to you is, what actual measurable policies are you going to...

Thank you. Carrie Bennington.

Is Carrie here?

Okay. Jane Hubband. If y'all can let the speaker come down so that we're not delaying the meeting, thank you.

Your Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board composed of park advocates who are well-versed in this area and spent more time on it than you can imagine. They voted nine to five not to recommend to this council the city's proposed project, routing through Anderson Forest. Why did they do that? Because of deception and bias by city staff in public presentations, even to you. Deception and bias in public surveys, environmental concerns, including the gross violation of riparian water, quality rules, condemnation of a conservation easement, flooding and other public safety concerns, high cost, very high cost, and poor trail quality. Why would you believe what the city staff said over your own advisory committee you selected? Thank you.

Robert Hubband.

Regarding the potential condemnation of a long-standing conservation easement and private backyards in Anderson Forest, better alternatives exist that could achieve cost-effective greenway connection using existing public street rights-of-way. Many miles of street and sidewalk connections already exist throughout Raleigh's greenway system. With good alternatives, condemnation is unnecessary. It is irresponsible and illogical to spend millions, more than the entire big branch bond allocation, on a short, poor quality route with so many problems. This is especially true when a street and sidewalk connector would adequately serve the vast majority of the Greenway-using public at one-tenth of the cost. And if the multimodal bridge is never completed, A bad decision creates an embarrassingly expensive, seldom used greenway to nowhere.

Thank you. Horace Clemens.

Council, I have been before you over the last three years, three or four different times to discuss issues with the noise ordinance as it relates to commercial next to residential. And I've seen nothing change. that would solve the problem specifically of my complaints against Pratt Industries. Pratt is now going to go to 24-hour operation, and they will be able to continue to disturb the residents that are adjacent to them. I was told I would get a chance to review the new ordinance. I got a phone call. I have not seen it. I have not been able to contribute to it. I would appreciate that ability. Thank you.

Thank you. Jonathan Garland.

I counsel. I'm here to present a common occurrence. Residents were labeled publicly as being in violation, not because they broke any rule, but because the enforcement process misunderstood the mathematics needed to determine what a violation actually was. That happened during the recently lifted watering restrictions. Drip irrigation was fully unrestricted, yet residents who were only using drip irrigation were singled out and issued violations anyway. I provided the city with educational materials showing why the drip flow rates were being misinterpreted, Once that information was reviewed, many of those violations were rescinded. On July 9th, WRAL reported 46% of irrigation systems were in violation. Only 17% of the violations that were actually valid within my customer base. That means the true violation rate wasn't 46% as publicly announced. It was likely closer to 7%. A discrepancy that large should be corrected publicly as it was announced publicly. We must repair trust in the enforcement process by correcting this enforcement process.

Thank you. Thank you. Zainab Balagh.

Good afternoon. People are hurting. Our city is hurting. Trigger warning. This weekend, a black man was found hanging from a tree in downtown Raleigh. Whatever this investigation ultimately finds, the reality is horrible. And the response has exposed something else. There's a deep lack of trust between parts of this community and our police department. And in this moment, we're considering giving that system another reason to police our children. The police chief gave a lot of data. I'd also like to highlight the statistic that black residents in Raleigh are arrested at a rate five times more than white residents. If any other city department had this type of racial bias, it would be dismantled. Also, there is a teen curfew in Fayetteville that is currently failing that the police don't even like. How does the curfew make young people safer? Does it improve their mental health, give them somewhere to go, give them jobs, mentors, community? No. You can't build a city around adult nightlife. Council literally made a whole social district around drinking. then give teenagers nowhere comparable to gather, we don't have any teen districts, and then criminalize them for showing up.

Thank you. Taylor Stewart.

Good afternoon. Streamside Option 1B of the Big Branch Greenway Connector Project has become a breach of trust and transparency, property rights, environmental responsibility, and fiscal accountability. Throughout this process, residents have repeatedly had to uncover vital information that should have been provided openly. We have watched the city pursue an option that conflicts with its own environmental protections while the projected cost has exploded. What was presented as a project that would fit within a roughly 4.5 million bond allocation is now estimated at nearly 9 million, and that's before the cost of acquiring private property and condemnation litigation. This is not fiscal responsibility, especially when Raleigh is facing continuing budget deficits. This council has an obligation to protect taxpayers, respect private property, uphold its own environmental commitments, and be honest with its citizens. Please do the right thing.

Thank you. Misa Seltari. Jeremy Gilchrist.

This past Saturday, the disturbing news of a black man hanging from a tree in downtown Raleigh made its way through our streets and across the nation. The implications of this and the obvious connection with the worst chapters of our history are clear. Lynchings were one of many episodes of white savagery in an effort to preserve systemic pale-faced supremacy. My own privilege is soaked in the blood of countless black bodies and these unspeakable acts occurring over the course of hundreds of years. It was said that the speculation was harmful, but is just another manifestation of deep trauma and a complete lack of trust in all institutions in the shadow of overt fascism in this country. Even if it was a suicide, the victim was still a casualty murdered by this horrific system. The so-called teen takeover on Glenwood is one more. The younger generations feel in large part that there is no real future. More policing and curfews will not change that mindset. It'll only deepen the problem as it inevitably means more police, more arrests, and the lives of young people of color.

Thank you.

God bless John Brown.

Free Palestine.

Octavia Rainey. Good afternoon, council. I have been sitting here listening to the council, but I would like to say in 2007, Southeast Raleigh had the highest number of murders, which was 15. In 2007, on the corner of the 300 block of Tarboro Road, a young man was shot and killed, and he ran across to the other side of Tarboro Road, and we were dropping flyers. He died in my lap. He died in my lap. And this young man was so afraid. He was crying. And you know what I told him? It's all right. It's all right. Because I knew he was dying. And a lot of people ask me, that didn't bother you. I say it did in a sense, but I got myself together. I would just like to say this. Y'all have been here before. Y'all have really been here before. It's just that y'all are not following the process of Chief Dolan.

And y'all really should.

Thank you. Thank you. Emma Hughes. Is Emma here? Yeah, OK.

Hello Council, my name is Emma Hughes and I live on the 400 block of South Bloodworth Street. I'm here today because Raleigh's residential parking permit program is unnecessarily cumbersome on individual residents and especially renters. I'm asking the Council to take three immediate actions. One, fix the underlying process by reforming the city's residential parking policies and signage. two, protect residents while parking restrictions are under review by pausing citations in those areas, and three, remove all time limiting parking signage in the 400 block of South Bloodworth Street, which is eligible for the program. For renters, the barriers to qualify for the parking program are higher than homeowners. Renters are responsible for navigating the process, but much of the power is to complete it rests with property owners who may not even live in the state. And in some cases, tenants are required to obtain notarized affidavits from property owners, including out-of-state management companies, just to participate in the program. Renters live in Raleigh, pay taxes here, and are subject to the same parking restrictions, but we have far less power to change them. I'm bringing this issue to council because I have personally followed the process. Thank you.

Mary Thompson. Okay. Not seeing Mary, Chris Crew.

Good afternoon. Thank you for your time and for your immense effort on our behalf. Our neighborhoods are the framework upon which we build community. We have a rich and diverse assortment of neighborhoods spread across 96,000 acres. And who knows which ones of these will last to add to the distinction that the Oakwoods, Five Points, the Prince Halls, the Oberlins bring to Raleigh. These are important enough to us that the UDO says we will accommodate and encourage development in existing neighborhoods while reinforcing the established character of the neighborhood and mitigating impacts on the adjacent homes. That's section 2.2.7. Preservation is not about Nibianism. It's not anti-growth. It's not fossilization. Preservation is about the maintenance of the neighborhood framework that allows us to build community. Thank you.

Thank you. Ramaya Robinson.

Good afternoon, my name is Ramaya. I'm a youth organizer with Education Justice Alliance. So recently we saw that cities across North Carolina and across the United States have been asking for these curfews because of these teen takeovers, right? And I put in quotes teen takeovers because the News and Observer reported 29 of those arrests were 18 and up. Across 12 quantitative studies done by the Campbell Institute, curfews have no meaningful impact on juvenile offending. The data shows that instead of creating safety, curfews increase the surveillance and criminalization of young people, especially black youth, simply for being present in public spaces. I work with teenagers. I've asked them where to hang out, nowhere, because they can't. They can't go to the mall. They can't go to the movies. There are curfews already in place in all the areas that when I was a kid, I hung out at. So if we want them to be able to show up in these spaces, we have to ask them where they want to go, what they need. Thank you.

Karen Brown.

Good afternoon. My name is Karen Brown. I'm asking you to deny Z4325. When our case was heard by the Planning Commission last week, Commissioner Neptune thoughtfully walked through Raleigh's comprehensive plan, applied it directly to our neighborhood, considering infrastructure, community character, surrounding density, streets, and safety. Commissioner Shelburne acknowledged that his analysis was incredibly thoughtful and well researched, yet his vote relied on what he called general observations about Raleigh's need for housing and continued growth. A general philosophy about growth should not outweigh a site-specific analysis based on Raleigh's own adopted policies. And appointed commissioners' personal beliefs should never override the policies they were appointed to apply. You appoint these commissioners, and residents need to trust that these appointments will uphold the planning framework you adopted. Otherwise, what's the point of the comprehensive plan? Raleigh will grow. The responsibility is deciding where that growth belongs. So the question before you is simple. Does this level of growth belong here? Thank you.

Pace Brown.

Hello, my name is Pace Brown, and I'm asking you to please deny Z4325. I'm a competitive mountain bike racer, so I'm very comfortable on a bike. But during many parts of the day, I don't even feel comfortable riding out of my own driveway and onto my street. I have to have my parents load my bike onto a car and drive me somewhere safe. Isn't it strange that I feel more comfortable riding on difficult, unsafe terrain with 100 other kids than on my own street? This isn't just about riding my bike. I'm 15. I'm at an age where I'm exploring more, and I should be getting more independence. It's hard to have independence when you can't get to where you should be, want to be. I also have two younger brothers. As they get older, I want this road to be safe for them as well. More traffic looks like numbers on paper, but for the people that live there, numbers don't really matter as much. Please think about the kids who live here before adding more traffic. Please deny Z4325. Thank you. Thank you.

Philip Brown.

That's my boy. Appreciate it. I want to respectfully correct several points raised during the Planning Commission's discussion of Z4325. First, Commissioner Baird referenced the approximately 32 homes that could be potentially developed under the property's current zoning, and we've never argued that only 12 homes can legally be built. We argued simply that 12 homes represents a responsible scale of development for the infrastructure that actually exists today. And ultimately, the appropriate transportation authority, not the neighbors, will determine what access is permitted. But the larger issue, the previous planning commission studied this case extensively and recommended denial eight to one. And after the commission's membership change and some members were recused, denial still prevailed four to three. We lost only one vote. What changed? Not the road, not the infrastructure, not the comp plan. The commission changed. New members without the same months of history were asked to suddenly decide the fate of an existing case, and that exposes a fundamental flaw in this process. Cases of this consequentiality deserve continuity. Commissioners deciding them should have the same depth of information, not simply inherit the final chapter and cast a vote. Thank you.

Marissa Green.

I am Larissa Green, and I'm here in opposition to Z4325. I want to talk about the city QR code notice signs. Today, the people guaranteed to receive notice are primarily those who are on a tax record. But families who rent, people in multi-tenant buildings, and others will feel the impacts of development may never receive a letter. Instead, they may be expected to see a sign, scan a QR code, navigate a website, recognize a street number versus their neighborhood by its historical name, and hope that the dates are accurate. That isn't meaningful notice. It's a technicality. For Z4325, hundreds of tenants were not directly notified, and the required signs were not posted for the meeting that had taken place. This is not a harmless error. When people don't know a decision is being made, they cannot participate in the decision. So I ask council, who bears the responsibility for making sure the public isn't actually informed? Every person deserves equal access to the same information about meetings. Thank you.

Ashley Heath Armstrong. First, thank you for getting my name correct. That means a lot. I had planned to stand here before you and talk about options with the affordable housing program that's on Saturday. It's completely booked and hoping that we're going to have overflow with online and I attempted to get that information. And also to talk about youth engagement in response to this task force. We have community centers that are simply not being used, Chavis Center in particular. Right now, the only time the students and the young people could play an open gym is on Sunday during family time. Same thing at Barwell Road. It's a little bit different. But we built this beautiful facility, and we're not using it. We can use volunteers. I'm one of them. My background's in education and teens. That's why, in December, I wrote a check for $250 to run for mayor, and nobody opposed the mayor, so I'm on the ballot. I'm highly qualified. I'm a transportation expert. Safety first and respect. That sums up the Constitution.

Thank you. Nawaf Marjan. We need cooling stations.

It's too hot. We need cooling stations. That would help a lot. There are street drugs that everybody is being affected by, and everybody is breathing it.

Is Mr. Marjan here? Okay. Whitney Perdue.

All right, TJ Lansbury. Is TJ here? Okay.

Okay.

Hello. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of City Council.

You may want to move the mic quickly up. Thank you.

I'm asking you to deny zoning KC 4325 in Litchford Forest. We're at a minimum to delay it until our infrastructure can safely support additional development. I support responsible growth, but growth needs to be matched by infrastructure, safety and consideration for the existing neighborhood. This area already experiences significant traffic and pedestrian challenges, particularly with Millbrook High School so nearby. Litchford 315 and the Abington Square apartments have also added substantial demand to an already challenged road network. There are important transportation improvements being considered and prioritized in this area. I believe we should allow those efforts to move forward and determine what additional capacity and safety improvements are needed before adding another high-density development. Please don't put additional growth ahead of infrastructure and safety. I respectfully ask...

Thank you. Alex Brissett.

Hello. I know we all know this, but we cannot increase density without also improving infrastructure to match the increase in population. Where I live on Brookside Drive, we have a front row seat to where this is going well and not going well. We've added bike lanes on Brookside Drive, which is excellent for improving traffic, although we need to have the bollards installed that we were promised. We've been waiting a year for that. That's going well, but at the same time, we've seen it not going well. Trees are being cut down thanks to a loophole. Trees are infrastructure. The development against the creek is having an adverse impact on the creek. Creeks are infrastructure. We need to hold developers to a much higher standard that takes care of our infrastructure, especially using the creek streets concept to raise those standards where we have development next to creeks. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Neal Mackey. Is Ms. Mackey here? Okay. Athena Wallen.

Hello, everybody. My name is Athena Wallin. You should probably be familiar with me because I keep saying land around waterways change. So it's really hard to anticipate development around land that is always changing. So I continue to implore the city of Raleigh to reassess how we develop along creeks. That land has more responsibility, more demand to manage the dynamics of weather-related events. Creeks absorb excess, and the land around it does too. If we introduce impervious surfaces in that encroaching space, then we have a reduced margin of error. We need development guardrails to offer more for our struggling stormwater creeks, which are our essential infrastructure. We must evolve our perspective of prioritizing impervious surface over absorbent land adjacent to our creeks because they are connected stormwater utility systems. Our 1,000 miles of stormwater creek need help. So let's help it, please. Thank you.

Tamara or Tamara Jones? I'm not sure which. Is Ms. Jones here? Okay. Thea Cox. Ms. Cox here. And I know there's some people in overflow. Am I missing anyone because of that issue or? Okay. Okay. Kimberly McTarian.

Good afternoon, Council, Dr. Kimberly Mukhtarian. I'm here to say, first of all, thank you, Ms. Megan Patton, for saying that if they had enough money to go to a Canes event, that they could stay out of trouble. But let me say this, it is the hurricanes that we must talk about because they are living on the land of Lincolnville. Now, what is Lincolnville? Lincolnville is one of the 13 freedmen's villages that was stolen by the state of North Carolina to build your North Carolina State University Carter-Finley Stadium Indoor Complex and Lenovo Center. So we can afford it, you just got to stop gentrifying. And you have to go back and find out the root causes, like Ms. Harrison said, as to why you can't stop stealing, killing, and destroying. Why? Because your state-sponsored health, state-sponsored theft, creates state-sponsored death. And it also sponsors mental health.

And let's have a meeting about you.

Thank you. Andrea Hook. Is Ms. Hook here? Okay, Jorge Ramos.

Hello, my name is Jorge Ramos. I've lived in this city for 23 years and I've seen all sorts of things over the years, crazy things, but I've never seen young people being the perpetrators of violence or chaos. It's typically the adults that are doing that. So I find it baffling that when this congregation of 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, as y'all claim, the number keeps shifting of folks were gathered in Briar Creek and Glenwood South on the 4th of July, that y'all would automatically deduce that they were all young people participating in a teen takeover, as y'all are calling it. were y'all out there with clickers counting verifying ids how do y'all magically know they were all teens also have y'all ever been out on a night in glenwood i can assure you there's plenty of chaos taking place on a weekly basis no takeovers needed instead of trying to punish all of our city's teens with over policing and surveillance y'all could actually try to address the real issue at hand is this really about gun violence let's talk about gun restrictions not curfews don't scapegoat teenagers it's weird and tired also have you ever stopped to think that teens have jobs Not everyone is privileged enough to be a full-time student. Young people play active roles in their families and they need the autonomy to be able to move freely. This proposed curfew is just another opportunity.

Drew Washington.

Hello, everyone. My name is Drew Washington, and I proudly serve as a youth organizer for Education Justice Alliance. And today, I'm here to speak on the proposed teen curfew. As someone who works directly with youth, I have an understanding of how important it is to help them foster their own creativity, imagination, and sense of self. Creating restrictions by instilling a curfew only diminish these attributes and lessen the trust and support within our community. Not to mention more restrictions on youth only lead them to be further criminalized, especially in our black and brown communities. So instead of further isolating young people with more restrictions, we now have the opportunity to collectively provide for their needs. Spending more time on cultivating meaningful community partnerships and access to youth programming serves as a catalyst to move our city in the right direction, while restrictions such as a curfew will only keep our city stagnant. As a community, we are better together, and that means that we must be intentional in providing for the needs of young people and not adding to the list of commands that they must follow. Thank you.

Thank you. Ted Briggs.

Hi, everyone. Thank you. I'm here to talk about ALPRs and the flock surveillance system. I support our police, but there's a problem here. Believing that technology should play a role in solving crime should not mean blindly accepting the terms of that bargain. Is it too much to ask that our law enforcement officers follow the law? As someone who works in tech, I find the public records casually shocking. The ALPR audits state that proper reason codes are necessary to ensure compliance with North Carolina state statute. But between October 2024 and January 2026, 4,609 searches did not have a proper reason code listed. that's 20% of all the searches in the AOPR system did not have a proper reason code and did not comply with North Carolina state statute. That is crazy. The audits recommended corrective action years ago. The audits recommended accepting less restrictive information to satisfy the law, and they still didn't do that. The audits show that former employees have access to the system. Thank you.

Mike Figueras.

