City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, everybody. Sorry for the brief delay, it's 5.32. This is the pre-agenda meeting for the Thomas Spencer Board of Aldermen in advance of our regular meeting that'll be held next Tuesday at 6 p.m. We are called to order. We have all of our board members accepting secrets here this evening. And with that, we are called to order. We'll begin with an invocation. Father God, we thank you for the blessings of the season. We thank you for the opportunity to come together tonight for the betterment of our town and our citizens and businesses. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to serve. We ask that you be with us in the decisions that we make, both this evening and next week. We thank you also for the staff that work tirelessly for the betterment of our town. Amen. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, God, invincible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Before we review our agenda for next Tuesday's meeting, we have a number of public hearings, so I'm going to invite Mr. Blunt forward. And the first public hearing that we're going to hear about is a proposed economic development incentive for Crow Holdings Development at 626 Willow Creek Drive. Mr. Blunt.

Mr. Mayor, members of the board, I'll run you through this presentation very quickly. It's similar to one you've already seen, so I won't go into it in any depth. The developer and Scott with EDC are both here tonight. Any questions pertinent to the incentive or the project itself, I'm sure they will be glad to answer those for you. This is a public hearing based on an economic incentive grant requested for a project on Willow Creek Drive. I walked through a few slides just showing you where it's located, and there you see it's on the east side of I-85 along Willow Creek, which is a service road that runs down I-85. Zooming in a little closer, you see that it's a wooded site, undeveloped at this time. This is what it looks like from the north looking south from I-85, and then from the south looking north from I-85. This is on the south border of the property. There is a creek that runs down that border. and this is a residence to the right or the south of that creek this is a site plan primary site plan showing where the two buildings would be located on the site and i included the landscaping plan and a few details there were some concerns about buffering this from adjacent properties you see in this one the green areas would be buffering and plantings And zooming in a little closer, you can actually see the individual plants. And there's a schedule that spells out what those would be. Those are to meet our buffering requirements of our development ordinance. This is on the lower right or the southeast corner. Where there is a steep slope, they have to do what's called a reforesting plan. And this shows that trees would be replanted on those slopes to prevent erosion. It's an 80-acre site, two buildings, totals a little over a million square feet of industrial space. At this time, the estimated investment for the buildings alone is $80 million. And then the uplift that calls for plant machinery could be in the $40 million range. So this might end up being a $120 million project before it's all over. This is a quick cut of the incentive grant that's being requested as it is Not quite $100 million at this point, but we qualify for the Level 2 grant, which is 75% over five years of the taxes that they pay, property taxes. This gives you some numbers on what that grant is worth to them as the developer. In the first five years, we still would collect over $600,000 in new tax revenue, and then moving forward from that, we collect the whole kit and kaboom. So with that, I'll answer any questions you have, or if you have questions for Scott or the developer, they can answer those, and then you can add your public hearing.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. Or to open it up, are there any questions initially? Ms. Sledge has one.

Mr. Blunt, the tax rate currently is 63.05, I think. Does that remain constant through the life of the loan, or is it?

No, it will fluctuate with. the changes in value in the buildings and with changes in values in the tax rate. The final check gets written based on how much they actually pay.

It's also based on new investment, for example. So looking forward, say the property is there and then the idea of a tenant coming in and making further updates or personal property valuation, it's all based on investment or new base that's into the property. So the example is if there was already a building there that was worth something and there was an investment paid in that building, the grant would be calculated based on new investment. And so it's not just so simple as they get all their taxes back. There is a net gain based on the formula of the percentage of the grant, but also based on new investment.

Thank you. Other questions? Mr. Miller.

Willow Creek Road. Is there going to be any improvements on that road as far as that goes?

There has been a traffic study done, and as I understand it, they are having to put turn lanes into the facility itself, plus improve the signalization at the intersection of Willow Creek and Long Prairie Road.

I understand that, but I'm actually talking about the road itself.

Okay. I saw a DOT letter, but I don't remember the details. They might be able to answer that question for you.

I mean, that road is okay, but it doesn't really get any traffic at all on that thing. And I know if it ever develops, it's going to be a tremendous amount of more vehicles on that road. So I think somebody's going to have to look after it, probably even widen that road, I would think.

That's a state road, so luckily we won't have to worry about that. That'll be up to them.

I realize that, but I'm hoping they're thinking about that in the future.

Board, any other questions? Okay. Very good.

All right, before we open the public hearing, I will allow the developer to speak. Perhaps you can address Mr. Miller's question.

Thank you all for having us again.

It is a pleasure to be back in front of you. Seeing some new faces from the community and seeing some familiar faces is always nice. My name is Nick Thornton. I'm with Crow Holdings and head up the Charlotte office. And to address the question on traffic in that area, Steve was correct. We are putting in a signal at Willow Creek Road. We are improving that turn bolt and repaving that basically to improve that access there. And then coming down to Willow Creek, that is falling into NCDOT's purview. In widening, they do find the road width acceptable for tractor trailers, so we will not be impacting that, but as Steve said, we will be adding turn lanes to make sure traffic is able to safely get off, decelerate, channelize into the project, and go safely from there. There are also required stem lengths for those entrances and exits that we're having, and as you can see a little bit, we think it's important to control traffic. If you look... I'm sorry, I don't have a pointer, but look at the larger building and on the southernmost entrance you'll see there are multiple lanes in and a lane coming out, we find inbound traffic does tend to queue up more. So what we're doing there is we're actually creating two lanes for trucks to queue because we do see as you get to this larger facility, sometimes they like to have a security gate to receive. So we have room for that. We also have that whole loop where those will be for queuing. That's a little bit on the traffic front. Again, we're very familiar with Rowan County and have appreciated that partnership. We developed two buildings off Kelo Road. One is a very similar size that we're working with DHL and Eli Lillian. They're storing products before they go to the Concord and RTP facilities. And then the other project American Eagle is coming into, American Eagle will use that as their omni-channel distribution center. So handling a lot of their online to home sales, as well as to some store sales as well. So again, thank you for having us. Thank you for taking this into consideration. This is a project that we have worked long and hard on. There is going to be just beyond the road improvements itself, improvements to sewer and water in the area. We're using an upsized sewer, excuse me, an upsized water line. 10 inches in an upside sewer line at 12 inches, or excuse me, at six inches for a force main onsite is gonna be 12 inches. We actually are installing a lift station that will serve that sewer basin. And that force main is sized for that future need if there is more development in that area. So I will say it is breathtaking to see how construction costs have risen. I believe the last time we spoke to you all about this, that was projected at $3.8 million, and we just got bids back on the road work, sewer work, the water work, and it is going to be just under $5 million. So, really, we're here because we see, you know, we will put in that infrastructure, we will make that dedication to the community those will be public lines that can serve the area in the future but it is always helpful to have these grants to help offset that significant investment and again our intent is to always as soon as we get a tenant to pass that grant on to the tenants to further incentivize them to come to Spencer to come to Rowan County so we will likely be talking with you all as soon as we're lucky to find a tenant, about assigning it from our entity to the tenant so that they can receive that full benefit and be a community partner.

