Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission, thank you everybody for attending today. First order of business, we'll call this meeting to order. And the second order of business is public comment. So at the beginning of each planning commission meeting, we allow the public a space to comment on any items that are not currently on the agenda. So is there anybody here that wishes to speak on an item that is not on today's agenda? If it's on the agenda, you'll receive a portion of time to speak on that at a later time. All right. Thank you very much. Moving on to the consent agenda. First item on the consent agenda is the approval of the minutes. And let's vote on these separately. So we'll look at the approval of the minutes. Has the commission had a chance to read and approve the minutes? Any comments? Commissioner Walters?

I reviewed the minutes and nothing really notable. Sally Hoyt's first name is missing from the beginning, but other than that, I would make a motion to approve as written.

Thank you very much. Has that been noted? We'll need to add that to the minutes. Thank you. Do we have a second? Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor of approving the minutes? Minutes pass. Second item on the consent agenda is rezoning Z826. And we are looking to defer this potentially as the recommended action to bring it back at a later time, but I know that we've received some emails. I want to check to see if anybody here present in the audience today has come to speak about Z826 Rock Quarry Road. And if so, I want to make sure you get a chance to speak before we send you home. All right. Seeing nobody wishing to speak on that item, we can go ahead and vote on, can I get a motion to defer this until the next meeting?

I make a motion to defer the case of Z826 to the next meeting for the Planning Commission.

We have a motion. Is there a second? Motion and a second. All in favor? Opposed? Consent agenda passes unanimously. That brings us to new business, and our first order of business is rezoning Z5024 at Garner Road. We will hear from Hannah Reckow, and this will open our public hearing. Thank you.

Good morning Planning Commission. Hannah Reckow, Planning and Development. This is rezoning Z5024, a request to rezone 2245 Garner Road from R10 to commercial mixed use five stories conditional use. This is a single parcel, just under 10 acres in size. located in South Raleigh. You can see the existing zoning context here is a mix of residential and industrial. You can see Garner Road forms that boundary west side. We have heavy industrial and then a mix of mainly residential designations to the east. A few parcels also have commercial mixed use zoning. The land use on the site follows that zoning, so residential neighborhoods to the north and south of the site and to the east. Biltmore Hills Park is just to the east, but a small amount of that, there's a shared property line there, and then existing industrial uses along to the west. Here's some views of the site. It's currently a multi-use center located on the site. You can see, located on a portion of the site, a good portion of it is forested, undeveloped. There are two proposed zoning conditions. One would prohibit some uses normally allowed in CX, including adult establishments, vehicle sales and vehicle repair, crematorium, tattoo parlors. There is also a condition that would limit other land uses on the site, so no more than 150 dwelling units, office limited to no more than 50,000 square feet, and then retail no more than 47,500 square feet. So we have a increase in building height here, increase in the number of dwelling units that could be built. Again, that's capped by the zoning condition. It would allow different building types, smaller setbacks. And then sort of a larger look at the entitlement picture before and after year. Introducing commercial uses to the sites that are capped by those zoning conditions. This site is in an area that has a lower walk score than average. I'll note that that metric doesn't have just to do with infrastructure, but also destinations to walk to. I think that is playing a piece in here that there's not a lot of places to walk to in the area. Higher transit score, because there is transit access on Garner Road, and a lower bike score than the city average. So routes 20A and 20B, connecting Raleigh and Garner, serve Garner Road, and there is a stop just south of the site. The request would increase the number of housing units on the site. There's no guaranteed subsidized units. It is within walking distance of a transit stop. Looking at area demographics, area residents are more likely to be racial minorities, more likely to be low income, and more likely to have less than high school education than the citywide average. Future land use guidance in this area is as diverse as the zoning is currently. So the designation here is moderate scale residential. The requested CX5 CU is inconsistent with that designation. And then this is on a urban thoroughfare on the urban form map, which would recommend a frontage. They're not offering a frontage, so it is for that reason inconsistent. Although this is one of those situations where really no properties, no zoning in the area has a frontage. So there's this trade-off between, if they were to add a frontage, it would be significantly different from the surrounding area, which often happens with that first one. So inconsistent with the Urban Forum map. Consistent overall with the comprehensive plan, though. There are a number of policies ranging from compact development, capitalizing on the transit access, the conditions that manage some commercial development impacts, but also keeping a mix of uses in that district, and then increasing housing in the proposed zoning. Inconsistent policies are touching again on the future land use map, the urban form map, and then the existing fire service considerations in this area. Because it's inconsistent with the Future Land Use Map, approval would be a de facto amendment to the map from moderate scale to community mixed use. So that the parcel would be read if it were approved. Your deadline for action is July 25th and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Ms. Reckow. We will keep the hearing open and at this time we will provide 10 minutes for the applicant to present. And those in favor.

All right, good morning, everyone. My name is Simone Bullock-Dillahunt. I currently serve as vice president of Fertile Ground Food Cooperative.

Hi, Jen Truman here as a board member for Fertile Ground.

And we are here regarding rezoning case Z5024 located at 2245 Garner Road. So our request is to rezone this to CX5CU to accomplish three things. One, to allow for a grocery store. We are in the process of building a community-owned cooperative grocery store, and this will be the most appropriate designation to allow for a full-size grocery store at that location. We also want to be mindful of including the existing center. So this site is currently home to the JD Lewis Center, which is a multi-purpose center. They offer youth basketball camps, clinics. They also have physical therapy and other services available on site. And so this is a civic use allowed in any zoning designation. Lastly, we want to request this rezoning to allow us to accomplish our vision for a health campus. So this is a proud partnership between the J.D. Lewis Center and ourselves, Vertical Ground Food Cooperative, with hopes to build a long-term home for health and wellness in Southeast Raleigh. So the site, as mentioned earlier, currently sits between a lot of cool things, established neighborhoods such as Biltmore Hills, the J.D. Lewis Center, which is located on the map in front of the blue box there, Biltmore Hills Park, shown beside the site to the east. So it's a really amazing site with a lot of deep, rich community history, and so we're excited to have the opportunity to partner with J.D. Lewis Center, and it's really come full circle for us. So as I mentioned, our vision extends beyond just planning and building a community-owned grocery store. We are planning that, but we are also planning a site connected to wellness, gathering, education, nature, and everyday community life. And so the goal is to create a store that is also a welcoming community asset that reflects Southeast Raleigh itself. And so lots of long-term conversation about what that could look like, but first starting with the existing JD Lewis Center and transitioning into the grocery store. All right, so this is a sneak peek conceptual rendering of what the store could look like. Obviously, lots of things will impact what the store actually looks like, including cost, availability of materials, et cetera. But we are super excited about the progress that has been made so far in the planning, and lots of credit to my fellow board member here, Jen Truman, for her incredible work, working alongside Andre Johnson Architects to bring this project to life. So I'm going to kick it over to Jen to talk a little bit more.

Yeah, so I get to do all the technical stuff. So as Hannah shared, the current zoning on the site is R10, and I wanted to zoom out just a little further so that you guys could see the variety of zoning that is available all along Garner Road. You know, we're near I-40 here. We have industrial sites. We have a mixture of housing types and a mixture of mixed-use types as well, so just to give additional context. And the same applies with the future land use. There's actually quite a bit of community mixed use along this corridor, as well as kind of goals for transitioning that industrial site to business and commercial services. So we believe that even though we may be technically inconsistent with the future land use on this particular site, that the overall neighborhood and context provides good reason for this site to be more than just a residentially zoned parcel. And the urban format map indicates the same with the mixed use center across the street. And I just wanted to highlight that we're actually nestled in between two frequent transit overlay districts with a bus route along Garner Road that directly serves this site as well. And there is also a future planned greenway along the property line with Biltmore Hills Park. And we look forward to that greenway being connected. by the city one day soon, hopefully. And then just zooming in onto our site specifically, I wanted to bring to your attention, because some folks may ask why we don't have any specific environmental conditions at this time, we wanted to honor the deed restricted permanent open space that already takes up almost half of the site. So this is permanently deed restricted where nothing can be built on that area that is the most environmentally sensitive area of the site that is already in place under the existing property owners. And so just wanted to bring that to your attention. And then zooming back out, what's key to Fertile Ground is that we are solving a larger problem in Southeast Raleigh. As many of you all know, we have food deserts, which means that folks have trouble getting to the grocery store because it's too far away or too hard to get to. And it's always been a goal of Fertile Ground to locate directly in those food deserts, directly in Southeast Raleigh, to be owned by residents and shopped by residents. So we're asking for commercial mixed use. And we're asking for five stories. And to place a little context around that, we have a lot of grade change and site and soil conditions on the site that we're needing to mitigate in the construction of our building, including over 20 feet of grade change just between Garner Road and the JD Lewis Center, where we're placing our building. So we're asking for these stories to allow the flexibility for the appropriate kind of development on the site to respond to those grade changes. And our conditions, as staff explained, are to limit those unintended uses that we don't plan to develop on the site, and then also to limit the overall size of the development, so as to limit the impact both to traffic and to the neighborhood. So in short, what this rezoning will do is bring healthy food, food access, jobs, gathering space, environmentally conscious development, and the community co-op ownership aspect to Southeast Raleigh neighborhoods that need and deserve it. And I'm actually going to turn it over to Simone just to take a minute to tell you a little bit more about fertile ground itself.

Thank you. So who we are. So Fertile Ground is a cooperative grocery store. You all may be familiar with this framework. We do have a cooperative grocery store in the area, Weaver Street Market. So we are a community-owned grocery store where shoppers, workers, and farmers collectively guide the business. We also hope to include a community gathering space that will be a flexible space for events, education, cultural programming, meetings, and connection. This was REQUESTED BY OUR MEMBERS AND IT'S BEEN REALLY IMPORTANT FOR US TO INCLUDE THIS IN OUR WORK AND PLAN. AND THEN LASTLY, OUR VISION AND LEADERSHIP IS JUST TO ESTABLISH A MULTI-STAKEHOLDER GROCERY STORE AND A COMMUNITY GATHERING SPACE THAT INCREASES ACCESS TO HEALTHY AFFORDABLE FOOD IN THE SOUTHEAST RALEIGH COMMUNITY. SO WE REALLY WANT TO CREATE A SPACE THAT GIVES LONG-TERM OPPORTUNITY TO THE SOUTHEAST RALEIGH COMMUNITY AND RESIDENTS AS WELL AS BEYOND SOUTHEAST RALEIGH AS WELL. BUT WITH A SPECIFIC FOCUS ON SOUTHEAST RALEIGH. So we have a couple goals, and we recently kind of reworked this to just further reflect some language that we stand behind. So our goal is to do a couple things. So cultivate a system of food security in southeast Raleigh by investing in a community-owned grocery store and gathering space. We want to nourish our community of historically black community of workers, shoppers, farmers by providing dignified jobs, fresh and affordable food, and wealth-building opportunities in this community. And lastly, we want to harvest a healthy, informed, and engaged community with an enhanced quality of life. So really creating a merger between a grocery store and again that community gathering space so that we can continue to shift people's understanding of the food system, how they interact with food from conception to consumption. And just to reiterate again our mission and our vision is to establish a multi-stakeholder grocery store and serve as an intergenerational hub for Southeast Raleigh residents in our community. All right, and that concludes our presentation. Questions?

Thank you. We'll reserve a minute and 42 seconds of your time if you need to have a rebuttal, and we will now provide an opportunity for those that are opposed to the application to speak. Is there anybody that wishes to speak in opposition? All right, seeing no one, we will keep the public hearing open, but we'll bring it back to the commissioner's table for questions for staff and the applicant. Please remember to keep this section for questions as well as we can. I know that there's a fuzzy line, but bring it back here. Does anybody have any questions?

Okay. I'm just trying to figure out if asking for a condition is allowed in this portion, or do we wait for that?