Hello, my name is Mike Figueres and I'm one of the parent organizers for Education Justice Alliance, a nonprofit in Raleigh who works to dismantle the school to prison, school to deportation pipeline, and eliminate the criminalization of black, brown, LGBTQ plus students, students with disabilities, and to secure educational equity for all students in the public school systems. Thank you for letting me speak today. We work directly with parents and young people in the community, and I'm here to talk to you about the curfew proposal. Firstly, curfews are a violation of young people's rights, and they're often applied in a discriminatory fashion according to the National Young Rights Association. Secondly... Curfews give police automatic reasonable suspicion to stop anyone who looks under 18, creating more illegal stops and occasions for incidents to occur, and according to the Catalyst's legal studies, curfews often lead to over-policing of marginalized communities, worsening racial disparities in juvenile justice, and even more.

Thank you. Nickway Williams.

Good afternoon, y'all. I'm Nikoi Williams, representing Education Justice Alliance alongside two of our many leaders here today. And we are here to say no to citywide curfews. Youth curfews do not prevent violence, reduce crime, or protect communities. Instead, decades of research demonstrate that youth curfews criminalize our youth without improving public safety. If curfews don't make us safer, then why would you give police another reason to stop, question, or detain our youth? Rather than responding to youth, our young people, with fear, we should listen to them and work alongside them to create solutions that actually make our community safer. At the July 7th meeting, you talked about working with youth, parents, creating a task force, and addressing root causes. That needs to start now. Our young people are not a problem to be controlled. They are the people that we need to listen to. Do not give Raleigh PD another tool to harm and target our teens. Reject curfews.

the group effort on that one. Mamakai Sanders.

It's another amazing day in paradise, y'all. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I want to thank specifically Jane, Jonathan, Megan, and Stormy for truly hearing me and wisdom. And I want to thank Megan, Stormy, Madam City Attorney, and the City Manager's Office for meeting with us during your break. I'll be sending a follow-up email now that you're back in session. Now, about the potential curfew. I'm disappointed because we are reactive versus proactive as a city. Two years ago when the city did its sociability study and paid to have a sociable city assessment created, there was no mention of children, youth, and families. I know this because I attended the meeting at Dick's Chapel to find out more. When I asked why they weren't included, I was told they weren't the focus. The events of July 4th tell us two things. You should now take the complaints of the longtime residents of Glenwood South seriously. And two, if you had partnered with the youth organizations and the youth they serve to revitalize Fayetteville Street, we wouldn't be having these problems.

Thank you. Lorraine Snyder. Is Snyder here? Gerald Espy, her husband.

Okay. He's going to be here today. We filled it out. Speaking to Z4325, ask that you deny this rezoning. And it's the reasons why. Safety. It's public safety. I applaud getting affordable housing. That's important. I've lived there for 14 years to watch the growth in the area. I'm happy to have new neighbors. But if you're in that area, it is challenging. The kids come out at school. There are 30 to 50 cars. New drivers. Have you ever had... Driven with a new driver, they get panicked. I'm an experienced driver. I look out there. They're coming hot, 50 miles an hour over there. And you think you have the space. You don't. So already with the existing apartments, without adding anything, there's already safety risk. It's 17,000 cars a day. The broken handle, 20,000. Let's hold off on this. There are many more areas that make more sense. Thank you for Atlantic Avenue. It's a success. Synchronized lights all the way down to Raleigh. It's why we moved here. We love the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Shanice Green.

Hello, thank you to everyone in this whole room. I'm a stage four cancer patient. They told me I had 18 to 21 months to live. They said that I was gonna leave by February 28th of 2026, but I want to commend this group of people right here, okay? I want to commend you because you have a lot that you have to do. And as a citizen, I do a lot, even in my condition. So I've decided to open my home as America's Home Room to talk about cancer and invite everybody. Because I was on Oprah in 1987, I've waited 40 years to talk about it because I wanted to see what could I accomplish. And what did I get out of it? I became a banker. And what we're missing with bringing people together is audience development. And nobody knows how to build a book of business better than me. Because I go to the meetings. I go to the churches. And I love living in Raleigh. So for four and a half years, I'm going to dedicate my home intentionally for y'all to come over and play. It's a little mini mansion in southeast Raleigh with 3,000 square feet.

All right. Thank you. All right. Mary Black.

Hi, everyone. Former council member Mary Black here. In the rise of white-ring extremism, fascism, and the rollback of civil rights and the proliferation of racist white supremacist ideologies, trust, transparency, accountability, and deeper community participation and co-governance become so much more important. Over the weekend, the people of our community shut down a proposed data center annexation. And the very next day, the same community was shaken by the news that a black man was found hanging in downtown Raleigh. The outcry from our community denotes a larger issue, a lack of collective leadership that actually engages the people. Why do we know what's happening in our communities? Why do our solutions feel so much more punitive than participatory? And where is the deep community engagement? Deeper than public comment, deeper than district meetings, deeper than committees and surveys. This is really a call in to my council colleagues to go beyond the base expectation and create more space for the people in this community to actually govern alongside you. And it's a call out to the people. Our power is staying engaged.

Thank you. All right, that concludes our public comments. All right. Next, we have the report and recommendation of the Planning Commission. All right, Matthew Clem.

Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Matthew Clem, Planning and Development, here with Dwight Otwell, Chair of the Raleigh Planning Commission. We have one item to report out of the Planning Commission for you today. Here is a look at upcoming holidays in August and September. This is a list of currently scheduled public hearings. So there are two currently scheduled on September 1st. On your consent agenda today, you added two to that list, the home investment partnerships and historic landmarks for the Lustron House. So at the moment, four scheduled on the 1st of September. On your consent agenda, you scheduled three annexations for the 15th, so... keep a running tab. You'll have more decisions in the special items agenda section, so we can talk about scheduling there. We are recommending a September 15th public hearing for Z1716 Hillsboro and Western Boulevard. This is a rezoning request for three and a half acres. This is a city-initiated rezoning request to develop affordable multi-family housing in proximity to Western BRT. It is consistent with the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the Future Land Use Map, and the Urban Form Map. Your Planning Commission recommends approval seven to zero. I'm happy to answer any questions. Chair Altwell is here as well.

Yep. Hi, thanks. I'm glad you said City of Nishina, because I couldn't remember after reading all the cases. Have we already done an RFP? Do we have a partner on this site for this project?

Let me ask from our housing and community development partners on that. I know they're currently working on it. I'm not sure if they've made a selection at this point.

Okay.

You can also report back if someone needs to dig something out. I have no problem with the hearing date, so having to make a motion at the appropriate time.

Okay. Do we want to, I'm sorry, so we're just holding this, or is there somebody?

The question is, do we have a partner to deliver the housing yet? I'm unsure. I was waiting for housing and community development. They're on the way up now. I think they were looking. Okay, I got it. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Jess Brandes with Housing and Community Development. We do not have an identified partner yet. That RFP responses were due last week, and staff is reviewing them. I don't, off the top of my head, know exactly when we will be making a decision, but we're actively determining the results of that RFP.

Thank you. Okay. Motion to set the hearing for September 15th.

All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Next, we have special items. Again, Matthew Klim, rezoning Z1226 Rock Quarry Road.

Thank you. You held this item at your last meeting on July 7th to allow for the applicant to revise zoning conditions. That has occurred. Revised zoning conditions include a prohibition and definitions of vape and tobacco shop and also prohibition of sweepstakes parlors. So we have those new conditions. We suggest a public hearing date of September 15th.

Okay, questions?

Sorry, I'm sorry. I was noticing on this case, there's no definition in the UDO for either of those things, vape shops, and then also gambling uses, and so they had to be invented and will be unique to this case. and there's another case that also has vape shop conditions and so it seems like this is a topic of community interest and so I wonder if it would be prudent for us to make our own definitions so that each condition we don't need to have all these one-off conditions that are creating their own definition so I would just offer that as feedback and maybe staff can follow up with a response on managers update about whether it would be appropriate to develop those definitions for future. Again, also no problem with this hearing date.

Move to set the public hearing for September 15th.

Second. All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. And that is unanimous. Next, we have rezoning Z1426 Gorman Street assemblage.

Thank you. Also held at your last meeting in July, updates to the case include conditions specifying contributions to the Affordable Housing Fund and also specifications for street crossing on Gorman Street. So those are the updates since last time. We recommend a suggested public hearing date of the evening of September 1st.

Yeah, just go ahead with the motion to set this hearing for September 1st. Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. All right. Next, we have rezoning Z1925, which is 405 and 416 Dorotheus Drive.

And just checking, did we need to set the time for September 1st? It's evening.

OK, evening is fine. Yep.

Yep.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell, members of the City Council, Matthew Burns with Planning and Development. While this loads, I'll tell you that this is a request by the Raleigh Housing Authority to rezone Heritage Park in downtown. And this item last appeared on July 7th on a report of Planning Commission where Council deferred setting the public hearing date to allow time for changes. And those changes are similar to the Gorman Street rezoning that you just discussed where they would prohibit payday lending, vape and tobacco shops, and sweepstakes, parlors, and or internet cafes. and staff is suggesting a public hearing date of September 1st, also in the evening.

Questions for Mr. Burns? Yeah, just motion again to set the public hearing for September 1st. Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. So that is unanimous. Thank you. And next we have a text change authorization request for daycare amendments, Justin Rometta.

Afternoon, Mayor and Council. Justin Romero with Planning and Development.

Thank you.

Can you go ahead without the visual or? Sure.

There we go. Great, thank you. So this is a item that's being brought back to you at your request. It's a follow up item from back in May. for a request to bring back some information on some potential text changes that might help facilitate additional daycare facilities in the city. I'll just give you a brief regulatory overview and then provide some potential options for you all to consider. So the daycare facilities regulatory framework is a multi-layered one. At the state level, you have the general statutes establishing the legal framework, the administrative code establishing the DHHS rules, explaining how those statutes are implemented, as well as the building code, which establishes fire safety, life safety requirements. And then finally, the at the local level we have our zoning ordinance, the UDO, which lays out what uses can go where and under what circumstances. So starting with the UDO, all daycare facilities are categorized in kind of two buckets. The first is a home daycare. That allows for the care of up to eight children in the residence of a provider. Anything over eight children gets put into a separate category called a daycare center. So eight up to... Infinity, right, is a commercial daycare center. Each of those two categories come with their own set of use standards. Home daycares must be operated by a resident in the home. They cannot be operated out of an accessory building like a detached garage or an EDU. There are limitations on where outdoor play equipment can be placed. And in addition to the owner-operator requirement, there's also a requirement that other employees also be family members of the operator and also live in the home. On the commercial daycare center side, there are minimum lot size requirements that apply in residential districts. There are sign limitations. In mixed use districts, you would have just general zoning standards that would apply buffers and transitional protective yards when you are adjacent to residential districts. And then if the facility is in a mixed use district, it would have the general neighborhood transitions that would apply adjacent to residential districts as well. Daycare homes are limited uses in nearly every zoning district, meaning they are permitted by right, they are approved administratively by staff so long as they meet those use standards that we just saw in the previous slide. Daycare centers, on the other hand, are special uses in residential districts and in RX and MH, which is mobile home. So that means they need to be approved at a quasi-judicial hearing by the Board of Adjustment. That process can take several months. It may require representation by an attorney, the hiring of expert witnesses to put on factual evidence. So it can be a significant time and financial investment for an operator to invest in this process. On the state side, starting with the building code, most child care homes typically qualifies what's called an R3 occupancy, meaning a child care home is treated essentially like any other single family home would be treated by the building code. However, once you start getting into that nine, 10, or more children category, that may transition to what's called an R4 occupancy, and that may trigger additional building fire safety requirements. Those are things like a manual fire alarm system, additional means of egress, additional fire extinguishers, and enhanced ventilation requirements. These things can obviously introduce additional cost for an operator, but they are more modest than what will be required for a full commercial day care center. From a state licensing perspective, there are three main categories, two of which can be operated in a home, both a family child care home, and what's called a center located in a residence. As you move from left to right on the scale from a family child care home up to a child care center, you get increasingly stringent regulations related to staffing ratios, enrollees, and then building code requirements. So again, the key takeaway here is that there is potential to be issued a state license to have up to 15 children in a home. Again, provided all other requirements are met, building code, fire code, staffing ratios, et cetera. Looking at what our peer jurisdictions do, most municipalities that you can see here, Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, and Winston, do all allow, in one form or another, up to 15 children to be cared for in a home. The exception there is Carey. They cap their small home day care at six. Once you're over six, they do require a special use permit. But all of our other peer jurisdictions do seem to allow up to 15 to be cared for in a home. So given all that, got a few potential options for you to consider at your discretion. The first one would be to increase those enrollees from eight to 15 for a home daycare to match what the state could potentially allow. Would seem to also be in line with other jurisdictions in the area. If you directed this option, you would probably also need to approve option two, which is related to that resident and family employee requirement. Because as you increase those enrollment numbers from eight up towards 15, additional staffing is going to be required by the state. And so in order for that potential to be realized for a home daycare operator, it would be very difficult to meet that if only their family members who also live in the home could be the employees. And then the third option relates to the commercial daycare center. If you'll recall, those in residential districts require a special use permit. You could also consider removing that special use permit requirement and making it a limited use, just like a home daycare or just like they are regulated in commercial districts. staff would draft probably objective use standards that would apply to those to kind of mimic the subjective findings that the Board of Adjustment makes with regards to mitigating adverse impacts and compatibility with adjacent uses, those sorts of things. We just have to develop objective use standards in place of those.

Jason, you just said the Board has to look at subjective STANDARDS OR OBJECTIVE?

SUBJECTIVE. THE BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT IS, IN GENERAL TERMS, HAVING TO FIND THAT A USE IS COMPATIBLE WITH ADJACENT USES. IT DOESN'T SAY HOW IT'S COMPATIBLE, THOSE SORTS OF THINGS. THAT ANY NEGATIVE IMPACTS ARE BEING MITIGATED. SO WE COULD LOOK TO DRAFT OBJECTIVE USE STANDARDS THAT WOULD ACHIEVE THOSE OUTCOMES. I think finally, when the text change was authorized, there were some questions about how many of these exist and where they are in the city. This map shows daycare centers. There are about 167 licensed in the city. The majority of those are in R4 and R6 districts and the office mixed use district. And there are 57 licensed family child care homes. Those are also predominantly in R4 and R6 existing today. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you. Questions?

I just have one. If we were to make these changes, anyone that had a home daycare is still subject to regulations from the state as far as how they operate, staffing, and things of that nature. Is that correct?

That's correct, yeah. Any changes you make to the UDL, we can make changes at the local, that zoning level, but state licensing and all state law would still continue to apply. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you so much for this. I was wondering in the code when it was limited to eight and they had to have the family member as working in there, can you help me understand why, the whys behind that when we first initiated? Is there a reason that that's required currently?

That requirement has been in the code for quite some time. I think the intent there is to, as much as possible, keep a home daycare at a scale that is compatible with the residential neighborhood and make it, as much as possible, appear from the outside to be just like a single family home. LIMIT POTENTIAL ADDITIONAL CARS OR TRAFFIC FROM AN EMPLOYEE THAT MAY COME AND GO FROM THE SITE EVERY DAY, THOSE SORTS OF THINGS.

OKAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

COUNSELOR LAMBERT-MELTON.

I'LL JUST SAY THAT I'M SUPPORTIVE OF ADVANCING THESE CHANGES, ALL THREE OPTIONS TO GO THROUGH THE PROCESS. I did the Hunt State Policy Fellows Program a few years ago, and access to early childhood education, like daycare centers, is critical for children to develop. And we're running out of space where we can put them in the city of Raleigh. And folks also need to be able to get to these early childhood education centers if they don't have a car or if they have limited mobility means in between jobs. And so allowing them to exist in more places, in places closer to where people already are that may need the service, I think is important for us. And so I think some of these discussions about the impact of these changes could be had during the public process, but I'd like to advance all three the way staff's giving us the options.

Okay, Councilor Patten.

Yeah, thanks. I'm so happy to see this here. When I saw it on the agenda, I was gleeful. By way of reference, I think this council is steeped in what is considered housing cost burden. What do we consider someone paying too much for their housing? And for us, that magic number is 30%. The analog to that is that 7% of your income applied to childcare is considered a childcare cost burden. So if we look at like median income for like median income in Raleigh is $85,000. That means about $5,800 a year in childcare tuition. And I don't think I know a single person who can get a kid through daycare for $5,800 a year, which just tells us that most of our residents who are using childcare options are childcare cost burden. And then to like further add onto it, this, you know, sort of, vexing conundrum that childcare workers are some of the lowest paid in our society. So how is that working out? And we are certainly not the arbiters of all the changes that would be needed to solve the problem, but I think we can nibble around the margins here. I've spent a lot of time engaging with providers since I asked for the text change to be considered, and some of the things that they mention as barriers are ones on which we cannot opine, like adding a sprinkler system to a home or a wheelchair ramp to a home is costly and burdensome, but those are building and fire code things on which we do not have jurisdiction. But what I also heard from providers is things like They're very carefully monitoring their enrollment to have, like, full-time enrollees, but they would love to have enough flexibility to allow a school-age kid to come in for the summer to the home where the younger child's already being cared for, and these providers don't have that level of flexibility because if they sacrificed even, like, one enrollee, that would not be enough to kind of make their business make. And so I think this will add a level of flexibility that will serve our providers who are often just like one woman trying to operate this out of her home. And so they're small business owners. I think this will add a level of flexibility and hopefully allow providers to offer their rates more affordably. for families or people who wish to start families. And I hope we can be like a first mover and some of our peers who are a little more restrictive can also take heat and do some of this, which I think systemically will help us all. So after all that blathering, I would like to motion to move forward all three recommendations as proposed by staff. Second.

And I would just compliment I think this is great that we're bringing this forward and I appreciate all of y'all who Megan I know Patton and Jonathan Lambert Melton all of you who've worked on this issue This is you know, obviously a key piece of affordability. So thank you all in favor of the motion. Aye All opposed nay, and that is unanimous. Thank you All right What's next the report and recommendation of the city manager

Welcome back, Mayor and Council, although most of you did not leave and go anywhere, but I hope you guys enjoyed your break, at least away from the formal meetings. I have two items in my report today, the first of which is just an update on our mid-year City Council retreat, and we have Michelle Millett in the City Manager's Office here to present this item.

