FY17 Town Budget

After three budget worksessions and two public hearings the council unanimously approved the Town of Cary’s FY17 Budget at our council meeting this past Monday. The budget totals $319 Million - the operating budget totals $227.8 Million and the capital budget is $91.4 million.

Some of the budget highlights include:

•          Cary’s property tax rate will decrease 2 cents to 35 cents per $100 of valuation to remain revenue neutral after the Wake County property revaluation. Cary’s tax rate remains the lowest in Wake County by an even wider margin than before.
•          No increase in fees for Cary garbage, recycling and yard waste fees
•          Water and sewer rates will increase 3.8% to continue to cover the costs associated with the state mandated Western Wake Water Reclamation Facility and other utility capital requirements.
•          Construction of Cary Fire Station #9 – Walnut Street
•          Construction of restrooms at MacDonald Woods Park
•          Master planning for phase 2 of the Downtown Park and Morris Branch Park
•          25 new positions to include police, emergency communications, yard waste and recycling crews and technology services personnel. This will bring the total number of town employees to 1254 or roughly 8.1 staff members per 1000 residents – one of the lowest ratios in the state and southeast. Cary continues to do more with less.
•          $3.25 Million for traffic and intersection improvements
•          $5.9 Million in street resurfacing projects 
•         Completion of the White Oak Greenway
•          Downtown Parking Deck
•          $5 million to upgrade aging water lines
•          Thermal imaging cameras and a new pumper truck for the fire department

While I was generally pleased with this year’s budget, as always there simply wasn’t enough money to do everything our citizens would like us to do and we had to make some difficult decisions. One decision that was particularly difficult was having to choose between Morris Branch Park and Cameron Pond Park. The council selected Morris Branch due to staff analysis that it would serve more citizens at a lower cost. This of course did not go over well with supporters of Cameron Pond Park. Had we selected Cameron Pond Park instead, I am sure that supporters of Morris Branch Park would have been just as upset.

Morris Branch/Cameron Pond Park Locations

I don’t want to make any promises but the council has discussed a possible bond referendum in 2018 that could include Cameron Pond Park along with a host of other projects. Stay tuned.

We also discussed possible projects for the FY18 budget to help town staff better prepare as they begin planning for next year’s budget process….which pretty much started the day after we approved this year’s budget.

One in particular project that drew a lot of discussion was the proposed road widening and sidewalk construction along Reedy Creek Road. Sidewalks are desperately needed along Reedy Creek Road especially given the middle and elementary schools. Other council members however preferred prioritizing road improvements and sidewalks along Louis Stephens Road instead as that road also has an elementary school. At my suggestion we reached a compromise and agreed to forego the road widening on both roads and construct sidewalks on both Reedy Creek and Louis Stephens Roads. Neither road is in need of road widening yet but both need sidewalks now. I am very pleased with how well we work together as a council to work toward solutions that everyone can be satisfied with.

I want to thank Interim Town Manager Mike Bajorek, Budget Director Karl Knapp, Department Directors, and everyone in the budget office for all their hard work to craft a fiscally responsible and balanced budget. I also want to thank all of our citizens who reached out to us to let us know what was important to you. We received more citizen input regarding this year’s budget than ever before. Government works best when citizens are part of the process.

If you would like to learn more about the Town of Cary’s FY17 budget, you can do so by clicking here .

Town Manager, Publix and Downtown

Town Manager

After a nearly nine month long process that included over 80 applicants from all over the country we finally have a new Town Manager. The council unanimously selected Mr. Sean Stegall who comes to us from Elgin Illinois where he has served as their city manager since 2009.

Mr. Stegall’s first official day on the job will be August 4th, but he will visit a few times prior to that to better familiarize himself with the town organization, staff as well as our community….and probably try and find a new place to live ;-) His experience and success in local government, upbeat and energetic personality, and a fresh set of eyes will serve Cary well.

While this process took a lot longer than we had hoped, I believe it was worth the time and effort. Selecting a town manager is one of the most – if not the most - important decisions a council can make for their community. Get this one wrong and we will face the consequences for years to come. I am confident we made the right decision.

I want to thank Deputy and Interim Town Manager, Mike Bajorek and his staff for their hard work to keep Cary moving forward during this process. Mike is a good man and I have the utmost respect for him personally and professionally. He will play a key role in helping Mr. Stegall transition into his new position and I am confident both he and all of our town staff will do an excellent job just like they always do. Cary town staff are an amazing and dedicated group of public servants and it is an honor to work with them.

You can learn more about Mr. Sean Stegall here and here.

