HomeMy WebLinkAbout1.3.24 Planning Board Minutes APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1 MEETING MINUTES
2 ORANGE COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
3 JANUARY 3,2024
4 REGULAR MEETING
5
6 MEMBERS PRESENT: Adam Beeman (Chair), Cedar Grove Township Representative; Lamar Proctor(Vice-
7 Chair), Cheeks Township Representative; Delores Bailey, At-Large Representative; Beth Bronson, At-Large
8 Representative; Marilyn Carter, At-Large Representative; Statler Gilfillen, Eno Township Representative; Chris
9 Johnston, Hillsborough Township Representative; Liz Kalies, Chapel Hill Township Representative; Steve
10 Kaufmann, Bingham Township Representative; Charity Kirk, At-Large Representative; Melissa Poole, Little
11 River Township Representative; Whitney Watson, At-Large Representative.
12
13 MEMBERS ABSENT:
14
15 STAFF PRESENT: Cy Stober, Planning & Inspections Director; David Stancil, Environment, Agriculture, Parks &
16 Recreation Director; Patrick Mallett, Deputy Director— Development Services; Taylor Perschau, Current
17 Planning and Zoning Supervisor; Ashley Moncado, Planner III; Lauren Coffey, Planning Technician.
18
19 OTHERS PRESENT: Craig Nlshlmoto; David Ricks; Katya Perstova; Amanda Whitton.
20
21 AGENDA ITEM 1: CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
22 The meeting began at 7:00 PM.
23
24 AGENDA ITEM 2: ELECTION OF CHAIR AND VICE-CHAIR FOR 2024
25 Nominees for Chair were Adam Beeman and Delores Bailey. Board members voted three in favor of Ms.
26 Bailey (Liz Kalies, Marilyn Carter, and Delores Bailey) and nine in favor of Mr. Beeman (Lamar Proctor, Beth
27 Bronson, Statler Gilfillen, Chris Johnston, Steve Kaufmann, Charity Kirk, Melissa Poole, Whitney Watson, and
28 Adam Beeman).
29
30 Adam Beeman was elected Planning Board Chair for 2024.
31
32 Lamar Proctor was nominated for Vice-Chair, with a unanimous vote in favor.
33
34 AGENDA ITEM 3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES
35 December 6, 2023 Regular Meeting Minutes
36 December 6, 2023 Training Session Notes
37
38 MOTION BY Melissa Poole to approve the minutes. Seconded by Delores Bailey.
39
40 AGENDA ITEM 4: CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA
41 No additions.
42
43 AGENDA ITEM 5: PUBLIC CHARGE
44
45 INTRODUCTION TO THE PUBLIC CHARGE
46 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General
47 Statute, appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written land
48 development law of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and
49 accomplish coordinated and harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a manner
50 which considers the present and future needs of its citizens and businesses through
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
51 efficient and responsive process that contributes to and promotes the health, safety, and
52 welfare of the overall County. The OCPB will make every effort to uphold a vision of
53 responsive governance and quality public services during our deliberations, decisions,
54 and recommendations.
55
56
57 PUBLIC CHARGE
58 The Planning Board pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks
59 its citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board
60 and with fellow citizens. At any time, should any member of the Board or any citizen fail
61 to observe this public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member to leave the
62 meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored,
63 the Chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to this public
64 charge is observed.
65
66
67 AGENDA ITEM 6: CHAIR COMMENTS
68 None.
69
70 AGENDA ITEM 7: ZONING ATLAS AMENDMENT(CONDITIONAL DISTRICT)—To review and make a
71 recommendation to the BOCC on an applicant-initiated zoning atlas amendment to rezone a 10.01 +/-acres
72 parcel from RB (Rural Buffer)to ASE-CD (Agricultural Support Enterprises Conditional District).
73
74 The parcel's address is 6915-UT Millhouse Road, Chapel Hill, within the Chapel Hill Township (PIN 9871-50-
75 3254). This item is scheduled for BOCC public hearing on March 7, 2024.
76
77 PRESENTER: Ashley Moncado, Planner III
78
79 Adam Beeman: We're going to review and make a recommendation to the Board of Commissioners on an
80 application initiated Zoning Atlas Amendment to rezone on the 10.01-acre parcel from Rural Buffer to
81 Agricultural Support Enterprises -Conditional District. The parcel's address is 6915-UT Millhouse Road,
82 Chapel Hill within the Chapel Hill Township. This item is scheduled for a vote of County Commissioner public
83 hearing on March 7th, 2024.
84
85 Cy Stober: Good evening, Mr. Chair. Well, you won't hear from me very long. Our Planner III,
86 Ashley Moncado, will be presenting the findings by staff, but I did want to just remind you of the,just the kind
87 of framework of Conditional Zoning. A Conditional Zoning case is a negotiation between the applicant and the
88 County and requires a site plan. It requires conditions as appropriate be provided for review by both the
89 Planning Board and the Commissioners. The site plan is site specific, so it is binding. Any major modifications
90 to the site plan would have to come back to the Planning Board and the Commissioners for reapproval,
91 essentially as a new zoning application. This allowance in Conditional Zoning is enabled by a general statute
92 and is reflected in our Ordinance. The Conditional Zoning District before you tonight, Agricultural Support
93 Enterprise, is an older Conditional District that the County has had, but frankly, this is the first time it's being
94 utilized in the County's history. Some of that has to do with some of the liberalization of state law for farm
95 uses, and some of that has to do with having quality applications to present to the County, but I'm very pleased
96 to be bringing an Agricultural Support Enterprise - Conditional District zoning case to you. I'm happy to answer
97 any questions, but we have gone, and especially for Ms. Carter, our newest member, if there are any specific
98 questions, this is all covered in orientation. We we went through this at length with the Lawrence Road
99 Conditional District case, but if there are questions about the Conditional Zoning process, which is significantly
100 different from standard Conventional Zoning, which takes one piece of land from a menu of uses to a different
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
101 menu of uses, while this is site specific, use specific, and limited in its entitlement. I'm happy to answer them at
102 this time. Otherwise, I'm very happy to turn the mic over to Ashley Moncado to present the findings by staff.
103
104 Ashley Moncado: Good evening. I am Ashley Moncado, Planner III with the Planning Department. Cy kind
105 of already went ahead and introduced the item, so I'm just going to jump right into it. The parcel related to this
106 rezoning request is located in the Chapel Hill Township approximately 1/4 mile from Millhouse Road. It's
107 identified with the red star there on the screen in front of you. The parcel is approximately 10 acres in size.
108 Currently, the parcel is zoned as Rural Buffer. The applicant is requesting to rezone to Agricultural Support
109 Enterprises-Conditional District to allow for Agricultural Services which are a permitted use in this zoning
110 district. The purpose of this is for them to locate their tree, care, and consulting service business on this site.
111 Parcels to the north, east, and west are all zoned as Rural Buffer and located in Orange County's planning
112 jurisdiction. The parcel to the south is located in Chapel Hill's planning jurisdiction and is zoned as Rural
113 Transition. The Future Land Use Classification for this parcel is Rural Buffer. No amendments are being
114 proposed to the Future Land Use Map related to this request before you tonight. As stated, part of the
115 Conditional District Rezoning application requires submission of several documents in accordance with
116 Section 2.9 of the UDO. The applicant has provided these documents, and they are contained in Attachment 1
117 of your packets. As part of their application process, they are required to submit a formal site plan. The
118 applicants have provided a plan featuring two office buildings, which are labeled here in front of you, a
119 residential structure for an onsite caretaker, parking, outdoor storage, and equipment staging area. The site
120 plan documents also identified stream buffer, landscaping, and stormwater control measures. A Class B
121 Special Use Permit was permitted for this site in 1994 for the existing telecommunication tower and equipment
122 building that are also identified here on the site plan. The existing SUP does not prohibit the use of the
123 property for other purposes provided both uses are addressed in the Conditional Zoning application process.
124 One item, I'd like to note is more so regarding the southern portion of the site and the areas that are labeled as
125 wood storage areas. Based on the Orange County Unified Development Ordinance, those are classified and
126 would be defined as Outdoor Storage which are required to be a 100 feet setback from property lines. As you
127 can see here, and it might be hard to see, the applicant is proposing to locate these areas about 42 to 46 feet
128 away from the southern property line. They have submitted a condition requesting a decrease in that setback
129 standard. I'd also like to note that their outdoor storage areas are proposed to be screened with a 6-foot fence.
130 Access to the site is being proposed along an existing gravel access way located across Orange County-
131 owned property. As you can see here, it will cross and then head east to connect to Millhouse Road. There
132 are some minor improvements that they are proposing including paving at the stream crossing as well as
133 paving at the entryway connecting to Millhouse Road. The applicant is providing for a second access on the
134 southeastern portion of the site. The reasoning for this is based on a request from conversations with DEAPR
135 and the concern that the existing access way may be lost or may need to be relocated in order to
136 accommodate the future Millhouse Road park site. A grant of easement and assignment of lease for the
137 existing access easement within the property was recorded in 2008 with the current owner at the time and
138 Crown Castle. Attachment 5 in your packets includes a letter detailing the applicant's legal right to the access
139 easement which cannot be confirmed by staff. Crown Castle has not provided comments on this application,
140 and the existing offsite access easement is located on property owned by Orange County. In response to the
141 proposed use of the existing easement as a commercial driveway to serve the applicant's use, DEAPR
142 requested a condition of future access road construction through this property from the applicant, and the
143 applicant has not agreed to this request. DEAPR's request and the applicant's response are also contained in
144 Attachment 5. And just a follow up from what Cy was saying earlier, based on Section 2.91 of the UDO,
145 mutually agreed upon conditions can be imposed as part of the Conditional Rezoning process, and agreed
146 upon conditions are binding to the development permitted for the zoning district. As part of the process, the
147 applicant did submit conditions. The proposed conditions were reviewed, and revisions were recommended
148 by staff for clarity and consistency with the UDO. The applicant accepted the revisions, and these are what
149 were contained in your Attachment 2 and Attachment 8 of the Ordinance and are provided on the slide here for
150 you. We can go back to the slide and discuss when we to the recommendation and discussion part of this
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
151 evening, and you might have questions, and we also have other staff here to help answer with those. At this
152 time, I'm going to hand it over to the applicant for them to do their presentation, and then I will come back up,
153 and we will go over the staff analysis, recommendation, and answer any questions you all may have.
154
155 Statler Gilfillen: I am unclear of something that you just said about the access road in there.
156
157 Ashley Moncado: Yes.
158
159 Statler Gilfillen: Is there a conflict between this proposal and the County about the road? Did I hear that?
160
161 Ashley Moncado: We can answer that question now, but that might be to after the applicant speaks.
162
163 Statler Gilfillen: I'll put it on the table. You can answer it later.
164
165 Ashley Moncado: Yes. We have conditions, and we also have David Stancil, who is with Orange County
166 DEAPR is also here to discuss and answer questions for you this evening.
167
168 Adam Beeman: Good evening. Just to let you know, we have a time limit for your presentation. Do you
169 think that's possible?
