Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Thursday, June 11th, 2026 open session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners. As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and hope everybody's doing well today and enjoying the very very humid start to the summer uh so first up in our agenda today we have priority carol and uh commissioner kyler i do believe you are up first today thank you um last saturday manchester wrestling had their annual uh picnic uh well attended the storms we kind of

We didn't get the wind that other areas got. We had inflatables that we deflated, but we never took the canopy down, and it wasn't a risk. wrestlers are all risk takers um they didn't care about the storm they just they they were in line for snowballs and they stayed there so great group on and uh um i i always enjoy seeing um the various generations and speaking of that a lot of people we went to a graduation party over the weekend a lot of people were attending graduation parties and kids are graduating and uh going to their next level of either college, trade school, military, job. A lot of them are working for the jobs. And I just want to congratulate all the graduates that we've had and their families. And speaking of graduates, I went to the sheriff's correctional graduation for the correctional officers training. And that was always great to see them and see some other sheriffs from different areas. A great event. Early voting started. We talked about it earlier this morning a little bit. At least for the first hour, nobody was showing up. I think three people voted at South Carroll and a half a dozen at Westminster in the first hour or so. I think we have too many days and I've already commented on our poor selection of sites and it's a it's it's a tough thing. But please vote early voting. You've got if you haven't done mail and you've got early voting and you've got the election day itself. So please vote. Don't be a no show. I got to go to the law enforcement torch run at McDaniel and That's a great ceremony and a great bunch of walkers. And I didn't even give you pictures, so thank you very much. But it was great to see Alan Culver spoke, Sheriff DeWeese spoke, Tony from the President of City Council spoke, Julia Jaskin was there representing the college. And I don't know why she didn't come get in a group picture. She was over talking to some people on the track. It's nice that they host it, and it's a great event, and it was great to see everybody. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Commissioner Guerin. Commissioner Krebs. Very quickly, unless Commissioner Gordon wants to go on.

Yeah, we forgot about Commissioner Gordon. Oh, no, he's in a forego.

Commissioner Gordon, on your behalf, I'm going to talk about the Wine Festival very quickly. I know we were both there and go every year. It's a very nice event for our county. It showcases our local Maryland wines and also our farm museum. But I just wanted to point out the volunteers that make this happen. We wouldn't have the Wine Festival without the planning that goes on. from Jane Sewell and her team at the Farm Museum. And also, I was looking at all the volunteers, and I had some pictures, but maybe I didn't get them here in time, of the Sheriff's Department and the volunteer firefighters that are there to make sure everything is safe, make sure people are not leaving and shouldn't be driving. So it's a very nice event, and I just wanted to make sure we thank all the volunteers because it could not happen without them. So it's something to be proud of.

Very much so. Anything else? Okay. So I do apologize. I should have mentioned at the beginning that Commissioner Gordon is joining us virtually today. So I do apologize for that, Commissioner. So just a couple quick things from me. So first of all, as always, I had the pleasure of attending the regular meeting for the Farm Museum Advisory Board. They are making great progress, not only on working through some budget ideas for next year, but also preparing for all the amazing summer events. events, camps, and activities that are about to begin, including for the 250th 4th of July. Additionally, the board is working through the recent heartbreaking passing of Board President Tony Richardson. He was a gentleman, a dedicated board member, and a ceaseless advocate and volunteer at the Farm Museum. It was an honor to get to serve on that board as the ex officio under his stewardship, and I know that the board is looking into a way that his memory and his efforts can be commemorated at the Farm Museum. Second of all, I had the privilege of attending this week's city council meeting in Tawny Town, where Mayor Miller, the council, and myself presented proclamations to three employees who have had a tremendous impact not only on Tawny Town, but on the county at large. The first was for Police Chief Adrian Baker, who, after helping to reform and implement good positive changes at the department, is finally retiring. The chief helped to grow the law enforcement relationship with our sheriff's department, and the two agencies routinely work together to protect our citizens. The second, Mackenzie Alban, is still a relatively new employee for the city, but she's already had an important impact in improving communications with citizens, enhancing the city's social media presence, and the information provided through it, working to ensure that citizens receive resources that they need, such as food banks, assistance programs, and other resources in the town and in the county. The third, but certainly not least, is Haley Angles, who works in the police department administration. And with her, whether it's community outreach, organizing events, participating in combined county municipal partnerships, such as a child safety seat program, or just this week, the Torch Run, Haley has renewed and helped strengthen the community's relationship with the police department and law enforcement in general. So again, I mention these individuals because they really do underscore the important relationship that exists between the county and our towns and which we endeavor to continue to grow because at the end of the day, not only are they our partners in so many important things, but we serve the same citizens. And to echo Commissioner Kyler's very timely comments, make sure to go out and vote. I mean, for me, between the primary and the general in November, how momentous, how awesome, and what a privilege and how consequential it is to be able to vote in an election during the 250th anniversary of our country. That really is something that does not happen. frequently to be able to vote during the anniversary of such consequence. And again, you know, please do get out and vote. It is your not even beyond your duty. It's your privilege as an American and certainly take advantage of that. That is all for me for Priority Carol this morning. And I do believe that Commissioner Krebs has a certificate for someone who's retiring. I do. Mr. Glenn Edwards.

You got to come up. I'm going to read this. We've got a certificate here from the Board of County Commissioners. This certificate is awarded to Glenn Edwards. The Board of Carroll County Commissioners would like to recognize and celebrate your 15 years of dedicated service to the residents of Carroll County. As the Environmental Coordinator for the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, which we refer to as MPDES for those who like acronyms, permits, you have held a unique and vital role in guiding the county and all eight municipalities through our collective compliance requirements. The municipal separate storm sewer system, which we call MS4 program, that we see today is no small part due to the long hours that you've poured in forming programs from the ground up and fostering connections among all those involved. Over the years, you have consistently placed relationships at the heart of everything you do, building and maintaining the links that make such a far-reaching program successful across departments, jurisdictions, and external partnerships. In the illicit discharge detection and elimination program, you have demonstrated how compliance enforcement can be done through the lens of kindness, humility, and support. You have developed an extensive library of public outreach sources, hosted pollution prevention trainings for hundreds of staff, and served as an invaluable resource to all who have called you in times of uncertainty for your expertise and your guidance. We wish you all the best in a well-deserved retirement and thank you for your service to the staff and residents of Carroll County. Thank you.

Chris, you want to take it away or you or? Go first.

No. Thank you, Commissioner Krebs. Many of those words that you spoke are I mean, they're all so true. And it is amazing that Glenn has been a part of our MPDS program for the last 15 years and has truly built the programs from the ground up. the relationships that he's fostered and the trust that he has with county staff municipal staff that in times of uncertainty when you're not sure what to do they know that they can reach out to glenn and he will provide guidance to them and he will be there for them through those times whether it's oil spill that happens within city limits or you know a sanitary sewer overflow he is always that person that they know they can reach out to and he will be there for them and it's amazing because those relationships and building that trust is truly a foundation of our permit so thank you

Yeah, and Glenn, I just wanted to offer sincere thanks for all the work over the years. I wish Janet and I had collaborated in what we were going to say because everything that Janet said, I was going to say as well. Really, you've been a shining example of how to collaborate and build a team and develop these programs. The NPDES program requires collaboration with all the municipalities, various departments here at the county, the Health Department, Maryland Department of the Environment, State Highway, and so on. And you are the point person that everybody relies on, has relied on, to come to and help make those coordinations. And it's been wonderful to know that I could absolutely rely on you taking the charge with those things and leading that effort. So very sorry, obviously, to see you go, but very happy for you and wish you all the best.

Glenn, thank you so very much for everything that you have done. As Chris and Janet have mentioned, you really helped to facilitate our work as commissioners by making things so much easier. And so I have to ask you, in addition, is there anything that you want to say to us? What comes next for you?

I'm not going around the world or anything like that I just wanted to let you know that prior to coming here I had 32 years in the private sector and I questioned about man what am I going to get into working in the public sector and it's been is it going to be as challenging and it's been every bit as challenging as in the private sector and the public sector for a lot of different reasons as I know you you're familiar with um i've enjoyed working and appreciated working for the county that i grew up in and that i live in and my On my dad's side, my grandfather's family lost everything. And out of the Depression, we were able to save up enough money to buy a farm outside of Union Bridge. That farm is now in ag preservation, not through a cousin, but through the war. I met my mom, a St. Louis girl, and brought her back here and raised our family, our siblings, and taught us right from wrong, belief in God, and to show others respect. I just, I did want to say, uh, thank you commissioners for the support of the, of our MS war program. Um, I want to appreciate, I want y'all to know, um, uh, beginning under Tom double bus and go angles, uh, and, um, transferring to Chris and Janet, and then my supervisor, Claire, and Mitch, my counterpart, and then soon to be replacing me out of Tim Matt, this position will be left in good hands. I'm very confident. I've worked with Tim on some things, and I think he'll do a great job. But we're going to stay here. uh we have uh three sons and families they're all within less within 10 minutes of us and we have seven grandkids the oldest i was going to say great great they're great grandkids but they're we're not that far along they're really good grandkids and uh the oldest of which was at our just graduated from FSK, Commissioner. Congratulations. That's awesome.

Thank you for being there. My pleasure.

But it's been a privilege. And working, I just want to say, the best part of my job has been working on getting, seeing where the need was from coming into this is to getting the educating and training our folks that are on the ground that do the hard work out in the streets, our utilities, our property management, maintenance people, and at the county level as well as all our municipalities. I really appreciate the support from our municipalities as well.

So thank you. Thank you. Very well said. And God bless you. And to my colleagues, any comments or thoughts?

Just thank you for all you've done. You will be missed. And it's so appropriate that you mentioned other people here. We got...

we got good people in this building but you'll be missed thank you and 47 years of work is a lot something to be proud of just to have i mean that is something to be proud of nowadays 47 years i added up 35 and 12 or 15 no it's fit i had it wrong 50 years you said 30 32 and 15. you're right 37. that's a lot of work thank you a lot of work i appreciate it thank you congratulations and thank you thank you sir okay commissioner gordon

just echo everyone else's comments congratulations and uh i hope you have a very enjoyable retirement best of luck thank you shall we do a picture please

Thank you.

So up next, we have Daily Perks Challenge Recognition.

Good morning.

Good morning, Chrissy.

All right. So we're just going to pull the slide here quick.

Oh, wow, you're fancy.

Hey, not me. All right. With me today, I have Victoria Parks from the Human Resource Office and our newest intern, Maya Rodriguez, who is a student at Towson. Not able to join us today is Emma Glider, who was our previous intern, our spring semester intern, and Laurie Hirstetter, who's our division manager, but they're also Very much a part of of what we're going to talk about today. So the daily perks challenge so human resources one of our goals over the years has been to get out into the community and Help promote Carroll County government the important work we do and the wide variety of career opportunities that we have available here as you've probably seen in your experience when we go out to career fairs and recruitment events and We're always looking for creative ways to attract candidates and start conversations with potential applicants. We've been fortunate to have some great interns in our office. And this past spring, Emma suggested using a coffee theme to help perk up our recruitment tables and create some buzz. Uh, as the idea continued to percolate, we decided to expand it. I'm trying, I'm trying.

I'm impressed.

Thank you. As the idea continued to percolate, we decided to expand it into something that would also engage our current employees and help spread awareness of the great things happening across Carroll County government. So that led to the daily perks challenge. The way it worked was from May 1st through May 25th, employees earned points by interacting with human resources of Carroll County Government of Maryland LinkedIn page through activities such as liking, commenting, sharing, and engaging with content. The goal was to encourage employees to become ambassadors for Carroll County Government while helping us reach a broader audience. The response is grounds for celebration. Employees from across the organization joined in, connected with colleagues, and helped showcase the people, programs, and services that make Carroll County government a great place to work. So looking at the slide, which was prepared by Maya, she's been here a whole week, I think, and whipped this up in one or two days after assigning it to her on Tuesday. You'll see that in that short period of time, we were able to gain 63 LinkedIn followers. which was a 13.4% growth in our audience. Employees participating were 97 across the organization, and they attained 935 total engagement points, with the average being 9.6. So in the lower left-hand corner, you'll see how we broke down the points. If you followed us, you got three points. If you liked a post, you got a point. If you commented, you got two points. Reposted our post, you got two points. Our top engaged departments were Economic Development, Citizen Services, and the Circuit Court. So we thank them very much. We have our top three PERC champions here with us today. But before we present their prizes, I want to thank my HR team for helping bring this idea from a small bean of inspiration. to a full pot of engagement. Tori made the post. She is our LinkedIn poster, does a great job with keeping that up to date, sharing our openings, sharing all the great things that we do around here. And we're very thankful for that. So she gets a lot of the credit here, as well as Emma with the initial idea.

So in terms of the rankings, right, where did Commissioner Kyler fall? Does he even qualify as a barista at this point?

You're not getting any perks. So I also would like to espresso my appreciation to everyone who participate. It was a latte fun. Your enthusiasm kept the momentum brewing and you helped make this challenge a real perk for our organization. So we'll serve up some well-deserved recognition and announce our top three PERC champions. So they are here with us, and I would ask that they, if they don't mind, coming up front here to join us. We have in third place Carrie Stevens with the Sheriff's Office, and she attained 54 points. We also have Alicia Smothers from Economic Development, and she had 62 points. And lastly, we have Homan Muradpur, who is in engineering, and he had 65 points. So we have some tokens of appreciation for them to give them and also something to leave with you.

Thank you. You want to do a picture? That would be great.

All right. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, give them their prize. Stay up here.

We'll go down there. I think we can sit down there. Okay. We'll go down.

Did you come up with all the plagues on words or did you have to do that? You were first.

You want to come in the middle here?

Let's try. keep it up don't stop don't stop so we have um some items here i do like getting a mug you better start liking and sharing mr gordon we'll leave yours here for you oh thank you very much yeah i love it Thank you.

You're welcome.

Chrissy, how are you going to top that next year?

I don't know. I have staff for it.

Thank you all very much. All right, so up next I have a proclamation for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. And I do believe we have some guests who may want to come down to the front here. So Celine, I'll go ahead and read the proclamation and then turn things over to you and then over to my colleagues for any comments and then we'll do a picture. So I have a proclamation for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Whereas June 15th, 2026 marks the 20th annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which was established to promote understanding and awareness of the social and economic impact of abuse and neglect of older persons. And whereas all older adults deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and deserve opportunities to engage as vital participants in our community. And whereas the Maryland Department of Planning projects that by 2045, approximately 65,000 adults over age 60 will call Carroll County their home. And whereas the Office of the Maryland Attorney General reported that one in five adults over the age of 65 in Maryland have been victims of fraud with losses estimated at $2.9 billion a year. and whereas social isolation and ageism contribute to elder abuse and the carroll county bureau of aging and disabilities and its partners are committed to creating age-friendly communities that allow our older adults to retain societal connections thereby reducing the likelihood of abuse now therefore we the board of carroll county commissioners do hereby proclaim june 15th 2026 as world elder abuse awareness day in carroll county and urge all of our community members to recognize and celebrate older adults and their ongoing contributions to the success and vitality of our county. Adopted this 11th day of June 2026, signed to the entire Board of Carroll County Commissioners. All yours.

Thank you, Commissioners, for the recognition. I did want to start by introducing some of the folks that we have with us today. Obviously, everyone knows Gina Valentine, our Division Chief for Aging and Disabilities. We also have Gail Gannon, our Long-Term Care Ombudsman with our program. And we also have Courtney Clinton. She is also, and we are happy to say, a newly certified Long-Term Care Ombudsman with our program. So welcome and congratulations, Courtney. And we also have State's Attorney Shoemaker joining us today. So thank you for being here to support it. And we also have our friends from the Department of Social Services. We have Michelle Jacobs with Adult Services, and she has some of her team here with her as well. And we also have Sarah Tim from the Office of the Attorney General with us today as well. So I'm going to turn it over to Gina and to Gail to talk a little bit about what we have planned today. so that we can share about how important it is to be aware of elder elder abuse and what you can do if you suspect elder abuse and where you can report it and what we're doing to make sure we provide information to folks so Gina

Good morning. Thank you, Celine. So of course, elder abuse, none of us, we don't like to think that it happens. And unfortunately, it does. And it comes in many forms, scams, of course, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect. And it's unfortunate that it happens. And typically, when we hear of something like that happening, our first reaction is denial. That's our first human natural reaction. But I always encourage people, if you see something, you suspect something, please say something. It's so important for abuse to be reported. It goes very underreported, very unreported in so many cases. And so we need to make sure that we're protecting our older adults. We do have an event coming up on Monday that Gail's going to talk about to recognize World Outer Abuse Awareness Day, but also to educate our older adults and partners about outer abuse. But I also want to thank our partners for being here today. and for joining us on Monday at that event as well. Sarah Timm is actually our keynote speaker from the Office of the Attorney General. And then Michelle and the State's Attorney's Office, Alan Culver will be there as well as John Carhart to have a panel discussion. So I'm going to turn it over to Gail.

Yes, thank you. As Gina said, our event will be on Monday, June 15th at the Mount Airy Senior Center from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. We will, as Gina mentioned, Sarah Timm is going to be our keynote speaker. Sarah is a financial fraud investigator with the Securities Division of the Office of the Maryland Attorney General. And her presentation will be followed by a panel discussion that will include Michelle Jacobs, Adult Services Manager from Adult Protective Services, Alan Culver, Special Counsel to the Carroll County State Attorney's Office, John Carhart, State Attorney's Office and me representing the Ombudsman Program. This event is going to be a great opportunity to educate the public about abuse, neglect, and exploitation. And anyone wishing to attend can register online at the Carroll County Division of Aging and Disabilities website. Walk-ins will also be welcome as space permits. I just really want to though to thank the commissioners for your unwavering support for older adults and for taking the time today to recognize World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Preventing elder abuse is a year-round job and I appreciate the collaboration with Adult Protective Services, the State's Attorney's Office, and other community partners who work daily to serve the Carroll County seniors and individuals with disabilities.

Thank you very much. Any other comments? Well, I'll turn it up to my colleagues. If you have anything you'd like to add?

No, thank you very much for all the hard work to make this happen.

Yeah, thank you. That's an interesting statistic about the future. It talks about how this county is really changing, and programs like this, I think, obviously, without having to say it, are going to become more and more important. And they involve law enforcement, state's attorney's office, folks like yourself. It's a team effort. Thank you.

And thank you, ladies. As you know, I served for 16 years on the Health Committee in the General Assembly. And this was a major issue of ours for a long time. And it's growing and growing because of the connectivity of people. In the old days, you got something in the mail and you looked at it, you threw it away. Now people are getting messages and they're getting emails and they think they're legitimate. And it comes in many forms. People think abuse is only physical abuse. But the financial abuse, the scams, I mean, sometimes I read it and you don't really know if it's true. Things that come from banks. And the only way we're getting through this is education. And sometimes it's hard to even prosecute it because it's happening so far, not even local. And that's why I give the state's attorney's office. People don't realize all that the state's attorney's office does is not just criminals that are stealing things. It's these types of things as well. And so it is real. And it's the awareness and the making sure that we acknowledge that it's happening. That's how you fight stuff, is to acknowledge it. We do that with the drug issue, we're doing it with this. And having the Ombudsman program is fantastic, so you have one place to go and then you know where to send them. And whether it's in a nursing home, an assisted living, things can happen there. So it's a very big issue, and it's not so simple, and sometimes it's their own family members that are abusive in certain ways, and the folks don't even realize that it is abuse. And that's why getting out there and getting people to know what exactly it is, taking advantage of them financially. So thank you. It is underreported. And I think it's great that we have awareness to it, not just today, but that you're going down into the community and getting that information out. And I always say anybody older, if you get an email or anything comes to you, when in doubt, either throw it out or put it aside and call somebody and ask them. don't act on it but thank you all for what you do it's very important these are our most vulnerable and I always say how we treat our seniors is a sign of our morals in our in our society many cultures their seniors are like up here our culture is not quite the same and we need to make sure that it gets elevated like it should be so I thank you for this very well said Commissioner Gordon is there anything you'd like to add just greatly appreciate all the dedication

from all the different parties and groups involved in this. As it's been mentioned by my colleagues, it's something that is a concern and challenge and continues to be, but just greatly appreciate all the hard work and dedication looking out for those in our community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ready for a picture?

Bring the whole team up. Yeah, bring everybody up. I guess we'll stay back here.

Yeah, I think for this one we probably better stay back. Oh yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, you definitely want that. I love it, I love it. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you guys.

All right. Up next, we have consultant presentation on self-service storage facilities. Good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

Good morning. We're welcoming back Troy Trex from Michael Baker International to present the findings and recommendations on the second of four deferral uses. This is for the self-service storage facilities. And Troy's gonna give his presentation, then we'll have some discussion and look for your direction on how you would like staff and the consultant to work with our Planning and Zoning Commission on any changes related to the recommendations.

