Baldwin County Planning and Zoning Commission Regular - Regular Meeting

Good evening. At this time on call to order, our Baldwin County Planning is only commissioned meeting for Thursday, August 6th. I welcome all of you to our meeting at this time. I'm going to ask, if you will, to stand. We'll have a prayer and a pledge of allegiance. Father, we're thankful to you for this day. We're thankful to you for the many blessings you've given to each of us. And especially, Father, we're thankful for the blessing of a great county that we live in. We ask your blessings on our elected officials. Thankful for our staff that has put this meeting together tonight and the hard work they've put into it. We ask for your blessings on this planning commission as we hear the comments tonight and make decisions at the best of our abilities. And, Father, we're just thankful that you've given us this great place to live. We thank you for our first responders. And, Father, they're so important to us. Now, Father, we ask that you guide us in all that we say and do tonight. May we honor you and show respect to each other. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. This time I'll call the roll. Brandon Bias. Here. Scott Schamburger. Here. Michael Mullet. Here. Greg Seibert.

Here.

Michael Fletcher. Here. George Waters.

Here.

Reed Key. Here. And Doug Lipscomb. All right, we have a quorum. All right, in regards to our minutes of the July 9th work session and our regular meeting, each of you received a copy of that. Unless there are changes, I'll entertain a motion that those both be approved.

So moved.

Mr. Seiberg made a motion. Minutes be approved. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Schoenberger made the second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right.

Minutes are approved.

All right. At this time, we want to welcome all of you here tonight. We have a good crowd, large crowd, so... We actually have somewhat two segments to our agenda tonight. I know many of you are here for the master plan that's on the agenda. Then we have several items after that which we normally see in our application for subdivisions and variances and so forth. The process is going to work the same on any of these. We'll open the public hearing. I'll announce which ones are public hearings. And at that time, we will have staff come up and do their presentation to open up the case. I'll give time for the planning commission members to ask questions of staff. And then, if you have signed up, and this is an important part, if you have a desire to speak tonight, even if you, I would say it this way, even if you think you might want to speak, you didn't plan on it, but I might, you need to go sign up. And I say that because I'm going to call your name from this list. If you're not on this list, I won't be calling your name. And it's not to be ugly, but there's just so many people here tonight that I'm just going to call from those that have signed up to speak. So there won't be a, sometimes I do this, I'll do a catch-all. Is there anybody else? I won't be doing that tonight. So please, if you'd like to speak or think you'd like to speak, just go back out front. Your name will appear on our pad here and we'll call on you. At some point, I will close the public hearing, and when I do so, it's closed. We don't have any other comments. It gives the Planning Commission members time then to deliberate, decide what we're going to do with the case, whether we're going to you know, table it, approve it, disapprove it, whatever that might be. So we do ask that you come to the center podium here to speak. Give us your name and address. You'll have three minutes to speak. Unless you're representing a group, we give you five minutes then. So As I said, we are going to have basically two segments. The first one will be the public hearing for the master plan. We're going to go ahead and do that since probably the largest part of the crowd tonight is here in regards to that. So we want to go ahead and do that item first. But let me go ahead and tell you that we've been approached and asked to, and hear me all the way through this, we've been asked to pull this from consideration tonight. So what will happen, I would like to go ahead and move forward with the public hearing, give you the opportunity to share you here. It's being pulled because for a number of reasons. Obviously there's a great concern over the document. There's also a number of the municipalities that have contacted the county, so we'd like to have more input. So in regards to that, we're going to ultimately, it'll be up to this planning commission to actually do that, but that's the request. So I would rather have the public hearing tonight. It'll give you the opportunity to share your concerns. It's obviously being pulled for further consideration. It will come back, and there will be a public hearing at that time. So this is not your one and only public hearing. You'll have the opportunity tonight to share your input. That way it will get into writing. It will be there for them to consider it as they look at the document to make revisions to it then. I hope that's clear. So we are going to move forward with having the public hearing. It won't change, shouldn't change anything, your comments, whatever you came with. You need to share them. We get it, staff and our county officials, there's some of our county officials that are here and our elected county officials that are here. So I think they would all wanna hear what you have to say as we move forward with this. So I hope that's clear. Mr. Lund, do you have anything you need to add to that before I? Okay. Let my right hand man get my setup right for me here. All right. So I have quite a few signed up, so I'm just going to start from the top of my list and ask you to come to the center podium here and give us your name and address. First on the list is Alan Warner. Yeah, in case I didn't, I'm going to make sure I officially say that I opened the public hearing, and I always have to do this. Come on up, Alan. I need to ask on the Planning Commission's part, does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? I think most of us probably will have to say on this one that we probably have had some communications with several people and and i'm just gonna say i've had communications with one uh but i did not get into the weeds of the matter i just discussed procedural things so anybody else need to declare something you need to that's up to you mr chairman i have to disclose that i've had three conversations regarding the layout and overall putting together the master plan over the last week or so okay yeah i'll disclose uh much like greg i've had several conversations over the past week since the draft has come out with questions regarding okay

Scott Schamburger, I've had dozens of conversations about this over the last several weeks. All of them have dealt with the method by which this master plan was assembled. That's been the context of my conversations with those that have reached out to me, not as much about the content of the document. So I do want to make that clear.

Okay. Anybody else? Mr. Chairman, I've had one conversation about this master.

Just as a matter of explanation about that, we as the Planning Commission are unlike, we're not elected officials. We're appointed. Technically, we are not to have conversations about our agenda items in detail. That's why I say if you ever call me to talk to me, I will tell you usually right up front, I can talk to you about procedures, but I will not talk the case and discuss it. We're not to be swayed by public opinion about things. That's why we have a public hearing. We base our decision on what we hear and on the facts given to us by staff. So with that, anybody else?

I've had two conversations as well.

Yeah, I had a feeling everybody in this group probably got a call on this particular item.

All right. Mr. Warner. All right, good evening. I'm Alan Warner, CEO of Warner, and I am an effective party in the classification, or should I say subcategory, of the master plan regarding farmland preservation. So my first introduction to farmland preservation, forgive me, was less than two weeks ago. And so upon this master plan that was dropped at a Roads and Bridges meeting back there on the 14th of July, I found out that there was a lot of other things going on in the map. And so when we dug into it, our entire family properties were subjected to this farmland preservation term that's being used as a subcategory of identified land use. So at that point, I triggered a lot of phone calls with different farmers in the community. And we were all shocked and just completely amazed at how fast the train was moving at that time. All of us were hearing it for the first time. And we've all been from families that have been here close to 100 years in Baldwin County. So we're talking about multi-generational established heritage farmland here in Baldwin County. And it took us by surprise. And most of us, and quite a few of us actually, are surrounded by subdivisions. we have highway corridors we have sewer we have water and depending upon which side of the road that you're on you could possibly build a subdivision and if you're on a different side of the road possibly one house per 10 acres but tonight i was hoping to sort of just de-escalate the whole situation after the mayors have issued a letter and wanting further dialogue that we just encourage further dialogue about what's best for the farmers in the community and those landowners having a say for what goes on in the property versus just an arbitrary ruling regarding taking somebody's development rights away without compensation. And it was always about the land. Every generation stood on the shoulders of the prior generation. And the promise was that Baldwin County was going to be better tomorrow than it is today. And that belief holds true. And now tomorrow has arrived, and as you see, everybody's wanting to move to town. But we've also waited 100 years for this moment. It's our time to also choose what's best for our land. And we just don't want somebody taking those rights away. So that's some of my main points tonight. I won't get too far down in the details because I feel like most of those issues I hopefully will address in other meetings. Yeah.

Yeah, and I will say this to everyone, and I think I said it early on, as much information as you can put in writing, I think probably in your case, what I just heard you say, your land, probably a bulk of it anyway, is within zoned areas of the county where there's developments around you, there are utilities in place. That may shed a different light on... Maybe yours was mislabeled, and that's why there's further consideration. So I would say that in many cases, some farmers here may have sites just like that, but there are gonna be cases where there are farmers well outside of any utility range that that designation still may be good in parts of this county. I know we all understand this is a very diverse county. You're in the south end, and it's just exploding here. You go to the north end of the county, they're probably looking at us, what are y'all talking about? What are y'all worried about? But we're all in the same county, and we're trying to write one document to fit the entire county. And I take my hat off to staff trying to manage that somehow and put that together. But that's why we pulled this tonight, or we're being asked to, because I think what you just said, it popped up rather quick, and there's maybe some concerns and needs to invest a little bit more time in it.

And all of us amongst the farming community want to continue to work with the county and help you guys create these highway corridors and get you where the vehicles and these people can move. But let's not attack the farmers that you're going to need tomorrow for running these highways and infrastructure. We're here to help. Let's just work together and have a voice at the table. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Warner.

Let me ask before you leave, make sure anybody on the Planning Commission have any questions for Mr. Warner?

Thank you, sir.

All right, James Phillips.

Good afternoon.

