Town Council

Good evening. I call this Morrisville Town Council work session for September 10th, 2026 to order. We have um discussion items and then a clo to be followed by close session this evening. And I want to note that council member Liz Johnson is participating with us remotely tonight. So, thank you for doing that. And council member Scraggy Johnson will be absent. At this time, I'd like to recognize um Paul Assard for a our first item 2A 2026 general assembly recap presentation. Sir,

thank you, Mayor. So, this presentation is aimed at informing council um as to what has happened in the recent short session uh of our state general assembly. Um we'll be going through the different bills that were signed into law or passed via a veto override. um talk about some of the bills that may be on the horizon moving into the next session the following year uh with the new general assembly after the elections and then we'll finish up by discussing uh some of the constitutional amendments that are on the ballot this November and how all of these could potentially impact Morrisville. Before we get into that um just a little bit of brief uh overview for anyone who may not be familiar um with some of the terminology or how our state legislature works. The general assembly is a two-chamber legislature uh similar to our federal congress if you're familiar with that with a upper house the senate and a lower house the house. There are 120 members uh of the house and 50 of the senate. Um a veto proof uh majority is uh 72 representatives in the house and 30 in the senators. So it's a three-fifth majority. Bills are passed in a manner similar to our federal congress. So they originate in either the house or the senate. They have to pass by a majority vote in both the House and the Senate uh

to be sent to the governor who can then choose to either sign or veto the bill. If the bill is vetoed, that veto override majority is necessary in both chambers to override and have the bill become law. And then our uh general assembly does not operate year round like our federal congress. Um they operate in long and short sessions uh depending on the year. Uh we just finished a short session for 2026. Um that went on during the summer months and Congress or excuse me the general assembly is now officially in recess unless a short session or a a emergency session is called um which has the potential to happen depending on the results of the election uh this November. Um just as a quick refresh for some of the council legislative goals and some of the actions uh that um we do to support those goals. So the last set of council go legislative goals were outlined um in 2025. Uh these are resilient infrastructure, healthy finances, uplifting undeserved underserved communities, vibrant communities and neighborhoods and adaptive municipal ordinances. Town staff takes a number of actions to help keep uh ourselves informed and in support of these goals. Brandon is involved with a group of other town managers who consistently discuss the impacts of bills proposed in the general assembly and how they're likely to affect us and other local governments. Um you all may remember uh the letter that we proposed to you regarding the property tax amendment uh that will be on the ballot this November. Um, we contact legislators and uh inform them about our concerns uh with pieces of legislation. Uh, and then we also track and uh put forward updates regarding bills in the general assembly um to you and try to keep you informed on the impacts of them and how they will potentially impact our community if they are passed.

Moving on, um this uh will jump into the bills that are now laws uh that were uh made into law during the short session. So these bills either passed and were signed into law by Governor Stein or they were vetoed and overwritten by supermajorities in both chambers. We'll start off with the biggest bill uh to come out of the general assembly this session and that is Senate Bill 257 uh budget. This is the first North Carolina budget since 2023 and it has a number of provisions that will impact local governments across the state and Morrisville in particular. Um, first one being that local government inspections departments are now required to collect fees for building permits and remit those fees to the state to fund a new building codes and inspections bureau along with listed permits that have been issued by type. This has the potential to increase our perity cost um because now we are assigned an additional fee to be supplemented along with them uh and will create more workload for staff uh when it comes to the process of compiling list of permits to be submitted as well as ensuring that the payments made uh to the state bureau are accurate. This bill also adds administrative decisions to the list of zoning decisions that may be appealed directly to court. So currently um or previously uh decisions uh that were made at the administrative level um regarding zoning permits uh had to be remitted to um the board of adjustment first and if a unfavorable outcome was reached there for the applicant. It could then be challenged in court. it can now be challenged directly in civil court without not going through the board of adjustment being viewed as a loss of pursuit um which has the potential to increase uh the number of zoning decisions being appealed um because there is one less step in that burden. Uh the final provision that uh has the

potential to impact more so significantly um regards SNAP over expenditure penalties. So as a result of the one big beautiful bill act uh that was passed in 2025 by federal government uh states are now responsible for over expenditures for SNAP payments um reaching 15% or more uh for any given year. North Carolina has taken so has been so far the only state to take this step um has essentially remitted that responsibility to local governments um and counties in particular. So if our entire over expenditures for the entire state, it is not done locally or or by county. It's it's measured as a state of a whole reaches 15% or higher, then all counties will be on the hook for paying that whatever that gap is back and that will be taken out of sales tax which directly impacts the amount of local sales tax that we receive. Um, so this has the potential to impact the amount of revenue that we bring in as a government and then what we can fund accordingly. House bill 268 um goes in line with the uh budget. This is just um a series of adjustments that were made. Uh the primary uh element that impacts us here um involves local government commission. So, this would remove uh some of the appointees on the local government commission um specifically the secretary of state and the two appointees that are currently uh set by the governor and would replace them with three general assembly appointed members to the LGC's executive board. This has the potential to impact uh our finances. So, the LGC oversees a number of financial conditions for the town. um what types of loans we are allowed to qualify for, how frequently we're audited, what fiscal oversight measures are put in place. Uh some of these I think will be more specific to communities that have

struggled financially in the past, at least much more so than than Moore still has. Uh some are potential realistic outcomes that could impact us. Um there have been some talks uh among members of the general assembly about wanting to increase audit frequency. That is something that with a a new political leaning in the LGC uh could come to fruition. House Bill 162 uh focuses on uh a number of zoning changes uh specifically related to Austri Parking and storm water. Um this would prohibit any sort of regulations requiring off street parking lots to meet a minimum number of parking spaces uh per development or structure. uh this uh will impact uh Morsville because we we do have those restrictions in place and will require us to amend our UDOS accordingly um before this goes into effect in January. Uh it also prevents new or increased retroactive storm water control mandates on existing builtupon areas during property redevelopment. Uh this could make water runoff an issue um and potentially contribute to some of those parking safety concerns uh that will also be impacted by parking lot restrictions. Um the final bullet points, I apologize, I was a little unclear with this. Um the reasonzoning component is specific to storm water. So the storm water restrictions most likely do not impact reszoning. The parking lot restrictions absolutely will. Um, so if a property goes through reszoning, um, then it is likely to to be impacted by any new storm water mandates that have gone into effect, uh, between those those time periods.

Could you I'm sorry, could you say that again? So, um, the way that House Bill 162 basically works is that if a, um, a redevelopment occurs on a a lot, um, and

between the time uh, when that redevelopment occurs and when the building was last or when the building was was I guess last one through the process was built, um, any new mandates that have been put into place regarding storm water runoff uh do not apply to that redevelopment. So basically it's it's the old rules that still apply. Um this provision does likely not apply to reszoning. So if there has been a reasonzoning that has taken place in that time frame, that would apply to the new development and thus those new storm water rules would kick in. All right. Uh moving on to the last relevant bill that was passed in the short session. Um Senate Bill 445 uh requires local governments to improve design for home power installations connected at 600 volts or less. Um it defines home power installation as any sort of electric generating or energy storage system, standby system, or associated equipment intended to provide electric power to a building or structure. It would require local governments to allow at least one accessory dwelling that conforms to the NC residential code uh for one and two family dwellings. And that it prohibits local government from taking certain actions when permitting accessory dwelling units um such as we cannot require them to uh take place within a conditional zoning district. We cannot place limitations on whether they are used for rental versus living purposes. Um and uh we cannot uh implement some and this is probably over by 162 but we cannot establish minimum parking uh lot requirements for those accessory dwelling units. Um this has the the potential to weaken uh our ability to plan out uh for our town effectively and impact our our local zoning authority negatively.

What's an accessory dwelling unit? So an accessory dwelling unit is basically a um a building or or some sort of structure that is

suit your backyard.

Yeah, you can have.

So it's it's basically any sort of structure where there is an attempt to to live in basically make it habitable. Moving on. Um, these bills did not make it into law during the session, uh, but had significant action taken on them and, uh, may be likely candidates to be moved forward into laws for the next session or attempts to override veto that occurred previously. Um, the first one, uh, is

Vanna is slowing down over here.

Uh, is House Bill 958. Um these uh this bill impacts uh some of the Yes.

Yeah. Sorry. Um before we go into the other ones, there's one more bill that has not affected us currently, but it's going to be affected in the short session. And that is the bill where um state government like they're taking away the power of how to do the zoning because for the first time you know the governor the Republicans and the Democrats all are in the same for more housing. So right now the bill which has passed is any population more than 80,000 people you cannot the towns cannot enforce um restrictions like for example our macrian you said you have to have the commercial component and all those restrictions you can't do it Kerry cannot basically impose it so that is they set the threshold of 80,000

I'm hearing the next session they're bringing down to 10,000 so Which means more power u will be taken away and especially the planning and others it will be hard uh how we dictate you know what our vision is versus what you know the developers can come and do it just putting it out there I'll send you the bill number which is because they're they already started putting paperwork on Um moving to House Bill 958. Uh this is a series of changes um regarding election rules that apply to elections at all levels across the state. Uh the two big components that have the potential to impact Morrisville. Uh the first one is that it would limit early voting periods uh for towns for 10 consecutive days before election day. Um so potentially limiting the uh room for for voter turnout uh for our community and then local and state boards of elections uh would not be able to make any sort of public statement encouraging voting even if it is not associated with a particular candidate. So that also limits uh the ability for um local officials to to get out vote um that's more the county level um but potentially decreases uh turnout in in elections. Senate Bill 992 um would require local governments who wish to adopt a property tax greater than the revenue neutral tax rate specifically in property re-evaluation years um to provide public notice uh through a number of different formats to our residents. Uh the most pressing one is physical mail. So we would be required if this bill were to pass um to

mail out a notification to every single household within our municipal borders informing them of our intention to pursue a tax rate greater than the revenue neutral rate uh in a property or excuse me in a property re-evaluation year. Um, we've done some preliminary estimates on the cost, uh, from just a a pure mailing, you know, writing, printing, writing, mailing things out standpoint. Um, we estimate this to to cost around $15,000 uh, each time we do it.

