Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the June City Wilmington Planning Commission. If you are able to stand, please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Um, I'd like to point out that commissioners Lennon and Kofor are, uh, not with us tonight, uh, with some excused absences. So, um, on that note, Mr. Attorney, um, do we have a quorum? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Thank you very much. The Planning Commission advises City Council on applications for rezoning, land development code amendments, street closures, long-range plans and policies. The Commission holds legislative hearings, meaning that anyone wishing to speak on a request may do so. The commission issues a recommendation based on consistency of the request with the intent and purpose of the land development code and consistency of a request with the Create Wilmington comprehensive plan and other relative adopted plans and policies. In regards to staff applicant presentations, all matters requiring commission action shall be presented to the planning commission by the planning staff and the applicant. In situations where the planning staff is the applicant, there will only be one presentation. City staff will make the first presentation and the applicant will make the second presentation. To maintain an orderly meeting, all presentations shall proceed without interruption unless the commission desires to intervene with questions or comments. In public hearings, the chair will open the public hearing for those physically present wishing to speak about an item. Those in favor of an item shall be heard first, followed by those opposed to an item. A 10 minute time will be allowed for public comment in favor of an item, and a 10 minute time will be allowed for public comment in opposition to an item. A staff member will track the 10 minute time periods and will notify the speaker at the five minute mark, the one minute mark, and verbally call time when time expires. Ms. Painter, you're our timekeeper, right? The chair, in their discretion, may extend these time periods. All groups, organizations, neighborhoods, or similar associations desiring to comment are asked to appoint one spokesperson to present their concerns or point of view to the commission on each agenda item. The public has been encouraged to submit their comments in writing by a web-based form located on the City of Wilmington's website. All comments received prior to 3 p.m. today were forwarded unedited to the Planning Commission. I don't recall having any comments. Can you verify if there were any comments for today's or tonight's items?

There were no comments.

Thank you. All comments received will be delivered to the city council when the item advances. All comments received will be made available to the public if requested. In regards to voting, all votes will be roll call votes after proper motions are made and consistency statements read into the record. The chair will state the outcome of the vote and the action. In regards to appeals, rezoning requests that receive an unfavorable recommendation from the Planning Commission may be appealed by the applicant to the Wilmington City Council. Appeals should be in the form of a letter submitted to the city clerk within 10 days of this hearing. Any item that is appealed will tentatively be heard by city council at the June 16th, 2026 meeting. With that, I'd like to ask if there are any questions and or a motion to approve the minutes from the May Planning Commission meeting.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the May meeting.

I have a motion from Mr. Pollack.

Second.

I have a second from Commissioner Jones. Take a vote. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? The May meeting minutes are approved. I guess we'll start with old business. Is there any old business? Any old business? No old business, great. So let's start with new business. We have one item for discussion tonight, and I'd like to hear from the applicant, or staff first, sorry.

Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. For your review, I present a general rezoning from ONICD Office and Institutional Conditional District and RB Regional Business to ONI Office and Institutional District at 320 Military Cut-Off Road. This application was submitted in mid-April, has been reviewed by staff, and is now at the first public hearing. The site contains two parcels which are currently zoned ONICD, Office and Institutional Conditional District, and RB Regional Business. The parcel adjacent to Military Cut-Off Road, zoned ONICD, is currently occupied by a church facility and an addition building. The rare parcel zoned RB is currently vacant. The conditioned use in the ONICD parcel is religious assembly. The maximum height is 25 feet and 5 inches. The permitted uses in the RB district include retail and service uses, as well as commercial district mixed use, or CDMU. The maximum height is 45 feet, and the height can be increased to up to 90 feet with an optional step back. The proposed zoning is ONI, Office and Institutional District. The permitted uses in the ONI district include professional and medical offices, institutions of various sizes, places of assembly, and commercial district mixed use, or CDMU. The maximum height is 45 feet, and the height can again be increased to up to 90 feet with an optional step back. The site is located on Military Cut-Off Road between Arboretum Drive and Atrium Court, and consists of approximately 6.69 acres, or 291,416 square feet. The site is adjacent to the Military Cut-Off multi-use path, and is in the vicinity of Food Lion, Arboretum Village Townhomes, Arboretum West Apartments, the Landfall Community, Village at Mayfair Condos, and MCS Noble Middle School. These are views of the subject property looking both north and south from Military Cut-Off Road. The site is currently zoned ONICD, Office and Institutional Conditional District, and RB, Regional Business. Zoning districts neighboring the site include MD17, high density multiple dwelling residential district to the north. New Hanover County R15, moderate density single dwelling district to the east. City of Wilmington R15 to the southeast. CBCD Community Business Conditional District to the south and southwest, and RB Regional Business to the west and northwest. The site is currently occupied by a church facility, an addition building, and a parking lot. Uses of the surrounding properties include a boat storage facility to the northwest, town homes to the north, a four lane right of way and single family dwellings to the east, and commercial uses and multi-family dwellings to the west. Staff has reviewed this application's alignment with the relevant adopted plans. The Create Wilmington Comprehensive Plan is the only adopted plan that applies to this site. The Create Wilmington Comprehensive Plan's growth strategies maps identifies areas of opportunity with corresponding policies to guide the look, feel, and use of new development. This site is located within a high density transition area of opportunity and along a high capacity transit corridor and existing green connection. The Create Wilmington Comprehensive Plan also offers broader policy guidance to shape new development throughout the city. Staff assessed this application with relevant policies and found modest support for the application's alignment with the plan. Key policies that support rezoning the site at 320 Military Cut-Off Road from ONI CD and RB to ONI promote compatible infill, commercial development, and a mix of uses along major corridors. that will improve access to goods, services, amenities and housing options in the vicinity. Comments from the community are accepted leading up to public hearing. Staff did not receive any comments in support or opposition of this application. To summarize the application and staff's findings, rezoning the site from ONI CD and RB to ONI would create the opportunity for institutional, office, and less intensive commercial uses that could enhance access to neighborhood goods and services in the vicinity, while providing an appropriate transition to surrounding residential areas. Commercial district mixed use, or CDMU, is also permitted in the ONI district, which would further allow for residential uses in the mix. Staff finds this application to align with the recommendations of the comprehensive plan, particularly policies encouraging compatible infill, commercial development, and a mix of uses along major corridors that will help to improve access to goods, services, amenities, and housing options in the vicinity. Staff finds the request to be reasonable in the public interest and consistent with the relevant policies in the Create Wilmington Comprehensive Plan. Staff recommends approval. This concludes staff's presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions, and the applicant is here as well.