The way the conditions work, the applicant must voluntarily bring them forward, but it would be appropriate during the comments section, or during these questions, to ask them what kind of conditions they'd be willing to offer if you have concerns.

I do. I wanted to ask if you all would be considered, I saw the things that you all were limiting. I was wondering if you all would be considering also adding a condition of limiting tobacco and or vape shops as well as liquor stores.

Is that allowed under the code?

We have specific limitations as to how we word those, but liquor, I'm not as familiar with the regulation, how we've done that in the past. Tobacco, we usually just say no vape shops. We can't prohibit the sale of tobacco products.

I would admit they have vape shops, if you all are willing to add a condition to limit vape shops and liquor stores.

Yeah, I think there's no intention to have those and so whatever the correct wording is we can work with staff to add something that's appropriate.

Yeah, I agree. I think we can add those conditions. Again, our goal is to create a wellness campus, and I think we know the impact that these things have had on historically black communities, and our goal would not to be to add additional things to our community. We really want to focus on the grocery aspect, creating affordable food access in our community and education, and so that is the goal.

Commissioner Omekye, would you be comfortable moving this along with the applicant's stated intention to bring this condition forward, or would you like to see it back here for a vote with the conditions in front of the Planning Commission?

I agree with, I think that what they're planning on putting there is important. I'm very familiar with Fertile Ground as an organization for their mission. I'm only asking for the purpose of sometimes if we don't think to put that in writing, who knows what happens down the line. So just to protect the integrity of what you all are trying to do. But I'm for this. I'm willing to vote on this.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, if I can just clarify, I did confer with staff. We have not done a liquor condition to their knowledge in the past. So it would probably just be limited to a prohibition on vape shops.

Does that mean we can't do a liquor condition?

There are some limitations in state law as to regulation of liquor sales. My guess is that's something that we have not allowed to be put into conditions in the past.

Does that mean it can't be put in a condition?

I would, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Commissioner Walters, sorry. Getting used to sitting in the middle.

All good, thank you. I just had a couple clarifying questions for Ms. Truman. Could you just speak to the thought process for why you're asking for CX-5 and not CX-3 in terms of the height of your building, just the height of your building that you showed what seemed like a single-story building or maybe a, JUST WANTED TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS ON THAT AND WHY YOU DIDN'T INCLUDE ANY CONDITIONS ON FRONTAGE OR WHY THE PARKING IS IN FRONT OF THE BUILDING.

Yes, so to speak to the height first, the grocery store, as we have it planned, has two tall stories, because they're commercial spaces, and the second story mezzanine is an event space to provide that gathering space that's available to the community, as well as the existing building has a gymnasium. And there is significant grade change, so between Garner Road and the current JD Lewis Center, I might be able to go back quickly. I went back to the topography map, so like where we're putting the yellow building here. There's over 20 feet of grade change from the road to the building and back up, down. So from the road is up, back down, and then back up to the building. And because of the difference in height from the road, from the existing building, and from what we're trying to propose, as well as the fact that through our environmental studies we found that there was unsuitable fill on site in certain locations, we wanted to be able to allow the maximum flexibility for future development because of the way that the UDO constrains average heights. AND THE OTHER QUESTION WAS ABOUT FRONTAGE. WE CONSIDERED ADDING A FRONTAGE WHEN STAFF BROUGHT IT UP, BUT AS STAFF MENTIONED, THERE'S NOT REALLY ANY COMPATIBLY FRONTAGED PROPERTY ALONG THE STRETCH OF GORNER ROAD, AND THEN IN ADDITION FOR GROCERY STORES, ALL OF OUR GROCERY STORE ADVISORS ADVISED THAT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THE PARKING LOT. So right now what we have proposed just has two bays of parking but those are really essential for you to be able to see so that folks that need a car to go get their groceries know that they have a place to park and we'll stop back inside to shop and help our co-op keep going.

Thank you. Commissioner McKay.

I have a question for staff. On the presentation of the affordability analysis, it says, does not include subsidized units, and then it says, includes subsidized units.

Yeah, I apologize. That's a typo. There's no condition guaranteeing subsidized units in this request. Thank you.

Commissioner O'Haver? Yeah, sorry, Hannah. They mentioned an existing deed on the, I guess, east side of the property. I see where that's zoned open space, but can you talk a little bit about that? And the reason I'm asking, again, I understand the intent, but I'm concerned about that rear setback line with the existing family homes. But if there's a deed there, then the point is moot, so.

So I want to make sure I understand your question. The zoning on the whole property is R10.

The applicant mentioned that the back half of the property was deed restricted, and I didn't see that in the staff report presentation. I just wanted to ask you about that.

Yes, there's a OSPACE deed on that half of the property. Great, thank you.

OK, NOT SEEING ANY MORE QUESTIONS FROM THE COMMISSION, WE WILL CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING AT THIS TIME AND OPEN UP THE TABLE FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATE. DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY COMMENTS OR DISCUSSION? COMMISSIONER FOX?

I SHARE THE SENTIMENT OF COMMISSIONER OMAKAE AND SEEING THAT THE APPLICANT WAS was willing to add an additional condition relating to vape shops, I'm comfortable moving it forward at this time.

Thank you, Commissioner Fox. Is there any further comments or discussion? Let's open the floor for a motion.

I move to recommend the adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated May 26, 2026, containing the agenda materials to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommendation also includes an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement for KZ 5024. Second.

There is a motion from Commissioner Omekai, and that was Commissioner Burnett. The second, to recommend approval for Z5024. Is there any further discussion or debate on the topic? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. So all those in favor, please, by a show of hands. All those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. And at this time, I'd also like to note that we have full attendance. So I want to make sure everybody gets marked as present for today, please. Thank you. Next up on the agenda, we have rezoning case Z5125 for 4804 and 4808 Spring Forest Road. And we will receive a presentation from staff from Mitra Sheshbaradaran. And at this time, the... She gave you a thumbs up.

Okay, good, yeah.

I've been practicing. And the public hearing is officially open. Thank you.

Good morning, Commissioners. Meet Roshesh Baradaran covering Z5125. This is a request to rezone just under four acres of land located at 4804 and 4808 Spring Forest Road from R1 to commercial mixed use three stories with conditions. Deadline for action is July 25th. Zoning in the area is a mix of residential west of the site and then mixed use with a commercial development on the property's eastern property line and then also along the, along Lewisburg Road and at the intersection with Spring Forest Road. Here's a look at the site and some surrounding land uses today. As you can see, majority residential west of the site, a variety of subdivisions that are primarily detached home subdivisions. There are a few apartment developments closer to Lewisburg Road, and then as well as a variety of civic uses and institutional uses, East Millbrook Middle School, some churches and community centers as well. And then a little bit more of a closer look to the uses immediately abutting the site. The Brandemere subdivision and Willowdean Acre subdivision are both detached home subdivisions. And then again, those apartment complexes, the Amber Springs, which is on the eastern property line of the site, and then two others just northeast of the site. And then the existing commercial development at the intersection of Spring Forest and Lewisburg Road features a Food Lion, McDonald's, Valero gas station, And then across Lewisburg Road is a car dealership and an auto body shop. Currently on the site today, there is one existing single-family detached home on the northwest corner of the site, which is on the 4804 parcel, and the larger 4808 parcel is currently undeveloped. And in terms of frontage of the site, no existing pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure in this area or on this stretch of Spring Forest Road. And then that third image is the rear of the site, showing the stub street that comes from the Brandemere subdivision. The applicant has proposed two conditions. The first is prohibiting certain uses otherwise allowed in CX, the cemetery, adult establishment, detention center, dormitory, and the like, and then telecommunication towers. And then the second condition is limiting development intensities for future development of the site at their max, capping entitlement at 100 residential units or 40,000 square feet of retail or 80,000 square feet of office or a mix of those intensities for other scenarios. Another look at entitlement between the existing and proposed and development standards. Under the current R1 zoning, max height is three stories up to 40 feet versus three stories up to 50 feet in a CX3 district. In R1, only the detached house building type is permitted with the listed setbacks with a density cap of roughly one unit per acre, which gets to an estimate of four units on the existing zoning across the site. And then going to the proposed zoning, all housing types are permitted, so setbacks listed there for the detached house and apartment building types. And then those square footage and unit estimates come from the conditions. Overall, the site is an area that is less walkable and bikeable than other areas in the city on average. It is not served directly by transit. Residents in the area have average transportation costs and average access to jobs. Like I mentioned, the site is not directly served by transit. The nearest line is a mile west of the site with service at East Millbrook Middle School. Overall, the request would add to the housing supply and would permit a variety of housing types. It does not include any subsidized units, and again, it's not directly served by transit. Residents in this area are more likely to be people of color and more likely to be low income, and then rents in this area have increased less than the citywide average since 2019. Overall, the request is inconsistent with the future land use map designation of low scale residential for this site. There is no urban form guidance and the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan overall. Consistent policies here speak to conditional use district consistency, supporting more compact development patterns across the city, reducing vehicle miles traveled by encouraging mixed use development on the site and also nearby existing residential, and then also policies that support expanding housing variety options and choice, especially in existing residential areas in the city. Inconsistent policies are related to the future land use map inconsistency as well as fire service response time standards. Overall approval of the request by City Council would result in amending the future land use map from low-scale residential to community mixed use, which would look like this on the map. There are no outstanding issues. Happy to answer any questions. The applicant is here as well as members of the public.

Thank you for the presentation. At this time, we will allow 10 minutes for the applicant and those in favor to speak. Please come to the podium and state your name for the record.

Good morning, Chair Atwell, commissioners, Hunter Winstead Morningstar Law Group representing the applicant with me this morning is Mr. James Moss. He is the manager of Moss Construction and Design.

There we go, thanks so much.

So within a rezoning case, of course the two big picture questions are reasonableness and the public interest. We believe that we check the box on both of these kind of overall arching issues. Turning first to reasonableness, we've got two points on reasonableness, two points on public interest. The first one on reasonableness is, This case advances some key comprehensive plan policies, as Mitra mentioned. There's eight specific policies that are shown on the screen. I won't walk through each of them, but the one I want to highlight is LU810. This is really infill development at its core. One way you can really clearly see this is if you drive down or walk down Spring Forest Road, if you're coming essentially from the right of the screen through Brandemere over, you'll notice that the sidewalk ends and that there is this large gap of no sidewalk and not a widened Spring Forest Road. But then if you get on the other side where the Food Lion is, you'll notice that the sidewalk picks up again and that the road is widened and there's this gap where our site is, where the road is two lanes, it's that original designation. And so this infill development site, allowing the site to develop will allow that connection to take place where a tier three site plan comes in to establish that mixed use on this site, allowing Spring Forest to then be widened to its planned four lane avenue designation on the future street plan. So that's really one of the main highlights I wanted to point out for the commission's benefit. Again, these eight specific policies, that infill development one is the one that really stands out to us. Second, I think it's helpful to just address the future land use map here. We're completely recognizing, going eyes wide open, there's an inconsistency on that low scale residential Why updating the future land use map here makes sense is because it's a little bit antiquated when you are there on the ground and you see what's surrounding this site. And so again, looking at the screen, going from the far right, essentially everything from the far right over to the site is low scale residential. The only one in this area that's squarely consistent with that future land use map is the one all the way on the far right, which is R6. As you move toward the site coming eastward, again, this is facing south, just to get a better picture of the site on that spring forest frontage, you'll notice that this R10, the Brenneman neighborhood, this portion that surrounds the site is currently zoned R10. which is the highest density of all of the residential designations in the UDO, not exactly squarely consistent with that low scale residential future land use map. And so you see a little bit of disparity as you get closer to the site with what's on the ground now and what the future land use map designates. Same thing is true on the other side. This is a parcel that's zoned CX. with no conditions, again the highest intensity commercial district in the UDO with a neighborhood mixed use future land use map designation. So what you see when you're on the ground is all of the surrounding area really has that bump in intensity up from what the future land use map designates and again what's there. That's really the main reason why we think it makes sense to update the future land use map in this area for that community to mixed use designation. Again, just looking at what's on the ground. If we were to be squarely consistent, The reason would be for R6, which really doesn't make sense if you go, you know, R6 as you're moving closer to 401 to those more commercial uses that are already established, going R6, R10 back to R6 to CX, again, we're abutting the majority of the site abuts that CX3, just really doesn't make sense to us. That's the reason for the proposal to update that future land use map designation Turning to issue number two, which is the public interest. The big thing for us is that this application allows increased housing supply. And again, right next to that establish mixed use node. What I've pulled up for the board's benefit, the commission's benefit, is just the mixed use building from UDO section 3.2.6, just as a conceptual rendering of what could be placed here if this rezoning request is approved. showing that mixed use building with kind of that retail on the first floor, apartments or office up top, showing this example of potentially having apartments right there, again, through a tier three site plan, building out the rest of Spring Forest Road in this section to allow that walkability where folks living in these apartments and folks living in Brandemere next door could walk through the site to get to the food line, the McDonald's, all the other commercial uses that are right there. So again that increased housing supply being number one. Number two being allowing that walkability and community serving retail again on the first floor just as a potential option if this rezoning approved. Again showing first floor retail, their apartments above, finishing out that sidewalk, allowing that connectability. So again, those are really the four main points that I wanted to bring to the commission's attention. Again, the request is to adopt the consistency statement and recommend approval. Again, James and I are here to answer any questions. With that, I'll reserve the remainder of our time.

Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation. We'll retain four minutes and 59 seconds for response, if necessary. We'll now provide 10 minutes for those opposed to the application request. With those that are in opposition, please approach the podium and state your name for the public record. and please be considerate of those who are behind you that you have 10 minutes collectively.

Sure, gotcha. David Bender, I live in the Willowdean neighborhood nearby. I have a little PowerPoint to show you from the perspective of a community member speaking on behalf of a lot of the neighborhoods around there. As shown here, this does not comply with the future land use map. It's also not designated as a future growth area in the future land use map. It's not designated as a future city-oriented transit district, which is why it is... articulated in the master plan that it will remain a low dense housing area. There's overwhelming opposition from the community we'll get into. There's a plethora of unused commercial retail space in the area. The attorney for the developer states that it may increase housing, but we'll get into that in a minute. And the developer claims he doesn't know what he wants to use the space for to begin with. I don't need to get into this, but under the Raleigh Master Plan, the first analysis is whether it is consistent with the future land use map. It's not. Here is the area here, low use residential, envisioning up through at least 2030 that it should be R2, R4, and R6. So currently it's R1, understood, but it's envisioning that it should be low density residential going to the future, but for good reason. Because if you look at the future growth transit map, there are no transportation corridors currently here. It's not served by Raleigh GO, which is actually creating issues for the senior apartment communities nearby. So it's not contemplated to increase transportation in this area. So therefore, it was contemplated to leave it as lower use residential. Again, here's the, there's no future proposed transportation in the area. I kind of zoomed in there. I'm sorry I'm going through so fast because I want to address a few things. The zoning requirement in, according to city statute policy LU64 is you have to coordinate the dedication of land and the rezoning process with transportation, meaning a bus route, bus stop facilities. There are no bus stop facilities there. There is no transportation there, and it is not contemplated for the future as of now. City policy also if I'm not mistaken, can correct me, but this area's actually within the ETJ. City policy states that it's not the intention to rezone R1 areas within the ETJ for a variety of reasons, I've highlighted them here, I don't wanna get into it. But one of the issues is to preserve rural character of these areas. Contrary to what the developer says, the area does have a lot of rural characteristics. It's right around the corner across from a multi-hundred acre farm. This area with a single use home was a farm. before the gentleman passed away. City policy states that the city should not prioritize annexation with the ETJ for a variety of areas, that if ETJ is considered, it should only occur after appropriate transportation, stormwater, and wastewater infrastructure is in place. We've already established there's no transportation infrastructure in place, there's no transportation infrastructure contemplated. The attorney said, well, currently there's no sidewalk there, we'll get into that in a couple minutes, but let's just talk about safety considerations. Any mixed use developments need to be pedestrian friendly. This entire area is not pedestrian friendly right now. In fact, I'm gonna introduce you to an individual in this PowerPoint who can prove that. Right now, you have sort of surrounded by two senior housing communities, low income senior housing. And the low-income senior housing uses that food line shopping area. There is no crosswalk across one of the busiest streets in Raleigh. So you have these seniors in wheelchairs or electric wheelchairs who are constantly needing to be rescued in the middle of Spring Forest. We'll get into that in a minute. There's no, it's just a couple weeks ago I happened to be in there. I'd like to introduce you to this lady in this electric wheelchair. Her name is Jerry. She's 92 years old. She moved here a year ago from New York. I found her in the middle of the street with the electric, in Spring Forest, with cars almost hitting her. I kind of pushed her to the side, stopping traffic. The fire department came to rescue her. Got the video of them here running across the street, dodging traffic. This happens on a monthly basis here because there's no crosswalk between that senior housing community or the other one and this area. Who zoned that previous area and ignored that there should be a crosswalk there? I submit it was this gentleman right behind me. So thirdly, through multiple community meetings, we've had two community meetings. I'd like to talk about the prior person here said, we're gonna ask for mixed conditions based upon public interest, arguing that there's a grading problem or a water area. What problem does this solve? We've had none of that given to you by the developer here. You have a ton of commercial space that is vacant in the area. You have the food line, which does decently because it serves our community, but you have three businesses which are on the verge of bankruptcy, a barber shop, a pizza joint, which did go bankrupt recently and just changed owner's shop, and down the street you have A huge dry cleaner empty in a commercial spot that's been vacant for two years. Does not solve a problem in our community. There is no talk about soil conditions and changes in grade which should dictate this. If you're talking about housing, well I'll get into that in a second. What will the community accept? Because I'm speaking on behalf of hundreds of people, and I've got a couple people from the community here. The community's voice, and we'll get into that in a minute, is to be consistent with the master plan, which says we're OK with housing there. There needs to be an increase in housing that serves the community. We're okay with even senior housing there as is, but that can be consistent with R2, R4, R6, which is consistent with the future master plan and the future transportation map of Raleigh. We have a petition, this was a few days ago, we're up to 120 signatures right now, and it encompasses all the neighborhoods around here, pretty much opposed to this. So I know that the attorney for developer says, well, if you drive through, you'll see consistency. No, from the perspective of people who live there, who are invested in the community, who actually live there, we feel that if you drive through there, you would notice that a commercial mixed use development does not fit the area as well. And from the perspective of people who live there who end up pushing seniors out of the street and risking life on them, commercial development does not dictate, a sidewalk could be built there with residential with R2, R4, R6, a residential home that actually fits the needs, you can still have it. You don't need a commercial development to dictate a widening of the road or a sidewalk. In fact, city statute also states that the infrastructure should be addressed before the zoning takes place. You don't go and say, you build a commercial development, oh, now people are almost getting hit in the street, mm, we need to put a crosswalk in. That should have been contemplated to begin with. So we're sort of moving backwards here. So last couple quick things I'd like to say is, as was addressed, there are a majority of residential detached homes. There's no pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure. Zoning it for commercial does not guarantee anything. And the developer has had no experience, as far as I'm aware, with mixed-use developments. Zira, I've asked the attorney multiple times. He promised at the community meeting to give us examples of that. if you go to the developer's website, only has experience with single family homes. And we're not opposed to that. We're not even opposed to rezoning for higher density homes. We're opposed to commercial mixed use that does not fit the character of the community, the future land use map, the transportation courier, et cetera. And let's see. That's it. I will... Any questions for me?

Thank you, Mr. Bender. We will call on you if we have any questions after the comments are over. There's a minute and 15 seconds remaining on the opposition clock. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak in opposition? Please keep an eye on your time and state your name for the record when you get to the podium, please.

My name is Scott Ayers. I live at 5537 Silverash Drive, so our property actually borders a significant portion of this property. My wife is going to attend today, but she, who's normally been a healthy person, is so stressed out by this whole situation that she has been home pretty much throwing up and some other horrible things since Friday. You know, there's no, nothing's been talked about regarding, I mean, obvious things to me would be, are they going to pop the street through? The drainage, how they could negatively impact that and the trees, and I know they're probably going to say, well, we'll take care of all that. There's a history of that not happening. So, and again, the inconsistency in the process I'd like to mention because I went to both community meetings. I have canvassed the surrounding neighborhoods, might have yet to find somebody that wants commercial in there. Everybody wants residential or no change. The community meeting notices magically were not distributed as they're supposed to be by statute.

And please finish your thought.

And even the same, it was interesting to me, now I grew up in Florida in a sunshine state, sunshine law state, but the notification for this hearing is on A little sign with the CR code on the side of the road. So I don't, you know, from a safety standpoint, that just seems very ill-conceived. You're not supposed to be even texting on your phone. You're supposed to drive by and flash it. There's no place to park. So that's the end of my thoughts. I'll go back.

Thank you very much. At this time, the public comment section is closed. We'll keep the hearing open and bring it back to the table for comments. I think Commissioner Neptune has a question. I have a question. Please go ahead, Commissioner Neptune.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a question for Raleigh Transportation staff. Specifically, I'd like to know with regard to our 2025 active mobility plan for bike lanes and sidewalks and driving future investments and improvements and expanding that infrastructure across the city. Does the city currently anticipate any improvements in this area with regard to this public infrastructure and this project we're talking about?

Good morning, Barbara Godwin with Transportation. So the active mobility plan has called out Spring Forest Road as a priority bikeway corridor. There's an active project happening west of the site where staff is working on some early preliminary design work, but it does not overlap with the site.

So I think I heard a bike lane or a bike lane corridor. What about sidewalk connectivity and improving that infrastructure?

So it is called out on our sidewalk network for needing infrastructure. It's not on our active mobility plan priority list at this time.

Thank you. Commissioner Omakai.

I kind of want to piggyback on that. Commissioner Nepson's comment, question about reducing vehicle miles traveled, but it has no transit connection and no sidewalk that's prioritized for the site. So I'm trying to figure out how is it reducing vehicle miles traveled? I mean, vehicle miles travel without having to, reducing vehicle miles travel while it's not connected to any sort of transit or walkability.

Right, I think the intent of that policy is that mixed-use centers or commercial development would be nearby existing residential so that people could walk to those areas. And then I'll note that future, potentially, when the request comes in for site plan review, I'll let transportation touch on what the full dedication of the street would entail, but there could be some sidewalk built in with the improvements on Spring Forest Road.

I have another question. Go ahead and follow up, yes. To the applicant. We heard a lot about the crosswalks, the safety issues, safety considerations as far as the low-income senior housing that's there, people getting stuck in the middle of the road, stormwater and grading issues, water retention. How are you all expected to address those situations?

Yeah, absolutely, thank you for that question, Commissioner McKay. I think the main thing, and Commissioner Neptune's point, that the city does not have a plan, or NCDOT does not have a plan to come and build a sidewalk at the frontage of the site. It sounds like that plan is a good ways to the west, which is to the right here. What that means is the only way there's gonna be a sidewalk is if this site gets developed and the developer widens the road and builds a sidewalk. Since we have a future street plan designation on Spring Forest, when a tier three site plan comes through, and I'll let transportation staff correct me if I'm wrong or clarify, once a tier three site plan comes through, there's gotta be that dedication and construction to bring that section of Spring Forest at the frontage up to what it's planned for in the future street plan, which is a four lane divided avenue. which would require sidewalk, I believe. Again, I'll let transportation staff correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's the case. Again, that's after rezoning, site plan comes through, the site's getting developed, it would be a requirement to put that sidewalk there. Was there a second part of your question, Commissioner?