155. Um, there are some discounts for largecale mailing from the post office which helps with that. Um, but this will cost the town time and and resources to to mail notifications if a a property tax increase beyond that revenue neutral rate is is desired. Um 9999 uh is a a little bit of an ambiguous bill um but is one that I feel is is worth mentioning um because of some of the ambiguity in its text and and how it could potentially impact us. So the bill text itself states that it seeks to exempt local governments from extended review requirements in most areas and district zones for residential use. Given the backgrounds of the bill and what it speaks to, I believe it is trying to uh speak to environmental um timeline requirements here, uh the text of the bill is relatively ambiguous and this bill has not moved beyond uh the house or excuse me the senate where it was introduced initially. Um so my hope is that that becomes more clear uh as things move forward. Uh but that is is something that is has the potential to to impact us. It would also require local local housing authorities to create publicly available performance dashboards and to submit an annual report on program performance and funds

allowed um which may just require some collaboration with our staff uh to ensure that the numbers that we provide are are up to date.

And then a couple of bills um to to quickly watch. These ones have uh not advanced past the committee stage um but have the potential to to impact us uh moving forward if they do. Uh Senate Bill 7:30 would require a site assessment um anytime a local government wishes to pursue uh construction of a data center within its borders. House Bill 181, 1181, excuse me, um would lower the threshold required uh for qualification um for the uh homestead exclusion uh under property tax. Currently, the requirement is an income, household income of $38,000 or less. um this would change that to 70% of the area median income and then also enable a 115% over that amount um for individuals who are married. So unlike the the previous version or current version of the homestead exclusion which is a flat 38,000 for the entire house um this will make an adjustments uh based on marital status. Um this has the potential if it goes through to impact the amount of property tax that revenue that we bring in uh annually um and again diminish the the resources that we have to to work with to fund things. Uh and then lastly um Senate Bill 1047 um has a number of requirements. Uh the most pressing one is that it establishes a week-long 7-day period um with which a local government has to determine whether either an application for amendment of the zoning map, an application for amendment of zoning regulations or an application for development approval is complete and we

have to notify the applicant of either its completeness or incompleteness within that window. This extends the same 7-day window to any sort of applications for amended uh or supplemental information that may result as an occurrence of that. If we fail to notify within that 7-day window, the application is automatically viewed as completed, which has the potential to create significant stress on our um planning and and operations um and put them under uh a a continuous time pressure to make sure that nothing goes missed and that we are turning things around uh very quickly because if something does, it is automatically marked as complete. All right,

moving forward. Um, these are the three uh amendments that have been put forward by the general assembly that will appear on the ballot this November. Uh, these amendments only need a 50% plus one uh majority to be approved. Um, so there is no 60% threshold like there is in in some states or or larger than that. It is just a simple majority. The first one uh is the amendment that uh you all have submitted a a letter for um earlier this year to the general assembly. Uh this would require the general assembly to implement some sort of cap on the amount that local governments can increase property tax by in any given year. There's a lot of ambiguity still left uh within this um restriction. uh it does not state when these restrictions would go into effect. It does not provide any detail as to what kind of cap it would be. So it makes no distinction as to whether it would be some kind of dollar amounts, whether it would be a percent. Um it just requires the general assembly to implement some sort of property tax

increase cap. The next one uh would require a photo ID um for voters regardless of uh how they are submitting their votes. So currently in North Carolina, this is only required for inperson voting. Um this would extend it to mail in ballots as well. Um this has the potential to increase or decrease uh voter turnout um result in votes uh being cast out. Um, and for individuals who do not possess a photo ID, potentially make it more challenging uh for them to to vote accordingly.

What's the actual requirement? Like a photo.

Can you use your microphone?

What's the actual requirement? Is it a photo copy of a government ID submitted with your ballot or

the the amendment has has not made that particularly clear. Um, so that I would assume would would likely be hashed out in the general assembly assuming the amendment passes. Uh, but the the text of the amendment similar to the the property tax restrictions is is very vague on the the actual enforcement uh of this. Um, and then finally, uh, an amendment is on the ballot to cap, uh, income tax in the state of North Carolina at 3.5%. Um, the current constitutional cap is 7%. The current income tax rate at the state is 3.99%. Um, so this, if this goes into effect, uh, would drop, uh, the effective income tax rate for North Carolinians down to 3.5%. Um this currently uh does not directly impact Morrisville but may play out through several indirect effects um over the next few years um as the uh revenue pool um that has been brought in by the states uh continues to to shrink. Um, if

that shrinks to a a particular point, the state may need to pursue other means of raising revenue, which would likely come through sales tax. Um, which in turn would potentially increase the cost of goods here and impact more so residents accordingly. Uh, all of these bills uh and future updates. Um obviously the the session is is over uh for 2026 but uh moving into the potential for um a emergency session being called in at the end of this year or the 277 session. Um we'll keep tabs uh and continue to update you weekly on updates that move forward with our our legislative dashboard. Um, so just as a

Sorry, go back.

Thank you.

Sorry about that. Um, this is viewable uh from the open data portal uh on Morsel's website. Um and uh we'll go into uh some detail regarding individual bills before, what their status is um colorcoded accordingly. Um where they are, what their their last update was, and then potential impacts on the town. Um so the the most recent updates within the last month or so are are highlighted on the front page. And then you can drill down further if you wish to see everything um by clicking into the all bills button. uh that will highlight every bill that has action had action taken on it um within this session that we we believe is is relevant to the town um regardless of of where it is in the process. Um just to close out uh if anyone uh has interest in contacting um their state representative and senator uh to

advocate for policy change or to encourage them to vote one way or the other on a bill in the future. Um for our residents who live in Wake County, uh your representative is Maria Cervenia and your senator is Sydney Batch. Um they can be reached at the contact information above. And then for our residents who live in Durham County, uh your representative is Zach Hawkins and your senator is Natalie Murdoch. Um they can also be reached at the the contact information below. All right. Um that concludes uh the update on the general assembly. Um, there any questions?

Yeah, the bill that I was talking is House Bill 1056. It's called relieving housing bottlenecks and it it's very clear. It says um it is the bill is entitled an act to allow residential development in all commercial zones to prohibit minimum parking requirements to require North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to establish a municipal housing approval acceleration program and to preserve single family ownership to establish workforce preconstruction revolving loan programs and to provide additional funding for North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. So they're like literally, you know, um going in saying that um you can't dictate to talks pretty much. You know, if it's residential, you have to kill it pretty much.

That's at 80,000 or more.

Yeah, this is 80,000. And then they are the same bill. They're trying to pull it down to 10,000.

Mayor, I believe, were you first or was council member first? Okay. So, we're talking about all the election stuff. Um, and I just wanted to for transparency for our residents that

there's also some bonds and there's a Wake Tech bond and a Wake County education bond. So, I just want to make sure that we're aware of that and that our residents are Raleigh has some other stuff that doesn't matter to us. So, will you be tracking that a little bit too and how that might affect us?

Uh, we we certainly can. Um we're we're not doing so currently, but we can definitely incorporate that.

That's the council's wish. Um so we can just give feedback to staff at some point, I guess.

Is that agreeable to the group thumbs up to add this maybe to the list of tracking?

So we're going to have um council member Patel and then council member Johnson is is want to ask question or make a comment.

So thank you. Uh if we can go to slide number four uh SB 257

slide four did you say council?

Yes.

So uh the first one uh inspections uh currently who's required to collect fees for the building?

I beg your pardon. Current Currently who collects the fees?

We do.

We do. So I'm not sure it's a it says local government inspections department is required to collect fees for billing permit. So if you're already doing this

Yes. So the the distinction there is that we are being required to collect additional fees to help fund the new Bureau of Make sure I'm getting the name right. Uh building codes and interpretations. um at the state level. So in theory we are are not at least to my knowledge we are not required to collect a fee. We could theoretically not charge anything for it but this would mandate that we require a state a

fee that is essentially paid to the state um to to fund this new bureau.

So we'll have to collect the fees and then somehow pay that to the state.

That is correct.

Understood. Thank you. And then the next item um I I I don't understand clearly adds administrative decision to list of zoning decisions that may be appealed.

Can you give an example of administrative decisions?

Sure. Um, so administrative decisions are are different from quasi judicial uh or or legislative decisions which are interpretations of of zoning laws that are brought forth by um usually either a court or uh the general assembly um or potentially even the the federal government. Um these are kind of your everyday decisions to enforce development ordinances, um zoning permits, notices of violation, um interpretations of like a zoning ordinance, uh something that that our staff would would do essentially.

Okay. And u and then on the next page uh it talks about snap over expenditure penalties. Um what is snap over expenditure if you can explain. So, um when we when we issue SNAP payments um to individuals um sometimes we

wait

um sometimes states administer more money than they should. Um and this can be due to to a number of factors. Um, it can be, you know, someone uh picks up an extra shift at work and generates some additional income. Um, it can be that uh

somebody reports their rent and utilities together instead of separately and that affects the amount of money that they they should be receiving. Um, and uh when the the state essentially pays more than than they are deemed to be owed, that is viewed as as an overexpenditure. So the the federal government remits the funding to the state and then if that percentage right um so the amount that that we should pay out versus the amount that we do pay out if that percentage goes beyond 15% the state is required to pay back the difference and North Carolina has taken so far the the first state to to take this step um is placing that burden on local governments to recover that cost. So pretty much it's the it's over expenditure due to their oversight but we are being asked to share the burden of it.

Yes. So uh o oversight or or just um individuals failing to to update things properly. Um, so it it I would I would hesitate to say that that every single issue comes from from someone failing to to to do their their

job. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Thank you for that. And then last question is on slide seven. Um the first item about off street parking lot uh does that only apply to uh reszoning?

So it as as best we understand it it does. Yes.

Okay. All right. That's all I have.

Thank you council member Patel. We'll have council member Johnson and then Mayor Proati next.

Um thank you Jamie. And thank you, Paul. Great presentation. Thank you for the overview and the update on these really important bills and how they affect Morrisville. I get I'm familiar with all of these except for the uh Senate Bill 257 with the SNAP overexposure that um Council Member Patel was just talking about. Has there been any analysis to how this will affect local governments financially? Do we know and is there any data to back that backs this up? So to my best knowledge um the the current status is that NCLM is working on an estimate um for how much we would have been impacted or I guess local governments would have been impacted because it's it's spread out evenly um regardless of where the uh the overpayments occur. Um NCLM is is working on putting together an estimate for that. Uh they're also working on advocacy to uh encourage the general assembly to revisit um this provision before it goes into to law officially in October of next year. Um so hopefully we'll have some numbers to to share forward with how it it might potentially impact us uh in the coming months.

