charlotte city council meeting minutes, january 26, 2009

January 26, 2009

Business Meeting and Zoning Meeting

Minute Book 128, Page 261

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The City Council of the City of Charlotte, NC, convened for a Dinner Briefing on Monday,

January 26, 2009, at 5:24 p.m. in Room 267 of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center

with Mayor Pat McCrory presiding. Council members present were: Michael Barnes, Susan

Burgess, Nancy Carter, Warren Cooksey, Andy Dulin, Anthony Foxx, Patsy Kinsey, James

Mitchell, Edwin Peacock III, Warren Turner

ABSENT UNTIL NOTED: Councilmember John Lassiter

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 2: MAYOR AND COUNCIL CONSENT ITEM QUESTIONS

Councilmember Dulin said 12-B is spending money in Belmont and Seigle Avenue Streetscape,

Phase 2, spending $1.8 million in Belmont on streetscape. We got in a lot of trouble. I voted

against the purchases of the convenience stores, but this makes sense, and I‟m pleased to support

that. This community ought to know that we are spending 1.8 on streetscapes in Belmont. And,

12-H, West Corridor Sprinter Enhanced Bus Shelters, I thought looking at that route, I thought

that was going to be more of an express route for people coming into the Airport and getting

them uptown and back and forth. It looks like there are ten or 12 stops along there. Is that the

standard? Is there going to be like maybe every other one is an express?

Keith Parker, Charlotte Area Transit System, said it won‟t be an express route, but it will be

more direct than what it currently is. What we want to create is a better environment in terms of

more amenities, better schedules, and more frequent service than you have got there now. One

of the nice things about this is that we are using congestion mitigation for air quality funds to pay

for it, so the vast majority of the cost is actually being borne by a grant that has to be used for

this type of purpose.

Councilmember Dulin said is that including the – for instance, an express route to get business

people from the Airport to town and back, you don‟t need the extra shelters, etc.

Mr. Parker said but the people in that community, one of the things we want to do – this is

supposed to be a streetcar corridor eventually. This is an intermediate step before we get to

streetcars, so we wanted to have an upgraded level of bus service as one of those things we want

to do between now and streetcars.

Councilmember Dulin said these would not be considered projects for the shelters that we are

stopping other places around town?

Mr. Parker said, no, this is from a separate pile of money.

Mayor McCrory said let me follow up. If the grant runs out, do we still need the shelters then?

What will we do when the grant runs out?

Mr. Parker said the shelters will be paid for – well, let me try to back up a little bit. We set up a

certain budget of exactly how much we needed to pay for buses, shelters, the bus stop amenities,

and so forth, and we are still well within that budget with the amount of money we had allocated.

Mayor McCrory said what does the grant pay for?

Mr. Parker said it pays for all the capital items, pretty much all the capital items that are in there.

Remember, we have a bus route traveling along there, so we are taking operating costs from

existing operating dollars to continue running the service. We will upgrade it a bit so it costs a

bit more than what we currently spend but still not dramatically. Again, that‟s an area of the city

when we look at how many – we are doing something on the northeast, we are trying to make

progress on the north with commuter rail, we are trying to do some other areas. This is a place

that is quite a far distance off in terms of major rapid transit improvements.

January 26, 2009


Minute Book 128, 62

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Councilmember Dulin said that‟s fine. I‟m going to let you run your business. I wish it was

more of an express to get folks in and out quicker.

Mr. Parker said just to stay on that. What we do every few years is assess what the ridership

demand is, and if we find there is enough of a market, we will certainly set up an express bus,

but today it doesn‟t quite exist.

Councilmember Dulin said 23 is the Water Quality Education Program, $145,000 for media

advertising -- $89,500 is City expense. Right now I don‟t think we need to be spending

$145,000 letting people know to drink our water.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said, Mr. Dulin, we are required to do some form of this as part of

our permit, and we looked at this as the cheapest way to go about doing it, otherwise, we would

have to buy the media time a la carte.

Councilmember Dulin said we physically by law have to advertise our water?

Mr. Walton said we have to do the public education, a component of the National Pollutant

Discharge Elimination System, so it‟s part of getting our permit, yes, sir.

Councilmember Dulin said 24. This is the grant application for Wilora Lake and Ivey Pond. I

went out and saw Wilora Lake, and a lot of this is grant money.

City Manager Walton said this is seeking grants for those projects you approved last week.

Councilmember Dulin said grant money is tax money that has gotten from somebody else and

paid. I mean it‟s still tax money, somebody‟s cash. So, as a matter of record, I want to let you

know that I‟m against that. Then 30-B, C, and D is all Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, and that per acre

out on Dixie River Road – that per acre price of $357,000 just seems high. We are paying them

$470,921.00 to get that road realigned. They have been difficult to work with, haven‟t they?

Councilmember Lassiter arrived at 5:34 p.m.

City Manager Walton said actually if you remember we had the Freeman‟s and the McKee‟s, and

the Freeman‟s were a little bit easier than the McKee‟s. These folks are basically having to

relocate as part of the Berewick-Dixie River –

Councilmember Dulin said that whole house is getting shifted or moved.

City Manager Walton said I‟m not sure if they are staying there at all, so it‟s part of moving that

Berewick project along.

Councilmember Dulin said it was the McKee‟s that were difficult. I forgot them.

Councilmember Barnes said I have a question regarding Items 17, 18, 21, and 26. Regarding

Item 17 the question I have is it seems according to the information we have spent or will be

spending about $3.3 million on professional services before anything is built, and I wanted to

make sure that is accurate. I also wanted to confirm the SBE commitment, which appears to be

less than 1% on that item. Regarding Item 18, I have the same question. There the SBE

commitment was .4%, and I believe the percentages for both 17 and 18 were negotiated by staff,

so why did we negotiate such low goals, and also relative to 18 we spent about $7 million before

anything has been built. I just want to get confirmation. Regarding Item 21, I wanted to know

how much the planning phase and design phase has cost for that project. For Item 26, I wanted

to know what the intended outcomes are of the project, and if they are not achieved, what do we

do – send back the trucks? Then I wanted to know if we could lease the trucks for a year during

this demonstration project to determine if it‟s feasible as opposed to committing ourselves to

purchase the vehicles.

Councilmember Carter said three questions. No. 15, the police janitorial services, I‟m

wondering if we are getting into the green products and recommending them to our providers,

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and 27 and 29 are the same issue. These are new construction, and I‟m wondering if we are

involving green practices in our building.

Councilmember Kinsey said 29, the light vehicle maintenance facility, I was just wondering if

this could be deferred until the February 9th meeting. I have some concerns about it. I want to

find out a little more about it. I just have several questions. That piece of property is in District

1, so I want to make sure I know exactly where it is, and also the architectural services I want to

know if an RFQ was sent out, and if it could be deferred, I would appreciate it.

City Manager Walton said we have no problem with that. Councilmember Kinsey and I talked at

the beginning of dinner, and that is information we are certainly happy to provide, so we will

move it to the February 9th

agenda.

Mayor McCrory said before we get to the zoning issues I did want to make Council aware of one

thing. I have asked staff to do a small assignment, which doesn‟t take time, to draft a Bill that I

will ask for a future agenda item to change the state equity formula so the equity formula would

not be used for any money allocated down from the federal government during the next year as

part of the stimulus package and also to take away interstate highways that go through cities and

towns as a part of the equity formula. That is being drafted. One of the Mayor‟s major goals of

the state is to try to change the equity formula, and Lee Myers and other local mayors also want

to do that.

I will go ahead and get drafted some thoughts on that, get your input, get the other mayors‟ input,

and then try and get that in front of the legislature if this Council agrees. I also think it‟s going to

have to be a combination of many cities to get this involved. I just want to make you aware of

that, and I will look forward to hearing your feedback on that when I put it on a future agenda,

but I think we need to move on that pretty quickly because if money does go through the state,

through the Governor‟s Office, that means it will work against our equity formula according to

state law, and I think that could work against us in the long run. I wanted to make you aware of

that.

Councilmember Burgess said a couple of things. One, on Consent Agenda, I was looking for the

In Rem case. I thought it was 14, but it‟s on Allen Street. Mr. Abernethy, do you know what

agenda item number that one is?

City Manager Walton said 13-B on page 19.

Councilmember Burgess said there may be some speakers on that, but I want to make sure that

one is pulled for consideration.

City Manager Walton said there is a speaker.

Councilmember Burgess said I don‟t know if you want to talk about it now or downstairs since

there is a speaker.

City Manager Walton said if there are questions we can answer for you we‟ll be glad to.

Councilmember Burgess said I happened to talk to the investor that backed the person who was

trying to rehab that house, and they got involved with this foreclosure issue that the investor just

found out about sort of late so has jumped in and is working very vigorously to try to save that

house. I just wanted to make sure that all of that was known, and I guess we could talk about it

later or now.

Walter Abernethy, Neighborhood Development, said I talked to Mr. Worsley about three

weeks ago and kind of explained the process to him. He has done a good job thus far in these

last three weeks. My message to him three weeks ago he needed to get in there and start working

on the house. He pulled all his permits. I was by there today. I‟m pretty comfortable that he has

made substantive progress. I also think he met with the neighborhood association people

himself, which is a good thing, too. We are still recommending that we leave it on the agenda

and approve the demolition, but, of course, with any of our demos, we‟ll continue to work with

him if he continuously makes repairs. It‟s been a long time on this house. As you said, it‟s been

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through different ownership changes, it‟s been through foreclosure, it‟s had a lot of pieces that

have made it difficult in terms of getting it where it is today and getting it before Council. I‟m

convinced that within a few weeks he really will have made major progress. It‟s one we will not

tear down if he continues on.

Councilmember Burgess said I think this is going to be something different we are going to see

with In Rems when the investor gets caught in this foreclosure and didn‟t know until the very

end that progress wasn‟t being made by the person who was supposed to be rehabbing it. I think

we may be seeing more of this in the future, and hopefully we‟ll have investors like this guy who

will get in here and protect his investment and save the house. I just wanted to make sure that

didn‟t get lost in the discussion. I wanted to comment also on your potential resolution, I guess,

about the stimulus money.

Mayor McCrory said it was a request to change the state law of the equity formula so if any

stimulus money comes to a city or town that stimulus money will not work against the equity

formula. In addition, the mayors of North Carolina of 25,000 and over have talked about also

changing the equity formula so cities that have interstate highways going through them like I-40,

I-95 in the east, they would not be punished. Like I-77 wipes out the whole division if we do

that, and we feel very strongly that any town whether it be small or large that has an interstate

highway shouldn‟t be punished for the maintenance or widening of those highways. Those were

some recommendations. Then the stimulus package, from all indications, it looks like there is a

good chance it will go through the states, and, therefore, they would have to follow state law in

the distribution of the money.

Councilmember Burgess said at the inauguration I went to a meeting of the U.S. Conference of

Mayors for the Democratic mayors, and the Obama liaison to local governments was there.

Mayor McCrory said I wasn‟t invited to that.

Councilmember Burgess said at any rate they are pushing for the distribution not to come

through states but to be distributed as community development block grants, 70% directly to

cities and towns, and 30% to the state. They haven‟t given up on that. The woman from the

White House was very open to that, so I wouldn‟t say it‟s a done deal that it‟s going to come to

the state. If history is any indication, it probably will, but it‟s a new day. You never know what

is going to happen now. I would think that our advocacy position is that we should have the

money come directly to us. I happen to be on the Obama Policy Committee, and last night was

corresponding with some of the members including Lynn Cutler, who coincidentally is one of

our lobbyists with Holland and Knight. We were emailing back and forth about this, and they

have already on our behalf talked to the new Secretary of Transportation to try to –

Mayor McCrory said who is a Republican.

Councilmember Burgess said to try to get this money directly to cities and towns. Her advice is

to stay very close to Kay Hagan and Richard Burr and Bev Purdue about getting the money

directly to cities and towns. I don‟t think we should give up on that yet.

Mayor McCrory said I don‟t disagree with you. In fact, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, they

passed resolutions asking that we lobby through. Other sources, and I talked also to Lynn also,

and are telling me right now it looks like the governors may be winning that battle. Of course,

the Legislature and Congressman still are going to want to go through their districts and through

appropriations, so I think the battle will be between will Congress distribute the money, do

governors distribute the money, do cities distribute the money, counties, you name it, so I think

that is going to be the battleground that no one can determine.

I want to let you know also that last week I had a change to meet with our new congressman. I

had a wonderful meeting with him and also met with Kay Hagan and also had a meeting with

Richard Burr, and very productive meetings, and I told them our agenda and other mayors also

were in some of those meetings – the large city mayors, and we are all pretty consistent in our

message including that message that you just gave. I think one of the big issues that also came

up. The state, in addition to asking for stimulus money for infrastructure, something I wasn‟t

aware of is the state is also asking for a billion dollars of bail-out money of state operating costs,

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which is something I strongly disagree with personally, and I don‟t think cities or states should

be asking for bail-out money of operating costs. I think that is not stimulus money; that‟s bail-

out money, and some cities, by the way, are doing the same thing. There are some other cities

that are requesting the president deal with their operating losses, and apparently the governor is

doing the same thing and other governors – the governor of California is doing the same thing,

too.

Councilmember Carter said on that same issue last week I emailed to everyone a resolution that

was sent to me from Nick Macada, a Council member in Seattle, recommending the

establishment of an urban advisory group for the president for his Office of Urban Planning, and

Mr. Cooksey emailed back a suggestion that perhaps we already have that advisory group in the

Large Cities Council with the National League of Cities. I agree with that, but there is no

problem. I think it would be rolling that as a formal status for an advisory group. I think it‟s

essential that we broaden the membership because that Large Cities Council is not very broad in

its membership, so I would like to bring this up at the end of the meeting. I do have the

resolution.

Mayor McCrory said I think I wrote back to you. Someone was supposed to. I said it over a

phone. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I think they will end up doing it anyway.

Councilmember Carter said to have someone as we have issues through these four years I think

would be very advisable for the president and for his office of Urban Affairs.

Councilmember Foxx said I just would ask you what kind of spade work do you anticipate being

part of this legislation?

Mayor McCrory said I think that is really what was up in the air based on my conversations on

the Hill and with other mayors and even with new members of the administration is that the term

“shovel ready” has not been defined whatsoever. I heard day before yesterday that they are

talking about expanding the definition from 60 days to 180 days. I personally think 180 days is

too short, too. I firmly believe that I hope this money coming down will be for long-term

projects that have long-term viability for the next generation that will be paying for it. I

remember a couple of years state government borrowed a bunch of money out of the trust fund, I

believe, to improve a few intersections here and there, and now it‟s gone, and no one really

knows where it went. It was spent, I suppose, wisely, but I hope that is not what is going to

happen here, and I think that is going to be a huge debate on the Hill during the next several

weeks in addition to who makes the decision.

Councilmember Foxx said to clarify I was speaking about the equity formula bill. What kind of

spade work do you anticipate being part of that?

Mayor McCrory said I think what we need to do is form a coalition with other mayors across the

state and this region. I don‟t think it should come just from Charlotte in asking for this. That is

why I wrote back to Lee Myers, too. I think the only way we have a chance is to form coalitions.

I just heard about an hour ago, too, I was going to the Chamber meeting real quick. I walked in

and one of the Channel 18 FOX reporters told me that Becky Carney is talking about changing

the equity formula, which is brand new news to me because I have been trying to get the

Chamber to make that a major priority, and the Chamber is not interested, and I disagree with

them on that. I just heard this about 40 minutes ago, and my correspondence with Lee and others

has been during the past several weeks, and last week Mac agreed to help me with some brief

wording on bills that could go with those two things – the stimulus package and the interstate

highway. So it‟s not a huge revamping of the equity formula; it‟s a modification to the equity

formula. It‟s a first try.

Councilmember Foxx said it‟s certainly good to build coalitions. I would just strongly

encourage reaching out to our delegation and making sure this is not something that takes them

by surprise.

Mayor McCrory said I agree, and this is what I heard about Becky a half hour ago, and the

reporter kind of blind-sided me on that, which is good news. I don‟t know what angle she is

taking, but I went great.

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* * * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 2: ZONING AGENDA REVIEW

Mayor McCrory said let‟s go to zoning real quick. I think this is the first time that I can ever

recall that we have had a zoning and regular business meeting, so let‟s pull out those zoning

cases we need to review and defer. If you notice, those zoning cases are getting shorter and

shorter, and during lunch today or at 11:00 today I met with some of the zoning people today.

I‟m getting more and more requests, and I‟m going to maybe come back to you all and discuss

this at a later point, but I talked to Debra and others about this that I think because of the

economy not only are we seeing very little, if any, new development at this point in time, but I

think we are going to get requests where people are going to want more flexibility in our rules

and procedures especially if they are going through a zoning, and then they realize they can‟t get

it done because of the finances. Are we going to require them to start all over and pay all the

new costs over and over again because we have a time limit, I think, of what, one year?

City Manager Walton said for subdivisions I think that‟s right.

Mayor McCrory said with today‟s financing I think we have to be much more flexible to possible

investors in not having to start all over in the process. If they went through this whole process

and all of a sudden they couldn‟t get a loan, I would hate to say, sorry, you have to start all over

again with whole new fees, which we increased the price of and everything else. I would like to

come back and talk at a later point in looking at flexibility and in talking to Zoning staff, I think

they are already doing some flexibility. I think we might need to visit the fee structure, too. As

you know, we increased the fees a tremendous amount last year, and we might be discouraging

investment at a time when we need to encourage investment more than ever by our fee increase.

Councilmember Lassiter said on the recommendations coming from the Economic Development

and Planning Committee for the focus area we have on there whether or not we are business

friendly to examine our regulatory framework, so that will be coming to us at the time of our

Retreat.

Mayor McCrory said perfect. That‟s great. That‟s good to hear. We won‟t duplicate each

other‟s efforts then because it‟s bad out there.

Councilmember Carter said to make sure though that our costs are covered if they duplicative

services that we won‟t have to reduplicate if they are reissuing or treating the same project again.

It seems like we could offset, but I would want to make sure we cover our costs.

Mayor McCrory said we might need to look at that whole re-examination because if our costs are

so high to get in. Say, someone has to pay $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 that because of that entry

level cost they don‟t get in at all, how much money do we lose over a two- or three-year period if

the development can‟t be built in property tax especially during this downturn in the economy?

John, do you understand my point there? In other words, in order to make $4,000, we might be

losing 30 or 40 a year in potential property tax. Right now someone putting down $5,000 when

cash is light is very difficult, but anyway that‟s a future discussion.

Councilmember Barnes said I look forward to debating it and talking about it at the Retreat. I

would want to know from staff what the entry level fee, as you described it, covers, and I think to

Nancy‟s point, are we recovering our own costs. One part of me says absolutely let‟s be as

business friendly as possible, and the other side says that if people can‟t come up with that entry

level fee then what sort of product are we going to get long term anyway.

Mayor McCrory said it will be a good discussion.

Councilmember Burgess said I have just an opinion to state about a new format of the Zoning

Book, and I want to tell you I really, really appreciate the condensation of it. I even like the

binding, but I do have one suggestion. In the write-up of the hearings for community meeting, it

says, “The community meeting was held, and you can see on-line what happened there.” I

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always enjoy reading if anybody came to the community meeting; if it was zero or a hundred

people. That, to me, says there is a lot of interest in it or not, and I‟m wondering if it would be

too difficult just to have a summary statement of the community meeting – the community

meeting was held on “X” date and 50 people showed up, or something to give us some indication

about the interest of the neighborhood before the hearing.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said I don‟t think that would be a problem.

Tom Drake, Planning¸ said I don‟t think it‟s a problem. The only problem in timing is that

those community meeting reports are actually due after the first staff analysis is put together, so

that‟s why you see oftentimes that it‟s not available yet.

Councilmember Burgess said we used to get it.

Mr. Drake said we can work on those that are available.

Councilmember Burgess said that would be helpful because I want to gauge the – balance the

interest with the neighborhood and the developer. My other question-- was Hayden Hall

deferred?

Councilmember Dulin said Hayden Hall was deferred.

Councilmember Burgess said is No. 23 deferred – 2009-007?

Mr. Drake said yes. We are working with the property owners.

Mayor McCrory said can we go through these? Let‟s do it right now because we are supposed to

be out there right now.

Mr. Drake said under Decisions we have two deferrals: Item No. 10 (08-154) and Item No. 13

(08-158) one-month deferral. Petitions of interest would be Item Nos. 11 and 12. Remind you

that those are cases that both the staff and the Zoning Committee have recommended denial of.

Additional withdrawals or deferrals in the hearing: Item 15 (08-32) is a six-month deferral. That

is unusual but not unprecedented. Item 16 (08-102) deferred to February. Item No. 17 (08-112)

deferred to February. Item 18 (08-132) deferred to March. Item 19 we need a Council decision

on. It was opened in November, continued until tonight. The petitioner is requesting an

indefinite continuance to some point in the future.

Mayor McCrory said if I can make a recommendation on that one. I would recommend we make

a decision on that. We still have to close the public hearing, and can we do the decision the same

night? I would recommend that we close the hearing and have a decision. I think it‟s unfair to

that neighborhood with all respect to my UTube buddy, David Thompson. He and I are together

in a UTube that is still floating around this nation. You know the Helicopter Man.

Councilmember Dulin said can I say something about that. We kept it open because Mayor

Knox had some surgery coming up. Apparently he has –

Mayor McCrory said I don‟t think he is the lawyer anymore; is he?

Councilmember Dulin said I hadn‟t heard that he wasn‟t. I think there are going to be some

neighbors here tonight, and that is my district, and I would support going ahead if the Council

wanted to go ahead, if we can.

Mayor McCrory said you mean go ahead and end it.

Councilmember Cooksey said close the public hearing.

Mayor McCrory said not do an indefinite.

Councilmember Cooksey said and send it to the Zoning Committee.

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Councilmember Dulin said move it forward.

Mr. Drake said, Mayor, if we do continue that hearing tonight staffs needs to give a little update

on it.

Mayor McCrory said we are not going to continue. We‟ll close the public hearing.

Mr. Drake said Item No. 22 (09-006) is a one-month deferral to February. Item No. 23 (09-007)

is another February. We would like presentations, Mayor, on Items 27 and 28, which are the

TOD and TS amendments.

* * * * * * * * *

The meeting was recessed at 6:02 p.m. for the Council to move to the Council Meeting Chamber

for the regularly scheduled Business Meeting.

