Agenda - 01-24-2017 - 6-a - Minutes

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11 1 Adam Golden reviewed the following information, which he provided to the Board via 2 email: 3 4 My name is Adam Golden, and I am a Vice President of Development with Northwood Ravin. 5 am also an Orange County resident living on Bayview Drive in Chapel Hill. Our firm is the 6 owner and developer of two large mixed-use residential projects currently underway in Chapel 7 Hill - Carraway Village (formerly The Edge) on Eubanks Road, which is preparing to start, and 8 Carolina Square on Franklin Street currently under construction. Over the last 15 years our firm 9 has developed several other Chapel Hill apartment communities - Chapel Watch Village, 10 Chapel Hill North, Cosgrove Hill, Apartments at Meadowmont, and Dobbins Hill Phase I and II. 11 12 I am writing you to express our serious concern over the current language in the Action Agenda 13 Item No. 6-I, specifically the Technical Resolution Regarding Grandfathering of Projects for 14 School Impact Fee Collection Purposes. As drafted, the grandfathering provision would 15 exclude our project though we believe you intend to include it, and it will have a severe financial 16 impact on our Carraway Village project. We have been working in earnest with the Town of 17 Chapel Hill for more than 4 years and have secured both our Special Use Permit and our 18 Zoning Compliance Permit as well as have been the recipient of the Town's first economic 19 incentive grant. 20 21 To accomplish your expressed desire to grandfather projects like ours who received their 22 permits in 2016, please consider our addition proposed below so that your Technical Resolution 23 adequately covers projects like Carraway Village. 24 25 Our firm has been participating in the School Impact Fee increase discussion since it was first 26 brought forward several months ago, and we were pleased to participate in the recent 27 stakeholder meeting to discuss grandfathering with your staff, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro 28 Chamber, Home Builders and the Triangle Apartment Association. 29 30 We understand the need to increase the fee, and we believe your intent was to grandfather 31 projects that have been working their way through the development process and were unaware 32 of, and had not been budgeting for, impact fee increases. We were looking forward to the 33 technical solution that would grandfather projects like Carraway Village, but when we received 34 the proposed resolution late Friday, we quickly realized the current proposal does not work for 35 lame-scale projects. 36 37 While the current provisions may be suitable for smaller projects, the timing provision added 38 that requires i) receiving building permits 180 days from application, and ii) receiving certificates 39 of occupancy 365-days from building permit issuance create significant issues for large-scale 40 complicated mixed-use projects such as ours. 41 42 Time frames to submit a building permit application are within our control, but time frames to 43 actually obtain building permits on large-scale projects are not. Receiving a building permit for 44 a project our size can easily take 6 months or more to obtain. For example, building permits at 45 our Carolina Square project took exactly 6 months to obtain, and that was with the Town 46 working hard to help us expedite the approval. In Chapel Hill, many large projects are required 47 to be reviewed first by the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI), and then by 48 Town's Inspections Department. The NCDOI review times are 8-10 weeks for each review, and 49 often multiple reviews are required to obtain approval. This time is in addition to the Town 50 Inspection Department review times. Limited review staffs, project backlogs if several large