Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting of June 3rd, 2026. And we establish a quorum.

Yes. Good evening, everyone. Mr. Payne.

Here.

Mr. Robertson.

Here.

Mr. Hough. Ms. Kirkner.

Here.

Mr. Swenson. Here. Mr. Lester.

Here.

Mr. Smith.

Here.

please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance

has everybody had a chance to take a look at this evening's uh agenda I make a motion that we approve tonight's agenda second all in favor aye all right moving right along item number five deferral code changes retirement homes and villages introduction the Michael Baker consultants And I think Daphne's going to lead that.

Yeah, I will. introduce the consultant who has been, well, he has been working with his team on the possible code changes associated with the four use deferrals that are in effect in Freedom. So a couple weeks ago, Troy Trex with Michael Baker international and a colleague of his presented the first set of reports and recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners related to the use of retirement homes and retirement villages. So the commissioners received that favorably and requested that the Planning and Zoning Commission work on specific changes to recommend to our code that would essentially implement the recommendations contained in the consultant's report. Troy is here tonight to run through that same presentation with you, which contains their findings and recommendations, and then to field any questions that you might have. I know we have a number of members of the public here who also would like to share some thoughts on the direction that some of these amendments might go. So I'm going to turn it over to Troy, who can, if you want to say anything else by way of introduction, feel free. Otherwise, we can dive right in.

Good evening, members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Again, Troy Truax, Michael Baker International. Happy to be here. I'm also a member of my own municipal planning commission for 27 years, so I'm usually on that side of the table, so it's good to be on this side tonight, too. So the presentation, as Daphne said, this was delivered to the county commissioners back in May. If you see the April 28th date, that's just when we submitted it in preparation for that meeting. I'll start to walk through. As Daphne said, our one approach, the direction we were given, we had three tasks. Task one was to look at your existing county comprehensive plan, the Finksburg Corridor Plan, the Freedom Area Comprehensive Plan, and then look at best practices for each of the four uses that we evaluated. The task two was then to come up based upon that task one deliverable, what kind of policy direction or changes should we take based upon those findings? And then task three is what the proposed, literally the physical amendments, text amendments to the code sections 155 and or 158, dealing with zoning and site development, if you will. So for this particular presentation, we were directed to prioritize the four uses. We started with retirement homes and retirement villages, and we just collectively call those age-restricted housing. So if you see that name, that term, it's referring to those two specific uses in the zoning code. And this report is a combination of task one, looking back at the current comprehensive plans, corridor plan, and then looking at the codes themselves and evaluating are there any inconsistencies, incongruencies, et cetera. and then it presents a series of best practices relative to actual projects related to retirement villages, communities, and also retirement homes, the vertical kind of multi-story apartment buildings, and we have a couple examples to run through. So with that kind of setting the stage, I'll run through this. So again, purpose of task one, again, focused on age-restricted housing, assess how current regulations align with the adopted plans, and also evaluate consistency with the best practices that we looked at, evaluated with staff, and selected the ones that you have in front of your packet. And then what are the opportunities for any regulatory improvement going forward? So, oops, I just went too far. So the slide that was before that, those are the three plans. The backspace will do it for me. Okay, that's all connected, great. Again, the Carroll County Master Plan, it was the 2019 amendment to the 2014 plan, the Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan in 2018, and the Corridor Plan for Finksburg. all were evaluated and that was in a report. I'm not sure if you have it. I'm sure you possibly do. They do. So you have that task one report with all that information. So the key policy themes that we identified in those plans that definitely like a lot of other places, you have a growing and aging population. and the need for appropriate housing options is ever pervasive for that growing aging population. Support for age-restricted housing in appropriate locations, again, you can see that in your plans, and also in those communities, emphasis on walkability, amenities, and compatibility with surrounding uses as well. Going to the regulatory review part of it, again, we looked at chapter 155, development and subdivision of land, and also chapter 158, zoning. And again, focused on this particular effort on the retirement homes and retirement villages. So some of our key findings with that analysis was age-restricted housing, Again, retirement homes, retirement villages, they're permitted in several districts by conditional use in the R20,000. In this case, villages only, not retirement homes. But also both homes and villages are in the R10,000 or R7500. And then they're permitted by right in the commercial one and commercial two districts. um regulations they rely heavily on general residential standards what i mean what we mean by that is there's no specific design standards called out for these types of communities and that's probably one of our biggest recommendations is to have you know these are communities with special types of environments people are retiring and moving from different places to your community or moving out of your community because you're looking for these types of special homes not just the typical subdivision I live in a subdivision, maybe most of you do too, maybe you don't. I know some of you are farmers, appreciate that too. But the typical subdivision doesn't have the typical amenities that you would find in a retirement community. So if you can just look at it from that lens, that's where you kind of see the dichotomy in terms of your regulations provide and allow for these types of uses, but they're not treating them with that age-restricted or active living lifestyle that we see in other places. And with that, too, there's limited use specific requirements in your codes relative to the site layout, pedestrian connectivity, the amenities that you see in these communities often elsewhere, the building scale and transitions, the aging in place opportunities, including accessibility needs, and also emergency access, dealing with, you know, in terms of Not that you're not meeting fire code. We're not saying that. It's just that evaluating these uses and making sure that you are providing for adequate access for fire apparatus in the context of laying out a site plan. Just for example, my municipality, we all the time look at a site plan and we have emergency services are always saying, if you don't have two points of ingress, egress, you better provide a temporary one at a minimum as that second option, for example. So the issues in direction that we came up with on this particular evaluation, scale and compatibility, Stone's Creek, that's the retirement home, is a good example. It's a multi-story apartment style type of building, but it sits right among single family, one story homes. So in terms of its scale and compatibility, if you know where that location is at, you can clearly see Not to say it's out of character, but really might seem out of character in terms of how it sits juxtaposed with the neighboring development. Most of those, and the other one, the example we pulled out is Nell's Acres. Just again, field view, we did a field view up front with county staff, and Commissioner Krebs came along, along with Roberta from the county commissioner's office, We toured the entire Freedom Area and saw those two examples plus some others. But Nell's Acres is a good example, another example of a retirement village that was quintessential. And what we've seen in a number of those was there's a lack of community amenities in terms of where you can look to see is there any open space, is there any trails or a network, et cetera. Again, going back to the universal design, aging in place, just heavy reliance on discretionary kind of evaluating, reacting to a plan. And I know you members of the Planning and Zoning Commission are in those positions. I think what we're trying to get at is if you had some design standards to go by to say, hey, this is putting this type of development in our mindset of what we should be asking or requiring or evaluating, that is even helpful on the staff's part too and then again disparity between zoning and expectations so Nell's acres is a good example again it's a it's a great product we're not it's just an example that we were pointed out and saying a case here is that the base zoning r40 allowed 20 units per acre but you do allow a bonus density and that really increased the density to over 150 units, if we have our math right. So again, you can start to see an area where if you are a neighbor in that community, you might have expecting lower density homes and then you've got a lot of higher density with a lot of other traffic impacts and things. So things like that is where we were kind of focusing in on what's happening in the field, what best practices and then what types of opportunities for improvement. And again, we talked about the emergency access. Snowden Creek, that development, it's one point in, one point out. So if you had some type of issue where you couldn't get access from a fire apparatus, that's what we're thinking about in terms of what's those multiple points of access for safety issues. So here's the best practices. So just a rundown of what we found in these best practices. Master plan communities focused on context sensitive environmental design amenities that support 55 plus lifestyle and market needs. Here's some points. Those best practices you can see they promote flexibility in a master planning process. So it allows both the approving body, if you will, on the county side, plus the developer to actually come up with a master plan and have flexibility in the standards so you're not actually locked in to some type of hardship variance and trying to get out of that zoning requirement or other requirement. We do this in my community for a particular project and it's worked beautifully because of that issue. We wanted to avoid having those locked in, proving a hardship. Another opportunity, you do have a PUD. We think that's a good opportunity, maybe to leverage that a little bit more in these types of projects. Establish, make sure there's, again, establishing clear standards. I think that's one of the biggest opportunities for improvement is to actually include standards for these types of developments and to include open space, amenity requirements, design expectations, including requiring a mix of housing types and uses. um and then in terms of the how you approve them you could either consider that as a conditional use or special exception just so it has that little extra level of scrutiny and evaluation both from the county but also public input yeah i think the other ones are pretty straightforward just to keep the conversation moving and then also too what we've seen in the other best in the best practices you typically again developers are coming in and they're reacting to what you require. If you have the same developers going to the next community and they have higher standards, they're reacting and developing based on those standards. So again, these development community understands how to do these projects. It's based upon the fact they're following your codes and this is what you require. So if you wanna see a little bit more higher standard of product, and one thing that we had through the commissioner's discussions was, and you'll see in the best practices, these projects aren't out in the distant places of the United States. They're literally in your backyard, Adams County, Frederick County. That's where your market competition is going, and that's what your product's competing against in terms of what value. And again, it's a consumer choice point. If they want to choose to buy the product with less amenities, that's great. Those are selling like hotcakes do. But again, it just shows you you've got other products in a competing market. So the first example was Amblebrook at Gettysburg. Is everybody familiar with Amblebrook? If you just go up to 15 and head north around Gettysburg on your right along 15, you'll see that development. It's quite impressive. I've watched that grown over the last couple years. So again, it's a master plan, resort style, 55 active adult living community in Straband Township right next to Gettysburg Borough. You can see the developers there, but also, too, in the couple sheets, Ryan Holmes, a couple known builders are actually building the products in the project. Zoning code, how it was allowed was through this age-qualified housing, so they had a specific district and regulations focused on this type of product. is the takeaway there. And you can see the purpose statement even really was intentional in terms of 55 plus active living lifestyle. So they really planned and expected and had an intent to have this type of community come into their backyard. And you can see too, and we're not saying that Carroll County standards needs to have all of the high-end amenities. We're not saying that, it's just the fact that we think you should actually require a certain level of amenities in there. And we've started to think about that too with staff. But you can see the array of amenities that Amble Brook offers both indoor and outdoor spaces, which is great for these active living seniors. And then also too, the housing mix. This really starts to show that among the large sites that these typically are located in, you're able to actually provide more types of environments, open space, et cetera. But also too, if you look at this slide, it does give a variety. You have single family and duplexes. You have a clubhouse. So you have these amenities, plus you have choices of housing styles and sizes, et cetera. the next one is also close by bloomfields at frederick going again further south 115 just north of the city next door has anybody been there i've seen it again it's quite significant development as you as you probably well know but in this case it's about a 520 acre active adult 55 plus community and then in terms of the regulations again The base zoning here was mixed-use one, so they expected some type of mixed-use development, residential with commercial, but they also had an age-restricted community development requirement, and this was an overlay that provided the active adult framework and that flexible design standard. So again, they had regulations that were intentional for this type of project. Likewise, too, they have a number of indoor and outdoor amenities that are offered for that active living lifestyle. And then too, as well, you can see a mix of housing product, single family home cottages, and also villas are pretty popular. And it does give those choices in terms of how much you wanna take on in terms of interior home maintenance, and also what your lifestyle choices are or where you're at in your retirement age, if you really need single first floor living, or if you would like to still have that two story type of living too. Another example was over in Lancaster, PA, Traditions of America. They're one of the well-known 55-plus community developers. Likewise here, Warwick Township in Lancaster County. Sorry, there we go. Their land use regulations was R2 medium density, but again, they had a conditional use on age-restricted modern density development. So they were very intentional of having a district in this case that actually provided for the standards that included architectural design requirements, density requirements, a mix of housing, so they actually had percentages. Your PUD also already includes a mix of housing, so it's not too far stretched to actually use the PUD for these types of projects. Master plan, you allow the development standards to be put through in that place, plus it gives that flexibility and also an opportunity for discussion back and forth as that plan is being approved. So I think that's a great tool that we really are advocating and also they have open space requirements there too, among others. Again, just trying to emphasize, amenities, amenities, amenities. These aren't just housing products, they include a lot of other amenities. I don't wanna say they're self-contained communities in some respects, short of a grocery store, but they have a lot of the active living lifestyle choices that you'll see everywhere else. This is kind of unique based upon what's location is very, is adjacent to a hospital, but it also takes the form of a traditional type of subdivision layout, fits well within that community in terms of neighboring uses, other subdivision type of residential products. But again, this has specially designed to include specific usable open space, walkable connections throughout, as well as all the other amenities for that project. So retirement homes, again, we're talking about Snowden's Creek, like the multi-story. These are a little bit further out, but I think they were good examples that we were able to identify. So Ashland Ridge is a project down in Newman, Georgia. Again, it's a 55-plus active adult independent living community. And just to go back on the next slide, again, the zoning code here was residential multifamily, high density. And in this case, it was rezoned from a community shopping center district as part of a development. And again, it's an apartment-style development, also included incentives, if you can see tax credits, but also to the RMH, the Residential Multifamily Dwelling Higher Density District. Again, it was purposed for multifamily dwellings, and in this case, there was an opportunity to build this age-restricted types of product. And as you can see here again, amenities are a common theme even throughout this type of project, if you will. You can see some of the indoor and outdoor spaces in these slides. Next one is called The Baldwin. This was up in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Again, a nationally recognized life plan retirement community. Again, also exemplifies best practices on multiple fronts. Again, the zoning here was Woodmont Commons, it was a PUD. So again, they had the flexibility built into it. And you can see really that's what was used to actually allow not only the use but also the design elements. The flexibility was really in terms of how that came about and made sure that the community had the input as well as the approving bodies in that project. You can just see there, I won't go through the details here, but again, mix of one and two bedroom apartment homes, again, with their individual entrances, active ground floors, pedestrian oriented streets, main street style layout, so it had a community type of neighborhood feel, internal sidewalks, direct connections between buildings and amenities, and you can see the amenities that they have, even including a restaurant, cafe, art gallery, et cetera. So again, we're not saying that all of these need to be required by Carroll County because not all of these really fit. We get that, but the idea is that you should at least require some level of amenities to be included as part of your code process. And you can see a design style, you know, in terms of multi-story, you know, kinds of the design. You know, it's not just one block of building. It has different fenestrations to it, different roof lines, if you will. So there was some design architectural features that makes it attractive in those respects. So I'm just gonna go through these. So purpose, our next step, and we actually have those drafted right now. Those are gonna be presented back to you on the 16th, right Daphne? So what we mean by draft, these are actually code amendments, suggested proposed code amendments to both 155 and 158. And we've been able to get more granular, but I'm just gonna go through this because this was as of the presentation back in May, and we've worked pretty diligently since that time. Now, just today, we submitted the draft to the county staff for review, again, getting it ready for your review or discussion on the 16th. Again, we're really focused, again, what those amendments need to be related to age-restricted housing, of course. So again, one thing we called out and we've actually drafted up is an actual separate standalone section on age-restricted housing. You can call it out, it's a special use. Let's put the requirements all in one place. Again, it makes it easier for the applicant so they're not hunting all over the place. It's right there and everybody can see it. It's pretty simple, straightforward. And you can see some of the examples, and I think the idea, again, consolidating it all makes it hopefully a lot easier to review, administer, and apply. established structured density frameworks one thing that we talked about a lot through with the staff and the commissioners is making sure that we have some type of base average density I know Commissioner Krebs really emphasized that among other commissioners during our conversations The density bonus piece is a good tool, but making sure that we are using it appropriately in the context of other developments in terms of what's the density surrounding those areas. And then also too, some of these projects, what should be like a minimum track area acreage in terms of how you start a project out to actually have something meaningful. And again, your PUD has a minimum track acreage established already in it. So you've got tools already in the toolbox that I think could be helpful. there too. When in terms of the density calculations, one big change we would recommend and we've talked about a lot again is right now it's just on the gross. So it should be really what we've seen elsewhere and a good standard practice is net. Those areas that aren't really suitable for development, then you're calculating your open space what's left over on the net of developable, and then you're actually saying, okay, we're making sure that the open space areas and amenities are in usable areas and not kind of the unwanted, undesirable locations, if you will. So I think that's pretty straightforward. Again, context-sensitive design features, not only for the development itself, but in an environment. Another use that we're looking at is a self-storage that's gonna be coming forward here in the near future too, but a lot of design character. I mean, you're a rural community overall. I mean, I grew up in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, so I know what rural is, and I can appreciate the mountainscapes I live in near Carlisle, PA. South Mountain is right behind my house, so believe me, I would rather not have my neighborhood obstructed with those views i think the character of development not to say you don't have good development good character it's just making sure that any design style is reinforcing your rural agrarian overall character of carroll county that makes makes it special so again that could include requiring height and massing transitions again some of the examples you saw i think are good examples interior internal placement of larger buildings definitely help me there's one example project that we went through that's an existing development Meridian?