* * * * * * * *

ZONING MEETING

The Council reconvened at 6:15 p.m. in the Council Meeting Chamber of the Charlotte-

Mecklenburg Government Center with Mayor Pat McCrory presiding.

Mayor McCrory said we are starting about 14 minutes late. We just came back from a dinner

meeting where we discussed agenda items on basically two meetings that we have tonight. This

is the first time that I recall in at least the last 25 years that the City Council is actually holding

both the Zoning Meeting tonight and a regular Council Meeting tonight. That was due to

postponing a meeting last week.

* * * * * * * *

INVOCATION AND PLEDGE

Mayor McCrory gave the Invocation and the Panther Patrol from Boy Scout Troop No. 1,

sponsored by Holy Comforter Church on Park Road, led the Council in the Pledge of Allegiance

to the Flag.

* * * * * * * *

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and ]

[ carried unanimously to defer the following decisions: Item No. 10, Petition No. 2008-154, ]

[ one-month deferral; Item No. 13, Petition No. 2008-158, one-month deferral; Item No. 15, ]

[ Petition No. 2008-032, six-month deferral; Item No. 16, Petition No. 2008-102, one-month ]

[ deferral; Item No. 17, 2008-112, one-month deferral; Item No. 18, Petition No. 2008-132, ]

[ two-month deferral; Item No. 22, Petition No. 2009-006, one-month deferral; and Item No. ]

[ 2009-007, one-month deferral. ]

Mayor McCrory said, Mr. Dulin, would you like to comment on 2008-140? Do you want that

deferred, or would you like to keep that open?

Councilmember Dulin said, no, close the public hearing.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Dulin, seconded by Councilmember Lassiter, and ]

[ carried unanimously to close the public hearing on Item No. 10, Petition 2008-140. ]

Mayor McCrory said with regard to the deferral of 2008-140 the petitioner is David Thompson.

The request was for an indefinite continuance. Instead of that, we voted to go ahead and close

the public hearing, which means that next month we‟ll make a decision on that petition, so we

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will not have an indefinite deferral of that petition. We will either vote that up or down after

getting recommendation from the Zoning Committee. I know there are some people in the

audience, both the petitioner and neighborhood groups, so just want to let you know we are not

going to keep that petition open. We are going to make a decision, and we are not going to

discuss it any more tonight either, so it‟s done.

* * * * * * * *

PUBLIC HEARINGS

Mayor McCrory introduced David Howard, Chair, Zoning Committee, who introduced his

committee. He said because of the Council‟s change in their schedule the Zoning Committee

meeting will be different than what it normally is. We will meet this coming Monday, February

2, at 2:00 p.m. on the second floor of this building.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 1: ORDINANCE NO. 4103-Z AMENDING THE OFFICIAL ZONING MAP

OF THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE TO AFFECT A CHANGE IN ZONING FOR

APPROXIMATELY 0.30 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF EAST 36TH

STREET BETWEEN NORTH DAVIDSON STREET AND THE NORFOLK AND

SOUTHERN RAILROAD FROM B-1 TO NS

Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be consistent with the North

Charlotte Plan and the Northeast LRT Transit Station Area Concept, therefore, reasonable and in

the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve the Statement of Consistency and Petition No. 2008-057 for ]

[ the above rezoning by Michelle Strause as modified and as recommended by the Zoning ]

[ Committee. ]

The modifications are:

1. A note has been added under “Zoning” that restaurant parking will meet the minimum

parking requirements of one space per 150 square feet but no more than a maximum of

one parking space per 75 square feet.

2. A note has been added that the maximum height of freestanding light poles will be 25‟.

3. The text on the site plan that states, “5‟ setback from centerline of alley” has been

corrected to read: “10‟ rear yard from centerline of alley”.

The ordinance is recorded in Ordinance Book 56 at Pages 1-2.

* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 9.05 ACRES LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF TODDVILLE

ROAD BETWEEN PAW CREEK ROAD AND FREEDOM DRIVE FROM R-3(LLWPA),

R-9MF(CD)(LLWPA) AND R-17MF(LLWPA) TO INST (CD)(LLWPA

Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be consistent with the

Northwest District Plan, therefore, to be reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Dulin, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve the Statement of Consistency and Petition No. 2008-117 ]

[ for the above rezoning by Medical Facilities of North Carolina, Inc. as modified and as ]

[ recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]

January 26, 2009



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1. The site plan clearly delineates the boundaries of the rezoning in a heavy dark line on the

site plan.

2. The site plan has been redrawn with the north part of the site at the top.

3. A note was added to include a 24-foot buffer along those portions of the site‟s “northern

boundary line” that are adjacent to the adjoining religious institution.

4. Notes #3 and #4 have been amended to reflect that only “required” sidewalks are

permitted in the buffer and have eliminated the use of a berm to reduce buffer width.

5. Notes #5 and #6 have been amended to indicate that parking, maneuvering, and

detention/water quality facilities may not be located within any buffer or setback.

6. Staff has determined that right-of-way for the unnamed 60-foot street along the site‟s

southern boundary already exists.

7. A minimum five-foot sidewalk and eight-foot planting strip along all street frontages will

be provided.

8. A note has been added that the petitioner will submit a Solid Waste Management Plan

prior to initiating land clearing, demolition and/or construction activities.

9. A note has been added that the unnamed public street will be constructed to the

office/commercial narrow street cross-section.

10. The site plan now reflects proposed zoning of Institutional CD.

11. Elevations have been submitted.


* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 4.40 ACRES LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF STATESVILLE

ROAD BETWEEN TWIN LAKES PARKWAY AND FUTURE I-485 FROM R-17MF, I-1,

AND NCDOT RIGHT-OF-WAY TO BE ABANDONED TO B-D(CD)


Northlake Area Plan, therefore, to be reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and ]


[ for the above rezoning by Sherpa Land Company, LLC, as modified and as recommended ]

[ by the Zoning Committee. ]


1. Setbacks along Interstate 485 and the new alignment of Statesville Road have been

labeled.

2. Dumpster location is shown.

3. Total site area is reflected as 4.18 acres.

4. The maximum square footage is listed as 90,000 square feet.

5. The floor area ratio (F.A.R.) depicted on the plan is 0.37. Total building area will not

exceed a F.A.R. of .50.

6. A note has been added that the petitioner will submit a Solid Waste Management Plan

prior to initiating land clearing, demolition, and/or construction activities.

7. Sidewalk widths have been labeled.

8. All streets have been labeled. An access easement will be provided for the property to

the west.


* * * * * * *

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APPROXIMATELY 3.49 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF REMOUNT

ROAD BETWEEN SOUTH BOULEVARD AND SOUTH TRYON STREET FROM B-2

AND I-1 TO TOD-M

Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be consistent with the New

Bern Transit Station Area Plan, therefore, to be reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Turner, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and ]


[ the above rezoning by The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission as recommended ]



* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 0.59 ACRES LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF SOUTH TRYON

STREET BETWEEN REMOUNT ROAD AND BASIN STREET FROM I-1 TO TOD-M

Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be consistent with the New

Bern Transit Station Area Plan, therefore, to be reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Turner, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, and ]


[ the above rezoning by The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission as recommended ]



* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 1.44 ACRES LOCATED ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF

RODMAN STREET AND SAM DRENAN ROAD FROM R-22MF TO I-1

Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be inconsistent with the

Central District Plan but reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Cooksey, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, and ]


[ the above rezoning by Kennington Family, LLC, as recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]


* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 3.60 ACRES LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF SOUTH TRYON

STREET BETWEEN EAST PALMER STREET AND EAST CATHERINE STREET

FROM MUDD-O TO MUDD-O SPA

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Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be consistent with the South

End Transit Station Area Plan and reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Lassiter, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, ]

[ and carried unanimously to approve the Statement of Consistency and Petition No. 2008-151 ]

[ for the above rezoning by Steve Smoak as modified and as recommended by the Zoning ]

[ Committee. ]


The modification is:

1. Note 3 has been amended to state that the columns are in the setback and right-of-way

and will remain.

* * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 1.13 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF

BEATTIES FORD ROAD AND FAIRDALE DRIVE FROM O-2 TO B-2(CD)


Northwest District Plan and reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Carter, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, and ]

[ carried unanimously to recuse Councilmember Foxx. ]

Councilmember Carter said there was an amendment here that the parking will be screened from

abutting properties and from public streets. Has the Police Department commented on that? I

know with certain practices it is not normal that we screen parking from streets.

Tom Drake, Planning, said actually the screening is a minimum ordinance requirement.

Councilmember Carter said it‟s intermittent and you can see through for the safety of the people

who are parking there?

Mr. Drake said it‟s not intended to be an opaque, solid vegetation. It‟s screening, so it‟s shrubs

five feet on center.

Councilmember Burgess said are the six notes that are noted here considered modifications?

Does the motion need to be with modification or not?

Mr. Drake said some of these are modifications, so as modified would be correct.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]


[ for the above rezoning by Friendship Missionary Baptist Church as modified and as ]

[ recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]



1. A note has been added that the existing drive aisle will be removed.

2. The width of sidewalk and planting strip along Beatties Ford Road has been labeled.

3. A note has been added confirming that there is not a group home within 800 feet of the

site.

4. Note 4 under General Provisions has been amended to allow up to 30 women to be

housed overnight.

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5. Note 1 under Access Points has been amended to specify only one access off Beatties

Ford Road.

6. A note has been added to the site plan that parking will be screened from abutting

properties and from public streets.

* * * * * * *




UNIVERSITY CITY BOULEVARD AND SAM’S LANE FROM B-1(CD) TO B-2(CD)


Northeast District Plan and reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes and seconded by Councilmember Kinsey to ]

[ approve the Statement of Consistency and Petition No. 2008-153 for the above rezoning by ]

[ Sam‟s Mart, LLC as modified and as recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]

Councilmember Barnes said, Mr. Drake, after the Public Hearing I had asked staff about a large,

old tree on this site near Highway 49. Did we get any confirmation as to the fate of that tree?

Tom Drake, Planning¸ said, yes, sir. They clarified on the site plan. They had just noted it as

existing before, but they have clarified their note to say it will be preserved.

The vote was taken on the motion and recorded as unanimous.


1. Site plan has been amended to correctly label Class “B” Buffer with Berm along the

north property lines.

2. Existing building and parking on the west side of Sam‟s Lane has been added to the site

plan and parking meets the requirements of the ordinance.

3. A long term parking lease will be provided for parking on the adjacent site that is actually

on this site.

4. Site plan has been amended to correctly identify side and rear yards including required

widths.

5. Required sidewalks and planting strips along Sam‟s Lane and University City Boulevard

have been labeled on the site plan.

6. Note has been added to site plan agreeing to provide a Solid Waste Management Plan

prior to initiating land clearing, demolition, and/or construction activities.

7. Note has been added to site plan agreeing to CATS request for a waiting bench pad.

8. Maximum building height of 35 feet has been added to the site plan.

9. Lighting will be shielded with full cut-off fixtures.

10. An easement for sidewalks along Sam‟s Lane will be provided.

11. Parking area between first driveway and convenience has been modified to address

CDOT concern with respect to circulation.

12. Proposed two-way drive aisle has been converted to one way to address CDOT concern

with respect to two-way drive aisles and angled parking.

13. Note has been added agreeing to provision of an easement for sidewalk along Sam‟s Lane

in right-of-way per CDOT‟s request.


* * * * * * * *

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ITEM NO. 11: PETITION TO AMEND THE OFFICIAL ZONING MAP OF THE CITY

OF CHARLOTTE TO AFFECT A CHANGE IN ZONING FOR APPROXIMATELY

24.61 ACRES LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF SOUTH TRYON STREET

BETWEEN YORKDALE DRIVE AND THORNFIELD ROAD FROM R-3 TO R-

17MF(CD)


General Development Policies but reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Lassiter and seconded by Councilmember Peacock to ]


[ JDR Communities as modified and as recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]

[ Substitute motion was made by Councilmember Barnes and seconded by Councilmember ]

[ Dulin to deny the petition. ]

Councilmember Foxx said I don‟t know if this is appropriate, Mr. Mayor, but there have

apparently been some changes to the plan since our hearing, and I wanted to know whether staff

now recommends approval or disapproval of the plan.

Tom Drake, Planning, said, no, sir, we are aware of the changes. Essentially our issue on this

one was connecting to an existing stub street near the rear of the property. What the petitioner

did before the Zoning Committee was agree that if a vehicular connection was not engineering

and economically feasible that they would do a pedestrian connection to the stub street. After

that they modified their note to say that they would allow for emergency vehicle access at that

stub street. We discussed this with the Charlotte Department of Transportation, and we, the

staff, are unwilling to support that provision. We are still looking for a public street connection

at this existing stub street.

Councilmember Burgess said we have two conflicting things. We have a gated community with

a public street, and we can‟t have both, but it seems to me like they have found a compromise to

have an emergency vehicle entrance that is gated and will be accessible to emergency vehicles.

But my question is in the original write-up it said that the petitioner wasn‟t sure he could add that

because of water quality feature, I guess water retention or whatever. Have they found a way to

solve both vehicular access and the water retention issue?

Mr. Drake said I will be honest with you, Ms. Burgess, I was not in on the detail levels of that

discussion, but in my view clearly they would have to have solved that problem in order to offer

up even an emergency vehicle connection.

Councilmember Dulin said the neighbors that are bordering, the ones I have heard from, aren‟t

really against the project, but they are against the extra connectivity. Now, it‟s staff saying that

you must have more connections to other neighborhoods.

Mr. Drake said that‟s correct. Mr. Cooksey, I believe, was alluding to adopted policy, and in

addition, the subdivision ordinance requires extension of existing stub streets unless, and then

there are four or five exceptions. It‟s a requirement, and, yes, the staff is –

Councilmember Dulin said I‟m in a little bit of a quandary because I would like to help this

fellow go build a nice project, but I don‟t want to have the residents of his development dumping

into this quiet neighborhood.

Mr. Drake said let me make this parallel for you. I believe it‟s recent enough that you all will

remember the rezoning we had on Park Road and Woodlawn, the large multifamily project.

Those were the same issues there. We were looking for a second access for residents. If we

couldn‟t get the public street, we wanted at least a second access for residents. There are

actually more dwelling units in this project than there were in that one. Council did not appear to

agree with the staff on that issue, and that rezoning was approved. We have the same issue here

for the staff. We are not going to be able to support this without at least a second access for

tenants. We would like to have a public street.

January 26, 2009



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Councilmember Dulin said I‟m confused because I really do – particularly in these economic

times we have got somebody here that wants to do a project, and I would like to help that person

do the project, but I also want to be cognizant of the neighbors that are behind. So I hate to vote

no for the project to solve the neighbors. What can we do about eliminating the second access

point, so we can vote yes for this project? That‟s just an open question.

Councilmember Turner said I had the opportunity to speak with some of the residents who live in

the neighborhood. Well, you actually have two neighborhoods that are adjacent to this project

that is being proposed, and one of their concerns as it was currently zoned that they had, of

course, in this day‟s market is getting what they would call starter homes there, single family.

They did not support that thought. In fact, when the developer came to me, I expressed my

concern even with multifamily at this point, but after numerous time and hours with them, we did

come up with I think a very nice project, and it was agreed upon that this would be a gated

community, and then it was brought back to me that staff would not support this particular

project because of the connectivity issue.

Yorkwood community has been there a very long time, and having the opportunity to speak to

some of those citizens that live there in that neighborhood they have the same concern that most

of us would have. When we have been somewhere and live in a particular neighborhood or in

your environment without it being disturbed, people have a very deep concern about when we

add additional cars or traffic into their neighborhood, and the particular street we are talking

about is a stub street. On that street, it‟s a very long street, and what we are getting ready to do

now is continue the street and make it even longer from Longdale all the way into this

development. If you look at this entire neighborhood, they have more than one way out, so this

is not an issue or concern that Yorkwood wants. They feel like they have more than their share

of exit points getting in and out of their neighborhood. This is about a new project. This project

would have a negative impact on the existing neighborhood. I think we should always put the

concerns of that new neighborhood as well as the one already in existence.

The new neighborhood basically all they want is to have the ability to build this development and

meet the City‟s requirements. That is one of our requirements is connectivity, but as I have said

in the past when we first adopted that as one of our policies is one size don‟t fit all. I‟m one that

still believes at this point allowing them to put an emergency road in place there for emergency

vehicles, if there is an incident or accident that happens on South Tryon, York Road, where this

particular development folks could not get out – they would have an exit point out of that

community. As I spoke with Ms. Campbell, I don‟t see any benefit for Yorkwood having access

to enter into this family complex off this stub street and vice versa. In fact, I gave the best

scenario I could give at this moment.

If we built this community and folks buy into this multifamily apartment complex, I hope many

of them would get jobs in Arrowood, Westinghouse, Whitehall area, and the only advantage any

of them would have if they got a job at Time Warner, which is on the back side of this

community off Arrowood Road, they still cannot access that property from Yorkwood because

that is a street stub that goes into the back side of Yorkdale into the Time Warner complex. They

couldn‟t even get there. They still have to go back out on Arrowood Road is my point. There is

really no advantage. When you look at the distance that one would have to travel to use that as

an advantage point, it is not an advantage. I‟m going to ask Council.

I have asked staff to really try to work this out, and I don‟t like really going against staff when I

think we adopted this policy, and we should support it, but I also adopted it with caution because

I didn‟t believe then and I still don‟t believe now that one size fits all, and I think this would be

more of a detriment to a neighborhood that is already in existence and their quality of life to

allow us to change that because of a new development that is getting ready to happen; and at the

same time, I don‟t think we should punish this opportunity for my district and this community

that surely would like to see a quality project put on that piece of land, on that tract of land there,

that we say no just to stop because we can‟t get our way on whether we get a street or not. So,

I‟m not going to support the motion, and I‟m going to ask that we really consider what is being

asked of us here to try to work with this developer and work with this project and really look at

this. I have asked Ms. Campbell to try to get staff to go out. I think that‟s one of our other

problems that I always brought up here at this Council is we look at it from a map position, and I

think it‟s important that we go out in the community and see exactly from a ground position and

January 26, 2009



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see exactly what we are talking about and how it affects the quality of life in this community if

we open this street up, and that‟s what I‟m asking, and I don‟t support it. What I support is the

street stay a stub street or turn into an emergency exit street.

Councilmember Lassiter said I want to make sure I understood the district representative‟s

suggestion. Are you suggesting we defer this matter?

Councilmember Turner said I am.

Councilmember Lassiter said are you making a motion to that effect?

Councilmember Turner said I make a motion that this 2008-155 be deferred.

Mr. Drake said I assume that‟s a one-month deferral.

Councilmember Turner said if we can get it done in one month. I mean we have to do

something. I don‟t think this is the time to make a decision. One month is fine.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Turner and seconded by Councilmember Lassiter to ]

[ defer the decision on Petition No. 2008-155 for one month. ]

Councilmember Burgess said I think if I understood Mr. Turner‟s comments and concerns I think

the developer has offered that even though we don‟t have it in writing. Well, maybe we do in the

latest memo from him, but what he is now offering is to do the connectivity but only for

emergency vehicles, so the neighborhood actually wins. They won‟t be having the through

traffic, but on the other hand, the public safety concerns also are addressed, and it seems to me

like this is a very reasonable compromise, and I don‟t think it‟s going to get better than this even

if we delay it a month. I think the neighborhood‟s concerns have been addressed, the ones that

you articulated have been addressed and will be accommodated with this emergency gate. I

don‟t know what another month buys us. My question was can we still have the access, the road

access for emergency only, and still protect the water quality, and the answer to that was yes.

The developer has found a way to do that, so what will a month really buy us to do?

Councilmember Turner said let‟s ask the question. I think what it does is it allows the Zoning

and Ms. Campbell‟s office to have the opportunity to have further dialogue with them, but if our

position is not going to change then what is being proposed for us tonight we only have one other

choice, and that is to defeat the motion set before us, a request. But to answer your question,

there is a water basin where the water would be gathered. What we have done on this project is

they reduced the size of that basin to put the street in.

Mayor McCrory said the way I understand this, and let‟s see if we can move this forward one

way or the other, you either vote it up or down tonight or you defer it, and you defer it primarily

for those who do not want the connectivity possibly except of emergencies, which goes against

Council policy. If you defer it, you make those adjustments to the next month‟s meeting. That‟s

the way I understand it tonight. If you defer it, that means you probably are in favor of the

project but only if you have a closed street except possibly during emergencies. If you vote on it

tonight, you are either for or against it for the various reasons you may be for or against it; okay?

If that is the case, I would like to caution Council that this Council and previous Councils put a

lot of work into making sure we have an inter-connective road system, and I agree it doesn‟t fit

all things, but the reason we did that is so our traffic system, which impacts our environment,

would move in an orderly fashion and have more choices for the driver and consumer and

pedestrian and bicyclist.

I will give you an example. In the 1920s when Myers Park was developed as a suburb, there

probably was pressure – well, let‟s don‟t connect Myers Park with the Cherry neighborhood

because of higher density and lower density and economic factors, but it never happened. There

is connectivity between those neighborhoods, and it‟s not a big deal, and thank God for it

because the pedestrian, the motorist, and others have many, many choices to get in and out of

that neighborhood, and, therefore, there isn‟t a lot of traffic because all traffic is not funneled

onto one road. That is why many of us spent a long time on working on inter-connectivity and a

grid system of roads, which stopped in the 1960s, „70s, 80s, 90s, and we have reestablished ‟95

January 26, 2009



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on. I disagreed frankly with the decision on Woodlawn, too, because I think it‟s going to be a

mess on Woodlawn with one entrance coming out of the neighborhood right next to the traffic

light, but I understand some of the logic there. I just do want to caution us that if we keep

making exceptions to the connectivity process for whatever reason I think you are causing more

long-term damage and cost to our road system and to the taxpayer of Charlotte. I understand the

disagreement, and I understand some of the exceptions. The more exceptions you are going to

get these so-called compromises between two groups, which is not necessarily the best

compromise for the City‟s transportation system.

Councilmember Cooksey said I have been persuaded to vote to defer this now because I agree on

the connectivity side, and I have been struggling with how to deal with this petition and go with

connectivity because the difference with the Drexel petition that we dealt with was clearly that

the road that cars would have gone on could not have handled that traffic, but this road with a

stub street there was built to handle a certain amount of traffic, but I would suggest based on the

land use it was built to handle lower density single family homes. However, I have heard from

the district rep that one of the reasons the neighborhood liked this project was they didn‟t

necessarily want what kind of development would occur if it developed at R-3 single family. Of

course, if it developed R-3 single family under the subdivision ordinance, that connection would

be made, and we wouldn‟t be having this conversation.

