Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome everybody to the Town of Bair Board of Appeals. I'd now like to call the meeting to order. Start the meeting off. I'd like to ask if there are any changes to the agenda. Right. If no changes, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Mr. Chairman, so moved. Is there a second? All in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. The agenda is now approved. Um I'd now like to take a motion to approve the minutes from November 19th of 2024. Who was in attendance? probably and then

I'm sorry. So, so you have to you had to have been there. As long as you have two people who were there, then you've got How many total were there? Three. So, you have a majority that could vote for the the minutes. To go ahead and I'm sorry. Right. But that means that those two would be a majority of that three. Yeah. Um Pat, can you make a motion to approve those minutes? Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting on Tuesday, November 19th, 2024. Can I second that?

Think you'd have to. Yeah. Okay. I'll second that. All in favor? I. that we have two abstensions or abstains. Absolutely. All right. Um now we go to the election of officers. I'm going to turn that over to Kevin to do that. Okay. The um this is the first chance we've had in 2025 to elect officers. Um what I would need to do is uh receive nominations for chair. Mr. Chair, I'll make a nomination. uh for Rick Gir to continue as chair of the board of zoning appeals. Okay. Is there any other nominations?

Okay. What I'll do is uh call for a vote. Um Miss Spar. Yes. Uh this is to uh to elect Rick Gity as chair. Um Mr. Richards. I Mr. Adolf, you can't vote for yourself. I guess you could, I suppose. So, now I will turn it over to you to uh take nominations for vice chair. Uh at this time, I'd like to take nominations for vice chairman of the board of appeals.

Crickets. [Laughter] endorsement. I'll second that. And do we have to go to a per person vote? Sure. I mean, if you want to. Yeah. Lisa, I Ricky I like to vote for yourself. [Laughter] All right. The motion carries. Congratulations, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you.

All right. Now, we move on to first order of business. Um is for a 12-month extension of the special exception that was approved for a 32 bed assisted living facility at 908910 South Main Street. Uh on that was approved on April 20th of 23. Um did we start with the staff report as usual? Um there is no staff report but I can have uh some very short explanation uh for a couple of items. One is is that this approval for from the board of appeals uh its expiration was April 20th of uh this year. Uh there is no requirement for the board to act at any particular time. I kept it because I was waiting for another case to come in front of the board of appeals to make it kind of worth gathering everyone together. Well, that never happened. I do apologize for that. It should never have gone five months after that expiration. So, that's my fault. I accept that. Um but uh the um approval for a special exception for an assisted living facility, 32 beds in two two buildings, 16 beds per building, um is would receive a 12-month extension from April 20th of 2025. So it would uh expire on April 20th of 2026. There would not be an extension available. Um, with that I'll if you'd like I can turn it over to the applicant.

Okay. Would anybody like to give an explanation? You you do have their letter. So, all right. So, uh, Tom Miner, Frederick Ward. Um, I don't know. Um, Greg, you were probably here

uh for the first board of appeals. um I didn't initially present but um just to give a brief um explanation for the delay we've been working with state highway um that took a good bit of time to figure out because of the school work that's doing that's nearby that's where the entrance is um and so between that and um good portion of it was that really because they're doing all that work there they were kind of still in design where we got stuck in kind of a a loop of trying to get the school and then get us to coordinate with the school. Obviously, our project is much smaller. Um, so that was one of the items. The other item was um we have a water line that's right in front of us uh that is um serviced by Harper County, but the service area is actually in Maryland American water area and that water line is on the other side of the road. Initially, we had been told that it would been probably okay to connect into the Harper County and just not have to the high expense to cross 924, the headaches, everything else. So, a lot of back and forth later, that wasn't the case. We are now tapping in across the street. Um, all that stuff just took a lot of time to coordinate and get responses and everything else. And so, at this point, we have our approvals. We're pretty much at the finish line with all of that. Um, and so we're kind of buttoning up the building permit end of things. Um, and I believe Kevin, you've seen some plans in the past couple weeks float across your desk possibly or they've got submitted

if they have. I have not seen Yeah, there we've had plans because we finally got approvals that are starting to float across as far as the final myar set. So, we're we're getting there. Um, and hopefully uh well, I don't mind seeing you guys. Hopefully, we'll get to see you in six months. So, any questions? Is there any reason why you wouldn't be able to break ground by April 20th. April 20th, 2026 should be because that's the that's the last deadline. That is the last break. You have to break. You have to be under substantial construction.

