Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

open session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners. As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent reflection.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and

I hope everybody's doing well today and I cannot believe we're already halfway through September. So first up with priority Carol today, commissioner Krebs, I believe you're first.

Well, lucky for you, I'm losing my voice. Was that planned? Um, So in the spirit of that, yesterday I had a chance to go up to Pontyrent Park, and I haven't seen it yet with all the new additions there. And I should have mentioned that to our Reckon Park director because he was just in our meeting. But they have new pickleball courts, and they have a new playground, and they have new resurfaced basketball courts. They're like 50 years old. They needed it. So it was beautiful. It was a beautiful day, and I played with a bunch of senior citizens, about 60, 70 people there had to leave. But it shows you that old is the new young. So we appreciate having that opportunity. So that's what I did. That's all I can remember. Losing my voice.

Well, thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner Guerin, you didn't have anything? Commissioner Gordon?

Okay, thank you very much. First and foremost, I wanted to mention today, September 17th, we celebrate the signing of the U.S. Constitution, which was done in Philadelphia, September 17th of 1787. I believe it's incredibly important to recognize this document that established the framework of our government, protects individual rights, and continues to guide our nation. The Constitution began with three powerful words, we the people. Those words remind us that our government exists to serve the people and that the responsibility of citizenship are just as important as the rights we enjoy. Constitution is not simply a historic document, but it's a living foundation that calls upon each generation to understand, respect, and uphold the principles of our republic. That includes civic engagement, informed participation, and a commitment to the rule of law. I encourage everybody to take a few minutes to read the Constitution and reflect on the freedoms and responsibilities that it represents for all of us. Last week, Matt, if you could switch the slide, please. Last week, wanted just to talk real briefly. Three of us attended the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy. Ceremony was a solemn reminder that even after a quarter of a century, the lives lost and the sacrifices made on that day remain deeply etched in our hearts. We remember the nearly 3,000 innocent people who never made it home and honor the firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical professionals, and countless other citizens who were engaged courageously answering the call that day. 25 years ago in the aftermath of that tragic event, our nation came together in a way that transcended political ideology, personal differences, and many things that can divide us. We stood together as one united country bound by compassion, courage, and a shared love for our fellow Americans. that unity is important to remember as part of september 11th and we must never lose sight of that i want to mention that that was quite a touching event last week i know some of the speakers yourself included commissioner vigliotti i truly appreciated your your comments and also the uh comments you made regarding the neighbor that you had from childhood. I really truly appreciated hearing about that. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Also, just really quickly, I'm going to go down a few other things that I attended this week. Earlier this week, the Boys and Girls Club of Carroll County celebrated their 20th anniversary. What a testament to have 20 years of the Boys and Girls Club in Carroll County. Starting in an exceptionally small location up the street very close to McDaniel College outgrowing that moving to Main Street and being the still being the Boys and Girls Club of Westminster and just a few years ago changing that name to the Boys and Girls Club of Carroll County with now locations. both in Westminster, Hampstead, and then also a number of satellite sites. It's just absolutely wonderful to have that level of commitment from not only the people that work there, but the countless volunteers and students from both McDaniel College and the community college and also our community as a whole. And as many people are aware, there's been quite a few of our, I think it's at least five or six, I know I'm getting the number wrong, of the Youth of the Year from Carroll County becoming the State Youth of the Year and representing us both in the state and also nationally. Just a wonderful, wonderful organization and just a perfect example of showing how many of our nonprofits do amazing things in Carroll County. I also want to mention really briefly, Commissioner Kyler and I attended the box lunch talk for the Historical Society on, that was, I believe, Tuesday, if I remember correctly. This week's a blur. We got to hear from a number of the members of the former students and friends of Robert Moten. I'm going to leave that for Commissioner Kyler to talk about. And then he and I also attended the Veterans Advisory Council that afternoon. And also on Tuesday, I was at Planning and Zoning. And that's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, the first thing I want to announce, and I tried to get some photos and memes and whatever, but was not successful. Uh, Francis Scott key four H um, their ag mechanics are in Massachusetts competing against, uh, new England, uh, teams for, um, for ag mechanics and four H does so many things other than just raise animals and, uh, I just think it's awesome. They're up there. Um, our high schools have great, great four H people and, uh, and, uh, future farmers both. And it's just, uh, I wanted to mention that, um, um, Rhonda and I went to two parties over the weekend. I want to mention the one, uh, lippy brothers. And, uh, the reason I want to mention that they, they have a huge, they're a huge entity, but they have a huge party. And, uh, but they also started this week combining. So farm equipment's going to be on the roads and, uh, be safe, please be safe. Um, we had the MML dinner, ML dinner and got to meet all the jurisdictions, which is always great. Um, that was a good evening and, uh, um, great to talk to so many of the jurisdictions. I individually talked, um, since then to Manchester and Hampstead. had meetings with them and talked about some of the things they have going on. Um, we already mentioned the nine 11 ceremony and Carol. Um, I decided to, uh, go to upper co they were, uh, 7 30 that night with their, their ceremony, great ceremony there. Um, chaplain did the ceremony itself and, uh, He's a great guy. In the last year, he's had throat cancer and lost his wife. But he wanted to be there and talk to us. And while he was a little bit raspy, he was great. And he actually, we all sang and he participated in that. And I'll use that opportunity to just say, please support our volunteers. Baltimore County, And Scott Timmerman is the president there who grew up in Manchester and is also a volunteer in Carroll County. Everybody, all these firemen seem to be interconnected every place. Uppercow is a total volunteer fire company while others are total paid. That's how they separated. their hybrid system and it, and it's interesting. They're, they're happy. I'm sure they have issues. He didn't tell me about that night, but if anybody's been by opera co that's a beautiful facility and I got a tour of it and, and, uh, got to talk to them and see some people that attended the ceremony. So I got to start today and Carol and end the day in Baltimore county. And it was great. Um, veterans advisory. We did have that historical. Society did the Robert Moten presentation and they do a number of those box lunches and it's always interesting topics. Carroll County Trustees Community College last night with great meeting as always and today the James Ball Athletic Complex is going to be dedicated with the new turf field there. I think The ceremony technically starts at 3. There's other activities as early as 2.30. And then there's two soccer games, men's and women's, one at 4, one at 6. So support your local community college. And then also tonight, Commissioner Gordon mentioned about being busy. The Arts Council, they've had a members art contest And one of the awards is the Commissioner Award, and they present that tonight at 6. So I'm going to try to jump back and forth and be to both. And then I'm a board member with Baltimore Metropolitan Council, and once a year we do what we call Chesapeake Connect. We visit another city. and learn about the government and businesses and colleges and whatever. This year they moved it a month earlier, probably because of the election, which makes September even more busy. But they're going to Durham, North Carolina, which my daughter lives there. So I've been there a lot. Last year was Savannah and I think before that in the Midwest. But they do some some great trips and I'll be on that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, next week. And that's enough.

Well, thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you to all of my colleagues, as always, for their continued involvement and commitment to the community that we know as our county.

I forgot something.

Oh, yes, please. Of course. We all forgot something yesterday.

It was 8 o'clock last night. I shouldn't have forgotten it. Last night, we all participated. I'll accept President because he was busy doing something else. We had our state highway people and our transportation secretary for MDOT was here for our annual CTP, which is Consolidated Transportation Plan. It's when we all come and the municipalities come if they choose, and Senator Reedy was here. And we sort of lay out our case for more roads and road money and the issues that we're having here. The budget has actually gone down. It stayed flat for a number of years, and this governor has put more money into transit. And transit has 5% of riders and takes about over half of the budget. So when that priority shifts money, it makes money not go to our roads. And so it chokes up our municipalities who get highway user revenues. And they depend on that to keep their roads up. So really, we had just, Governor Hogan had just gotten those highway user revenues up to a decent amount because they had been taken away a number of years before. It's just a philosophical difference in governors, and some are more for roads and some are more for transit. And we're now in the transit era. Drought for us for us counties, but the state highway we're always advocating for more money from for Roads to pay for roads transportation dollars. We all drive cars Registration fees gas taxes and what we believe the money road money should go for roads But um, that's again not the philosophy So it's not gonna be as easy to get the road money that we need and we we have a lot of needs throughout the county so We made our case with them and hopefully our legislators, Delegate Tomlinson was there as well, will make their case in Annapolis this year during the budget time is to try to get some of that money. I think I read in a paper where it was a very low number, single digits, of how many riders actually pay when they ride Mass transit. They just don't pay anymore. They just go. So they're not collecting fare box recovery. And years ago, fare box recovery was 50%. And what does that mean? That means not the capital that you build the stuff with, but to operate transit, the buses and the light rail and the metro. They used to be expected to take $0.50 on the dollar they paid for with their fares. Now it's less than $0.05. So it's basically subsidized because nobody pays. And I guess if nobody else is paying before, you think, hey, why should I pay? So it's become almost totally subsidized. And that needs to change. It's not fair to the motoring public who is not getting the road money. It's also not fair just to people that are honest. It's not a high fare. I think it's like $2 or $3. And a lot of people have just passes and all. But that's a problem with our highway money right now in the state of Maryland. It's just the priorities of where the money is going is not into roads anymore. Not good for the suburban counties. So I thought I'd bring that. We were all there until we were busy prepping for something else.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thanks for catching us on that. So I'm just very briefly also going to mention our involvement with the 25th anniversary commemoration activities for September 11th. I want to commend Commissioner Gordon for his very eloquent remarks this morning. And along with Commissioner Gordon and Commissioner Kyler, I had the honor and privilege of speaking at the county's September 11th, 25th anniversary commemoration last week. I'm incredibly grateful to everybody who helped organize the event, everybody at DFEMS, including Chief Robinson and Captain Mike Karolenko, as well as everybody in the county office, including our own Christine Cambereri. The ceremony was really just tribute to the tragedy of the terrorist attacks 25 years ago, and it's important that we continue to remember and reflect upon that day. For anybody who might be interested in any of the remarks, those are available on a video. And I also want to take a moment as well to commend the principal, staff, teachers, and especially the incredible students of Northwest Middle School in Tawny Town, who each year throughout the day placed nearly 3,000 flags in tribute to the lives lost on September 11th. I was privileged to join Tawny Town Mayor Christopher G. Miller and Mayor Pro Tem Rachel Miller in witnessing the placing of many of those flags, which again was carried out by the students with tremendous care and unfailing respect. And that is certainly something to be commended among the young people at that school. So I thank them very much for that. And with nothing else for me this morning, I believe Commissioner Keiler has somebody's retirement to talk about.

Yes, Mr. Bob Spielman. Come on up to the table. We've got a... And... I'll read the certificate of recognition and then you guys can correct me for everything and add in. The Board of Carroll County Commissioners would like to recognize and celebrate your 26 years of dedicated service in the Facilities Department. You began your career as a painter on August 31st, 2000, when the department was called General Services. You've stayed with the department through multiple organizational changes and are retiring as the county painter. We wish you well as you transition into the next phase of life, taking some well-deserved time to relax. Thank you for your service to the residents of Carroll County, Maryland. And not on here, but one thing I want to mention, I've always told people like you, you do your job and our job's easy. You don't do your job, our job's impossible. So thank you for your service. Thank you.

So I'll stand up with you. But on behalf of facilities and also DPW, Bob, again, we just want to thank you for your service. Coming into the buildings, having a fresh, clean look. Knowing that we can always count on you when there's a hole in the wall or something needs to be refreshed, you were always there to provide that service, not only for us as county employees, but also for the residents, for the appearance of the building. So with that, we really appreciate your service that you provided over the years. Thank you.

Anything or do we say enough? Anything from you or do we say enough?

You said enough. The only thing I can really say is probably it isn't a nook or cranny or a building I haven't painted that the county owns. And multiple times.

Did you do this room?

Originally, and I've touched this thing up a thousand times. Painted the back rooms. And a lot of people that's in here today, I've painted their stuff multiple times also.

Well, Bob, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything that you've done. You know, what you do actually hits really close to me. This is what my dad does for a living as well. And I've worked with him for 11 and a half years doing the exact same thing. So I have nothing but respect and appreciation for you and what goes into this. I mean, people think that painting a straight edge or something is an easy thing. It's not. It's an acquired skill. You know, people think that it's unskilled labor or something. It's not. It takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of time to master. And so, again, I've got nothing but respect and admiration for you. And thank you for everything that you've done for us, brother.

Thank you.

Well, I would argue that people don't think that's easy. It's not. And if you don't have the right tools, it looks awful. But, you know, congratulations and thank you for everything that you've done for the county and We're blessed with people that come to work here and stay here, and they love it. And I'd like to think with some of the changes we've made over the past almost four years with HR and some other things, we continue to make Carroll County even a better place to work than it's ever been. So thank you very much for everything you've done. And congratulations to you.

Yes, truly appreciate all the hard work and dedication over the years. You know, we have a lot of people that don't really take into understanding what goes on behind the scenes. The public sometimes doesn't really think about that. And I can tell you, it doesn't go unnoticed by anybody in this building. We all know and truly appreciate it. And I wish you the absolute best in retirement.

and enjoy your retirement, but also you have a skill, and many of us appreciate that skill and just know right off bat that we hire someone else to do it. In fact, for years and years, we hired somebody from Tawny Town, but he passed away, Mr. Aaron. So there's always a need out there. I had a man redo a closet for me last week, built-in shelves. And he said his wife said he needed to pay for his golf game. So he started putting shelves in for people, and he did everybody in the whole neighborhood because he had a skill that everybody needed. It was like, well, just write him the check and let him do it right. It took him two hours, and we would have still been, like, looking in the magazine. So when you have a skill like that, we appreciate it, and we thank you for all your service. And just relax, enjoy, sleep in, and then get to work. Get back to work. You find something else to do.

Yeah. Picture? Photo?

Yeah, let's do it.

all right this is for him so you better make this one

I hired somebody.

All right, this is just for me.

All right. Well, up next, I believe Commissioner Gordon has a proclamation.

I do. Could we have anybody that wants to come up front from the Carroll County Literacy Council? Appreciate you all for coming in today. I'm going to go ahead and read the proclamation, and then we'll have you follow up then, if that's okay. So we have a proclamation for the National Literacy Month, whereas the Literacy Council of Carroll County was founded in 1979. Its primary mission, which is unchanged today, is to provide adult education to anyone requesting assistance in attaining the educational goals they want to reach or to improve their understanding of specific areas that will help them gain employment or entrance into higher education. And in 1979, They were trained in four basic areas, reading, writing, math, and English, including English as a second language. And today those goals remain the same, but they have also added numerous new programs to provide learning and understanding of today's technology advances. Working with the Carroll Tech Council, they offer computer and smartphone classes to senior citizens and others who have limited knowledge of technology. One of their most significant programs is financial literacy, with a particular focus on identifying and avoiding scams that target members of our community. Other programs such as vet tech assistance and LPN technology is also in high demand and continue to grow. In addition, they have formed strong relationships with Carroll Community College, McDaniel College, Carroll County Public Library and Carroll County Public Schools. And all programs are offered at no charge to the student. They work with many students after they have completed their studies to gain entrance to higher education, find employment, and to become active, productive citizens in our community. And the LCCC has dedicated september is a month to honor all of their tutors volunteers and staff for the work they do in carroll county over 100 volunteers and staff interact with over 800 individuals last year alone the literacy council is committed to continuing to work with any student who has a desire to learn and to provide them with the means to reach their goals now therefore we the board of carroll county commissioners do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Literacy Month, adopted the 17th day of September 2026, signed the Board of Carroll County Commissioners. Thank you all for coming in this morning. Thank you.

I'd just like to say that on behalf of the Literacy Council and our tutors, we thank the Board of Commissioners for all your assistance to us. We hope that we're providing the county with a project that saves you money in the long run. Really, we're trying to make sure that students that we have are able to gain the skills necessary to find employment and be active citizens within the community and provide tax money and things like that I know Mr. Kyler likes the tax money so we we really do want to thank you all for everything you do for us

Thank you for everything that you do for the county. I know all of us up here are readers. I know that reading is incredibly important because it helps shape you and your character and prepares you for life. It really does have a myriad number of benefits. It's interesting because I know for a long time people felt that digital versions of books. We're going to overtake the printed versions. But the trend has actually stopped. It's going in the other way or the other direction. And I think that really is a testament to how important physical book is and how important reading continues to be for our citizens and for our country. So thank you so very much for what you do.

Any other comments? I think you summed that up more than I think I could, so I'll leave that at that. Finally got you.

Thank you. This is my staff, part of my staff.

I have... Jamie Anderson, who's our office manager on the far end, she handles a lot of the hard work. I try to push that that way. Janice, who is my wife, is our data specialist and helps with coordinating communications between the tutors and the students, making sure that we align the right tutor with the right student. That's very important. I mean, if you have a tutor who's not really interested in reading as much as they would, and you have somebody who really wants to learn how to read and comprehend what they've read, she makes sure we get the right tutor in there.

And Sam, how long have you been doing this?

How many years? Have I been doing it? I'm in my 12th year.

No, and I just want to thank you. You know that When I was on the school board, reading by third grade was like my top priority, you know, getting kids to read. And you don't realize how many people slip through the cracks. And once you slip through the cracks, you can't learn. And the council, not just for those types of people, they might get to eighth, ninth, tenth grade. They still are not literate. And the literacy council comes in and helps. And some people, it's not their primary language. They have to get over the language barrier. So I've talked to you many times about the types of people you meet, but they now have a future. and it's because you've taken sometimes the school system just can't get it or they're out of the school system or whatever so this you can't have a job really if you can't read well and so you guys fill that gap and you do it volunteer basis and it really makes a difference every day that you do it so thank you yes and we're working with the public school system now to try to

develop a program of being able to go in and tutor students who are at risk of not passing and who need some remedial help now to get their diploma. Because obviously a lot of students, as you pointed out, if they fail the 11th or 12th grade, they drop out and they don't get that diploma. And then they come back when they're 23 or 24 and say, I need a GED because I can't get a job or I can't get promoted from dishwasher at a restaurant to just being a waiter even. So it's very important that we... start reaching down into the school system more and trying to cut off the issues that come later in life.

And, you know, a lot of kids accommodate now with the phone. But they realize you can't just do it with the phone. You've got to be able to read. But they sort of can get by by cheating with the phone, you know, talking into the phone. But then it gets to a point where you have to be able to be literate. So, again, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Where all do you do it? And if I need... help, which I probably do, how do I reach out to you?

All you have to do is call us. We're on the web. You can fill out a form there and just send that to us. And we'll be glad to take you on. Ken, I can set you up. Janice will get you a tutor if you need it. You might need two tutors for him.

You gave me the easy thing to read. I know you did that.

No, but it's a very easy process. We don't have long forms or anything. And if you need help even filling out the form, Janice will be glad to walk through it or Jamie. They both can help you out.

And I would say most, um, probably most of our tutoring sessions, um, they use the library locations, so that's worked out very well. They can also use we're located in the Carroll nonprofit center. There's also free spaces that they can use there as well as in our office. Um, and we help throughout the County as well as if they're right over the line and want to come into our County, um, like say over the line in Pennsylvania, they can come into Carroll County. Um, but you know, anywhere within where, you know, we're willing to help them. We'll find somebody.

Obviously, when it comes to literacy, it can affect anyone, any age group, any background demographic. Is there any specific area that you're seeing more of a concentration of need at this point?

Well, it's across the board, to be honest. Probably one of the biggest areas we're working now is financial literacy. More and more people are calling and asking for programs program with financial literacy mainly because they're afraid to invest money without really knowing what they're doing of having some idea also scams scams of yeah we're going out to Carroll Lutheran Village and doing a program for them on Friday because they have been hit recently with a number of scams at the village. So those people want to know, what am I looking for? What should I be aware of? What are the signs that say hang up the phone or call somebody and tell them, hey, look, something's going on. I need help. So we're doing that. But it's across the board. I mean, we have a lot of foreign students who want to learn English. And I will let you know that predominantly, Most people think immediately that it's the Spanish speaking. We have students from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, all the Middle East countries, Ukraine, you know, it's just everywhere all over. So it's not all of the Spanish speaking class. We get them from everywhere.

We do have one other employee who wasn't able to be here, and she's very important to us, Erin. She taught at Carroll Community College ESOL for several years. She's fluent in Spanish, which is a great help to us. She coordinates when we get a tutor and a student, she will help. She's the program director. She sits with that student and that tutor, and then we have books, and a lot of them are, some of them are the college books, because we've got a lot of people who are in college, but the teacher's going too fast. They can't understand. They start falling behind. They're, you know, they come to us, and they say, help me. She coordinates with what books these students use, so that's a big, and that's a big part of our budget is the books that we have to have, but she wasn't able to be here, but I did want to mention her, because they're very important.

Yes. Well, thank you to her as well. Yeah, absolutely. Do a photo? Yeah, let's do a photo. That's what we do.

Yeah, that's a full-time job.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right. Up next, we have a very special presentation from the Department of Citizen Services for the Aging Your Way Expo. Celine, bring anybody down you want to.

Bring up one more chair. We didn't want to leave anybody out.

Good morning everybody.

Always excited to come before you about our aging your way Expo. We want to make sure everybody knows all of the details and all the great things that are going to be happening that day. I want to start off by thanking you. The Board of County Commissioners for continuing to sponsor this very important event. This is our showcase event for the Division of Aging and Disabilities. It's on Wednesday, next Wednesday, September 23rd. It starts at 9 a.m., runs until 2 p.m. This is an event where you can come and learn everything there is to know about aging, disability, veterans, caregiver services, all in one location. And so we have over 100 vendors of services provided by those, in those service lines, as well as our new wellness, uh, wellness corner that we have where we have a complimentary therapies and we'll talk a little bit more about exactly what those are. Um, we have a lot of great different things happening at expo this year. Um, and we'll share a little bit more about that as we walk along through this. I want to welcome to the table today, Gina Valentine, who is our aging and disability, um, manager. Um, and we also have rich O-tone who is our, um, I'm sorry, he, Gina is our division manager. I'm sorry, we changed our titles. I always get it. I'm still working through it because I've been here for too long when the names were before that, when they were bureau chiefs. And then we also have Rich Otone is here with us. He's our community services manager. And then Bobby Lawrence is our aging and disability services manager. So I want to thank all of them because they are instrumental in putting together the Expo Committee, which is a great committee of external agencies and also nonprofit providers and for-profit providers that help us to orchestrate this event and plan for this Expo each and every year. I also want to thank our staff here with Public Works who help with all of the other outside components of this, the actual putting together the Expo, getting things delivered on site for us as well as parking and and also managing um the traffic as we're going in and out of the expo and then i also want to thank the sheriff's department for helping to support the safety at the event as well so all of those things uh and combined with with this event are things that lead us to you today at the event there is free admission We have vendor prize bingo. We will have lunch served. We also have our designated veterans alley as you are there. We have a free shuttle service from the parking lot where we have accessible buses with lifts for those who need that that will take you from the parking lot from your car to the main entrance of the event. So we consider all of our parking there accessible. We have prescription medication drug disposal. We have our advanced directives assistance. We have community programs and fitness demonstrations, which are always a big hit, and a free screening and wellness corner. And so I'm going to turn it over to Gina to talk a little bit about our demonstrations.