Meridian, it's right on Eldersburg.

We went through it on the field tour. You're escaping me too. You do have a retirement community in Eldersburg, and the name is escaping me right now. But anyways, it has multifamily in the middle, and then on the edges, it's quads.

Oh, that's Winifred Manning.

Winifred Manor, thank you. I apologize for not remembering the name, but that's a great example. We already have, that's an older style, probably built back, I'm going to probably get it wrong, but 20, 30 years, 70 years, in the 70s. So, but in terms of look at its design style and layout, and it's a small tract of property, these can be done well in that type of context in vain is what we're getting at. Again, universal design, these are ones that we're thinking about. Howard County next door actually requires interior design requirements for age-restricted housing. So that's where this kind of idea came from, and it actually is reinforced to think about these are units that are not just for young families, but active living, people retiring in place in a lot of cases, that they might need these types of accommodations and options. In terms of the approval process, again, should you use the PUD, but certainly if you use the PUD, that gives special design evaluation and control, but if you don't for certain projects, definitely at least have conditional use or special exception to pay a little bit more particular attention to those types of projects and in the environments within which they're being proposed, if you will. Parking, parking's a big deal. Not only for the residents of ingress and egress to their property, but also too, if we're aging in place, we're 60 years old today, 65 retiring, we can climb Mount Everest easily, but 10 years later, we're still in the same place, age catches up, right? So again, we're trying to think about these products as people age in place. Do they have enough room to get, hey, I need a walker, I need some assistance. I know in my driveway at home, I can't park two cars side by side and get the door open. Otherwise, somebody's stepping out in the grass, and I do have a 20-foot-wide garage. So that's what we're trying to think about, some of these amenities that might have to think about. And we did talk about there is a cost. The costs are gonna be passed on to the consumer because you're putting more of these amenities in. So it's definitely one that we talked with the commissioners, it has to be a balance struck in terms of what are we requiring on the developer, but also what's the impact on the consumer as well. So again, there is definitely, we acknowledge there's a balance that needs to be looked at there. A mix of housing mix type, again, your PUD already requires a mix of housing. So again, this is not a foreign concept. You already have that embodied in your PUD regulations. And then again, we talked about a community amenity requirements Establish at least a baseline of requirements which we've already written up. So you'll start to see that soon coming forward open space calculations Again, this goes back to having a clear definition. That's the other thing that we talked about and included. We've actually included new terms, defined new terms, including common open space, but also thinking about that net developable acreage that we talked about before as also akin to this topic. Did I just miss one? My pages are out of order.

No, I think you got it.

Then emergency access standards. Again, this is one where I had a lot of conversation with staff and actually gave some from the county attorney. I don't know if it was you, but there was a memo that talked about where the county actually requires NFPA, do you adopt, et cetera. What we've done is actually taken a look at some of the fire code and NFPA standards and actually come up with some language that at least codifies in the site development code some of those requirements because you're not adopting the NFPA or state fire code outright with those standards in the development perspective. So again, we're trying to temper those down. Chris has pushed back. And Daphne have too, a little bit. But we're at least trying to get some of those basic standards written in there. So again, expectations are established going forward. This is the slide that was out of place on my sheet. And again, sidewalk and pedestrian standards.

Can you give us an example of the fire standards? What are we looking at?

So one is making sure that you can actually have a fire apparatus pass on a roadway. There's no obstructions.

So that's the width of the streets.

Yeah, width of the streets. There's a minimum standard there. If the authority having jurisdiction, your fire chief so desires, and that's typically we understand the plans go through the fire review. So we're not saying it's not done. But that's one that my municipality and fire chiefs absolutely have put the hammer down. If you don't have two points of ingress and egress, you need to provide at least a temporary emergency access that can actually handle a 75 or 80,000 gross vehicle weight fire apparatus, two axle piece of equipment. Again, Snowden Creek's an example. You have one point of ingress. So if you have to attack that fire and that entrance is blocked, how do you get to it? because it's up on a hill. So again, that's just an example that we see in the field that you really ought to make sure that those are actually required. Then you as a planning zoning commission have that in front of you too to say, hey, as a planning commission member myself, we're always asking that question. Where's your second point of ingress and egress? You can't do it and get a temporary one put in as an easement with an ox box gate on it so only the fire company has access to it. So does that help, sir, some of the examples?

Did you meet with the local fire chief

We're getting ready to. We drafted up information and Chris and Daphne, we're gonna have a sit down with the fire chief on that once we get where we feel comfortable with the language on there. But yeah, that was definitely, I strongly recommend that we need to evaluate these with the fire chief so we're not overstepping bounds or putting something in there that they would disagree with. Yeah, for sure.

The thing is, is you don't need to meet with the local fire chief. You need to meet with the state of Maryland fire marshal, because they're the ones that actually have jurisdiction over Sprinkler and everything here. I'm very familiar with Snowden Creek. Very familiar with Snowden Creek, so.

Yeah, and we're not saying not on the fire code, on the building code part of it. It's more about accessibility in terms of ingress and ingress, egress and ingress to the site. And other standards there, too, in terms of distance of attacking the fire that we looked at. We're trying to keep the building code side of sprinkling. That's all taken care of on that side. But in terms of what the fire chief would look at in a plan to say, hey, do we have good access from our fire companies? Do they have good access? And is it laid out where we can actually attack the fire with hose, reach, et cetera? So again, that's where we're coming from on that. But yeah, we're trying to do as much due diligence in the time that we have to make sure that we're talking to the right people for sure. And then sidewalk and pedestrian access. Again, this is one where we're trying to think about connectivity. I know just in my development and my municipality, and we're starting to see a lot more, is to require increased width. Typically a sidewalk width is three foot. If you walk the three foot sidewalk, it's one person and most people end up walking in the street. including a lot of my neighbors, myself included, when I go and walk in the neighborhood, I'm walking on the street. And that's not where we want people to walk, and especially in an age-restricted community, we want them off the street, and if they have some assistance, wheelchair, walker, or any other types of assistance they needed, at some point maybe a healthcare giver, they have to walk two by two. Or minimum requirement for ADA has to have at least a space of five feet clearance to have wheelchairs pass. So again, that's where we're coming from. It's just making sure that again, typical residential neighborhood, you have the basic three foot width on both sides or maybe just one side. But here, again, what should be the requirement for these types of developments to increase that accessibility and mobility? So again, to wrap up, where we have the draft code amendments for age-restricted housing developed, staff's under review right now. Those will be submitted to you in advance of your June 16th. So a couple weeks here, we'll be back to present that information to you. Yeah, and then the next steps you can see, I think the other part that we're trying to push on this is that I think Chris or somebody's gonna give a discussion tonight on ADU. There's a state law that will go into effect October 1, so we're mindful of a timeframe that we're trying to work with the county of moving this forward in earnest.

Good.

So I will leave it at that with questions that you may have.

Thank you. Good presentation. I watched the presentation to the county commissioners. I did too. Lots of good information, lots of preparation. You've done your homework. And I like the way the recommendations are practical, and they take into account the product side of things to see the developers and builders and I love the idea of having the standalone codes and the book to go to you you served on playing you serving on playing is only 27 years so you know that you're at the the guardrails are already set with code and everything, and that's kind of how we have to judge things or rule things.

Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, I always love it when, you know, those that come in and say, why can't you deny that application? Well, we have to go by what's the code our ordinances say, and in this case, if you don't have standards, the developers are just doing the right thing by here's what your code says.

Yeah.

we're doing this. So if you want to increase the standards as a community, as a county government, to embody some of what your plans are telling you, then I think, to your point, Chairman, I think that's exactly where we're coming from.

I have a question about your examples. Seems like the examples that you showed were pretty high end. I mean, they're high end.

Sure, yeah.

So we're always talking about affordability here. Carol County is kind of a bare bones group. So the affordability part of it. So did you see any retirement villages in Carol County that equaled Ashland Ridge or the Baldwin?

You do not have those products now. And that's understood. I guess my always thinking about you never know what's around the next corner in terms of who's going to come in and propose a project. I just think that if you look at the one in Frederick and one in Gettysburg, they're literally within an hour's drive or less of your backyard. So you can say you're a rural or agrarian community, bare bones, Adams County, I know Adams County well, is bare bones. Without Gettysburg, it's bare bones. It's apple orchards, farm fields. But the fact of it is, the people that are living there, I can guarantee you, they're coming to PA because their retirements aren't taxed. the one in adams county that took years and years and years no it did not didn't it no it did not i can remember when they started to break ground a few years ago and that thing is going like hot cake so again nell's acres for example i believe as i understood is almost sold out if not sold out so again there's a demand for the product right um it's just the fact what i think it's just in a balance member the Planning Commission member you're exactly right you know you may not be looking at the high end of all the pools but if you take some of the basic ingredients that's what think what we've tried to do in our code amendments to say hey provide at least an option of choices of houses provide some connectivity require some basic amenities and have some design process that's backing up that these projects in terms of the interactive and flexibility to say hey could you put a trail connection because the county has a trail right over here that we would love to have that connect with it's those basic things that we're trying to get at and yeah those might be large scale very high end i agree with you but if you try to think about what's really happening in your backyard and what the market forces are shaping it's either they're coming here to live and spend their dollar here in carroll county or they're choosing to go elsewhere it's it's a market force and market choice And again, the product that are being developed are being based upon the standards that you have in your ordinance today.

And you know, Ralph. There was a mention of 25% of the area.

Would you explain that? I didn't catch that. Was it 25% of the net area or the gross area?

I think that was on one of the slides, sir. Yes, sir. Let me see if I can find that.

It went so fast, I just wanted to ask. I'm sorry. That's what I'm asking about. That's what it was.

Yeah, where you're looking at, I think, is one of the examples that we called out. I'm looking here. Which slide it might be on?

Yes.

Was it the net? I don't know. The net versus gross calculation.

Yeah, just to explain kind of the concept is that usually open space developments, and again, this kind of verges in on like a cluster development use, if you will. So you have to try to think about, you're not requiring cluster developments for age-restricted housing in essence, but you want to make sure that as an amenity, you have open space. You have parks or like a park-like area, walking trails. Again, these folks aren't sitting at home and reading books 24-7. They're out and being active in their own community. And that's why you see these communities like Baldwin, Amble Brook, they have these types of features. So what we're getting at is that, hey, your code right now only requires open space to be calculated on the gross value. So what we want to do is, you know, the gross could include all the undesirable areas where we really can't do anything with.

Floodplain.

So you basically, and I think we were a little surprised that you require gross, and it was brought to our attention that that needs to be changed. And that's, because we see it all over. It should be based on the net. Thank you, I understand what you're saying. Okay, thank you.

The other thing, Ralph, just to talk about affordability, you know, I see those as two issues. And frankly, one, it could be something that overlaps. Affordable homes for age-restricted, for over 55. But that, I think, is a, you know, that's kind of a Gordian's knot. You know, the homes at Nell's Acres, despite its shortcomings, Those homes are still being sold for what, seven? You're the realtor. Are those $700,000 homes? I'm asking.

I'm sorry, say that again.

Those acres. Are those homes $700,000 homes?

They started like in the sixes, but they've risen.

Yeah, so I mean, there's nothing affordable about those homes, you know, in terms of, so again, I think we can get quality and,

So what I've seen and my people that sell homes, we see a lot of people coming from Howard County because quite frankly, They want something relatively affordable, and Eldersburg land prices have jacked up affordability. So I think you talked about Gettysburg and some other places. Gettysburg, the land there is probably a little less, and we see a lot of people migrate to Pennsylvania. not necessarily for the amenities, because once they're there, a lot of people don't even use them. They just age and may go to the rooms once in a while, but not a lot. I've always been a proponent of mixed use, whether it's the Commissioner Gordon knows that we've talked multiple times about it. But when you start adding a lot of amenities, the buyers that we see say, I can get better amenities and go back to Howard County or go even up to Tonytown, which has another place. Most people, you know, they're certainly less, but they've skyrocketed in progress. price and Eldersburg has turned into more of a suburban area versus rural. So it's not something that people are saying, you know, I want to be out near farms because and have places there. but they're very conscious of pricing. They don't want to pay for all those extras that end up in their condo fees and their HOAs. I'm sure there is a middle place somewhere on this, but that's not something that we're seeing people are really asking for.

okay and that would be a discussion point coming back and i think one thing we did in the amendment is at least look at indoor and outdoor and one example is at least you know require one you know one of each an indoor amenity an outdoor amenity because certainly a day room or some type of i've seen that i mean i have a mixed-use development near my house it's an apartment complex it has a pool it's full all the time And the day room is full all the time because people aren't necessarily want to be in their house, apartment unit. They want to be out and about. And they have a walking trail around it. I drive by there to go to Planet Fitness all the time, and there's people always on it. So people out walking their pets, dogs. So, you know, I think, again, that's, if you say about an amenity, those are some basic things. simple amenities. You don't have to go to, we need a pool, we need a pickleball court. We're not saying that, but there's an option there. And it really comes down to the developers know what their market, who they're targeting. So they're going to say, hey, if you're going to require something, it's our product too. We're going to actually put in these amenities as well. And you can see that how Amble Brook Well, all these other places are actually selling. And Amberbrook is like, I think they're all built out. There's more buildings going up as we speak. So again, different markets, different price points. But to whomever made the point, they're not cheap. I mean, these homes are not, I mean, they're not cheap.

And, you know, Janice, I'm going to push back on what you said just a little bit because we are a bedroom community. and we are a basic bedroom community that serves DC and Baltimore. At the same time, there's a certain compatibility that I think we're striving for for the Freedom District. that in terms of densities and in terms of of traffic patterns and all those things and I think you know for instance you know an age restricted. We call something age restricted and it's a 3 story townhome I kind of want to call the question, is it really what it's supposed to be? No one's going to climb to that third story. I mean, I can't think of a bonafide, age-restricted housing development that has three-story townhomes in it. And by the way, I mean, I was on the phone today talking about this. I have a client that's a large university. And they bought a bunch of land, and they now realize they don't need the land. They've built a retirement community that basically is an annuity for the medical center. And again, this is a university that y'all have all heard of. And the newest participants are both the guys who are building this. And it's got memory care. It's got villas. It's got everything, all the different types of housing. This is a big development. But in talking with them about it, anyway, I'm rattling on. It needs to be compatible in terms of what's adjacent to it in terms of what's going on in Eldersburg. And, you know, dropping, you know, 170 townhomes in the middle of Eldersburg, that's – Again, I'll call the question, is it really age-restricted? Is it developed correctly? And then the other part of this, just from a look and feel of what Eldersburg is trying to be in terms of a suburban setting, I'd ask the question, I mean, is that really what we want? So I think the design standards, I'm very enthusiastic about what it is you're bringing to the table. And I hope we will embrace part of what he's bringing.

I'm not against design standards. I am against interior ones. That would be something that would be a personal choice. Certainly not somebody to say, you can't have this here. But I do think design standards are good within reason. What I guess I see is the saying, you know, in-ground or an outdoor pool. Especially, let's take Beatty property, because that's happening. Maybe. But, you know, Two blocks away is Merritt, and it's a great facility. It is beautiful. And they have indoor pool, outdoor pool, and they are very aggressive with the senior population. So, you know, would it make sense to do that? You know, maybe something like the Beatty property maybe they would say okay you know we'll give a membership to the nearby gym or something like that that might be something that people would find okay with because they're not paying the extra or they're getting a discounted membership because they're not paying the extra for all that extra that's got to go there.

