Planning Board Meeting

You're good? Is that your own computer?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the town of Apex planning board meeting. Today's date is August 10th, 2026. Um, we would now like to ask that you please bow your head in prayer. Lord, we lift the people of uh, we lift up the people of Apex. Every decision we make affects families, businesses, and future generations. Help us protect what makes this community special while guiding growth in a way that honors everyone. These things we ask in your name. Amen.

Amen.

Amen. Please stand for Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, do we have any information from staff?

There's nothing today.

Thank you, Amanda. No items of information. We will now move into public comment. If you've not done so already, uh, to your left, you can sign [clears throat] to speak on any agenda or non-agenda items. The purpose of the public comment is to allow the public to speak on items that do not appear in this agenda under public hearings. Any member of the public wishing to comment on public hearing items will be called at the appropriate time later in the agenda. If there's a large number of speakers for one particular item, the planning board may ask a representative could be selected to speak for the entire group and limit the comments to 3 minutes. Do we have anyone to sign up on any non-agenda items? It does not appear so. Hearing none, we will close public comment and move on uh to consent item number one, minutes from the January 13th, 2026 regular meeting. Have any discrepancies? Any issues? Hearing none, I will make a motion to approve.

Second.

Mark, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion carried.

Who was the first?

The chair. Yes, thank you. Okay, we will now move into the public hearing section. Please remember public hearing has the same 3-minute rule. Uh we will open consent item number one on the agenda, public hearing of possible motion regarding rezoning case 26 ZZ053305 Olive Chapel Road.

Good afternoon, planning board and chair. Uh my name is Marissa Ste- Smith and I will be presenting the rezone case for 26 ZZ053305 The project site is located on the western area of town, south of US 64 and approximately 1/2 mile from the border of Chatham County. The property is located along the south side of Olive Chapel Road. The property to the west is the Willow Hills PUD and to the east is the recently approved Lawrence property PUD. Land to the south is uh open space, Army Corps of Engineer. The 3.62 acre site includes an existing single-family home and a driveway off of Olive Chapel, and both will be retained. The site also includes mature trees, existing streams along the southern and eastern border, and the grade generally slopes from north what northwest to southeast. The existing zoning district is in the Wake County residential, and it is proposed to be rural residential conditional zoning. The current land use classification is rural density residential, and if approved, it would become rural transitional residential. Neighborhood meetings were held on April 29th and July 15th of 2026, and due to the small nature of the project, it was not uh required to go to

the Environmental Advisory Board. During the process, the applicant did agree to additional conditions, and these include adding a 70-ft wide undisturbed buffer along the southeast portion of the property, extending a 5-ft wide sidewalk across the project frontage of Olive Chapel Road, and recording a 30-ft wide easement uh Town of Apex public sewer easement along the southern boundary. Uh I did want to make a note that there will be a change to page four of the staff reports on these conditions 13, 15, and 16. It will have the word wide added after the uh noted dimensions. We requested that the Planning Board also note this in their motion. The proposed rezone is reasonable and in public interest in that the rezone will allow for the existing single-family home to remain, and it will create a maximum of three lots, all that are generally consistent with those to the west. The proposed rezone will provide roadway frontage widening with a wide a sidewalk along Olive Chapel Road, and furthermore, the proposed rezone does include stricter architectural conditions than what is in the UDO. Planning staff recommends the approval of 26 CZ 05 as proposed by the applicant. And both applicant and staff are available for questions.

Thank you, Marissa. Any questions for Marissa?

Marissa, will the three homes be um going through the Willow rather than so that one will remain a single-family home entrance just for the house that's already there and then everyone else will go through Willow at Snow

I believe the applicant has a slide that he'd like to present as well.

Okay, great. Thank you, Marissa.

Okay.

Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Kiernan, Jones and Associates Engineering, 221 North Salem Street. Thank you all for your time

tonight. Thank you, Marissa. And nice to finally meet you in person. Um I think this is a pretty short and sweet meeting, so I'll I'll try to keep that theme. Marissa kind of nailed all the main talking points. I wanted to share this exhibit um with you guys just to sort of highlight just how small of a usable acreage amount we have here. So, about 2/3 of the site is cut out by buffers, um right-of-way dedication, etc. Um so, what we're left with kind of in the middle, the white shaded portion is 1.2 acres out of the 3.6 roughly that is being rezoned. Um as she said, we do intend on preserving the existing home along Old Chapel Road including the existing driveway. So, normally we don't really get into a whole lot of layout discussion with a rezoning, but on this one it it the design it sort of designs itself. We have an existing street stub at Snowbed Ridge. Um you know, it currently has, you know, future road extension signs on it. We have a perennial stream to our east um as well as an approved pod with no development, you know, to the east. So, we know that that road is not going to extend. It's going to end in a cul-de-sac. That's That's really the one design option that we have. Um beyond that, it's okay. We have enough area on the north side and the south side to match similar lot sizes as what Toll Brothers did next door in Willow Hills. So, that's really the long and short of our um our goal here. Um we are under the um size requirements for the um the road widening itself. We would be dedicating the 25-ft right-of-way dedication. And then um as Marissa said, we did agree uh my client did agree to go ahead and complete the sidewalk gap that would otherwise exist between Willow Hills and the Estates at All Chapel to our east, the Lawrence pod. Um so, those are sort of the, you know, extra components to this. The 70-ft wide understory buffer from