So, it's an exciting project. You know, it's providing you memory care, something that's definitely needed in the area anyway. um you know smaller setting so it's not going to be a you know 100 and some odd bed facility it's smaller more personal care um it's it's local to the town so it should be you know I think it's a welcome project that I think everyone kind of support is excited to have so plus it's going to kind of rejuvenate that property in that area so other than your uh construction permit no other approvals are required

so we're going through the final approval process process. Yeah, we're going through the final approval process with like Maryland American. Um the plans are approved. We're submitting all those myars, signatures, bonds, that type of stuff. So that's why we can be pretty confident that we're going to be good to break ground here um shortly. Uh we're in that last stages where seems like it's almost there, but it just still takes a couple months to get sign off. State lensure, no other regulatory approvals. Okay, that's a that's an inspection at the end. Got it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other questions for the applicant?

All right. Thank you.

So what we are proposing is just the the um is just to extend it Right. You're not re-reviewing it. It's already been approved. Uh you're just extending the approval for one additional year.

Um it is um usebased. So the use has to be established which is will happen when they start construction. Um but the um that's yeah and one this is one of the things that when you look at the code sometimes there are different criteria for the board of appeals special exception. good cause shown. So, it's somewhat of a vague uh basis to to make a determination, but that's the what the code for the extension. Yeah, I think that's been shared. Just need somebody to to make a motion if they would.

I just uh is there any reason for discussion of, you know, reasonable construction? I don't want them to be hemmed up by anything, but if they're breaking ground, that's reasonable, right? You have to be That's what I'm saying. I don't want them to have to go through all this administrative stuff because somebody's opinion it's not enough. Right. And believe me, uh uh I know more about vesting in Maryland than I really ever want to know. Um it's uh they need to have not only broken ground but have to have some structure started. Okay. And that would mean foundations, things like that. Okay. No, it's all considered one project

because the one the house is staying there. Correct. You're taking that I can't remember taking it down. Okay. So even that being so that being raised demolition doesn't count. Okay. Just keep that in mind. So, can you come up here because you're on YouTube and say your name and address?

John Watts, 2514 Green Road, Baldwin, Maryland, 21013. Um, so from let's just say we break around whatever it was, April 20th. Just say that's our day. Is there a time frame on when it needs to be completedvious? No, I mean obviously the building permit has an expiration date. I get that

the the the completion of construction once it's initiated is really determinate by the director of public works. Uh you have to be under pretty much when they say consistent construction that means you can't let six months lapse between the time that you start construction. If you let a gap of six months go, then you're going to lose your permit. So, that's something that um you need to be aware of. Okay. So, I can I can build one, let's say, and get it to like a 60% stage and then

there there are many projects in town that have started one phase and as long as the especially for this group, once you start that phase, the use is established, therefore you move on. Okay. I guess does that mean by the 20th he needs to have something the building he needs to raise the he needs to have foundations in place. Yeah. It's more than it's more than breaking ground on the 20th which is I think just an important point. Sorry. So 9 there's 908 and there's 910. If I start 910 I put a foundation in the ground. Is that that's enough? That's enough. Yeah. Okay. Right.

Yeah. There's lots of projects the uh Harford Mall uh lot of them phase their projects in. It's common.

I guess if there's any other discussion I can read this since I was at that meeting. Thank you. Uh Mr. Chair, I uh move to approve the extension 12-month extension of the special exception approved for 32 bed assisted living facility at 908910 South Main Street on April 20th, 2023. Uh understanding that substantial progress needs to be made on the project by April 20th, 2026. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. All not in favor say no. Motion passes. Um,

right. That's all we have. Correct. Uh, if I had one thing that you will be back here next month um on a real case. Uh it it it is likely that if that does go forward, I won't be here because I can't be here. It's it's a somewhat of an appeal of an interpretation that I have made. So um I have uh that my deputy will be here and likely Liz would lead the um uh review. Okay. Yeah. So is that a case that we've already um No.

No. It's a determination upon whether or not a shopping center, a development has moved from commercial use to a shopping center and um we made the determination that it has and we issued a violation and this is an appeal of that violation. Okay. So, thank you for all those who participated in our court of appeals meeting this evening. We appreciate your interest and attendance. This time, I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Can I get a second? Second.

Motion to all in favor of journ. The motion has passed. The meeting is now stand.