Yeah, thank you, Celina, and thank you, commissioners, again, for your support of this event. I do have to mention it's our 19th annual, so the next year's will be our 20th, which will be exciting for the planning for that, and I'm sure we'll come up with some great things to do to celebrate the 20th annual event. But for demonstrations, we will have Zimba Gold seated yoga, Carroll County cloggers, line dancing, belly dancing, which is always very popular, and cardio dancing as well. And so many thanks to the multiple instructors that'll be there today to lead those demonstrations and all of the participants working with them. I think Bobby's gonna talk next about something.

Yeah, so throughout the day we also have a lot of, Celine mentioned our screenings area, the wellness centers for blood pressure, cognitive screenings, diabetes, living healthy, living well, the stroke awareness, med management, so those types of things to keep people healthy. Also, we mentioned the bingo, that's the prize board, along with everyone coming in, participating in these screenings, getting information from our vendors. coming away with like their little tchotchkes. Bingo is a great way to wrap things up at the end of the day. Our very generous vendors contribute prizes for that. And we have a lot of staff who contribute and really work making sure that flows well. So that's a great way to end our day with the prize bingo.

Yeah, the bingo is from 1 to 2 p.m. on that day after lunch. And then speaking of lunch, Rich is going to share what we're having for lunch.

Yeah, good morning commissioners. Um, so lunch will start at 11 a.m. We work once again, we're working with Nikki wolf and the Hashua staff to provide lunch It has gone over really well the last three years. I think we've had And so this year, you know if it's not broke we're not gonna fix it so hope We're going to follow up with what we did last year, ham and Swiss and turkey and cheddar sandwiches, and a veggie wrap for anybody who wants that as well, macaroni salad, bag of chips, fruit cup, cookies, choice of tea, water, and lemonade. So we look forward to providing food for people. The cost of a meal, if you are under the age of 60, is $10. If you're over the age of 60, we just ask that you consider a donation. I will say that people of Carroll County have been very, very generous over the years with their donations, and to the point where really that meal breaks even. So people have been very generous, and we like doing it, and so it's a great event.

It is, and nobody's gone hungry because it is a big lunch. It's a lot of food. And then next, I'm just going to talk about the complimentary therapies that are available in the screening and wellness corner, I believe is what we changed the name to for this year. But we have Reiki provided by Renee Diaco, who's actually one of our former employees, the former manager of North Carroll Senior Center. And so she has a business called Limitless Lightful Reiki, And then we have acupuncture, excuse me, provided by Dr. Rachel Taylor with All Well Acupuncture. And then another acupuncturist, Dr. Brianna Levesay. So those are always very popular, and people will be able to sign up at the beginning of the expo.

And another key piece of our expo that a lot of folks bring in their medications, they know historically we do a medication take-back event in collaboration with the Sheriff's Department on that day. And so we are doing that again this year. And so for anybody that has unwanted unused medications, this is a great way to dispose of them safely. So you can bring them into the expo. The drop point will be right inside the door. So when you get there, you can drop them and then be ready to not have that bag to carry through.

Liquid and pills.

No, no liquids this year. No liquids, no sharps, um, for this year. Um, and people also do not have to, um, they don't have to like empty the pills into a bag, like the bottles and all get, get disposed of and burned. Um, is how it's been explained to me. So, yeah.

Okay. And so, um, I don't know if we want to talk a little bit about some of the screenings that are, that are going on. Um, we have, We mentioned the acupuncture. We also have balance screening. We also have bridging life hospice and palliative care screening, blood pressure screening, cognitive screening, also diabetes risk screening as far as also talking about their prevention program. And we also have Living Healthy, Living Well, Chronic Disease Self-Management, and Diabetes Self-Management programs we'll be touting there as well. Medication management, nutrition for seniors, oral cancer screenings, prescription medication disposal we just talked about, pulmonary function screening, and then also Stroke Smart and stroke education will be available as well at this event. So there is something really for everyone as far as people that have something they want to learn more about caregivers absolutely are welcome here. And if this is for everyone, we don't turn anyone away and it's free. Um, I also wanted to tell something that we're doing this year, uh, that we're very excited about that includes you folks. And that is the pickleball demo. Um, looking forward to having, uh, after we do our opening, we're thinking around nine 30, we'll all head back to the pickleball area where our pickleball, um, Our senior pickleball folks, Bobini especially, is coordinating with our rec pickleballers from around the county to help us do demos of pickleball. And then we are asking our commissioners to help join and do some pickleball demoing among yourselves there as you will get a quick sample of the pickleball rules and also play and then to come and join together to play pickleball. maybe a little bit softly against each other because we realize you may not be fully dressed for pickleballing at the event. So we're looking forward to that and I think everybody that's joining us there will hopefully be looking forward to that as well. And we want to show that for the first ten people that register to do a demo that are beginner pickleball players, they will be able to win a pickleball paddle set. We were hoping, and this is the actual set that they can win with a second paddle as well. So we will be, and if you folks need to practice, we are available. I'm available in the evenings leading up to the expo. If you want to step out onto the park and we can go try it out.

Between her saying that they're going to take it soft on us and her saying, you know, if you need practice, I'm available. She's basically saying we're going to get creamed.

I thought she was suggesting we take it soft on each other, but who knows, we'll find out. I know. Somebody from Department of Fire and EMS be present.

They actually are, to provide first aid if needed, as well as just support and share information about their services. So it's a dual role they play. I do want to also mention we do have quite a few sponsors that support this event, and we are appreciative of them as well. Many of them are also on our planning committee, but we have others that are not, that are just supporting the event because they believe in what we do and getting this information out to the public. So we appreciate all of our sponsors, and we'll be recognizing them, and they're on our website as well.

Thank you very much.

And what time did you want us there? You told us.

Anywhere between 8.30 and 8.45 in the morning.

Is that what you want us to do?

And on Tuesday, the veterans were excited about this, but I hope none of them are here. They didn't seem to remember where they were last year, but you have a veteran's row for them.

It's right inside the door as you're coming in and turn left as we open the expo. And I do want to say also at the request of many of the participants, we are doing an abbreviated opening so that folks can get right into the vendor areas and just start going to the screenings and getting involved with our vendors and all the activities at the expo.

Awesome. You want to do a picture?

Absolutely.

That's commissioner Krebs. Uh, yeah, that's right.

Yeah. we'll be busy

Thank you.

We have one more.

One more proclamation. I think it's our last one, maybe.

September 28th to October 2nd is Economic Development Week in Maryland, so I think we've got some folks from Economic Development. If you want to come on down, and I'll go ahead and read the proclamation. Carroll County Economic Development supports business attraction, retention, and expansion across all sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, information technology, hospitality, and retail, construction, trade, transportation, utilities, healthcare, professional and business service firms, and small business enterprises. And strong economic development drives job creation, increases tax revenue, enhances infrastructure, and improves the overall quality of life for our communities. And Carroll County values the many employers that call the county home. and the more than 95,000 workers who strengthen our local and regional economies, contributing to a diverse and resilient business base. And Carroll County values our agricultural producers and agritourism venues, promoting local farmers markets and buy local campaigns. Carroll County Acme Development supported significant progress in 2025 and 2026 and beyond, including $127 million in commercial and industrial investment and 163,000 square feet of expansion and new construction. And the county continues to collaborate with developers and property owners to advance future commercial and industrial growth, anticipating $398 million in land development investment and 1.9 million square feet of additional space. Carroll County works closely with municipal, regional, state agencies, education, and community partners to support business success and community advancements. Carroll County Economic Development is an active member of the Maryland Economic Development Association, which enhances professional knowledge, fosters partnerships, and promotes economic development as a vital investment in Maryland. And Maryland's economic health depends on the strength of all jurisdictions, and Carroll County plays an important role in the state's ongoing success. Therefore, we, the Board of County Commissioners, do hereby proclaim September 28th to October 2nd as Economic Development Week in Carroll County. Ms. Beaver, good to see you.

And you've got a not so quiet support group in the back, don't you? Oh, don't look behind you.

That's right. That's right. Good morning. Denise Beaver, Director of Economic Development. I have with me Paige Sunderland to my left, who is our Deputy Director, and Heather Powell, who's the manager of the Carroll County Workforce Development Center across the street. We also have Darren Payton, who's our counselor from the Maryland Small Business Development Center. He's the Carroll County counselor that has services in our office and throughout the community. We also have Chris Weinbrenner, who's our strategic projects and marketing professional, as well as Jane Sewell, who's the manager of the Carroll County Farm Museum and Karina Cannon who is with the Carroll County Workforce Development.

I think that's it for our team that's here today.

It's a busy time. People are out and about and have other activities today. But I want to thank you for your ongoing support of economic development because It is important to the local economy and to the county for ongoing tax revenue and jobs for citizens as well as business opportunities here. And it is a team sport. So not only the great staff that we have here that help support what we do every day in serving citizens and businesses, but many of our regional partnerships. We work very closely with the state of Maryland, Maryland Department of Commerce, as well as Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. I mentioned Maryland Small Business Development Center. That's really critical. We have Our work with the Business Metropolitan Council, which Commissioner Kyler mentioned the trip next week, that Paige and I will be also accompanying him to learn about some of the economic development activities in North Carolina. We also have the Greater Baltimore Committee, which Carroll County is a part of, and they have an upcoming annual meeting in early October that we'll be a part of and supporting the efforts of the Greater Baltimore region. So we're also developing a partnership with the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, which has a lot of great programs for investment in development projects throughout the region and that's very important and you know just coincidentally yesterday with the services of SBDC we had a gentleman stop into the office and into the county and I went out to greet him and he was interested in starting a business so you know I gave him Darren's card and said you know follow up with him and So, yeah, it is very important to have these services ready and available for everyone, and we appreciate your investment and prioritizing economic development here in the county. Just a few things as we look at some of the areas of economic development. As you all know, economic development is a critical part of the credit rating agencies that we participate in every year. And we do have those rating agency meetings that are going to be via Zoom this year on October 5th. And so that's a key part of it. And we talk about these things. We talk about business development. We talk about the investment and the support for Avapco, their world headquarters expansion in Tawny Town. And they have over 400,000 square feet and over 700 jobs up there. So that's their world headquarters. This is, you know, a great project and We've been partners with them for years from the beginning. We have a lot of great development and activity that's going on on our main streets, and we're bringing in the Carroll County Downtown's group, so representatives from each of the towns that are coming into our office on a monthly basis to meet with us, and we're figuring out ways that we can support them in different ways. And we've done projects with them, and we will be doing a Shop Small, Win Big project with them again this holiday season, so that's exciting. We have a lot of retailers that are paying attention to Carroll County because of our affluent, basically, community. And they're saying, you know, this is a great place to set up a commercial business here. So we have that going on. We have, in terms of land development, the investment that we've been making in the North Carroll Business Park in particular. And so that's 30 acres available that we have received a designation from Medco, which talks about Maryland business ready sites. And that's the key thing. You've got to make the upfront investment to get these properties ready so that when we get the call from Maryland Commerce or GBC or any of the other partners that we have some property that we can showcase and we can use for business attraction. So that's really key that we have that. And I always say workforce development is economic development. And Heather's team does a really great job in working with businesses and citizens to look at what the training needs are. Our workforce is a strength both locally and regionally. I mean, our workers are sought after. And that is a key factor in terms of when people come to look at where they're going to locate, they need to have the workforce. So that's a key thing. And we always bring workforce development in on all of those. And we're also working to develop the pipeline of students as they move through the Carroll County Public Schools. to get them and make them aware of opportunities. So in October on the 21st and 22nd, we have a big event at the Ag Center where we're bringing in all of the seventh grade students to expose them to some of the local opportunities that we have here. And Heather's team is out there every day working very well. Actually, they are one of the best in the state in terms of the partnerships with the local school system under the blueprint career readiness pillar for that. So that's amazing. And then agriculture development, my whole thing is buy local, trust local. Even more important nowadays. And so we've been working with the local producers and have the agritourism passport program. So that showcases um, all of, uh, well, probably I think 75 different producers that are on our website, carolgrown.org. Um, and so we're encouraging people to buy local because it's good food and also the agritourism sites. It's good fun. I mean, for your family. So, um, I think that's really great. Um, you can still do the passport through the end of October. Um, we're doing promotions like, um, talking turkey for the holiday season and all of the holiday greens and things like that and fall seasonal events that we have going on here in Carroll County, I think. And then with the farmers markets, we got them some new sandwich boards so that they can use those for promotion for their farmers markets. So that's been a great partnership as well. We do a lot of advocacy and outreach. And I think this week we actually had three farms that have been their finalists in the Leopold Conservation Award. We just sent out some information about that. So we will have one of our Carroll County farms recognized in December as being the best in terms of land management practices. And so that's very exciting because the top three candidates are all Carroll County farms. So That we take care of the land that's here basically and we do a good job with that with regard to tourism we end up welcoming thousands of people here over all of the activities and all of the towns as well as This weekend while working with a Carroll County Public Library is the first ever annual Carroll Book Festival at the Carroll County Farm Museum you know I'm expecting thousands of people to attend that event and I think it's going to be a great event for Carroll County. Obviously, we have other events like the Peep Show and we have the town festivals and everything that we support as an ongoing basis. The Farm Museum is a jewel. I think many of you recognize that and Jane does a great job with the team there to help to showcase that property and they're celebrating their 60th anniversary. We're preserving Carroll's agricultural history and educating people about it. They had a uncovering the vehicles talk last night at the Farm Museum, which was very interesting to showcase some of the vehicles. So they've been sprucing up the displays and doing programming to bring more visitors and more residents to the Farm Museum to learn about the great artifacts that we have there and the history of agriculture in Carroll County. So we have a great team. And I just want to thank you for your ongoing support to prioritize what we're doing in economic development. It's critical. It's important. Thank you for thinking about economic development, not only during Economic Development Week, but every day, to try to help us move Carroll County forward, making it the place for businesses to start up and to grow. And we do feel like everyone can grow better in Carroll County. So thank you.

Well, thank you very much for that. Thank you all for what you do. I know it is a nonstop job. literally job right and uh i cannot even begin to tell you uh the number of interactions i have with business owners and citizens who want to start businesses who have nothing but positive things to say about the work that you do so thank you very much for that and for helping to guide along the county in an economically beneficial way so thank you very much for that

Any other comments? I would agree with all those comments, and I truly appreciate you utilizing the buy local, trust local. You are so completely correct. It is more important than ever. It's something that I think sometimes given our, I guess, agricultural mindset in this community, I think sometimes we sometimes a little bit forget that. I've gone to other places. I know Commissioner Kyler mentioned earlier he's going to North Carolina next week. But you see some of what has occurred down there in some of those areas when it comes to agro tourism and smotherings and we're getting there. We're not ignoring it, but I just think that sometimes we are too comfortable and not as aware as I think sometimes we could be. But this is truly tremendous to include that because You know, we're constantly seeing in the news, be it food, be it other products, be it for you, your pets, family members, whatever, that there's just a lot of challenges out there. And I'd much rather buy from my farmer because I can trust them. So I appreciate all the hard work you do.

Well said.

Any other comments?

Thank you for all you do. And I've got to add, I love Carroll County, but you guys are one of the reasons you not only do you do so much, but like Carroll County does, you work so well with so many other entities in the county. So thank you.

Want to do a picture?

Sure. How many you got? Should we stay up here? Four and seven.

We have seven.

Little wood.

Open up a trap door underneath you. That's smart, yeah.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Okay. We'll do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Denise. Thank you. Thank you. Yep, yep. Thank you.

Let's do that real quick. We'll do that real quick. All right, so I believe we have two gentlemen here for Constitution Week. Is that correct? That's correct. Please come on up to the front and share with us as you will. And please do introduce yourselves as well.

Good morning Carroll County Commissioners. My name is Arthur Petrucelli. I'm the current president of the Westminster Chapter of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Joining me here is James Engler, who is a former chapter president of Westminster and also former state president of the Maryland Society, among other titles. Today is Constitution Day and also Citizenship Day. Each year, the Maryland Society and the Westminster Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution commemorate the signing of the United States Constitution on September the 17th, 1787. On this day, we honor both the adoption of our nation's governing charter and the many individuals who have embraced the responsibilities of American citizenship. The Westminster Chapter, serving Carroll County since 1985, is part of the largest lineage society for men in the country. Every member can trace his ancestry to at least one patriot, man or woman, who contributed to the founding of our nation during the American War for Independence through military, civil, or other essential service. The Sons of the American Revolution honors our Revolutionary War patriot ancestors by promoting patriotism, serving our communities, and educating and inspiring future generations to understand and uphold the founding principles of our country. As we observe Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, we reaffirm our commitment to those principles and express our appreciation to the Carroll County Commissioners for recognizing the importance of this occasion. And Commissioner Gordon, I thank you for your opening remarks, sir. Jim, do you have any comments?

I think it's very important that we are claiming these at this time in our nation's history. 250 years that we celebrate, but we've got to also remember the blood, sweat, and tears that have gotten us here. And we wouldn't be where we are today if it hadn't been for the establishment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. People forget how we won the war. And then we had a period of chaos that only was resolved once we got the adoption of a constitution, a stronger federal government that was able to guide us through these two centuries. So thank you again for allowing us to speak today and we encourage everyone to remember both Constitution Day and Constitution Week, which was also established back in the 1950s, starting today and going for the next seven days. So again, thank you very much. Thank you, gentlemen.

Has any other republic lasted this long?

It's a good question. I don't think that there has been. I don't think so. There have been some very strong ones in history, but... we're always one step away from chaos. Oh my gosh. Yes. So we have to constantly remind ourselves that this is an important thing to remember. We're guaranteed. We're guaranteed what our rights are, but we need to be able to stand up and make certain that we're, we're projecting them, not just for ourselves, but for our children, our grandchildren, for all the generations to come. I think it was Franklin that was asked, what kind of a government do we have? And he said, a republic, if you can hold on to it. So we need to do that. And that's by reminding ourselves what the Constitution is, what it assures us, and holding all of our elected officials accountable. very much up to that standard. So, again, thank you very much, Commissioners. Thank you. Thank you both very much, too. Thank you, gentlemen. Do a photograph? Please, sure.

Sorry, Matt. Sorry to make you come back out here again.

Thank you.

That's what I'm here for.

I'm fine with that. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Beaver County.

Well, all right. Up next on our agenda for item number two, we have the approval of a resolution for consideration of bond authorization. Good morning to you both.

Good morning. I'm going to do a quick handout here. The resolution in the project list.

Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you.

All right. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. We're not as exciting as the prior items that you just had, so sorry. So where are... Here, this is Emily Fusting. She is our bond counsel from McKinnon, Shelton, and Henn. We are, before you today, this is our annual process leading up to the bond financing. We're scheduled to hold our bond sale on October 22nd. Your action today would consider the resolution which we have authorization to issue $20 million of new bond funding. I've given you the project list here of what that $20 million would fund and also the resolution, a copy of that as well. This actually funds major projects, capital only. We do not issue any bonds for operating. And we will be advertising our bond sale the first two weeks of October. And I'll ask Ms. Fauci to walk you through the resolution. Yes.

Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for having us today. I know you all are familiar with this process since we come before you every year. But just as a reminder, this is this resolution is the first step of the process. Miss Hobbs and her team have been hard at work on a preliminary official statement, a ratings presentation, the notice of sale that was talked about. So what this resolution does is it authorizes that preliminary official statement to be posted, the notice of sale to be published, and us to proceed with holding that bond sale on October 22nd for the maximum principal amount of the bonds of the 20.2 million. Likely the bonds issued will be much less than that because we will expect to have premium but we always like to authorize a maximum amount just in case the premium isn't what is expected on the day of sale. So bids will come in on October 22nd and then we will be back before you all that day to report the results of the sale and to get final approval to award the bonds. So we'll be back before you before anything formal is awarded. This is just the first step of the process. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

On the sheet, the bond sale project list, the second subtotal should say public works. I don't want the schools to think they get both of that.

Good catch. It is public works. You're right.

Mm-hmm.

We will fix that in the project list. The project list isn't actually attached to the resolution. That's just for your information. So the resolution should still be good to go for today. But thank you for noting that. We'll get that fixed.

We actually made a decision to change pavement to school.

So if you were going out today, what kind of rates are we looking at?

So actually, I just verified with our financial advisors it would be a 4.3%. That's what we would be getting. That's what we would have today. If we went and had bond sale today, we would be selling them for the 4.3.

And then what do we pay on them?

That would be 4.3 would be our, what we call our true interest costs. Um, it's kind of an average of the life of the 20 years based on the coupon rates.

So upon rate would be the 4.3 as well.

No, not exactly. Yes, so the way the bonds are issued, they're issued as serial bonds. So there's a different bond for each year. If you look on page two of the resolution, there's a maturity chart. So each of those maturities would have a different potentially have a different coupon rate. Uh, it could be, you know, one might be 4.25, one might be five. Uh, so the, there's no specific interest rate on the bonds. So that's why they calculate that true interest cost, which is a blended average.

And then one, one person buys it all. I mean, one person, one brokerage buys the whole correct.

Yes. They'll put in a bid for the entirety of the bonds.

And these are federally tax-free, is that correct?

Yes, we've held a tax diligence call with Ms. Hobbs and her team, where our firm has gone through the project list to ensure that there wouldn't be any issues with all of these projects qualifying to be tax-exempt.

So that makes that yield pretty good? Yeah. It depends on your tax bracket. It could be up to 6%. I'm trying to sell the bonds. You know, these are good bonds. Yes, yes.

So these are being sold as tax-exempt bonds, yes. So that's the rate that's being asked for. There's no other rate being asked for, just the best tax-exempt rate.

Any other comments, questions, or direction from the board?

We have the Board of Commissioners approve the bond authorizing resolution as presented by Bond Council. Second. Second.

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. Thank you both very much. Do you like your copies back? We already have a copy.

That's your copy.

We have a copy in our book. I hate to waste paper.

Oh, do you have a copy?

If you want it.

I'll know for next time not to waste the paper, but no, you may keep the second copy. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

All right. Up next, item number three, briefing discussion and decision on cluster subdivision text amendments. Morning, Chris.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning.

You want to kick us off with a brief introduction as to where we find ourselves today, and then we'll open the floor for discussion.