That sounds like a marketing strategy that we need to leave it to the developers. The other thing I would like to say is and I haven't really seen this and I just would ask how other municipalities deal with it is this when we when when an age restricted development is constructed and completed

is that is that made a part of the deed okay it's also should be a note on the site plan the land development should be a note on the plan and also should be a deed restriction okay so it's both yes correct okay thanks so and um

Age restricted, that's a federal code, correct? I mean, somebody that's 40 can't be there, although there are some exceptions.

Fair housing covers in terms of disability, but 55 plus by the standard of the real estate market, that's what we're talking about, the 55 plus typically. And that's usually what the deed would restrict. You have to be 55 years or older. You have no children. It's those types of requirements. There's a basic standard language. In fact, we had one or two in my community, and I remember exactly those. And we have other projects, too. So I'm glad you asked the question, because deed restrictions are something that we talked about, too. Should or shouldn't you require? I think it's more of a legal discussion of, does the county want to do that? But it's one where it's typically as a comment, as a planning commissioner, making our recommendation to my governing body. Yeah it's something that requires like this needs to be permanent and carry with the property right not the owner it needs to be a deed restriction and a note on the plan.

Well it seems to me that given the school capacity issues that we have I think we want that because you know there's a certain capacity that we have to to in our schools and so when these developments and we're seeing a bunch of them get developed you know 5, 6, 7, 10 years from now when these things start flipping over no no no this is it still age 55 right okay thank you I'm sorry.

I have a question a lot of times you had individual houses but then I noticed you also had I guess there are more apartments three or four story buildings do most of the places have one or the other or do they have a mix

So there's a difference in terms of the use. There's a retirement home, which by definition in your code is a multi-story apartment style, like Snowden Creek. The villages, if you will, retirement villages, is more that community with single family detached, or it can include other types of single family or duplex products. I understand the difference. I'm sorry.

My question is, do some of these places have both the individual houses and also the apartments?

Sure. In fact, the one we just talked about Meridian?

Nope. Winifred Manor. Winifred Manor.

It actually has a multi, is it three-story?

I think it's three-story, yeah, a couple of blocks of three-story.

They're quads.

And then around the outside are quads.

So that, if you haven't seen it, it's right here. It's a great example because it has nice pedestrian walkways around it. There's an amenity, albeit small. It's a gazebo. It's an outdoor space where you can read a book. Again, that's what we're talking about, just simple, basic outdoor areas for enjoyment and relaxation or activities. But yeah, that's right. It doesn't take a large property to have that type of project where you have a mixed multi-story plus the first level one-story type of attached units.

Some of those communities have a couple level apartments above and below. Over in Montgomery County and Annapolis, they put storefronts down there. Not junk storefronts, but salons and other things like that, or a restaurant that are easily accessible.

every time I go to one of them I'm like I'm gonna take a picture and forget the biggest issue with Carroll County is all of this stuff has to go in a place that has municipal water you're talking about all these different houses and all that type of stuff and I'm very familiar with Frederick County for example or Frederick City everything it's all fed by the monocacy but it's out of water the pipe sizes that have to go into these buildings to supply the fire protection because you're going off of worst case scenarios. You just cannot do that in Carroll County because we don't have any rivers that feed everything. So the I mean, you want to unless you put these like, you know, for St. John's right, the Beatty properties like, OK, well, that could, you know, that could connect the city water. But you want to put something, say, out in the middle of nowhere, right? Yeah. You know, you're talking about every single solitary house has to have a separate pump and tank. Or if you want to put an apartment building, you're looking at 30, 40,000 gallon underground tank plus a vertical turbine pump. I mean, you're looking at seven, $800,000 just to put fire protection Yeah, in in in these type. Oh yeah, Mr.

I do not disagree with you at all.

And that's you know, because because that's my line of work, right?

So these developments would have to go in naturally because of the densities. You'd have to actually have public water, public sewer.

And they do. So like my whole thing is like, let's not use Frederick County or Frederick City as a comparison because I know that very well. And Let's just not use them because they don't have the water to support what they're doing, to be quite honest with you, from a fire protection standpoint. They absolutely don't. And I know that very, very well. I mean, we're talking, I've seen my company has done, you know,

four or five unit buildings where you're putting six inch pipe in because they do not have the water to support it so yeah i think the logic here is too that you know where you have available land for development and how it's zoned is really in the freedom district it is it's really confined and where sewer and water exists to support these types of projects unless you'd have some rezoning occur in your ag which i wouldn't think that would happen in the near future but they would have to be in a decision based upon if you're going to do that is water and is it for whatever policy reason the county has but also too any decisions got to be where you want growth to go it's got to be a conscious decision in terms of where water and sewer needs to be placed or extended. So you're exactly right.

And it is. And I'm not trying to dissuade anybody from building this or that. But when you look at Carroll County falls under the Maryland State Fire Marshal Code, right? So you've got a sprinkler. Anything that's built, anything like that, right? It's water, right? We don't have the water to do that. And if you're not on city water, If you're in well water, you're talking pumps, you're talking tanks.

That's a limiting factor in development. I know a project I mentioned before, it was held up because it needed two municipal authorities to supply the sewage effluent, and the developer had to buy a pump. And that held the whole project up probably for a good year and a half. So again, it was one where we can control based upon planning where we want growth and development to occur. And that's usually based upon where the infrastructure is to support the growth. You have adequate public facilities requirements. Again, sewer and water has to be part of it. Traffic has to be part of it. I mean, it's a whole litany of impacts. that your planning is the driver for where you want this development to occur and if you're providing for the ordinances it also dictates where you can actually have those uses go otherwise the logic would be you're not having the infrastructure to support exactly what you're talking about and that's that's that's kind of how i look at it right because with frederick county right you know they've exploded they've they've built they've done all these type of things but

At the base, they really don't have the infrastructure.

And that project, I think, had to be annexed into part of the city. You know what I mean? Your point, that project had to be annexed. Part of it had to be annexed to get into the city.

Which, even with the city, again, everything's from the binoculars. And if you do your calculations, well, they want, OK, well, you can't use the storage tanks. You have to take the basic water pressure. And you're looking what? might be you know from a fire protection standpoint what might be two inch pipe anywhere else but based on what you have to do in frederick county you're looking at four inch or six inch pipe because they don't have the water because everything is fed from the monocacy and that can't support everything so that's understood not what i want to see in carroll county because yeah i don't think that's what we're advocating here again we're trying to focus on hey where your standards exist of where you have development plan for zone four

And think about the standards that you want to have those developments abide by.

And look to the future. Just because we don't have public water and sewer in a certain part of a county or wherever doesn't mean we might not have it in the future.

Daphne and Chris had this discussion, and this is my observation, too, how things go. You have kind of a growth boundary established where, based upon your future land use map, and your zoning, but you're down to your last few acres, if you will. So what's gonna happen, growth is gonna continue to come from Howard County, from wherever, and the pressure's coming, so it's a policy decision of some of those landholders of ag, at some point, it's gonna start to push. I'm not saying that that's what we're advocating at all. I'm just saying that you have areas where this type of growth and density that needs infrastructure is in the freedom area here and not so much you want to preserve everywhere else. But again, pressures are coming.

No doubt and and we talk about water. Every other meeting. It's it's a limited fact limiting factor for the county or else use what public wars or yeah, well in septic is the name of the game.

But that that can change is probably it got to change Richard had some he was assuming that you are having conversations with the developers about all of this?

I think this would be the opportunity, the time frame we had to come through to get to this point, these public meetings are that opportunity to at least start to showcase what information is being presented and get their feedback then too on it as well.

So, yeah, I was just gonna jump in and say we as Troy alluded to the fact that we've got the kind of tentative code amendments that reflect some of these recommendations. We're still working through those and we'll have those for you all to really dig into at the next meeting. What would be really helpful is to I know there are a number of people here who might want to offer some thoughts on what their perspective is on the issue so that we can take their comments, your comments, and make sure that the code that we're working on really reflects some of your concerns. So maybe if you want to open the floor up to some comments, we can get that feedback.

We should do that. So let's move to public comment. And let me give you my little spew, I have to say. Speakers must sign in to make public comment. There's sign in in the back. State your name, address, and talk into the microphone, which is in the center of the room, to facilitate audio and video recording. Comments will be strictly limited to three minutes per speaker. citizen testimonies not a Q&A session questions may be directed to staff after the meeting if any individuals fail to comply with these rules the planning zoning chair may call the person out of order and may require him or her to leave the meeting I don't see that happening I hope but so let's any public comment don't be shy I know you guys aren't shy

Good evening. My name is Mike Kalanock. I'm with JPB Partners in Hanover, Maryland, 7556 Teague Road. I appreciate all the study and effort that's gone into this. Just for some point and context, our company bought a small infill parcel. For those of you who know it, it's off Johnsville Road, Freedom Avenue. It sits behind St. Joseph Catholic Church and Wesley Freedom. We bought the project with the ability to do up to about 64 units for age-restricted. Our company has been focused on trying to identify opportunities in secondary and smaller, and by that we mean bedroom communities away from the major metropolitan areas. So we've been pursuing various concepts and continue to take in the feedback from the yourselves at the planning commission level as well as from the residents we started with what were going to be 4 story condominium projects with some bill is today we've scaled it down to a project that has 31 bill is on 6 acres about 5 units per acre. So when we hear a lot of this information, I certainly appreciate in a PUD, in a master plan community, some of these requirements. But I do, or I am curious as the text comes out for this, how relative that some of these, especially amenities, some of these things are gonna be relative to size. because frankly, when you start looking at stormwater management requirements, you start looking at just everything that goes into the existing code, and then you start wanting to put in swimming pools, clubhouses, it doesn't work. And that also gets back to that cost discussion that's been had this evening. The more that the builder will require, that cost is gonna be passed on to the eventual buyer. So again, I guess just in summary, what I would ask is there be some discussion, whether it's tonight or in the proposed text, that factor in relative size. Had we known, you know, if there's text that comes out that has certain requirements we just can't accommodate, project like ours you take away one or two lots and the project fails and then this you know this one was previously proposed for a gas station which was rejected but it was approved for a restaurant and a banquet facility which nobody wanted in that community was made very clear to us we think we've are providing something that fits in with everything around it and is at a proper scale and we're happy to do amenities that that are relative to the size of the project

All right, thank you.

Hello, I'm Bruce Harvey, Waynesburg Homes. I'm the builder in the community that Mike talked about. I live at 7792 Elmwood Road, and that's in Fulton, Maryland. My address back there is my business office, but that's in Columbia. So just want to really tag on to what Mike said. It is quite all-encompassing what Troy has presented here. And I think the real, you guys have alluded to it, is the smaller communities. How are we going to implement this within communities that are small? So as a builder, we've done active adult mostly in Howard County. As opposed, there's at least two, there's probably 12 different types of buyers, but the most common thing that we hear is where are the grandkids? So if the grandkids live in Eldersburg, That's where they want to live. And because of that, we don't have the opportunities to do these larger communities because of the land that's available. So I think we have to still allow for the kind of communities that we're planning here that are on smaller parcels and still allow for the active adult designation. Howard County has a minimum of 20 units. Whether that's right or not, I don't know. And Howard County has, you know, you have to build a community center based upon that size. So we did one that was 23 and we built an 800 square foot community center. I'm not sure that's the right answer, frankly, because there's other types of amenities that can be added. Importantly, for those of us that are existing communities, obviously we're the ones that are vocal because we're stopped, and we really want to encourage that these tax amendments not apply to us because we're doing the things that you're saying. We are doing universal design standards because that's the right thing to do, and we are trying to incorporate amenities that make sense in a smaller community. So again, I think the hard job for all of us in looking at these detailed text amendments, can't wait to see them, is how do you apply them to the projects that aren't 2,000 units, aren't even of Nell's acre size. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Chris Armstrong. I represent Lennar National Home Builder as well as our project known as Freedom's Grant. Our address is 7035 Albert Einstein Drive, Columbia, Maryland. Freedom's Grant is a proposed retirement village community with 237 homes, a combination of... Chris, could you speak up, Chris? Apologies. Is that better?

Yes, sir.

Freedom's grant is a proposed retirement village community with 237 homes, a combination of detached single family homes as well as attached villas. Over the past five years, Lennar has been processing a site plan for Freedom's Grain. We have Board of Zoning Appeals approval, we have concept plan approval, and we're currently in the second review of our final site plan. After five long years, we're finally getting close to the finish line. Lennar has invested approximately $1 million to date in engineering fees, legal fees, submittal fees, et cetera, just processing these plans. The site also requires so remediation for former shooting range on the property which will cost approximately 2 million dollars to clean up. Additionally, we spend about $200,000 per month just to carry the property. Lenore and its consultants have been actively involved in all the meetings related to these deferrals and text amendments. We've met with a number of county commissioners to better understand their concerns and to address them. is our opinion that freedoms grant plan addresses all of these known concerns as well as meets or exceeds the current code and the general recommendations from the county's consults. We have 3 vehicular access points to the community. The majority of our roads are 30 feet wide and we're adding 54 visitor parking spaces as well as no parking street signs addressing concerns with emergency access through the community. A maximum number of homes in one attached building string is 5 homes addressing we're building emergency access concerns. Our amenities include a clubhouse, a pool, a pergola seating area with a fireplace, two bocce ball courts, two pickleball courts, and a walking trail, addressing concerns with adequate amenities. We're providing 40 additional amenity parking spaces at the clubhouse, addressing concerns with adequate amenity parking spaces. We're providing product diversity, and we are also incorporating universal design guidelines. If significant changes are made to the bulk requirements for a retirement village, and those changes are imposed on the Freedom of Grant community, a long and tedious entitlements process would be further delayed. Substantial additional costs would be incurred, and this may even render the site undevelopable. I WOULD RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT THE FREEDOMS GRANT BE GRANDFATHERED WITH THESE TEXT AMENDMENTS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU.

MR. CHAIRMAN, I'VE PROVIDED COPIES OF WHAT I'M ABOUT TO READ TO YOU IN A THREE-MINUTE STATEMENT TO YOUR STAFF SO THAT YOU MAY HAVE COPIES FOR EACH OF YOU. OKAY. Good evening. My name is Gus Bauman of the law firm Beverage and Diamond, representing St. John Properties, which owns the 120-acre Beatty property in the Freedom area. I'm former chairman of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission and former litigation counsel for the National Association of Home Builders. On December 18 of last year, the Board of County Commissioners, in a divided vote, enacted what it termed a deferral on final approval of retirement villages and homes in the Freedom Area. The so-called deferral in reality is a land use moratorium. It was enacted to halt our development of homes geared to those 55 and over. a project that's been the subject of county approvals and positive planning process for over four years in order to rewrite the zoning ordinance and derail our carefully planned and much needed housing development we're here tonight asking you the county planning and zoning commission to exercise proper planning judgment and provide a typical grandfather clause for any zoning amendments that you may recommend IN ORDER TO PROTECT OUR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN GOOD FAITH WE HAVE RELIED UPON THE 2014 COUNTY MASTER PLAN 2018 FREEDOM COMMUNITY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN YOUR APRIL 16 2024 UNANIMOUS APPROVAL OF OUR ELDERSBURG OVERLOOK DENSITY LAYOUT AND DESIGN THE JUNE 3RD 2024 BZA UNANIMOUS APPROVAL OF THE CONDITIONAL USE FOR OUR RETIREMENT VILLAGE your august 2024 positive directions for our concept site plan not to mention the countless communications subsequent that we've received from your professional staff on the fine tuning for the final site plan to be submitted for your approval now because of a new state law that provides grandfather type clause protection effective october 1 of this year to housing applicants who've been dutifully adhering to a county's planning and zoning rules. The county board in a rush to judgment in order to disrupt this new law is asking this commission to ignore all of our approvals and due process of the past four years with newly conceived zoning rules. we're asking you tonight to stand by the county plans the county zoning our approvals and insulate our lawful retirement housing development with a grandfather clause protecting our project from any new zoning rules that you may create which are aimed at retirement communities thank you thank you

I don't disagree with that. This Beatty property has been going on for years.

