SUMMARY MINUTES OF A PUBLIC HEARING

OF THE CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL

MONDAY, MAY 17, 1999 AT 7:00 P.M.

 

Mayor Rosemary Waldorf called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.

 

Council Members present were Flicka Bateman, Joyce Brown, Joe Capowski, Pat Evans, Kevin Foy, Julie McClintock, Lee Pavăo, and Edith Wiggins.

 

Staff members present were Town Manager Cal Horton, Assistant Town Managers Sonna Loewenthal and Florentine Miller, Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos, Assistant to the Manager Ruffin Hall, Development Coordinator J.B. Culpepper, and Town Clerk Joyce Smith.

 

Item 1 – Public Hearing on Special Use Permit Application for Smith Middle School

 

J.B. Culpepper, Development Coordinator, said the application for a Special Use Permit (SUP) for Smith Middle School proposed construction of a one-story, 140,000 square foot building, one new athletic field and 200 on-site parking spaces.  She said a future 10,000 square foot building addition was proposed for use by the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill’s School of Education, and was included in the total proposed square footage of the development.  Ms. Culpepper said that the vehicular accesses to the school, one in the northern area of the site off Seawell School Road, would be for a bus turn-around, and the southern entrance would be combined with the Seawell Elementary School entrance and would be used primarily for student drop-off.  She said that there were pedestrian walkways that would link the middle school with the high school and the elementary school.  Ms. Culpepper said that the staff recommended preliminary approval of Resolution A.

 

Ken Redfoot, the applicant, introduced Mike Hammersley, of Corley Redfoot Zack, Inc. the civil engineer for the project, Mike Nicklas and Gary Bailey of Innovative Design Architects partners, who designed much of the sustainable design elements in the project, and Neil Pedersen, Dr. Preyer, and Bill Mullen, from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System, and the chairman of the School Board, Harvey Goldstein, all of whom would be available to answer questions.

 

Mr. Redfoot said that the school system was in desperate need of new housing for middle school students in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area.  He said that the School Board’s primary mission was to create an environment which was conducive for excellence in teaching and learning, and that the proposal was a direct reflection of that mission, as well as the Board’s directive to build a school that highlighted energy-conservation features.  Mr. Redfoot said that the plan had already been approved by the School Board.  He said that the school was named after two important community leaders, R.D. and Euzelle P. Smith, to honor their names and their contribution to the community.  Mr. Redfoot said that locating the middle school in proximity to the Seawell Elementary School and Chapel Hill High School would provide a K-12 campus and for sharing educational programs and facilities.  He said that the network of sidewalks would encourage pedestrian traffic.  Mr. Redfoot said that the incorporation of the UNC School of Education on the campus would provide daily hands-on experience for student-teachers at the School of Education.  He said that the School Board had directed the design team to incorporate a number of sustainable design elements into the project, such as utilization of energy-efficient design and
conservation techniques.  Mr. Redfoot said that it was the School Board’s desire to have a building that was one-story, to provide the greatest utilization of natural light, while also meeting the school’s program objectives and handicapped accessibility throughout.

 

Mr. Redfoot listed the ten design elements incorporated into the building:

 

1.            Meet or exceed the North Carolina Facility Code mandates.

2.            Meeting those standards set forth by the School Facility Construction Standards, Orange County, N.C.

3.            Meet or exceed the Town’s local energy conservation criteria.

4.            Extensive utilizing of daylighting throughout the facility.

5.            Rainwater collections system for toilet flushing, irrigation, and stormwater management.

6.            Solar-assisted domestic hot water system for kitchen use.

7.            Photovoltaic system for exterior lighting at bus drop-off.

8.            Energy efficient lighting fixtures throughout the facility.

9.            Occupancy sensors to turn off lights when space is not in use.

10.        Utilization of recycled materials in certain applications.

 

Mr. Redfoot displayed a graphic to show how the daylight would be dispersed throughout the classrooms reducing the need for artificial light.

 

Council Member Foy asked if the proposed lighting was the same lighting used at the Skills Development Center.  Mr. Redfoot said that it was.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked if Mr. Redfoot would provide the Council with a comparison of short-term and long-term cost trade-offs on items 5-9.  He also asked how much extra up-front money on the items would be needed and what the pay-off would be.  Mr. Redfoot said that he would provide that information.

