Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Good morning. I'd like to call the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting of June 16th, 2026 to order. Welcome, everyone. We have a very busy, lengthy, heavy agenda today, so we're going to try to keep things moving. And welcome again, everyone. Can I establish a quorum?

Yes, good morning, everyone. Mr. Payne? Here. Mr. Robertson? Here. Mr. Huff? Here. Ms. Kirkner? Mr. Swayson. Mr. Lester. Here. Mr. Smith. Here. Mr. Gordon. Secretary Daley.

Here.

Mr. Chairman, please let the record reflect that five members are present and we do have a quarrel.

Thank you. Please stand for the pledge. okay has everyone had a chance to uh now we're working off a revised uh agenda that was sent out the other day so everybody had a chance to uh take a look and review that yes i don't see any changes unless staff and secretary have any to make i move that we approve the agenda as revised second all in favor aye aye thank you There were also two sets of minutes that were sent around, the minutes of May 6, 2026, and May 19, 2026. Has everybody had a chance to review those? Any changes to those?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from May 6 and May 19, 2026. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Okay. Commission member reports. I approve the preliminary minor subdivision plan M240043 Spring Meadow and I also approve the final site plan with eight conditions for S230016, the Everbrook Academy, which had been before the board before. Any other commission member comments or reports? The administrator reports. Daphne?

Good morning, everyone. Um, I just have a couple of things I wanted to update you on that have been, um, before you previously, uh, wanted to let you know that we did have the public hearing for the planned, uh, amendments to the planned commercial centers. Um, Couple of weeks ago that is set to be decided by the commissioners. this Thursday. Also the deferral on the retirement homes and retirement villages. uh was extended to october 1st and the deferral on self-service storage was extended to i believe it was october 8th so those are still in effect the consultant made a presentation on self-service storage to the commissioners last week and that will probably be made to you all We haven't scheduled that yet, possibly late July, maybe early August. It kind of depends on what else is on your agendas and how quickly we can get that scheduled given everything else. I also wanted to let you know that last Thursday the commissioners approved submission of a grant to continue planning for bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the Finksburg area. This is building off of a feasibility study that was conducted just recently. And they're looking at enhancing pedestrian safety and connections mostly on the old Westminster Pike area right in the core of Finksburg. So hopefully we'll get some grant money for extending that study and really seeing how that connection can those facilities can be constructed at some point in the future. And that is it for me.

Okay, thank you. Any extensions? No extensions. BZA cases?

No BZA. Wow.

What have you been doing?

I'm kidding. Any other administrative business? Okay, thank you. All right, moving on. Mount Airy annexation number 47, Watersville Road. Elite Baseball LLC.

Okay, well, Carlisle is getting her presentation pulled up here. I just want to highlight a couple things. We've had some questions come up in the past about the Planning Commission's role in annexations and the Commissioner's role, really, in annexations. And so just to kind of remind you all, the county, the process of annexation This is a process that the municipality undertakes and the county has the ability to weigh in on that in terms of a letter of comment that's sent from the Board of County Commissioners. We have no authority to approve or disapprove the annexation. itself that's a process that takes place at the municipal level is why they have their their public hearings and go through a process of deliberation to determine if that annexation is something that's beneficial to the town and its residents so your role here is kind of a Um, a preface to the discussion that will happen with the board of County commissioners on Thursday in terms of providing letters, a letter of comment to the town. So if there's anything that as Carlisle is going through her, uh, presentation seems of, um, uh, note to you that you want to convey to the commissioners, we can certainly. receive that feedback from you and convey that to the commissioners. I know you've gotten several letters forwarded to you from folks who have expressed some concerns around things like traffic and lighting and environmental impacts. So those are all things that you could convey to the commissioners as your concerns as well, if you so choose. Okay.