170
171 Craig Nishimoto: Yes. Okay, I'm going to deviate from what I had planned. I, in my mind, envisioned more
172 public, so, less experts, but I want to address it as much as possible to you guys now and give you time to
173 pepper me with questions maybe later, because ultimately what I'd like you guys to leave with is feeling
174 confident that you can write to the Board of County Commissioners. There's the cell tower from the road.
175 That's where we're building the property. It's not along the road. It's quite far away. Most of my argument is in
176 the documents. That's where you're going to find all the meat. It's not going to be in this presentation, but the
177 detailed narrative is where I lay it all out, my case. It provides the fullest account of what we are doing and
178 why. It argues that there's a strong alignment between our proposal and the County's 2030 Comprehensive
179 Land Use Plan, which I understand is supposed to be guiding these decisions. That document shows that an
180 advance would be made on 14 separate County goals and 34 separate County objectives, and the arguments
181 for why, and then, possibly most importantly, it directly addresses the concerns related to the use or use of the
182 Rural Buffer. My understanding is this is somewhat precedent setting for the Rural Buffer, and so we want to
183 focus on making sure people are comfortable with that. You might be surprised the ASE-CD agricultural
184 zoning, my argument for why this is appropriate is there. Another precedent setting thing.
185
186 Charity Kirk: Can rather than continuing to refer to the document, I strongly suggest you assume that
187 we have skimmed the documents. We haven't fully read every single page. I would just make that assumption
188 that not all Board members have done that, so you might want to elaborate your conversation a little bit with
189 us.
190
191 Craig Nishimoto: Well, we can start here. Although I can imagine going in so many different ways now if
192 we haven't done the background reading. If I want to focus, knowing that we have limited time, what is the
193 most important? Are you concerned about ASE-CD zoning, or should we skip that?
194
195 Adam Beeman: Are you concerned about the agricultural designation? If you have an issue with
196 agricultural designation, that's what he's going to discuss. If not, we can move on with, to the next part of his
197 thing. So, at the end of the day, there was a discussion in the paperwork about whether or not the lumber
198 work, lumber, the tree work that you do actually qualifies as agricultural or not. That was the potential
199 discussion? Am I correct?
200
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
201 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah, and I would say through our concerns, two options. We can address it now or hey,
202 there's a paper written on this.
203
204 Adam Beeman: So I guess that's the question is does anybody have any concerns about this being
205 labeled as an agricultural district? If we don't have any discussions about that, then we can move forward with
206 the presentation.
207
208 Statler Gilfillen: I will ask one question just to clarify, and it's minor here. The storage is strictly for the cut
209 trees, lumber, and agricultural waste products that are stored on your site? It is not other possible retail uses
210 or selling fruit or anything else from this site? We are strictly dealing with this as your company?
211
212 Craig Nishimoto: It is largely the byproducts of the tree work that we do in town, so that's wood chips, that's
213 millable saw logs, and that's the little cut-in pieces where you can't do anything with. Maybe firewood is the
214 best thing, these kind of things, but the big goal is all these mountains of wood chips and these logs that are
215 otherwise going to waste.
216
217 Adam Beeman: I will say I have read the entire thing, and it is, it takes longer than a half an hour to go
218 through it, so I guess if you can just give us a quick summary of what the biggest points you want to hit in that
219 detailed summary, I understand it was detailed. Like I said, I read the whole thing. If you just, if you just want
220 to give the Board some of your quick highlights of this is what we're doing. "We're a tree company. We're
221 trying to eliminate having the equipment in the town area." Just those quick highlights, I think that'll help bring
222 everybody on board, and then we can kind of get into a more detailed discussion 'cause, like I said, it took
223 longer than half an hour to read through the whole packet.
224
225 Craig Nishimoto: Let me, let me just go through the bullets that I have at the top, and they kind of
226 foreshadow everything that is there. The basic idea is that we're going to make advances on some important
227 objectives for the County here in allowing us to do what we want. The town needs that we are addressing is
228 the increasingly disruptive noise pollution caused by the industrial tree processing equipment in the town. We
229 are trying to address that problem with this proposal. Countless tons of wasted natural resources from the tree
230 maintenance and tree removal services, all these mountains of wood chips, and these logs that are getting cut
231 up and not used, the rising cost of tree ownership compromising the goals of a flourishing and equitable
232 canopy coverage. If you do nothing in Chapel Hill, or trees will grow. If you stop mowing, trees will grow, and
233 then, so it's not just the really wealthy communities that have tree problems. It's everybody, or they get rid of
234 them because they know that the cost of trees will be too expensive. We are trying to make tree work efficient
235 and bring quality tree service to everybody. Then there's the challenge of attracting, training, and providing
236 local jobs to highly-skilled arborists. We're good at this. We're good at making climbing exciting and a career
237 option for people. Getting out of college, or even the most talented arborists from out of state, the west coast,
238 are coming to work with us, and we think one of the best things we can do for the trees of this community is
239 bring really talented arborists here. The need to increase tree and tree care literacy among local property
240 owners. Every week, on average, we get 75 requests from people in this area to ask for a consultant to come
241 talk to them about their trees. 80 or 85 percent of those things are free consultations,just free advice, and we
242 have our arborists are, they're all arborists, they're all tree assessment qualified, and they're not on a
243 commission. They're first and foremost giving good advice, and then if they need tree services, guess what?
244 We can also help them with that. We have the emeritus professors of botany among our clients, so we can't
245 tell them much, but we can tell them about some things about what would happen if that tree landed on your
246 house and what we can do and how much it would cost. And we have people that just moved here and don't
247 know anything about trees, but every time we go there,we move them from wherever they are to knowing a
248 whole lot, a little bit more, and we think that's the best thing that we can do for the trees and the tree care in
249 this community. And then there's the challenge of providing responsive emergency tree services to this area
250 and the populations centers. We are first responders. If you go to the County and say, "what do you do if
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
251 there's an emergency?" Their emergency page, prominent, the biggest illustration is trees. Tree emergency is
252 storms. They're all about tree problems here, and the County, the public will only help you out if it's on public
253 property or on the wires. Everywhere else, and that's where most of the trees are, it's tree services you need,
254 and when the storm comes, and we've been lucky in the last three years not, there hasn't been a major storm,
255 but when there is, you're either dependent on outside companies—and we can tell you horror stories about
256 what happens when that happens—or we're here. We need a central location to be able to handle this. We
257 operate 24/7 all the time.
258
259 Charity Kirk: So, we make land use decisions, so can you just summarize why this property in
260 particular and what your plans are for this property.
261
262 Craig Nishimoto: I think the best way to make this point is to think about a similar situation that the Town of
263 Chapel Hill was in in the year 2000. In the year 2000, the Town of Chapel Hill had a big problem. They knew
264 that their lease on the UNC's property for their public works was expiring, and the UNC did not want to renew
265 it. They had to find another place for their public works. What is that? That's all their trucks, all their gravel
266 storage areas, all their asphalt storage areas, all their employees to park. Really similar to what we're doing
267 here. They had a big budget, $52 million to spend on this problem. They, I can only imagine, had a bunch of
268 dedicated planners working on this problem. They had a lot of resources, other assets and holdings and they
269 knew the area really well and they cared about the future of this decision and what it would do to the Rural
270 Buffer, for example. It is telling where they chose to locate their Public Works of a something that's just quite a
271 bit larger in scale than what we're doing, but largely the same. They put it in the Rural Buffer on Millhouse
272 Road, but actually a whole lot, 5.7 times closer to residents than where we are. So, three years ago, we are
273 running out of space. We know that where we're currently at, it's just a matter of time before somebody
274 complains and shuts us down. We are desperate to find another location. Instead of watching Netflix, instead
275 of doing anything, scrolling on Twitter, I am looking at real estate listings all the time. It is hard to find places.
276 And then I came across something that said 10 acres for sale in Chapel Hill"for$100,000. 1 was sure it was a
277 mistake, but I looked it up. It was mis-listed. It, the PIN wasn't right, but after a night of searching on this, 1
278 found out who was responsible, who I could contact about this, and they said "oh, yeah, yeah, here's where
279 the property is." I got Katya, my wife, in the car. We ran out there. We looked at it. We said "oh, this is ideal."
280 No neighbors. There's a dump, the old landfill. There is Duke Forest. County property. There's a cell tower
281 here. Nobody wants this property, and no one's going to complain, so we called the guy. He says, "well,
282 here's how it works. This is a bidding process, blind bidding, and it ends at noon tomorrow, tomorrow
283 morning." So, I called David, my business partner, and I said, "hey, I've never seen something like this, a piece
284 of property like this. This is perfect for us. This is what we need." So, we double the asking price, more than
285 doubled the asking price and say no conditions, we'll take this property. I didn't think we'd see another
286 property like this come and come around, and we got it. I didn't know about all this. This is something 1
287 learned, and luckily I think we have a good case for this. I've read that 530-page Comprehensive Plan. I've
288 spent a lot of time with the LIDO, 670-some-odd pages. I even read the Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan.
289 That's 700-some pages. I respect what you guys do. You guys are volunteers. This is amazing. I didn't know
290 anything about local government. I'm learning, but it's taken a lot longer than I thought, and it's more
291 expensive and time consuming, but I think we have a good case.
292
293 Statler Gilfillen: Just so I can understand the business that you're doing. You can go to a site, groom,
294 correct the trees, whether it's after or a storm or not. You will then haul that material that is rubbish at that
295 point, or scrap, to your site. Some of it could be a 20-foot long oak tree. Now, do you do any milling on the
296 site?
297
298 Craig Nishimoto: No.
299
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
300 Statler Gilfillen: Or all of that type of wood, which is an industrial use, is sent, if it's usable, will be sent to a
301 mill, right?
302
303 Craig Nishimoto: Yes.
304
305 Statler Gilfillen: And you might store some of that on the site, but you don't do any work on it, right?
306
307 Craig Nishimoto: That's correct.
308
309 Statler Gilfillen: Okay. So you're limit is a place to take the natural products you're taking care of. You
310 need a place to store them. Now, once you've stored them on your site, what do you do with them then?
311
312 Craig Nishimoto: Okay, so it depends on what it is. But saw logs, for example, we need to wait until we
313 have sufficient quantity, and we need to stage them. This is pulp wood, this is high grade, white oak, Randall
314 we'll use at Fireside Saw Mill, or these are pine logs that will go somewhere else, or these are veneer logs or
315 something like this, but what we haven't been able to do is, because of these small loads and mixed loads of
316 what we get here and there, is bring them to any good use, so we stage them temporarily. When there's
317 enough white oak logs, for example, we can put those in the back of a truck and then take them to the highest
318 possible use, typically very local.
319
320 Statler Gilfillen: If I understand what you've just said and what I've read, then you are, basically, that's
321 staging recycling area where the products, the natural waste, at this point is brought to, and then distributed
322 from this site?
323
324 Craig Nishimoto: Correct.
325
326 Statler Gilfillen: It's a recycling center in a sense for the natural?
327
328 Adam Beeman: If you call it recycling center, it might draw a lot of big alarms like we're —
329
330 Statler Gilfillen: It might be perceived as industrial. That's not—
331
332 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah. It's not, it's—We,we got some wood chips here.