So, I don‟t know if there are six votes for it, but I am now going to support deferral because I

would like feedback from the neighborhood as to which choice is preferable -- this project as a

gated community with the connection to the street to allow the apartment dwellers access to

Arrowood without going through South Tryon or the lower density as zoned residential and the

connectivity because that, I think, is the choice that faces us, and it is a choice that recognizes

both that we have a connectivity policy, but in this case, we have a stub street that was

anticipated to connect to a lower density development than is being proposed before us.

Councilmember Foxx said in the spirit of the new politics I will say that I wholeheartedly agree

with what you have said about this, Mayor. I think you have made some very, very good points,

and I would only add to that. In the rezoning context, these cases are very hard because you are

dealing with the dynamics of policy that Council has established, you are dealing with neighbors

that are dealing with the immediate impact of these decisions, and you are dealing with the fact

that we are still in the process of trying to create a city in which people can move around. When

I get a chance to remind these people that even if we were able to build the roads that we need in

the future over the next 11 years we will still see 64% more congestion in our most heavily

traveled intersections if we are able to find the money to do that. So, we are looking at a

community that will likely to be very, very congested no matter what we do, and the more routes

or possible routes there are to helping people move around the better off we‟ll be, I think, as

distinguished from the Woodlawn situation where I think the ultimate solution to that involved

moving a new road through some homes on the other side of the street connection was being

contemplated. This one is clearer to me, and I think it makes a lot of sense, so I‟m going to

support the motion to deny the rezoning.

Mayor McCrory said we first have a motion to defer, which we put ahead of all regular motions,

and if that passes, we defer it to next month. If it doesn‟t pass, we‟ll go to the motion to defeat,

which was the substitution motion of the original motion.

The vote was taken on the motion to defer one month and recorded as follows:

AYES: Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Cooksey, Dulin, Kinsey, Lassiter, Peacock, Turner

NAYS: Councilmembers Carter, Foxx, Mitchell

* * * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 0.44 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CENTRAL

AVENUE BETWEEN CRYSTAL ROAD AND CYRUS DRIVE FROM R-22MF TO NS

January 26, 2009



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Mayor McCrory said the Zoning Committee found this petition to be inconsistent with the Briar

Creek/Woodland and Merry Oaks Small Area Plan but reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Lassiter and seconded by Councilmember Kinsey to ]


[ Michael Berglass, DDS as modified and as recommended by the Zoning Committee. ]

Councilmember Barnes said I make a substitute motion to deny.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes and seconded by Councilmember Carter to ]

[ deny the petition. ]

Mayor McCrory said we don‟t really need a substitute to deny. We can just vote against it. Why

don‟t we just do that – up or down vote.

Councilmember Barnes said trying to have a little fun here.

Councilmember Burgess said I just need a refresher. When the neighbors came and spoke at the

hearing, they spoke in favor of the rezoning; is that correct? Were they the same neighbors that

participated in the Briar Creek/Woodlawn Area Plan process? Is that about the same

neighborhood?

Councilmember Kinsey said yes.

Councilmember Burgess said so they voted for the plan and now they are voting to go against the

plan, okay.

Councilmember Mitchell said, Ms, Kinsey, you are saying the citizens are supporting.

Councilmember Kinsey said, yes, I have not heard from a single citizen in those two

neighborhoods that don‟t support it.

The vote was taken on the motion to approve and recorded as unanimous.


* * * * * * * *



APPROXIMATELY 4.80 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF ERWIN ROAD

BETWEEN SOUTH TRYON STREET AND MOSS ROAD FROM R-3 TO I-1(CD)


Southwest District Plan but reasonable and in the public interest.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes, seconded by Councilmember Cooksey, and ]


[ the above rezoning by Bellsouth Telecommunications, Inc. as modified and as recommended ]



* * * * * * * *

January 26, 2009



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PUBLIC HEARINGS

ITEM NO. 20: HEARING ON PETITION NO. 2009-001 BY JANICE WHITE FOR A

CHANGE IN ZONING FOR APPROXIMATELY 0.45 ACRES LOCATED ON THE

SOUTHWEST CORNER OF HICKORY GROVE ROAD AND LAWRENCE ORR

ROAD FROM R-3 TO INST(CD)

The scheduled public hearing was held on the subject petition.

Councilmember Carter said I was hoping that staff could discuss traffic flow and stacking with

us before we vote on this issue.

Tammie Keplinger, Planning¸ said I will ask CDOT to come up for that.

Councilmember Carter said you can do it now or later.

Mayor McCrory said consider a note on it or something.

Councilmember Carter said all of us, please.

Mayor McCrory said absolutely. I want to read that.

[ There being no speakers either for or against, a motion was made by Councilmember ]

[ Cooksey, seconded by Councilmember Kinsey, and carried unanimously to close the ]

[ public hearing. ]

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 21: HEARING ON PETITION NO. 2009-005 BY REGENCY CENTERS, INC.

FOR A CHANGE IN ZONING FOR APPROXIMATELY 21.75 ACRES LOCATED ON

THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF CARMEL ROAD AND PINEVILLE-MATTHEWS

ROAD FROM B-1SCD TO MUDD-O


Councilmember Dulin said the only note I made during my reading this weekend was about

parking – going from 146,000 feet to –

Laura Simmons, 214 N. Tryon St., said we have increased the number of parking spaces. We

worked with Tom Drake and increased number of parking spaces so it more closely resembles

what you would typically see in a shopping center.

Councilmember Dulin said there is about a five-story office building on the back side of the

property. Is it leased now or empty?

Ms. Simmons said it‟s leased, and they have their own separate parking, and they are on a

separate parcel of land.

Councilmember Dulin said for y‟all‟s information this is Carmel Commons built in about 1978,

and the developer went broke because nobody lived on Highway 51, and there was nobody there

to shop. From 1978 to today, it‟s sort of amazing.

[ There being no speakers either for or against, a motion was made by Councilmember ]

[ Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and carried unanimously to close the ]

[ public hearing. ]

* * * * * * * *

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ITEM NO. 24: HEARING ON PETITION NO. 2007-124 BY THE CHARLOTTE-

MECKLENBURG PLANNING COMMISSION FOR A CHANGE IN ZONING FOR


SOUTH TRYON STREET AND WEST TREMONT AVENUE FROM I-2 AND MUDD-O

TO TOD-M(CD)


Tammie Keplinger, Planning, said just a few things on this petition. It‟s an I-2 and MUDD-O

to TOD-M(CD). The purpose of the conditional request on this plan is for the construction of a

connector street from West Tremont to Doggett. That is the main reason for the CD plan. Staff

is recommending approval of this petition.

Walter Fields, 1919 South Boulevard, Ste. 100, said my client is The Boulevard Company.

You will notice this petition is the City of Charlotte, the Planning Commission, so you know

right away there is going to be a story that goes with it. This piece of property is located in an

area that is covered by the South End Station Area Plan that was adopted a couple of years ago

by the City Council.

Mayor McCrory said you are speaking in favor of this, right?

Mr. Fields said, yes, sir. The station area plan calls for this property and numerous other

properties in the immediate area to be rezoned to a transit-supportive district. Most of it is TOD-

M, transit-oriented development mixed-use. You may also recall that the Planning Department,

once the plan was adopted, embarked on a process which was defined in the plan to go ahead and

rezone or pre-zone these properties to implement the station area plan to put the new transit-

supportive zoning in place rather than awaiting for one property owner or the other to bring in

one petition at a time. That met with some concern from some members of the community -- I

think mostly it would be fair to say the Dilworth community – when they began to understand

the magnitude of the TOD-M zoning and the geography it would cover, so those petitions

essentially were suspended and haven‟t moved forward in quite some time, but individual

property owners were allowed to bring forward a specific proposal if they wanted to, and some

of those were straight up and some of those were conditional depending on the circumstances,

and in many cases, the City became the petitioner and sponsored those petitions, and there was

no filing fee, and the process was expedited because the whole idea was to get the TOD zoning

on the ground consistent with this plan.

Well, this plan, as you might expect, also has lots of other things in it including dotted lines to

represent a proposed future street network, and that is what is bringing us to the table tonight.

You will notice the zoning case number here is an „07 case – 07-124 was filed quite a while ago

as a conditional case, and the purpose was to implement the transit station area plan by changing

this to the TOD zoning but based on a specific plan. One of the things that came up during that

review, and I was not involved with that nor was The Boulevard Company, was the desire of

CDOT to have a street, which would cross this property at some point. Now, I don‟t know the

details of that, I wasn‟t involved, but suffice it to say that petition didn‟t go anywhere. I‟m told

the fact that nothing could be worked out about the street in fact killed the deal. But the zoning

petition was still there. It just sort of went into limbo.

Many months ago The Boulevard Company approached the City about sort of resurrecting this

petition. I was already in the hopper -- it already had a case number, it already had some initial

review by the staff – to see if it was possible to come up with a plan for this very same piece of

property to allow transit-supported development to go forward, basically go ahead and change it

to the TOD-M classification.

Mayor McCrory said, Walter, can you stop just a second? Can I ask the people there to please

flash what they are seeing there onto our monitors? We couldn‟t see what was back here.

Mr. Fields said as a result of the conversations with the staff, and I want to thank publicly both

the Transportation staff and the Planning staff because we were able to work out an arrangement

by which this property could be rezoned to TOD-M with a conditional plan with only one

condition, and that one condition was along what I will call the easterly boundary of the site that

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an area would be set aside for a future street – not the entire street – but a portion of the street

that would be built as part of this development on this property. Then at some point one of the

adjoining tracts redeveloped, as it may do at some point in the future, the other half of the street

would be developed there. That seemed fair because the plan is not specific in terms of where

the street goes. There are just sort of dotted lines out there going across people‟s property.

Again, that was the only condition on this entire plan was this street, and that was by virtue of

CDOT‟s desire to have this street here to implement the station area plan.

Now, the irony is that putting the street on the plan has now caused concern on the part of our

neighbor. Mr. Fox is going to speak about that in a moment – the other Mr. Fox. You might

speak on it, too, since this is about connectivity. Neighbors came to our community meeting and

said we are not sure – we don‟t have a problem with your project, but we are concerned about

this street because if we look in this plan there is another street, another dotted line that crosses

our property a little bit further down, so now we have a piece of street here and another street

there. It‟s really chopping up our site, and, again, keep in mind, this is not the piece that is being

considered for rezoning. This is our neighbor.

Well, obviously we have no desire to do anything that would do anything but benefit the folks

around us. We would be happy to have this property zoned to TOD-M as the plan calls for as

was going to be initiated by the staff at some point without the street. We would be happy to

build the street. We would be happy to just approve the straight up rezoning. All we are trying

to do is fulfill the objectives of the plan that calls for this to be transit-oriented development, but

we don‟t want to do it to the detriment of our neighbor, and I think you are going to hear a little

about that later.

One of the things that somebody suggested to me today was it was a curious state of affairs if, in

fact, our compliance with the request of the City staff in fact triggers a protest petition, so now

we have a higher bar to have to jump over to do what we were asked to do. As I said a moment

ago, we would be happy with any combination that would result in the approval of either the

TOD-M just straight up, which quite frankly, we think is the most appropriate; a TOD-M(CD)

that has the street, as we discussed. We would be happy to support and work with the adjoining

owners on a plan amendment so there can be an actual look at the impact of these proposed

streets and how they impact these very tightly knit urban properties to see if, in fact, it makes

sense to have a street there at all. We are open to working this issue out in whatever fashion we

can, but we do want to move forward with this development, and we do want to have a plan that

can be supported by the staff, which they have already indicated they will, and hopefully

supported by our neighbors. I will stop at this point and let Mr. Fox come to the microphone and

describe to you the concerns of his client. We have been in conversation today and on Friday.

We know what their concerns are. I don‟t think I have said anything here that he is going to

correct me on, and we‟ll both be happy to answer questions at the end of his comments.

Anthony Fox, 401 S. Tryon St, Ste. 3000, said Mr. Fields was very accurate and fair in his

representation of the dilemma that my client, Gas Fired Products, finds itself in. Gas Fired

Products is a half a century old business that has operated out of Charlotte at this location. It has

over 50 employees all operating from this site. Gas Fired Products has no objection to a change

in the land use by its neighbor or to the general idea of the neighbor redeveloping the property in

conformance to the TOD standards, and we do not object to the idea of our neighbor receiving

just straight up rezoning without the conditions attached under the conditional rezoning process.

The only objection that we have is the condition that was placed on their rezoning. That

condition would call for a future 70-foot right-of-way. That alone sounds okay, but the problem

here is 35 feet of that 70 feet would have to come from my client‟s property on the eastern

boundary, and that is what poses a dilemma for us.

Several years ago this Council adopted the South End Transit Station Area Plan. That plan calls

for another 70-foot right-of-way that, too, across and dissects my client‟s property, Gas Fired

Products. That right-of-way would extend Abbott Street from Doggett Street to West Tremont

Avenue approximately 200 feet to a proposed road. Again, the petition before you actually shifts

the road proposed under the plan that was entirely located on their adjoining property to one that

moves that one-half, 35 feet right-of-way, to our property. We were not involved in those

discussions when that decision was made and did not find out about it until the community

meeting.

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We believe there is a fundamental unfairness with regards to my client‟s situation, my client

having to bear the brunt of not only 70 feet but an additional 35 feet just as a result of the timing

in which the neighbor goes forth and seeks the rezoning. It appears that land owners who decide

to cooperate with the City‟s plans for the area get first preference on where the roads will go

including shifting the roads to their neighbors‟ property, and, again, we believe it‟s unfair and

fundamentally a burden on one property or landowner to locate two new right-of-ways on the

property of my client about 200 feet apart. Even with these objections though, we believe that a

compromise might be available. The compromise might take the form of revisiting the small

area plan. That dotted line, 70-foot right-of-way that dissects my client‟s property, could be

alleviated from the plan certainly if this condition is imposed upon the eastern boundary of our

property with the additional 30-foot right-of-way to accommodate that. That is not something

though that can be achieved during this process realizing that this is a rezoning process, and,

therefore, the option might include something that we might want to seek an amendment to the

small area plan, and that would require maybe a deferral of this petition to allow a study and

consideration of such a compromise.

We will be more than happy to work with the adjacent property owner to try to develop an

appropriate solution. We have filed a protest petition that is pending on this matter, and we

would be more than happy to assist the Planning staff and the applicant with this dilemma. We

just believe there is a fundamental unfairness of 70 feet and an additional 35 feet on this one

parcel of property.

Councilmember Burgess said, Mr. Fox, we are at a disadvantage because we don‟t have a map

that shows your client‟s property. It‟s probably on this map, but it‟s not identified or the other

road that is on the map that goes through your client‟s property entirely. We don‟t have that on

our screen. There it is. So, it‟s the light brown and the purple?

Mr. Fox said yes.

Councilmember Burgess said where is the road that is on the site plan right now that goes

through this second property? Okay, here is the road on the property that is the petition property.

Mr. Fields said it‟s right along the edge of the boundary between the two. The second road that

shows up on the station area plan, Ms. Burgess, I believe was your question, is right about here,

if I recall from the station area plan, and it goes to a point on Doggett where there is no public

street across the way to connect it.

Councilmember Burgess said now my question for you, Mr. Fox. If the road is entirely on the

petition property, all 70 feet of it, instead of half the road, the entire road on the petitioner‟s

property, would you oppose the petition?

Mr. Fox said I can‟t speak for my client who is not here tonight. Unfortunately he is out of town,

but that would be a better solution. The ideal solution would be if that road is going to be moved

in that direction, that is a deviation from the original small area plan, therefore, it raises the need

to continue to have the other road proposed in the plan that would literally bisect our property

and impact the development options for Gas Fired Products.

Councilmember Burgess said on the area plan only half the road is on the petition property and

half of it is on your property?

Mr. Fox said the area plan shows a road coming from Worthington for Tremont that goes on the

middle of our property to the right of the bolded area. Of course with the petition, there is a road

that would run parallel to the border on that property, the eastern border of the hatched area. So

what you are looking at is a situation where you have a road on the eastern border of that cross-

hatched area and then you would have another road shown on the plan that would come down

and further dissect our property as well.

Councilmember Burgess said my question to you is your client maybe would support it if the

entire road were on the petitioner‟s property, and I heard Mr. Fields say that you don‟t oppose

the road. Do you oppose it all being on the petitioner‟s property, Mr. Fields?

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Mr. Fields said if you will allow me. I don‟t know if you have any more questions for Mr. Foxx,

but I have two minutes sort of in rebuttal, and I think I can address that.

Mayor McCrory said the reason I don‟t give you a rebuttal is because the Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Planning staff is the petitioner.

Mr. Fields said but they need me to help them.

Mayor McCrory said they have never told me that.

Mr. Fields said, Ms. Burgess, let me try this way. As I said, it‟s part of our presentation, and Mr.

Fox is correct. If you look at the small area plan, and I would ask you to look at that because we

are dealing with lines which are hardly engineering drawings. They are just big dotted lines that

cross the map at various angles. If you look at the plan today, there is a road somewhere about in

here, a dotted line, that Mr. Fox is referring to, and then there is another dotted line that crosses

his client‟s property down here. Again, these roads don‟t connect to anything, but they are on

the plan. In our conversations with the City staff, with CDOT and with Planning, because

nobody knows for sure -- I attended the public meetings – nobody knows for sure how that line

got to be where it is. The conversation revolved around putting it on a property line. That way it

would benefit two property owners – benefit in that both would have access to this new road in

the future.

We understand completely the concern of Mr. Fox‟s client that a road here may very well benefit

his development of the property in the future if this road were eliminated because then you have

Tryon Street, you have a street in mid-block, and then you have Hawkins Street, and then you

have Camden. That‟s a pretty good spacing of streets in the future, but actually there are two

streets in here – one right about here and one right about here. The comment I made about being

more than willing to work on an amendment to the plan, and, in fact, we talked about that at the

community meeting was it seems to us that maybe one of those streets is enough – that, in fact,

that provides the connectivity from Tremont to Doggett and to other points up to West

Worthington, and it‟s true that having two streets on one piece of property seems unfair to us as

well.

Whether or not we can accommodate the entire right-of-way on this piece, I don‟t know. We

worked very hard with the staff to get to where we are, but we do not minimize the concern of

our next-door neighbors. We understand completely why they don‟t want to be impacted by two

different streets. We think part of the solution there is simply to eliminate the second street

altogether. That‟s something the staff could choose to do in interpretation of the plan, or it‟s

something they could choose to bring back to you in terms of an amendment to that plan. We

would support that process as well, but we are concerned in terms of the time that would take

because we have been involved with this for many months working with the staff and working

this issue out. I have been involved with planning amendment processes which can take

anywhere from three months to almost two years, and that clearly would be a problem for us in

terms of meeting contractual obligations. I think the simple solution is to zone the property

straight up TOD-M, which is what the plan recommends, and that removes the issue that Mr.

Fox‟s client is concerned about.

Councilmember Carter said is there a way someone could tell us, please, the dimensions of the

street – of Doggett – the length of that street between South Tryon and Hawkins?

Unidentified Speaker, Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT), said I work on

station area plans. You are asking between Doggett and Tremont the length or between Tryon

and Hawkins?

Councilmember Carter said Tryon and Hawkins.

Unidentified Speaker said that‟s over 1,000 feet. I know that. Guessing probably 1,200.

Councilmember Carter said it‟s 600 feet that is the prescribed block footage.

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Unidentified Speaker said ideally 400, but we are very flexible. That is why we are trying to at

last break this block into two. It is true that there are two streets shown in the station area plan,

however, there is flexibility built into that. Anything consistent with that intent should still be

considered. In this case, we are trying to just get one street.

Councilmember Carter said so it‟s an either/or situation – the one that is proposed at this area or

the one that would connect with –

Unidentified Speaker said could be. If this parcel by itself that the gentleman owns or is

representing came in by itself, I highly doubt that we would then encumber him with a second

street request, but maybe if multiple parcels did come all in together, then maybe we would try to

consider a second street. There is that flexibility built into the plan trying to scale streets and

blocks to the development.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Peacock, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, and ]

[ carried unanimously to close the public hearing. ]

Mayor McCrory said, Anthony, I suppose if a decision next month, if someone wants to take

your recommendation and defer that would have to come at next month‟s hearing when we

typically defer – not during the public hearing. Let Council have that debate.

* * * * * * * *

Mayor McCrory said I‟m going to recommend that Mr. Lassiter be allowed to go home. He is

fighting the flu, and I am sitting next to him. Mr. Lassiter, get in bed. Thank you very much for

being here. He has hung in here as long as he could. I had to do it about four weeks ago, if you

recall. It‟s going around the whole city.

Councilmember Cooksey said, Mr. Mayor, before we get to that, this is the fourth Monday of

January. We have just been joined by a bunch of people wearing name tags, so that suggests to

me it‟s the 13th

Civics 101 class that we should recognize and welcome to the start of their

endeavor in studying local government. The League of Women Voters has been sponsoring this

program. I forget if they are in conjunction with someone this year, but I think they found a

pretty good replacement teacher for the City Council course.

Mayor McCrory said who is that?

Councilmember Cooksey said some guy named Marstall, I think.

Mayor McCrory said Dennis Marstall from the Mayor‟s staff?

Councilmember Cooksey said, yes, I think he knows a little something about city government, so

they are getting a very good education about it, plus they can ask personal questions about the

Mayor.

Mayor McCrory said hopefully he won‟t use the same language the Mayor uses. That‟s a great

program, and Warren Cooksey graduated from that.

Councilmember Cooksey said as did Councilmember Mitchell.

Mayor McCrory said and they both ran for the City Council.

* * * * * * * *


MECKLENBURG PLANNING COMMISSION FOR THE ADOPTION OF A TEXT

AMENDMENT TO THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE ZONING ORDINANCE TO ALLOW

THE ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT HEAR VARIANCES TO THE STANDARDS

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FOR BED AND BREAKFAST ESTABLISHMENTS AND TO CLEAR UP

INCONSISTENCIES IN THE REGULATIONS


Councilmember Carter said I have a question on this. On the summary, No. 3 says it clarifies

that bed and breakfast establishments are permitted in the mixed use development district

MUDD zoning district. Is it exclusively permitted in this district?