Thank you, Chris. So, yes, we are here to discuss the final step in a series of text amendments that have been proposed for chapters 155 and 158, and in one case from chapter... All three of these text amendments have gone through the same process, which is essentially that they start with direction from the Board of County Commissioners that you're interested in pursuing some form of text amendment. Per county code, you then refer those potential amendments to the Planning and Zoning Commission, where the Planning and Zoning Commission takes the time to look at the scope of what you're interested in changing. And then prepares through a series of public meetings recommended amendments, which are then brought back to the Board of County Commissioners for discussion. And all three of these, the board moved forward for a public hearing. That public hearing was held on September 3rd for all three of these proposed text amendments. During that time period, the board also had a couple of work sessions, one on September 1st and one on September 8th. So we're now at the end of the process. The public hearing or public comment period ended a couple days ago. And so we're here for the final step of the process. So the first text amendment up for discussion relates to cluster subdivisions. So cluster subdivisions are a development model that has been in county code for the past 30 to 40 years and the code has remained virtually the same during that time period. In 2022 there were some amendments that went through that same process I just described and some changes were made to the cluster code. Back in Make sure I get the date on May 28th, the board directed staff to look at those changes that were made in 2022 and take those back to the planning commission for discussion to make sure that they were still appropriate. So through a series of meetings with the planning commission, the planning commission did make the recommendation that yes, those codes were appropriate and recommended to keep them as they were. There was one additional provision that was discussed, and that was a new provision that would allow the Board of County Commissioners through a Developer's Rights and Responsibility Act to modify certain provisions in a cluster agreement. But again, that's purely at the discretion of the Board of County Commissioners through that DRRA process. So that was recommended by the Planning Commission to move forward. And so, yes, we are here. The first item is essentially to discuss that proposed text amendment. I will say that in parallel to all of this, we do have a consultant, Michael Baker, and Troy from that firm has been here before you all. um they are continuing to work on this on looking at cluster subdivisions in general to review our code and come back with what i like to say are more nuanced changes proposed changes to that code we will be back before you sometime in the near future with a presentation from troy and if the board so desires we can continue this process with further discussion with planning commission based on the scope of any changes that that you may feel are appropriate based on his presentation So this is not a done issue. This is simply a, there's one provision that we are discussing, but happy to answer any questions that you may have about what's being proposed. Thank you very much, Chris.

Any questions, comments, or discussion from the board?

This issue has been going on a long time in my district, and it probably affects my district. It's the only one I can find so far where they still use this same calculation that we are using. So as you said, it goes back a long way. And many, many years ago, there was benefits to the neighborhoods. And I lived in a clustered subdivision. It was actually a PUD. And you had a common area, and you had you had a place to play, and you paid for the grass to get cut, and we paid $85 a year for that. It was well worth it. But over time, it's sort of been changed. It's been changed of how it's what we've How do we do the calculations? So we always, I don't know what we officially used way back then, but they used to deduct out certain things from the net, the gross. So now you have a gross piece of acre. And Carroll County is a very big, hilly, rivery, streamy kind of place, especially down where we are, like Springfield. So it's not all buildable, because you have a lot of different topographies. So over time, I don't know what happened. We just noticed that the quality of the neighborhood was not very good it was not a benefit to the community anymore so they were getting sort of jammed up against the road and they were using a stream bed and some thicket for the open space and it was just in name only and we started noticing that with communities and they still had their fees and they still had to pay for their stuff to get cut around the signs in the mailboxes and it wasn't a huge amount of money but it's getting it's sort of getting more and more and more of an issue and we've now noticed you know it's unusable open space it's not what it was, I guess, originally supposed to be. Like, people think of open spaces that you can do something, you walk on it. So, about, I guess during the last master plan, a number of us weighed in on it heavily to try to get it back to net, so that we would actually end up with, you know, taking out all the unbuildable stuff and having it back to the net, which we thought it was, sort of had evolved. And I have a letter here, this is back from 19, 2017, from someone who I have a lot of respect for, who is a former planning director, Ned Kuhman, who actually wrote the original Freedom Plan, and he knows his stuff inside and out, and he basically educated me on this. So this is a letter from back then about the proposal, because they were trying to increase the density. And then they didn't. Then they did it after the Master Plan, like everything else. I'll read just parts of this letter. It says, to incentivize the increase of density, this cluster proposal in the R20. Again, I'm going to make it very clear right now. In conservation, I think it's fine. We also have a couple of projects that we deferred and said it was okay. They really took advantage of it. They don't necessarily like that. However, we let them go. I still plan to do that. So I'll make that very clear. That was made a point of that list, I guess, December. But the projects. I'll read this, and he explains it very well. To incentivize the increase of density, the cluster proposal in the R20, and this is in R20, R10, and R7500. Keep in mind, these are small lots. I add R40 on there, but these are not large lots. They're lots that we have all over Carroll County, R20. To incentivize them as a permitted use in long-established residential zones of lesser density, and avoid proposing the changing of the zone, which is called rezoning, is, in my view, disingenuous. It could well be destabilizing to an established neighborhood. And like unconditional use in the zone, there's no formal notice. There's no public hearing before the BZA. Rather, it's a ministerial option of the land developer. Even an overlay zone typically requires a public hearing on the merits before it drops down on the underlying zoning district. Overlay zones typically require legislative approval after public hearing by the county commissioners. In Carol's case, and in my view, this option bastardizes the integrity of the current zone as to its single-family residential density characteristics. Again, you're going from R20, you can do it in R10, and things are getting... put down 100% to their next zone. So if you have R20, they're taking it to R10. And it's usually not usable space anymore. Excuse me. They're using space that they now have to maintain. It says, what is the studied purpose or impetus for even considering doing this? While the school enrollments are down, this is back in 2017. Hey, we're sort of like repeating the history here. And may not be over capacity at this time. The same cannot be said. for county road and state highway system. We can still say that because nothing's been done since 2017 and that's just gotten worse. Before this text amendment is seriously considered, a bill out of every single eligible partner for parcel for incentivized cluster added to the existing development on the Freedom Plan should be computed and tested against the capacity of the road system by a competent traffic engineer firm and reviewed by both State Highway and County Public Works. And then it goes on to say this would highlight why it is and it may malfunction and what CIP projects will be needed for the road capacity and we need lots of them. We just never are able to do them as we talked to State Highway yesterday. So it just keeps adding on and on. And I know we're supposed to get the same yield but it doesn't In practicality, it always doesn't come out the same yield. The very same thing was done when the original Freedom Mini Plan was in preparation and before it was taken to a public hearing. The Sykesville Freedom Fire Department might be interested too in the outcome about the ability of delivering emergency services. Since the county administers the adequate public facility law, it's also responsible for maintaining adequacy and capacity of the county road system. Intensifying residential density anywhere at this time seems counterintuitive. and will only make current inadequacies worse, i.e., getting the cart before the horse. Because the state and county are hard-pressed to find needed infrastructure, I would think that that would dictate not intensifying the land use in the face of reality. So that's what we... That was the testimony, and I testified. I have pages of testimony on this issue. Other people testified, because we just saw that the product we were getting out of this was just not what it used to be 30-some years ago, for whatever reason. It just wasn't being presented that way by the development community. They were sort of taking advantage of the unbuildable space, and nothing was really, very little of it was usable. It says, and then we communicated back and forth, and then Mr. Cooman said to me, it's clear that the proposal I asked him to comment back on it. He said it's clear this proposed cluster is totally different animal than the existing cluster provision in terms of going about arriving at the actual density. The existing cluster provision locks the density of the parcel into what can be conventionally planned and then developed. I won't get into that. That's a little tricky. The proposed cluster increases density on the same parcel in the example given, doubles the density by formula. I don't get the first calculation, but courts have long held that there must be uniformity in zoning districts. Assuming there are 20 districts throughout the county, and are not all within the PFAs, this proposal would violate the long-held requirement for uniformity of regulations within the zoning district. The PFA is not a zone. That's what I've said about this retirement committee. I know everybody... That's not true, but I believe it is true. We just have to... It's called... Following the law, and you don't have to follow the law. If somebody takes you to court, then they find out you didn't follow the law. So I believe that this is accurate. I've read it in state law, but it just takes somebody bringing it up. So has this ever been looked at by a county attorney? So that's what was going on back then. And then he follows up again, says unless something's changed, the Maryland courts have long held that there must be uniformity. within the zoning code. So that's from 2017. Can I ask a question about that email?

My understanding is what he's commenting on is there was a proposal to double the density, which probably didn't pass. and isn't what we're doing. It has very little. It's nice, and he's a smart man, but it has nothing to do with what we're talking about today. What he was talking about was a whole different thing that doubled it.

I will tell you what he was talking about because I know. Obviously you don't. Let's keep it calm.

I will explain it if you let me. I don't want to sit here for two hours and be read to on something that doesn't even relate to this. I have seen this email. I have seen why it doesn't relate to this. I don't want to be read to by somebody that values AI more than our knowledgeable staff, and I'm sorry.

Let's not get into personals.

That's not personal. That's factual.

Let's keep on the topic at hand.

I can prove it from emails. It's factual.

Let's keep on the topic at hand. Chris, you were going to say something.

Let me just explain from my point of view this doubling. I mean, sometimes we're not on the same page with this stuff. They had taken away the bottom, the number, the minimum. That's what they were trying to do, take away minimum. There'd be no minimum. You could go down to like nothing. So they made a minimum of half of what it was. So if it's R20, you go to R10. Before that, they were going to take away the base altogether. So technically, you're right, but they were going from the definition of what usable space is. And that's the difference in net versus gross. It's the usable space. And the reason it's important is because, as I said, it changed. It was not a benefit. The whole reason—clustering is an overlay zone, and I'm not necessarily reading it. If you don't want to listen, you can leave. I'm reading it for the record because I hopefully— I'm explaining it to the people that are listening for the record. I'm not just doing it to read it, because I want to make sure it's in the record. I can't put it in the record if I can't read it. So the original reason to have this clustering, it's an overlay thing. It's sort of an extra thing on R20. Most areas don't have it. Westminster doesn't have it. Tawny Town doesn't have it. They make them go into PUDs. I don't know if anybody else, or you may know about Tawny Town, but I'm trying to do my homework, and nobody really does it like this. There's supposed to be a benefit that comes out to the community of letting this be clustered. As I said, we don't have a real definition because we use gross versus net. So the net can be a stream bed that's a total thicket. And then these houses end up getting all jammed on fifth of an acre lots. they get jammed up against the road and they get white fences across them and it's not a nice community it's not a nice attractive community there was no benefit to the community so when we started seeing how that was being used we tried to go back to net which means you take out the you take out the land that is not developable and that's what they do pretty much everywhere so you take the unbuildable space and you know I didn't have AI in like 2017 but you know I'm not crazy. People are going to use it. I didn't have it back then, but I could have done this a lot quicker if I had. The unbuildable space should not be allowed in the calculation of the lot yield on a parcel. Unbuildable space includes sensitive areas as defined in the plans. It includes a stream bed. It includes 100-year flood plains, habitat. There's things you can't build and you can't use it for. So trying to get back to net, which is what Frederick County uses it, Westminster uses it, Baltimore County uses it. Stormwater management now has come on. Stormwater management takes up a good partial of these properties and that's considered environmental benefit. You're taking a lot that used to be half an acre, which is not that big, not really that big, and now you literally have nothing left to it. Then you take a quarter acre lot and you're doing the same thing. So what I'm trying to ask, and I've been talking about this since last year, about net versus gross, the other thing that's happening is called fees. This is something that we didn't have a lot before. As I said years ago, we had a nice area and it was $85 a year. Now people are paying management fees. They're paying to have this maintained. Some of it's grass, some of it's thicket, some of it's stormwater management. And some of these cluster communities, we're actually saying, okay, you can now take over your road, lucky you. I know that the county doesn't have to pay for that anymore, but now these people in this development, they're paying all their taxes, much cheaper tax, probably double what they are in other places in the county. There's not paying their property taxes. They're still paying their income taxes and now they're going to pay for the road in a development that used to be taken care of by the county and they're paying to have 14 houses now have to have a management company, 50 houses. It's not easy to do that. It's not easy to have somebody doesn't pay, you got to get an attorney and take them to court all over because now they have to move this little bit of ground that it was on their property. I'm just explaining, I live in a subdivision. 14 have 13 houses we each own our property we pay zero because we each own that property there and we might have that wetland in our backyard but at least it's our property and we don't have to have it maintained so the point is I've got lots of information here I know nobody wants to be held up because everybody's in a hurry but stuff is important to my community and the reason that we never get things changed is because we have no representation And when these things go through the Planning Commission years ago, we had zero people advocating for us, even though everyone got up and made this case. Then it came up again. We have one person advocating for us. It doesn't affect other folks, and they're not hearing about the homeowner fees and the lack of space. Maybe they don't want three acres. We're talking about half an acre, a quarter of an acre that we're now clustering down, taking the unbuildable space, and they now get these fees. So the difference is the lot yield changed based on gross, And versus the conventional, they used to have to lay the conventional plan out of cluster. And in 2022, and the developers didn't want to do the conventional plan, it is a lot of extra work because you have to have another whole plan there. But that's the only way you could really figure out lot yield. And this is technical, but that is what happened in 2022. I do know exactly what happened in 2022 because I do my homework and I know exactly what happened.

And net gross is gross is very incorrect. All it does is increase the value of the lot. at the cost of the lot. Tell me one cluster subdivision that got more lots because of this.

No, but they get the same yield. Supposedly they get the same yield.

Oh, okay. So this means nothing other than increasing the cost. Go ahead. You looked at me and asked me.

No, no. We get the same yield, supposedly. We get the same yield. That's what I've been told over and over again. What you end up, though, with is a bunch of space somewhere that's not usable, and someone's got to maintain it. And now you have a tiny little yard. At least, I think I live in a floodplain, but my backyard's got trees in it. It's my yard. I get to use it. And then when it rains real hard, I can't use it. But it's in a floodplain. But no one else has to maintain it. So these costs are becoming bigger and bigger. Some are up to $100 a month, $200 a month. Then they have to put stuff in what they call a reserve fund now for the road. It's a new state law. So if you have a community association and you now have that road and you think it's a 30-year road, you've got to take the cost 30 years from now and pay for it now so you don't have this big cost at the end. So the people are complaining about, one of them just told me the other day that $500 a month in her townhouse. That's a lot. I'm not sure exactly what's all included. But my point is, the townhouse is different, but the clustering, I would just like to go back to net and then we have to agree what's in the net. I don't think it makes a difference to anybody else's district. I don't know. To be on these kind of lots, you have to be on water and sewer anyway. But there would just be some truth in advertising to, I mean, the market is the market. If you can prove that housing costs go up, you get the same yield. It's just you're not having all this extra space. It's on your property. You have to divide it that way. Now, it depends on the property how they have to lay that out.

So, Commissioner, may I ask? So are you suggesting something other than what's in front of us today? Yes.

Well, what's in front of us doesn't really deal with that. What's in front of us allows us to do something totally different. What I'm just asking to do is to put, and I sent Chris over, something yesterday or maybe last night, whenever it was. I looked up Westminster. And I looked up Frederick, and I pull them out. I'll show them to you. I've looked up several of them. And it depends on what you take out of the net, obviously. So I made a list of things that, you know, I did AI it and said, what do people do in the state of Maryland? And they listed right down there, and I could go pull each one up. And that's what people do now. And I'm going to use AI more because it really helps me to learn things. And it gives me information at my fingertips, so I have real information.

I trust AI blindly. Okay, well. Yeah.

So it pulled up the city of Frederick. It pulled up the city of Westminster. And then you actually can pull their code up and read it. And it says net, net, net, net. So what's in their net? I'm not sure. But calculation of net acreage shall include all land which the cluster subdivision except common open space. And it's all different calculations. So I would like you to come back. And I'd like to have agreement for my area to be sort of like everyone else's area and be able to look at the net and use it for R40. I don't know about the historic district. You'll have to advise me on that. But the R40, R20, and R10, no one is affected by it right now because no one has a plan in. The people that already have it will be, they're already, however this is written, they're gonna be grandfathered in, or whatever we call that, and we would keep it in conservation, and I don't know if it's available in ag. Is it available in ag cluster?

Not specifically, but ag development is, for all intents and purposes, cluster.

OK. So I don't want to touch those. They are large lots. These will just be 40, 20, 10. And I don't know if it's in 7,500. I don't think we have 7,500. But these are small lots. And you can take our 10 down to our 75. And again, what you have left is a space that is not in the ones that have been coming up. It's not usable space. So I just would like to ask for that. I can share with you all the research that I've done that tells you the counties that do it and our own Westminster does it and just- So Chris and Tim, if I may, because I do want to try to keep us on the legislation that we have in front of us.

we could make a decision on that legislation but then continue to consider what Commissioner Krebs has suggested. In other words, we don't have to have a choice made on that today because, to be honest, I'm not prepared to make a choice on a discussion on the floor on that. And as far as the cluster subdivision amendments in front of us today, could you very briefly again remind us what those are and whether there are any projects that have been deferred by our holdup?

Yes, so when the deferrals were put in place, the board decided that there were two primary projects that were moving through the process, and the board decided that those would not be impacted and would not be subject to any code changes. So these code changes do not affect any projects, whether they're existing in process, and we are not aware of any other projects being submitted that these would, these code changes would affect, so.

And I did, I just want to say, I did bring it up When I bring it up, some people say I say too much. I brought it up in the fall. I brought it up in May. I brought it up in June. I'm not sure else how to bring it up, so now I'm bringing it up for the very last time because I'm not sure else how to put it out. Our community asked for it. We thought it was going to get changed, but as I said, the master plan got adopted. They didn't have time to put the definitions in, and what they did is the opposite. They did a bunch of stuff the opposite. They went in the other direction and sort of buckled down. They sort of stuck with what they were doing versus what we had anticipated was going to get changed if they'd had the time. So I'm trying to get it done now. I mean, there's nothing in the pipeline, but I anticipate that at some point there would be something done. But the thing that has changed big over the years is now the costs involved of the maintenance on all these things. Some of it's stormwater management. Yes.

So if I may, I made note of a couple of points, and just for clarification, for the record, for everybody's purposes. So I very much appreciate that you shared the letter from Mr. Kuhman. As you indicated, that was proposed, he wrote that in 2017. At the time, there was a text amendment that was being contemplated. I believe it was even put forth by the Planning and Zoning Commission. They had made the recommendation. And the purpose of that text amendment was to incentivize cluster subdivisions. And the way they were incentivizing or recommended incentivizing those was to give a bonus density related to cluster subdivisions. So you would get additional lots as part of that. And professionally, I would completely agree with what Mr. Kuhnman indicated in his letter, that that is not appropriate. That is up zoning. without going through a proper process. That text amendment was not adopted by the Board of County Commissioners. So that issue, those concerns are not relevant to what we're talking about today.

They're very relevant. It's the same.

Commissioner, Chris should be allowed to finish.

Just finish and tell us about the one, like even the two that we just let go. Explain.

So... The code that was in place up to 2022 was almost virtually unchanged from the 80s when Mr. Kuhman was planning director. So that code has virtually been unchanged. There were some very, I don't know, There were some changes that went through the process in 2022. One of those changes recognized that historically how we had derived the amount of lots allowable when cluster subdivision was proposed was to develop a conventional plan. And that conventional plan, as it's developed, it looks at the net developable area and so on. It goes through the whole process that figures out how many lots are possible. That conventional plan then sets what the maximum yield is for that property, right? And they then do the cluster plan and can reduce lot size and so on and so forth. Through a lot of discussion with the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners back in 2022, we explained that there is no increase in number of lots through the cluster process. So that conventional plan only adds cost to the development process. I understand that there are different ways of calculating that versus gross and so on. Absolutely. If the board wishes to go back to requiring the conventional plan, that is an easy change that has been discussed with the Planning Commission. They don't recommend going back, but that is certainly something the board can decide today. And I've indicated that it's a simple change in one segment of code. We can put it back to the way it was before. So that's the net versus gross and what's happened over the past couple years. You did bring up another point and that's related to the costs. So the costs are not associated with the net versus gross calculation. A cluster subdivision by the model that we're talking about is different from conventional in that who owns what property, right? So when you do a cluster subdivision, there is an open space component that gets created and that gets owned and maintained by the HOA. I completely understand your position that you don't feel that that common open space owned by an HOA is appropriate and you would like to eliminate that as a development model. Excellent discussion for topic. I would submit that that is a great topic for us to discuss with Michael Baker. And as far as their review of code and what other people do, that we'll be back sometime in the near future to present to the board. And then whatever direction the board would like us to take as far as taking those considerations to the planning commission and for further discussion.

The reason I brought it up, because I brought it up, this is my fourth time, a little more at length, because I want to get it taken care of. And the thing I keep saying is, in the old days, you'd get a playground. You'd get a tennis court. You'd get something in your community. You'd get paths, walking paths. It was a big enough community. They're not doing that anymore. They're not putting the tot lots in because of liability. And because people are older, they're not giving you those things. So you're not getting the value out. But now you've got to pay to get all the grass cut. two big lots of grass. They're all down to a fifth of an acre. These are big houses on a fifth of an acre, and they've got this big thing of front grass. Now they all have to pay to mow it. Would they rather have their little half an acre with their house on it, or would they rather have to pay the, you know, they put the little fences up around their little fifth of an acre. Well, if they had their half an acre, they could maybe not have to put the fences up and not have to pay to have it mowed. So, and I'm just asking for the respect in my community that we have in the other areas, and I just, if the yield's the same, 100% of the people in my area that's ever testified on this has been for it. No one's ever been against it. So I'm not sure. We have some difficulties. It doesn't really matter what we say. And then the Planning Commission, I don't know why they say it. I don't think they really understand it because some of them don't even live in communities to understand what the thing is. And when you see it, you say, who? And we've watched it happen over the years. And it's just used to be a good idea. And it's become diluted for a lot of reasons. And we just would like to bring it back. And it's on small lots anyway. So I just would like the courtesy of being able to do it in our community like we do it in other communities and get it done.

So I think, as Chris had mentioned, it's certainly a discussion worth having. And I certainly have no objection to having that discussion. But as it pertains to what we have in front of us today, I want to make sure that everybody else on the board has an opportunity to comment on the legislation that we do have in front of us for the amendments to cluster subdivisions. Commissioner Gordon, Commissioner Conner, Garen, any thoughts or comments?

I do have a quick question for Mr. Hine. Mr. Hine, correct me if I'm wrong, because obviously a lot of information being discussed up here this morning. Your initial comments, you said that the consultants still have additional information to bring us back on this. Yes. So this isn't the final picture by any means. Correct. I'm going to put you on the spot for a second. Sure. I hate to do that, but I'm going for it. That's quite all right. In your expert opinion, given your background and what you do, would it be – proper, I guess is the word I'll use, to do it all at once or to do it piecemeal? Because I think one of the things, and I realize codes get changed all the time, be it through the master plan, be it for a variety of other reasons. If we have an opportunity to do something, would it not be more efficient and effective to do it potentially all at once versus two pieces here this week, something else that gets added a month from now or whatever that is? Just in your opinion.

Yes, I think looking at the whole and addressing the entire topic at once is in general the best practice. In this case, we talked about it back in May of these diverging concepts of what can be done right now, what we have resources to deal with right now while we're awakening for the parallel process. And so we explored the right now, and that's where we are today. What's being proposed and considered today is a relatively minor change, even if it is expanded to look back at some of the other things that we were asked to look at. But yes, I would say, in my opinion, addressing everything at once cohesively is the better path forward in general.

And then do we have a rough estimation of a timeline from when that might be from then? Again, not trying to put you on the spot.

No, that's quite right. So Michael Baker has finished their analysis and provided information for us to look at. We just have not had a time to review it and have further discussions. But as we get past all these other things that are on our plates, it is something that is intended to be in the very near future as soon as possible.

Could it be done in the next 30, 45 days, you think?

