Month: February 2021

New Solid Waste Contract & North Belmont Development

Posted on by Marc Seelinger

The next City Council meeting is Monday at 6pm at CityWorks. You can find a copy of the agenda and a link to the livestream here: https://buff.ly/37T6Ocr

It’s a very full agenda, but here are the highlights:

-First up is consideration of the rezoning for the Smith property that was held over from last month. The last I heard on this, the developer was requesting additional time to rework the project plan. So, it’s likely that this will get pushed to the April meeting.

-The River West Industrial Park in North Belmont is also coming back to Council to add 19 acres to their existing site plan. The new changes would add an additional 20,000 sf in building size to the existing 600,000 sf in the approved plan and make a few other smaller changes to a few of the buffers and driveway locations. In addition, one of the more positive aspects of this new plan would require 8-ft sidewalks along Woodlawn Street. When Council originally approved this rezoning in 2019, they allowed this project to cut that sidewalk width to 5 feet (as 8 feet was what was initially required in the Land Development Code). Given the amount of truck traffic that this project will attract, I think these wider sidewalks will do a lot to enhance pedestrian safety in this area. You can find full details of the project here: https://buff.ly/3aYt1I3

-We will also be receiving an update from Belmont Trolley on the status of their project. Belmont Trolley agreed to provide these updates in advance of the City releasing its promised five annual payments of $60k to support the project. This year would represent the second $60k payment.

-There are also two demolition ordinances on the agenda related to code-enforcement issues: 114 Morning Glory Ave and 325 Todd Street Ext.

-We will also be reviewing staff’s recommendation for a new five-year solid waste contract. The recommendation has Waste Pro continuing to handle trash, recycling, bulk waste, and portable restrooms as they do now. Yard waste and leaf collection would be handled internally by the City. The new cost per household per month for this new arrangement (which includes the costs associated with the City handling yard waste and leaves) would be $17.16, which is an increase from the current contract’s $13.58. Notably, the solid waste services fee (which you pay as part of your water bill) is $7 per household per month, and that is designed to cover 50% of the cost of our solid waste services (the rest is paid out of the General Fund, which is funded by property taxes). So, Council will need to make some decisions about how we want to fund the new contract as we work through the budget over the next few weeks. You can find more details about the cost, etc. here: https://buff.ly/37ShFDu

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let me know!

Frady Field Developments

Posted on by Marc Seelinger

I have received a lot of phone calls and emails over the last few days concerning the future of Frady Park. In the interest of ensuring that I don’t inadvertently miss any messages, I wanted to provide an update on where things stand. I am, of course, happy to answer any other questions you might have.

I did speak with staff earlier this week to get an idea of what the situation is regarding the park. The City currently leases the land that houses the park, and that land is owned by Pharr Yarns. Pharr is currently exploring their options for their properties in East Belmont, but they are still very early in the process and have not yet submitted a development application to the City. So, nothing is set in stone yet. However, if/when they decide to move forward with a project, the details will be posted at https://www.cityofbelmont.org/projects/. I will also provide relevant updates on my Facebook Page. The new changes that Council made to the development process last year will ensure that there is plenty of notice (including the new large development signs on-site) and opportunity for public engagement once Pharr’s plans are more concrete.

For my own part, it is clear that this is a well-used and well-loved park, and I think the preservation of the park should be a top consideration when reviewing any proposal for that part of town.

Making Progress on Transportation

Posted on by Marc Seelinger

An update from our workshop on Monday:

We had a very productive conversation around our traffic impact ordinance with the Planning Board, NCDOT, Kimley Horn, and Rep. John Torbett. We decided to explore some adjustments to our ordinance (specifically around in-lieu payments) in order to ensure that we are quantifying traffic mitigation needs consistently from project to project.

In situations where a developer is required (by our ordinance) to provide traffic mitigation measures but is unable to do so (most commonly because the developer doesn’t own the land where the improvements need to be made), our ordinance allows the developer to make a payment to the city in-lieu of providing the required mitigation. However, our ordinance does not currently provide very clear guidance on how that payment should be calculated. One solution we talked through was creating a formula that accounts for all the costs associated with providing the improvement – everything from land acquisition to attorney fees to a growth rate (to account for inflation). The Planning Board will be taking a deeper dive into this over the next few weeks/months.

