regular council meeting. We're doing this virtually again. All of you are looking forward to when we can actually meet in person again. We have a really nice new town hall building. We haven't even been able to have meeting there. So we will continue with this virtual meeting for a little while longer, yes. And we do still have some people joining us. So I'm going to wait just a minute to allow everyone in. And Councilwoman Grumes has agreed to do our invocation for us tonight. So Heather, would you please? Everybody ready? Thanks, so. Okay, ready. All right. Dear Lord, thank you for giving us the opportunity to meet this way tonight. We're thankful that all of us have remained healthy through this. We're thankful for all of the blessings that you've given us in this town. And please continue to bless us, amen. Amen. And now if you would please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Our pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic in the United States of America and to the Republic in which it stands, one region under God, indivisible with liberty and justice law. Okay, and I will now call the meeting to order and the first item of business is a public comment period. Um, this necklace did we have anyone on up to speak during public comment this evening? Aaron, you're muted. Yes, ma'am. I don't have anyone who has let me know ahead of time. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. Aaron you're muted. Yes, ma'am. I don't have anyone who has let me know ahead of time. But I have unmuted everyone at this point. So if you would like to give public comment, please do let. Mayor Tim Poyle, Paxton, no. And she'll call on you. According. Is there anyone on the call who wanted to speak during public comment? We do also have a public hearing this evening. So if your comments are related to the hearing, I would ask you to hold those until we get to buy that item on the agenda. Okay. Hearing from no one will move on to the consent agenda. And I'm going to do just a quick summation of most of these items. But before we do that, I think our Constitution and the domestic violence awareness awareness, the proclamations, warrant, a little more attention. We do have a significant domestic violence problem in our community. Union County spends over $11 million every year and domestic violence affects one in four families. So I think it warrants reading that proclamation aloud so that there's on the call and have increased awareness of that. And with the um Constitution, I feel like so many times our constitution is under attack. And North Carolina has a a pretty significant role in the fact that we have a whole week declared for observing, honoring our Constitution. Many, many years ago, there was a woman by the name of Miss Gertrude Caraway, who resided in Newburn, and she was responsible for the first proclamation to observe Constitution Week and then in 1955 President Eisenhower made it official that we honor that every year. So I'd like to pull those two things off and I think Miss Nichols is able to pull those up so if I could get a volunteer, we'll go ahead and read those. they don't require a vote of council. So the cycles that you pull up the constitution proclamation. And I'll look for a volunteer to read it aloud. and I'll look for a volunteer to read it aloud. Mayor Perter, I'll take care of that if you allow. Thank you. There it is. All right, so this is the proclamation of the town of Staling's declaring Constitution Week 2020, whereas the Constitution of the United States Stollings declaring Constitution of Week 2020, whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, the Guardian of our Liberty's and bodies, the principles of the Limit Government and a Republic dedicated to rule by law and whereas the 10th or 17th, 2020 march at 233rd anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention. And whereas it is fitting and proper to a court official recognition to this magnificent document in this memorable anniversary into the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate it. And whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the president of the United States of America, it designated September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week. Now therefore, I, Brad Richardson on behalf of the mayor why it's done by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the town of Stollings and the state of North Carolina, to hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through 23rd as Constitution Week. And ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals, the framers of the constitution had in 1787 my vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through the guarding of our liberties witnessed thereof and witnessed whereof I have here and to set my hand that calls a seal of the town to be affixed this 14th September of the year of our Lord 2020 why it done mayor or 2020, why it done there. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. And do I have a volunteer to read the proclamation for domestic violence awareness? And this is actually the whole month of October is dedicated to this concern. Anybody? Okay, then I will read it. John, were you volunteering? I was getting ready to, but I'm going ahead. All right, so, whereas domestic violence affects all Union County residents, and far too many people suffer abuse at the hands of a spouse, partner, parent, child, or sibling, these victims can be of any age, race, religion, or economic status. The resulting damage is inflicted not only on the victims, but their children, families, and communities. And whereas domestic violence not only physical, but also mental abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, and isolation. And whereas domestic violence is widespread, including one in four families is impacted by domestic violence with an annual cost to Union County of 11 million, $680,756. And whereas according to the North Carolina Coalition against domestic violence, there have been 1,369 women, men, and children murdered as a result of domestic violence since January 1, 2002 in North Carolina. And whereas according to the North Carolina Council for Women, domestic violence programs across the state responded to 112,860 crisis calls and provided services to over 60,301 victims last year. And whereas the key to prevention is education, community awareness, having zero tolerance for domestic violence and requiring accountability by the abuser. And whereas Union County recognizes the importance of having collaborations by multiple partners to promote social norms, policies and laws that support gender equity and foster intimate partnerships based on mutual respect, equality and trust. Now therefore be it resolved that I represent why it done mayor of the town of Stollings to hereby proclaim October 2020 as domestic violence awareness month in Union County and urge all citizens to support this observance. I further urge our citizens to increase their awareness and education of this destructive force which deeply affects a large number of families in our state each year and to become part of the efforts to stop violence families. stop violence families. In witness whereof I have here on to set my hand and cost the seal of the town of stallings to be affixed this 14th day of September 2020. Thank you, Councilman Martin. Okay, and we can move now to the consent agenda. Are there any other items on this agenda that any of you would like to pull off for discussion? If not, then I'll just so the people on the call will know what these items are about. It was a federal legislation that allowed towns to recoup some of the expenses associated with the COVID-19 epidemic. And Stallings is entitled to get $223,851 under that CARES Act. And we just need to approve and consent agenda and in our local agreement to allow us to accept that. Also on this agenda, staff has drafted language, communicating our support for the civil line, but we will have public input sessions later and take a more formal position on that when the time is appropriate. We also have our charge to collect the taxes to Union County. We've been having the county collect our property taxes and stormwater fees for a number of years now and they will be collecting $3,695,072 on behalf of the town of Staling. And let's see, finally, we have the remote meetings policy. We adopted a policy to allow us to meet virtually, but the policy did not include the Board of Adjustment, and I think in our last meeting, we realized that that is important, that we allow that Board to meet as well, because there may be some items of business coming before them. So there is the amendment to the policy to allow the Board of Adjustment to meet. And then finally, the manager wanted to add the interlocal agreement to allow us to stay in compliance with the downtown grant that we approved a few years ago. So I'll ask the manager did I miss anything important in explaining those items? No, ma'am, that was perfect and if it would be helpful, I would be happy to bring up that in our local agreement as well as a cover memo. I'd send it out on Friday. But we'll just we'll ask manager Nichols to attach it. I ask the record if there are any questions. Thank you. Anybody have any questions about any of those items? If not, I'll hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Make a motion. Second. Okay. I have a back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. I first on my screen. So do you have a report for the council this evening? I do not. All right. Councilwoman Grims. Nothing here. No report. Councilman Martin. You're muted. Nothing. Get unmuted here. So a couple quick items. The Stormwater committee hasn't met multiple months due to COVID. However, there are multiple stormwater high profile projects, at least being discussed right now. And one of the biggest ones is in Chestnut Oaks, which I think is a council member, Richardson's district. And we initiated a $20,000 know, project analysis that was sent out for BIDs and we're waiting on the results of that to try to help some of the folks mature there. The other thing I wanted to briefly touch upon was there was a report that came out in the inquire general today talking about the safest cities in North Carolina. And the inquire general happened to highlight Waxall as being number nine, I believe, but stallings is actually number five for the safest cities in North Carolina of Mid-Size and when we look at the entire Charlotte Metro region, we're actually the safest city in the Charlotte Metro region far away in the safest city. So I think that's a testament to the professionalism and how well our Staling's police department does their work here so to come in them on a job well done. That might warrant an email to the editor of the inquiry journal to emit stallings in that little headline there. Thank you for that report. House in Richardson. That for me. Okay. And I do not really have a report this evening. I do just want to remind everybody that the cart-po-board will be meeting Wednesday evening at 6 but at 5 o'clock we have an education session and David Wasserman will be addressing the funding shortages and given an update on the North Carolina First Commission that is supposed to be looking at alternative funding sources so that we don't rely exclusively on the gas tax. interested in that presentation because as you know all of our projects have been delayed multiple years some of them not stallings necessarily but some projects have been delayed as many as six to ten years so it's a crisis and we need to have some other alternatives so I hope you'll tune into that and the zoo zoo, it'll be a zoo meeting. And you can see on the CarpeWiz website, how to access that meeting. Councilman, may I say