Thank you. Forward any questions?

I did have one other question now. Think about it. On the larger building, I believe it says you have docks on both sides of the building, in and out, but on the other building there's just docks on one side. Is the one with the docks on one side, is it just to bring materials in that might be used in the second location? Are they separate entities altogether?

Really more separate entities. It's a little bit more of just building designation and flow. Typically when you get to larger facilities, there will be kitting type work where you're doing some final assembly, but it is more about the flow of goods. And a typical facility would have one side be inbound, one side be outbound. When you get to the smaller type facilities, We do see those smaller users will be a little more higher touch with the product. I'm not saying that there aren't 3PL and logistics users that wouldn't be interested in that size. We do see them in that size range, but we typically see more value-add work being done in that building itself when you get to that size range.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Board, we will officially open the public hearing now. I do not have anyone signed up on our sign-in list for this specific public hearing, but I want to make sure that there is not anyone in the audience that wishes to speak. If there is, we will allow that. Okay. Seeing as there is no one, Board, is there a motion to close that public hearing?

So moved.

A motion by Mr. Muhammad. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Ms. Sledge. All in favor? All right. All opposed? And the public hearing is closed. We will now move to our next public hearing, and that is the proposed designation of 600 and 520 South Salisbury Avenue for economic development purposes. Mr. Blunt.

Thank you, sir. And I'll walk through this one very quickly. This is parcel 032-112, better known as our old town hall building at 600 South Salisbury Avenue. Also, the parking lot across the street, which is 520 South Salisbury Avenue, the parking lot next to Pinocchio's restaurant. In blue there, you see what is probably very familiar to you. That property stretches from 6th Street to 7th Street along Salisbury Avenue, and then includes, again, the parking lot next to Pinocchio's across the street. This is a view from South Salisbury Avenue, a view from 6th Street, a view from 7th Street. This is the parking lot. Part of the Upfit of this parking lot will be to pave that parking lot and bring it up to our current standards for landscaping and lighting and things of that nature. And I will state that they have pledged to work with Pinocchio's to allow Pinocchio's parking in that lot at nighttime for continued use of the restaurant. The sale of this property is to allow a developer to renovate this building into like new office space. Preliminary numbers show him investing over a million dollars in the renovation of what we thought was going to be a useless building. It was of no use other than tearing down. The developer will improve the adjacent parking lot. This is a very preliminary building layout plan, and I'll show it to you, turn this way so you can see it on full screen. Obviously, smaller private offices down the wings to the south. conference room, break room, training room, and a lobby up at the front. This would be professional offices for a variety of uses for the developer. He plans to locate his operation in this building and then have office space that can lease out to other users. Again, this is not specific to that building. This is just a concept showing what the building might look like to some degree with the improved facade. and brickwork and windows and doors and then the interior up fits would be to class a office space this one is to some degree complicated by the sale of property and the way it has to be handled from a government to a private entity i'll allow our brilliant manager to explain all the steps we're going through with that mr manager yes so in working closely with our town attorney we

recommended a multi-step process for this and the public hearings that are in place tonight are following what's required in state statute, but the recommendation is to consider the designation of the property as being held for economic development purposes and then also separately consider the conveyance of the property under the economic development statutes. There's been public notice around this conveyance in compliance with the statutes for that. In general, in addition to just what Steve mentioned, the preliminary determination is that the proposed designation and redevelopment could facilitate adaptive reuse of our vacant facility stimulate private investment and spencer increase property values and future tax revenues encourage business growth and employment opportunities improve the south salisbury avenue corridor and advance our economic development objectives so the consideration of the offer for purchase combined with all the economic development benefits we have determined to be greater than or equal to the estimated fair market value of the property And so the recommendation for tonight is to have the two public hearings and then to consider a resolution that would declare the property to be held for economic development purposes. And then on your agenda on Tuesday, there would be a second resolution to consider the conveyance of the property for economic development purposes.

Board, any questions about that? Okay.

Has anybody thought about having a daycare center?

Another one of those somewhere. All right. Very good. So we will open up the public hearing for this as well. Again, this is the public hearing for the designation of these two parcels for economic development purposes. Is there anyone wishing to speak on that? I don't have anyone signed up.

Okay.

Hearing none, board is there a motion to close that public hearing?

So moved.

Motion by Mr. Muhammad. Is there a second?

Second.

Second from Ms. Moody. All in favor? All right. All opposed? And that public hearing is closed. The next public hearing is also related to these two parcels. And so this public hearing will be opened related to the conveyance of 600 and 520 South Salisbury Avenue to October 9th Investments LLC for economic development purposes. Is there anyone... wishing to speak for this public hearing. Hearing none, board, is there a motion to close this public hearing?

So moved.

Motion by Ms. Moody. Second. Second by Mayor Pro Tem. All in favor? All right, all opposed. And that public hearing is closed. All right, now the public hearing that everybody is here for tonight. This is for a public hearing for the proposed rezoning of parcel 034004 located on John Street from single family residential at 3.0 units per acre SFR 3 to the residential main street transition RMST zoning classification.