Yeah, but I understand the sidewalk, but they're saying people getting stuck in the street, the crosswalk situation, are you all considering doing anything to make the space safer if you all do develop there.

For across the street, I believe Mr. Bender's talking about the Primavera Apartments across the street. This site, again, it's infill development, it's under four acres. Our conditions are limiting the amount of traffic significantly that could be developed here, which means there's no TIA required. So since there's no TIA required, there's no recommendations for improvements from the city's policy perspective. So no, we haven't proposed any sort of roadway construction off of the site. The part of the frontage of the site has to happen. It's site plan, but there's no off-site improvements that have been offered. Just because it's, again, a small infill development site, it doesn't justify those off-site improvements.

And one last question. Yes, ma'am. With the community's concern about, it sounds like they're willing to have the development go there. They just don't want commercial use. Are you all willing to build residential and not commercial, or is this solely, like, as you all are bringing it, you want to do residential? Yeah, and so...

One thing that Mr. Bender mentioned, which is correct, is Mr. Moss doesn't have, we don't have a tenant in mind, we don't have a specific plan in mind. Again, the idea here is to have the maximum flexibility so when that tenant comes through to build something that makes sense for the surrounding demand. One thing that we heard, and I've talked to several folks personally, but we heard at both neighborhood meetings, is folks would like to have some sort of neighborhood serving retail that they can walk to. Again, these are residents of the Brindamere community that surrounds this site. If it's purely residential, then all they're going to get is neighbors. The CX proposed rezoning allows there to be potentially a bagel shop, potentially a coffee shop, some sort of retail, again, that first floor that's able to serve those folks. And so we really see that as a benefit to the surrounding neighborhood. And again, we got those specific comments from folks. They would actually prefer to have some sort of small-scale retail that they could walk to a coffee shop, walk to get lunch. They can't do that if it's just apartments. So that's, again, the flexibility would be reason number one. Again, no specific plan, but the ability to have that option. And then number two is we heard from some of the neighbors that they would like to have that retail to serve their neighborhood.

Commissioner Fox.

I have a question for staff. It's related to the future land use map. I'm just observing the zoning of that node at the corner of Spring Forest and Lewisburg is all CX and the future land use map is neighborhood mixed use, which seems incongruous. And I was just wondering just for my own education, is that because those were rezoned prior to the state law change requiring a future land use map update?

Yeah, the zoning on that node looks like it's from when the UDO was updated in 2014, so just updated like legacy zoning districts, and I'm imagining that the flume guidance may have come after that.

Okay, because it seems like this is much different if I'm just looking at maps than what is actually on the ground. You may or may not be able to answer this. With the update of the comprehensive plan, I'm assuming that nodes where there's a disconnect between the zoning and the future land use map may be updated.

I might ask Matt Clem or Bynum to touch on that since it speaks to the comprehensive plan.

So just noticing the disconnect between the zoning and the future land use map of adjacent parcels. With the update of the comp plan, I'm assuming that that would likely be something that would be addressed.

Yes, it's very unlikely that we would put forward a future land use map that shows a vision for a lower intensity than what's currently on the ground. Sort of the first underlying principle of the map that was put forward in 2009 was to match existing use to future vision in a city like ours that is growing and in a legislative environment like ours, it is not practical to put forward a vision for less use, less intense use, less density than what is currently on the ground.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cochran.

I have a question for the applicant. The city may be able to answer this if they helped you determine which zoning to request. Yes, ma'am. Noting your comment that this would complete that empty section of sidewalk and looking at the pattern of the other developments along Spring Forest, why are you selecting conditional use rather than parkway frontage?

I believe the parkway frontage would only apply along 401, so even if we had it, I don't think it would apply to our site. That might be, I think I'm right on that. That's why if you look at, and I was trying to pull up where our presentation is, here it is. I believe I've got the, Yeah, I think it's right here. There's that parkway corridor, 401 right here is designated as a parkway corridor. That's why they have those frontages. We're not fronting on 401, we're just on Spring Forest. Yep, thank you.

I'm also gonna add that there's no urban form guidance for the site either, and that's usually where frontage recommendations come from for the applicant.

Any further questions for Commissioner Walters?

I think this is for the applicant.

I'll stay closer instead of keep walking back there.

It's all good. So I think some of the commissioners here are concerned about some of the safety concerns that we heard from the public. But I just wanted some clarification on that crossing. It sounds like there is some issues with crossing near the Primavera across to the McDonald's and the Food Lion. Can you talk about the proximity of that to your site? And who might be responsible for putting in a crosswalk of that nature?

Absolutely. Yeah, we're quite far and I believe this is a mr. Bender could correct me from wrong I think that's roughly it looked like from the video that you put was right on here again Here's the primavera apartments. It looks like there's folks that are trying to cross here I mean you can see that's a good distance away from our site. It's it's well off-site For the record. I did not reason on that Site I think I was in law school, but that happened I don't remember the exact year but that would be a QUITE DRASTIC TO REQUIRE AN INFIL SITE LIKE THIS GOING THROUGH THE REZONING PROCESS TO DO AN OFF SITE ESSENTIALLY TO ADDRESS ANOTHER CASE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS SPECIFIC REQUEST.

WE'RE NOT TAKING COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC AT THIS TIME. THE PUBLIC COMMENT SECTION IS CLOSED.

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

Commissioner Neptune. Thank you. It's a question back to staff. Thank you, Mr. Winstead. And I recognize that this question is, again, with regard to this missing crosswalk and intersection. I suppose that's not honestly relevant to this site specifically. I think it is relevant in the context of the fact that we have residents who are, I think, reasonably concerned about life, safety, and their ability to navigate their community and their neighborhood. So that's why I would like to come back to that question. And for staff specifically, I mean, what would it take perhaps for our residents here to see a crosswalk installed, I guess, across from this Primavera apartment complex?

Barbara Godwin again. So this is an NCDOT corridor, so there would be some coordination between the state, the city, our safety team, and the applicant for that crossing.

So the state maintains this infrastructure? Yes. Wonderful. Thank you, Ms. Godwin.

It'll be Commissioner Omakeye, then Commissioner Fox.

To the applicant, are you all willing to, I know that you all are saying you don't know what you want to put there specifically, but are you all willing to put any conditions like the last case as far as adult stores, vape shops, things like that? Because I also do understand, as a second note, I do understand that developing here will increase traffic so I think that's why the residents are concerned about the crosswalk and things like that even if it doesn't isn't necessarily attached to the site the site will impact the area as far as commercial and bringing more people there which is why I guess they're saying they want it to be more residential so my two-part question is how will you are you willing to take some time to work with the residents to you know address their concerns one and then two um what I said before

Okay, perfect. And yes to both of those. So I'm showing on the screen a summary of our conditions. Both of these are ones that we added between the first neighborhood meeting and the second neighborhood meeting. So at the bottom left here are the prohibited uses. I know it may be kind of hard to see. But rest home, cemetery, adult establishment, like the last case you mentioned, Commissioner McKay, detention center, jail, dormitory, telecommunications towers, all of that is prohibited. Those are allowed in the commercial mixed-use district. We have prohibited those. We're working with, again, that's from the feedback that we heard at the first neighborhood meeting, added these conditions. The other one was that traffic-related portion. The bottom right one, and this one's a little more complicated and it needed staff to walk through some of these numbers, but this is essentially limiting the amount of development that could happen on the site from a traffic perspective. So this gets us below that TIA threshold, which again is that city policy for the amount of development that's gonna happen on a site that requires that traffic study for potential off-site improvements. And so these caps essentially are saying, if the site were developed for residential only, the maximum dwelling units you could have is 100. which is the top one. And so each of these goes through the potential scenarios of what could be developed. There's different mixes, as you can see, and then shows what the cap is. And so that's, again, another condition that we added. Listening to the feedback we heard at the first neighborhood meeting, going to the second neighborhood meeting, we were able to discuss this. And I'll say that it was, I think the case was much better received once we kind of explained these two conditions at the second neighborhood meeting, again, after we took back that feedback from the first one. Does that address your two-part question, I believe it was?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Just so I'm clear, Commissioner Omekaya, you'd asked for a potential condition on, you said adult stores and vape shops. I think adult entertainment is already included in the conditions?

Yes, there could be a condition for vape shops to be added to that also.

Absolutely, yeah. We'd be willing to exclude vape shops from the uses.

Thank you. Commissioner Foxx?

While you're up there, question. Have you contacted the adjacent commercial mixed use, so like the Food Lion or anything about internal circulation network connecting over to the Food Lion?

I have not. James can jump up if he has. There may be, just looking at the site, it looks like it'd be difficult to have I don't think it's a driveway that goes on the side but there may be some potential options. I don't think we've had those discussions yet but that would be way later down the road once we get into site plan to see if there might be either pedestrian connection or some sort of internal driveway or cross access. We just haven't had those conversations yet.

But it may be possible. It sounds as if perhaps you may be coming back just based on the comments from other commissioners. I would encourage to look into that street stub because I think that assuades some of the fears of pedestrian safety because it's not just people going to your site, it's people at your site going to other places, which I would imagine there would be a pretty strong desire line from an apartment building to a food line.

I would echo that sentiment. Thank you, Commissioner Fox.

I believe Commissioner Burnett had a question.

This would more of a, I guess, feedback for the applicant as well. TO THE GENTLEMEN ON THE OPPOSITION SIDE, THE GENTLEMEN WHO HAD A CONCERN REGARDING THE OTHER MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT WITH THE FOOD LINE WAS, I KIND OF SHARE HIS CONCERN REGARDING OTHER DARK SPACE OR DARK COMMERCIAL SPACE NEAR A NEIGHBORHOOD BECAUSE IT'S NOT VERY VISUALLY ATTRACTIVE AND I THINK THIS IS WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO HAVE THAT COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION BECAUSE ONLY SOMEONE INTIMATE WITH THE AREA CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK TO THAT, RIGHT? BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS DARK spaces or space for businesses that aren't viable. Have you guys reached out or done any, I guess, like, due diligence just to see why the pizza shop didn't survive, why the barber shop didn't survive? Like, because those things are really important to me because if you see tons of dark spaces, then it kind of becomes a black hole and or a black eye. And we see that in a lot of different communities, especially some down east. where there's tons of vacant space. And so I want to know if you guys have dug in at all just to see why there was a lack of viability in those vacant areas. And then also, I do have a heart for the senior community. So I know that's not your deal regarding the crosswalk space, but I want you to speak to that just on the commercial viability side, please.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll say both James and I grew up in Raleigh. I actually went to North Raleigh Christian, which is maybe a mile and a half from here. I'm very familiar with that. I'm not aware that any of those commercial uses in that Food Lion building are vacant. They might not be. I'm not sure. But what I'll say is that what we see, and perhaps Mr. Moss can speak to this as well, but there's much more of a desire to be in those newer mixed-use buildings for, again, those smaller retail shops It's just better. And looking at the comprehensive plan policies, that's what the city is kind of telling us when we're advising clients is these mixed use buildings are the direction the city's looking to move into outside of that more suburban style strip mall center. And so I think that's happy to dive into that more. It sounds like we may be coming back again on the connectivity portion and looking at the background of what's going on at the Food Lion site. Unless James had some more background that he may want to add to that.