My name is James Phillips, and I am on the board of directors of the Baltimore County Kettlemen Association. What you're doing here, and I'm not fully knowledgeable of it because this was sprang on me just the last few days, but trying to protect, who are you trying to protect? The farmer or the subdivisions? It's not clear, but I'm telling you, it's not going to help the farmer. Farmland, the average farmer, I'm going to use cattlemen because I do cattle. I don't like plowing in the dirt. But the average cattleman age is 63 years old. You don't have to worry about these farms. They're going to disappear on their own. Eventually, these farms will be gone. Most kids of farmers have watched their parents grow up fighting day and night, barely making a living. And they don't want to do that. They've learned how to punch buttons on computers and do other trades that play way more money. So it seems to me that the preservation of the farms are more for those people who have moved here and want to live next to a farm, and that's their view. But to legislate a zoning of agriculture or woodlands zone would have to devalue the property. And a lot of times the property is a farmer's 401k. When he gets ready to retire, he may sell 20, 40 acres. And that's his retirement. That's been his plan his whole life. This would throw this up in a tizzy. Now, I don't envy the job you got, because I know in Baldwin County, you've got such a diverse people. I have heard farmers called greedy, selfish, disgusting, because they sold a piece of property next to someone's house, and they built a subdivision there. But that farmer wasn't greedy. They deserved it, and there are generations to come. This is not in any form that I've seen an ability to protect a farm. And I don't know how you value agriculture versus development property. How do you determine that? If I went to the bank to borrow money to buy 40 acres of pasture land, and you've got this zone for agriculture only, That bank is gonna limit how much I can borrow for it, but the man that's wanting to sell it to me is looking at 40 acres a block down the road that got $50,000 an acre. So the numbers won't work. Now we had, about a year or so ago, we had a lady come speak at one of our meetings, and she was with a conservation group. And they would buy development rights And they would tell us, you know, we'll pay you, we'll have your land appraised today. We'll pay you for it. And then it'll still be your land, you'll still own it. If your kids want to build a house here, they own it, you can do that. But we'll have to redo the deed where we have the development rights. So I made arrangements to speak with her after the meeting in some depth. And I talked to her about, well, you know, these roads in Baldwin County are being put in here and there. And I have a piece of property that eventually, probably not too far in the future, there will be a road that will create a mile of paved road frontage. Well, you know what the value of that land would do. But for the farmer that owns it, it's not going to do anything because that's development increasing value. So I pinned the lady down. I said, are you telling me, can you guarantee me you'd never sell it? I said, so we'd have cows running along here, and then you've got all these people complaining about the cows. Well, if we do sell it, we'll buy some more land somewhere else. So a guarantee forever is not a guarantee forever. So if you zone this property and you devalue it basically through legislation without any compensation, I think there's a problem. And most of us don't want the compensation. We just want our land to be able to do what we want to with this legal. So I hope y'all will look at this and realize that there's got to be some other way to do this other than putting the burden all on the farm families.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

You got any questions?

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you.

I hope you're getting ready to do what I planned. I think there needs to be something we all need to probably preface with here. This document that we have before you tonight is not zoning. It's a master plan that is to guide the county in its future growth. It's not regulatory. It's not used to determine the use of your land. As such, it is a guide. Many areas of this county are designated what they are on this master plan because, for one, there are no utilities or infrastructure in those areas. So we're not gonna call out for neighborhood developments in farmland out east part of the county when there's no infrastructure there. It's not there now. It's unzoned property. That adds another layer to this, by the way. If you're in an unzoned area of the county and you do get utilities to your property, you can go develop that property and put 60-foot wide lights in it all day long. This document has no bearing on that whatsoever as long as it's unzoned property. So this is not a regulatory document. It is a guide. The difficulty for us sitting up here, for all of you that may be here tonight as farmers that are opposed to that, I can tell you we've been in meetings when farmers have come to our meetings and said, you're getting ready to prove a subdivision next to us. We do crop dusting. We have dust from tractors. We have cows that stink. And it's almost like now we've got a conflict. We've got an agriculture and a non-agriculture going in next to each other, and they don't like it. So it's a difficult task to please everybody in the county because there's a major group in this county that like the rural nature of the county. How do we do that, but at the same time, take into consideration, which I agree with. I get it. You have value in your land, and we don't want to do things that devalue. You need to understand, secondly, this is not something we're just doing because we want to. This is mandated by legislation that we have to create this document. It has to be done. This body has to make a recommendation eventually to the county commissioners and have this document in place. I hope that helps some I feel like I got a target up here because our planning director who had a big part in putting this document together he put it together he moved out of town so I don't know if that's what that says but if I could get him right now and probably and I'd have some strong words with each other but anyway he's he had to move away for a lot of different reasons and he would normally be taking a lot of these questions tonight so

um but we'll do the best we can so let's move on with our mr chairman if i if i may yes sir i'm i'm going to push back slightly on the idea that this is not a regulatory document and i'm not going to get into the semantics of you know policy versus regulatory but as written As written, I think the concerns of the agricultural community are well-founded. If the document as written were accepted tomorrow and as it states in the document itself, these policies would be used to create the next zoning ordinance change or the next change to the subdivision regulations, I believe that their concerns are absolutely appropriate. you know, in light of, you know, or in spite of the fact that great pains were taken throughout the document to say it is not a regulatory document. And, you know, Shakespeare said, nobody thinks thou dost protest too much, but there's going to be a downstream effect of this particular policy document coming to fruition because of the downstream effects of what it could lead to.

And I think you're right. I think it couldn't be that, but you need to understand we have a zoning document in this county that is regulatory. So if you come into zoning in this county, your property is zoned. It could be any number. It could be agriculture, it could be business, it could be residential, whatever that might be. But if we have a document like this in place, it helps The county commissioners and the planning as far as that goes, I would object a little bit in that it gives a guide to them to take into consideration things like are there utilities in place? Is there infrastructure in place once this comes in and how would you zone it? It's meant to be more of an input and a guide to help make those type decisions as this county grows. It's been said it's a living document. Once it's approved, whenever that is, it is not a done deal. Every five to ten years we have to revisit this because this county is constantly changing. And we don't know what the next five or ten years. So when things change, we're going to have to revisit this plan again and make other considerations. There will be a lot of things that could change. We talked about it earlier in the works that traffic changes, the type of vehicles change. Utilities change. So it will constantly be reviewed. I guess we'll be seeing each other a lot over the next many years if we're around. So with that, let's go through our, and whoever this is, you're going to have to tell me. It's Joan, and I'm sure your last name's A-T-D. That's what's on my pad. So Joan. Okay, it was misspelled on here, so come on up. All right, come up here for me.

I'm at 24795 County Road 32, Alberta. I'm in opposition, of course, to the master plan land restriction. I feel like it's an unfair burden on the people who've invested their savings, their futures in their private property. The proposed land restrictions go to meet far beyond that they reduce what property owners can do with their own land diminish property values and limit future opportunities all without compensation That's called eminent domain without compensation Planning for growth is important Protecting our environment is important preserving our quality of life is important and but those goals should not come at the expense of fundamental property rights. There are better ways to achieve responsible growth, ways that respect individual landowners, encourage voluntary conservation, and involve meaningful collaboration instead of imposing broad restrictions. Bowling County has grown because people wanted the freedom to live, work, build, and invest here. We should not respond to growth by creating policies that make property owners feel like they're losing control of what they've worked so hard for. I urge you all to reconsider these restrictions, listen carefully to the current concerns of property owners, and develop solutions that balance responsible planning with respect to private property rights.

thank you thank you ma'am all right clark strong good afternoon my name is clark strong i live at 11321 second street fort morgan i'm not a farmer i became aware of this program approximately 18 months ago We worked with and had a couple meetings with the former director on this. I'm sixth generation here. I grew up here. I did work away from here. Every time I would come back, something else that was a part of the Baldwin County that I grew up in was gone, quite frankly. I lived down a two-lane road. It looks to me like a great effort is being made to relocate the entire populations of Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan to the end of Fort Morgan Peninsula. I have sometimes 50, 60 cars go by before I can get out of my driveway. If I had an emergency, my best option is just lay down, relax, and die. This place is just, I see no real control over it. I'm sorry. Now, out of this master plan, which, as you point out, is not a regulation. It's merely a guide. It gives us an idea of what we hope we can do to make some sense out of this madness. But out of this, I think the point that a lot of people were missing is there will also be sector plans. The sector plan for Fort Morgan will not apply to somebody up in the Delta or Locksley or Robertsdale, okay? They'll get their own sector plans eventually, which will allow you to either have a lot of RV camps or whatever you want to have, you know, that's fine. But if we want to try to contain that for reasons of hurricane evacuations, safety, lack of utilities, then the sector plan would allow us to come to you And so we need to look at the zoning on this property because we don't think it can support 35 houses, okay? And that's my main concern. I think this at least lets everybody sit back, think about it, look at how the sector plans develop, and what does that area really need? What do we have to have? What about the quality of the life of the people that are already living here? You think it's fun sitting on Highway 59 for 20, 30 minutes just to get home? It's not. You know, we just pack it in in too many areas. And a lot of it's done and cannot be undone. But we can hope to make the future a little bit better. And that's basically all I've got to say, guys. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Any questions?

All right. Abby Epperson.

Hi. I just learned about this today, so I wrote something really quick. My name is Abby Epperson, and I'm at 26316 Eagle Trace in Alberta. I'm here today to respectfully but strongly oppose the proposed master plan that would place a new road from County Road 83 across Eagle Trace Road, which is a private road, to County Road 95. Most important, which not everybody or you may not know, that County Road 20 is a public paved road that already exists a quarter of a mile south from the proposed new road that connects to County Road 95. A quarter of a mile, I mean, it's right there. It's already there and it accomplishes the same goal. The new road would be redundant. A long-range master plan should be based on minimizing impacts on existing property owners who may have worked and saved their whole life to achieve. In my 60s, and pretty much everybody on that road is, we just can't start again over on a different piece of property. It should protect established land uses and choose the least disruptive. The affected property owners purchased, invested in, and maintained their properties with the reasonable expectation that their land would not be divided, reduced in value, or subject to future condemnation or roadway impacts when a viable alternative already exists. In this case, the proposed route appears to place the greatest burden on the private landowners while an existing roadway option is already available. A master plan should guide responsible development, not create avoidable hardship for current property owners. I respectfully request that this proposed roadway alignment be removed. A decision made on a planning map can permanently change the lives of the people who live on that land. Thank you for listening and considering our concerns. It's either a quarter of a mile or less of a road that's already established that's going to put you in the same exact spot. Thank you.

Ma'am. Pat Asche.