Tammie Keplinger, Planning¸ said, no, ma‟am. There is just an error in the text that we need

to clarify that they are permitted in that district as well as single family districts and other mixed

use districts like MX-1, 2, and 3.

[ There being no speakers either for or against, a motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, ]

[ seconded by Councilmember Carter, and carried unanimously to close the public hearing. ]

* * * * * * * *



AMENDMENT TO THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE ZONING ORDINANCE TO MODIFY

THE SCREENING AND STREETSCAPE REQUIREMENTS OF PED AS WELL AS

MODIFY THE APPLICABILITY SECTION REQUIREMENTS


[ There being no speakers either for or against, a motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, ]

[ seconded by Councilmember Cooksey, and carried unanimously to close the public hearing. ]

* * * * * * * *




CERTAIN REGULATIONS IN TOD TO PROTECT THE CHARACTER OF

ADJACENT SINGLE FAMILY NEIGHBORHOODS PARTICULARLY WHERE TOD

IS ACROSS THE STREET FROM OR ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE STREET AS A

SINGLE FAMILY DEVELOPMENT AND TO MAKE MINOR REVISIONS SUCH AS

CLARIFYING TEXT, ETC.


John Howard, Planning, said this is a brief presentation on the overview of the process for the

TOD text amendment and a brief summary of the text amendment in detail. The purpose of the

project was to assess the issues that were related to consultant‟s findings on TOD and TS. The

process we used was the stakeholder process where we invited folks from the five corridors,

property owners, and neighborhood leaders, and the development community. We had about

five public meetings with the stakeholders, identified the key issues, and then we drafted those

TOD and TS details. The three major issues that came out of those meetings were: 1)

neighborhood transition, meaning how does TOD interface with single family development, 2)

parking impacts on single family districts, 3) open space.

Councilmember Lassiter left the meeting at 7:27 p.m.

Mr. Howard continued under neighborhood transition we wanted to focus on the interface

between the single family districts and the TOD districts. We did want to look at, first,

increasing the setbacks to kind of mimic the single family districts, second, adjust the building

height or the measuring height for TOD starts. Right now it starts from the zoning line, and we

looked at moving it back to the setback line. That way the building starts higher a little bit later.

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Third, wanted to disallow loading and service areas in front of single family districts and single

family housing. Fourth, wanted to include more design requirements to kind of look at breaking

up the massing of buildings and creating more variety across single family housing. Fifth, add

requirements to wrap parking decks and structures with some type of active uses along the

streets.

Under parking, again, looking at how do our current standards impact single family

development. Right now we don‟t have a parking minimum in TOD for residential development.

Under our recommendations, we are looking at establishing a one unit per acre minimum. Right

now most developments come in around 1.2 or so. The max is still 1.6 per unit. Second, look at

requiring off-street parking for all streets prohibited by TOD or some kind of physical barrier,

and, third, looking at disallowing front-loaded garages to individual units along local streets.

This is more of a streetscape issue where we are trying to get more open space along the local

streets and kind of minimize the number of garages and driveways on those streets because the

lots tend to be very narrow, and you have more driveway for like a townhouse. You have it

every maybe ten feet instead of every 50 feet like you would in a single family development.

Under open space, looking to add some definitions to clarify the difference between public and

private open space. Second, for a large development, the idea is to have more centrally located

open space for a large, like a ten-acre project, where half of that would be in a civic area. Third,

provide different requirements for residential and nonresidential development in terms of

defining that open space. Fourth, was to add requirements based on lot size, not having like a

one-size-fits-all, but to kind of vary the open space based on your lot size and square footage.

Here are some comments we have received thus far from some stakeholders. We had questions

about the establishment of a parking minimum in TOD. Second, the on-street parking

requirements. We had questions about mandating that. Third, we had concerns about

prohibiting the front-loaded garages and driveways. Also we had questions about open space

requirements, questions about designing enhancement for buildings across from the street from

single family development or abutting single family development. We had concerns about the

retail requirement we are asking for on certain streets near a transit station area. We had

questions about having more than one entrance for a single family for development across from

single family development. We had questions about elevating a building above ground level.

The statement there was should we be mandating a separation on thoroughfares. Lastly, lack of

flexibility. Some felt we didn‟t have enough; we are getting too rigid on our TOD standards and

not enough flexibility and wanted to add more options to that district.

Some of our next steps moving forward we were requested deferral at the next Zoning

Committee Meeting on February 2nd

. After hearing the public comments, we will reconvene the

stakeholders for another meeting to talk about those comments. That will be on the 12th

of

February upstairs in 280 at 6:00. The letters have gone out to the stakeholders, so they are aware

of that meeting. Then we will consider revising the text amendment, and then we‟ll come back

to the Zoning Committee on the 25th of February, and then wrap up again in front of you all, City

Council, on March 16th

.

Jeff Brown, King & Spalding, 227 W. Trade St., Ste. 600, said appreciate the opportunity to

be here just to express a few words of caution about the text amendment. I‟m signed up against,

but frankly I think it‟s really much more of a yellow caution light than a red stoplight. The devil

is in the details of these text amendments. It‟s stick-in-the-eye work to go through some of the

details, but as you all know when these things are implemented later with specific projects, there

can be issues that arise as a result of the specific wording of the details. A lot of work has gone

into this. A lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to balance, and it‟s a tough task to

balance the competing concerns, of trying to encourage the transit-oriented development that we

have such a significant investment in, and at the same time protecting the neighborhoods, and I

think on balance of staff and those who participated in the stakeholder process have done a very

good job in that regard.

Again, just a few cautions that what makes sense for a particular transit-oriented development or

a particular station area site may not make sense for another one. What makes sense for a

particular site in South End may not make sense for a site at Sharon-View Road or at Scaleybark.

By way of example, I have had the pleasure of working with the staff on behalf of a client in

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connection with a large potential transit-oriented development at Scaleybark and South

Boulevard, an area where there has been a lot of energy from Council and others to encourage

transit-oriented development, and the preliminary transit-oriented development plan is one that

has been well received, I think, and is consistent with the station area plans for Scaleybark, but

there are some provisions in the text amendment that we just wanted to express some caution

about and that could present some challenges, and that may very well require the use of the

optional provision process that the ordinance currently allows but that frankly we want to ensure

that the Council is aware of because sometimes there is a resistance to going in the level of some

optional provisions.

Just for example briefly, and I know it‟s a busy night, and I appreciate the fact that you all have a

full agenda, but one of the requirements is the requirement for parking on both sides of the

streets. It makes great sense in certain areas, and certain development plans it may not make

sense to have parking on both sides; the requirement that the ground floor of all buildings contain

commercial uses; and, the requirement that residential uses be parked at a minimum of one space

per unit. Again, we are confident that the Scaleybark Plan and our development plan will be

well received, but when it comes to this level of detail, we are going to need to have some ability

and some flexibility particularly in an instance where I think you will find that the concern about

overflow parking, which is the genesis of much of these concerns, we don‟t think really will exist

in this particular instance, so we hope that we all bear that in mind not only in this particular

location but in other locations as this ordinance becomes a reality.

I think Councilmember Turner talked earlier about the one size does not fit all concept, and I

think that applies also. In an area where we are taking provisions and putting them into

ordinance – not into community plans or into guidelines but into ordinance – there will be the

need to have some flexibility and principally through the optional process. The optional process,

as you know, essentially in the transit-oriented development is a district that is created, but it

does require essentially a conditional zoning plan. I know one of the reasons I think the staff and

others are trying to put these provisions in place is to try to encourage being able to use just

straight up TOD. We may find some of the details actually going in the other direction of

requiring some conditional plans to come in by way of the optional provisions. So, essentially,

that‟s the main caution I wanted to share with you tonight – not to in any way try to fight against

this ordinance or the text amendment or the protections of the neighborhoods but just for you to

be aware of some of the provisions that could cause some challenges going forward and to set

the stage and the need for some potential flexibility where the circumstances warrant and where

the facts on the ground warrant.

Terrence Llwellyn, P.O. Box 473023, said first I want to thank you very much for instituting

TOD zoning in the first place. Clearly it‟s a great idea to marry up land usage with transit and

clearly it‟s working. It‟s allowing many more Charlotteans to utilize transit and many fewer

Charlotteans will find it necessary to own automobiles, and, in fact, that‟s actually the primary

reason I found it necessary to speak against portions of this amendment this evening. The idea of

establishing a minimum parking ratio in TOD is somewhat antithetical to the whole purpose of

TOD in the first place. We want to encourage people to use transit and not require them to use

their automobiles. Our surveys indicate that the actual parking demanded in South End, for

example, is going down. Whereas it might have been about 1.25 three years ago, it‟s now at 1.0.

We anticipate it will continue to come down, and so the requirement for parking is going to be

somewhat antithetical I think to the big picture goals of TOD

Second, the requirement for parallel parking on every project in every street in every instance

may not be prudent. It may be more prudent to consider that on more of a case-by-case basis and

determine which cases merit parallel parking and which cases don‟t merit parallel parking.

Other than that, I agree with everything that Jeff Brown shared, and I won‟t waste the Council‟s

time by repeating it.

Mayor McCrory said I have one question on this. What happens especially with the current

market? I‟m a big advocate of TOD, and it‟s been extremely successful where we have used it,

but I am seeing a little bit of a disturbing pattern, and that is if the commercial establishment

fails, does not remain sustainable, and yet it‟s on the first floor of a residential building, do we

allow flexibility by the developer then if they cannot find retail possibly because of the market

January 26, 2009


Minute Book 128, 8

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conditions? Can they have the flexibility to convert it into residential if the residential market

still demands it?

Mr. Howard said I think we can. In the TOD districts, we encourage some type of uses, mixed

use, especially office or retail, residential. If they can market it toward office or retail on the

ground floor, that‟s fine.

Mayor McCrory said I‟m talking about if they cannot market it, which is happening today in

several of the newer places where, say, a restaurant goes under, which is happening as we speak,

is there flexibility instead of having a vacant building to fill it up with more choices? Again, I‟m

a huge advocate. I love the concept of retail on the first floor, but I was asked that question

recently, and I thought that was a very fair question knowing the market conditions. I don‟t want

to mention specific developments, but you know who they are where they are empty, and,

therefore, it makes it more difficult to sell one floor up and maybe causing some situations here

where this was not the market today of just two years ago or even six months ago.

Mr. Howard said I think what Jeff said earlier is having flexibility. In retail districts, you can

have different types of retail uses or office uses like a fitness center or some type of use that is

going to go with the residential development. It could be some other uses we would allow in that

district in that development.

Mayor McCrory said you understand what I‟m saying. But even allow residential if they can

prove that the market conditions don‟t meet retail. I just raise that question because I‟m seeing

disturbingly more. As you know, the market conditions are not good right now.

Mr. Howard said we will look at that as staff. We definitely don‟t want to create another gray

box or gray building. We will definitely look at that.

Mayor McCrory said you are talking to one of the biggest advocates of it.

Mr. Howard said we had to balance trying to create these places where you have the mixed

activity, you have uses for transit users, and retail is one of them, but if they can‟t do it, we

understand. We would work with them.

Mayor McCrory said because you are having retail just pull out right in the middle of leases now

and taking their loss because of market conditions. I would rather have something in there than

being a vacant box below residential. I would be curious about that and some flexibility

regarding the market conditions, but, again, I would love more discussion and thought on that. I

don‟t want to open it too big, but, boy, I tell you right now it‟s not good.

Councilmember Carter said I have two specific questions, if I might. The driveways providing

access to structured parking they are stated as not being able to exceed 50% of the length of the

property line along the rail corridor. I‟m wondering if to avoid stacking problems as you feed

into those parking decks, is it wise to limit to just 50% of the property line?

Mr. Howard said initially I think it was zero, so we are trying to allow access for fire access and

not to create another street between the building and the rail line. Want to keep it as pedestrian

friendly as possible, so we felt that 50% would be a good starting point to allow that access into

garages and for emergency access. It kind of serves two different purposes.

Councilmember Carter said that‟s a point that I think we might pay attention to as we go down

the line and see how it develops within practical use. The other question I have is there is no

provision for bike parking. In some of the commercial areas, we have asked that bike parking be

included, and I‟m wondering if it‟s the appropriate to do in transit-oriented development.

Mr. Howard said there is a standard for bike parking in the zoning ordinance already for bike

parking. That was adopted I think a couple of years ago.

Councilmember Carter said so it‟s incorporated.

Mr. Howard said yes.

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[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]


* * * * * * * *




CERTAIN REGULATIONS IN TS TO PROTECT THE CHARACTER OF ADJACENT

SINGLE FAMILY NEIGHBORHOODS PARTICULARLY WHERE TS IS ACROSS

THE STREET FROM OR ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE STREET AS A SINGLE

FAMILY DEVELOPMENT AND TO MAKE MINOR REVISIONS SUCH AS

CLARIFYING TEXT, ETC.


John Howard, Planning, said the one major difference – it‟s all pretty much the same except for

the building heights in TS. Before it was 120, and now because it‟s a lesser impact district, we

are going down to 60 feet for the max height in TS because it is not the same intensity as a TOD

district. That is the only real major change.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell, seconded by Councilmember Burgess, and ]


* * * * * * * *

BUSINESS MEETING

* * * * * * * *

CITIZENS’ FORUM

COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Mayor McCrory said my prayers are with you because I know you lost your wife recently, and

we are thinking of you.

Rev. Willie Simpson, 4520 Cloverdale Ave., said just recently, as you stated, my wife passed

on the 30th of December right before the New Year, and it‟s going to be pretty hard to deal with

that. She done a lot of work in our ministry. You know we have a ministry called We Care that

reaches out to the community, to the homeless, and bringing families together. I notice our

County and City government asked us to get involved in the community reaching out to one

another. That was a good entity to reach out and get the community to join with one another,

and I have learned throughout the several years we have been doing that that neighbors would

meet one another that wouldn‟t have the opportunity to meet each other without this program,

and it‟s called We Care. It happens in May every year, the festival, and I wanted to say

something about the transit, about the safety, Coucilmember Warren Turner. I took my first ride

out on that light rail last week before I went to DC for the inauguration. I noticed there was a

family of five. The man wouldn‟t come down here tonight. He told me he wouldn‟t come, but I

just wanted to bring it to your attention that we do have a safety issue with that light rail. He had

four little children with him – three at the age of 3 and one at the age of 5 – almost got caught

into the door. He snatched them back, and I say what an experience for my first ride to see this,

and I wanted to report that to you because the operator pulled off while the people were still

standing, and the passengers had to hold out their hand to keep the children from falling down

back into the train, so I reached out my hand to catch one of them. It was four little ones, and it

would have been tragic if they had fallen and bruised their head or something. You may want to

look into it, take a ride. Give them a few seconds before you pull off because they were

struggling to keep their balance, and I was afraid for them at that particular time. This I wanted

January 26, 2009



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to share with you. This caution strip I have here, I ride around sometimes in a vending truck. I

sell ice cream, but I pulled this off of a tree limb about maybe a couple of feet, maybe about ten

feet long hanging on an electric line. I had to stand on my truck to get it down. Excuse me for

going over a little bit. The neighbor was complaining about it hanging there because children

play under there, so I just stood up on my truck and pulled it off the electric line, and I didn‟t get

paid for that, Mayor, but I saved some child‟s life. I believe in doing that, just trying to help out

in the community.

Mayor McCrory said please don‟t get near an electric line again.

Rev. Simpson said but I pulled it down, and the child is safe. Nobody got hurt. Just keep me in

prayer because I need some more hands to help with this community outreach.

Mayor McCrory said want to let Council know that PBS is going to do a major special on the

transit line and transportation. They came to Charlotte and spent the weekend. Thank God no

one has been hurt on the transit line yet, and I‟m glad you helped continue that record.

* * * * * * * *

TAXI DRIVERS CONCERN FOR CHANGES AND REGULATIONS AT AIRPORT

William Dobbins, 7910 Waterford Ridge Dr., said I‟m the president of the association that

represents the taxi drivers at the Airport. I wanted to greet the Mayor and the City Council and

give you a brief analysis of what we are attempting to do. I did send out a letter to you that was

mailed on Saturday. You may not have had an opportunity to receive that.

Mayor McCrory said I got it. It‟s a pretty extensive letter.

Mr. Dobbins said it is pretty involved. The point we are trying to make is that the taxi drivers

there have been working with the Airport for a number of years and Mr. Jerry Orr in conjunction

with what‟s going on now. Their overall concern is more related to the fact that it appears that

they are going to be forced to buy brand new cars and only be able to use those for about three

years. We have a situation, which we feel we can accommodate Mr. Orr‟s request for that and

some other things, but the overall concept I‟m trying to imply to the City board right now and to

you, Mayor, also is that these gentlemen would like to be able to empower themselves to actually

have the ability to run that Airport. They have pretty much been there for the maximum length

of times that they have, which probably exceed ten to 15 years. The overall purpose of all of this

is to put us in a position where the drivers are actually empowered to be able to manage

themselves. The taxicab companies that are operating out at the Airport at this point are about 12

in number. We personally know that Mr. Orr is trying to reduce that number quite a bit. We are

trying to get him to reduce the number to one, which would be the owners of the cars themselves.

We know we are in a position where we could be an asset to the City. We have some innovative

ideas in terms of how to advertise. We take in a tremendous number of people that come to this

city on business purposes, and we have the luxury of being able to talk to those people between

the times they get in the car at the Airport and the times they get into the city. We are just asking

the Council to consider that possibility for us as owners of our own vehicles and being in a

position that we are able to not just be the second person in this situation where the owners pretty

much have the drivers doing most of the labor and receiving very little of the benefit from that.

In this particular case, they would be able to empower themselves, drive their own vehicles, get

the maximum return from what they already put out there on a day-to-day basis, and being seen

as an ambassador of this city, which they really are regardless of whether they working for the

taxicab companies or not. We would like for the Council to take a look carefully at that letter,

give us consideration. We know the power you have with the Airport and the initiation, and I‟m

sure Mr. Orr has given us a letter in response to that, so we are very pleased to see that he is

willing to also entertain additional information from us along those lines. So this is primarily

why I came today to present those positions to you and ask you to please consider what we have.

My contact numbers are on those letters, so hopefully I will hear from you very soon, and Mr.

Orr has explained that he is not going to make a snap decision about this, and that‟s pretty much

what we wanted to discuss with you tonight.

January 26, 2009



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Mayor McCrory said, Curt, if you could get a copy of that letter, too. I read it over the weekend.

It was a well written letter, and you were very specific. I haven‟t heard all sides of the issue, but,

Curt, if we could get any correspondence that Mr. Orr has generated to them, too, because I will

ask them to give the initial response, then hear back.

* * * * * * * *

HIRING PRACTICES OF CMPD

Michael Maul, 8527 Conner Ridge Ln., said I‟m just here tonight following up. The last time I

was at the City Council meeting I was talking about some of the hiring practices of the Charlotte-

Mecklenburg Police Department, and when I first applied, they rejected my application, and one

of the reasons was a misdemeanor, but the law states Statute 15A-145 that once it has been

dismissed and expunged you cannot hold that against somebody. So it kind of took me back that

the Police Department would also break the law in hiring, so I came here for a Council meeting,

and they put me together with Eric Campbell. He then got ahold of the Human Resource

Department and talked to Stephanie Whiteside, and she sent me a letter back, which just said the

credit report I turned in to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department there was nothing on

there that was bad credit or anything in credit. I have very good credit, but there was two jobs in

there that I never have done in my life, and I could have proved that through my tax records. So,

the last thing she said on this letter was that Charlotte-Mecklenburg recruitment instructions state

that the applicants that have been issued a citation, a criminal summons, or arrest for any

criminal offense need to include certified court documents related to the offense along with

copies of any associated documents such as police reports, arrest reports, citations, summons,

etc. I have done that, and I have a copy of the order to expunge, which states that once it‟s

expunged the Clerk of Court sends out to all the police departments that it has been expunged, so

they are telling me they don‟t know about it, but they do know about it, and I handed it to them.

So when I tried to contact Stephanie back, she would not return my calls; neither would Eric.

My father was kind of concerned. He spent 30 years in the military, and he is familiar with rules

and regulations. We stopped by the precinct near my house, and Sgt. Foley did not understand

either what this meant. Since both Eric Campbell and Stephanie would not return my call, I had

to go down to the Human Resource Department. She come out. I introduced myself and my

father. We were very polite. She just said you don‟t understand, and we are like don‟t

understand what? She said you just don‟t understand. I said what? She said this matter has been

dropped; don‟t call us anymore, and then we were escorted out of the building, which I thought

was very humiliating to my father considering we weren‟t a threat, we weren‟t raising our voice.

We were just trying to get to the bottom of something. It was just a bad experience. For me to

be escorted out of the building is one thing, but for my father, who is 65 and spent 30 years in the

military, I think is ridiculous, and why wouldn‟t anybody return my calls or why can‟t they

answer what they have in this letter just to say it‟s going to go away. That‟s pretty embarrassing

as far as the Human Resource Department goes and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police

Department.

Mayor McCrory said thank you very much. I appreciate you coming back. Curt, if you could

get me an update on what is going on here, I would appreciate it. If there is any further

information we need to get him, if we can get it, I would appreciate it.

* * * * * * * *

CONSENT AGENDA

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve the Consent Agenda as presented with the exception of ]

[ Item No. 13-B, which was pulled for speakers, Item Nos. 15, 17, 18, 21, 24, 26, and 27, ]

[ which were pulled for discussion, and Item No. 29, which was removed from the agenda. ]

The following items were approved:

January 26, 2009



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12-A. Contract to the lowest bidder, Boggs Paving, Inc. of Monroe, NC, in the amount of

$201,174.78 for South Turner Avenue sidewalk improvement for Engineering and

Property Management.