Mr. Mayor, members of the board, I will point out before giving you this presentation that The planning board has reviewed this and unanimously voted to recommend approval of the rezoning as presented. We did have a neighborhood meeting on Monday, had five property owners attend and speak, and I'll try to address some of their concerns in this updated presentation. I had a little time to do some research and maybe I can answer some of their concerns. Maybe not, we'll see. So again, this is a 3.21 acre parcel off of John Street. with a possible connection to Jordan Avenue, which I'll show you more in detail. The rezoning is needed for a small residential subdivision. Right now, the preliminary site plan shows 14 lots, but probably could be up to 16 based on the density allowances. It will require a new road to be built. I'll show you some details on that. And it has to be built to our standards in our development ordinance. Existing RMST zoning exists to the east and south of this property. The SFR zoning classifications to the west. I'll show you a map with that. Water and sewer is available. Sewer actually runs right through the middle of the project. You'll see where the right-of-way is for that. So let's walk through this slowly. That's where the site is located. We'll zoom in just a little closer. You can see that it is bordered at the north by John Street. to the south by what would be a right-of-way, an unopened right-of-way for Jordan Avenue, and then to the east, there are homes already there, but also Alexander Street would be the main access road off of Whitehead. This is the property in more detail, and you can see some light, dark lines there. That's from an earlier subdivision flat, and I'll show you that in more detail also. This is the edge of John Street. There's a fair amount of concern about the quality of this road, the width of this road. Just by happenstance, I ran into Alderman Miller there this afternoon. He was checking it out. I was checking it out with a tape measure. We'll give you a little more detail on that in just a second. It's not quite as narrow as it looks, but I'll give you more detail. This is the sewer right-of-way that runs down through the middle of the property. This is the Jordan Avenue coming off of Alexander, heading back to where it dead ends now. But it was apparently cleared at one time. And ditching looks like it extends on both sides, at least one side, down to the point where it would connect to the new road. This is what we would like to see happen with the build out of the subdivision, is to create access from both ends into the new road. You'll see a subdivision plat in a minute that shows the cul-de-sac, but we, I think, convinced the developer that's not a good idea. This is what we would eventually like to see done, a new road built to town standards that would go from John Street out to the end of Jordan Street as it sits now. Again, I mentioned the existing zoning. All that in orange is RMST zoning as it exists today. The SFR 3 is what this is zoned.

You can see the SFR 2 to the west of that.

As I pointed out in numerous annexation hearings, your current land use plan as adopted by this board recommends higher density residential growth, especially in this direction from the town. This is not an annexation. It's already in the municipal limits of our town. The subdivision was actually planted out in 1904, if you can imagine that. This was that preliminary site plan that I mentioned that showed the cul-de-sac at the bottom. Their initial thought was to access off of John Street, put the cul-de-sac at the bottom. I think we've convinced them to do away with the cul-de-sac and just connect to the Jordan Street and finish out that road at that end. You can also see on that drawing the dotted lines that run down through the middle, that's new water line that they would run and the existing sewer line. While I'm on this one, you'll notice the upper right hand lot that looks bigger than all the other ones is actually labeled common open space. Our development ordinance requires a 15% set aside for common open space on major subdivisions. And that might be something worth talking about as we move along.

At the neighborhood meeting,

I think these folks are here to talk to you again tonight, so you'll get their exact words if I don't get them right in my presentation. I took away from that meeting four basic concerns. Number one, that John Street was too narrow and poorly maintained to support additional traffic. The property owner to the west was concerned that once developed, stormwater would run onto his property from the development. There was concern that the RMST zoning would allow multifamily development, where the current SFR 3 does not, and that there's too many houses on small lots that would change the character of the neighborhood, and that small houses would be cheap and attract bad people. Again, that same slide, instead of the primary access being off of John Street, we would suggest the primary access would be off of Jordan Avenue and that it would be improved to our current road standards. And I'll show you those in just a second.

There would be access on the John Street. There would be access both ways.

This shows you that John Street is a 50-foot right of way. It was paved to about 16 feet. Actually, by measurement today, if you push the grass back on one side, and dig through the leaf and debris on the other side. It's about 18 feet. Alexander Street is the same thing. Jordan is about the same thing. You can see where the paving ends. It would have to be extended down to where the new road would be built. This is what John Street looks like. And again, it looks like it's very narrow. To the left of that picture is reefs and debris laying on top of the pavement. So that needs to be cleaned up. Also, there's vegetation growing up right to the edge of the road. During development, that would be cleared and the ditches would be installed. So that would be an improvement for John Street. Jordan Street obviously dead ends before it gets to this development, so the developer would have to cover the cost of extending that road. Alexander going south from Jordan was paved. two years ago, so it's in really good shape. Looking north from Jordan Street, not quite as good, but it's not bad. It's got decent ditches on both sides, and it's decent width and decent quality of pavement. This is our current road standard for residential street. As you can see, up in the middle of that, the paved section would give you an eight-foot, six-inch traffic lane going each direction. So basically 17 feet of paved street, which you have now. So what's there now meets our standard. This is what the new road would have to be built out to, to this new standard. The water issue, we agree that water flows downhill. And those lines show the direction that water would flow across that property. By calculation of those topo lines, it drops about 18 feet the 350 feet width of the property, which works out to about 6 inches per 10 feet of run. We think that the site grading will be able to take out most of that, but since this is a major subdivision, the project will be required to have an erosion control plan devised by a professional engineer, and some components of that may be required to stay after construction, such as sediment ponds. The RMST zoning, it's technically true that that does allow multifamily development, but it has to meet the additional requirements of Section 10.124. And I took a stab at seeing how you could put maybe a small row of townhomes on this property. I think you could put a six-unit townhome on three of those lots. with the buffering that's required for townhomes and the rear parking that's required for townhomes. But on the same three lots, you get the three duplexes. So you get the same number of houses as you get in a townhome. So there is really no benefit in building townhomes or apartments in this development. The developer is planning to build single-family homes. They are a single-family home builder. So I think that's what he's going to do, and that's what he's saying he will do. The too many houses on small lots. As I pointed out, this was originally planted in 1904. It was called the John S. Henderson addition to Spencer, and it did show 50-foot-wide lots in that plat. At the time, people would buy multiple lots if they wanted a larger lot to build their house on. Current market demand is for a small lot as you can get. Nobody wants to do yard work. Nobody wants to carry the cost of unused land. I did go through and do some calculations. And along Alexander Street, the average lot size is 0.34 acres. The average tax value of those properties is a little over $160,000. The new subdivision, yes, the lots are smaller, 0.144 acres is the average. The estimated value would be $280,000 per unit. Higher density does not, in and of itself, equate social economic problems. I could give you a lot of data on that, but I'll just let you make your own decision. This was the original plat, 1904 subdivision. Again, you can see the small 50-foot wide lots, the roads that were proposed and those that were built. The water and sewer line that would run along John Street and the sewer line that would run through this particular piece of property were meant so that these lots could be developed.

You can see in a little more detail there, those dotted lines were the original plan. I think when people get worried about high-density residential, this is what they fear. This is what they think is going to happen to their community.

But if you drive through Spencer and look at what's built in Spencer, all these slides will show you houses built in 50 foot wide lots.