Okay, good. So yeah, definitely one to follow and you're right, there's always tweaking of these laws. So, um, I appreciate you tracking that because that one kind of I don't I don't know. I don't even know how to understand the impact to us locally, but I guess more to come. Thank you, May.

I'm sorry to say that I don't really understand the 257 budget bill at all. SNAP is a federal program.

So I I guess I don't we don't pay out

any money to SNAP.

So yeah, so as a result of the one big beautiful bill that was passed in 2025. Um there are now requirements for states to pay back over expenditures um of federal funding for SNAP uh that are 15% beyond what the state should have paid out. So we would be responsible for the repayment of people in Morrisville who were

I I just don't understand the premise. So, so the way it it works is that the entire state is is basically on the the book for the same amount of money. And the way that the general assembly has crafted this provision into the bill is that if the entire state goes over, basically every county is is equitably on on the book for the same amount. Um so it will get taken out of of sales tax uh for everywhere equally um regardless of where the overpayments occur.

But that doesn't make any sense.

I think that's what they have done. I think from talk uh answering Liz's question I think Wake County is around 35 to $50 million um is the head that big has to bear the price for that. So if you equate it, you know, if money, you can push it down to the cities and towns. So everyone has to pay if it goes over the budget and

sales taxes to

so so so conte so bottom line conte will say is the sales tax comes from the cont side right

it's distributed from the county.

Yeah exactly. So uh they will they want to recoup that money. So where will they go? they have this part of sales tax and they'll hit that and that will be distributed based on the population that we have. Sales tax is by the population not by how much money and how much you spend in that area.

So even if nobody in Morrisville, even if nobody in Wake County goes over on any SNAP provision, we will still be on the hook for whatever the assigned percentages.

That is that is how the bill is is written or the law is written currently. Well, that's just a gift keeps on giving, isn't it?

I'm going to correct myself. It's distributed from the state level, but the county has to report the information. We base ourselves taxes on all sales receipts in Wake County and we get our proportion share. So, it does impact us all. Another question.

So how do they determine over expenditure? Apparently, if somebody say failed to report income and do the you know SNAP benefits that at a at federal level they're determining that I can so sorry I've read a lot about this so that's the reason so as part of the uh one beautiful bill regularly um the federal government checks once a year you you know um like are you getting the benefits? Is there anything change in your you know house style you know are you getting more income you know and then they kind of adjust it now they put a new rule every six months they have to go and verify so that has pushed the whole burden on DHHS um and then DHHS is trying to basically find partners to do it um because um as he was mentioning on Tuesday I and Rose and Erin had like an hour conversation with the DHHS secretary uh regarding the same thing as to what you can do because

they had a gap the DHS had a gap of $380 million and the general assembly funded it uh because of this one beautiful bill and now the state government is saying okay we did this but we can't sustain this way so they're pushing it down to

counties sales tax have been used historically in the past to bridge gaps of decision changes that extend down from from really bills that get adopted and and I've seen in Morrisville where they've taken sales tax and um it's been a surprise during or and even after a budget's adopted that you have this deficit that you have to work with at the local level but they're pushing down that burden as far as they can go to spread I guess economically in their opinion the burden all the way And it's never fair. It's never well informed half the time when we do get notified that we're going to be held harmful in this case, but it does happen and that's a vehicle that they have at their disposal for self because they possess the authority. We do not.

Council member Kesling, I believe you're next, mayor. Okay. Thank you. appreciated this update and the uh the dashboard as well. Um we do this once a year

this presentation.

Yeah.

Um that this is I think the the first time we've we've done this. So I guess

we've done it twice a year I believe with Aaron in the past. Um an update to council depending on when the session is wrapping up.

Yeah, I think that's correct. So sometimes it may have been an administrative report and then other times it may have been an in-person report depending on the scope of what was there and and whether that was just information sharing or or discussion needed to happen. I I like receiving this presentation as a work session um

and uh you having all the having all the information one um you know that we can talk about collectively but then also let the public know as well. So, I'd like to keep that continued. Um, if this is the first time we're thinking about doing this in the future, I definitely would appreciate that. Um, how is the dashboard updated? Is it automatic or manual?

Uh, so there's there's a bit of both. Um, so the the dashboard is designed to grab uh update text um from the North Carolina legislative website. Uh but there is a a manual component as well uh that's brought over just from writing out the impacts on Morrisville specifically and then obviously going through the the the bill on a an individual staff level um consulting with the the subject matter experts within our town. So, um, our planning director, inspections director, um, fire marshall, um, who whoever the bill is most closely aligned with and and bringing in their thoughts as to things as well, where possible, could we turn some of these summaries into infographics that visually depict um, kind of what the impacts might be? uh the one with the um the permitting fees for for example, you know, scenario one or or this is what it was um where the fees were coming to the town and this you know the way it is now with the law the fees are going to the state and you know like what the effect of that is. Um it's nice to have a presentation with a lot of detail and words but a picture speaks a thousand words.

So are you talking about for presentations in the future or on the dashboard? Um I don't want to make this a huge burden

necessarily. I think if it's possible in presentations I think that would be nice because we get we get kind of those infographic views on a lot of other presentations. Um and those are very informative for us and um be able to pick it apart much uh sometimes just more easily and quickly and that sort of thing. So, I think that that would might be nice um for us as we're as we're going through this. Um so, doesn't necessarily have to be on the dashboard, I suppose, but if we receive an updated presentation in the future, that would be nice. Um so, one thing that I was thinking about while we were talking was um I guess two things. Uh the first thing obviously a lot of these things are going to have um detrimental effects on our staff. So I'm particularly interested in tracking you know what those effects are. Um and certainly if there's if it's a bipartisan piece of legislation that is causing the um you know the issues with the staff, you know, collecting that information and then being able to um you know, both on the staff side and the council side to then um you know, advocate for uh some sort of reform or tweak to those um more bipartisan bills. I think there might be more appetite to um you know, it was it was really good. it had a couple of issues. You know, here's how we can here's here's here's what would make the law that you all passed better. Um especially for our our municipal staff. That's something that I'm thinking about. Um I don't necessarily need to get into the details on the dashboard necessarily. maybe more of an internal tracking of um you know not to say lowhanging fruit necessarily but I think an effort needs to be made to on all for all of us to figure out how can we um

you know advocate for the things that we need as a town um and if it's something that the state is doing then and I'm you know working with NCLM then I think you know figuring out how we can maybe coordinate those efforts and definitely if there's I know we receive some uh you know here's the state law that is um that is going to be decided on but I think it's also good the laws that have already been decided on trying to figure out how can we um you know tell the tell our legislators that you know this law that was passed um you know at this time and whatnot it's really causing us issues and um you know, we'd like to to work on addressing those issues. Um that would be and that's something I think that all of us should um contribute to if we if we can in our in our own ways. Um related to this is um I was thinking about the No Child Left Behind Act um from the early 2000s and the idea of that is perverse incentives um so like teaching to the test and uh basically forcing states to lower their thresholds um for like academic excellence right so it just lowers the standard so that the funding can come in. So, a an interest here is what are what are all these state laws incentivizing us to do? Um, you know, what might be genuinely good things um that we're being incentivized to do and what might be creating those perverse incentives. And so certainly for those types of incentives um essentially that and bringing in the um you know the struggle piece of that um and figuring out how we can advocate for uh those reforms. Those are all of my thoughts on this presentation and I really appreciate it and I really appreciate having this discussion.

Any other questions, comments?

I just want to take uh take I'll let the town manager speak.

Thank you. Um a couple things in reference to council member Kesley's comments. One on the infographics. Um, I think we want to make sure that we're getting this dash dashboard up and functioning and that it's meeting the needs of the council as well as the community and our staff. Everybody's going to use that. So, we'd ask for some time to do that and maybe even run it through the long session next year when it's going to be even more challenging to keep up. Uh, and then we can think about adding things to it after that. We can certainly look at perhaps some infographics if there's consensus amongst council when we do a presentation, you know, once or twice a year, but I'd ask we hold off on anything within the actual um dashboard. Uh and then I would just also comment, you know, in terms of tracking the impact and then sharing that, you know, we we can do that. It's important that we do that in the context of working with our partners um you know our other managers in this region certainly NCLM um because they're a very good read typically on are we going to be successful and I hate to say that but I mean that's honestly the way that it sometimes works is we can be fired up and and unhappy with something but if we don't have others that feel that way we're just not going to Morrisville alone unfortunately is not going to make an impact to change legislation. I think if we find something we feel strongly about, we can reach out to, you know, Representative Cervania or others that that we work with to ask for some of that to be introduced. But again, we've also got to find a sponsor as well if we're the person that's driving that. So, just want to put some context to that. Not saying we shouldn't do that, but want to make sure we don't expect to do that and every single thing that comes through that impacts us because there's a lot of unfunded mandates there. There's a lot of other things that I just don't think we're going to make a difference in necessarily. Thank you.

Thank you, town manager. Mayor, do you have a last final comment?

I I thought we were done, but I just had

a thought that in the past we've contemplated some kind of local bills and those are only during long session. So, be interested to know if staff thinks that there's anything that might have any traction that might benefit us. Um, and you probably would have presented it if it was existed, but I just want to remind everyone because our new members might not be as aware with the local bill option. So,

thank you. I just wanted to take a minute and um just thank Paul. This really is a lot of work that I think you can clearly hear in his skill that he has worked very hard to get up to speed on. What I would say is a really broad spectrum of of of items uh that impact our town, our other towns, local municipalities in general. I just appreciate that effort that he's jumped into something like this to give you all this level of conversation and how he has actually worked out and across this organization with folks like our planning director Michelle and her team um tapping those subject matter experts and then externally our partners like NCLM and and others through Wake County. And I just appreciate all that effort that's culminated into what was a really good conversation and I and I appreciate you recognizing that and thank you.