Why is she too tall for these things? Obviously, I'm Tom Pilon with St. John Properties. I'm executive vice president of development. And it's a little unfortunate that we have to make a statement like that after being involved in a process where we feel like we've worked very closely with the county over the last four years. We've been in front of you all. You've seen our project. We've explained it to you. We've actually gone so far as to create a 3D model the community so that you can get a better sense of what the community looks like and things like that but what I'd simply say is having now sat through this presentation two different times it was presented to the Board of County Commissioners a few weeks ago and then we actually got an opportunity to go through the report that was prepared and submitted to the Board of County Commissioners we've sat again through the presentation tonight I would simply say that our project embraces and provides a pretty much everything that's being talked about. And I think if and when you have an opportunity to see it in more in full color and things like that, You'll you'll really appreciate the fact that our project one of the projects have been talked about very much is Carol this that was not for whatever reason was not used as an example. We went up in January right at her biggest was early February right after the snowstorm we drove through we looked at that community we actually made some changes to our plan. We're proposing to make some additional to bring in some additional open space. and things like that. My point is that our project already does everything that you are, you know, suspecting that you would want a project like this to do. And in addition to that, you know, when you show a project like Amble Brook that's 2,000 units, that's really sitting in the middle of a bunch of cornfields or whatever, you know, it's agricultural around it. Our project is as close as you can be to the most amenity and service-rich portion of Eldersburg. Our project itself, the main part of the Eldersburg overlook, that is actually kind of two neighborhoods with a community center in the middle. You're within 1,200 feet. It's less than a quarter of a mile. You can walk to all the amenities. If you look at Amberbrook, it's a mile and a quarter. from the furthest unit to the community center, you need a golf cart or something like that to get to it. So my point to all that is we have a compact development It's appropriate, it meets all the standards, and we were stopped cold in December, and we've been sitting here waiting. We're gonna find out next week, I guess, our fate as to whether this moratorium is going to be extended even further so that potentially the code can be changed. And in our case, and I would argue perhaps in other cases, there's not a need for it. I'm not saying that there's not a need to have standards and things like that, but your process worked so far and uh and if you give us an opportunity to look to take a good hard look at it i think you would see that and i think you'd agree with that so we would welcome that opportunity and if you know in the um wisdom of the county if you want to continue on with with tax amendments and things like that i think you should do that you know if that's helpful with predictability and things like that but for people that have been in the process for five and four and five years and things like that We would just simply ask that you let us through the gate. So thank you for the time, and I apologize if I went all over.

Thank you. Thank you. Any more public comment? OK. Well, that's it. So next step is for we'll hear more from you and your group.

Yes, so at the June 16th meeting, this will be on the agenda again with the proposed text amendments for your discussion. We'll provide those to you ahead of time as we do all the materials. so you'll have a chance to look at them. We'll go back and talk with Troy a little bit based on the conversation here to see if there's anything that we want to build into the draft that we've got so far. But the October 1st date has been mentioned a couple of times and I just want to kind of review real quickly what some of the timing issues are related to that. We've talked about this before, but essentially, there's legislation that was passed by the state that addresses the vesting, the point at which a project is vested, and that as of October 1st is going to be changed from what it is currently. So currently a project is invested until construction begins, but as of October 1st, it will be based on the submittal of a complete plan. So that's why we're trying to address any changes to our code related to, I'm sorry, I should have stipulated that this is related to residential projects. So we're looking at any code changes that apply to residential projects, making sure that they are in process in order to meet that October 1st deadline if the commissioners choose to go in that direction. So I just bring that up because we have a timeframe that we're working on, so we wanna try to get everything approved and sent to the commissioners as you want to recommend them by the July 21st meeting date.

Is there any talk about grandfathering projects, even though they may not have actually started, but they're so far in the process that they could be starting in November, for example?

So that would be a decision that the commissioners would make, but you certainly could make a recommendation to them if that's your desire.

I'd certainly be in favor of that, yeah.

When you present us with the amendments, I would ask that you really give us detailed information on why the reasons for these amendments. I would like to have examples of why these amendments should be enacted or not. I really need to be convinced.

We will give that our best effort. I think the presentation that we had tonight kind of points out some of the things that when you compare what we have in place versus what are kind of best practices, where there might be some gaps.

so that's a lot of the rationale I think but we'll we'll go back through it and see if we can pull out some some as detailed of explanation as we can I think one of the critical pieces for all of this is what's the potential what's the potential for these types of communities in current water and sewer areas public water and sewer areas and then I mean I guess that's the real potential the closest potential and then what is you know one through 5 years could be 6 through 10 could be given that we may need to get some capital funding or what the county would have to get some capital funding to extend water and sewer to to help communities like this have a chance to grow. So the maps that we have you know and here all these just a deeper dive on where those potential plats land 20 acres and you mentioned 20 acres in the density calculation of 3 and a half per acre and the couple examples you had in there were 75 acres or 75 homes and a 100 homes so you know That's a little bit more than 20 acres, plus the open space and all that kind of stuff. So we're talking bigger tracts of land here. But as we heard in the testimony or the public comment, we need to focus on the smaller potential here. At least immediately before we start looking at 75 acre hundred acre The farmers aren't getting any younger either So it's a good point. I mean, it's an aging Demographic our farmers no offense. I know you work hard every day But I mean at a point If your children aren't interested, you're going to make a decision and then there's opportunity and we need to be ready for those opportunities.

I would like to comment just one time. Gus, Tom, St. John's, y'all are a great developer. I was at 1623 the other night for a welcome party for my daughter's wedding. And I have no issues with St. John's. during this process when Gus when you refer to you know a site plan that we saw back in August of 24 every time we've seen that that site plan as far as I'm concerned it's been incremental in terms of density there's been things that have been added with the initial site plan we saw there were single-family homes and in several areas on the initial site plan that I saw the that's what I recall in my head that there was there was the part that there was a there was a stream on the side that was closest to 26 and there were single-family homes along that stream and then there were single-family homes along Bennett there were two areas that had single-family homes I don't know where we are and what's happened. I don't understand where we are with the road improvements. I don't understand where we are with the intersection of Progress Way and 32. And every time we add density, it changes the traffic study and the results of the traffic study. So Richard, while we might want to grandfather, just because of goodwill and the effort that y'all have put in on the property, my good nature would say, yeah, we should Consider that. At the same time, we don't know what the heck we're approving. We don't know what the heck we're grandfathering, because every time we've seen it, it's changed incrementally. It may only be incremental. And again, we had this conversation before Daphne, before the meeting. Tom, if you want to have a conversation briefly about this a little bit, because I just want to make sure you understand, there's not a groupthink up here, at least as far as I'm concerned, that we should grandfather. And that's not because I'm trying to spew the room with ill will towards developers. That's not it at all. we've had an incremental they've been implement changes to that site plan and I'm not quite sure where you are I really got it's been a while since I've seen it and part of that was because I've been here for 2 months but so you you can step up to the mic and respond if you'd like and you know I'm sorry to derail the meeting from that that's fine I just want to make sure you know there's not a group think up here I love to respond to that first of all that the site

As far as road networking, that is exactly the same as it's been from day one. As far as the traffic study is concerned, when we changed the, so it's residential along Bennett Road, seven residential units, single family detached, one acre. and 156 units immediately below that that also acts of access Bennett Road and we have 2 other access points one to progress extended one to Georgetown extended and then to the South we have what we're calling reservoir run and that was originally planned for 34 single family detached units you're certainly correct. However, there's no school capacity for that. We actually went to the Board of Education and tried to work something out as far as school capacity was concerned. And there's a big project in front of us that's got that locked up. So we looked at the market and said, there's still capacity. There's still a demand for the age-restricted retirement village. And we've modified that plan. That plan's going to be coming in front of you this month. um and uh so yes you're right we've changed that but the traffic actually didn't change the result of that the 55 plus actually didn't generate any additional traffic beyond that when we made that change um i think as you're aware we've been georgetown boulevard maybe you're not aware we've been working very closely with the county to try to get that extension done We have gone out and proactively worked with property owners to acquire it right away. We have advanced the design on that significantly, working very closely with Chris Hine and with Public Works. We've been meeting regularly about that. But our plan, as it was put together initially, the framework, the infrastructure of that plan is exactly the same. substantive change that we've made, and as I said, it's getting ready to come back to you, is we switched from the single family detached, non-age restricted, because Freedom Elementary closed, there's a big project in front of us, and then there was, I think it was a year and a half ago or so, they put into the master plan for the schools that they were gonna do in addition, and that now got pulled out. So what do you do, right? We're just looking for an opportunity to get through this process, but we have been very clear about what we've proposed, We've come forward and shared those things, and now we're back at that appropriate point on this particular concept plan, which you'd be able to see that. You know, when I hear to argue about things or anything else, and we certainly haven't tried hiding the ball over the years that we've been involved in this, we have had 12 public meetings on our project. We have been in front of you all three different times, including we came and did information only at the very beginning and told you that we had four projects that we were processing, the three we've mentioned plus the industrial part, And we said we're going to develop it as a single plan. Is it related to infrastructure? So we did a single traffic study and we've got improvements that we are processing plans for the intersection of Bennett Road at 32. That's in front of the county being reviewed right now. We actually have an access permit for the modification that we're going to make at the intersection of London Town and 32. And Progress Way, we had had a concept approved by the State Highway to do a Maryland T there. And they told us to submit our construction plans. And when we submitted those plans, they then distributed it to a wider group of agencies, apparently inside or sub-agencies inside of State Highway. And they came back and said, we don't want that improvement there. But they said, you know, they would support the idea of doing a fee in lieu for some of the project and our thoughts were we were going to contribute to the Georgetown extension, which by the way, the county had that in the capital budget and just pulled it out. You know, the goal's been moving from the county side. You know, if you say we've made some changes to our plan, we're trying to adapt to the things that we've kind of dealt with as we've gone along. All those said, all those things said, we, and I told you when I got up, it's unfortunate that we would have to make any kind of statement that we're concerned about our ability to move forward, to face a moratorium, you know, to potentially have that extended, to potentially have the code changed. Those things are extremely unfortunate that it gets to that. And like I said, we literally have put a 3D model together of our project so somebody could look at it and see it and understand it. I'm telling you that our project does everything that you want it to do. And I love the opportunity for you all to be able to see and understand that. But to have to wait until the fall now to see, you know, is the code going to change? How might it change and all that? We've been in a process for four years and it is not um you know several times the comment was made the developers would be smart they're going to follow your code that kind of implies that it's going to be minimum compliance our project is not minimal compliance i'd argue there's probably any number of others because what's driving what we do is what the market's demanding so you know i mean just i i would simply say that you know we have indoor amenity we have outdoor amenity we as I said we are having looked at other projects we're considering adding additional to that and like I said it's compact community so it's got the walkability element to it the amenities and services that you want Ms. Kirshner, you kind of stole my thunder there when you talked about Merritt Athletic, but that's, you know, it's a high-quality facility right down the street. Within a mile of our site, one mile of our site, you can get to shopping, you can get to, you know, Home Depot or whatever. Those types of things that you need, the urgent care, et cetera, it's all right there. And at the end of Georgetown, was connected you wouldn't have to get on 32 you wouldn't have to get out 26 to get any of them agreed like i said it is that project is located right exactly where you want it to be if there's a hub you know a a downtown or whatever to elversburg we're right there you know nestled up next to it and it's so good to me i think it's attractive to somebody that would in fact we've already had inquiries people that wanted to be at the community So it's we just want we just want to keep moving we do think that the types of changes that you're talking about here. We don't need to wait we've already done things I can't sit here and say that every single thing is exactly because they're talking about maybe changing some calculations and things like that it is a good project it's ready to go we'd love to bring it to market.

But Tom I look forward to seeing the the seeing the robust. The revision thank you.

we always appreciate all of your comments i mean that sincerely it's uh i said before it's been it's been a good conversation as we've sat and we've talked about these things you might remember uh when we were here for we had come for the first design density and traffic and then we went to bza and then we came back and you guys saw our concept plan before we went to final design And we had a very robust discussion about access to the community. And there was a discussion about should it be gated on the secondary and the tertiary entrance points. And we had that whole conversation. It was a really good conversation. And we went back and we re-looked at our traffic study to see what implications that would have. resubmitted that to the county. So every time we've been here, it's been a good conversation. We've gotten good feedback and all that. And I apologize if you feel that there's anything that we've kind of changed that you feel like it's morphed in a way that you didn't understand. I feel like we've been very open about, but I also understand you guys see a lot of stuff over many months and long meetings and everything else. So we get all of those things. But anyway, we'd love the opportunity to show you what we've done. Look forward to it. If it helps. Look forward to it.

I would like to say not only St. John, but I know we hadn't seen Lennar for a while, but they had excessive plans that came before us, too, and also the company, Alpha Freedom. So, I mean, I think that... if any of them deserve grandfathering. I'm not saying yes, but it's certainly something to look seriously at.

and commissioner lester to answer your question just to underscore something i've sat in your shoes for many years and i know what it's like in terms of what prompted your question what you have to deal with i've dealt with many zoning codes in maryland and all over this country and i just want to say that in reviewing the carroll county zoning code you have a darn good zoning code it covers all the bases and there's nothing under this current zoning code that you work under nothing that you can't require of a developer as you work with that developer to get the kind of development that makes sense financially and makes sense for you under your zoning code So you already have the power in that code because your code is not some backward code from Mississippi. It's nothing like that. You have a very sophisticated code. So you can get what you need under the current code. All we're asking for is if you come up with a bunch of changes and amend it, all we need is a grandfather clause to ensure that all the work we've done for the last four years working with your staff with you with the board of county commissioners with the community that we're not prevented from moving forward at all which is a real risk i mean we wouldn't be standing here saying what we're saying if there was an enormous risk that we'll lose everything thank you

Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next on the agenda, the Planning Annual Report. Tiffany. We're going to take a five minute break. Number six, 2025 Planning Annual Report Introduction and Presentation by Tiffany Fossett.

You have 45 seconds. Thank you.

Permission to talk fast then. So I just want to tee this up just a little bit. This is something that you all are probably familiar with. Every year we are required to submit an annual report to Maryland Department of Planning. We do have a requirement that you all adopt the annual report. And so Tiffany's gonna go through the presentation that shares some highlights from the report, which you got a copy of the full one. And if you are inclined to go ahead and adopt it tonight, we do have a letter for you to sign. If you'd like to see this back again next meeting, June 16th, we can also come back at that meeting. So with that, I'll turn it over to Tiffany.

Thank you, and good evening.

Good evening.