 

Council Member Evans asked if there would be the capability to block off the lighting, if necessary.  Mr. Redfoot answered yes, there would be in all of the classrooms.

 

Council Member Brown asked how the project stood as far as the budget that was proposed, and how all the items mentioned fit into the budget.  Mr. Redfoot said that all the elements were incorporated into the budget, and were not additional.

 

Mr. Hammersley said, using overheads, that the northern entrance would be the bus turn-around, the other entrance would be shared with the Elementary School drop-off.  He said that the playing fields, one of which would be one already in existence and currently used by the high school, would be interchangeable.  Mr. Hammersley also discussed how the walkways would be integrated throughout the campus.

 

Council Member McClintock asked Mr. Hammersley to indicate the steep areas on the site and their relationship to the buildings, and also the creek, the location of the Resource Conservation District (RCD) and the amount of land disturbance expected.  Mr. Hammersley pointed out the
areas on the site plan and where the slightly steep areas were.  He also pointed out where a path would go through the woods and to a bridge over Jolly Creek, so there would not be any clear-cutting needed.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked where the Chapel Hill Town limits were in this area.  Mr. Hammersley pointed out the jurisdictional line, noting that the school would be completely within Chapel Hill.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked what the total budget was for constructing the school and for the equipment.  Mr. Redfoot said the total project budget was $19.8 million.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked, of that amount, how much was the appraised value of the land.  Mr. Redfoot said they would report back on that, but noted that the property was already owned by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System and was probably appraised at $30-50,000 per acre.

 

John Hawkins, Chair of the Planning Board, said that the Planning Board voted unanimously for approval of Resolution B, and the conditions that it contained.  He said that the members of the Board were impressed with the concept, and felt it was quite sound.  Mr. Hawkins said that there was some concern about the single-story aspect of the design, driven by the daylighting concept and the savings it would make.

 

Martha Drake, of the Citizen’s Energy Committee, which had not had a chance to go over the proposal, said she was sure they would all be pleased to support the school being built.  She said that she hoped the Council would support the building of the school, especially with the expertise on solar energy that had been provided.  Ms. Drake said that she had visited some other schools that had the daylighting concept, and said that the students seemed very upbeat and happy and she had been told that their grades had improved.

 

Mayor Waldorf noted the Parks and Recreation Commission’s recommendation talked about the shared use of the fields, lighting facilities for the fields, the possibility of using rooms at the school for Parks and Recreation programs, the relationship between the Parks and Recreation Department and the City School System, and the question of lighting the fields, specifically.

 

Council Member McClintock applauded the efforts of the School Board, the designers, and the work that had gone into the project.  She said that her main concern was the stream that bisected it, and was pleased to hear that there was intent to protect the RCD.  Council Member McClintock asked if this project could be done in a sensitive way to protect the stream and keep it clear.  Mr. Redfoot pointed out that Field 9 was already an existing field, and the grading did not enter the RCD.

 

Council Member McClintock asked about the sewer.  Mr. Hammersley said that OWASA had already run a sewer line over to Seawell Elementary School and that they would be able to use the easement for the middle school.

 

Council Member Evans said that there would not be a cross-Town bus running to the school, and said that maybe the University would consider running a bus line so that students would not have to drive to the campus.  She asked why 25 percent of the parking was for compact cars, when there were not that many compact cars in use, adding they might want to consider reducing the number of spaces allocated for compact cars.  Council Member Evans asked that the sidewalks be connected to doorways as well as to parking lots.  She said that she had heard that the two-story school building at Southern Village was coming in a million dollars under budget, and she wondered if that said something about two-story versus one-story buildings.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked Ms. Culpepper if she could give the Council a map that showed all the sidewalks and the bike paths along Seawell Road.  He also asked the Town Attorney whether the Town could require the applicant to construct sidewalks and bike lanes along Seawell School Road, south of the site.  Mayor pro tem Capowski wondered what the traffic would be on this road when school let out at 3:30 in the afternoon.

 

Mayor Waldorf said that the schools all let out at different times, staggered so they could utilize the buses.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski said that with the numbers Mr. Redfoot had provided, roughly $40,000 per acre, he had calculated that the land cost was 4.3 percent of the total budget.  He requested that Mr. Redfoot give the Council the land cost and the project costs for the last few schools that they had built.