Thanks, Daphne. Good morning, members, County Board of Commissioners, and Troy Truax with Michael Baker International. Pleased to be here again. So I'll just proceed with the presentation, which I believe you have a copy of. Just some background. I apologize up front. I probably will read some of this just to make sure I get the facts straight, but there is some good content here on the first couple slides that gives a little bit of a history of how this came about. Going back prior to 2019, when the two commercial C2 and C3 zoning districts were created as part of the comprehensive code rewrite for the county, self-service storage facility, then known as mini storage in the code in terms of a use, was allowed only in the business general zoning district. And during that code rewrite process, the term mini storage was replaced or modernized with the term self-service storage facility. And this was really to reflect changes in the industry that we'll get into a little bit more here through the presentation. At the time of the code rewrite, most of the existing storage facilities were just single story, what we call drive up units. Many of you probably might even use those You pull your car up, literally right up to the garage door, load and unload, if you will. And really, there was no expectation that multi-story, warehouse-style types of proposals or developments would be coming forward. But here we are. The industry is quite changing. So accordingly, at that time, the Planning Commission recommended to you, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended to the commissioners that permitted by right, the self-service storage facility would be done so in the high intensity commercial districts. conditional use for those uses in the medium intensity districts, and then they prohibited those uses in the low intensity districts. The box there on the screen, the pinkish box, that is your current code definition. I'll point out that it actually talks about climate controlled facilities, but also As many of these, you start to see these outdoor storage, so accessory storage of vehicles, et cetera, are part of that. And also to point out, the definition precludes that no commercial transactions other than those for the actual renting of the units is to occur on the property. A little bit of additional background. Ultimately, following the Planning and Zoning Commission recommendations, the Board of Commissioners made self-service storage facilities a permitted use by right in both the C2 and C3 commercial districts. Again, largely to avoid creating non-conforming uses. But also, too, they're permitted as a conditional use in the industrial district, but only if located in a designated sustainable community. And currently, Finksburg is the only such area of the unincorporated. rated parts of the county where that is the case. These uses are also permitted by right in the industrial district when incorporated into a business industrial park and also as approved as business parks prior to April 2019. Further, the use is prohibited, expressly prohibited, in industrial parks in the industrial one zoning district and also in business parks in the C3 zoning districts. Again, our focus is on these uses in commercial districts. So we're going to focus going forward on the C2 and C3 more so. But just the background kind of talks about holistically where the county, whether these are permitted or not. And one item to note, the county's Department of Economic Development has consistently opposed the allowance of self-service storage facilities in zones designated for industrial and employment uses, and largely given the fact that there's relatively small number of acreage available for those use. So really trying to make sure that those areas in the county for those types of zones and uses are really supporting industrial growth, but also employment growth and sustainability in the county so recently one of the unintended consequences came forward through and again we're not pointing a finger this is just an example of how realizing what the code allows and doesn't allow but also what the code may have shortcomings on that we'll talk about was the Carroll Highlands Self-Service Storage Facility proposal. The unintended outcome was the fact that the zoning code does permit, there's no other regulation in the code, so therefore it permits large multi-story buildings to occur adjacent to residential neighborhoods. Of course, this was not, didn't have the crystal ball to think about how this industry was going to change from a drive-up unit to these multi-story units. So you can see that that was unanticipated. And then, of course, the residential neighboring property owners for that project have expressed concerns, and I'm sure you're quite all aware of those concerns. It's shown several of those were noted during those hearings and meetings, etc., And then in January 24, Board of Commissioners held a public hearing on the changes to the Balkan area requirements in reaction to that process. So you did make some modifications, amendments, and then ultimately put a temporary pause, a deferral on that use, and then hence why we're here, if you will. So going back, again, we're evaluating four uses. This is the second what we call priority use, if you will. In this particular presentation, we're going to talk about the task one, the little assessment of existing documents, which are the planning documents at the county level and the local level, and also evaluate some of the best practices that we've identified with the planning staff. so again purpose of this task is to assess how current regulations your current code regulations in the zoning and site development codes align with the adopted plans evaluate consistency based upon best practices that we've identified and also identify what opportunities so we're going to make some suggestions like we did on the age restricted housing today for you to react to and give us direction going forward on so again the three plans are the county master plan uh the freedom district uh community comprehensive plan and the finksburg corridor plan some of the key policy uh themes that we identified through this process was you know focusing on the county's economic development goals and the appropriateness of this these types of uses in the commercial zoning districts and also thinking about these commercial districts in relation to these types of uses in terms of the character within which they're fitting into those commercial corridors and what we might think about going forward in terms of design standards, connectivity, etc. So our regulatory review of chapter 155 against development and subdivision of land and 158 zoning, some of our key findings are as such. Permitted by right, again in the commercial and medium, the C2 and C3 zoning districts. The self-service storage facility is your new defined use as we've talked about in the previous slides. The regulations that you have are largely focused on the operational or the functional types of characteristics of those uses related to bulk and area, unit size, building height, lot area, any internal circulation, but also lighting, screening, and landscaping. The only design standard that's included in the code that relates to the use would, as quoted there, the front building facade shall be designed constructed and maintained to be visually compatible with the neighboring and surrounding properties. So that's a good start, but we think that we might be some opportunities to improve on that type of design standard. Some of the issues and direction here going forward is thinking about the location compatibility of these uses in those commercial districts and making sure that you have stronger design requirements, gaps in design standards. Again, we talked about that in terms of the Balkan area, circulation, the limited types of requirements on the building facade, but making sure that we're filling in those gaps with additional types of design requirements and considerations and some of our best practices you'll see get into that and then think about it too this is really much an evolving industry just for example outside of your area and rural Lancaster County up in Pennsylvania I have a client down in Mannheim Township. There's a brand new U-Haul, multi-story, very industrial warehouse. I bet it's four or five stories. It's humongous. And sitting in the sea of farmland. And it literally sticks out like a sore thumb. There's no design context whatsoever. It's just there. No deference to the product at all. It's just I think design standards in that rural community could have maybe done a better job of fitting it into the character and said, okay, that's an industrial use along the highway corridor, but it does fit in the context that they would have thought about it. So here we are. Here are some great examples for best practices. so just in summary uh the examples that we identified and what we tried to do too was to think about not just the multi-story buildings but still the many storage types of approach the drive-up units are still they're still out there in fact on my drive down here from where i live in carlisle through littlestown even into your there's the drive up storage areas and there's some of those are even brand new they were built within the last year so that mini storage style is not going away but also too uh the industry is changing just like the example i gave in lancaster county there and comes in various shapes and sizes and forms and they're married very much in demand as we own we all have stuff if you will, and stuff can't fit into our garages anymore, or we're downsizing, and for various reasons, we need storage. But also too, they're also meeting a different need of making sure there's high valued items being stored in these units. I remember when I moved years ago, over probably 20 years ago, the unit would be hot and humid and hopefully that my furniture that i was storing wouldn't warp now they're all climate controlled for different types of reasons etc but also two additional types of things that we have rvs boats etc are also being used in these areas and a lot of times too like the one in lancaster and i apologize i can get a picture of that i should have gotten that in there but they even have canopied covers so some of these even have solar panels on top of them too so They're starting to integrate a lot of technologies and a lot of other types of amenities with them. Also, of course, they're being placed in strategic, easy access locations like your commercial corridors. And the interesting thing, too, is adaptive reuse. I have an example in here of a facility actually where I live in my community that I'll show you. And then also, too, integration as well as gives you an opportunity to think about the design context of these facilities and approvals going forward. So a couple of examples here, store local. I got two of those. One is in Bellevue, Tennessee. This is right in the city. You can see this almost looks like an office building, if you will. But it's a full fledged multi-story. storage facility. It's governed by the Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County zoning code. It's part of the commercial service zoning district. So akin to sort of your C2 or C3. And then also a specific plan is required to actually require site conditions, but also design requirements. So again, you're seeing some of these communities, some of the products that they're getting out of this, these nice design products, there's requirements for them doing that. Also, too, they have requirements for separation distances, quite a bit here in terms of space separation between uses, especially between this type of use and any residential zoning district or residential structure. Also, they're regulating the building height. including buffering and landscaping requirements, requirements for operations, the building design in terms of glazing and facades, and also environmental protection relative to stormwater and fire protection standards. So again, We think of these as use standards. So if in your zoning code you have uses, they might be permitted by right or by condition. But regardless, you should have certain use standards in addition to any other supplemental standards that would go along with the use. So that's what you're seeing here. They ask prescriptive standards for that use. Another one I think is a great one. I think the planning department shared a white paper. This was one of the examples that was included in there that we collectively kind of independently found. But you can see it's readily out there available to see. Another store local product also in Tennessee, this time in Gallatin, Tennessee. as you can see this is horse country and the building looks exactly like a an agricultural farm building if you will so really i think nicely done additional architecture but i think if you look at the picture and look at the size of the front door this is a massive building i mean i kind of looked at that front door and imagine myself walking up to it that door height and then compare the door height to the building this is a massive structure so again these aren't small walk-up units at all And again, still regulated in this case is a limited warehousing use and by definition are regulated in maximum size and are precluded from being used for freight distribution warehouse storage facilities. So that's a catch even in one of my local communities where I live, warehouse developers were actually using storage facilities and no preclusion on it being from a warehouse distribution and starting to find a loophole. So we want to make sure that that's cleaned up too as a part of a recommendation possibly going forward as well. You can see in terms of the principal permitted use in those zoning districts that include commercial general, but also planned general commercial. And they also, of course, have architectural design and compatibility standards that are required in the CG and PGC districts. Another great example of design is out in Washington, King County, Washington, in Duval County. Yep, this is very much a storage facility. But again, it has a nice design into the rural character of Duval County. Again, regulated under the City of Duval Municipal Code. It's classified as a self-service storage use facility. permitted by right in the city's light industrial zoning districts. Also two at the end there, design guidelines also include standards for building massing and composition. In fact, one requirement specifically requires a strong overall building composition along with a clear pattern of massing, changes in modulation of building forms is required to create interest and to support the building integration into the overall context. It frames out an expectation, but it's not setting specifics, so it does give some flexibility in making sure that when you're proposing a project, making sure you're thinking about the character and environments that you're proposing that product in. This is in my backyard. This is only about a mile or two away, but I thought it was a good example. This was a former UPS. The building there was a UPS store. The owner is an industrial property owner, has built these units very nicely done. These are drive up units. So again, this was probably built within the last 10 years, so relatively new, but very much right on a major corridor coming right into downtown Carlisle. It's called Trindle Self Storage, independently owned and operated, and you can see in terms of its layout, the building here in this case fronts Trindle Road, hence Trindle Self Storage, and it sits on the front edge, and these buildings are accessed directly off the back. So again, it's very well done, not obtrusive at all in terms of its one story, and it fits right in with the zoning district that it sits in in South Middleton Township where I live. Here, the zoning ordinance for the township has both mini storage slash self storage warehouse, but also has storage facilities. So it's two different uses. So that's one thing we were thinking about going forward here and thinking about Carroll County is maybe we need to think about different ways that we define just a self storage facility. So we'll talk about that as well. And you can see the differences between the two types of uses. And then both of these are permitted by right in the following zoning districts, all industrial, with the exception of the airport development. So there's a small airport in Carlisle, the Carlisle Airport, with the AD zoning district. So that's the only place where these types of facilities are used in terms of permitted by right. And then conditional use is general commercial with a 40 foot building height. And that's actually one of my examples I'll show you here in terms of an adaptive reuse. So one thing in the conversations with the planning department to think about in terms of use regulations is making sure that there's these are for storage but also not actual day-to-day business activity if you will so we we talked about this in our in our work so for example these are not contractor business operations where they're storing their materials coming in picking up actually doing business out of those these are definitely just for storage so just added this in for additional kind of context so an example for these self-storage facilities we want to make sure that we have some level of prohibition on business use for those individual units. Make sure that there's a lack of electric power access, if you will, in terms of the ampage, but also have drive-up access limitations. Again, we don't want contractors coming in and using these as storage and having pickups before their busy day starts or any loading and offloading or shipping and receiving. types of activities. We're not saying this is going on. It's just an additional context within which if you do the best practices research, this is something that comes up often in terms of how zoning codes are written and making sure that we have a clear line of delineation of their use and what their prohibition prohibition of uses are. So this slide just gives you kind of a side by side comparison between a self storage facility and what they would call in the industry at Contractors Bay. Another example, again, up my way, took some examples. I was trying to think about design context. This is in Mechanicsburg Borough in Hampton Township. This is what's called prime storage. Again, another national type of product. But I thought this was really interesting. These are the ones that actually allowed and permitted a manager, an on-site manager, to live so actually that building is a residence and the way it's designed it sits along the frontage of the street looks like a nice office building you wouldn't know it's a residential structure but also too it has drive up units that's pretty much what it is it's a drive up type of facility So it's very much in the character of this zoning district, right outside adjacent to Mechanicsburg Borough, right along this kind of busy corridor. It's also Trindle Road. If you follow this, you'll eventually get into Carlisle, PA, where that Trindle storage is at. But again, I thought that from a design context, it was well done and fits in within the environment of its use. I won't go through the details here, but again, Hampton Township Zoning Ordinance provides for the use, but also has various types of design requirements. In this case, there was really no design requirements. That happened to be Prime Storage's way of doing business at that point in time because they allowed a manager, an on-site manager, as part of their business model. This is the one I thought was really neat. This was a former Kmart shopping center. As you can see, a lot of big box stores like Kmart have started to go out of business. We as a local planning commission were kind of anticipating what are we going to think about this use being. And lo and behold, when we were doing a master planning process, for this area of Walnut Bottom in Carlisle and South Middleton Township, U-Haul came in and bought this. So in reality, it's a great use for this type of product. This whole project envisioned that whole area, a sea of parking because it was a former Kmart to be an infill mixed use project. There's development that's taking place in an immense way right around this because of the redevelopment opportunities that are presented. But in this shopping center right around the corner is all types of high-density housing. So they have easy access, walkable access, drivable access to this U-Haul facility. But I think about it in terms of the context. It's an adaptive reuse. That's what's starting to happen as well. there's not just new facilities they are the the industry especially u-haul is coming in buying up former big box stores and actually adapting them adaptively reusing them for climate controlled and other types of outdoor storage use and also their business so u-haul has the model of retail you can go and get your boxes and packing supplies etc so that's one example we want to think about too we don't want to preclude businesses like u-haul because they do have retail services that occur right on the spot of running vehicles and trucks and other types of moving materials. So again, think about the intensity of use when we think about these types of uses overall. Some of the market trends that we start to see, again, the growth in demand is there. There's a little bit of a leveling off in that demand, but it's still, of course, very much growing. And like all types of industries, it starts to fill in the secondary markets, if you will. And I think Carroll County is starting to see that. For sure, we talked about adaptive reuse and design context. Again, there's a difference between drive up and indoor storage development in terms of their size, height, and bulk and area and activities. Growing preference for indoor climate control, temperature control types of units. Outdoor storage, of course, is in high demand. Sustainability trends, like I mentioned, the one in Lancaster, I believe there are solar panels on top of the outdoor, almost like a car park, like a carport for various types of vehicles to keep them out of the sun and somewhat weather protected as an added benefit. to the owner and again strategic location and placement and mixed use i think this along your commercial corridors that's a great opportunity to think about okay there will be another types of use being proposed and it's adaptively reusing some type of building what types of standards and what opportunities do we have to make sure that they're fitting into the context of that existing environment built environment So again, our next step beyond task one was to look at a series of policy recommendations. Again, these are based upon what we just presented and also the policy paper that we submitted that was submitted to you. Again, the goal is to better align adopted planning policies with the best practice research and then evaluate your existing regulatory framework for potential amendments that will have feedback from you as well going forward and again also to making sure we have additional standards like we talked about an age restricted housing to evaluate these proposals against it's almost like a checklist if you will versus a blank sheet of paper and then once we receive direction from you folks today then we'll talk about and get direction on the next task which would actually be drafting the specific code language So I'll go through these somewhat efficiently. So refine the permitted uses and approval process. Again, clarify where self-sewerage is permitted and refine the approval pathways based on location and intensity. So really taking another evaluation of how C2 and C3 zoning districts, the commercial corridors are accommodating these uses. And then think about the difference between a drive-up facility and what I would call the internal multi-storage facility. Think about potential conditional uses versus just permitting by right and making sure that we have some types of limitations on the what I would call accessory uses to include retail, outdoor storage as well. Adopt clear and objective design standards. Again, this is a common theme to think about in terms of what we're focused on with these use evaluations. Again, some of the examples of facade articulation. Again, just make sure that these projects have a holistic design approach to them, that they're going to be somewhat in a commercial corridor, they make sense, but there's examples, as we well know, that they're right up against a residential neighborhood, and they do have impacts, if you will. Ensure facilities, again, are designed and fitting into that context. I think a similar type of comment here in terms of clear objective design standards recommending site access and access management. So again, these are mostly along commercial corridors, but they happen to be finding themselves in other areas, making sure that they've got good site layout, good circulation, and any ingress or egress is not being obtrusive to any neighboring non-commercial, non-industrial vis-a-vis residential types of development that we're not having those types of impacts on a norm these uses are have a low impact other than the traffic coming in to get their storage items either in or out they're a low impact and are meant to be a low impact overall the u-haul example is a little bit different you're going to have more higher traffic because they have a retail component to it. So more people are visiting on a day-to-day basis versus I'm going to go in there on the weekend and pick up my items or it's been several months since I visited my storage locker. And size and scale, bulk and area standards to think about. Again, we have two different types of styles, drive up and the multi-story types of warehouse. So I think it started to allow us to think about more distinguishing those bulk and area standards and other design standards relative to the product that's being proposed and out there being advanced in the market. and again to making sure we're encouraging higher quality models some of those best practices they're there they're there for them to show and I know in the case of the U-Haul they were very willing to work with in my case South Middleton Township on accommodating because they had the gives and takes on the redevelopment so that's a good opportunity to leverage the gives and takes and making sure you're getting out the design standards that you want other impact controls but also they also need to ask for their variances or waivers with their projects to make sure that they're fitting correctly within the context of your codes. So the next steps again, we'll take your questions and comments, but we would appreciate direction much like we did the last time. And then we can start moving forward in earnest accordingly with in this case, task three code amendment proposals. So with that, I'll turn it back over to chairman.

Well, thank you very much. Thank you for that excellent presentation. Very thorough. I thought it was very well done. So I'm going to open up the floor to my colleagues for any comments or thoughts.

I'm going to ask if you want first, whatever you want.

Commissioner Collar, did you have anything you wanted to?

The only thing I, not the only thing, but the main thing I'd question, I don't know what the staff and commissioners thought. I'm sorry.

Would you mind dropping the presentation? I'm sorry. Oh, thank you for the reminder. I'm sorry.

Am I doing this correctly, Roberta?

Thank you very much. Forget about our partner. I don't know what the commissioners and staff were thinking in 2019, but, wow, five or ten years before that, I was renting a third-story unit of climate control. They did exist, so anybody that thought they didn't exist had their head in the sand. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, on a limited basis, more so, but you're seeing, I think, there are more provisions. Yeah, there's a lot more of them now. They're more the norm than they were before Commissioner Kyler, for sure, I would agree. Yes.

Are there any other, I mean I understand and I really do take to heart the point of having to distinguish between a drive-up facility versus a multi-storage facility. Are there any other emerging trends or growing trends among the storage facility community for lack of a better way of describing it that we should be anticipatory of?

Commissioner, I wish we had that magic eight ball or crystal ball. That's a great question. I think it's just a matter of what I see in the trends, there is a leveling off of facilities. Again, I think some of the trends we can start to anticipate is the adaptive reuse. That's why we wanted to include that in because certainly big box retail with And it depends on how you look at it. Kmart's went by the way. We don't know when the next kind of retailer is going to go in that way, too. But these huge facilities have some purpose and intent. So we have to think about the reuse of those. I mean, the alternative for us for Kmart was a casino. And there was an absolute, we're a conservative community, just like Carroll County, there was an absolute outcry. So when the U-Haul proposal came on, it was the far less, I wanna say evil, but it really said, okay, we can accept this, not the other previous use. i think my recommendation would be not having that crystal ball and knowing what these trends are is always be on the forefront again having standards too helps think about in terms of being reactive being proactive in it and i think i think for now in my opinion the trends are for storage is again leveling off i think you've got the mini storage that have evolved now more and more into these higher end multi-story What I just see like in the Lancaster County example is if you look at a U-Haul type of example they have bright colors much like some other businesses and whether or not you have to think about okay the branding of these is important to those businesses and to the extent that you want to actually start to incorporate design standards to make sure that that branding is softened somewhat even signage you know in terms of your sign regulations has to go along with these types of uses and on any commercial corridor. If anybody's been through Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, it's the town of motels, and it was king for signs and clutter, and it was the Wild West of no regulations. You don't want that. So in terms of regulations, think about having the regulations. Again, we want to encourage business development. We want to be supportive of economic development. But there's also that trade-off. If you're coming in, in my opinion, I sit on my planning commission again. I'm pro-business. I'm pro-economic development. But if you want to come to our community, here's the rules that we want to play by. Here's our expectations of what we want our community to look like. And I think that served us well going forward.