I quote too because a data guy working on government stuff is kind of a boring I would say but it takes a lot of learning and I think you're pretty much the way you are explaining is pretty good

and I'd like to say thank you as well and maybe throw one more thing up uh like sure the year before they were going to require us to allow like civilian crash traffic crash reconstructionist and stuff like that. I'd just be curious about how that has actually affected us because we weren't sure if that's

actually happening and any of those other bills that we were concerned about that actually did pass. Were there any negative effects or how how did that end up? because then that can give us speaking points into the future reaching out to our legislators about what happened in the past and how how it affected us and that gives us a little bit more um credibility moving forward.

Okay. Thank you. Any final questions or comments before we move to the next item?

Final question. uh the changes in SNAP um also impacts the school program, right? Do you know how that impacts us? Well, I mean at county level, yes, it impacts it, but well, the the school meal program is is distributed through the county,

right?

So, in in theory, I suppose if there's overpayments on that front, it would probably come from to be out in in sales tax and how that's applied in the same way. Um, I haven't looked into that specifically, but I'm I'm happy to to try and dig into there's any unique impacts that that come from school side.

I think that's it. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you both. Really appreciate it. We're going to be moving on to item two, Diaz in Bravo. This is going to be a red redevelopment discussion with council. It will be led by Jelle Rodriguez, our deputy town manager. It will include Tiffany McNeel and Michelle Steig and Genie Hooks as well. So, we're going to crowd the table a little bit. Get cozy.

This morning, clearly a team effort for sure.

Okay. Well, uh, good evening, council. Um, I will kick us off with this red redevelopment, uh, conversation. This is the topic that was left pending from the retreat that um we had a few weeks ago and we decided to just postpone this one to be revisited later and and this is what we're going to do tonight. So the the conversation today the intent is to level set where we are for some time. We have been hearing we are nearing bailed out. We are at the point of redevelopment and the conversation tonight is going to help us understand exactly where we are so that we make sure that we are all on the same page and is going to help us to define what the future brings for us. Um, now how about redevelopment? We're going to level set into what that is so that we can all speak essentially the same terms as we continue to move forward. Um, at the at the end of the the presentation today, I hope that we will feel more um clear and level set having a greater understanding as to where we are. This presentation will have about uh 13 to 14 slides. So I will request that we wait for questions until the end. Um so that will be great. So on this slide that you have in front um let's first focus on the definition of redevelopment. And the definition that will essentially shed light into how we use this term as we continue in the presentation is that red development. It is the development or improvement of an area that was developed at some time in the past for uses that have become outdated as a result of changing social and market conditions. So that's the the essentially what we're going to focus on as we continue. Now, there's four metrics that I would like to highlight

at the beginning and staff will go into more details into what this means. Land supply is definitely tightening. We have 940 acres that remain for development or redevelopment and that 940 acres is combined and that equates to about 16% of the corporate uh limits. Non-residentidential opportunity exceeds the residential opportunities that we have. Out of the 940 acres, 625 acres are nonresidential. The commercial property represents 54% of our tax base and that equates to 5.2 billion of assessed value. And our residential um is at 46% and that equates to 4.4 billion of assessed value. And Genie will go into more details into that as we go further into the presentation. And our land use plan is projecting that our population will reach about 47,000 by 2030. At this time, we all agree that the timeline is ambitious because 2030 uh it it's kind of pretty close. The timeline is ambitious, but we uh also believe that that number could be reached. Maybe not by 2030, maybe a little later, but the 47,000 is not unattainable. Um, what are some of the takeaways that we hope that we can understand? Uh, as we continue in the presentation, Morrisville remaining opportunity is meaningful but finite. Land supply is really tightening and projects are smaller and definitely a lot more complex. Um, number two, commercial value is central to fiscal resilience. And you will see as we move along that commercial property is the fiscal engine contributing 54% of our tax base. Redevelopment is a proven path to value

creation and that's very true for us. and site readiness is a competitive differentiator especially for economic development recruitment and Tiffany will go into more details about that. Um with that I would like to turn it over to Michelle who is going to go a little bit deeper into what do we really have available.

All right. Thank you Jazelle. Um I'm going to dive into um some of the numbers. So, we took a look at the town really um in relation to where we are with respect to buildout. Um and we put that into two categories, residential and non-residential. And you could see that we broke it up even then further between vacant land and what we're calling um redevelopment potential. Um to follow up on what Jazelle said about redevelopment, this is land that we are seeing as ripe for redevelopment. So with that definition of redevelopment, um Morrisville historically had a lot of farmland. Converting that farmland into two or 300 home subdivision was redevelopment. Um so when we looked at the map, we looked at kind of those obvious examples of where um the land use plan, the zoning um didn't ali align with the land use. For example, there might be a single family home sitting on a number of acres that was zoned commercially. Um so we took a very conservative look at this and and we're considering that um both these these categories together really um representing what we have left until we reach full buildout um in that regard. So again we're looking at approximately 940 acres um with 625 of that being non-residential development and 315 being residential development. For purposes of this exercise, we did um

include potential multifamily sites in the non-residential category because that is how those properties are taxed and this is really being done um for purposes of informing a budgetary discussion. Also wanted to note that because of the purpose and again this is really just to inform that discussion about budget and future budget impacts um a number of properties were excluded. So if we had properties that were already under development spark phase one of some of our larger multif family developments we did not include those and we did not include properties that we anticipate will be um developed with um taxexempt uses. So the park on Watkins Road, future Markham Park, the airport boulevard substation, the new middle school, the HSNC expansion. Um those projects are not reflected in these numbers. Can we go to the next slide? Um, so again, this is I think um, Deputy Manager Rodriguez used the term level setting, really trying to level set just where we're at today. Um, looking at how properties being utilized, what's highly underutilized. We did also take a look at where we're starting to see um, some people pick up and assemble some properties. Um, we looked at alignment with zoning, alignment with the land use plan, and also when we did the initial GIS exercise, we saw a lot of properties come back, particularly in the vacant category that were really HOA property that would never be built or that were set aside for parkland and those sorts of things. So um we excluded those from the analysis and and did do a little bit of a a lot by lot um evaluation and clean up of that data based on some of

those things. So again, uh this is a copy of the map exercise that we went through and again what it does um is it level sets to just um try and quantify where we are in relation to build out um just to provide context for a discussion. It does not provide exact numbers. These are estimates. It is not intended for partial bypartial discussion of or evaluation of what we may see going where. that is what your land use plan is really for. Um and it does not account for uh future uh conditions or changes. Go to the this next slide um shows a little bit of um what we're seeing in the residential area. So just wanted to highlight um some of the sites um that you're seeing on the map. Um, so in terms of some significant redevelopment opportun or development opportunities that you still have left, um, there's some two parcels on Louis Stevens that are about 52 acres combined. Um, there's some property on K Creek Road. We expect the people that live on on those lots will probably live out the remainder of their lives there, but eventually um, see that about 27 acres um, being redeveloped at some point in the future. You have the Hamlet development um that I know council has some familiarity with. Um you have the Holly Creek Road area which is kind of a unique single family um neighborhood in Morrisville, but um there is a developer that has picked up a large number of those parcels and is continuing to purchase and start to combine those. And then another unique area in town um the Family Farm Road area kind of back behind Liberty Rose and Justice Walk. Um that area has always been challenged with utilities. It does not have utilities. Um but at some point in time, it's going to make sense for someone to

pick up a cost to extend water and sewer into that area. Um and then on the north side of the village of the town, you're also uh Mason Farms, Everett Fields area. There are um quite a few vacant parcels in that area. All up and down Church Street, you are starting to see um people pick up and assemble different sites. So, we're expecting to see a number of five 10 lot subdivisions occurring really up and down Church Street. And then there are just various other properties on the nonresidential end. Um the significant hits that are yet to come, TOD East, to West, to South I think you're aware of all those as well as Town Center and the McCrimman extension. In terms of the Mcrimman extension, there are still about 26 acres left um on the Spark site that are unaccounted for. And in addition to that, probably about another 35 acres left um to be developed. Those are mostly south of the Wake Competition Center going all the way down to aviation. And then you can see we have a number of vacant properties in the Slater Road Airport Boulevard area. some vacant property um along Transair Drive. Um if you're going um along Airport Boulevard or on NC54 between Airport and Mccrimin, particularly on the west side of the road, there's still a lot of opportunity along there. Some opportunity on Davis. Um if you look across from Wegman's, there's some vacant property there. We have some property back behind Bethany Village. We still have an out lot available at Grace Park. again just various other opportunities as well. So all that being said, again we're at about 940 acres is what we're estimating before we reach buildout. Again, that includes all of those tax exempt parcels. Um and with 625 acres of

non-residential and 315 acres of residential. So you're seeing um about two times more non-residential than residential opportunity moving forward. And that really aligns with what we've seen in the last uh few years with more non-residential projects um coming in. Um in terms of future growth, um we do expect to continue to see new development for some time. Um we've also started to see a lot of reinvestment. That reinvestment is not included in these numbers. I think that is something that Genie is going to hit on. But if you look at um properties like Southport Business Park and East Ridge, you're seeing a lot of reinvestment and renovation of existing buildings as well. And we expect that trend to continue. Um we do think projects are going to continue to get smaller, but again, you have a lot of big hits that are yet to come. If you just look at TOD, that's about 170 acres combined between TOD East, TOD West, and TOD South. Um, so each of those as they come online, um, will be a big hit. Um, as well as Town Center. And we expect those developments to be built out in phases. So it won't just be TOD West and you get a big influx. You're probably looking at phases with each of those areas being built out. Um, so that being said, I'm going to hand it over, I believe, to Jeie and then, um, Tiffany. They're going to talk about what all this means in terms of impact on economic development and tax base.