Good afternoon. The manager's already introduced myself, so I'll just say good afternoon. I do want to applaud the retreat. If you all recall, the mayor appointed Councilmember Patton as well as Councilmember Branch to join her on this journey. And they did, in fact, take a journey. They did a lot of good work. First thing they decided was where we will be in the time. So just as a reminder to the community, we will be at Lyons Park Community Center Friday, September 18th, 12 to 5, as well as Saturday, September the 19th, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. What are we going to talk about? Well, this is where you all started that work. If you all recall, you all submitted a survey with lots of topics. And so the retreat committee helped narrow it down to about six meaty topics. And what are those? We're going to talk about planning and land use. Under planning and land use, we're going to talk about growth, the status of our comp plan, history and role of NCOD, talk about urban design leadership, as well as some neighborhood retail policies. Could we talk about corridor hotspot improvements? as well as potentially a minimum lot size policy. Under downtown, we're gonna talk about public safety, of course, quality of life, focusing on Moore Square as well as Nash Square, Fayetteville Street, options for furniture. We are going to talk about them, no more pictures. We're gonna talk about what they are. We're also gonna talk about our garages, our infrastructure, in particular pedestrian pieces, as well as our partnerships and how we activate downtown with festivals and different types of events. We're gonna talk about innovation in tech. If you all don't know, we have a digital twin. We're gonna talk a little bit about that. Our micro modeling that we do in order to try to help us reduce our environmental impact. We're gonna talk about some of our workforce automation, as well as how we use data and analytics to improve some of the things that our community experience, as well as a long awaited communications website update, Council Member Branch. We're gonna talk about our revenue outlook. We could not come before you all and have a retreat without talking about the dollars and cents. You did just pass a budget, so don't expect a huge budget update. However, we will talk about our sales and tax update, if there's any update on the Blue Ridge loophole, and if not, obviously we need to discuss what that would look like for a budget constraint. for next year we are going to talk about audit controls if you all recall that was a specific request from you as well as the community so we will talk about what that looks like as well as the mayor's request to talk about some of the third party studies that we have when we use consultants and different types of benchmarking reports that help make sure we are doing good work as well as learning from other cities and different communities around the country We are going to talk about housing. I want to say this again. We are going to talk about housing. I know people don't think you all talk about housing enough, but can you ever talk enough about housing? No. So we're going to talk about housing. We're going to give you all an update, talk about our production numbers, our continued partnerships, any state budget impacts, as well as Councilmember Silver, displacement, which we do have a website that is live today, and we'll make sure we have lots of updates around that as well. And we're also going to talk about Yigbee, Yes in God's Backyard. And then finally, we're going to end on grant management, a specific topic around how we handle our grants, are there any different ways for improvement, our legacy grant conversation will continue as well as our human services grants, and we are going to talk about a grant that you all administer, which is your council contingency. So those are the topics. I will leave now for any questions that you all have for me or your colleagues who helped put together this wonderful agenda.

Questions for Ms. Millette? Okay, thank you for all the support and assistance.

Awesome. I don't know how we're going to do that in a day and a half, but we're going to try our very best to get it all done. And next, in light of a lot of the national conversation and even state and local conversations around flock cameras and just the transparency or the lack thereof in using that tool as a force multiplier in law enforcement, the mayor, the police chief, and I had an opportunity to meet with some of the representatives from the FLOC team last week and it was an enlightening experience and we wanted to share that information with not only the rest of council but all of the public as well. So we have Chief Rico Boyce here from the Raleigh Police Department to kind of talk to you about overall what FLOC does, what it doesn't. Also talk about how the program works here in Raleigh and what information and data that we use and how we govern that tool as a force multiplier for RPD. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chief Boyce.

Good afternoon. Again, Madam Mayor and Council, Rico Boyce, Chief of Police. Yeah, we had a meeting last week with FLOC. A representative came up from headquarters of Atlanta and spent some time with us. Obviously, we had a lot of questions about what we're seeing throughout this country. So it was important that we had that dialogue between us. very productive, they answered a lot of questions that we had, and it was a great engagement. What I wanna do today is just give an overview of what we have here in Raleigh, talk through about eight different touch points, and then I'll answer any questions. I don't have a slide, so I'm gonna be talking and just sharing this information with you. I believe Chief of Staff is handing out some FAQs that I'll be pretty much referencing throughout my presentation. First of all, what is Flock and what is currently going on. I will say I'm encouraged from what the CEO, the founder of Flock shared last week about some of the upgrades that they are making. A lot of those upgrades came from feedback from not only police departments, but for communities throughout this country. So here in Raleigh, what the scope of FLOC and what it looks like is since March of 2022, we've had a FLOC platform or technology here in the Raleigh Police Department. We currently have 29 cameras that we deploy throughout the city of Raleigh. We have an annual contract or cost of about $75,000 is what we spend. And we have at current day 414 authorized users of that program. The data collected and not collected. So what does FLOC collect? It collects two things for us here in Raleigh. Vehicle description and a vehicle tag, that's it. No other pictures besides the vehicle and the back of the vehicle where the license plate is located. It does not collect driver identity, personal identifiers, any confidential personal information as far as addresses of phone numbers. This actually captures less data than your typical tow camera that's out on an interstate that captures the vehicle, the tag, as well as a picture of the occupants. FLOT does not capture a picture of the occupants. When it comes to data storage and retention and sharing, state law requires that you cannot store this data no longer than 90 days. We're here in the city of Raleigh, in the Raleigh Police Department, we're a little bit more restrictive. We only store the data for 30 days. After 30 days, it is completely wiped out from the cloud. So we are, like I say, less restrictive than what state law allows us to do. The data sharing is between the adjoining states. That is Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, as well as South Carolina. You think about it, if we're collecting data on a vehicle, those are the states that you're going to hit or come in contact with when you leave the state of North Carolina. We do not share information with ICE. Let me be very clear, we do not share any data information with ICE. The data that is collected, as of now, we have not had any breaches of our security or our database when it comes to flock cameras here in the city of Raleigh. So some of the safeguards that we put in place, prior to me becoming chief, we were doing quarterly audits. improve that to occur every month. We want to be able to pretty much police ourselves more frequently than just what we were currently doing. So now we do monthly audits on our data. You know, every search that we perform in the FLOX system must have a law enforcement purpose. Here, the way we do that here is to make sure it has a case number that's assigned to that search. If there's no case number, as far as Raleigh Police case number, we use what we call a CR number in court on a file. We'll put that file number in that system to be able to run that query if there's no Raleigh Police case number. Also, this is a single source login. I heard a gentleman earlier talking about former employees are able to access this information. That is not true. Once you are no longer part of the City of Raleigh as an employee, you have no access to your email address. The email address is the only way that you can log into FLOG. It's a single source login. You got to use your City of Raleigh email address. So once you are no longer here, you have no access to your email. You have no access to the flock system at all. So how does it work? I'll give you an example. You have a robbery somewhere, let's just use Capitol Boulevard. A witness gives us a description of what a vehicle, of a vehicle that's involved. The officer or the detective would go in and put the case number relevant to the robbery. as a reason why they're making an entry. Then if the description of the car was, say, a blue Honda Accord, you put in blue Honda Accord, you put in Capitol Boulevard, and you see what search, what results you get back from a blue Honda Accord in the Capitol Boulevard area at the time of that robbery. Understand that we do not capture, or FLOC does not capture live video. This is not like we are looking at the cameras live. This is only after something has occurred, and we only have a very short window of 30 days of data to search that vehicle that I just referred to in the case of a robbery. Once we get a hit back, that is a lead for that detective to follow up on. It does not... automatically allows an officer or a detective to go get a warrant just because they got a hit within a flock database. It's just a tool that they use in their investigation. Once they get that result, they will then put in, the gentleman also talked about a reason code, reason code or closing that case out. They will say, hey, we got a hit of a tag, and they will indicate that. That is also required. Did we see that happen where the officer did not put a reason code in? Yes, but the actual entry itself was a legitimate lawful reason to run that tag. So some of the outcomes and the return on our investment. So since January 1 of 2025 to July 15th of 2026, this system has helped us recover 154 stolen vehicles, 244 criminal cases cleared, and about $1.8 million in recovered stolen property, as well as six missing adults were located, and it generated 306 case leads from using this platform. Some of the key takeaways. for the community here is that, you know, it's a strong public safety outcomes while protecting privacy. You even heard it from the CEO himself talking about how Flock is gonna improve their safety. Here at RPD, we do the quarterly audits. I have my lieutenant here from the Real Time Crime Center, as well as our Office of Professional Standards that conduct those audits here monthly. We are using this as a force multiplier to keep this city safe, but we also understand that this community is concerned about what they have seen in other jurisdictions. I'm very proud of what we do here at Raleigh and the City of Raleigh by working together with City IT to making sure that not only the Raleigh Police Department, but the entire city network is safe and secure from any data breaches. And that's what I have at this time. I'll take any questions.

Thank you. Chief, questions?

Always. Hi, Chief. Good to see you again. Yes. A couple questions. By state law, you could keep the data for 90 days, but by our internal policies, you keep the data for 30 days. Who is deleting the data and who is making sure the data is sufficiently deleted?

That is automatically in the system. The data goes to the government cloud. Every 30 days, that data is just wiped out. It's not a manual procedure. It's just automatically built into the FLOC system.

So it's in FLOC, like FLOC is the owner of the database, and so they created?

The cloud, yes.

Okay, do we do any sort of oversight of them to make sure that they did?

Well, that's part of our audit as well, to make sure the information is gone, but we don't physically hit a button. It is automatically done.

Okay, but someone from our team is making sure the data is actually gone?

That is correct.

Okay. And then I see you mentioned here about public record. And so the data captured is confidential.

The state law. Yes, ma'am.

The FLOC logins, like access to the cameras, is the log of the activity, is that a matter of public record?

Well, as you see that on a public portal that FLOC has for community members to look at how many times it's been logged in and who has logged in.

Councilor Jones. Again, for the audits that you talked about that are quarterly, but now you're saying we also do the monthly. Those are public-facing, so we can see those as the gentleman came up and said. How are you wrapping in with the audits, with everything that we're hearing around the country, the disturbances in other jurisdictions where they have misused it, how are you wrapping that into your network and making sure that you can preemptively not make the same mistakes as other jurisdictions?

Yeah, well, one, the built-in parameters within FLOC itself, and not to speak of the two cases here in North Carolina, but those actual... Misusage was caught by FLOC. They notified those jurisdictions of the activity that they saw within those two jurisdictions. Same here. If we had a violation or some misusage within the Raleigh Police Department, not only would our internal folks catch that, but FLOC as well will catch that we've had excessive usage or misuse of that system. So it's like a two-step verification or authentication. authentication yes thank you long day so that we're checks and balances with flock as well as our own personnel like I say within not only the office of professional standards but also within our real-time crime center in our detective division okay thank you so much anything I miss lieutenant

So Chief, I appreciate this report today and sharing all this information and the chance to sit down last week. One thing that I think would be worth highlighting is you've told us that we have 29 cameras here in Raleigh over 160 square miles. So just doing your simple math, it's about every five square miles there's one camera. How does that compare to other cities? Like, do we know what Charlotte has? And I will just give an example that I found pretty striking, which was they said San Francisco, in 40 square miles, has over 400 cameras.

So, I mean, what I took away is that- And Atlanta was the other city that they use. Yeah. They're, once again, well over 500 cameras or whatever in the city of Atlanta. And we're at 29. Yeah. So yeah.

On that, these are the 29 cameras that RPD owns. I think some questions and concerns that rise in the community are the privately owned flock cameras or whatever company they're using. And I don't know that that's a question for you, maybe for the city attorney. How do we know? Are they required to give any information to us from private cameras? How can we calm the fear of private entities outside of RPD if we have all of our restrictions and Let's say our communities like all right RPD cameras are good but then the other ones like at a Lowe's food shopping center or a Target how Is it all just private?

There's nothing that we can do to control because it is on private property I'll answer that on private property The city has no control over what they do on their private property Okay, thank you

Yep. Do the cameras capture notable features of the vehicle, like bumper stickers?

Taking a picture of the back of the car is just a tag. They're focused on just a tag. Now, if there's a sticker beside the tag, then obviously, yeah, it would capture that. But it is focused on just a tag and the overall vehicle description. That's it.

Okay. And then one last question. To your point about how we do not share this information with ICE, what happens if another jurisdiction or another law enforcement agency is interested in using it? What if their rules change?

Great question. If another jurisdiction acts, one, there always has to be a criminal connection to an entry into FLOG. If another jurisdiction is investigating, let's say a homicide, and they say this vehicle is a Honda Accord and it might be headed towards your jurisdiction, they will give us that description of that vehicle and run it through FLOC to see if it came through our city. So they will share information about the criminal case itself and why that vehicle is of any importance. And that's already the case where a vehicle involved in a felony will be entered into NCIC, the National Criminal Information Center. departments have been doing that for years. So that car is already in a database for a crime. Running it through FLOC has to follow that same guideline that there's a criminal case that has occurred and that's why that vehicle has been entered or uploaded into the FLOC system for other jurisdictions to be on the lookout for. Same as an NCIC entry.

So in that scenario, if they're saying a car might be coming through your jurisdiction, are they contacting RPD and asking RPD to look, or are they just gaining access to the system?

If they have knowledge that it's coming this way. If not, they're just going to upload that vehicle because of the criminal case of a homicide, and it's going to be an NCIC first, National Criminal Information Center first, and then... It also will be uploaded if they are a flock customer into the flock system to be on the lookout for.

Okay.

Any other questions? All right.

All right. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, Chief. That concludes my report today.

All right. Next, we have the report and recommendation of the Raleigh Historic Development Commission. We have Tanya Tully from Planning and Development and Rob Allen, Commission Chair.

Good afternoon. Tanya Tully, I have the pleasure of introducing Rob Allen, who will present the annual report and work plan.

Good afternoon. As Tanya said, I'm Rob Allen, current chair of Raleigh Historic Development Commission. Thanks for letting me speak. this afternoon about our annual work plan and our annual report. We approved our work plan on our regular commission meeting on July 8th. So today we're asking you to receive our annual report as information and move for approval of our annual work plan as well. YOU PROBABLY KNOW ALREADY, BUT OUR COMMISSION IS 12 MEMBERS APPOINTED BY YOU. WE ALSO HAVE THREE FULL-TIME CITY STAFF MEMBERS AND COUNSELOR JONES, THANK YOU FOR BEING OUR COUNCIL LIAISON. YOU ATTEND BASICALLY EVERY MEETING, SO THANK YOU. GREAT ATTENDANCE, BETTER THAN SOME OF OUR OWN, SO THANK YOU. Council does, you all do a great job, I think, of seeing the overlap and intersection between the various commissions. So we have a lot of intersection with Planning Commission and Design Review Commission and appreciate your support. and understanding the overlap and how important it is between these various commissions. The following slides have a few details about our work as a commission that we've completed in the past year and for the upcoming fiscal year. In fiscal year 2026, we saw decisions on 166 certificate or appropriateness applications. These are abbreviated COA and they're the approval to make alterations to structures in historic overlay districts or otherwise landmark properties. 130 of those were approved by staff through Minor Works program and then 36 were approved through our QJ hearing process, which is a monthly meeting here in this room. We also saw a designation of three new historic landmarks and identified 36 places worthy of preservation. The commission also hosted our third annual historic bike ride in partnership with the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee. The group this year was about 40 cyclists. We went about five miles around downtown Raleigh and saw five important locations that helped celebrate the 250th anniversary. Our fiscal year 2027 work plan includes the following initiatives, presenting landmarks and plaques at the Sir Walter Raleigh Awards, continuing our historic bike ride again, and also celebrating the Biltmore Hills National Register Historic District. Finally, in addition to routine work like certificate or appropriateness and historic landmark applications, we hope to complete the update to our historic design standards that's currently underway. A consultant has been hosting focus groups over the past few weeks, and it's about 10 years since the last update, so design standards are due for an update. We'll also be preparing the preservation plan, and again, in summary, we're presenting our annual report for your information and annual work plan for the upcoming year for your approval, and we appreciate your continued support. I'll be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. And questions? Yes, Councilman.

Definitely, thank you for the report that was presented. I have a question. In the actual work plan, it mentions a bit more hills, a little more information, and it says the process is ongoing. Do we have an idea of when that will be completed, anticipation of a celebration?

We're hoping it will be in late spring of 2027. So it has been identified and submitted to the National Register, but not formally adopted as a National Register Historic District. But that's our hope, is that in the spring of 2027, it will be approved and able to be celebrated formally.

So historically, is it about a year? It usually takes them a year? Is that the normal time frame?

I think that's a fair estimate.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Allen? Okay, if not, we need, yep.

I just want to say I definitely enjoy coming to your meetings. You guys do a wonderful job, committee reports, making sure that everyone is updated on COA happenings, demolitions I know we discussed in the last meeting. So thank you for all of that. I do remember from our last meeting that there were a few events that I was wondering if you could make sure to highlight. I think it was Ms. Octavia Rainey who is hosting an event this month that I would like to make sure she has a space to talk about that.

Yes, she is helping host Jazz Fest, or Gospel Fest, I'm sorry. Hi, Octavia. Hi, nice to see you. Will you remind me of the date of Gospel Fest? It's August the 23rd. August the 23rd, it's a Sunday, beginning at 3 or 4 p.m.? 4 to 7. 4 to 7, and it's at the Martin Marietta Performing Arts Center.

Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for your work and your continued efforts in preservation, because it is very important. I've learned a lot, so thank you. And with that, I'll move to approve their 2027 work plan for RHDC.

All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Okay, next we have matters scheduled for public hearing. The first is dwellings unfit for human habitation. Bryce Abernathy.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Bryce Abernathy with Housing and Community Development. The first property I'm bringing you today is 2725 Pool Road. This property caught on fire in April. The owner has not applied for any permits to repair. This is heir property, and we have been in touch with an executor of this piece of property, and we had asked her to kind of board it up and secure it, and that has not happened. So with adoption of the unfit for human habitation ordinance today, that will give us the ability to go in and board it up and secure it. If it stays in this shape, I'll bring it back to council probably June-ish of next year for a demolition ordinance if no permits or work is started on those.

Questions? I will open the public hearing. There is no one signed up in support or opposition and close.

Move for approval.

All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed. All right, that is unanimous. Next, we have public nuisance abatement.

Again, Mr. Abner. Two of these, we know that two of these have been paid, 133 star and 137 star. The other abatements that we have, whoops. Yes, 660 Coleman was a referral from our transportation department for a bush that was kind of encroaching into the street and causing a visual obstruction. We do take referrals from them and send out notices of violation to the property owners. In this instance, the property owner did not cut that bush back. 1011 Oberlin Road was just some sporadic trash throughout the lot and high grass in the front yard. 900 Payton Street was also high grass. 4117 St. James Church Road was just sporadic trash and a tree had fallen in the front. And 813 Northwest Street was an overgrown lot of high grass and weeds.

Okay. And I don't believe we have anyone signed up for... Any of this, right? So I will open the public hearing and close the public hearing. Is there a motion?

Move for approval.

Second. All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. And that is unanimous. Next, we have Petition Annexation AX0626.