I would anticipate, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

And my question is, this is our fourth time it's been here. Last fall, and like made my position very clear. I made it clear again. When we did the May thing in May, you said take it back to 93. I wasn't sure exactly what that did. Um, so I don't know how to get my idea to the planet. I go to the planning commission and do this to them. What's appropriate. Can my ex officio take it to them? Because I'm not sure how to get this information to them because it doesn't sort of get to the planning commission. this sales job and I'm told I'm not supposed to speak and then my ex-officio is supposed to do it for me. So I'm not sure how to move it forward because I've been trying since last October to bring, this is a one little issue that I just would like to get straightened out while no one is impacted. So and I think it would be a benefit, a path moving forward.

Yes. So when we bring Troy back for presentation, it's at that point that we will be looking for direction from the board. And whatever direction the board wishes to give us as far as working with Planning Commission, we will take all that information to Planning Commission and work through the process and come back with recommended amendments.

Well, I can assume that nothing's going to come through the system in that short period of time. I'm just assuming good faith that that- I don't know. Okay.

I'll get to talk. Yeah, please. I personally think I'd love to see what's here today get passed. I think it's relatively small, and I understand what you're saying. There's people buying properties. They're looking at buying properties. They're looking at what they're doing. And there's not that many properties that even can be clustered. But we've delayed them for a year, I think. And I understand what you're saying about open space. I don't understand what you're saying about HOAs, because we don't control that. But if we want to further define open space, I think we've talked about it, and we need to do it. But that has nothing to do with clustering, and that has nothing to do with net versus gross. And homeowners, where I struggle with the homeowners So many of them want more. I want a tennis court. I want a pickle bowl court. Well, that's great. If they want that in their community, I don't want to pay for it. They need to pay for it. So their homeowners fees go up and I've seen that. for 30 years. And I've seen homeowners make a decision. Homeowner associations make a decisions. We don't want this because it's just going to cost us more and we don't want to increase the fees. So it's some of this homeowners association reminds me of the liberals in D.C. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want that. But I don't want to pay for it. I want somebody else to pay for it. Well, that's not how it works. If you increase what the homeowners control. And I don't know, are there any subdivisions where we decide not to take the road and they get stuck with it?

Yes, sir. Subdivisions. Well, it depends on how the subdivision is developed. So if it's, if there's a use in common driveway, uh, for example, that, that, um, remains private. Um, but for the most part in a subdivision, uh, we're talking public roads.

Well, the site plan is not a public road. Right, a site plan is not a subdivision. And so what I'm talking about is a site plan. It is clustered, and it's 13 houses, and we're building it right now. So that's one of the examples I'm talking about. I'm not sure I know which example you're talking about. It's the one up Oklahoma Road. And you told us we're going to save $5,000 in snow removal next year.

Yes, but that is a subdivision, and it's a public road.

But you said we didn't have to pay for the plowing last year.

No, it's a public road. So the county is responsible for maintenance. Yes, absolutely.

So I just want to say, I don't know. I know Manchester is different to me. I have not looked all through Manchester. I can tell you in our clustered subdivisions on half an acre, I have never seen a pickleball court. I've never seen. Let me finish, please.

In my district. I'd like you to finish. I would appreciate that. All right.

I would just like to say I hear what you're saying. There's no room. I mean, I've not seen what you're saying anywhere presented in my area on a cluster development in the last 20 years. They're being left with what I'm talking about, a stream bed. There's no pickleball court. There's no tennis court. 30 years ago, they did that. They didn't have pickleball. They had a tennis court. They had a playground. We had that in Carrolltown. They don't do that anymore. It's not usable open space anymore. Some of it is grass, and it's mowed. So what I'm describing is what's going on in my district, in the Freedom District, which is what we control, and what I'm trying to represent my people on, and what we're seeing that's evolved, and also the cost that goes with it. That's really not a value anymore. It's not a value to them to pay. They range. Some of them are getting very expensive. So I'd appreciate that you respect that and present it like it is in the real place that I'm talking about. It might be somewhere different that they have a tennis court on half an acre. It's not in my district.

But none of that has anything to do with what we're voting on today.

And what we're voting on today will not be necessary. The thing I'm worried about what we're voting on today, I don't know why we're voting on this today. I have no idea what it means. But if we do what I'm going to do, we're going to have it fixed. We're not going to have discretion. I want it to be fixed so we don't have a discretion. Because what's happened in the past is the rules don't... other people make decisions for our district. We don't have, we don't have ground rules. They keep changing. So if we at least fix this, I'm not sure what the point is having the board of County commissioners have a DRA so they can, they can determine open space density minimum. So it sounds like instead of the planning commission doing something that the commissioners are going to want to do something. And considering that I have not had the support to do what I want in my district anyway, why would I want to leave it to people that don't seem to want to do what our community wants to do? So I just, this seems to me, it's just giving you more power to do what you want in my community. I know that's what you want.

It's my county and all of it, including your community. Like I said, District 5 isn't flat. You don't fall off the earth driving here. It's part of this county. And we talk about them not paying for things, then who pays for it? My taxpayers in my district. So are you done? I'm I'm, I'm confused.

But the point that I was trying to make, if it's in your own property, you pay for your own. So if my tree falls down, I pay for my tree to come down, not the homeowners association. Instead of having that grass that they've got to mow, these two big lots, we all have a bigger lot, and we just mow our own grass, a little bit more of our own grass. So there is no extra cost. It's as you sort of absorb it in your own lot. Instead of having a fifth of an acre, you now have a half of an acre. And it's not that big. Half an acre is not that big, and you just mow it, and you take care of your own lot.

I want to bring us back around to the text amendments that we have in front of us. There has been some discussion about whether we adopt these or not. They've been noted as relatively minor. I understand that there's an overall framework that we're interested in pursuing, but the question for the board today is are we interested in pursuing this relatively minor adjustment until such time as we figure out what to do overall?

My question is what's the purpose of this? What does it do? I mean, I don't see, if we have nothing in the pipeline, what's the purpose, what's the rationale for doing this? Because it looks to me like even if we pass that, that somebody, we could go around it and say, oh, we're going to do a DRA, and then other people would be making a decision, like the Planning Commission does now, would just replace it with this board. I want to put something in place that we can depend on. So I don't know what the purpose of this is.

I've never... Well, for me, I see two things for this, right? I mean, as Commissioner Gordon rightfully asked, you know, what kind of timeline are we looking at before something might potentially come back to us? We're looking at, what, 30, 45 days? It's very possible that a subdivision or a cluster subdivision tries to pop up in that amount of time. And, Commissioner, you yourself have said on more than one occasion you wish that more developers would take advantage of the DRRAs that we offer, the DARAs that we offer. This would give us the opportunity, if something popped up in that 45-day window, roughly, to be involved in what might happen with a new cluster subdivision.

And what's the 45-day window?

That was the estimate that Chris had before the consultants would come back to us with further recommendations for the overall cluster subdivision chapter.

Well, I don't foresee anything coming up that would get far enough along. I just don't see.

Do I get to finish over? Well, I mean, if you two are going to talk, I'll just sit here and wait. That's what I'm doing. You had said I got to talk, and I got interrupted and didn't get to finish. I'm just sitting here waiting.

Well, first of all, Commissioner Kyler, I apologize because I did not know you were not finished. All right. And second of all, I'm trying to keep us on task.

That's what I want to talk about. All right. Yes, sir. Is it correct? There's nothing in the pipeline right now.

Correct.

So

Well, I'm sorry if I may clarify. There are two projects that are in process that are not subject to any changes here. They don't count this. But we have not had a pre-submittal meeting or anything like that that we are aware of another project that is imminent.

So if I buy a piece of property and I want to do one and I start talking to you and we do make changes on whatever in the next 45 days, then it will affect that.

Yes. Yes. So if you make changes today and a project is submitted in the next 45 days, it would affect that new project. And I would also add that just for consideration is that the state law regarding complete application goes into effect October 1st. So the code that is in effect on October 1st, whether it's the current code or something that you revised today, is going to be what that project is going to be subject to as far as the codes moving forward. So before the state law change, there would have been the opportunity for the Board of County Commissioners to make revisions to residential code amendments, and they would have been subject to them. Starting October 1st with a complete application, that will not be possible anymore.

But the odds of somebody submitting a complete application on a totally new project in the next two weeks is pretty slim.

Yes.

So we need, and I agree about the changes you're talking about, and we need to talk about that, but this has nothing to do with that. This we've delayed for 12 months. If we delay the next thing for 12 months, it maybe won't matter. But I think, and you said this a little bit, we passed this. It might encourage people doing stuff.

Yeah.

And I think we can, if we get our act together on changes, we can limit what they do.

Why would we want to act on this to encourage people to do what we're getting ready to change? That's what I can't understand.

I don't know what we're getting ready to change, but it's...

I mean, maybe if you could explain like what, there's obviously something in your brain that you want to happen. If we still have what we have in place today, Why would we encourage somebody through this to take advantage of what we have in place today that you just said you would like to change to? Why would we just not change it and then wait for this and do it at the same time?

Why don't we just not change anything this year period? Why don't we wait till two years from now? It's, it's, we need to make decisions and move forward and this doesn't hurt anything you've said because none of that has anything to do with this.

I'm going to ask you all to hold off on this and do the things at the same time because they are related to each other. I would not want to encourage someone right now to rush forward thinking they're going to get some deal with us when we're getting ready to change something because that would be giving them a mixed message. If we should do it all at the same time, then we'd say, do we still need this or we got this other thing in place? It would be a protection because we... Seems to be, you agree that this is a good idea. So I would think it's not look at them together versus look at them separately, because as you just said, this might encourage somebody to do something that we are trying not to do again.

I didn't say that, but that's okay.

Commissioner Guerin, did you want to add anything? You haven't spoken yet. I want to make sure you have the opportunity if you want.

We're getting pretty far afield on some things right here. I do have reservations about this based on the fact that I'm not sure it goes far enough. But again, that Please don't interpret that as criticism because we have been doing this for a long time. And I agree with some of the board members. I mean, it seems like we're just kicking the can down the road, but we're not doing that intentionally. And this October 1st sort of deadline that's been forced on us by the state that we have no control over that. And when people listen to us constantly talk about How this board and this county is losing its ability to self-govern, and you hear this term, lack of local control. This is what we're talking about. This is exactly what we're talking about. If we're going to wait and hold off on some things, I'm fine with that because I'd like to see us go a little further, but I know we've got to agree on that as a board. There's got to be three people here to agree on that. And the other thing that stands out to me is this word may. This word may in terms of what the Planning and Zoning Commission has the ability to do. I have reservations about why that may is in there. I feel as though that's a hard working group. And believe me, I was on the Planning and Zoning Commission 20 years ago when this issue began. And if I remember correctly, I think it was restricted only to conservation, perhaps. I can't remember exactly, but the intent of all of this was to provide developers with a little bit of leeway. Yeah, if you can't build on something, you should be able to cluster. And I don't think any of us are disagreeing with that. And again, to think this is the easiest one of the ones we have today is kind of scary. But if we're going to hold off, I'm fine with holding off. And I'm I'm prepared to vote no if I have to, but I'd rather see us do it all at once if that's going to be the case because October 1st we just can't control that and it's right around the corner literally.

Commissioner Gordon, Commissioner Kyler, any thoughts on potentially postponing this?

Go ahead.

Yeah, I think we should vote on it today, and I think if we postpone it, maybe we ought to postpone the next two and save a bunch of time today. I just think this is a good decision, and it doesn't confuse developers, trust me. We're not giving a mixed message. I'd like to see it passed, but if like like you said, if if two others don't, then let's move on.

I think the challenge with all of this and I'm not just speaking on this issue, but on several other ones we're looking at is. we really haven't gotten all the information back from the consultants. We hired them for a reason. I believe in trust but verify, but if I have an expert, I want to hear the expert's opinion. Whether I agree with it or not is a whole different situation. And I'm at a loss given how, yes, we're running up on an October deadline. We've all been at this for quite some time. Planning and zoning has been at it for quite some time, including multiple eight-hour meetings that go above and beyond their normal schedules. Staff has put in countless hours. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated in general because I understand what you're talking about for that part of the community in your area. I get that. But I think what I find really challenging is we're sitting here in some fashion and we're spinning our wheels. This has been a very lengthy process. And unfortunately, we don't really have a lot finalized in any fashion. But we've taken staff. I guarantee they're putting in weekend hours and then some. And yes, it's their jobs. But we're trying to do that. We haven't looked at the master plan since May. So we are completely off schedule with that. I'm just frustrated at this point in general. I mean, I don't think any of us, and I'm not trying to speak for the other four of you, but I don't think any of us took these roles and responsibilities sitting in these chairs to not look out for everybody in Carroll County. If they did, it definitely isn't me because I'm a Carroll County commissioner. I may be elected by District 3, but I'm a Carroll County commissioner. None of us are district commissioners, and I'm just, I'm very frustrated by this whole process and how it's come to fruition at this point, so...

Mr. Gordon, I want to say I'm frustrated, too. That's why I'm out of retirement, because none of us would even be here today, and everyone. The development community has been harmed. You all have been harmed. We've been harmed. Our planning commission's been harmed. And it's because our process is broken, because our area is like the dumping ground, because there's no representation. When the master plan was done in 2017-18, it took seven years, and it had not been done for 17 years before that. And unfortunately, there were some people that had some different motives, and they're not here anymore. And they wanted to just change everything, and they didn't get their way. The master plan got passed because the commissioners took it back, and they said, we're not doing this. But they didn't have time to write the definitions. And I know everybody keeps saying the master plan didn't get changed. It's what it was. It did, because people put things in that did not implement it. It did the reverse. If this had been done like it was supposed to have been done and not been changed and all this other stuff with the retirement, which is something written two years ago in 2020, we wouldn't be here today. But unfortunately, there were, I call them evil forces. There were evil forces saying, hey, we can take advantage of Carroll County because there's people, and we can take advantage of this area because they have no representation. And it's hard to understand all of this. It's taken me a long time. But if you would look, when I saw those people standing there the other night testifying, They stood there for years and years. If you look, I have a folder like this on clustering from all the time that I wrote testimony to our planning commission. And what did they do? Right afterward, as soon as the master plan finished and they didn't change anything, they went in and put it in and changed it. I've lost today's citizenship day. I've lost faith in my government. And it's because of this, because it's like, I don't know what commissioner collar has so much interest in my district. It's it's so amazing, but it seemed, but it's, I have interest in the entire county of Carol.

The thing is that I've built a lot of things in district five, but I don't have, I value Manchester, Hampstead and Finksburg more probably. but I'm the commissioner for the County and, and, and I'm tired of being bashed in emails and by you. And we don't even want to talk about social media and the lies there, but I, I'm, I don't have special interest in your area. I have the same interest I have in Mount Airy, Tawny town, Manchester and Hampstead. So I'm, if you want to bash me, Go for it, but that doesn't have a damn thing to do with this topic, bashing me.

Go wild. I guess what my point is, if I would come to your Westminster, and I've done this many times when I've come to Tawny Town, I try to do what your people want to do. 100% of the people that have spoken and written us that are from freedom have spoken of what I'm speaking, 100%. And 100% of them did during the master plan process. And I want you to just understand how would you like it if in your town a bunch of people said, I hear what you all say, But we don't really care. We're not going to do it our way anyway. And then we get development that is not good. We don't get stuff kept up with. And I don't mean to keep harping on it, but this is just a perfect example. We have just spent all this time on this. I don't even know what the purpose. There's obviously something that somebody wants to do with this. I don't know what it is. This is not what we're trying to do. We're trying to just get the stuff back in the bottle. I know the developers want to get their stuff back in the bottle. Well, their stuff was out of the bottle. And then they took advantage of it. And everyone's a loser. And all we want is nice communities. We're not asking for fancy stuff. We're just asking for nice communities. We're just trying to, if I showed you some of the stuff, you'd go, wow, why did we do it that way? And I think when we did our little site tour last week, the planning commission, I think you went, Chris. I think everyone in those two vans said, hmm. Why did this happen? I'm not speaking for them, but we all sort of agreed that, hmm, okay, we've been saying that the whole time, and there it is. There we got it. So it is frustrating. It is Citizenship Day, and I have never felt this in my life that my county has let me down. I have put in so much. I know you don't want to hear it, and that's okay, but I have spent a tremendous amount of time For facts, I have facts here. If you'd like me to show you the Frederick County code and the Westminster code, and if you want me to show you the Maryland stuff, I know it's AI, but it has all the links to all the different things. Maybe that's fake, too. But I'm just trying to make a case with real information about what we'd like to do in our community. And it's not any big deal. Same yield, except instead of the homeowner association paying for all this extra space, it's going to be on someone's property. So they have no fees. And we get the same yield, so I'm not sure. unless I'm missing something, I'm not sure why this has become a big issue. It's been now another 10 years. We've been doing these projects like this and we're not getting good projects out of it.

This is a big issue. And the, and my only, I there's no secret shit involved. We asked them to look at this. We asked planning commission to look at this. They recommended this. Um, now we're saying, nevermind, we, you wasted your time and it's no wonder we're not getting stuff done.

Well, maybe Mr. Gordon, I mean, Commissioner Gordon, maybe you can explain. No one's explained why they recommended this. What's the reason? Because I can't really see, if nothing's in place, how would this help us? So I'm trying to figure out what this does. What's the purpose of this? When they deliberated, I didn't hear them, why did they say they wanted to do this?

This did not come from the planning commission. This was a recommendation from the board of County commissioners for consideration as far as a, um, a provision change to the, to the cluster code planning commission.

Didn't look at this.

They did look at it, but it, but it did not originate with originated from us.

Yes. And that's, that's what I'm saying. We ask everybody to look at it and now we said, nevermind. And, and that's okay.

I don't remember looking at this. Maybe we did. I just didn't understand. Every meeting talked about net versus gross, every meeting. The last one we had, you said look at 1993. I didn't have 93. I couldn't really look at it, so I wasn't sure. Was this in 93?

No, that was not. the the net versus gross discussion that changed in 2022 and so um everything that was developed prior to 2022 and um off by memory i can only think of one cluster subdivision that's been proposed since 2022 that has not had to do the um conventional plan right So the net versus gross question is something that's from 2022 to current. So subdivisions that occurred over the past 10 and 20 years were all based on the same code that's been in place since prior to 93. So that has not changed. Something simple.

I mean, just very simply, we have something called clustering. It used to be a benefit. Now it's not. So why don't we just take it off and not even offer it? I mean, many counties don't offer it. I guess Hampstead, they don't offer it. You put it in a PUD, they sit around the table, they work it with their government.

A PUD is different than a clustering.

I know it is, but they don't have the cluster. They just said if somebody wants to have an interesting, they come and we do a PUD. We all talk about it, and it gets done conceptually. So I'm suggesting a lot of places don't even have this. If it's not benefiting our community anymore, why don't you just take it off? Forget the net versus gross.

And that is certainly a consideration that could be made when Michael Baker comes back and presents, and we can have that discussion and move that forward at that point.

There's no longer the benefit that was there for years long. It's not there anymore.

And I would submit that that is more likely the available land for development. Right. So the the larger tracks that would allow for amenities and so on, larger amenities no longer exist. And so that it would be my observation as to why things have changed over the past 10, 20 years. It's not because of the change of code.

No, and maybe the towns don't do it because of that, too, because they had smaller lots. And the one I'm talking about where I first lived was a PUD, so maybe that's why that happened. But they're doing only small lots, and the towns aren't doing it because they have all small lots. So it's like maybe we should just, because we're not, we don't have any big lots anymore.

And I think that's a good discussion for when Michael Baker comes back as to whether the cluster code is something that continues to benefit Carroll County. And so that could be discussed at that point.

And when he comes back, I guess he lives in Pennsylvania. He comes here and asks us. The average person, they live in their community. You explain it to them, they go, yeah. So we know we've already testified on this years ago. I'm here representing the community. Where is he going to get his information from? Because we represent the community. I know what their community thinks, but the people that did speak last week all spoke. They didn't know exactly what they were talking about. They don't like what we're doing with the clustering. So it can't really go back to what it used to be years ago, the meaning of it, because it's just not happening anymore. There's not large enough lots to do it. Again, in conservation, it works well. If you had three-acre lots, it would work well. We don't have three-acre lots anymore. So we don't even have one-acre lots anymore, very few. So the time has passed for this, and it's just in a – it's not affecting us in a good way. It's affecting us in a negative way. And we're not getting – people want – that's why they're moving to Pennsylvania for taxes, but they also want a little green grass. And I'm not talking about big lots. I'm talking about a half-acre, a quarter-acre lot. They're little. But they want that. They want to be able to throw the ball for their dog. And so, I mean, if we put it all in stream bread and they don't have anywhere at all except where their house is – It's not really attractive. We're becoming Columbia. Not that Columbia's bad. Sorry, Tom, Columbia's not bad, but people move and drive here because they want a little bit of grass.

So I think these are all certainly worthwhile things that we can discuss with the consultant when the time comes for today. The last few words that I'll say about what's before us, and then I'm going to call for the vote because I think the conversation is, or call for, the potential if anybody has a motion. Again, when I look at this, what's specifically in front of us today, yes, there's still more work to do when it comes to figuring out what to do about clusters. Did we remove them? Did we strengthen restrictions? Whatever the case might be. So the way that I look at this today, and Tim, please correct me if I misstate anything legally, right? The language in here says that Plain and Zoning Commission may authorize clustering provided that the following conditions are met. And that's the key phrase, provided that the following conditions are met through a developer rights and responsibilities agreement with the county commissioners. Now, that would take three of the five of us to vote to enact a DARA, and then it would take three of the five of us to approve whatever the DARA might be. And again, we're talking about a time span of 45 days, and I agree with my colleagues. I don't think anything is going to necessarily pop up in the next 45 days, but if it does, the other option that we have to protect against cluster subdivisions is that the majority of the commissioners vote no, we don't want to do a DARA, and then no cluster subdivision is going to come forward, period. So for me, this is more of a preventative stopgap measure until we figure out what to do with the overall cluster chapter of the code. So that's where I fall on this, and that's why I'm in favor of supporting the ordinance that's before us today. Now, in order to keep us on the agenda and in order to keep us as timely as we can be now, I'm going to make a motion. Excuse me, just a moment. I'm going to make a motion that we amend section 155.036 cluster subdivisions of the county code as presented and discussed. Do we have a second? We have a second. We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion?

So to make one point, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but given the fact that it affects my district and everything here affects my district and other things have affected my district and I haven't had support from the board, for things in my district that 100% of the people in my district have supported what I'm trying to do. We're sort of in the same boat. I don't really have the confidence that if something would come up that the very people that haven't supported me on these other things are going to support me on that. So I'm trying to figure out how our area gets some Some say, I mean, the planning, they're fine people in the Planning Commission. They don't know our area at all. They don't know the people down in our area at all. They can't visualize what's going on. So it's a real problem because they don't know what they don't know. I'm not blaming them. It's the system we've given them to work in. And the one person that's there... is burnt out. Because he's been saying, he's been raising his hand no for years on this stuff. Six to one. No, no, no. And all those things he voted no on is what we're doing today. So that's what's caused us all this problem. If we'd had people, like, Tawny Town has their people that want to really do what's right for Tawny Town, and Westminster wants to do what's right. And we're trying to do the very thing that you do. But somehow, someone else is telling us we can't. And it just seems like it's going that way. And it's just the reality. So I'm not sure, for my sake, if I have any more confidence that if something came up that it would go our way, my way, or the people's way.