Pat Asche, 365 Plovener Place, Fairhope, Alabama. I'm in the same position that some of the folks that were speaking previously today, and that is that I've known about this for roughly 24 hours. I've known about this coming, but I didn't know that it was going to be today. So I'm very uninformed at this point about it, and my position for being here today is simply that I hope that consideration will be given. I'm a developer. I develop properties in the Fair Oak area. And I would hope, in looking at the map, it's very difficult to determine, but there are certain designations that I see on this map in terms of what you're planning to do with this revised map that you would give consideration to such things as utility availability, which I'm currently looking at a piece that has that. But it looks like from the map, the best I can tell, that property will be limited to a fairly restrictive development plan, such as anywhere from 1 to 10 acres, depending on which property falls in. I can't really tell. But I would hope that you would give consideration to joining profits around that are similar in design. In terms of density, when you make these decisions, not just a broad stroke of this. Being stuck with this, I'm interested in the concept that brought out that this is a regulatory versus a non regulatory document. I was under the impression. that if this were voted in today, it would be a situation where this would be the new designation for that property. I may be under the misunderstanding, but I've only been on this for 24 hours, so I'm very, at this point, not sure of all the details of it.

So essentially,

I would essentially just ask you to look at that when you make these determinations, that instead of just putting everything in a broad stroke, look at what is available and what is the characteristic of the neighborhood around it.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Michael, and I'm going to try my best. Ludvigson.

You got it pretty close. Good enough. All right. My name is Michael Ludvigson. I live on Fort Morgan Road down the street from Mr. Strong. He's okay. I am the immediate past chairman of the Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee for Fort Morgan, District 25. I am not here to cherry pick or get into the minutiae of the master plan what i am here to do is say one thank you for what you're doing to encourage you to uh do what you're already trying to do which is pull back and give a little more time for some more input i can tell you um well i'll give you a little background my family's been on fort morgan for 195 years so we've been here a little while property i live on used to be farmland believe it or not we had cattle we farmed it had a couple of different oyster operations, you know, fishing, we've had it all. I spend a lot of my time, just as John Q. Public, answering questions, trying to help my family, my friends, my neighbors understand things that they don't understand. So what I would encourage all of us to do, especially as we move forward with this plan, is to try and educate people as to what we're doing. And I think, Mr. Chairman, you've done a pretty good job of explaining that to people here. what this purpose is for this document. And then the other thing, to try and drive them in to get input from everybody. most folks like to show up after the fact and complain we all know that we've all experienced it but we got to find a way if we have to break it down by district we do whatever we need to do but we need to get more input it makes our jobs easier later on it's going to make your job easier later on if we get more input into this so i appreciate what y'all are doing i appreciate the fact you're looking at pulling this right now i think that's the thing to do i know there's been some input from some folks but i know there's a lot of people that seem to be blindsided by it whether it's they just haven't been paying attention or what part of that group i've just started reading the document myself so thank you and thank you for considering pulling that from consideration yeah thanks john bidow

Thank you all for your time. I would like to shed some light on this in a different aspect. I am a fourth-generation farmer in Alberta, and farming is not the most easy occupation in the world. As many of you know, I'm sure you all know farmers and respect them. But in our operation, we have to do what's called an operating loan. And that operating loan, we take collateral out of our bank. In my case, my bank is my land. And for the bank to loan us money, they base that amount of the loan on the property value. And if this were to go through, I feel, I'm not an expert on this, I'm a farmer, ask me any questions, I can help you. But I feel that this would lower the value of my land and it would present my banker a harder time lending me money every year to operate off of. I also feel in this ag economy, there are a lot of other farmers in my situation that this might be the final nail in their coffin. So I would just appreciate y'all's time, and I would appreciate you guys thinking about that also whenever you go changing the rules or aiming the goals, moving the goalpost, or kind of changing the rules in the middle of the game. Thank you very much.

All right. Okay, Kistler.

Good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Cade Kistler. I live at 4232 Alton Street in Gulf Shores. I'm here on behalf of Mobile Baykeeper, our members and board, and the residents of Baldwin County we work with. For the past year, we've been building something called the Community Smart Growth Blueprint. And the goal of that document is to build on conversations we've had with hundreds of folks across Baldwin County who've told us the same things, that flooding is getting worse, that wetlands are disappearing, and that runoff is clouding the water. They like to fish in and sewage spills are damaging waters they like to swim in. That's something we put out publicly and is directly on the subject of the plan in front of you tonight. My biggest concern already shared by others is that there hasn't been as much stakeholder input. We weren't actively engaged until recently in this process and still until I saw a Facebook post about this meeting hadn't received a copy of the plan. So yeah clearly we're not alone in that concern and clearly y'all have already made some consideration to table this and i think based on the limited input a lot of stakeholders have had at this point in the process that's probably the right step on a plan that's meant to guide the county's growth for quite some time There are numerous good things in this plan. It calls for watershed-based stormwater management. It calls for a countywide stormwater plan that looks at flood risk, looks at increasing rain and stronger storm events that we're getting, wetland buffers, and for steering growth to where infrastructure can accommodate it. And that vision's helpful, and we support those things. And of course, we all live downstream of somebody. And when one property paves over, wetlands or otherwise damages things those those things don't disappear the water runs onto the next family's land and so protecting our waters is not about damaging somebody's rights obviously it's about making sure one person's development doesn't flood their neighbors doesn't cause mud to run to the creeks and bays downstream and doesn't cause sewage spills into the waterways But I also just want to mention, as we've had this discussion a little bit about what a master plan is and isn't and regulatory versus not regulatory, you know, a master plan is, of course, a starting line. And so whatever the county ends up doing with this master plan, you know, this is setting the vision, the protections that hold the things that make it implementable, come from the regulatory tools that the county commission builds on top of that. And so, of course, some of this is less for you guys and more for them. And I'll echo that at the right time. But, of course, this draft leaves like the natural resources and implementation chapters left as reserved. And so the hard part of turning this master plan and the goals that it sets into what we need to do is still ahead of us. And we'd like to be engaged in that as many other stakeholders would. And we'd like to see the county commit to implementation. And so we're going to be continuing to stay involved in that process and offer our help as much as we can and offer our input. And I appreciate your time tonight.

Thank you.

Judy Smith.

I'm Judy Smith. I live at 27784 County Road 26 in Alberta. I own ag land and I also work for a developer. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. The draft master plan acknowledges a projected need for approximately 87,000 additional homes by 2050. It does not demonstrate how that need will realistically be accommodated. The future land use map identifies areas for increased density, but it does not show how many homes those areas are expected to produce. how much of that land is actually developable, or whether adequate water and sewer infrastructure exist to support that growth. If we are planning for 87,000 additional homes, the public should be able to see the calculations supporting that conclusion. Where will those homes be built? Which areas have infrastructure capacity today? Those are fundamental questions that should be answered before this plan is adopted. bowen county is unique because growth depends on numerous municipalities that control utilities annexation and development approvals the plan should include a formal framework for intergovernmental cooperation so that land use infrastructure and utility planning align the document also reads more like a vision than an implementation plan. It should establish actions, timelines, responsible parties, and benchmarks so the public can evaluate the progress. I also question the timing of adopting this plan while Baldwin County is hiring a new planning director. Allowing that individual to participate in refining the plan after public input is received could result in a stronger, more practical document. Finally, I ask that the county establish a formal written public comment period, hold regional town hall meetings throughout Baldwin County so that they can provide the planning commission with a written response of public comments before making recommendations to the county commission. The master plan will be a guide for decades to come, and I think we need to take our time and do it right. Thank you.

Laura, and I'm probably going to mess up your last, is it Delagal? Man, two for two tonight. Rare.

But I'm going to. My name is Laura Delagal. I'm a third-generation Baldwin Countian. I live in the Vernet Park community, which is south of Magnolia Springs. and i'm in support of this plan i like the way that y'all laid it out and i've sent you an email i sent you an email yesterday telling you why i'm happy with it the area that um i live in has a lot of creoles a lot of heritage farmers there and i just like the idea of conserving something that's been there i like my heritage so i'm in support of this as far as the vernon park community goes very happy with it thank you okay thank you ma'am all right tater harris commissioner elect harris good afternoon i'm tater harris uh live in st lucia drive in orange beach alabama

I heard you speak earlier and say that this is not regulatory, but this is used in scoring with the staff, which comes to you from staff recommendations, which you use to base your decisions on. So it is a guideline. We also have three new commissioners coming in. There's two of us here tonight who are not in favor of this plan. Angelo's here. He can speak to that as well if he would like. But creating a plan that a new commission is coming in for that is not in favor of the plan or doesn't want to follow the plan to its T is failing before we start. We have to communicate with our mayors, we have to communicate with our farmers, baykeepers, realtors, and the amount of people that I've talked to over this, I've probably spent 15, 20 hours on the phone with other elected leaders, et cetera, over the last two weeks. Putting this on the agenda this quick, three weeks after the fact, of a road and bridge meeting and not having time for planning staff from cities, municipalities, the people who have got up here and repeatedly said their land would be devalued. There was no consideration in this plan given as to my understanding in the meeting I sat in with several farmers and others from banks and how that would affect people's land. So if you're a bank and you can call or make somebody pay collateral down, that is damage to our legacy people that's been here, that's had farms, that's spent their career. I'm a first-generation Bowling County, and I think that is a disservice to the people that stood here and been in this community for a long, long time. And we need to protect the people that's been here a long time, in my opinion. They want their property rights. They want their values. If they have to sell land at a later date for whatever reason, they can sell less of it and farm more if their land is worth more. That needs to be in consideration. I appreciate y'all taking... the time for those of you I've talked to. I appreciate y'all tabling it. I think that is the right step. We get smarter together when we put more people in a room and we have more unity and listen to each other. You know, we're not all geniuses. We're not all Elon Musk, if you think he's a genius, but we can get smarter together. And when we talk and have communication and work together throughout this county, it'll be a stronger county. I believe that, and we need to do a better job of that all the way around. I look forward to bringing that to the commission and working with the other people that are elected and in the communities. So if you need anything from me, please call me. Thank you.

Thanks, sir. Michael Bankister.