These are new ones that have been built in the last couple years in 50 foot wide lots. This shows you that sewer line that runs through the property. It would be a shame to have built out infrastructure that would not be used.

Some of the questions had to do with what the zoning was back before our current development ordinance was adopted. And I went back and found that these properties were actually zoned to R8 historically. That would have required an 8,000 square foot lot, 60 foot frontage. The SFR3 that is currently zoned, the lot size is somewhat larger, but the width is the same. RMST allows 5,000 square foot lots, 42 foot width. But what is proposed is 6,256 is the average size of the lots and 50 foot width is the minimum width of it. So he's actually building it out larger than what RMSD allows. The reason he needs that density is to cover the cost of the infrastructure. He's going to have to build 640 feet of new road. He has to put sidewalks on either side of that or do the payment in lieu of, which is probably what will happen. Although the sewer is there, he's got to run a 600-foot water main, which would require a new fire habitant, street lights, and other things. So he is calculating that he needs that density to offset his investment in the infrastructure cost.

I would propose to you that

By doing this, you're going to open an open road that's going to access not only these properties, but other properties that could be developed in the future. You're going to be utilizing existing water and sewer infrastructure. You're going to provide 14 plus or minus new homes and new families to our community, which will be a boost to our sales tax revenue. You're going to expand the property tax base by about $4 million. The homes will be built to about the same size as the majority of homes in the area. Again, this follows your comprehensive land use plan that this board adopted. And it says higher density residential, especially in this part of town, is supported and makes good sense for the town itself. Ultimately, the developer has to build something that he can sell. And therefore, he has to build what the market demand is there for. And that's what he is trying to do. That's what most builders are trying to do in our area right now. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. We'll open it up for questions. Mr. Miller has the first one.

All right. Firstly, you said something about curb and gutter as far as that goes. Is that correct? As far as the streets go, possibly?

There will either be curb and gutter or ditching. Again, based on his professional engineer's erosion control and stormwater management planning.

Okay. I'm concerned about where this water's going to go, if it's ditching or curve gutter, since everything's flowing downhill towards the southern part of it. I call it the southern part.

It really runs to the west. It goes towards the creek, obviously, down into the creek. Again, the professional engineer will determine how the stormwater management system will be designed. And their requirement is that there be no more runoff after construction than there is before construction. If that requires a sediment pond to slow the flow of water down, then that's what they will put in. I can't tell you exactly what the design would be when we're nowhere near that point in the site plan review system.

I understand that, but that's what a lot of people are concerned about as far as I I can understand that concern.

There is one family to the west, and they are downhill from this property. Again, I think it can be graded to slow down the flow of water. I think berms could be installed to direct the water to some point. Exactly how the professional engineer will design that, I can't speak to that at this point.

Okay. Are there going to be berms put down on the lower side as far as they go?

For stormwater purposes or for buffering?

Just for, just for, just keeping properties, yeah, for runoff, but also just keeping it separate properties.

There are no buffering requirements in our ordinance for residential properties next to other residential properties. So in this case, the existing property owners at the lower end will be next to a house. There'll be a house there, just like it is on the other side of their house.

Right.

So at this point, there are no buffers shown.

Okay. The sewer main that is going through, is that going to be right in the center where the street's going to be, the proposed street, or what does that look like?

The drawing I showed you showed it on one side of the road for some portion of it and then in the road for another portion. SRU has already seen this plan, proposed plan, and they agree that that's acceptable.

Okay. What are main services? Do we have enough capacity water to serve these houses, plus the neighborhood there is?

Salisbury-Roman Utilities, that's it, yes. Now, there may have to be some improvements to the line that comes off of John Street and runs down into this property, but that will be up to SRU to determine what those improvements need to be.

Okay. All right. As far as the size of the house, I think you told me originally they're going to be around 1,200 square feet or something like that.

I think in the neighborhood meeting he was asked that question. He mentioned 1,200 to 1,500 square foot houses.

I know. Ms. Sledge asked this question at the last meeting. Is this, these houses, according to your guidelines, saying they're going to be more valued than the houses existing on Alexander Street? Is that going to affect the tax rate on those houses?

No, sir.

It won't affect that?

Tax valuation is based on similar houses and age and quality. That's how the tax assessor sets a value on your house. So the new houses will be compared to new houses and the older houses compared to older houses.

I am concerned about that because the industry is not a very busy street. It's not a very I don't like a lot of traffic being on that street because you're looking at 12 houses, is that right?

14, I think, is what I actually chose.

So you're looking at probably as many as 30 more vehicles or something like that on that road as far as that goes. I figured at least two, perhaps, at least, as far as that goes. I definitely think we should definitely go with the two entrances instead of that cul-de-sac at the end and have one entrance as far as that goes.

I agree, and we'll try to hold into that during the site plan review process.

And the only thing I am really concerned about, that I am, and I'm thinking about the neighborhood as far as I go, is that how do people feel about having smaller homes put in their neighborhood when they've spent their life there? Are they going to feel comfortable about living there?

And I don't want to see people move because of,

They think it's going to be left desirable people there. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but we've got some good neighbors down there and some beautiful homes, and I'd love to see that neighborhood continue. And I don't want to upset the neighborhood as far as they go.

Steve, I share those concerns, but I do want to push back on this concept that because they're smaller homes, they may be less desirable people. That is totally false, and that perception is false because you're talking about people that are going to be buying $280,000 homes, and we have an average value of $160,000 in that neighborhood, and so what we're talking about is The reality is what is an affordable home for anybody to buy these days? Um, and 280,000 is, uh, I wouldn't consider that in Spencer to be affordable, but, but that is the going rate these days. And so for us to say, and we heard this with, um, I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a minute because that, that, that one thing, when I hear that bothers me when people say that, because we heard it with Halkinstown road as well, that there's an assumption because there's, uh, higher density, that that means that there's less desirable people coming to our town. And that's completely false. There's nothing to substantiate that. But I will share all of the concerns that you mentioned, concerns with the roadway, making sure that you have good ingress and egress from that neighborhood. Um, my biggest concern is the stormwater, um, particularly at 601. Um, to me, that's, you know, with, with the amount of fall that you have and everything like that. So that would be the one thing that I would say, if this does move forward, Mr. Blunt, that you and you're going to have to go through with the fine tooth comb, the engineering that's done on it, um, to ensure that it is not gonna have impacts on those downstream properties. That's the biggest concern I think that I've got. The other concern that I've got is with our ordinance in this payment in lieu of for sidewalk and only $25 a foot. I don't think that even touches what it costs to build a sidewalk these days. So that's something that we probably need to be looking at going forward. That's irrelevant to this conversation, I think, but it's, If a house costs $280,000 for a 1,200-square-foot house, then you're not going to be able to build a sidewalk for $25 a foot. So we need to right-size that.