Yes, ma'am, Matthew Clem, Raleigh Planning and Development. This is a request to annex a piece of property just on Mitchell Mill Road. The applicant has requested to hold the public hearing open until March. They had plans to redevelop the site and build a new home. and wanting to connect to water and sewer utilities. After doing some research, they're just looking for a little more time to understand their household costs in terms of the cost to extend utilities to the site, which are adjacent to the property, which is why they're required to come in for annexation, and just getting more research on what it would cost to upfit their existing private utilities so they're well and septic on site. So the applicants are not here, but they have requested to hold the hearing until March just to do that research for themselves, to understand their household costs for what annexation would mean for them.

Go ahead. Holding it open until March seems like a very long time to hold a case open, and I know we have to set it to a date certain. Would it be more prudent to just withdraw this case and have them reapply?

We did advise them of those options. They have not withdrawn their case, so the item is before you for your deliberation. You could take action on the case today. For example, if you deny the case, they could request annexation petition sometime in the future when they got more information. We gave them that same information and shared that same concern.

Okay. And so I guess that speaks to my follow-up question. So there's no consequence for them if we were to deny today and they reapplied in the future. There's not a two-year waiting period or some other kind of...

They would have to pay another filing fee? Application fee, right?

Yeah, the application fee.

Oh, they would have to pay another application fee, which is how much is that?

I don't know offhand. I'll ask my staff to look that up and get you that cost.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, it feels like a very long time to hold a case. $600. What?

It's about $600 for the application fee.

Oh, that could be significant for a family.

But they're not here, though. Correct.

Correct.

I will say they did reach out to me, and what was communicated to me at the time is that they would be in touch with you, and this is the kind of first closing of the loop. If we could just hold this open for two weeks to the afternoon meeting so I can have a chance to consult with the residents directly. Okay. Yeah, if the council's been able to that, my motion would be to hold this open.

Okay, well, let me, I'll open the hearing, and then... We will you want to make your motion to hold it open? Yes move to hold this case open until September First in at the afternoon meeting so moved second all in favor of that motion aye all opposed Appreciate the creative problem-solving Next we have ax 07 26 2900 Barrington Drive

Yep, thank you, Mayor. This is a request to annex roughly one acre piece of property for the purposes of developing four detached housing units on the site. Water and sewer are directly available in Barrington Drive. There is an existing detached structure on the site. It's within our priority annexation boundary. It is outside of the standard NFPA response time for full fire response and arrival for a second company. That's the information on the case. I have the rest of the slide deck if you're interested in more information and happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Okay. So we'll open the hearing and close it because there is no one signed up. Do we have a motion?

Move for approval.

Second. All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. That is unanimous. As we all know, AX09 was taken off. And then next was AX14265700, Fox Road.

Yep. Similar case, I can go ahead and get started. This is a request to annex a small Parcel for the purposes of developing four townhouse units. It is in the priority annexation area and is adjacent to utilities. More details on the screen here in just a second.

Yep, there you go.

Outside of the standard NFPA response time for a full response and arrival of a second company, .64 acre site, they have a subdivision approved and in review for SPR.

Okay, questions? All right, we'll open the public hearing and close it. Do we have a motion?

Move for approval.

Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. That's unanimous. All right, next we have 319 Hex Street. And we have Hannah Reckow from Planning and Development.

Yes, good afternoon. Hannah Reckow, Planning and Development. This is a request to rezone 319 Heck Street from R10 with the neighborhood conservation overlay district to RX4 conditional use. As you may recall, this hearing was opened at your June 16th meeting and at the request of the applicant kept open to allow them time to consider possible changes to the request. No changes have been made, so the request is still RX4 conditional use with the same conditions you saw On June 16th. So with that happy to review any details of the case or answer any questions Questions from this record I Have one question for staff.

So based on the current conditions, what's the height?

Of the request or the of this request it is four stories and then the conditions limit it to 55 feet and

Any other questions? Okay, I will open the public hearing, and we have two folks signed up in support for, we should have eight minutes, right?

This hearing was continued in June, and at that time that had been depleted, so you guys added four minutes per side. Okay, correct.

So two minutes, two folks on this support side.

Thank you. Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group here on behalf of the applicant. With respect to the height, I do want to note that that 55-foot height would bring in the full neighborhood transition to the R district to the south. So that would be a 50-foot building setback with an additional height control for a 65-foot distance before you get to that 50-foot height. Most likely, this site would develop at 50 feet maximum because it would reduce that neighborhood transition. Just want to highlight that. One of the issues that we've heard with this request relates to the NCOD removal. Specifically, we keep hearing that this is a slippery slope issue, that somehow nibbling away at the edge of the NCOD will result in the unraveling of the historic character of the neighborhood. There's a larger threat to our downtown. We have already seen that our downtown is surrounded by and often directly controlled by a combination of historic overlay districts and NCODs. We've seen that our NCODs do not actually conserve character unless short, detached, expensive housing is a character. If there was ever a property that lacked character or any positive contribution to its neighborhood, this is it. If there was ever a property that should never have been included in this NCOD, as it did not conform with this NCOD on adoption, this is the one. And if there was ever a property sitting on the very outer fringe of its NCOD and fronting on the main cut-through street of that NCOD, this is it. The City Council has taken extraordinary and well-founded measures to ensure that this is a city with an efficient bus system that serves dense corridors. It has mapped specifically where those transit corridors should be supported with residents and with businesses. It has adopted measures to ensure that the city can grow the small developers who can provide the downtown infill housing our city needs. And now a homegrown and experienced small developer, one with a demonstrated track record of working to solve the problem of providing housing in the downtown area for non-millionaires, is bringing here a proposal meeting every one of these policies. he has engaged extensively with the neighbors. He's heard their concerns through three neighborhood meetings and countless one-on-one conversations. And that has resulted in zoning conditions that cap the building height, cap the number of units, provide historical marker, prohibit all office use and all retail use. In short, he's done everything he's been asked to that he believes in his experience can still produce a viable project. So yes, there is a slippery slope at issue here. I know here, at the far edge of the NCOD, next to a parcel that can be built at 80 feet tall, A no in this location would tell all of our small developers not to bring us infill in these locations, unless that infill is a simple teardown of older housing stock for replacement with larger, more expensive detached houses. We would be telling them that no matter how accommodating of neighbor concerns you may be, we cannot support any amount of gentle density, despite having put in place the neighborhood transition requirements to provide buffers in exactly this situation. In a minute, I expect you're going to hear about the importance of maintaining those NCODs as though they are providing conservation benefits, as if they do not drive up housing costs or reduce our supply in our core and push residents further out where they're now required to drive. And you'll hear about the threat that's posed by a few more feet of height than what's permitted by right in a typical R10 district in the city. We simply ask that in hearing those concerns, we also continue to ask the question that if we don't even want forest or moderate density here, where would we rather see that? Thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, next we will move to the opposition. We have seven folks to speak in four minutes. I will just name you, and I assume you guys can organize yourselves. Stacey Murphy, Chris Cruz, Sarah Merritts, Kathleen Payne, Katie Long, Octavia Rainey, and Matthew Brown.

I'm Katie Long. I live four houses down. I've spoken to you and Planning Commission every time it's been on the agenda, and I'm here on behalf of every homeowner living on the 900 block of Oakwood directly next to this lot. Every one of us is raising children here. Their jobs prevented them from speaking today, but every one of you received an email from each of them this week. and from two renters on the block and the family in Idlewild who lives directly across from this lot. As elected officials, you know there's no shortage of opinion, but it's hard to get people engaged and to act. We did. This is important. Upzoning and removing the NCOD is significant. It currently offers us the protection of 10 units on this half acre. Staff estimated it could jump to 52. Councilmember Branch, you heard that concern and tasked the developer with submitting a condition with their planned max. You heard the answer, 40. Go to the affordable housing cottages of Idlewild under construction behind us. 1.17 acres with 18 units. It's dense, but in a neighborly way. This half acre would be over four times that density. 40 is a deal breaker. Throughout this process, my neighbors and I have consistently contacted the developer asking for site plans. Help us help you. Get us comfortable with what you have planned, the basics of setbacks and parking to fit to the neighborhood. There's only street parking on one side of Oakwood. We have and love the bike lane on the other. The flanking streets of Heck and Idlewild are very narrow at 25 feet. Parking on both sides would make emergency vehicles difficult. When we collaborate, which we tried, we raise and solve these problems, but no site plans. Our recommendation of a 20-unit max was rejected outright, and it's generous. We shared a link to new construction on par with our recommendation, Sewell between New Bern and Edenton, so you could visualize firsthand 20. Those are half-acre lots, 18 units on one side, 20 units on the other, and much busier streets. it supports how reasonable we are trying to be. Additionally, our request for true parity with current zoning to exclude commercial usage was rejected. If providing housing is their true intent, that should be no problem. Please deny Z3925, preserve our unique neighborhood where Idlewild and Oakwood meet. Rest assured, your vote against is a rejection of 40 densely packed units, not a vote against housing. Preserve current, and you still enable 10 newly constructed neighborhood-friendly units on this half acre.

Erasure of the NCOD on this and a change in zoning to RX to evade section 2.2.7 of the UDO is not in the public interest and is a clear example of spot zoning. Absent any detailed plans, you can't make a decision on this that is not arbitrary and capricious. This is detrimental to the protection afforded to Raleigh's residential neighborhoods and 25% of Raleigh is zoned for multi-story mixed use, 4% is protected by an NCOD, 1% by an HOD. Please listen to these public concerns and deny this request. Thank you.

I'm asking you to deny this request for the NCOD. I worked with George Chapman years ago on the NCOD in Idlewild and New Bern Avenue. He said, this is for our protection. You may not need it now, but you may need it in the future. This is the future, and we need it. Please deny this request. Also, our history is not for sale, so also deny Stuart's signage or whatever he wants to put up. You know, slavery is over. You don't have to sell our history.

Idlewild's one of Raleigh's oldest black neighborhoods, and most of the beautiful historic houses are still standing. Many of them are over 100 years old. Many of them are naturally occurring, affordable housing.

Thank you. All right. Any questions before I close the...

I have a question for Ms. Stewart. Okay. Is your client planning on building 40 units?

He is here, if you'd like to ask him directly.

Well, sure. My name is Stuart Cullinan. I've lived in the College Park neighborhood since 2006, up until last fall when I moved. And I've raised my family here, so I've been in this neighborhood. I've also lived in Oakwood. The 40 unit max is a scenario where these are just one bedroom apartments or condos. That's sort of the lowest possible entry price point that you'd see in a neighborhood. I think that realistically with a combination of one and two bedroom units, we'd probably be in the 30 to 32 range to comfortably park it. From a unit max perspective and not knowing exactly where the market's going, we wanted to... leave a maximum in place that sort of provided a ton of different options. Townhomes are an option. You know, what's there today is 12 units on a half acre, which is probably quite a bit denser than the Raleigh Area Land Trust project down the street, and they've been there since 1973. So the likelihood is that it is going to be less than that. but that again was a maximum, an absolute maximum. So thank you for the question.

Okay, should I close it?

You can, that's fine. Just a couple questions I have. This one is actually for staff. So there's currently 12 units there. It's 0.5 acres, but this was labeled as R10. Why did we initially make this R10 when the current units there, we know they're no longer in service because of the fire, but they exceed the current allowed units. And I know it may be before you, but that's the question I have.

Yeah. My educated guess is that it is likely because the definition of R10 has changed over the years. And I'll turn one off.

Yeah. And yeah, I'll say in the 2014 remapping and the adoption of the EDO, that mapping exercise transferred effectively the same existing zoning to the new zoning as defined in the Unified Development Ordinance. So properties zoning wasn't changed based on what was built there. So there was no up or down zoning really in that process by and large. So if the development was non-conforming based on the zoning at that time, then that has just been in place since the remapping in 2014, or adopted in 2016.

Okay, all right, thank you. This question is for the applicant. You mentioned needing four stories for your project. Can you explain why four stories again? It's been a month and a half since we've heard.

I did want to mention the zoning component. I've studied the neighborhood area plan that was authorized by council. I think it was in like the early 90s. And this property was originally an R20. It was downzoned as part of the NCOD. Everything sort of got downzoned to R10. And so... That's a little bit of the history. Obviously, that predates the UDO. But originally, when we had our first neighborhood meeting, what came up was the concern about retail. So we immediately removed that option. I mean, I think I understand how neighborhood retail can be an add benefit to a neighborhood, but that was a big concern here. We ultimately also removed office in case that became a concern. But as far as the height goes, part of the reason that that came into conversation was because neighbors were concerned about parking. And so for us, we really wanted to have three floors of residential. And to have one floor of parking and then two floors of residential, it just was gonna be a lot of parking structure and not as much residential. And just ends up sort of creating an affordability issue. So we kept the RX, like the three story component with the goal of having parking underneath to accommodate one park per unit. It you know around that range so that was that was a change that we did make in the process That's sort of a response to people our neighbors asking. How are you gonna park it so?

That was the that was the reason Okay Other questions yes counselor silver whether staff or Molly can answer this question.

I just want to be clear when this NCO D was Approved that property was non-conforming To the requirements of the NCO D. Did I get that correct?

Yes, and specifically the building placement Any other questions or Not really question this one's been a tough one for me because I understand I concerns of the community. And I also understand the developer and what they're trying to do and our need for housing. And I've gone back and forth and forth and back on what I thought about this case. And I even drove by it again the other day to look at it. And me driving by it helped me determine where I'm going with my motion in the end. And My motion is, I actually move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated August 18th, 2026, containing agenda materials, and to deny the zoning amendment.

Thank you.

All right, so the motion is to deny. So an aye is denial. All right, so all in voting aye. To deny. Yeah, voting to deny, okay. and voting against denial. Okay, so that is a 4-4 split.

I'll make a motion to approve then. I move to adopt the proposed consistent statement dated August 18th, 2026 containing the agenda materials and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda item under recommended action.

Second. All right, all in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, same, okay. All right. We will move on. The next case is Z51-25-4804 and 4808. Mayor, it might be helpful to clarify.

I'm not sure everyone knows what happens.

Right. So it was a split vote. So there was not enough to, I mean, to approve or deny. So city attorney. So no change.

So essentially there's no change.

Yeah.

And the applicant has the opportunity, if he so chooses, to refile a new application at any time.

That is correct.

Yeah, thank you for the clarification. Okay, 4804 and 4808 Spring Forest Road, Z5125.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell, members of the City Council, Matthew Burns with Planning and Development. This is a request to rezone two parcels that are just under four acres from residential one to commercial mixed use three stories with conditions. The request is consistent with the 2030 plan, inconsistent with the future land use map, and the Planning Commission recommends unanimous approval of the request. This site is in Northeast Raleigh, about a quarter mile west of the intersection of Lewisburg slash US 401 and Spring Forest Road, and about three quarter miles southwest of US 401 and 540's interchange. To the northwest and south are residential uses, whereas to the east and southeast are commercial and industrial uses, including a Food Lion and McDonald's and a car dealership. Here are some views of the site along Spring Forest Road, Silver Ash Drive. So the applicant is proposing four zoning conditions, the first of which would prohibit certain uses. The second would limit overall development intensity. And that condition is continued on this slide. They would also prohibit tobacco and or vape shops and require a 20-foot type B protective yard along the western and southern property lines for any site plan proposing a non-residential use. So this slide is just visualizing that condition, showing where that type B buffer would apply. So the request would represent an increase in entitlement for residential, office, and retail uses. And overall, the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and inconsistent with the future land use map. It's currently designated as low-scale residential, which calls for residential uses. And what they're proposing would be commercial, would allow for commercial use. And staff identified eight consistent policies with the requests which are related to compact development, mixed use development, housing variety and infill, as well as zoning for housing. And the three inconsistent policies are related to the future land use map and fire response. And because this request is inconsistent with the feature land use map, if it were to be approved, then the map would be amended from low-scale residential to community mixed use, which would look like this. And just as a reminder, the Planning Commission recommends approval unanimously, noting that the request would allow for increased land use intensity near an existing commercial node, increase residential entitlement, allow missing middle housing, and add to the housing supply. Please let me know if you have any questions before we open the public hearing.

Questions? Yeah, I have some transportation questions. There is a sidewalk gap on this frontage, and there's also those spots in our city where there's more right-of-way dedication. There's more road, and then it necks down and then comes back, because no right-of-way has been dedicated here. So I'm just curious what... like what are the circumstances under which we would get the sidewalk or get the further right of way designation? What road improvements can we look for in this case?

I'll defer to my transportation colleagues.

Good afternoon. Barbara Godwin with Transportation. So those public improvements would be required by the UDO with submission of a Tier 3 site plan or subdivision plan for this site.

Okay. And in layman's terms, Tier 3 site plan would be like right now there's a single-family home. If they rebuild a single-family home, that's not going to get us there. But if they were like an apartment building, it would. Most likely, yes. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. I will open the public hearing and I have Hunter Winstead signed up in support.