All right, let's go and talk to you a little bit about why it matters with the tax base and and when we say commercial is really our fiscal engine moving forward, um, it's really always been in Morrisville's history, our fiscal engine. Um, we're the envy, I'll say this with a lot of pride, we are the envy of many, many municipalities around us because of our tax base mix. Um, when you're looking at

54% commercial tax base and 46 residential, you have a very good diverse portfolio for your economic engine. And when you consider the mix of what the commercial really represents, uh, you've done a lot through land use planning that has contributed over the many years that I've been in just Morrisville and seen how it's grown and changed. you have managed to hold on to. Even in the years that we were booming and Breen Road was coming through with a thousand houses and Weston Estates was coming through with the the large scale houses that they have, you still manage to hang on to what I believe is the the powerhouse and that is your tax base and commercial that a lot of municipalities are quite jealous of because it creates stability. When the housing market dips and we experienced that fluctuation before in our past, your commercial tax base is your steady component. When we went through um the recession in 2010, uh we were stable because we were redeveloping the site that was um bare into Park West and we went through that recession that was hurting other very harmful to other municipalities for the sake of our commercial aspect was growing. Some of the factors when I talk to um DFI for example about how do we maintain and sustain this or when I talk to our financial advisors and our credit rating agencies, they call out our our ability to be able to recognize and and visualize the future and be able to plan and show developers in our in our community or even interested developers that we have value here. And and I've heard you all I think uh council member Johnson has said this multiple times. We have benefited and continue to benefit into the future from our proximity and

because we're able to show the community investment that gets this taxbased component mix that we have right now. So, we're strong for reasons of decisions, of visions of the past, the visions that we have now that are going to carry us well into the future, I believe, as we transition and continue to transition because we've been doing that. As Michelle says, we've already been experiencing redevelopment projects. We just didn't really see it in that as that. But when you change a farm to something that's commercial andor multi-use housing or single family housing, we've been migrating redevelopment all along.

Sir,

yeah, I got two questions. U when you say residential is go back to acreage slide.

Acreage.

Um yeah. So 315 right acres for residential acreage. Out of that what is it currently zone? Do we have like splits of it like you know 100 acres is lower density or you know commercial because um apartments can go under that. So did we like do a splits of that?

Sure. So, I'll say anything that we thought would fall in the multifamily category was put under non-residential.

Okay.

All right.

So, uh just to give you some context in your commercial tax base, remember um taxbased components, the split really is a signal to you on really where the burden's falling on providing services, that tax burden. And in Morsville, it's predominantly been the tax burden. In a large large part, it's really being carried in part by your commercial development. And so, you're you're able

to effectively balance that burden because why, mayor, I've I've heard you say this before, is that you're not providing the exact same level of services to commercial properties in the same way that you are families or or housing or residential. Apartments fall in commercial for the same very reason. They're corporate. They are residents, so they do use our parks. But one very key factor is they don't have solid waste. That tax rate is actually paying for solid waste for single family homes, town homes, and condos. It's they're not receiving the same service in apartments because we don't pay or the tax base does not pay for that solid waste piece in apartments. They are corporately owned. So there's a benefit there. Even though that your tax base component for apartments in commercial represents really 30% of that value is coming from apartments, it's not the largest component. Your largest component is coming from your typical corporate, your industrial and your other flex warehouse spaces which we have. We have traditionally since the 80s been building that stock that has been paying us back in dividends as we've been moving forward. Uh something that I would also say um commercial because it is our fiscal engine that we can rely on. It's allowed Morrisville in the time I've been here for you to maintain one of the lowest tax rates. So I went back and looked. We have predominantly been in the the bottom three in our tax rate for many years and the reason being is you have been leveraging your well diverse mix of tax base value and so I keep um focusing on how lucky and fortunate we are but that is that we should preserve that preserve what we already have and you've made great investments by investing in

Tiffany or a team in an economic development and the planning department giving them additional resour resources because they're going to be able to um hang on to that, value it, and work with folks to identify how we're investing in the community that that we can show and demonstrate and bring people in and attract them to Morrisville to continue to invest new development because we still have space, but also to reinvest, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. That's been really key for Marsel and just how much value that we've been able to gain in our tax base as a result of people wanting to stay here. Okay. So we think about um I'm going to talk a little bit about econom from an economic development perspective about our ability to recruit. So market competitive competitiveness and as it relates to redevelopment um looking at our real estate um demands in 2025 44% of the projects that were received by in the state of North Carolina so that's by economic development partnership were lost um out of state out of North Carolina due to lack of build available buildings and so um that's not saying that we're not able to compete but it's just important to know that um the way economic recruitment is going that it's becoming more sight sensitive and more scale sensitive and that's important to note. You're starting to see um larger footprints particularly in advanced manufacturing and life science projects. They're requiring larger scale um and some de and development ready sites. Site readiness continues to be um extremely important. Um, I'm very proud to say that particularly in Morrisville, we have exceptional utilities. Um, we

have a lot of sites that are up and ready to go. That's been a way that we've been able to be very competitiveness and competitive and our ability um to have increased speed of market. That's that's something that is setting us apart from others. Um, but I want to take a step back um, just before I get into a little bit of these real estate trends and just note that while buildings and sites are extremely important in order for us to compete, you know, that's not the only deciding factor. It's workforce, it's talent, it's site, it's location, it's speed to market, it's um, our ability to help reduce the risk to companies um, and our ability to work closely with the companies. So all of those things are important and as as we continue to recruit and look for new investment and continue to work with our existing businesses, this is becoming more and more extremely important. Um and continuing on to discuss just our real estate trends that we're seeing today. Um when we think about from a site perspective, the majority that we're seeing a lot of projects look for sites that are 21 to 100 acres. So those are um somewhat larger sites. And then from uh real estate demand interior, just looking at building space, we're seeing about 100,000 square feet to 300,000 square feet in advanced manufacturing life sciences um across the board. And from a looking at ceiling height, you're looking at an average of a 27 foot clear with other um requirements upward of 30 ft clear height. So think about economic development considerations for Morrisville in our next phase of growth. So, we're going to continue to um focus on recruitment and new investment while recognizing

that sites and buildings and infrastructure requirements can increasingly influence the scale and type of projects. So, we're not we're continuing to focus on those target industries. Our target industries continue to be advanced manufacturing, life sciences and pharmaceuticals, um technology, as well as energy and professional and business services. It's not saying that we're not going to focus on those things. It's just saying that as the market adjusts, we have to be more intentional about the projects and make sure they align and they fit with Morrisville as we seek to recruit projects. And I think um Jeannie did a good job kind of alluding to this. New investment is important, but we also want to make sure that we intentionally continue to focus on the companies that we already have here. Um, that's one thing that I I love about Morrisville. We are we are built to scale. Even though we do have um as we talk about redevelopment and we talk about inventory, looking at inventory, if you think about let's say Southport, Southport Innovation Center has some larger spaces for R&D labs, but if you go to Pathway, you have available space that's available for these companies to grow. So that's one thing we want to continue to work with our existing industry so that we can identify their needs early on. That's why business engagement is extremely important. Going out meeting with the existing industry, knowing what their needs are um up front and close. Um I work very closely with Michelle and her team. We had some existing industry visits. um we we continue to have them to determine what those needs are early on so that we can identify additional space or if there may be zoning concerns so that we can help early on and make sure we can get ahead pro ahead of problems so they can have time to grow their business. So it's really important to not only invest in time and commitment into new investment but also into your existing

industry. Um and then and that's that's the important of when we think about future economic opportunities. I think it's really important to um as we consider our development patterns, we want to support that balance of employment, commercial activity and business opportunities that become available as we identify um you know limited land. Okay. So, I absolutely love this slide because I'm going to use this in the next credit rating. Uh, our credit rating agencies, they they love to um they have their measures and their measures are intentional because what they're trying to do when we borrow is to make sure that we can sustain ourselves, that we're fiscally solvent, not for the year that we're borrowing, but well beyond that. And when I'm able to provide and I have actually used Southport as the very example with credit rating agencies to demonstrate how um organizations that have been here for ages have reinvested in Morsel. They're committed to Morsel and that's able we're able to demonstrate our ability to afford our future when we have folks like this that are our older stock. Uh I think most of these are our older stock that have already demonstrated just between the year 2020 to now uh greater than $60 million of capital investment that increased our tax base by that much and it has doubled in size for Southport and I think a little bit of that I think was some expansion as well. Um, I believe there was a an additional land site that they may have purchased in 2020 also that could be wrapped in here, but the majority of it was in the fact that they were recognizing that they needed to reposition themselves because the market was changing. And I think that's that's innovative. It's it's being committed to

Morrisville. But perhaps what they saw was also Morrisville's commitment to support them to make sure that they were able to do as Tiffany was alluding is making sure that if they did do an upfit or if they did do some other site plan submitt to expand that we're able to move things through that that's time is money to to folks like this to get that reinvestment. They're working on the clock when they go to banks uh to be able to borrow this capital to to put this these expansions or these uh enhancements on the ground quickly so they can start realizing their investment the return on their investment. Um, Eastridge I think is another one very similar to Southport where they have uh expanded they recognized uh the market was shifting and so they've re started to reimagine themselves and that gave them the ability to maximize their investment of greater what I've been able to I think we've been able to find was at least right now greater than 10 million. They could have done more than that, but that's all I was able to qualify in some um searches. But that's another one that's been here, these have been here since the 80s, some of them in the early 90s, and they've reinvented themselves. And this is the prime example of what we're going to see in our future. And it just shows the impact of how that creates some sustainability. And this is a perfect example to use when we stand up in front of our credit rating agencies that it's not just about the new development growth that that we still are able to substantiate to to those folks that we're going to continue to have some new development, but we're also able to substantiate um clear examples um quantifiable examples of how we're able to continue growing through redevelopment.