something? I would just ask it. We were talking about the pleasant plains, potters, intersection. And there was some discussion there that we as a town could take and take that project completely over and do it ourselves. And I mean, this was just a hypothetical conversation. So I mean, so the but kind of putting putting some thoughts behind that is there an opportunity to how I ask this nicely get funding directly from DOT and manage the project completely local. It seems like there's some concerns that maybe the entire DOT process burns some of the available money that might be available for usage. Just wonder if it might be, if there is an opportunity there that potentially either get back some of that money and lead the project ourselves and have kind of more a localized road improvements because this conversation came out of the fact of more a localized road improvements. Cause this conversation came out of the fact that we know Potter and Pleasant Plains is kind of a sore spot with a lot of people, but we've got quite a few areas in town on state roads that are starting to look pretty rough and kind of the same stories about those. So that was just kind of a, let me say it was more of a hypothetical question, more of a hypothetical conversation. Well, I can say a little bit about that. And then we may want to hear from either the manager or the engineer, but that actually came up in the Union County Carpe meeting today. We do a prep quarterly before some of the Carpoh meetings. And there is a policy that towns can fund their own projects and get reimbursed in the future, but because so many people are choosing to do that or wanting to do that, it's still the DOT does have to commit and have the funds to do that reimbursement when they enter into those agreements. So I don't think that's really an option at this point. And we have had some discussion about that particular intersection in the past. And there's no guarantee if we were to do that, that DOT would be able to reimburse us. So Alex, can you add anything to that? That's correct. I don't have anything else to add. Okay. It would be a pretty big risk at this point because it's an expensive project, but I know everybody does want it done. Okay I think we'll move mandatory reports from the manager and town departments. Mr. Miller. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem and good evening to everyone. I had four quick items that either myself or one of our staff members is going to touch. The first just wanted to remind everybody as part of the silver line public input process. There are two immediate options for the public to provide input to cats and the federal government as part of this process. The first is a survey that's available on the CATS website. I've sent that out to the board and we've advertised on social media. If anyone is having trouble getting access to that survey, feel free to reach out to me, ASU, at stowingsnc.org, or any of our staff members, and be glad to get you that link. And secondly, there is a virtual public input session scheduled for September 29th. Again, we've advertised that and shared the information. But please reach out to me or anyone else on staff if you're having trouble accessing information on that. The second issue I wanted to bring up is Shred Day, which is scheduled for October the 17th. From 9 a.m. to noon, our staff has been a good job setting it up, so it can be held safely. So again, that is October 17th from 9 a.m. to noon, and we're going to be advertising that for the public. The third item I wanted to bring up was the topic of virtual meetings. As you know, the governor has moved the state into phase 2.5 of the reopening plan. From a town operation standpoint, the effect on our operations is very limited. Mayor Dunn and I discussed how this would affect our approach to holding council meetings remotely and he and I would have this suggestion for the council that we continue to hold town council meetings remotely until phase three and then when we move into phase three to revisit the conversation at that time. So wanted to share that suggestion with the council and see if there's a consensus to follow that direction or if there's a desire to do otherwise. And Kurt. I'm seeing most people nodding, so does anybody have a different opinion on that? Okay, well thank you. And then leave our police chief. Thanks, Hesov. Report, hit like to make. I want to inform you. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. We've had to be very careful to make sure officers aren't getting exposed and putting themselves in unnecessary jeopardy. So I just kind of wanted to touch some points. What's going on since this April? As you all know, in the end of March, the governor put us in a 30-day lockdown, but we at the Staling's Police Department were determined to continue as best we could delivering the same high-level service that the community has come to expect. So through that, the first point out of all this time in those four months, since this pay or, you know, five months since the lockdown, we've only had seven officers with potential exposures to COVID-19, and fortunately everyone has tested negative. So that's always a positive. They've been exercising caution when dealing with the community, but still interacting with the community, which is very important. And if you look, you see some of our stats. I did a comparison of April to August of 19 to 2020 and just a quick number here. We've had a 15% reduction in total police calls, a 1.5% increase in reports taken, 19% decrease in arrests. And those are all great numbers. Those are the things, you know, any communities glad to see or, you know, fewer calls, that means there's fewer incidents going on within the community. A few more reports that aggregate number of 1.5% is very low. I think that was a total of nine or 10 reports total. So that's a very small number. And if we can keep our crime rate down and have fewer arrests then we are accomplishing the goal we're trying to get with voluntary compliance. And then the proactive work that our officers do, preventative patrols is a big thing where officers are going through the neighborhoods and they're just documenting the fact that they're checking in neighborhood, being visible, being present. That had an 8% decrease, but our business checks increased by 1%. So although we had a slight decrease, and I'll give you the aggregate number of that, we went from 8400 preventative patrols in 19 to 7,900 patrols, preventative patrols in 2020. So although that was a decrease, those numbers are still very significant. About the significant of the number of times or the amount of time that our officers are out visible in the community. And during this time, we have been, we've had some staffing issues. And at any point, we've been 13% understaffed, to 30% understaffed. And what I really want to do is clarify what I mean by understaffed, since March, we've had two officers retire, we've had any given point three officers out on injury leave, due to things sustained while on duty. And then we've had four officers, our correction three officers who have resigned to move on to other departments. So those numbers with having those staffing issues, I think are very, very good and demonstrate that our officers are still getting out there and still being active within the community. And in that meantime, we've also hired officers to fill those vacancies, but that takes time to get the training and get them trained properly to be put out on solo patrol on their own. The biggest takeaway for me in this, and I've said this a number of times, is the stallings community has shown tremendous support, still shows tremendous support for the police department. Both in whether it's emails to different officers within the community are bringing snacks and treats into the police department or just letters and cards of encouragement. The support that this community has shown this department has just been exceptional and outstanding. And I can't say enough good words for what this community does and how much they appreciate their police department. So with that, do you have any questions for me? Council? Anybody have questions for Chief Frank? How's the moral support going? I know it's been an interesting time for police in general. Everybody doing all right? But that is a great question. And yeah, I mean, our bulletin board in our break room is full of cards and handwritten notes from people just saying we appreciate the job you do. Thank you for the job you do and keep doing it. You know, and we make sure all the officers see those and we get emails. We send them out to everyone just so they can see that this community does support their police department and that goes that just goes a long way. Good deal. I'll move to approve the agenda. All right. We need to go now to approving the regular agenda. If there are any changes or additions needed. Then I'll hear a motion to approve the agenda as presented. I move to approve the agenda as presented. It's there a second. I'll second. Okay, I have a motion by Mr. Sho and a second by who did that? Mr. Steven. Yeah, Steve. Steve. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Okay, Any opposed? All right. Well, the next item of business is CZ22. Excuse me. CZ20.070.01, which is conditional zoning on parcel ID number 07126038, which is at 1,6601 to allow for expansion of a religious facility. And this is a public hearing, so I will open the hearing and we'll first hear information from staff. This is Miss Sayer ready. Good evening. We have this evening an application for a conditional zoning. The applicant is the Volab pushty samosch temple and they need this conditional zoning this evening in order to expand their existing facilities. Next slide. The property is located as the mayor noted at 106th Fiky Lane. The current zoning on that property is SFR-3, which is single-family residential, and it is currently used as a Hindu temple. All the setback requirements on the property are being met. The property itself is about 5.6 acres in size due to the traffic impact no TIA was required and the required community meeting for this project was held on July 28th. This slide just shows you the location of the property. Excuse me. It's highlighted here in black for you. As you can see, it's located in a really unique area of town. It's adjacent to or part of an existing single-family subdivision that's also zone residential. But it is directly adjacent to the CN-Sex rail line. There is a rail right of way, or easement right behind the property adjacent to the property. And it's also adjacent to an area that's developed and used for heavy industrial. And then just to the east side, there's some properties that are zone for future commercially. Next slide. So the request this evening, I'll just say that the applicant is looking to expand their facilities on the property. There is currently a building on the site that's around 5200 square feet. The building that they are proposing is about 6300 square feet. It bring the total square footage on the property 1111,430 square feet. Under our old ordinance that are the old UDO, religious institutions for permitted use in residential districts. However, when we updated our ordinance and changed things in 2017, we removed that. And now, religious institutions are not a permitted use in residential districts. So the existing facility that's on the property is considered grandfathered from new ordinance regulations that's considered illegally non-conforming use. However, any expansion on the property that occurs means that the site will have to come into compliance with new ordinance requirements which make this conditional zoning necessary. This is a copy of the site plan that was