Yeah, I would just add in, and I think Troy touched on this, one trend that potentially could evolve would be storage of large recreational type vehicles and so on. So the campers, the boats, and so on. having outdoor storage that's secure where somebody can park that so it's not on their property and so on. I don't think we're really seeing that here in Carroll County yet, but that's something that we should probably be considering as we're looking at these codes.

So should we work something into potential changes about excluding outdoor storage at certain facilities?

I mean, that's purely based on the direction the board would like to go. I mean, if we want to prohibit those, sure. If we want to allow them but be more restrictive on what they look and how they function, we absolutely could be looking into that.

And I'm just kind of curious about that point, too, because I know you're familiar with Antrim Mini Storage in Tawny Town. It's one of those drive-up places, but they also have an area where you can store boats and vehicles and things. But, of course, where that is set up, I mean, it's kind of like back on a road that really isn't – nobody lives on that road. And then as far as design standards are concerned, and I know maybe this gets a little too much philosophically into the conception of aesthetics. So I know that with architecture for a long time, and we're still trying to divest ourselves of this idea that form has to follow function. I forget the architect who coined the phrase, but the idea being that if you're gonna build a pizza hut, it should look like a pizza hut, right? That the building should look like what it's supposed to do. But I am of a much older school of philosophy of aesthetics, which says that you should have a building that should be beautiful in and of itself, and then of course it adapts itself to any number of uses within it. And so looking at some of the images of different storage facilities that you've presented to us, a lot of these don't even look like they are storage facilities. And so in a situation like that, I mean, they could be restaurants, they could be businesses, bookstores, whatever the case might be. In a situation with those examples that you provided, were there design standards which compelled the exterior design

design of those buildings to be the way that they were or were these simple uh these were uh decisions uh from the developer that they wanted to make the buildings look these this way the ones from tennessee the two and the one from washington county absolutely they had design standards like the one in in king county washington devol city um they really kind of embodied that you they wanted it to be uh in form and function to the character of that agrarian community and hence Especially then, too, if you look at the one in Gallatin, it looks like a horse barn. Very much it was intentional that way. The one in Mechanicsburg along Trindle Road that I showed, the road fronted prime storage, it was just their model. It actually works out really well. I mean, if you didn't know it had prime storage, you would have thought it might have been a little office building with a parapet on it, if you will. But it's a cement block building with a metal green roof. So actually, architecturally, it wasn't complicated. But in theory, if you drive by it and you didn't know it was a storage building, it thought, oh, that's a pretty nice looking building. In my opinion, it's a pretty nice looking building, landscaped well. So again, the whole idea is I think I would agree with the commissioner not to placate you, but I would agree from a planning standpoint that you get some uses that I'll just take for certain banks. I mean, it's a bank building, and there's no other way around it. It's a bank building. You can't make it into something else anymore and try to think about it. So I always try to think about, from the architecture standpoint, does it stand the test of time? And we think about older buildings and communities. I don't think we build them that way anymore. And because of cost, I get it. But also, too, there's a lot. You're starting to see where architecture and designers are coming in more and more. to support again the balance of cost etc what we're requiring what we want but I think I like some of those examples where if we put the intent out there and making sure that and then having requirements and having some type of review process like conditional use depending on the intensity maybe the outdoor storage part we don't really want them in the commercial corridor that piece as an accessory used to a storage might be in industrial areas so it's something to think about in terms of the intensity of these uses um and also too the design is really i mean have to admit uh the u-haul type of colors it's uh the the the miami dolphin colors if you will it's pretty limited but that building itself again what's amazing if that use would change It's a big box building, and these are monstrosity buildings from an adaptive reuse that sometimes is often challenging. So sometimes you have to accept what's the best over the least favorite. In our case, we really were receptive to the U-Haul reuse versus the casino reuse for that building because the impacts would have been tremendous in a variety of ways versus what we have.

I'm totally interested and the point is well made. I mean, again, it's not always an easy task to determine between two competing models or ideas. And like you said, sometimes it's the lesser of them, the lesser of the offensive ones. Right. Right. So, thank you. I apologize. I didn't mean to monopolize the time. Commissioner? Gary?

Just one brief comment. I mean, I've said it a few times. I'll say it again. appreciate the work you're doing for you and you and your your folks very well very nicely put together you're presenting us with solid mostly tangible recommendations i know you need more guidance that'll allow us the opportunity to move forward on these issues thank you appreciate that commissioner krebs i know you said you wanted to to go last commissioner gordon did you want to uh to add anything

Yeah, I just have a couple of quick things. First and foremost, completely appreciate all the hard work involved in this process. You had mentioned branding and signage for corporate entities, obviously something that we do see Maybe not locally here, but on a national level, I've seen restaurants, say, for example, and I know we're not talking about restaurants, but say McDonald's. I've seen their logos modified color scheme wise to fit more certain areas out in the West. So that that is one thing that you mentioned was just curious. Are there any examples that you could give us that are more local? Baltimore County, Frederick, that kind of thing.

Yeah, Frederick, in fact, driving to Sykesville last week, if you come down off of 15 right before you get on, I think it's after you get on 70 or before you get on 70, there's, again, a U-Haul Mai Tai storage facility right there along the highway. Again, it fits into that commercial corridor, heavily developed. somewhat commercial versus also industrial. Costco is right down the street. So that one fits in. But again, it's the industry trend. It's multi-story, climate controlled, mostly interior loading, unloading, access to the units versus exterior access to the units. And I think certainly, again, I could point, I don't have any, sorry, Commissioner, I could follow up with some other examples to do some more research. But that's one in neighboring Frederick County. up in littlestown again one example is a drive up brand new it looks like it's probably you know from the yester years because it's very simple it's it's gated on unstaffed uh card key to get in one story it's even climate controlled too they advertise that as well so again uh they're coming in all shapes and sizes and i think you need to make sure the regulations are accommodating and thinking intentionally about your zoning districts where these types of different types of products are coming in and how do you have to think about the design context of those corridors and environments that you want to have those permitted in.

I appreciate that. I know the comment was made regarding economic development's concern or just comments about utilization of industrial. Personally, I would agree with them on that. As we all know, we have such a very limited availability of industrial space. I would really not want to see us have that eaten up by self-storage in whatever form. Obviously, there's things we can look at, I think, across the board. But I think when we're looking at... tax rates, job placement, and other things. I think we need to be very, very considerate and cautious as to where we go regarding use of our industrial areas that do exist. And Commissioner Vigliotti, to answer your question, it was Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a student mentee of Louis Sullivan. So no offense, but Louis Sullivan was the first to come up with that idea. He was the considered the king of skyscrapers. And yeah, so sorry, weird little facts. And then Frank was his and took it. He took it to the extreme. He took it even farther. Yes, he did. Totally, totally understand why Frank's in there.

And then just and then to clarify from my perspective, go on. When I say old school with my sense of design, I'm talking like Renaissance Leon Baptista Alberti. That's how far back I go.

That's great.

Anything else, Commissioner Gordon?

No, thank you for the hard work. I do greatly appreciate it.

And thank you, Roberta, for keeping us informed. Commissioner Krebs?

Thank you. And thank you for all your hard work. It was very informative. just what we're looking for and i was looking at our cert our certain our specific storage facility requirement that we have now and even though some of it is in there it doesn't really it's not very specific because it says the front building facade shall be designed constructed and maintained to be visually compatible with the neighborhood and surrounding properties but we don't really know what that means and i don't know that we have a design team that I know of, I don't know. So we have to be a little more specific.

Yeah, and if I could, and I was remiss, one thing we do have in our presentation is making sure we're leveraging the Department of Architectural Review Committee. Did I get that right? Design Architectural Review Committee. Dark. that is important so Chris and Daphne brought that to my and my team's attention it's in there and I was remiss of actually pointing that out on the slide so I think Commissioner Krebs to your point that would definitely be one making sure we're leverage your existing resources to make sure that they're not that they're not engaged but making sure that they're at the forefront of these types of reviews to make sure that we're getting their expertise and inputs on the plan reviews

Well, and they need direction too. So one of the first things you mentioned, and it's very important to me, is predictability. And it's predictability of everybody, whether it's the community or whether it's the development community, because they need predictability too. What do you want when I come in here? And I know sometimes people think it's too prescriptive, but I think it's more, we wouldn't be here today if we had more predictability. And that's why we're trying to do that on all these issues. But when you first started, you talked about non-conforming, that one of the reasons they did this is because it was, It would make the existing mini storage non-conforming. We don't necessarily want to do that, but how do you make, they're totally two different animals. How do you make that it would not be non-conforming to keep the mini and change the bulk?

Yeah, I was taking historical information. I don't know if Chris or Daphne have the details on, again, that history of what was evaluated, because we weren't here at the time doing that work, and I didn't have that specific information. So maybe Daphne can clarify.

You don't have to answer it now, but the question becomes, you don't want to make everything nonconforming that's there now. There was little discussion about this when it was going through. And that's why it's important to do it now, because there were so many other things going on. But I think it would be interesting to make sure, because we have one now that's a mini that wants to move into regular storage, and it's already existing. But you don't want that to be nonconforming. So there should be maybe a difference in what is already on the ground and what is not. I think having the two different categories would be good. The intent requirements, I think, are important as well. I love the adaptable reuses that you're talking about. You've got lots of mall areas and places that are large. And you could do indoor and outdoor. And I don't think they'd be. Those areas now have buildings that that are sizable I mean we're talking when the one we're talking about is the size of a football field almost I mean that's big it's very big so I think a lot of it had a lot of the issue here is scale it also is an issue on this particular property that it we don't believe it should have ever been even zoned c2 but that's a whole nother issue but for what we're going on here the bulk requirements and the massing I know in the motion that we have in front of us it talks about just looking at the storage facilities But our bulk requirements in massing, we called it bulk requirements, are in a whole different chapter. I'm assuming that that's being looked at too because that's a huge part of this.

Yeah, that would be one to think about in terms of, I always look at them, if you have uses, what are any prescribed standards that might be specific to that uses versus general in a supplemental standards type of section in an ordinance? I'm going from my ordinance writing perspectives. But I always like to say, if we're going to have this use or allow this use, either by right condition what have you we ought at least if it warrants it and some of these uses should warrant some type of standards these are standards that are very specific to and those standards if they're prescribed for a particular use they would then overrule if you will or be the primary requirements that even could include we have different prescribed bulk and area standards for self-service storage facilities we have Design standards that are specific to these types of uses. So that's one. That's how we we typically approach it is to think about the use of into particular versus saying here's a bunch of uses and here's a bunch of general requirements and they're never matched up intentionally that way they're applicable kind of a blanket also that's one thing just like you know coming back with the age-restricted housing we have some very specific recommendations there that are specific to that use or those uses if you will well and that's self storage

That's one of the biggest issues is the bulk requirements and that they change to allow a use that's not necessarily compatible. But and it's also the more I read our code, it's very inconsistent. When I look at commercial industrial districts, bulk requirements under Chapter 158, 054, and it does have requirements shall be observed for properties in the commercial district that adjoin a residential district and they have setbacks. But then they also have additional requirements for dwelling in the rural villages. And that's Sphinxburg. And that's because it's near homes. This is the exact same situation. And their setbacks shall be the same as an R-10 where any adjoining residents, the side yard shall be no less than 25 feet. So and one we got

Inksburg's not a rural village. This is a sustainable community.

But who's who's a rural village then?

Villages are like our little crossroads communities.

But my point is the the rural villages are defined differently. And I'm just trying to add some consistency of, you know, why they're one thing in one place and why the other. But the bulk requirements, I think you're right, need need to be a little bit more by use. And just keep that in mind the bulk that's a big piece of this because we're talking on a piece of property and then also the size of the property you know how big should the bulk be on the size of a property if you have a three acre property and the the building is taking up almost the entire yeah and that's where like lot coverage requirements you know how much of the lot the that that property because you then you know chris will love this you have to include storm water uh right chris uh so all the other it's the most important thing

i thought he would like that all the infrastructure to go along with it so yeah there's there's limiting factors too you know if you've got sizes and that's where sometimes you have to if you've got multiple parcels they're consolidating parcels into one um to make sure they're getting their you know they have a product They're trying to meet that size requirement. So again, I think you have to look, you know, the unique thing about Carroll County, you have specific areas that are only available for development. You've got a lot of preserved agricultural zoned areas. So you've got a very, but limited, but also in high demand in terms of competing uses, competing market opportunities and initiatives. and policies that are driving that.

Well, I liked everything that you said, so I don't want to have to go back through it all. I just want to make sure some are highlighted. I like I mean, definitely want to have standards. If we have a design review committee, we have to include our community because I didn't know we really had one. And what are their standards? I mean, because they got to have some idea what the expectations are for them, too. And also the people that are coming in to bring a product in, they should know this is the expectation. You shouldn't wait until they have all their plans drawn. Oh, we want this. We want that. I mean, it should be upfront. It should be this is what we expect. And it might be different, as you said, far outside somewhere. But some of these examples are not are not a problem in the community. So the adaptive reuse, I'd like to push for that. Most of that would be in C3, I would believe. And then we'd have to figure out how close some of those, all the properties are different. And the setbacks next to an existing residential development is a big issue. But you mentioned no warehouses, because we are worried about even data centers. We don't have them defined. And I say worried about. There's no definition. They're in warehouses. They're putting them in a warehouse down in Baltimore in an old warehouse with the data center. So we need to make sure that we exclude things that, well, these uses, and clearly say what we do, what can go there. So the bulk requirements, the characteristics, the lot coverage is a big deal. The different ways to define it, I think maybe we should have this separate and try not to have anything nonconforming with what we already have in place. It doesn't seem to be a problem. Some of them could have been better hidden from the road. just for a visual thing it makes it nicer but they're not you can't make it now but that would and then versus a contractor's bay because i think that that's a big issue what makes a contractor's bay you mentioned not having electricity um just saying you can't be in and out It's for storage and not active day to day for business activity. The other issue that I've learned a lot about since I've been hanging out with the fire department and learning about their burns is the storage of batteries. And we had a huge fire here in May at Battery Warehouse. And it was very, very, very difficult.

You definitely want to prohibit some type of hazardous materials being stored. the other issue is the policing of that you know the administrative requirement on a code officer to you know are they going into every unit so it's one where i think they have to have some type of affidavit with the owner of you know something like that so again usually those storage facilities also have their contracts are written where they don't well but i think we should make it clear on some of these things especially the battery the batteries

It's one thing to say no toxic flammable explosive materials are hazardous that and maybe look on these batteries because they're so it's such a big deal now we and it's such a problem for a fire department because the metals and all in there it's also a liability to surrounding to the unit itself so I think making that a little bit more robust would be helpful. No shipping or receiving allowed, a clear line of prohibition, and so you know what you can do and what you cannot do. The chart in the presentation, I think, was good to say, here's what you can do. very clearly the vehicle storage again the setbacks are a big issue i mean i know there's a vehicle storage by one of our many storage facilities and it's totally surrounded by vegetation you can't really tell that it's there i actually drove up to it to look and said i never knew that was there because it was so hidden that's good the actual storage facility itself did not have to have any landscaping and you can see that and i thought hey if that had been covered it would have been it would have been a lot nicer but also i think just for high it keeps people from knowing that it's there and that's sort of good so it doesn't get vandalized or whatever and we are going to have a more of a demand for you said campers boats as as i see it if we do this right if we do nice retirement homes and people stay here and move here a lot of them do have the campers in the boats and they can't keep them there so then they'd have a place to put them so i'm not saying we're opposed but it makes needs to make sure they're in the right right place um you also mentioned conditional uses and that's an issue that i have been struggling with for like 30 years here and and maybe we need to look at that ourselves but we put things to conditional use but the standard that we use in in our county and i don't know if it's for the state i've got to get into it it really but but in different areas either they're not using these conditional uses but they don't work as we think they do they're not sitting there and saying, oh, we need to do this or we need to do that. There's very few conditions put on it. The basic one, I've got it in front of me. It says, the courts express the applicable standards for judicial review of the grant or denial of the exception is part of a comprehensive zoning sharing the presumption that it is in the interest of the general welfare and therefore valid. The special exception use is a valid zoning mechanism that delegates to an administrative board a limited authority to allow enumerated uses, which the legislature has determined to be permissible, absent any fact or circumstance negating the presumption. The duties given the board are to judge whether the neighboring properties in the general neighborhood would be adversely affected and whether the use in the particular case is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the plan. And the applicant has the burden of proof of the testimony, but it seems like the burden is, is this worth here or somewhere else? And very, very little gets denied ever. And I'm not sure if it's just because this is vague and we don't have standards or what we can do, One of the directions that the prior board of commissioners gave to, I guess, the master plan is to get rid of as many conditional uses as possible. It does take away flexibility. However, pretty much anything goes because of this standard that's being used. I look at areas that things have been granted where they were failing intersection. It was clearly worse there than somewhere else, but they granted it because they don't hear that. They don't get to hear that rebuttal. and so they do not have the the applicant does not have the burden of establishing affirmatively his proposed use that would be a benefit to the community he does not have that burden so it's just got to be the proposed use would be conducted without real detriment to the neighborhood and that's on the eyes of the beholder and would actually adversely affect the public interest and has met his burden I just know how we've applied it for many, many years. I'm not faulting the Board of Zoning Appeals, but it seems like what we would think these exceptions would be would be a lot more deliberative than they are. And maybe we shouldn't have them if that's what we've got to follow. But I just would like you to look at that because they took a lot out because of past issues. And now we still have some, and it doesn't seem to be doing its job. and if it was doing its job then maybe we wouldn't be here today and everybody you know everybody's um moved on on some of these issues so um the conditional use versus by right i don't it doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of difference right now with with how it's being indicated and um uh aesthetics i agree with my colleague here um you can do a nice building and you can make them fit into the community and again that's in the eyes of the beholder too but people know you know what something is a benefit to your community and what's not and I would say if you look at areas that have these requirements they're they're very uh it's not hurting their development people are dying to be dying they want to be there because that's where people want to live I was in Loudoun County yesterday and I know they're growing like crazy however they're they've got planning on their roads are wide they've got extra spaces on the side there's nothing right on the road and there's been planning years and years ago and we can't roll back the clock but you can you can tell that they have robust planning design requirements for the for what they're doing some people might argue that you know they want to be agrarian again but it's never going back The other thing you mentioned, and I bring back the original, you know, freedom plan and the vision, and you're supposed to go back, you know, to what the plans ask for. And, you know, since I was, we spent years and years putting this plan together, our vision statement was, you know, freedom, this is in the freedom area because this is where this mostly can go, is a suburban and rural community, a safe place with high quality of life. high-performing schools, and recreational opportunities. Growth is carefully managed to protect quality of life, values, and promote a sense of place, and to preserve the character of existing communities while supporting measured, balanced commercial development and employment opportunities. Cal County values and citizens' inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property are respected, protected, and sustained. And I always want to mention if one person's property infringes on someone else's property that's not right either and and i think that's one of the issues not just because you don't want to look at something across the road or down the street but if it really infringes on someone's property values and rights that that's an infringement on them if their property values will go down versus going up because what you can now build that that's not necessarily what we're here for and all the way through the freedom plan i mean like probably 25 50 times it says preserve character of existing communities. It doesn't say don't build anything, but preserve. I think the C2, the way it was done, I think people going back and looking at it would realize it's a problem. That's why we're looking at an overlay. I think the entire district was done wrong. I think it was done arbitrarily and that can come up in another time. This is fixing this one thing that's in place today. I'm just saying on notice that whole area was not done deliberatively and looked at individual projects. It was just done. Let's do all C2. And then definitions were written. And it's a lot of potential for us being here a lot of time if we don't get some of these fixed. And this is just one of them that's come up. So I appreciate what work you've done. I'm not sure, do you need any other direction from us?

Other than it sounds like what we've proposed here today is policy wise is the right direction to move forward with the past three amendments. So I don't want to put words in your mouth commissioners. But to respond to your question, Commissioner Cribs, I think that's what I'm hearing.

So yes, but the way the motions I've got to hear somewhere, it talks about the residential districts, I just want to make sure the bulk requirements are a big part of that the setbacks along existing communities is the issue. I mean, if this was sitting out somewhere else and it wasn't back-to-back on an existing community, it wouldn't be as big of a deal.