333
334 Adam Beeman: So, I guess the question is, before we start questioning him, are you satisfied with your
335 presentation? Do you want to wrap it up and open the floor to questions? Typically, I would like you to finish
336 your presentation, then we'll open the floor, and we'll go around in an orderly fashion so we're not playing
337 popcorn question or—
338
339 Craig Nishimoto: Let me go through what I think will be valuable, skipping a lot of stuff. When we had the
340 Neighborhood Information Meeting, two things came up that were what seemed like this is valuable. One,we
341 need to explain what we do and how we operate because there was like, "what is a tree service?" We're not a
342 logging operation. We're not these big land clearing operations. That's an entirely different industry. And then
343 the other concerns was the concerns about noise and traffic, so I wasn't prepared at the NIM, but I'm now
344 prepared to answer those things, so that's what I have a further addressed. And then "what is the Treeist."
345 Now, this I think I'm going to skip over because it's more storytelling that you guys are too serious to want to
346 worry about.
347
348 Adam Beeman: I guess the biggest thing, if you just want to tack down your day, like you have a couple
349 offices, the residence, what the residence is for, how many trucks you expect to roll in and out,just kind of a
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
350 day in the life of Treeist, and then we'll probably get the gist of what you're looking to do on the property from
351 that.
352
353 Craig Nishimoto: So, what we imagine is there's a lot of trucks that need to be parked there, so that's one
354 thing, but we also have a small office operation, the people that are there to take phone calls, to do the
355 scheduling. It's not a big thing, but we need to have it, and we're working out of a little metal building right
356 now, and it's hard to attract the top talent to work in here when they can take jobs anywhere else in nice, cushy
357 offices. We need to do something about that. We also are really into training people, and we see this as a
358 perfect industry to start an apprenticeship program, and for that we need a multipurpose room that can offer a
359 classroom sort of setting, something indoors and we can give good lectures and presentations to. That is part
360 of the day. We might even start the apprentices in there and then go out and join field and the crews. A lot of
361 tree services are really hard on equipment, so we have a full-time mechanic who is always fixing a track on
362 this machine, doing something, welding this or welding that, so there's a shop where he can take these things,
363 work on a chipper or something like this. And these guys work really hard. This is one of the most physically
364 laborious industries, and it's high adrenaline when they're working because they know they can get hurt
365 anytime, so I always think that the most dangerous time for our guys and gals that are working on the tree
366 crews is after they drive back to the shop, get in their personal vehicles, and then drive home. I, when I was
367 doing it, it was just like, "this is where I get killed because I'm going to fall asleep here." I would love to just
368 have a place for them to relax, lockers, shower, sharpen your chainsaws in this nice lighted area, and then hop
369 in, maybe spend time in town before you drive home, and that also is to attract the best workers. Even Town
370 of Chapel Hill Public Works, they have better than we have. I'd like to at least offer something like that to our
371 guys. Questions about that?
372
373 Adam Beeman: No, I mean, like I said, once you're done, we're going to open up the questions, then we'll
374 get more out of you as far as questioning.
375
376 Craig Nishimoto: I think what's critical is the noise and traffic issues. I mean, look at these aerial photos
377 first.
378
379 Statler GiIfillen: I'm trying to draw a distinction here. I asked the question about would you sell anything
380 on the site. Now, if you have a dozen oak trees, and you chip them up—
381
382 Adam Beeman: Hey, can we hold this off until he's done with his presentation?
383
384 Statler GiIfillen: —are you going to be selling some of that from there on a retail basis?
385
386 Adam Beeman: We'd like him to finish the presentation then we can ask the questions. Please wait.
387
388 Craig Nishimoto: Part of my slide that I wanted to impress upon everyone here is how big a need there is in
389 this area. If you look at any aerial photos, I look at our neighborhoods that we work in, and we want the trees,
390 we need houses, but we really want trees, and so what happens is this. You look just about anywhere. You
391 see these neighborhoods. This was built in the '60s, and all the trees have grown up around the houses. It's
392 not like grass where you can just mow it. You need people to climb up there and do work. In Ridgefield,
393 there's this Long Leaf, Willow Drive, Emory neighborhood. A lot of these places, and when they built the
394 houses, they just clear cut everything, but now you go back there, and it's what? You see Loblolly Pines and
395 Sweet Gums everywhere, way too dense, and then there's going to be problems, so we're managing that.
396 Even if you love trees, some of them, they're just too crowded together. It's just going to get worse. Lake
397 Hogan Farms, this is really a recent development for trees, but they're Willow Oaks that were planted, and
398 some of them are already this big. They grow super fast, and everywhere you look, this is just fairly random
399 sampling of what it looks like from the air. What you notice is trees right up against houses everywhere.
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
400 That's everywhere. Carrboro, '90s and 70s,just enormous trees, and even if you didn't clear cut and you just
401 had the houses, and you're trying to infill like some of these more historic areas, we're seeing huge problems
402 of people killing the old trees from that, from construction and trying to build an accessory dwelling unit. We
403 have 19 climbers. This is what you need because a lot of things you can't do. What people associate with tree
404 work is these bucket trucks, but that's because you're going down the street and seeing them work on power
405 lines. We're working in backyards, and we need to train these guys to climb. We have 19 of them. We're not
406 using the big machines that are used for clearing site development that people see when they get upset. We
407 have to get into people's backyards. We're using compact machinery like this. These are the wood chippers.
408 They make a ton of racket and people's noises, and because we can't bring it, this wood anywhere, we have to
409 process it all on site, and that is horrendous. You go down any neighborhood, you can just listen. "Well,
410 there's some tree work going on." Our dump trucks are not huge. This is our dump truck because, again,
411 we're getting into neighborhoods. All our work has to be compact. That as some of the concern of the
412 neighbors. Like, "you're driving giant machines." We're not. Our biggest machines are really specialized like
413 this type of crane that reaches out 112 feet and then grapples and cuts, and then a bucket truck, but they don't
414 go out with every crew. You can learn more about us on the websites: Instagram, 12,000 posts plus; YouTube
415 videos, David's putting a lot of drone footage; online reviews, great places. Every one of these places. If it's a
416 star rating, we have five stars, never a negative review. Ask your neighbors. Ask the local tree savvy places,
417 "who's tree savvy around here?" North Carolina Botanical Garden, New Hope Audubon Society. Ask anybody
418 there, ask about us. Noise concerns, what we've done here is, we're really far away from people. But
419 occasionally, let's say we're doing training for our new employees with chainsaws. We're gonna fire off these
420 gas chainsaws. Chainsaws are loud. The neighbors might be rightfully concerned "is that gonna wake me
421 up." I know they're concerned about the dogs that are already up there, so is this gonna cause them another
422 problem? I didn't know at the Neighborhood Information Meeting whether that would be a concern, so we
423 actually went out and tested it. One person at the location near the cell tower, where we would fire up the
424 chainsaw and then another of us went to the listening places. We shot video of it. You can see it. You can
425 compare it and listen in. You cannot hear. You cannot hear a chainsaw, even the loudest chainsaw that we
426 have, 170 decibels, they say. Cannot be heard and we have, we put together a video on this. Town of Chapel
427 Hill Public Works, what are we doing? We're staging stuff, so there's gonna be some loading and unloading of
428 logs and stuff like that. Not as loud as unloading gravel or dumping gravel into a metal bed, but we are far
429 away. You're not gonna be able to hear that. This is the Town of Chapel Hill Public Works, that Rural Buffer
430 site. They are 350 feet. They're doing that and you can see from aerial photos, they have big diesel loaders
431 out there. We are 5.7 times that distance away from the nearest residence that might complain. So, here's
432 that video. The link is there. The proof is there. We, he's great at editing videos. I am pretty proud of this
433 little video because it shows not only the chainsaw, but the Marine air horn and the woodchipper going at full
434 blast. But let's, we, we can get back to that. Traffic concerns, again, there's a little misrepresentation in the
435 packet that you got. It overcounts by a factor of two of how many trucks we'll have. Even in our biggest
436 aspirations, we're probably at 140 trips per day. Trips per day is kind of misleading and I think it alarmed
437 people because a trip to the grocery store is going to be two trips, not one, because it's the trip up to and the
438 trip back. So, our crew, if they come in the morning with their personal vehicles, leave with company vehicle,
439 come back with company, that's four trips per crew member. So, it adds up quickly. But what is helpful is
440 comparing it to other usages. Emerson Waldorf School, you're looking at like over a 1,000 trips per day.
441 Chapel Hill Public Works, if they have as many employee vehicles as it looks like in that aerial photo, from just
442 that parking lot, you're looking at 500 trips a day. The Soccer Complex, you're looking at like a 1,000 trips per
443 day on a game day. We are a drop in the bucket. And what's better is our peak traffic times are totally
444 harmonious. We start at 7:00, which means our employees are getting between 6:30 and 7:30. That's when
445 the traffic is coming. That's before Town of Public Works. That's before Emerson Waldorf. We are out, and
446 even if on that far edge of our guys leaving at the latest and the earliest arrivers, we're going in different
447 directions. This is awesome. And then later in the day, we're ending earlier because an 8-hour day for us
448 ends at 3:00. And it's staggered at the end of the day. Our guys finish when the job gets done, not when the
449 clock runs out, so it's staggered. Vehicle routes are harmonious. We're probably going south. When we turn
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
450 south, we're just going by nonresidential properties. This is all commercial properties or Town properties. In
451 the broader perspective, if this doesn't happen, it doesn't mean there's a lack of tree service needs in the area.
452 It just means that to fulfill those tree service needs, you're gonna be having to travel from a lot further away.
453 Maybe same trips per day, but those trips will take three times as long and that means three times as much
454 road use. More traffic intersecting back and forth through the Rural Buffer. Already a problem. This just adds
455 more to that.
456
457 Adam Beeman: If you, if you want to give your summary, you've got two minutes left. If you want to give a
458 wrap-up and a summary, we've got questions for you, so you're gonna have plenty of time to answer them. It's
459 just your chance to say your last bit before we dive in here.
460
461 Craig Nishimoto provided a summary of his personal history and background.
462
463 Adam Beeman: So, I'm going to start the questions and work our way around.
464
465 Whitney Watson: I have three questions for you. One is about working with North Carolina Forestry. I know
466 they offer some of the same tree literacy programs that you are, and so I'd been interested in how you work
467 with them or how you might increase the way in which you work with those groups.
468
469 Craig Nishimoto: Whenever I present to a crowd like a public library or some, a gardening club, I point to
470 North Carolina Forest Service as an offering. If you call the County Ranger, they will send someone out to
471 look at your trees, and it's a pretty good deal because it's free and sometimes, during COVID, they were even
472 sending two guys out, but it takes a long time. You might have to wait a month or two to get out there. This is
473 what I hear from clients. Sometimes their write-ups are excellent. In fact, one time a client showed it to me
474 and it looked like he copied the things that I was saying, telling the client. Other times they're not as good
475 because they have a different skill set. If you became a registered forester or licensed forester, you would
476 have to learn a lot of things that are totally irrelevant to the urban forest interface, you know, trees growing
477 near houses. And what we get to see is trees on houses all the time. We're looking for particular trees and
478 particular elements of this tree, not the health of this big Loblolly Pine tract. I think if everyone started calling
479 them, they just wouldn't have the capacity to do 75 visits a week, for example.