Thank you, Mr. Burns. Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell, council members, Hunter Winstead, Morning Star Law Group, representing the applicant in this case. As with any rezoning case, there's really two questions. One, is the case reasonable? And two, is it in the public interest? We believe there are three main reasons why this case is reasonable and in the public interest. Reason number one, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. You can walk through a few of those policies. reason number two it really takes into account the surrounding context the built environment that is built around this entire site on all sides and number three it brings community serving retail to an area where there's certainly a demand for it turning first to comprehensive plan consistency just a few of those key policies listed here on the bottom and happy to answer any questions about them the main one to me is this is really infill development at its core as you can see from the aerial again that built environment all the way around the site is constructed there's a MAKES USE NO JUST TO THE LEFT HERE WHICH IS EAST FACING. WE'RE FACING SOUTH HERE FROM THIS AREAL VIEW. THERE'S AN R10 THAT MOST INTENSE RESIDENTIAL ZONING DISTRICT ON THE RIGHT SIDE WHICH IS OUR WEST SIDE. IN-FIELD DEVELOPMENT REALLY AT ITS CORE. A BIG PIECE OF THAT REALLY A SISTER POLICY THAT COMES ALONG WITH IN-FIELD DEVELOPMENT AS COUNCILMAN PATTON MENTIONED IS THAT Here's just an aerial view zoomed in at the frontage of this site, showing that sidewalk here on the left side that's existing. And you can see the road is wider there. Same thing on the other side, existing sidewalk stubbed to our site where the road is widened. And if you're driving down Spring Forest Road, this would be facing, if you're driving west, going toward the Brendamere neighborhood, you'll see how wide the road is right in front of our site and how much it narrows in, forcing traffic to really narrow there at our site frontage. Same thing from the other side. This would be facing east. The road's widened there. Here's a cross-section of the four-lane avenue with a median divided. That's the street plan designation here. As the transportation staff mentioned, a Tier 3 site plan comes through. We'd be required to dedicate and construct to conform to that street plan designation. Just a quick illustration, not an engineer drawing, just an illustration I put together to show how that road will be widened there under a Tier 3 site plan. So that's the connectivity piece that we think really is the crux of this case. That was the frontage. Here's just a zoomed in view on the eastern boundary of our site. We've got a food line right next to us, Amber Springs Apartments there. What we did with this slide is just overlaid some of those recorded documents where there's cross access. There is a five foot pedestrian path stubbed to our site that we've got to connect to that will allow folks that live on the other side of our site to either go up and cross over the new sidewalk on Spring Forest Road or navigate through our site to take advantage of all those uses. There's commercial uses that could be on this site as well as the food line and there's other uses on the site just next to us. Point number two is this case really takes into account the surrounding context. Just showing a few of those future land use map designations and what's existing on each of the sites that surround us. Looking to the left, this really does integrate with and fill in this last piece of this mixed use node that's just adjacent to us. that policy that's relevant here reinforcing the urban pattern really making sure that design integrates well and part of that is the connectivity as well with that mixed use node turning to the other side we've switched directions now we're facing north with our residential neighborhood over on the other side a lot of conversation at the neighborhood meetings and we had two planning commission that we really went through and did a deep dive on the neighborhood transition provisions here. This illustration just shows those three zones in the neighborhood transition provisions. What we did is went ahead and committed to, for zone A, option two, which is a 20-foot planted buffer, and here's that illustration down on the right side. We're really sure we've got that compatibility as folks navigate through our site, get to the site on the other side of us, that we still have those buffers adjacent to the residential One quick thing to note, too, on these two stub streets here and here, we are right on the crux, and it'll require a little bit of engineering when we get into that two or three site plan stage as to whether we're required. The general rule is that we will be required to connect to those, but given the size of this site and the amount of impervious surfaces those may add, it's kind of an open question. From my client's perspective, it's certainly that if required to do it, we'll absolutely connect to those at the site plan stage. And then the last piece is really bringing that community serving retail to the site. Taking a site that currently has one home on it that cannot be accessed or used by the community and turn it into something that the folks that live around this area, that work around this area, can actually use. Something that benefits both sides of our site. Just yesterday I went and visited. There's three shops over to the south side of the food line here. There's a Subway pizza shop and a barber shop. They're all open on the far side of that site. Adding that density, bringing more people to this area will help both the retail uses that are on this site and the one adjacent to it. Same thing with the neighborhood that's over on the other side of us. It will really have not just neighbors, but also services that these folks can use, both on our site and of course having that connectivity across to get to that food line, get to those other shops there, really benefiting this entire area. And really the theme there is from the LU 6.1 composition of mixed-use centers. The idea is really to bring people together, not to keep folks separated. If you look at this area, you can see the separation between the folks that live over to the right side and all the services that exist on the left side. We really see this case as bringing those together and having an integration that works well. With that, we would request that the council approve this rezoning and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Questions for Mr. Winstead.

Yes. Hi. I'm curious, do you think that your site will trigger any off-site improvements? Like for instance, the Primavera Apartments on the bottom left is difficult for them to cross the street to access the retail.

Yes, it would not trigger off-site improvements just given the intensity through the Envision analysis the transfer station staff does through the rezoning process. Only, it's not off-site, it's our frontage will be dedicated and constructed. Nothing down near Primavera. Great.

I have another question for you, but first, staff, I'll just throw it out there so you can prepare it and then tell me in a second. I believe there are NCDOT improvements coming to the intersection around Spring Forest Road and Lewisburg, so I would like to hear about those from the staff in a moment. But back to you, the street stubs, can you go to that side? Yes. This one? That's fine, yeah. Will your primary access point still be on Spring Forest Road?

Yeah, that's the plan. It'll still be on Spring Forest Road.

Okay, and so then you're not even sure that you will need to pick up these street stubs?

That's exactly right. Yeah, there's a chance that there might not be a connection requirement there, and you would see that buffer that's continuous, but we'll defer to staff when we get through site plan on how that all connects.

Okay, and do you know yet if you, any access on Spring Forest, would that be like a full movement or right in, right out, do you know?

We don't know yet. There's planned to be a median there on the comprehensive plan, so it's potentially right in, right out only. That's more of a site plan question as well. We just don't know at this stage. Okay, great.

I might have more feedback for you in a sec, but I'll look for that answer from the staff around DOT improvements coming to the intersection.

Good afternoon. Again, Barbara Godwin with Transportation. So yes, there is a planned project to improve the intersection at Spring Forest and Lewisburg Road. Some intersection improvements. They're going to be adding audible signals, leading pedestrian intervals, and some overall crossing improvements at that intersection. So our Vision Zero team is working with the state on that project. It is funded, and delivery is expected within the next three to five years.

OK.

Thank you very much. All right, we can hear from the others.

Okay. All right, so now we will ask the opposition. We have eight minutes for three speakers signed up, David Bender, Scott Ayers, and Robin Tatum.

Hello, City Council. Pleasure to be here. I just want to first say thank you for your time in the past. I'm not going to reiterate what I had on the PowerPoint. I do want to make a quick correction. I got off the phone on Friday with State Commissioner Johnson's office of the North Carolina Department of Transportation. And they cannot commit to three to five years improvement because it's a federally funded project that would improve a crosswalk at Lewisburg and Spring Forest. Since we last spoke, there have been three more rescues of seniors from the Primavera apartment trying to cross Spring Forest between the food line. And a couple super quick things. Nobody's against housing there. In fact, we want housing there. The reason it doesn't go with the future land use map is that it's not in a transportation corridor, so transportation isn't going to be increased. We don't know when an intersection, when there will be a crosswalk there, and there's clearly a safety issue. It didn't have to be rezoned to commercial mixed use to increase housing density there. Not saying it needs to remain an R1, but on a 3.8 acre site, the developer himself has specifically told me that he has no plans to put any housing units there. because it wouldn't be profitable for him. If what Hunter is saying is that this is such a wonderful thing for the neighborhood, I don't know why the entire neighborhood's pretty much against it. I provided you with a petition. It's up to about close to 200 people surrounding the area. There's not one person who's been for it. And in terms of the character of the neighborhood, with all due respect to Mr. Winstead, the neighborhood understands its character. The character, this was a farm, and he's saying that it's a classic infill. It's not a classic infill because it is a budding, it's not surrounded by commercial mixed use. The commercial mixed use that it's next to is not being developed for commercial mixed use because There's a plethora of retail that is not being used now. If Mr. Winstead spoke to the retailers at the food line, they would know that they're struggling. The pizza place has gone through three ownership in the last eight months. And he's saying, well, if we build more, these businesses will have better use. The Planning Commission did ask him if he had spoken to the businesses, the developer, and he said no. And I'm not gonna reiterate what I put on there. With a little bit of sidewalk, you still can't cross the street there. There's still a safety issue. This isn't bringing together the community. It's bringing together the community against this, you know, if anything. But that's all I'm gonna say. I'll cede it to the next person.

Good afternoon. I'm Rita Tatum. I signed up as Rita Tatum, and I ended up on the... Okay, as Robin. That's our ex-city attorney. We're opposed to this. We don't need any more pawn shops, car shops, used car dealerships. We already have a plethora of those on Capitol Boulevard, Triangle Mall. This is not the standard in North Hills on Ridge Roads areas that I previously lived in. We're going to get businesses like we already have. We don't know. We don't know what's going to be there. The proposed site has no traffic control devices, which we've already discussed. The community is in need of additional housing. Commercial space is not what we need. We know what it looks like at Triangle Mall up and down Spring Forest, so we don't want any more of that. Here are our concerns now and honor them because we will be the ones that pay the price later. After the developers and after the lawyers are gone, we are the ones that will be over-promised and under-delivered to. So here are our cries now and help us by voting no.

My name's Scott Ayers. I live at 5537 Silver Ash Road. So our property actually shares a border with this property. So I would say it's fair to say I represent people on Silver Ash Drive and the people on the other side of the road. Nobody's had any compelling desire to have additional retail space there. If you look at it now, even if the sidewalk went through, you're going to have to walk way over there to walk way over there. Nobody's going to do that. People walk the food line now and do it for exercise. I would also ask for a, you know, I live in a residential neighborhood. I know if they build commercial, immediately everybody and all my neighbors will lose value in their property. It's a big win for Mr. Moss, he'll make a lot of money. His high school chum was on the planning commission, so that was a nice coincidence, didn't recuse himself. But I'd just be curious to see a show of hands among y'all at the table, how many of you would like to have a commercial place next door to them, boarding their property, like maybe a Burger King or a car wash or a gas station? Anybody? I mean, I don't want that. And I also would like to point out, which is interesting with the talk coming up over the road stubs, we've been in our house for 13 years, and there is a stub because we're at the end of the road, and it goes into protected trees, and there's a barred owl that lives there, there's drainage issues that are potential as well, but in the last six weeks, It's been very interesting that people from the city of Raleigh have come out and decided that they need to do a lot of clearing and de-shrubbing and everything at the end of the road strip on Spring Forest Road. So two times in six weeks after zero times in 13 years. It does make one wonder what's going on. But that is, again, nobody is wanting this in the neighborhood. There's no compelling use or need for retail space there. To me, all this is is a special interest guy getting special treatment from his buddy on the planning commission and making a bunch of money. He has no plan, which if you want to believe that, you can. But why would you go to all this trouble Say, yeah, I need it to be retail, but yeah, I don't really know what I'm going to put there. Doesn't seem very believable at all. That's what I had to say. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll go ahead and close the hearing. Do we have questions? Counselor? Please count on me. Mr. Winstead?

Those ones will be for you.

While you're walking down, I noted in the staff report in the engagement section from this, I attended the first neighborhood meeting. I was not able to attend the second neighborhood meeting, but there were discussions of ways in which the screws could be tightened on this case. There were some pretty precise things that folks offer that are noted in there, like hours of operations, limitations on some of the most intense uses. And I see that some are prohibited, but I think more could be done there. We saw a case earlier that limited sweepstakes. I think we've now heard drive-throughs, car wash, car dealership, some more of the more intense uses in the CX district. My feedback would be primarily that I think RX or NX would be a better-based district for this site. I also think this council is acting often on a well-documented housing shortage, and so bring us something that produces more housing serves on that goal of the council and we don't have such a well-documented shortage of commercial not to say that it doesn't exist but it's not um kind of seeping out of our pores in the same way So I do think that an RX or NX-based district would be more appropriate. If your client's not amenable to that, I certainly think a lot more could be done to reduce the intensity of the uses. And so I'm interested if you think your client would be amenable to any of that feedback and if you'd be open to holding the case for two weeks.

Yeah, thank you for that, Councilman Patton. I think just to walk through a few of these things. This is a case that was filed in 2025. You know, went to Planning Commission, two meetings, and had a lot of these discussions there, incorporated a few of those use conditions. Just to have a few of the specific ones on the Gas station, the intent certainly is not to bring like a traditional style gas station here. There's one just on the site next to ours here. That one's more to do with the definitions of the UDO. So gas station is not the defined use. It'd be vehicle fuel sales. One of the things that is incorporated in vehicle fuel sales is like a typical Tesla charger type. That's defined as a vehicle fuel sale. And so we don't want to foreclose the possibility of having a potential mixed use building here with a potential vehicle fuel charging facility. So that one's less to do with the possibility of bringing a gas station here. I think it's unlikely given the marketing conditions, given the fact that there's one just next door. It's really about those definitions. And certainly had a lot of that conversation THROUGH THE TWO NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS AND A PLANNING COMMISSION AS WELL. ON THE HOURS OF OPERATION PORTION, THERE'S A GOOD AMOUNT OF THAT BUILT INTO THESE NEIGHBORHOOD TRANSITION PROVISIONS ALREADY. ZONE B HAS A FEW PROVISIONS RELATED TO RESTAURANTS, HOURS OF OPERATION FOR OUTDOOR SEATING. WE'RE RELYING LARGELY ON WHAT THE CODE HAS ALREADY CONTEMPLATED FOR THIS TYPE OF SITUATION WHERE THERE'S A MIXED USE DISTRICT NEXT TO A RESIDENTIAL USE DISTRICT. THAT'S REALLY THE REASON FOR THAT ONE. There's near my house, Vic's, the Italian restaurant that's over in City Market is bringing a drive-thru concept where you can go pick up. It's not a traditional drive-thru, but a potential to pick up pizza, pick up Italian food there. We certainly don't want to foreclose the possibility of having that sort of tenant. The idea is to have a suite of uses that can attract the right tenant here to serve the community. WITH THAT, AGAIN, WE'RE HAPPY TO LISTEN TO THE WILL OF THE COMMISSION, AND IF THAT REQUIRES MAKING MODIFICATIONS, OF COURSE HAPPY TO DO THAT. WE ALSO BELIEVE THIS IS A CASE THAT'S RELATIVELY OLD, THAT'S GONE THROUGH A LOT OF ANALYSIS, A GOOD AMOUNT OF WORK WENT INTO MAKING SURE THESE CONDITIONS REALLY WERE MITIGATING ANY IMPACTS THAT WE SEE TO ENSURE WE HAVE THAT COMPATIBILITY WITH THE SURROUNDING AREA. THANK YOU. HOPE THAT ANSWERS.

Sure, it does speak to them. I wouldn't be prepared to vote in favor of this case until some of those modifications were made, but it's certainly the will of the body. My preference would be to hold it open for two weeks or four if you need them to get those modifications made.

Why don't I reopen, and we can, if you want to make that motion, to just hold it open.

Can I also add a question? Okay. Yes, to Mr. Winstead. So just tell us again, what is the plan here?

Yeah, so it's largely dependent on what tenants find the site attractive. We don't have a specific site plan. We don't have a specific tenant in mind. The idea is to attract tenants with commercial mixed use to have that ability to bring the right tenant here. There's not a specific plan.

That helps. I think the concern, at least for me, is that the future land use is saying low-scale residential. This is R1, and so this is a big step up from that. And so can we get to a more kind of, I'm going to call it a transition to what comes next? And if you could put a gas station here, even though maybe it doesn't make sense because there's a gas station next door, then it seems like there's a lot that you could be doing to give the neighbors some confidence that this is something they want right next door. So, yeah, I definitely would support Council Member Patton.

Okay, so I'm going to reopen the hearing.

Just checking, if we hold it for two weeks, you have to have your new conditions in by Friday. Is that enough time for you, Mr. Winstead? Or do you need four weeks?

I think, yeah, I think we could do.

You can do it. Okay. So in that case, then I will move to hold this case open until the afternoon of September 1st. Okay.

All in favor of that motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, that is unanimous. Thank you. All right, next is petition annexation AX4425, and that is Leesville Road.

Good afternoon again, city council members. So this annexation AX4425 and rezoning Z5425 are together. Just a reminder that you will need to act on the annexation before you can act on the rezoning portion. and the reason for that is that one of the parcels in consideration here is in Wake County and two of the other parcels are in Durham County and are eligible to be annexed into the city of Raleigh by agreement with Durham. So we're looking at about 15 acres in Wake County and 17 acres in Durham County. The applicant does not have an associated site plan with this annexation rezoning, but has indicated apartment units, 324 apartment units on their annexation petition. And the site is outside of the standards for a full fire response. Moving on to the rezoning portion. So this site is in Northwest Raleigh. Again, three parcels that are just under 32 acres that would be rezoned from a combination of districts, including City of Raleigh, industrial mixed use, three stories, parkway frontage with airport overlay districts and the special highway overlay districts. DURHAM RURAL RESIDENTIAL WITH ONE OF DURHAM'S AIRPORT OVERLAYS AND DURHAM RURAL RESIDENTIAL WITH TWO OF DURHAM'S AIRPORT OVERLAYS TO CITY OF RALEIGH, OFFICE MIXED USE FOUR STORIES, PARKING LIMITED FRONTAGE WITH CONDITIONS AND OFFICE MIXED USE FOUR STORIES WITH CONDITIONS. I REALIZE THERE'S A LOT OF ZONING GOING ON HERE SO I'VE GOT A COUPLE SLIDES DEDICATED TO SORT OF DEPICTING WHAT'S GOING ON. The request is consistent overall with the 2030 plan, inconsistent with the future land use map, and consistent with the urban form map, and the Planning Commission recommends unanimous approval. So just so you all can see what's going on with the jurisdiction and zoning here, the purple parcel on the southeast to the right on the map is in Wake County. It's in Raleigh's ETJ, and that's the one that's industrially zoned with that airport overlay. Now, the two parcels in the yellow with the hatching, those are both in Durham County, outside of Raleigh's ETJ, and both zoned Durham Rural Residential with two of Durham's airport overlays. Just another slide showing what that looks like. So on this slide, Note the Durham and Wake County line that kind of splits the site in half. Nearby uses include moderate scale residential to the north of the site and the swing, racket and paddle facility, future recreational to the southwest of the site, private open space and low scale residential uses to the east and industrial uses to the south along ACC Boulevard. And here are some views of the site from Shady Grove, Leesville, and ACC Boulevard. So the applicant is proposing five zoning conditions which would require any plats to disclose noise contours, require an avigation easement granting the RDU Airport Authority perpetual right of flight over the site, and require residential dwellings to be built with noise attenuating materials. Those are three conditions that were added in response to comments by the RDU Airport Authority. They are also proposing a block perimeter exemption in this area and to limit overall development intensities and combinations of uses on the property. So the request would allow increased height, allow additional building types on the Durham County properties and require parking limited frontage on the Wake County property. and overall it would increase entitlement for residential and office uses. It would allow a similar amount of retail and significantly reduce industrial entitlement. So just to recap consistency, the request is consistent with the comp plan and consistent overall with the future land use map, specifically the office research and development and business and commercial services categories and is consistent with the urban form map. And consistent policies are related to compact development, location of growth, annexation agreements, development agreements, mitigating the impacts of commercial development, the scale of commercial uses, airport noise, housing variety, opportunity and choice. And inconsistent policies are related to the future land use, CONDITIONAL USE DISTRICT CONSISTENCY RELATED TO THAT BLOCK PERMIT OR EXEMPTION, INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESPONSE TIME STANDARDS AND TRANSPORTATION POLICIES RELATED TO CONNECTIVITY AND GAPS AS WELL AS THE AIRPORT OVERLAY. AND SINCE THIS REQUEST IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE FUTURE LAND USE MAP, APPROVAL WILL RESULT IN AN AMENDMENT FROM BUSINESS AND SERVICES AND OFFICE AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TO OFFICE AND RESIDENTIAL MIXED USE. And the Planning Commission recommends approval, noting the request would add to the housing supply, allow more building types, and allow for residential in an area anticipated for Raleigh's future growth. Please let me know if you have any questions before you open the public hearing.

Questions? Yes, Councillor Jones.

I have a few. Since we're on the annexation, I want to pull up the fiscal impact report because it's something that I look at and I'm really confused by this one because it goes up really high for a few years and then it dramatically goes down to negative 202,000 by year 10. And I'd just like to understand that better and see if you can help me make sense of that chart.

Yes, I would call my colleagues in finance to speak to the financial impact analysis.