Publix

At our council meeting this past Thursday we approved the Lewter property rezoning (Publix) at the corner of Green Level Church Road and Carpenter Firestation Road by a vote of 6-1….oops, I mean 5-2. A second “no” vote came in a little late and caught most of us by surprise….especially since the majority of that person’s comments were positive. But I digress….

When this project first came to council I didn’t believe it would garner majority support without some significant changes. I applaud the applicant and area residents for working together to do just that. Sure, the residents didn’t get everything they wanted. Neither did the applicant. But at the end of the day they worked to craft a project that the majority of the surrounding community could support and is worlds better than the high density apartments that could have been built today.

The overwhelming majority of complaints the council receives from west Cary residents includes traffic, lack of shopping/services and school capacity. Eliminating residential development at this location helps in regards to school capacity and lack of shopping/services. And while traffic in the immediate area will increase, the number of vehicle miles traveled will decrease as area residents will not have to travel as far for goods and services as they do today.

I realize not everyone is pleased with our decision. Quite frankly I don’t think some ever would be no matter what the applicant offered. But when so many who were originally opposed to the project now support it, I am inclined to do the same.

Downtown

Much of the public investment in downtown Cary over the last 8+ years has been done with the goal of incenting private investment. We are beginning to achieve that goal.

The Mid-town project along Chatham St. near Walker St. is currently under construction. Jordan Lake Brewing Company is also under construction. Bond Brothers Brewery recently finished construction and is open for business (I highly recommend their Cary Gold. Yumm…..). Crosstown Pub and Kababish Café are doing very well and a number of other businesses are either on the way or looking for sites – a few of which I really wish I could talk about but can’t….yet – sorry!

We are also experiencing record numbers in regards to home improvements/remodel permits and new home construction in and around the downtown area. Residents are now comfortable investing in their own properties since that the town has demonstrated our commitment downtown. The residential market in an around downtown is better than ever!

But “the big one”; that one development project that will really put downtown Cary on the map may soon become a reality.

Northwoods Associates has proposed a $50 million project at the corner of Chatham St and Harrison Ave that would include high density residential, office and restaurant/retail along with structured parking adjacent our downtown core. This would be a joint partnership with Northwoods Associates, The First Baptist Church and the town. The town would be a partner in the public parking component and assist with road construction and/or improvements to the tune of $5 million.

As with everything, I have heard from folks that are concerned with the proposal; some solely due to the impact on the historic Ivey Ellington House. The overwhelming majority of folks that I have spoken with however enthusiastically support it because at the end of the day they realize that we aren’t going to get the number and types of restaurants, businesses or employment centers we are looking for without an increase in density. They also understand that we aren’t going to see property values increase to a point that incents owner occupied housing vs rental in our surrounding neighborhoods unless downtown continues to redevelop and becomes a destination.

In regards to the Ivey Ellington House, I support relocating the home to another site where it can be restored and utilized either as a private business, home or possible town amenity. Academy Street, Park Street or maybe even the downtown park are some places that come to my mind.

A few others – to include a council member - have expressed some concern with the “look” of the proposal. I would caution against judging the appearance at this time as what has been illustrated thus far is purely conceptual in nature and will likely change as this moves through the process. I remember a number of folks who were also critical of the first sketch of The Mayton Inn and look at it now – gorgeous. Ya, the road is still a mess. As someone who drives through it multiple times a day I am as sick of it as most of you. Thank you again for your patience.

We have a number of beautiful and established single family neighborhoods in and around downtown. We have no intention of changing that; in fact it is just the opposite, we intend to protect those neighborhoods. But those neighborhoods alone are not enough to support increased business development and growth we hope to achieve downtown. So again, we need some density where appropriate.

Exciting things are happening in downtown Cary, and if all goes as planned, this project will be the first of many significant investments to come.

Well that's about all for now. As always thanks for reading!

RETREAT! 2016

This past weekend the council and town staff traveled to Greensboro, North Cackalacky for our annual council/staff retreat. The main focus of the retreat was on infill development and redevelopment.

Redevelopment is exactly what it says – the redevelopment of existing development to include the demolition of old buildings to make way for new construction, or the repurposing of older structures into new uses.

Infill development is the development of vacant land that is surrounded by existing development.

Infill and redevelopment is, and will continue to become more of an issue in Cary as there isn’t much undeveloped land left available for new development (roughly 15%) and as older development ages out (Cary Town Center Mall for example).

While Greensboro and Cary are very different cities, Greensboro has experience dealing with many of the challenges of redevelopment and infill development, and provided a good example for us to learn from. What did they do right? What went wrong? What would they do differently if given the opportunity?