provided to us by the applicant. You can see the new proposed structure is located here in the X. This area, this is the building that was built about three or four years ago under that old UDO. There's also a very small existing house on the property. The proposed parking is surrounding the building. And in this area here, there's an existing septic field, but this is an open grass area here. And we took some photographs of the site. We just wanted to give you an idea of what the existing conditions were. This is looking at the property from Vicky Lane as an entrance to the site. We just wanted to give you an idea of what the existing conditions were. This is looking at the property from Vicky Lane at the entrance to the site. Just pass their identification sign. You can see that existing house. And just past it is that building that was built several years ago. There's another shot of that newer building, the 5200 square foot building. And then this is the area where the new building is being proposed. You can see that some grading was done there. We did have to go out there and tell them that they could not start grading until they had a permit. But that is the area where that building will be located. There's another shot of that area. You can also see some shipping containers on the property as well. I wanted to talk just for a minute about what the ordinance requires for tree save, vegetation and stormwater. There's a 3% tree save requirement, which is about 1.6 acres. I would feel that the applicant has plenty of property to provide that. There's a buffer that will be required where the property is adjacent to existing single family. It will be a type C or 20 foot buffer with some planning requirements. And then there's some vehicular use plan things that will have to be provided around that parking lot. In terms of storm water, when the plans are submitted for review, we will make sure that any storm water requirements are met on the site. We don't currently think that the impervious surface meets those plateaues, but we will be checking that and then open space. A .42 acres, we will also make sure they are compliant with that as well. and make sure they are complying with that as well. Whenever we get a request for rezoning, one of the first things we do, especially when we're doing our analysis from a staff perspective, is we check our land use plan. I'm just to make sure that with being proposed, how it fits in with the plan, this particular piece of property is shown in the ServerVent Office Center. And if you all remember, we were talking about the location of this property, it's in a very unique area. The primary land use shown for future on this property is multi-tenant professional offices, like corporate offices, medical offices, that type of thing. The second area uses it would be something that the tenants or the people working in those offices would use. Like a bank, restaurants, those type of things. There's no small area plan in this area, so that's not applicable to this application. However, I do want to point out that the proposed and existing use are inconsistent with the land use plan. Just a few staff comments. Whenever we get these applications, we do confer with other departments in the town and county just to see if they have any comments or concerns. From the planning department standpoint, again, I didn't want to point out no TIA was required. I want to touch on parking with this application. The applicant is requesting that a total of 50 spaces be allowed on the site, which is a reduction, significant reduction. I want the ordinance requirement is. Our requirements are one space for each five seats or one space for each four-year square feet of floor area available for movable seats. So I'll talk about that a little more here in just a minute. I just wanted to point out the requirement. Our landscape ordinance requirements, again, I've touched on this already, so I spent a lot of time on that. We just want to make sure that those are met. Our police department was, we reached out to them just to make sure there hadn't been any complaints received from residents on the theme lane related to the temple in terms of parking on the street or speeding that type of thing. We spoke with Officer Flynn and he confirmed that there were no complaints that had been received about the concerning the use. Fire Department had no concerns in public works. There's no change or impact there. So I did want to spend just a few minutes talking about the parking situation on site. The first thing is I wanted to point out that there are currently 15 paid parking spaces on the property. That was approved under the old Unified Development Ordinance which required one space for each four seats as a maximum. And that's a very important term to remember. I'm going to talk about that in just a minute as well. So based on the size of that original building, the maximum parking space is allowed would be 75. So you're probably wondering why did we allow them to have 15? Well, in the ordinance, we had it establishes a maximum instead of a minimum. And one of the reasons we did that is because it's a town we had traditionally been very concerned and very in tune to stormwater runoff. So we were trying to put ourselves in a position where where we felt like it would benefit the town and the applicant, we could allow for a reduction in parking spaces. Because when the maximum 75 that gives you some flexibility, that means you can reduce the parking in the impervious surface. One of the reasons for this is a lot of commercial users actually want a lot more parking than they need. I think there's always the big box users who want to build a parking space for, or parking lot for one day a year, which is Black Friday, and then it's their empty the other 11 months of the year. We were really trying to avoid those situations and those see the vast thought that we were seeing on 74. So that's why that number is what it is. But with the expansion, they're requesting a total of 50 spaces on site. This will give them also the ability to provide over-slip parking on the grass areas of the property. Per the ordinance, the parking, calculation, I square footage for the new building would be 157 spaces. So you can see what they're requesting is a significant reduction. Next slide. I just prepared this table just so you guys could quickly just look and see what is on the site and what is being requested. That first building, which is 5200 square feet again, up to 75 bases, 15 provided. Second building, 157 would be required. They are asking for 35, which would give a total of 50. So there's a difference there between the 232 and the 50. But I didn't want to point out that there is a precedent sort of history set on the site where we have allowed a reduction in parking. Next slide. I wanted to talk a minute about spaces versus the 232. I went over this already, but it reduces in pervious surface by eliminating a parking lot that may not be used. We also met with the applicant on several different occasions to kind of talk through them why they were asking for this reduction. We wanted to make sure that the town's interests for being that they they say to us on numerous occasions that they are attendance to that their services are weekly attendance was no more than 50 it averaged between 40 and 50 and that included children you know people of all ages not all this 50 attendees are driving a car. And they also host three special events a year, where they have around 100 attendees. Again, this includes all age groups. So we felt after these discussions, we were fairly confident that the 50 paved spaces would be adequate for their weekly needs. We also felt that that grass area that they have would be adequate for providing overflow parking for special events to prevent any on-street parking along Vicky Lane. We also have some requirements in our ordnurch or A requirement that requires a temporary permit for overflow parking. So we would require them to apply for that permit that way. The town could track those and our police department would be on notice if these special events would be happening so they could be aware of it. Next slide. Some of the things that were brought up by the applicant when speaking with them about what their needs and concerns were, when we were space, actually the space on the site itself in terms of property, they stated to us that they felt like there would be room for an additional 100 to 120 spaces, which would bring the total to around 150 to 170. But they also pointed out this would increase the impervious area, which would require the need for a stormwater detention basin. That would do two things. It would take up land for parking. It would also make the project cost prohibitive for their client. So those were two things they pointed out and their again that septic field does take up some property that may be available for parking. We did receive one email from a resident of Greenbrier Lane who stated that they were concerned about the traffic that was generated by the Temple on Vicky Lane. She just pointed out that their neighborhood is very residential. People walked their dogs, they exercised. She said that cars sped up and down the road frequently and that she provided us with some photos that show cars parking on the street. And this email came from the Sandra Edcock. These are the pictures she provided. I don't know when these were taken. I don't know if she's on the line tonight. She might could address that, but I just wanted to share those with you as well. So when I received this email from his adcock, we also had a phone conversation. I wanted to just double check with the police department to make sure that you know, or just double check to make sure that no complaint had received by the police department. So I spoke with Lieutenant Heath Cranford. He and our records check, the PD's records, Teg Larry Wilson were very helpful and going back and checking records for the last 12 months of the last year. And basically they confirmed that no complaints have been received for either speeding or parking along the roadway on Vicki Length. So we were able to confirm that. I did want to point out that our co-inforcement officer has been out to this site on numeric occasions and had to deal with them on the subject of talk grass. We, Trash and DeVary, we have had conversations with them about this and informed them that the site would have to be cleaned up before they were allowed to proceed with their project. This is something that was discussed with the planning board as well, so they are very aware of it, but I did want to point it out to the council. Once the other thing I wanted to just touch on very quickly, I mentioned that the community meeting was held on July 28th. This is the first step in our conditional zoning process. There was a nearby property on our Western Davis of the former Davis steel, voicing concerns about the building and its location. It seems to be staying that they felt like it was too close to the edge of the property. He expressed concerns with the building being there and affecting the ability to provide for a future roadway connection to Johnson Lane, which is in Mecklenburg County, just on the opposite side of this property. We said he had heard from companies who are interested in locating to the area and was concerned that the addition of this building would keep that from happening because the roadway would not be able to occur. This was news to staff. We did not realize or had he even ever heard that there was going to be a roadway connection made here, but that there are other businesses interested in this area. We reached out to the zoning administrator for the town of Matthews to see if they were