I ain't going to say a lot. I got the stuff about the meeting yesterday. I didn't have time to look at it. I'm a working man. I work a lot of hours. I will say I live on Pine Road South in Stapleton, and we seen a sign up here a couple of weeks ago. There's an old peanut field down there that's been there. We call it the old Dean place. The house has been there 150 years. Still standing. uh and no treated lumber nothing else just a good old solid house been there a long time i was excited to sign up says proposed subdivision and right now on pine road south if you cross the road to get the mail you're lucky you don't get run over uh we're on match there's been about five wrecks there went in probably 1200 feet of my front door And we don't have representation a whole lot. They say call the Sheriff's Department. Can't call them. They say call Lockley. Lockley say call Spanish Fort. So, you know, we kind of in the middle of a place. We unincorporated. I will say my family has been in this area since the early 1800s, since Mobile was on this side of the bay. So we've been around a while. And a lot of us been at Stapleton. I love Baldwin County. I was raised in Baldwin County, planning on dying in Baldwin County, just because I got deep roots. There was a lot of people moved in from other places. We had to ask ourselves, why did they come to Baldwin County? Because they love what they see. But if you got a lot of growth, if we don't plan and do it right, if we don't take our time and do it right, Baldwin County, to me, would be like Pritchard. You know what that looks like. We need to grow right and be sensible. We got a Baldwin County sewer system lying in front of the house there a few years ago for probably subdivision off of Jimmy Faulkner Drive. They're stacked in there. If you spit out the window of one house, you're probably going to hit the next. They're that close. So maybe if you don't want a lot of impact, maybe put them further apart, bigger parcels of land, put the houses further apart, less impact on the facilities and infrastructure here. But since the sewer system come in, I got a pond out there. It's about three acres, and I get to enjoy sewer system water in my pond about three or four times already. Pipes come loose, get the sewer system in there. Looks like a golf course out on top of that water sometime with all the green grass. from sewer coming in to start a fish river watershed so you get to go it downstream all that goes into fish river too but it was planned it was put in real quick wasn't planned right so in the plan we need to make sure in my opinion that we make sure the people putting infrastructure in they're doing it right so it's not going to have the impact on everybody around it now when you think about farmers and stuff like that i love the farming community We got to eat. They got sprawling land everywhere. Used to be pecan trees, con oranges. Don't see them no more. I hate to see the growth, but it is what it is. Thank you, sir. I don't envy y'all's job at all.

All right. Greg Bartle.

I am here representing myself, my brothers, my sons. We all have property farmland that's going to be affected by this. We're in opposition of the portion that's retaining to agriculture preservation. There's a few points to be made regarding that. The first point to be made regarding that is it is limited to such a small area in this county. You have two or three different sections in which it's located in. And then what you're doing is devaluating the property or this plan, this master plan will devaluate the property as has been stated. And then at that point, you know, we're kind of hung on that, at that level where we're at. We cannot, we have had property for sale in this county since 2020. Hurricane Sally hurt us bad in our farm. And we've been trying to sell. We don't want to sell all of it. We just want to sell a portion of it. For five years, we've been trying to sell a portion of this property, and it keeps having roadblock after roadblock after roadblock that's hitting it and destroying it, not allowing us to get this property to move. And it's been very frustrating to us. I did have a gentleman that wanted 20 acres of it, and he wanted the 20 acres of it, and the purpose for that was to, in 20, 25 years, to develop it into three-acre lots. But whenever he studied it and did the record to find out what it was going to cost to make these lots feasible, he found out that all the regulations that are laid up now have put him in a position that it would cost him $2 million worth of infrastructure to develop six lots on this 20 acres. that's four hundred thousand per lot and he said there's no way we can accomplish that i do understand there's a big growth issue uh... has been we've been here for throughout all of it My brother sat on the very first planning and zoning preparation along with Alan Werner's father, and they developed all these plans to help this establish and help this growth come on. But what's happening in this situation is I hear the county, I hear what people are saying, they don't want it. Nobody wanted anybody else to move in after they got here. When they get here, they say shut the door, don't let anybody else in. And that's constantly what you hear, and I understand that. I mean, we were saying shut the door back then. back in nineteen ninety seven nineteen ninety eight when this whole plan was developed it's just kind of where we're at it has something has to happen some has changed but what you're doing in this plan is going to put the burden on a very very few people hundred thousand people or so live here it will be affected it will affect approximate couple hundred people that have land in this area i would like a boat I don't want the responsibility of the boat. I take it out a couple times a year. That's about what I would do with it, maybe even clean it. Somebody gives me one, I'd do it. But I don't want the responsibility. The responsibility should be shared across all, all of the Peak County members instead of just a few. Okay, thank you, sir.

Commissioner McKenzie.

here and speaking on this behalf what's going on in the county so thank you mr chairman thank you i apologize how i look and members i've been helping my wife she's a school teacher trying to get her back in her class so i apologize um i just really not here opposing it or against it or forward or whatever i'm just here to say thank you for our staff The county commission tasked our staff about a year and a half ago to come up with the plan and get it started. That's something that we have to do, like you mentioned. We have to do that. But we've got a lot of calls. The county commission has got a lot of calls. And I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for what y'all do, and thank you for considering moving it, continue it, let the other county commission maybe. I don't know. That's y'all's decision what you want to do. But I do have, and I'm kind of glad, because there's some things that I see that could be tweaked and worked on. And I do appreciate the people that's reached out to me, the farmers, the citizens, the construction workers, developers. Everybody's reached out to us. My phone is going crazy, so I told Angelo, the new elected county commissioner for District 2, get ready, because his phone's going to be burning up. But I just want to say thank you all again. And I just want to say to our staff, You know, these staff do a lot for this county, and y'all do too, and I just want to praise them for putting this together. It's not perfect. I don't think that we'll ever have a plan in Baldwin County that's going to be perfect, or we can satisfy everybody. I've been on the county commission for four years now in August, and we can't please everybody, and I've learned that already, and y'all can't either. But I just want to say thank you for letting me speak, and God bless y'all. Thanks, sir. Jess Ward?

Jess Ward. Okay. And I need to check. Gary Gover, did you want to speak on this item? Okay. Come on up.

Good evening, gentlemen. I live at 300 Lincoln Street in Fairhope. I'm a member of a committee in the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee. I'm also a member of the Environmental Advisory Board in Fairhope and of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee in Fairhope. So I've been involved in these long-term planning kinds of activities with the Metropolitan Planning Organization and with the city of Fairhope. I had the feeling that the plan would likely be high quality and more likely to be highly successful if the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which deals in transportation issues, and if the city of Fairhope and other cities, municipalities, all had an opportunity to participate in the preparation of the county land use plan and that could be done by having a steering committee in which all of those kinds of other organizations could share and participate and put together a real wholesome plan that's my thinking thank you okay that's all i had signed up to speak

Let me just say this. This Planning Commission didn't produce the document. We're tasked with holding the public hearing and reviewing the document ourselves. I will say to you that there's probably, what, eight of us up here, and we all have a different opinion about it. Some have very strong opinions. We said earlier in our work session that, you know, if we'd asked for input on the document many times when you do that, Mr. President, Vice here is in the professional business where they do those type things. It's funny how he says not many people will show up, but when you produce a plan where people can actually see it, then all of a sudden they have comments, and rightfully so, because it's hard to say what you want or don't want, but when you see somebody tell you this is what it's going to be, all of a sudden you know either you do or you don't want that. So that's why this process works. We're not afraid to hear your comments. We want your comments. Glad you had them tonight. As I said, I'm going to open it up for Planning Commission members to say if they want to share their comments. But we're going to close the public hearing, and I'm going to let them speak. And then we're going to make a decision. We've been requested to withdraw this for this present time, and we'll make that decision. But I'll ask at this time if anybody on the Planning Commission wants to speak to the item.

I have a brief comment. I appreciate everyone's comments tonight. I'd like to kind of piggyback off the gentleman from Mobile Baykeeper that moving forward, I think it would be good to ensure that all stakeholders, identifiable stakeholders in the county organizations and otherwise, are are able to have a a seat at the table and a very overt you know seat at the table even even if you know being there is is uncomfortable and i think that should include um not only members the agricultural community but members of you know the real estate community members of the financial community because that is after listening to the comments those those comments seem to be the most significant when it comes to the value of property And I think it would be important when this is put together to be very upfront with what does that mean moving forward, most especially if the plan obviously hopefully will change. If it were to be adopted as written, what would that effect be again downstream? And those questions can only be answered by all the stakeholders involved in all facets of that particular industry, agriculture, being at the table.

Okay. Anybody else?

I'll make a comment. I guess the first master plan or something that I saw, it showed us areas that were more suitable for development, and it showed us areas that were more sensitive for development. I hate to say this, guys, but I've served up here, what, three or four years? And I mean, thank goodness we got some parts of this county zoned. I mean, the things we don't like to see, the houses that we can spit out the window and hit the next one, you don't want to see that. You know what? With what's already been approved, you guys would be looking at a different county today. I mean, there's five years in the queue. I mean, our population, what, about 2,000 was 100,000 people. In 20 years, we double. That means we're 200,000 now. They can tell us that we're going to be to 500,000 people by 2050. I mean, first time, this was brand new to me when second or third meeting, and I know I irritated some people, but I got up here and said, you know, I can ride down the roads and drainage is a problem. I mean, we're farmers. You know, we get to deal with some of this. Transportation is a problem. I said, man, you're not the one. This was a story I told. I said, you're not the one whose employee calls you about a body in the ditch. Now, what do I tell them but call 911? Tell them I'm tired of going down the road and my phone won't hold a phone call. Call it a moon crater or whatever. We've worked with some of this. We have a cell phone tower that's on the docket tonight. We're glad to be moving forward with some of this. We're glad to have some of this county zone that wasn't, so it's a little bit more protected from just the minimum standards of our county. It shows The transportation and different things that are out there, these people are looking ahead. I mean, I can come up here with small things. I mean, these guys are miles ahead of me. You know, they give us some... I mean, I'm sitting here with a current plan. It's about 25 or 50 pages long, whatever it is. But it does not give the detail that Jay Dixon gave us last meeting. Or, you know, and he is... off to a different part of the world but you know there's a lot of hard work that went into this couple other things I talk about development trends our development developed open spaces are increased by 40 percent our agriculture lands down reduced by 21 percent our populations increased 91 percent our transportation's increased 100 percent I mean, I am thankful that some of these issues have been addressed. They're working on them. It's not going to be perfect. This is not a regulatory document, but it helps us guide and help protect. We've tried to listen to you guys up here and space these houses out. Help us with some drainage. Help us make this traffic flow. Help us with some infrastructure. So, Hey, I appreciate everybody being here, coming out, voicing your concerns. You know, it'll take a little bit of time to iron out some of the details, but I'm sure thankful somebody's looking ahead. I mean, versus it just happening. We're not going to like the way it just happens. None of us like. I mean, guys, don't fuss us for, you know, things not being zoned. And some of what's coming, you're not going to like. Hey, our hands are tied up here in some ways. You know, this gives us a guy to work with, and hey, we look forward to making what's, I think, a good start better, and hopefully in the next few months we get some of this ironed out. So I appreciate staff. I know what went into putting this, and I know what I'm looking at now is not, I mean, it's big detail that they went through to get this, and, you know, I think clarification's going to