So moving on, 2025 planning annual report. Purpose of the annual report is that, as Daphne said, it is required by the state to report planning development activity for the calendar year, and this is reporting for calendar year 2025. And those are the sections on the screen there that are listed, broken down throughout the report, including things like zoning map amendments, agricultural land preservation as well. And actually the way that our report is set up to report, it kind of goes from the beginning of development to the end, from the plans to UNOs in the ground and includes things like preservation as well. So it's set up to go in that order. This report includes information for Carroll County and the eight municipalities and the municipalities have already provided their information and certified that information. So you're really just certifying the county's information in this. It is a multi-agency effort and I would really like to give kudos to our GIS department. They do a lot as far as as the BLI, the mapping, and a lot of the tables go. So they've done a great job with the huge help. And it is based on land use article from the state of Maryland that we should implement the eight planning principles that are listed there. When we turn to page two, we start with an at-a-glance. That is pretty much the report is put together first, and then the numbers are kind of plugged into the at-a-glance, what we've discovered this year that is to follow within the report itself. So we'll start with new plans and plan amendments. On pages three through 18, maps one through 10 are included in that. So as far as plan amendments go, Mount Airy did adopt a new comp plan last year, Union Bridge amended their housing element last year, and there were several water and sewer master plan amendments that came before you last year that included Freedom Area, Hampstead, Manchester, New Windsor, Tawny Town, Union Bridge, and Westminster. There are maps one through eight for each of those. And then on pages 17 and 18, you'll find maps nine and 10 that are the new county-wide maps. Next, we'll go to pages 19 through 22 for approved site plans and subdivisions. And that includes tables one through four and map 11. So pages 19 to 21 shows that for residential site plans and subdivisions approved, there were 23 new lots approved and 21 new units approved for a total of 84.36 acres. Of those 16 new lots and 16 new units were the counties for accounting for Nearly 81 acres and then municipalities of just Mount Airy and Westminster accounted for the seven other lots and five units for a total of three acres. about almost three and a half acres. For non-residential, there was a total approved 158.327 acres. Of those for the county, just over 64 acres were the counties and just over 94 acres were for the municipalities and that was attributed to Hampstead, Sykesville and Westminster. And those can be seen on map 11 on page 22. I'd like to give the trend of those over the last 10 years. Here you can see the number of lots approved for here since 2016. There's a dip continuing downward trend right now. And that does not include the municipalities. That is county only number of approved lots.

Can you go back to that for a second?

Yes. When we talk about the multi-story facility that was built on Oklahoma Road and the number of units, how many units were in that thing? It's not 46. How would something like that show up on this graph? Because that's a lot of units.

And that would be that would show up in the you know, yes, that would be sure that would show in UNOs and we don't have a graph on units that were approved. So this is lots that were approved. I do not know that. Got it. Sorry, my bad.

I thought I thought I was thinking units and lots like my back. OK, I'm back.

I mean, it's correct. When we get to the the use and occupancy, they would be reflected there in those numbers.

All right.

I think we have a graph for that, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Then for acres approved for non-residential development last year, they're at 64 total, and you can see the trend over the last 10 years since 2016, and again, that does not include the municipalities. Approved non-residential development. Next we'll move on to zoning map amendments on pages 23 through 25. That includes tables five and six and map 12. So for annexations, there were six annexations last year, one in Hampstead, one in Tawny Town, and four in Westminster, and those are shown on table five on page 23. And there were five rezonings last year, two in Mount Airy and three in Westminster. Those are shown on page 24 in table six. And then the zoning map amendments can be seen on map 12 on page 25. Next, we go into a lot. We have changes to the zoning tax, the priority funding area boundaries, schools, transportation, which is roads, adequate public facilities ordinances, and park facilities. Those are pages 26 through 30, include table seven. and figures one through six. So on page 26, we start with the zoning text amendments. The county did adopt two ordinance updates last year affecting future development and that they both were to align, sorry, the one was to align with zoning under the new state law. And that was the revisions to the solar energy systems and the front of meter energy storages across zoning districts. And then there were the updates to the employment campus that came before you last year. Employment campus district came before you last year. The rest are for Westminster. They had three and they were the only one with zoning text amendments last year.

Tiffany, that was one question when I was reading through this. was thinking about because we're seeing more coming the solar and we don't separate any kind of solar measurement in here in this report right or is it included in lots and like how do we account for the the solar growth that would be I don't think we've seen any any of the solar hasn't come before you yet right for approval There's been a few.

Have they been approved?

Yes. Yeah. They have? There have been a couple of that on industrial zone properties. Yes. So the new projects that are subject to the new state law, those are still working through the process. And the process, we've not seen those yet. But there are a couple that you've seen that were on industrial zones.

Okay, so they'll be accounted for as this this year on residential site plans and subdivisions approved. Okay, thank you.

We have not and in case this was your question or you're getting at this we have not broken out those projects in this report as kind of their own tally of things.

And I will say that I actually asked someone at the state for information on solar in Carroll County and that's hard information to get but it's information that I want and I think we as a commission want because at some point years ago we were told if we didn't do something the state was going to force I think we as a county want to be able to I don't necessarily want to down the wall but I want to defend the wall that basically says you know we've done a lot for for an agrarian County you were doing more than a fair share in terms of solar and this is what we've got but would we don't have the number we can't we can't defend the wall so That's why I asked for the data, and I hate to say it, I asked for it three months ago, and it's sitting in an email, and I haven't opened it. I did get something, and I haven't looked at it. Okay.

And looking...

I would say the state would do it to us, not... For us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

And looking back at the table on page 19, table 2, county non-residential site plans and subdivisions, there was a solar addition. Dixon Solar Lane was in the employment campus. The solar addition were panels on existing assisted living facility. And then the other solar listed there is Westminster Solar Field, and that was an industrial also.

but it's not its own category it's it is not its own category in would we break those out are you looking to have this broken out in the annual I'm just thinking up the road as we see more and more of these coming it might be worth worth the you know a break out just to track this news in the history and where they are map it there's kind of come their comment here and their question about it yeah

Would you want that included in the annual report or just because we this is something we do give to this.

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Chris.

Yes. Rather than yelling from the back of the room. So we have actually put together a map and a list of all of the solar projects that that the county is aware of that are coming through. And the map also includes projects that have been constructed that we provided to the Board of County Commissioners.

I'm happy to share that with you as well and we'll see it and then rate and and if we can boil that down to to a what is the number that's meaningful to our friends in Annapolis? I don't think it's acreage, I think it's gigawatts or something. That's what it is, it's megawatts. But yeah, so, if, and for a guy who's an expert on stormwater to ask you to compute megawatts from solar power, this is, I think you may have another moment, I don't know how we want that information. Having it on a map is great. Knowing how many acres it is is fantastic. I think there's that other number that if we can get it, it would be great to have, right?

I don't want to turn this into a solar, but data for data's sake. I think we all need to understand when you see 2.5 gigawatt, megawatt facility, where does that power go? And what happens to that? Who benefits from that? I don't understand any of it.

The one by the property on Cleve Mill, that benefits the county, correct?

Yes. Well, I'm not entirely sure of the lease agreement that we've established. But yes, that's county property that we're leasing to a solar company. And there is some benefit coming back to the county from power generation.

Right. Chris, quick question. Every solar project on private property or farmland, does that require a certificate of necessity? No. So what requires it?

So if a project generates more than two megawatts, then it's supposed to get a certificate of public convenience and necessity. However, you can co-locate projects on a parcel. So you may have a project that is coming to the county that we would call a four megawatt project, right? Because that's the size of the project they're constructing. However, if they have two connections into the grid, each one is two megawatts. From the state perspective, they do not need a CPCN because each individual project is two megawatts or less. So we view it as four, the state views it as two twos, and they don't have to go through the CPCM process. They do still have to, as with all projects, have to come through the county process, and we ensure that they meet all regulations and so on.

I think there's a project like that off of Carrollton Road near the Resurrection Church over there where they split it. It's one solar project, but it's three?

Yes, they're co-located. We actually have one in GAMBER that's five twos. So it's a 10 megawatt project, but they have five interconnections into the grid. So it's five two megawatt projects. We have, at this point, we have over 30 that we're aware of. And so we have those all mapped and we have those all listed and we can easily provide that to you for your reference.

Okay, thank you. You sit at the table.

I like sitting in the back.

All right, I yield my time back to you, Tiffany.

Thank you. That gave me an opportunity to actually come up with some changes I made while I was upstairs. So this is helpful. For instance, page 27 instead of page 21 that was previously there. So we wrote the amendments. Okay. Amendments to priority funding boundaries. There were none. There were no new schools or additions. And there were some changes to roadway network in the county and in the municipalities. Those can be seen on table seven on page 27. And there were no developments that were modified due to adequate public facilities ordinance restrictions. On pages 28 through 30 are the park, the changes to parks. including Bear Branch's new pavilion, Oshawa's Butterfly House, Piney Run Park's boat trailer parking lot, and a new pickleball courts at Piney Run Park. Sandy Mount had a restoration to an existing pavilion. There was some renovations at Memorial Park as well, in New Windsor's Memorial Park. And in Westminster, there was an event center that was completed at Wakefield Valley Park. next we'll go to building permits issued on pages 38 through 39 so we're going to skip forward a lot because we cover some UNOs and we have a summary of that a little further along that we'll hit that instead so pages 38 through 39 to our building permits issued last year and that includes table 16 and 17 and map 14 as well There was a total of 317 building permits for new construction issued last year. Of those, 53.9% were residential and they were inside the priority funding area. 28.7 were residential and they were outside the priority funding area. 11% were non-residential and they were inside the priority funding areas. And 6.3% were non-residential and they were outside the priority funding areas. And those are shown there on how they compare. Includes the growth areas as well. And you can see those in map 14 on page 39. And for the new use and occupancy or UNO certificates issued, we'll look at those on pages 40 through 42. That will include tables 18 and 19, and they can be seen on map 15. There were a total of 289 new construction use and occupancy certificates issued last year in Carroll County that includes municipalities that can be a breakdown of those by type and each election district can be seen in table 18. And table 19 shows those new use and occupancy certificates issued by priority funding area and growth area. And you can see in the chart there that is included in the presentation but not in the report itself, just how those compared. Residential at 51.2% of those were residential and inside, sorry, inside the, that doesn't look right. I'm gonna have to update that, I apologize. That would be inside, no it does. Okay, 51.2% were residential inside the PFAs and 30.8 were residential outside the PFAs, 12.8 were non-residential inside the PFAs and 5.2 permit, of those permits, I'm sorry, UNOs issued were non-residential and outside the PFAs. Did you have I'm sorry to we don't have the bar chart. We don't have that some know that bar chart is not included in the in the report itself only recorded reported in this time of night.

We're looking for pictures. I'm sorry.

Try to include more in the future. And you can see those you can see certificates issued in map 15 on page 42. And this is that trend, so we do. Residential use and occupancy certificates issued countywide over the last 10 years. That does include municipalities. I don't know what year that you were referencing earlier, where that would have fallen into that, but that would be part of those. And again, not so much a downward trend just we had a deep a steep decline in 2023 and it's kind of remained steady around there and then new non-residential u and o's issued over the last 10 years trend So development capacity analysis shows us the what is still out there that is that is buildable in the county that's on pages 44 through 48 includes tables 21 through 25 and not 16 through and 17 has also referred to as the buildable land inventory.

Tiffany I've got a question on that table on page 21. Page 21 yes, ma'am party table 21 page 44. The priority funding area and the designated growth area. It's obviously different. How different is that area when it comes to, because we're showing almost 900 units more in the designated growth area than the priority funding area. And I'm just curious where that area is that's not in the priority funding area.

Often the priority funding area boundaries will coincide with the municipal boundaries, and so the growth area is typically a little bit larger. However, there's also the every one of our rural villages is included in a priority funding area as well. So that's how the numbers end up being a little different.

Okay, thank you.

also if I could just add in there are certain requirements to be a priority funding area one of which is a minimum minimum density of three and a half dwelling units so many of our growth areas have future plan development that's at lower densities than that okay

okay so for our uh buildable land inventory for our existing units inside our priority funding areas we have just over 37 000 outside our priority funding areas we have almost 30 000 for a total of 67 048 total existing units 55 of those dwelling units are inside the priority funding areas for potential lots That's inside the priority funding areas. We have remaining 7,601. And outside the priority funding areas is just over 11,000 for a total of 18,658. 41% of those potential lots are located inside priority funding areas. Those can be seen in map 16 on page 46. We go to non-residential. That is looked at as acres. And so inside priority funding areas for existing developed acreage, there's 4,359 acres and outside priority funding areas currently that is developed. 830 acres outside the priority funding areas for a total of five thousand one hundred eighty nine acres eighty four percent of the existing acreage existing developed acreage is inside the priority funding areas for potential acreage that could still be developed inside the priority funding areas there's about two thousand eight hundred outside the priority funding areas about four hundred sixteen and and that's a total of 3,225 potential acreage for development. 87% of that is inside the priority funding areas. Those non-residential developable acres can be seen in map 17 on page 48. Next is agricultural land preservation on pages 49 through 50. That includes tables 26 and 27 and map 18. Last year, 1,066 acres, including 17 farms, were preserved agricultural land. As of December 31st, a total of 81,649 acres of land were preserved for agricultural use in the county. Last year, 5,747,346 acres of land were used for ag preservation, easement acquisition, and 63.6% of that were county funds. You can see the agricultural land preservation in map 18 on page 50. And here's the trend of the ag pres over the last five years, what that looks like. And again, that is not in the report, it is only in the presentation. And we would just like to offer this one, also not in the report, just in the presentation, of what development has looked like compared to preservation over the last five years. So on the right side of those, it's a little light to see, but that is both approved residential and approved non-residential development on the right bars, and then AgPres on the darker green. so all municipalities have already recertified their information before sending it to the county the county planning commission can certify today or defer till the 16th if you'd like time to look it over think about it and then we will send a final report to the maryland department of planning and also go to the county commissioners and we will have a presentation there as well there is a new i will say there is a new element this year you do not need to approve it they have asked for more information regarding impact fees and where exactly those are coming from and then what exactly we are doing with those so we do have um the comptroller's office is working on giving us that data so that will be included in this too just if you see it later on the finished report why it's not in here yet it will be here

concerning impact fees do we put a moratorium on our school impact fees years ago because we didn't we weren't planning on building any schools have we reinstituted the school impact fees have we we're doing that again or are we not Chris is nodding yes and Daphne's got a question mark on her forehead so I'm trying to remember if if that conversation has come across my Yes, it's all good. Yeah, I I I was reading believe or not the. Master plan thing whatever. I should know what it's called.

Educational facilities master plan.

Yeah, I don't know but I was it was there was a phrase in one of the documents that was reading that said we had a moratorium on it. And I just want to know if the moratorium was we had re instituted or there's is there a moratorium or not.

And that will be included in the final report as well. Could you go back real quick to that last chart?

I realize this is for the planning in a report but we've got the improve residential and you've got non residential and obviously that's everything that obviously is not residential is anybody get a breakdown on say industrial separate I'd like to if there's a way we could somehow get a a chart of that.

When you say industrial, like in that particular, like which zoning district?

No.

Or like actual type?

Well, I'm looking at 21, 22 to 25, and it says Ag Pres approved residential development and then non-residential, which non-residential can be a lot of different things. So my question is, could we get that chart broken down a little further on the non-residential development and break out what is actually industrial solely versus commercial? Yes, I'd like to see that broken out further, because as we all know, we've talked about this for some time. We are, I guess, suffering from lack of a nice way of putting it, a lack of industrial, which, of course, affects the tax base versus the So it would be nice to see from 21 to 25, how has that played out? If we could get a copy of that.

I'm just checking something. I think that we might, because we don't track them. Do we track them?

I don't think so.

We do have type for those. Well, for instance, we have type being like solar panels, and then we have a new addition We can see how we might be able to categorize those.

OK. If we could. I'm not expecting it right away. But I'd like to take a look at that. Because I think that would be very valuable to everybody sitting up here, as well as the Board of Commissioners. Because we've looked at this from the economic standpoint with an economic report the other year about this. And I think this really doesn't tell us enough. What is the snapshot?

Do you want that to include municipalities or not? This does.

I would say if we could break it down both municipalities and the county so we can look at it separately just to see how it looks overall.

Economic development already have that information not not in this format.

will then did to your point Tom you know in this somewhere again apologize I have to find my notes there is a there was a goal that we had in our master plan that I think twelve percent of our tax revenue comes from a commercial industrial developments, and we wanted to move that to where 16% or 17% of our revenue. There's a goal, a stated goal in our master plan. I'm aware of that, but I think... But to your point, we're not going to get the goal if we don't know what's available. No, that's a great point.

And memory serves, to your point, I think the industrial, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's in single digits what memory... 3%.