 

Council Member Brown asked the Manager to clarify the difference between Resolution A and Resolution B—was it the lighting facilities on Field 9, which the Planning Board and the Transportation Board did not discuss.  Mr. Horton said it was, noting that the Parks and Recreation Commission had recommended it and the other two Boards did not have the opportunity to discuss it.

 

Council Member Brown asked what the bridge over the creek would be.  Mr. Hammersley said that it would be an arch-type pedestrian bridge, wide enough for a golf cart.

 

Council Member Evans said that there were two creek crossings.  Mr. Hammersley said that the other one was an easement that Duke Power had and that was already a road, and the creek went through a culvert.

 

Council Member Foy asked about the 200 parking spaces, and those that would be used by graduate students. He asked where the graduate students were coming from—were they coming from the School of Education on the main campus and were they all going to be driving.  Mr. Hammersley said that they would be coming at different times of the day, and the assumption was that some of them would be taking a bus.

 

Council Member Foy asked where the anticipated 9,000 foot building would be located, and if there would be additional parking spaces associated with the new building.  Mr. Hammersley said that the analysis included the new addition, and the parking spaces were already there.

 

Council Member Foy asked who would use the new wing.  Mr. Redfoot said that the 2,000 square feet that was built originally would have administrative offices to serve the 80 students, to disperse them about the campus.  He said that when the additional square footage is built it would be seminar and classroom space, to complement what was already there, not to accommodate more students.

 

Council Member Bateman commented that having the School of Education as an adjunct facility on the school campus was wonderful and she supported the concept.

 

Council Member Evans asked about the sidewalk connections to Seawell School, and if it was only through the parking lots.  Mr. Hammersley said that there were actually two ways to go: up in the front of the school along the sidewalks along High School Road, down along the sidewalks on Seawell School Road, or the route along the RCD up through the center of the fields and over into the heart of the school.

 

Council Member Evans asked how the children from Ironwoods and others area would come up, if walking or on bikes.  Mr. Hammersley said they would have to come in off the road where the left turn lane was.  He said they were not doing a sidewalk to the south beyond the property, and the children could come in along the bus road and up to the front door by a sidewalk connection.

 

Council Member McClintock asked how much turning lane was available.  Mr. Hammersley said there was 150 foot of left turn stacking in one area entrance, and the next entrance had 100 feet, and another with 100 feet further down the road.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked if the applicant would be willing to accept a condition on the SUP to build or pay in lieu for the construction of sidewalks south from the site down to the railroad tracks or to the northern end of the current sidewalk, so that children from the Ironwoods area, on bicycles or on foot, could get to the site without having to go on the road.  Mr. Hammersley said that he could not answer that question.

 

Council Member Foy asked how many parking spaces there were at the high school.  Mr. Hammersley said that he was not sure about the high school, but that McDougle Middle School had 205 parking spaces. 

 

Council Member Foy asked for the number of parking spaces at Seawell School and the High School.  Mr. Hammersley said that Chapel Hill High School had 540 and Seawell School had 95.

 

Mayor Waldorf, referring to the Parks and Recreation Commission’s interest in having lighting installed on Field 9, asked if that was part of the applicant’s proposal.  Mr. Hammersley said that as part of the normal proposal for a middle school, where the children do not usually use the fields at night, that would not be included in a proposal.

 

Mayor Waldorf said that she would like the applicant to seriously consider the recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Commission about the cooperative use of facilities for the community.  She asked that they consider the lights, not only for Field 9, but also for the facilities across the Carrboro line, and come back to the Council with an answer.  Mayor Waldorf said it would be good to have a Position Statement from the School Board about the intent, in terms of sharing these facilities once they were completed.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski added that there were no nearby neighborhoods that would object to having lights on those fields, and that a substantial amount of the taxes paid to Orange County came from the Chapel Hill taxpayers.

 

Mayor Waldorf asked the applicant if the proposed conditions of approval were acceptable to them.  She asked if there were any stipulations in Resolution A with which they had a problem.  Mr. Redfoot said that they would have to discuss the issue of lighting the fields.