relieve a lot of questions and you know we move forward and in a better logical manner than what we have thanks sir anybody else no mail no mail i just closed it yeah just to add a couple points to the conversation um kind of want to echo what the previous commissioner said and thank you all for coming out and talking to us um like steve said you know i do this professionally for other municipalities and counties around the state and very frequently don't get the level of input in those projects that that we had here tonight this is the sort of direct input that helps the planners that write this document balance you know, preserving property rights versus how we manage and plan for growth appropriately over the next 5, 10, 20 years. Oftentimes those are very much at odds with each other. So this is a really arduous task that they have to go through and try to figure out what that balance is between the two. So I do want to thank staff as well for getting us to this point to have this conversation. um apologetic that we ended up having it at this point in the process you know as we're you know a document is brought to us for approval or consideration for approval uh but certainly glad that that y'all have you know brought it to our attention that we need to take a step back and look at things and so um i want to thank you all for that and uh those are my comments okay mr key yeah so

I think I finally had time to kind of digest most of this. And it was this idea of this farmland preservation area that seemed to cause a bunch of ripples. And I get it. First of all, I think we all understand we have to have this master plan. It's going to happen. We have to have it. And I do agree. I think that if the master plan does not end up Helping us create zoning rules constraints, and it's no good anyway, so yes, I think that's in the end It will help us to decide How we treat different pieces of property So I don't own 10,000 acres maybe I own two or three I don't know but Same house four generations, and I've seen the people that live here and just want to live here and the growth and the density and there's certainly a direct correlation between The quality of life and density Unfortunately, it seems like now the crosshairs have been put on all these big pieces of farmland that are being defined as Farmland preservation areas and I think that was inevitable. I don't know that there was any way to avoid it The crosshairs are there I think it's worth saying that, all right, all of a sudden, the people that live in this county value what y'all have. I don't know how you quantify that, but there's value there now that wasn't there 20 years ago. How we satisfy that, if it gets satisfied, I don't know, but I don't think that necessarily the... defining of these pieces of property is a bad thing and they just are. It's just something that is and it needs to be defined just like I live in a historical area now, which came with a lot of drawbacks. All of a sudden, we can't develop more than RSF 2. You've got to ask somebody what color paint your house. And we lost a lot of value when that happened. It was the best thing for the community. And it happened. And in the end, it will probably be a good thing. But I just think that it's going to rear its head. It's here in front of us. The crosshairs are on the farmers and I think we really need to work hard. Listen to you guys. Thank y'all for coming out and bringing this to my attention. I would have overlooked it probably. And see if we can find a way to move forward in a way that's It's not going to be agreeable to everybody, but maybe it'll be palatable for everybody. Anyway, I hear all y'all's concerns. I appreciate y'all voicing them. We'll see if we can't polish this thing up and do some things that make it something worth working with and try to get a new master plan that everybody's happy with. Anyway, thank y'all for coming out. We have a hard time getting people to It's hard for us to make decisions unless we have information, and every meeting we have, we're trying to get information from the Baltimore County Board of Education, from the fire departments, all the utilities, about how to, about, can y'all accommodate this? Are you able to, you know, service this new subdivision? And we really never get answers. It's just some boilerplate answer. And that's not helpful for us. So one thing that this new master plan hopefully will encourage is more dialogue, communication between all the parties. We can all make better decisions. And if that's all we get out of it, that'll be helpful. So thank you all for talking tonight.

Scott, hang on just a second. I erred a while ago and I apologize to Mr. Gene Fernandez. I skipped you. And because you signed up, I want you to come up and speak if you still want to. I apologize for that.

I'm a farmer and I live on County Road 87. We have 265 acres total. Agree and disagree things, I'm kind of in the middle. But I know there's something called sustainability. Everybody may want to live in Gulf Shores and we're going to have another Miami in Gulf Shores. It doesn't fly. We have limited resources. We only have so much groundwater. Some people don't understand the aquifer is there but will it sustain what population growth? We need to look at that. I'm not trying to take away these development rights but I know that sometimes Developers come in, they take advantage of the system. They get the county to put in roads, all the infrastructure. Somebody has to pay for the police. Someone has to pay for the fire protection. We have too many volunteer fire departments. I was a volunteer fire department. But volunteer fire departments, in the middle of the night, I was getting up at three or four in the morning to do that. But you can't depend upon that as you get these developers. And I've had developers approach me, and I live on, like I said, County Road 87, and they want to buy my property for this amount of money. And it's nice, but I think there's something called impact fees, and the county needs to look at that. If they want to develop, let the developer pay for the impact fees. And I know someone got up here and said about, well, the developer didn't want to buy this because it's going to cost this amount of money. Well, if it costs that amount of money, I don't want to pay for it. I'm an existing taxpayer. I'd rather the new people pay for it. And that's kind of what I want to say, and I'm glad there is a plan And I didn't come in, you know, I grew up in Mobile County, and I came over here to live after I lived in, I'll tell you, California. And I saw California go from areas that were very agriculture to very overdeveloped urban. And the quality of life goes down. And I'm one of those people, I'd rather have quality, not quantity. And I'm glad that there are people on this committee that feel the same way. And I thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Scott?

Yeah, I would just like to add a couple of things. Regardless, as I touched on in the beginning and during the work session, the content of the document, right, is one thing. But I think the method by which we have performed our discovery and looked at this is another one. It's really clear that obviously this adversely impacts the farming community. They're out tonight in large numbers and we're glad you're here. But I think mostly what I feel like needs to be accomplished is a platform for engagement and for this feedback prior to items like this being placed on an agenda to be voted upon and so that's something that i think as we move forward we really need to look at doing a better job of communicating certainly this impacts the agricultural community but it also impacts every citizen within the county arguably right and so we need to do a better job of making sure that all of our citizens have an opportunity to to express their concerns you're right we're we're not going to be able to make everybody happy we're certainly going to be components of the plan that you may not agree with or that you love but if we don't give everyone an opportunity to at least voice their concern and provide their input then we're doing a disservice so i think that's important as we move forward and i would challenge our current commission and our incoming county commissioners to really look at that and and determine the best way to communicate with our citizenry and support the staff in doing that so that we can get this level of engagement on a more consistent basis. So that's important, I think, as we move forward. One other matter I want to touch on that seems to be danced around a little bit is the idea that this master plan is a guiding document, not a regulatory document. It certainly, I believe, is written to be a guiding document, but I feel like at times it is implemented as a regulatory document. And so that is very important for our planning and zoning team and staff and the commission to look at as we move forward because it does dictate rezoning requests and things like that from a staff level. And we need to provide our staff members who are extremely talented and educated some level of discretion when these development projects come in to allow us to raise the bar on what developers are doing. I know there's developers in the room, myself, I participate in that as well. And we don't want to meet the minimum standard. We want to provide opportunities for great developers to raise the bar and do good things. And so I think it would be important as we move forward to really give our staff a little bit more discretion in that and not be handcuffed by a master plan that is dictating something that could happen for us five or 10 years down the road. So we do need some fluidity in the document in real time as we move forward. I was redundant a few of my comments, so I apologize, but I think it's important for me to reiterate those. And so, again, Frank, you, your team, everyone, thank you so much for the work on this, and I know that the outcome will be a much better product for us all. So thank you. Any other comments?

Okay. Before we take a vote here, I'm going to... suggest one thing if you spoke tonight your comments are on record if you didn't speak and you want your comments heard please send those to the planning department so they can be considered or if you did speak tonight and you've got something else that came up please put those in writing get them to the staff so that they can be considered um I don't think any of us know at this point when this will resurface, but it will. But there'll be another public hearing on it. It'll come before this planning commission again because our task is given to us to make a recommendation to the county commissioners. And when they hear it, they'll have a public hearing. And so there'll be more opportunities for you to have comments if you so desire. All right, if nothing else, I guess we need a motion to address this tick line.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we withdraw the draft master plan 2026 from tonight's agenda.

Second. All right, Mr. Chandler has made a motion that we withdraw. Mr. Bias has seconded the motion.

Any comments on the motion?

Questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right, motion carries.

All right, with that, I think I'm going to give a moment for those many of you that are here. If you choose to leave, we'll let you do that. We'll take about a five-minute break for those that need to go to a restroom run. How about that? All right, Planning Commission members, we are back on to our regular items now. We'll go to our proposed consent agenda. As we discussed in work session, we have four items that do not require public hearing. And as discussed in the work session, these remained on the consent agenda. So I'm going to ask for your decision on Case number HCA 26-03, the Clavel Highway Construction Setback Appeal. HCA 26-06, the JPV Wahoo Holdings Highway Construction Setback Appeal. The PER 26-20, the Highlands at Fish River Phase 1, 2, 3, 4 Subdivision Extension. And the PER 26-22, London's Landing Subdivision Extension.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we approve the consent agenda with staff comments.