I think it is about 3% from yes, but I mean I think it was like like commercial industrial was 12% and then office whatever and then and then everything else was coming from residential and in that.

But I'll find which to me, you know not to go off on a long journey here, but we're talking about aging in place we're talking about retirement home communities return by all these things as we all know to balancing act of the entire community. But as we're aging in place. who's picking up the other end of it. And industrial is going to be a significant piece of that. But we've also got to have the availability of housing for younger generations and other individuals to come in here.

So would you like to certify it tonight? Or did you want us to come back on the 16th?

Yeah, I'm satisfied with it.

Make a motion we certify tonight.

The official certification of the. I guess the act planning annual report 2025 right.

Yes what you said.

I second what Mike said.

You got a second? Let's do a roll call.

Mike can't say it.

Mr. Hahn? Ms. Kirkner?

Yes.

Mr. Lester?

Yes.

Mr. Robertson? Yes. Mr. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Swenson?

Yes.

Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chamberlain, let the record reflect. We have five yays and one abstain.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question? This goes back to something. Could you give me a five-minute tutorial, Liz or Daphne, on what was referred to as the grandfather type clause that dealt with the retirement villages and the text amendments and all that? So what came down from the state that's deemed a grandfather-type clause? Is that individual things? Is it specifics? What did that legislation say? I'd like to know what they're driving at here.

Specifically, like, I'm sorry, what context are we?

Well, St. John's brought up. There's a, what's that, the October 1st deadline?

So that is probably more related to the ADU requirements that we're looking at with, are we talking about investing? Is that what you're?

Yeah, totally, you should have stayed up here.

Yes, so.

You know where I'm coming from? So there, yeah.

Well, the attorney spoke on this, and he talked about the grandfather fight clause that came down from a state law was passed. regarding grandfather type.

No, that's not correct. So let me try to piece all these different things together because we've been talking about a lot of things.

I think it's just important we know what he's referring to.

Right. So the state law that was passed is the law that... that sets a new vesting threshold. So currently projects aren't vested until they have a shovel in the ground, which means we can change code any time before that and they have to follow the new code.

Because there's no shovel in the ground.

Right. As of October 1st, that changes and it becomes, they become vested when they have submitted a plan that's been deemed substantially complete. So how that fits in then with their request to exempt their project, is that if any of these changes to code get adopted before October 1st, they would like that action to include an exemption for specific projects that are already in process.

So so if if we if we change the code and there are 10 changes, Can we grandfather five and keep, you see where I'm coming from?

I'll jump in legally on that. You should not because that would be- Well, that's why I want to know. That would be a legal problem because now you are very specifically calling out certain projects, which means that you are playing favorites to some projects but not others, which is frankly a lawsuit waiting to happen because why are you biased against some and why do some not get that approval?

That's why I wanted to bring it up because I'm- I don't wanna walk into a trap here.

Yeah, I don't think you, you wouldn't exempt the specific project, but you might say projects that have reached such and such milestone. Correct.

You should never name a project specifically in an exemption. All right.

So, or a project, any one project we don't wanna single out, but any specific thing in any project, we can't single that out.

so you could look at it and say say you have three projects and two of those projects have one qualifying element and you say we want to grandfather projects that have that qualifying element it applies to two of those projects but not one that's okay or even if it only applies to one and not the other two that's okay What we don't want to do is very specifically name, or make it so narrow that you're like, okay, they're all but in name, naming this one project.

I didn't think so, but I, okay.

Yeah, but couldn't a good attorney argue that and say you are doing that?

Well, and that's the joy of the law is that any attorney could argue anything they want. We can't be so lawsuit averse or terrified of them that we do nothing, but we also need to make sure that we are making equitable choices.

I'm not worried about that. I'm more concerned about the rules of the game here.

What what we can do specifically and what we can't do specifically let the lawyers were well to well, I mean I and into the to this and I do think it is something for lawyers to worry about because I do think the prior talked over one. We should define. It means to to be not not not only is we're going to have met that that state. I apologize, again, I did a lot of reading this week. As I read that law, I think the way I read it is it leaves it up to the jurisdictions to define what threshold constitutes a project having met their jurisdictional requirements to be said, it's now October 1, this has to get approved within 90 days because we've met this threshold. so i would like us to control that as a county i would like for us to say in order for you to have met that threshold you have to be in compliance with the whatever it's what is it the ap fo what do we call that thing so so if i could interrupt and just clarify because i um this is a confusing point and and i and i don't think you have to be concerned about that

What the state has said is that when someone submits an application, so that's the first time that you send in a set of plans to a jurisdiction such as the county, right? That very first time, the county has to determine if it's a complete application. What the state's trying to protect us from is someone scribbling on the back of a napkin and saying, I'm making application. I want to set the vesting time starting today. So instead, what they're saying is, we, the jurisdiction, can determine if an application, just the application, is complete. it doesn't have anything to do with the approval or the approval process having a certain amount of time. So it's within 30 days we have to say, yep, those sets of plans that you're looking at, they're complete, you're vested, we are now going to start your development review process, which could take a year or whichever, and you don't have to meet any sort of criteria there.

But Chris, I want to make sure that we as a county have defined what a complete application is. and I would like to make sure that that includes complying with, that their development is in compliance with the APFO, with their county master plan. Elizabeth, you decide, right? I mean, this is me playing attorney and I am not licensed. But we need, as I read it, we control what a complete application is. We do. Is that right? Yes. So let's flip and define it prior to October 1 and let's put it in our code because, and let's make sure our county commissioners agree, Because that is going to guide when the clock starts, I think. Is that right, Chris?

Yes, yes. However, trying to quantify that. So talking APFOs, we don't look at APFOs until well into a project. So evaluating APFOs can't be part of determining if a project is complete or an application is complete.

Why not?

Because we don't have enough time. You only have 30 days to make that determination.

No, no, no. But I'm saying, for instance, our friends who are here, You know, the last time we saw that plan, we were gonna get an improved intersection on 32. Now we're being told that's gonna be a fee in lieu of. What's the flippin' fee? I mean, again, they're saying it's the same plan. It's not the same flippin' plan. It's changed. And it changes, every time we see it, it changes incrementally. Again, I don't mean to talk about a specific thing, but what I want to make sure, and this is where you as staff, we have to rely on you to tell us this is the right way to look at it. And the reason I'm kind of getting intense about it is, my sense is that we're responsible for a lot of this stuff. And for instance, the billboard thing. The billboard thing, I think I literally said, if we can go back and play it back, I think I said, I'm sorry, I don't see anything wrong with this. I think consolidating science is a good thing. I literally sat up here and said it. But I didn't know that flippin' Finksburg said, we don't want science. And that there was a historical context that I was totally missing. And so that egg is on me. Because I... got in line based on what we were being told by county staff so when it comes to defining we have control as a county as to what makes a complete application

So on property, would you consider that a completed application?

So again, the completed application is looking at what are you submitting, and you're not submitting something on the back of a napkin. You're submitting a set of engineered drawings that an engineer or surveyor has put together that our staff is capable of reviewing.

And I don't think Chris would answer that question. As to whether or not it's a completed application. I don't think you should answer.

Legally, I don't think you should answer. I think, having been in development for lots of years, we would send a plan in and it would quickly come back, nope, you don't have this, this, and this. So there are guidelines that have been in place, probably been updated since we did all that. But I think we need to rely on the county to get those guidelines.

Our development review staff have minimum things that need to be submitted. Looking at aspects of that design, looking at APFO, looking at things like that are impossible. to do in 30 days. So we can't use that as part of a determination of complete application. So if you're submitting a set of plans that have the basics of you have this information, that information on a set of plans, in our minds, if we accept that into the development review process, that is a complete application. Right, and we start the development review process. Anything above and beyond that takes more time than 30 days and it'll be impossible. We have, when a project is submitted immediately, we schedule it for the technical review committee meeting of the next month. It is getting through a review and getting comments. Our staff can't get all the comments for that first TRC meeting in some cases. It's not possible to do that level of review, to do a review for the determination of a complete application.

Chris, I think you and I are talking about, we're talking about the same thing. But I gotta tell you, I think we're talking about process in a different way. Because I'm not saying that you have to do it, do the review in 30 days. I'm saying that they, as the submitter, I want to define what they have to submit to you so that it is a complete submittal. Let's define what that is. Because again, it's my understanding that we control that. And that's what I'm going back to. We absolutely do. But again, it doesn't say that you have to complete the review in 30 days. It says this is what has to be part of your submission.

And development review has that process for determining if something is complete.

You're in control. So tell us.

Sure, we'll have development review.

It's reasonable, but also from a planning and zoning standpoint, I think we want to know. Some history. Well, I want to know context. I want to know outcome, right? What, if... There's an if-then statement within that code, that piece of the code. If this happens...

Listen. We manage policy. Staff manages implementing that policy and making sure it meets the letter of the law.

see is the planning and zoning commission or old and I was going to help and I was going to I want that I don't want to be flexibility of the you know they they they they had a conversation with the commissioner it's okay you know no no no it needs to be in writing it needs to be done this way and if we We want to change it, we change it.

If I may, we will have Development Review come in and present to you what their thresholds are for acceptance of a project. And if you want to make recommendations on changing those, I agree with Liz. I don't think they should be in code because they are not absent. And we were required by state law to tell you exactly why it's not a complete plan so that you can affect that change.

But it can't be arbitrary.

No.

And the onus is on. If it can't be arbitrary, I don't know why we wouldn't write it down. The onus, Pete, we want to do.

So the commissioners.

from from Maryland this is from an abolition I get the sense that you know there's gonna be a rush to the candy store because everybody wants to be in October 1 When I read it.

Other than vesting. Love that. And that if you're a residential development, after October 1st, you submit something, you're vested with those codes. So the whole idea of these deferrals and so on, residential development, will be moved. We will not be able to use them in the future. Because the day that you submit an application and we say, we're entering it into the development review process, you are now vested as of that date. The way it's really important for the projects that are currently deferred All five of those residential development projects that are currently deferred, they have complete applications because we're processing them, right? So they're considered, we accepted them and we're processing them, so they had a complete application. So on October 1st, that's why if we're going to put those codes in place, they have to be in place October 1st.

I love the map.

Public record.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you. Thank you.

So you really now have 45. That means you have 45 seconds because this one is on you guys.

Yeah, so the ADU's text amendments are running sort of at the same time as the ones that we've been talking about here tonight for different reasons. ADU legislation has to be adopted by October 1st because the legislation that was passed related to them said that's when we have to have something on our books. So we've been working through this. I think we've been doing a really good job of trying to address all of your questions and comments and so Tiffany's gonna run through what we've the changes that we've come up with based on the discussions from prior meetings and hopefully get some direction on on finalizing the proposed text amendment

Here we go. HB 1466, accessory dwelling unit text amendment, also known as ADUs. For this particular presentation, we'll go over the updates since the last time that we were here before you with this. We'll go over the 75%, the size of the primary dwelling unit that is part of the mandatory definition like what that might look like here in the county so we have some options adequate public facilities ordinance and concurrency management we'll need to discuss that and how you would like to address that but we have some some suggestions for that and then next steps will be after that So for updates, there were some questions still remaining on retirement villages. Right now, as far as we can tell, retirement villages would be a site plan and therefore would not be What's the word I'm looking for? Would not be eligible for an ADU because there's not a primary dwelling unit. There's not its own lot. There's not a separate parcel. So it wouldn't really apply to this definition of accessory dwelling units. However, if there is a retirement village where it came through and it was a single family dwelling on its own lot or parcel, it would be. But we have yet to identify that in the county so far. Not that it can't exist, but from what we were looking into, that would not apply.

So condominiums and those kinds of things it doesn't apply to those types of develop got it right thank you.

So in a 55 and over you know we talked earlier and one of the recommendations is adding language in the deed so would that affect if it's a single family home in a retirement village that night which that would still be permissible to have an 80 you.

Because it is a reciprocal negative deed of easement, it would still, you could have an ADU on the property, but it would still be subject to that restrictive language. Okay. Thank you.

Another question was about utilities and infrastructure. Right now, we will let you know that emergency services, they are the ones that give new dwellings an address, and they have, as of this year, might have been last year, started giving every ADU that's come through an address, and they do plan on continuing that for emergency services reasons. that the seconds count. So every ADU, whether it's internal, it's attached, it's detached, has its own address. And so with that, utilities and infrastructure are fluid, and we'll get into that a little bit more. We do recommend just removing it after talking to staff regarding that. So the updates, if we're going through the code itself for the things that we have given you, these were the headings, the topics, the subheadings. So the ones that we decided to keep are the ones that you agreed upon last time, and the ones that we got rid of were actually things that, well, they're already referenced in our code, so we wouldn't need to reference them here, such as all the bulk requirements. So that entire section was gone. The permitting and approval process was unnecessary and non-conforming lots and structures, non-conforming structures are already addressed in the code elsewhere. The definitions, no need to repeat them here because they're already elsewhere. and they will be in every zoning district, so remove that. So updates, last time we came to you, we did not have a purpose and intent statement. This one is now here as an option and it does, we find it to be consistent with the master plan as well. It says the purpose and intent of this section is to allow for the creation of an accessory dwelling unit as a permitted use on any lot with an existing single family detached dwelling in keeping with the existing and planned character of the community in order to provide that word has since been added a range of housing choices to meet the needs of the citizens of Carroll County.

Any questions or concerns?

There are some semi-detached houses on residential lots throughout the county that how would, not the separate accessory dwelling, but one that's attached to them, how would that pan out? So it's two, and they're typically, some of them are deeded separately.

But they are still somewhat attached. They're semi-detached. They are not eligible under this. We could have that. Because you could do it on the side or the back. It has to be a detached, single-family detached dwelling unit is the definition of an accessory dwelling unit. It has to be the primary, sorry.

This is how the state has defined it, and that's sort of the bare minimum. If we wanted to say... If we wanted to define an accessory dwelling unit as potentially also being part of a semi-detached, I think we could be more permissive. We just can't be more restrictive.

I don't think we wanna be more, Do we want to be more permissive? I'm asking.

Well, I can think of a couple instances. And typically, when they're semi-detached, they end up having, and they're few and far between, believe me, because they end up having to have become a condo because of the way they're and developed. But I can see at least one instance where, because somebody's already reached out. But I'm okay either way.

Any other thoughts on the purpose and intent? Any recommended changes to that?

No?

All right, we'll go on to the applicability applicability, which is new to two families.

Yeah, it's it's what is that? Detached to two different owners can. Yeah. So the assessor going here, if you have two unit, the assessor going in the main dwelling Two separate owners can own. No.

It's got to be the owner. And then it could be a rental.

It could be whatever then.

Yeah. So what is called a property that I have a house and I want to put an addition on for my kids, which I do not want to do. But if I did.

That's a part of the public record now. I was just going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it. Your kids are going to see this.

They don't want me to do it for them either. But what would that be described as just then?

That would be an attached accessory dwelling unit. An accessory dwelling unit, yes. Or in addition. It depends on the inside of the, is it a full dwelling unit in its own, and we have a definition for dwelling unit, and that would have to, it has, um particular standards living standards so for um i think it's eating sleeping sanitation yeah usually stoves are a big trigger point yeah for what becomes adus versus not when we're looking at zoning and permitting cases things like that yes so if you're putting in the addition and it had all of those things that qualifies as a dwelling unit then it would be an accessory dwelling unit okay yeah so a semi-detached could have been attached

So long as they had the acreage and the sewer all worked.

It would still not follow the definition because the definition is limiting it to a single family detached dwelling.

The primary dwelling unit. Yes.

Well, there's a primary dwelling unit on a semi-detached.

Yeah, you would still have the primary. It's the single family detached that's the difference. Because that is one typology, whereas the duplex or semi-detached is a different typology. And so currently the way this is written, it's you're only eligible for an ADU if you have the single family detached. If you had a semi-detached, you would not be eligible. And again, if you guys wanna make the recommendation that that be allowable, then we can change the definition and the purpose and that sort of thing.