Summary of Bids Boggs Paving, Inc. Monroe, NC $201,174.78

Siteworks, LLC Charlotte, NC $222,322.73

United Construction, Inc. Charlotte, NC $224,762.88

CMI Contracting, Inc. Monroe, NC $226,232.32

Bullseye Construction, Inc. Pineville, NC $228,641.28

Blythe Development Company Charlotte, NC $231,360.00

Christopher Bryan Company Charlotte, NC $241,797.27

Husky Construction Corp. Charlotte, NC $259,027.20

DOT Construction, Inc. Charlotte, NC $263,683.99

ECON International Corp. Charlotte, NC $264,241.92

Sealand Contractors Charlotte, NC $279,384.32

Carolina Cajun Concrete Matthews, NC $305,007.36

Mainline Contracting, Inc. Durham, NC $305,447.04

Jones Grading & Building, Inc. Charlotte, NC $315,889.92

Triangle Grading and Paving, Inc. Burlington, NC $340,392.95

12-B. Contract to the lowest bidder, Gelder-Thompson Contracting, Midland, NC, in the

amount of $1,852,743.04 for Seigle Avenue Streetscape Phase 2 for Engineering and


Summary of Bids

Gelder-Thompson Contracting Midland, NC $1,852,743.04

United Construction Company Charlotte, NC $1,885,525.95

Ferebee Corporation Charlotte, NC $1,945,421.12

CMI Contracting Monroe, NC $1,998,670.30

Sealand Contractors, Inc. Charlotte, NC $2,103,997.34

Triangle Grading & Paving Burlington, NC $2,143,391.86

8 Star Construction, Inc. Pineville, NC $2,270,787.20

Blythe Development Charlotte, NC $2,329,086.38

Mainline Contracting, Inc. Durham, NC $2,518,952.70

Siteworks, LLC Charlotte, NC $2,808,766.07

12-C. Contract to the lowest bidder, Bullseye Construction, Inc. of Pineville, NC, in the amount

of $239,848.60 for Signer Road improvements for Engineering and Property

Management.

Summary of Bids

Bullseye Construction, Inc. $239,848.60

Sitework, LLC $280,368.30

Gelder-Thompson Contracting $286,311.36

CMI Contracting $304,456.46

Ferebee Corporation $310,170.35

Boggs Paving, Inc. $321,987.93

United Construction $323,795.73

Blythe Development $328,484.97

Propst Construction $328,679.20

Scurry Construction, Inc. $331,718.02

Caroline Cajun Concrete $341,717.33

Red Clay Industries, Inc. $352,616.39

Sealand Contractors $360,558.93

Onsite Development $369,534.10

8 Star Construction, Inc. $378,699.60

Triangle Grading and Paving $384,097.77

R.F. Shinn Contractors $394,519.00

ECON International Corp. $395,915.10

Mainline Contracting, Inc. $427,997.80

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12-D. Low bid contract to Smeal Fire Apparatus, Snyder, NE, in the amount of $1,815,872 for

fire pumper trucks for Fire.

12-E. Contract to the lowest bidder, RGA, Inc. of Powhatan, VA, in the amount of $83,400 for

malfunction management units for Charlotte Department of Transportation.

Summary of Bids

RGA, Inc. Powhatan, VA $83,400.00*

Temple, Inc. Decatur, AL $83,400.00

Control Technologies Sanford, FL $96,660.00

Walker Brothers, Inc. Lexington, SC $103,200.00

*Tie bid selection recommended based on best delivery

12-F. Contract for vehicle and equipment batteries for Business Support Services to the

following companies: Battery Services, Inc., Auto Supply Company, Inc., Young Ford,

Inc., National Fleet Services, O‟Reilly Auto Parts, and Genuine Parts Company.

12-G. Contract to the lowest bidder, Ferebee Corporation of Charlotte, NC, in the amount of

$1,511,221.14 for Jefferson Storm Drainage Improvements Phase 3 for Engineering and


Summary of Bids Ferebee Corporation Charlotte, NC $1,511,221.14

CMI Contracting, Inc. Monroe, NC $1,549,071.03

United Construction, Inc. Charlotte, NC $1,582,086.55

OnSite Development Charlotte, NC $1,606,204.60

Bullseye Construction, Inc. Pineville, NC $1,718,930.40

Hunter Construction Group, Inc. Mooresville, NC $1,753,761.24

Sealand Contractors Charlotte, NC $1,787,630.63

Blythe Development Co. Charlotte, NC $1,859,770.70

Advanced Development Concepts Matthews, NC $1,869,140.52

State Utility Contractors, Inc. Monroe, NC $1,997,086.30

Mainline Contracting, Inc. Durham, NC $2,009,397.50

Showalter Construction Co. Charlotte, NC $2,099,752.02

T.K. Browne Construction Charlotte, NC $2,301,728.28

Dellinger, Inc. Monroe, NC $2,343,951.85

RF Shinn Contractors, Inc. Concord, NC $2,706,001.10

Propst Construction Co. Concord, NC $2,805,534.60

12-H. Contract to the lowest bidder, Tolar Manufacturing, Corona, CA, for West Corridor Bus

Shelters for Transit.

Summary of Bids

Tolar $9,990

Enselcom $11,509

Sidbury Group $25,153

Streamline $26,000

13-A. Ordinance No. 4091-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 4800 Hovis Road (Neighborhood Statistical Area 113 - Westchester

Neighborhood).

The ordinance is recorded in Ordinance Book 55 at Page 988.

13-C. Ordinance No. 4092-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 2100 Ashley Road (Neighborhood Statistical Area 12 – Westerly Hills

Neighborhood).


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13-D. Ordinance No. 4093-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 1520 N. McDowell Street (Neighborhood Statistical Area 51 – Belmont

Neighborhood).


13-E. Ordinance No. 4094-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 9605 Parkwood Drive (Neighborhood Statistical Area 107 –

Dixie/Berryhill Neighborhood).


13-F. Ordinance No. 4095-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 2509 Rebecca Avenue (Neighborhood Statistical Area 100 – Eagle Lake

Neighborhood).


13-G. Ordinance No. 4096-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy to demolish and remove

the structure at 2517 Rebecca Avenue (Neighborhood Statistical Area 100 – Eagle Lake

Neighborhood).


14. Resolution authorizing the refund of business privilege license payments made in the

amount of $10,175.49

The resolution is recorded in Resolution Book 41 at Pages 849-850.

16. Authorize the City manager to award a contract to Quick Fuel Fleet Services for the

purchase of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel for CATS bus operations. This contract has an

estimated first-year value of $4,803,425. The contract term shall be for two years with an

estimated value of $10,000,000, and authorize the City Manager to execute three annual

renewal options.

19. Contract renewal #2 in the not-to-exceed amount of $1,772,555.50 with B.R.S., Inc. for

water and sewer line installations.

20. Professional services agreement for $870,120 with Kimley-Horn and Associates for

construction administration on the Southwest Water Transmission Main, Phase C.

22. Contract amendment #3 with Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. in the amount of

$535,000 for engineering services for the Dixie River Road realignment, and authorize

the City Manager to execute a municipal agreement with NCDOT to advance $1.2

million for the construction of a realigned portion of Shopton Road West.

23. Amendment #2 with Media Power Advertising, Inc. in the amount of $145,000 for water

quality education campaign media buying services.

25. Set public hearing date for February 9, 2009, on proposed floodplain regulations

revisions.

28. Agreement with Duke Energy in an amount not to exceed $3,000,000 for the relocation

of an existing transmission line in the vicinity of the new Third Parallel Runway, and

adopt Budget Ordinance No. 4097-X in the amount of $3,000,000 from the Airport

Discretionary Fund to be replaced with proceeds of the upcoming General Airport

Revenue Bond issue and proceeds from the Passenger Facility Charge revenues.


January 26, 2009



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30-A. Acquisition of .85 acres at 9056 Walkers Ferry Road from Ansel Jones, Jr. for $95,000

for Airport Master Plan land acquisition.

30-B. Acquisition of 41,300 square feet in fee simple plus 580 square feet in storm drainage

easement plus 46 square feet in utility easement plus 5,753 square feet in temporary

construction easement at 9501 Steele Creek Road from Forrest C. Freeman, Jr. and wife,

Jo Ann Freeman for $357,536 for Dixie River Road Realignment, Parcel #2.

30-C. Acquisition of 4,339 square feet in fee simple plus 706 square feet in temporary

construction easement at 9605 Steele Creek Road from Forrest Freeman, III and wife,

Linda R. Freeman, for $33,449 for Dixie River Road Realignment, Parcel #4.

30-D. Acquisition of 10,312 square feet in fee simple plus 41 square feet in utility easement

plus 1,573 square feet in temporary construction easement at 9601 Steele Creek Road

from Forrest C. Freeman, Jr. and wife, Joe Ann Freeman, for $79,936 for Dixie River

Road Realignment, Parcel #5.

30-E. Acquisition of 4,464 square feet in storm drainage easement plus 97,928 square feet in

conservation easement plus 8,325 square feet in permanent access easement plus 7,888

square feet in temporary construction easement at 5939 Reddman Road from SMV

Charlotte, LLC for $10,000 for Muddy Creek Stream Restoration, Parcel #22.

30-F. Acquisition of 567 square feet in temporary construction easement at South Boulevard at

Sweden Road from Norfolk Southern Railway Company for $31,550 for South

Boulevard Left Turn Lane, Parcel #2.

31. Titles, motions, and votes reflected in the Clerk‟s record as the Minutes of the December

1, 2008, Workshop; December 8, 2008, Business Meeting; and December 15, 2008,

Zoning Meeting.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 13-B: IN REM 1819 ALLEN STREET

Michael Gellar, 1613 Grace St., said I appreciate you taking the time to hear from Villa

Heights Community Organization about one of the houses in our neighborhood – 1819 Allen

Street, which has been a continual problem for our neighborhood since before the conception of

our neighborhood watch back in 2007. The house has been continually left unsecured allowing it

to be used by drug dealers, drug addicts, gang members, prostitutes, and vagrants over these two

years. The property has been an eyesore for our neighborhood for years beyond that. Since then

Villa Heights Neighborhood Watch has placed a petition on this property in January of 2007,

went through the petition process, got it signed off, sent in, there has been little noticeable

change in the property besides removal of the windows almost a year ago. I realize it‟s come

under new management with South Street Funding, which is Bill here, who is going to speak,

and he is supposed to be bringing this property into compliance by the date it is schedule to

demolish, which is 30 days from tonight if you all approve the demo of this property. It would

be nice to have it as another remodeled house in our neighborhood, but after two years of

working on this project, wanting to have this project actively removed from our neighborhood or

this house removed we would rather it brought into compliance in 30 days or knocked down and

have a nice lot there instead of the drug dealers. On that, Villa Heights Community Organization

approves the Code Enforcement‟s recommendation to have this house demolished.

Mayor McCrory said I think I talked to staff earlier. Looks like you are working with them as I

understand.

Councilmember Peacock said you guys both stay up there, if you don‟t mind. We understand

you all are working closely together.

Mr. Gellar said we met about a week ago and talked about the property. This is the first time I

have actually met Bill. We sat down and talked and talked about what my expectations are for

January 26, 2009



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that property, and really it‟s what Code Enforcement‟s expectations are for that property, which

is for it to be brought up to code. We understand his biggest concern is he will put in a lot of

work and a lot of money in the next 30 days, not get it to exactly 90% compliance, and it will be

knocked down. If he gets it to 80, 85% and has the outside taken care of, the property secured,

and it looking decent for our neighborhood, those are the big things. He already, I think, has put

in the authorization to act.

Bill Worsley, 518 South St., Davidson, said we are. He was supposed to have posted it actually

on Friday, and I reminded him today and had not done it, so my apologies on that. Just for the

record, I got a call in December regarding this property. I‟m the lender on it. The reason I‟m

involved in this at this point is the borrower, who I was working with, defaulted on his loan. We

have been in a foreclosure process ever since then, and what has just taken place recently is in

December I got word from the City there were some issues with the neighborhood organization,

and at that point, we were in the process of trying to sell the property. It looked like it was going

to close by the end of the month. The person who was buying the property was aware that there

were issues, and they understood that. Work had to start immediately in January to get that

finished. Well, seller fell through, and at that point, it became my responsibility whether I‟m on

title or not because bottom line is two things. First of all, I have a huge investment monetarily in

this project, but also I have been doing business in this area for five years doing home

renovations in Villa Heights, NoDa, Plaza-Midwood, financing those types of projects, have

never run into an issue like this and don‟t plan to start now. All I‟m asking for at this point, like

you said, I just want assurances. We have already started work. Progress is being made. I don‟t

want to get down the road a month from now and I have this house that is getting ready to be this

beautiful house, and somebody is backing a bulldozer up to it. I don‟t know how we handle that.

Mayor McCrory said if I could get staff up here real quick. My understanding staff is working

with you. Is this the one where you understand they are working real well with us? I don‟t think

he wants to tear it down either, if I recall.

Walter Abernethy, Neighborhood Development, said I talked to Mr. Worsley probably three

weeks ago.

Mr. Worsley said actually you and I talked last Wednesday.

Mr. Abernethy said we talked before then, but still I have spoken with him. I am convinced he

has made progress on the house. They pulled their permits. They have had some inspections

already. We have been almost checking this on a daily basis. I would urge Council to go ahead

and approve the demolition, but I can assure you if progress continues at the pace it is right now

over the next three or four weeks, this house is salvageable.

Mayor McCrory said you will wait three or four weeks.

Mr. Abernethy said our process is just like everybody else on a demo. It takes me, even after

you approve the demo, I have to get asbestos studies, I have to get permitting, I have to do a lot

of the same things that everybody else does to get a house ready for demo.

Mayor McCrory said let me ask you. To save that money even, if we didn‟t approve it tonight,

you feel pretty well you are going to get this done?

Mr. Abernethy said I will defer some those actions, but approving the demolition in history‟s

sake has always been the best tool in terms of making sure the house is brought up to

compliance.

Mayor McCrory said I understand, but you can hold off saving some money getting the permits.

Mr. Abernethy said, yes, sir, I can.

Mayor McCrory said that would be foolish money.

Mr. Abernethy said I‟m convinced Mr. Worsley – he and I did talk, and I know Mr. Gellar. I‟m

convinced that the house will be a nice for the neighborhood and it‟s worth saving.

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Mayor McCrory said there‟s a motion that they want to save this thing, and even if it‟s 80% or

90% you know it‟s being done.

Mr. Abernethy said I‟m confident that he is going to get it where it needs to be.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Kinsey, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]

[ carried unanimously to adopt Ordinance No. 4098-X authorizing the use of In Rem Remedy ]

[ to demolish and remove the structure at 1819 Allen Street (Neighborhood Statistical Area ]

[ 46 – Villa Heights Neighborhood. ]


Mayor McCrory said we are used to those who have not been telling the truth for years.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 15: POLICE JANITORIAL SERVICES

Curt Walton, City Manager, said Councilmember Carter pulled 15, and she asked are we

getting the use of green products, and the answer is, yes, this vendor does use green products,

and the use of those products is part of the evaluation criteria.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Carter, seconded by Councilmember Kinsey, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve a janitorial services contract in the amount of $307,389 ]

[ for an initial term of one year to Brooker Building Services, Inc., and authorize the City ]

[ Manager to approve up to four, one-year renewal options contingent upon the service ]

[ provider‟s satisfactory performance. ]

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 17: IRWIN CREEK WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT, UPGRADES

AND IMPROVEMENTS

ITEM NO. 18: SUGAR CREEK WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT EXPANSION

PROJECT DESIGN SERVICES

Curt Walton, City Manager, said, Mayor, Items 17, 18, and 21 were pulled by Councilmember

Barnes, so I would like Barry Shearin to address those one by one.

Barry Shearin, Utilities, said Items 17 and 18 being somewhat sister projects, I think the

question related to the SBE participation. I think there are two questions. One was the SBE

participation, and one was essentially what we were spending the money for towards the project.

Councilmember Barnes said not quite. I will be happy to restate the question. For Item 17, there

is a $2.8 million contract for professional services for this waste treatment plant, and the Council

approved $561,000 in July 2007 for planning. We are proposing to spend about $3.3 million

before any construction is actually done. That was the first piece – why is that the case? And,

the second piece is regarding the .997 SBE goal negotiated by staff.

Mr. Shearin said that is correct. We will spend $3 million prior to construction for the design

services. The total estimated construction is about $35 million for this project, so that represents

about 10%, thereabouts or a little less than that, which is typically what we see for these plant

renovations for this type of work. So, this is a design fee, that would be correct, but it is for a

very large project.

Councilmember Barnes said the SBE issue.

Mr. Shearin said on that we used the Council-approved procedures. Once we select an engineer

for the design work, we then sit with that selected engineer as we are negotiating fee and scope,

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and we look at what they plan to subcontract, what are the opportunities for subcontracting for

this kind of work, and then once that is established, we look at are there SBEs that are qualified

to do some of those subcontract activities. What we typically found is with this in design it tends

to be very much an in-house process for the firms. There are certain disciplines – surveying,

geotechnical work, and printing – that you can do, and they pull in some of that, but typically on

these phases of work there is minimal opportunity to really subcontract much of any of that

work. It is so technical and site specific to the contract. Once we move the construction

administration phase contract with this engineer, there typically would be a lot more

opportunities there for subcontractors. I guess the answer is they subcontracted what they

thought they could in terms of what the opportunities are. It‟s just the nature of the work. It‟s

very technical and typically kept in-house within those firms.

Councilmember Barnes said it‟s a renovation of an existing facility.

Mr. Shearin said, correct, a renovation of an existing waste treatment plan and the addition of

some additional processes as well.

Councilmember Barnes said we are projecting $35 million for construction and a little under

10% for design. I don‟t understand why that‟s the case. That‟s an awful lot of money to design

something that already exists just to do rehab on it.

Mr. Shearin said it really is an evaluation of what‟s there because a lot of it is 30, 40, 50 years

old, so a lot of design is how do we do major renovation to that facility and keep it operational.

One thing we can‟t do is shut it down obviously, so a lot of the effort is spent evaluating the

equipment, figuring out what needs to be replaced structurally and mechanically, and then

figuring out how do we orchestrate that work while keeping that plant in compliance with its

permit, so that‟s where it takes intensive – it‟s a lot of effort. It‟s almost essentially the effort of

designing a new facility. In some ways it‟s more difficult because at least with a new facility

you are not having to deal with something you are trying to contain and operate as well.

Councilmember Barnes said can any of that be done in-house – the evaluation of old equipment,

etc.?

Mr. Shearin said we participate. We have engineers that are assigned to the process and our

plant staff, so we assist in identifying it, and then what the engineer really does is assesses what

are the options for replacement. Can we reuse what‟s there and rebuild it? Does it have to be

replaced? In a lot of cases, that type of equipment is not manufactured anymore, so what are the

options to replace it with? Yes, we are definitely connected at the hip, but just because of the

sheer volume of work, we‟ll have one or two engineers, and they will have an entire team, and

that‟s what they put together.

Councilmember Barnes said I have the same questions regarding 18. That one is about $7

million for professional services. How much is that facility going to cost for expansion?

Mr. Shearin said construction estimated at right about $110 million. That one is more of an

expansion as if it‟s a new plant. We are building an expansion sort of parallel to the existing

plant, but if you look at percentages, you will notice that one is slightly a little lower percentage

than the other one, but it‟s really because of new facility, and it‟s also, of course, the larger the

facility typically there is economy of scale there as well.

Councilmember Barnes said there the SBE goal is .4%. Is that the same rationale that they

couldn‟t find anybody? Who drove that – the contractor or staff?

Mr. Shearin said typically we drive it. We ask them what they are going to sub. They come to

us once they are selected, and then we look are they planning to sub anything, what are the

opportunities to sub, and then we tend to try to help them identify SBEs that might be qualified

for those subcontract opportunities. For the design phase, usually it stays within those

companies. There are not many items that can be broken out very cleanly that SBEs qualify for.

It‟s a little different from construction. It‟s a little easier in construction to pull things out. Like

I say, when we get to the field work – most of this is done in the office – once we get to the field

work, there is opportunities to bring in additional folks.

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Councilmember Burgess said are we back on 17?

Councilmember Cooksey said I wanted to supplement a question for Councilmember Barnes

because there is a piece of data missing here that I think would be helpful. Do you have in front

of you what the overall percentage of subcontracting opportunity was for each of these two

proposals?

Mr. Shearin said you mean in terms of the goal?

Councilmember Cooksey said you said the process is you identify the contractor, staff sits down,

asks how much you are going to sub out, and then discovers how many SBEs would qualify for

that. We have the total contract number, we have the number that is going to SBEs, what is the

number that is being subbed out?

Mr. Shearin said I do not have that number.

Councilmember Cooksey said I think going forward it might be helpful to have that. I think

we‟ll be talking about this in Restructuring Government as we talk about the SBE program, but

that, I think, is an element that might have been helpful, Mr. Barnes, in analyzing what exactly

the opportunities were that are going to SBEs.

Councilmember Mitchell said let me continue the theme on SBE participation. In this case, how

many SBE firms did we solicit to participate in this project because I‟m personally

uncomfortable with a $2 million project – only $28,000. We have listed only two firms. How

many do we have that are certified with the city?

Alben Burney, Small Business Office, said I‟m not sure how many firms we have. We have

over almost 700 firms certified with the city, but in that area, that specific high level area of

engineering, there are just not that many firms who are certified to do that type of work. One of

the opportunities we have with the SBO program is to go out and recruit more engineering and

technical firms. Unfortunately what we will run into is that a lot of those firms because of their

size may not qualify to be in the SBO program.

Councilmember Mitchell said let me follow up. You said we clearly did not know how many

firms are qualified for this particular work. I feel very uncomfortable then thinking that $28,000

is the best we can do. We hear about the economic stimulus. We can do our own local

economic stimulus if we give our small business more participation opportunity. This is very

disturbing. One, if you tell me there was only seven firms and two were awarded, I will be okay,

but the fact you said we don‟t have a good idea of how many can participate tells me maybe we

should, if we can, put a more strong effort to make sure that we have more SBEs that can

participate in this type of work. Is this time sensitive for this particular project?

Mr. Burney said in terms of short-term changes to move forward with this contract there is some

flexibility. I mean if you were looking at a couple of weeks or 30 days, no, it‟s not sensitive to

that level. If it‟s a long window, yes, at some point, I think we will reach that point.

Councilmember Mitchell said let me follow up because I think then you got the same issue on

18, and 18, to me, is even more of a bad picture -- $6.2 million and then we only have $25,000.

On 18 do we know how many firms we have that can participate? Councilmember Cooksey said

the point was how many can have the ability to do the work. Do we have any idea how many of

those firms we have in our database that can do the work?

Mr. Burney said, again, in the database for that level of work, it‟s going to be a very small

number. Again, that‟s an area of opportunity in our recruiting efforts. We definitely need more

SBEs who can perform that type of engineering and high level work. Again, the problem we

find most of the time is when an SBE applies who does that level of work most of the time they

don‟t meet the requirements. In most cases, they are too big to be in the program.