Okay. Mr. Bias has made a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Second. Schoenberger made the second. Any questions on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Go to our next public hearing item. We're going to open a public hearing now for case number... It's two parts, SC26-19 and SV26-11. This is a resub of lot 2B of a resubdivision of lots 2A and 2B of a resubdivision of lot 2T and K subdivision variance. Boy, that's a mouthful in itself. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? Nothing. It's amazing. Nobody got a call on this one, huh? All right. Miss Mosley.

Yes, sir. Okay, this is for SV2611 and SC2619 resub lot 2B of resub lot 2A and 2B of resub lot 2T and K subdivision. This is a subdivision variance approval for relief from section 5.5.7 with requirements and also a primary and also final plat approval for a two-lot subdivision. It is located in Planning District 18, is unzoned, is south of County Road 62, south and east of Glass and Spivey Road. The applicant is requesting preliminary plat approval for a two lot subdivision and a subdivision variance approval relief from Section 5.5.7b. Subdividers proposing subdivision developments that obtain access from existing publicly maintained roads which do not have adequate asphalt and or right-of-way widths. We'll be required to make improvements to existing roadways to provide additional right-of-way to adhere to the standards of the Ball and County Design Standards of the new road construction. This proposed two-lot subdivision, the total acreage is 13.62 acres. The smallest lot is 1.26. and it is going to be on Well, Septic, and Baldwin EMC. There was a drainage letter prepared by Catherine Clark and accepted by the Baldwin County Permit Engineer. Here's our subject property in Planning District 18, aerial map, preliminary final plat of the subdivision. Here's a close-up, and as you can see where the variance is needed for the road width, 18 feet is required and we're measuring 12.4 and 13. Here's the variance request. Staff analysis. The subject property is located at the end of Glass and Spivey Road and consists of approximately 14 acres. The applicant is proposing to divide the property into two lots. Staff's review determined that the existing section of Glass and Spivey Road serving the property does not meet the minimum roadway standards established by Section 5.5.7 of the Balling County subdivision regulations and the new roadway design criteria, which require a minimum pavement width of 18 feet for local residential streets. The applicant's preliminary plot indicates that the roadway currently ranges from 12 to 13 feet in paved width. As a result, the roadway improvements are required to satisfy the county's minimum roadway standards associated with the proposed subdivision. This is design standards for the new road construction. Staff makes no recommendation for or against the request and instead provides the Planning Commission with the applicable regulations and existing roadway conditions for consideration in its decision regarding case SB 2611. Staff recommends that the preliminary plat for SC 2619 be approved with conditions subject to the specific conditions Planning Commission must approve the variance for SV 2611 and any future improvements will require all applicable local state and federal permits and will need to adhere to the Ballin County access management plan any questions I'll see

Hunter Smith, did you want to speak?

Anybody have any questions for me?

Any questions for the representative of that? Thank you all for hearing this.

My name is Hunter Smith of Smith Clark & Associates. I really don't know how this, I don't know the whole history behind this. piece of property, but it's a really large lot and glass body dead ends right here just south of it. So it seemed appropriate for the task at hand to make the request.

All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. Jones, Jonathan Jones.

It's actually me requesting this for my father-in-law. I just had one question for that condition of approval as far as future improvements. I mean, we're planning to build a house. Is that going to fall into a condition of approval for that?

You should be fine as long as you adhere to the access management plan as far as where you put your driveway.

Okay. I'm just trying to make sure, like I said, I think the little bit of the regulations on that is kind of strict. I mean, to expect a general person to come in and build the road and finish it out, that's kind of high. So, like I said, thank you for your time.

All right. Do you know where you can put your driveway? Are you clear on that?

I'd like to know if that's the – Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You're going to be – it has to be 120 feet from the existing driveway.

All right. That's good.

Thank you, Ms. Mosley. All right. That's all I have signed up to speak. I'm going to close the public hearing. Anybody on the Planning Commission have any other questions?

Jenny, just so I can make sure I'm reading the map correctly, Glass-Fivey Road, that right-of-way dead-ends, just basically at the south edge of this property, is that right?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Okay. Ms. Mosley? As Mr. Shanberger said, we will vote on these separately. We'll take the variance first. I'm sorry, Mr. Key, did you have something you wanted to say?

The portion of the road that he has widened is just that in front of the property, right? And then it just tapers back to what it was before?

Mr. Key, I can speak to that. Yes, the single lane portion, the 12 foot wide portion ends on the south border of his property, as you can see on the map. So he is at the end of the road, and it's a very short stretch that's this width, and there's no through traffic, so really the only ones that will be using it is the very immediate local residents that are there where this road dead ends.

It doesn't really serve any benefit, then. It's actually kind of a nuisance. It's probably more dangerous, really, to have this road that's two lanes, and all of a sudden it tapers, and it's not two, but it tapers down to that narrow road. It's... Pretty nonsensical, right? It's not as if we're expecting the next developer to, you know, add the next piece and the next piece and eventually end up with the road that's more serviceable, right? That would be correct. Yes, sir.

Any other comments? All right. I'll entertain a motion first on the variance request.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we approve case number SB26-11, subdivision variance. Okay.

And I'll second it.

Mr. Schamberger has made a motion to approve the variance. Mr. Mullick has seconded the motion. Any questions on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right. Now for the subdivision.

I'll make a motion we approve case number SC26-19, subdivision. Subject to staff condition. Okay.

Schoenberg has made a motion to approve the subdivision. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Byer, I second the motion. Any questions on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. We're going to open the public hearing now for case number SC26-21, the Love Legacy Estates subdivision. Does anyone need to declare prior communication on this item?

moseley okay this is for sc 2621 love legacy estate subdivision a preliminary and final plot approval for a three lot subdivision is located in planning district 15 zoning is rsf2 location is west west of state highway 181 and east of county road 13. This is for a three-lot residential subdivision. The total acreage is 2.95 acres. The smallest is 0.47. It would be Bell Forest Water, Septic, and Rivera Utilities. The drainage ladder was prepared and stamped by David Harrell, and it was accepted by a permit engineer. Here's your subject property in 15. Here's the aerial map. is the city of Daphne's because they do have control over what's going to be the driveway. Here's the preliminary and final subdivision. Here it is enlarged. As you can see, the common drive is city of Daphne right of way. Love Legacy Estates SC 2621 requests a three-lot residential subdivision. Any future improvements will require all applicable local, state, and federal permits and will need to adhere to the City of Daphne Access Management. staff recommends approval with conditions uh the one condition is correct final plat setbacks and site data table to read lot one minimum front setbacks is 60 foot and lot two and three is minimum front setbacks of 30 foot any questions i have a question on lot

Three, what's our driveway? I see it's a common drive for lots one and two. What is the access or where will the driveway come for lot three?

I am going to let the applicant answer that question, sir.

All right, did you sign up to speak? Come on up, tell us who you are.

Sarah Lyle with PLS Group. The answer to that question is, per our conversations with the city of Daphne, they preferred one driveway to service all three of those lots, using the existing location of what's already there.

So is there an easement along the front of the lot for...

Yes, there's a shared 100-foot. Okay, I see it. On that front.

Yep. All right. Anybody else? Anybody have any questions for the representative for the applicant, I guess? Yeah. Anybody else have a question?

Thank you.

Was there anybody else on this particular item that signed up? Okay. I will close the public hearing then. Any questions, comments? If not, I entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion. We approve case number SC26-21, subject to staff recommendation.

Okay. Mr. Chamberlain has made a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Seconded. Mr. Seibert seconded the motion. Any questions, comments on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. At this time, I'll open the public hearing for case number SC26-22, the Corcoran subdivision. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? I guess, Ms. Mosley, you're going to be up here a while, aren't you?

Yes, sir. Let's go right ahead. SC26-22, Corcoran subdivision, is for preliminary and final plat approval for a two-lot subdivision. It is located in Planted District 21. It is zoned RA. The location is west of Magnolia Springs Highway and south of County Road 26. The request is for a two-lot residential subdivision. The total acreage is 11.37 acres. The smallest is 3.52 acres. It will be on Well, Septic, and Balland EMC. There was a drainage letter prepared and stamped by Chris Lieb and it was accepted by the Balland County Permit Engineer. Here's our subject property in Planning District 21. Here's our aerial map. Preliminary and final plat of the subdivision. Enlarged to show details. Again, this is for a two-lot residential subdivision. Staff recommends approval with conditions. Any future improvements will require all applicable local, state, and federal permits and will need to adhere to the Ballin County Access Management Plan. Any questions?

Any questions for staff? Okay. All right, I don't have anybody on my screen showing signs. Did anybody sign up for this item? You did? Come right on up.

My name is Laura Delagal, and my property is on the back side of that. There's one and a half acres there. My concern is the part that they are subdividing is in a low spot, and it does say that the wetlands, let me see what it says, wetland declination by the wetland services. It's very low, and my concern is putting in a home or building it up, what is the drainage going to be, and also the right-of-way easement onto the property. We have donkeys there right now, so I'm happy having another home. It's just I'm concerned with the drainage since it is in a low area, and if they build it up, where is the drainage going to go?

Mark, one of you guys, I think I know the answer.

So I think Chris is here. He can talk a little bit on that. But we did go out to the property because we did have some concerns about it, and we made them do a further drainage analysis of that.

You've made them and they haven't submitted it yet?

No, they did. I was going to let Chris probably talk on it.

Oh, okay.

He was here. I saw him earlier. Sorry.

Yeah, he was here.

So I guess you've got it now. So we asked what was going to be there because there is a – small conveyance through there so we had him calculate how much was going to go through there and what it would take to you know to redirect it and he basically showed it was a small amount that would have to be rerouted around a residential you know development yeah yeah so essentially he showed a plan that if there was a house put there how they would route the water so that the water would continue to flow across that lot but it would be routed around the residence

the future home on that site the engineer they hired provided drainage calculations to show us how they would route the water around the house if a house was built on the lot so to kind of answer that question in advance access was they were showing access off of county road 26.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. So if there was a conveyance on this site, it doesn't show up in the wetland delineation?