aware of any plans or if they had plans to make this road connection and they were unaware of anything, any road connections or development happening in the area. So after we had some further conversations with Mr. Weston, I believe it was his father. I think that the situation is that a road that's going to go in the series, basically going to have to be in the CSX right of way, which would be a conversation and a negotiation between the Davis's and the CSX Railway. The plan board heard this request in August, and they recommended approval with several conditions. The first one is that this is just a boilerplate condition that we put on all of our conditional zoning. Basically just putting the applicant on notice that they have to acquire permits, the approval of a rezoning does not give them the ability to start construction, but they have to go through that permitting process. The second one that will allow the reduction in parking to permit the 50 onsite parking spaces, but then in the any future parking needs, there was a result of a future expansion would need to be reviewed with any future building plans. We would also ask and recommend that any future buildings built on the site in addition to what's being proposed this evening would come back to the town for conditional zoning approval. That would just be another check to allow the council to review that proposal and check any parking needs or requirements at that time. We would also ask that a land, a complete landscape plan be provided by showing compliance with Article 11 that would include that type C buffer that's required between the single family. We would ask that all debris near the dumpster be removed, that the metal shipping containers on the site be removed from the property, and that all code violations be addressed prior to issuance of a permit for construction on the site. This is planning board recommendation, as well as staff. And if you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer those. If not, the applicant is here this evening, and is prepared to answer any questions that you might have as well. the evening and is prepared to answer any questions that you might have as well. Okay, thank you very much, Lynn. I will open the floor now for counsel to ask questions of staff or to make comments that they would like to make regarding this request. Just out of curiosity, what kind of obviously this new structure is coming in the play. What is the idea here is that if, I mean right now we've got 50 on-site parking. I mean, if we're adding another building that's doubling the size, it would seem like maybe the ideas that over time would be a growth there for new folks to join the church or join the temple. So I'm just curious, what is kind of the new building kind of for and do they see growth potentially that might impact the need for more parking in the future? I can answer they've informed us that the building is a fellowship center. They actually have 15, I don't know if I made myself clear, but there's actually 15 existing spaces. So they're asking to increase by 35. So, but in terms of expansion, I think the applicant could better address that. You'd like to speak to that, sir? I think Bob, are you there? Is all the engineer, you know, Brian or Bob? He's on mute. Bob's falling. You're muted. Bob. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was muted. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, again, as far as the the temple. The only thing that that that building is going to be used for as Lynn had said is is it's it's a they would have just functions after worship and that's basically what they want to build in for. There's no plans to turn it into an additional part of the temple or from what we've been told, there's no plans currently to expand the temple itself or the worship area. May I add something, sir? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, same people worship. The same people will go to take a dinner or lunch, you know, to eat over there or sometimes the kids are there instead of the hanging around in some hardware, the orange thing, they can just hang around building, you know? That's why we are expanding this building, that's our main goal, you know? So same people will be using that facility, you know? Okay. Okay. Any other council members have questions for staff? Of the applicant I do. Okay, go ahead. Two things, previous that we have, the town has had issues getting in touch with somebody in their annual code violations. How do we ensure that going forward? We don't have for lack of any better words ignoring the town or, or maybe it just doesn't get to the right people. And we make sure we get it to the right people to get things addressed. Can I ask, Krathmej's can answer? Yes, yes. Yeah, my name is Gandhi. First thing like, you know, we congratulate the whole city council and police department, they're doing wonderful job. And it's our honor to be the City of Council, you know. So I give Congresswoman everyone, with the mayor and City Council and Lee and everybody. So, it's our pleasure. Second thing, the Council members say, we really apologize for that. I did receive a couple, but we give it to our contractor, and he was very sick. Unfortunately, it's happened thing, but next time we won't happen. My name is Mr. Mithesh Gandhi and my colleague is Mr. Prasmisha. We both give a voluntary service so sometimes we don't get the mail in the right hand. And that's why it's happened. But for future we give you all guarantee. He will not be happened, We'll take care of everything. And we'll keep the property proud for city council. Keep it clean as per your requirement, sir. Thank you. And number two, how many more parking spaces would you be able to do without having to do a detention pond? We'll, I think, we'll fulfill the 50 parking there's no problem because this is a like all the come with the public donation like that and out of 50 will give you a guarantee out most of So but whatever the city require, we'll be ready to fulfill that, you know. And I will, I'll give it up. Bob, I'm not sure I got the answer. Yeah, I'll be a little more specific. Yeah, I'll see it right, sir. 50 parking, we can do the 50 parking. Bob, can I think do better in Desmond, right Bob? Yeah, yes, thank you. Yeah, to answer your question, I don't, we don't know exactly what that would be. It's a little bit of a process, you know, how the pond would fit in there and what the impervious is. So we don't exactly know answer that question right now. Okay, but what specifically is a good question. I would be more inclined to vote yes, if there was an agreement to have 10 more parking places available. We are worried about on street or future growth or anything else doesn't go around to the future. Is that something that applicant would be interested in agreeing to? Yes, what is that? How many more parking, sir? 10. 10 more. So over 50, I'm talking about 25 parking or total of 60 total. 60 pay total. 50 pay parking. 60. 60, right? Okay. Is it possible? You can just give us five more to otherwise because so we don't want to spend too much money on the other people. This is all donation money. That's why we are happy. If we want to do, we can do it 60, we can do 60, no problem. If we have fun, we can do the 60, no problem. That's my point. There is a lot of grass area for us. There is a lot of grass area, big property for us. We can use it you know are you agreeing to 60 yeah are you agreeing to 60 paved spots yes we can do that you know for you sir no problem if you can allow us 50 there be great that can cut us our budget of you know just don't keep our budget down that's why we are being sir we've been most comfortable at 60 yeah sir, sir. First, let me come. Sir, like if city council allow us to we start with the 15 and if it's over crowd or anything, we can keep the time space in or on the spare. And anytime they require we can do that. No, then we have don't we don't have any problem. But like if we don't mind just give us start with the 50 because we have have right now funding problem and like that we ready to keep whatever the city required and we give a guarantee that we are not give any problem to the community and neighborhood. We have a lot of grass area if we think like more people coming will take the advance permit for the lack special permit for the parking to you know. permit for the parking too, no? So Lynn, if you were to give them more time to pave to the 60, I'm not sure how you would word that because usually we say after a certain number of certificate of occupancy issued, how would you do that for this project? The council were to agree to allow them additional time to do the extra 10 spaces. That's a very good question because unlike residential development, there will just be one CEO on this project. I might ask Mack if he has any ideas or is seeing it done in other places where I just can't think of anything we could tie it to other than the CO. I'm not sure there is anything else to tie it to but my current display is that the applicant has stated that it would be a financial burden to them to do this and they are a protected use under a civil rights statute that protects religious institutions for land use. And once he said that it would be a financial burden, I think it flips over into a different category for analysis. And that category is that you'd have to have a compelling governmental interest to press for something that they say is a burden on them. And I'm not sure that avoiding on street parking is going to ever qualify as a compelling governmental interest. I think what to do. is going to ever qualify as a compelling governmental interest. As equal to Boothatia. Thank you, Mr. McArle. Do other council members have questions or comments on this request for conditional zoning? All right. If you're not, I would like to have an opportunity for the citizens who are on the call. If anyone wants to make comment or ask questions, we can do this one at the time. If you have video, you could raise your hand, but not sure how we do this one by one. Aaron can unmute everybody. And maybe I will just call on the names I see on the screen. I think these all of the bill would you like to speak? Thank you for raising your hand. How are you this evening? Good. A couple of different questions and concerns. And Lynn, if you're still available to hear me, I'm afraid that some of the information from the email that I sent you as far as an initial concern and some of the information from the email that I sent you as far as an initial concern and some of the information of the discuss here in the July 28th meeting has been misconstrued. There is not a current plan with the town of Matthews. We've got a venture capital company who've signed a non-disclosure agreement with, which makes this a little bit tricky. But the reality is this, there is property on Johnson Lane that is currently being grouped per sale, about 20 acres on the other side. We've got a heritage on the other side with the temple property between that. We have had 30 plus year relationship, CSX, and whether the temple places are building in this footprint or not, we can still move forward with the plan. That was not what we wanted to bring up. Just simply as a good neighbor and being cognizant of the temple's current plans, whatever their intentions are in the future, it's important that they're aware that although they are within the tolerance as far as where they're putting the corner of the building on the property line, they'd be within a foot of a potential proposed revenue to the future. It would be for private development. Okay, so that's the first point. Second point is that I find really concerning that I do realize that under a old ordinance, they were grandfathered