Okay. So, this one's maybe looking forward and and in talking with um organizations like DFI when we had um COVID come through, we started being concerned about office u vacancies in that area. We we started talking about what are some of the ways in which we can influence um outcomes. One of the ways that I believe in Morrisville and how how smart they have been to invest in folks like Michelle and Tiffany is we've done very proactive things like um pulling together marketing strategies going out and and showcasing who we are, what is our stock, where can we um retap uh existing things or create new opportunities. But another key piece when if you're in a developer's shoe or even an owner's shoe is smaller plans. And why is that important? Because developers are able to or owners are able to see your vision. They're able to see through your eyes how confident you are in what your vision is for Morrisville's future. And that gives them something very substantial to be able to build on to to dream and vision and it sparks energy back in our community when we were going down the path with Town Center 10 years ago. We were all sitting around the table and we said if we started with phase one, if we assemble the land, it gives us an opportunity to do a public private uh partnership. if we build it phase one, they will come. We will start the energy. And that's really what's happening now with um actually getting 10 years later, we're we're we've got a

parking garage that's that you could see the dream is coming alive. Other people are seeing that. She's able to market that. People are seeing the ability for us to provide support entertainment. They see us adding sidewalks. They see us improving traffic um congestion. They see us investing in Morrisville. They're going to continue to come and invest in Morrisville. So, if you build it, if you offer opportunities to move through processes and leverage our proximity, we'll continue to have opportunities in the future. And these three plans when when we're looking Byron and I are looking at future revenue, these are very critical to us being able to say at least we can see even with the appeals impact we could potentially substantiate continue to grow at least at 2% or plus. Now in years past, I'll tell you in the boom days we were probably above 4% and then we averaged out at 3% at some point. our tax base is much larger and that that percentage growth is is larger as effect as our tax base has grown. Uh but this is a this is where we're able to say we can sustain ourselves in our long range picture at this time. It's not growing it's not growing like it used to. It's different and we have to recognize that residential is going to be smaller and slower as Michelle said, but we at least see and have the ability to project forward uh in in the short term, long term uh as as we look ahead. Um, other things that we've benefited from in these processes as we as we project out um are being able to have and maintain those those diverse uses across Marsville, but being able to help other

entities respond to how the market's shifting and changing. So as Eastridge, I believe Southport, they they've all responded and they brought forward upfit changes that they've maximized u creating ready set lab sites, I guess, uh is what you would I would call them. I'm sure you all call them something a little different. But this upfit um scenario or this upfit data that I've been looking at is is also really encouraging. The shifting to upfits we've seen since 2021 and looking at the permit data a significant growth of 12% in upfit u related permits. So usually I've been all these years paying attention to new permits, new residential, new commercial. That's what I've been tracking. But I'm now learning, thanks to Shandandy and Michelle and Tiffany, we need to also be paying attention to how upfits permits are growing and changing because that's a key indicator of redevelopment. And so I'm I'm here to say that's a positive indicator, a positive trend. Now, does that mean that 10 plus years from now that we would still be sustaining uh this level of growth? No. I think we'll still be going through potentially another type of shift in how we develop, but we would be responsive and proactive in a in being able to secure and be fiscally responsible as we project forward. And it starts with land use. It starts with how economic development takes care uh in preserving what we have. And then just good thoughtful budgeting. Um when you when you talk about shared like you know redevelopment and you have specified Southport and other areas

what is your vision like are we basically there it's only a one-story building so you're thinking that they will demolish and make like a fourstory buildings there or because I'm I'm trying to envision because obviously they can utilize a lot of space there. All most of the Southwood is just a one-story building. Um so I just wanted to know what

you want to

how how is the zoning going to promote that or how how do we go about it?

Yeah, what we've already seen in those areas is just renovation of the existing buildings that are out there. So um we've had a couple examples of tearowns and rebuilds. I think the town is a ways away from that being the norm. Um, but really gutting and investing a lot of money in existing buildings. Um, and as Jeannie indicated, that's happened um at several sites, Southport, Eastridge, and some others. Um, so that's upgrading the property, the site, the parking lot, the landscaping, gutting the insides of the building, putting in new equipment for new users, um, and really overhauling some of our larger campuses. Um, and that has helped them to attract some great new tenants as well.

Yeah. But overall, the square footage is not increasing, right?

We are not seeing building additions. We're not seeing what it is. So from a economic standpoint of view the I was thinking a redevelopment is started you know if it is 100,000 now you're putting 200,000 so that's a different dollar amount that comes in and I have seen Southwood they have done a lot of renovation

but do you anticipate in the next 10 years that space you have to go up

and I think um do does these buildings

support two story or it's pretty much from town to town.

Yeah, I I'll echo what Genie said. I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. Um I think you're still at least several years off before you're seeing a lot of what you're talking about. It's not that that won't come. Um and I think I referenced the X Pedex site at retreat. That is one site where we are seeing, you know, demolition of a substantial existing building being replaced with other uses. Um, but I I think it's still going to be a while before that becomes the norm. It eventually will.

The movie theater was

Yeah, correct.

I want to roll back real quick just to the slide before this. I just want to call something out. So, I thought it was really interesting. You know, Primary Park's huge. It's over 300,000 square feet, I think, and it has like three plus actual owners when you put it all together. I picked this corridor on the original Bremer Park Drive for a reason because it's the oldest stock in Morrisville. Um, I thought it was really interesting. While I can qualify uh in some research of greater than 35 million in upfits and rens since 2020, they've only increased 14%. So it may be that their type of investment is more on the side of maybe equipment because we've seen equipment growing but exterior wise reimagining yourself to market yourself differently and maybe the different types of uses you see that clearly in Southport. So when I put perimeter park here, we agreed we wanted to put perimeter park here. Focusing on just that, that that seems to me maybe another the next place we we had talked about this last retreat. The next place we might see some energy and that um in that area of so hopefully I would see that percentage

increase in its assessed value maybe grow and change. Uh but where we're seeing maybe change in equipment which has been highly impactful um where and and reimagining what they look like on on the outside aesthetically and the amenities that they offer. You're seeing that really in Eastridge and Southport. I'm not sure I see it the same level in perimeter, but maybe I'm wrong.

Interior. Yeah. I just thought that was quite interesting. But I think it signals to us that's an area for us to pay attention to because other people may be paying attention to that. There you go. Okay. make sure we don't have any questions on the table. So, I'm gonna uh start us off in kind of wrapping us up. You know, tonight's uh really to demonstrate staff does a great deal of work behind the scenes when we bring information and data to the table. Um I'd say our partner that's not here at the table tonight is Rodney Watkins, who's our GIS manager. um he's been supporting us um greatly behind the scenes of trying to help us do this GIS map exercise, but tonight's all about really a first step towards establishing what do we mean when we say redevelopment and all getting kind of on the same page, how we define it, how you define it. Having that shared redevelopment vision is going to be important and that's what we're going to help you moving forward tonight. um finalizing our redevelopment inventory. So, so the team's been behind the scenes really working on what is this um redevelopment u hot zones or hotspots look like and

what criteria do we use to to qualify should they or shouldn't they? That's been something that we're working on and continuing to refine. That's a really key step in in our next step processes is the redefining of what we've already internally done identifying from that then with Tiffany's help with council's help with the community's help business community's help even is where should we focusing be focusing our energies and priorities above what we already know based on the small area plans with TOD town center and mcrimic corridor where else should we be focusing our attention and how can we directly or indirectly support that? And that leads us to our next um step is really redefining or refining that toolbox and those marketing strategies, giving um Tiffany and Michelle tools to work with uh to be able to demonstrate and showcase who we are, what do we have, what do we have to work with, and how can we help you get there to to be able to benefit the community.

Yes, sir. How I understand that redevelopment uh would be property owners uh initiative. How do we cope with that change in zoning? So that's that's

Do you want to take it just from the land use perspective? And then I think Tiffany, you you've really already hit on that quite a bit about um marketing and reaching out knowing what you have.

I want to build off of something that Jeanie said about the small area planning because I think another area that's a great example of that is the Mcrimman corridor. We did a small area plan for that corridor. reszone that corridor to implement the recommendations in that plan and we saw immediate investment happen. Um so we

can signal what we want um clarity timing um are critical to the development community. So if we can um relay that we have a clear vision that our codes and ordinances are set up to implement that vision that is always a great first step in promoting what we want. Um so that starts um at the very beginning with your land use planning and your zoning. We are um our hands are a little tied with Senate Bill 382 on some of that. Um, but I still think we've been um very successful um in implementing a lot of what our land use plan has called for to date.

And from a economic development perspective, working with developers after we've reached out to businesses and working with some of our other regional economic development partners, helping them understand what the industry needs and trends are. Um, so they can further know from a development perspective, what are companies looking for when it relates to size? what type of companies are looking to locate and expand here in our community. And it's not I think I I I missed out on it earlier, but it's not just, you know, the existing industry, but it's also our small businesses, our entrepreneurs that can further help contribute to our tax base. One more thing I will add to that is it also one of those things that we have a role in is that speed to market that Tiffany alluded to and that what that means is when a developer has an interest in Morris deal how fast we can get them to the process because for a developer time is money. So how fast can we get into a permitting process and a and a clear example of that was the win that we had about from no artist. We won that project particularly because of that. It was our ability to be able to get them through the process much faster and those are some of the things that we have control of that we are able to offer and secure that potential development and redevelopment in the

future. I think we have a few other questions. Um, we have C uh, Council Member Johnson, we have uh, Mayor Pretend Braati. I would like to just let Jeie finish this real quick and then we will go ahead and open for questions for everybody if that's okay.

So, I touched on So, I touched on refining that really defining what your toolbox is and identifying those things that we have and then refining our marketing strategies. So, so we can leverage those areas that we prioritize and identify through this GI GIS mapping that we base it on a set of criteria. Uh the next step and really important step is how we how we work to integrate and understand the fiscal impact assessment and how do we incorporate that incorporate that into our decision making processes. So I think um in 21 we we did test out a fiscal impact model. We're working to retest it to see if there are and working with our financial advisors to see if there's any uh other suggestions these days that might be more improved ways to guide us as we as we build um our path forward as we look at this. So we have a a reliable process that we can repeat uh over and over that benefits us. So So that was really it. I I'll look at Michelle and Tiffany. Any final thoughts as you look at this slide uh before we jump back into questions? Anything else? Nope.

Okay.

I think they're ready. So I'll go ahead and open it up for questions. We have Council Member Johnson first. Then we have mayor protraati. So we'll start with council member Johnson.

Thank you Jazelle Jeie. I just have one question on slide there under perimeter park. You have a

comment about approximately 80.5% occupancy. Is that all of Perimeter P?

That

I'm gonna let Tiffany answer that question. She provided that data point. Yes, that is for the majority of perimeter part.

Okay. Not that I would love to see that number even higher, but I I thought it was it had been lower. Is that Have we seen that percentage increasing recently?

Yes, there's been a recent increase in occupancy. Um it's coming at like smaller square footage footprints, but there has definitely been an increase. Okay, that's great news. Okay. Um, and ladies, you did a phenomenal job. This was a great presentation. You know, I love this topic. And um, Jeanie's correct. We we're uh enviable in the in the region and gosh maybe across the state with the percentage or the or the mix rather of the uh commercial versus residential tax base we have here in town and it is because of our location. Most definitely. Um the this last slide about moving forward steps moving forward. Do we have a timeline on these five steps which I am uh 100% behind?