We'll look into that. I will point out the research that I did. You mentioned smaller houses than what's already there. These houses will be the same size as the majority of the houses, especially along Alexandria. There are some larger ones. But the average house size will be about the same as the average house size that's being built. So it's not like a mini house development. It's full-blown house development. One other thing that I want to say.

Yeah, let me point out something there, too, because I wanted to mention this to you. We're talking 14 units, right? By right, without the rezoning, they could put nine units on that property. So really what you're talking about is an additional ten units that would be allowable. Or I'm sorry, additional five units that would be allowable.

And I meant to point out that I mentioned the common open space that is a new requirement that wasn't required back in the day. That uses up two of its lots. If you did not require them to have that common open space, they could have the 60-foot wide lots on the 14 lots that they're proposing.

I understand. I understand.

It's sort of a trade-off. You get a little park area versus slightly narrower lots. Or if you want to do away with that park, you can get them out. The SFR 3 will allow, as the mayor says, by my calculations, 10 houses. So it's 10 versus 14. You're not going from 0 to 14. You're going from 10 to 14.

Let me just say this. First of all, I was not applying...

I know you weren't. I'm sensitive about it.

Okay, okay. But let me say something to the residents of that area. Mr. Blount does a really good job in development. I mean, you think about it. You think about you're going to have curved roads or some kind of ditching there. You're going to have sidewalks. You're going to have hydrants there. I don't know if streetlights are going to be down there or not. And you've got that play area, that access area. That It, to me, shows that the town really does care about you or care about this neighborhood. We don't want to build something down there that's not going to be acceptable to everybody in Spencer. So I've always been impressed. Mr. Bullock does a good job, and I don't think he would actually design anything or have anything designed that wouldn't be his approval.

Mr. Taylor, I've got a question for you about John Street. And the fact that it sounds like we've got a lot of leaves and stuff that are covering that street. I know it doesn't get much traffic, but what can we do in the interim to make sure that that road is cleared and maintained? So after, you know, once the leaves fall, I think this fall would be a time to get that cleared.

But keep in mind that when they develop this project, they'll take out those trees that are right up next to the edge of the road. They'll recontour it and put ditches on that side of the road.

I understand.

And the trees won't be dropping.

But that's the thing we hear from the community is maintenance of the roads, and that seems to be a low-hanging, easy fruit to address.

I'm concerned about you're going to put a ditch down the side of the road, but that water is going to go somewhere. There's a house right down there at the end of the street, and they're concerned about where that water goes.

And we will work with their professional engineers to find a solution to this.

I agree.

Steve gives a lot of credit to professional engineers.

I could pull up the presentation for the Willow Creek development and show you all of the stormwater considerations that are going into a project of that size. And we argued about some of those for days and days trying to get it to where I was comfortable with it. This one, I think, can be solved. It's not a lot of law. Not a lot of law.

Forward other questions before we open the public hearing.

All right. Before you open your public hearing, we did have one person that wrote a letter to the Salisbury Post and then since then has written us two emails. I don't know if that person's here in person. The first letter to the Post was a little confusing because she was concerned about the 40 to 60 homes that were going to be built in this subdivision. Turns out that was just false information that was going around in the neighborhood. She came back and said in her first email that she had heard it was going to be 16 houses, and she was okay with that to some degree. And then after the neighborhood meeting, she talked to some of the folks that were here, and she now thought this, and I'll quote her, we feel it may just benefit our community rather than hurt us. So that was a person that went from adamantly against it to supporting it over that time.

And board, you did receive that written correspondence. Yes. Okay. All right. We will open the public hearing. We have a number of folks signed up this evening. And so we will go in order based on how each person signed up. There is an option if you decide if you would rather not speak personally and want to elect a spokesperson, that's also an option. But in the event you don't have that, we're going to go ahead and open up with Ms. Trudy Gale. So if you will, please come forward. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes. We have a timer that we'll have up for you. And so that'll help keep track of time. And we'll turn it over to you.

Good evening, Mayor and Board. My name is Trudy Gale. And along with my husband, Robert Pendleton, on the property, at 207 Alexander Street and also the vacant lot right beside it, which is on the corner of John and Alexander. We've owned this property since 1988. This is a quiet residential neighborhood, and we would like it to stay that way. On the letter that you sent us, it stated that the property owner of the new parcel there has requested that the parcel be re-sewn to allow a small residential subdivision. The property does not need to be rezoned to allow a residential subdivision. That can occur with the current zoning of single-family residence. I want to make it known that I am not opposed to development. The property owners have the right to develop their property. My concern is the type of intensity of development the rezoning will allow in our existing white neighborhoods. The RMST zoning is much broader than the single family zoning. It allows single and multifamily buildings, urban workplace, shopfront, detached house, and civic building. That will no longer be a residential neighborhood. According to what's on Spencer's own town page, the RMST zoning seeks to integrate restaurant services, workplaces, civic, educational, and higher density housing in a compact, pedestrian environment. I believe the question before you is not simply whether the developer has plans for houses today. The question is, are we comfortable giving this property a zoning class that would allow substantially different uses in the future? By rezoning to RMST, a dollar general could be placed there that will be in our back and side yards. The current owners could sell the property to anyone once they get the rezoning. This property was sold by Marvin Crest for $85,000 to Birdseye Incorporated on July 24, 2026. That same day, Birdseye sold it to the Gaddis Brothers for $150,000. They may decide to sell it once the rezoning is complete. Three dead-end streets, Jordan, John, and Alexander are within a two-block area. This will significantly affect the traffic in this area. with more garbage trucks, more delivery trucks, more school buses. I realize this will bring more taxes to the town of Spencer, but it will create more services needed, the need for more garbage and debris pickup. This could also mean more crimes and more law enforcement. And I think you seem to be concerned about the Geddes brothers who reside in a different county, more so than the long-term residents who have paid taxes for Spencer for years. And I respectfully ask the board to look beyond the number of houses shown on the current proposal and consider what is questioned in the future. And one other thing, on the Spencer, North Carolina, Rowan Regional Gateway, right underneath that on your website, it says, where hometown charm is plentiful and residents can enjoy the quality of life they deserve, they desire. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Gale.