in for a current building, but I find it very concerning that as an ordinance changed, there was probably a reason that ordinance was changed. That had the impression in the town of Staling that people don't do things for no good reason, that we're trying to be pragmatic and proactive about really making sure that every decision made is not only for the good of the town but the good of the community. Hearing tonight that there's multiple different attempts to contact on a code issues that are in taking place, yes, I've witnessed a stock of traffic on Bickey Lane multiple times in the past year to double the size and request for a new hypersonic ordinance to double the size of a current gathering area. There may be growth in the future that maybe people aren't anticipating today, but once that zoning is granted, there'll be very limited recourse for the town or for the people dwelling in that community in that neighborhood on Vicky Lane on Greenbrier as far as what can be done in the future. So, you know, really, in our opinion, this is a situation where it appears that the tale has been wagging the dog. That sidewalk was done, hands were thrown up, and then there's an actual discovery of this, and now we're getting into the picked up. It seems like things are really moving forward in a pace that's really serving the interests of one particular group, however not really evaluating the potential livelihood of the neighbors, the community, and also future business projects. Thank you, Mr. Steele. That's math. Is there anyone else who wish to speak from the community? I'm going to ask you if you could kind of address some of the concerns Mr. Steel is raising because I think this is a new kind of situation for the town with regard to the change in the ordinance that he's mentioning and the fact that there is some federal legislation that we have to comply with. So could you please speak to that question so that everyone concerned will understand what we're dealing with? Yes ma'am, I'd be glad to. Let me start with the conclusion and that is that I opinion the town is covered by the federal legislation and the temple is protected by that federal legislation and that when we get to the end of this conversation it's my very strong recommendation that you approve the proposal as presented. The religious land use and institutionalized persons act of 2000 was passed by Congress unanimously. That never happens, but it happened in this case. It protects religious land uses from discrimination by local governments, particularly in land use decisions. For a local government to impose something that is viewed as a burden on a religious land use, the government has to on a religious land use. The government asked to show a compelling governmental interest. And the courts have basically said that that is something akin to a threat to public safety. And then even when you show that, you have to use the least restrictive means possible to ameliorate the threat. Well, in this case, they have land that they can use for grass overflow. They have now told us that it would be a financial to do more than the 50 spaces that they've agreed to. My sense is that on street parking is not a threat to public safety. In fact, on street parking is lawful in residential districts. It's lawful through most of the town. And people do it all day, every day, in front of businesses and other places. One of the reasons that Congress passed this act was because there was testimony that indicated that commercial uses were being advantaged over resident resident over religious uses. And I'm sorry, Mr. Steel, but what you're proposing is that. The last thing is Davis is Western Davis. Mr. Davis, sorry. What you're proposing is that we consider a commercial use in opposition to the religious use. That's not what I'm proposing at all. What I'm proposing is that. He's me, Mr. Davis. I'm Mr. McCarley has the floor. Please hold your voice. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. But whatever you're proposing, Mr. Davis, it will not, it won't get us over the burden for the town of a compelling governmental interest, handled in the least restrictive way. All right. This application meets the descriptions in the case law for reloop of protection and it is my strong recommendation that the town approve it as submitted. Be glad to answer questions. Mr. Davis, did you have a question you wanted to pose to Mr. McCarley? Yes, ma'am. First all, I want to be very, very clear that not only do we believe in respect the Constitution, but we do believe in federal law. This is not simply a residential area. We're on every industrial on the other side of the fence. CSX has a real way on the other side of their property, right? Okay, that being said, let's say we have an industrial accident. Let's say CSX has an industrial accident. accident. Let's say CSX has an industrial accident. Let's say that neighborhood that was always designed with the infrastructure of being single family neighborhood has to be evacuated. Let's say that instead of there being 50 or 60 cars that have to evacuate from 50 or 60 driveways, there's now an additional 50 or 60 vehicles because we don't know the future when someone's doubling and soft. This simply could be a logistical issue, not a religious issue, not at all, but a logistical issue and a safety issue for the members of that community as well as very interesting plan because we do have access to make you line as well. It's an interesting hypothetical, but I don't think it trumps federal law. Sorry. All right. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the community who wanted to speak? I think I see Miss Acock ad cock on the call. Miss Sandra, did you want to speak to the council on this matter? She's muted. You are muted if you want to speak. I have tried to unmute her Mayor to Pory Paxson, but it won't allow me. Okay. Well, I don't see another name that I recognize as a resident on a Vicky Lane. So if there's anyone else that wishes to speak, I need to have some indication of who wants to speak. Sandra, are you raising your hand? Let's see your face now. She's not able to speak. Okay. All right. Council. I just wanted to point out that public does have 24 hours to submit public comment due to the virtual meetings law. So I want to give public comment once the meeting is over. They may do so via email to any staff or council. That is correct. And we will not be taking a vote this evening because we would be compliance with the laws regarding virtual meetings. So after Council has had all the time to ask questions or to make comments, I will just close the hearing. So is anyone else wish to speak at this time? I received an additional email from, I'm sorry, Brad. Yeah, I'll be brief. If I'm not heard a true conflict tonight, I did hear that there's CSS right away. If I look at the plan correctly, it's a hundred feet of right away, alongside the railroad track. I agree that connections in our town are important, particularly from styling to back to other pieces of land and roads. So I hope we can have a connection from Johnson Lane to commercial drive. But I'm not hearing that there's a conflict in the right of way. I'll just point that out and that was important to me to listen to at least. John Martin, did you want to speak? Yeah, I was just going to say I had some additional conversations with Ms. Adcock and I would encourage her to drop us an additional note. I forwarded something on to Len and Alex and I'll forward out the rest of the council. The other, I guess, question I would pose if there is a commercial need here. I would be curious as if the temple and Davis deal have had any conversations regarding some, the buyout per se. I'm not talking about the search. But it sounds like that might be an opportunity for the two parties to talk there, especially if the temple is looking to expand, but that's outside of our purview. So Mr. Martin, that is clearly outside our purview and nothing that we can express an opinion on. Absolutely. I do have a question for you, Mr. McLeary, when we talked about Council approving something that was inconsistent with our ordinances, that has the effect of changing the plan. So, could you speak to how that would apply in this situation? It doesn't apply yet. The statute that would require that doesn't go into effect until the town has updated its development ordinance to match the new chapter 160D of the general statutes. So that doesn't apply, but even if it did, in this particular case, federal law is going to trump state law and local ordinance, and it wouldn't matter whether we updated it or not. Okay, are there other comments? If not, I will close the public hearing and we will have this on our agenda on the 28th of September at which time council will need to be prepared to vote and we will do a roll call though because that will also be a virtual meeting. All right. Thank you all for being here and clarifying the situation that we're dealing with here. And I will move now to the next item on the agenda, which is pertaining to our Greenway Plan. And we have our Props and Rec Director Ashley Plants on the call to talk about an update on the design and accommodations for the Vickery neighborhood and I think the town manager wants to talk about some of the requirements that NCDOT has required for us with this and then about cost. So I'm going to turn the floor over to Miss Platt at this point. Good evening Councilmembers. I'm here to turn the floor over to Ms. Platt at this point. Good evening, council members. Here this evening to provide you with an update on the engineering process for the portion of our Greenway plan that's located near Blaremont Park and adjacent to the Vickery subdivision. Since the council's adoption of the Greenway and Recreation Master Plan in February of 2019, staff have been working closely with the Vickery residents through a series of community meetings to provide input to our consulting team led by Eric Woolridge, who have incorporated these items into the design of the project. In June, we received the 70% design documents and then had an update with the Vickery neighborhood prior to bringing this to Council's attention. Eric is here tonight and he's going to go through the design update. He'll speak of our negotiations with NCDOT and provide an update to our negotiations with the Vickery subdivision as well. And then we also have our finance director, director Marsha Gross here, who's gonna provide a cost estimate and potential funding option for this project if we move forward into the bidding phase. So before I turn it over to Eric, I just want to draw your attention to the requested actions that are in your memo. Tonight we'll be asking for your direction to enter into an easement agreement with the Vickery H.O.A. addressing three small points on the project map that will require additional implementation from the town in order for us to legally be able to do that. We do need the easement agreement in place. I'm also going to ask for you to approve a current budget savings amount of $10,500 to cover the additional engineering costs for the crosswalk design. The NC DOT has presented with us. And then I'm mostly hoping to get your feedback on how we're doing with the project. What are next steps are? What do you think about our potential funding options and proceeding to the bid process? So thank you, Eric. If you want to take it from here, he's got a presentation for you. Good evening, council. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. And here you are. I think Aaron is going to put up the presentation. I'm going to pull that up right now. Thank you, Eric. So as Ashley mentioned, we've been working really closely with the Vickery HOA group, and I know they've had some different meetings with the actual neighborhood over the last several months, but what is Walk You Through kind of the 70% design will walk you through the 70% design, we'll walk you through some of the DOT issues, we'll walk you through kind of the preliminary agreement that we've developed with the Vickery HOA leadership at this point. So design considerations, NCDOT, and just the next steps. Be the agenda. This is the entire study area. Under, just right around 2,000 feet, maybe a little bit more of greenway that extends a long property that's controlled by stallings. But the majority of this property was dedicated to the town when the development of Vickery came about. There are however a couple of areas that the HOA, Vickery and landowners have, we've kind of worked through to try to address area number one we call, of the pinch point. This is an area where we can keep the greenway entirely on stalling's own property. However, it's the area in which the greenway will get the closest to the residents. So for this area, we're recommending that we go and do some vegetation, but we would install that vegetation, probably post-greenway construction, and we would work directly with those landowners to place shrubs and plantings in very specific locations. You see the area to the left and kind of in between the pinch point and the pond there. The goal there, as we've worked with the HOA leadership, was to maintain the existing cover. Try not to disturb things. This area is going to flood extensively, which is going to be completely fine for the actual paved greenway trail. But it would disrupt, you know, if we went in there and installed fencing or other things like that, it would disrupt it, not to say that we couldn't do that if that's what the community did want in the end. Then area two there, you see, there's a pond. There we're proposing an easement to do some vegetation but also the fencing. And the fencing there would actually be installed kind of on the berm, so it wouldn't be impacted by the flooding as much. And then area number three, there's the entry crossing. This is going to be the transition from Blaringle Park onto the greenway as well. So it's kind of how the project's broken down. Next slide please. Pinch point. Okay so this is the pinch point area. There you see the Union sewer easement that currently exists and how close the green way will kind of get to the existing properties there. Next slide please. Here is another perspective. We took the drone out there just to kind of get an idea of this site. And you can see here again that maintained sewer easement corridor where the greenway will get located and how to how close that is to the homes. Next slide. They're moving to the pond area. So here we, in the lower area, kind of bottom of your screen is where the green way would be located. We would ask that the town have an easement along this berm, so we can install fencing and be able to maintain the town can then maintain that fencing over time. I'm going to have the authority to install and maintain and such. Next slide. Here again an overhead view of that area. You're also seeing at the top of the screen, the crossing, the DOT crossing as well. Here's the view from above and the next slide please Aaron. And if you look at our engineered plans and you see how the greenway meanders through this area, you would see that sewer manhole on the construction documents and we kind of maneuvered it around. You all actually have enough property we could have taken that straight or possibly secured more but we figured let's just try to keep people away from the properties as such. But then you can see the fence line there or we're suggesting we would actually install a fence. Obviously the pond was a real concern of the HOA and landowners just because of safety reasons. They already have quite a bit of trespassing. It sounds like when people come down there to fish and other things, but just making it, creating a thick hedge there, creating an offensing and so forth is a priority. Let me get to the entry, the crossing over Next slide. See, is there another slide there? The renderings? Okay, here's the perspective. Next slide, please. Here's a view from the road. And when we incorporate the design as it exists right now, we're looking at a really nice landscaped entrance into the greenway. We would actually extend the fencing that was a thing hit by a car that ran over into Vickery's property there and hit that fence So we'd improve that fence and prove the entryway and This area would be part of the easement area as well So we'd presented the HOA Leadership a plan in which we didn't include their property and Then we showed them this plan. So if we're able to use some of your property, we can really make a much nicer entrance, which they liked. Next slide. So this is that same perspective from a site plan view. We're proposing a stamped asphalt crosswalk to the right side here. You see the connection into Blair Mill Park. We would actually retrofit the sidewalk here, actually widen it so that this little area is ready to go into the future and it can just be tied into from the north and from the south. When we went to DOT to present our concept, we presented some different options for what we could do from a safety perspective. The rapid flash beacon is the cheaper option, which we tried to push for, and I know Chris, and Ashley and Alex really went to bat with DOT as well, trying to push for that option. At the end of the day, they wanted to see a hawk signal there. This high intensity activated crosswalk. These are typical, and for a road that's to be 45 miles per hour, it's probably not a bad idea. We were kind of hoping that they would actually decrease the speed limit on this property and let us go with the rapid flash beacon. Rapid flash beacon would allow you solar, be much cheaper. This we're going to have to run electric to it. Obviously, the engineering associated with the footing and other aspects of this project is a little more intensive. So after trying to get DOT to pull back on this a little bit, we weren't successful with that. So what we did is we put in traffic engineering, which is a partner of ours. We asked them to give us a quote to do the engineering work and electrical plans for this. Alex really pushed us to try to talk them down on that price, which we were able to talk them down, I think like a thousand or a couple thousand bucks. So the quote of the 10,500 is, you know, we're not adding anything to that, that is solely going to go to the subcontractor to get us the hawk design and the electrical plans to install this feature. The one thing that is nice about this is it is going to demonstrate for people driving by that that there's, you know, a nice green way that stallings is in the green way business, and advancing bike-ped infrastructure. So next steps would be to finalize the hawk design, to finalize the vickery easements, according to those three areas, and any other easement areas that the HOA might want. But those are the three that we were focusing on at this point. Then finalize the complete construction document sets. We're fully permitted. We've submitted all the permits to actually construct the greenway to the state. We have Army Corps permits because we're impacting a little bit of wetland area. But it's not enough to trigger any type of, any mitigation or anything along those lines. So we're fully permitted with the state. So we've just been to finalize the bid package, go to bid, help you all select a contractor, and if you want us to do construction oversight, we're glad to do it. If Chris and his team want to do that, that would be fine too. And with that, I'll answer any questions. I got a question, Eric. David, Joel here. Matthew's just finished a crosswalk right near 485 on John Street, connecting the sports field to the neighborhoods across the street there. Are you familiar with that at all? Or Ashley? And I have to go through it every day. Yeah, I am familiar with it. I have been past it and I had conversations with their parks and recreation director when they were in the planning process. Is that a hawk? That is actually not a hawk. How did they get something a whole lot less expensive than what we're going to get? That is a prime, high volume high speed area. Okay, nobody can answer that maybe. But dang that's up. I think that's 35 miles an hour right there. It is. It's a lower speed limit. You're correct. Um, DOTs cut off for that is the 35 mile an hour, which is why we ask for the speed limit to be reduced. reduced. But as you are aware, we have a lot of potential development on the Stevens-Mill Road and the school is there as well. So I really do think that even though the Hawk is more expensive, I'm a huge safety nerd and I really do think that ultimately it is the correct decision, especially considering, you know, people from the neighborhood will want to come to Blaramo Park. We already have a pretty big disc golf, you know, group that plays out there and we want to make sure it's safe for the families and the kids, especially. I didn't mean to say or come across like I don't want it safe. I just wanted safe and less expensive. I concur. I just wanted to say and less expensive. I concur. 100 grand for just that. One stops on our crosswalk is outrageous, but. It is what it is, I guess. I said 100 grand. 100. At cost was 10,500. That's just for the engineering. Mr. Shoal is correct. The engineering portion is 10,500. The additional cost of the project is a little over 100,000. Just for some perspective, it is essentially an entire stop light area. Because basically when people come to the crosswalk they will push a button and it will completely stop the traffic. So it is a traffic signal which is why the cost for the project is so high. You have the mass-doms, you've got the electronic system in there, the timers and different things like that. So it is truly a traffic engineering project not just a sign that indicates across walk. Well that is a big figure. Other comments or questions from Stett Council? Sorry Dave, go ahead. I'm going to go ahead Dave, sorry. No, I'm telling Steven, that wasn't me. That's Brad, if I may. As I understand this correctly, so this wall will stretch nearly 2000 feet from glaring apart behind Vickery and it'll terminate at the approved project that we saw come through here with some apartments and retail behind Vickery. But until that project is built, it will terminate. And as soon as we have fairly little we use until it connects over to Idlewater, I support the project. It is a great amenity to the community. I just wanted to point that out until the next project in the West develops it might be underutilized. I also wanted to ask, Len and our Green White Plan, there was some signage delineating new various parts of our green white system, is that part of the budget of that? system is that part of the budget of that? It is. Did you have renderings of those? Just provide them. Yeah, if you don't have. Overall site plan. I can show you the location, but I did not include the the the concepts here but yeah we've created a complete construction manual for all of your greenway signs so I imagine you know Ashley if you could just shoot that to everyone that would be great. Yes and it was interesting to address that the town recently reviewed some signage for other locations. And one of the options that you reviewed was very similar to you and based upon our Greenway approved signage. So if you actually visit stallingsgreenway.org, you can see the renderings there, but I will send out a copy of the approved master plan that does have the signage plan in it as well. And we should have a real life example of that signage very soon at the Turolegra Pappas location