I think that is what what the team's really working on as we wrap our heads around this inventory piece. U making sure that we develop the right criteria that works for Morrisville. What should we consider? what should we not be considering? I think it's really important for us to to take the time on that. So, I think once we get a little bit more handled on that, we can put

more timeline around these next steps and and provide that information out. Are there any other different thoughts, group? Okay. That's just a really crucial step is to get that right. Um, and to do it right for the community and how we even project it forward because it is it is sensitive. We should be careful with that. I think Michelle touched on that earlier.

Yeah. Thank Thank you. Um I just re um what whatever we can when we when we talk about this topic and the steps moving forward, whatever we can do as a town, whatever we have control over is going to be key to helping uh in this space redevelop um define it. But I'm 100% behind. So yeah, the markets con need to keep uh keep an eye on how things are changing and making sure that we are being nimble and being responsive to um to our community. But I know you all have said that. I just wanted to repeat it because that's really uh important in this conversation and the whole business engagement too. by the way, 100% um to make sure we're getting ahead of uh problems out there. So, that's all the comments I have right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Johnson. May I Bobby?

I agree philosophically with everything that's been said and I do think that this was a great presentation. It's not clear to me how much control we have though over literally any of this. because we mccrimin mccrimin the mcrim extension is a great example of a that

was a green field so we could absolutely with zoning with udo improvements we we had a lot of control over what went there and we were able to really turn that into a revenue engine but in terms of redevelopment let's so let's just take for example a site that's zoned industrial and let's say that we decide that we'd rather see that be commercial, but someone owns that property. So, I don't really and and even the property that's just internal redevelopment, whatever the situation, I I don't see where we have a ton of control. I I get that we can, you know, that we can prepare, but it doesn't seem to me that we can drive the timeline or even predict very well what might happen.

I I think those are good points and it's a combination. Um because private property owners have rights and some of it will be land assemblage that takes time. You know, if you go back and and look at some of our resources, you'll see some areas where people have been slowly picking up property for years. Um, and that's not necessarily always a quick process. So, the timing has to be right. Um, assembling and consolidating property takes time. The market conditions need to be right. Um, and there are some things that we'll be able to control and some things we aren't. Um I'll a um town center um may be a good example of something that look to as more kind of traditional redevelopment. Phase one is obviously under construction now. But if you look at your sub area plans, the ultimate buildout of town center includes considerably more property um than just phase one. But we have um developed

plans. We have shown investment by the town which um signals a level of seriousness and commitment and you start to see the private um the market taking notice and other property owners then kind of looking around um that area um because town center is coming the area surrounding town center becomes more attractive for different reasons. So, I think there's some things we can influence and there are some things that um we're going to be more limited and you know your example of industrial commercial is a great example too of where Senate Bill 382 would not allow us without that property manage consent to change anything. I would also add like following that line, the the example of the town center is a prime example of things that we could control and that was the investment that the town made several years ago on going ahead and upfronting some of the infrastructure that was necessary for that project that made it more likely to have a private investment on that um part private private partnership because some of the infrastructure was already built. For example, the construction of the wetland was an investment that the town made that is serving for the storm water of the town center. That is an investment that was already constructed that is not on the private development to occur but it attracted them here. Um the other example is for example on the Mccrim extension that was a green field but being able to extend that road created that infrastructure that now made that green field available for for development that otherwise wouldn't have been or may have sat there for a little while. So infrastructure definitely is an area where uh municipalities often have a role and the other one is as I mentioned earlier is what barriers are there that we control that we are able to remove is it permitting processes is

it the way we define what's allowed in a parcel and how can we help them maneuver through certain processes to make it more likely for them to locate here even though the investment might be primarily uh private. Michelle said something else I'll just ping back on if I can is is recognizing when we're seeing small assemblages happen. Um so it's just being aware, monitoring, looking for those opportunities and and that's a bit of an indicator. Uh it certainly was when we were assembling indicator 2 developments as Jazelle said, but it's also when we're seeing assemblages, small assemblages occur, it's it's sending a signal as you said. So I agree with that. I ju I guess I just want to make sure that that we're focusing on things that we can control that will maximally support redevelopment without I don't want to I don't want to spin our wheels and do a lot of work that relies on some outside force to to make it mean anything.

Yep. Agreed. Thank you. I believe I saw Harrison uh Council Member Kling first and then Mayor Collie.

Thank you for the presentation. Uh very thorough um going through it all. I certainly hope that I don't take up too much time. Um but I do have a lot of do I but I do have um I do have several thoughts. Um and hopefully they're a little bit scattered. Hopefully I can bring them land them all home uh in a in a organized way. Um so one area that I wanted to start with was that um we're drawing uh 1.43

million uh dollars uh transfer from our general fund um reserves to uh balance our recurring everyday expenses. Um we uh delayed the uh um deferred uh vehicle app apparatus replacements. Um and then I was looking um I believe it was in the uh FY20 uh 27 budget was um to continually maintain our our infrastructure. Our storm water fund reserves are projected to plunge from 1.05 million in fiscal year 27 to around 50,000 by fiscal year 31. Um, so a lot of that is telling me that something's got to give. Um, you know, very good presentation, a lot of really good stuff about the um, uh, you know, all the good things, all the good things that have been developed um, and you know, our revenue engine so to speak, but I'm also interested in understanding the cost engine side of that as well. Um I think the goals generally speaking that we have I think is um environmental protection, tax base stability, um you know economic development, uh protection of of public workers and our residents. Um and I think something that uh you know certainly it's it's an ever it's it's kind of at going to the top of the list is housing affordability. um you know and we probably all share that you know that is a concern. So I think those are a lot of things that I'm don't necessarily want to speak for the council. I think this is just my assessment of the conversations that we've had over time. Please uh my fellow council members you know contribute what your thoughts your thoughts are on that. Um, so with that, I've been thinking a lot about how do we develop in a way that will put ourselves set ourselves up for

success. Um, I like that we look at the revenue and getting the revenue, but like I said earlier, um, looking at the costs. Um I appreciate the initial uh GIS analysis um of everything and

monitoring costs or costs.

So our storm water fee is $50 per unit. Yes. And um that would result if it's 100 if you have a development that's 100 erus that's uh $5,000 a year but you have to replace that culbert and that's you know a million dollars. So if my my math correct, that would take 200 years to pay back, right? And how many times would that have to that culvert have to be replaced over time? So that's that's where I'm talking about with the cost certainly with roads, streets, storm water. Um I don't know if uh water and sewer kind of factors into that as well. I know that's a carry um I don't know if it's maintained by Carrie. Assume it is. So they would have the cost on that. Um but I'm really And I'm I'll make this analogy about um maybe eating cheeseburgers. So I could go to McDonald's and I could eat enough cheeseburgers to get my protein requirement. You know, it's about 125 grams of protein. Um and maybe I work out enough. Maybe I'm I'm I'm really fit as well. And uh I don't actually gain weight despite that. But then I go to the doctor and I see that my cholesterol is through the roof. It's it's been increasing. It's through the roof. You know, I'm getting this, you know, this good protein source, but at what cost?

And I think there's a um this where the value per acre comes in that I know I know I've talked about. Um and I I had shared this I believe with uh might have been the town council email. So folks that are that received that would have gotten that. But if you look at um you know, let's say a Walmart that has a fairly high uh property tax or property um property value, let's say, versus a smaller maybe downtown kind of building, you know, a little taco shop. Uh the taco shop uh is a small building. It's on a smaller plot of land. It has more um it has a higher value per acre, presumably consumes less services. that has less infrastructure needs than the Walmart. Yes, the Walmart is a really big uh boost to the local economy, you know, jobs and revenue. Um but at what cost, right? Um and I think there's some additional costs outside of the fiscal costs of um the municipal budget and that's the traffic congestion and the um uh you know environmental impact of and car dependency. So I And what I would like to see and I think if you if you take the fiscal side of this, the environmental side of this, the transport side of transportation side of this, I think there is a synergy there where we can kind of accomplish all of these things if we play our cards right. If we develop in a way that that will increase our fiscal sustainability will and and not so much increase our fiscal sustainability but captures that infrastructure cost and the cost of services. Um, I know we have some residential areas that could be developed. If those are developed in a way where, you know, the cost for the infrastructure on those is so great that, you know, we'd need a bunch more

of the commercial redevelopment um to to subsidize that basically. Um, you know, that might put us in a harder spot, medium amount of time. Um whereas if it was um I was thinking the Louiswis Stevens uh area that's zone for medium density residential, but what if it's and I'm not saying apartments, mixed use, anything like that, but what if it was uh commercial? What if it had coffee shops and restaurants? Same thing with the area in Kits Creek, right? To go to the coffee shop that's across the train tracks, you've got to get in your car, got to drive down to McCreman, and you got to go up, right? That's adding to the traffic congestion. Um and so can that can the area in can that area have some you know small commercial that residents will be able to benefit from which I presume would reduce our traffic congestion and um and also if we can not tear down green fields to do this if it was primarily residential or not residential uh redevelopment um might solve that right get those get those places instead of having something all the way out here get something a little bit closer to our communities and increase the walkability. Uh decrease the car dependence. Um which might go uh a small step towards you know resolving some of our traffic congestion. Car's going to keep developing and we're going to receive all that traffic congestion. So is there a way that we can um allow residents to live their life without relying on a personal vehicle? Um I my last um comment here is I think we probably need a little bit more granularity on the multif family. Um I mentioned affordable housing before, right? Uh home ownership, renting, you know, both of those things are really important for affordable housing. home.

