Planning Board - Regular Meeting

All right, Mr. Chairman, we're ready. Thanks. Good afternoon. My name is Jason Grubs. I'm the chair of the city county planning board. Welcome to the May 14th meeting of the planning board. At this time, would you please stand and join us in the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands nationy and justice for all. Today's meeting is being broadcast live by Winston Salem TV digital media and will be rebroadcast at 10 o'clock Friday morning and again at 4:00 Sunday afternoon. Additionally, an on demand recording will be available on the city of Winston Salem's YouTube channel. First order of business today will be the consent agenda containing items for which the petitioner is requesting withdrawal or continuance or items for which the planning staff is recommended approval and no one is signed up to speak in opposition. For our public hearings today, each side will have a total of 12 minutes and there is no rebuttal period. Once the public hearing is closed and the board goes into work session, no one is permitted to speak unless the planning board member asks them a question. The items under section B of our agenda will require final action by the elected body, either the Winston Salem City Council or the Forite County Board of Commissioners. As such, votes taken today are recommendations which are considered by the elected body during their review of the requests. For general use resoning requests, the planning board must consider the full range of uses allowed in the zoning district being requested. The petitioner may not refer to a specific intended use of the property. For special use district zoning requests, the petitioner must identify the intended use or uses of the site and give specific details on how the site will be developed. If you're addressing the board today, before you begin your comments, please give us your name, address, and zip code for the record. First item on the consent agenda is the approval of the April 9th and April 23rd minutes, meeting minutes. Is there a motion?

Motion by Mr. Steman. Second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor? Sign of I. I.

Any opposed? That's unanimous. Now going to call on Mr. Mark Allred who will take us through the consent agenda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So first up is item B3. This is F1669. This is automatically continued to June the 11th, 2026. This is project Iron Spur Data Center. This will be their last continuence and we are going to be here in the WM city council chambers next month. The next one is also an automatic continuence. This is item C1. This is subdivision 202641 Magnolia Wood subdivision. They're automatic continuence to June due to unresolved water pressure fire flow concerns. And the next one is a request continuence to June the 11, 2026. This is B4F-1670. The developer requested a continuence of less than 8 days to to determine whether the project can comply with the Yaken River wershed regulations. And it was less than eight days. So I will need a vote for that continue.

Is there a motion for a continuence? Motion by Mr. Steelman, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion on the continuence? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed. All right. And the next one I have another. This is a request of continuence to July 9th, 2026. This is item D1, PBR 202605, Valmont Hills. And the developer also requested a continuence of less than 8 days for site plan review. Is there a motion for continuance? Mr. Tillman, second by Mr. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I.

Any opposed? That's unanimous.

Next one up is item B1. This is W36A4. This is a uh petitioner the First Baptist Church from RM18 to institutional and public. This is 2.93 acres northwest corner of Carson Carl Russell Avenue and Highland Avenue. You can see it's totally surrounded by general office zoning with RM18 abudding them to the north from the aerial. You can see this is an existing church with a the parking lot for the church and the um the east northeast area plan does recommend institutional you recognizing the current use of a church here. So the staff does find that this resoning meets the east northeast W same area plan and staff recommends approval.

Any questions for staff? All right. No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board? Move that. I move that the planning board find that the request W3684 is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second. Motion by Mr. Fabby, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. I. Any opposed? I further move that the planning board recommend approval of W3684. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farab, second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed?

And next up is item B2. This is case W3685. The petitioner is the former housing authority of Winston Salem, now known as Aspire. And the reasoning is RSQ and RM18 to RS RM18. Specifically, it's these two smaller properties you see right here. This is between East 17th Street and New Hope Lane, west of Cleveland Avenue. You see part of the development. You can see they're already grading not just the property that you're looking at, but the property to the south. This is part of the Winston Salem Choice neighborhood initiative. Specifically, it's phase two of that. Um, you can also see from the aerial that you do have, of course, RM18, which is part of the Windam Choice neighborhood initiative, and you got RSQ sort of surrounding on the other sides. And this is also part of the east northeast windsome area plan which recommends mixed use and staff finds this reasoning meets the east northeast windsome area plan and staff recommends approval.

Any questions for staff? No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one will declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board? I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second motion by Mr. Fabby, second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed? I further move that the planning board recommend approval of W3685. Second. Motion by Mr. Fabby, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I.

Any opposed?

And next is item D2. This is PBR2026-06 the applicants Reliant Enterprises and this is the family group home B in pedestrian business. This is 0.33 acres between Brookstown Avenue, West First Street and North Broad Street. So a excuse me a family group home B is between seven to 12 residents. There is no more than 12. There is supervision and support services for the residents. It's intended to function more like a residential living than an in institutional uh building. Um the site does meet all UDO requirements and staff recommends approval.