Allison Bradshaw with Finance, good afternoon. Yeah, this is an interesting one because it's 31 acres, there's the annexation piece, and then there's the rezoning. So when we do the fiscal impact, we don't do it on the rezonings, right? There's not a fiscal impact on the rezoning. So when you look at what is being considered on those 31 acres, it's a big swat of land and we apply the cost on a per acre basis. And so a lot of costs get mounted on and the fact that it's a multifamily home, I'm sorry, multifamily complex, those typically have a lower assessed value than like single family homes. So it's really just a math, but it's predominantly because it's on such a large acre.

But why does it go up to upwards of $839,000 to begin with and then drastically? Like, why does it go up at all that high?

I think it's the timing of when... Sorry, let me pull this up. I don't know if I can pull it up on the screen. Let's see if I can... Maybe somebody else can. Yeah. Yeah, so I think early on, the costs get applied in the out years after the build-out has happened. So in those beginning years, if you look, we're collecting the revenue from it being built out, and then the costs get applied after the build-out occurs. So the costs don't actually start in this example till year three based on the build-out schedule that was provided. And so then those costs mount, and again, because it's almost 32 acres, that's a lot of cost that's being allocated. Now we know with the rezoning as a part of this, that's gonna have commercial and all of that, and that's not included in this assessment.

Okay, thank you for that. My next question is for fire. I'm not sure if we have somebody, but there we are. Right here in the backup, we see that five out of six of the fire stations are out of NFPA standards, and I was wondering if the Fire Master Plan addresses any of these concerns in this area of town, because I know annexations in this area, we are consistently finding that times are not. Adequate. And they're always in the backup material here saying we don't have enough.

Good afternoon. Herbert Griffin, fire chief. And the Leesville area, there is none addressed in the fire master plan.

Okay, thank you, thank you. And then my next question is for transportation. We saw in there the block perimeter condition. And I had spoken with, we'd met before, did this address the concerns that we discussed on our meeting prior? Cuz I'm getting a little bit confused. I know we talked about block perimeter, but the way that I read it, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, is that this could be addressed after the approval phase and that they could be eligible for an exemption, but this would be asking them to make that decision now before you guys had the time to look at the site plan since you don't have it at this moment. Does this condition address that concern?

So good evening, everyone. Carter Robertson with Transportation. This condition is the same as before we had that conversation. It is a little confusing to read. It doesn't look the same as some of the other block perimeter conditions we've seen before. Effectively, what it is saying is once the TW Alexander extension is built, This is what the block will look like north of it. And this is what the block will look like south of it. And so it establishes those standards. Why we're calling it an exemption is because those new values are basically just outlining what the WHAT THE BLOCK ALREADY IS. SO IN EFFECT, THAT TAKES AWAY OUR ABILITY TO APPLY ANY BLOCK PERIMETER STANDARDS AT THE SITE PLAN BASE. SO THIS IS AN AREA WHERE THE STREET GRID IS UNDERDEVELOPED. WE HAVE THESE LARGE BLOCKS WITH ONLY A FEW ROADS CONTAINING ALL OF THE VEHICLE MOVEMENT. AND SO OUR TOOLS TO COMBAT THAT ARE GOING TO BE THE STREET PLAN AND BLOCK PERIMETER.

There's a street plan segment on this site, but the condition would really Take away that second tool from us right and the TW Alexander extension that these would these roads would be connecting to is that currently or has plans to be funded is that a funded project even though it's in the plans and

No, ma'am. There are no bonds or designs associated with that. Right now, it's just a long-term line on the map that will likely be developed piece by piece as development comes through. So with developments like this, making that final connection.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Can I have a question while we're there? So this... If this is dependent upon Alexander being built, what's in place until then? What are the requirements until Alexander? Because Alexander is probably 10 years out waiting on Campo.

Right. Yes. So... how we would look at this. I'll kind of draw out what the condition says. So it says north of TW Alexander will be 7,000 feet. That's this triangle right here. And so, And then south of that, it says it'll be 40,000 feet. I'm not going to draw that because it's really funky looking. And I would just say that there's not a block there. But absent of this T.W. Alexander connection, how we would look at this is... So I'm really looking at two different parts of the site. We have this floodway going through. Normally, we wouldn't make calls on exemptions before site plan happens, but this really takes up a large portion of the site, so that's going to be kind of dead. Any cross is right there. So really, we're looking right here. And so what the condition... Language establishes. It's a south of this future connection. It shall be 40,000 square feet We wouldn't be able to require a road like this because that would create two new blocks south of TW Alexander Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. So basically if what I'm understanding is correctly is without TW Alexander you wouldn't require that public street

Well, I think the condition, it references T.W. Alexander, but it's not contingent upon whether it's built or not. Okay. It just says north and south of the extension.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

Open the hearing for the annexation. I know we've got zoning too, but we'll take them one at a time. And I have Molly Stewart, Rob Caudill, Daniel Whatley, Brindy Vega, Frank Tettle, and Rinell Stevenson.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group. You just heard the team that I have with me today, Frank Tuttel from Mill Creek Residential, Brandy Vega and Rob Cottle from Withers Ravenel on the design side, as well as Reinald Stevenson of DRMP, our traffic engineer, in case you have any questions for them. I do have two separate presentations today. And for the annexation piece, I'll focus on some context for the area. Block perimeter, in particular, I will be focusing on during the second presentation. But for some background, the site is there in the bottom of your screen in blue. And the important pieces on the screen are up in the top left. That's our airport on the other side of 540. In between the site and the airport, you see the ACC Boulevard Industrial Park, mostly warehousing and distribution. You also see the swing, racket, and paddle site immediately adjacent to the site, as well as the proposed T.W. Alexander Drive extension coming across the site. And then, of course, at the top of your screen, we have Briar Creek. To zoom out even further, everything you see highlighted in red is urbanized area. So although the site is on the edge of Raleigh, it is not on the edge of urbanized area. And although it may look like there's sort of a rural center there to the donut, let's take a closer look at that. Right across the street is Page Farms, and that is an agritourism use with the strawberries and the pumpkins. Pumpkin Patch there. Immediately to the south of the site is Swing, Racket, and Paddle. I know you're very familiar with that site as well. And then to the north, we have the Mulberry Park townhome community. To the southeast, that's that ACC Boulevard industrial park. So to simplify, as you saw, there are many, many layers and moving parts going on. But if we just look at use, the big purple and yellow chunks here are that existing zoning. So we have on the eastern portion the industrial mixed use zoning. And in fact, ACC Boulevard stubs into that piece of the site, so really intended to continue that industrial park there. with the yellow being the Durham County Rural Residential, so large lot estate homes in that area would be what would qualify under current zoning in both of those contexts. Now, as SWING develops, I understand there was some concern about having especially that industrial use extended and looking really for residents to live nearby and to support SWING. And if we zoom out even further, we see a city growth center in this part of town. I put the circle there so you can see where the site is. There's a little chunk out of it where it crosses over into Durham County. But a portion of the site is in that city growth center, which generally calls for infill development. in that area, which is the proposal being brought to you today for that apartment community that you heard staff describe, and as I mentioned, with the idea that not only does this support Swing, but Swing supports this residential use as well. So providing that opportunity for residents to live immediately adjacent to Swing and walkable to Swing. Thank you.

Okay. Any questions? Ms. Stewart? Okay, we will go ahead and we have one person signed up in opposition, Tammy Spellman.

Good afternoon. Appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about the community opposition to this rezoning area. I'm going to change my slides here a little bit and start at the ending. As was just mentioned, talking about this kind of looking like it's in the middle of nowhere, and it actually is in the middle of nowhere. This is coming from ACC Boulevard, coming from Briar Creek. you can see that it is not residential, it is not people-friendly. This is a left-hand turn onto Mount Hermon Road, which then turns into Shady Grove Road once it becomes Durham County. It's all industrial to the right. It's all single-family. We just feel a four-story apartment complex is completely out of the landscape, completely inconsistent with this area. It's a very narrow road. It's very unsafe for walking, for jogging, for biking, for anything other than, as mentioned, maybe walking to swing. That's the only thing you've got other than a car. And the one area that we also have a DOT salt truck. barn here, and where the area is, is this area here, which is where you can see the cell tower. We have been informed that the cell tower will remain. So where you see all these wonderful mature trees, you will now see a four-story apartment complex. And as mentioned, right across the road from this is our wonderful community farm of Page Farms. And so they wake up every morning with the sunrise, as farmers do, look out, and they've got a four-story apartment complex across from them. We just feel that's very inconsistent. So coming back up, talking about it's not walkable. So sometimes when you think of apartments, you think about the ability to get places. The closest bus stop is a mile and a half, mile point two away, 25 minute walk. And as I just showed you, it's not a safe walk. You can't walk that. So this is 100% car dependent. And with that, also mentioning that within two and a half miles, there's already over 10 apartment complexes. And they are very person-friendly. They are within walking distance to Briar Creek. They are within walking distance to the bus lines. So this area up here in the red X just feels like it's not an expansion of the city of Raleigh. It's plopped. I mean, it's just stuck there. It's not consistent in any way. uh... one of the biggest concerns of the the local area is traffic concerns and i know you've talked a little bit you ask some questions on d o t uh... what we've heard from the developers there a primary development for this first phase is for those ten acres that are on the durham county side and so the envision report said well this rezoning is only an increase peak travel time by ninety five cars you're taking a ten acre residential that has one homeowner with two, maybe three cars. And you're going to build a 324 four-story unit apartment complex on it. So even conservative math, you're adding 400 vehicle trips during peak hours. And this road just cannot handle it. There definitely has to be a traffic impact study. A lot of this is going to feed into Briar Creek, trying to go left to get onto 540, which if you've ever tried to travel that, It's ridiculous. There is some work in the process. You guys mentioned TW Alexander. I've lived in the area for 20 years. I have neighbors who've lived there for 30 years. TW Alexander has been talked about that entire time. So TW Alexander is is not happening anytime soon to support this complex. It's even on the NCDOT 2026-2027 STIP. It's not even mentioned as being on the slate for consideration of future developments asking for input. Waterway concerns, as they mentioned, Sycamore Creek does flow through that area. They have talked about that. They will not cross Sycamore Creek. What we, on the other side of Leesville Road and Darling Street, Sycamore Road, are also concerned about is the little creek that nobody's talking about. We just had that microburst in the Leesville area. That flooded. It has flooded five, six times in the years I've lived there. The infrastructure of the roads does not support this additional travel. You also heard from the fire department, so I just mentioned here quickly. Another thing is two four-stories requires a ladder truck. There is no ladder truck. So that's great. You're going to put all this sprinkler system in and everything, but hey, if it's my parent or my sibling on that fourth floor waiting for a fire truck to get there to rescue me, I'm coming after somebody. There's also all of the air traffic concerns about this changing the overlay of the airports. I live in the area, I hear the planes. I own a home. I had to sign a document that said I understand I'm in the noise contour. I don't know that renters have to do that. So when renters come in and you're living on the fourth floor, It doesn't matter. You can put all the soundproofing you want in. You're going to hear those airplanes. And just showing, I've looked at the flight tracker Casper. RDU flights go out as early as 5.15 in the morning. The later ones, UPS FedEx, can depart as late as 10.30, 11 o'clock. They fly right over this area. I went through... Like an entire morning, an entire evening, grab screenshots. I have about 60 of them. But this is just an example of showing four different flights, two in the evening, two in the mornings, where they're flying right over this location of four-story apartments. I'm in a two-story home. I can't imagine two more stories how loud these are and also being almost a mile closer. So, and if you can see through my blue lines here, that is on looking at this Casper, the majority of the flight patterns, which go over all industrial, go over swing projected, which is commercial. The first residential is this little house up here, which is this plot of land. Mulberry Park residents have also complained about the inability to turn out in the morning. They've added at Mount Hermon and Leesville Road, they've added turn lanes on Leesville Road, proposed turn lanes on Mount Hermon or Shady Grove at that point, but it still backs up. The traffic at the peak hours is just crazy. So it is the recommendation of the the citizens in that area, the community, to please take consideration of all of these factors in. It just doesn't fit. Doesn't mean it can't be someday, but now's not the time. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Any questions or should I close the hearing?

Yeah, so I think for me, there have been, there's just a lot of concerns. You've got the fiscal impact, which I can't explain, and I understand that the rezoning isn't incorporated in that, but it's hard right now looking at that, making that decision, knowing that it's gonna be such a steep drop off. Hopefully it gets factored in, but I don't know how to explain that to residents at the moment. So that's a concern for me. Fire concerns, knowing that we've had this fire master plan, And noting that we do not have anything for this area incorporated in there also concerns me with the level of development in this area. And then traffic is my biggest concern. I do appreciate the stoplight that has been added where that stop sign, that four-way stop was, but that's not gonna be enough for the level of intensity for me. in this area. I think with all of those concerns, I know that RDU, they are typically against because of those concerns. I do appreciate incorporating those conditions that they asked, so we did satisfy RDU. However, it can't for me get over that hump of all the other concerns that have been addressed. So for me, I'm just having some struggle, but definitely open for a conversation to hear if anyone else has any other thoughts.

Yes. Yeah, I'm just, I don't know if this is, Molly, if you have slides, or if staff can explain this to me again. I'm still very confused about the block perimeter thing, and this is something I'm paying a lot of close attention to in my own district, which has a lot of these huge blocks on Capitol Boulevard, and filling in the grid is a high priority for me for emergency service delivery, emergency evacuation, yada yada. Did someone wanna take a question?

Yes, I'm sorry, can you repeat your question about block perimeter?

Just like what is the condition doing and what would be produced in the absence of the condition? Like what would be produced under normal circumstances?

I'll defer to my transportation colleagues.

Good afternoon, Daniel King with Transportation. I manage our review group, so I'm happy to talk about how we would look at this from a site review standpoint. The comp plan, as Carter mentioned, is one tool that we use for getting street connectivity, and block perimeter is the other, which happens at the site planning phase during development review. This condition would take that tool away from us. We would just not have that. So if this condition were approved, The only thing we would get here is the comp plan streets.

Okay, so like internal street stubs, they're basically not, they're saying they're not gonna do any of those.

We don't know what they would propose in that case, but we would not be able to require anything with this exemption because it would exempt it completely from block perimeter. And at this phase, it's very early to determine what by right exemptions might exist on the site anyway.

So do you have any sense of how much internal connectivity would be produced?

I don't know right offhand. I know that the Swing site is proposing an extension of a cul-de-sac to gain access to the landlocked parcel that's behind their site. There could be connectivity from that back to the TW Alexander extension that could be beneficial to the grid.

Thank you. Any other questions?

So I have a question for our attorney, our planning directors. If the applicant decided just from conversation they wanted to remove that condition as far as a block parameter, what does that look like? I see Pat's coming.

Good afternoon, Pat Young, Planning and Development Director. The criteria is that if the changing condition makes it more restrictive, it can just proceed forward with a vote. So they could remove that condition or modify that condition. Have it come back to you all.

Okay.

Okay.

Does anybody have a motion or additional questions?

Yeah, I think Mayor Portem Harrison has asked if we can hear the rezoning so that we can think of it all together instead of making a motion on it now and hear the rezoning happen.

Okay, so I'll just keep this open. Can we just hold it? It's the same presentation.

Yeah, I thought it was the same presentation.

I think you have two presentations, right?

Okay.

Yeah. Okay, well, let me hold this one open, and then let's talk about Z5425. And do you want staff to come up back? Do you have different things to say, or have you completed your?

No, the presentation I gave was joint for the annexation and the rezoning.

Okay. So then I will open the hearing and invite Ms. Stewart to come back up.

Thank you. So we've seen previously that this is an infill site in an urbanized area in a location that's contemplated for development. And we've seen that the current zoning on the site cannot support the swing use and can be perhaps a detriment to that use and the city's investment in that use as well. We've heard the concerns of our neighbors, particularly there in the ETJ nearby. And I would like to dive a little bit deeper on the question of the block perimeter. The blue line on your screen represents the current city block that exists in the area. And we could crisscross this site with new streets, and it wouldn't meaningfully reduce that block size. I'll skip ahead here to show that TW Alexander connection. The portion of the TW Alexander connection on the site would be dedicated and likely funded, rather than constructed, but at least funded, moving that project forward and actually pushing that ahead, really contributing to that critical connection. I believe I didn't see that in the fiscal impact statement, so I believe that's another big value that is contributed on this site. But we have heard the feedback from our transportation staff that in addition to that requirement, it would be helpful to leave the block perimeter requirements in place. And this image was produced by staff as a suggestion for what might be required at site plan. It can't be promised, but this is a suggestion of what it might look like. And so you see those two new north-south streets in red. And for this purpose, we can see that Even, let's assume that TW Alexander gets completed so that those streets actually do connect to it, because they wouldn't on just this site. So this is just another view of that. So for context, you already heard that there wouldn't be a new street that would connect in the east-west direction. And if you look to the north of the TW Alexander mapped connection there, you see the Mulberry Park townhome community. That is developed with private streets only. So that is a complete block to extending the grid in that direction. That would not connect here. And if you look to the south, Swing has an approved site plan with no new public streets that would connect any further. So between the creek and those two complete blocks, you would never extend a grid in this area. It would simply be these new blocks created on the site. Now the site itself, of course, would have its own internal circulation requirements, would have all the access that it needs. These residents would already be able to walk to Swing. And in fact, if we did put that street in place, you'd be walking past that cell tower that exists and is contemplated to remain. So the benefit of allowing this site to develop is to actually push forward the one piece of this that would start to provide a real connection in this area and start to build out that comp plan grid that starts to create the important east-west connections on the site. Otherwise, just to go back to this view, we'd be looking at a single apartment community tasked with creating three new public streets, the full section of the full public streets, turning this site into effectively a public infrastructure project to be shouldered by the residents of this apartment community. That's in addition to the normal sort of street frontage improvements that would be required on any site. This would not move forward. This would simply reduce the number of housing units. We'd go back to where we were with our large lot estate homes and our mixed use industrial use. So that is why we feel not only is there not public benefit to this, But in fact, there's a real detriment here. There's a loss. There's a loss of pushing forward the TW Alexander connection, and there's a loss of the proposed housing here. So just as a reminder of sort of what is around this site, we think that putting the new residents immediately adjacent to the Swing site not only benefits Swing and provides them with a baseline of activity for that use to sort of give that use momentum, but also provides a place in the city where residents can live immediately adjacent to Swing and to use it frequently for its social aspects and its health and activity, all of that. So we think this is the combination that makes sense in this area, rather than that industrial, probably self-storage or the large lot of state uses in this area. It's hard to understand why we'd want to see that next to swing and next to the townhome units. So just to step back and look at the contributions being made to the city here, it's not just those taxes. That's one piece of it. But also pushing forward that section of TW Alexander Drive, removal of an actual potential detriment to the swing use and replacing it with something that actually reinforces and supports swing. as well as providing those new 325-ish residential units on this site. So that is sort of our deep dive on block perimeter. Happy to talk more about that. I do think we have another speaker as well.

Yeah, I think we had Jen Truman, John Smoot, and Laura Way all with the remaining three minutes.