I mean, I don't know how I mean this gets absurd to a point because couldn't you put a semi detached on a semi detached on a semi detached on a semi detached. I mean, yeah, I don't mean to be absurd.

Yeah, but if I had so you are limited to 180 you per lot.

There you go. That's flipping great. OK, right. Yeah. Yeah, it was cap. I love the cap.

So why don't we keep moving through this if we want to revisit the question of the semi-detached, we can do that.

Okay.

Later.

So the applicability, the following regulations and applicable regulations contained in other articles shall apply to accessory dwelling units in all zoning districts. So these are across all zoning districts. And. Wait. Yes, yes.

This is across all zoning districts.

Correct. And these did come before you last meeting, and it was broken into separate ones. But most of those, when we pulled from, and I do want to reiterate that a lot of what we have in this particular section is pulled from existing code. So when we pulled it all from the different zoning districts last time for an accessory dwelling unit, a lot of them overlapped and they were the exact same thing so it was decided by the planning commission last time to uh yeah just they all looked good as general requirements so they're all there for general requirements we have taken some of the restrictions that were in conservation and ag and we'll go over those shortly and did apply those across the board but otherwise i think it's pretty much Like only one per, I'll go over those two again when we get there.

Thank you.

So the general provisions last time they were decided on things like owner occupancy requirement that was across the board last time the property owner must occupy either the principal dwelling unit or the accessory dwelling unit on the property. The limit of number of accessory dwelling units was again across the board in all districts. So this one is here for only one accessory dwelling unit attached or detached shall be permitted on a lot That's just a second. Compliance with building and health regulations. Again, across the board, an accessory dwelling unit must meet all applicable building construction and Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Maryland Department of Environment regulations. Direct exterior access requirement and accessory dwelling unit must have direct access from the outside. That is for egress and ingress or egress rather parking requirements. No additional parking spaces are required for an accessory dwelling unit. Again, this is part of the of HB 1466 is requirements that if we wanted to require additional parking spaces, we would need to have a parking study. uh number six accessory dwelling units are accessory dwelling units subject to homeowner association regulations this is something that we introduced last time to address concerns regarding home what happens with homeowners associations so um this is what we brought for you last time approval of an accessory dwelling unit under this ordinance does not eliminate or modify any applicable private covenant deed restriction or homeowner association requirement except as otherwise provided under Maryland law, issuance of a zoning permit or building permit for any accessory dwelling unit does not constitute verification of compliance with any private covenant or homeowner association restriction.

Back up to the parking yes, so I have a 4,000 square foot house. And I'm allowed to put the 80 you have 75% that size of 3,000 square foot house and I'm not going to have any additional parking.

It would not be required unless a parking study was done and shows that there is a need for it. And that is, again, that's part of the HP 1466s.

So are there limits on how many vehicles you're allowed in your driveway?

That's a zoning question? That is a zoning code section. And we do regulate licensed versus unlicensed vehicles that are parked on the property, how many additional are allowed. Those kinds of things are regulated. We do not regulate licensed vehicles on properties because then you start running into the issue of how many people do you have dwelling in a unit.

So...

I don't like that.

Well, I can see cars cars parked on the lawns all over agree.

Well, and yeah, yeah.

And well, whatever.

Yeah. I don't think we close all these holes. that we're seeing come down the line on it but you're doing a good job of trying you got a hard task here

When we were first brought this, Ralph, you had some great questions on this. I mean questions that I frankly had not thought of. Is there a way for us to, review this document. And I would love for you to crawl in your hole and and shoot us all a memo that says these were the questions that the these were the issues because you're bringing a great things that I didn't read. Yes, could you could you could you could you share with the rest of us so that we could read this and say you know we think because because you gave it some really good thought and I frankly I'm proud. This is here.

Well, there's just some things here. And you've addressed this on down the line here about concurrency management. And I'm sitting here thinking, if I would have a house that's 4,000 square feet, I'd build a house for myself for 3,000 on the same lot. Now I move my anybody in that house with six kids. That doesn't constitute any concurrency management problem. And how do we know that? We don't even know that. It's like selling a house out of the blue and six or eight kids come in on a family. There's no concurrency management there. So this is new instruction.

That goes back to some laws as well that we are not allowed to legally mandate who is considered family, how many people can dwell. I mean, we can do it from a standpoint of occupancy and health and safety codes, but we are not allowed to begin defining what is considered familial units or things like that and regulating how many.

The only thing that we can hope for here, once we wind our way through this jungle of whatever this is, legislation, I guess all we can hope for is that not too many of them are going to be built. I guess maybe that's the bottom line.

I'm not sure about that. I'm not so sure either. Judging by the interest. I'm not either.

And I've got to ask the question, how does College Park enforce their regulation that no more than four unrelated people can live in a home? How do they enforce that?

Do they have that guideline?

They do. Watermont County does. Because they don't want college kids renting houses in neighborhoods and having kids parking in the lawn at Penn State.

So there's a difference when you're talking about rental units versus ownership.

Okay.

But if we are renting a remember we're talking single family dwellings and then accessory dwelling units are additionally single family. So we can't look at a single family home and say you can't have 4 unrelated people living in the single family home now you're starting I mean in theory you can start talking about their doesn't mean designating it as a rental but you start drawing some really interesting lines there that you've got to watch yeah.

So I still don't get the parking. So I build an accessory dwelling on my house here. And back there, I've got a house. So I can put a garage on my house back there, correct? But if I don't have more parking spaces, how am I going to get back to the garage?

You got to have the right way is that you can add more parking spaces, but the county won't be requiring you to add spaces.

OK. So why wouldn't we yet what would we have a requirement that for every 1500 square feet there will be one additional space.

Because the state law says we can't, unless we do a parking study that says. That's a good reason. Yeah, that's a good reason, but is it reasonable?

Tell your governor.

That is unless we wanted to do a parking study that says that there is a need for it.

How do you initiate the parking study?

It just says a parking study, so that would be open to that.

So if I live next door, I can initiate a parking study?

If you live next door and you wanted to do a parking study, I suppose that we could. That's your own money to spend.

Yeah, you'd have to spend your money to do it. You can't do it.

I still want to tell you what I really think of this.

We have 15 minutes. Can we go so far as to say that it's not a parking space, but we will require the driveway to be extended by 200 square feet?

Well it there is a. You can't create an undue burden on the properties. So that would make it created in some ways that have if we say they must park on the lawn and I will say that that is. That is an HB 1430 you 60 it was maybe it's not to say under it might not say I'm trying to look it up right now, I mean that looks but 200 square feet of the asphalt would be on would be an undue hard hardship. It would make it impossible for some residents, some homeowners to be able to, or property owners, to be able to build one at all, so yes. That's basically the line. As long as it's not doing that, if it's not preventing people from being able to do it on their lot, parcel, or tract, then in that case, it's fair game, but if it prevents people from doing that, then it's,

But that's kind of the cost of doing business. If I'm going to put a 3,000 square foot other house, then I would think if I'm told that I have to have parking or driveway space x square foot, then I understand that that's part of the game, I would think.

So a parking space is eight, a minimum parking space is eight by 10. So if we said for every 1,500 square feet of accessory dwelling unit, the driveway would be extended by 90 square feet.

So you can't violate the intent of the law, though, either.

I do want to clarify here because I think something has been sort of misstated. So we can adopt additional off street parking requirements. that consider the cost to construct off street parking spaces, whether sufficient curb area exists along the front line of the property, the increase in impervious surface due to the creation of new off street parking, variability to the size of the lot, parcel or tract. However, however, we can't require, require that until the legislative body completes a parking study to determine that the applicable needs and restrictions in the jurisdiction. So the county would have to do a parking study to validate the requirement for additional off street parking required for 80 years.

And so we're just like I'm just in that we're batting roof impervious impervious. Surfaces where does the storm water go.

So that would be all part of the building permit correct.

So yeah, they have to do has no I'm saying stormwater I don't know if they're just changed it to I'm changing it to what what happens Chris to stormwater if a building of 3,000 square foot. Access we're drilling unit do I have to do stormwater detention on that single lot now to take care of that.

If you disturb more than 5,000 square feet, you have to address more water.

Okay, so I don't, for the 3,000 square foot example.

Wow. Is that cumulative though? It's cumulative.

It's cumulative on the property.

Got it. So if the driveway counts, yeah, yeah.

Yes, so if there's additional driveway, kernelage area, anything that's a disturbance, not square footage of the addition.

Okay.

So if you have a driveway going, you're probably going to have the ability to have three or four cars on it. So it's kind of a mute point, I think, to add more on there.

I need to clarify something there, too, with Chris. That's not including the initial dwelling?

So the initial... So when you do the initial, when you build the initial primary dwelling, the odds are you're probably disturbing more than 5,000 square feet. So you're addressing stormwater management for that initial dwelling.

At that time.

If you then put on an addition and your addition, your total disturbance is less than 5,000 square feet, you don't have to address stormwater. Got it. But if you're building an accessory dwelling and that includes a driveway to it and you're disturbing because you're clearing and so on and so forth, if you disturb more than 5,000 square feet, now you have to address the stormwater management for that additional disturbance.

And then I apologize, because I do believe I brought you the different information last time, that it was a cumulative total is what I understood.

And it is cumulative. So for example, you build your principal dwelling, driveway, house, and so on. It's more than 5,000. You address stormwater. You're golden, right? You then build an addition that's 4,500 square feet, right? You don't have to address stormwater. You then put on another addition that's another 500 square feet. Your cumulative, since your original approval, has over, it's now over 5,000. You now have to address stormwater for everything that you have done since your original construction and original approval.

So it is cumulative. Yes. So if you put the accessory dwelling on and you want to put a room on your old house, now you've over the the cumulative total then well it depends if you do more than four or five thousand yeah you've already disturbed three thousand four thousand three thousand and you put another thousand you see what i mean yeah so in theory if you do an addition and and you skirt right in under it and you do four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine square feet

You're under 5,000, don't have to address stormwater. You put a 10 square foot fire pit area.

Swimming pool?

Yes. Then you have now exceeded your cumulative 5,000, and now you have to address stormwater for everything.

OK. For my daughter's wedding, I built a 15 by 20 square foot stage, 300 square foot. So I've got 4,700 square foot more than I could do without having to come to you. Yes. Love that.

And we will make note. So we'll keep track of it for you. It's a public record.

Janice and I are just burying ourselves.

I am out. OK. Now, I might go to their house, but.

Entertainment's excellent. All right. Go on. I'm sorry.

That's OK. So parking requirements will stay as is then at this point?

Yes. Janice? Sure.

utilities and infrastructure after speaking with the group that we have pulled together of various staff and divisions we recommend just removing that it's kind of lot specific if you need new utilities to the adequate i mean to the accessory dwelling unit or you need them to the primary dwelling unit separate or together that would all depend on the property how easy is it to get to them and that includes for water sewer well septic and then all the other utilities as well so and health department department would determine stuff too and they were in on those discussions as well Next, oh, sorry, I skipped back and then did I? I did, I skipped over that earlier. So actually we are on to, because we went over the Homeowners Association, the lot size and distance requirement, number seven. This was originally in only ag and conservation and we moved it over, went over it during the last meeting. Detached accessory dwelling units shall not be located more than 50 feet from the principal dwelling and shall not be located closer to an existing principal dwelling on an adjacent lot than it is to the primary dwelling on the subject property. Again, essentially this means that it wouldn't be closer to your neighbor's house than it is to your own house. to keep it there and then within 50 feet so it's not five acres away on the property. So it's more subordinate to the existing dwelling unit. Any questions or concerns on that one?

Nope, nothing.

Number eight, an accessory dwelling unit shall remain subordinate and accessory to the primary dwelling unit and shall not constitute a separate lot or parcel. Approval of an accessory dwelling unit shall not create additional subdivision, density, or development rights. An accessory dwelling unit may not be subdivided, sold, or otherwise conveyed separately. from the primary dwelling unit unless a property is lawfully subdivided in compliance with all applicable zoning and subdivision regulations this is to this was brought before you last time it is new it was not previously in the code and this is to address any concerns that that would be subdivided off yep right without subdivision rights right got it okay Now we are going to get into the size of the dwelling unit. Again, the definition does say that it can be up to 75% of the primary dwelling unit. How you define that is not defined in the definition itself, so we've taken a stab at what 75% of the primary dwelling unit might look like.

Tiffany, can I just, I'm sorry. No, that's fine. 75%, does that come from the state?

That does. It's part of the definition.

That's a big number.

Yes, it is.

So we've taken it from two directions here. And we'll come back to a little bit more clarification on this one. I'm just going to read through it the first time. The gross floor area of a detached accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 75% of the above grade livable floor space of the primary dwelling unit. And the square footage of the footprint of the detached accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 75% of the square footage of the footprint of the primary dwelling unit. And then just one more, because it's also about the size. An accessory dwelling unit must comply with the bulk requirement standards of an accessory structure in the underlying zone. What that might look like when you talk about the 4,000 foot primary with a 3000 square foot accessory dwelling unit, we're trying to make the square footage of the footprint smaller. So that's gonna be smaller. And you're gonna have the smaller square footage at 3000 potential. But then when you go into the maximum height for an accessory dwelling unit in any of these districts, it tends to be lower than the house itself. So it would, smaller than and we're just trying to address it from all of those angles for instance I believe in residential it's 20 20 feet for the maximum and so that would be lots more like a two-story house it wouldn't be massive and then it couldn't like go wider because it has to be shorter because it has to be 75% of the footprint of the main house

that was made to look like a colonial homes. Let's just say that. Williamsburg homes. Somebody comes in, builds a gingerbread house. Who says you can't do that? what are is it in an old age away the age away would still be able to have got a little bit of a ride that any foolishness you couldn't they could have read that yes yeah if they have the guidelines they would have to have a guy on them they get some I could come in put a flat roof home or you know just a box there with 3,000 could be a container but could be a container You can't have a container for longer than a year where how is that yeah where those 4 walls and a flat roof yeah beside a beautiful. I mean I that's what I'm saying so if you don't have an HLA there it's possible that they change could happen.

Yes, so I I want to because I was listening to Ralph and I heard your funds cannot put a container. The home in my side yard. Is there anything in the code that prevents somebody from putting a container? You're just saying, I'm going to put a granny pod back there that's about from flipping musk. Is there anything that prevents me from doing that?

You're talking building codes, then, and whether it's defined as a residence and has those components and makes it a residence. And it would be subject to building codes. But if you met all the building codes, then please. You can do whatever. It could be a Quonset hut.

Yeah, but if you're not talking trailer, you're talking like a sea container.

Yes, setting it on a concrete pad with utility hookups and everything else, just plop it down. There's nothing that prevents me from doing that.

But you would still have to meet all building codes.

I have to meet all health codes and yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think your definition of a container is different than what I consider. A container, they talk about how you see it in an industrial place where they stored stuff in it. Yeah, I think, I thought I had seen in zoning that, I know because I talked about one somewhere, that after a year, I mean, if they are storing stuff while it's being built or for renovation, they have up to a year to keep it there. Yes. Yeah.

No. But I'm talking about bringing it can just to the trail about bringing in the container said that down that it out the draw wall we have no doors and and insulation and everything else and call it a home. It's going to shoot you it's a thing. Yes, it is that people are playing you so we can do this. We have the technology all right to move on to our good now that's just one.

So also, go here. What am I doing? Owner occupancy, and now, and that one, and the updates. Where did we go?

Oh, did I just zoom in? Just zoomed in.