For the used self-storage facility, we definitely want to be looking at the Balkan area, setback, buffer types of, yeah, all the above, if you will, is what we want to look at.

And the other thing, there seems to be a lot of... discretion and I don't know how much discretion we need about parking and lots of different things and the planning commission may the plan and I think it comes in that way I'm not sure if parking is sufficient either I'm not sure but we tend to cut down on the parking and then they end up people have to park out on the streets or somewhere else so make sure that it's not there's some valid reason how we decided to

Yeah, and these are great uses where, again, they're not in tents. We're like a retail shopping center. But again, think about, you know, I look at the U-Haul example. I mean, it's a former Kmart with a sea of parking. And that was one of the things we were trying to, you know, go back to Chris's point, stormwater management. We had all this stormwater. you know, impervious surface. So our goal was to do some infill and juxtapose to that development. But again, just on the surface of Greenfield, a self service, self storage, self service storage facility. The parking is really in a low demand. It's for those The only time you would need parking is like a U-Haul example where you need retail or you need to visit the office because I want to actually have a unit stored. So parking is not really the issue for self-storage facilities other than outside storage and the availability of space for those RVs, boats, what have you.

No, but if we had the U-Haul example presented to us, You want to have the flexibility, because they are different. And again, it depends on where. So you want the flexibility, but I also don't want it to be, yes, you recommend that it's OK. And that's a great point, because what we dealt with, I learned a lot through that process.

It's called shunting. So if you ever think about how U-Haul, I'm using U-Haul because it's a classic example. All their rental vehicles, trucks, vehicles, box trucks that you rent, trailers, it's called shunting when they're stacked up one by one. So we literally struggled with that with U-Haul because we didn't want them to park them. out in the main parking area which is all this parking it made sense we wanted them to park them adjacent to their building in a vacant lot that never was built i don't know why our supervisors never pushed that issue but me as a planning commission member must have lost that battle but again that's an issue because they're taking up valuable redevelopment space so think about i mean that's a real kind of down where it's a project specific example that having a design the dark review that kind of looking at that. And I think in your planning to going forward to think about the what if scenarios in these corridors for redevelopment, because a lot of commercial corridors, they were built decades ago and they're getting tired and old. And then products are turning over. Properties are turning over. And you have to think about, what is our vision for these commercial corridors? Because they have drastic impacts on your community, depending on what the redevelopment opportunities are or aren't.

And unfortunately, in the particular case down in the Freedom District, Route 26 was all residential when it started. There were houses all along the strip. And then slowly, they turned into a business. And then they slowly became different uses. And the setbacks are not there. I mean, what we're talking about here, this was part of their community. It was three lots in the community. So there's not a lot of space. And like I said, I was down in Route 15 yesterday. And off the road is a tremendous amount of space for commercial growth and to expand their road. And I don't know when they did that. But the one other issue that you brought up at the very beginning, we talked about employment. One of the big things we talked about is employment. This is not exactly an employment generator. So we're trying to... If we're trying to generate employment, I'm not sure that that really fills that goal. And also, these can be built because they don't use water and sewer. I'm assuming they can be built at places where they are not hooked to water and sewer because they don't require

Yeah, I mean, other than if there's an office where they might have to have somebody's manning a retail office, a restroom facility, but, yeah, you're not providing any types of convenient facilities in a storage space. I mean, I've never seen one in one of these walkways. I think the U-Haul in Carlisle, because it was a former Kmart, has those facilities because they had to have them. But, you know, if you're just, you know, allowing for a mini storage drive-up or internal, I'm not aware that they would actually be providing, because that's an additional maintenance. Somebody's got to maintain those bathrooms.

But even if they had it, you're not having a lot of volume, potentially, of people coming in. It would be low volume.

Low usage, for sure.

There might be other places that they could be built that would not be as detrimental to an existing community.

Well, and septic would not be a problem.

You said it well. Well and septic would not be a problem for this type of use in a place that's got more space.

I will say the fire folks might say, well, I've got to make sure that building's sprinklered. I've got to have water pressure. So that would be the other side in terms of instead of demand use, it's service use in terms of Do they have enough water pressure? That came up in the Planning and Zoning Commission discussion just last week on age-restricted housing discussion. The one planning commission member is a subject matter expert, and that was a good discussion on that.

The other thing, in general, with our setbacks being so small of 10 feet, I'm not sure how you actually build, construct something and stay on your own property with 10 feet when you're building something so large and that's no matter what it is i mean usually when you build a you know a store a walmart or something you've got parking lot all around it but we're literally when you all of these you could be 10 foot here i mean this could be 10 foot everywhere up the entire corridor how do you even stay on your property to do that

Yeah, it's juxtaposed to different uses. If it's all commercial, then kind of a more compact with good circulation makes sense. But if you've got residential opposed to non-residential uses, you've got a lot of impacts that you have to think about. And usually, buffer distances, screening,

setbacks that's all part of the equation and it's usually you know larger setbacks versus being smacked up right against some type of use and one thing that's unique to this one one more final comment on this to this property that we've been trying to do for 30 years is to reduce curb cuts and originally this was part of the community you could access it from the rear but because you can't go through one of the properties you can't you can't access it if it was done in a different method hopefully we could not add another curb cut back the curb cuts were They're there, but they weren't used. They used the rear instead. But we've promised over the years not to have curb cuts. And we were going to put some adjacent roads in. And that doesn't seem to be happening. But that's just a uniqueness to this particular property. But if you have any other questions for us, and find my paper with the motion. I'll be happy to do it.

Yeah, before we before we get to emotion, Commissioner, I know Commissioner Gore. I know Commissioner Gordon is still with us. Does do any of my colleagues have any other comments or questions?

Yes. The outdoor storage. And I understand we'll see more. When you guys were talking, I can think of five, Stone Chapel or Farrell's, two in Hampstead, one in Finksburg. There's a lot of outdoor truck, camper, and boat storage in Carroll County. And I think we're going to see more, but I think you've got to watch that you don't make rules that the existing ones don't. Yes, would see as an issue. And and and as far as construction, you do a construction easement if you've got to go off the property, otherwise you stay on the property and build a few buildings.

Thank you.

I was gonna do you want to do that? I was gonna do the motion.

Okay, I move the Board of County Commissioners direct staff to work with the Planning and Zoning Commission on potential amendments to county code chapters 155 and 158 related to self storage, self service storage facilities.

I think, was that a second? I said second. Okay, so we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, aye. Aye. Commissioner Gordon is a positive, so that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, up next we have self-service storage deferral ordinance and possible modification.

No, I don't have a presentation.

I don't know. Oh, I'm sorry. This is a continuation of your conversation last two, three weeks ago. The board asked for it to come back. Yes. So I don't know that staff really has.

No, we have not prepared anything. There are some exhibits that you asked for regarding the look and feel of Carroll Highlands, and so those have been provided. But, yes, simply here to answer any questions.

All right. Well, thank you very much. I'm going to open up the floor to my colleagues. If you have any questions or comments on the potential or possible modification of the storage deferral ordinance that is before us today. I know we had discussed last time waiting until after we heard from the consultant because I know there were a number of higher level questions that we wanted to make sure we had the information for. And I do believe, at least to my understanding, I do believe a lot of those answers were provided today. So, again, I'll open up the floor to questions or discussion.

I move that we leave the deferral ordinance as is. Second.

All right. We have a motion and we have a second. Is there any discussion? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor. All those opposed. Commissioner Gordon.

No.

So it is three to two. Motion carries. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. All right. Up next, we have grants approval to submit application and acceptance of award for the FY 2027 Transportation and Land Use Connections Grant Program. Preliminary design of the Finksburg bicycle and pedestrian facilities. That's only a very brief, brief title.

Lengthy one.

You did the presentation for us. Well done.

all right so first of all I want to introduce Ethan Strickler who is a new planner in our Division of Comprehensive Planning I believe this is his first time up here with you he is going to be sharing some information about a grant that we'd like to apply for that is sort of a continuation of a project that's already been initiated in the Finksburg area to look at bicycle and pedestrian facilities and this is coming straight out of some recommendations in the Finksburg corridor plan so I'm going to turn it over to Ethan to walk you through a presentation answer any questions you have

Like Daphne said, good morning, everybody. It's good to be here. I'm Ethan Strickler, relatively new. Daphne and Chris have been doing a great job of getting me oriented since I started in late March, to the point where they gave me this grant application to work on and get ready here to present to you today. The Comprehensive Planning Division is requesting your approval to submit this grant application for the FY2027 cycle of the Transportation and Land Use Connections Grant Program. Specifically, the grant we are applying for will cover the costs associated with preliminary design work for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements in the Finksburg Sustainable Community Area. for context the Finksburg sustainable community area is primarily located between the intersection of Maryland 140 and Maryland 191 that interchange in the Baltimore County County line so that loosely conforms to the southern area of the Finksburg priority funding area and the growth area boundary there This program, the TLC, Transportation and Lane Use Connections Grant Program, is offered by the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board. And for everybody, that is the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the MPO for the Baltimore region. This program provides short-term technical assistance to local governments in the region to help them implement changes to the built environment that reduce traffic on roads and enable people to easily walk bike and use transit and actually for this particular grant program in the fiscal year 2024 we here at the county were awarded a grant for bicycle and pedestrian planning so a feasibility study for bicycle and pedestrian feasibility and build out of that infrastructure within the Finksburg community. The recently completed feasibility study, I say recently completed because we read over the final, final draft that we got from the consultant last week and found a few more edits that they need to make before submitting it back to us. But the recently completed feasibility study identified four bike pad related concepts, created an implementation strategy matrix for those concepts, and I prioritized project list for bike pad improvements in the Finksburg Sustainable Community. So for the feasibility study that was just recently completed, no local match, so no county dollars were required for that project, and no local match would be required for this preliminary design, up to 30% design project to which we're applying for this year. We received $80,000 for the feasibility study from the consultant and from the BRTB. This is a competitive grant program. It's open to all member jurisdictions of the BRTB, and it furthers the goals of the Baltimore region's long-range transportation plan. That current plan is called Resilience 2050. They're actually working on another plan right now. I'm forgetting the name, but it's 2050.

Region Next, I think.

Region Next. There you go. They kind of rebrand the plan every five years. And through the program, projects can be awarded up to $80,000 for technical assistance for concept plans and feasibility studies, like we've already done here, and up to $100,000 for preliminary design, which represents up to 30% design completion. Not through this program, but for others, just for context, we've had projects for the Patapsco Regional Greenway in the southern part of the county, kind of in the Freedom area, funded with up to 30% design as well. So a very similar project. If awarded, similar to the feasibility study, the Baltimore Metropolitan Council will coordinate with the county, but will manage the project and the consultant. So we'll be involved in every step of the process, but will not be, like I said, there's no local match required there. Comprehensive planning division staff will work closely with the consultant and BMC, mostly on the public outreach portions of the project, but also to provide information, input and review to ensure project deliverables are appropriate and timely. So there were many benefits that were realized during the feasibility study process that just kind of wrapped up. Most importantly, the feasibility study addressed the four plans that are up on this particular slide right now and really began to address some things that have been identified all the way back to the 2013 Finksburg corridor plan. for bike-ped infrastructure and advancing that in the Finksburg area. As you can see on the slide, originally in 2013, the corridor plan in Finksburg identified creating opportunities for non-motorized travel in the community and looked to provide opportunities for additional recreational opportunities for all age levels. Now, for this particular project, we're really going to focus on a section of Old Westminster Pike within the Finksburg community. And that particular section was identified and labeled formally as a adopted slash planned pedestrian facility in the 2019 Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan. The Carroll County Transportation Plan, the 2023 plan also addresses all sorts of transportation-related improvements in the Finksburg-Maryland 140 corridor as well. Obviously, this project is just focused on a road that's just off of the 140 corridor, being Old Westminster Pike. But it's all connected in that area, as we're seeing with additional build-out of infrastructure there, such as Dede Road Extended and other kind of local roads in that region. And then the Finksburg Sustainable Community Action Plan very specifically calls out wanting to advance the design and construction of non-motorized infrastructure through the use of the county's CIP state funding, but also specifically grants. And that's what kind of this particular event is going to focus on here. After connecting to all of those plans, the feasibility study really did provide the Finksburg community with a robust opportunity to provide public input on potential bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in their particular community. One in-person workshop, a public workshop took place in December of 2024, three steering committee meetings, and then a virtual presentation and feedback forum. Similar to this, the preliminary design project will include a public participation portion. It's actually a requirement of this grant that that I and we come up with just a generalized plan for the public participation that we're going to have with the preliminary design and during the feasibility study public participation it was you know directly identified that community members in the Finksburg sustainable community area walk along Old Westminster Pike due to its proximity to residential areas and operationally having low traffic volumes and slower speeds. However, they cited specifically having to walk in or adjacent to the roadway due to a lack of a separated shared use path or sidewalk. And of the four major concepts that were identified in the completed feasibility study that are up on the screen now, we are focusing our next efforts here for the FY27 grant application for a shared use path along Old Westminster Pike. That is concept one. The reason that we are focusing on that particular project is because of right-of-way ownership considerations. If you notice, all of the other concepts on this slide heavily involve interaction with the right-of-way control and the Maryland State Highway, who has control over the rights-of-way for Maryland 140 and Maryland 91. The shared-use path along Old Westminster Pike is a very achievable project to kind of apply for and get preliminary design work done to really kickstart, you know, furthering pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in this area. Up on the screen now, a prioritized project list. This is directly out of the feasibility study. And looking at this list, our grant application will take into consideration wider-weight ownership, public participation, prior planning efforts, connectivity of the overall potential network for bike and pet infrastructure in this area, and development and redevelopment potential into account. And with those factors in mind, we in the Comprehensive Planning Division decided to focus specifically on that shared use path along Old Westminster Pike, to be the primary focus. We also have a question out to the administrator of this grant at the BMC about whether it would be advantageous for us to also ask for preliminary design for the design of sidewalks along some of the roads in this network that are county controlled, such as Cedarhurst Road. old gamber road as well as a shared use path along dd road extended further to kind of further complete a network and maybe potentially tap into some future funding opportunities to advance further kind of regional connections for for trail connections in that area so We have that question now. The grant deadline is next Wednesday, June 17. So I need to have a conversation with our connection there, obviously, before that deadline to see what his thoughts are on that. But we'll kind of get that wrapped up before the final grant application. And basically what we are asking you today and what we're summarizing for you today is this FY2027 TLC program application will be used to build upon the Finksburg Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning Feasibility Study and complete preliminary design up to 30% design completion for pedestrian and bicycle facility concepts and prioritize infrastructure projects identified in the study. The application will focus on preliminary design and a safe route for pedestrians and cyclists along Old Westminster Pike within the Finksburg Sustainable Community. And the staff request summarized is for the Board of County Commissioners to approve our ability to submit and, if awarded, accept the FY2027 application to the TLC grant program for this preliminary design work for these prioritized concepts within the Finksburg community. So that's really That's all I have for my presentation today We'll open up to any questions that you have for me or Daphne or Chris related to this particular grant application Well, thank you very much for the presentation.

Do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments?

Just I think it's great that it looks like during this time frame DD Road will be extended yes, that that's been so needed down there and and and that's happening and I I'm so glad you're letting State Highway worry about 91 and 140. That is just such a mess. And I like the proposed plan of crossing 91. That'll be a headache enough but uh at least not at that intersection so i think it's a it's a good plan and uh i was part of one of the virtual meetings and you you guys have done some good discussion yeah thank you now and thank i want to thank you for tapping into some of these um the sidewalk money that's available so are you talking a blacktop path or a sidewalk i mean does it matter

The shared youth path, I believe, is proposed as an asphalt path. And the diagram within the presentation kind of, oh, here, wrong presentation there. There is at least a little bit of a diagram that has dimensions on it that shows that this path would be approximately, here, I'm going to show it here. It will be approximately seven feet wide to be able to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, and a three-foot buffer between the path and the road. So when we use the term separated shared use path, that word separated is really to describe that three-foot buffer in between the path and the road, really separating anybody who's using it from vehicular traffic.

And one thing... we always do a lot of these plans and they don't get implemented so I wanted to say we need to make sure it's doable and it sounds like you got the right of way with our current road and also with State Highway and pieces that aren't maybe implementable we need to figure that out because things never get done because we're trying to do it too perfect and some we just had one in Westminster it's like 20 some years old and you know it's like people forgot about it now they're complaining about it because it's you know four million dollars but So this seems like you're using current right-of-way. You're doing economical way. We need to get people off, as you said, off the road. And we're using existing former 140. So it's good. But just keep it up. I mean, keep going. The money is there. And just move it forward. But if we need any right-of-ways, we may need to reevaluate. I don't know if they could cost us money or whatever. But it would be nice to look at the entire corridor and say, what's the potential of getting that right away, and what would it cost? And if it's not doable, we might have to change paths.

And that's the goal of this up to 30% preliminary design is realize where we have maybe gaps in the right of way, but also with utility lines where we have to work around a utility line infrastructure on either side of that particular road on a Westminster Pike. They'll really dive into that within the preliminary design work because then if those kinds of questions are sorted out, we have a much more attractive quote unquote application than to look for funders for funding for, um, hard infrastructure in the future.

And is anybody connected to the Sandy Mount or the library in any of these stages?

Not this particular area, no. But we have been in touch with and met with the Finksburg Area Citizens Council, and they have expressed a desire to look at bike pad potential opportunities up further outside of this sustainable community area, which includes the Sandy Mount area. So that's definitely on our radar screen here. And we've also brought that up to the BRTB. Our focus is the Finksburg sustainable community area, largely because of the ability to get funding within that area for now.

you're saying that area is not part of that okay no i'm just asking because i see that right there next to each other and can't really safely get there and you have to drive and it'd be nice to be able to get there in a different way it would yeah thank you thanks i'm not pleased i was gonna see if commissioner gordon had unmuted himself i wanted to see if commissioner gordon had a comment or question

I did real quick. Thank you. First off, welcome. Appreciate the report today. I think this sounds like a great opportunity. Glad to see that we're not heavily looking at that state road there. I think a number of us were in a meeting about two years ago or so with the state, and I was just intrigued that we were looking at bike paths on 140. I didn't quite understand the safety possibilities on that one, to say the least. But I do like this idea, and I think it's a great opportunity to give our citizens some additional walking paths and biking paths, I think, in a much safer fashion. So really appreciate the work.

Thank you. Commissioner Gary.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Very nicely done. Appreciate it and welcome. I was going to be prepared to make a motion. I wasn't sure if Commissioner Crowley wanted to do the honors.

I can I move the Board of County Commissioners approve the submission acceptance of the fiscal year 27 application of transportation and land use connections grant program for preliminary design of prioritized concepts for the Finksburg bike and pedestrian planning feasibility study second thank you

We have a motion. We had a very easy second on that one. Second's easy. You should have to restate the motion. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you guys. oh no don't make us start memorizing these i'll be right back getting older my memory is going

Alright, so up next we have a public hearing on an ordinance extending the temporary deferral on final approval of retirement villages, retirement homes in the freedom designated growth area to October 1st, 2026. So at this point in time I'm going to call to order that public hearing. I'm going to kick things over to I guess either Chris or Liz for a brief introduction and then brief summary of the proposed legislation by Chris and then I will open the floor to comments from the public. So Liz.

Absolutely, good morning. We are here this morning to solicit public comment on a proposed amendment to our zoning code. We have advertised this. It was advertised in the Carroll County Times on May 30th, June 4th. It was posted to our website. It was placed at our front desk and was also posted to a number of other informational portals. We are specifically here today, and I know Chris will address any questions that you may have, but just for a brief recap, on December 18th of 2025, we enacted an ordinance which imposed a six-month deferral on the final approval of retirement villages and retirement homes in the Freedom Designated Growth Area specifically. The purpose of that was to allow staff the additional time to review the existing code, make recommendations, and bring it back to you all. And it was realized that additional time is needed to complete these studies, consider the possible code amendments. And so we are here this morning to discuss and, like I said, solicit public comment on the proposed ordinance which would extend this deferral until October 1st of 2026.