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Mayor McCrory said he opened up a can of worms there because you are talking about specific

design engineering work. I came from this business for a long time. You are talking about very

detailed design engineering work specific, and the program doesn‟t meet that criteria.

Councilmember Mitchell said, Mayor, the struggle I have though is do we know they actually

exist or are we saying they don‟t exist, and I think staff is saying, one, he don‟t know if they

exist or some might be out of the threshold by SBE program.

Mayor McCrory said I guarantee you if they exist they are worth more than the values that we

put on the SBE program.

Councilmember Mitchell said let me phrase this question differently on both 17 and 18. Can we

increase participation of the two firms that we awarded the contract to?

Mr. Shearin said I don‟t know if we have a specific answer, but I think if there is an increase you

are talking tenths of a percent. Just given the nature of that work and the way this design works

and the way it all fits together, I‟m not aware of how they are going to be able to break out

substantial pieces of it to get even whole percentage points just by the way of the sheer

coordination of design of the entire process.

Councilmember Burgess said can you assure us that Hazen & Sawyer and HDR both made good

faith efforts to seek SBO participants? That‟s what is missing here. Usually when we have these

low numbers, there is a statement that the company made a good faith effort. Can you tell us that

they did, that Hazen & Sawyer and HDR made good faith efforts to find small businesses to

participate?

Mr. Shearin said I don‟t know that I can give you specifics of exactly what they did, but, yes,

when we do the selection process, the SBO program is put in the request for qualification. We

talk about it during the pre-selection, we explain to them how important it is of what they will be

required to do, the program in terms of expectations, and then we do work with them. When I

have looked at them before, the firms do try to solicit anyone they can that fits within those sub

opportunities. Usually the issue ends up being they don‟t subcontract very much at all, and that‟s

what ends up limiting. I guess I don‟t have the specific information to say that, yes, here‟s

exactly what Hazen & Sawyer did or what HDR did. I can‟t answer that question standing here

tonight, but I believe our staff promotes the SBE program pretty strongly, and they would have

pushed them to solicit from as many as they could that fit the subcontract opportunities.

Councilmember Burgess said I want to make sure. You said neither of these were time sensitive,

so if we deferred them for a month you could bring us back that information that they made good

faith effort. Then I think we all would feel better about it.

Councilmember Mitchell said let me follow up with Susan. I think Mayor Pro Tem makes a

good point. What I would like to see also are the firms that we know that are capable of doing

the work so Council will feel comfortable that we have either a low number or we have a good

number of participating firms and help you in recruiting. We heard some of the comments – it

could be a challenge – but I would like to see that data. We are missing that data, and I agree

with you, Mayor Pro Tem, if 30 days will not impact the project, I would like to make a motion

we defer 30 days so you can bring back that data and we‟ll feel comfortable on spending this

type of money and with very little SBE participation.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell and seconded by Councilmember Barnes to ]

[ defer Item Nos. 17 and 18 for 30 days. ]

Mayor McCrory said I only give a warning to all of us on this. First of all, you have to recognize

the high technical work of this which tends not to go out to subcontracting to begin with. If you

know the business, it‟s very technical, very specific. We have done SBE studies in the past

where in our previous MWBE programs there was no issue in this area whatsoever because of

the lack of firms in this area. The second thing I want to say is when you hold off on these areas

you are holding off on some major firms planning for the future, their workforce, and it impacts

the economy. Now is the last time you want to delay getting information to these firms in which

they know they will need future engineers and employers. Now is not the time to delay. I don‟t

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care if it‟s 30 days. There are people out there right now. You are in the business right now.

They are waiting for business right now, and if we are just doing this to kind of get general

information, we are holding off a company from knowing whether or not they are going to do

business and plan for business for just general information. It‟s completely contrary to what we

are trying to do at the federal, state, and local level in getting the economy moving, but you have

that prerogative.

Mr. Burney said, Mr. Mayor, if I may add one more thing just for the sake of clarity. For both of

these professional service contracts, there are no upfront goals for that very reason. The goals

you see here are negotiated goals based on the number of firms that can do this type of work.

Councilmember Cooksey said I would like to offer a substitute motion to go ahead and approve

17 and 18. I think the questions that have been raised are very valid and we can get that

information, but I don‟t know that the information we are going to get is going to be worthy of

holding them up, so I hope I get a second.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Cooksey and seconded by Councilmember Dulin to ]

[ approve Item Nos. 17 and 18. ]

Councilmember Foxx said I have a sort of a different question that relates to this. These are

outlays that are somewhere on the order of $8, $9 million on projects that are much larger in

scope in terms of dollars going out. A few months ago we found ourselves with drought

conditions that caused us to have to raise water rates to support capital projects of which these

both are capital projects. If my question, and this is probably to Doug Bean, sort of asking a

larger question about whether, A) the proposed water rate for this summer is still proposed to

happen, and B) whether there is a way to slow some of our capital projects down to avoid doing

that, and C) if you were able to do that, would either of these projects be material in terms of

helping you do that or not?

Mr. Bean said the drought and looking forward to the projections on growth have been taken into

account with the schedule for these projects. These are both wastewater treatment plants that

will add capacity, and the master plan that we completed several years ago indicated when this

should be completed. We have already delayed that by 12 months, by one year, believing that

we could wait a little bit longer. There is a risk involved in waiting any longer. It will take two

years to do the design and then three years to do the construction at these plants, so we are

looking five years out. We believe to delay any further could put us in jeopardy in any period

between now and then to have to put things in like moratoriums and not be able to have

wastewater treatment capacity.

What we would do is complete the design, and in two years again re-evaluate to see if drought or

other conditions would allow us to delay that any further. The rate in the model we had last year

was sufficient to cover these expenses. The actual debt service on these two contracts would be

less than $100,000 a year, so it wouldn‟t make a material difference in our total budget in the

coming year. The construction, however, when you are talking about $150 million worth of

construction would have a significant impact, and we would not make that decision to pull the

trigger on bidding until two years from now when we would be able to evaluate the economy,

usage, and those sorts of things.

Councilmember Foxx said I still haven‟t heard you answer the question about the water rate

increase proposed for this year. Are we still anticipating having to raise water rates on the

citizens of our community or not?

Mr. Bean said the model we had last year showed there would be another water rate increase this

year and in future years to pay for the capital improvements you are talking about now and ones

you have already approved in the past 12, 24 months that, yes, the projections are that there

would need to be an increase to pay for those.

Councilmember Foxx said I just need more information on that because it seems to me that

government, as the Mayor has pointed out, does help support job creation and job retention, and

these are obviously services that are needed, but on the other hand, that money to pay for those

things has to come from someplace. I think there is a larger question here as to whether we

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ought to be trying to slow down some of our capital investment, so I would like you to deal with

that question if, in fact, this issue is deferred is to give us some information on that.

Mr. Bean said we can do that.

Mayor McCrory said let me clarify my point. If I‟m not just doing this for the sake of

government to create jobs, what I‟m doing is if we need the water/sewer plant and we know it

needs to be built, build it, and don‟t delay it for reasons that are just delaying it for 30 days. If

you want to re-evaluate whether we need to build the plant at all, I think that is a fair question to

ask, Anthony. I think that is fair, but if you are just delaying it to get some general information

for 30 days, which I think the facts we are hearing are about the contractors. You have

companies out there right now that are waiting on these contracts because they are making

employment decisions on how many engineers to keep right now because there isn‟t a lot of

business, and I‟m not doing that because government is doing it. I‟m doing it because it‟s an

infrastructure project. Let‟s go ahead and vote.

Councilmember Burgess said I have a question for Mr. Bean. In your experience with working

contracts, in your opinion, did both of these companies exhibit good faith efforts to find

subcontractors that were small businesses?

Mr. Bean said I‟m confident that our staff worked with them to try to identify all of those

opportunities that they had. I can‟t speak to how diligent each of those were, but what I can say

is that in engineering contracts like this there are very few opportunities for subcontracting.

They will be self-performing the great majority. When we get to the construction phase, that‟s a

whole different situation. There are lots of subcontracting opportunities, and that‟s where we

require the good faith effort in all of those other requirements, but in professional services for

something like the design of a wastewater treatment plant where you need engineering seals and

all those sorts of things, it‟s very difficult to find many subcontracting opportunities.

Councilmember Burgess said that‟s exactly why I would think good faith efforts were made, but

usually we see that in our write-up, and today we don‟t.

Mr. Bean said usually that would be because it would be a construction contract where that is

required, and it is spelled out what a good faith effort is. This is a little different since it is an

engineering contract and it‟s negotiated, so that‟s the reason it‟s not included in this agenda.

Mayor McCrory said very similar to legal contracts that we do.

Councilmember Barnes said I just want to make a point. First of all, I didn‟t expect that these

two items would take this long. Much to my surprise, they have. It is not in my desire or interest

to try to prevent these two businesses from getting work. The issue is whether there are other

small businesses in this community that should and could benefit from participation in the

contracts, so what I have heard from staff is that it sounds like you all don‟t believe that there are

many other SBE opportunities for these particular contracts, and I believe the Mayor Pro Tem‟s

question and motion was to ask you to explore that further for 30 days, which I do support. I

imagine that – in fact, I know there are a lot of businesses that are somewhat on the edge right

now. Are these local companies?

Mr. Bean said they both have significant local offices.

Councilmember Barnes said because of us, but are they headquartered in Charlotte?

Mr. Bean said, no, their headquarters are not in Charlotte. They both are large engineering firms.

Their home office is not here.

Councilmember Barnes said I do support the deferral because this is such a crucial issue I think

we should find out if there are additional opportunities.

Councilmember Cooksey said I just want to make one quick point on going forward with

approval and not deferral. We have heard these two contracts are not critical in a 30-day short

term but are more critical beyond a 30-day time period, so here‟s our choice. Either they are

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fine, and we will find out they were fine in 30 days, or we are going to have some question about

it in 30 days. Either way in 30 days we are going to be told these are critical to pass now

because 30 days is about the furthest window I heard these could be done. I think we are setting

ourselves up for a mess either way if we try to second-guess our staff on this subject and say, oh,

let‟s wait and hear more about it. I think procedurally we will be dealing with some of these

issues about the application of SBO to professional services contracts in the Restructuring

Government Committee, but for these two, I don‟t think a delay is going to make any difference,

which is why I offered a substitute to go forward with them now.

Mayor McCrory said a substitute motion is to approve the contracts.

The vote was taken on the motion to approve the contracts and recorded as follows:

AYES: Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Kinsey, Peacock

NAYS: Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Foxx, Mitchell, Turner

Mayor McCrory said that‟s four. That fails. We‟ll delay it. Let‟s go ahead and have the

substitute motion. The second motion is to delay it for 30 days.

The vote was taken on the motion to delay Item Nos. 17 & 18 for 30 days and recorded as

follows:

AYES: Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Foxx, Mitchell, Turner

NAYS: Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Kinsey, Peacock

Mayor McCrory said we have a 5-5 tie because John is not here either.

Councilmember Mitchell said is Nancy here or –

Councilmember Kinsey said she is just back getting coffee.

Councilmember Foxx said point of order. Mac, in the absence of a person‟s presence who

started the meeting here, isn‟t there a rule about which way they vote?

DeWitt McCarley, City Attorney, said my understanding is you all excused Mr. Lassiter when

he left; is that correct?

Mayor McCrory said I asked that he be allowed to leave.

Mr. McCarley said in that case he is not counted.

Mayor McCrory said we‟ll count Nancy Carter‟s vote as a yes. That passes to delay. Some of

those big engineering firms are about to become small engineering firms and might meet the

small business requirements if we continue to do this.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 21: REEDY CREEK PUMP STATION

Councilmember Barnes said that was a question regarding the amount of money we spent on

planning and design.

Barry Shearin, Utilities, said the background on that one. This pump station you are approving

is one piece of about an eight-phase project to provide water and sewer in that whole Reedy-

McKee. The reason I gave you that background is the engineering and design we spent $6.5

million. That is a total estimated construction of almost $80 million. I don‟t have it for this

particular piece of it because we have broken it into parts.

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Councilmember Barnes said that one connected to 17 and 18, but I believe you have answered it,

so I‟m okay. I think there‟s a speaker on that as well.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said I think they withdrew.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes, seconded by Councilmember Cooksey, and ]

[ carried unanimously to reject the low bid from Haren Construction Company for failure to ]

[ comply with the Small Business Program Policy, and award the construction contract for ]

[ Reedy Creek Pump Station to Hickory Construction for $8,063,023.50. ]

Mayor McCrory said let me go back to that previous vote real quick. What were the five votes

or the six votes in delaying the thing? Raise your hand, please. I just want to make sure we got

that.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 24: GRANT APPLICATIONS FOR WILORA LAKE AND IVEY POND

REHABILITATION AND CMS-SOUTHPARK WATERSHED ENHANCEMENT

PROJECTS

Curt Walton, City Manager, said you just need to call for a vote on that one.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess and seconded by Councilmember Barnes to ]

[ A) approve an application for grant funding in an amount not to exceed $600,000 from the ]

[ North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF) for construction of the ]

[ Wilora Lake pond rehabilitation; B) approve an application for grant funding in an amount ]

[ not to exceed $190,000 from CWMTF for the construction of the Ivey Pond rehabilitation; ]

[ C) approve an application for grant funding in an amount not to exceed $250,000 from ]

[ CWMTF for planning and design of the CMS-SouthPark Watershed Enhancement Project, ]

[ and D) adopt Budget Ordinance No. 4099-X appropriating up to $1,040,000 in grant funds ]

[ to provide approximately 50% of the total estimated funding required to complete design ]

[ and construction for these projects. ]

The vote was taken on the motion and recorded as follows:

AYES: Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell, Peacock,

Turner

NAYS: Councilmember Dulin


* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 26: MOBILE SOURCE EMISSIONS REDUCTION GRANT

Curt Walton, City Manager, said Councilmember Barnes pulled that. The first question is

would it be better to lease than to purchase? We don‟t have the option to lease. We have to

purchase as part of the grant. The second part is how will we measure success? We believe the

miles per gallon is twice what diesel is; that there are lower maintenance costs, and there is 47%

less pollution. This will allow us to test these two trucks, which would be part of our regular

fleet.

Councilmember Barnes said I actually think it‟s an exciting opportunity. I want to know actually

how we can expand it throughout the fleet. What I just said is a positive response to your

answers to my original questions.

City Manager Walton said I think this will allow us to test the reliability of the two, and we

might very well expand from there.

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Councilmember Barnes said I think the costs of these trucks is slightly higher than the costs of a

diesel operated vehicle, but it could be a fantastic way for us to reduce our carbon footprint and

have a good impact on the environment, so I move to approve A and B.

City Manager Walton said the cost of the diesel trucks is going to increase because of federal

regulations.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]

[ carried unanimously to A) approve a grant application to NCDENR for $133,500 that ]

[ requires City matching funds of $400,500 combined to purchase two natural gas fueled ]

[ trucks for use in a demonstration project to assess the feasibility of using these near-zero ]

[ emissions alternative fuel trucks to replace the existing diesel refuse truck fleet, and B) ]

[ adopt Budget Ordinance No. 4100-X appropriating $133,500 from NCDENR to purchase ]

[ two natural gas refuse trucks. ]


* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 27: AIRPORT FIRE STATION DESIGN

Curt Walton, City Manager, said Councilmember Carter asked if we factored in green features.

We do what we can within the existing budget line. The Environment Committee currently has a

more over-arching policy discussion about green buildings for City-owned buildings, so we are

operating within existing policy now as far as we can go, and then there is that over-arching

policy that will be coming back later.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Carter, seconded by Councilmember Barnes, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve a contract with Stewart Cooper Newell Architects in the ]

[ amount of $388,249.50 for design, architectural, and engineering services for a new fire ]

[ station at the Airport, and adopt Budget Ordinance No. 4101-X appropriating $420,000 ]

[ in funds from a National Guard Bureau Agreement for the design of the fire station. ]


* * * * * * * *

Mayor McCrory said I have got to say this. I know we are bringing it up later, but I like

questions on green and everything, but the definition is so broad right now. I went to a meeting

in Washington last week, and they had a presenter in green schools, and I‟m an advocate of

green schools, but they said – the woman who was giving the presentation said we need another

$30 billion for green schools from the stimulus package as though $30 billion is nothing. They

said because it lowers kids‟ cavities and increases test scores and it makes kids grow an inch.

We are going too far. Let‟s be careful how we define this whole thing, and no one raised a

question.

Councilmember Dulin said be all right with it if it got kids in school every day.

* * * * * * * *

PUBLIC HEARING

ITEM NO. 5: PUBLIC HEARING ON STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

NEIGHBORHOOD STABILIZATION PROGRAM APPLICATION

The scheduled public hearing was held on the subject item.

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[ There being no speakers either for or against a motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell, ]

[ seconded by Councilmember Peacock, and carried unanimously to close the public hearing. ]

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Burgess and seconded by Councilmember Barnes to ]

[ conduct a public hearing to receive comments regarding the submission of an application for ]

[ a Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) grant from the State of North Carolina Depart- ]

[ ment of Commerce, and reauthorize submission of a State application for Neighborhood ]

[ Stabilization Program funding of $5,250,000. ]

Councilmember Burgess said I have a question, just a minor point on Page 6 to answer the

question what percentage of units are jobs made available to serve households. The percentage

was never put in that answer, so that is a raw number but not a percentage. Then the other

question had to do with the inclusion of Barrington/Sunset, and I can get my answer off-line, but

that one did look a little different. We have already discussed this. This is just the hearing and

basically submit it to the State to make us eligible for $5.25 million, which will be great.

Mayor McCrory said I will be curious where the State is getting this money because the State has

a $2 billion deficit where they just asked the Federal government for $1 billion. So it will be

curious if this money will exist even with the application.

Councilmember Cooksey said, Mayor, you read my mind. I just wanted to check. Am I

understanding correctly that the money we are asking for is money that was authorized and

basically already submitted as of July 2008.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said, yes, sir.

Councilmember Cooksey said this is money that has already been sent. We are just asking for

our part of it. Otherwise, I would be voting no in a heartbeat.

The vote was taken on the motion and recorded as unanimous.

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 6: CITIZEN COMMENT ON ARROWOOD TRANSIT STATION AREA

PLAN

Councilmember Foxx said thank you members of the committee including Councilmember

Turner, the vice chair, Mr. Barnes, Ms. Burgess, and Ms. Carter. This is the Arrowood Transit

Station Area Plan. It‟s one in a line of station area plans that we have had come through the

Transportation Committee. For those who are watching on television, this is the fifth in a series

of station area plans along the LYNX Blue Line south of South End to I-85. Two public

meetings have been held to this point – one on September 18th

with 72 people attending and

October 16th with 39 people attending. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission has

also received comments on this plan, and the City Council Transportation Committee has also

received a presentation on this plan. We have had some preliminary discussion about it, but the

purpose of tonight‟s hearing is to receive comment from the community directly to the Council.

What will happen from there is that the hearing will be closed, and it will be moved to the

Transportation Committee for further work, and then it will come back to the Council at a future

date. That is kind of how the process works. I think Mr. Gonzalez has a presentation on the

station area plan, which I think will inform some of the comments we expect to have from the

public.

Alberto Gonzalez, Planning, said the Arrowood Transit Station Area Plan is the 13th

station in

the south corridor of the LYNX Blue Line. It is actually the fifth plan we brought to you this

year starting with the New Bern, which was adopted by Council in July, and Tyvola/Archdale

Plan, which was adopted recently in November. Again, the Arrowood Station Area due to the

existing zoning in the area, mainly single family residential on the east side with the Starmount

neighborhood, and more commercial, industrial existing zoning on the west side along the transit

station.

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Some of the opportunities and constraints we looked at in this plan – existing opportunities, the

visibility of the station, right along South Boulevard. You see it right when you drive down

South Boulevard, very prominent. There is an existing redevelopment project happening next to

the Park and Ride lot, but also some constraints. Yes, the station is visible, but it‟s hard to get to.

You have the freight line between South Boulevard and the station. It‟s a difficult pedestrian

environment. It‟s really not conducive for pedestrians. There is a lack of open space. There is

also lack of east-west mobility in the area, and there are some new industrial developments,

which are very important in our economy, along the transit station. Those are the constraints we

are working with.

The basic vision for the area, basically for the Arrowood Plan Area to become one of a series of

vibrant, high-density nodes along the south corridor with a station area within a half mile of the

station, being that urban, pedestrian-oriented village, the general corridor area along the west

side of the station, and very important the preservation of the single family neighborhood on the

east side. It is an existing very well maintained area on the east side of the station in walking

distance from the station.

The land use recommendations for the area, again, the purple area you see there is the TOD.

That is the recommendation for TOD development, which you have heard a lot this evening,

within a half mile of the transit station, single family neighborhood, preservation of the single

family neighborhood on the east side, some moderate city residential along the line, along the

edge there with the neighborhood and the TOD on the west side.

One of the proposals in the plan is for the pedestrian connection over the freight line on South

Boulevard. That is the existing pedestrian bridge right now at the Sharon Lakes station. This

was well received in the community when we presented this. Again, this is a recommendation in

the plan. What we heard from the neighborhood – again, we had the two meetings, one in

September, one in October. We had an on-line survey opportunity. At the meetings, we did hear

a lot of concern about the connections into the neighborhood. That was really the main concerns

we heard. What we tried to do with the concerns that we heard from the community, again, we

looked at the street connections. Connectivity is important. We did add language in the

proposed revision to the plan that they should be indirect, that the connection is in an indirect

manner connecting the neighborhood to new development that would happen when and if that

happens. Again, these road connections are conceptual in nature. They would only happen

when redevelopment happens along South Boulevard, and it would be connecting similar uses in

the sense of mixed-use developments to allow for the neighborhood to access those services

along South Boulevard. These are not road connections that would be going in to how it is now.

We understand that there are a lot of concerns about how South Boulevard is now, and that‟s

why the proposal is for the TOD development, for the connections to only be put in when those

developments come in on a case-by-case basis. The next steps, like Councilmember Foxx said,

we are here tonight for the public hearing. We will be going back to the Transportation

Committee, and hopefully back here for Council adoption.

Councilmember Burgess said you each have two minutes.