Any questions for staff? All right. No one signed up to speak in opposition to this. Mr. Chairman, this is Thank you. Never mind. A planning board review. I withdraw that question. You're not here to speak in opposition. I I move that the planning board approve PBR 202606. Second. Motion by Mr. Fairby, second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. Any opposed?

Give me just a second. I'm going pull up a text amendment for uh Steve Smotherman here. Good afternoon, board members. Um, UDO CC35 is a cast of 16 miscellaneous amendments to the UDO with that are prepared usually every one or two years to keep the UDO up to date through various minor non-s substantive corrections. UDO CC35 includes three amendments that provide clarification to ordinance requirements, three amendments to remove conflicts with others state, county or local regulations, and 10 amendments that correct errors in section numbering and lettering, misspelling, grammar uh without any changes in content. The three changes for clarification. The first deals with retail storage services or self- storage facilities and says that any linear section of the storage facility facade that's greater than 75 in length shall be divided up with projections or recesses and we're adding of at least five feet so they're visible uh that extend for at least 25% of the facade's length which is about 20 feet. The second one deals with a parking regulation. That means uh when for every large variety tree which is uh larger than typically required planted in a parking area, parking may be reduced by

four spaces. Uh but it was intended that in no case shall the reduced number of parking spaces exceed 10% of required parking. And then the third one deals with private streets and industrial and commercial subdivisions. And it just clarifies that uh those subdivisions are not limited to three lots per tract which do not front on a private street. And that's to handle as you know with large shopping centers and malls. There's plots that just cover the footprint of the building for ownership. So they they're just saying the these are not limited by that. uh the three uh amendments that deal with conflicts with state, county or local regulations. The first deals with the Martin Luther King overlay district and it adds residential town houses and multif family units within buildings containing four or fewer units to uses exempt from the overlay uh to comply with state requirements and pretty much exempts single family homes through quadplexes. The second one deals with child care facilities. Uh in particular, their interior floor area and outdoor play area standards. Uh our current ordinance had specific square footage standards for those thing those items and um they turned out to be stricter than the state allows. So those have been removed and the wording just say uh that indoor floor area and outdoor play areas shall be provided to meet any applicable state, county or local regulations. And the accompanying diagrams in the UDO have been revised to reflect the revised wording. And then the last one deals with uh land clearing and inner debris landfills or LCID. uh it amends subsection E per pyramid

duration which uh typically uh last states that it would be up for a maximum of three years then when I come back for renewal. Um, now we're removing, you just have to get an initial permit. And the only other time you need to notify our department is when you're filed a notice of intent to permanently discontinue the LICD. I'm not going to go into the minor amendments other than to say that three amendments correct numbering or lettering to move you specific standards to correct sections. Uh, two amendments revise wording, two amendments correct misspellings, and one amendment corrects grammar. Uh, and staff believes that these minor changes will cause fewer conflicts and interpretations and make it continue to make it easier to use. And with that, staff uh recommends oops recommends approval of of the UDO code amendment. I'll be happy to try to answer any questions if you have any.

Any questions? I'd just like to commend you, Steve, and staff for such I would just like to commend you and the rest of the staff involved uh for your keen attention to detail, keeping us out of trouble. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Right. No one signed up to speak in opposition to this matter. Is there anyone here opposed to the recommendation? All right. We'll declare the public hearing closed. Was pleasure of the board. I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second.

Motion by Mr. Fabby. Second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed? Uh further move that the planning board recommend approval of UDO CC35. Second. Motion by Mr. Fabby, second by Mr. Tin. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed? Right. That then brings us to our staff report. We're on the precipice of getting out here with a new record, but probably won't make it because we have a lot of uh we have a lot of things to tell you. Former chairman Leak's laughing right now if he's watching. I'm kind of kidding, but not really. Uh, the first item is the work session preview. I'll turn to Kirk on that.

