Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Truist Redevelopment Lmo Conversion topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Commission reviews Truist Bank redevelopment; attorney urges LMO changes to allow hotel-to-workforce-housing conversions
Summary
The commission reviewed a minor development plan to retrofit the Truist Bank at Two Lafayette Place and heard public comment from an attorney advocating for Land Management Ordinance amendments to facilitate conversions of hotels into workforce housing; copies of proposed revisions were left with staff.
The Planning Commission considered a minor development plan (DPR00000073-2026) to redevelop the Truist Bank building at Two Lafayette Place and heard public comment advocating LMO amendments to enable hotel-to-workforce-housing conversions.
Michael Connley summarized the applicant’s proposal, presented by Matthew Johnson of Bowler Engineering: retrofitting the existing bank, removing the drive-thru canopy, adding a new ATM drive-thru configuration, reworking the parking lot to meet ADA requirements and providing a landscaped island on the site. Connley said the proposal conforms to Main Street zoning and the quarter overlay standards and that the plan meets the LMO’s minor-development requirements for sites adjacent to residential uses.
During the public-comment period, Chester Williams, a local attorney, urged the commission to reopen consideration of a policy path for converting hotels to workforce housing. Williams said he had drafted proposed LMO revisions and sought the commission’s feedback and circulation during the current amendment season; he provided copies of his draft to the commission secretary. Williams said earlier attempts to advance hotel conversion language had been deferred to an LMO rewrite and urged the commission to take up the issue now so that a procedural path would exist for future conversion proposals.
The transcript records a motion to approve the Truist redevelopment “as presented,” but does not include a recorded roll-call tally in the meeting text. The commission moved on to other agenda items and closed the meeting without a detailed record of additional debate on the bank plan in the transcript.
What happens next: staff will process the minor development approval steps per standard practice and any LMO amendment proposals (such as the hotel-conversion language) would require formal LMO amendment hearings and potential Town Council consideration if advanced.