We also discussed ongoing legal threats to the TIA process in general. In particular, there is a case in Mooresville (currently on appeal) that was decided against the town and centers around the ability to require off-site traffic mitigation. While the NC statutes are fairly clear on our ability to require on-site improvements (i.e. on the land that the developer actually owns), it is less clear on our ability to require off-site improvements (as when a large development impacts not only the immediate roads around the development, but also intersections down the street, etc.).

So, city staff and legal counsel will be working with our legislative delegation to see if there is a way to provide some additional clarification in the law so that this does not become an issue for us down the road. Owing to our unique traffic circumstances (especially on the peninsula), I suggested that we look at obtaining a “Local Act” that would apply just to Belmont. Because they do not affect the whole state, Local Acts/Bills don’t require the governor’s signature to become law and the general custom of the General Assembly is to allow these bills to become law so long as the entire relevant legislative delegation is on board. I think given the situation on South Point Road, we need to be able to continue using the TIA to manage our growth in a sustainable manner. So, I am hopeful that we will be able to work out a solution with our representatives in Raleigh.

Belmont Transportation Planning

Posted on by Marc Seelinger
traffic

The next City Council workshop is tomorrow at 4pm at CityWorks. You can find the agenda and link to the livestream here: https://buff.ly/3jNFKAn

The workshop will be a joint meeting between City Council, the Planning Board, NCDOT, Kimley Horn (the city’s consultant for traffic impact analysis studies), and members from our legislative delegation to discuss our traffic impact analysis (TIA) ordinance. The way our ordinance currently works, only developments that generate a certain level of new traffic are required to implement mitigation measures through the TIA process. So, if a development is small enough that it does not create enough new traffic, it does not need to go through the full TIA process. However, there is some concern that this could lead to a “death by a thousand cuts” situation, where in a series of smaller development projects, no one project generates significant traffic, but collectively they create the kind of traffic degradation you would normally see from one large project. So, we want to ensure that our planning process accounts for that and think through some ways of addressing that problem.

In addition, recently, in other parts of the state, there have been some lawsuits filed by developers against municipalities challenging the cities’ authority to require traffic mitigation measures as part of the development process. The success of these lawsuits would make it impossible for Belmont to continue using our TIA process as we have and severely handcuff our ability to manage growth in a responsible and sustainable way. So, we are proactively involving our representatives in Raleigh to ensure that they are aware of the success that we have had with our TIA process and understand how important it is to protect this very important tool. We want to be prepared in case these lawsuits are successful against the other municipalities.

It should be a very interesting workshop! If you have any questions, let me know!

Belmont’s Budget

Posted on by Marc Seelinger
tax collection

Another big topic we discussed at our annual retreat is our budget strategy for the upcoming fiscal year. Revenue for the current fiscal year continues to be strong. As of the end of January, ad valorem property tax receipts are just over 100% of budget. Sales tax receipts through the end of December (half the fiscal year, which does not include the full impact of Christmas) are at 56.5% of budget. On the expense side, most line items are on track with our budget.

As a result of this, we are looking at a pretty healthy surplus when we close out the fiscal year at the end of June. Part of our strategy for the current fiscal year was to take a fairly conservative approach to the budget, and if the economy bounced back faster than anticipated, we would use some of the resulting surplus on outstanding capital projects.

So, staff presented four options for prioritization for the current year. Those were the Splash Pad, Skate Park, Dog Park, and the next phase of improvements to Rocky Branch Park. After some discussion, we decided to prioritize the Skate Park and the Rocky Branch Park improvements, which together will consume roughly $220k of this year’s surplus.