So I I you know I'm fine with including it in non-residential you know for the purposes of this development redevelopment conversation but I think having a you know a sub you know box on like what is the percentage that is renters or not renters but um the multif family versus the uh the non multif family residential um and what portion of the revenue are we receiving from those multif family and and kind of it I don't have a good analogy before it, but it's just like a a shift in the um the breakdown of it, I guess. So the short answer to the portion in our commercial tax base that represents multif family apartments is 30% and it's about um 1.5 billion is what it currently represents. Uh but we can we'll certainly make sure that we qualify that

50. So that was 30%

30% of the 5.2 million which is 1.5 billion um that is represented as multif family commercial. But I'll make sure that there's nothing in there that's doesn't qualify as you described it um multifamily versus what might not be considered as um non multif family. It's just it's just a little extra little granularity kind of a little sidebar just just for information really just so you know

but I figured that question would be asked so I capture that data point I have in this round

thank you mayor

so um I look at number five and I think of that as kind of what you've been talking about for the last month or two

um and I think that'll be really helpful

as we go and starting where you ended. I do like the ham cheeseburger analogy. It's kind of a good way to think about it. Um, you get what you need, you want a calorie deficit, but then there's still these ex external things that matter. Um, you also mentioned something about like coffee shop for Kits Creek. You had sent us something a long time ago about having like a coffee shop at the end of a neighborhood. So, it's kind of like a mixed kind of having like coffee shops or little um sandwich shops like near things like the Louiswis Stevens ends of Breenidge could benefit from something like that I think or Kids Creek having some kind of coffee shop so they don't have to go all the way down and all the way up. So, it's what we allow. So, you mentioned that as part of your things. It's what we allow that matters. The Priming Corridor was a big gamble. Um, and that gamble paid off a few years later than we expected, but I think everything that we're going to do, it's kind of going to be market driven. So, we just have to set the table and see what we can have happen for us. We um we're thinking about doing a small area plan for Perier Park. We that didn't make it into the budget. So, I'm interested when you're talking about small area plans and those are things that we can do to help um the business community know that we're supporting it. What can we do other than that? Um, what comes to mind to me is we have three great universities nearby. If we reach out to them and see if they have project teams of students who want to sort of take a look at us and throw new ideas at us. I know there's some effort that goes into that, but there might be some ideas that come out of that. Um, I do like the idea and like to hear that 80% of per your heart is now occupied. What do they need it to be to be viable and sustainable into the future? because my big concern is that they were going to start to say it's not this valuable. We want to be revaluated down. Um so I want to sort of keep an eye on that area because that's one of our prime drivers

because that's a lot of office space. Um I've heard it called uh the largest um class A office space in the triangle. So I don't know if that's true, but if that is true, that's something that we can emphasize and market and try to use that as a good thing. Um, so how can we help our company successfully pursue upfits? So I listened to a podcast who's indicating like so you you're coming towards the end of the year the profits are not outside the profits are in your current customers. What can you upsell them? You already have a relationship with these businesses. What can you offer them that will help them grow? So, what can we offer ourselves to help them be more successful? How can we make sure that um like a local ice cream shop continues to stay in town to make sure that we're reaching out to them instead of going somewhere else just to do their manufacturing? I only know of a handful of companies that left the town. I know Fujifilm, if we had more land, they would still be here instead of Holly Springs, but we don't have the land. So, that's not something we can control. we can make sure that we are friendly and amendable. Um the criminal corridor we pivoted a couple of times and most recently to allow advanced manufacturing. So what as long as you're keeping your finger on the pulse of what is necessary and bring that to us and if it's reasonable, I think this is a reasonable council and we're looking to make sure that we're successful. Um, and we're only successful when our businesses are successful and that rolls down into our residents because we are arguably the best tax rate around. So, how do we make sure that we're leveraging that? Um, yeah. So, I I guess what do you need from us? what resources um can we help provide um to make sure

that we're retaining what we have, growing that as much as possible because that's the most efficient way to do that because we always talk about small businesses being the real growth for the entire United States. So our existing businesses, many are small, helping we help them grow here. Um those are kind of my thoughts and we can leverage the airport some more too probably. Um, so that's just some thoughts. This has been everyone's been contributing some really good stuff to this because redevelopment is really where we're going to be heading. So I think if we keep on putting our heads together and um, you keep on doing a bangup job. I only hear great things about you, Miss McNeil. Um, let's just keep on being a leader in the region about making sure that we're supporting our current businesses. I think that would be a really good niche to have. Any other questions?

Council member Kessler,

I just wanted to um carry my uh cheeseburger analogy just a little bit further. Um

so mentioned the cholesterol, the cholesterol going up, um you know, tracking um you know, take the blood, check the vitals, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um I do see the finance decoder as that kind of blood test basically you know um uh you know if if the numbers going up it's it you know maybe we should look at that the numbers going down maybe we should maybe we should look at you know where wherever it ends up um the geo the more the geospatial analysis the more parcel by parcel and looking at you know where is the where is the revenue coming from and what you know what's the biggest driver of the revenue um on a parcel by parcel basis is then also what's the what's the largest subsidy. I think of that um kind of as an MRI or a DEXA scan. Um so you know you go and you can see okay where is the where's the weight being carried where is the where's the impact um you

know being felt. Um and then I also wanted to mention this uh North Falls uh lake area plan. It's something that was presented at Campo recently. Now it's a little bit different than what uh you know what we're experiencing. It's really um they are looking truly at the start of development um but they some key things there was um uh they had business as usual um an economic growth scenario wershed protection area and then one of the scenarios was uh strong towns um I know I've mentioned the strong town stuff it is an organization it's also a framework and philosophy as well they probably kickstart that philosophy but it is being used um to uh you know develop these land use plans and uh that was the strong the strong watershed protection was the most popular. The strong towns was the second most popular and the you know combining everything together was um you know what was the preferred plan but that might have some um uh you know latest and greatest kind of insights perhaps. Um so this I would think of this as like you know there's a healthy person and they want to start a fitness routine and this is their fitness plan. So they're doing that. Maybe we need a fitness plan of our own. Um, you know, considering that perhaps our cholesterol might not be as good as it we'd like it to be potentially. Um but we might be able to uh you know use this as a framework or at least pull some some insights from it to um you know understand concepts and um you know how perhaps how um I don't want to say zeitgeist but that's kind of um you know where is where are things headed certainly around the region um and how can we keep up with that with the challenges that we have of our with our land use and whatnot. Um, you know, if if they're developing in a way that would allow more walkability and transit and whatnot, and then we're still here and, you know, uh, being car

dependent, um, you know, I'd like to get us on the on the path to, um, you know, reducing the car dependence and increasing the transit and all that kind of stuff, walkability. May I collect one other note that um Morrisville means business is a really great slogan. So can we have some kind of slogan about redevelopment? How we welcome it? We're open for redevelopment or something like that or how we treasure our current businesses. If that's kind of where we're trying to go, if we're aiming towards redevelopment, how do we market that and make people know that that's the case? Because you have to tell them seven times before they hear it. So, how are we going to tell people that just kind of a high level thought as we move forward?

Thank you.

See none other questions. I did have um a couple things with the fiscal impact modeling. I'm very happy that we're going to be looking at that. Um will that apply to economic development incentive projects um conditional resonings and future land use updates?

What do you mean by that? to the extent that we ask it to.

Um so we have the fiscal impact modeling um I suppose and we're having this conversation about redevelopment. Will that modeling be applied to uh you know all the different um facets of our redevelopment such as the um economic development you know the incentives that we offer and the our conditional resonings that um you that come before us. nothing that would you know buy right stuff I wouldn't imagine that we would mess with it on that front but certainly if we're if we're attracting

business or we're having to side on a um you know a change in the land use uh such as the conditional resonings or a potential land use update in the future um incorporating that uh uh fiscal impact modeling in those conversations as well I think would be very important right because we have limited land so every acre counts and every all the things that we do on uh our limited land will affect us for many many year years. So

we've done a little bit of that um as planning has brought certain types of projects forward. They've demonstrated what the impact would be uh in by way of maybe revenue assessment. Um, I will answer your question by saying it's going to depend on what model we develop as to what decisions it's best used to inform. It's not a one-sizefits-all. Um, it's highly dependent on what data sets or assumptions you build and what you build them for. So, I think that's to be determined as we assess uh first getting very grounded on what's our inventory and where are our priorities and what criteria do we base that on. And I think that will also help feed um how this fiscal impact model could potentially um inform those kinds of decisions that are related to those target areas.

Council member Garland.

Yeah, I saw one of the slides where you said 80% occupancy at the perimeter. How is the current trend with the like at one time there was a lot of rumbling around not able to fill up the perimeter uh park area or you know offices. Is it catching up or what's the trend look like?

It's there's more interest in office. Sorry.

There's increasing interest in office but you know in the previous years companies were looking at larger office

space. Now you might see a company coming in that's looking at um smaller office space footprint. So it's 20 30,000 square feet. So it's a slow incremental increase.

Is the vacancy rate decreasing or

no the vacancy rate was is averaging is averaging around 80.5. I'm sorry

occupancy is 80.5. The vacancy rate has has decreased some. Yes.

Yeah. Because at one time it was close to half. I think it was about 70% occupancy.

Okay.

Um last year.

So So they're okay. You're not hearing anything that we need to do anything specific with from a zoning point of view to start that area.

To be fair, I think the word okay is relative. If you're a developer, you want to be 100% occupied.

We can we can office hotel if they want.

So um they appreciate our partnership and our support. I I would say that. And the goal is for them to be 100% occupied, of course.

One more thing. Uh 15minute city. Um that might be worth looking into.

What did you say? Sorry.

15 minute city.

Just a concept worth investigating.

I wrote that towards parks. What is 15 minute city? just in two sentences. Um, you can meet all your basic needs uh via a 15 minutee walk.

Okay,

that's my understanding of it.

Good to know. That'd be nice.

I could be. It's just coming based on memory, but I could be um slightly different.

It's a nice aspirational thought.

Either that or um walking, biking, transit, get to your needs within 15 15 minutes. Well, thank you council for your um collaboration tonight. I think this has been a great uh level setting

opportunity for us. Um thank you appreciate the rest of the team for working on this together. Um but this is a great step. We will definitely be back with more as we continue to expand onto this and thank you for your input tonight.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you all very much. Really, really appreciate it. Um anything further on your order, sir? are planning to take us into close session then take a quick break.

Okay. Um I don't we have one close session this evening. We do not plan to conduct any business after that. So I at this time I'd entertain a motion to enter the closed session if someone wants to read those words.

I make a motion that we enter close session pursuant to NCGS143-318.11A4 to discuss a matter of economic development.

I second that. I have a motion from Mayor Patra body, a second from council member Patel. All those in favor of going to close session, please say I.

I. Any opposed? Hearing none, that carries unanimously. 6. It is 8:20. We are now in close session.