Thank you guys. We've spoken with the food line shopping center owner and there is some possibility there. I believe when they took that over they had some storm water issues with being able to expand that area and this site could help with that as well. The main reason for us looking at more of a commercial is straight across the street behind that that auto store that's on the corner, they're scheduled to be about 850 homes, I believe, that's going in through Meritage. So we look at that corridor as getting a little bit more attractive. The closest retail behind that is now off Buffalo Road at the Publix. So with Buffalo Road redirecting into Spring Forest and 401, it's gonna create a lot of traffic there for future citizens. So that intersection is gonna, It's going to change dramatically over the next couple years.

Any further questions for the applicant? Commissioner O'Haver.

Yeah, thank you. I have a couple. Probably for staff initially, what is the city going to require as far as connectivity with Silver Ash and Spring Glen? Are there any issues with block perimeter? I'm not sure if it applies to this size site, but I'm curious about those dead end streets, the connectivity to the commercial to the east and the neighborhood to the west.

Barbara Godwin with Transportation again. So the UDO does require Stub Streets to both Spring Glen and Silver Ash. However, that connection likely would consume greater than 15% of the site, which could exempt applicant from making those connections and look at alternative options.

I knew there was something in there. Thank you. I have a question for the applicant. And I'm not sure there's an answer, but I'm just curious about the square footage on the retail and how you determined that. I mean, I understand the commercial node to the east. This site is tucked up against some residential 40,000 square feet. I'm just curious where you came up with that and sort of the permutations of retail, office, residential.

Yes, thank you, Commissioner, for that question. It took us a few weeks working with transportation staff intimately to figure these numbers out. These all actually came from transportation staff. And again, they have a formula that they use looking at the size of the site, what could potentially be developed, again, where that TIA threshold is. And so all these numbers came from transportation staff. I wish I had the math brain to come up with them, but I did not. And so that was us working with staff to figure out, you know, where exactly do we need to be? Where do these calculations line up from that getting TIA threshold?

While you're there, I'll just toot this horn to the very end. When you come back, would you be willing to consider at least increasing the side setback and the rear setback when you're adjacent to existing single-family homes? I just... I understand commercial. I'd want commercial in my neighborhood. I don't want you're reducing it by 10 feet and you're increasing 10 feet of height. The difference there isn't much. And so I would just ask you to consider if I were living there, I would want the adjacent developer just be respectful of my home and what's going on. So I just will ask you to consider that.

Absolutely. I think I may have an answer for you, Commissioner Haver.

The transition yards, it gets me every time, but I'm going to keep bringing it up.

Yeah, I think it's one of the most complicated portions of the code, but yeah, exactly. There's, you know, that 50-foot, essentially there'll be no buildings within 50 feet of those residential areas that are adjacent to us that are remaining R10.

I'll say it again. I've been on the commission winding up six years. There's been two cases that I've recommended approval on that I... I somewhat regret over the six years. And one of them has to deal with six years later that landscape buffer. The city has a very hard time enforcing that landscape buffer. And all the plant material there was dead. And the existing residents were not, they got what they were promised, but the landscape buffers aren't enough for me right now. So I'll leave that with you.

Understood. Thank you.

Any further questions for the applicant or staff or for the public? All right, seeing no more questions, we will officially close the public hearing. And I think that we are looking at deferring and coming back with some new conditions. Let me see if I make sure we have all these. There was a discussion around a prohibition on vape shops, a recommendation to look into street stub and internal connectivity with an eye for pedestrian safety. There were some questions about the potential collaboration with the food line and site outreach at the food line, and a question about side and rear setback increases. And I think that there was a commitment to add a condition to the vape shop and a statement to look into and follow up on the further options. Am I missing anything from the commission? Is the applicant willing to defer and come back to speak on this issue or to present?

I think I asked about consideration for, I don't know if you remember if you answered it, about consideration for retail or just strictly residential apartments.

The question was if there would be a consideration for a condition against retail. I know it was discussed. I don't recall a commitment.

As far as prohibiting retail, I don't think we're interested at this stage in prohibiting retail. Again, largely because we've heard from a lot of the neighbors that they would want to have that neighborhood serving retail. As far as other things, again, we're happy to take the deferral reconvene and come back on those other issues.

THANK YOU. I SEE WE HAVE UPCOMING MEETINGS ON JUNE 9th AND JUNE 23rd. MAYBE STAFF CAN HELP ME OUT WITH THE DEADLINES FOR UPDATED CONDITIONS AROUND THOSE MEETINGS.

YEP. SO UPDATED CONDITIONS FOR JUNE 9th WOULD BE REQUIRED TO BE SUBMITTED AT THE END OF THE WEEK.

SO WOULD YOU PREFER TO HAVE UPDATED CONDITIONS IN BY THE END OF THE WEEK OR NEED A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME?

I THINK WE CAN MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

Objection, case Z5125 will be deferred until June 9th. And I would just like to make a statement for the commission that I went to high school and played football with the applicant. We have not had any family, financial, or personal ties since that time, but we are in an era of extreme exposure for conflict of interest, and I just wanted to point that out. I don't feel a conflict of interest, but I wanted to make it public.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question. Who was the better football player?

Well, Jamie was a quarterback. James, excuse me, Mr. James Moss was the quarterback, and I was just a lowly lineman. Thank you. We'll be moving on to our next order of business at this time. Let's call a five-minute break, a recess until 1025. We'll come back at 1025. Long, long break.

Bye.

We'll follow along with new business. Our next item and our last item for the day will come from Hiram Marziano. We're going to see case Z5425, 7652 Leesville Road. Did I get it right?

You got another thumbs up. All right, great.

I heard some breaths. All right, we'll turn it over to staff. The public hearing is now open. Thank you.

This is a typo on the slide. This is rezoning Z5425. This is 12301-76-52 Leesville Road and 3321 Shady Grove Road. There's a lot of moving parts here, so bear with me. This is a request to rezone the combined 31.58 acres from industrial mixed use three with parkway frontage with airport overlay district and special highway overlay district two. That'd be the portion you see in pink to the eastern portion of the property. Also, the portions not colored in are the two other parcels. They are Durham zoning with rural residential with their airport overlay 65, as well as Durham Rural Residential with Airport Overlay 65 and Airport Overlay 60. The request is to rezone to Office Mixed Use 4 with Parking Limited Conditional Use, and that again be the portion touching Leesville Road, and the remainder to be Office Mixed Use 4 Conditional Use. This is associated with an annexation request, AX4425, That is because this property that is part of Durham there, this is the county line that you see right there, is within our annexation boundary agreement with Durham. Deadline for action would be July 25. As you can see, this area includes some R1, some R4. There's OX3CU to the north, but the majority of it appears to be Industrial Mixed Use 3 Parkway to the south. Just breaking it out a little bit more for you here, the 12301 Leesville Road, that's in Wake County. It's already currently an RETJ. It is IX3PK with the overlays, and it's the one that would be going to OX4, parking limited with conditions. The parcel number two is landlocked there for Leesville Road. It is... You can barely see it there. This is the one that has both airport overlays from Durham. The northern part of that boundary where that green a little bit is the airport overlay 60. The remainder, that yellow portion, is airport overlay 65. And the Shady Grove parcel is Durham's with the airport overlay 65. It's that little tiny portion up there that still has that Durham overlay. I didn't want to point it out because it's difficult to see. Just some more talk here about the zoning, the overlays. Our overlay district with the little flares there, we don't allow residential. In our overlay district, Durham, however, does allow for residential uses in their overlay districts. Here's the site. The blue dashed line would be the county line. As you can see, we're surrounded to the south by some industrial uses and commercial uses. There's residential uses to the northwest, some farm and rural residential uses. That townhound development to the north was that OX3 portion. Just there to the south, you see the swing racket and paddle club. It's a future project budding to the south. Just some views, number two right there on the bottom right is from Leesville Road, three is from ACC Boulevard, and number one right there is from Shady Grove. The applicant has proposed several conditions. One, two, and three deal with comments made by RDU and to mitigate certain standards from removal of the AOD. Number four here is a block perimeter condition amendment. We do have some comments related to that. And they do have a fifth condition proposed which would be limiting the development intensities of the site. Complex chart here for you. Basically, currently under the current zoning, maximum height's three stories and 40 feet, or three stories and 50 feet, depending on which part of the zoning we're in. The 40 feet, I believe, is Durham's. Detached uses are what's allowed currently under Durham zoning.

Again, no residential zoning because of the airport overlay district for us.

Otherwise, under IX, residential uses would be above first floor. Removal of the parkway, the parkway has a 50-foot setback, but the parking limited for that portion would be minimum five, maximum 100. Maximum number of units currently would be allowed to be 24. based on the Durham UDO's intensities, 725 under the rezoning request, and then allows for greater entitlement of office and retail. Actually, retail goes down a little bit, it appears, but no industrial entitlement with the rezoning. Again, that dashed line right there is the county line. The star, if you see it, indicates where our property we're discussing is right there. And that thicker line is our annexation agreement with Durham. This property is just with inside the annexation agreement. Our overlay district again here we have the request to remove the SHA-2 and the AOD. The SHA-2 does restrict height and requires a protective yard and plantings near highways. The roads this is adjacent to would not require that protective planning. The airport overlay district does again prohibit residential uses. It does allow uses less impacted by airport noise. And this would highlight that section we're discussing. The Durham overlay districts and A65 permits agricultural and residential utility uses, prohibits all other uses, and A60 permits all uses except for outdoor firing ranges, that A60 being that tiny little strip that was in the northern part of the property. Both, however, do establish standards for lighting, electronic signals, and maximum heights. So this would be requesting to remove the A60, you see that top part, and then the A65 for remainder. As you can see, while our overlay district is all that gray area, Durham's airport overlay district wraps around that northern development. This is below walk score average. There's no transit available to this site. It's below bike score. has above average transportation costs and below average access to jobs. This is a fringe area for us, so all that makes sense. There is no transit service to this area. However, it does add to the housing supply and permits a variety of housing types. There are no subsidized units provided in the application. Area residents are less likely to be racial minorities, they're less likely to be low income, and surprisingly, the cost of rent decreased about 2% from 2019 as compared to our average. As far as the future land use map is concerned, there's four categories at play here. Everything that you see right there in office and residential mixed use is on the Durham side of the county line there. OX would be consistent with that designation. The office research and development and the business and commercial services, that little pink portion to the very southeast of the parcel, these two look to restrict residential uses, encourage more heavy commercial, industrial type uses in the region. So for that purpose, this is inconsistent. Overall, the property assemblage is inconsistent with the future land use map. It is consistent with the urban form guidance. It is in a city growth center. They have provided parking limited for the portion that is in the urban growth center and that is recommended by the urban form map. So overall we do believe this is consistent with the comprehensive plan while being inconsistent with the future land use map. Some consistent policies, we're talking about compact development, we're talking about our location of growth, our annexation agreements, we're talking about mixed use, we're talking about increasing housing supply, housing variety. I will point out EP 8.10 airport noise protection for residential uses due to the conditions that they have supplied to assist, we feel that they are consistent with that policy even with the removal of the airport overlay district. As far as inconsistent policies go, inconsistent with the Future Land Use Map, Due to condition number four about the block perimeter, we believe that some inconsistencies from that condition may arise with future development due to the city's desire to increase connectivity and road network connectivity and things like that, while the amendment we feel may limit that connectivity and may be futurely inconsistent at the time of development. Also, response time standards, again, this is one of our fringe areas, and again, removal of the overlay, airport overlay zoning district, or zoning overlay. This would require a FLMA amendment if recommended for approval. Approval would recommend taking the map from Office Research and Development and Business and Commercial Services to office and residential mixed use, as is the remainder of that portion of the assemblage to the west already is designated. Upcoming meetings, June 9th and June 23rd. Again, deadline would be July 25th. There's a lot to unpack there, so I do have additional maps if we need them.

Thank you, Mr. Marziani. I'm sure we'll come back to you. We will now provide opportunity for the applicant to present the case. I have 10 minutes on the clock and please approach the podium and share your name for the record.