All right. I know you want to clap, but we can't do that, okay? Thanks. All right. We'll now invite Randy Lomax forward.

I'm the speaker, so please forgive me.

You're fine.

I live at 601 John Street, which is part of the wastewater that I'm worried about for your drainage. I own property from the start of your project to the end of your project. The whole piece.

Let me just clarify, not our project. It's the developer's project.

But it is your issue. Correct. I came to the meeting on Monday and he has touched every base that I was concerned with. That is the wastewater and the size of the lots. The size of the lots are not consistent with what is in the neighborhood. However you've got it zoned, the little squares do not show the houses and the lots that are already in place.

So actually, I'm not against the project or having the houses there.

I am about the size of the lots and the consistency with what is in the neighborhood and of the town. You already put a project and a housing development right behind my house.

Those are 60-foot lots. They're perfect. And they had to do everything he's having to do.

Now, their stormwater does drain across my property. It comes out a big pipe from the road. I'm not complaining about that either. It just, engineers, we'll have to look into this to see what is the best way to discard this rainwater. And there are ways. I'm not kidding that wrong either. Engineers can do wonders. That's basically what we need to address. I do not think it needs to be rezoned. I think it can be handled properly under the standard zoning. And yeah, they would get probably 10, 12 houses in there with that amount of property. Thank you.

Thank you. We appreciate it.

We'll touch it. I have a few more minutes or seconds. You do. The road you're talking about, it's not the width. Well, some of it is. They were just down there two months or last month, repaired that water line twice just last month.

because they were broke. The asphalt's only two inches thick. It was not made for extended travel.

It was only made for me. Sorry, that's the way it was. Spencer did pave that road. It was not made for development traffic. And when they repaired it, the repairman told me then, when he dug it up, he thought we paid for it. because it's not made for that.

Thank you, Mr. Lomax. All right. Next, we'll invite Vicki Lomax forward. My name is Vicki Lomax.

I live at 601 John Street. Thank you for having me to see you. During our meeting, we did touch base on several issues, but they were never answered. I kept hearing over and over again, We've got to get the engineers to look at it. We've got to get the engineers to look at it. But yet you're wanting to rezone this property before the engineers can look at it to see what needs to be done. I was also told that the town needed to grow. Yes, we need to grow. We really do need to grow, and I have nothing against that. I have nothing against having neighbors and being built in beside me. I asked if there was going to be a burrow or a tree line that would separate the properties because you're going from large area to multi-homes. Are we going to have some kind of privacy there?

Because it does go down the whole length of our property.

The other thing I would like to address is that, yeah, you will receive more taxes from this. I don't deny that. It will help us grow. It will help infrastructure. But I want you to look. I used to teach beginners. crafts. So I want you to look at something from a different perspective, if I may. Try coming into Salt and Spencer to bring your child to the museum or something like this. What do you see when you hit our main streets? What do you see? You see the Transparency Museum. You see IHOP, which used to be right down the road. Where Barnhart's Jewelers used to be, there's empty storefronts. We've got a restaurant. We've got the Queso Sola. We've got Pinocchio's. That's right here in our downtown. We've got the Dollar General store. We also have the empty bank buildings and multiple other empty storefronts. There is one right beside Pinocchio's. It's a white structure that has been, someone has tried to rebuild it, but it looks like they abandoned it. Now it's in dilapidated state. The windows are broken. So what are we doing about this? We want people to come to Spencer. We want people to say, this is a nice town. This is where I want to live. This is what I want to help grow. So you can build your houses. You can rezone your properties. I just ask that you have the engineers look and see what has to be done. I ask that you look at the town and see what has to be done because this is my home. I would like not to just offer homes and houses to people that are going to go to Charlotte or Lexington or Winston. I want people that have jobs in Rowan County and will come here to Rowan County. Thank you. I know I've got a few minutes, but thank you for letting me take your time.

Thank you. All right. We'll invite Renita Ritchie forward.

Thank you, guys. I'm gonna approach from just a little bit of a different perspective. I live on Whitehead Avenue 603 and I'm right below Alexander. I've been walking my dogs up Whitehead at the risk of my life because there are no sidewalks on Whitehead so that I can get to Alexander to get off the main drag and not get killed and then I go around up John and And up, then back down, take my life and my hands back to Whitehead again. So my concern is if you're going to put this many more people in that much more traffic, are you going to put some sidewalks or something on Whitehead? Alexander and John Street, or are we just going to become another annex of Whitehead, which is a freeway? I told Steve the other night they could fund the town budget by putting a cop out there and stopping the speeders going 90 miles an hour past my house. But that's my concern, is if we're adding all this, and I'm not opposed to adding, but I think we need to look at the infrastructure other than what's going to be in that neighborhood. How is it going to impact the rest of us neighbors who are already there who, you know, like to walk our dogs in that area? And it's, you know, if you add another 40 cars a day coming and going. And listen, back when the school bus came down Jordan to Alexander and made a left, poor Rhett and him's front yard had a gully that somebody broke an axle in because the road's not wide enough for a school bus. to make a left-hand turn off of Jordan onto Alexander, and you're going to add these houses, which you would presume at least some of them will have small children because they'll be starter home level. So I think that we need to look as town if we're going to add more people, which is great, to actually make some accommodations for the people that are already in the area so their safety is not impacted negatively by the additional people. Thank you very much.

All right, next is Tony Raper.

Hi, my name is Tony Raper and my husband John and I live at 201 Alexander Street. We are going to be affected by this and I don't know really what to say because we've been there since 2011, and it just seems like it's going to be a big change. I will say that the water pressure in our house fluctuates regularly, and I'm wondering how that's going to change. I do believe that taxes are going to go up. regardless of what's been said. And I believe that it's entirely possible that you're going to price some people out of being able to live in this town. And I hope that's not us. So that's all I had to say.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next is Jason Gattis.