Are there any questions for staff before we hear from the applicant? Mr. Pollack?

Yeah, I didn't want to disappoint. I wanted to make sure I had one question anyway. On page, Hillary, on page three of our printed handout where you have the section, you know, 1.8.1, and you make a comment that says, you know, it talks about, you know, adequate land for yada, yada, yada, and it says, to accommodate Wilmington's growing technology industries. I found that kind of interesting because then you come back to the same thing on, Oh, what page is it here? On page nine, and it's the same verbiage, but just in the different section. I'm just, given that this is a application for general rezoning, is that like a clue as to what this might be? And the other question I would have is, and if this is for the applicant, tell me, I was out there today, there's two buildings that are there in front of, as you're facing from the street, looking at the two buildings to the left, there's a big banner in, I have no idea what language that is, but is that, I mean, I was just curious.

That's a Korean Baptist church. So that is, that's Korean.

Because I've never seen Korean actually. Great. Interesting.

Okay. As far as the adequate land for offices goes, we're talking about potential use and ONI is an appropriate district for office use. So rezoning, the currently split zoning to ONI would allow for...

So technology was just... Something you threw in as an example.

It's just a part of this policy, but it's not limited to technology.

Again, not to disappoint, I will expect the applicant to answer why not a conditional. She already knows that. We talked the other day. That's all I got.

I do have one question. It is one parcel that currently that's just subdivided across two zoning lines, correct? It's not two parcels?

It's two parcels. It's two parcels, and the one adjacent to military cutoff is the conditional district, and the rare parcel is RB.

Okay. Okay. All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Cindy Wolfe, and I'm here on behalf of the church. I think I can answer all of those questions. But Mr. Pollack, those items that you were talking about, that 1.8, those are straight from the Create Wilmington. The staff didn't make that up. Those are from several years ago when they created policies and guidelines.

I would never assume anybody would have made anything up. No, no, no, no. But no, I get it. Thank you, Cindy.

Right now, or not right now, I'll get to this. When we started this process, there were two parcels. That was part of the issue when the church came to the city and said, hey, we'd like to build some extra parking, we'd like to put in a small playground, perhaps a pavilion, and all of that will be handled with a stormwater pond on this back tract. The issue with anything in a commercial district that does not have frontage on a road is you cannot access a commercial property with a private access easement. All commercial properties are supposed to have frontage on a road to be developed. So that's when they came to me. So the same designation between the lots is also the split of the zoning. The one lot is RB, the other lot is an old conditional ONI. In the interim of the time between submitting this, I had the church be proactive and they have done a deed of combination. So it's not showing up on the GIS maps yet, land records is a little behind this time of year, but it is all one parcel now. So it is totally compliant as a business parcel, whatever it is zoned, to be on military cutoff road. So that being said, this was just a quick sketch of what they came with in the beginning. The church has been there since the 80s, the original church. It was annexed into the city. It was zoned for assembly. But then they wanted to build the Korean church back in 2018 as a hand-in-hand congregation, if you will. So they share the site, they share the parking. Apparently they're both very popular. And having this back lot was a trade from the Department of Transportation, or the state of North Carolina. So right now they still have the state of North Carolina along the entire bottom boundary and then off to the west of this. So basically, we appreciate the staff's thorough look at everything, but I think they put it best in some of the notes that they provided when Pat Helmani and I were originally talking. And basically, rezoning this property for a consistent district rather than a conditional district, being a church, but so without a specific site plan will allow a religious institution to gain some versatility in their future plans. Since the front of the property is already built out, any new improvements will occur at the rear. The current land development code adequately addresses anything that comes to the rear and the types of conditions that would be necessary, that were necessary as part of the original CD and thus would have no adverse effect on the community. I think that was well put in in that synopsis and that appears in your case summary also.