Good morning, Chair Otwell and Commissioners, Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group. I have a team with me here today. I'll go ahead and introduce Mr. Frank Tattel of Mill Creek Residential, together with Brendi Vega and Rob Cottle, our design team at Withers Ravenel, as well as Reinald Stevenson from DRMP, our traffic engineer. We'll all be happy to join in our discussion after you've heard from everyone today. So we were able, thanks to the participation of our design team, to put together a combined zoning map. And what this highlights for us is that that western portion of the site is, although designated rural residential under Durham County zoning, It's actually a little peninsula that kind of sticks out and is surrounded by mixed-use zoning. And particularly to the north there where you see the site that is partly developed with townhomes, that site actually does have office mixed-use zoning. And there's a cap of 200,000 square feet of office permitted up there as well. For a better view of the area, the site is down front and center there in the blue, and it is sitting between the swing, racket, and paddle site, I think most of you are familiar with that, a very large racket sports facility underway, as well as the Mulberry Park townhomes on the other side of the planned T.W. Alexander Drive extension, which does cross over a portion of the site, and we'll talk about that here in a little bit. Surrounding the swing site on two sides, they're sort of above and to the left, you see ACC Boulevard kind of curves around from Mount Hermon Road and dead ends into this site. That entire stretch of ACC Boulevard is light industrial, flex industrial, sort of an employment and production center over there. And then looking farther down along 540, you see Briar Creek and all the retail and office uses available in that direction as well. Just for a closer look at our immediate neighbors, these are the townhomes immediately to the north. And then we have a view of that ACC Boulevard. This is the portion of ACC Boulevard that does dead end into the site there at the top of the screen. And then this is the portion that comes over and intersects with Mount Hermon Road. So today, you see there at the bottom, ACC Boulevard dead ending into the site, and given the industrial mixed use zoning on that portion of the site, this appears to be queued up as an extension of that flex industrial area as well, and continuing over to Leesville Road. And just a view of the swing, racket, and paddle site, in case anyone hasn't seen this. Very large development happening there on that parcel. To zoom out a little bit and get a sense of the character of the surrounding area, it is primarily single family detached housing in the area of a wide range of densities. And then, of course, the town homes immediately to the north of the site. So this proposal would expand housing choices in this area. So from this view, you can see that this is an infill site. It does not expand the edges of development. Even if we're on the edge of the city, we are not on the edge of the urbanized area. but in fact filling in a gap and doing so in a compact way. For a general idea of what is planned for the site, these are not specific designs that are necessarily being contemplated, but the general idea of the type of multifamily residential that's contemplated today. This eastern portion of the site, as you saw in Mr. Marziano's presentation, is located within the city growth center, with the western portion shown here as sort of a Durham County notch out of that city growth center, and you can see that more clearly when we zoom in. And what is the city growth center? It's an area where significant infill development is contemplated in the future. And that is the proposal that we bring to you today. The proposed rezoning would expand housing choices in the area exactly where the city has planned for growth. There are three concerns that we've heard in this process that I'd like to be sure to address. All right, so the first of those being the airport overlay district and its removal. And as you heard, there are two different airport overlay districts, the City of Raleigh District as well as the Durham County District. This is a view of the City of Raleigh Airport Overlay District. And over the years, just for some background, there have been several cases where this overlay has been removed from specific sites. And those have been accompanied by conditions similar to the ones proposed on this site. As an example, you can see a very clear hole there at Briar Creek in this overlay district. It is part of a plan development with a master plan, so therefore no true zoning conditions, but there are of course requirements that come out of that master plan. And there are three that relate to the airport, and to put those in plain English, they're exactly what you heard from Mr. Marciano. One, a navigation easement, just clarifying that legal right to actually fly over the site. Two, making sure that any residential dwelling units are, in fact, built to a different standard to block out some of that noise, as well as a notice requirement so that recorded plats also disclose the noise contours coming from the airport. So all of those requirements are what you do typically see when the airport overlay has been removed over the years in Raleigh. All right, the second concern that we've heard relates to traffic. We understand there are some traffic issues in the area today, and there are a few points I want to clarify in this. First is, you see this dashed purple line crossing over the site? That is the planned extension of TW Alexander Drive. It does cut off a significant portion of the land to the north, which would not be developable given the combination of the creek together with that TW Alexander extension. It also cuts off access to Leesville Road. This extension is not a scheduled project. Therefore, on development, this site would be required to dedicate that right-of-way, perhaps develop it to some extent. That all gets worked out during the site plan process. But in any event, it gets dedicated and cut out of this site so that the developable portion of the site would no longer have that access to Leesville Road. So we can see that here. And that dedication and any fee in lieu or actual construction required would also greatly assist in completing this major piece of planned infrastructure to ensure the long-term functioning of this roadway network in this area, providing new connection options over to Briar Creek. Before moving on with traffic, I do want to highlight, we heard about block perimeter. Given that this right-of-way would be required to be dedicated, it's actually our best guess, there's some fuzziness on how this works at Site Plan, it's actually our best guess that this would probably satisfy block perimeter because when it applies, you're required to dedicate right-of-way in order to make greater connections in the area. this would be accomplished. We're not asking to remove this. This is from the comprehensive plan. It would still be there and still be something that's required during site plan. What we don't know is what else might be required. We think this would probably be it, but how block perimeter gets implemented is not clarified in the code and we're unable to get assurances today of exactly what else might be requested at that time. So that's what we're looking for here is just making sure that it's clear that this is what would be required. Back to traffic in general, you see the site highlighted there. And then the red circle is the intersection of Leesville Road and Shady Grove, where we have heard that there is some backup during rush hour today. That's something that we heard in our neighborhood meetings. We also know that as part of the development of the swing racket and paddle site, turn lane improvements are expected to occur on each leg of this intersection, along with some signal improvements that will allow this intersection to operate much better than currently. And you can see this current view today, no turn lanes, so very easy to back up in this situation where folks are trying to turn and don't have a dedicated place to be. But that will be changing with or without this project. And just another view of that intersection. And a final note, this project, this proposal falls under those thresholds requiring a full traffic analysis at the rezoning stage, which is sort of the only guidepost we have as to whether this is having a major impact on traffic. So we see that there are some improvements already happening to address those concerns and that there isn't sort of an expectation that this site would cause a major issue there. The final problem that we've heard about during our meetings are a concern about the proposed height of four stories. As you all are familiar, every residential district in Raleigh that doesn't have some sort of overlay on it permits at least three stories. This would request four. Based on the location and the surrounding uses, we don't believe there are many places where one could stand and notice that difference, but we did look more deeply into that by taking some sections through the site. Section A being over there along Shady Grove Road and B sort of forming the bookends of what we think is probably the developable area of the site. So looking at those sections, A there is at the top of your screen. The pink areas on the left are the existing townhomes. They are over 300 feet from what would be a proposed structure. And the tan area above those pink townhomes is the height that's permitted. on that site for townhomes. So you can see how those compare and how that would look in the real world. And then of course, that B section even farther away, more than 700 feet away, just so we can get a sense of what that height is, what it does. And when asked, we did ask what are the concerns about height, the two answers were, One, if we reduce height, we reduce density, fewer housing units, and that was ultimately tied back to that traffic concern that we've discussed. The other concern was simply that there aren't other four-story zonings, and therefore it would somehow be out of character. We think there's plenty of buffer here to provide for some growth in the area, but that, you know, we leave that to you to judge with an image like this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Stewart. That's an impressive amount of information in 10 minutes. We will now provide an opportunity for those opposed to the application. Is there anyone that would wish to speak against the rezoning application? Please approach the podium and provide your name for the record.

Good morning, my name is Dan Barnes. I live just north of the proposed development. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My neighbors and I have been to several community meetings and we have several concerns over this development of this property. I will say that this apartment is inconsistent with what's in the area, first of all. I think the developer has, Basically not taking into consideration the development that's already happening in Durham County just to the north. There's several other town homes that are being built that will increase traffic. They've already put a turn lane in that area off Shady Grove. Also, I don't think this area was meant to be developed as a whole. I'll just say that. It's an overlay district for the airplane. It was originally commercial. It's on the western or the eastern side of the property that they're proposing a development for. It's a wetland area. There's a stream that runs directly from our property diagonally to Sycamore Creek. Sycamore Creek then runs to Umstead Park. I know this area is inconsistent with the future Raleigh development plan. This area is underserved as well. with the Greenway Network, and so in my opinion, this would be better served as a long-term park. You have several different areas close by that, are very enjoyable for the public. Page Farms, the strawberries in the spring. You have Pumpkin Patch in the fall. You have Tri-Golf on the other side of the property. People come, enjoy that area. This area does seem to be consistent with more of a natural area. I would recommend that the city consider redeveloping this area into a city park. Obviously we've seen Dorothea Dix and the, you know, what people actually love. So people in this area, there's gonna be a lot of housing in this area, really don't need more. Traffic is a major concern, we see it every day. I live just north of the property. Airplane noise is a major consideration. I know the developer has said that they plan to implement building materials to utilize The noise, however, that's just interior noise that doesn't plan for the enjoyment of the community outside that area. Again, this is a 30-acre site, a large site. I'm concerned about the wildlife with a number of other factors, and I will let my neighbor speak. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Donovan Patterson. I also am a nearby neighbor. There's a number of other neighbors who cannot attend this meeting just because it's during business hours, but they asked me to give this feedback as well. And a half mile in every direction is nothing but two-story single-family homes. A four-story apartment complex would just not fit in with this. It would be a very jarring transition. That traffic impact analysis, right now it's zoned, the proposal says one trip in the morning, and the proposal said that there'd only be 240 trips out of 345 units. That doesn't make sense to me, and I'm not sure how that math works, but it feels like it'd be a lot more than 240 cars coming from 345, or even instead up to 700 units. There are no bus stops. There are no sidewalks. This is a country road. I'm a runner. I love running. I run around that area. I do not go down that road because there is no shoulders. If a car is coming, you can't even step off to the side. So there's going to be no alternate transportation besides a vehicle. Even if they added sidewalks to the front, the adjacent properties have no sidewalks. If you added sidewalks to those, if Swing added sidewalks, again, no sidewalks after that. It is country road after country road. So there's gonna be no alternative process. And here's a bus stop, I think it's a mile and a half away. The T.W. Alexander proposal they're showing here, it's been a proposal, there's no funding, there's no timeline. It would be where there's that little bit of trees you see in the top picture there, that's where T.W. Alexander would be. The fire department, again, there's the fire department station 24 across from us, but they serve two-story townhomes. So we'd be asking them to serve a four-story apartment. I'm not sure how that works, but it's just, again, it's just inconsistent with this area. We're not opposed to outing housing. We love this area. You know, Raleigh's ranked number five best place to live. It's number one for me. But having a 68-story OX4 adjacent to two-story townhomes just does not make sense. I think you can see some of the other online comments is strongly against this. Even the airport said they had serious reservations. They discourage residential use in this area. I know there's some mitigations they can do, but it's discouraged. The neighborhood meetings, we have not been approached afterwards. There's been no feedback. There's no been asking for input, consensus. We attended a couple of those. Some people missed them, the mailings came late, but that's nothing we can do about that. But just, we have not felt included in this process and it does not seem like a good add to this community. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Burns. There's nobody left to speak from the public. Oh, pardon me. Please approach the podium. Got four minutes and 30 seconds.

Okay. Hey, this is Tammy Spellman, also a neighbor located here. All of the traffic that has been presented is Shady Grove and Leesville. Nothing has been talked about all the added traffic going to Briar Creek. If this is apartments, these people are going to get into 540. The way to get there is Briar Creek Parkway. And that is already a very, very oversaturated area if you try and travel that area. They've got two left turn lanes from Briar Creek Parkway onto Highway 70. They're always backed up. There's numerous accidents. There's a place for a U-turn. It causes crazy traffic. And nowhere in here have they done a traffic analysis, and that's a big concern. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else wishing to speak? All right, not seeing any more public speakers, we will keep the public hearing open and bring it back to the commissioner table. Questions for staff, for the applicant, and for the public, if any commissioner has such. Commissioner Fox?