 

Mayor Waldorf asked if the Council felt that a definition of “contiguous” property was necessary, since this was public property.  The Council made no comment.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER PAVĂO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER WIGGINS, TO RECESS THE PUBLIC HEARING TO JUNE 14, 1999.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

Item 2 – Public Hearing on Alternative Development Ordinance Text Amendments Regarding an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance

 

Ms. Culpepper presented the five proposals for growth management that had been considered by the Council at its February 22, 1999 meeting.  She said that the proposals had been forwarded to several of the advisory boards before the scheduled public hearing.  Ms. Culpepper briefly described the five proposals:

 

1.      Modeled on the Currituck Approach (based on Currituck County): This approach involves simply adding a sentence to the Development Ordinance, stating that no Special Use Permit could be approved unless it could be demonstrated that all public facilities, including schools, needed to serve the development were available (or would be made available as part of the development).  This would be Ordinance A.

 

2.      Modified Currituck Approach: This approach modifies the Currituck County model to better fit a municipal context. Focus would be on facilities the Town provided or exercised control over.  (Water and sewer is included here because it could be argued that the Chapel Hill Town Council, in appointing 5 out of the 9 OWASA Board members, could exercise control over water and sewer policies.)  This would be Ordinance B.

 

3.      Cary Approach: This approach focuses on road capacity for Special Use Permits, subdivisions, and site plan reviews.  It details what is defined as an adequate level of service for streets and intersections, differentiates between different types of development applications, and defines the scope of the Town Council’s ability to withhold approvals if levels of service are not adequate.  This would be Ordinance C.

 

4.      Classic Adequate Public Facilities Approach: The classic approach would involve several steps:

 

·        Define adequacy for a series of public facilities.

·        Define a specific geographic area served by key facilities.

·        Determine the adequacy of each facility for each geographic area, identifying specific current deficiencies.

·        Prepare a Capital Improvements Program, identifying funding sources and schedule for construction, to correct identified deficiencies.

·        Adopt an ordinance, linked to study and capital program, stating that no additional development could occur in a geographic area unless and until all public facilities were adequate.

 

This would be Resolution D.

 

5.      Use Rezoning to Work within Existing Chapel Hill Framework: This approach involves using Chapel Hill’s existing regulations to more specifically address situations where public facilities are considered inadequate.  The steps involved would be:

 

·        Upon completion of the Comprehensive Plan, identify which facilities are to be so addressed.

·        Use existing information to identify problem areas of Town with respect to those facilities.

·        Rezone those areas to significantly lower allowable intensities of development.

·        Consider rezoning back to higher intensity zones when facilities are upgraded or when a development proposal is provided that addresses the problem.

 

This would be Resolution E.

 

John Hawkins, Chair of the Planning Board and Comprehensive Plan Work Group, said that the Comprehensive Plan Work Group voted 10-2 against adoption of an adequate public facilities ordinance.  He also said that the Planning Board made a motion to recommend the same endorsements as the Comprehensive Plan Work Group had made.

 

Pat Hughes, a member of the Comprehensive Plan Work Group, reported that the Work Group had voted 10-2, with 3 abstentions, against adoption of an adequate public facilities ordinance for the following reasons:

 

·        This type of ordinance mandated some increases in infrastructure that were contrary to some of the Town’s basic planning goals (e.g. wider roads vs. lower levels of service).

·        The Town does not have authority over three of the primary services typically identified as needed to keep pace with new development: schools, roads, and water/sewer.

·        Creation of this type of ordinance is not an effective use of limited staff resources.

·        The Council already had the authority to require adequate public facilities through the special use permit review process.

 

Eric B. Chopp, from the Board of Directors of the Homebuilders Association of Durham and Orange County, reported that at its meeting on May 11, 1999, it had authorized the following statement concerning the various proposals for an adequate public facilities ordinance in Chapel Hill:

 

“We believe that the Town Board has been well served by the staff advice that it has received and by the additional information provided by Richard Ducker of the Institute of Government, in this matter.  In both cases the Council has been advised that the development of a legally enforceable adequate public facilities ordinance that actually delivers the desired level of service for any of the facilities typically contemplated will be a complex, time-consuming and publicly and privately expensive endeavor.  No industry more clearly understands the value of planning for infrastructure and no industry more immediately feels the impact of failure to plan, than does the residential construction industry.  Planning for future needs is a project for which we believe we could provide valuable professional support.  Included in planning, however, must be the recognition that existing deficiencies due to facilities that were never installed, or for which level of services changed, for example, reduction in classroom sizes, which results in the need for more classrooms, and/or stricter quality standards for water, which require enhanced treatment facilities, must be cured by the broader community, and not borne exclusively by new home buyers.  Furthermore, among the results of concurrency standards imposed in Florida, was the tendency to leap-frog congested areas rather than for new development to contribute to the cure of those problems through additional improvement to the transportation system.  As long as Chapel Hill continues to be a significant job and student commuter attraction, the temptation to live outside its bounds and drive in will plague any attempt to plan for the needed capacity.  The Homebuilders Association would like to participate in any coordinated effort to plan for Chapel Hill’s future infrastructure needs, but at the same time the Homebuilders Association urges the Town Council to think carefully about the advice that it has received, and resist the temptation to make hasty decisions based on incomplete data.”