So it was really two different things through there. So the wetland layer did show a little bit through there, but actual delineation didn't really show much. I was more worried about the drainage, the water going through there. And I was just going by the... you know, the contours. So we got Chris to do an actual stormwater, you know, to show how much was going through there, and it wasn't much. There is a cross drain around the other side of that, and he put in the report that they would have to ensure that anything that was redirected around the house would have to get to that cross drain.

So there was no finding of jurisdictional wetlands then? We didn't see any.

Okay.

There wasn't any on that, right?

Any other questions? I don't know if I closed, but I'm going to close the public hearing. All right. Entertain a motion.

Chairman, I make a motion we approve case number SC26-22, subject to staff recommendations.

Okay. Mr. Schemberger has made a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

Mr. Mullick seconded the motion. Any questions on the motion? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carried. All right, we'll open public hearing now for case number SC26-23, the resubdivision of Lot 1A, which is a resubdivision, I guess, of Lot 1, J. Cattle Subdivision. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? Ms. Mosley?

Okay, this is for SC 2623, resub allot 1A, resub allot 1J cattle subdivision. This is preliminary and final plat approval for a seven lot subdivision. It's located in Planning District 15, is zoned RA, is south of County Road 64 and south of County Road 54, west of County Road 54 east. This is for a seven lot residential subdivision. The total acreage is 63.133 acres. The smallest lot is three acres. It's going to be on well, septic, and river utilities and Balling EMC. There was a drainage letter prepared and stamped by Catherine Clark, and it was accepted by our Balling County permit engineer. This is our subject property. I'm planning District 15. Here's our aerial map. The history recorded April 23, 2024, a resubdivision of Lot 1 of J Cattle Resubdivision, slide 2680F. Here's the preliminary final plat of the subdivision. Here it is enlarged to show detail. Again, the request is for a seven-lot residential subdivision. Staff recommends approval with conditions. The conditions will be any future improvements will require all applicable local, state, and federal permits and will need to adhere to the Ballin County Access Management Plan. Lot 1A2 can only access from County Road 54 East and must adhere to the Ballin County Access Management Plan. Correct final setbacks in site data table to read front setbacks 45, lot 1A3, front setback 40, and site setbacks for lot 1A2, 45. Correct the lot lines on lot 1A3, law and county subdivision regulations, page 16, definition, lot line front on a flag lot, the interior lot line must be parallel to the nearest parallel to and nearest to the street from which the access is obtained. Any questions?

Okay, any questions for staff? Okay. Mr. Smith, did you have anything you want to... Mr. Smith represents the applicant in case anybody has any questions for him. All right, Glenn Sikora.

Hi, I'm a neighbor to this property, and I just want to applaud the owner, the one who's developing it. He's a farmer, and he could have sold out to a big developer and developed this into one of the subdivisions that we're seeing pop up everywhere that looks like trash. That's my opinion, but a lot of my friends' opinions, too, that it's going to be a future... rental uh area and i think he's developing it right he's doing the right thing and i really want to applaud him and i would consider buying one myself thank you thank you sir all right day and nath i apologize if i didn't say that right man getting them tonight

All right, good afternoon. I am Daya Nafe, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. So my family owns the properties at Daya Lane and Dragon's Trail, actually just north of the Socorros. We've already been directly affected by this property. It's not hypothetical. We are speaking of years of living there. I think my family's been there since 1989. Significant rain sends water downhill. So we are downhill. We're on the Fish River side. And it ruins our roads on the property. So we have significant damage from water erosion. And we have dealt with this. So it is an ongoing problem. If seven new homes are built, then there will be additional clearing, grating, roofs, driveway, and disturbed land. We don't know where that water is going to go. Gravity still exists on our property. So if the water reaches our neighborhood today, then common sense will know that it will be worse. You do say a drainage letter has been submitted, but we ask, have you seen the flooding on our property? No, I don't recognize you guys. I would recognize you, I think, if you came out. So we would invite you to do so. So we're asking the commission to slow down and make sure that the facts are fully understood. So we are for responsible development. And we would like for the drainage issues to be solved before this goes forward. And have those resolves put forward publicly and independently reviewed. So if you do approve the subdivision anyway, we would like the following conditions. First, require the drainage improvements be completed before any construction begins. That includes clearing. require that the developer remain responsible for any drainage problems caused by this project, and third, require that these seven lots be not further subdivided. We should not wake up a few years from now and see that there are 55 lots, as we have once seen suggested for this property, instead of seven. So my family intends to continue to protect our property and our community, and so we would like to adequately address this. and will continue to speak before this commission and any commission necessary to do so. So we respectfully ask that you deny this application or postpone it until a complete and transparent drainage review has been concluded. Thank you for your time.

Hunter, do you, anything you want to respond to that or not? Okay. Staff, got anything you need to add in regards to the drainage?

There are large subdivisions. There's only seven of them, so no concerns.

I can speak to one of your comments. It's not our prerogative to, in this case, restrict these not to be subdivided again. If they do anything else, they'll have to make application back to the planning department and come back before us.

All right.

I didn't ask while ago if anybody had any questions for Ms. Nath or not, but anybody else have any questions or comments for her or for staff?

Okay.

I'm not sure I closed the public hearing. Boy, I get lost. I'll close the public hearing for sure, and I will, unless you have questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll just make one comment. When we get... I guess a letter, somebody did go out and look at the drainage, I guess Ms. Catherine Clark with Geographic Consulting LLC and it's accepted by our county engineer. We as members of this commission have to trust that Ms. Catherine Clark did her job and our engineers did their job as following up. So you won't see us out there

looking at it personally but that is we have to trust the professionals that they did their job so that was it all right any other comments all right chairman i make a motion we approve case number sc26-23 subject to staff conditions all right michelle has made a motion to approve to have a second seconded mr cyber second the motion any questions or comments on the motion All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. I'm going to open the public hearing now for case number SPP 26-10. This is the CW Stable Side Estates Phase 2 Subdivision. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? Missed motion.

Okay, this is for SPP 2610 CW stable side states phase 2 this is for preliminary plot approval for 15 lot residential subdivision. It is located in planning district 18 it is unzoned. The location is east of all in County Beach express and North on County Road, not 38. The request is for a preliminary plot approval for a 15 lot residential subdivision. The number of lots is 15. The total acreage is 78.76 acres. The smallest would be 3.17 acres. Utilities is septic, East Central Baldwin Water Authority, Baldwin County EMC. The drainage narrative was prepared and stamped by Chris Leaf, PE, and it was reviewed and accepted by the Planning and Zoning Permanent Engineer. And it was delineation was done by Wetland Sciences. Here is your subject property in Planning District 18. Here's your aerial map. wetland delineation. Here's the history. PF 25135 common lot line move was 11-19-2025 and it was approved. SPP 2420 legacy hill subdivision approved on 11-7-2024 approved the conditions. Developer chose not to move forward with the project. This is the preliminary plot of the CW stables and states phase two. up close and as you can see the private drives again this is SPP 2610 is a 15 lot residential subdivision lot 22 will be accessed through over a single residential drive all other residential lots will be accessed through the shared private access private drives with hammerheads located in the common areas and must adhere to the Ballin County access management policy Staff recommends that the preliminary plat for case number SPP 2610 be approved with the following conditions. Private drives with hammerheads must be installed and completed to county specs before final plat approval. Correct note number 8 on the plat to state Sunnyside, Stargazer, and Starlight drives shall be privately maintained and privately accessed located in the common area. Submit a HOA draft document including the O&M plan for the private drives located in the common area. Private drives will need to obtain county commission approval per section 5.5 minimum development standards, 5.51 privately maintained streets, following county subdivision regulations. Any questions?

Jenny, the previous approval for Legacy Hill subdivisions Do you remember how many lots that was for?

I do not recall, but it was significantly more.

So this is definitely an infrastructure loss of production density.

All right. Anyone here representing this item? You got anything you want to speak to on this? Okay. All right. No questions or comments. I'll close the public hearing.

I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Me again. Yes.

I will make a motion that we approve case number SPP26-10, subject to staff recommendations and conditions.

All right. Mr. Schoenberg has made the motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. I second the motion. Any questions or comments on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, we'll open the public hearing now for case number SPP 26-11, the Wilson Creek North subdivision. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? Okay, Ms. Mosley.

Okay, this is for SPP 26-11, Wilson Creek North. This is preliminary plot approval for a four-lot residential subdivision. This is located in Planning District 7. It is unzoned. It is located west of US Highway 31 and west off of Pine Road South. Again, this is a preliminary plot approval for a four-lot residential subdivision. The total acreage is 35.41 acres. The smallest is 3.25. The utilities is septic. North Ballin Utilities for Water and Ballin EDUC for Electricity. There was a drainage narrative prepared and stamped by Michael Smith and it was accepted and reviewed by the permit engineer. Wetland was identified on the property. Wetland delineation was provided by David Knowles. Here's the subject property in Planning District 7. Here's the aerial map. Wetland delineation. Here's the preliminary plat for Wilson Creek North four lot residential subdivision. Here it is enlarged. Here is going to be one common drive. SPP 2611 is a four lot residential subdivision and a common shared drive will need to be installed before final plat approval and must adhere to the Bowling County access management policy. Staff recommends approval. with the condition of common dry must be installed, inspected, and completed before final plat approval. Any questions?

Any questions for staff? Okay. Eric Seals.

Hi, I'm Eric Seals. I live right there, adjacent property. My mother owns the right-of-way through there. And as long as they put the driveway maybe adjacent to it or whatever. But the biggest thing I know with a lot of that property is going to be subdivisions. You've got to kind of think of the traffic that is on Bromley Road and goes to 39. Traffic in the morning time going to work. is ridiculous trying to get off of Bromley Road or even on Highway 39. So you might want to think of that when you're putting subdivisions on that property, just other than that. Okay, all right. Thank you, sir.