Thanks for having me. I really just put my name down to answer questions, but I'll go ahead and make a short statement. So I was really nervous to come here today. So when we came on Tuesday night, I walked in 15 minutes early, and they knew exactly who I was. And they started getting some questions on me before Steve even walked out. And I just want to say that fantastic people. I know what they're feeling right now. There's a big development going right behind my personal house. So I know what they're feeling. We have a small family cabin. on High Rock Lake. We come to, uh, Polar Express every year, four daughters. And so, uh, I'm not, I'm not a national builder. You know what I mean? Uh, we just celebrate our 100th home in Concord. That's where our office is. Uh, and that's been several years. So we're not a, we're not a national builder. I think that's what a lot of people think when you think of developer and you think of builder. Uh, those are, those are swear words in here, I know. But, uh, We tried to do the right thing, and I feel Mr. Lomax's pain and Ms. Lomax with the possibility of water. But like Steve said, and I totally agree, we spent a lot of money on engineers, and I'm confident that when we finish a project, we do not leave it worse than when we found it. This will be a project I think I could be proud of, that I could show up during December and come with my girls and not be, you know, hated on over at the train station. I'm confident that most of the issues that were talked about tonight will be handled and will be handled professionally. And I think it's something that everyone can be proud of. On another note, our MST zoning is through that area. And like Mr. Blount said, this property has been platted for over 120 years. the exact way that I'm planning to develop it. So I would just ask you to take a look at it. And if you have questions for me, I'm more than happy to answer them.

And I plan on being a partner with you. I may have any questions.

Right. If we have questions, we can ask those later. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

And next is Robert Pendleton. It's working. It's working. Yes, sir. Okay.

Totally going to change my lifestyle.

I mean, all trees are going to be gone. All animals are going to be gone. We don't take care of the streets now. People across from me haven't mowed the yard all summer. All summer. I got pictures. You can see it. Waste out. We can't take care of what we got. How are we going to take care of all this new stuff? Who's going to pay for John Street?

The improvement. Who's going to pay for John Street? Taxpayers?

Forget it.

Taxpayers.

I don't like it. I don't see why we can't leave it all to the same family. Our MST is so great. Why don't we make the whole town our MRST? Thank you, Mr. Pendleton.

All right. We have reached all of those that have signed up. We'll open it up. Is there anyone that showed up? I know we had a few folks come in late. Anyone else that wishes to speak?

Okay.

All right. Thank you all for coming out this evening. We appreciate it very much. Board, we do have an opportunity prior to closing the public hearing. If there are any questions for the developer in particular that can be asked at this time.

And if not?

I move to close the public hearing.

Okay. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? Is there a second?

Second.

There's a second from Ms. Stanley. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor to close the hearing? Okay.

All opposed? And that public hearing is closed. And again, I think this item will be considered at Tuesday night's meeting, correct? Okay. All right. Thank you all again for coming out and speaking. We appreciate you very much. Okay, we will move now to consider adopting a resolution related to the 600 South Salisbury Avenue and 520 South Salisbury Avenue to be held for economic development purposes pursuant to North Carolina General Statute Section 158-7.1, which is what Mr. Blount was referencing. related to needing to declare the old town hall building as being held for economic development purposes. Board, are there any questions on that resolution?

Mr. Mayor, I would suggest we give them a few minutes.

Can you shut the door? We'll just shut the door.

Board, any questions on Resolution 26-12? And if not, we'll entertain a motion to adopt that resolution.

I move that we accept the resolution for adopting.

There's a motion from Mr. Muhammad for Resolution 26-12. Is there a second? Second. Second from Mr. Miller, any discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor? All right, all opposed?

All right, and that is adopted. We'll move now to review of our September 8th agenda. We will have a call to order, and then I need a volunteer for the invocation.

All right, thank you, Mr. Muhammad.

All right. And then we'll have an opportunity for additions or deletions in adoption of the agenda. Mr. Franzese, anything that we need to know of that needs to be added? Not at this time. There was something in our mailbox related to, is that already on there?

What you received was an updated supplemental information to the item 10, right? Yes, I'm The day has, yes, so this is related to number 10, so yes, it's some additional supplemental information for Tuesday.

Okay.

So that's going to get republished. When the packet gets republished for Tuesday, it'll be in number one. Go ahead and provide it to you now.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. Well, we don't need to make an agenda change for that. We can discuss it with

The item of glory.

All right. Anything else? Okay. Recognitions. Board, do we know of recognitions that need to be made at Tuesday's meeting?

Maybe for the event on Monday night or Saturday night. We will have that. The Saturday night.

Yep. With the street dance. Would anyone like to do that?

Ms. Sledge gets to do it. She brought it up.

I guess I'll be there.

Any other any other recognitions?

I would like Ms. Moody to make a recognition for our manager.

I wanted to, but I didn't know if that was appropriate.

It's absolutely appropriate. I think it's worth acknowledging.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, anything else? We're going to do that proclamation in October, correct, for the Dalton Twin Museum?

That would, so the request was, the request came in because there's going to be a visitor at the museum on, I believe, the 10th, and our pre-agenda will be on the 8th, so The proclamation, the request is if somebody could come to this event, present it to the person being honored, but if that's not possible, kind of a backup option is to present it to Beth Nance at the pre-agenda. Okay. There's going to be a visitor at the Dallin Toy Museum on October 10th. A very important visitor. Yes. So just in the last few days, the mayor received a request about that proclamation and somebody perhaps presenting it. But if that's not possible, Beth Nance can come on the 8th to receive it. So yes, for this month, we don't necessarily need it. So Peter, I should be able to actually make that.

Okay. Do we remember what time that was? Give me one minute and I'll tell you. Well, it's okay. We'll get together afterwards.

The time was not listed.

Just at some point that day.

October 10th.

Okay. So we'll do the proclamation then at the event, and then in October we can actually read it.

at the meeting okay make recognition of it okay anything else i think i'd actually like to make a recognition of all of our town staff that was involved over this past weekend at the transportation museum what a huge event and uh

I know that a lot of time and effort went in with all of our staff that worked over there, so I'll do that. Okay, anything else? Okay.

Would it be appropriate to talk about Amy Ray at this meeting, or does that need to come later? I'm going to say something in my closing remarks.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. All right.

Well, then have an opportunity for public comment and our consent agenda. Right now, consent agenda consists of just the approval of our August minutes. So be thinking if there's anything else as we go through this, if there's anything else that needs to be added to consent agenda. We are going to receive a presentation from the Rowan County Public Health Department on recreational partnership opportunities. Is Amy Smith the one coming for that presentation? Yes. Okay, great. And then we'll have an opportunity to consider a new appointment to the Historic Preservation Commission for a four-year term, Mr. Greg Lambeth.

Were there not two people who applied?

Only one has gone before... The commission to speak and answer questions. The second one is still pending. Will Mr. Lambert speak?

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Oh, not the second. Thank you. Not the second.

We'll correct that.

Double check his application.

And will Mr. Lambeth be here on? Yes.

Perfect.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. We'll receive an update on our 17th Street stormwater improvement project and then also consider the draft deed of easements that you got the updated material in your mailboxes today.