480
481 Whitney Watson: Okay. So that sort of backs into the notion that you're going to have some kind of training
482 program at your site? So, if you're not working with the local forest ranger, then it seems like there's a
483 disconnect between what you do and what they do and the customer, the potential client is losing out, so you
484 might consider about that educational aspect.
485
486 Craig Nishimoto: So, where I think the forest service is strong is on big, managing 20 acre properties or 10
487 acre properties, land management. That's where I think they have a lot to offer. When it's what particular tree
488 and how to deal with its hazard, that's where they fall short, so even though there's something called urban
489 forestry, they mainly just do standard forestry.
490
491 Whitney Watson: Next question, so there's a residential property or residential unit going to be on the
492 property for a full-time caretaker or will they also be working during the day?
493
494 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah, so it's basically our security system needs to have someone there. I could imagine
495 somebody, some eco-terrorist just doesn't like the fact that we cut down a tree coming to destroy all our
496 machines. It's kind of way tucked away, so people could do that. But I got this guy that has worked with me
497 for years and he's a young guy. He would love nothing more than to do the Henry David Thoreau thing. A
498 little cabin out there with his dog and living the life, and that's what we'd like to build for him.
499
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
500 Whitney Watson: The last question which I think Cy intimated about was the access road issue. Can you
501 elaborate on what you see as the best possible outcome for that?
502
503 Craig Nishimoto: We had a meeting earlier today about that, and Maribeth Carr came up with a wonderful
504 solution to this problem. She found that there was a potential route north of the current road that would no
505 matter what they did with the Soccer Complex, it should stay out of their way, and then drop down and we
506 could potentially use the same stream crossing. Apparently, the stream crossing is a big deal as far as the
507 regulatory system goes, so if we could use the same, she thought that would be a big win, and we're not going
508 through as much rough terrain. So, the idea is that, well, we don't know when this plan is going to get concrete
509 enough to say, "oh, we definitely want the road there instead of here," but we think we can accommodate this.
510 We think we can accommodate this in a really neighborly way, namely, let's spend minimal money on this
511 current road. It almost, with a few small improvements,would serve our needs for the next two years maybe.
512 Give the County time to develop its plan of where exactly they might decide "no, it doesn't work that way," but
513 give them time to decide on that, and whatever we would have put into our road improvements that we
514 eventually would have to if they decide to do nothing, we can put to contributing to the development of the new
515 road, and we're perfectly happy to do that. I'm also happy to chase down Crown Castle to get them on board.
516 They've been the most difficult.
517
518 Cy Stober: Just an administrative point, you should all have before you a letter from Craig Nishimoto
519 and Treeist regarding that condition. That basically provides the current status of the condition. It is still under
520 negotiation. There's some details that need to be determined, but David Stancil and the Department of
521 Agriculture, Parks and Recreation on behalf of the County have offered this condition to Treeist. Treeist is
522 agreeable, but I do want to note that the negotiation is not finalized. There are some specifics that need to be
523 determined, but in general, what the UDO requires and what State Law requires is that we have written
524 consent from the applicant, which we do have for you today with regard to the general road layout and the
525 shared use of that road.
526
527 Statler Gilfillen: A question then. If we approve this, can it be conditional based on the final resolution
528 before the County Commissioners would approve it?
529
530 Cy Stober: Yes, so the now six conditions that the applicant agreed to, or is offering as part of their
531 application, is the package that you have before you. Your options this evening are to vote to recommend as
532 presented,which would include those six conditions, vote to recommend with additional conditions, vote to
533 deny, or vote to continue the meeting to a date later for more time to make a recommendation to the
534 Commissioners.
535
536 Chris Johnston: My question's actually probably closer to you. So, in regards to compelling the landowner
537 to do something in the future, what is the limit on something like that? It sounds like the plans from the County
538 could be years in advance, and it sounds like the applicant would have to hold on to some amount of funds in
539 order to maintain a road or make changes that could potentially be in '28, '29. Are we allowed to make that
540 kind of stipulation?
541
542 Cy Stober: Yeah, the law's written with the qualifier that it needs to be a reasonable accommodation
543 and a reasonable condition that's related directly to the land use, so providing safe access in harmony with the
544 adjacent land use, I believe that the Attorney's Office and the County have found that to be a reasonable
545 connection to this proposed use. We do not at this time have a timeline attached to that condition.
546
547 Chris Johnston: I mean, is that something that needs to be attached? It just sounds like that could be a
548 plan that potentially moves on and moves on. The applicant mentioned how this particular plan for a soccer
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
549 field has been in development for a while now, and I'd hate for them to have to hold on to something for 10
550 plus years or whatever the case may be. Like, is there a plan to attach a timeline stipulation to it?
551
552 Cy Stober: So as I said, negotiations are still ongoing. What I can do is defer to David Stancil, the
553 Director of DEAPR or to Craig Nishimoto regarding that point, and that could be a consideration that you all
554 make in your motion on this matter.
555
556 Whitney Watson: And if I could go back, one more question. The condition we'll be voting on says that this
557 is anticipated to generate significant noise and operate during evening hours in the Rural Buffer. Is that
558 accurate?
559
560 Craig Nishimoto: The only time I foresee operating in the evening hours would be in the event of a storm or
561 the direct aftermath of a storm. We start early, we end early. I imagine at some point wanting to have some
562 crew working and available on call on the weekend at least, but we're pretty silent after 3:00. Now there may
563 be one crew that gets back late, but it's not making a hurricane of noise. It's parking a truck, maybe dumping a
564 truck, and leaving with personal vehicle.
565
566 Chris Johnston: If I could continue just, while we have the representative here, Mr. Stancil, regards to the
567 plans moving forward, I guess I come back to just the discomfort I have on timelines and stipulating things that
568 could happen far out in advance. In terms of the negotiations and that sort of thing, if we were to approve
569 something like this, I'd like to have an idea or understanding of where that's headed in terms of requirements
570 for the applicant.
571
572 David Stancil: Our current Capital Investment Plan envisions that we will begin master planning for this
573 long-awaited soccer center for southern Orange County probably in the next year or so. We have a number of
574 sketches that we've done to date. We've owned the property since 2005 and originally it was envisioned to be
575 constructed as a joint project with the Town of Chapel Hill as primarily a soccer facility, but also some other
576 recreational uses in the middle of the last decade, but there were redirection of resources so ultimately, it's
577 been pushed back in the CIP, but we do currently have an adopted CIP that says we will begin engineering
578 drawings, constructions drawings in 2027, construction underway in 2028. 1 can tell you that I have been in
579 contact with the Town of Chapel Hill recently as well to make sure that this is still a priority project that's still in
580 their Capital Investment Plan and it is. I can also tell you that we have been in contact with a large soccer
581 organization in the last several months that is interested in jump-starting a few fields out there. That's a
582 conversation that's ongoing. I don't know exactly what that would mean right now in terms of how many fields,
583 how much parking would be needed and where the entry would be, but so I guess this is a long-winded way of
584 saying that I believe the intention is that this project is something that's three to four years out. I certainly hope
585 that it doesn't get pushed back another five to ten years because that's already happened once. Every year the
586 Board of Commissioners looks at the Capital Investment Plan every spring, and there are changes made every
587 year, so certainly, it could happen.
588
589 Beth Bronson: Just to clarify, those soccer fields, theoretical soccer fields, are they adjacent County
590 parcels?
591
592 David Stancil: Yeah. I don't know if we have a map yet. If you look at the property to the north, and the
593 property to the south of this site is the old landfill, and that's owned by Orange County, but it's not really usable
594 for anything other than low-impact recreation, possibly someday. But we're talking here about the property in
595 this map it would be the property that you see labeled as Orange County to the east, or the right, and then the
596 property to the north. So, we own 79 acres in total. We bought it back in 2005 and the idea at that time —this
597 was shortly after the 2001 bond referendum —was we have a soccer center, a soccer complex in Efland. We
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
598 need one in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area. Chapel Hill and Orange County would like to jointly develop one.
599 So that's the property we're talking about.
600
601 Beth Bronson: And the entrance to the east of those are privately owned, or there's a railroad track
602 there?
603
604 David Stancil: I think the Town of Chapel Hill owns the property that's further to the right of the two
605 Orange County labeled properties on this map, and then you're at Millhouse Road and the railroad tracks. But
606 as you can see, the concern that we addressed, and I hope that we found a solution to, you can see on this
607 map that the existing access road that was done years and years ago for Crown Castle to be able to access
608 their tower severs 20 acres of our site from the rest of it, and I can count on my hands the number of times I've
609 seen a Crown Castle truck go back to the cell tower. So, that's not really been an issue for us, but if that were
610 to become something that was much more frequently used, and we had parking or soccer fields, for example,
611 we don't want kids crossing a commercial driveway to go back and forth between future fields and parking.
612 And so that was the concern that we expressed in our memo. We looked at the possibly of diving down to the
613 southern boundary line adjacent to the grey area on this map. Not a great solution, but as mentioned earlier
614 we had a meeting today. We did identify the fact that there is another access easement on the northern part of
615 the property. This is the way in for the Crown Castle tower which is being proposed for use here. We had, in
616 our letter, suggested diving down and not separating this 20-acre section from the rest of the park. But, as of
617 today, I think we have a potential solution which will use this easement and wrap around the back side of the
618 soccer fields and the future facility. We haven't done a master plan yet because it wasn't time to build the
619 park. We've stopped doing those because we ran into situations where we had an adopted master plan and
620 10 years later, we were getting around to the construction, and things would change. So, we try to do master
621 plans now closer to the point of construction, and that's why we envision doing that in the next year or two for
622 this currently planned construction. But, what we have always envisioned is back here, backing up to Duke
623 Forest, this part of the property has nice hard woods, and is much more like Duke Forest than the rest of the
624 property. These areas in the front were former farm fields. This was the old Julia Blackwood farm. And so,
625 what we would like to do, and what we have talked today, and I think is a possible solution, is come around the
626 back side of the fields.
627
628 Beth Bronson: You don't anticipate development to the west?
629
630 David Stancil: No, this, I think, would be trails and hard wood buffer to Duke Forest. So, the anticipated
631 area of development of this property is in this area here.
632
633 Beth Bronson: Duke Forest does not have anything that backs up to those properties?
634
635 David Stancil: Duke Forest has access, their area actually goes right off the map to the south and to the
636 east.
637
638 Beth Bronson: They have separate access on that Orange County property?
639
640 David Stancil: No, they do not. There was originally a continuation of this easement that I've talked
641 about already that goes to the Duke property, but I'm not, without getting into some legal territory that I should
642 not get into, it's not clear to us whether this part of that easement continues to exist. But suffice to say, that
643 Duke has the ability to access this property from a number of other directions. This is also,just so you know,
644 this is a part of Duke Forest, the Blackwood Division of Duke Forest, that has the NASA research equipment
645 on it, so it's not one of the areas that's active for recreational purposes. There are not a lot of trails here. In
646 fact, they're kind of discouraged for that purpose because there is a lot of scientific research going on back in
647 this part of the property, so there's not a lot of access need in that area.