Yes, please. I'm sorry. Yes, please. Thank you. And I have a brief presentation with just a couple slides with similar background sort of information that we can reference during any discussion. As Liz mentioned, we have the existing code that has a deferral on the final approval of Retirement Villages. And that currently will expire June 18. Our recommendation would be to extend it to October 1. And we've talked about the reason why, but I'll hit on that again. Just for everybody's reference, there are five projects that currently are being deferred. And I have them listed here. and the reason why we are recommending the october first date again we've talked about this in previous meetings is the state house bill 548 senate bill 325 the maryland housing certainty act which was just passed essentially says that starting october 1st residential developments we have to evaluate and when an application comes in and if we enter it into our normal process it's determined to be complete and the codes that are in place at that time will apply need to apply for the the duration of the review process and then for a period of time after it's been approved and so what that means is for those projects that are currently being deferred on october 1st because they are in process they have they are they obviously made a complete submission we are processing them so the codes that are in effect on october 1st will be the codes that they are vested with So we have a very aggressive text amendment schedule that we have started. On June 3rd, we introduced the discussion with the Planning Commission. June 16th, we will be meeting with Planning Commission again to talk about the draft text amendments that we are working on. we have a public meeting scheduled for june 24th and then we have a couple of meetings with planning commission before it then needs to come back to the board of county commissioners on august 6th to to move to have it go to public hearing the latest we can have the public hearing is September 3rd and then allowing the board to approve any code changes on September 17th to have the code in place by October 1st so that is our aggressive schedule that we're in the midst of and that's the end of my slides so I think thank you very much for that Chris so now what I'd like to do is to open the floor for comments from the public for birds we have anybody here for the public hearing

The first comment card I have is Chris Armstrong. You can come to the microphone and state your name and address.

Good morning. Morning. My name is Chris Armstrong. Office address is 7035 Columbia, Maryland. I'm here representing Lennar and our property known as Freedom's Grant. Freedom's Grant is a proposed retirement village community with 237 homes. a combination of detached single-family homes and attached villas. We've been processing this plan for over five years. We have BZA approval, we have concept plan approval, and we're currently in our second review of the final site plan. Lenore is a national home builder with a wealth of knowledge and experience in designing thoughtful, attractive, and successful communities. We almost always voluntarily exceed code requirements because that is what the market demands. It is our opinion that the Freedom's Grant Plan addresses all of the known commissioner's concerns as well as meets or exceeds the current code and the general recommendations of the county's consultant. Yesterday, you received a comment letter detailing the ways in which the plan does so. For these reasons, I believe that the deferral is not necessary to ensure these comments are being addressed and would respectfully request that you deny any extension of the deferral or exempt plans in process from any extension of the deferral. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Mike Kalanick.

Good morning. My name is Mike Kalanock, JPB Partners. We're based in Hanover, Maryland, 7556 Teague Road. I represent JPB Partners in the development of the Piney Ridge Parkway age-restricted villas. As a reminder, this is a modest, infill subdivision surrounded by single-family homes, a rental townhome community, St. Joseph Catholic Church, and Wesley Freedom Church. As of June 1st, the project has received concept plan approval from all reviewing departments. I'm here requesting that we be grandfathered or exempt from any proposed text amendments based on the following. The community will consist of 31 villas built by Williamsburg Homes using universal design guidelines for age-restricted homes. Existing zoning will have permitted density of about 60 or would have permitted about 65 units, so more than twice the 31 that we're proposing. While not perfect, due in large part to the limits of a six acre, 31 home concept, the project addresses concerns raised during previous public hearings. Earlier this week, each commissioner should have received a plan addressing many of those items. Proposed amenities include a shared path system, social gathering areas, bocce courts, fire pits, and natural green space. The plan illustrates availability of up to 23 unreserved parking spaces beyond the four exclusive spaces for each home. Of the 31 homes, only 11 are front facing along a 200 stretch of private road. Emergency vehicles can access 25 proposed homes from public roads and the remaining six from a private road. closing i'd like to remind the commissioners that this is a well thought out and phil subdivision it's not a master plan it's not a putt we ask that you allow us to continue forward with the final site plan process without the risk of being derailed by potential future text amendments thank you thank you very much next is gus bauman

Good day. My name is Gus Bauman of the law firm of Beveridge and Diamond. I reside in Silver Spring. I'm here today representing St. John Properties, a long metal farm which owns the 120-acre Beatty property in the Freedom area. Our property comprises four parcels of land, two of which we've been actively processing as retirement villages. We're here today asking you not to extend the retirement villages and homes deferral ordinance, which in reality is a land use moratorium. We've been cooperatively working with the county on our projects for over four years. relying on good faith on the County Master Plan, Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan, BZA approval of our retirement village conditional use, Planning and Zoning Commission approval of our Eldersburg overlooked density, layout, and design, and your robust zoning ordinance. as well as continual positive guidance from the pcc and your professional staff all leading to the coming pcc hearing on the final site plan any extension of the moratorium would be highly damaging to the lawful actions and multi-million dollar contracts consummated by saint john properties in specific reliance on the county's approvals laws, plans, directions, and long-standing processes accordingly. As applied to our project, a moratorium extension would be illegal, unconstitutional, and manifestly unfair, resulting in millions of dollars in economic harm, not to mention being counter to obtaining desperately needed new homes for seniors in Carroll County. Thank you. Thank you.

Next is Kelly Miller.

Good morning. Excuse me, good morning. Kelly Miller, 73 East Main Street, Westminster, Maryland 21157. I am here today also requesting that you not extend the development deferral. The moratorium is a clear attempt to prevent projects from vesting while these code changes are happening. And we understand that there are some disagreements with perhaps past code adoptions, but that disagreement is not an emergency or justification for an extension of the deferral. I look to your originally adopted ordinance, which says that the board desires to obtain additional information regarding the possible adverse effects of retirement villages and retirement homes proposed have on residential uses adequate public facilities and infrastructure to date you have heard from your consultant that there is no finding of inconsistency excuse me between the 2018 freedom community comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance you have had approximately eight months since discussions of the moratorium began and there has been no justification provided to date that make an extension of this valid at this point in time. So with that, we would respectfully request that you deny any extension of the moratorium and or exempt plans in process. Thank you.

Thank you.

And our last commenter in person, at least, is Kathy Martins.

It's allowed to thank you for the opportunity to comment I have 2 comments to make first I sent an email the other evening after the email announcing the hearing coming up for reservoir run retirement village in My first question is when I send emails and I send specific comments for or against a project or agenda item here for the commissioners, I have asked to try to understand how that comment is registered into the public record. I am always curious to know if anybody else is emailing you for or against a particular agenda item or planning and zoning commission project. So I'm going to put this on the public record in person while I have the opportunity. I did do a little bit of research to see that other jurisdictions use software, they use comment portals, they use other means to record into the public record emails. So I'm just continuously curious about how our comments that we email are actually tabulated and recorded. So that's the first part. My email the other evening after I did review the detailed blueprints of the reservoir-run retirement village and compared them to the consultant's recommendations about retirement in age-restricted communities, I had a few comments and that was while I understand the investment of time and money that the developers have made, how will your consideration to extend this deferral or not be placed against the recommendations and perhaps future changes in our law be held? So specifically when I was reviewing Reservoir Run, I noticed, you know, are you using universal design standards? Specifically, will there be a zero entrance to these homes? Will there be adequate open space for recreation? I didn't see any recreational space in that particular plan, and that's the one I'm speaking about today. I also looked at the roads, and Road B, it appears that there is no overflow or visitor parking on the entire road. So Road A did have some that I found, but none on Road B. I also noted that this Road A cuts through two private properties, and it appeared to be extremely narrow. It was unclear whether there was landscaping, for example, or a berm. And last but not least, is the access from Georgetown Boulevard going to include a traffic circle? The access is right at the angle where there are frequent accidents. So thank you for that opportunity.

Thank you very much.

Roberta, do we have anybody else here for public comment? Not here.

Chris, do we have anybody on the line for public comment? I have no one on the line. All right. Thank you very much. That said, I will open the floor up to my colleagues for discussion and potential direction.

Thank you. I don't want to go through this all again, but we've spent a considerable amount of time on this, and we've expressed our concerns about those of us who followed the master plan, and very clearly everyone knew what was agreed upon for land use there, and then the land use was changed. I'm talking about all the retirement communities, but that particular one, and also about the master plan was supposed to fix a problem, the definitions that we had in a lawsuit that we, the commissioners, posed a number of years ago because the way we had defined retirement communities was not what they wanted. So the commissioners actually took it to court, went to court, and never fixed it. And the court basically said, hey, it's up to you guys to fix your rules. It was supposed to be done during the master plan process. I was told that it was being done. Some of that happened during COVID. I think everyone there thought that this was being addressed during COVID because that's why the past board of commissioners and planning commission denied the project that ended up getting passed, which was called Adam's Paradise at the time. Unfortunately, somebody didn't get the message, and that did not occur as we had suspected. And the land use went through, and years later, these definitions were sort of rewritten, but not really. And basically, I'm not sure if it made it worse or not, but some of the issues are aesthetic. whether they can be regulated, whether we need universal design like open spaces, all those things. The most important thing to me that's the top of the list is the safety. I think, Ms. Martin, thank you for talking about whether these comments get put into the record. I don't even know if the comments are getting to the Planning Commission because when we had our meeting, well, a meeting before Christmas about the deferrals. The most compelling thing, and I've found out even more since then, about the way we do site plans, and I guess I'm going to make sure that we deal with this, that we treat site plans different than subdivision plans with road width. No one else that we know does that that we can see I mean, they don't do it in Westminster I don't think they do it in Tawny Town It's got to be the same and the most compelling testimony and it's a huge problem in some of our current existing Facilities and people will tell you that where they are the chief of staff from the Sykesville Freedom District Fire Department made comments regarding the current and future development plans and the site plans of the fire EMS service for the Eldersburg-Sykesville Freedom District area. Currently, there are three proposals to develop and construct four retirement communities, one of which is a mid-rise, two cluster developments, a mixed-use community, and a five-story storage facility in our response area. The potential impact on the delivery of fire and EMS services from this continued development is profound. I'm putting this on the record because everyone knows this is a safety issue. The roads are not wide enough for our EMS trucks to deliver services. So I want to make sure they know that, because it hasn't maybe happened yet. And the people moving there don't know that. They expect that we make the roads wide enough that they can get through. But we say we have different standards. We're fixing that. The current lack of ordinances or code deficiencies that incorporate guidance by the National Fire Protection Association, in addition to other accessibility considerations, need to be revised, as these ordinances are paramount to the safety of these proposed communities. We urge the deferral of any further developments until specific ordinances, codes, and requirements address these deficiencies in design and in development. Specifically, deficiencies that need addressing are unobstructed road width, including those in site plans. It doesn't matter. EMS doesn't say, am I going to a subdivision or am I going to a site plan? They don't really care when they're trying to access people, especially in a very dense area. The lack of clear and specific requirements in a plan and plan developments directly and severely impact the ability of first responders and their apparatus to execute basic and fundamental life safety and property protection operations. We believe it is of foremost importance to proactively provide and rigorously maintain adequate fire apparatus access within all current and future development projects with not only in the Freedom District, but within the county. The strict adherence to and enforcement of established codes, particularly those set forth by the NFPA concerning fire lanes, road width and building access is not merely a requirement. but a critical foundation for ensuring the safety of our community and the operational effectiveness of emergency responders. Specifically, aerial apparatus requires 20 foot minimal clearance road width to be able to deploy their aerial app device. additionally vertical clearance of at least 13 feet 6 inches is also needed the minimum width requirement also ensures or provides for the safe passage of one apparatus around another while others may be operating at the scene site recent development of nell's acres that's the one that's already currently that allow parking on each side because apparent driveway limitations which narrows the approximately 22 feet to approximately seven feet making it less possible for apparatus to move or deploy ladders on those hose lines. Simply making it an HOA enforcement issue is not a workable solution or reasonable solution. We also encourage consideration of the ability to access high occupancy structures including multi-level condos, apartment buildings, mixed-use developments, and high mid-rise buildings from front and rear with all-weather road surfaces to support the typical 25 to 40 ton weight of a fire apparatus. Any consideration or dependence on enforcement to move citizen vehicles during a high risk or active incident is highly impractical and is rife with delays that create even more life risk. Consideration in applying these changes to planning and development ordinances needs to recognize the greater risk inherent in age-restricted communities and three-story or more high occupancy structures. These structures have greater dependence on the use of aerial apparatus to remove occupants. if necessary due to the typical mobility or compromise of exits in the case of required evacuation and rescue. In addition, another issue that needs to be considered or focused on is providing multiple points of entrance and exit into these developments to avoid just having a single entrance and exit road into these areas. This consideration is necessary in case the one point of exit entry or exit is blocked or compromised during an EMS or fire incident to those developments. In summary, we strongly encourage the commissioners to delay or pause planned developments under consideration until these life safety concerns are adequately addressed in documented and approved form. We believe it is necessary to consider and implement the ordinance rules that provide for the safety and well-being of the members of those communities currently under consideration and in the future. Now, this is back December. We've had discussions about this. We have not changed anything in the code. There is at least one plan that I think meets the codes. I haven't gotten my little ruler out, but we can move that forward. But I will say that others do not meet this. And to say that you can't park in these developments, that's wrong. So we're trying to do best practices. And I keep hearing the word moratorium. everyone knows you can build market rate houses today on those properties if you choose that's what was discussed during the plan planning whatever there's been signs up at the one property for 20 years saying it's coming soon X and now it's Y because we allow it you can build you could have built I mean knowing this was a problem or controversy I know Lenard does a beautiful beautiful project up in Amble Brook, and that was one of the examples that was used in Gettysburg. We would love to have that product. We would love to have a product that's different from the safety issues, but the product issues of having different housing types in our area, and so everything being pretty much the same except for maybe, I think, 12. And we thank you. I don't know what they did up there to get them to put that wonderful product, but we'd love to have it here. We'd love to have it at that location for that one site. But these safety issues are of utmost importance to me. The other big issue that has not been resolved, and we've got to figure out as we I have to approve plans more quickly, and we should. I don't know what takes five years, and it certainly should not, is our access on failing intersections. As everyone knows, the Eldersburg area is sometimes you can't move on a Saturday. It's gridlocked because the roads were not built for what we're putting in there, and we haven't expanded them. That has to be done. We can't waive it. No one on staff, I'm just saying in this public, no one can approve waiving a standard on a failing intersection. It happened in the last one. It cannot happen again. And there's no relief in sight. But we do have consultants looking at all these things. We have someone looking at the roads. And I thank you. We have all these things in place. And we've tried to do it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we delayed it ourself by delaying the consultant by two and a half months. But we're doing it. So we caused our own delay. I promised to get this stuff done and I'm sorry I could not meet that promise because of that late start. We're moving in the right direction. My citizens, our community of Carroll Counties are going to be living with this. The people at the original community are living with this now just because they're realizing, wow, Two people already moved because they realized what is and they moved one to Amblebrook up in Gettysburg because it's such a nice community. So we can do the same for us. But I'm going to say the safety issues. I'm making sure that I take the time to point them out so everyone knows what they are. they have not changed their mind nothing has changed about the product and putting a parking you know two blocks away somewhere for senior citizen community that's not acceptable and they do them everywhere so I think we're going to find some consensus we're going to all work together and get this done and that's my goal and my goal is once we get it done I will do everything I can I hope you can to expedite the plans that we have in front of us but for one of them we cannot be approving plans until we have our road issues not just the internal stuff in the development but the external you're talking hundreds of units of new units that were never proposed never anticipated for that piece of property and also seven flex buildings which hopefully they're gonna have a lot of business and hopefully they're going to give me an ice cream parlor because i've requested that and have lots of people coming in and out and We have got to figure out what the accesses are going to be, because it's right there at 26 and 32. Everything around there is a problem. And I have not heard yet of what the solutions are. Even when October the 1st comes, we have no, that should be discussed right now, before a property even starts to be built. What are we going to do to remediate the roads? And we can't just say nothing. I will just say on the record, there will be no fee in lieu of if I'm around and it should come back to the commissioners because we just can't leave things the way they are and we've done that with a couple of communities already I've promised I will never have that happen again and I will stay here that's why I'm here is to make sure this gets done properly because we owe that to our citizens and And I know about it because I live there, and people talk about it, and I see it. And maybe you're not as attuned to it because it's not in your backyard. But these are older people, and they're frustrated. They've been to meetings and meetings. We had a master plan. A thousand people went to the master plan meeting, especially about this one property. And this was what was agreed to. And then somehow, we write some codes, and things change. and it gets changed, and people are like, how does that happen? And I think it was talked about this morning how people have lost faith in government, and a lot of us have, but this is local government. This is where we bring faith back. This is where we do the right thing for the people right in front of us. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do the best I can if I have the support to do that. I can't change the federal government. I can't change the state. I've tried. But right here, there's five of us that can fix this for our citizens and work as much as we can. And we welcome you to come and build more communities. But we're going to do them right. We just heard about the storage facilities. We welcome them. We're going to do those right. And we're not going to impose on someone else's rights in their properties. And they're trying to get around in their own community. and also build a product that is not safe, not accessible for our emergency volunteers. And they have stressed it. They've thanked me from from Manchester to to Tawny Town. These people thanked me for this. They've had trouble in other communities that are smaller because years ago people don't have as many cars and now they do. And they didn't didn't plan enough for them. And people do park there. And we're not going to just give tickets out to everybody because there's nowhere else to park. So we're going to work through these issues. There's other issues that are a little bit more nice that we should also be doing. But I want to make sure you know the safety issues. So in the deferral, it clearly says we may defer a project for safety issues. These are safety issues as told. And I could bring in 100 firefighters if you want that to show you that it's a safety issue. And they've been yelling about this for a while. And it's finally coming, it's getting to us. So I want this on the record. I want to make sure the Planning Commission has it. It's got to get fixed.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Any other comments or questions from my colleagues?

I'm totally opposed to extending the deferral. And I don't think we need the record. open longer and I understand your safety issues I think all projects in Carroll County are reviewed by fire safety experts and unfortunately whoever wrote that ought to send it to CCPS because I know a number of schools that aren't safe by those standards one access not wide enough and and and I understand the concerns I understand professionals wanting things perfect, but life's not perfect. And I think we've extended these deferrals too long, too much.

Commissioner?

Yeah. I voted for the deferrals for one simple reason. It was just to give us some time to review these things. And was it naive on our part to think we were going to be able to get it done this quickly? And that's a decision the board voted on. In retrospect, we should have known we needed more time. But I voted for the deferrals to give us time to review these ordinances and then have the opportunity for the board to vote on them because we don't know what's going to pass and what's not. I didn't vote for deferrals to stop anything. So we're so close to getting some tangible recommendations. October 1st is the end point. It is late June already, practically the middle of June. we're going to get those recommendations I'm in favor of extending the deferral until October 1st so we can get those recommendations in place work with developers so they can move forward all these projects can move forward and you can go full speed ahead and you can stop looking over your shoulder to see what's going to change and what's not going to change So that's my simple reason for voting. I'm in favor of extending the deferral till October 1st, which isn't that far off. And our staff is working as fast as they can with a very good consultant to get some tangible recommendations that, again, the board will vote on. And some of them may pass and some of them may not. And I think that's the important point to make so we can get these projects going again. And I would... support Commissioner Krebs vow to do everything possible to make sure those are we can get those expedited because why wouldn't we and why shouldn't we? So that's all for me.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner Gordon, was there anything you wanted to to add?

Yes, just briefly. number one i don't think any of the five of us don't take safety seriously i know we do we've had countless meetings with the chief and a variety of other parties when it comes to safety be it this be it any other topic um so i'm a little i'm a little perplexed i guess and i'm not taken away from the party with the letter but we did have A number of our fire EMS folks in front of us not that long ago as a open meeting at which we discussed road conditions. I do agree with Commissioner Krebs in the sense that, yes, I don't expect anybody to be walking from a separate parking lot or something of that of that sense. I don't think any of us would agree with that. Clearly. There's some challenges though with the property owners or management when it comes to who's maintaining the openings of those roads. And yes, we can't expect the fire and EMS to clear the roads if there happens to be an emergency. That is definitely without question. I'm in agreement there. I think what this still comes down to, yes, it's safety, but I think the one thing we've heard this time and time again since this whole thing started, which is predictability. We have, in my opinion, not been predictable. Predictability got adjusted. We've heard various things from the consultant where he has looked through various parts of the code. He has come back with his responses. Do I think that these projects are maybe perfect or to the liking of any or all of us? Completely, of course not. But I think what I find most challenging is we moved, in my opinion, we moved the goalposts. Predictability went out the window when these deferrals went in place. Now, I said the first meeting of this discussion on deferrals, I have no issue with us changing things. I completely support changing things. I'm just not sure that this is the most ideal way to do that. So for me, this comes down to keeping consistency and predictability, which are two words I've used quite consistently since we all were in office almost four years ago. Do I think we need to adjust it? Absolutely. Do I want to work with all my colleagues to see that the communities that we all serve are taken care of properly? Absolutely. I'm just not certain if I believe this is the ideal situation that we now see ourselves in.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner Gordon. Chris, if I may ask you a question, and if you don't have the specific information about it, that's quite okay. But I guess I would like a general, so there are five projects that are currently being deferred. And I know I've spoken with some of the developers, but from you, could you, and some of them have spoken here today as well, could you give us a sense of where these five projects are in process? Yes. It doesn't have to be, you know, 100% specific, but just like general sense, are they a couple months away or are they, you know, a day away, that kind of thing?