Army Corps land um I know it is not the full 150-yd suggested buffer um that has been, I guess, implied um on previous projects. And I know that the Lawrence pod next door did I believe they did provide that. Turns out to about 450 ft of buffer. Um this project, given how small it is and I mean, 450 ft essentially is where the house is. So, we couldn't build a cul-de-sac. We couldn't do anything, really. At that point, it's okay. Let's Let's take a reasonable approach to this and and kind of look at this site specifically. [clears throat] The Willow Hills off the uh property a little bit, but down on the bottom left of the sheet, there is a home within Willow Hills, and I measured out the buffer that they have, and it's approximately 70 ft. So, that was sort of our okay, a compromise here. There is also this perennial stream and another uh tributary to the stream that really sort of cut I mean there's no wall there, but it's a it's a you know, major stream crossing going down into the reservoir. Um we believe that the intent of that suggested buffer is because it's technically game land. Because of the grade change that we'll have because of the creek, we don't anticipate you know, any necessarily you know, that those types of activities happening in this kind of corner of that game land there. So, we we believe it's a fair compromise in order to um provide the town the completion of the sidewalk gap and all those public facilities that we would be at you know, be adding. Um you know, the cul-de-sac as well, you know, kind of completing the Snowbird Ridge um landscape down there. So, that's sort of really the the long and short of it. I mean, it's it's a pretty simple um design. So, with that I'll see if you guys have any questions.

Um I got [clears throat] to know the answer but in the lower left-hand corner

is that a sewer pump station?

It is. Yeah, I meant to label that.

Okay. Is that Is there a Is the intent in the tying into that?

So, we have um there's a manhole in Snowbird Ridge that we would just tie directly in like a normal subdivision. Um because of that pump station and because of a commitment from the Lawrence Pud to extend an easement across their southern boundary, uh we would be matching and doing the same and I've actually spoken with one of the property owners to the east of the Lawrence Pud at the neighborhood meeting. He specifically wanted to know would we be providing a corridor for future sewer? So, it's nothing planned right now. We're not building the sewer across our site. It would be um it would be interfering with some um well, really it would be deep and it would be to nowhere right now and it's not necessarily an upstream property that we'd be serving. It was just asked that hey, we don't close the door on them and make them, you know, come to my client later requesting an easement. We'll just go ahead and give you the easement so that it's sort of set up for them in the future. So, they were thrilled um that their you know, future route has been established.

I have a question.

Absolutely.

So, the there's a um it looks like there's a blue line stream along the I guess that eastern property line. Um so, the buffer there that you're leaving is 70 ft in width. Is that what the proposed buffer is like?

So, the green here, this is the actual perennial stream buffer. So, that's the 100-ft buffer

Okay.

that is off of that blue line stream that you're seeing.

Got you.

The 70-ft is sort of a a number that we created internally just to, you know, allow for the construction of one home, not totally cut off that, you know, that side of the cul-de-sac altogether. Uh but it's not it's this blue is not necessarily related to a stream in general. It's it's it's the green that you you're referring to.

And how many lots do you anticipate putting here?

Total of three including the existing. So, we would essentially create a new lot line south of the existing home based on the setback requirements. Mhm.

But we would be taking that home off of Well, it's up to them. They can be connecting it down to the cul-de-sac as well for utilities.

All right. Looks good.

Okay. Any other questions for Patrick? Hearing none, we will uh bring you back to the board.

Thank you.

Well, we're going to open public comment. Excuse me. I do not um I don't want to skip that one by any means, but I do not believe we'll have anyone here for public comment. Uh-oh. We'll open public comment. Hearing none, we'll close public comment, and we'll bring it back to the board for discussion and possible motion.

It's pretty cut and dry.

Yes, I was going to say the same words.

Is that a motion?

easy.

It was a motion. Um for rezoning case CZ 26 CZ 05 with the word "white" put in

What number did you say?

13 15

and 16 after the dimensions.

I believe that's what you all

Is that right?

Okay.

All right.

All right, we have a motion from Mary.

Second.

Second from Mark. All All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Then we will uh now go to new business. Item number one, Mr. Bruce.

[cough and clears throat]

Good evening, chair and board members. Just a couple of video amendments for you today. Nothing too substantive. Just a couple of cleanup items that we're going to go through and we'll walk you through those now.