Greg Wood, 6919 Thorncliff Dr., said I‟m the zoning chair for the Starmount Neighborhood

Association. We are a voluntary organization of roughly 150 households representing what is

actually a neighborhood of almost 1,400 households. There is a lot in this plan we like, a lot we

think will benefit us in the long term. We are, however, as Alberto alluded to, somewhat

concerned by the call for at least five new entrances into our neighborhood – four being from

South Boulevard and one being from Sharon Lakes Drive. Especially concerned about the one

from Sharon Lakes Drive since we anticipate that would create quite a traffic cut-through from

Sharon Lakes Drive to South Boulevard. We contacted our members to get their input about

their thoughts on this plan. We conducted an on-line survey of our 150 members. Roughly 100

members, actually exactly 100 members responded to the survey, took our survey, and

overwhelmingly they are opposed to creating any new entrances into the Starmount

neighborhood. I have provided a copy of that survey to Alberto and will be happy to provide

that to members of the Council or the Zoning Committee if you would like to review that. In

addition to the survey we conducted, we did, in fact, have an annual meeting about two weeks

ago. Overwhelmingly, in fact, I don‟t remember anybody being in favor of creating new

entrances into the Starmount neighborhood. Overwhelming members are concerned about the

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increased traffic, the cut-through traffic to South Boulevard given how much traffic that already

carries on a daily basis -- also concerned about opening the neighborhood to additional crime.

While Alberto has suggested that these neighborhoods we put in as the area evolves hopefully

will reduce crime in the area. As of right now, Starmount is sort of an oasis in what is an

otherwise sketchy part of town, and we do worry that any opening up of connections from our

neighborhood to South Boulevard and Sharon Lakes Drive will only increase crime in our

neighborhood. We do ask before this plan is adopted that a revision is made to eliminate these

potential entrances to our neighborhood, but other than these road issues, entrances into our

neighborhood, we are otherwise optimistic about the plan.

Jason Hooven, 7124 Rockledge Dr., said I have been a resident of Starmount for five years,

been in Charlotte my whole life, also a police officer, so crime comes natural to me, at least

knowing about crime, so that is what I‟m here to talk about. The handout that I gave you, the

front page is not the revised copy; it‟s the older mapping system of what we are going to do. The

street connections that he was talking about that were circled by Gonzalez. If you turn to the

second and third page, the highlighted section in blue is our neighborhood. If you look down

South Boulevard and Sharon Lakes at the bottom part, you see all the crime that is down there

already. It‟s pretty speckled, and this is all reported incidents. As you can see, this is what they

have as reported incidents. If you go over to the last page, the all Part 1 offenses, which are

violent crimes and property crimes, they are homicide, rape, residential and commercial

robberies, aggravated assault, and property crimes, berg 3‟s and auto thefts. If you look also

once again down South Boulevard and on Sharon Lakes, it is just speckled with dots, and the

dots are anywhere from one to two crimes, three to four, five to nine, and there are already a

couple of ten plus. I just am opposed to these street connections. I‟m afraid that it is going to

seep into our neighborhood and cause more crime that we don‟t have as you can see, and this is

over a one-year span. It‟s pretty dead in our neighborhood with all these crimes compared to

where South Boulevard is. It would just be nice not to have it. I enjoy the stable neighborhood.

I moved there because I was part of a threatened neighborhood program through the Charlotte-

Mecklenburg Police Department where they give me a take-home car, and I get to sit in the

neighborhood, and they help us out, and I‟m happy to be there. I don‟t plan on moving any time

soon, but if this goes into effect, I would not be as happy being there. I really like my

neighborhood.

Mary Boyd, 2724 Huntingtowne Farms Ln., said I‟m a resident of Huntingtowne Farms, and I

serve as government liaison for our neighborhood association, and I am also a former resident of

Starmount where I lived when I first moved to Charlotte. Love the LYNX line, appreciate the

efforts for the good planning around the station, but I am speaking tonight in support of the

position of the Starmount Neighborhood Association, which is concerned about the additional

connectivity issues that are proposed as a part of the plan. Specifically, we are concerned about

the proposals to increase connectivity within Starmount. First, it‟s already very easy for

Starmount residents to access the Arrowood light rail station, and we are not sure why there

would be a need to spend money to increase that connectivity when an access really doesn‟t

exist. Second, I was delighted to hear and hear it confirmed that the police officer that does

reside in Starmount and possibly there are other ones as well are opposed to increasing access

from South Boulevard where much of the crime in that area originates. Finally, the reason that

Huntingtowne Farm residents are opposed to the connectivity issues is our natural Pavlovian

response that we have whenever we hear the word connectivity. In transportation speak, that

means the possibility of a vehicular bridge between Starmount and Huntingtowne Farms. We

have had to fight this issue at various times for more than 30 years, and I can assure you we will

continue to do that. This is not situation of the Hatfields versus the McCoys, one being in

Starmount and one being in Huntingtowne Farms. We all love each other, and we have easy

access through an existing footbridge there. So, in conclusion, we are content with that existing

footbridge, and I am here as a preemptive strike against the possibility of a vehicular bridge.

Councilmember Dulin said I want to make a point. I represent both Huntingtowne Farms and

Mary Boyd and the Starmount neighborhood, and I‟m glad to do it. I really appreciate you

letting me serve you all and be with you on these journeys. Huntingtowne Farms and Starmount

is just divided by the creek, and there is a great greenway down there, parking. We have made

some real headway on both sides. While we had a second, I wanted to say hello to y‟all and tell

you how much I appreciate you coming down, and Jason, too, man. Go blue.

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Gail Thomas, 1508 Larkfield Ln., said I‟m going to read my comments, so I stay within the

time frame and respect your time. I believe that the most influential and positive action the City

of Charlotte has taken to improve air quality for its citizens has been the development of the light

rail system. The goal and intent of the system to keep citizens out of their personal vehicles by

utilizing non-polluting mass transit system demonstrates environmental responsibility and

concern for public health. I have been a resident of the Starmount community for 21 years. I am

the senior environmental specialist for Mecklenburg Land Use and Environmental Services

agency, and actually changed jobs so that I could ride the light rail and walk to the station every

day increasing my environmental footprint. I‟m 60, and I walk a half a mile two and from

Arrowood Station. I share this chronological information to say I‟m an average citizen and

demonstrate my support for the light rail goals with my feet. I understand the current goal is to

create better access to light rail. This is an admirable goal. I believe this goal can be met

through several means without the creation of additional roads, which encourage the use of

individually owned motorized vehicles. Safe pedestrian and bike access to the light rail can be

vastly improved at far less expense than building roads. I have a few suggestions for improving

access without creating negative environmental and social impact on our communities. A no-

cost option is to increase the pedestrian crossing timer at the South Boulevard-Arrowood

crossing to more than the current four seconds allotted – seriously – allotted for pedestrians, baby

strollers, wheelchairs, and bicycles to cross five lanes of South Boulevard. Pedestrian safety and

visibility on the block long pedestrian ramp can be increased. Individual safety during nighttime

hours was not given adequate consideration during the planning and placement of this ramp

deterring pedestrian participation at night. If you want to build, build more sidewalks and bike

paths alongside the current roads. In closing, I ask that City Council require not only cost benefit

analysis including a survey addressing any anticipated LYNX increased ridership of the

proposed road project but also to study the environmental and social impact of road building

proposal.

Logan Bingham, 7540 Wister Pl., said I have lived in Starmount for three years. I bought my

first home there. It‟s a wonderful community, starter community, but at the same time, you have

had examples tonight of people who have lived there almost their entire life. I work uptown at

the moment. I have taken the bus. I take the No. 12 bus from South Boulevard into uptown

every day. I prayed they would hurry up and finish the light rail. The light rail is wonderful. I

love it. It‟s a little over-packed at times, but that‟s actually serving its purpose. I have access to

it now. I live on Wister Place, the very bottom of the neighborhood, but I have plenty of access

to the light rail as it stands now. I don‟t understand how increasing the roads to move traffic

around the light at South Boulevard and Sharon Lakes is actually going to increase access to the

light rail for transit by pedestrian use. Specifically I have three children under the age of four,

and I don‟t particularly like the fact that there were – pointing back to the crime – it‟s been

rehashed, but there were four non-aggravated assaults, four vandalisms, two armed robberies,

two larcenies from auto, and I don‟t particularly want those criminals having road access into my

neighborhood. It‟s a nice quiet community. That‟s one of the reasons why I chose it. I

understand the need for redevelopment. I would love for all those car lots to go away and see

some new, vibrant energy come in. We have seen some of that development happen a little

further north on South Boulevard, so I‟m glad to see it come south, but I don‟t really understand

the need to increase roads so that cars can drive either through our neighborhood because our

neighborhood, as the second speaker pointed out, does not connect over the creek to Park Road

on the other side, and there is already access from South Boulevard and Sharon Lakes to South

Boulevard, so I don‟t understand why there would be a need to increase roads because it doesn‟t

give you access to anywhere. Also if you could remember what Mr. Turner said earlier tonight

that one size plan does not fit all.

Lib Shildt, 1709 Starbrook Dr., said I have been a resident of Starmount for 47 years, and I‟m

going to stay there another ten years until you have to cart me out. It has been a wonderful

experience. When my husband and I bought it in 1962, I remember sitting on the floor waiting

for our furniture to come, and I turned around and looked at my husband and said, “Are we going

to be able to afford $99.50 a month?” I don‟t want our houses to go down. I want to go out feet

first, whatever, and keep Starmount the way that it is. Let the children still ride their bikes and

skateboard, and mothers push the carriages around. The older folks, their walks in the morning

and at night, I feel safe. I‟m by myself and have been for 11 years. Forgot the lock the front

door, and the cat came in, and I slept all night with the door open this far. I implore you keep

Starmount the way it is. Do not cut those streets through. You don‟t need them. I love the light

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rail line. It‟s been wonderful. Please keep in mind. Don‟t change the neighborhood, don‟t cut

up those streets. We get there just fine and so does Huntingtowne Farms, and you have me to

thank for the bridge. I did that in Huntingtowne Farms because our kids were shimming across

this big pipe. I went down there one day and saw my son, and he is just tripping along and

baseball bat on one arm and glove in the other, and walking across. Huh-uh. Huntingtowne

Farms wouldn‟t let me build a road to them, so we did the bridge. There is so much good things

going on in Starmount.

Dhijana Scott-Harmony, 2036 Edgewater Dr., said I, too, have lived in Starmount a very long

time – 30 years – raised my children there. I live about a mile from the light rail, and I‟m on the

eastern most edge of Starmount, almost to the creek. It‟s an easy walk. We don‟t need roads.

I‟m also the vice president of the neighborhood association and have been very interested in

seeing that other people feel the same way – that I‟m not alone in this. I stay in that

neighborhood because of the large lots, the mature forests, which have a lot of accompanying

wildlife. I have a backyard wildlife habitat in fact. The homes are solidly built, and they have

aged very well. I have, in fact, bought the same three times over those 30 years. I appreciate the

diversity of our population both in race and nationality as well as socioeconomics and age. Ours

is a stable neighborhood with low turnover in population. I have even noticed over the years that

the younger members of old Starmount families return to our neighborhood to raise their families

near where they grew up. That‟s an important thing for me. We are low in crime with the few

crimes that we have mostly nuisance type crimes. We have few traffic issues, and our air is

clean and breathable. Unlike most of Charlotte, we can breathe where we are. We have huge

trees. We like it like that. Opening our neighborhood to cut-through traffic as proposed in the

Arrowood Transit Plan can do nothing but make our lives more unpleasant as crime and

automobile traffic increase. We see no benefits for us, only losses. Please consider our needs as

you make your decisions about cutting new roads into our neighborhood. As my grandmother

always said, “If it ain‟t broke, don‟t fix it.”

Dianna May, 6400 Candlewood Dr.¸ said I have owned two homes in Starmount and lived

there for almost six years. I am opposed to only one part of this transit plan, and that is why I‟m

speaking here tonight. I think that potentially adding up to six new entrances into the Starmount

neighborhood, five new streets directly off South Boulevard and one off Sharon Lakes Road is a

bad idea for many reasons. Currently there are 11 entrances into our neighborhood – six off

Archdale Drive and five off South Boulevard. The plans additional streets would bring the total

number of entrances into our neighborhood to 17 – 10 of those streets being on South Boulevard

in the span of a mile and a half. It seems a little excessive. I live at the north end of the

neighborhood, and I have lived on Rosecrest, which is a cut-through street off Archdale as well

as Candlewood, so I have seen firsthand the negative effects of these cut-through streets.

Specifically, my yard has been driven through so many times I have stopped counting. I have

had my cars vandalized, and I have had my personal property damaged because of the speeders

cutting through the neighborhood off South Boulevard to get to Grand Oaks apartments via

Wicker and Wisteria and vice versa. I have watched a carful of non-Starmount residents cruising

through our neighborhood, go through a stop sign, and crash their car into the front of my

neighbor‟s home. I also watched the driver run away to avoid being caught. I constantly see

speeding cars going through stop signs, and I see drivers ignoring the no left-turn signs when

entering and exiting our neighborhood from South Boulevard especially on Wicker and

Edgewater. My home on Rosecrest was burglarized a few years ago, and while the culprit was

not found, I believe the crime was committed by someone who had easy access to my home and

neighborhood due to our proximity off South Boulevard. We have enough problems with the

cut-through traffic we already have, and we actually need to close some of the existing entrances

like Wisteria and Wicker. We don‟t need more entrances that will create more problems like the

one I just described. In short, the proposed new entrances and streets connecting our

neighborhood to Sharon Lakes I think will increase Starmount‟s traffic and traffic-related

problems by creating more neighborhoods with cut-throughs.

George White, 2030 Edgewater Dr., said he is a 28-year resident of Starmount and a

construction professional for 40 years, a professional engineer for 32 years. I currently sit on the

joint AGC-NCDOT Bridge Design Subcommittee. I am heavily involved in the redesign of I-85

from Sugar Creek to Speedway Boulevard. I‟m here to speak against these connection roads. If

it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and has feathers, it‟s probably a duck.

This program proposal for roads has feathers but it barks.

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Henry Gordon, 7116 Sherbourne Dr., said as a Starmount homeowner for four years living on

Sherbourne Drive I‟m speaking in favor of the connecting streets and pedestrian bridge portion

of the Arrowood Station Transit Plan. I love this neighborhood, and like others, I want it to

prosper and improve, and I wish to thank the long-time residents and others who helped it

continue to be a nice place to live as was stated so well previously, however, I am against

designing for isolation as a crime preventing measure. A free and vital civic life requires a free

and vital civic realm based on open access to fully public spaces in neighborhoods and cities.

My wife drives one and a half miles to the transit station when if connectivity was better she

could bike or walk. Now that we have the chance to guide some connectivity in conjunction

with transit-oriented development, we should take advantage of it and the natural surveillance

that increased connectivity would give us. In short, planning for transit-oriented development

without any real connectivity does Starmount neighborhood little good at all and keeps us in the

car culture physically and psychologically and may even foster some of the problems that some

who object to this connectivity are foreseeing.

Councilmember Burgess said Starmount is a great neighborhood, and you can see why with so

much neighborhood participation and supporting each other. I am surprised at what I did not

hear tonight and something that I felt very strongly about when we discussed this in our

Transportation Committee, and that is the critical importance of the pedestrian bicycle bridge

across South Boulevard and the railroad to get to the light rail station. Even though I didn‟t hear

it, I‟m assuming that your neighborhood feels strongly about that as well. What I‟m hoping we

can find a way to do is to pay for that bridge somehow with construction money in SCIP or

something other than having to depend on a private partner to build it as a condition of

developing their development because we don‟t know when that is going to happen, but we do

know that we have a very unsafe situation trying to get pedestrians across South Boulevard and

the railroad track. I would like to continue working on that aspect of this plan and make it not an

add-on but a basic part of the plan.

Councilmember Dulin said to go off of that we can have that five-second window to rush across

South Boulevard looked at pretty quick. I mean that‟s easy for us to go do and tinker with that a

little bit if it‟s that short. That doesn‟t give anybody enough time to get across all that traffic.

DOT can look at that very quickly.

Councilmember Foxx said I want to thank all of the folks from the Starmount community and

Huntingtowne Farms for coming out tonight. I would ask that the staff take these comments and

do a side-by-side for us with the comments and the staff response in anticipation of our

Transportation Committee meeting as well as in anticipation of it coming back to Council. I

think the comments were very well taken, and I appreciate you coming.

Mayor McCrory said I would also like to thank you all for your patience tonight for coming. Let

me express the issue here, which no one is wanting to address. I will be frank with you. We all

agree with what Susan said and what others said about the light and wanting pedestrian bridges.

There is no disagreement here. This is the dilemma. The good news for many of you who don‟t

want the road connection is I don‟t know where we will get the money for it in my lifetime

anyway because right now we are underfunded, but I do want to stress to you, and I know some

of you in this audience consider yourselves environmentalists and so do these at the dais

including myself, but the question was asked why connectivity. It‟s because of the environment

because as long as you funnel all traffic onto one or two roads to get to one destination, be it

South Boulevard, which means Sharon Road or Archdale, I believe, are the two major

thoroughfares, you are increasing pollution. I‟m telling you that right now. Every expert will

tell you that, and the reason you have a grid system of roads, and you were here during the

zoning, is because you disburse congestion and backups in traffic and traffic lights, and that is

where pollution comes from. When everyone is going out to Archdale or Sharon or Park Road

and waiting to take the left-hand turn and then you demand a stop light to take that left-hand

turn, we are causing more congestion, we are causing more accidents, and we are causing more

pollution.

In the neighborhoods that were built in the 1920s; i.e, Elizabeth, Plaza-Midwood, Wilmore,

Myers Park, there is connectivity 20 ways to get out of the neighborhood. It was the

neighborhoods such as Starmount, which I believe was built in the „50s and „60s probably –

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early „60s. It‟s a great neighborhood, by the way, and I‟m glad to hear light rail has benefited

Starmount because there were concerns from Starmount neighborhood when we originally

proposed light rail, we actually heard from some members of Starmount and other

neighborhoods, “Don‟t do it. It‟s going to be bad for the neighborhood.” I understand that

because the logic was it is going to bring bad people in, but, in fact, it has helped Starmount

neighborhood. It has increased the value of your property since the line has been built. Now in

the last week or two, God knows if anything has increased, but I do want to stress that.

The question was specifically asked does it make sense to have a grid system of roads, and I‟m

telling you the designers of the 1920s got it. Yes, it does. Since 1950 through the year 2000, we

did not build a grid system of roads in Charlotte, North Carolina, and as a result, we have

deadlock. We can widen Park Road and Archdale and Sharon another one lane or two lanes in

our lifetime and in the next five generations, and it won‟t make a bit of difference. How much is

Park Road now – six lanes across with the center lane. There is no more room to widen it unless

you want us to tear down all the houses along Park Road, and it‟s because we are pouring all the

traffic including the local traffic from your neighborhood and others – they have to get out at

Park Road. That is why there is so much traffic on Park Road. It‟s because it‟s handling both

thoroughfare traffic and it‟s handling local traffic. By the way, the same thing with South

Boulevard. Park Road, Archdale, Sharon, we have gridlock and parts of South Boulevard.

Now, part of what we did on South Boulevard, for some history, the City took over from the

State parts of South Boulevard. We made it better design. In fact, that‟s one of the things we did

with the transit line. Most people don‟t realize is the City took over South Boulevard for a

considerable amount of money. You know how we divided it and so forth. That was what the

City did with your money, and that has helped the traffic congestion also, and that was all part of

our transit plan. It wasn‟t just transit. It was a road plan, which has helped with the congestion

on South Boulevard. The point I‟m making, and I‟m just out here being honest with you. I

understand your arguments completely, and they are sound, but I also wanted to answer the

question on why the planning experts say that interconnectivity in the long run is better for the

environment.

It provides less congestion, and I think the issue you are bringing up regarding crime is also a

worthy question, and we need your help there because there is some serious crime in some

neighborhoods off of South Boulevard, which, by the way, some of them are cul-de-sac

neighborhoods – Pine Valley and so forth. I mean we have some serious, serious crime problems

in a few of those neighborhoods, which are, by the way, neighborhoods with no way in except

one way in and one way out. I ride with the police a lot in these neighborhoods, and you are

feeling the impact and are afraid that will come through. Boy, I understand that completely, and

I sympathize with you. My logic with those neighborhoods is we need to put the people in jail

when we arrest them, and then they wouldn‟t come over into your neighborhood because they

would be in jail, and that‟s what‟s not happening. So if it doesn‟t have to do with

interconnectivity it has to be we are not dealing with the people we are arresting. It doesn‟t have

to do with the design of the neighborhoods. Sir, with all respect to you. You are an honorable

police officer, and I love you for your work, but I have to follow the rules, and after the public

hearing, this is an opportunity for us to get feedback, too. Part of the transit plan is you have to

have as much easy access to get the monies worth to these stations.

Now, the good news is it‟s been working even without it much to our surprise because the

Federal government when approving the money said you are going to have much more from the

surrounding neighborhoods ride the lines, but even to our surprise and to your help we are

getting a lot more ridership than we ever anticipated even without that planning. So I am very

pleased to report that, so the good news is we don‟t seem to have to have it immediately to meet

ridership needs, to meet the cost benefit analysis, and that is good news, but I did want to present

to you the other side because the question was asked. Someone said I see no logic in this. I‟m

just saying there is some logic – maybe logic you disagree with, but I‟m at least conveying that

logic in which the planners have conveyed to this body in the past year.

I want to be fair because some people are all saying what you want to hear and not saying where

they stand on this issue, and I look forward to studying it and reviewing the logic of which you

are stating, and that may well make sense, but I did want to state some of the logic of the

planning to make both our transit system work and our road network work because you have to

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have both the road network and other networks, pedestrian networks, in order for us to survive in

the future. I appreciate you all being here. I could discuss this for hours, and I can‟t tell you

how much I appreciate you all coming to give your feedback because Huntingtowne Farms and

Starmount are two of our great neighborhoods, and they have gotten even stronger, I think,

during the past decade. Where other neighborhoods have declined you all have done great, and I

admire your neighborhood associations.

Councilmember Dulin said Montclaire, Madison Park, all those up and down South Boulevard.

Mayor McCrory said Sedgefield all the way down.

Councilmember Burgess said I‟m glad to hear you say you believe everybody will support that

pedestrian bridge because that is not in our plan yet, but I hope we can all support it when we try

to get it in there.