There are two of the projects that are working on final plans. And so it's difficult to predict whether that's there a week or a month or two months away. That's really dependent on what they submit to us. Because we have to, our technical staff have to review to make sure they meet all of the current requirements and so on. And so there's that and those review cycles to make sure it complies with all regulations. And then it goes to planning commission for final approval. So two of the projects are working on final plans. I have to think through here. That's all right. And I'm sorry to put you in the spot. No, no, that's quite all right.

I promise there's a reason why I'm pushing a lot of questions.

Yeah, so the Johnsville.

Does that help? Sure. Thank you.

Yes, so Eldersburg Overlook and Freedom's Grant are the ones that are working on final plans and are relatively close. Piney Ridge, I believe, has been through concept, and so they are working on final plans, but they are not as far along, but smaller project, and so not as much to do, if that makes sense. um reservoir run is um that is where they are going to planning commission next week to present a special report related to density and look and so on to get approval to then go to the bza for their conditional approval so they are very early in the process but that project actually um made it so far as single family and now is being revised as age restricted so a lot of the engineering and so on has been thought through so they could potentially move quickly as they get their approvals and then the legends at lures avenue that one is very early in the process i believe we've had one submission and that's the extent of it so of the the other four uh you mentioned two of them are working on final plans the one uh

with the concept plan is not as far along, but they could move quickly because they're smaller, and then the one that has transitioned from single family to retirement. Of those four, how many of them would be prepared to seek final approval by October 1st? I don't know.

Yeah, I don't think I can answer that off the top of my head.

Okay. Yeah. So what I'm, I guess what I'm getting at, and this is, I'm trying to get a good foundation from which to speak. The whole point, at least from my mind, entering into the deferrals from the beginning was, you know, we were considering that there might be some inconsistencies between the code and the various plans that we have floating around. And all the reports so far that have come back have said there really are no inconsistencies. Are there areas that you could strengthen the code? Absolutely. But the inconsistencies just aren't there. And so we entered into that with an open mind thinking, okay, well maybe there is something there as far as the inconsistencies are concerned. Through the course of this several month process, and I certainly respect and understand the concerns of the people who live in those communities, and that's part of the reason why I supported the deferrals. I also know for a fact that a number of these developers have been working on addressing concerns that we've raised or I guess the right word would be predicting what some of the changes might end up being and so altering their plans to accommodate the expected or the potential expected changes. You know some of the developers in particular really have made significant changes to their plans and what they want to do in their communities Your Commissioner Krebs had pointed out a minute ago that I think that there was one that had satisfied your concerns and And then I know that others are continuing to address concerns that we've raised. I know some of the developers that I've spoken, and from the beginning, the concerns that Commissioner Krebs has raised today about emergency access, for example, were concerns that I was raising from the beginning. And all of the developers that I have spoken with have either amended their plans or demonstrated that concerns about things like emergency rear access have been met. So if the intent of the deferrals was always to ensure that certain changes would be made and those changes are being worked on or they've been met, the question does come down to timing. So if by extending the deferral to October 1st, we really aren't holding anybody up, then one way or the other, I guess it doesn't matter to extend the deferrals. Now, if we do extend the deferrals and we find that developers have satisfied concerns that we've raised, we can certainly choose to exempt them and let them continue on in the process. Now, as far as exempting a development that has satisfied concerns at some point, say, between now and October, if, say, next week, developer X comes in and says, you know, gosh, Commissioner Vigliotti, you and Commissioner Krebs raised these number of concerns, and here we can demonstrate that we've met these concerns. what would the mechanism look like for us to say, okay, these concerns have been addressed previous to the adoption of any potential changes to the code. What does the mechanism look like for us saying, okay, we're going to exempt this development because they've met these concerns and we'll let them through?

So I think you'd be looking at the same scenario that we've been talking about for self-service storage, which is a project that has achieved all technical approvals by all of our technical staff. And if it weren't for the deferral, would be going to Planning Commission for final approval. And so then you would have a similar sort of discussion of modifying the deferral to exempt certain projects if they have met a certain milestone, or limiting the deferral, or those would be the options that, similar sort of options that were discussed for self-service storage.

Okay. My suggestion to my fellow board members is that we, while I understand that we're really going to be coming down to the wire about the deferral, my suggestion would be to leave the record open for 10 days to allow developers to come to us to say we've satisfied these concerns or to give us the opportunity to see what changes they've made. And then, you know, if a developer isn't able to say over the course of the next 10 days we've addressed issues X, Y, Z, then they will, you know, choose to vote on the deferral again in 10 days' time or the next, I guess, the next available open session that we would be voting on a deferral extension. That would give the developers the opportunity to say, look, we've satisfied the concerns of the commissioners, of the citizens and the communities in that area. We wouldn't be holding them up but we also wouldn't necessarily be eliminating the deferral because I take the point that we're trying to prevent new projects from coming in until we've had the code sufficiently considered, right? So in my mind, the reasonable thing to do, in my mind, again, I could be wrong and everybody's welcome to disagree with me. If we choose to leave the record open for 10 days, allow citizens in the area, as well as the developers, the opportunity to say, because, for example, I take the point, because I have not... I'm trying to remember which one it was, looking at whether or not there's enough amenable recreational facilities at one of the developments, right? Give us 10 days to figure, okay, well, you know, we have addressed the concerns that the citizen has raised, or, you know, we have addressed all of the concerns that the commissioners have raised, and then by the time that this comes back up to us again in open session, we can very feasibly say, okay, we're going to extend the deferral, but we're going to exempt developments X, Y, and Z because they've satisfied concerns that we've had. Is that a plausible course of action?

So just as a note, we cannot name projects specifically when we are exempting them. We are looking at a very specific stage during the development process, so we are fair and equal to all projects.

So meeting certain concerns would not be an equitable way to determine what developments could continue on through, potentially because nothing is prescribed at this point.

So your difficulty would be that if you were looking at it by project, we can't say, for example, Lennar Homes, you're allowed through, but someone else isn't because it is a code change that we're looking at here. So we're not going to name a project by name in code. We need to have a...

It was not to extend the deferral. Obviously, some of the developments would very relatively soon be eligible for that final approval, right? Some of the developments, and again, they're a little further back along in the process. They, unless they were wrapped up and completely ready to go by October 1st, any changes that we made prior to October 1st, they would still be susceptible, or not susceptible, susceptible is not the right word.

Subject to. Subject to, thank you.

Subject to meeting those, any of those changes that we may have made.

Yes. So when the if the board were to adopt any text amendments, it is certainly an option for you to put in caveats to that, that projects in process or similar to the language that Liz mentioned about the deferrals is that If a project has hit a certain milestone, for example, if a project has been reviewed for concept with Planning Commission, they are exempt from the new codes and can be reviewed and approved for the old codes. Those sorts of exemptions can be put in place when and if you adopt text amendments.

OK, that makes sense. And to my colleagues, it's really what I'm trying to come down to at this point is that We have enacted the deferrals. There's a point at which the deferrals may have to be extended, but again, there are developers who have taken very significant and substantial steps to alter what they're doing because they are anticipating some of the changes that we might be making. And some of them are a lot further along in the process than the others. And so I'm wondering if by leaving the record open for 10 days, it allows us time to gather more information about where these projects are in process and whether based upon, I know we have to objectively look at them based on a timing factor rather than the subjective factor of what they've done to make changes. But I would also argue, apart from the legal aspect of that, for us as commissioners looking at these deferrals, there is a subjective component to this as well. Talking about road widths or parking or emergency rear access for fire and EMS. Again, that's my contention, that if we give ourselves 10 days, leave the record open, try to gather some more information that might better elucidate how we go about the deferrals at this point.

Yes, I'm sorry, please. I understand exactly. where you're going now um essentially what we do is we've got a a way of delaying a decision by two weeks essentially because we need to record over for 10 for 10 days that's two weeks essentially we take it up again it sounds like legally there could be some concerns but i also wonder if practically speaking that's a practical request of you and your staff to I mean to review five different projects to see if without any tangible new ordinances we voted on to objectively review each one to determine, well, this seems to be meeting the intent of the board before we've even had a vote on it. So, I mean, I just wonder and I worry just from a practical standpoint if that's, although I completely understand where you're going with the discussion, is it practically feasible to do that within two weeks? Can we do that?

I would hesitate to direct staff to review on what potential code changes might occur and the impacts. What will happen is that over the next week is on the June 16th, we will be presenting the first draft of the recommended text amendments to the Planning and Zoning Commission. And our intention is that as soon as that is done, we will be publishing that on our website so that all stakeholders, citizens, anybody, and I am very sure that it will immediately be downloaded and reviewed by all the developers to see what are the recommendations and whether their projects are close or whether there are some big red flags that they are very concerned about. And I would anticipate that certainly during the intention is during the additional Planning and Zoning Commission meetings that we would hear from the developers that if there is a big red flag that their project would have difficulty addressing that they will raise those those questions now whether those whether that process fits in well with the deliberation that the board would be having as far as extending the deferral that I have not contemplated i'm i'm focusing primarily on let's get through the process of having robust discussion and about these potential text amendments have planning commission weigh in it hear from the public on june 24th and so on and then bring to the board on august 6th a good set of recommendations for you all to contemplate but that time frame does not necessarily fit in well with with trying to get something done in the next 10 days for this particular issue.

And that's my worry is that we keep kicking the can down the road and trying to ask them to do more. I think you've said two of these, if we don't do deferrals, two of these are at risk of being approved. probably not the other three so i i don't know what we'd learn more in 10 days other than we delay the developers for two more weeks and ask them to do more work um like i say i i was against deferrals but i i just i don't feel like we keep saying since december well in another month we'll know more well here we are the deferrals running out and we're not ready and that's on us.

I certainly take that point. Let me just make a couple comments. First of all, from my perspective, you keep saying we'll get new projects coming in. There's not a lot of big land left in the Freedom District. This is a lot of homes. The one is 31. The others are hundreds. I mean, adding up. So it's a lot. And it will be our inventory of retirement homes. It's not just about that we gave density away. Some of those cases, you would have had, well, the one that already is built. They could have had 20 homes. Now they have 129 homes. So they got six times the number of homes to build. And they didn't have to do anything for that. I haven't done the math on the other. So just let's use the ones built. So 20, what it was to 129. That's six times as many houses. They have no open space. They have unsafe, not wide enough roads. They have no access, failing intersection. And one of the things that bothered me, I'm not sure I'm going to ask you to fix this during this code revision. We have clearly in our code that says if you don't have a remediation, Planned and under construction, approved and under construction within six months of completion, the project should not move forward unless someone says it's OK. We don't know who says it's OK. They keep giving building permits. It's almost done. The development's almost done, and we have no approved road project because it was never approved because there was a gas line in the way, a utility that we knew about like two years ago. So that's why we have a consultant in looking at the road issues. And we appreciate that. So the people are still down there at a failing intersection. It was failing before they started. It was failing after the first project, the first part of the project. It's still failing. People cannot, they have a very difficult time getting, they've talked about how long it takes to get out of their access, and now it's even worse. And we have no Nothing in the plan. And the word that was in the plan, the taxpayers of Carroll County were going to pay for it, which to me, I just could not believe that. But we've taken that out. But we never have an approved plan to remediate from that development. So the further you let people keep going because, oh, they're just going to do this, it never gets done. So now it's on us. It's like, I still don't know how we're going to remediate the one that somehow our rules said we couldn't do it, but we let them do it, but nobody knows who let them do it. something's not working right and we've got i don't care if it's us or not there's got to be accountability because the people that live there were expecting a road to go through to get them somewhere that they could get out and i believe that it was never going to do that achieve that possibility we're going to find that out with the consultant but my point is even if we let this stuff go there's some that have we know that the intersections will not handle it i have not heard any remediation of what about this maybe you're talking about it There were four entrances. Now there's maybe going to, I'm sorry, one, two, three. Those things should be discussed and worked out early on in the project. I appreciate the project, the plans are this thick. Believe me, I've appreciated the amount of time and money and everything that goes into it. but early on they should know what is the requirement if you're going to do this to the through the roads until later say oh please i've spent all this time i've spent all this money okay but the people that live there have to live with that our whole community has to live with it it's a fail and then we end up putting the bill the taxpayers of all of carroll county put the bill for fixing it or living with it so the whole apfo that's my number one issue the safety and none of these i say no that's not true There's one I could say you can't pick and choose them, but it's a different kind of zoning. It seems like Keep moving forward and this is all worked out. I think the better move forward very quickly I want to ask one other question that we didn't talk about with the consultant and I keep forgetting about this There's a three or four of these or retirement villages, which is new It's a brand new concept that was never in our code before retirement villages and it's one paragraph somebody said we had robust it's one paragraph it says you must be over 55 and then somewhere 20 pages later it says you may get extra density there's nothing else so it's not robust at all except you have to be over 55. it's like the most um elementary school of all the codes i've looked at i mean i've looked at i've looked at westminster i've looked at tawny town i've looked at frederick i've looked at howard county i've looked at baltimore county they're pages long ours is a paragraph you must be over 55 and you get all this extra density nothing goes with it So maybe we have robust building standards, which is different than retirement communities. But the safety issues, having diversity of different types of product, that's all I think good for our community. That is not what's driving my train right now. I want to see that. But the road network, the safety issues in these communities, and the fact that it's hundreds of units and the new projects coming in. Now, one of them is a retirement home. And we really haven't talked about the difference in that. I think the zoning is okay where they're building that, but the question becomes, what should we require in a home, which is on R10, it is bigger buildings and what should be required and we really didn't give them much direction on that. It might be little tweaks to that project, I don't know. We've had very little discussion on villages versus homes.

No, we've absolutely addressed that.

We just, I mean, I don't remember saying much about it, but okay.

It has been addressed.

Okay. All right. So I'm just, I just want to clear that. And I know people, Joe, Commissioner Vigilante, I always say. Oh, Joseph, you know you're okay to call me Joe. It's all right. Here I call you Commissioner Vigilante. I always say trust but verify. People might say they made a lot of changes, and some of it is to the amenities. Amenities are important, but that is not the most important thing to me. So amenities, you can add this little duffel ball court, and that's nice. But that's not what the problem is. so you got a hearing it and say okay what exactly changed our roads wide enough do we have the adequate public facilities we have an agreement and you know i know you guys passed a drra two years ago why aren't we using it why aren't we putting some of this stuff in there and saying you know we this is what you have to do this is what we have to do and it should be in some type of an agreement before we move forward because these are complex um decisions and it should be decided by this board if we're going to make exceptions to things so i i hear what you say there's lots i've seen lots of changes that have been recommended they haven't necessarily gotten to the the root of my issues but i appreciate i'm putting lipstick no i shouldn't say putting lipstick on a pig i don't mean that but The little stuff that's changing is a little bit nice, but it's not getting to the root of the bigger issues that we have here. And they are the safety issues, adequate public facilities, and the other things are important. These are the most important. So I mean, I don't know how we're going to address that. Because I don't see anybody being ready by October 1 or not. A complete application cannot be. You don't have your adequate roads figured out. And who's going to do them and when? Because before you pull a permit, it says in our current regulation, you must have an approved remediation project within six months of completion. We don't even have an idea, a concept, of what's going to be done, much less before you pull a permit. And that's for the current stuff that's being looked at. So...

Yes so if I may the I think you're referring to the new state law regarding determine a complete application just indicates that all of them the materials that are submitted the plans and and so on that there's enough information for us to enter and start the review process doesn't mean that we're completing the review it doesn't mean that we're looking at anything related to apfos or or any of that that's all part of the review process so the question that the the metric that needs to be hit is have you submitted enough information that we can start reviewing it and and we do that on a daily basis we get plans every day that we make the determination that yes then we our staff can start reviewing that so to that us that's a complete application we begin the process all the state law has done is said that in maryland it's for residential projects it's going to be early vesting and so the that's that's why i've been saying the projects that are being deferred right now on they have been they have they submitted a complete application when they initially submitted because we accepted them into our process and so they have a complete application we're reviewing them so on october 1st they will be fully vested regarding the codes that are in place that day

So things that are in our code. But then we have the technical review manuals. And that's the more technical stuff. The road widths, are they in the technical review manual? If we go and refer to the federal standards, which is what we want to do, would that override because it's in a review manual versus in our ordinance?

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding the question.

If we say we've got to adopt the road widths of the technical review for the APF, whatever it is, fire prevention, whatever, if that's in technical review, would that then override our code that would be silent or say something else? Even if it changes in year two or three or four? Would those technical issues that change, ongoing electrical codes change, fire things change, would they then change as well? They're not in our ordinances. They're not zoning.

So I'm sorry. I was still thinking in terms of complete application. If you're talking about codes that we are now talking about putting in place, we have added in our recommendations are to codify some of the site requirements that have been discussed. um but and they mirror what the requirements that nfpa requires however we have as a county have always reviewed site plans from that perspective it just was not in our code so making ensuring adequate access and roadway wits and so on on site plans we have always done that now we are putting that into our code to address your concern, but it's always been done. I am sure that all of these projects meet those requirements because they have been reviewed by our fire EMS department to ensure that we meet those requirements. I don't anticipate that by the county putting in those requirements into our code is going to affect any of these developments that are in process because they have already been reviewed against those standards and already meet them.

We're going to just keep going back. I said this about 20 times. We're the only area that I know of, Westminster doesn't do it, Toynton doesn't do it. They have a standard that's the same for a site plan versus a subdivision plan. And if we had the same road widths, we wouldn't even be talking about this because we let them be different. And safety is not different for EMS. Snow removal might matter. Safety is a certain width if you want to park. When the fire people signed off on it, it's because it says no parking allowed. But yet the Planning Commission did not allow for any extra parking. That's unreasonable in a place to have no extra parking. So I know that some of them have some parking over here. And if you see where it is, it's pretty far away. So people are going to end up And we don't make them put up any no parking signs. So we say it's an enforcement issue. The people that live there don't even know. I talked to one of the board members. They're just finding out that they're going to get no parking signs. They're like, what the heck? How come they weren't there at the beginning? Well, they should be. When people buy their home, they should know there's no parking. You shouldn't do it when the community is complete five years later. What happens in between? What happens if they're so, you know, there are the kinds of things. First of all, we should require extra parking. I don't know anywhere that does not. Secondly, if we're going to have it, the signs need to be up when the people build the first house that they know that there's no parking here.

And those are the types of things that we're addressing in the revised code.

The question becomes what would happen to these guys on deferral? I mean, I think everybody keeps saying, oh, the fire people signed off on this. They signed off on it saying no parking allowed. But there's no enforceability. We don't follow up on it. So I just want to close the loop because people keep saying, oh, they signed off on it. I want to throw the guy under the bus. Because he did sign off on it, and there was no parking allowed. Set it right in there. But that doesn't ever get implemented. It never gets finished.

And so if they have not, if that site is currently under construction,

at the end of construction when the site plan site construction is done if they have not installed the no parking signs then that is a site plan violation and we can enforce those being installed and I'm gonna just say again that's something needs to be changed because people should know upfront when they buy their house that there's no parking I don't think we should allow them to be built like that we should make them wide enough at least for one-sided parking but you know I just don't I don't want to keep acting like the fire department has signed off on something that they shouldn't have been I don't want to keep defending that we need to change it. And again, in Westminster, there's no difference in a site plan and a subdivision plan. Setbacks are different. There's lots of things that are different. So it's not the same. And I don't want to keep saying that they did comply because they haven't. And the people there don't know it. The board doesn't know it. And they're the ones who have to enforce it. They closed the model down. they're sold and now people are like they're still parking on the sidewalks every day you know that that's not waiting parked otherwise the work trucks can't even get through if you didn't park on the sidewalk and there's one and one way in and one way out but thank you but so it I maybe I think there's some effort to be made and some of them but I don't know that it once some that it's we have to look at it you have to verify

Well, and Commissioner, to your point, you know, I've certainly seen some revised plans from some of the developments. I would hope that, you know, trust that, you know, being prescribed, so to speak, actually seeing the plans that they're committed to what they've had approved or what they've submitted. Chris, if we were to, and Liz, if you have any expertise in this as well, if we were to keep the deferrals in place, potentially, or probably maybe is a better way of putting it, probably two developers would be delayed somewhat. They probably would be ready before October 1st.

I would use the word potentially. Potentially? Again, I have not looked at the latest review comments to understand whether they're within a week or within months. Okay.