Chair Jerry Cook. Cindy, real, as I read through this and I don't want to belabor the point because this all makes a lot of sense, but it seems to me there was, let me find it here, when I was looking at the history of the property and it made reference to at one point a special use permit was

Well, that was way back when there weren't conditional districts, so.

Okay, so that- That's right.

So for everybody watching this, that, yeah, could you just- For a period of time, we had special use permits and special use districts in the mid 2000s. They were quasi-judicial and in their wisdom, the council decided to drop that and they created the legislative conditional districts. So when in 2018, the original special use permit had to be amended to put in the second building and the other parking and everything, then it all sweepingly moved over to a conditional district.

So there were obviously as it went through those different phases, there were different pieces that, okay, this now applies, this doesn't apply. Assuming this gets approved tonight, is there any carryover that no longer applies or do all prior you know, any nuances that would have come during that journey of, you know.

Technically, those conditions will totally go away, whatever conditions there were, but whatever has been developed has addressed all of those conditions, what is existing there. So there was never any provisions on the back lot anyway.

So we're not going to be here in a year and saying, oh, what about this one?

That is exactly why we came for a conventional rezoning because you can see from the list of about five or six different years and processes what a church who has very limited funds as it is has to sometimes go through. But in this particular location with the uses that are surrounding it, being on military cutoff road and having all of the existing development on the frontage, I won't speak for staff, but I believe that's why staff supported this request.

Okay. Thank you, Cindy. That's all I got.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, did I answer your question? Okay.

Yeah, you did. I do have one more. There was a slide that was made by staff of permitted uses with RB versus ONI. Did I see correctly that currently religious institutions are not a permitted use in RB?

I believe they are. They are permitted in RB.

Okay. All right.

Any other questions?

Sandy, I'm just curious. What's the, if you know, the history of this property being state of North Carolina property?

Well, of course, the other end of it, off the upper left of the screen, is the highway department where you used to take your tests and everything.

But it's still way up there.

It is. I believe at one point in time, there were some towers on this site that had, I don't know what bearing they had on communication or whatever. But the church owned this structure at the bottom where it says State of North Carolina, they own that. And so they swapped it for the box in the back at one point in time. So I guess it gave the highway department then access to military cutoff road if they would ever need it. Got you.

Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant?

Okay.

Mr. Collier?

Ms. Wolfe, I do not support the project. But my question is, Why are we taking the conditions off the O and I in the front? It's not changing, the boundary line's not really changing, or are you just wanting the whole property to come into compliance?

As a conditional district, even though it's all built out, the back of it would, any development on the back or subsequent developments beyond this would have to come back again if it was all. So I guess you're suggesting leave the CD on the front. We still would have a split zoning. I didn't understand why we had a problem at all with the RB and the ONI CD, but apparently, I'm guessing that because it didn't show a connection to the back, that would have been a major modification. So then we would have been here, or we are here for the rezoning because that CD would have had to have been modified regardless.

So Hillary, is there anything in the CD in terms of conditions that we may be overlooking in this, because I don't see those in here. If they are, I missed it.

Hillary, it doesn't seem like your mic is working.

The conditions in the CD are the church facility, the addition building, and 99 parking spaces, and that's it. That's the only thing they talk about? That's the only thing. Okay.

Yeah, as a church, I don't think it was particularly, you know, tedious.

You're not changing what's on there, and I see what you're saying. I just wanted to make sure there were no conditions that we were going to just skip over by taking away the conditional districts out of it. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to open the public hearing for agenda item number one. Is there anyone here to speak in favor of item number one? Seeing none, is there anyone here to speak in opposition to agenda item number one? Okay, seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and pose the question to the commissioners. Any further discussion, questions? Okay, if not or hearing none, I'd like to see if there's a motion to advance agenda item number one.