All right. Uh, thank you, Chris. Uh, good afternoon, board members. We have two items slated for the May work session. The first is Amy is going to go over the, uh, proposed work program for fiscal year 2627. Uh again, uh hopefully this should be a familiar process to most on the board because it follows the same format that we've used in the past several years. And the second item is a disposition of Parkland public hearing. What this relates to is the downtown amphitheater project that you all are familiar with that's been uh percolating behind the scenes for the last year or so. that would be bounded uh basically north of Fifth Street, south of Sixth Street, west of Marshall, and east of Spruce Street. There is a property that's owned by the city and is part of Crystal Towers Park that's to the north of the site that uh the Flow Companies is looking to do a long-term lease of that property where they could house the uh back of house operations for the amphitheater such as dressing rooms, catering, uh basically all the things that an amphitheater needs to keep the artists and the the staff happy. So, uh, due to the duration of this, it's a 30-year proposed lease. City management feels this needs to go through the actual disposition to parkland process. So, we'll hold a public hearing on that uh at your work session and there's already signs on the property. We're going to advertise this like any other duly uh advertised public hearing. So, that should be the second item. And just a little bit of additional clarification on that, the the item has already gone to council for a short-term lease. So, this is just changing that short-term lease to a long-term lease, but the act of it being a long-term lease equals a disposition of parkland,

which is why it has to go through this process. And just a reminder of going through the process, and I just got a text from former chairman Lee. Um going through the process uh basically uh goes back to 2001 and it requires for any disposition of parkland to go to the parks and recck commission and the planning board for a recommendation and then the ultimate decision be the decision of the elected body but that's just part of the process that's built in. So we make our recommendation at the

correct and we're doing that because again this this project is on a time frame and of course if we did it at your June hearing before it made it to council they would be on their summer break. So they want to con um the city manager's office wants this considered by the council before they go on their summer break in uh the month of July. Um, for clarification though, we use the word disposition, it's really not being sold. It's just a long-term lease.

Well, but a long-term lease is a form it's it's considered a form of conveyance, a form of ownership. So, yes, I mean it we will still retain it fee simple, but it could go if the amphitheater is successful. I would imagine that the owners of the amphitheater would eventually make an offer to purchase outright. And at that point, if it had already gone through the disposition of parkland property, then it could just be a transaction that council votes on. Thank you. And we will issue a staff report uh next week that has all this information in it. The second item under staff report is the June zoning case preview and I'll turn to Brian for that.

So, um, good afternoon. And you might notice we have a fair number of items next month. So, you certainly want to um make plenty of time. Um it should say the June 11th, 2026 planning board meeting up top for anybody watching from home. And we'll be holding this in city council chambers. Right now, we have 17 total items. Uh it's five new resoning cases. We've got a couple of continue cases from this month. Um two elected body special use permits, one for an LCID and uh one in town for an outdoor enclosure for a kennel. Two major subdivisions and five planning board reviews. And then one um quick item, it'll be a withdrawal of preliminary subdivisions. That's where they're we're sending their um preliminary approval for uh Wo Woods and that's where something you approved almost the exact same time last year and they want to come back as a minor subdivision. That's what I have.

And and just a reminder on that, those two elected body special use permits, what you will be considering will be a planning board review. You have to review the site plan for those. So there will not be a special use permit public hearing here. It will just be a planning board review of those of the respective site plans. With that, the last thing that I have on my list is just a reminder that the final northeast uh suburban area plan meeting will be held on June 2nd, 5:30 to 7 at the forite transportation center on Patterson. uh we've had a lot of participation in the in the plan and this will be the unveiling of the recommendations and uh some last set of exercises and just an opportunity for discussion and discourse. So um coming out of that I imagine we will be bringing you at your work session sometime after that the re uh the draft plan and um so again June 2nd which is Tuesday at 5:30. With that, I stand ready to answer any questions.

I've got a comment on the work session next couple weeks from now. Given the height on the um data center and a couple other items, might be helpful if we could just kind of go over our purview and what we can and cannot comment on at the work session just so we're all in agreement before.

Yeah. under under for the good of the order or the staff report. I was we were going to have a discussion related to obviously there's going to be a lot of folks who are going to want to be here. I want to have some preliminary discussions related to uh you know what type of time the the planning board would be interested in extending. Um again we have had conversations with folks and have let them know there's no guarantee of an extension of time. Uh we have certainly encouraged folks to elect a speaker or a few speakers to try to cover the waterfront. We don't want to u you know extend it to where we just hear the same thing over and over and over. But again, there may be the need to do that. But yes, we certainly can, you know, again have a reminder this is going to be a land use decision. There are certainly lots of land use items to consider. I mean certainly height can be one of those potential noise you know potential character you know is it in character with the surrounding area etc. Um, you know, some of the things that we don't need to consider would be, you know, economic development type things. Um, you know, what the potential tax base could be. Those aren't land use considerations in this context. So, yes, we can have that discussion at at the work session. We can actually add that as an agenda item if that's I mean, again, just not not particularly talking about that case, but just a reminder in general um since that's going to be a fairly hot topic, so to speak.

Yeah. so to speak. I that would be helpful. Okay. Anything else? Anything else for the good of the order? So, we'll have a motion to adjourn. All right. Chairman Leak was also heckling me via text message and uh I think he's pleased to see we didn't quite get his record.