But they're also be responsible for anything we change. We make streets 60 foot wide because we don't understand no parking. Then they got to do it. Unless we do it before October 1st. Yes. Right. If they get that's the big delay is is where Commissioner Gordon said it. We're inconsistent and we're unreliable. We're we're we're we're bad. But to that, it's more than like October 1st they can start building. It's what do we change, what happens. And I think the two that are most far along are pretty good. Now, do I like the color of every house they're going to build? Probably not. But they're reasonable, and I think strongly they should move forward.

So to that point, you saw I'm completely clear. If the deferral is extended, there still is the potential to exempt projects from any potential changes that are made from the code when we get to the point in time when we consider changing the code.

Yes. So when you implement the code mid-September, if there's any provision in that code that you feel is onerous or, well, onerous is the wrong term because we're not going to pass onerous code. If there's any provisions that you feel that there are projects that are in process that they should be exempted from and so on, you can put exemptions into the adoption of the code. And whether that's strictly in the code or by a resolution, there are mechanisms that you could do in mid-September.

Does any of that require public hearings or back to planning? I mean, we're delaying the delay.

yeah so the implementation is is going to all occur in that normal process of so that's why um we need to bring everything before you august 6th because that's when in order to get everything done you make need you need to decide to go to public hearing so we will be having these discussions on on what the the code is going to look like most likely on august 6th Because that date, you have to send it to public hearing because public hearing takes three weeks. But on August 10th, we're going to be at MACO. So we're not able to do it then. And we have to have public hearing by September 3rd in order to get done by the end of September. Now, there is the potential during the month of August, after you have determined that you want to go to public hearing, if you want to have a work session or so to discuss and so on, we potentially could do that to have more of discussion amongst the board and staff. But August 6th, we'll need the board to move it forward to public hearing if we're going to hit the October 1st deadline.

And so if we did not continue the deferral today, any developments that are not through final approval would still have to comply with any changes that would be made by October 1st, unless they were already through the process.

Correct.

Or exempted. Or exempted.

Yeah. So hypothetically, if the deferral is not extended and any of these projects are far enough along with their technical approvals, we could take them to Planning Commission before October 1st and they could get their final approval. Once they have their final approval from Planning Commission, then they're off and running. right so there is that potential but again i'm not sure if any of them are that close to tripping over the finish line that that's feasible by october 1st but there is that potential and there's that potential and we're not delaying their potential correct no no offense developers your engineers or you could delay it but we we aren't correct okay

So I guess that's the difficulty that at least I'm encountering here. Because again, like I said at the beginning of my portion of the discussion, I went into this because I recognize that maybe changes had to be made. developers that I have heard from at this point or seen the revised plans have either addressed concerns or have made the changes. And I understand the reasoning behind the deferrals and I understand why they were enacted in the first place, but I guess it really, with this like the other ones, it does come down to timing. And so is there the potential that we may hold someone up for a couple of months and then exempt them in the end anyways? Yeah, there's that potential. There's the potential that we don't continue the deferrals, and by the simple virtue of the process, they're not ready by October 1st anyways. Yeah, it really does come back down to timing again.

Commissioner Bigulati, maybe you've seen the plans and think you're satisfied. I have not. I want to remember, when we started this, we had four things we were deferring, and there were certain ones that we let move forward because they were in the spirit of things. It will be changed for the future, but in the spirit of what they were doing and the safety issues and the thing we said let them go, they were clustering, and there was nothing else in the planned commercial, so those are done. This is the one, the storage facilities, because of the reasons we just talked about, and these. I have not seen the changes that address the things that I'm talking about. And I'm not talking about a bocce ball court that's easy to put in or take out. I'm talking about just some structural, there's other structural things that we need to put in for retirement communities that we don't, require one is putting it putting it on a a deed to say it's we don't require it every other county I've looked at it requires it be on the deed that it this is for over 55 we do not require that I'm not sure if they do it we do okay but it's not on we I don't know if we look at it before it moves the projects for okay well I don't see it on the deed of one But it needs to be in our, it's in every one I've read. So if you're required or not, it needs to be there so we know. You can't enforce something that's not in your ordinance. So maybe you do it, but it should be in writing. No matter what we do, how good we do it, if it's not in writing, it's not enforceable. So I have not seen the changes that you're talking about to satisfy me. I don't know that the fire departments have seen the changes for what we're trying to do either. So, you know, I'm willing to look at that. I have been. I think I've met with one developer four times, and they just like coming to me, no, not, Given them even water to drink. But I think if that's the case, I'd be happy to look at it. But I don't believe that that's the case. I mean, the fancy stuff, little fancy, that's not what I'm talking about.

So would you be opposed to leaving the record open for 10 days so that you might receive some more information about these potential changes?

It's up to you what you guys want to do. I mean, all I want to do is get this stuff done. I want to get to the planning commission. I want the discussion. I just know that we told everyone, I told everyone, honestly, when I met with every single person that was involved with this, here's what I believe. This is my district. I'm glad people give difference to my district. I really appreciate that. It is my district. I represent my people. There's not a single person that has ever disagreed with what we're trying to do that lives in our community or even outside of our community unless they have a financial interest in it. And I understand that. But I don't know that it's going to, I told everyone these are the ones I think are going to be okay. And these are the ones I think are going to have to be fundamentally changed. And I was as upfront as I could be. If you can make things wider and you can do some of this stuff, I can't see that on some of them. There's going to be some major adjustments. I don't think that's been done.

I appreciate those comments. I guess for me the only good news here, there's some good news, is that at the end of this item, Item number 5, we're either going to have a deferral or we're not. So what do we want to do? Because we will have a deferral or we're not going to have a deferral. There's been concerns about inconsistencies raised by the commissioners. That gets to the issue of consistency. We have it or we don't. i don't know if anybody's prepared to make a motion and the work's not going to stop regardless of what we do october 1st doesn't change and staff and the consultant have you know moved heaven and earth to try to get some of these things done in time so they're going to happen issue with timing i guess but for now we've got to decide

i don't know if anybody wants to make a motion and we'll what what are we where are we did we have a motion or not yeah no no motion yet no we don't have a motion no one's made a motion yet well do it step recommend them motion to keep the deferral and do you motion to extend the deferral or i mean i can make a motion but i don't think commissioner it's up to you you need to close the public hearing and then decide to either leave the record open for 10 days which would then you'd be making the decision in two weeks, or just make the decision yea or nay on the extension.

I mean, it seems like the end result's going to be the same, except one is more consistent to finish and know that it's been deferred. But it's all how you perceive it. But one way or another... And that one reason I read this is because I want everybody to be on the record. This is not just us anymore. This is building something in the community that's not safe currently. And it's not that I can see anywhere else. So I just want to make sure everybody knows it. They were at the hearing. It's on the record. And I'm going to make sure it continues to be on the record because it's an issue.

We'll close the public hearing first. I forgot about that. So I need a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. We have a motion. Second.

We have a motion.

Commissioner Gordon is still here.

I've got somewhere to go.

And Commissioner Gordon, we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion?

Just to close the public hearing. Just to close the public hearing.

Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye.

unanimous public hearing is closed. And Commissioner Gordon, just so you know, I no longer, we can't see you on the screen. So if you have any comments or any discussion that you'd like, you know, feel free to jump in and we'll make sure to give you the floor. We'll do. So as we've, yeah, I guess pretty much well established at this point, it does come down to timing. So if I was to agree to extend because I understand that I'm the deciding vote here if I was to agree to extend the deferral I Would need my two colleagues here to very clearly understand and acknowledge the fact that my support of extending the deferral would be necessitated upon the fact that we would be that we would be or I would be Inclined to grant exemptions when the time comes. These developers have addressed the concerns that I have. I understand why you and staff have recommended keeping the deferrals in place. But I also very clearly take the point that these developers have made changes. They made appreciable changes. Yes, yes they have. Yes they have. And I needed to be understood that if I agree to move forward with extending the deferral, there's going to come a time and a place where the exemptions or the potential for the exemption is going to come up, and I'm going to be very inclined to granting those exemptions. I need my colleagues to understand that. I need people in the audience to understand that. It is not a simple straightforward thing at this point one way or the other. At the very beginning when we were going through the fact finding and we were trying to gather all this information, it was, yes, again, like I said at the beginning, maybe there are inconsistencies, maybe there are areas where we can strengthen the code and we certainly want to try to work with the developers to bring about some kind of changes with their plans, with their developments. And we certainly, we're getting to that point. So again, if my colleagues can acknowledge the fact that I am inclined to those exemptions, then I'm willing to concede to extending the deferral.

I, for one, cannot acknowledge that. We're delaying them. And if I were on the other side of the fence as a developer, You're delaying me because you might do something later, and that's not consistency. If we're willing to exempt some things, let's just do it now and not do the deferrals. They can race. like crazy almost said a bad word they they can race like crazy and try to meet the october first and they might not make it i they might not make it um but the it's all it's on them i i if if i were on the other side i i just that i that's you know i i don't want i don't want to hear a promise of what you might do in three months

I take that point so let me ask then because I know that that Liz had very capably said that that you know we would have to consider exemptions on a time frame point in the process what would something like that look like something would it would it be having reached a certain yeah certain milestones you know certainly

pass-through concept plan would be an early milestone and you know ready to go to Planning Commission or you could allow them to go to Planning Commission and if they meet Planning Commission final approval then then then the board would

say okay you know they're different different places those are I mean a couple I mean you might have other the easiest Milestone is whether the the project has been presented to Planning Commission for concept review that's that is a significant Milestone that essentially all technical staff and the Planning Commission agree that the concept of what's being proposed meets all code regulations and and is acceptable to move forward so that's that's a significant milestone and and would be the one that I would recommend if you wanted to put some sort of exemption in place so the the only two that have not i know legends has not at lures avenue has not gone and i know that reservoir run has not gone for concept um i believe piney ridge mike is mike still here yes yes i believe yeah piney ridge has gone to concept so if you were to use that as a milestone for exemption then eldersburg eldersburg overlook um piney ridge and freedom's grant would be exempted Okay.

The other item to note is that if you choose to extend this deferral and then retroactively want to make exemptions down the road, that will require a new public hearing process because you are once again changing the ordinance if you do it prior to October 1st.

Say that again.

So if you extend the deferral today to October 1st of 2026 and then retroactively decide that you want to exempt some projects based on a certain time frame prior to October 1st because they are at their final approval stage, that will require a new public hearing process because you are changing the ordinance again.

Similar to the self-storage. So that's why we had the self-storage conversation. You asked staff to let you know when a any development of that type or any type got to the point where they were about would in a normal process go to the planning commission staff let you know that that one self-storage unit was at that point and then you had the discussion about whether you were going to make any changes and just concluded that the last agenda item so this would be the same same process

And I just want to say, it depends on what the changes are. I'm not going to say that some of these things are non-negotiable for me. The safety issues are non-negotiable. They're not. We have a duty to provide. what we know now we know that these things are not safe for our seniors and we have a duty to make it right and i plan to make a big deal about that because that's what we we are here to do that's what one of the things that that's why we have permits and safety things for these reasons and i again i think if you told 100 people the situation and you came saw it pictures were a thousand words you would say oh wow this should never have happened needs to get fixed and that's that's my rule of thumb it's just pretty basic like it's a golden rule but what i want what would i expect when you're investing in a lot you expect that your county i don't know of another county another agency that would allow this to occur to begin with and i'm glad we're catching it now before others get done people are going to be living these places for a long time it's not just like like buying a piece of clothing that you can then not use again it's their investment of their home and they're expecting certain things so i take the point right that

Moving ahead with the deferral, then exempting would require more process, which ironically might end up holding up the developers even more. And it may not also ultimately address concerns. So it really does come back down to timing, and it does come back. So if we moved ahead with the deferrals by the time we got to, just so I can be completely clear about this, If we moved ahead with an extension of the deferral, by the time we got to potential code changes, which ultimately would be October 1st.

October 6th.

I'm sorry?

October 6th.

October 6th. October 1st.

So we will be bringing the potential code changes back to the board on August 6th, because from a process perspective, it has to be back in your hands for us to work through the process to have it adopted by October 1st.

So the ultimate deadline is October 1st? Yes. Okay. And two, possibly, with the extension of a deferral, may be held up by October 1st. They may not be through the process by October 1st. Yes.

I don't know if any projects. Are you talking about projects or the development projects? Yes. If the deferral were not to be extended, I don't know if any projects would get to Planning Commission prior to October 1st.

And obviously, if they did go to Planning Commission, They would either be bound by potential code changes, or they would be exempted. We would have to.

So no, if a project went to planning commission prior to the board adopting any code changes, they would be subject to the codes in place at the time. OK.

And I just want to say, one of the things we do want is certainty. I think the more that we keep hesitating on what we're going to allow, it just causes more uncertainty and more delay. And I've tried to be clear from day one when I met with folks, the most important things that needed to be. And I've learned more and more since then of how really important those things were to begin with after seeing it in action. But the more that we keep saying, it could be this, it could be that, you're still getting more uncertainty. put the defer on and people had not moved forward if you look at where they were back in October compared to where we are now. And then if we look at the two and a half month delay out that we delayed it to go to a new, we would have been almost done by now and it would have been less painful. But where we are today, I think the Baker people have done a phenomenal job in pointing out things that we need to strengthen. And I think, hey, I could give them a whole other list. There's more. Our code is not well written. I think as he pointed out, but they've done a very good job. I think they're going to get good reception. I think we're going to have a good product and I think it's going to make us be a place people want to come to. And that's a safe place to come to and a product that people are going to want to come and I think in the end, that's our community. It's my community. I know it's nobody else. It's my community. It's what the people wanted. It's not even what we – listen, this is not going back to what the agreement was made during the Freedom Plan, what was supposed to go there. We are far from that. That still makes people irritated as well because this is not what was agreed to at all. So this is a compromise to begin with of having this number of homes there. And now to not do them properly is even more salt in the wound. That's all I'll say.

Well, again, I guess I'd come back around to the fact that we have the deferral in place right now, that a number of the developers have made changes, and again, in some cases, substantial changes, the fact that the deferral may potentially delay two of the projects, and the fact that by the time we actually talk about the code, potential code changes, we could exempt projects at that time from those changes in September. Chris, would any of these projects be ready to go prior to September? What is that, September 17th? Would they have final approval prior to September 17th? Difficult to say.

I honestly don't know.

OK.

I mean, I can certainly get that information for you. But again, it's.

And I respect that. I appreciate that. But I don't think we have that time. Because reading my four colleagues, they want some kind of decision made today. I was willing to give it 10 days to try to gather a little bit more information. But this is the. And I respect where my colleagues are with this. There's still the potential for exemptions. There's still the potential that a developer may have already satisfied all of the potential changes that would be made anyways. We don't know for sure whether they would be ready to go by September 17th. Have I accurately described the context there? Okay.

Yes. And I think except for one point, it's okay. If I'm the developer and pick something, my roads are 20 foot wide and we want them 50. I can't move forward that you might exempt it and you might not. I've either got to change it or, or go build in another County. You know, it's, it's, Unless if we extended deferral, we're we're delaying people and that's the way it is. And if we're OK with that, do it. I can't. I can't be OK with that. But if if three of us are then. I guess three of us are. I mean, it's it's I just I don't understand it.

We have a motion.

I'm going to make a motion. I don't see where one way or another is really going to matter. And I'm going to just say if they went and built in another county, they got way more rules than we got. I can tell you that.

So I developed in other counties. That is not true. OK, that's fine. I purposefully talked to other counties and Baltimore, Howard, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, PG, Cecil, Harford. That's not true, okay? And I just, I don't want to see any developer walk. I want to see Carroll County grow. But if I were a couple of them, I'd have walked them two months ago when we sit here for two hours and say, we're not capable of making a decision, but we will. so go ahead but don't tell me that other places have less less rules or more rules because you don't know that and i do okay i just read their zoning code but that's okay all right let me make a motion till two o'clock like i say i stayed up till two o'clock and had a football the ravens won't let me start people either do stuff or they read about stuff okay thank you

All right. I move that the board close the public hearing and adopt the ordinance.

Already closed the public hearing. And I'm just, I'm being nice now.

You want to just extend the deferral if that's what you, so I move that the board.

I move that the board extend the deferral for.

Until October.

Until October 1st. Second. 2026.

We have a motion, we have a second. By extending the deferral, developers can continue along in the process until they reach a certain point. We have a motion, we have a second. Discussion? Yeah, I just seconded it. Okay, so is there any discussion?

Sounds like you were having a discussion with yourself. I am, I am.

Honestly, I'm genuinely trying to work through this.

I would have much preferred to... Have the discussion now.

Right.

Perhaps not a discussion, but I'm going to make a quick comment. I'm not speaking for my other four colleagues, but I'm going to make a comment. And I think at the end of the day, all five of us have different backgrounds, different opinions, and different ideas and concepts on things in general. But I honestly do believe the five of us are doing great. what we believe is best for Carroll County. I don't think any of us are looking to see anyone harmed via improper safety measures or other things that have been mentioned a variety of times in these meetings. We've met with various folks from Fire EMS as well as other groups. So to me, I think we all are in the right place. I think it's a case of how we get there. I'll go back to the first meeting again. When we first had this first conversation in the original meeting, I said, is there any way to modify some things as things are progressing? Because what I really didn't want to see happen was us put everything in a deferral. Now, some will say that's not possible. I think we could have at least tweaked some things. Now, that's not saying I disagree with any of you. I think it's just a case of how we get there, mostly. But more importantly, we've still got to figure out a consistency. And know i i will i will agree with commissioner krebs on this we all need to still work together to figure this whole process out i know we all have our moments i know all of us at times are going to disagree just like family disagrees but at the end of the day i truly believe the five of us are working hard for the people we serve which is all of us in carroll county and that's it for me and and thank you for that comment and i i just i want to clarify

Whatever we pass. Then we've passed it and I'm moving forward if it's 4 to 1, 3 to 2. If it doesn't, if it fails 2 to 3, that's our decision and I'm OK with that. But but I I just want things to be factual and understood.

Oh, I know it comes down to me so.

This is not the biggest decision you're going to make in your life. It's not the biggest decision you're going to make. It's six to one, half dozen to the other.

Well, I mean, I can kind of read the rumor. I know where two of my colleagues are going. I know where the other two are going. And I was genuinely trying to find some common ground by giving us ten days to further evaluate where we are. But, again, I respect and understand, as Commissioner Kyler says, the consensus of the body is that we want to make a decision about this today, and I respect that. I respect that, and I will abide by that. But as I said earlier, I'm very much disposed to exemptions. When this all began, I made sure that I wasn't going to support a deferral without allowing for the process to continue to that certain point. And given where we are, and given knowing the timing at this point, and knowing that not everybody may even necessarily be ready by that point in time, and knowing that we still have the ability to grant exemptions. and knowing that developers have made changes, if my two pro-extension colleagues can acknowledge the fact that there will be a serious case to be made for exemptions, then I can agree to the deferrals.

I would argue that unless something's changed, unless there's some legal ramifications that prevent us from doing so, any commissioner would have the right to put on the agenda any of these projects for exemption it sounds to me like i'm just surmising here that you might have plenty of support to do that so if that's the case i don't see why you couldn't do it just just a little tweak to that statement just it wouldn't be a project by project you'd have to come up with well Time well that as explained as explained.

Yes, probably with So so it'll be We're we're doing it for three months. We've spent half that time. Well, would it be would it?

Yeah

if we exempt somebody today it doesn't require we just had the public hearing if we exempt somebody next week then we need to go through the whole process we'll spend half the summer in public hearings it seems yes which we all love if the exemption and and and i because it was hot i didn't wear a tie that's a good choice good choice sir

So if we chose to make an exemption, and Liz, correct me if I'm wrong, if we chose to make exemptions, could that come at the time, I think I asked the question before, and I apologize, in September when we consider the code changes? We could, in lieu or in light of, or I should say under the auspices of those potential code changes, make exemptions at that time, or would it require a separate public hearing?

You could make them as part of the code discussion that you have on September 17th, but just know that at that point, any project prior to that that's ready to go, if they have not, so if they're ready to go prior to September 17th or whatever day your hearing is to adopt the new ordinance sections, they would require their own separate hearing if you wanted to change the timeline, essentially.

Okay.

And I want to suggest there may be a project or two that will meet the requirements that we're going to put forward. That's a possibility. I've said that from the beginning. I mean, so it's possible that some already meet it because of how the project is moving forward. Yes. That could be without any, without, I mean, I'm not an expert. I'm not a, but I think that there at least is one that could move forward when this is done very quickly because they seem to meet all the requirements. But I'm not making a promise. I'm just, I believe it. Right.

Is there any other discussion or comment from the board?

If you wait any longer, you're buying lunch. Maybe dinner.

Knowing that there are still possibilities for developers through the process of the deferrals. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Opposed.

So three to two motion carries for the deferrals.

That's right. All right. Let's move on.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.