Uh principal planner three just for the record as well. So, the first amendment is going to be to sections 2.3.4F. Um and what this is is this is to change the the definite the classification of accessory apartments to accessory dwelling units. The accessory dwelling unit uh terminology has been used more widely in recent years as well as this is in our attempt to uh align ourselves with recently adopted uh state law, which has a new section for accessory dwelling units that we will be bringing before you guys in the next couple months to get that uh adopted to be in line with state law. The reason that didn't come before you today was they ratified it just a day after we were required to get you your information. So, it's being pushed off a little bit, but you'll see the same sections come up later on where we'll be adding some standards or adjusting to make sure that we're in compliance, but we'll go through the changes here. So, the first one under planned development districts, um we've crossed out accessory uh apartment and added accessory dwelling unit under section seven there in the very bottom. You'll see a theme. We have removed it from the use table. Um this was causing a little bit of confusion as accessory dwelling units are supposed to be accessory in nature, and so we should be referencing the UDO section for accessory uses, structures, and other areas where they're permitted. So, it has been removed from this section, but we have made sure that it is available and we will direct people to that other section where it should be located as well. So, that has been removed from there. So, originally since it wasn't in use table, it was required to be in our use classifications under residential uses. Because we've removed it, we also had to go into section 4.3.1 and remove that section for accessory apartment, and we've now created a reserve section for future UDO amendments to go there as well. But with that, we have updated the accessory use section for accessory apartments by changing the name as we've talked about, and then also making sure that we added some language uh that would make it compliant with what was in the other section so it's appropriate moving forward. So, you can see that we've crossed out some sec- some language there and added the bold there to speak

to um the floor of commercial uses and the MMR ex-residential districts and things like that. And again, we've changed the name where it's appropriate from accessory apartment to accessory dwelling unit. Again, further on in that section, it's uh it's been changed again from accessory apartment in section C, D, and E, as well as in F and G. And then um as far as it's been removed, accessory apartment has been removed from table 5.2.B, which it speaks to in permitted encroachments into required setbacks. Um these accessory dwelling units that are attached or just going to be subject to the the original setbacks of the principal structure itself, and so it was not needed to be there, so it's been removed as well. Um again, we've changed in uh the encroachments in the setbacks on 5.2.7. Uh for detached, we've uh changed the the terminology from accessory apartments to accessory dwelling units, so it's consistent. Um under 8.3.4 for our off-street parking loading locations, our residential driveways, again, there was a section under uh three for number of access points see we again we just changed the terminology from accessory apartment to the accessory dwelling units to be consistent. That's the first amendment uh before you today. Any questions about that? No.

In 4.2.2, the use table,

Mhm.

I am getting the sense that this is an error, but it looks like all the P's are struck in congregate living facility, at least on the version that we have. Um Does anyone else see that?

Good catch.

Good catch. Thank you. Yeah, they must just inadvertently [clears throat] finger click. No. Nope, that is not supposed to be adjusted, so that'll be corrected for town council moving forward. Thank you for catching that.

Good catch. I did.

That would If there were no other comments or anything pointed out, I can move on to the second one.

Okay, so this one is just about um changing the the required distance of unrestricted pedestrian movement um from 3 ft to 4 ft, um and we'll go over that here. So this is under signs and permitted signs location. Um for temporary signs, the sandwich board signs, which you'll see in front of different businesses and things like that to promote specials and other such things, um the UDO originally required only 3 ft of sidewalk width uh be unrestricted for pavement movement, but um for us to be in compliance with PROWAG, uh the guidelines for, you know, public rights-of-way access and easements and things like that, that does suggest 4 ft, and so we're moving into the more restrictive higher standards of the 4 ft unrestricted access along uh the feet of sidewalk. So, the signs will just have to go further back possible. And so, that's what we're proposing today. Any questions on that one? Nope. Okay, lastly number three. Um this one is just to kind of clean up a section that um funny enough has gone unnoticed for a while, and uh I'll show you what it what it was originally. So, this is just the determination of compliance. So, when an application comes into the town, we receive the submittal, we check for sufficiency, and then it goes into a review period. Um this speaks to how long the applicant has to respond to the comments that have been get to them after the first review period, and how long they have to resubmit after that. There's typically our practice has been this entire time 1 year. They have 1 year to resubmit in order to keep the process moving forward. The original language spoke to they could resubmit no less than 1 year, which meant they wouldn't be able to submit until after a year had passed. Clearly, that's not what we've been practicing, and that's not what we want as far as helping our our business and commercial partners move forward. So, this section here is really just changing that to make sure that it is appropriate and in line with what we've been doing so far. So. That is the last amendment before you today. Any questions on that?

No questions.

Nope. Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you, Bruce.

I'll bring that back to the board for discussion. I think that one was very clear.

Yes.

Very easy.

Let's vote on it a minute by minute, or can we vote on it both at one time? Okay. Motion to approve.

Do we have a second?

Second, Christie.

Second from Christie, motion from Jeff. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed. Motion carries. All right, we're going to need one more motion, guys.

Motion to adjourn from Alyssa.

To adjourn, got a second?

I'll second, Mary.

Second from Mary. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed. Motion carried. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Mhm.