So on that, Mayor, and that's what Steve was hinting at earlier, not to get into too many details, but today we received some good news from NCDOT. as it relates to our EB 5861 project, which has been a long time in the works.

Which I feel like we should have told some of our residents that we're talking about Whitehead. We should have told them about that.

It's very timely.

Well, not necessarily.

Well, that's true.

So, of course, that project was originally envisioned as building a greenway, what was known as the Third Street Greenway connecting Grants Creek up Third Street to Salisbury Avenue, and then following out to the river. And over the last four or five years, we've been trying to get our arms around that project, get it better planned, and try to identify what our 20% match of a $4.5 million project would look like. Two months ago, we asked NCDOT if the $790,000 worth of trail work that we have in process of finalizing, designing, and uh taking the step towards getting construction uh if that could count as our match towards this project and we received the good news today they will allow that so that is a i wanted to throw confetti in the air when we found that out now but what that means is we need to this item that we envisioned where we were going to give an update about the the trail project and proceeding with the design build process, we need to hit pause because there needs to be some coordination on this with NCDOT because for this to work, in their eyes, this will all be one project that will incorporate the trail work and the alignment along Whitehead, Oakwood, Charles Street, and Highway 29. Which would consist of additional sidewalk. Yes, so we think that there's a good opportunity Of course, we got to figure out the numbers now with this concept, but we think there's an opportunity with these bike lanes that we've talked about. Of course, the Whitehead bike lanes are in. NCDOT is now planning on bike lanes for the rest of Highway 29 that a lot of the effort we've been talking about for 5861 can hopefully focus on really sidewalk improvements along Whitehead, Oakwood, and Charles. connecting an additional sidewalk where needed on Salisbury Avenue. But that, and at some places still using that multi-use, multi-use path model, but in other places where this bike lane infrastructure is in place, it could be more about sidewalks. So we've got to take a step back and look at all this because if we proceeded with trail project, then it's no longer able to count towards the match on a more holistic project. So just to say good news, but we'll have a little bit of a different discussion. I think you'll probably still hear from Joe about what we've cooked up so far, but we're not going to be ready to go forward yet until we do a little more coordination.

So you're not going to be able to start on this project or put it up to bid?

Correct. And we were not recommending going to bid on this project. We were going to request going forth with a design-build process where we would take qualifications for design-build teams, select one, and then we would negotiate an agreement to design and construct it.

So on that item, then, are we going to... So item 10 is updates on 17th Street. Item 11, then, is the potential use of design-build. Are we still going to have a presentation on... the use of that, or do we need to table that discussion?

I think it might still be good to receive the presentation, but we're going to pause on taking action to go forward.

But they emphasize don't spend any money before they give us an agreement on the whole thing.

Yeah, don't do that.

I think we can go ahead with some of the planning side of it and continue the coordination part of it. authorize anybody to do any work that would require us to write a check.

Do we have a deadline when we can spend this for a deadline when we can't spend it?

We met with Joe briefly before the meeting trying to figure that out. We're going to meet with our consultants next week, hopefully, and start pulling all that information together.

So, in other words, you're going to be talking to DOT about when this project possibly will start or be approved?

What DOT wants to On EBA 5861, there's a new scope definition. As Peter said, it was originally third street to the river. It's changed a couple times, and we came up with this idea of let's change it one more time and include the work in Stand Back Forest, and if they'll agree to a change in scope, then we can use that matching funds. We were almost shocked that they finally said yes. So we were really excited this morning to hear that. It does slow us down just a little bit on the rocky branch that Joe's been working on, but I don't think enough that it will hurt those projects.

That's the only thing I was going to bring up that concerns me is, you know, every day that we're not moving forward when we have these grant funds, those projects get more expensive. So we need to be very aware of that. And obviously, I mean, I think this is a great opportunity for us, but we're going to really have to push on DOT and keep things moving.

We heard this morning that we're going to approve it. We started scheduling a meeting immediately with our consultant to get things moving.

I just don't want to get in the situation where the EV5861 and our Rocky Branch Trail projects get considerably smaller in scope because we've waited and costs have gone up and our money doesn't go as far.

Okay.

And then item 12 on our agenda, we will have an intermission and we'll receive an interlude presentation, guitar riff, something like that, from Mr. Blunt, I believe, on Spencer Growth and Prosperity, right?

Thank you, Mr. Blunt.

All right, the next item will be to consider adopting Resolution 26-13, and that would be considering the conveyance of the 600 and 520 South Salisbury Avenue parcels, the parking lot, and the Old Town Hall for economic development purposes, followed by Resolution 26-14, which would consider granting the Economic Incentive Grant to Crow Holdings at the Willow Creek Drive development And then finally, along those lines, ordinance 26-12 that would consider the rezoning of the parcels that we had our residents speak on tonight on John Street. And then we'll consider a budget ordinance amendment 26-04.002 that would appropriate funds for the Standback Educational Forest Shelter. My understanding this is the insurance. payment, correct?

Yes. I think it's $15,000.

I was going to move that to consent, but that's worthy of discussion, I think. Do you have a specific question about the amount? Yeah, we're not going to be able to rebuild it for $15,000.

Well, we don't quite know that, but that is based on the calculation of the value, the value calculation, less deductibles and that sort of thing. I think there was, and I don't know to what extent the other issue is the tree, the issue of removing the tree is not covered as part of that. I don't know that we have identified yet the price of what it would cost, but that was based on the insurance adjuster.

Yeah, that seems like a very, very low appraisal estimate based on...

It would have to be an appeal process. I just don't know the logistics of that.

Mr. Taylor, do you think you can get it built for $16,000? No. Well, I'm not saying that, but can we get a shelter built? I know you said you were going to build it a little different.

I don't know what you're saying. All right. So let's keep that on the agenda. Peter, if y'all can just check and see if there is a process for having them re-look at that. Okay.

They're probably looking at the prices of it when it was initially built.

Well, that shouldn't be. I know.

It should be based on replacement value. Replacement value. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. We'll have our departmental reports after that. Town manager report, questions and comments from the mayor and board, and executive session if necessary. Although I don't know at this point that there would be any need for that. Okay. And then we will adjourn. Anything else, board, that needs to be added to the agenda for Tuesday? Okay. With that, I don't believe there's a need to go into executive session this evening. So if there's not, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Motion by Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second?

Second.

Second from Ms. Moody. All in favor? All right. All opposed?

All right. We're adjourned. Thank you all.