Oh, I could have shown you in bigger print. So that's all that that is, is just showing you in bigger print and the changes that were made. Didn't realize I had done that. And so for, just wanted to explain, above grade living area, when we were talking about that being part of that 75% is for the above grade living area. that is defined in the state's department of assessment and taxation. And so there's a number that they keep records of and we can easily access that way as well. And so you see there, this is something that's just on their website. and it says above grade living areas right there, 922 square feet, and generally for resident, they define it this way, generally for residential property, the total living area of the dwelling or dwellings is the area which is above ground level. Finished areas in the attic or basement are not included in the living area calculations. Any above grade area of the dwelling which has been adjusted for an unfinished portion will be deducted from the living area calculation. What do you think about using that and 75% of that for the total square footage?

Chris, are new homes in Carroll County required to have basements? They can be on slab.

I don't think there's a requirement for them. OK. All right.

I didn't think so, but I'm not sure what anything's required.

Yeah, the retirement homes, the communities that I did, they were on slabs.

Yeah. Yeah. OK.

Well, Nell's Acres has basements, though, right?

Yeah. They do, yes.

Because they've got ladders coming up.

Well, yes, because then that considers livable area because you're 80 and you climb up a ladder. I'm sorry.

It's late.

To answer your question, this looks fine.

It looks OK. Yeah, back to the question.

I like that. That'll limit the size of the .

The actual square footage, yes. Yes, of the space, the livable space. And then again, the 75% of the footprint, that can come right off of a site plan. It's on there. So it would be 75% of that, no bigger than that. and then 75% of the square footage according to SDAT. Any questions or concerns on that one? something to consider in these two in this particular these three and nine ten and eleven it does refer to a detached accessory dwelling unit and what you can see here is there's the detached up in the left-hand corner and then there's the attached just right of that and below that is an above garage that's probably a detached possibly or it might be an attached and this one's attached in the bottom right hand corner however there is also what might be in some jurisdictions call them internal or what were you saying earlier Daphne you used another name it was an internal Interior? Interior, internal. And considering, because it could be the basement, it could be the attic, that might be 100% of the floor plan. floor footprint of the primary dwelling unit to maybe consider applying the 75% of the square footage of the livable space to all dwelling units, but then the square footage of the footprint potentially only applying that to the attached and the detached. Just trying to get your feeling on what you would like to see for those. We recommend potentially applying the square footage to, across the board, all accessory dwelling units, including a definition for an interior dwelling unit, and then applying the square footage to anything that is an addition, it's an attached, or if it's also a detached.

So are we saying that I've got a basement, and I build that out, and that becomes an interior dwelling unit, and then I add onto my home, and so I've got two?

No, you wouldn't be able to do that. You're only allowed one.

Only allowed one. Correct. So this is all about square footage and how we calculate it. That's what the question is.

Correct. The state defines an ADU as 75% of the square footage of the primary dwelling unit. We're trying to do the best we can within that to get some options.

And we're talking about using any of those as long as it doesn't increase more than 75%.

Of the square footage, of the livable space, correct. But then using only the footprint, 75% of the footprint of the primary dwelling unit to just the attached and the detached, but allowing an interior that might be the basement, which would be 100% if it's the basement, that's the same footprint. An accessory dwelling unit that is the attic would essentially be 100% as well. So we're kind of recommending, and if you look at the top right here and the bottom left here, you can see that they are the same footprint as the house itself. So if we narrowed it down to 75% of the footprint, as we are suggesting with the detached being 75% of the footprint of the primary dwelling unit, that would limit the potential for the basement and the attic ones too. It could only be 75% of the footprint. So we're just recommending not applying that to.

But they can still finish it later.

If it's an unfinished basement.

An unfinished basement would be.

Under this example, that would be counted in the 75%.

An interior accessory dwelling unit would not be subject to the 75% rule.

That's what we're suggesting.

Yeah, I hear you.

We would also need to define interior, but we could do that pretty easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just separate it from attached and detached. Yeah, I'm whatever.

I mean, an interior dwelling unit cannot be bigger than what it's in, so it makes sense.

Okay. Any questions or concerns about the, how does that, okay. Anyone? Okay. So we do have some examples here. This is basically what that would look like in practice. The one in the middle is the primary dwelling unit. We have height of, this is saying that if you go with the bulk requirements from the underlying zoning district, the residential one would not be higher than 20 feet. The ag and conservation, according to this, would not be higher than 26 feet. I wonder how I got that calculation. Oh, because of the 75% rule. If the footprint here is 20 by 40, this one would be 15 by 30, and therefore would be 26 feet. But I'm going to show you a better example because I know at this hour this is not doing great. But I don't know, can I zoom in on this? no there you go okay these are ai so please forgive me for any um things that might look a little weird on them but these are examples of 75 the size the footprint and 75 the total square footage of a detached compared to the primary dwelling unit in a couple examples here These would be two stories. Look like this on the footprint.

Not a car in sight.

Why were we worried so about parking? These people don't even have cars. I think there's a driveway on there.

Oh, they did a long gate. Oh, no, that's right. Okay, so that was the text it sounded like we're good with the text and we'll be able to no changes there just some clarifications with the go ahead and create the internal definition and do as suggested with the 75% and everything else. I don't think I had any notes on changes that we would make on those. So we're going to move on to the APFO and concurrency management. We have heard that it would be preferable that if you cannot build a house, you should not be able to build in, well, actually it was that if you, yes, that you should not be able to build an ADU. We looked at that from a couple directions, and building an ADU should not prevent somebody from building a house. According to the APFOs, as you know, development can stop other development once it reaches certain capacities. When we looked at this from a couple angles, if you count excess redwelling units against the APFOs, it can reach its maximum, and then you can't build the house. However, if you don't count the ADUs in the, or what was the other way? Is it late for me too? If you counted them Either way. Oh, if you don't count them, if you just don't count them and the house could still get to where it exceeds the concurrency management, you can't build the house, even if you don't count them. And then if you don't count them against the APFOs, then you can still build them. So we looked at it both ways. If you build them and you count them, it can get in the way of building. But if you don't count them, the houses could still get stopped because they can get stopped at any point. We don't count ADUs right now. So by APFOs, you can hit the school limit now and stop development. So suppose it's for your parents.

Age-restricted ADU.

That's the only, that age-restricted, but if it was a capacity on roads or if it was a capacity on EMS, there's other things that APFOs do. It's fire and EMS and police, schools, roads, and water and sewer. So if it was to max out on any of those, if any of those were inadequate, for right now, it would stop a house. If we don't include ADUs with APFOs, ADUs could still go. If we include ADUs with the APFOs and it maxes out and all of a sudden it maxes out any of those, you could build the ADU and it's all of a sudden school capacities hit because we're counting it and you can't build a house. So the only way that we found that maybe if you look at it where you cannot build the APFO if you can't build the house. So we don't necessarily count the ADU, we don't look at the APFO as far as counting against the, I mean the ADU counting against the APFO. We're not gonna count it against it, so we're not gonna say you can't build the ADU because fire and EMS, no, that's not right. We're just going to, we're suggesting we look at the APFO, the concurrency management, as you do now on a yearly basis, that we track the ADUs and say that if houses can't be built because there is something that is inadequate, then for the next year you can't build an ADU either. Because if you can't build a house. Makes total sense. Okay, is that where I should have started? We're all for that. Move on.

so we're not holding them up but when we do our concurrency management report we'll have the picture of where there are issues if there are any issues and you're held up for housing you will also be held up for edu's suppose it changes like mid-year

And they can't do anything because the report says... How would we know if it's changed?

Do we check concurrency mid-year? So for regular development, we don't check it. So all development is held off.

You're going to have to track ADUs separately or somehow some way to do the calculations for it.

I'll be part of the concurrency management analysis.

Right. There'll be another table next year on our

we may still and then if somebody comes forward and wants to build a develop or you know a site plan and we're at the max on schools they're inadequate because we have so many ADUs that's the way it is well no it wouldn't count so it wouldn't be in this particular instance it would not count because the ADUs will not count against the APFOs so it'll still be completely on the housing

the primary dwelling units that count against the APFOs.

But at the end of the year, when we do the APFO, if because of the ADUs, Janice and all her friends have built ADUs and they've all moved out of their homes and their children have moved in because she loves them so dearly. And now the schools are over capacity and we now know it. That's when they would count. At the end of the year. Not during the year, but at the end of the year.

Because you're counting students, you're not counting houses.

At that point in time, we know fire is inadequate. Safety, police is inadequate. Okay, got it.

Didn't Bill tell us now, though, that there are no inadequacies for schools. It's just some are approaching that. So they'd be able to go ahead and get it.

Do you have any questions?

No? Okay.

Not there.

Now's a good time. So we had the question among ourselves as to how you want to proceed with this. We have a couple of options. You've seen the redlined text here tonight, and we can bring that back to you on the 16th for you to get kind of a final Here's everything put together. And then you can take action on it then. We can also come back to you on the 8th to do the same thing. It's kind of a question as to how many times you wanna see the final version before you take action on it.

I suggest we bring it back to us next time.

rough can we get some notes from you because you thought this out I I really do I'll take an email on because I you you had some really good comments that I had not thought about and so yeah and on that point I just want to say we do a really we try very very hard to make sure we are responding to your questions We go back, we look at notes, we listen to the recordings, we check the minutes. If there's something that you have asked for that we have not given you, please let us know.

Daphne, we may light a lot of this, but I know it took a lot of hard work to try to make some sense out of this. when you kind of see the sentiment up here about it. And it's one more thing where we're just compelled to do something that we're sitting here saying, is this really good for the county or not? Is it good for our vision for the county? It's hard to swallow. So I just hope you take it that way, that all the hard work you put into it is for a purpose, and that purpose is this mandated things that come, legislation comes down from the state, and we're trying to do our best to comply, and we appreciate your hard work on it. It takes a lot of time to do this, so.

Well, I hope that we're reflecting back to you what you're looking for, so.

And none of the sarcasm is directed to staff, believe me. Understood.

No, not at all. No. You all have worked hard, and I think it's just the timing in the evening that's got us giddy, as Richard said.

Okay, so we'll bring you something on the 16th for you to take a look at, and then you can decide how you want to proceed with it from there. If you want some additional changes, we have enough time to bring that back to you in July. if you're comfortable with where it is in at the june 16th meeting you're free to um to make a motion to recommend it to the commissioners that's on the the agenda for the 16th for a 30-minute uh it is yeah would it be a full agenda yeah well we see that before you bring it back so we can kind of compare look it over and hopefully we won't have the whole thing ready by then

What's that? We won't have all of the text amendment.

So what we will probably be able to do is give you the sections that we talked about today. There may be some corollary changes to other parts of the code where we've made references to ADUs in different ways that we'll need to address. prepare those changes as well, but we probably won't have enough time to get all of those pulled together. But we'll do our best. At the very least, we'll give you the substantive stuff that we talked about today to kind of see in its entirety.

And what's the due date to the state?

Our timeline is we're trying to get final action from you all no later than July 21st so that we can send those to the county commissioners where we'll be looking for them. We'll be going to them the first week of August requesting That that they authorized us to go to public hearing with this and any other text amendments that we've been talking about Takes three weeks to to do that advertisement that public hearing would probably be held at the beginning of September Giving us time then to come back to the commissioners for their decision and have everything effective before October 1st

And then this information will get filtered out or sent out to the municipalities. So they're in the loop on all of this as well.

On what they're required to address? Yeah. I'll have to go back and check to see how we've communicated with them about the different legislation. I know that they are aware of it. I don't know how they're addressing it or specifically how we've communicated with them.

For the ADUs, I don't think they would want, I'm not going to say that. Would they be different than what the recommendations are coming from staff?

I mean, they'll have to comply with the same state law, but how they do that in their text is going to be completely different from how we're doing it because their code is totally different.

So they'll have to submit their text to the state by October 1st as well?

They have to pass legislation at the local level to address the state law. How they do that is up to them.

And when we've conveyed questions, when y'all had questions about this ADU mandate, you corresponded with someone at the state, right? About, to clarify the law, y'all had those conversations with someone at the state?

For what question?

whatever question we thought there was some ambiguity in some areas and you and i think the response was we will talk with our counterparts at the state i'm asking did we that's where y'all got this guidance that y'all are giving us now i think that was the 75 percent yeah yeah it was yeah yeah

Yeah, I don't know, Tiffany, have we reached out to specific folks at the state?

No, we've only used the frequently asked questions and the models and guidelines that they have given us for this.

Yeah, the state produced a whole bunch of documents. And there may have been things that we thought we might need to reach out to the state to clarify, but we're able to clarify.

But in the frequently asked questions, they were answered. Your questions were answered, okay.

Mr. Chairman, I have one more thing. And this is addressed to Commissioner Gordon. I wanna commend you on your work on putting $3 million extra into the budget for ag preservation. My question is, the motion has stipulations. Who puts those stipulations in? And just a brief answer would be fine. In other words, I watched the tape, and I was glad to see the commissioners as a whole concurred with that. But the motion had stipulations that it would be used for certain specific farms or certain specific criteria. Can you give us any insight on that real quickly?

Well as you mentioned it was a 5-0 vote so obviously it was great that we're all willing to support that endeavor within the details of that motion and I don't have in front of me this evening but what we were looking at as we all know anytime there's a larger significant parcel of land available that's sort of our concern at this point because you know we have been able to bring a lot of different farmland on to AG preservation but a number of us felt that this was a good time to set some additional funding aside specifically for larger tracts of land within the within the AG zone

So that would include critical farms, contiguous acres. Contiguous, yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Building the, OK. And so that was made clear that that $3 million.

Yes, staff was made aware of that. And I know I had spoken to staff actually a couple of days prior just having a conversation. So that is the desire of this board. I just want to clarify, Tom. No, no, absolutely.

Again, I give you a lot of credit

initiating that and I give the commissioners a lot of credit for stepping up to as you know and I think everybody here tonight knows where we're not to be punny with words but we're in a critical situation with what's still available and as we know there are potentially various properties that may or may not be coming online within the next couple years so we're trying to be as forward-thinking in that given especially with what we're looking at from a state side when it comes to funding for that

OK. Thank you. Absolutely.

Ralph, if I may. So we have been talking because of the direction that the commissioners gave for this additional funding and also because of various conversations that you all have had related to the master plan and the Ag Press program and so on. As you may be aware, the county program will, the period of time for application starts July 1st. That goes till the end of August. We would then take all those applications, rank them, work with the Ag Press Board to validate those, and then we come before the Board of County Commissioners in close to discuss the rankings and get their affirmation, right? The normal process. What we are planning on doing is having internal discussions regarding recommendations on perhaps adjustments, minor adjustments to minimum criteria, other types of criteria that we may want to, you may want to, or the commissioners want to look at when considering the rankings of those farms. So our plan is that we will have a more robust discussion with the board of county commissioners when we bring those farms for their consideration as far as additional thoughts that we've had that are in line with discussions that you and the commissioners have had regarding the program. So we'll have some recommendations and then it's up to the board to decide yay or nay on those additional maybe criteria and how to apply those funds.

I thought that was timely, especially the way the motion.

So in just 30 seconds, I just wanted to lay something additional out. First of all, I want to thank you all for staying late and working through this. Thank you. Unless you haven't been paying attention, we have a lot of work that we need to get through over this summer because of state requirements for October 1st. So we've talked a to use those are due those have to be in place by October 1st Retirement villages and retirement homes those need to be in place by October 1st We also have cluster subdivisions which the commissioners just last week asked us to bring back some very high-level guardrail type discussions with you all to make adjustments to cluster subdivisions and those also have to be in place by October 1st and So most likely in July, we'll be adding that topic for discussion also. So yes, we are going to be soldiering forward and we'll have probably a couple long meetings such as this to get through, but very much appreciate your time and efforts to help us get through all of this and get things in place in the time that we need to.

I love clustering.

Clustering is my favorite topic.

Yeah. Well, it was kind of addressed in our first presentation tonight. So anyway, I failed to ask for public comment. 10 till 10. Public is asleep. Public is sleeping.

We just woke him up.

I left my house at 530 this morning.

Okay. Public comment for item number six and number seven. So is there any public comment? That's just public comment. All right. That's good. All right. All those in favor? All in favor, aye. We're adjourned.

Thank you.