It's a question for staff, but I'm gonna acknowledge it might be a challenge to answer. It's related to an NCDOT STIP project. If I'm not mistaken, we had discussed this on a rezoning case about a year ago, maybe a little longer. Are there planned improvements for the Briar Creek Parkway US 70 interchange or intersection currently?

Commissioner Fox's staff appears to answer. Did you say this is related to an NCDOT STIP project? Could you define STIP for the public and for the commission?

Sure. It's a state transportation improvement project.

Thank you, Commissioner Fox.

Like a CIP, but state level.

State level improvement, thank you.

Good morning, Carter Robertson with Transportation. We're not aware of any intersection improvements there at Briar Creek, but we could look into that. I believe there's a STIP project for US 70 Glenwood in regards to repaving, but I'm not sure if there'll be intersection improvements there. We could get back to you on that.

Commissioner Omakai.

One of the things that was mentioned is that the airport discouraged residential use in this area. I have a couple questions. One, how is the applicant getting around that suggestion from the airport? And I'll wait for that answer. The other one is, well, I have a couple of them, so I'll just wait for the answer.

Sure. There are a couple of answers to that question just based on the complication of the site. So the Durham County portion of the site permits residential use today, and so that is sort of the baseline that we have. Also, the airport authority does have those concerns, and we have sort of done the three – conditions that they have asked for to have protections around that, as well as they are also perfectly aligned with the conditions that have been imposed on similar sites in Raleigh's airport overlay district where it has been removed. And that's happened a number of times over the years, so there has developed kind of a standard way to address that.

I'm familiar with this area, like I think most of us are who go to Briar Creek, who are out in that area, and I know that traffic is a beast out there. When is the traffic analysis gonna be completed for this project?

Sure, so after rezoning, when a site plan is submitted, it will be determined by the city at that time if the exact proposal submitted passes a threshold to trigger that analysis, which it is more likely to at that phase than it is during rezoning. So it will be a city call during the site plan process once they have clarity on exactly what will be proposed.

And has Durham County Planning Commission been brought into this conversation at all?

So not the Planning Commission. I did reach out to Durham County Planning staff to ask if they wanted to meet with us or share any questions, concerns. They said no, effectively, given the annexation agreement with the city of Raleigh, they leave this process to the city. Okay.

And then there's a creek on the site, Sycamore Creek. How are we, for environmental purposes, protecting that creek? And they were saying that there's another creek that feeds into that. How are we protecting the water flow from development on the space?

Yeah, there are a few layers to that. So there is a large undevelopable area around that creek, given the existing wetlands, the required greenway easement, and then there's some primary tree conservation required around, there's a required buffer around that stream as well, and that will be sort of on the outer edges of that. I want to turn to my design team, make sure I haven't missed anything. Is there anything else? Nope, okay. There are, like I said, multiple protections around that creek, and so it is a large barrier on the site. There's no intent today to have any sort of crossing over it, aside from whatever happens with TW Alexander. Okay, and just two more questions. Sure.

Is there any infrastructure currently on the site, like sewage pipes, anything like that that's currently on this area?

There isn't. There is a cell tower on the Durham County portion of the site as far as utility infrastructure. One moment.

There's a sewer line that bisects the property and goes to ACC Boulevard from Leesville Road on the portion that's in the city zoning currently.

How would that impact the development?

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

Would that be any impact, like with the sewage line, would that make it harder to develop? Will it impact sewage for the residents, the rest of the residents in the area?

That would all be decided really at the site plan stage on how whatever they're proposing to how they're going to prepare their site. They won't be building over top of the sewer line easements by any means. As far as it's the direct access for utilities to serve from that or not, that would be a question for Brawley Water.

One more question. How is this project going to impact the farm that's close to the project? With the development, will there possibly be any pollutants? Will there be an impact on the farm and agriculture in the area with this development being put in place?

As far as from a city standard, they would have to meet all the erosion control measures provided by the city and stormwater controls. So any type of surface level stuff would still be reviewed based on their design and at the time of the intensity of the impervious surface. Stormwater could probably speak better to that. But as far as any other type of pollutants, I would not be aware of any. I don't know if your team is prepared to talk about any site characteristics.

Are we talking about the Page Farm, Strawberry Farm? Sure. So as you're probably aware, that is not a typical farm. It does function as a farm, and it is open to the public a fair bit of the time, sort of a pick-your-own situation. So from that perspective, they have a new captive audience and new customers. As far as physical impacts, anything else? Nothing else to to address there According to our design team could staff let's speak to the store.

Okay. I have another question. Will this be in I'm sorry in accordance to Raleigh's city development standard or Durham's I

This would be part of the city, so it would be the city's standards. This is in our area for future expansion due to the annexation agreement. So the request is also accompanied by an annexation request that would happen prior to the city council's decision on the zoning. So any future development would fall under the city standards because it would be inside the city limits.

Okay. And can stormwater address the stormwater issues on the site? I mean, question that I have on the site.

Sally Hoyt, Raleigh Stormwater. This site would be subject to the city's full stormwater requirements, so requiring peak discharge controls and nutrient controls. I will note this does not, the site in general drains to Sycamore Creek and not to the nearby farm. Yeah, any additional questions?

So what would the impact on the creek be?

Well, in general, with all development, there's the potential for impacts, but we try to mitigate those through the stormwater requirements. So we limit the pollutant impacts through, we directly regulate nitrogen, but the way in which we regulate nitrogen has a beneficial impact on all pollutants. And then we regulate peak discharge for flooding reasons, but that can also have some impact

uh impacts on on stream erosion um and limit that thank you thank you for answering all my questions thanks any further questions from the commission all right seeing no further com questions uh we will close the public hearing

and bring it back again to the commissioner table for comments and debate is there any is there any debate or discussion commissioner um i would like to hear more about um the airport no noise concerns like and what could be done against about that because um i I've been near, like, stayed in places near airports or trains, and it can be quite disruptive. So I'm wondering what exactly is going to be done to prevent that, to minimize that for the people who live in the place that they're going to develop.

Yeah, sure. I think that it would be appropriate to reopen the public hearing, and we'll put that question to the applicant.

Thank you. There are a couple of answers there. So as you heard, there has been a history of how to address this. And of the three conditions that address the location of the airport, two of those get at that. The first being that there is notice. So the recorded plat that shows up if someone goes to research this area, what they find in the records is that there is a recorded notice about the noise contours and the location of the airport. So that's number one, so if you're a particularly sensitive person, that's something that's out there. The second piece is construction methods, and so there are particular requirements, and it's not designated as far as materials, anything like that, but by a performance standard, so to reduce noise by a certain amount, and it is the amount that's been requested by the airport authority to protect themselves from residents who might complain. to make sure that that is as protective as it can be. Now, obviously, once you're outdoors, we can't control that, but we can provide an indoor space that is quiet. Thank you.

I'd like to follow up with a question for staff. What is the primary concern with the city for the airport overlay district? How does that benefit the public? And what is the airport primarily concerned with when they suggest to limit residential? And Commissioner Sanchez, I saw your hand next.

I'll do my best to answer that. I didn't have direct communications myself with the airport.

I can talk a little bit about the city's motivation. As you know, the city is a partner in the airport and the airport authority. Long-held desire is for the airport to be able to operate with minimal environmental impact to our community, our regional community, and so the airport overlay limits height so as not to interfere with airplane flight and then also prohibits residential largely for noise management reasons so folks who live near airports in housing that is not appropriately insulate construction insulated complain and some of them feel that the airport is disrupting their quiet enjoyment of their property and might take issue with that. And so the goal with the overlay is to facilitate the operation of the airport and also protect the community from negative externalities. What the applicant is offering around, she did offer, she offered conditions generally that we see the, so the airport typically does not negotiate. They take a position that they do not want the overlay removed. But the conditions that she, that have been offered here, the avigation easement, the noise reducing materials and the construction of residential units gets at those environmental and the disclosure about noise contours gets at those environmental concerns. So offering sort of a substitute set of regulations for the property rather than the overlay.

Thank you. Commissioner Sanchez, did you have a follow-up?

Well,

Sorry. Well, it was sort of on the same line because I see that in the comments that the Raleigh Dorm Airport Authority, like you said, does not take the position. And she said that, or I would say you can come up if you want to. that with the concerns that the airport authority had and you guys taking it out, is there any way possible, I don't know if that's a thing that you bring it back to the airport authority and they like sign off? Because I don't feel comfortable necessarily like, me personally, cool, not a thing. If they're not supportive of it.

I can respond unofficially. I am not an airport official. Cool. As Bynum mentioned, they don't negotiate. This is their blanket position. And so they have never, to my knowledge, said, oh, that's great. You can remove it because you're doing good things. They tend to care less about... industrial and commercial and multi-family housing. Their primary concern is about single-use or single-family housing and last time we had a case that included single-family housing requesting removal of the airport overlay district. The airport sent a representative to speak directly and request that we not approve that case. So I don't think the airport is going to negotiate or alter their any of their requests at this point.

Fair enough.

Yeah, please.

And the only thing I'll add to that, that very much reflects the conversations that we've had. We have met virtually with airport authority staff who let us know how this will work, that they will oppose, that's not going to change. But they did ask us for these conditions, and then we provided those.

Commissioner O'Haver. Yeah, since we've started this conversation, Molly, you put some text up earlier about the avigation, easement, et cetera. Does that come from the airport, the text that you put up in your presentation?

So at this point, I actually can't recall if the exact wording came from the airport or from previous zoning conditions approved in Raleigh. It got at the same results, and that language is something that we did send over, let them know that this was the condition, and then there were no further comments.

Thank you.

While the public hearing is still open, are there any more questions for the applicant, for staff, Commissioner Neptune?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a question for the applicant, and I think I may have a follow-up for our colleagues with Raleigh Transportation staff. Could the applicant just again speak to the traffic concerns that have been expressed by the folks who are here? Again, I think what I'm trying to wrap my mind around is That question, that impact with regard to traffic and this area, that's been brought up a number of times. I just appreciate hearing from the applicant. And then, of course, for staff, I mean, if there are any planned improvements, I know it came up earlier with this conversation around statewide improvements, but with regard to the city, I guess, if there's anything planned out that way, that's for staff. But then back to the applicant, what are your thoughts with regard to traffic impacts?

Sure, as you're well aware, traffic is a cumulative issue, right? And we understand that there are issues today that are being addressed through other development, which is typically how traffic issues get handled. They almost never get handled. So I think in the future that TW Alexander connection, which will be greatly facilitated by this project, will add a new connection that will prevent some of the backups we're seeing as well as those new turn lanes as well that is particularly where we've seen complaints happening. We do have our traffic engineer, Ronald Stevenson, with us. Do you have something you want to add to that?

Ronald Stevenson, DRMP. Yeah, I'll just add that Molly did cover this, I think, in the presentation, that one of the primary intersections of the concern is Shady Grove and Leesville Road just to the north. And there are a number of improvements that are designed, and I'm not sure if the designs are final yet, but it is well underway now. to significantly improve that intersection. Also know that with the Swing Racquet Club project, just to the immediate south, there are a number of road improvements being constructed there in terms of turn lanes and widening. So we certainly would anticipate the same kind of thing, having turn lanes and any access points along there. So there are road improvements coming in this area.

And then do we know the timeline on this, I guess, extension of, what was it, TW Alexander?

The short answer there is we don't. It's not a scheduled project. I have to think that as large chunks of it come together through projects like this, it will perhaps be accelerated. But no, right now it is simply a planned project.