 

Ed Harrison, Durham County resident, had suggested to the Durham County Commissioners that they pass a moratorium on rezoning, his response to the rezoning that they were considering.  He said in Cary such a moratorium was how the Council arrived at the ordinance, which was one of those being considered by the Chapel Hill Town Council.  Mr. Harrison said that it was good to see this concept as part of the Comprehensive Plan, because adequate public facilities could tie in well with the Comprehensive Plan.  He said that he found the Cary ordinance appealing, particularly because it brought in a third party transportation analyst.

 

Council Member Bateman asked if Mr. Harrison was suggesting that the Council vote for an adequate public facilities ordinance.  Mr. Harrison said that the goal was worthy, and that the Town would need a much more advanced capital improvements program than it had right now.

 

Phil Post, of the Chamber of Commerce and the Comprehensive Plan Work Group, said that he thought that the adequate public facilities ordinance was too important not to be broken out separately from the Comprehensive Plan.  He said that downtown traffic has had only about a one percent increase over the last 10 years, with growth rate about 2 percent per year over the last 10 years.  Mr. Post said the controls that the Council currently utilized had achieved a very modest growth rate for the Town, especially considering the rampant growth of the towns and counties surrounding Chapel Hill, and the Town was being affected by that growth.  He asked whether a public facilities ordinance would contribute to sprawl, by forcing growth to spread out from the Town.

 

Joel Harper, Director of the Chamber of Commerce, said that growth in Orange County was slow and steady, that there would always be a lag in adequate public facilities.  He did not think that Chapel Hill’s lag was excessive.  Mr. Harper said that the Town could not control the factors that lead to extra demand on public facilities, such as major employment growth by the University, the Hospitals, County government, and the School System.  He said that the tools were already in place to provide adequate public facilities for the citizens.  Mr. Harper encouraged the Council to listen to the advisory groups who were against an ordinance, and he advised them to shelve it.

 

Mayor Waldorf read a memo from the Historic District Commission, which said that the Commission discussed the proposed adequate public facilities ordinances and voted unanimously to urge the Council to use the powers of existing laws to control growth.

 

Council Member McClintock referred to Mr. Ducker’s letter, item 3, “An adequate public facility program requires a full integration of the community comprehensive plan, the community’s capital improvement program, and the APF provisions of the land development ordinance.”  She said that the Council needed to know what would be needed in each of the Ordinances.  Council Member McClintock asked how Ordinances A, B, and C would mesh with a County-wide public facilities ordinance for schools.  She asked the staff to ask Craig Benedict, the County Planner, to comment on these questions and give him Mr. Ducker’s memo.  Council Member McClintock said that Geoff Gledhill had said at the School Land Use Planning Meeting, that a public facilities ordinance had nothing to do with affordable housing or costs, it had to do with the pace of growth, not related to cost of housing.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked Ms. Culpepper to report back to the Council on the status of Cary’s adequate public facilities ordinance for schools.  Ms. Culpepper said that it was still in draft form and being considered.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked, regarding Ordinance B, if “streets” applied to State roads.  Ms. Culpepper said she would get back to him on that question.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked, referring to the Memorandum of Understanding, last sentence of the last paragraph on page 46, which stated that schools were public and were paid for by everybody, not just by people having children in the schools at that moment, how the determination would be made.

 

Council Member Foy asked how the draft Memorandum of Understanding and the draft ordinance would dove-tail with Chapel Hill’s Development Ordinance, and whether the staff would feel comfortable with the Council entering into an agreement like this one.

 

Council Member McClintock said that the material from the School Land Use Committee had been put into the packet for the Council’s information, and had not sent it as a finished report.  She said that the public facilities ordinance and the schools should be taken on at another time, because all the municipalities should work together when those issues were decided.