I can talk fast. Jen Truman here to remind you guys that there are people that think we need new housing in our city, even at the edge of the city, especially in where we connect between Raleigh and Durham. There are YIMBYs coming to Durham City Council to say this. There are YIMBYs coming to Raleigh City Council to say this. This is a place where we need more housing. It's already surrounded by townhomes and apartments. It's a little bit silly to say in one sentence that it's too rural for apartments, and then in the next sentence say there's 10 apartments within two miles, as we heard today. And it's something that we hear far too often, because there are a lot of reasons to come up to be against housing. And I'm just here to remind you that there's one really good reason to be for projects like this, and that's that we need more housing and we need more apartments, especially in our mixed-use nodes.

Hello, my name is Jack Smoot. I am a renter, and I live in an apartment at 104 Dartmouth Road. And to put it bluntly, we are in the midst of a housing crisis. And more specifically, we have a shortage of apartment rental housing. And every year, more and more people move to Raleigh, and that puts more stress on our existing housing supply. If this project were approved, we would have more supply to sort of bite into that growing and growing demand. So please approve this project so that my rent can stay a little bit more reasonable. Thank you very much.

Okay. That concludes the speakers. I will go ahead and close this hearing.

So I hear the, I am excited. I do want more housing. I promise that that is not the reason. This is the densest area in Raleigh. We have a lot of things happening in this area. There's also a lot of traffic congestion up there. Briar Creek Parkway is a very complicated, adding a ton of units in this space, knowing that TW Alexander is not confirmed, is not funded. As I'm sitting at this table not knowing those dates, it feels irresponsible to say we need to have sustainability, have sustainable infrastructure ready to go when I know right now there isn't sustainable infrastructure. I don't have fire, we just heard from the fire chief that there's not plans for that. I think there are concerns that as we bring new people into the area, I want them to know that we thought of all of this beforehand. So for me, this case is just not there yet for me. I think that there's, I've noted them and I won't beat a dead horse on all the concerns that I do have with the case. So for me, this is not something that I can get to approve. Again, if there's anybody on council that has any difference of opinion would like to share, please go ahead. But when the moment is ready, I will move to deny.

yet i was going to support the case any annexation i looked very carefully at the plan commission report which was unanimous uh... i agree that you don't always look very carefully at the conference a plan uh... man looking at trends over time about when we look very carefully at whether it warrants a change in land use. That is why I listen very carefully to the testimony, read the staff report, hear what the plan commission has to say. And this certainly is an area that meets a lot of the comprehensive plan consistency. And so when the time comes, I'll be making a motion on both the annexation and on the rezoning.

I'm going to go ahead and close the annexation since we had left that open just so that we can have a debate and then make motions if we so choose. Yep.

Yeah, I mean, I'll just say I am a little bit split on this case. I think the density being near swing is beneficial. I am concerned about the fire issues and then the fiscal analysis. So those are probably what give me pause. I'm glad to understand better the road issue. I think I feel better on that. But I guess if I had my preference, I would see a little bit more work on how we're addressing fire concerns. And I don't know how to improve the fiscal picture on this.

I will say, just going back to the fiscal picture, it just makes zero sense to me at all. This is an apartment building next to a bunch of apartment buildings, so obviously this should be a net positive for our tax base. I'm not sure, I don't know if you want to revisit that, but that just makes zero sense. Yeah, but I mean, if you've already got water sewer there, right? Not everybody.

They're not looking at from what I heard they don't look at their zoning case and analysis So that's why the number comes out that was maybe something that we look we asked to have to look into Okay Well, and I will say I am also for this case So I am also willing to you know support the motion when the time comes for both annexation and zoning

My only final thoughts are just that the block perimeter thing is, like, I can't overcome it. I've been really consistent about it in cases in my district, and I just, like, there are parts of our city where it takes you a mile to go around the block, and while I understand the explanation for the applicant, it just, like, is not consistent with my pass votes and not consistent with my, you know, I don't want to take a tool out of the toolbox that will help us get a better grid. So that's where I'm at.

Do you want to make a motion?

I move that we adopt the annexation A4425.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay. I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated August 18, 2026, contain the agenda materials and to approve the rezoning amendment with the adoption of the effective date described in the agenda under recommended action. This approval is also named amendment of future land use map to the extent described in the adopting consistency statement.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed? So that was 6-2 on both votes. Okay. Thank you all. Moving on, we are now at Z0826, which is on Rock Quarry Road.

Yes, Hannah Recco, again, Planning and Development. Z826 is a request to rezone two properties on Rock Quarry Road that are together just about one and a half acres from R4 to Neighborhood Mixed Use, three stories, parking limited, conditional use. This is located on the north, northeast side of Rock Quarry Road, just... near the intersection with Barwell Road and the Barwell Road Community Center and School. There are three proposed zoning conditions, one that would prohibit detention center, jail, and prison, and vehicle fuel sales, and then the other conditions would prohibit vape and tobacco shops and internet electronic sweepstakes. The change here to a mixed use district would add the possibility of non-residential land uses, commercial land uses, and would add apartment building type town hosts, additional town homes, and would increase the maximum number of units that could be built on the site. The site is designated moderate scale residential on the future land use map. The request is inconsistent with that designation, but it is consistent with the urban format designation and consistent with the plan overall. I can see some consistent policies here and here, and then the inconsistent policies for this one in addition to the future land use map designation pertain to the existing fire service considerations in the area. If approved, the approval would be a de facto amendment to the future land use map from moderate scale residential to neighborhood mixed use. and the Planning Commission recommended approval six to one. The opposing commissioner in opposition noted the concern about number of developments in the area, impacts to traffic, and existing commercial uses that already exist in the area. So with that, happy to answer any questions you have. Okay, questions?

I have a question for staff, transportation. Can you speak to any possible improvements that would need to be made on Rock Cry Road?

Barbara Godwin with transportation. So similar to the previous discussion we had about an earlier case, sidewalk bike facilities behind the curb would be required along the site's frontage with either a subdivision or a tier three site plan for this location. That would be along Rock Quarry as well as dedicated right of way for future updates to Rock Quarry Road, that four lane avenue section.

Okay, so basically either they can go ahead and widen the road or they can pay for us, put money set aside in payment for us to do it at a later date when the city does it?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, thank you.

All right, I can go ahead and open up the hearing. And we have Hunter Winstead signed up.

Somebody's pulling it up. I don't know who it is. Well, that's coming up. Good afternoon again, noon again. Mayor Cowell, Council Members Hunter-Winstead on behalf of the applicant on this case at the intersection of Barwell Road and Brock-Corey Road. I think it'll be helpful to have the illustration in the PowerPoint, so I'll just give it a second to come up. I think I can get started without it. There's sort of the first case, really three main reasons we believe this case is reasonable in the public interest. One, consistent with the comprehensive plan, more particularly consistent with the urban format. Number two, this case really is a stewardship of the city's investment, particularly in the capital improvement project happening on Barwell Road. And then number three, this is the case that's compatible with the surrounding area. WITHOUT SHOWING THE ILLUSTRATION, THAT SLIDE HELPS SHOW IT A LITTLE BIT. ROCK CORY ROAD IS DESIGNATED AS A TRANSIT EMPHASIS CORRIDOR ON THE URBAN FORM MAP. THIS CASE WILL BE BRINGING A NEIGHBORHOOD MIXED USE DESIGNATION WHICH IS URBAN FORM MAP. THERE'S SEVERAL POLICIES THAT SPEAK ABOUT BRINGING THAT SORT OF COMMERCIAL HIGHER DENSITY ALONG TRANSIT EMPHASIS CORRIDORS. THIS IS A SITE THAT'S CURRENTLY ZONED. R4, THAT LOWER DENSITY CURRENT ZONING DOESN'T REALLY MAKE SENSE ON TRANSIT EMPHASIS CORRIDORS. THERE'S SEVERAL POLICIES THAT That's reason number one, comprehensive plan consistency. There it is. Thank you. There's that urban format showing the transit emphasis corridor. Just a little bit of the verbiage from the comprehensive plan there on the bottom left. Reason number two, the stewardship of city investments. This is showing the street plan, the existing zoning. And really what this case is doing is pulling this trend that was set back here in 2006. So on the far left, that's a site that was zoned for neighborhood mixed use parking limited frontage back in 2006. THIS ONE IS 2012. THIS ONE IS 2023. OURS IS 2026. THE IDEA IS PULLING THIS NEIGHBORHOOD MIXED USE TREND WITH THAT PARKING LIMITED FRONTAGE TOWARD THIS INTERSECTION HERE. THE PURPLE AND THE GREEN HERE SHOWING THE STREET PLAN DESIGNATIONS. BARBELL ROAD DESIGNATED AS THAT DIVIDED TWO-LANE AVENUE WITH A MULTI-USE PATH ON THE SIDE THAT'S GOING THROUGH CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT RIGHT NOW AND THEN ROCK CORY ROAD DESIGNATED AS A FOUR-LANE AVENUE SIMILAR TO SPRINGFORCE. DEDICATION TO CONSTRUCTION, TO COUNCIL MEMBER BRANCH'S POINT. THIS IS JUST AN OVERLAY SHOWING THE PLAN FOR THAT BARWELL ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT THAT'S CURRENTLY UNDERWAY. THE BIG THING HERE IS THIS MULTI-USE PATH THAT'S ON THE WEST SIDE, THE SIDE CLOSEST TO OUR SITE HERE, SO WE'RE REALLY BRINGING THAT TREND TOWARD THAT WHAT WILL BE A MAJOR INTERSECTION. JUST A ZOOMED-IN VERSION, ALSO SHOWING THE CROSS SECTIONS HERE. for those two planned street sections. And then really point number three is area compatibility. Just a few of the prohibited uses that we incorporated. It's already neighborhood mixed use, which contemplates being adjacent to those lower density areas. Adult establishment, pawn shop, dormitory, detention center, vehicle fuel sales, vape shops, and gambling facilities are the specific ones that we drafted to make sure we excluded those uses to really be good neighbors for the residential sites that abut this area up to our north. Over on the right is just showing some of the neighborhood transition provisions as they apply in the UDO. There's those three zones applied to all the borders where there's neighborhood mixed use next to one of the residential zoning districts. With that, happy to answer any questions. We'd respectfully request that the council approve this rezoning to neighborhood mixed use. Thank you.

Questions for Mr. Winstead? Okay. We will... Come back to you. We have two folks signed up in opposition, Sarah Jessica Farber and Mary Goodson. Are they here? And if we could reset to eight.

Okay, thank you for the opportunity to stand before you. I am Mary Goodson. Excuse me, I have a little something. Anyway, I was listening to Mr. Winstead, and he's spoken about the area. My home borders the proposed project that the applicant is building. It's my understanding that it will be retail. We are not in a subdivision. There's four of us on Barwell Road. My property will be the one most affected by that. I have spoken, when I spoke to the Planning Commission, my concern is that we already have more than enough shopping center right now. We have Battle Bridge that has all of the shopping center, the food, and all of those things. We have another shopping center just about 500 yards, maybe 500 feet from where he's proposing another shopping center. If you look at what Rock Quarry looks like now, the traffic is horrendous. Coming off of Barwell, going up just a little ways up the hill is where he's proposing the planned shopping center. And it will be traffic there. And I believe that... I'm a little bit nervous, I'm sorry. But I believe that that will hinder... And we have accidents all the time on Rock Quarry as it is. But where I am living, he's proposed to put a brick wall behind my property to offset any of the noise or whatever they want to do back there. And I have been there 27 years. I'm on an acre and a quarter lot. Our families, all of the families, there's four black families there. We have family functions and all of those things. When they built Old Town, when they built Old Town, the subdivision and the apartments back there, we had trouble with the kids coming through our yards to go to Barwill Road Center. And if this happens, if they build this, we know that that's going to increase. I just want to say that this will be a hindrance. We are, like I said, we have been there for a while. Not to pull anybody down, but the gentleman He bought all of the properties up on that little, most of the properties on that road that people were living in to build this, to come together to build this shopping center that he's proposing. And so it's just not fair that we have to endure this. the change of this shopping center coming into our area. And it's not that we... I don't mind that we have this happening, but you have to think about we are... We're going to be impacted by it as families. Our families will be impacted by the noise. We'll be impacted by whatever, if it's a restaurant. All of that is going to be behind us, and it's going to be a traffic impact on us. Okay.

That's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay, I think that's it. We'll close the hearing. Do you all have questions for the applicant or the opposition? Yes, Councilor Silver.

I have a question for either Mr. Winstead, if you can come up, or staff. Can you just go over the... transition zone as prescribed in the UDO. And Ms. Goodson, I just want to see where her property is. I just want to know how the transitions work. I know you and I had a conversation. You said wall, it could be fence, but just walk through what is required from Zone A, B, because this was designed intentionally to minimize Well, to offer a transition between higher density or a different type of land use. So we kind of walk through what would experience from the site going to Ms. Goodson's property or even the adjacent ones.

Absolutely. Thank you for the question, Council Member Silver. So Ms. Goodson is right here, correct? Just want to make sure. So there's three zones of the neighborhood transition provisions. Zone one is the protective yard here. And so there'll be three different options in, I'm sorry, Zone A, three different options of Zone A that are listed here. There's the narrowest option, which is a 10-foot planted buffer with a wall. There's the second option, which is a 20-foot planted buffer that's less dense of plantings, also with a wall or a fence. And then the third option is a 50-foot planting only with no wall. So this site is an acre and a half. It'll likely be option one or two, just given the way this site is configured to make sure that we've got enough space to develop on this area, given you see how it juts out here. So going from Ms. Goodson's property, you'll have first that zone A, which is that planted buffer, potentially a wall there. Zone B then restricts the uses and operates as a building setback. So there will not be a principal building for commercial use. The closest it could be is 50 feet from the property line. FOR INSTANCE, IF WE TOOK THE TYPE 2 OPTION FROM ZONE A, WHICH IS 20 FEET, YOU HAVE A 20-FOOT PLANTED AREA, WALL 20-FOOT PLANTED AREA, AND THEN 30 FEET ADDITIONAL SITBACK FROM THERE. AND THEN ZONE C GOES FROM THE 50-FOOT LINE TO 100-FOOT LINE AND OPERATES AT A 45-DEGREE ANGLE THAT REGULATES HEIGHT. HERE WE'RE ONLY THREE STORIES, SO IT'S UNLIKELY THAT WILL APPLY BECAUSE THE BUILDING IS GOING TO BE AT LEAST 50 FEET FROM THE PROPERTY LINE ANYWAY, BUT THAT'S WHAT ZONE C DOES. Those are the three zones that will be able to buffer Ms. Goodson from your property to the site in the event there's a commercial site there.

I should know this answer. I don't remember, but is it for staff, is it required to be a wall or a fence?

The requirement for this type one is a wall for type two fence.

Type one wall, type two fence. Okay.

Can I ask a question about hours of operation? So as proposed here, would there be any limits or could whatever is going to operate, if it is retail, could it be open all night long?

There are no hours of operations in the zoning conditions, and I don't believe under NX there are for retail. I'm double-checking. not for retail sales.

Okay, so no, yeah, it could be 24 hours a day, potentially, whatever it is.

So to that point, to the applicant, is that something you would be willing to consider?

We're checking on the specifics, too. Certainly able to consider that. But for bar and restaurant use, which are those ones that really require the hours of operation, neighborhood mixed use does have requirements. I don't remember the exact times off the top of my head. I want to say it's 10 o'clock is the latest it could go. It might subdivide between outdoor seating. But I know there is hours of operations provisions in the neighborhood mixed use zoning district that already apply automatically.

So like P Street, where we have neighborhood mixed use next to Glenwood South, and we have lounges open until 4 in the morning. How does that work? Can we put, anyway, I'm just, I know other areas that have this issue.

P.C. 's also in the downtown district.

No, no, no, it's neighborhood mixed use.

Oh, I got it, yeah. I think we have those provisions pulled up.

So for eating establishment or restaurant in an annex,

Pat Young, Planning and Development, just trying to assist staff. There is no hours of operation restrictions on NX. So on any use at this time.

So with that, for the applicant, I was wondering if you'd be willing to, for us to hold this for you to think about hours of operation?

Yes, sorry, we were still looking at the provisions. There's so many of them. Yes, of course, happy to do that.

Okay. So, yeah, if you could reopen the hearing, and if... I'm thinking about our calendar, September 1st during the daytime. And could you work with the neighbors on that as well? Absolutely. Have that conversation? Yes. Okay. So we'll hold this. My motion is to hold this case open until September 1st during the afternoon session. Thank you.

All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Aye. And that is unanimous. And next we have Z1626 North Boylan with Matthew Clem presenting.

Thank you, Mayor. So this is a request to rezone a 0.15 acre site from office mixed use with a three story building height limit and a detached frontage with a neighborhood conservation overlay district. to commercial mixed use with a 12 story building height limit and an urban limited frontage. It's a general use case, so no zoning conditions. The request is consistent with the 2030 comprehensive plan, inconsistent with the future land use map, inconsistent with the urban form map. Your planning commission recommends approval six to one. So this is the site here, developed with a single story building from 1961. Currently it's at the intersection of North Street and North Borland Avenue. This is our current entitlement estimate. So under the proposed building of 12 stories, you can see the increase in building height and entitlement for office, big jump in office and then unit entitlement there. These numbers in a 12-story building may seem like a small jump, but I think that is really to do with the size of the site. It's 0.15 acres. The geometry of it makes significant development challenging, so that's reflected in our estimates here. You can see, again, consistent with the plan overall, inconsistent with the future land use map, inconsistent with our urban form map. Policies that the request is consistent with are capitalizing on transit access, compact development in our downtown core, increasing housing variety, and mixed use zoning for retail in the core. Again, consistent with the frontage recommendations of the urban form map. AND JUST MORE POLICIES ABOUT INTENSITY AND THE CITY'S COURT. INCONSISTENT WITH THE FUTURE LAND USE MAP, THE AREAS IDENTIFY AS OFFICE MIXED USE. THE REQUEST IS COMMERCIAL MIXED USE WITH ANOTHER TWO STEPS UP IN THE INTENSITY. AND ALSO THE HEIGHT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE DOWNTOWN TRANSITION AREA'S POLICY. So if approved, the future land use map will be amended to community mixed use. You can see what that looks like on this map here. Planning Commission recommends approval six to one. The vote against the request was Commissioner Omkaya, who opposed the removal of the NCOD.

Okay. Questions for Mr. Klan? If not, we will invite Ms. Stewart for her grand finale in front of council, opening the hearing on Z1626. Thank you.

