This has been a week of meetings consisting mostly of interactions with staff and council members.

Monday’s activities included calling all council members (my pre agenda calls) to ask if they had any issues with items on the agenda. Finding out about any issues early allows staff to prepare better to answer any and all questions at the council meeting. Monday evening was the pre agenda meeting to go over the agenda and make sure everyone was prepared for the meeting.

Tuesday was my weekly scheduled meeting with the town manager. Unfortunately, he was detained talking with school board attorneys and staff about issues related to getting the certificate of occupancy (CO) for modular units at Panther Creek.

It is important to understand the factors related to getting the CO for Panther Creek. Here is a letter summarizing the meeting staff had with the school board:

Mayor & Council:

At your direction and as is our practice, we have continued to work with staff from the Wake County School System in hopes of  resolving the issues related to identified traffic improvements necessitated by the addition of modular classroom space at Panther Creek High School.  In fact, Tim Bailey, Chris Simpson, Jeff Ulma, Lori Cove, and I met again just yesterday afternoon with Don Haydon and Kenneth Haywood, to once again explain the Town’s process for traffic studies, required mitigation, the site plan review process, and other such matters as spelled out in the LDO.

Unfortunately and despite our best efforts, we remain very concerned that school staff still seems to be unable to work with us to find a way to support us in our commitment to ensuring that infrastructure such as roads are in place when the need arises and not after the fact.

Therefore and given that they may make recommendations to the Board of Education, I wanted to provide you with the information we discussed related to their questions and concerns.  We reiterated that we continue to be ready to assist and facilitate a satisfactory resolution of this situation.

They continue to raise the following points, to which we provide a brief response.  The attached chronology of events may also help you.

1.      Assertion: The original site plan approved the location of modular classrooms.  Response:  While the site plan the schools system filed with the Town for the construction of the high school showed the location, they were only labeled for “future” installation.  Their original traffic study was done for a high school of 1600 students.  Likewise, other site plan requirements (e.g., parking) were calculated on a school with 1600 students, not one of 2100 students.  The bottom line is that the current enrollment, which is necessitating the need for these modular units, was not included in their original filings.

2.      Assertion:  WCPSS should not have to make permanent improvements for a temporary use.  Response: The traffic study requirements in the LDO do not distinguish between permanent and temporary impacts.  And, as we are all aware, “temporary” classrooms tend to be permanent.  Council recently changed the LDO to recognize this fact and we will no longer treat such classrooms as “temporary” uses.

3.      Assertion:  Traffic from other developments “in the pipeline” that were included in the traffic study is not materializing due to the economy or those developments are not progressing.  Response:  Regardless, the traffic study conducted for the modular additions already identifies a failing situation at the off-site locations that needs to be improved and in accordance with the APF ordinance, only identifies improvements to mitigate the additional traffic generated from the additional students who will be accommodated in the modular units.  Further, those developments are in the queue and have a right to the traffic capacity in the road network because they were approved prior to this site.

4.      Assertion:  The students are already at the school and are not generating new impacts.  Response:  The students were added to the school in August of 2008.  The traffic study was based on traffic counts conducted prior to August, 2008.  The study did not account for those additional 500+ students as part of the baseline traffic.  The ability for the Town to address the impact of those students was only made possible when the site plan expansion was submitted.

5.      Assertion:  WCPSS is only waiting on a CO; permits are in hand.  Response:  A lot more has to happen (as we have said many times) before the modular units can be occupied, including WCPSS’ filing a revised site plan for the Town’s review, the Town reviewing and approving the revised site plan, providing a financial guarantee for the improvements, providing a commitment to complete the improvements in a specified period of time and several inspections to make sure the children will be safe.

Again, I wanted to highlight some of the continuing issues between the Town and the staff representing WCPSS, especially since some of you are in contact with members of the Board of Education.  It is our hope that the Board of Education will recognize the tremendous steps the Town has taken to help them get students relocated into the modular units and that they will take advantage of our continued willingness to help.