All right, and I'm sorry, the screen went off on me here. Also, Matthew Burkett.

Hey, I'm Matthew Burkett. I'm with Jay Pearson Associates, the authorized agent for this. Okay. I'm just here for any questions you may have.

All right. Anybody have any questions for the applicant's representative?

All right. Thank you, sir. All right.

Thank you. All right. That's all I have signed up to speak. I'll close the public hearing. Anybody have any other comments? Mr. Schemberg's already teed up. I already know what he's going to do. All right. I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we approve case number SPP 26-11, subject to staff conditions.

All right. Mr. Schoenberger has made a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Seconded. Mr. Seibert seconded the motion. Any questions on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. We'll go to open public hearing for case number SPP 26-12, the Wilson Creek South subdivision. Does anybody need to declare prior communication on this item? Ms. Mosley?

Okay. This is SPP 2612, Wilson Creek South. This is for preliminary plot approval for 11-lot residential subdivision. It's located in Planning District 7. It is unzoned. The location is west of U.S. Highway 31 and west off Pine Road South. Go on. This is for 11 lots. The total acreage is 52.28 acres, and the smallest is three acres. Utilities are North Baldwin Utilities for Water, Baldwin EMC for Electricity, and Septic. It was a drainage narrative prepared by Michael Smith, and it was reviewed and accepted by the permit engineer. Wetlands were identified on the property. Two wetland delineations were provided by David Knowles and also Wetland Sciences. Here it is in Planning District 7. The aerial map. Wetland delineations. The preliminary plot of Wilton Creek South 11 lot residential subdivision. Here it is in large showing the common drives that would need to be installed. Again, this is SPP 2612. It's an 11-lot residential subdivision. A common shared drives will be installed before final plat approval and must adhere to the Ballin County Access Management Policy. Staff is recommending approval with conditions. The condition will be common drives must be installed, inspected, and completed before final plat approval. Any questions?

Any questions for staff?

Okay.

I want to ask Matthew, do you want to say anything? Matthew's here representing the applicants. Anybody have any questions? All right, that's all I have signed up to speak. Wait a minute. Oh, that's the next one.

Okay. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we approve SPP 26.

I got to close the public hearing.

Go ahead. Hey, rookie. Yeah, rookie. Rookie. I was trying to get a word in edgewise over here. I'm messing up my street. I recommend approval for SPP 26-12, Wilson Creek South, subject to staff conditions.

All right. Mr. Bias has made a motion to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second. Mr. Key? Why not? Why not? All right. Motion's been made and seconded. Any comments? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Last public hearing item is case number CSP 26-18, County Road 32 Sail Tower. Does anyone need to declare prior communication on this item? Somebody else, finally.

Yes, sir. So this request is for a 250-foot self-support tower. It's in Planning District 22. It's located west of Joe Gottler Road and north of County Road 32 in the Alberta area. Property zoned RA, and it's about 18 acres, but they are only going to be using about 5,625 feet of the property for the cell tower. There are the property images of the property and the adjacent ones. Here's your locator and site maps. The adjacent properties are all zoned RA, and they are either residential or vacant uses. This proposed site plan meets the requirements of the zoning ordinance. A wireless communications tower is permitted as a conditional use under the RA zoning, subject to y'all's approval. Here's the future land use maps. Here's a site plan showing where they're accessing from County Road 32 into the property. Here's the actual site for the proposed tower. Their grain and drainage plan, erosion control plan, and then their landscaping plan, which is pretty much just leaving every existing vegetation there except for the area they're clearing for the cell tower. So staff is recommending approval with our general conditions. But additionally, they will have to provide the FCC compliance letter after they have a lease in place with Verizon to us before we give the final approval. And then that's it. If you have any questions, let me know.

Okay. Any questions for staff? Okay. I have two signed up. Trace Barnett.

I'm just here as the applicant, and I'm here to answer any questions if y'all have any.

Okay. Any questions? Okay. I don't think so.

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Wayne Barnett, you got any questions? I guess you're Wayne. Okay. All right. That's all I had signed up to speak. I'll close the public hearing. Well, this is a far cry from what we used to deal with with cell towers. But, all right. No questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman.

Yes, sir.

I make a motion we approve case number CSP26-18, subject to staff conditions.

Okay. Mr. Schoenberger has made a motion to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Mr. Mullick seconded the motion. Any questions on the motion?

Okay.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries. All right.

I don't think I have anybody signed up for public comments. Any planning commission members have any comments? We have no more public hearings, so. No more comments? Everybody said what they wanted to say?

All right.

Anybody on staff?

I'd like to make one comment, and it may be directed toward transportation or roads. And I know as we look at classifications for roads and major arterials, minor arterials, you know, I know that it typically car counts are drive us upgrading road classification, let's say from minor arterial to major arterial, or whatever the case may be. On some of these areas that we know as thoroughfares, I'm gonna pick on 32, you know, any time you know i don't want to i want to encourage us to you know if we know some of these corridors are used for moving wide loads or you know moving some of this stuff a little bit farther back away from the center line you know maybe use some more considerations other than just car counts that might help in in raising or increasing the classification of these roads as you know getting around in traffic different things the mail lady on the side of the road farmers moving large equipment you know different things that will help us on the main thoroughfares with setbacks and you know if it takes increasing the classification of the road I think there's other things that you look at in that balance that might help us all get around a little better

That's actually a very, very good comment and a point. And periodically, we do look at the classifications of roads. Things change. Traffic patterns change and connectivity changes. So the Highway Department does a good job in working with our Eastern Shore MPO and other organizations to where we will periodically look at our classifications. And those do change from time to time. And there's a lot of factors that go into that. And to caveat off of that same theme, What you'll notice, and kind of go back to the master plan just a little bit, but you'll see some transportation items in there. I would encourage each of the members to look at those transportation plans, whether it's in the master plan or not. It is a guide, and those are very prudent. And so I think you'll see and pay attention to the county commission's budget and what is approved. You're going to see a bit of an adjustment, some long-range planning with some of these significant projects. There are some very aggressive and very significant projects Aggressive may not be the right word, but it's a very ambitious protocol, and Mark's team is doing a great job on some very large projects to where we're leveraging design funds and planning with design to be able to leverage those projects local monies for grant monies and other sources to be able to get it to construction instead of looking at our transportation from a year-to-year basis we're looking at over a more multi-year basis and and i think you're going to see the fruits of that in the very near future there are some significant projects around the The Canterbury 68, the Baldwin Beach Express, Canterbury 64 area. We're all familiar with the Bucky's congestion. There's a very intriguing plan that's being worked on there, and I think we'll see some progress on that in the very near future. The east-west corridors around Daphne with that interface from Pleasant Road, and the county commission partnered with the city of Daphne for the Milton Jones connection, the roundabout that just opened this week. That was very much the county commission partnered, was actually the largest financial partner in that project. And so there are a number of other connectivity projects that are going on that will be phased in over the next few years. We're aggressively working with the Baltimore Beach Express project on the north end between U.S. 31 and I-65 near the Novellus plant, and also we're actively acquiring right-of-way currently on the south end from I-10 up to Styx River. So there are some long-range, very significant projects that are actively underway. And then from an intersection standpoint, Mark did a really good presentation. If you haven't seen the road and bridge presentation from July 14th, I would encourage you to go back and see that. In particular, the transportation segment, Mark did a very thorough analysis and presentation there. Almost 50 intersections throughout this county that have been identified that are significant intersections that are being addressed and targeted with investments being made in this coming budget cycle to get several of those off the ground. So very excited of where we're going from a transportation standpoint. And as those new connection points are brought online, you will see some changes with the classification because that will change traffic patterns and so forth. So just stay tuned. Really, really excited about where we're going from a large-scale transportation plan that, quite honestly, we haven't seen anything like in a number of years.

I have one question you referenced that July 14th presentation I had somebody ask me is that was that I'm assuming it was filmed and could be viewed is that open to the I'm assuming open to the public to find and go view that presentation that we that was done yes it is it is on the county website go to the meetings and agendas and this video there that's readily available

Real quick, so we pulled this tonight, and what kind of time frame? I mean, we've got to get this done. What is the time frame now? So we obviously know that more discussions need to be had. We've got to get back together. I mean, what are we doing? What's the next step? How do we, you know, gel and get this passed, another iteration of it?

Well, we're going to take the comments that come in tonight. There were some very good comments, and I know it seemed a little bumpy getting here, but I think it was very positive with the level of input that we received tonight. So we're going to take that. We're going to go back with the current county commission. have conversations with the incoming commissioners, and then a plan will be formed from those conversations. I don't know when it will come back. I can't make that call, but we do know that it has to come back at some point. But once we have more stakeholder input, and and can answer some of the very valid questions and and suggestions that were brought up tonight then once we have a you know some of that smoothed out and have a little more input from other stakeholders that's been requested then you know i we'll go from there but i can't i don't have a time frame at this point another element to this that we did not hear much on tonight you had a lot of

interest from the mayors of all of our municipalities. So you didn't hear that tonight, but they all, I think all but one, stated they would like to have more input. So there's that element that wasn't even in part of our discussion tonight.

Yeah, I mean, well, we've got them at the table now, so that's what I'm saying. Like, let's keep the pressure on. I mean, it's a pressure cooker, and that's great. Decisions will be made, but let's keep them all at the table and not let this drag out for another, you know, four, six, eight months. I think we're getting input now, so, you know, take advantage of that. If we've got to draft up something totally different, fine, but at least we've got people talking now. But if we just ease up and people kind of wander away and we're stuck with no input anymore.

I think we've got good momentum. And so, like I said, once the stakeholders are brought in, then we'll have a better idea.

Okay. Anything else? Thank you, staff. Appreciate you all. Nothing else? We're adjourned to September 3rd, I think it is.