because they are actually installing two of our Greenway signs as part of that project. Okay, thank you. So the signage included in the numbers that we're seeing tonight. Fabrications. Thank you. Yeah, and the numbers were actually based on what the PAPA's development said that they were they were able to get them for. Those in the six or seven thousand dollar range. For one of those signs. So that's included in the budget that we had submitted. for one of those signs. That's included in the budget that we had submitted. Are there other questions? Eric or Ashley? Ashley, you proposed using park fund or the fees and a little park to fund quite a bit of this. Have you? I can turn it over to you. Marsha now. She has actually a presentation on funding and what we've looked at as far as budget saved this year from operational reductions due to COVID as well as what we have in our restricted account for the fee and loop park lands on money. So I just want to thank her for all her time and effort and putting this together for us. You know, we've spitballed a lot of different options here and I think that, you know, we continue in the parks department to try and be very cognizant of the budget and you know, not ask for things that we don't think that we can actually accommodate. So I'll turn it over to Marsha and hopefully she'll answer your questions. Marsha are you there? I think you're muted. Sorry, next slide. I unmuted on my phone but I didn't on my computer. Okay, well the estimated cost for this, I know council got a memo on it, but just a review that can cost, we're looking at about $414,800 additional NCH of 525, 341. As council knows, we've been kind of, there has been a restricted funds within fund balance. We have over the years collected funds from different neighborhoods and whatnot for fees in lieu. And that money to be used for purposes similar to this or for some type of park use. We have nearly 375,000 and it's 374,437. And if we use those funds, the nice thing about using them instead of unrestricted funds, we can use the unrestricted funds for anything. These are already designated for a purpose, like we're talking about, so to use those and even to plead those, isn't really, if Council chooses to move forward, it's not changing any of the, you know, what it's doing is using funds that are designated for that purpose instead of using undecidated funds. So if Council Chiefs is to move forward, we could use those funds and the net proceeds needed after that would be about 150,867. Next slide, please. Park and Rec actually has gone through their budget and due to the pandemic and COVID that has gone through. We found some funds that there's been events that have been canceled. There has been some other things that things coming in under quote, Christmas tree, if you look, we identified Christmas tree lighting. We don't need additional lighting in the park this year. We feel like we have enough lighting. So we had put an additional $12,000 in the budget for 2020 that we don't feel that we would have to use. The shuttle for selling fest, we had put $9,000 in. The event has been canceled. So for that, we could use those. The concert series was $20,000 selling fest. We had a $40,000 budget. And then like I said, the park shades came in under budget so there's 84,000 dollars within the department that was allocated to park and rec that we feel we could add to cover that 150,000 dollar deficit they're trying to move forward with this. And if we look at also fiscal 1920 the 1920 revenue less departmental expenditures, we added an additional 148,421 to fund balance. And when we look at, we did make one budget amendment and I want to talk about that because you know we said that we the 148,000 we mentioned that at that point in time and we used 99,270 for the police cameras. So that would actually leave a net of 49,151 from that unspent funds from the prior fiscal year. So if we're looking at this holistically truly from understricted fund balance we would have to pull 17,717 dollars in order to move forward with this project. Any questions on the map here? I just want to point out there was a $50,000 contingency on the project as well. If you review the line item that you have in your pocket. So truly we could be covering it if we don't go into the contingency, you know, based on what we've shown already and we wouldn't have to hit under shorted funds. So, uh, about the projects that we have approved recently, um, some of them I think have a fee in lieu of will that, um, make up any deficits we have here. A very well could. I know that Lynn had, um, mentioned a neighborhood that was going to be coming in and I thought there was a $40,000 amount. This past fiscal year, 1920, we did not have any additions to fees and lieu. But I feel like this coming fiscal year, there was one neighborhood and I'm sorry I can't remember off the top of my head who it was but we feel like we did not budget for that money to come in we usually don't budget for fees and lose but we feel like we're going to be getting more funds in that could be you know that could add to that well you know so we wouldn't be using 100% of it but you know at this point like I said before, this money's already designated for that type of use. So it makes sense to deplete your designated funds before you would hit unrestricted fund balance. Have we looked at all the possibilities for grants? That was good. My question. On this option on this project, what grant funding is available? We have not applied for any grants for this project. Typically when you're looking at grants specifically, this doesn't qualify for the LWCF grant because they only now, since they've changed the program it's only for land acquisition since we already own the land I want to eligible for that and the part F grant is a federal grant and the oversight costs for the project would make it cost prohibitive to try to apply for a part F grant for this particular project. Once you get in it's kind of like working with DOT, once you get with those type of projects, you have to follow their specific sources and use their people and it drives the cost up. However, there are some smaller grants we could be eligible for as far as equipment goes. I'm actually in talks with the national fitness campaign right now through North Carolina's Recreation of Parks Association and they singled out the town of Stollings as an opportunity to put in one of their new fitness courts which would be perfect for this type of greenway area. So I actually have a call with them next week to look at the state is putting up some funds for that and then the the National Fitness Campaign itself has some funds available for that as well. So when we're looking at equipment, usually it's a matching grant cost. So when we put out benches or we put out fitness equipment, we could get a, you know, a fit up to a 50% contribution for that. As far as specific grants for construction, the cost of this project is a little lower than what you usually pursue for grants like the Pertef grant. And our state doesn't have a lot of resources when it comes to grants outside a per-DeF. However, there are some when it comes to playgrounds and equipment. So we will definitely pursue all of those. One more question, if I may. Yes, go ahead. When will final design be done? I have thought on when I see already on this, and when I ask. Eric can answer that for you. I believe the only thing we lack is the the easement agreement so we can finalize the plan. Is that correct Eric? Yeah the easement agreement and then getting this hawk design done, we have to create some profiles for the electrical that could change some of the final grading and around that landscape area. But yeah, the plans are very close to being complete. And now's a better good time to mention this. Since we're very interested in safety at a 45 mile an hour road, I've seen a number of newer greenways and basically barrier so that a bicyclist doesn't go barreling right down the paths without stopping because they have to either probably do a very sharp S turn and slow way down or maybe even walk the bike and it'll help keep kids from doing the same thing, little kids. And in fact that Matthews, the new crosswalk downer and Matthews that I referenced has the same thing like dang that's a good idea because all too often somebody especially a little kid is going to be out in front of the parents and next thing you know yeah you're correct Mr. Shull we actually included that curve in the green way um design at the end but I have curve I mean a barrier no there I have seen exactly what you're talking about and that is it's less an engineering concern I believe as far as it would literally just be an addition to the cost to put something up. We do have options as far as like ballades go or even a gate and I've seen plenty of those in different projects so we will gladly look at that and see what we can do to make it safer there. Because I plan on crossing that road a lot. I do too and I'd like to, I'm looking forward to it, but I don't want to see a little kid come, I mean, I see him on the sidewalks and I like that. They're out in front of the parents by 2030, 50 yards sometimes and I'm like, I'm not, I don't want it safe as we can without any of you know, thinking. Absolutely. Question if I could. Definitely strong proponent of this, but I do feel that need to ask what this is going to add to this town annually as far as maintenance. Question. I'm not sure if I can make it safe as we can without. I mean, you know, thinking. Absolutely. Question. If I could definitely definitely strong propone of this, but I do feel the need to ask what this is gonna add to this town annually as far as maintenance. Question. That's a great question, Mr. Martin. Right now, that property is under easement with the county and the state for that sewer line and some electrical work there. And the county maintains that by cutting it with a bush hog once a year. What this would add to us is essentially when we cut Blair Mill Park, we would cut the sides of the trail, you know, like you would a sidewalk for the length of the trail. So it would add possibly another two hours to our maintenance schedule over the time period. Well, I mean, on that landscaping at the front, I would think that's going to add some additional time and money there because I would have to be maintained manually. And then I think you said that the concrete would be stamped there. I mean, at some point, I mean, if it's like the stampings that I know of, I mean, they have about what 10-year lifespan before they have to be redone. So I mean, that seemed like it would be another cost that we'd have to budget for. Like, NC DOT would take that over once we put it in though. Okay. That that would be my if I'm wrong, please correct me, but that would be my thought. Just how they generally do it because that's the state maintained road, not a not a power bill road. No, it would be similar to what we have at Town Hall currently with the concrete stamping in between the two new buildings. So it's less of, it takes less maintenance than it does to say paint it with a bright color. It is literally just stamped in there and then it has an overlay that's a different color like crosswalk. Yeah, and I guess where I'm in high traffic areas, the coloring tends to get taken off or it seems like in some cases I guess what we know that this type of material would kind of effectively stay resilient and not need to be replaced that often. Eric, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, we would actually do a concrete color mix. So, it's not like you're gonna paint this thing on. You'll see that's the cheapest kind of way to get that look. And then all of a sudden, first it'll be