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
648
649 Beth Bronson: Yeah, I just wanted to know if they had an easement with Orange County or not.
650
651 David Stancil: No, the only one that might exist would be the one that we've been talking about already,
652 whether it continues past this property now. Making a long story short, we're very much familiar with this
653 property as well. We looked at it when we purchased the property, and there are some maps in the final years
654 of the many access easements that have been done that may seem to indicate that this part of the access
655 easement no longer exists, but again, I'm getting into quasi legal territory, which I'm not—
656
657 Liz Kalies: I just want to say I appreciate the attention that you pay to diversity, equity inclusion, and
658 justice issues in your application, and obviously in your business practices and related to land use. It was
659 really nice to see. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about educational opportunities that you would
660 plan to be providing at this new site for the community.
661
662 Craig Nishimoto: David, you want to address some of that? David is my business partner, and he is all
663 about the training and community involvement. He's got a lot of dreams, and a lot of big dreams for this, and
664 he spent the last year doing quite a bit.
665
666 David Ricks: The educational opportunities that we are doing currently are Tree ID, Understanding
667 Tree Risk. We teach chainsaw classes and hand saw classes for the community. So, we have folks that use
668 our services or hear about us, and they say, "hey, I want to do some tree work,"and we'll show them how to
669 use their tools safely, and we'll talk to them about their trees and help them decide whether that's something
670 that can be done. For example, we have a chainsaw class this weekend that's from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 1
671 encourage you guys all to come if you're not confident running a chainsaw, and it's free for the public. We had
672 45 people sign up, but it's free, so when something's free, we might have 15 people there. But those have
673 been going on very regularly. That's one of our most popular classes. Another class is tree climbing —that we
674 give that's free. Craig and I,we came to this later in life, so we've had other careers and professions. And we
675 choose to do this. Most of the people at The Treeist can do other things. They choose to work among the
676 trees for the community being first responders. But climbing trees is intrinsically interesting, and we believe
677 that it should be as ubiquitous as riding a bike here. I have a video encouraging people to sign up for our free
678 classes because, if they have trees in their yard, they have extremely valuable recreational opportunities, and
679 we want to show them how to do that safely because I'm sure all of you have climbed a tree back in the day
680 without ropes or harnesses. And so that's one of the things that we want to bring to the community. The cost
681 of a kayak, to go down the Eno River, for that cost you could build a tree-climbing kit for your entire family, and
682 go out to your backyard and enjoy your trees, and so we need an opportunity to do that in a safe spot to save
683 trees for folks. So, that class is on the 20th. That's the example of our next class that we have. So, we
684 encourage you guys— it's free—to come to that one as well. We also have folks that—and this is really
685 important and near and dear to our hearts because we're lucky to be alive with the lack of training we received
686 early on in our career— next week, on the 10th, I'm training a gentleman from Johnston County to do tree work
687 professionally. He started with his business partner there, and so we're having him out to our facility and
688 showing him the best practices for our industry. And so, we offer that for the community as well. Most of the
689 folks that take us up on that are tree-care professionals that have worked for the company that Craig described
690 when he first started and was lucky to be alive. So, that one is an industry-only offer, but the educational
691 opportunities, we want to expand on them. For example, since 2016 we've given Tree ID classes, we've given
692 how mechanical advantage works for folks. We've given tree climbing. We have taught the folks that work at
693 the UNC Botanical Garden how to access their trees. We have taught folks that work at the Arboretum how to
694 access their trees to install equipment or to do minor tree work. And it's around that kind of thing. The
695 gentleman that recently left, Sam, he is one of our consultants, and he gives presentations weekly that serve
696 two purposes: they educate our team, but they also educate the community—they are on YouTube—on how
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
697 to spot issues with trees, but also how to understand the natural world. So, we really want to bring people in to
698 be able to teach them that in a safe environment.
699
700 Craig Nishimoto: I also pulled up this picture. Those aren't actually all our climbers. I'm not going to say
701 which companies they are from, but they're coming and we're teaching other companies in the area how to
702 climb trees safer and with the health of the tree in mind. We have done training for NC State. We're getting
703 asked by Elon University because there's not a lot of arborist companies. And fire fighters, aerial rescue
704 training, how to rescue people in trees.
705
706 David Ricks: And one fun thing that we've been working really hard on is we are offering a tree climbing
707 summer camp for kids with the Woods Charter School. They actually approached us from folks that have
708 come to our free events and wanted to make this an offering to give the students there, or the kids who go
709 there, K-12, a more challenging environment to connect with the natural world. So that's two to three weeks a
710 summer. But we're excited to have a more robust facility for things like that. We're doing one class for 1 week
711 for 6 to 9-year-olds, and then the next week is going to be from 10 to 14-year-olds.
712
713 Steve Kaufmann: I don't have any questions, but I really appreciate the package that you put together. You
714 really did your research, so I appreciate it.
715
716 Melissa Poole: I don't really have any questions,just one. It's addressed, and I did read, but just for
717 purpose. What's the nearest resident?
718
719 Craig Nishimoto: The nearest resident is the owner of Green Beagle Lodge. We met directly with him.
720 Amanda and I met with him and told him what we're doing and asked if he had any concerns because even
721 though he's about 1,800 feet away from where we would be doing the staging of the materials, he's still by far
722 the closest residence. Everyone else is beyond 2,000 feet, and he was a thumbs up, good luck.
723
724 Lamar Proctor: Where are the majority of your clients? Are they in residential Chapel Hill or...?
725
726 Craig Nishimoto: I would say 90 percent of our clients are private,just homeowners, and I would say 90
727 percent are in Chapel Hill, but in Chapel Hill Township, I would say maybe 70 percent. There are some big
728 trees in Durham, and for some historical accident, I started doing work up there, and the neighbor started
729 talking, and we're doing a lot of work up there too in the big Willow Oaks and what not, and of course,
730 Hillsborough and North Chatham County. There's just not a lot of people west in the real rural parts, but we do
731 a lot of work out in the rural parts and work with climbers with big property, and we'll find a way to just give
732 them discounts if they want to use their tractor as well.
733
734 Lamar Proctor: So the majority of the traffic from your side is gonna go south on Millhouse to Eubanks
735 and either east or west depending on —
736
737 Craig Nishimoto: I mean worst case scenario, we have a client on Woodfield Road or Mount Sinai, and
738 there's that intersection on 86 and Mount Sinai. If it's anywhere near school hours, that's just a log jam. So,
739 even in that case, I would imagine we'd still turn south and get onto Eubanks Road and then go from there.
740
741 Lamar Proctor: I guess this is a question for you and Mr. Stancil. There's a great need for athletic fields in
742 our county, and so I'm really kind of concerned about anything that's going to cross paths with that, because
743 that's an ongoing issue. Do you think that your business would be interfering with athletic field use? Why or
744 why not? And then I guess the secondary question to Mr. Stancil, do you think that this use can still
745 accommodate athletic fields in the vicinity?
746
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
747 Craig Nishimoto: I think it's completely harmonious. One: because County athletic fields, when are they
748 used? They're used on weekends or well after school lets out. We are not there. We're done unless it's a
749 storm or an emergency when the soccer fields are probably not gonna be used anyways. So, you're just not
750 going to see our trucks, or you might see our trucks, but they're not gonna be very many of them. So, I don't
751 think this is a problem. I think there's plenty of land out there. There's 74 acres or whatever it is. I'm hoping
752 they can build all six soccer fields and a bunch of baseball fields as well.
753
754 David Stancil: I have to be a bit careful in how I answer this. I should've said this at the beginning when
755 1 first got up here, but this is a very odd position for Orange County to be in because we are both the regulator,
756 the Planning Department and staff. And you, the Planning Board, the County Commissioners, will be
757 considering the regulatory matter of this rezoning. I'm here wearing the hat of Orange County's adjacent
758 landowner, and an adjacent landowner that has plans for development of the property. So, there certainly is a
759 great need for additional soccer fields and other playing fields in our community. We have already seen. 1
760 don't know how many of you go by Cedar Falls Park and Chapel Hill and see the one sole artificial turf field
761 that is used all day long in almost any weather. So, it's heavily used. The demand is certainly there, and that
762 is gonna continue to be the case, and the idea of having a soccer center for Southern Orange County has
763 been a very high priority of ours and, I think, of the town Chapel Hills for some time now. But the nature of this
764 rezoning request and what is being proposed, I really can't speak to the appropriateness of that, except to say
765 that we do think that the northerly access route that we've come up with and talked about today is certainly far
766 preferable to anything that would separate part of our property from the rest of it because the current access
767 road is in a location, unfortunately, where it keeps some of the land that's gonna be used for the soccer center
768 separated from the rest of it, and so something that gets us away from that is preferable to us. But in terms of,
769 you know, the agricultural sport as it applies to zoning category in this particular request, I have to stand mute
770 on that.
771
772 Beth Bronson: Can you describe one more time for us why the southern expansion was no longer
773 considered preferable?
774
775 David Stancil: Well, it requires a stream crossing that is wider and further east. So, it would create more
776 of an ecological concern by crossing the stream at that point than the way it is currently planned and the
777 location that the applicant has planned for in this new arrangement is still gonna be the same place because
778 we would wrap around and come in at the same point. That's the main reason.
779
780 Beth Bronson: I'm thinking that it would require therefore more further east, but if you were thinking about
781 expanding into a complete new— like if you had plans for all the surrounding parcels, even though you don't
782 have a master plan ready, would you not consider going in southern and making a larger more expansive
783 entryway for a soccer pavilion location? I mean I'm just thinking about like the soccer.com fields. That's quite a
784 driveway. And just why wouldn't you have a plan to do that with this one as well?
785
786 David Stancil: Again, my comment there was solely about access to this property. Yes, you're right.
787 When we do a master plan for this facility, we will need to have a fairly significant ingress and egress for how
788 that facility's gonna work, but we're not in a place right now to say it would be here on Millhouse Road or it
789 would be to the north. The issue of the southern route, it's also longer. I didn't mention that as well, but it's a
790 longer route as well, so that's the reason we think the northern approach that we've come up with today is
791 preferable to us.
792
793 Adam Beeman: So, if you follow the north path and you come down, where you would come down in your
794 potential, is that wooded or is that open field where you would come through? Because I'm understanding that
795 the southern route is heavily forested, so there's a lot of trees to remove and all that. So, would you have all
796 that going northern, or is that just gonna come through field and you're just cutting a driveway?