Up next, item number six, approval to purchase pavement condition survey and analysis. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Division of Engineering requests your approval to purchase pavement condition survey and analysis from Mott McDonald LLC in the amount of $135,379. This purchase will be made from a state of Maryland contract that was competitively bid and awarded to Mott McDonald LLC. The amount is approved in the FY26 budget.

As part of the Department of Public Works asset management program, we conduct pavement condition survey of approximately 932 centerline miles of asphalt roadways every two years. This field survey identifies critical distresses in our roadways and inputted in our agile assets pavement management software, which is used to develop our annual pavement management program. This is one of the tools we use to ensure we're performing the right treatment on the right roadways at the right time. Mott McDonald LLC has been performing these condition surveys for Carroll County for several years.

Any questions or direction from the board?

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the purchase of pavement condition survey and analysis from Mott McDonald LLC in the amount of $135,379. Second. We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Up next, Spending Authority for Substance Use Recovery Treatment Services Program Oversight and Monitoring Services.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Department of Citizen Services requests your approval to fund program oversight and monitoring services to the Carroll County Health Department for the Substance Use Recovery Treatment Services Program in the amount of $55,280. Carroll County Commissioners and CCHD entered into an MOA in September of 2024 to oversee the program and monitor the contract for the program. Primary service will be to work with Maryland Treatment Centers, the awarded vendor, to ensure contract compliance. This amount will cover the cost of admin fees and program monitoring for the duration of its term. The amount is approved in the FY27 adopted budget.

Any questions or direction from the board?

I got one question. Is this the total amount that they get, or is this just a piece of it?

Total. This is the total for the year.

This is just for the monitoring and the oversight. The health department monitors RSS and the programs at RSS, and this is just for the monitoring piece that the health department does. This isn't for RSS and their program. Is there a fee-for-service program?

So who monitors, I mean, who actually monitors it? Is it our health department or this group?

The health department.

So we give the health department extra money to monitor that program? Correct. Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

Any direction from the board?

Move the Board of Commissioners approve spending authority for the oversight and monitoring services for substance use recovery treatment services program to the Carroll County Health Department in the amount of $55,280. Second. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Up next, grant approval to submit application and acceptance of award for the FY 2027 supporting older adults with resources for the Division of Aging and Disabilities, or DOAD.

Good morning, Commissioners. I'm joined today again. She's back before us, Gina Valentine, our Division Manager with Aging and Disabilities, and then Bobby Lawrence, our Client Services Manager with Aging and Disabilities. And I'm going to turn it over to Gina to walk us through the SOAR program and some of the changes, and then also to seek your approval for the submission and application and acceptance of the award.

Thank you, Celine. So the SOAR program was approved during the 2025 legislative session, and we'll combine the senior care and senior assisted living subsidy programs and will be implemented in fiscal year 27. There was a lot of planning that has been done during the current fiscal year. I do want to recognize our staff, Bobby and Nicole Renal, they participated in a work group with Maryland Department of Aging for the design of this program. And I'm hoping for a successful implementation of the program. And then also Denise Valentine, who is the coordinator of our current senior care program. They've all worked really hard to make sure our clients who are in the senior assisted living subsidy program and the senior care program are transitioned well over to this other program, the SOAR program. I mean, essentially the SOAR program will provide the same services as senior care installs And it's intended to provide more flexibility for the administration of the program on our end. Services that will be included will be personal care, chore, home delivered meals, life emergency response systems, assistance with paying for medications, and assistance with paying for assisted living facilities. Those are just some of the services that will be offered through the program as examples. Participants will also receive case management services as they currently do in both existing programs. And the program will be administered in partnership with Carroll County Health Department and Carroll County Department of Social Services. I do wanna recognize, well, Carroll County Health Department, they perform an evaluation piece for people who apply for the program, and then also we'll do an annual assessment on those individuals to determine if they're still eligible. Department of Social Services provides in-kind case management services to our senior care participants. In conjunction with us, we provide case management services as well. So it's great partnership with both of those entities, which will continue. For participants that are currently enrolled in the Senior Care and Solace Program, there's supposed to be a seamless transition. They're not going to lose any services, and their services will remain intact. There could be changes after fiscal year 27 to the program. We do not know yet for Maryland Department of Aging. after their direction, but we will certainly advocate for any, along with Maryland Association for Area Agencies on Aging, with any services that are maybe slated to be cut or changed that may have negative impacts on our clients. The total grants for the SOAR program is $436,744. There's no county cash match required. It is important to note that the combined senior care and SALS allocations For fiscal year 26, the current fiscal year was a total of $501,200. So we're going to receive a reduction of $64,000, over $64,000 with this new program. Some of the reason for that is because there are counties that didn't have the senior assisted living subsidy program. So they're getting a piece of this allocation that they didn't receive before because they didn't have the SALS program. So that's part of the reason for the reduction in the funding. So to start off with, again, our clients are not going to lose services. We will probably spend heavy during the first quarter or two of fiscal year 27, and then from there, as people come off the program, we'll have to really map out the rest of the fiscal year. So we may essentially be serving less people because of this reduction in funding, unfortunately. The other important piece to note is that the eligibility requirement for SOAR, it's consistent now, whereas for senior care and SOARs, there's different eligibility, there's different age criteria, different financial criteria. But the eligibility criteria from the financial side and the age requirement will be consistent. And the age requirement is being lowered to 60 years of age. So we could see an increase in people seeking services, but we don't know what that looks like. But we will certainly monitor that. And so we're just moving forward again, making sure our current clients are taken care of, and then we'll continue to monitor as fiscal year 27 goes on see how people may be impacted by the changes to this program and if we're going to be able to serve less people Maryland Department of Aging does envision a what they call a light touch case management for people but case management is not going to solve the issues that some people may have or the services that they need but I do envision that we'll be providing some case management to individuals who may not receive funding for services in their home, if that makes sense, to kind of monitor and continue to connect them to other community resources that may help them until they maybe have a demonstrated need to have some additional services that we're paying for. so but I do again want to recognize the staff this has been a lot over the last year in planning for the program and but our voices were heard Maryland Department of Aging did make some adjustments you know to the model of the program so

Did you have I'm sorry I talked no no I the expansion of the eligibility is really I think a very positive thing However, we will always target those who have the most functional needs to receive services the the end goal is really to keep people in their homes keep them safe and um and then move on and be aware of other programs and services for which someone could be eligible we have um like i said close partnerships with our community partners and even within maryland access point our staff within all the programs home and community based so we feel that this will be a very streamlined transition into the program any questions comments or direction from the board

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the submission of the FY2027 SOAR grant application for the Division of Aging and Disabilities and accept the award.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. I'm sorry, Commissioner Gordon, you're muted. Are you? Yes. Okay. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right. Up next, we have public comment. Roberta, do we have anybody here for public comment?

No.

All right. Thank you very much. Chris, do we have anybody on the line for public comment? I have no one on the line, sir. Well, thank you very much. All right. We are going to move into admin open. And to kick off admin open, we have Jenny Hobbs with us for approval for staff signature authorization.

Good morning, commissioners.

Morning to you both. Good afternoon. I'm sorry. Good afternoon to you both.

Oh, good afternoon. I'm wrong, too. I said good morning. It's still morning.

That's how time flies with our... Well, at least we figured it out that it was afternoon, right?

That's right. With me, I have Rachel Graves, our new division manager of accounting. We have had some staffing changes in the Department of Comptroller, and, you know, we have those bank accounts that we have to keep up to date, make sure we can move money, make payments, collect money. With that said... Currently, there's no changes to our banking accounts. Commissioner Kyler and myself are already on the account as signers and authorized representatives on all of these accounts. In addition, with your approval, we would like to add Rachel Graves to become an authorized representative on the county's behalf. I'll go over quickly several of the accounts that we have resolutions that are required by the bank for your authorization to approve all of us to be on there right now. Truist, which is our deposit bank. We have multi-bank securities. It's one of our investment firms. We have UBS, which is our financial investment platform. MLG IP, which is a pooled investment account with other governments. It's a joint account that most governments in the state of Maryland have that we join with. There are also a few other investment accounts. I don't have all the resolutions in yet. But upon your approval of authorization, to add her to the as a list of representatives so it would be currently the three of us on there um we're asking that you approve that recommendation and what's the full name again i'm sorry rachel rachel graves racial grace okay graves okay i just had a question um it seems to me that the current president should be the person that's a signer when the that's currently up to you the one the one recommendation is um if we do have him as a signer you would we would have to purchase key fobs for and the only reason we had commissioner kyler stay on is because it's a cost to the county to get the key fobs for the printing of the checks not saying that you can't um just wanted to let you know that if you decide to change that we can um i just think forever it should be the president of the board just because that's the new when you change it every year i understand that gets expensive well we're not it's about four or five hundred dollars to get new plates to print in the system i just want i'm just what's the intent of that what's the purpose of having that Because that's for our checks. We still have live checks, not everyone's ACH. So any direct deposit for paychecks, we have to have two signatures on our checks. So the commissioner that's a signer in my name would go on that.

It just seems while you're getting the stuff changed. I mean, if you weren't changing it anyway, but you're getting the stuff changed, and it seems like we should have the current president on it.

And that's totally up to you or choice. Just know that it is a cost, would be a cost every time we change president if you wanted.

Yeah, you might be changing them again in six months. No. Yeah, we would.

OK, so maybe I do think we should have it, because that's the person that's always meeting with staff mostly and is representative of all of us. And maybe since we're halfway through the year, we can wait, but unless you want to do it again next year.

And then we would also have to bring all of these resolutions back to you.

I understand. That's why I'm saying while you're doing it for this, I thought it was a good time to automatically do it. It's just normally that's the way the boards do things.

So for did for today, Jenny and Roberta and Liz, we need a motion to authorize racial graves as a dedicated signature for banking, banking, banking activities. All right. Do we have a motion for that? We have a motion. Do we have a second? Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Does anybody else have anything for admin open today? Hearing none, we'll move. I'm sorry.

I just have one thing. I carried this around last week. I'm just going to give you a copy. Tom, I'm going to give you a copy too because you're working on this. We had talked about during budget session about distribution of funds to outside organizations. I don't like to just tell people they have to do stuff. I try to give a solution. I just wrote this up and it's just an outline requesting that the county attorney, and I should have done it with Jennifer here, proposed an enforceable policy or code update to clearly identify a process of accountability for the approval and distribution of funds to outside organizations. It says in the interest of Carroll County Board of Commissioners and requirements of our state law to ensure that all disbursements of funds to non-profits and other entities not covered under procurement of goods and services in code, are covered by an MOA, contract, or MOU prior to distribution of funds. I found that there is a difference between MOU and MOA. MOA might be the more appropriate thing to use. I just use the other term. Because county funds cannot go directly to a non-profit or other entity, Carroll County must establish a formal funding agreement with non-profit by passing a legislative resolution verifying the non-profits legal and tax status, and granting a legally binding grant agreement or memorandum of understanding outlining the exact deliverables, auditing requirements, and funds disbursements. Any miscellaneous transfer to the state of Maryland and any other government agency will be provided with a similar process to determine what the transfer is for and if it's refundable. The process, and this is just stuff I pulled off of some other... some other counties that have this, pretty much all of you. Process should include legislative authorization and budget allocation. You must have budget approval. Funding must be included in the county's annual operating budget or specific supplemental appropriation. Commissioner vote. Carroll County commissioners must formally vote to approve the specific grant or funding distribution by MOA contract or mou which is not enforceable but a mutual set of understandings the mou would probably be better where neither party is legal and then legal and financial verification we need to make sure that the county verifies that the state non-profit is in good standing and registered to operate in maryland with the department of assessment taxation charitable status entity typically must be registered to solicit charitable contributions within the maryland secretary of state and hold tax exempt status and then due diligence county checks for any past compliance audit findings or delinquent reporting and one of the reasons for this stuff with the non-profits is not just to we're not trying to ding them we're trying to make sure they know there might be a mistake there was a mistake that Commissioner Kyler found that the state had typed something in wrong and because we looked at it they got to update it and have it fixed so some of it is to ensure that these groups that things are happening the way they think and I think we do it with all of our little all of our nonprofits sort of are in the same boat and they're usually a year or two behind because of the filing deadlines but this is just a guideline instead of us saying go do this and come back and discuss it and say oh well what about this and what about that I'm basically saying yeah I did some homework on it this is I think a good draft of of what would be included and we're looking for um this is sort of the direct I'm trying to give as clear direction as possible so we're not back and forth so I would like to make a motion that we request the accounting attorney to propose an enforceable policy or code update to clearly identify a process of accountability for the approval and distribution of funds to outside organizations and this can be attached to it as just a draft memo

All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

All right, we have a motion and two seconds. Any discussion?

I'd like to get the opportunity to read it. It has, like, for instance, signatures. Who is the chair of the county commissioners? I didn't know such a thing existed.

You can put whatever word you want to put, whoever's.

I can't hear you.

This is just, this is not a docket. This is just given some, some ideas and there's some stuff on the back.

Um, yeah, it's, it's a lot of stuff.

I'm not asking them to adopt this. I'm asking us to re the motion is to request this. I'm trying to give some direction. You all can look at it.

We can, um, we can talk about it just to let them do something. Cause you know, I would ask, okay, a nonprofit wants to sell us fifty dollars worth of stuff so we need to do all this to pay them 50 bucks for a product no i think no you bought a product if you buy a product you don't have to do that that's the whole point if you buy it that's that's what i'm saying that it's it's this is for something that doesn't pages and okay and not not having uh the courtesy of seeing them before the meeting um

okay this is just this is just for you to look at they can bring it back whatever they want i'm just trying to suggest that these are some components that it could be if you're getting if you're buying something for somebody you don't have to do anything this is when you're just giving money if we're renting a car from a non-profit then they're renting you can bring all those examples up and you're getting a service you're getting the car you have a contract but all those examples will be good to bring back yeah this is if you're just giving away money and so it

Yeah. And and this morning, people didn't care that somebody was not in not in compliance, not in good standing.

No, we pointed it out and they fixed it. And that was really good because that's what I say.

So that's the point. This would hopefully include something that if you're not, you find out why. Absolutely. And if an attorney is working on it, then maybe that's OK. OK.

So this is a request to ask staff to create a policy that would come to us for consideration

I'm just saying, I just put this out there. Instead of not giving any direction, I'm just saying, here's what I pulled together from a bunch of different people.

So this is informational. I'm just making sure I understand.

It's informational. Some guidelines that, instead of me saying, why didn't you do this, this, and this, these are some things that I would think would be good parts of the components. And we can take it for what it is.

Similar to what we did with the bylaws.

You can send this document to the appropriate person. Absolutely. We're already working on it.

Okay, great. So by outside organizations, and I just want to make sure that I understand, are we talking specifically about nonprofits or are we talking about the sheriff and the state's attorney as well?

They're not outside organizations, first of all. Those are...

with the partner agencies but no they're part of your budget so they're not like the maybe the board of ed will be a better example they're part of the budget but we don't have we don't authorize we don't we don't have control expressly over them we don't tell the sheriff you know we want you to put your act up in front of the county building we can do that we can tell yes so we could tell the state's attorney we could tell the state's attorney i thought the i thought the state's attorney

Anyway, without going there, I believe I understand exactly what Commissioner Krebs wants and exactly what the board has said. We discussed this during budget deliberations that the county does not have the authority to give away money unless we are getting a service, so to speak, that we believe they could do more efficiently, more effectively, whatever the right word is, than we can do. And we have agreements with most of the organizations already for this. We're adding additional agreements. There have been a couple new nonprofits that were added this year. But now this is just asking for a process that we'll follow. And we have it. We'll just put it in paper. That's good.

So I can go over to the sheriff's office and order him to put a bunch of vehicles out front of the county building?

Maybe you can explain all those different components when we go through this. But right now, this is meant for the ones that we're not authorized to do.

Okay. All right. There's the critical piece for it. Okay. All right.

No, it's the miscellaneous stuff. I mean, it's not those – we should understand why we give money to them and we're supposed to and support them. But it just clearly puts in our policy that this is what we have to do. And it is what –

And I'm fine with putting together a policy. I just wanted to make sure that I understood what the parameters of this were.

I think, I certainly want you to understand because you're the ones voting on it, but I believe I understand.

We're not voting on the body of this. I'm just trying to give, instead of you coming back and saying, what about this and what about that, I'm trying to say, here, please consider all of these things.

This is what we did with bylaws. Okay. Exactly the same. A framework. No. This is going to be a similar framework.

We have a motion. We have a second. Okay. All right. All right. Now I'm clear. And thank you all. All right. Okay.

I knew you were working on it, and thank you. I know Commissioner Gordon is working on it, so thank you.

So we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously.

Commissioner Gordon, I'll email you a copy. If you're somewhere you don't want to be bothered, I'll send it to you next week.

Now you can send it. OK, thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Krebs. Does anybody else have anything for admin open?

No.

Alright, hearing none will move into agenda review. Good afternoon, Wanda. How are you?

Hey Wanda, before I forget it and I'll I'll bring it to you, but I have a pile of things for a Commissioner Gordon and he said to give him to you. OK, so you're in the you got him OK.

All right. So first, the first week, Monday, week of Monday, June 15th, 2026. Monday, June 15th shows nothing on the formal calendar. Tuesday, June 16th, Planning and Zoning Commission with Commissioner Gordon and the Veterans Advisory Meeting with Commissioners Gordon and Kyler. Wednesday, June 17th, Alcohol Retailer Seminar Opening Remarks at the Public Safety Training Center with Commissioner Kyler. Carroll County Community College Board of Trustees meeting at the Great Hall with Commissioner Kyler at the college. The MDOT public meeting for Maryland 26 Bridges over Liberty Reservoir at Liberty High School with Commissioner Krebs. And then the Emergency Services Advisory Council Public Safety Training Center meeting at the Public Safety Training Center with Commissioner Garrett. Thursday, June 18th, 8 o'clock a.m., County Commissioners Closed Admin, followed by Open Session at 9 o'clock a.m. Item number one, Priority Carol, including Park and Recreation Month of July Proclamation. Item number two, FY 2027 Program Open Space Allocations to Municipalities. Item number three, Approval and Acceptance of the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness 25-27 Year 2 Grants. item number four proposed amendments to chapter 150 forest conservation item number five community development block public hearing just to i apologize no problem no no no i just wanted people to hear that thank you very much thank you very specifically seriously thank you for that public hearing for proposed amendments to chapter 150 forest conservation i apologize Item number five, public hearing on community development block grant for the family shelter construction. Item number six, update on engaging neighborhoods, organizations, unions, governments, and households or the enough program. Item number seven, letter of comment for Mount Airy annexation number 47 on Watersville Road. Item number eight, briefing discussion for introduction to water resources elements. Item number nine, briefing discussion decision for the decision, I'm sorry, decision on proposed text amendments to chapters 155 and 158 for planned commercial centers. Item number 10, contract award for Hempstead Valley. Four. Four. I can never quite tell whether it's... Stormwater Management Facility retrofit. Followed by public comment, admin open, agenda review. That evening at 6 o'clock p.m., the Habitat for Humanity 25th Anniversary Family Party Night at Island Green. And then at 7.30 p.m., the Town of Manchester 250th Celebration in Manchester with Commissioner Kyler. Friday, June 19th, county offices are closed in observance of Juneteenth. Saturday, June 20th shows nothing on the formal calendar. Sunday, June 21st, Commissioner Krebs has the podcast. Are there any changes or alterations for our first week? Hearing none, we'll move into our second week for the week of Monday, June 22nd. Monday, June 22nd shows nothing on the formal calendar. Tuesday, June 23rd, Carroll Chamber of Commerce biz challenge meet and greet at the Town Mall of Westminster at the food court. Wednesday, June 24th, public meeting for retirement villages and homes at the South Carroll Senior Center in Sykesville with Commissioners Kyler and Krebs. 7 o'clock p.m., Carroll County Public Library Board of Trustees meeting at the Mount Airy branch in Mount Airy, Maryland. So far, nobody is slated to attend that. Thursday, June 25th, 8 o'clock a.m., county commissioners closed admin, followed by open session at 9 o'clock a.m. Item number one, Priority Carroll. Item number two, approval to submit and accept the buprenorphine. Did I say that correctly? I'm trying to remember how the chief pronounced it, right? Is that buprenorphine? Did I say that right? Buprenorphine Initiative Grant and Access Overdose Prevention and Response Grant and add one EMS position for the Department of Fire and EMS, followed by public comment, admin open, agenda review. Friday, June 26th, Town Mall 250th event with Commissioner Kyler. Saturday, June 27th, nothing on the formal calendar. Sunday, June 28th, I have the podcast. Are there any changes or alterations for the second week of our schedule? Hearing none, we need a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? We are adjourned.