And I think one of the reasons I think this is relevant and cluster subdivisions are relevant, we still have some R40. Nobody wants a one-acre lot on water and sewer anymore. And then even if we cluster and take it to R20, that's a half-acre lot. And you keep referring to the towns. They don't have half-acre lots. They have one-fifth acre, one-quarter acre. So that's why they don't cluster, because they've already got smaller lots. And you're right. I talked to somebody the other day in Haley Hills, and he said, I've got kids. I live on a third of acre. They play in the yard. I wouldn't want to mow more than that. I'm happy where I am. And I think that's what this does. It allows for slightly smaller lots, which, and again, I don't know any developers that want to do something that won't sell.

OK. And one thing I'm going to ask, when you make generalizations, like there are no half acre lots, I just spent a couple of days looking at Westminster's stuff. I looked at their maps. Most stuff in Westminster is R20. A lot of stuff in Hampstead is R20. They're not that big. You can quantify it. I looked at the maps. You can see the colors on the map?

I've built some of them, and I've driven some of them. And I've looked at plans. I can read a plan. We've discussed that and maps. And yeah, no, that's the truth.

OK, and I just wanted to say one more thing. So I don't know how many we have left of R40. There's not much. We do have one development that just got finished a few years ago. it's beautiful it's wonderful and that's if you talk about economic development and you want to bring businesses here that's how you bring business here is giving them the housing that they want we're not building it so you might say everybody wants to not mow but there are people that want that little bit of space and they're the people that are the business people and that's where you get the revenue from because if you're an llc it goes through where they live doesn't matter if you can have 20 businesses and not one of those people live there their money doesn't stay here

And we also need affordable lots.

We need both.

Yes.

We need both. But these particular, we don't have this kind of inventory left anywhere because we can't build outside the, that's what I say. We need a plan for the whole county because we're not building that type of housing anywhere because we don't have tiers and we're not allowed to build it. So there's a very little bit left that we can do those things.

Can I just add before we continue because we've got several issues just like this to contend with. I understand Commissioner, you're extremely passionate about what is going on down in District 5 and I live next to it and I used to live in it. So I emphasize with you and all the people there and I'm one of those people that agree that things have gone awry in a lot of ways there. But I think it's fair. We've got to be fair moving forward as we talk about these issues. Previous boards and previous commissions and some of the actions they've taken. Uh, we tend to disagree with you and I, but this, this board itself, this board here, we have been very supportive of this process. I mean, let's be fair. We we've approved the consultants. We've spent a lot of time discussing this issues. when it came time for issues down in district five, whether it was a new library or new high school, we've been very supportive of that as well. So I just, I just think, I just want to point that out because I know a lot of people are also watching and I don't think it's fair to, I know you're not doing this intentionally and I, I apologize. I try not to direct, I think it's inappropriate to be directing commissioners, uh, you know, directly like that. We need to, we need to exercise some decorum, but, We have been trying to struggle with this issue as well. And I think it's only fair to point out that we are in a process now to try to improve what's going on down there. And people need to understand that the other four of us here, we've been supportive of the process in trying to make things better. We can't change the past, unfortunately, though. So I think it's important. Let's just keep that in mind going forward, please, that we are trying to work through this as well and we're going to have disagreements and there's going to be people that vote no when others vote yes that's just going to be the way it is but we've been very supportive of of trying to trying to fix this so i just want to make that clear i know we've got a vote we've got a second yeah motion in a second are you calling the question yes all right so we have a motion we have a second all those in favor aye aye all those opposed no i'd just like to explain my vote which i have the card

So the motion carries four to one. And please go ahead.

On this particular item, I'm not sure we spent an hour on it. I'm not sure what the purpose of it is. So that's what bothers me. It's like, why are we doing this? We're getting ready to look at this thing globally, but we're passing this little piece that says we can make some deal. We, this board now, can make a deal for me. And you won't even vote not to do this for me, but how will I trust that you're going to make a deal that's going to benefit my community? Well, we'll see. We'll see how the rest of these votes go, because so far, I don't see how this would benefit my community. And we'll see on the next ones that my people all came in, 100% of the people came in on that when they changed this stuff, they changed it. We're trying to get it back and we'll see how that goes.

I just can't. I would count. I would argue that you may be right. How does this legislation benefit the freedom? It doesn't, but it does accomplish some things in the meantime prior to August, October 1st, and while we're still awaiting language and additional text amendments to look at this issue. So in my view, you're right. Does it help them? No, but it's a stopgap measure to ensure that we have time to, take a look at this issue. With October 1st looming, we didn't decide that date. That was forced upon us.

I will mention about the October 1st date. When I was in Annapolis last year, and this was being passed, they put something in there saying a complete application. We have total control of a complete application. We just don't have it defined. So that was the out. You can make your complete application be anything you want. We have not defined it. And I know we've been busy. I know we've been busy. We don't have it defined. All of my colleagues who I've talked to at MAKO, they've all defined it. So they've got a list. We don't have the list. So that was the out is having something that would protect us by having a complete application listed like in June. Just write it down. We don't have to even approve it, I don't think. I don't think it even has to go to us.

Commissioner, I'm sorry. We did present in July that we do have a list and we have something in place defining what a complete application is.

Oh, you told me the other day where you couldn't get to it.

well no so it's on next week's agenda and we're we're coming back from for next week to to discuss it further because we did hear what you said that that you had talked to Frederick and and I have talked with Frederick and they're looking to do something different but what we are what we talked about in July is the same thing that I've heard from every other jurisdiction I've talked about and they're viewing it the same way and and we have something in place but it's um it's it's not making the policy or code changes that Frederick County is currently discussing. So we're coming back next week to talk about it. No, I understand.

The last time I talked to you, you said, and I understood that you were very busy. And I'm going to just say one thing. A little off track, but when this is all over, one of my goals is to work with the development community and figure out how we can make things predictable, make them streamlined. And the more you make things predictable, and when I read Westminster, you can go tell them their code is very well written. You can understand it. A layman can understand it. It's laid out nicely. I can't even understand our code. And it's not you, Chris, that wrote it. It was written. It's a mess. You've got to look over here and look over there. You can't even follow it. So it needs to be predictable for the homeowners. It needs to be predictable for the development community. And I think that's going to be a project I would be happy to work with someone on to get our code neat and nice. And Fredericks County is very neat and nice. I'm not saying everything's exactly what we would do, but it's very well laid out and understandable. So that's something we owe it to folks to do.

All right, I'm going to move us on now in our agenda to item number four, briefing, discussion, decision on accessory dwelling unit text amendments. Chris, I'll take it over to you for presentation and then open the floor for discussion.

Yes, so this topic is a little different than the others that we've talked about that were a subject of the deferral that the Commissioner specifically asked us to look into. This comes from the General Assembly, which passed House Bill 1466, not this past session, but the previous session of the General Assembly. And it basically requires counties to adopt ADU, Accessory Dwelling Unit, legislation to support the provisions that were passed in the House Bill. So on April 23rd, we presented information about the House Bill and the Board directed us to work with Planning and Zoning Commission. We did so over quite a few meetings, May through July, to put together a draft text amendment for consideration. The Board reviewed that on July 30th and we had the public hearing on September 3rd. And so today we're here to answer any further questions and potentially adopt. We have mentioned this regarding October 1st. That just happens to be the same date that the early vesting requirement, but it's not associated with the early vesting. This House bill specifically said that municipalities such as ourselves had to adopt this by October 1st. So that's why we've put that date out. So happy to answer any questions.

I've got several, um, and, uh, and I don't know, and you need to tell me if we have this choice or not. Um, the 50 foot distant requirement from their principal Joe dwelling. I think we can waive that, but I'm not sure should, do we need to leave it in this as 50? What's, what's the downside of making it bigger now?

Would you like to answer that?

The downside would be perspective. But we can remove it. It does not have to be 50 even. That was something that was in place already in Ag and Conservation. And there was nothing in place in any other district as far as distance from the primary dwelling.

So that was, that was something that was passed my previous board. Um, and, um, is, is specific to Carroll County. There may be other jurisdictions that have similar provisions, but again, it's, it's primarily to keep that accessory dwelling as an accessory to the principal, um, dwelling.

And I think it ties their hands is, is there a limit of two bedrooms?

There currently is a limit of two bedrooms in the County code as it stands now for accessory dwelling units. So that was one of the ones that just came over into the new, the new code.

But I understand, uh, They need to do a septic area that's a minimum of three bedrooms, but we're telling them they only have two. So I question that if we have to do that.

And so I'm sorry, if I can. So is there anything in the state provision that requires us limiting it to two or could the board change that to three?

Could change it. Could change it.

Yes. So you can the board could change that to three.

And yeah, I think that covers that cover most of it. The septic area they have to do and and that's no choice. And it just seems. The 50-foot, we might be forcing them to do the real yard or certain areas, and I think I'd rather see them have the option. And I don't think that hurts accessory dwellings. But I was curious if you'd tell me, well, the state's making us do that. We can't change it. And I think, and I don't know if that means we wanna look at this further, but we are under time.

We are under time constraint, yes. And so, and regarding the 50 foot, that certainly could be changed by the board today, if you would like a different distance. I would say that that is a dimension that can be a variance, can be requested, and then on a site by site basis, that's reviewed by, is that Anastasia? Is it a zoning administrator or a BCA?

Up to twice the distance would be.

Do you guys think it's better to leave it at 50 and have the variance requested or change it?

Yes. I would agree that the 50 foot keeps the intent of that accessory unit reasonable. A variance can be requested and then it's looked at site by site. Our zoning administrator can vary that to 100 feet if it's going to be longer than that, if it's desired to be greater than that, it goes to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

But they do have options. How about the two bedrooms? Can they waive that or?

Yes. My understanding is yes. Yes.

That can be varied as well.

Okay. Because I think I'd like to see that be three, the same as their septic. But I understand the 50-foot, I probably never said this before. You might be right. Keep the 50-foot and do the waiver. And the waiver, it's one step up to 100, but you can even ask for a variance more than that.

Yes. And it just depends on who hears that variance up to 100. It goes to Anastasia, our zoning administrator over 100 foot would go to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Okay. This may not be a fair question of you, but on the issue of HOAs, there are HOAs that I would imagine many of them restrict ADUs or separated dwelling units for people. Do we know how this affects established HOAs with their own covenants and bylaws? Because I know those do carry some weight.

They would need to comply with HB 1466 at the state level, but we have put provisions in here that anything that we do approving an ADU does not override their own provisions.

Say that again, please.

Anything that we approve does not override an HOA's provisions. They just would need, they're subject to state law, just as we are doing now.

In terms of we, you mean the county? Correct. Okay, yeah.

And I've got a couple questions. We had some folks weigh in last week, and I want to make sure we take their stuff into consideration. First is my question. On the footprint, are we using both levels as the 75% of both floors, or are we just using the foundation floor?

It's just the outline of the building itself. Okay, not greater. Okay. I forget where it said that.

The livable floor area of internal accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed The floor area, where does ours say that? I was trying to find it last night.

Ours, the new code, the new provisions that we have in place?

Yeah, the two floor versus the one, because I said that the floor, the actual foundation then allows it to be smaller. If you counted both floors, they could do double. So where does, I couldn't figure out where it said it in our code. I was looking on K. The livable floor area of an internal accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 75% of the above ground living area of the primary dwelling Does that mean above, if it's like two stories, could it be two stories?

That's the total square footage, and if it is literally above ground, then yes. Any of that that is underground, even if it's the first floor, if it's partially underground, it's not considered part of the square footage according to SDAT, which is the number that we'll be using.

Well, the reason I'm asking, because I know Howard County adopted it, and they just are taking the foundation. So it's one size. So we're basically allowing it to be twice as big if you're going to use the two floors. Because if you're a two-story house and you've got first floor, second floor, and you're allowing them to use both, let's say it's 500 square feet, 500 square feet, you now have 1,000. And you're still capped at the 750. But in Howard, they just did the foundation because they wanted to just make it smaller and just go off the size of one floor. Does it matter? I mean, it's still capped at the 750.

In theory, when you have the footprint that must be 75% of the large one, and then you have the total square footage that can only be 75% of the primary dwelling unit, and then you have to limit that to the height of the accessory structures that's allowed in that zoning district, it would be smaller. It wouldn't theoretically be all that.

But it says 75% of the above ground living area of the primary dwelling. So if you have a two-story house, it can be 75% of both stories. You can limit it to just the foundation story, the one story. You could limit it to the one.

You cannot because the footprint can't be more than 75% of the primary dwelling unit's footprint.

So I believe we're restricting it both ways.

Yes.

Okay. I mean, I just read something yesterday that said that that's why they, just check on that, because they specifically said they just wanted to pick the one level, because it would give them a smaller number to be able to go up to it. Particularly Harrogate County, I probably have it here somewhere. So just asking that question, because I was trying to read it and see if it, because this says above ground living, which could be two stories. Then we also had some questions the other night about, talking about the septic. So on the 10,000 square foot septic, is that a minimum for the PERC?

I mean, is that going to be... That is a provision from the health department, so that's not county code itself, but that is my understanding is it is a 10,000-square-foot discharge area for septics. So they're going to have to have a whole separate... My understanding from what I read, they can share the discharge. They're going to have to have a whole separate...

Yes. And that's a concern that, um, that has been discussed at Mako and is, is going to be discussed with, um, MD and the health department.

Are they discussing just enlarging the one that they have on the primary residence or they have to be separate?

I can't speak to the exact health department requirements, but it is a concern. But it's not something within our peer review to change. And so it is being discussed at MACO and potentially will be something discussed with the General Assembly of the spring.

I'm reading my notes. Michael Davis from Finksburg, he mentioned this 75% of the first floor. So he's reading it the same sort of way. You can either do it with the one floor, or you can do it with both floors, which it might depend on how big your house is. It would give you a different number. And then Mr. Coon from Mount Airy, he was questioning about the minimum width of the lot. If something's too wide, does that have anything to do? He and his brother had a concern about the width of the lot, and they didn't really understand it.

I'm not sure what that's referring to.

I mean, does there have to be a minimum width or something like that?

Well, I just have minimum width of lot two wide, denied ag preservation because of some in the rural village, but they want to be able to build it, and he just didn't know if it was... I just want to make sure that he and his brother had sat in the front and wanted to make sure that however we had done it, we'd done it so that they would be able to take advantage of this. But that's all I had. Thank you.

Well, I just want to go on record, and I know I often sound like a broken record on this subject, but this legislation... Not designed really. I mean, some people might disagree, but this was not designed with Carroll County in mind. This was designed with other counties in mind. And once again, it's a one size fits all situation. And I will tell you, um, I feel compelled to mention this and it may not be this board. It may not be the next board, but at some point in the future, when you begin this process of 80 years, which is why I'm just venomously opposed to all of this. what's going to happen in the counties. You will have people coming in asking, well, listen, this lot needs to be subdivided. Now this is a separate parcel and that's when things are really going to get ugly. Yes. And, um, I just want to mention that to my, my fellow board members, because we, we, I would anticipate that happening at some point and it may not happen to us. but it's going to happen. It's something that county is going to have to grapple with at some point. That's my fear that that's what's going to happen. And then the fact that this, again, we can't change the legislation sitting here in Westminster, but the fact that it overrides these HOAs, I mean, HOAs are supposed to matter. Um, I think there's probably plenty of lawyers out there, um, in the county who represent HOAs just as much as they represent other parties and don't HOAs have a say they should. But they won't. And that's a shame. That's sad.

And you know, ADUs are good. It depends how much base you have to put them in. It's just when you have to jam them somewhere else. But I will tell you, there's nonpartisan opposition to this. And I think once they start getting built in some of these communities where they're all on top of each other, I think you're going to see it overturned. And again, they're fine in certain areas for your kids, your family. And I think we had a good piece of legislation that allowed that to occur. But you're right, one size does not fit all. And I don't think it's going to last long. We'll see how many we get done.

Are any other comments, questions or direction from the board?

I move the Board of County Commissioners amend chapters 155 and 158 of the County Code related to accessory dwelling units as presented except change two bedroom limit to three bedroom.

Alright, we have a motion. Do we have a second second? We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? I'll just very briefly go on the record to say that I agree with everything Commissioner Guerin has said. A lot of these mandates and things that get handed down from the state, they really don't understand how it affects local communities like ours. I would imagine probably for all my colleagues, it's not a joyful vote that we're committing ourselves to here, but one that is legally necessary. Any other discussion? I would just say that's a fair assessment, and I appreciate you both mentioning that.

Commissioner Krebs, did you want to add anything? I just want to mention, I did read, and you probably read it too, that there's no penalty for not doing this by October 1st. I mean, if you're a few days late, it's no big deal.

All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any other discussion? All right. Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Guerin descends. Okay. All right. Thank you, everybody. Up next, item number five, briefing, discussion, and decision on age-restricted communities and homes text amendments. Commissioner Imsen, I apologize.

Yes. The motion that was made, there is a portion of Chapter 156 that also needs to be amended, and I don't recall if that was mentioned in the motion.

I think it was just the chapters, I think it was chapters 155 and 158.

And that may have been my mistake in putting together the recommended motion. So if the board wouldn't mind if you could also make the motion that there are changes to chapter 156 as well.

So we have a motion from the board regarding Chapter 156.

I move that the Board of County Commissioners add Chapter 156 to the agreement. To the previous motion. Okay.

Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Guerin dissents. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Guerin, you're making a good statement. I understand.

And I know, again, I'll speak for the four of you. I know you agree. Absolutely. I know you agree. In particular, maybe it affects my district more than some others as well.

Understood. Understood. And trust me, none of us hold anything against each other for this one.

So what happens if we all didn't dissent?

That would be fun, actually. It says there's no penalty. Let's give that a shot sometime.

We already have the law in place that suits us. We're not doing it their way, right?

Correct, yes. But we would be inconsistent with the state. So we could be legally challenged then if somebody wanted to do something that our code doesn't allow.

Well, maybe Commissioner Guerin's on to something, Commissioner Krebs, too. Maybe we wait and see how this plays out a bit, and then if there's a problem, we repeal what we passed and see what comes. I think Commissioner Krebs is probably right.

Once things get enacted and once things start happening, that's when things start to change.

And the thing that bothers me the most is you can put this thing as close as you can put your shed. So you might have a setback of 50 feet, but if your shed is 15 feet, it's going to be 15 feet. So it's a little bit bigger than your shed.

I think we're all in agreement with the concerns.

All right. Now we're on to item number five, briefing discussion and decision on age-restricted communities and homes text amendments.

Chris? Yes. So this is another use that was subject to a deferral back in December of last year. This is one that the board indicated was a priority and so our consultant, Michael Baker, focused on this and came back with recommendations. We then took those recommendations as direction by the board and started working through the process with the Planning and Zoning Commission. The recommended text amendments are in Chapters 91, which is the Fire Protection Code, Chapter 155, Development and Subdivision of Land, and Chapter 158, Zoning Regulations. So through a significant amount of discussion with the Planning and Zoning Commission, we did pull together some amended regulations some text amendments for consideration. Those were subject to a public hearing on September 3rd and we also had two work sessions on September 1st and September 8th to discuss those. So at this point, we have recommended code that has been provided to you all and happy to answer any questions. Any comments, questions, or direction from the board?

You can all go first.

Anybody want to kick us off for discussion on these?

I'm looking. That's a lot.

I think altogether there are 65 proposed amendments to the- There's some, yes, there are- 65 and then some of them are subdivided into further specifics as well.