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
797
798 David Stancil: Yeah. A lot of it is going to go through Sweet Gum and Pine, that kind of succession
799 forest that we see, a lot of that area is former farm fields that is now in succession and has Sweet Gum and
800 Pine. So, it avoids the heavier, nicer hardwoods that are further to the west.
801
802 Cy Stober: Just because I feel that it's relevant to this point, any plans that the County would wish to
803 do on that adjacent property would have to be reviewed by the Planning Department, conform with our Unified
804 Development Ordinance, and be reviewed by the North Carolina Department of Transportation for a driveway
805 permit to ensure safe ingress, egress. So, all of those details would be determined with submittal of a site plan
806 and review by both our staff and state staff at the DOT. So, I just want to remind you all of that. We don't have
807 any plans in hand today. We can't comment upon any of that, but when that day hopefully comes, we would
808 be able to review that. But, again, we don't have anything in hand to review.
809
810 Statler GiIfillen: But this is something based on tonight, that is potential in the future, maybe, soccer fields
811 are not there. Now, are we asking that he be involved in helping to finance the change of road later on and if
812 maybe, and how do you handle that when you write a proposal?
813
814 Cy Stober: I believe there's reference to that in the Treeist letter, but we don't have a resolution on
815 cost share for road provision as detailed in the condition offer by the Treeist this evening. So, as I stated
816 before, negotiations are ongoing between the County and the applicant. That certainly can be something you
817 consider in your vote.
818
819 Statler GiIfillen: So we can put in something to the effect that we could approve or disapprove this, or if we
820 approve it, pending your organization and him reaching a final agreement.
821
822 Cy Stober: You may if it's reasonable and tied to the land use. I want to remind you that the
823 Commissioners under state law do have powers regarding the public interest and reasonableness that the
824 Planning Board does not. So, I want to make sure you're focused on the land use question. So, you may want
825 to make comment on that, but please stay focused on the land use.
826
827 Adam Beeman: So, day in a life, you're sending out a dump truck and a chipper, or just a dump truck?
828
829 Craig Nishimoto: Oh, so the way the typical crews operate, the standard crew would have three people.
830 One would drive a chip truck with a chipper behind it, one would drive a pickup truck towing a mini skid steer,
831 and then if needed, depending on the job, there might be a dump truck going with them, a small dump truck.
832
833 Adam Beeman: So, you're chipping the debris, like small branches and debris, on site and bringing home
834 large limbs and tree trunks. Is that what I'm understanding?
835
836 Craig Nishimoto: Almost all limbs get chipped because the chippers nowadays, they'll take big pieces. But
837 when it's a big, ugly stump or something like that, it goes in the back of a truck.
838
839 Adam Beeman: But you're bringing the small stuff up in the neighborhood, or that's coming back to your
840 business?
841
842 Craig Nishimoto: So, I described how we're working now. How we would like to work and what we're
843 working on even now is getting rid of that pickup truck so it's only two vehicles going out per crew. You've
844 probably seen these trash grapple trucks that they go by and pick up limbs for the Town of Chapel Hill like
845 Carrboro. We would like to invest in those kind of machines. They would be rear mounted, but a similar size
846 because we still have to get in to these communities. They would be tandem axle in the back, so if we load it
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
847 full of logs, it wouldn't break, but those things would go around and instead of sending dump trucks
848 everywhere, they could pick up logs. They can even pick up brush. So, in some cases, we might even
849 eliminate a chipper on site. That's a big thing in some areas of the country where they just get rid of chippers.
850 It's not yet been done here, so we know that our streets won't be able to handle the biggest storm chaser
851 trucks that you would see in Florida, but we do think that this is the way to go and what people are gonna want
852 more and more as they realize your chippers are way too loud.
853
854 Adam Beeman: So, if you move down to the truck and load your debris, you're bringing it back to your site
855 and shredding it, chipping it, at your site with the debris? I just want to make sure beacuse I understand the
856 logs. I get you're gonna pull off good logs and stack them to sell them. I get all that. I'm more interested in
857 what happens to the pile of wood chips because there's a house up here off of 86, logging company, that
858 they've been dumping wood chips in the yard for probably a good 20 years, and they've raised a grade from
859 where it was to 7 feet of wood chips. So, I see the pile, and if we give you the reduction in the buffer, I just
860 don't want to envision a 60-foot-tall pile of wood chips because there's nowhere to go with them, and you just
861 keep stacking them up. So that's why I'm asking. Like you're coming back to the shop. The guy's got a load
862 of stuff, and someone's sitting there actually processing material, taking it off and shredding stuff, or you're not
863 gonna be shredding on site? You're just more or less sorting?
864
865 Craig Nishimoto: Sorting is the key. So, you bring this truck back. Now,we can even do it without that
866 truck, but let's imagine the big plan is to have these grapple trucks unload the debris. They're rear mounted,
867 so you could take your logs over here, your brush over here, your trash wood over here, and then logs get
868 sorted by a loader to wherever they belong. And then if you have brush, then you take a big pile of brush back
869 in that and take it out to, for example, Coley Road where they have a green waste processing place.
870
871 Adam Beeman: So, you're not actually processing the material on site, maybe occasionally, but not—
872
873 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah, that's not the plan. I noticed that the Planning Department's write-up suggested
874 that we would be processing. That's not part of our plan, but it might be a good idea to leave it open as a
875 possibility rather than close it off because from these tests, if we put just a little berm, you would not be able to
876 hear it anywhere from the residential properties, and the County cannot serve tree services right now. They
877 can't take anything over 12 inches in diameter, and I asked those guys, "why don't you change this? You guys
878 basically only help landscapers with shrubs. What do we do with this wood?" The only places that are
879 operating are way out. They're 150 feet from residential place, and they're having these big horizontal grinders
880 there. This is a big problem. It might be nice just to leave that open if we do work later and say, "let's set up a
881 horizontal grinder in here." They're probably not as loud as the lightweight chippers that we bring and put in
882 somebody's driveway, but then we could help, but that's not part of this plan right now. I would love to leave it
883 open because I think it makes a lot of sense as a possibility, but these grinders might cost a million dollars too,
884 and we're just not ready to do that. We have no plans to start a mulching operation, but we do things with this
885 pile of wood chips. This is biofuel, if we can't do anything else with it. One, if we had a pile and a loader,we
886 could give it away, but we'll saturate that market of just giving it away to homeowners or little farms and stuff
887 like that. But ultimately, the way to get rid of it may be to put them in tractor trailers and take them up to
888 Southern Virginia where they use them as an alternative to coal. It's biofuel.
889
890 Patrick Mallett: So, we just looked it up and that's expressly prohibited in ASE-CD and in the Rural Buffer.
891 So, you can have the wood piles, and I understand the brainstorming pioneering thought.
892
893 Adam Beeman: So there's no processing allowed.
894
895 Patrick Mallett: It's black and white. You can stock pile wood chips. It's no grinding. And that's chipping.
896
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
897 Adam Beeman: We might have another meeting to change that. My other question, because I saw
898 something about some hazardous sites not too far away at the dump below, what's your concern about your
899 groundwater and how you're gonna go about that? I can get you can do some septic dealing, but drinking the
900 water and your future potential, I'm just curious to know what your thought process is on that.
901
902 Craig Nishimoto: So, what the residents in this area do is frequent testing, and they do have some test sites
903 there right at the perimeter of the landfill. So, we would always want to get information from their latest test,
904 and then I talked to their engineers a while back, and they described to me the underground geology, that
905 water apparently flows away from you, and I pressed him with that question. I was like, "I see water on top of
906 the ground. You're talking about under the ground?" And they said yes. So, now, of course, I don't know for
907 sure. It is, apparently, unlined. We don't know what they were dumping way back when, but it's not the end of
908 the world. We're not putting the subdivision there. My little Walden guy, we can give him bottled water, which
909 is what we're doing now.
910
911 Delores Bailey: You mentioned earlier, I want to make sure I heard this right, that your current site is too
912 small?
913
914 Craig Nishimoto: Yes.
915
916 Delores Bailey: Is that because you want to expand or is that because you've already outgrown that site?
917
918 Craig Nishimoto: We have already outgrown the site. We're squeezed.
919
920 Delores Bailey: Okay. And so how much more land is this going to be for you than where you are right
921 now?
922
923 Craig Nishimoto: Well, so, my current land is adjacent. We bought a small house, less than 1,000 square
924 feet, on a 2-acre lot, and then we started as a home occupation there, and then we needed more land. So, 1
925 called the guy who owned just a wasteland of 3 and a half acres, and we bought that from him, and then the
926 same guy owned a little 1-acre commercial property on Highway 54, and we bought that from him. We're so
927 close, I have good relationships with all of my neighbors, but I just don't want to push them any more. Our
928 operations are just too big for this area. For being right up against a bunch of residential houses.
929
930 Delores Bailey: Right now, you're about 6 acres, and you're going to...?
931
932 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah. But that 6 acres, it's not like this 6 acres. The 6 acres that we're now on has a little
933 pond that's shared with a neighbor. It's not all commercial. We can't really use it. So, we've got basically 1
934 acre of commercial property, and then I'm using a lot of my personal property too. So, maybe we have,
935 combined, maybe 3 acres of usable space there. We're going to a place with 10 acres that's wide open.
936
937 Delores Bailey: Have you imagined how long it will take you to outgrow that space?
938
939 Craig Nishimoto: That's the beauty of this place. I think we can, between what we have now, our current
940 location would be great for tree healthcare. A division of our company. The planting of trees. The little raised
941 beds where we're growing little seedlings, and tree healthcare, which doesn't require big trucks, and would be
942 compatible with that location, and then if we had this just dedicated to core tree service, I don't think we would
943 ever outgrow it. Why? Because I think we could put enough in there that we would saturate, geographically,
944 the market.
945
946 Delores Bailey: But you'll continue to use both spots?
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
947
948 Craig Nishimoto: That's what I foresee. Yeah. There comes a point when you're traveling more than 30
949 minutes away to do tree work where you lose efficiency, and you better open up a satellite or just let
950 somebody else have that work, and so we really think we are serving this local area.
951
952 Delores Bailey: And my second question was, I thought I heard you mention that you were close to the
953 landfill. Do you have a picture of that? Can you locate that?
954
955 Craig Nishimoto: And then the landfill is this, and you can see it's a big hill that's been sealed and covered,
956 and now it's just a hill of grass, but that's the first part. That's where they were first doing their landfilling
957 activities, and now, if you go farther south of there, then you have the grinding operation, the Recycling Center,
958 and if you go across Eubanks Road, that's a new part of their landfill that has recently shut down, I think.
959
960 Marilyn Carter: So, Dr. Nishimoto, your package was incredibly well done. I'm not an expert on the LIDO
961 nor the Comprehensive Plan. We have some other folks who are here, but it read extremely clearly. You
962 addressed almost all of the questions I had. And so I just want to commend you on an excellent job in your
963 packet. I do have a couple of questions. You mentioned, and you addressed this in your packet, the
964 precedent of why the Rural Buffer. And this land use sets a precedent, but it's not a concerning precedent,
965 and briefly can you briefly cover that?