We began the retreat with a session to better familiarize ourselves with planning updates in the Triangle region. We first heard from Mr. Lee Worsley, Executive Director of the Triangle J Council of Governments about how communities can better work together to achieve their goals. Mr. Bob Geolas, President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation spoke about Research Triangle Park’s plans for a mixed use development project at the park. And after that we reviewed the land use plans of other Triangle communities and adjoining jurisdictions to not only better understand their plans are, but also how that might impact what we do here in Cary.

We then visited Center Pointe, a redevelopment project in downtown Greensboro that used to be the home of Wachovia Bank. It is a 17 story building that had sat vacant for a number of years and was falling into disrepair. The building was ultimately redeveloped into luxury condos and has become a huge success story for downtown Greensboro. The first floor of the building also includes a restaurant. This was a very impressive project, and while Cary thankfully does not have any abandoned 17 story buildings, we do have a number of empty shopping centers and buildings that we are concerned about. Center Point was a good example of how a city and a developer working together could achieve something remarkable.

The building also provided a great look at Greensboro’s new downtown library which has a parking deck adjacent to their new Downtown Park and arts center. Sound familiar? ;-)

After our visit to Center Pointe we heard from Greensboro’s Planning Director, Mrs. Sue Schwartz, about their efforts to amend their development ordinances, policies and procedures to better incent redevelopment and infill development in and around Greensboro’s downtown area, and how they worked to manage a number of challenges to include inadequate infrastructure, community opposition/cultural tension and the economic viability of such projects.

Some of the key takeaways include:

·         Growing inward is harder than growing outward as the development of greenfield sites is much easier than redevelopment of existing properties. Ordinances and policies must be different for redevelopment vs new development.

·         Change can be very uncomfortable for folks.

·         Public/Private partnerships are an important part of redevelopment.

·         Historic preservation is also important – you don’t have to knock every building down to accomplish something great.

The following day began with a bus/walking tour of downtown Greensboro to see firsthand and learn more about many of their redevelopment and infill projects. I was impressed at how well they blended into their surrounding communities – you wouldn’t have guessed it was new development.

Now the fun part, right Ed? ;-)

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for a hands-on exercise with our staff. Each council member was teamed up with a few staff members and were given a large aerial photo of an actual 18 acre site in Cary that we would like to see redevelop one day….. and Legos…..yes, Legos.

The Legos represented different types of development, and each Lego block represented 2500 sq ft. Red blocks were commercial, blue was office, orange was multi-family and so on… Each council member then redeveloped their site by placing the different color Legos where they thought they were best suited on the site. We also had to account for things like road access, parking requirements, buffers etc…

Here is my development.

The orange is multi-family very similar to what we have at the Arboretum to include structured parking wrapped with residential. The yellow is townhomes with garages underneath. The red and blue blocks are commercial on the first floor with office above. The tall blue building represents a hotel or office building and the dark gray around it represents structured parking. The green is a small park and/or gathering space, and last but certainly not least, the single red buildings are a Chili’s and a Red Robin. Hey, this is my development remember? ;-)

So, ya, it needs work. I only had an hour to work with ok? And trust me, nobody’s Lego development was perfect. But the jist of this exercise wasn’t to design a perfect development – it was to better identify what is important to us, and more importantly our community, when it comes redevelopment or infill. What types of uses do we want and where? How dense are we willing to allow those uses to be? Structured parking or surface – or maybe both? Things like that.

Each council member then presented their development to the group and explained why they developed it the way they did, and then we talked about it.

It was a good discussion with few surprises - it’s not like we haven’t had similar discussions before. We prefer a mix of uses and development that creates a sense of place. We value protecting the character and charm of adjacent communities but could support increased densities where appropriate. We support transit friendly development yet understand that the car is and will continue to be the predominant means of transportation for folks. We love structured parking. We would consider public/private partnerships. We expect public gathering spaces – stuff like that.

We also understand economics. We get that in order for redevelopment to occur, it has to be economically viable. Like it or not, the reality is that if the developer can’t make a buck, he aint gonna build it; and while market forces might be beyond our control, regulatory reform isn’t.

Cary’s land development ordinance has historically applied to new, green-field development – and the overwhelming majority of Cary’s development over the last few decades has been exactly that. But if we want to encourage the redevelopment of older, underperforming sites in Cary – and we do – it will require changes to Cary’s land development ordinances to make it happen.

With the ongoing Imagine Cary process to include our recent worksession to discuss the Eastern Cary Gateway Plan, it was a very timely discussion and I look forward to seeing the work that comes of it.

Thanks so much to our town staff for all their efforts to make this year’s retreat a success and to the city of Greensboro for their hospitality. It is greatly appreciated.

2016 Town of Cary Council/Staff Retreat