Mayor McCrory said you find the money. It all comes down to money, and we‟re in a little debt

right now. I think the media thing is the short-term thing, which won‟t cost any money, and we

need to look at the traffic light that gives you eight seconds to cross the road. Curt, if we could

look at that immediately because I can also tell you I want a bridge there, but it is very, very

expensive. I‟m not going to mislead you there that we can find the money right away.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Peacock, seconded by Councilmember Mitchell, and ]


* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 8: PLEDGE TO IMPROVE THE ENVIRONMENT

Councilmember Peacock said our fellow Council members are very cognizant of good ideas

when they see one. Our Chamber trip in May yielded the following: An example of a pledge

card that the City of Chicago used very effectively to convey the message of what they would

hope to see their citizens to demonstrate as far as habits, so we have asked our friends in the

staff. I want to specifically thank Julie Burch in the City Manager‟s Office, Kim McMillan with

Corporate Communications, Catherine Bonfiglio and Wilson Hooper for the creative

collaboration that they have had to help us in this endeavor. Before us, we have two action items

– A and B. A is to approve the Environment Committee recommendation to adopt the citizen‟s

pledge to improve the environment, B, to adopt a budget ordinance appropriating $1,042 from

the discretionary fund to facilitate printing those.

Just to let you know how those will be distributed to the community, it will be two-fold. One

will be a mass media blitz. Secondly, it will be used in the utility inserts soon in the form that

will fit in the envelopes. Of course, that money that we are spending from the discretionary fund

will be used for our meetings as well as for other citizens groups to use and to move throughout

the community. I wanted to turn it over to Vice Chairman Carter, if you have additional

comments to this, Ms. Carter.

Councilmember Carter said this will be on line, will it not?

Councilmember Peacock said it will indeed.

Councilmember Carter said that‟s a green way of presenting it, and I think it‟s a very good thing,

and changing habits, as you said, is our goal.

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Peacock, seconded by Councilmember Carter, and ]

[ carried unanimously to approve the Environment Committee recommendation to adopt a ]

[ citizen‟s pledge to improve the environment as part of the City‟s external communications ]

[ strategy for the environment, and adopt Budget Ordinance No. 4102-Z appropriating ]

[ $1,042 from the Council Discretionary Fund to fund the printing of 10,000 citizen pledge ]

[ wallet cards for distribution as part of the environment communications strategy. ]

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* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 9: CAROLINA THEATRE SIXTH AMENDMENT

[ Motion was made by Councilmember Mitchell and seconded by Councilmember Kinsey to ]

[ approve the Sixth Amendment to the Purchase and Sale Agreement for the Carolina Theatre ]

[ with CMP Carolina Theatre, LLC to extend the closing date to July 17, 2009, and authorize ]

[ staff to evaluate any alternative purchase offers received during this timeframe. ]

Councilmember Foxx said I just have a comment that is related to this. This is the sixth time we

have seen this, and part of the write-up mentions that the project has faced continued volatility in

the national credit market as well as the real estate market uncertainty centered around mergers

and acquisitions in the local economy. What it raises for me is a question about other

public/private partnerships that we may have that may be similarly situated, and what I ask the

City Manager for is if you could survey what we have got outstanding with public/private

partnerships and give us a sense of whether those projects are on schedule, not on schedule, put

some thought into ways we can help jumpstart some of those projects. I think that would be very

useful to us because we are all concerned about jobs in the community and making sure that

those things that can happen and can create jobs will actually happen.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said we will be happy to.

Councilmember Mitchell said one minor correction. Action A – I‟m sure we would like to say

extend the proposal to July 17, 2009, as opposed to 2008. Just a minor correction there.

The vote was taken on the motion and recorded as follows:

AYES: Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

NAYS: Councilmembers Barnes, Dulin

* * * * * * * *

ITEM NO. 10: APPOINTMENTS TO BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS

Bicycle Advisory Committee – The following nominees were considered for one appointment:

1. William James Clark, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Kinsey, Turner

2. L. Wayne Sams, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Foxx, Lassiter, Mitchell

3. James Ferguson, nominated by Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Peacock

Results of the first ballot were recorded as follows:

1. William James Clark, 4 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Kinsey, Turner

2. L. Wayne Sams, 4 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Foxx, Lassiter, Mitchell

3. James Ferguson, 3 votes – Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Peacock

Results of the second ballot were recorded as follows:

1. William James Clark, 5 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Kinsey,

Mitchell

2. L. Wayne Sams, 5 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Cooksey, Dulin, Foxx, Mitchell

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Housing Appeals Board – The following nominees were considered for one appointment:

1. Charles Assenco, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Carter, Kinsey, Mitchell

2. Madeline Malone, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Peacock

3. Shannon Boling, nominated by Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin

4. Edward Smith, II, nominated by Councilmembers Foxx, Turner


1. Charles Lewis Assenco, 4 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Carter, Kinsey, Mitchell

2. Shannon Boling, 3 votes – Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Lassiter

3. Madeleine Malone, 2 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Peacock

4. Edward L. Smith, II, 2 votes – Councilmembers Foxx, Turner


1. Charles Assenco, 5 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Kinsey, Mitchell

2. Shannon Boling, 5 votes – Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Foxx, Peacock, Turner

Housing Authority – The following nominees were considered for one appointment:

1. April Neely-Watts, nominated by Councilmembers Mitchell, Turner

2. Lucille Puckett, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Peacock

Councilmember Mitchell said Charles Woodyard hopefully sent everybody a note.

Mayor McCrory said he sent a note expressing concern about – I don‟t know which one.

Councilmember Mitchell said he recommended April Neely-Watts because it was a resident who

has been through their training program who is certified. Now, some Council members say you

did not get that letter.

Councilmember Barnes said I did not.

Stephanie Kelly, City Clerk, said, Mayor, I have eight votes for Ms. Puckett and three for Ms.

Neely-Watts.

Ms. Puckett was appointed.

Planning Commission – The following nominees were considered for one appointment:

1. Susan Lindsay, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Carter

2. John McLeod, nominated by Councilmember Dulin

3. Anthony Lathrop, nominated by Councilmembers Foxx, Lassiter, Peacock

4. Gregory Lipscomb, nominated by Councilmember Mitchell

5. Gregory Phipps, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Turner

6. David Romero, nominated by Councilmember Cooksey

7. Anne Schout, nominated by Councilmember Kinsey


1. Susan Lindsay, 2 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Carter

2. John McLeod, 1 vote – Councilmembers Dulin

3. Anthony Lathrop, 3 votes – Councilmembers Foxx, Lassiter, Peacock

4. Gregory Lipscomb, 0 votes

5. Gregory Phipps, 3 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Mitchell, Turner

6. David Romero, 1 vote – Councilmember Cooksey

7. Anne Schout, 1 vote – Councilmember Kinsey

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1. Anthony Lathrop, 3 votes – Councilmembers Dulin, Foxx, Peacock

2. Gregory Phipps, 7 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Kinsey,

Mitchell, Turner

Mr. Phipps was appointed.

Privatization/Competition Advisory – The following nominees were considered for five

appointments:

1. Thomas A. Dorsey, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey,

Dulin, Foxx, Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

2. Marc Durrance, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx, Kinsey,

Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

3. Joel Ford, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin,

Foxx, Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

4. Lee B. Johnson, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

5. Owen Sutkowski, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey,

Foxx, Kinsey, Lassiter, Peacock, Turner

6. James Rice, nominated by Councilmember Burgess


1. Thomas A. Dorsey, 11 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey,

Dulin, Foxx, Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock, Turner

2. Marc Durrance, 8 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Carter, Cooksey, Kinsey, Lassiter,

Peacock, Mitchell, Turner

3. Joel Ford, 11 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin, Foxx,


4. Lee B. Johnson, 10 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx,


5. Owen Sutkowski, 10 votes - Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx,


6. James Rice, 2 votes – Councilmembers Dulin, Foxx

City Clerk Kelly said Thomas A. Dorsey, Marc Currance, Joel Ford, Lee Johnson, and Owen

Sutkowski received more than six votes.

Mr. Dorsey, Mr. Currance, Mr. Ford, Mr. Johnson, Owen Sutkowski were appointed.

Transit Services Advisory Committee – The following nominees were considered for one

appointment:

Neighborhood Organization Leader Category

1. Mark Francis, nominated by Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin, Lassiter, Peacock

2. Kevin Spitzmiller, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Turner

3. Rebecca Williams, nominated by Councilmember Carter

4. Michael Morgan, nominated by Councilmember Mitchell

5. Owen Sutkowski, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Kinsey


1. Mark Francis, 3 votes - Councilmembers Cooksey, Lassiter, Peacock

2. Kevin Spitzmiller, 2 votes - Councilmembers Dulin, Foxx

3. Rebecca Williams, 1 vote – Councilmember Carter

4. Michael Morgan, 2 votes – Councilmembers Dulin, Foxx

5. Owen Sutkowski, 3 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Kinsey, Turner

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1. Mark Francis, 7 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin,

Mitchell, Peacock

2. Owen Sutkowski, 3 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Kinsey, Turner

Mr. Francis was appointed.

Suburban Employer Category

1. Miranda Moore, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Turner

2. Eric Sanderson, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin, Foxx,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell


1. Miranda Moore, 2 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Turner

2. Eric Sanderson, 9 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Dulin, Foxx,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Peacock

Mr. Sanderson was appointed.

Zoning Board of Adjustment – The following nominees were considered for three

appointments:

1. Paul Anthony Arena, nominated by Councilmembers Lassiter, Peacock

2. David Brown, nominated by Councilmember Barnes

3. Jennifer Coble, nominated by Councilmembers Burgess, Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell

4. Carilyn Ibsen, nominated by Councilmembers Kinsey, Turner

5. Mark Loflin, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Cooksey, Foxx, Lassiter, Mitchell,

Peacock

6. David Romero, nominated by Councilmembers Dulin, Lassiter, Peacock

7. Edgar Barnes, nominated by Councilmember Dulin

8. Manuel Campbell, nominated by Councilmembers Carter, Turner

9. Jerry Allen Davis, nominated by Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey,

Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell, Turner

10. Gregory Lipscomb, nominated by Councilmember Burgess

11. Melony Moore, nominated by Councilmember Carter

12. William K. Rice, Jr., nominated by Councilmember Cooksey

13. Eric Sanderson, nominated by Councilmember Dulin


1. Paul Anthony Arena, 2 votes – Councilmembers Lassiter, Peacock

2. David Brown, 0 votes

3. Jennifer Coble, 5 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell, Turner

4. Carilyn Ibsen, 0 votes

5. Mark Loflin, 5 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Cooksey, Foxx, Peacock, Mitchell

6. David Romero, 2 votes - Councilmembers Dulin, Peacock

7. Edgar Barnes, 0 votes

8. Manuel Campbell, 2 votes - Councilmembers Carter, Turner

9. Jerry Allen Davis, 9 votes - Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Turner

10. Gregory Lipscomb, 1 vote – Councilmember Burgess

11. Melony Moore, 2 votes – Councilmembers Carter, Kinsey

12. William K. Rice, Jr., 2 votes – Councilmembers Cooksey, Dulin

13. Eric Sanderson, 1 vote


1. Jerry Allen Davis, 9 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Burgess, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx,

Kinsey, Lassiter, Mitchell, Turner

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2. Jennifer Coble, 6 votes – Councilmembers Burgess, Carter, Foxx, Kinsey, Mitchell,

Turner

3. Mark Loflin, 7 votes – Councilmembers Barnes, Carter, Cooksey, Foxx, Mitchell,

Peacock, Turner

Mr. Davis, Ms. Coble, and Mr. Loflin were appointed.

* * * * * * * *

MAYOR AND COUNCIL TOPICS

Councilmember Foxx said I have got a couple of things that I wanted to bring up. One has to do

with the MUMPO meeting. We had some conversation in the Transportation Committee

meeting about this as well, and I wanted to bring to the Council‟s attention two items. One,

MUMPO agreed last week to send a letter to either or both – the President and the Governor – to

reflect priorities that MUMPO has developed for stimulus funding. I know there are a lot of

letters like that heading to DC right now.

Mayor McCrory said I‟m sure he‟s reading every one of them.

Councilmember Foxx said I‟m sure he is. So, I wanted to make you aware of that, and the staff

will circulate a list of what those projects are. I think it was still being compiled today, so once

that is done, you will get a copy of that list and the letter. The second thing is that in the CMAQ

funding category there were three projects that received funding last week. One was Clean Air

Works. The second one was a project to promote better or less particulates being emitted from

school buses in both Mecklenburg and Union Counties, and third is one we received a lot of

correspondence about, which is the intersection of 521 and Ballantyne Crossing. That stop light

will get put in as a result of the funding. I wanted to make you aware of that.

Also I thought I would at least ask the Council. We have had a lot of conversation about the

Retreat a couple of weeks ago. It occurs to me that it might be helpful if at some portion of the

Retreat – maybe a lunch meeting or something – we might invite someone from the nonprofit

sector just to give us a bird‟s eye view of what is going on particularly with the needy in the

community, and I thought perhaps we might ask Mac Everett to speak to us at a lunch or

something like that during the Retreat. So, that‟s just a request. Don‟t have to act on it, but I just

thought I would throw it out there.

Mayor McCrory said did any one of you want to discuss that. I don‟t know what we are

planning to do at lunch.

Curt Walton, City Manager, said it‟s not a structured lunch meeting either day.

Councilmember Peacock said I think it‟s an excellent suggestion.

Mayor McCrory said hearing no disagreement why don‟t we try to invite Mac.

Councilmember Cooksey said or Carlos. Carlos seems to be the one being the spokesman.

Carlos Evans is chairman.

Mayor McCrory said how about why don‟t we ask them.

Councilmember Cooksey said, yes, ask them to send somebody.

Mayor McCrory said maybe a 15- 20-minute thing, review, so we‟ll have a little time to breathe

that day. Let them decide who is best, whether it be Mac or Carlos or someone else.

* * * * * * * *

Councilmember Dulin said I have got two things I would like to bring up, one of which there is

an article in the paper Saturday, maybe a week ago Saturday, about the deer population in the

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city expanding and how it really has gotten away from itself. The thinning of that herd is a good

thing for the environment, and it‟s a good thing for the city, and it‟s a safety issue, too. The deer

are running across the streets. I have had a conversation with Chairman Peacock of the

Environment Committee, and I would like to refer. The County has a program where they thin

the deer herd, and I would like to talk about thinning the deer herd in the city limits with the

Environment Committee, and I would like to push that to committee if possible.

Councilmember Turner said would you think this might have something to do that we have

encroached upon their habitat.

Councilmember Dulin said very likely.

Councilmember Turner said maybe that‟s why we can see them because we don‟t have enough

trees to hide them anymore. They live in my backyard.

Councilmember Dulin said I think it‟s worthy. Either take it to Safety because it‟s a safety issue.

Mayor McCrory said I would recommend something before then. Maybe contact the Wildlife or

something.

Councilmember Dulin said we have been through Animal Care and Control. We have been

through –

Mayor McCrory said it‟s up to Council.

Councilmember Barnes said what‟s the method of proposed control?

Councilmember Dulin said they bow hunt these deer and then give the venison to the hungry.

Councilmember Peacock said I think what Mr. Dulin is proposing that we refer to the committee

is just simply look at the ordinance related to the deer in the City of Charlotte.

Councilmember Dulin said we have multiple people who are concerned about this. It actually

sounds silly, but it‟s pretty serious.

Councilmember Burgess said rather than refer it to committee could we get a report from staff

about what the County is doing and what North Carolina Wildlife can do before we do any

referrals? Would that make more sense?

Councilmember Dulin said that would be fine. I have one other thing, too. This is serious. In an

environment and in the times we are in now where we don‟t have a lot of good news and I

wouldn‟t exactly say a plane crashing into the Hudson River is good news, but the good news

about that is the way it was handled, the way the outcome came out, the follow-up from

everybody, and we have that company. USAirways is a big corporate citizen in this city. As a

matter of fact, the training simulators for that aircraft are at Charlotte Douglas International

Airport, and I suspect that flight crew came through there. I would like to propose that we have

some sort of public proclamation or public thanks, maybe even a reception in the lobby out front

one afternoon, to say thank you to USAirways, get as many of those Charlotte residents. There

were 23 plus or minus Bank of America employees, that one company, on that airplane coming

home that day, and the unsung heroes, the flight attendants that were trained well and did their

job well, and I want them to do that publicly.

Mayor McCrory said let me just say this. The day after the accident I was on the phone with

both USAirways, and I actually called Mayor Bloomberg also to thank him for his assistance,

and he was wonderful. I talked to USAirways, and they were getting inundated with calls – what

can Charlotte do? They asked we give them about two and a half to three weeks because they

are trying to get through all these requests. As you know, the pilot – he will be on the speaking

circuit soon probably, but they are real concerned about the investigation. If you notice, the pilot

is not saying anything yet. He has said almost nothing in public ceremonies, and he had a public

ceremony in California the other day. I promised them let‟s give them two and a half weeks, and

they will get back with us with ideas. We have staff working. Dennis is working with them

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right now trying to figure out what is the best way to recognize them, the flight attendants, and

maybe even some of the people who were on that flight. For the record, last week I was at

Eckerd‟s or Rite-Aid in line, and a man came up to me and said I appreciate you talking to

Mayor Bloomberg, and I said, “Why do you say that,” and he said, “I was on the plane

yesterday,” and he was in line with me. Fascinating story, so we would like to do something, but

we also want to be aware of the bigger issue at hand for the company.

Councilmember Carter said our residents out in District 5 have suggested that celebration as

well, Mr. Dulin. There have been emails all around.

Mayor McCrory said we are getting calls right and left.

Councilmember Carter said I passed out to the Council something I emailed to you last week – a

resolution supporting an advisory group for the Office of Urban Planning in the new

administration to have a direct voice to the administration from the large cities. This comes from

Seattle from the person who founded the Large Cities Council of the National League of Cities,

and it gives us an active participation and sharing best practices at a national level. That direct

voice hopefully will result in direct funding, for the city.

Mayor McCrory said is there any disagreement with the resolution? If you have a disagreement,

we can put it on a future agenda.

Councilmember Cooksey said that‟s what I thought the motion was putting it on a future agenda.

Mayor McCrory said we will put it on a future agenda.

Councilmember Burgess said the only thing it‟s really the Office of Urban Policy rather than

Planning.

Mayor McCrory said we‟ll put it on the next agenda and figure it out.

* * * * * * * *

Councilmember Peacock said just looking for one referral to the Environmental Committee.

This is on a serious note. This is a program called the EcoZone Program. It‟s a marketing

partnership opportunity for the environment. Staff has been alerted of it, and the Attorney‟s

Office Rob Phocus has taken a close look at it and believes it meritorious to consider. Mr.

Mayor, you were approached by someone at the Mayors‟ conference about it and south some

interest in it. It‟s a zero cost program to the city possibly bringing revenue on the back of

advertisers to help fund back environmental projects.

Councilmember Barnes said what do they do?

Councilmember Peacock said I would like to make a motion to refer.

Councilmember Barnes said what does that company do?

Councilmember Peacock said the company itself is actually a marketing company called the

EcoZone Program.

Councilmember Barnes said, so, what is it?

Councilmember Peacock said they facilitate the bridge between the advertisers and the actual

municipalities that then receive funds from advertising dollars being done within certain

communities. Those advertising dollars are then funded back to the cities that sponsor the

program.

Councilmember Barnes said are there recycling programs?

Councilmember Peacock said it‟s not a recycling program.

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Councilmember Barnes said how is it related to the Environment Committee?

Councilmember Peacock said it‟s related to the Environment Committee because the money can

only be dedicated to environmental initiatives. Do you know something about it as well, Susan?

Councilmember Burgess said, no, but I was just going to suggest that before we do this, and I

think it‟s appropriate to refer to the Environment Committee, but we wait until after

Restructuring Government looks at our policy to advertise on City property. I think that‟s on

your agenda soon; isn‟t it? So, it shouldn‟t take long to get some kind of Council policy about

how we are going to deal with requests like this.

Councilmember Peacock said this is not an advertising program. These are about advertisers

who are already advertising. They would actually be using portions of their revenue to be

dedicated back to the City of Charlotte for what they already would be doing. I am not speaking,

Mr. Barnes, or any of the Council for this program. I am simply asking after the review of Mr.

Rob Phocus in the City Attorney‟s Office that it did merit consideration for the Environment

Committee. We are not looking at a partnership issue. We are not looking at advertising issues.

We are not looking for a –

Councilmember Barnes said nobody is going to give you anything for free, so they are clearly

looking for something.

Councilmember Burgess said let‟s look at it. We‟ll see.

Mayor McCrory said a request has been to have this referred to the Environment Committee. Is

there any disagreement?

Councilmember Barnes said I disagree with it.

Mayor McCrory said we‟ll refer it. That‟s one vote that disapproves. Everyone else agrees to

refer it.

* * * * * * * *

Councilmember Burgess said today the ACORN group opened the first vita site in our county,

and that is a free tax preparation service for people who would like to come and work with their

trained volunteers, who will also show them how to apply for the earned income tax credit on

both their state and federal filings. It‟s all free.

Mayor McCrory said ACORN is working on taxes now?

Councilmember Burgess said they have been for a long time.

Mayor McCrory said I saw how they worked on voting. I don‟t want them to work on my taxes.

Councilmember Barnes said let‟s not be unfair now. They do good work.

Councilmember Burgess said Community Link is going to come and tell us about the big

coalition that is working on this and how many vita sites will be open for our citizens for this

assistance. Since you brought that up, I have to tell you that I know your affection for ACORN,

and when I called them today, the person who answered the phone said, “This is ACORN. This

is Pat McCrory.” I said, “Really,” and he said, “Yes, I‟m the state director of ACORN.”

Mayor McCrory said he didn‟t even vote for me.

Councilmember Burgess said he said, “No, you are not the first person to make that mistake. I‟m

Pat McCoy.” At any rate, I just thought you would enjoy that.

Mayor McCrory said, all right, we‟ll let you make that announcement, but we don‟t have to take

any action with ACORN, right?

January 26, 2009



bvj

Councilmember Burgess said, no, but Lloyd Davis from Community Link is going to come soon

to talk about all the vita sites.

* * * * * * * *

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 9:52 p.m.

_______________________________________

Stephanie C. Kelly, CMC, City Clerk ________________________________________

Stephanie C. Kelly, CMC, Deputy City Clerk

Length of Meeting: 4 Hours, 15 Minutes

Minutes Completed: February 20, 2009

charlotte city council meeting minutes, january 26, 2009

Business

grant money

andy dulin

express bus

express route

bus route

grant pay

city of charlotte

city council