 

Council Member Foy said that the Council should provide an impetus on the school issue, because the real benefit to everyone in the County would come from linking the development to the schools, which were the real fundamental problem that the municipalities could not seem to keep up with and were the most expensive.

 

Mayor Waldorf asked the staff to find out what the timetable on the process was.  She said that there were two multi-jurisdictional processes—one had to do with the co-location proposal, and the other, with the Memorandum of Understanding and the draft ordinance that would affect all the municipalities.

 


Council Member Wiggins asked, if Chapel Hill had only been experiencing a 2 percent growth over the last ten years, what they were trying to control.  She said that her other concern was the focus on schools, since some of the growth in school population was not necessarily caused by new development, but by periodic spurts of increased population.  Council Member Wiggins said that she was not convinced that Chapel Hill needed a public facilities ordinance at this particular time, because she was not sure what they would do with the 2 percent growth rate and she was not sure that they had the proper understanding for what was happening with the need for school facilities as it would impact the public facilities ordinance.

 

Council Member Brown asked the staff over what period of time the 2 percent growth rate encompassed.  Mr. Horton said it was around 1.8 percent over a couple of decades.  He said that the staff would bring the data to the Council for its own assessment.

 

Council Member Brown asked if that included future annexations, such as Southern Village.  Mr. Horton said that the data would be inside the Chapel Hill Town limits.

 

Council Member Evans said the Council needed to separate the goal of having adequate public facilities from the issue of whether to regulated it through an ordinance.  She said that she would not want to have adequate public facilities if it meant having ten-lane highways like Cary had, as she did not see this for this community.  Council Member Evans said that was where the adequate public facilities ordinance would take the Town.  She said that the Town already had requirements of the developers in place, such as roads and recreation areas, without an adequate public facilities ordinance, and she said that it did effect the cost of housing.

 

Council Member Wiggins asked if the staff could get information from the schools on whether or not they had a facilities development or a long-range plan for development of schools for the district, and a schedule over the last 30 years of how schools had been developed.

 

Council Member Foy asked the staff to find out about how much each new home cost the County in terms of its impact on the budget.  He also asked if they could bring back numbers of growth as well as percentages.

 

Council Member Evans asked if there was a way to calculate the number of children from Chapel Hill in the school system.

 

Council Member McClintock said that the School Land Use Committee was gathering this kind of information and would be sending it to the Council.  She said that the school issue was a good opportunity for working together with the County.  Council Member McClintock said that an adequate public facilities ordinance for roads would be an important thing for Chapel Hill, because of the growth of road use.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVĂO, TO REFER THIS TO THE MANAGER AND TO RECESS THE HEARING TO JUNE 14, 1999.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0). 

 


Item 3 – Public Hearing on Special Use Permit Modification

Application for the Kuralt Building

 

Mr. Horton said that the essence of the application for a Special Use Permit (SUP) modification was to convert existing emergency exits at 119 East Franklin Street to primary building entrances.

 

Mayor pro tem Capowski asked if the Fire Department was in agreement with this application.  Mr. Horton said they were.

 

Jim Rumfelt, owner of the building adjacent to the Kuralt Building, said that he had given permission for Mr. Kuralt to attach his stairwell to Mr. Rumfelt’s fire escape, and that it was now being used for egress and ingress.  He said he was concerned with the safety of the fire escape being used for this purpose, and was waiting to be contacted by Mr. Kuralt’s attorney to work out the legal details.  Mr. Rumfelt asked that the Council, if they decided to grant the SUP, do so with the condition of working out these legal matters.  Mr. Karpinos said that if the legal details were not worked out then the Council’s approval would not go into effect.

 

John Hawkins, Chair of the Planning Board, said that the Planning Board voted 8-1 for approval of the SUP, and that they were concerned with the issues mentioned by Mr. Rumfelt, but that those had been addressed.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER FOY MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVĂO, THAT CONTIGUOUS PROPERTY BE DEFINED AS “IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT.” THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

COUNCIL MEMBER PAVĂO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO RECESS THE HEARING TO JUNE 14, 1999.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

COUNCIL MEMBER PAVĂO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER WIGGINS, TO ADJOURN.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:53 p.m.

 

 

The minutes of May 17, 1999 were adopted on the 28th day of June, 1999.

 

 

 

 

                                                                        __________________________________________

Joyce A. Smith, CMC

                                                                        Town Clerk