Thank you both. And then for staff, if there are any planned improvements from our end, from the city of Raleigh, we'd love to hear it.

Yeah, Carter Robertson again. What Molly and the applicant have shared is largely correct about the TW Alexander that's modeled in the Campo long-range like 2050 plan so right now no funds or timeline associated with that and this connection that would be going from Shady Grove to Leesville that will help with our long-term building a grid out in this area because right now there's not really a grid it's really Shady Grove serving as that north-south And of course, there will be some improvements to Shady Grove-Releaseville, as was mentioned. If this site is developed later and a TIA is triggered at the site plan stage, we'd still wanna look at that intersection again, see if there's any new impacts that might need to be addressed. Something to add about SWING is they are planning to Construct and dedicate new public right-of-way along the northern portion of their site so that racquetball complex I think we do too Well you could kind of see where the right-of-way is I right here, so that's what Swing will be building. That'll be an avenue two lane, and there is some development potential here with this site, potentially as a medical office building, and there's been discussions with them about extending this right of way. So as we kind of look at how this grid shapes out, I think that might be one of our primary tools for fighting traffic congestion in the long term. And just briefly, Hiram mentioned the condition earlier. I guess our main concern with that is that, as we've said, there's no block out here now. That condition number four would pretty much prevent us from requiring any additional roadway connections on top of TW Alexander, what's shown here with Swing.

You said condition number four?

Yes, and so... as Molly mentioned, that the UDO isn't very prescriptive of how we apply the block perimeter standards. That will largely depend on what is proposed at the site plan, but we think with the level of intensity that would be allowed if they come in with that max entitlement, we'd want to see additional public streets. Yeah, I think this was my, here we go. This is what I was looking for. Of course, that purple line would be required. The blue line at the bottom is that swing right of way. And what we're gonna show in red, this is also in the staff report, are some potential connections that could otherwise be required if condition four wasn't a part of the application.

Thank you, could the applicant speak to why condition four was incorporated despite what appeared to be the objections of staff?

Or concerns?

Concerns of staff.

Sure. So we saw the one possible example of what could be required. There's nothing in the UDO that limits what could be requested to do that or any other request or even caps the number of streets that could be requested. We simply don't know. Given the Unusable area of the site given the major dedication with TW Alexander Which not only dedicates its own right-of-way with but cuts off a very large portion of the site that is rendered unusable We think that ultimately the the site gets very chipped away and we can no longer be certain It's developable given that the uncertainty around what could be required and so we wanted to make sure that TW Alexander is Sort of the contribution here Thank you, thank you

Any further questions from commissioners? Happy to take our time here. This is a complicated one. All right, seeing no more questions, we will close the public hearing and bring it back for discussion and debate. Are there any comments or discussion? All right, seeing no discussion and comments, I'll open the floor for a motion.

Mr. Chair, if I could, I just want to acknowledge I'm feeling very conflicted about this item, to be very frank. And unless we are under some urgent timeline here that I'm not aware of, I would actually appreciate more time with this item. perhaps to meet with residents, meet with the applicant, actually visit the site to really get a feel for what is happening here. I am not yet comfortable to vote on this, is what I am trying to acknowledge, just as a point of comment, I suppose, for the good of the Commission and our moving forward.

I APPRECIATE THAT, THANK YOU. COMMISSIONER OMAKAE.

I AGREE WITH COMMISSIONER NEPTUNE. THIS IS KIND OF A STICKY WICKET AND IF WE DON'T HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION TODAY, I WOULD AGREE WITH COMMISSIONER NEPTUNE AND US TAKING SOME MORE TIME TO DELIBERATE ON THIS AND GET MORE INFORMATION SINCE MOVING FORWARD WITH THIS. I MEAN, IT COULD BE A GREAT THING, BUT IT COULD ALSO IMPACT THE PEOPLE IN THE SURROUNDING AREAS AND THOSE THAT LIVE IN THE PLACE THAT THEY'RE GOING TO DEVELOP.

THANK YOU. COMMISSIONER POX.

I'd also be comfortable deferring this item, but it's not to reread the information that we've already been presented with. I want to be really specific. My concerns are related to block perimeter and internal circulation.

Thank you, Ms. Fox, and Ms. Omokai for echoing my desire for more time. But I also appreciate, Ms. Fox, you articulating sort of more specifically the, I think, level of concern here.

Commissioner O'Haver. Yeah, I would just say if we're deferring the case, I feel like we do need to be more specific with the applicant on what we want them to bring back to just say we're confused and leave it at that. I think leaves a little bit up in the air for the applicant. So if that's one concern, I think if people could articulate where their concerns are so that when they come back, we can hear additional information than what's in the packet.

I would echo what Ms. Fox said earlier.

I don't want to speak for everybody, but I do think that there might not have been a specific ask from everybody to the applicant to come back with conditions, but to have more time to digest is a pretty complicated case. I don't have a problem with that.

Yeah, and if it's helpful I guess for Commissioner Haver, you know, my sense is on the one hand I would generally be inclined to support the potential build out of You know more housing sort of mixed-use areas within the city I think the challenge for me with this There are a lot of layers to what's happening with this particular site, and I do appreciate the concerns that have been brought forth by our residents with regard to potential traffic impacts, impacts on the natural environment in the area. I would like to respect that, and I would appreciate more time, in addition to getting a feel for this internal circulation conversation that we're having, I would appreciate more time to either visit with residents or visit with the applicant and actually to visit the site, to get out to the site. I would appreciate that. So I'm clear.

Commissioner Omokai.

My concern also is that environmental impact. I really want to kind of dig into how the stormwater, how the creek is going to be impacted by the development. I know that there's a buffer around the creek that can't be touched and tree lines. but also groundwater is a thing. A lot of the materials used in development may impact that, and my concern also is traffic. Knowing that area, knowing how traffic is impacted in that area, this development could, I'm wondering, I'm not saying that I would be against it, but I am wondering just more information. I know that they don't have to do an analysis until after the rezoning is considered, but there has to be some sort of, research done on traffic impact, even if the whole analysis hasn't been done. So my curiosity is around that as well.

And Mr. Chair, if it's helpful, just as a full disclosure, you know, I'm coming into this commission meeting after a very full weekend away at the Outer Banks and on very limited sleep, to be quite honest with you. And so as a point of just full transparency, you know, I want to do the best I can by everybody involved, because I respect the residents, respect the applicant, I respect my members of the commission. And again, unless this is urgent that I'm not aware of, I would appreciate just, I guess, deferring to the next meeting.

I'm aware that at least three commissioners were at the beach till at least yesterday. So I know that's not a unique situation. So I'm happy to defer this until our next meeting. Commissioner O'Haver has a really good point. If there's anything specific that you want the applicant to require, let's please get this out now. And otherwise, I'm gonna ask the commissioners that have concerns and questions to be very diligent over the next couple weeks reaching out to staff and the applicant so we can come in prepared to have a full discussion. That's Commissioner Bennett. Burnett. Burnett, I'm sorry.

I'm consistent with my colleague, Commissioner O'Haver. I do understand this is a very, very multi-layered zoning case, but I guess with some previous experience and development, I understand it makes sense, but I will defer if it's the will of the majority of the commission.

Commissioner O'Haber? Yeah, I think the block perimeter, I know it's squirrely, but there's some concern there. But quite frankly, otherwise, I'm in support of this case. So you can... Will I be sitting here when y'all come back? I'm not sure, but... for my fellow commissioners. I think the block perimeter, and I know it's a tricky situation, but 40,000, whatever feet it was, seems like an awful large number. So that would just be my one concern. Otherwise, I'm behind supporting the application.

Thank you, Mr. O'Hoover.

Okay, if we don't have any specific requests to the applicant, is the applicant willing to defer this?

Yes, we're happy to defer, and from what we've heard, it sounds like we don't have necessarily a discreet or clean new condition we could bring back by this Friday, and maybe this is more about conversations.

I believe it's mostly about conversation. I do think some commissioners had issues with the block perimeter, but I don't think anybody is explicitly asking to drop that condition at this point.

And given that, we think it might make sense for us to come back in two meetings. In two weeks on June 9th. After those conversations have some time to happen.

All right. Well, without objection. You said two meetings?

Yes. What is it? The 23rd?

Oh, two meetings. I'm sorry. I heard two weeks.

Oh, sorry. Thank you. Two meetings. Sorry. Yes. I think we can't wrap all this up by this Friday, which we would need to do if there are any changes to conditions coming back for the 9th.

All right, well, let me make sure I got my date right. Okay, without objection, we will defer case Z5125 to our meeting on June 23rd. All right, I believe that brings us to the end of our new business. All right. Going down the line, next order of business is other business. And first we'll start off with a report from the chair. Y'all might have noticed we have a different seating arrangement here. Thanks for going with the flow. We just want to make it a little bit more standardized and reduce the confusion at the beginning of the meeting a little bit. So we're also mirroring what council is doing at the current time. Aside from that, we have elections for officers coming up next month, so keep in mind who you would want to nominate. It'll show up on the agenda, and that is the end of my report. Next up will be report of the members, and we'll start with Commissioner Cochran.

I won't be here at the next meeting. I have an excused absence. And as far as I know, there's nothing on the agenda for the next Committee of the Whole, which is June 25th. Is that correct?

That's it. No report.

No report.

No report.

No report.

No report. Just a brief report. Mr. Chair, I would like to share an invitation with all of our commissioners and the public to join us on Saturday, May 30th, out here at Nash Square for a new Nash Bash, a block party. Are you telling me to pass the baton? You want me to? Yes, a new Nash Bash. Immediately south of the conflicts. Look, it's an exciting opportunity for those who may not know or could use a reminder. Nash Square is in fact one of our oldest public green spaces. We kicked off this city back in 1792 with five public greens. And of those five greens, you know, we have Nash Square, Moore Square. We're grateful to have them. And there's an opportunity here as a city to reinvest in the future of Nash Square. And we've got some incredible folks from across the city, from City Parks and Planning, Development, Reed Hildebrand, this globally celebrated landscape architecture firm, all coming together to share, I think, two or three big ideas and concepts as to the future of of Nash Square based on public feedback and engagement. And so this is another opportunity to come through after a few months now to hear about those big ideas. And like I said, it's gonna be a bash. It's gonna be a block party. It's gonna be a whole situation with live music, DJs, Lots of good food and beverage. I think Bold Batch Ice Cream is doing a pop-up for us. Lots of art and design activities. I think you'll have a great time out there. I think the weather is looking really good for us this Saturday. And even if it doesn't, we have a rain date for Sunday. So we're going to come through for you. We'd love to see you this Saturday between 2 to 6 out here at Nash Square for a new Nash Bash.

Thank you.

I have nothing.

You're not going to follow that up?

No.

All right, thank you for your reports. Next up, we have a report of the assistant director.

Thank you. I wanted to remind you, if you cannot be present at a meeting, to please email the planning commission address so that all of us know what's going on. I want to begin my thank yous. We're going to take a couple meetings to get through the departure of O'Haver and Fox. It's going to be hard for me. I was thinking about this morning about like, you know, I think you both started during the pandemic when everything was virtual. You helped us review Dick's Edge area study as well as walkable Midtown. Those were some grueling. grueling meetings. I admire your tenacity. And my own at the same time. It was a lot. So I was just kind of casting my mind back to all the things that we have done together. And then the city council has appointed a new planning commission member, Stanford Baird, who will join us at the second June meeting. So your term may conclude at its conclusion and you don't have to serve further.

Yeah.

You'll be here for the first June meeting. Yes, sir. Thank you. And then just a reminder, in July we will take a break, and before that we will have elections. No text change this month, is my understanding, in June, and no committee of the whole. Thank you.

All right. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.