Please contact me with any questions. - Ben

Here is a chronological sequence of events related to the Panther Creek modular units:

Chronology of Plan Review Events - Panther Creek High School

January 14, 2009

Action: Traffic Study Application submitted to Town of Cary by WCPSS (04-TAR-154)

Comments: High school for 1600 students analyzed

Action: Site Plan Approved by Town of Cary (Panther Creek High School - 03-SP-104) (http://sitesubplans.townofcary.org/PantherCreekHighSchool_03-SP-104/planindex.htm)

Coments:

• Required parking calculated on the basis of 83 classrooms & 1600 students
• Location of “Future Mobile Classrooms” noted on site plan

Action (8/15/04): Revised Site Plan approved by Town of Cary (Panther Creek HS - 04-SP-088)

(http://sitesubplans.townofcary.org/PantherCreekHS_04-SP-088/planindex.htm)

Comments: Minor “Value engineering” items amended

Action: (5/16/08): Panther Creek Modular Addition site plan submitted to Town of Cary for review (Panther Creek Modular Addition - 08-SP-047)

Action: (06/09/08): First Review Comments sent to applicant by Town staff

Action: (07/15/08): Response to First Review Comments provided by applicant

Comments: The (3) modular buildings are a total of 23,984 sq. ft. with a total of 22 classrooms.  Each classroom can accommodate 23 students for a total of 506 students and 22 teaching staff.

Action: (07/28/08): Second Review Comments sent to applicant by Town staff

Comments:

• Traffic Review Comment: A traffic study was done for Panther Creek High School 04-TAR-154. This study has expired. Based on your response to our first review comments, your addition would generate 208 AM trip and 71 PM trips based on the 506 student number addition using the ITE trip generation manual. A traffic study should have been done prior to the submission of this site plan. Your plan will not be able to be approved until this issue is addressed. Please contact Julie Green for an application for a traffic study. The study will take approximately 6 weeks after we receive your payment and issue a notice to proceed. The traffic study may identify mitigations which need to be included in the next set of site plans.

Thursday was a regularly scheduled council meeting. Before the meeting I received a phone call from the chair of Wake County Schools asking that we pull the item related to Panther Creek so that leaders could discuss this issue first. I explained to Ms. Gill that I didn’t have the authority to remove items from the agenda and that the council would have to vote on this. I did bring this up at the beginning of the meeting and there wasn’t majority support to remove it from the agenda. The item on the agenda was to revisit a decision on November 20^th to all the school board up to 18 months to do road improvements required for Panther Creek. At this week’s meeting we revised the time to begin no later than 3 years and end no longer than 4 years. This gives the school board much more flexibility. Our only other option is to have Cary citizens pay the $1.4 million of road improvements. Our citizens have paid over $65 million in assistance to Wake County Schools since 2000.

The remainder of the meeting was mostly dominated by three presentations. The first was by David King of TTA explaining future transit plans for the county. The second was an update on the town’s economic health by interim town manager Ben Shivar. He reported that we expect to be in the black by $3.5 million for this fiscal year that ends on June 30^th. The third report was from Ted Abernathy who did detailed research on Cary’s economic situation. Some interesting facts from this presentation: Median income is over $100,000, 70% have college degrees, household size is larger than the state average, 2/3 of Cary housing is owner occupied, and median home price is around $280,000.

On Friday the council began the annual two day retreat at the Embassy Suites in Cary. This was the first time the retreat has been held in town for many years and saved the town thousands of dollars. It is a time where the council can plan and discuss issues for the coming year and years to come. In addition, all the directors are there to listen and participate in the discussion which helps them in the implementation of the various directives. In review of last year’s retreat it appears that we accomplished most of what we had planned to. I am confident that this year will be no different given the excellent staff the town has.

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, January 25^th. Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.