First, I'll just say there's been progress made and brought attention to this. I'm going to remind everybody. Age-restricted housing is sort of like clustering, something you don't have to have. Some people don't have it at all. They just let people build on the lots. They can put it in their covenants, and they build age-restricted housing. It's just easy as that. I think most of our towns do it that way. I'm not sure what Tonytown does. It's just easier. So years ago, we put this retirement home in, and we should have a place for assisted livings and CCRC, continuing care retirement communities, and for nursing homes. So we had that. years ago so you could build those things. There's not a lot of activity when you're in a nursing home. There's not a lot of activity when you're in assisted living. So they're all over the county in older homes and they bumped out the back and that's what we've had for years. And that's where this all started. We'll get through the how it's transpired, but since then, we have people that want to live in a age-restricted community, and they're booming all over, and if we chose to, we could be like Frederick, and they've got thousands of them, they've got tons of them going up in Frederick, and they're beautiful, and they've got them going up in Gettysburg, and my people are moving there, and they're very nice, but we don't really have a lot of... We only had two sentences. It said you have to be over 55 and you can get 3.5 per acre. That's the only real thing we have other than regular building codes. There's nothing else that says any requirements. So the one thing that is, there's a bunch of stuff that has presented itself because we've done a community like this. we can't repeat it. It's not fair to people to repeat it. So the number one issue that I have big issue is the fire lanes. And I do know that in here, um, it says they have to just paint on the, the curb red and say no no parking I personally think that is totally unrealistic and do not have close parking and right now none of them have sufficient closed parking so one thing leads to the other first of all these houses are very small so there's no there's very little room to even park if you could park on the street because There's all driveways. There's a little bit of space. But they have none, unless they park in the fire lane. So the most important thing that I thank my fire department for three, four times now coming out and basically saying, this isn't working. And we have one, a real one in place that we have two more like it with the road width. And I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm going to read you one piece of it. You have all this. You got it in your testimony the other night. It says, the narrow widths of access roads combined with permitted parking on both sides, which limits the actual effective width of the roads to less than eight feet, can impede or even prevent fire and EMS vehicles from reaching emergencies promptly. Painting of curbs with no parking is not a sustainable solution as the HOAs are limited in their ability to effectively manage that restriction. It is recommended that new developments incorporate adequate parking in front of residences and or include wider access roads to accommodate parking on both sides and allow unimpeded emergency responses. We recognize that this may encompass changes in the planned density of the planned development. However, we believe that the current development and building requirements should be revised to incorporate these beneficial changes due to the direct impact on the accessibility of the residential units by emergency vehicles. So I know that we had talked about road widths. I know Westminster has 30-foot road widths. I know Tonytown's getting ready to move to 40-foot road widths. And that's just in a regular development where you can have, there's plenty of spaces to park. We're talking about a place where there is nowhere else. I mean, you've got very, very, very constrained. In fact, I've not seen a more dense, in Carroll County, more densely put together community than these are. So it says here, new residences targeting individuals age 55 and over are often not designed with wider doorways, stairways, or basement entrances. Some of them have window wells, so you have to climb out of a ladder. I saw that and said, not good for seniors. We should not have that. These design limitations hinder efficient and safe patient movement during emergencies. numerous high density residential developments in the eldersburg area lack rear access they pointed that out 15 years ago when the the last big home was built and they can't reach the back of it they still can't reach the back of it let's hope no one ever needs and these are seniors um it's a risk i'm just pointing it out because they pointed out when that was built their their ladder truck doesn't reach the back of it i guess we'll figure that out when it comes or buy a new ladder truck that reaches it just the way it's been designed it's got a big um wall behind it so you really can't get the truck up there. As it complicates the evacuation and increases the risk of injury, especially for the aging population. Provisions should be made in future development proposals that mandate adequate rear access service areas, lanes to provide this access to aerial apparatus. When you have six units in a row, 150 or whatever it is, it's, you can't get a truck through it. There's not enough space to get them through. And that's part of the problem is the length of these buildings that we're allowing to be put for a fire truck to get into the rear of the building. Um, the continuing continual addition of over 55 communities and acute nursing facilities in the Sykesville elders Berg area has not been matched with consideration for fire and EMS service impacts. It stands in contrast to the planning undertaken for schools. We have a very clear APFO and we look at response times, average response times. Average is fine if you're two minutes away and they get there, but if you're 15 minutes away and you're averaged together, the 15 minute person has a problem. So in 2024, four nursing facilities and seven over 55 communities within our primary response area accounted for more than 1,000 of our 3,200 EMS responses, over 31% of the total call volume. These 11 facilities serve roughly 1,500 people, a small segment of the overall population. So the point is the fire department has reached out three times in person. Letters are all different. just sort of raising that red flag in a calm way, saying, do not repeat this. Also, keep in mind that this is a higher service area. We welcome them, but we need to make sure that we account for these things. And I know Chief has been involved, and I thank Chief. And I know you've had some pressure to not follow these, to not do it right. We're building something new. I don't care if we've done this stuff for 50 years. It doesn't mean you keep doing it wrong. Not wrong, but things change, things grow, you have different ways of doing things. And I suggest that you don't just keep doing things the wrong way or a way that's not safe. And the number one thing in the land use article and in our code that we are responsible by law to do is provide safety, health, and the general welfare of our population. That's the first sentence. And that's what we're trying to do here. It's not about pickleball. And it's not about townhouses. It's about what does that all mean. It doesn't mean amenities. It doesn't mean shuffleboard. This is about safety. So right now, we're going to put red curbs on a similar type of thing. And they're going to add a little bit of parking. And that's another issue that comes down here later, it just says in close proximity. Well, we've talked about that. You need to define it. That's part of the problem with our code. Who defines close proximity? It came in as 1,300 feet. I don't know where it came from. I didn't watch everything. It came in 1,300 feet. And then someone on the Planning Commission said, that sounds like a far way. How about we make it 600? So they put 600 in. Maybe it's in there 600 still. And I'm like thinking, hmm, 600 feet, how far is that? It's two football fields. I'm thinking, two football fields. I just had to go pick my mother off of the floor yesterday because she fell last night, or the night before. She's 92 years old. We're going to make them walk two football fields to get to visit somebody. This is insanity. So I used my little handy AI, my little evil handy AI, and I just said, what is the proper safe distance for an over 55 community, townhouse community, to have guest parking? And it gave you all these sources, all these sources. And it told you why. 100 to 150 feet is perfect. It's a few minute walk. 200 would be the maximum. OK, so just a little research, and you can go look in all those different planning groups that give you that information. Now, it is AI. It's probably false. But I think it was very accurate, and I did look that up. And that's what it said. So I'm concerned about the parking, because the parking is not anywhere near this extra parking. So what ends up happening is, after a while, the police cannot ticket on these roads. It's a private road. So they can't go and you can put parking signs up everywhere. They can't give you a ticket. So who's it up to? It's up to the homeowners association. So think about that. These poor people, they're retired. They've moved into this home. They now have a mess of a community and they've got to Now worry about where people park and telling people they can't park there. That's not fair. We're not in Fells Point with a bunch of kids and they know what they got. We're building a new community. And it should be built that there is some reasonable amount. And counting two in a garage that you can barely open the door in. and counting two behind it is not accessible. Most of these communities, it says two unobstructed spots. Unobstructed means you don't have to move a car to pull another one out. So maybe that's too fancy for some, but that's the best practice of how you count spots is using unobstructed spots. So the four that we count now, two in the garage, and then you've got to move something to get out, We have down here to count it as three. I suggest that the best practices for age-restricted communities is to count it as two if it's obstructed. So those two things in themselves are very big deals to me because it is about just the functionality of this community. And I understand that people are far along in their process. And they also need to understand that they very much know that this got changed two years ago. Two years ago. So you can say you worked on it for 10 years. Maybe we worked on getting it changed so we could squeeze this thing in. It's not a good product. It's not something to be proud of. It's not something you want to leave your legacy on. And we can do it right. The other issue I keep bringing up, and it's not that I don't like townhouses. But having cottage style, single story living, maybe one and a half, and we have some nice ones. We have Carol Vista. We've got Coventry Meadows. We've got a small one down where we are that people love. There's only 21 of them. They sell like that. They're all cheaper. I don't care what anybody says. I looked up the deeds. They're cheaper than these other ones that we're building because you're buying unusable. You're building space that you're not going to use three bedrooms upstairs. But one of the main reasons that you want it is because natural light, and this sounds, natural light is very important to people as they age. It's important to us. That's why we took windows out of schools, and we put them all back in 20 years later, because you need natural light. But older people, how natural light through windows supports healthy aging and independent living. And there is pages about the need for natural light. And it's not just your eyesight. It's a psychological thing. It's a visual connection to the outside world when you're older and hopefully we're not then you want to look out of a window and see something. These townhouses are six in a row and there's four in the middle. The four in the middle have no natural light. The door is blocked. The two walls are blocked and the back has a a porch over it. So unless you go in your bedroom or go upstairs, you have nowhere to sit in a natural light. That's why they do. So that, and I'm putting this out there for one more time so everybody hears it. If anybody wants the information, I've done all the research on it. I've done a tremendous amount of research. And these are his best practices. And I ask myself, when this thing passed, we gave an ability for, what do we get out of it? You like it or you don't like it, that's all we have. But what does a developer get out of it? We give what they call bonus density. We've talked about net versus gross on R20. So you take the whole gross of the lot, and let's say there's 100 acres. And let's say 60 of it are unbuildable. You take the whole 100 acres and say, here's two per acre, 200 houses. But 60 of it aren't buildable. So you can put the same 200 houses on the 40 acres. So they're jammed together. You could actually numerically do math and have more houses than would physically fit on every square foot the way we do it. never in my I've never seen it I've looked all over to find some model that does it like this there is none because somebody has came up with a number it's based on gross it we have two sentences in our code that explain this and I look at other counties and I look at some of the work we're doing and we're making progress but this is a big deal we got a long way to go we have a lot of fundamental things to do and then we've got this nice big chart but we need we're trying to We're trying to make these two projects work so they don't have to go back to the drawing board, and I'm just telling you, it doesn't work for the fundamental reasons. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I know I feel bad for that. I do. But you were led down a path. I don't know how you got there. This should never have been approved. Someone should have done their homework on our planning commission or somebody take an interest in it and put forth a good plan for these age communities so we could get and have – a good product. I don't know how Tawny Town did it. I don't know how these other guys did it. And when we started this process with our consultant, who I very much liked, we asked him to tell us how they get the product of these couple places that we like the outcomes. And size makes a big deal. And if you're building a 100-person community versus a 900, it's different. We can't tell you what amenities, because they're not going to be the same. If you're building a small community, you can't do it the same. So I want to be cognizant of that. So given all of that, we just threw this out there and say, here, go live with it. Well, we have a group of people that are living with it, and it's not fair. I have met with them. I can't believe that we allowed. And maybe the developer didn't know either. It's just Carol Kane lets you do it. You figure it all going to work out. It's not working out. And it's not fair what they're going to have to do to put the resources in. And truthfully, I listened to the Planning Commission meeting from 2017. You might want to listen to it. Planning Commission said, is there parking on the street? And the person said, yes. Is there parking on both sides? Yes. Now, I don't know whose job it is to verify that. There was never parking on the street. The street was not wide enough. the fire department signed off and we blame the fire people. Oh, they signed off on it. Okay. Because it had a 20 foot wide road. It's, but it doesn't, they're not in charge of looking at parking. Everybody's in there, you know, they're not in charge of parking. They're not in charge of this. So it gets built and they blame, Oh, it gets signed off on by the fire department. That's because our rules let it happen. So we can do this right for the people. Everybody that came out, once it, right, there's a demand for this product. And we've got 600 more that are in the works. A handful of them, some of them are nicer than others. A handful of them wouldn't be bad. as long as they're not six in a row because there is no natural light. And just think about that. Think about your 92-year-old mother that's sitting home and has to sit in a tunnel in a new house. It's different if you're down in Baltimore and that's where you've lived. We're building new product, and these products are $600,000 to $775,000. They're a Ryan home. I mean, they're not fancy. I mean, people want the demand is there. So I don't know how much you want. I lose every battle on this stuff. I am never going to stop fighting for the people that I work. These are health safety issues. And I watched the Planning Commission a few months ago, and they spent an hour talking with the developers about amenities. Do we want this? Do we want that? It's like, this is not about amenities. We don't even look and see what type of home they're building. It's not even on the plan. We don't care. They have steps going up the front. Now, we've got some things in here, but the ones that have been built have steps going up the front. We have nothing in our plan to even look at the models. We want different models. We want different choices. We want some people to be able to buy one unit with a one bedroom or two bedroom, somebody. We offer all the same thing. They're all exactly the same. So we can do better than this. And I can go on for it. I know people get tired of me. But I know no one came to the meeting with the people for the retirement community. They got up and basically said, we bought this new home. and this is all the failures and the failed intersection let's not even mention the failed intersection they were not supposed to get the first permit for And they're all built. And we still don't have an answer for the failed intersection because what they recommended is just going to make the next intersection fail on the first day. And not a person that looks at that will tell you anything different. We'll see when the study comes back. But this is now three years later. And we still have a failed intersection. They have a failed network for their EMS services. They have a dead end street that fire trucks and ambulances can't turn around in. And neither can the Amazon truck. Neither can the FedEx truck. And neither can the poor people that are trying to get out of there. They have to back out. I mean, when you get in, you've got to back out. You're backing out with eight houses around you. It doesn't seem too safe to me, and it should not be buyer beware. We can do better than that. Failed open space. You do this because you're clustering, and you think, oh, I'm going to have this open space. What's environmental open space? It's all stormwater management ponds. It's 11 of them. The whole thing is stormwater. I go visit these places. I've never seen a place like this because they make them, bury them. Is it more expensive? Yes. But guess what? You're getting a yield. You're getting six times the yield out of it. You have no grass. Put the stuff underground so you have some grass. If you want to walk your dog, unless you have a really little dog that only needs a little teeny spot, there's nowhere to do that. And we're doing that again. It's no different. It's all stormwater. You might put it on a map, and it looks like it's green. That green is a stormwater management pond. And I'm sorry. I know some people love stormwater management. And there's fancy ones with flowers in them, and there's ones that just are not very attractive. People are getting their documents, and I know we say we shouldn't be involved with this. They don't get their covenants until they settle. That's something that Maryland Homeowners Association, they could actually go back to the realtor and actually file suit against them and get a $50,000 claim. I'm saying that so people can, because you're supposed to get it before you sign your contract. And then their documentation is like 400 pages long, and they're not sure what they're supposed to do. They have a community center. Two and a half years later, they don't have access to it. They didn't give them a key because something about insurance. So they have nowhere unless they've gotten in lately. They've not had access to their community center after two and a half years. And they're paying $357 a month, I believe, in fees. failed financial accountability. They're still waiting for the most basic information from their management company. Where's the community money going? I went to one of their meetings, and they just sort of stood there. Nobody seems to know, but yet now they're responsible. They're responsible for their road, their stormwater management. They're going to have to maybe take out a sidewalk so they can have a place to park and pay for it. It might be tens of thousands of dollars. Why is that fair? Because we didn't make a road big enough or make sure they had parking? Okay, I... And these are people that have lived here for a long time. And they, in good faith, bought a home. And we failed. I'm going to say we collectively failed. I'm trying to fix it so it doesn't happen again to anybody else. Failed basic needs for an aging population. Every senior community in Maryland requires a no-step entry, railings, and a 36-inch doorways. Yet these features were not included. We didn't make one thing be included. You pay extra if you want the little railing to go up the two steps. First of all, in senior community, there should be no two steps anywhere. It's just standard what you do. But again, I'm not blaming the development. We don't require it. You have to require this stuff. Even worse, some units have bedrooms whose only exit is an egress window requiring an elderly resident to climb a ladder to escape it. That's the bedroom. And then there's three bedrooms upstairs. So you have three upstairs. You could have one downstairs and one on the first floor. Only two people live there. No, three, four people live there because they bring their kids. They bring their college kids. That's why there's still no parking because people are 55. They still have kids. You can live there and have your college kid live there. They can live in the basement. You have your sister or brother. So why would you buy a three or four bedroom house and have two people live there? So we're building more than they even need. Summary, so here we are, what are we gonna do? This county can find dollars and urgency to fight transmission towers over farm views in the north, and I care about that too. But it's literally telling that Freedom Residence buyer beware when it comes to basic life safety issues and needs. And it is, these are life safety issues and needs. It became personal to me two weeks ago, my aunt, I want to walk her. I went over there to visit somebody. I won't mention the name of the property. And she fell. She had to go to the hospital. It's not safe for people. The driveways are tilted like this. Many of them, I mean, maybe when you're younger you can do it, but when you're older you can't. We've got to have things for these folks that here's how we're going to do it. So I'm raising these issues because they're fixable for the next group. I'd like to be able to help fix the group that we've left like this. because I don't know how it ever passed, I guess, because we have no rules. And we've asked the county to hold the bonds. We say we can't hold them because I don't know why. But somebody missed the boat on some of these things, and they're left putting the bill. So there's two things we can do. We can go through the 50 things. And we're making headway on the basic things we're not. We can take retirement homes temporarily. and villages out of the code, and they can build conventional. I think St. John's just went. They were going to build conventional, and then they moved to retirement community. We'll just move back. I mean, it's not that simple, but this infrastructure is there. You'll have a better community because I'm not giving this up. We cannot continue and do this again. And it's no different. I've looked at the plans carefully. We have failing intersections everywhere. I'm willing to work with that. But I'm not going to work with it if we're going to have a product that's not a benefit to our community at all. So it's your choice if you want to go wherever you're supposed to go here at 2 o'clock. And I'm not saying it's over. But for now, with our deadline, to give everybody some certainty, if you choose, we could take it out of the code. And I asked Chris to think about the villages would come out. We don't have them. And they don't have them lots of places. I don't think they have them in the towns. They just build conventional and call it a nursing facility. I mean, call it over 55. You put the restrictions on it, and then it can switch over if you want to someday. You're not getting a bonus from us for doing it. If you saw this lot calculation, you would go, holy, how did you do this? it's it's a calculation on who came up with it but using gross in acres and you have a lot that 50 or 60 can't be built on and there's no usable open space except there's a little dog park and there's a little there's a um community center and then there the other project won't mention that name either that's was 101 houses for 20 years 101 houses single-family homes coming soon Now they're building 247. Because guess what? They can call them retirement homes. Jammed together. Road's not wide enough. OK, I would want to be doing that too. You're getting 150 more houses. You're getting 2 and 1 half times the house. I understand the math. We shouldn't have allowed it. And so I get it. I get all the letters. I got letters over there from, I know the one person in the audience is working as hard as I am the opposite way. I'm just trying to do what's best for our community. And I want a legacy to be left by the developer. And in our communities years ago, We had local builders, and in fact, one of them talked the other night at our meeting, and her father just passed away. Lynn Allen, her father lived in the community. He was a builder, and his stuff he built was in conformity with very nice stuff, medical centers. It matched the community, because he lived there. He wanted to leave it nice. Sorry to go on like this, but this is a big deal to my community, and it should never have been able to happen, and now that it has, I don't care if a million houses and some old houses somewhere else have little streets. When they built those streets years ago, people didn't have cars. They had one. That's not reality anymore. They probably didn't have toilets, but we have them now. One of the developers said, hey, we're trying to save the carbon footprint. Why don't we just tell people they should be walking? Why don't we tell these senior citizens they should be riding their bike two miles to the grocery store? I don't think that's practical. I apologize that our county jammed this thing through. I think they had a little help jamming it through with two sentences. You must be over 55, and you need 3.5 per acre. That's it. And we've spent a lot of time doing this. But our consultant and I have watched it. He tried to do it the right way. And every step of the way, they said, well, just if you do this, make it 70-30, and make you put paint on everything so we don't really have to change. I keep calling it lipstick on a pig. Put some lipstick on the pig. And we'll do all that, but just let us finish this. You can't put lipstick on this pig. But you could have a beautiful community. It could be the center of, we don't have a center. We could have a center of Eldersburg with a very nice community. It could have seven warehouses around it full of things that people would come to. Right now, I used to see a bunch of jammed up houses around a seven huge storage facilities. And I'm thinking, I just cannot envision that this is something we're going to be proud of, or we're going to leave it and say, oh, another mistake. But buyer beware, you should look it up first. I don't believe that. I think we have a responsibility for nothing else but the health, safety, and general welfare. And then to make our community nice. And if it was your community in Townie Town, and every one of these towns would be sitting there working with the developer and working on these things and saying, how can we work together to make this happen? We have no one that does that. We have no seat at the table. including me. I mean, I'd love to have a seat at the table. I have no seat either. At three minutes in the back, I can't even go watch it anymore because the misinformation that gets put back and forth is very hard to sit and watch it when you can't say anything. So it's been excruciatingly painful. I'm just gathering myself. These are my My neighbors. They're my friends. They're a community. They're people. They're not people down there. They're people who have lived here forever. They love where they live. And we've treated like we're people down there. And that bothers me. It really does bother me. I have always cared about every community. Yours. I've been to all of them. I visited. I care about Tawny Town. But they're so lucky that they have their people that care about them that are going to make this stuff right. They care. Your guys are fighting for the roads to get wider. My guys were fighting for the roads to stay small. Like, really? Like, who are we fighting here for? We're fighting for the status quo instead of fighting to fix it. And I'm sitting here, why am I the only one sitting here trying to get this thing fixed? Because it's just me. And it's grown weary, and it's tough. I don't know where to go. I apologize to you guys. It's a bad situation, but it's only good, as my husband would say. It's a little inconvenience and money now. But we can turn it into something that would be a legacy left and something nice for our community, finally, if we do it right. And we need to help some of these folks that have been caught on top of a couple of these other projects that have been wronged as well and fix it for us. And be a model. And I'll help you be the model. I'll write this stuff. So I don't know where you want to go. I've done as much work as I can on this stuff. I've done homework on it. I've got reams of stuff about how to do a good development. And I'm sorry that I will tell you, St. John's are good people. Sorry you're involved in this. It's just where we are today, and it shouldn't have ever gotten to this point. So I don't know where you want to go. I feel like I'm in the wind all the time just out there, but it is my community just like it's your community, and I would support you in a heartbeat if this was you.

So before I open up the floor to comments from everybody else, I want to give everybody else a chance to talk. I take the point that there needed to be changes to the code. We all did. We all agreed that there certainly had to be changes to the code. This idea that you and that district have not had a seat at the table, the last eight, nine months that we've been working on this, they've had a routine seat at the table. There are 65 proposals that have been suggested for amendments to the code, all based on requests and concerns that have been generated from your community. We're looking at 65 potential amendments to the code today because of issues that you and they have raised. If we didn't take you seriously, if you didn't have a seat at the table, we wouldn't have had a deferral in the first place. We wouldn't be having this conversation today. We wouldn't have had the work sessions, the public hearings, the numerous open sessions where we discussed various matters relating to the deferrals and to the scope of the code amendments that we're considering today. You I really cannot emphasize enough for all of us that, yes, we represent a specific district, but they're not fiefdoms. We care about the entire county as a whole. We understand that a three to five vote is going to change something in a district that we may not live in or represent. Totally get that. Totally understand that. And that's why we're having this conversation. That's why we're considering all of these things here today. I really also want to emphasize as well that, you know, we may not be getting to 100%. I understand that you think that maybe we're not going far enough, or maybe that there are different ways that we can go about trying to effect a change for these certain types of housing, for these certain kinds of developments. But again, for the course of the last three quarters of a year, I've spent more time on this issue than anything else in the course of the last nine months. I mean, you can see right here the stack of information, the research, the letters from people, everything that we've got. And I know everybody else has a similar stack in their office. We've all taken this very seriously. If Commissioner Gordon did not take this seriously, he wouldn't be here. If Commissioner Guerin or Commissioner Kyler didn't take this seriously, they wouldn't be here. Um, but, but again, I just, I really cannot emphasize enough to anybody who's, who's watching this, that this, this board really does care about. you know, trying to get things right. And it may not be exactly where some think it ought to be today or next week or next year, but there has been such progress that has been made between when you came into office versus now. And I think you can already walk away from this knowing that you have some serious wins here. Sixty-five amendment proposals. Sixty-five amendment proposals that have been made. That's nothing to dismiss. That's nothing to disdain. And again, all of these are based on concerns that you and citizens in District 5 have raised. And that's what we're here discussing today. And so I certainly want you to keep that in mind. It's important.

And I just want to mention today is like ground zero. We don't have time to go through 65 things. One of the things that I think we need to get better at, we collectively, if you can make decisions earlier, the fundamental things I mentioned, road width and density, those two things. townhouses that were never ever supposed to be on R20. If you make decisions on one, you got to go back to the drawing board. You make it on two, but when you keep it all hanging out to the end, everybody's hanging on saying, just please don't make my project, just let it stay in, let us do this and let us do that. If we'd given that direction early on, we can't repeat this. We're not doing this again. These amendments, even if you adopted all of them today, I would vote against them because now you're codifying these bad practices, painting a curb red and thinking it's gonna fix it, you're actually codifying it and saying it's okay. And to me, it's actually worse to adopt it like it is today. And I'm not saying there's not other good things in there, because there is, a lot of work has been done. But those fundamental underlying things, if they don't get fixed, you've now Right now, it says you must have a certain size of road. And it's impractical. But if we do this, you're saying, yes, go ahead. Have that road. Just paint the curb and be done with it. OK, that is not an answer. That is not a solution. That is putting lipstick on a pig. It's putting paint on a curb. It's not practical. It's not practical for senior citizens. Again, if it was Fells Point, if it was young people living there, they could walk a mile. That's not. These are people that age. I know the term aging in place throws some people off. Aging in place is like one of the biggest things in America right now. It's booming everywhere because people do want to downsize, and that opens up housing for other people. But they don't necessarily want to downsize in what we're giving them. There's like nowhere. You go find me another project like we're doing anywhere because nobody would allow it. And there's nowhere else to go. There's nowhere else would allow it for multiple reasons. So I'm just saying it doesn't have to be the prime place. I just want it to be safe. And all those things, once you go back to the drawing board, it all comes together. All the little things will happen. And it's not necessarily more expensive. These not homes are not more expensive. I mean, you're not building three floors on the top. These are very expensive homes. Everybody thinks, oh, we need affordable houses. These aren't affordable. People are moving out of their big homes into these, and they cost the same amount of money. And they're getting nothing for it except a bunch of homeowner fees and a bunch of hassle, and now they've got a bunch of stormwater management plans to look at as their open space. So, again, I... I know we've done a lot, but we haven't done the basic couple of things that had to go back to the drawing board have not been decided. Without that, the rest of it is like quicksand. It doesn't really matter. The other thing our planning commission doesn't look at is just housing type. We're worried all about how dense they can be. Housing type is important, whether you have one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms. What's your price points? We don't even look at that. We get an elevation in the very back of 100 pages. Somebody might pick. You don't even know if that's what they're doing. That should be one of the most important things we're looking at for these seniors. What type of product are we giving them? Up at Carol Vista, they have like four or five different products to suit different kinds of people. You get to pick from this, that, and the other. So there are different. One might have a floor and a half. One might be one floor. So we're giving them things to choose from. We're literally building, we're going to end up with 800 of the same things, a three-story townhouse, a multi-level, whatever you want to call it. That's not a choice. That's not a choice for families. That's us just not doing a good job. And I'm sorry, I'm passionate about this because this isn't just for people. This is for people that are older, our older generation. And we owe it to them.