the wheel marks. We'll get that look and then all the sudden first it'll be the wheel marks We'll get turn black and then eventually all of it will turn black so This thing is engineered to where that would not happen And in fact, we it's possible we might bid out a couple of different options for this brick pavement some of You know all of them will be sustainable couple of different options for this brick pavement. All of them will be sustainable. Some of them would look better than others, but cost wise might be prohibitive. So that's what you're looking at. And then, David, to come back to, I think I hit the wrong button here, or John, to come back to your question, this entire area, you're gonna enter into an encroachment agreement with NC DOT. And as part of that encroachment agreement, you are gonna be responsible for maintaining all of these new elements, just like any other town improvements you all might do in the right of way and such. So I don't want to mislead you. You are going to be responsible for maintaining the aspects of this project. Even the signage most likely will be in the DOT right of way and you all be responsible for that as part of the encouragement agreement. Good then, Thank you. Okay, well I think the ask of the council was to give them feedback on the funding options and we've kind of talked around it but we haven't actually said what we're thinking about that so can I hear from some of the council members as to what you think about the different options they presented to us for funding. Well, I'll go ahead. Go ahead, Stephen. Okay, well, Marsha, do you have any concerns with, I mean, we talked about that we would exhaust that one fund. I mean, we're only a couple months into the new budget year. I mean, I guess when I look at this, my only concern would be is that we're only a, you know, the first quarter of the first budget year and we're going to be effectively cleaning out the corners of our potential extra money areas that might would be useful potentially as we get further into the year. Do you have any concern that we may be exhausting? that we may be exhausting potential buckets of money that we may need, you know, as the year of COVID kind of unfolds from a budgetary point of view. Well, all I can say is I've been here for four plus years and we haven't spent a penny of it. So I feel like if you're going to move forward and you want this project to come to fruition, I would deplete the funds rather than use on the money. And I think this comes down to a question of the commitment to the green way and whether council wants to move forward with step one on this. We certainly have the funds available. And if you, the next slide, if you move forward, there's unrestricted funds available. Some additional funds that will be added to unrestricted. So we're looking at an unrestricted fund balance over $4 million, going into this fiscal year. And yes, we would be pulling out 374, but I don't think that's going to put the town in any type of financial jeopardy of, you know, not being able to move forward with other projects if they chose to. If I could add on to that, I think it's important also also note that we've spent money year after year in designs, but the community hasn't seen a good return on that yet. Whereas this would actually be money being spent on something that committee committee can see, feel and use. So I was strongly supported. I think we can get away for 20K or less of actual money out of balance and get something in place that the committee can start seeing these cornerstones come together. I think it's a win for us. Well, and I would say too, if we haven't spent a dime out of this fund for four years, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I slide right now. So I just wanted to make sure that felt comfortable with those two items. Mr. Ares, I'm not sure if we've had this discussion before, however, the fee and lieu of park lands money can only be spent in certain parameters. So even if we were to save on to it for a future date, it really could only be used for future park construction projects. So this is like a perfect opportunity in my opinion to utilize those and to turn a negative from the COVID year where we've had to cancel so many events to redirect those funds and an opportunity that the community can really benefit from. I think we've all seen that with everything that's happening, green spaces are hot commodity, and families want to be outside and they need things to do. So thank you for your support. Gotcha. All right. I was nice that I was just asking the question. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, it sounds like we've gotten some feedback with regard to that. I'm not hearing anybody opposed to it. So I'm going to go ahead and ask Council to take votes on the different items they've asked action on. And the first one would be authorizing staff to enter into the easement agreement with the Vickery HOA. So can I hear a motion to deny that request? John said so moved. Oh okay I'm sorry John I didn't hear you. Is there a second? Okay, I'm sorry, John, I didn't hear you. Is there a second? Second. All right. I need to do a roll call vote. So we'll start with District one. Mr. Martin, how do you vote? I. District two. I. District three. That's me. I say I. District four. I. District five. District six. Mr. Richardson. I thank five. I district six, Mr Richardson. I thank you. Okay, so it's unanimous approval to author our staff to go ahead and enter into that East Montgomery with the HLA. Invictory and the second request was to approve $10,500 from budget savings to cover the added DOT requirements for the design of the crosswalk. So I'll hear a motion to that effect. No move. All right, I have a motion as they are second. Second. Okay, District one, how do you vote? I. District two. All right. District three. That's me. Sorry. I just. I. District five. I. And district six. All right. The motion carries unanimously. All right. All right, the motion carries unanimously. And then I think if I understood correctly, the manager, you did not really want us to authorize the staff to go to a bid process just yet until later. Did I remember that correctly? Mayor Perkins impacts and thank you. That's correct. I believe we talked about to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be is finalized. So that's what we would suggest. All right, so I don't believe there are any other action items on this particular subject tonight. So we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Mr. Ares item to get some feedback from Council regarding front yard gardens. So the strikers. Yeah. So up front here, this is an inquiry that came from an individual that owns property here in stallings about right to spin it. Our ordinance don't have anything about having gardens in the front yard and when I talk about a garden here we're talking corn stalks your traditional farm implement gardens and so this person was a little concerned I guess most of stallings currently most of our residents are under homeowner groups and so this type of thing isn't allowed. But I guess in some of our more older neighborhoods, there aren't covered by HOAs. Obviously, something like this here is allowed. And I guess the concern from this particular person was is that they had brought up an example of where a person actually had a full-fledged garden in their subdivision front yard. And so the question that I bring here tonight is not specific for any particular event, but the kind of just discussion for the board on whether or not, you know, for certain parameters, should we in the ordinance or modify the ordinance to restrict potentially things like gardens in the front yard of people's property, especially for smaller properties within subdivisions. And obviously, it's hard for me personally to put myself in this, all the places that I've ever stayed had an HOA. And so this kind of thing wasn't ever really allowed. But I obviously have my feelings, but what I wanted to do is just bring it to the council at large Have an open discussion on whether or not we should You know get people's feelings if people feel it's not something that we want to take on our tackle That's good if it's something that we do feel like we want to take in tackle potentially give the staff some recommendations about a future modification to the ordinance. But the concern that this particular person brought up was is that the neighborhood in question where this example, an example was brought forth. I guess this is one of our older neighborhoods that has seen declines in the past, but over the last few years, have actually been getting better and better. They're a little concerned that maybe things like a front yard garden is not okay with most folks. It might be looked at as kind of a detriment to the overall kind of a detriment to the overall neighborhood and that it might start a domino effect, a domino effect that might erase what they feel like has brought the neighborhood kind of up, may start a trend taking the neighborhood back down to where it was a few years back. And so that's kind of the concern from this particular neighbor is that they feel like it's not appropriate and could be an eye sore and could start a trend where the neighborhood retreats from being kind of where it's gotten a little nicer, going back with degradating back to where it was a few years back. So I know I'm kind of repeating myself, but that's pretty much it. Do they have an HOA? No, this particular example that was brought forth is in a neighborhood that does not have an HOA. It's an older neighborhood before established before HOAs were probably popular. So Stephen, you're just looking for some feedback from Council whether we want to pursue this in any way by having staff look into it as my understanding. So I'll open the floor for any feedback from other members of the Council. Any thoughts or comments you'd like to make? I don't really think I want to get involved in changing something that is not a major concern to the majority of our residents. I haven't ever, ever heard of this being a problem. And all my time I've lived here. Yeah, I'd be very hesitant to change anything. I haven't had a lot of concerns. In fact, I've had a few folks who are jealous of me today after they heard of this, that they definitely don't want to change. And the other kind of thought I had is definitely don't want to change. And the other kind of thought I had is, in the middle of the pandemic, and Mayor Gardens, and Garden in particular, I've gotten to be hotter than sourdough bread for some reason. But I think we'd be risking a lot of bad PR to even go down this road. So I just don't know the juices were the squeeze here. Yeah, and just to make sure folks, it's only in the front yard. This would not, I guess, not consider that yard or backyard. So just make sure that said that out loud. When you mentioned the corn stalks, I remember there's a house on idle wild right before you get or from the freeway to the electric Whatever the thing is the trans owners of the corner here The house there that has a corn small corn crop every year Never ever bothered me or did I ever hear of anyone complaining about it? Any other comments? I didn't hear anybody say they thought we should address this by changing the order notes. So I guess we would not put this on a future agenda unless it would come up again or become more widespread than what we're here right now. Sounds good. We have come to the end of our meeting. So we'll hear a motion to adjourn. So moved. Is there a second? Absolutely. All right, motion from Mr. Shove, second from Mr. Ares. Do we need a roll call vote? I think we can just all say, ah, no. All right, all right. Good night. Thank you. All right.