966
967 Craig Nishimoto: This would be Section 9 of my detailed narrative. I'm glad you asked because I think this
968 is the crux of the issue. This is why this is an issue. I would say there's about five related arguments, and
969 they're very brief, and the first is that if we look at the Comprehensive Plan with a fine tooth comb there are
970 three places where it talks about limiting development in the Rural Buffer. The first thing that we notice is that
971 even if we took those three things as invaluable laws, like 10 Commandment-level laws, what we are doing is
972 not in conflict with them. The wording does not prohibit them. Secondly, building on that point, it would have
973 been very easy to have rewritten those so that it would have prohibited what we're doing by just making the
974 language a little stronger. If it just changed a couple words, it would have prohibited what we have done. It
975 looks intentionally meant to build in flexibility. Why? Because the Comprehensive Plan, it is known that not all
976 of these goals and objectives are compatible with each other. They acknowledge there's going to be conflicts.
977 There's going to have to be tradeoffs. There's built into these goals and objectives, room for judgment. So,
978 then the third, the argument would be if it were the case that what we're trying to do is in conflict with these
979 three sort of statements about the Rural Buffer, then many of the other things that are permitted would also be
980 in conflict, or conversely, if some of the things that are expressly permitted are accepted, then ours should be
981 as well. So, you can imagine why should a large facility solar array be allowed in the Rural Buffer if that
982 violates the intensive non-residential uses? Well, that's permitted, but it's certainly not more intensive than
983 anything that we are planning to do. One of the principles here about the Rural Buffer is to encourage a
984 separation of urban and rural land uses. Well, then why should they allow these government facilities and
985 office buildings like the Town of Chapel Hill Public Works, but it's not permissible for us to build an office space
986 to accommodate our clerical staff? Then the third example is the objective in these principles is to maintain the
987 rural low density land as Rural Buffer. Then why would it be permissible to build kennels, care facilities,
988 recreational facilities, artificial turf and lights, artificial lights. Why is that consistent with rural land but not for
989 us to create an indoor and outdoor facility to train future tree workers? And then fourth, there's a burden of
990 proof problem here. We have, like I said, listed a lot of things that we are totally in alignment with. We are
991 solving County problems, County needs, and these things don't prohibit us. You got to just not say that, "Oh,
992 there's a little tension in between three of these things." You've listed dozens of things where you are helping
993 the Comprehensive Plan or you're in line and you're advancing it's programs and its goals, but there's a little
994 tension between three of these statements. Well, then show us how that problem overrides all of the positive
995 things we're doing. I think it's a burden of proof problem. And then finally, and I think this is crux. If the Board
996 of County Commissioners allows what we're doing, this does not, in any way, open the flood gates for more
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
997 incursions into the Rural Buffer. Anybody who wants to follow this is going to have to stand before the
998 Planning Board and make similar arguments. They're going to have to argue like I did, and it's not going to be
999 the case if you want to make a discount retail store in the Rural Buffer, that you're going to be able to produce
1000 the same kind of arguments that I've produced. I'm so glad that I'm not arguing for a Dollar Store.
1001
1002 Marilyn Carter: Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. And second question is a hypothetical that we
1003 may be getting closer to, which is if the Planning Board were to ask you and Mr. Stancil to go back and write a
1004 condition that addresses the item that is currently under negotiation, would that put either of you in an
1005 untenable position? Or is that something that this Planning Board could ask you to do with a motion?
1006
1007 Craig Nishimoto: So, I think that's a good question. Where we're at, where DEAPR is at in this early stage
1008 of envisioning what they want to do, I think we've come to enough of agreement to where it's as much as we
1009 should come to before putting either of us in a straitjacket of what to do next or wasting money for something
1010 that may not be of any good use, like rerouting a road now. It may turn out that the current road is perfectly
1011 compatible with what they're planning to do. It's just now that you can imagine that they want to put a soccer
1012 field or a grouping of soccer fields to make the lighting more efficient. They want to put them exactly right
1013 where the current access roads goes. Then it is entirely reasonable for us to work together and reroute. That
1014 just seems like totally reasonable. In all interactions with DEAPR, they've struck me as reasonable neighbors.
1015 We can come to a solution on this. What would be a problem is if suddenly they were saying, "Craig, you've
1016 got to build a southern route on your own dime before we allow you to do anything." It would break us. We're
1017 already sticking our neck out far in this. We couldn't afford that, but I just don't see that as being a reasonable
1018 recommendation. I think I would rely on argument to fight against that, and I think we'd come up with a
1019 reasonable solution.
1020
1021 Marilyn Carter: And just to clarify, a southern route and having you, as you've described in your response
1022 to Mr. Stancil, having to foot the bill for a southern route would be something that you'd push back on but not
1023 necessarily on continuing the negotiations. To clarify, what would happen with that northern route?
1024
1025 Craig Nishimoto: Well, the northern route, not only is it less expensive to build, but because it is also useful
1026 for maintenance crews, for the County's own work, or just access to the trails, if they can find a way to also
1027 jointly use it, then they can argue that we can also jointly fund that road, and then we can put our resources
1028 together and cooperate on that road. That would be just a perfect solution, I would think. If it comes to that.
1029
1030 Statler Gilfillen: On Page 119, is the recommendation from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources
1031 Commission, and they are talking about native plants and how you will treat the land itself. I assume your
1032 intention is to try to coordinate and follow up with what they have said? Do you see any conflict in what they
1033 have suggested?
1034
1035 Craig Nishimoto: No. There's a big stream riparian area that we just aren't going to touch. There's some
1036 beautiful hardwoods in there that we'd like to try to preserve. I mean, even for our own interests, we want
1037 trees to climb on, and practice on, and train on. There's other areas that are Ash trees that are dying and
1038 whatnot.
1039
1040 Charity Kirk: So, Marilyn asked one of my Rural Buffer questions, but I was wondering, on Page 75, the
1041 staff comments, this is more for you, Ashley. The staff comment is, the proposed ASE-CD zoning district for
1042 an arborist and tree processing center is consistent with the Rural Buffer rural land use classification, then you
1043 mentioned Appendix F, relationships between land use classifications and zoning districts. I don't understand
1044 that appendix end table. Could you explain why it is consistent according to that table? Because that is the
1045 crux of the question to me is, how much does this differ from the Rural Buffer current zoning?
1046
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1047 Ashley Moncado: Staff looks at the Future Land Use Classification, and this is kind of what we really rely on
1048 as planners, is this table. When they did first come to staff, I think that initial feedback was what would be
1049 supported, or would it be allowed in that Future Land Use Classification would be ASE-CD, and then also in
1050 NR-CD.
1051
1052 Charity Kirk: So, the reason why they can't just do what they want in the Rural Buffer is the commercial
1053 nature of it?
1054
1055 Ashley Moncado: Yes. The Agricultural Services use is not permitted in the Rural Buffer zoning district.
1056 That's what kind of started this. But that Agricultural Service use is permitted in the NR-CD and the ASE-CD
1057 district.
1058
1059 Charity Kirk: Are there currently any ASE-CD districts?
1060
1061 Ashley Moncado: No. This would be the first one within the county.
1062
1063 Charity Kirk: And it's already encouraged in the Comprehensive Plan to allow rezoning to it?
1064
1065 Ashley Moncado: Yes.
1066
1067 Charity Kirk: Then my other question is if this business goes out of business, we are then stuck with
1068 the current land use that is suggested here. Right? And if anything is going to change with the plans or how
1069 this land is— what buildings and the parking structures and everything, then someone has to come back here?
1070
1071 Cy Stober: That is 100 percent correct. With the exception of the Special Use Permit that prevails on
1072 the property and will be unaffected by this for the telecom tower. So, that permit persists in that the cell tower
1073 operator has the right to the property for that specific use under their Special Use Permit in perpetuity. If they
1074 want to modify that, they would have to go to the Board of Adjustment for the permit modification as well.
1075
1076 Charity Kirk: What would be a looser rezoning of this that would allow future changes? Just out of
1077 curiosity.
1078
1079 Cy Stober: Oh, sure. Any of the Conventional Districts. We would determine if it was a Commercial
1080 use or a Light Industrial use, or if it would be more intensive than the Agricultural Residential uses, so an AR or
1081 residential zoning district would not be appropriate, but we would have to get around the table with Treeist to
1082 determine if it's a commercial use or a Light Industrial use, and from there forward,we'd make a
1083 recommendation to both Planning Board and the Commissioners on that Conventional District. But you go
1084 back to the Table of Permitted Uses in that case, and you look at the menu of uses in that, say, Light Industrial
1085 or GC4 district, in any one of those uses could be allowed if somehow you could extend water and sewer.
1086 Under GC4, you could have fast food there.
1087
1088 Charity Kirk: Okay. This ASE-CD fits very nicely with the current Rural Buffer because the
1089 Comprehensive Plan is already pointing you to it, and it is very limiting in the other potentials of Commercial
1090 and Light Industrial. Like, it will not eventually be in the future get more removed from the Rural Buffer.
1091
1092 Cy Stober: No. What you have before you is a site-specific plan, and I believe Ashley's analysis also
1093 reflects that consistency with the Comprehensive Plan, the harmony of land use with the surrounding land
1094 uses, all but one of which, arguably two with the kennel, are publicly owned, and if there's any major
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1095 modifications to the proposed site plan, they'll have to come back before this board, they have to go back
1096 before the Commissioners for reapproval for any major modification.
1097
1098 Charity Kirk: So, with the road, how do we approve this? I mean, it is an easement, right? And it's not
1099 even on this property, and it's not a land use, per se. What do we do to say, "Please work with the County."
1100
1101 Cy Stober: Sure. That's an offsite commitment that is reasonably tied to the land use. So, let's go to
1102 a different case, and one that I think this body was frustrated by, the Lawrence Road case, and the impact to
1103 the surrounding road network that were going to be potentially created by the charter school that was going to
1104 go on that project, that ultimately was denied. If we were allowed to consider traffic commitments, the
1105 intersection improvements, or the turn lanes, or the widening of any of those roads, they're not on the property.
1106 They're off the property. They would be tied to the developer in that case would have been obligated to make
1107 some or all of those improvements based upon the decision of the Commissioners and the recommendation of
1108 the Planning Board. So, similar in this case, the access road, essentially a long driveway, through another
1109 property, owned by another party, in this case, the County, must be made through negotiation between those
1110 two parties in order to realize the use as proposed on the site plan that you have before you tonight. So, is it
111 1 reasonably tied to this proposed use and, as the negotiations proceed, what does the Planning Board feel that
1112 its role in making recommendation on what they feel is reasonably tied to the proposal should be? Does that
1113 make sense?
1114
1115 Charity Kirk: Can we say, "we approve this as long as you work with the County to deal with the road
1116 within a 5 year limit?" How can we proceed with this road that's currently unsettled?
1117
1118 Cy Stober: I'll give you the answer I shouldn't, which is the direct answer, but perhaps one that steps
1119 on legal toes, which is yeah. That would be a reasonable request. When you start getting into the nickels and
1120 dimes of what that should be and exactly where on the road, in your lay opinion, Treeist obligation ends and
1121 the County's begins, that starts getting outside the bounds of reasonable, but that general statement, I think, is
1122 a reasonable recommendation as tied to the Treeist application.