Well, Commissioner, again, I don't disagree that the code needed to be – we all agree. That's why we've all participated in this process. I respectfully disagree that the majority of these 65 proposed amendments are putting paint on a curb or – I didn't say that.

I said we had to do the fundamental first.

I didn't say –

I didn't say the majority.

Then I may be mistaken what you had said. But anyways, the point that I'm getting to is that of these 65 proposed changes, I went through. I asked and I sent these to everybody about two weeks ago. I asked each of the developers to look at all the 65 amendments. And to point out things that they're already doing, things that they are going to be doing, or things that they're willing to do. And when you look at all 65 of each of these proposed amendments, they're meeting already between 86 and 97 percent of them. You know, different ones are going to have different issues. You know, for example, you know, maybe one isn't going to have a buffer between the sidewalk and the road or maybe, you know, I saw one in here, they're not going to have a plan ready for maintenance reports for amenities, all right? You know, the fact though that the developers without changing the code have already committed to between 89 and 97 percent of those changes based on, you know, depending on the development. Again, I think speaks to the seriousness of what we've attempted or what we've been trying to accomplish here. When you talk about things like cross slopes for driveways and you talk about off-street parking, again, these are things that are being taken care of or that they've committed to taking care of. Again, I respectfully say that that's nothing to dismiss. You mentioned, for example, some of the developments up in Tawny Town. There are a couple of proposed developments up in the Tawny Town area, and then for Union Bridge, in between these proposed developments, you're talking about hundreds of additional units as well. Now, I certainly can't speak to what's being required of these developments in those towns based on their current codes because I haven't been on the city council in Tawny Town for four years. What I can tell you, though, is that the same sorts of concerns that we undertake to solve here at the county are also being undertaken by the towns. Last night, just as one example, with the additional traffic that's going to be generated in Tawny Town, On my way to my candidate's forum last night, I had to wait two cycles through the intersection light at 140 and 194. These several hundred extra homes that may end up getting built in and around Tawny Town are certainly going to add to the traffic. And my point of bringing that up is that a lot of what is occurring in District 5 is not unique to District 5. It's not to dismiss it or to disdain what's going on in District 5. countywide issues as well. So when we talk about these potential changes, it's not just for District 5, but they're going to affect the county as a whole. And so again, there's certainly an interest on the part of all the commissioners to try to get this as right as possible. But it also, again, bears mentioning once more that we have made significant progress with where we are now versus where we were back in last fall. Uh, and that's a credit to you and to the citizens in your district who raised these issues that got again, factored into these 65 proposed amendments. And so I just want us to, to keep that in mind as we go through this, uh, through this discussion. Um, yeah, again, I, I certainly don't want to go too much longer myself. So I want to make sure that we open up the floor to our three colleagues. I'm sure I may have something to say again later, but, uh, commissioner Guerin, Gordon, and Kyle, or if you. want to add anything as we go along, you know, please do feel free to speak up.

If you're interested in adding to that, I've got a couple questions on one parking signs on 20 foot streets work. I drove through the subdivision you talked about after the signs were up. There was one car. That was half on the grass and half on the road, and I've seen many senior communities that have. no parking signs and it's enforced. To me, to add parking at selected areas and add parking on the street is belts and suspenders and it just increases the price of the home and it creates havoc with stormwater management. A couple questions. Um, is anything in this ordinance illegal or for fire or doesn't follow far code?

No. In fact, the provisions that have been proposed in Chapter 91, those are provisions that came from NFPA, and we are just adding them into our code for clarity. But already projects are reviewed looking at recommendations from NFPA.

And that was my next question are the individual projects then reviewed by EMS or fire?

Absolutely.

Okay. And, and I'm okay if we want to do more work sessions and, and talk about this, but I'm not okay with taking this out of the zoning while we do that. Uh, like I say, it's been a year.

So a couple quick questions. So I know the comment was made about potentially removing this. If we were to remove this, we would have to go to a public hearing, correct?

Yes. So county code requires that any proposed changes to chapters 155 or 158 need to be recommended for comment and review by the Planning and Zoning Commission, and then it would come back to the Board of County Commissioners for the regular process of public hearing and so on. Removal of this code would be a substantial, whatever the right term is, change to what has been contemplated over the past couple of months. So removal of this code would need to go back to Planning and Zoning Commission for discussion and so on and then come back to the board for discussion and then public hearing and then adoption.

and I'm not taking pro or con on that concept, but I guess the question is, and I don't know if you can answer this easily, because obviously there's a lot of maybe unforeseen issues, but if we were to do that, would that create any issues and challenges within the rest of the code if we were to remove that just across the board?

Well, and what I'll say is that's exactly why we take it to Planning and Zoning Commission to look at all those potentially unintended consequences and so on. So I can't say that one way or another at this point it would take some considerable amount of time to discuss and review.

Okay, thank you. And let me just mention, when I was thinking through this, We have this deadline of October 1. And it's a false deadline that we shouldn't have to work with. We just happen to be in this situation the way we are. We were delayed at the front end for several months. We could have been done this. That delay hurt everybody. But it's where we are. Retirement villages were just put into the code two years ago. Two years ago. 2024. Just came. Maybe you've been anticipating it to get it passed. Retirement villages are in the code in 2024. Retirement homes were in prior to that. So the retirement villages was trying to bifurcate them to make these new age-restricted houses. Again, they didn't do, I think they did a poor job of saying how they should work. I don't know how they came up with it. So it's meant to be temporary to get us past the October 1st deadline. There's other issues with all these projects. I mean, the fact that it's known now that we have, yes, it complies technically with the fire code. It's not practical. Ask the fire department. They're the ones, it's not practical. And Commissioner Carr, I'm glad you went down there and saw one car. Well, maybe you should try going other times because there's more than one car. It depends on when you go. I mean, I've been down there and seen 20 cars. Now, they're trying to be better about it because there's nowhere else to go. When they have a company over, they have to ask somebody if they're going to be homes they can park in their driveway. So I don't think it's an ideal situation. But to say we're going to duplicate this and it's going to be OK, that part's not OK, to duplicate this again. Commissioner Bigelow, you mentioned building all these other houses. I don't know how many of them are retirement houses. This is not just a regular product. This is a product for people that aren't mobile or may not be mobile. I mean, this isn't the regular population. If I had to walk a couple blocks, I don't really care right now. But 10 years from now, I might care. And you can't. You've got caregivers that might be coming. And people move in when they're 55, 65. They're hoping to stay there. It's not practical. You go up to Carol Vista, you can stay there for 20 years. you can be mobile in that place you have people around you everything is mobility that's why they build these things that's why people move to them they don't just stay five years they stay until they have to go somewhere else or they they pass so that's the point of it so because keep in mind when you keep talking about this these are retirement villages now the other thing that is not kosher to me and it's i believe it is not section 303 um i know everybody keeps this and mr kerman R20 does not allow townhouses, but we let it for seniors. It's counterintuitive that we would give a bonus density of being able to build 3.5 times as many houses jammed together if we do townhouses. We should be doing the opposite. We should give them the bonus to do the type of housing we want. You can't do that in another zone. You can't do it for regular people up in Westminster. OK, you're supposed to have continuity between your zones. I don't think that's kosher. And you say, oh, well, unless somebody holds us to it. Well, you're supposed to have uniformity between your districts. You can't just say, oh, because you're over 55, you have townhouses. But on that same property, if you're under 55, we can't build them. The law doesn't say that. I know everybody picks on maybe this, maybe that. I don't know, but it's just counterintuitive. Why would we do that? So I hear what you're saying. Remember who it is. It's not practical to think that people don't have any close-by parking extra. Now, the reason I hesitated putting one or the other in there, because if you go and spread your houses out and you've got a little space, if you go up some of these other places, there's room to park a car. Or you might have room to put a couple of extra spots. So it depends. That's why you hate to, you've got to require it, but it might be different depending on the type of house. The more you spread things out, the more you have to work with. If you want to have stormwater management ponds, you'll have a little bit of lawn that could capture your rainwater. So it depends on what they're building. I'm not trying to put this off forever. I'm trying to get us past a date. No matter what, we have to go back to the Planning Commission. And I know everybody's burnt out with this. I am willing to sit with a couple of them, with these guys, and say, it's not reasonable to not fix the roads and to keep building townhouses and to get this density, this 3.5 of gross, depending on your property. But I mean, you've got to do something to help it out. But right now, they're getting nothing in return. There's no value back to what we're giving away for our citizens. It's like, why are we doing it? So just go build regular and call it senior. Go build what you can build there. Build whatever you want. And call it senior housing. Put a covenant on it. That's what they do other places. That's what they do in Westminster. They have something called for assisted livings and for nursing homes. And then you just build and put a covenant on it. So anyway, I'm just saying that's just it. The easiest way I can think of it now, unless you want to go through all these things, and you've got to start with the basics. Changing a doorknob is a great thing. A lever versus a knob, it's a big deal. been costing more money maybe a little bit that's not a big they can do that that's good that checks off a box that's not equal to the box of making the road big enough for parking it's not it's not big enough to not be able to have access to your home you got steps going up and I know they fix that but we need to require it for the next guy it's not fair to come in and say oh change this change that and I appreciate all the efforts that have been made to try to change it but it's you're not getting to the bottom line so those The number of those little items you're checking off is as important as to what they are. Some have way more weight than others. So you've got to start with those big ones. And then the other little things is some of them are just mentioning them. There's a dumb little thing called putting a peephole in. So if you're a little lady and somebody knocks at your door and you can't see, you can see out and see the person standing there. That's just a suggestion. I wouldn't have ever thought about it if I was a builder. But again, that list has got lots of little things, and it's got some really big, substantial things. take it serious and it's not because I don't like townhouse I own a townhouse and I love it I have a beautiful townhouse in a beautiful community in Delaware that looks nothing like this it is absolutely I don't know how they do it it's very affordable and it's gorgeous they won a national award so it's like I know it can be done so I'm sorry no no no it look I take the points that you've raised but I also again

point being made about the 65 proposed amendments. Some of them, yes, are major. Some of them are relatively minor, but ultimately they all overall add up to what is a a larger effect that we're trying to achieve. And so that's why it's, you know, you have to look at each individual development and what they've either been able to accomplish, what they're currently accomplishing, or what they're willing to accomplish as well. And that's why I'm saying that, you know, we shouldn't just be completely dismissive of this. You know, for example, you know, one of the developments, you know, is not going to be able to meet the, with the cul-de-sac of a circle, right? And the reason why, or I'm sorry, the width of a court, and the reason why is because it's a county-owned So our own road is not going to be in compliance with something that we may potentially pass. These developments, they've made sure that they have those 20-foot wide roads, and they've increased off-street and overflow parking. They've taken your concerns seriously.

It's not close by. It's not close by at all.

Well, again, you can... 600 feet, two football fields is not... What I'm trying to say is different developments, right? Different development. Again, I can't speak to the 600 foot part of it. All right. But different developments have tried to in different ways accommodate the amendments and the changes that we've we've suggested that the planning and zoning that the consultant that your citizens down in District five have have have proposed. And I certainly think that we have to recognize in the no step entry, first floor livability. Yes, it might be a townhouse, but there are options to have everything on the main floor. And you point out some of the houses in Carroll Vista, for example, some of them have basements, right? It's not, you know, some of them, you are four and a half. Some of them are all on one floor. And, you know, they're very large houses. And not all of them have windows on the sides.

We don't have them in the front either or the back, the new front or back.

And Carol Vista.

No, I'm talking about with these because the front doors of door and got a patio at the back with a roof over it.

So there's no light on any side, different developments of different, uh, different developments of different, uh, site plans and elevations for their, I'm sorry, elevations for, uh, uh, the designs for their houses. So, again, I'm with you on wanting to improve the standards, but from the beginning, I was very clear that I wanted to create the environment in which developers could work with us to address these sorts of things as much as humanly possible. And to be honest, at the beginning, I was thinking, well, maybe we might get 60 or 70 percent, but the least conforming developer is meeting 86 percent of these potential changes, and the highest ranking one is 97 percent. That's pretty good progress.

The 3% are the three important things. They're the health and safety issues. The other ones are helpful. Not all of them. The three most important things are the road width, or the fact that they're so jammed together so that there's no, even between the houses, having air. One of the things that's in our own code is having air flow. We've got 18 houses in a row. There's like 10 feet between them. I don't know how you can get a breeze through anywhere, because there's no window in the front downstairs, no window in the sides. You have a sliding door outside with a cap over it. There's no way to get air through. So these are all issues that we're building something like that. And the question is, why? Who came up with it? Who planned it? Who had the vision for it? And it happened. This is what bothers me. It didn't happen with my town council and my local planning people who are trying to get a good product. It happened somewhere in 2024 that this came out like that, and this is what we're getting out of it. Nobody had a clue until we saw it being built because we have no input into it. And we have no input into the two sentences that are written there. What's their vision? I don't know what it was. I don't know who came up with it because it's never done. There was no transparency. There's no involvement. And now we are getting involved. I'm like, OK, how do we make this? How do we put the genie back in the bottle and regroup it? And people say, well, let this stuff just go. These are the two largest parcels left. We don't have a lot of parcels left. It's 600 more townhouses for seniors that are on a road that is not wide enough. We can do better. And again, there are three bedrooms upstairs. How many seniors want three bedrooms upstairs or two bedrooms upstairs? Does anybody really want? And that's it, that's your choice. So I get that the whole 97% is a very good salesman way of putting it, but there's always priorities. What's the most important thing? And if you weight them, the three most important things carry probably 75% of the weight. The other things can be changed. They can be fixed. They're nice, but they're not the main issues. They're not structural issues that you can't change.

Certainly not a salesman way of doing it. I'm just being factually objective here. I have all the lists. I've seen what they've done. Again, you point out some of the major versus the minor things. The least compliance developer, for example, they're not providing some of the amenity reports. That's a number of what they're not providing. Ironically, you talk about the two largest, the one largest development between Reservoir Run and Eldersburg Overlook, 93.8% of the items that we're proposing they're meeting. Reservoir Run, I say that 10 times fast, is 97%. And again, it's not me being a salesman. It's me saying this is what we've been able to get accomplished with the developers who have been willing to work with us as we've been proposing these amendment changes.

Reservoir Run is not over 55. It was denied at the BZA. So that's not one.

Forget that one. But the point of what I'm getting to, all right, is that developers have made

changes they're willing to continue to make changes and uh i yeah yes so let me let me i'm gonna we've we've gotta we've gotta move on um and uh so i'm gonna make a i'm gonna make an attempt here to get things back on track we've got these 65 changes there's a lot of subjectivity being discussed up here that's fine there's a lot of objectivity as well It's boils down right now. The way I read everything we've can approve what's here, even though it's not perfect, or we're going to have to go back and have a major discussion about some of the fundamentals that some of us may agree or disagree with. And I'm talking about road with, I'm talking about where parking is. I'm talking about the guest parking ratio, which should be in my opinion, one to three, not one to five. the gross per acre, another huge sticking point for some of us. And then this issue of townhouses, I agree with you, commissioner grabs. I don't have any idea how townhouses ended up in 55 and over a rich age retirement. It's completely counterintuitive. It makes no sense. Those are fundamental issues that are not addressed the way you'd like them to be addressed in these text amendments. But we've got to make a decision about what's in front of us. Do we approve what's there, which is an improvement. Or do we want to go back to the drawing board on some of these really tough issues? We're not going to get it resolved today if we decide to go with the latter. So what do we want to do? What do we want to do? We've got to decide. And if we need to spend five minutes alone somewhere to just figure it out, then we'll do that.

And one other suggestion. This is just in the future for Chris, too. One of the things I see as a big flaw in our process we don't, until someone gets their project almost through, they're ready to go, we don't look at the APFL. It's looked at, but we've never decided it. And then it's like, I'm sitting around a room with everybody saying, hey, can we just pay for this? Can we just do this? The Planning Commission just put the roundabout back in. I'm going to tell you what, there ain't no way I'm going to support spending money on a roundabout on a project that we don't want. Now, if you all want to vote for it and let the taxpayers pay for it, in our Carroll County code, it says we will develop major streets as developers develop their properties. Like, they're going to do it. It will save the county money. It says it right in the code. And then I was told that we only make them do it to the line. Well, somebody didn't read the master plan because it says it right in the Carroll County master plan. That's how we get it done. That's this opportunity. I'm not sure why somebody put it in the budget for us to pay for it to begin with. And I see that you're disappointed because I took it out. I took it out because I don't think Carroll County taxpayers should pay for it. It should be done, as it says in the master plan, as we build the projects. That's exactly that. We never needed it before. We never... So again, if you're building some great thing and we if it's some real asset that we want in our community, then you sort of make a deal. But why would I pay for something that, why would the taxpayers pay for something that we don't believe was put there in the best interest, didn't follow our master plan?

So, Commissioner, if I could answer that. We require that plan major streets that are on developer's property, that they either construct it, or at minimum, they cannot construct something that would obstruct that future plan major street. I don't know of a way that we can require developers to build something on somebody else's property. And so making them build it beyond their property line, I don't understand. They do not have eminent domain that they can take that property. We, the county, do not use eminent domain. How are we going to build it then? When that next property then is developed.

We were going to build the roundabout. You're saying we can't build it either because we don't have the property. We have the property.

We don't have the property.

They own the property. They bought the property.

but that is a separate property and is independent of what they are proposing to build. So the Beatty property, we have required that they construct Georgetown on their property. We cannot require them to go and buy other people's properties and build on other people's properties or take other people's properties. That's how that works. I'm gonna suggest,

We need to go visit some other counties, because they do it all the time. In fact, someone brought it to my attention last year, somebody very well known who works in highway stuff a lot. And he said, why does Carroll County pay for developers roads? And I said, I don't know. He said, you're the only ones that do it. Like in Montgomery County, they'll pay them extra because they want to build their project. Maybe we just think nobody wants to come here. I think they do. And I'm not trying to rip them off. I'm just trying to say growth should pay for growth. And to say they can't. If they can't solve it, they can't build their project because they don't have access. The other intersections are failing. And this isn't about, the other day we sort of, I know sometimes I get into it, you talked about wait in five seconds. We're not talking about wait in five seconds. We are talking about 90 second or more wait at the, clogging up three intersections to our U.S. post office, to our medical center, to a whole bunch of businesses at Merritt. I sit there now and watch. I sit there now past, if a truck comes out, you can't turn. We talked about getting, they're going to pay us a fee in lieu of, not to fix the intersection, $200,000. I'm like, you couldn't do the plans for two, and then we're stuck with it. We don't get it fixed. It just never happens.

If I could answer the, so you mentioned that I said five seconds. That was used as an example, not a specific intersection or anything like that. But my point is. The difference is that our county code says that a developer is responsible for their impact. And I was just using that as an example, is that if a turning movement or an intersection has a failing level of service, and through the analysis, a five-second increase in weight, so say hypothetically from 85 seconds to 90 seconds, they are responsible for that five seconds. It was not specific to any example.

But you and us collectively, the Planning Commission, it's not fair that they pay for everyone else that never paid. And they didn't. Nobody paid a penny all the way in because we don't charge anybody anything. So you pay $100, you do $100, you build $100, and you're the last guy in?

Yes.

Okay. So, but we, we collectively don't ever talk about that stuff. We need to find a way that we can get this stuff done.

And there's, and I completely agree. And I, and I think I've mentioned that 13 years ago, I wrote a memo that spoke to that and, but the County has not implemented that. So there's no, we can't go back in time and implement an impact fee. and have a pot of money available for us to do that now. So moving forward, if the Board of County Commissioners wants to look at some sort of impact fee to address transportation issues, we can absolutely have that discussion.

Well, it's interesting to me. I didn't realize it. Some document you gave me accidentally had a whole report on impact fees, and it was even something I asked for. But anyway, all those houses, those senior houses, pay the highest impact fee of anybody, and they don't affect schools. I didn't think you were allowed to do that. They're paying $3,600 per house impact fee. And the same townhouse, if people with kids live in it, pay $1,700. It's like, hmm. I thought it had to go with the impact. I mean, you don't have any kids in school, and you're paying higher than the ones with kids in school. So they are paying impact fees, and they're paying for schools that they don't impact.

I'm not familiar with it. That's not part of our department.

Well, somehow, something I got, and it just was in there. It was a very interesting, maybe it was just an unveiling. But again, they're little things. We need to be paying attention to this. I don't mind paying attention to it. I know it's tough, but I could have another group pay it. But someone's got to pay attention to it. We just can't ignore it and say just... Keep building it. Keep building it. And I heard yesterday, and I appreciate it, I heard the mayor of Mount Airy say, people down here don't want to grow anymore. And I know the towns don't want to. That's nice for them, but you got to have it somewhere. And it's like, okay, well, if they do it there, we can just not do it here. That's not right and it's not fair, especially when you're not doing it to keep up. And we've all got to figure out what's the big plan and how do we do it in a balanced way. No one came to that meeting and said, don't do anything. Don't grow. That's a myth that everybody keeps saying. People just do it as the plan. And if you look on a map today of what the land was- We can make a motion or move on to the next item.

I mean, it's after 1 o'clock. You're welcome to go. And we're talking about impact fees, which aren't on the agenda.

Well, we're trying to talk about how to solve this problem. 13 years is a long time to be waiting on it.

Well, I think, Commissioner, to that note, we have a couple of options in front of us today. We vote to amend the code. We vote to amend the code with exemptions for projects that are in process. We choose to do nothing today, or we choose to pursue a different path. For example, removing sections of the code, in which case there's a whole process involved with that, but we also have to decide if we choose to pursue that different path, do we exempt the five projects that are in development now?

So if we move forward with this, it still has to go through the hearing process, right? No matter what, don't we have to go through the process? We had the public hearing on September 3rd.

So it comes down to the board. Again, we can vote to amend. We can vote to amend and exempt the projects in process. We can choose to do nothing. We can pursue a different path and then have to decide when we pursue that different path, do we exempt? Those are really the handful of choices that we have at this point. So the question is, where do we fall on this?

And Commissioner, if I may add, the October 1 vesting of residential projects plays into that. So a different path.

that um on october 1st whatever codes are in place the projects that are in process will be vested with those codes thank you very much for that clarification it's an important clarification thank you based on that i i think i i like your first some suggestion pass this and exempt the current projects i don't know what everybody else thinks we we need three votes and surprise surprise

Commissioner Krebs. Don't do that.