Looking ahead to next year, capital projects will likely continue to be a focus. Given how strong our revenues have been and continue to be, I suggested that we, as a Council, take a look at our property taxes to determine if we need to make any adjustments to the tax rate. The City has seen very positive growth in both our tax base and our sales tax collections over the last few years, so I think this may create an opportunity for us to implement a small cut to the tax rate while still accomplishing the goals that we have for the City. Prudence would suggest that whatever we do on that front should be measured, and the rest of the Council agreed to take a look at this at an upcoming workshop. So, we will take a look at this over the next few weeks as we get into building the budget for next year.

Habitat for Humanity Project Approved, Other Development Deferred

Posted on by Marc Seelinger

An update from our meeting on Monday:

At the top of our meeting, one of the actions we took via the Consent Agenda was raising the minimum starting salary of our police officers to $45,000 (from the current $39,749). Generally, most of the police officers hired by the City start at a salary above the minimum due to various certifications, experience, etc. that they bring to the job. However, the number for the minimum starting salary is the number used when the department advertises new positions, so it is important that it be competitive with what other municipalities offer. The new $45k level we adopted is more in line with what other peer cities offer. There is minimal impact to the budget as a result of this (as most of our officers already make above that level), but it will make us more competitive in recruiting new talent.

There were two major land use decisions on the regular agenda, and the first was for the Dixon Village neighborhood proposed by Habitat for Humanity. We received a lot of public comment on this project during our meeting (both for and against). And Habitat actually made several substantive changes to their proposal between last week’s Planning Board meeting and our hearing on Monday. As a Council, we weighed the pros and cons of sending it back to the Planning Board to give them a chance to review the changes, but we ultimately voted against doing that and then proceeded to approve the proposal unanimously.

I think what Habitat has proposed for this neighborhood is a positive step forward in addressing affordability in our area. Additionally, they have been very receptive to all of the feedback they have received on this project over the last few weeks, and a lot of that was reflected in the final proposal we saw Monday night. They have clearly put a lot of thought into making this neighborhood a very nice place to live, and the mixed-income approach they are taking is not something that has been tried in our area before. So, I am very excited to see how this project turns out.

We also heard the proposal for the Smith property across from the new middle school. This development calls for a mix of 42 single-family homes and 57 townhomes (99 units total) while also providing for the realignment of Belwood Drive. The Council discussed this project at length. There was an overriding concern about the density of this development. Most of the larger properties south of Stowe Road (including the middle school property right across the street from the Smith property) are zoned to a maximum density of 3 dwelling units per acre.

By what appears to be a unique set of circumstances, the Smith property was not included in the overlay district that down-zoned much of the peninsula, so the zoning on this property is set at 3 dwelling units per acre but may go up to 6 units per acre on a project-by-project basis. The proposed development would have a density of 4.3.

My view is that this property probably should have been included in the overlay district that limits density to 3 units per acre, so while the property can technically be developed at up to 6 units per acre, the fact that the land use code allows this on a “project-by-project” basis seems to imply that that density is not automatic. In this case, I think the most appropriate density is 3 units per acre as that is consistent with similarly situated properties along South Point Road. I think when you also consider the impact that an additional 99 homes would have on the traffic infrastructure in that area, the lower density also makes sense from that perspective.

For an idea of the impact this seemingly small change in density would have on this project, consider that 3 units per acre on 22.84 acres would result in about 68 homes, which is a 31% drop in the number of units from the proposed 99. Presumably, this would also mean 31% fewer cars on South Point Road as a result of this development too.

The general feeling on Council was that this project is too dense, and we provided that feedback to the developer. The development team seemed open to revising their project to incorporate our feedback. So, rather than voting the project down, which legally would preclude them from applying for another rezoning for 12 months (and would also mean that any realignment of Belwood Drive would have to wait another 12 months), we deferred action on their application until our March meeting to give them time to revise their project and come back with another proposal.

I think this was actually a very positive outcome. I definitely want to see Belwood Drive fixed, but we do also have to be cognizant of the impact this development will have on the surrounding area. Based on the tone of our conversation, I look forward to seeing what they come back with, as I do think there is an opportunity for a win-win situation with this property.

If you have any questions on anything, let me know!