1123
1124 Melissa Poole: But isn't that addressed in the letter we discussed?
1125
1126 Cy Stober: It is. It would be the new Condition 6 that's offered by the applicant.
1127
1128 Melissa Poole: If we were to make the recommendation to approve with the conditions outlined, it's
1129 already outlined.
1130
1131 Cy Stober: Yeah.
1132
1133 Patrick Mallett: I just want to throw in one crumb. Unlike almost everything you've ever seen, Orange
1134 County is also the adjacent property owner. So, the applicant is going through a zoning process, there's also
1135 negotiations with an adjacent property owner. That's an added layer to this. So, you can take that for what it's
1136 worth.
1137
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1138 Adam Beeman: I would be inclined to leave the easement alone because we're only making a
1139 recommendation, and the Board of County Commissioners would make that final determination. So, I would
1140 say it's better suited to be dealt with by them or potentially the applicant gets it solved before he gets to the
1141 Commissioners, if we approve it. But other than that, I don't know about putting some sort of recommendation
1142 or condition on easements because, ultimately, at the end of the day, nothing has been settled other than what
1143 he has here.
1144
1145 Charity Kirk: Would you just say, "we approve the package including this letter?"
1146
1147 Adam Beeman: Yes. I just wouldn't try to create new easement conditions, I guess, is what I'm trying to
1148 say. I'm more than happy to move forward with this letter that he's submitted, where he's basically saying, "I'm
1149 willing to work with the County," but there's no definitive what that means, let them hash that out. I don't know
1150 that we need to stick our nose in that portion of the process. That's just my opinion.
1151
1152 Beth Bronson: I did have a few questions. On Hatch Road, are you not already in the Rural Buffer?
1153
1154 Craig Nishimoto: We are in the Rural Buffer. Yeah.
1155
1156 Beth Bronson: Okay. I mean, that's okay. I guess I just want to point out currently that the company
1157 operates within the Rural Buffer. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
1158
1159 Craig Nishimoto: Maybe I need to clarify. My house is Rural Buffer, zoned Rural Buffer. The 1-acre
1160 commercial lot is some sort of weird business Carrboro zoning.
1161
1162 Beth Bronson: So, it's already a Conditionally Zoned within the Rural Buffer probably because of
1163 grandfathering laws, as in it was a business before the Rural Buffer existed.
1164
1165 Craig Nishimoto: It was zoned business before. Yeah.
1166
1167 Beth Bronson: Which is why it would be grandfathered. And then I guess, I have another question of
1168 would you accept tree recycling and reuse from any other companies? Do you do that now, currently?
1169
1170 Craig Nishimoto: We don't do it now. We don't have the room for it, but I imagine if we get these grapple
1171 trucks, we would be really the only company with those grapple trucks. For example, if a company was
1172 offering it to me now to pick up the logs, and I didn't have to bring a dump truck to site, I would pay them a lot
1173 of money to do that, and I foresee being able to offer that to other local tree services. To pick up their logs,
1174 that way they don't have to cut them up into firewood and throw them into the back of the truck or dispose of
1175 them. We can grab them for them and then add them to our piles. That would probably be in everyone's
1176 interest, and we are great networkers with other tree companies.
1177
1178 Beth Bronson: Obviously. Okay. And then do you grade and sell the mill wood?
1179
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1180 Craig Nishimoto: No. That's another industry all together. Randall Williams is the guy who I most look up
1181 to and admire in this. He would really be the guy to ask about this, but we basically send it to him or operators
1182 like him.
1183
1184 Beth Bronson: You subcontract that, or just be the liaison in between...?
1185
1186 Craig Nishimoto: We give it away or we sell it to-
1187
1188 Beth Bronson: I was gonna say give it away as well too. I'm very fascinated by the training you could
1189 offer and the education opportunities that you would have to work in the community. That would further
1190 enhance, this whole purpose of the development within the Rural Buffer and why something like this
1191 Conditional Zoning District would be beneficial for the area. As somebody who has grown up around tree
1192 service, I do know that dealing with the waste is a large problem, and I've seen plenty of houses, not just with
1193 wood chips, but with logs and logs and logs, and I do know that byproduct can become the worse problem.
1194 Then actually what to do with it. It's what to do with the decaying of debris. What does the turnover look like at
1195 your current establishment?
1196
1197 Craig Nishimoto: It's a mess. We try to get rid of it as quickly as possible, and we're next to Brockwell
1198 Trucking on Calvendar, but they're over capacity, and some winters they'll just say, "No more. We can't take
1199 any more." And then we take some to a place down by Jordan Lake where they bury the stuff, and then
1200 sometimes Gorilla Materials. If the guys are working up in Durham, but it's a mess.
1201
1202 Beth Bronson: Thank you. And then I may have missed this. I see four conditions in the packet, and
1203 then I see the roadway condition of which, I'm glad to hear that you're excited to work with, you're optimistic
1204 about working with the County to create a better entry point for a place of business, like around a municipal
1205 field, should the County decide to move forward with that. Ideally, it would be awesome if they had a master
1206 plan that incorporated your driveway and a new easement. That's obviously very complicated. Getting an
1207 easement for a cell tower versus a business, well, the easement is the same thing. It's two completely
1208 different pieces.
1209
1210 Craig Nishimoto: Yeah. There's also power lines running through there too. So, you can't really put power
1211 lines through your soccer field. Or maybe you can.
1212
1213 Beth Bronson: You definitely can't. I guess as an agricultural enterprise versus, as we were talking
1214 about, the restrictions on that agricultural, obviously we want your business as it stands applying for the
1215 application. Right? Versus having grappling trucks or what in 5 to 10 years. Because that may be a different
1216 thing. It may be a different evolved business by then. Right? You may want two or three buildings to add
1217 onto or something like that.
1218
1219 Craig Nishimoto: I don't know that we would be able to do that. This is-
1220
1221 Beth Bronson: No, I'm just— It is not up to us to speculate on how your growth is going to go.
1222
1223 Craig Nishimoto: No. No. What I mean is, I think we're locked into this site plan.
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1224
1225 Beth Bronson: You absolutely are. Yes. I guess that's what I mean about these discussions about the
1226 roadways, easement, and things like that, as well as the site plan itself effecting future business. I think we
1227 were just getting very speculative about some of this. It's just that I'm thinking about it as what you have now
1228 moving into it, and huge component of the education and your opportunity to be more of a community leader in
1229 that area because there are a ton of arborists.
1230
1231 Craig Nishimoto: On that, on that recreational stuff,we think it's absurd that people are into rock climbing in
1232 Chapel Hill. Why? There's not rocks. There's a lot of trees. We think it's absurd that when you go into REI,
1233 there's a rock climbing section but no tree climbing section. We want everyone,when they go camping with
1234 their kids, to bring tree climbing gear. We can teach them to do that. So, that's kind of the vision. We're at the
1235 cutting edge.
1236
1237 Beth Bronson: For the 100 foot setback, the moving it to 40 feet, is this on the southern border?
1238
1239 Craig Nishimoto: Yes.
1240
1241 Beth Bronson: Okay, of the Superfund site?
1242
1243 Craig Nishimoto: There are no neighbors there.
1244
1245 Beth Bronson: No. It says it's zoned as residential.
1246
1247 Craig Nishimoto: Well, wait a minute. Let me correct that. Because if you look at the site plan, there's a
1248 place where it's probably within 100 feet on the Duke Forest side too. So yeah. You're right. The Duke Forest
1249 is zoned Rural Buffer, and we might be incurred within that 100 feet. It's just not residential. It never will be.
1250
1251 Ashley Moncado: I can pull the conditions up. Those were the five that were provided in your packet, and
1252 I'm not sure if we're looking at adding a sixth or we would be revising Condition Number 5?
1253
1254 Melissa Poole: The letter was the sixth.
1255
1256 Ashley Moncado: There was the potential to have the BOCC considering an addition of six or that the letter
1257 is a response to five.
1258
1259 Cy Stober: Correct. Ashley is correct. The letter would replace Number 5.
1260
1261 Melissa Poole: So, we've got five. This is a procedural question because when you throw all these at us,
1262 we get mixed up when we've got to make a motion. So, are we doing Attachment 6, the Statement of
1263 Consistency, do we have to do all these individually, or can we put them all together?
1264
1265 Cy Stober: In the statement?
1266
1267 Melissa Poole: In the motion.
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1268
1269 Cy Stober: I think Ashley has it laid out for y'all.
1270
1271 Lamar Proctor: Can I make a comment real quick? I just wanted to thank you because this is exactly the
1272 kind of business that I've been hoping for since I've been on the Planning Board. Something that's organic, and
1273 by organic, I mean it evolved locally, it evolved from a local need, it provides a local service, it's unique, it's
1274 consistent with the land use. You're not Dollar Tree, or you're not a particular corporation from another local.
1275 So, I just want to commend you and I think we need more of that. I just want to say that.
1276
1277 Statler Gilfillen: Can we get a proposal then to approve this?
1278
1279 Adam Beeman: As long as no one else has any other questions. Then I look for a motion.
1280
1281 Marilyn Carter: May I just ask for clarification, and maybe that's part of the motion making, of the
1282 conditions? Because we're going one, two, three, four, and then five with the letter.
1283
1284 Adam Beeman: Correct. So,with the statement, we're going to have to specify that this letter supersedes
1285 Number 5 on the conditions.
1286
1287 Cy Stober: So, the actions before you are you can vote to recommend as presented, which would
1288 include the five conditions Ashley already showed you. You can vote to make a recommendation with new
1289 conditions, which would include a modification to the conditions before you. So, you could-
1290
1291 Melissa Poole: Hold it. I already got it. You answered my question. That's all I needed.
1292
1293 Cy Stober: And then we also need a recommendation on the Statement of Consistency or
1294 Inconsistency.
1295
1296 Melissa Poole: That's what I was asking before. Is that separate?
1297
1298 Cy Stober: And you don't have to read the entire statement. No.
1299
1300 Melissa Poole: I greatly appreciate that. Okay, I make the recommendation to approve the applicant's
1301 proposal as presented with the exception of Condition 5 being replaced with the conditional approval outlined
1302 in the letter that states there will be ongoing collaboration between the applicant and the County regarding the
1303 access road to the property. That's it. And then we're going to do Statement of Consistency separate.
1304
1305 Delores Bailey: You said, "I make the recommendation," are you making a motion?
1306
1307 Melissa Poole: I make the motion.
1308
1309 Cy Stober: You can make one motion that addresses both or you can separate them. Either way is
1310 fine.
1311
APPROVED WITH AMENDMENT 2.7.24
1312 MOTION BY Melissa Poole to recommend the approval as presented with the exception of replacing Condition 5
1313 as outlined with the letter included this evening, and also including the Recommendation of Approval with the
1314 Statement of Consistency, Attachment 6. Seconded by Statler Gilfillen.
1315
1316 MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
1317
1318 AGENDA ITEM 8: ADJOURNMENT
1319
1320 MOTION BY Melissa Poole to adjourn meeting. Seconded by Statler Gilfillen.
1321
1322 MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
1323
1324 The meeting adjourned at 9:23 PM.
1325
1326
1327 Adam Beeman, Chair