Just waiting for my slides. for the video, Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group. Here on behalf of Mill & Oak LLC, the property owner, and the owners of Mill & Oak also own Leela Improv Studio, the user of the site, and both Christopher and Jill Eichmann, the owners, are here with us this evening, in case you have questions for them. All right, there we are. So there's Leela Improv Studio, the corner of North Boylan Avenue and North Street. And if you read that sign closely, it says Lila Improv Theater, and that is why we're here. The main driver, the main motivator for being here for this rezoning is use, because in the OX district, theater is not a permitted use. They are currently running workshops and classes, and all of that is fine. The actual theater is not, and That's what brings us here to the table. And with a small family-run business, the idea was to go through a big, expensive process like this would be a good time to take a long-term view, as zoning does too, to say what makes sense in this area. So we've done that. I wanted to sort of quickly talk about the NCOD that applies currently as well as the detached frontage. Both of those would be mostly replaced with the urban general frontage that's proposed because both the detached frontage and the North Boylan NCOD work very similarly. They cover similar ground that North Boylan NCOD can be thought of as an early frontage designation, with the exception that it has a height limit, as does the detached frontage. So they cover similar ground about sort of how the building faces and where it sits on the lot and where the parking is and all that sort of thing. All of those factors being replaced with that urban general frontage doing very similar work. The exception, of course, being that height. And in addition to that use, well, let's talk about the use first, actually, since this map shows us why we chose to request the CX district. Both the CX district, which exists right across the corner there, and the DX immediately across the street would have permitted the theater use. But we see that CX does exist to the north of us, whereas DX does not. So we went with the CX. It's the lowest one that gets that theater use. So that's where we are with that. But why 12 stories? As you heard, there's not really a plan to build 12 stories. In fact, these owners have put a lot of money into restoring the building that they have, to doing environmental remediation on the building that they have. So no immediate plan, but this is the current situation. This is the view from North Boylan Avenue of their entire block face. And you can see Lila over there on the right, allowed to build approximately two and a half stories, depending on how you build it. With the rest of their block face having ten story zoning, and that accounts for the zoning conditions there. And if we just look at that north-south stretch that exists between St. Mary's and North Boylan, there are a number of examples of these taller heights, including immediately next to the site there with those 10 stories. All of these designations that you see here, those all reflect the zoning conditions, so they may not actually match what the map says. They'll either match the map or be a little bit lower. And then if we look from east to west, we see that drop off. And we heard about the downtown transition. So we have our 40 stories east of Glenwood, west of Glenwood, and immediately across the street from this site is 20 story zoning. And then, of course, we have the 10 stories on the property line adjacent to the south there. And that's why we thought that that 12-story district would be the right fit here. Again, that's a long-term plan, just thinking that's what fits in. However, you know, and going through the process, we're open to comments on that. We've heard none. There simply hasn't been opposition to this proposal. So that's what we bring before you today, and we are all happy to answer any questions that you have. Okay. Thank you. Any questions?

I will close the Hearing.

I'm prepared to make a motion. I'm just very pleased to see what can happen with this theater and I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated August 18th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda item under recommended action. This approval is also deemed an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. Second.

All right. All in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. That is unanimous. Congratulations. We look forward to the theater. Yeah. Okay. Next, we got Comprehensive Plan Amendment 0126, Old Cruise Road, Hannah Reckon.

Yes, so CP126 is a request to amend map T1, the street plan and the comprehensive plan. It is a privately initiated request and the request would amend the designation for a portion of Old Cruz Road from avenue four lane divided to avenue two lane divided. So this segment is between Buffalo Road and Old Mill Burnie Road up here. And you can see there are both solid lines and dotted lines in that segment. So this is a portion of what an existing street and then a proposed street that does not yet exist. And the amendment would go, as I said, from the four lane streetscape, sorry, avenue type to two lane divided avenue. So this is in northeast Raleigh. You can see there's still fairly rural in this area, some proposed developments in the pipeline around this site. I'll hand it off to transportation staff to provide a little more context.

Good afternoon, Council. This is Carter Robertson with the Transportation Department. The request we're going to be looking at today is really an opportunity for us to right-size our infrastructure for the future as development comes in. So this request is associated with the development of the Alderbrook subdivision. As they develop their site, they would be upgrading Old Cruz Road along their frontage. They'd also be replacing an aging bridge that goes over Hodges Mill Creek. So as today, with the current street plan designation, the UDO would require them to upgrade Old Cruz to a four-lane avenue. However, staff believe that this wide of a cross-section isn't warranted, and actually reducing it to a two-lane would come with several benefits, and I'll explain those. But before getting into those benefits, I do just want to clarify we are just looking at that reduction from four lanes to two lanes on this stretch right now. We're not considering changing the alignment with this request. So one thing we look at when we're considering the amount of lanes that are appropriate on a roadway is our street capacity guidance that's listed in the comprehensive plan. That's the table on the right of the screen. And as you can see, a four-lane street is really meant to hold 15,000 to 35,000 vehicles per day. It's a very wide cross-section that's meant to hold, facilitate a lot of throughput vehicle movement. But when we look at the historical data for Old Cruise Road, the traffic volume is very low. We have about 10 years of data. It's about 2,500 vehicles a day now. And that's increased slightly since 2016. That was around 1,700. VEHICLES PER DAY. AND WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR FUTURE PROJECTIONS IN THE TRIANGLE REGIONAL MODEL, IN 2055, THE DAILY TRAFFIC WOULD STILL BE UNDER 10,000 VEHICLES PER DAY. SO WE THINK DOWNGRADING TO A THREE-LANE STREET WOULD MORE THAN ACCOMMODATE THE CURRENT AND THE FUTURE TRAFFIC DEMAND. THREE-LANE STREET CAN HOLD UP TO 20,000 VEHICLES PER DAY. So on top of just the appropriateness of the section, I think there's a lot of benefits to right-sizing these roads as they come in. On the left, you'll see the four-lane divided section, and on the right, the proposed cross-section. And the big difference here, other than just two additional lanes, is ultimately that amount of pavement that would be put in the two-lane cross-section. is about 38 feet from back of curb to back of curb. And this four lane section is 66 feet back of curb, back to curb. So that's about twice as much pavement going out there. And when you think of that from a pedestrian standpoint, that's a lot longer of a distance to cross. and a lot more opportunities for conflict points with a vehicle. Along with the pedestrian safety impacts, that's a lot less impervious surface that we'd be putting down, so less impacts on the current environment around Old Cruise Road. And like I said before, this request is really going along with a private development. And a key part of this conversation at site plan with NCDOT and the developer is the replacement of this aging bridge that goes over Hodges Mill. When this is put in, it's gonna serve this area for a long time and we think that right-sizing it and getting it right is gonna be beneficial for those environmental impacts to the stream that it would be going under. Right now, the UDO would require it to be very wide, and we'd be reducing that overall cross-section going over the bridge. So that's all I have for right now. I'll turn it back over to Hannah, but I'll still be available for any questions.

So this request, like any other Comprehensive Plan Amendment, was evaluated against the policies in the Comprehensive Plan. Here are some consistent policies, many of which Carter touched on. And then there were no inconsistent policies identified with this particular request. And then the Planning Commission did recommend approval unanimously. You can see their finding here. And both Carter and I are here to answer any questions you have.

Questions for staff?

I just wanted to make sure. So on the slide with the chart there that's highlighted in yellow, it calls it a three-lane street. And in the packet, it refers to it as an avenue, two-lane divided. I want to make sure that's the same and just a different verbiage or something.

Yeah, it's just a different verbiage. If you look at a typical section column, it's at least one lane in either direction with a median or a center turn lane. And so our two lane divided cross section, you can either have a median or center turn lane as that divided element.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Okay, if not, I will open the hearing, and we have Gunnar Gregory in support, and then we have two folks signed up in opposition. Mr. Gregory, yeah.

Mayor, how many minutes would you like?

Are we doing eight minutes?

That's for resumings, technically. It's your prerogative.

Oh, okay. So it's four minutes enough per side?

More than enough, yes. Okay, great. We'll try to keep this short. Yeah, good afternoon. Gunnar Gregory on behalf of the applicant. Carter stole all of my points. So we'll go ahead and kind of skip through some of this here. So as he mentioned, this would be reducing the cross-section of Old Cruise Road from Buffalo Road to Olma-Burney. Our project limits are highlighted in blue, although the reduction would go for the entire section of roadway. As Carter mentioned, it would go from the Avenue 4 lane to the Avenue 2 lane divided. A couple of reasons for this amendment, the 2050 projected traffic volumes not meet that warrant for four lane section. This is a rural and residential area and the two lane divided section more closely matches those land uses and then support from the city, CAMPO and NCDOT. The reduced section will also help to minimize environmental impacts, have less impacts to adjacent property owners. It will promote alternative transportation by providing both pedestrian and bicycle facilities and is fully funded by private development, allowing for public funds to address other transportation concerns. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you. If there's no questions, we'll call up Linda Perrier and Paul Baer. Are they in the audience? Okay. Are you Mr. Baer? Yes. Okay.

Good afternoon. My name is Paul Baer. I'm opposed to this. You're destroying the character of the area. Old Mill Burnie and Old Cruise Roads. This is country. I moved out there. I bought 13 acres. The maps are a little confusing because they still show a proposed part of Old Cruise Road going through my house. I don't know why. When Cold Springs was approved, the map should have been changed. You're not going to go through Cold Springs development with this. They're stopping before that. Old Cruz Road now looks like it was developed through a planning commission or planning department from a kindergarten class. It's wide, it's narrow, it's wide, it's narrow. There's going to be accidents on the southern part of Old Cruz Road because it narrows down and it goes into a rotary. This section stops. They're going to widen the road. divided, and then it narrows back down. And you're talking about bicycle lanes. Well, where do you go after the road goes back to a very narrow point in the road? You approved a development over there that the same developer got rejected from Wendell. The Planning Commission here, this is a corrupt system. You appoint the Planning Commission members who all vote to approve everything. Comes here, you approve it. The developers give campaign contributions, and everything gets approved. You're ignoring the fire department's recommendations or lack thereof because you're building houses where you don't have fire protection, and you approve it. That to me is gross negligence, which you're gonna pay the price in the future. The same thing with these developments with this road section, where it's gonna cause accidents and a good attorney's gonna be able to come and say, why did you approve this? You narrowed a road where all of a sudden they're on a two-lane road, divided, and now it's back to a little country road. And the developer's doing just enough to get it approved, make their millions, and disappear. They're gone and the local residents are footing the bill when this is over with. If you're looking at a curfew, do a curfew on developers. and on development. And stop this. You're trying to make this place look like San Jose, California. I've lived there. I've worked there. And this is what you're doing to this place. When I first moved here, I drove by Wendell Falls. I almost had a heart attack. I cannot believe you're doing this to this area. People are left to hold the bill and put up with the traffic. The traffic department, the people, traffic, engineers, have you been down Buffalo Road? I guess you're not gonna get an award for that traffic disaster. And more development and more development on Buffalo Road, Old Cruise Road, Forestville Road. You're not planning anything other than a disaster. Even a beagle knows enough to not to crap in its own bowl. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll close that hearing. Any questions for the petitioner or Mr. Behr?

Move for approval.

All right.

Second.

All right. Any other discussion? All in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. That is unanimous. All right. Thank you. Final case is TC-126, school lot amendment, and that is with Justin Remetta.

Good afternoon again. I don't think we want to talk about daycares again. We already did that one.

I can go ahead and get started while we look for the presentation.

So this is a public hearing for text change TC 126 related to lot sizes for schools. This was a citizen petitioned text amendment that would amend the 500 square foot per enrollee minimum lot size requirement for schools. This request was filed back in December of 2025, authorized by Council in February of this year. The Planning Commission did vote to recommend unanimous approval on June 9th of this year. So this 500 square foot lot size per enrollee requirement has been around for some time. Prior to the adoption of the UDO in 2013, it was only applicable to private and parochial schools. When the UDO was adopted, the regulations for all schools were And so since 2013, that requirement has been in place for all schools, with the exception of a text change in 2017 that carved out the DX district. So since 2017, it has applied everywhere except DX zoning. Here is the existing regulation in question. The use standard for schools, again, 500 square feet per enrolled pupil, with the exception of the X district. So in addition to those use standards, there are just the regular site design controls that would apply for all schools as well. There are protective yards and buffers in residential areas, the same that apply to daycares that we talked about earlier. The same neighborhood transitions would apply in mixed use districts where a school is adjacent to a residential district or a residential use. There are also broader UDO standards like parking, landscaping requirements, screening, environmental protection, outdoor amenity area. Again, that would apply globally to all schools in addition to those youth standards. Here's that neighborhood transition diagram that you just talked about extensively in your last case, so I will skip over that. We also have the street design manual that will govern how a school connects to the transportation network, things like driveway spacing, sidewalk and street improvements. Schools require traffic impact analysis, so there could be improvements required for schools as well. Right-of-way dedication, traffic control, streetscape improvements, et cetera. So all that being said, the applicant is proposing to leave the minimum lot size per enrollee requirement in place with the exception of when a site is located in both a mixed-use district and is not adjacent to a property zone R124 or 6. So in all other cases, that requirement would continue to apply. In a case where a school was proposed in a mixed-use district and the lot was not adjacent to residential That requirement would be waived I'm happy to answer any questions you have I think Hunter is still here if you have questions for him as well

Okay, yep, Councillor Patton. Yeah, hi.

When we first undertook this, there was discussion of being in frequent transit areas, which is not reflected in the final form. Can you speak to that?

Sure, yeah, so the initial application was to have that carve out for properties in the frequent transit areas. Staff raised some concerns that with the upcoming rewrite of the comprehensive plan We wanted to avoid terms that may be changed rewritten or may not exist in the future that would require then a further additional text amendment so the closest kind of analogous Standard we came up with with the applicant was just using that mixed-use district not adjacent to residential

Okay. And did you consider at all, like if the spirit was to be, to allow this more flexibility on transit corridors, do we consider like having it be like a TOD designation would be the thing that enables this? Because that's in the UDO and not the comp plan.

I don't know if it was specifically discussed. If... Certainly there are many properties with the TOD overlay that are also mixed-use zoning. That is one way that it could be done as well. It would likely significantly reduce the area where this would be applicable, but that would get at the spirit of trying to avoid terms solely in the comp plan. Yes.

Got it. And then one other kind of set of questions I have is around... just like if we create this greater flexibility in our zoning code, the public and charter schools will still be bound policy guidance by NCDPI or Wake County School Board or whatever. But religious and private schools, I don't think have any sort of other governance. And so we're kind of the last line of defense. So while I can hold some space for like a retrofitted Walgreens right on a bus line making sense, but like how do we make sure like there are not like kids crammed into every corner such that it might impact their learning? Is there any?

Yeah, so I think the... There's a life safety backstop with the building code and fire code relating to occupancy to avoid overcrowding and those sorts of things. That is one way. And then I think the Planning Commission did have some discussion on this, or at least the Text Change Committee did, and felt that those existing standards, just the general site design standards, things like outdoor amenity area requirements, et cetera, would still apply regardless of the type of school. And so they felt that that would effectively mitigate any of those types of concerns.

Okay. What are the outdoor amenity requirements?

It would be 10% of the site size would have to be dedicated outdoor amenity space for use of, in this case, children.

Okay. 10% of the site area? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

One question. Yeah. How many, with the restriction of not being adjacent to any of our residentials outside of R10, how many properties does this really open up for this use?

Yes. So here, Yes. OK, so in purple, we have mixed-use zoning. Yellow is the R1, 2, 4, and 6. So of all of the mixed-use, looking at mixed-use properties that do not abut those residential zoning districts, you look at approximately almost 12,000 parcels that would be potentially eligible to not have to comply with that minimum lot size requirement.

And it's really properties in the middle of the mixed use, basically? That's right. Okay. Thank you.

Other questions for staff? Okay. I will open up the public hearing, and we have Hunter Winstead in support, and in opposition, we have Larissa Green. And what are we doing, four? Yep.

Good afternoon, one more time, Mayor Cowell, Council Members Hunter Winstead, Morning Star Law Group. This is my last case today. I think it's everybody's last case today. It's everybody's last one. So we certainly appreciate everybody's attention and bearing with us on a long day. This is one, as Mr. Amedda mentioned, that this text change really aimed at expanding the current exemption to the city's urban areas, and so transit to Council Member Patton's question. Certainly a piece of that but really the focus is on those urban areas which is why we think time to the zoning makes sense as well. I won't walk through all the language. A little bit of the why this tech change is here. We've had several folks come to us looking to put schools in some of the city's more urban areas and this is one of these kind of strange provisions in the code that inhibits that siding of these smaller, more walkable schools in these mixed use, more urban areas. It's really a suburban type style to link lot area to the enrollment piece of how many students can be enrolled in a given school. Just a few of the reasons as to why this case makes sense to us. Reason number one, smaller walkable schools really foster stronger communities. And this is just a few of those comprehensive plan policies that that speak to that point is the ability to have a smaller school that's walkable that you can get to on foot in five minutes or so really helps foster the community around the school advancing those comprehensive plan policies. Reason number two, there's no reason that schools need to be limited to suburban context, specifically school access should be accessible for folks in the urban areas of the city too. Maybe one of the unintended consequences of a lot area requirement like this is it pushes schools out of the city to the more edges of the city where those suburban areas are because that's where all the large sites are where you can put more students and have that lot area sufficient under this 500 square foot requirement. And then reason number three, the size of a lot really should not prevent easier access to education in those urban areas. Again, this is focused on enhancing access to education for the folks, for the students that live in those more urban areas. That's really what this application is aimed at. And with that, I'll sit down on this last case and respectfully request that the council approve this text change. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Questions for Mr. Winstead? Okay, if not, we will invite Ms. Green.

Hello Madam Mayor and Council Members. I know a lot has gone on with this text change before this point and honestly I don't oppose this change because it seems to specifically allow schools to be built in mixed use zoning without meeting the standard lot size. I am a supporter of school choice. I am here to ensure this change isn't misused. What we do not want to see is all new schools being built with smaller lot standards. We do not want all new schools in downtown or mixed use areas to have different access to open space or natural environments. We need to recognize that school lot size benefits safety and allows classroom activities to occasionally move outside the building. As our city grows, we have less space to develop and we need to make sure policy is intentional and about protecting what we have while it potentially allows new development to differ from existing standards. In the news right now, there is active discussion about a land swap between school property for affordable housing. It appears that this policy change is not associated with that land swap, but leadership's accountability to make sure there is transparency in public land use so that people clearly understand changes to policy affecting the future as a whole picture. Right now, the county reports five schools that are potentially swapping open space, one of which is in the Raleigh limits. Also in the news is a new school being built in the city gateway development. Please ensure this reduction in school lot standards does not pressure schools open space into being swapped for development. Please make sure that this reduction in school lot standards does not lead to an overall different school experience for those attending school in a mixed use area versus a residential area. Policy change that allows something to occur and resulting changes must both be considered. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, I will close the hearing discussion.

Okay, I move to approve text change TC 126. Second.

Is there any discussion? All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

I'm sorry, we needed that consistency statement.

Okay. I'm fine. You can read it.