Mr. Chair, I'd make a motion for Agenda Item 1 at 320 Military Cut-Off Road to be rezoned from ONI CD, Office and Institutional Conditional District, and RB Regional Business to ONI Office and Institutional. My motion is for approval, and the request is consistent with the objectives and policies from the City of Wilmington that create Wilmington Comprehensive Plan, and the Planning Commission does consider this approval to be reasonable and in the public interest because the proposal allows for compatible development that is consistent with the surrounding area. Thank you, sir.

I have a motion from Mr. Collier. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Mr. Pollack. Commissioner Jones, how do you vote?

Yay.

Commissioner Collier? Yay. Mr. Woodruff?

Yay.

Mr. Pollack?

Yay.

And the chair votes aye as well. So motion passes six to nothing. Thank you.

Just to clarify, Mr. Chair.

Five to nothing. I don't math good. All right. Um, I guess that takes us straight to, um, any items from the commission that we need to discuss tonight. I think Mr. Pollack has something.

Yeah, I just want to give an update. If you remember last meeting, we scheduled a meeting with a subgroup, Commissioner Jones, Commissioner Collier and myself, to meet with the city staff. Linda and Brian and Amy and Patrick were there. And our ongoing discussion about process and what have you, we went through a series of, you know, hypotheticals, went through, talked about, you know, given the new organization and realizing that it kind of, it is what it is now. I'm sure there might be new, you know, a few tweaks, but here's what it is here, kind of the boards. So organizationally, here's what planning and development now looks like. We talked about the roles, responsibilities of the commission and how they fit in. It's pretty straightforward how we fit into the, you know, whether it's a zoning request or street closure, et cetera. Gets a little bit more, subject for interpretation and just working through the scenario when you get into the long-range planning items. And we know there's a bunch that's going to be coming up with the There's a bunch of aspirational work that's going to be coming up over time. But the point is where we agreed to leave it was to keep the same three of us as kind of a standing subcommittee, but we're not going to schedule a meeting every month or every other month or something. We know there's enough things, you know, that are coming forth that that will dictate a, you know, we might need to have a work session, you know, amongst the, you know, the planning commission and the staff as we get to more, you know, potential changes to the code as we work through the, the comprehensive and I'll use the word comprehensive plan is that as we as we work through that over time and in the different initiatives that will be coming together from a long term basis. So I think where we will leave it is, you know, it's the resources there. The three of us have agreed to to, you know, kind of be there. And, you know, the arrangement is, you know, if we get a phone call from Linda or Brian or somebody that says, hey, can you, somebody drop by and just look over our shoulder or can you participate in this tomorrow or something? I mean, we will gladly do that, you know, in the spirit of collaboration with the staff and ultimately to make sure we have the right, you know, the continuous good products that come in front of the commission. So let me stop there. And Livian or Richard, you want to add anything to that or?

Thank you, Jack. I think that's well said. I also think that for the public record that the planning department is doing a fantastic job and their processes have always been really good. So we appreciate your input and helping us understand it a little better. So thank you.

I concur.

Linda, Brian, anything you want to add or? Okay. So that's the update. I just wanted to kind of close that out with the commission.

And thank you for being liaisons, I think, in a productive way. So are there any items from staff for discussion?

I have one more. Sorry. Is this OK? Absolutely. May I?

Yes, you may.

Thank you. Staff? Is there a way that the little five minute marker that I see on the council meetings that's on the screen, can it not be on here and up there in these meetings as well? Is that a no-no?

I think that is a, it's a technical question we'll have to ask so that they use a system that we do not in these meetings. And so if we move, I believe it's handled in the same system where they do the voting

Well, I'd like to have that with my next one. I'd rather have the little voting thing, too.

OK. Well, we'll talk to our IT staff and our communications staff about what that would take.

Yeah. I mean, I just hate for us to keep asking you to keep a five minute clock. And I know we've probably done it forever, but we now have that technology. I'm not sure why we're not using it.

We'll check into it for you.

Thank you.

Any other items from the commission? OK. Items from the staff.

Just an update. We did not bring the two city-initiated items to the council meeting last night. We realized they had a very full agenda. So we are bringing, they are scheduled for the June 16th meeting. So that is the adoption of the greater downtown plan, as well as the maintenance and cleanup amendments that you heard last month. So we'll report to you in July.

Okay, thank you. I think that is everything on our agenda for tonight. I'd like to point out that the next Planning Commission meeting is July 8th, a Wednesday. The city website says July 8th.

Or it's Wednesday, whatever.

Can we confirm, is it the first or the eighth?

We'll get back to you on that.

We were just trying to confirm, the city website says the July Planning Commission is on the eighth, and Ms. Bradshaw says she thinks it's the first.

The information I see is confirming the 8th. That's the next meeting date.

That's correct. Sorry, I apologize.

Very good. That's all I think we have tonight. Do I have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. None opposed. Thank you.