Well, for me, I mean, because of the level of changes that the developers have made or are committed to making, I'm okay with amending the code as has been presented to us and then exempting the projects that are in process.

Is that a motion? Well, no. I thought you were just trying to see where everybody stood right now, but...

Commissioner Guerin, Commissioner Gordon, any thoughts?

So, Mr. Hine, if we were to do nothing today, All of this goes by the wayside. Yes. And the current proposed plans would be enacted October 1, regardless of all these code changes. Yes. Just confirming that. I just want to put that out there very black and white. So, I mean, on one end, we either get some, there's either some change or there's no change. But in some way, we're running down to the end of the tunnel. Yes.

Any thoughts, Commissioner Guerin? I still have those concerns I mentioned for those five topics. Yeah.

No, I don't. And I understand that this is a very difficult decision for the board. And again, that's notwithstanding Commissioner Krebs' passion and her dedication to her community, because if that was my community, I certainly would be just as passionate about it as you. That's not to say that none of us have any passion for this, but it's again a question of what ends up affecting the entire county. And we're looking at a number of very substantive changes here and the eight, nine month processes that led us to these potential code amendments and questions about timing and everything were up against deadlines imposed on us by the state. I think we do have to take some sort of action today. That's not to say that we cannot continue to pursue changes to the code beyond this, but if we're looking to get any of these 65 changes made and informed to by the developers. I think we do have to take some kind of action today.

And the one thing, and I don't want to keep repeating this, but the thing that rubs salt in the wound the most is that the master plan passed, and I don't care what, I know poor Troy has been told to you, I'll put this on there that it's conforming. The day that the master plan passes is what it is. There's no You know, the update, the implementation is supposed to happen over time. It's supposed to come with it, but if it doesn't, this doesn't implement it. It goes the opposite. The master plan did not allow for this. I will give you at least three commissioners from them will tell you it doesn't implement. We have it in writing. The plan was the plan. None of this stuff was in there. It got done. Even the storage facility, you can say whatever you want, push it forward. It was not defined, they changed it, it was not, they didn't follow their own, I'm gonna get into it, they didn't even follow their own guidelines, and they changed it, and they changed it after the fact, years, six years after the fact for this. Some it was two years, some it was three years. So forget that it was done, even if it had been in place, it was not done in a timely manner, it was not done with any transparency to any public, tell me who was in those rooms writing these one sentences. and I will tell, I do my homework and every time I get somebody sends me something and they say, even the word, two little words in the word R20, in R20 it says single family detached home are the use and they were so smart, they even just put an amendment in 2021 and said generally. Generally, they just put the word in just so it said generally. Well, look generally up. It means most of the time. So, okay, but they took it to mean, oh, no, we can do 600 of these and we'll do 30 of these. It doesn't follow, even the word generally that they stuck in to make this one little word be nuanced enough. Well, look up Webster's dictionary and read it. Generally means most of the time. It doesn't mean like never. So that's the length that I went to to stick this stuff in and that's what really infuriates me because you're pulling the wool over us. We're not stupid people, we're the governing body. It was somebody that's not here anymore, thank goodness. It was a time that was not a good time. Again, no one was on the planning commission from Freedom at all. They knew what was going on, they weren't allowed to be there. We had a citizens group that was asked to participate. And then when one of our members got on the planning commission, he couldn't be on the citizens group anymore because he had a conflict. But yet one of the people that's there who actually runs a whole other group of people that are conflicted got to stay. So every step of the way, even a week ago, I was accused of stacking the deck because I put freedom people on a committee that might let me say something that's how we've been treated you don't understand that's how it's been the whole time it's evil somehow it's evil that people from my area want to be on an advisory committee and we're stacking the deck it's like really these aren't good people maybe if you'd meet them I mean maybe you'd say gosh I knew that guy he's a good guy that's how it's been forever and it's still like that it just happened last week And I just sit there and shake my head and say, God, give me the strength to keep this up because it's almost like I'm in a Twilight Zone. And I just, you're a smart guy, but the list that you have, the percentages mean nothing to me. It's the consequence of the bigger decisions. And then the other stuff is down here. So you have to weight things. You weight the important stuff. This is important. Having water is important. Having my chocolate bar is not. So they don't count the same. Having housing roads that are safe and parking that is a big deal having the type of home you want is a big deal and having some green space and not have everything be a stormwater management pond there is no open space i mean i looked on the plans it's the same as the other one we just did and they're gonna have to pay for all this stuff well commissioner as i mentioned a little while ago this is a little complex because different developments are different stages with different points of the 65. And they weren't that far along when we let them stay far along. They did it at their own risk, and they were not that far along. And they just settled on the property last year, one year ago. So they just bought the property last year. They were planning this, waiting until it all got tied up in a little bow. And that's smart. We're stupid. So just pulled up the document last year. It was settled in 2025. So the investment did not happen until 2025, until they know they could do this scheme. Because you can't do it anywhere else. Carol Kenney at Freedom. Go find it one other place.

So again, I come back around to the question before us today. Do we amend? Do we amend and exempt? Do we do nothing? Or do we, knowing the time constraints that we have, pursue a different path and either exempt or don't exempt pursuing that different path? I think those really are the quintessential options that we have in front of us today. I think you can probably tell by the direction of the discussion. Again, this is not an easy decision for any of us to make. You can tell that my colleagues are up here and they're certainly in reflection and considering what it is that we have before us. Again, we do need to make some kind of a decision today.

And my husband would say it's a 40 year decision. It's in the next year. This is a 40 year decision we're making over plans that can be changed 40 years. We're going to have these homes, maybe 50 years as people are going to be living with it on. That's what we're going to have in front of us. It's permanent. It's not just a jacket you throw away and get a new one. It's a 40 year decision of permanency in our, in our community in three of a, well, two of our biggest, the only two big, big, big properties we have left.

So I'm going to ask if there are any further comments, questions or direction from the board.

I'd like to hear me out. I'd like to motion for a five minute recess. We come back, we make a decision and we've got a lot of stuff to get done quickly.

Motion for a five-minute recess. I'd second that. All right. We have a motion and a second for a five-minute recess. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed?

As you know, you can't discuss it during the recess. You're just taking a little break. Correct.

So the first thing I want to do before we get back into our discussion about the amendments or the proposed amendments, item number 10 on our agenda today, the request for direction from the board on Parkfield restoration projects is going to be shifted to next week simply because the lack of time to be able to accomplish that today. So that will go onto the agenda for next week if there's no objection from anybody. Alright, and now we'll go back into where we were with item number five on age restricted communities and home text amendments. Does anybody have any comments, discussion or motions?

Are you willing to make the motion you suggested to amend and exempt?

Let me, uh, yes, but I gotta make sure of the language here to write something real quick.

While you were gone, I said something illegal, but you're back now.

So, Tim, for a point of clarification or point of order, and Chris, if you could answer this as well, if I was to make a motion to adopt the amendments as proposed, but also to exempt the five projects that are in question that have been held up by the deferral, what is the appropriate language to use in order to create the capacity for that exemption? Do I just say exempt the five projects in process? Do I have to put a date on it? Is it-

Is that enough specificity? Are there only five?

Yeah, because there are only five that are currently subject to the deferral. And so you could have language in there about projects that are in process and so on to be more vague, more general, not vague. But there are the five projects that are deferred. So I think your desire would be clearly reflected in the motion. All right. Thank you very much.

Have they all had concept site approval? No. Plan approval or...

Uh, no, they have not.

Okay.

So, so, but in, it is not unusual for the board to exempt projects that are in process when contemplating text amendments. So, um, I, I think what you stated would be clearly understood. Okay.

So tell me again. Yes. So you're exempting the projects, but you're making this stuff apply to them. All the amendments, all the amendments apply.

Well, no, that's why we would have the exemption, and that's why I was bringing up the point that they're already conforming to so many of the proposed amendments. We adopt the amendments, so anything that comes after these five are going to be held to them. But there's a million amendments. Well, that's Commissioner Guerin's. Tim, as a point of order, would it be appropriate to do this in one motion, or should they be two separate motions?

You would be adopting the amendments as proposed with an exemption for the current five projects?

Yeah. So it should be one amendment?

That could be one motion.

Okay. As far as the mechanism to accomplish that, and maybe that speaks to two motions. Those exemptions, my recommendation would be that would not be put into county code. That can be addressed as a resolution that's a separate item. That's historically been done. So the county code would be amended as was shown here, but then a separate resolution by the board basically stating that all projects in process are exempt and any new projects that would be submitted after the date of the resolution would have to conform to the new codes. And that kind of resolution is something that has been done in the past and the county attorney's office can write up that. So it would be one motion but a separate resolution that is consistent with the motion to carry out the motion. Yes, exactly. So you have the ordinance to change the code and then a resolution to exempt the projects currently in process.

So what are the five projects? I only can think of three.

Freedoms Grant, Reservoir Run, Eldersburg Overlook, the Johnsville community, and Legends at Lourdes.

Whatever it's called. Reservoir One, Run, they've been denied the plan. They're not a retirement community. They're not there. They don't have that plan in. It's been denied by the Board of Zoning Appeals. So why would that be in there? Because it was never. What was the last one?

Legends at Lures. That's the Mangione project.

We've had very little discussion about that. I'm just going to say, you don't know what you're doing right now with taking these things that you're going to put in place. They affect little properties now. They affect every R20. Not the big properties, but all the infill. There's infills all over Westminster. You need to know how many properties this affects. It could affect dozens of little five acre properties, six acres, they're little infills. Because now you've just taken R20 and you've codified, one codified before. It never says anywhere in the code you can do this. It says it in a chart. There's no words and you're now taking it and codifying this to all R20 over there and you're gonna have it everywhere because you can't do this anywhere else. You just have now a mix of 80. You have the same density, the 3.5. You can jam in places. You will have infill. development all over anywhere that you can put it because you've now just codified it. It was never codified. It was in a chart that was put there in 2024. There's no other words in there. So I just want you to understand what you're doing. So you're not affecting these.

First of all, I haven't done anything yet. First of all, I haven't done anything yet. And second of all, I would appreciate a little more clarity in what you're saying.

But you need to understand, if you're not going to fix the big ones that are in process, you've now just taken this and said, okay, you can do the old stuff. But these new guys, you can come now and do this new regime, which you, it's now in the code. You've now put, it's not, there are no words in the book that says you can put this kind of, you can put the density, doesn't say what you can do with the density in any words. I would challenge it in a heartbeat, but now you've codified it. And you're codifying it with every infill, and there's infill all over the place. There's an infill development that if you, if you would have gone with me, I would have showed you another one that's been all, 28 houses on three acres. It's jammed in behind other houses. It's been on the books for 17 years, and they just did it because, okay, that can go everywhere. There's properties in West, not big ones, but there's infill, five acres here, eight acres there. You don't know what other properties is this now going to affect.

Well, Commissioner, can you point to me where exactly the concern you have about R20,000 is so that I can take a look at it?

Do you have your code book? I'm talking about the amendments that we're making today. I'm telling you, you've now taken this whole regime and put it into the code book. It doesn't exist. Right now it says R20. It is half acre lots, generally 20,000 square feet. That's what it says. Single-family homes are the use, generally. What is this now? So now you're just taking all those words and saying you can do all this stuff in R20. And now it's all the infill. It's not just these big properties. It's all the infill properties. It's any property that's got – I don't think there's a limit on the size. I haven't read the whole thing, but I don't think there's a limit of acres. But you've got properties all over that you could put these in now. Zoning is a very, very challenging – It affects the whole county. It affects anywhere there's R20 right now. There's small lots, not these big ones, not 100 acres, but maybe 5 acres.

When it comes to codification of R20,000 in the way that you've described with the passing, the potential passing of amendments today, can you please show me where that is? What do you mean?

Chapter 155? I'm sorry, I'm not tracking with the discussion.

I'm trying to say, okay, if we take these amendments, you're basically codifying all that into the law. It's not in law now, right? Yes, it is. What?

Yes, because these developments have occurred, and so it's allowed by the code. So it's already being done.

Your interpretation of the R20, but now you're saying, hey, this is, yes, you can definitely do this.

So if I may, the definition of retirement village, right, which is allowable in R20 today, retirement village is a development consisting of single family, two family, and or townhouses designed to meet the needs of and exclusively for the residences of senior citizens or couples, et cetera.

Okay, read two above that. Read two above where it just says residential. What does it say? It's just a general residential. It says the same thing. That doesn't mean you could do it on the underlying land use.

So it defines what a retirement village is, and then in the use table, a retirement village is allowed in the R20.

That's my point. It doesn't say it anywhere in the words. It only has it in a use table that was done in 2024, and they put a C there.

So if I may.

If you talk about what I'm saying, if you just take residential and read what it says above it, for all residential, it says there's exact same things. You can't put townhouse in R40.

It's residential. That's why you have the specificity in the use table to say exactly where it's allowed.

You just made my point. The only place in words in this whole document, in the whole master plan that lets you do it, is a C. They got put in a use table in 2024. And we never had a use table before.

All of a sudden, it's supposed to make it easier to read. So it wasn't 2024. I believe it was this board that was here. And it wasn't this board in 2024.

That's when the use table came in. I don't know which thing.

It occurred back in 2020. That's the date that's on. That's the last change that was made to that section of code was 2024. That's not when the use table was put in place.

Go look up and see when that was put in. It was put in after the master plan was adopted. It was years after the master plan. It doesn't matter, but I'm just saying it's nowhere in writing. You just basically said it.

So the use table, prior to the code adoptions that started in 2015, there were descriptions of the allowable uses in each of the zoning districts. That led to a lot of confusion because the descriptions of the uses made it unclear as to whether certain uses were principle permitted, conditional, or accessory. And so the decision was made that a use table was much clearer to understand then the descriptions that were prior to 2015 were written out. And so that was a change that was discussed and approved by the commissioners. It did not necessarily change whether things were principle permitted or conditional. There were changes that were made and they were discussed, but the formatting of a use table versus written those out is just a mechanism to express what is explicitly in the code. And so it explicitly says in the code that retirement villages are allowed in the R20 zoning district. It's explicitly in the code. So it's currently allowed.

It does not say that.

It's not.

It says in the code, R20. Single family detached homes are the use. Minimum lot size, 20,000 square feet. That's what it is. Are the use. Then it got changed. That's what it always said. And you even had it on your screen last week. All four of those, R20, R40, R20, R10, R75, you can't put townhouses on any of them. You had it on your screen, right? Is that correct? Daphne, all four of those, there's no townhouse allowed on any of those properties. You had it up there on the big screen. Correct.

Unless it's a townhouse. Unless it's in an age-restricted community, which has been allowed by code.

By a C in a chart. And the chart is legally effective. But just admit that it's a C in a chart. I mean, it's a C in a chart and... You would never, ever be able to figure it out. I'm just telling you, it's so non-transparent. But what you're doing, and all those codes right now, any property, R7500, R10, R20, R40, any property can now have this on there. It could be three acres, it could be five acres, it could be ten acres, just stuck in somebody's backyard. And you've just now, doing this opens up everything. Just wait, I'm just going to make it very clear that-

Commissioner, I apologize because I'm really not following at this point. Which of the 65 proposed amendments to the code that we were considering does this?

You've just, there's nowhere in any words in the code. I didn't bring my book. It's this big, my code book. There's no words in the whole code book, one chapter 155 or 158 that says this. It's a chart. You're now taking all these words and putting it in there. You're saying you can do an 80-20 split. You can do 3.5 houses per acre. Well, that's in there. But you are now taking all these words and now you're basically codifying it in words and it's going to,

Commissioner, I again ask the question, which of the 65 proposed amendments that we're considering today would potentially change the code so we can discuss it? Which of the 65 amendments does what you're talking about?

I don't know what all those amendments say. There's still no word that says you can do townhouses. It never says it in any words. It doesn't say it in any description of any words. It's hard to explain. I mean, I've been studying this stuff so much, it's almost like I memorized it, and it was so artfully done, I can't even describe it. I would not read it that way.

I understand the code exists the way that it does now, but again, which of the 65 amendments that we're considering today changes everything the way that you say it's going to change.

I don't have them in front of me. I wasn't going to support any of them because it basically changes the entire thing for all.

All the 65 amendments where progress is being made, changes are being made, all these concerns that have been raised to us over the course of the last three quarters of a year, I don't Okay, just go ahead and do it.

What you're doing is taking something that I would suggest it would not get upheld in a court. And here's why. Because it wasn't part of the master plan. It was clearly not what was intended. It was done non-transparently with no one there during COVID. And it got put in and it was in violation of the master. You have to implement the plan. It's the law. You must do things that implement it, not that go in reverse of what it says. It said no townhouses. They put out a press release. They put out a fax thing. No townhouses. There's no word townhouse in there except in the chart. They put that in years later after the fact. That doesn't implement the plan. It goes in direct violation to it. Now, if they opened up a new master plan and they said, hey, we want to do townhouses, and they were doing that to implement it, but you can clearly see it's not implementing it. So I would suggest that... You want to give us some money for like with power lines and go take ourselves to court? You would get overturned because the intention wasn't there, the words don't say it, they adopt it out of sequence, something that isn't implementing the plan. If you put something, if your plan said you want to do something good and you got to do X, Y, and Z and you put something positive in that helped, you can do that. You're doing something in violation of your plan. That's why you have a plan so people can depend on it. Other homeowners is not just about the developers. It's about the people next door and the people down the street. They need to be able to depend on what can go in their community. The people that live next to the storage facility should be able to depend that their house isn't going to have a 90,000 square foot building next to it.

And so I respectfully repeat the question. Which of the 65 amendments creates the concerns that you're raising so that we can consider them?

There's no answer for that. The answer is. It wasn't during COVID. Can we do the motion and move on? This is what you call a filibuster.

The 70-30, this split, you've sort of codified the whole concept. All of the words in this document are codifying the concept. There's no other words in the document that let you do it, except the chart. You have to look at it. I don't have the whole book in front of me, but you're now putting this into law. This is now the law other than it's a deliberative decision that's being made. It's a major decision, and you better figure out where all the properties are. There are 20.

I was always under the impression that you wanted to see these amendments made to the code because they were going to improve the quality of the products that were being offered.

If we had done the three main things first, it would've been fine. If you'd done the main things, underlying land use, this density calculation, if I showed you on a map how you do it, never seen it anywhere before. You can build, as I said, you can build more houses than you physically could put on the piece of remainder of a land. That can happen on all these other lots now because it's now being codified. We now have the setbacks. The residential setbacks are the same as commercial if it's a retirement community.

It's a pretty interesting. These things are already in code. We were just talking about it. And we're trying to amend. I would disagree. I don't want to digress anymore. So I am going to make a motion that we amend chapters 91, 155, and 158 of the county code related to age-restricted communities and homes as presented and discussed and to exempt all five projects that are currently in process.

With a resolution.

With a resolution.

Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion carries three to two. All right. Thank you, Chris. All right. We will now go to item number six. I'm sorry, Chris. I'll give you a second to get together. I'm sorry.

No worries. Thank you. Have a good lunch.

All right. Up next, item number six, approval of updates to the Veterans Advisory Council bylaws. Good afternoon, commissioners. Good afternoon.

I'm before you. I'm Gina Ballantyne, Division Manager for Aging and Disabilities. I'm here before you to request your approval to the changes to the bylaws for the Veterans Advisory Council. The changes to the bylaws, the bylaws will now, if approved, will align with the county's focus on standardizing, if you will, a particular template for bylaws for boards and commissions. In addition to those changes, really the major changes are to the membership for the Veterans Advisory Council. Um, a couple of things. One is, um, the currently there's a max of nine members that can be appointed to, or to excuse me, the veterans, um, advisory council. Um, and the changes, the proposed changes to the bylaws would, um, say that the council shall consist of at least nine members, but shall not exceed 11. Um, that's one change I'd like to point out. And then. The other changes again are to the membership proposed changes and mainly to the last couple of items that a veteran service rep to have a veteran service representative from a local college, excuse me, and a representative of a nonprofit organization that provides veteran specific services to veterans residing in Carroll County. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have, but that is just a quick overview of what really the changes are.

I have a couple quick ones. Sure. So under number three, which we don't have the document in front of us today, but under number three, it notes one representative from any of the following organizations. To my knowledge, and I double checked this, AMVETS is not in Carroll County. So I don't know why they're included in the document. Number two, military order of the should be Purple Heart, not Purpose Heart. They are in Carroll County. Number three, Vietnam Veterans of America does not have a chapter in Carroll County. So I don't know why we would include them. Since I know that was a big discussion at our vac meetings, wanting to have Carroll County representation and Carroll County centric members. Number four, Marine Corps League, they are in Carroll County. And again, number five, the Women's Army Corps is not in Carroll County. So you have one, two, three that are not in Carroll County out of the five. I think that needs to be modified and changed. I don't know why that got to this point. I had asked citizen services about this months ago when this was before the VAC. I said, why are we having this representation? I know it was included in one of the VAC meetings itself. So there's my first comment. And then my other comment is this. We have under number six, representative of a nonprofit organization that provides veteran-specific services to veterans residing in Carroll County. I realize that gives us some guardrails and details as to who that might be. But do we have a specific organization in mind, number one? And if we have some of those organizations, why aren't we including them instead of the three that clearly aren't in Carroll County? I think that would serve a better purpose.

Yes, Commissioner Gordon. My apologies. Those items should have been removed. You are correct for the membership that's listed related to AMVETS and the other ones that you mentioned with Marine Corps League staying in. I will make those changes. My apologies there. And as far as a veteran-specific organization that provides services to residents residing in Carroll County, yes, I mean, there are a couple that come to mind that would then provide for somebody from those organizations to be appointed.

And I'll ask, I'll just, I'll mention this. I'm not getting too specific on this, but the board just signed a couple MOAs a few weeks ago. One of those organizations we signed an MOA with, which I know our director of citizen services interacts with them quite heavily. she and i had a conversation the other day that she was meeting with them i believe on friday yes so i would i would hope i'm not going to assume because that's dangerous but i would hope that they might be one of the organizations we possibly consider i realize one of the other veteran organizations that would have been a possibility in this list no longer exists because they were merged into uh vip so that at least takes one off that possible list but i I think we should get either an updated list with three additional, or we should tweak it and at least remove these three.

Yes, I agree to remove those three that you mentioned. Absolutely. I just have a follow-up question on his.

So the three we're going to remove don't have any presence in Carroll County. The Military Order of the Purple Heart, how many people in their organization?

How many people? I just never.

I mean, they are chartered. I don't have the specifics, but I do know there are members.

I'm just trying to say, number three, the first three, we know there's numbers of people. The second three, I don't know how many people there are. You mentioned number six. What's the other? I know there's VIP. Who are the other service organizations?

Veterans Independence Project, as Commissioner Gordon mentioned, there was another one that just recently dissolved that could have been an option. There's also, and of course with the board's approval, supportive services to veterans' families. They're called the SSVF, and they're contracted to provide services to veterans in Carroll County, veterans who are at risk of experiencing homelessness or who are homeless. and providing additional supportive services. So that's just another veteran organization, specific organization that comes to mind.

And they're at Carroll County as well?

They're not physically in Carroll County, but they are the contracted organization to provide services to veterans in Carroll County.