Thank you. Good morning. As Daphne stated, this is an informational briefing on annexation number 47 for the town of Mount Airy, Watersville Road Elite Baseball LLC. The property is located along the north side of Watersville Road in the 13th election district and the fourth commissioner district. The annexation area is located within the town of Mount Airy municipal growth area. As you can see on that map on the left, that yellow and black striped line that goes around the property and then continues south and to the west. Um, it's also contiguous to the corporate limits of Mount Airy, um, just to the south. This is the annexation plat. Um, it's located on tax map 75. It's parcel three. Um, the petitioners are requesting to annex the entirety of parcel three, which is approximately 50.98 acres. The petitioner is comprised of property owner Margaret C. Warfield and contract purchaser Elite Baseball LLC. They're requesting an annexation to construct and operate an athletic complex. The approval and processing of the development project will be done by the town of Mount Airy. Sorry. This is the property street view from Watersville Road, westbound view and the eastbound view. These are both south of the property. As you can see, it's undeveloped and vacant. The access is from Watersville Road. But the proposed annexation area does not include the road. It's just the property itself. The annexation area is currently located in the county's residential 40,000 zoning district. Adjoining properties within the county are zoned residential 40,000 and conservation. Outdoor recreational area and indoor recreational area are conditional uses in the county's residential 40,000 zoning district. The town of Mount Erie has indicated its intent to place the annexation area in the residential one zoning district. Public and private recreational uses are permitted in the town's residential one zoning district. The permitted uses in the town's residential one zoning district are not substantially different from the permitted uses in the county's residential 40,000 zoning district. Therefore, a zoning waiver is not being requested. The annexation area is located within the town's ultimate town boundary with a low density residential land use designation as part of the 2023 Mount Airy Comprehensive Master Plan. The proposed annexation request is consistent with the land use designation. The annexation area is also located within the town's future annexation area. Under the 2023 Carroll County Water and Sewer Master Plan, the property to be annexed is classified within the W3 priority water service area and the S3 priority sewer service area. We reached out to agencies within Carroll County, including Department of Public Works, engineering, utilities, planning, economic development, recreational parks, etc. The only comments that we received back are from comprehensive planning, noting, recommending the town give public notice by posting the property prior to the date of the public hearing and notifying all adjoining property owners. And the Carroll County Department of Emergency Management and Communications notes that the proposed annexation may necessitate a change to the assigned patrol area of the Mount Airy Police Department within the computer-aided dispatch system, specifically regarding the portion of Watersville Road that abuts both the existing town limits as well as the property being annexed into the town limits. Um, given that no other agencies had comments on this annexation, uh, planning staff determined the proposed annexation will not overburden county facilities. And as previously stated as zoning waiver is not required as the permitted uses are not substantially different within the zone that it is currently in and the zone that it wants to be annexed into. and um there's consistency with the 2023 mount airy comprehensive plan as the annexation area is located within the town's municipal growth area and the future annexation area also it's to be noted that in the 2023 mount airy comprehensive master plan there was a need for more recreational facilities noted by the town um The staff has a recommended motion to concur with the findings presented by staff and communicate support for the annexation to the Board of County Commissioners. Though, if you have any comments, I would happily forward them over to the Board of County Commissioners. This will be presented to the Board of County Commissioners on Thursday, June 18th. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions from the board?

i'd like to make a few comments because i remember when mount airy came in what last year with their presentation and they talked about sports facilities like this um some of my concerns are you know we've had a lot of public outcry from the neighbors we've got a lot of letters about it which we're not here to determine that that's what it is but um you know for the town to think about maybe for the commissioners to think about you know i made comments about You know, if you're going to have a facility like this, I've been out by Indianapolis Westfield. They have like, I don't know, 30 ball diamonds and soccer fields all in one area out there. And the traffic wasn't terrible when we were there. know there's always a lot of things going on and it's it's a nice community it's just a really nice thing to have but at the same time you know we're talking about everything it's going to bring to the town you know without hotels and stuff like that in that area i don't you know people are going to have to if they come in for a tournament they're going to either be staying in frederick or you know hunt valley or i mean they could come to westminster but it's kind of going against i think the town needs to think about other things to to make people stay in that area if they would want to do something like this at the end of the day i mean that's my biggest concern and then in the traffic you know 27 you know the traffic in mountain area kind of seems bad but i live close to taylorville and taylorville is terrible um but that's going to make this section of road little bit more congested than it is already definitely gonna have to think about road improvements are gonna be a real challenge but at the end of the day I think it's something that's probably needed in the area but I think to make it beneficial to the town and the people that live there they're gonna have to think about some other things to go along with it my thought yes I guess one of my concerns is a disruption of the neighborhoods and

You know people move into the neighborhoods expecting a lifestyle that they paid for. And whether this is needed or not, I'm not up to determine that. But I'm always concerned about the disruption of the neighborhoods. You know, the Mount Airy, there's expectations, there's R40,000. When you think of R40,000, I think of homes and communities. When you look at are one whatever they're going to make that residential one. What's it say? Residential one. So I'm just really concerned that we're putting these things some times where they shouldn't be put. And, you know, I have nothing against recreations. Everybody likes to recreate. But where they recreate, how it happens and the ramifications of it is always my concern. i think the commissioners need to take a hard look at something like this and the town of mount airy they have big plans over mount airy i think they've done a great job but things like this maybe sometimes do more harm than good it's my thoughts on it i mean i i really agree with matt i think that

Well, yes, it's needed. It's just really putting the cart before the horse because of the whole, you know, goal of this is to have baseball tournaments, things along those lines. I mean, and again, just from the comments we have received from the community, there's no way that you're not going to, you know, in a lot of regards, you know, drastically affect, I mean, where I live, just even on weekends, you know, seeing Cape Horn, and that's... five or six fields seeing how impossible it is to get back onto 30 and you know to do something of this scale again i think that there's other things that should go be priority

Peter, any thoughts?

I just want to confirm, from an annexation standpoint, this is contiguous to other property that is already city of Mount Airy, right? Yes. We're not leapfrogging property to create a, what do you call it, it's not an island, what do we call it? An enclave. An enclave, thank you, an enclave, island. We're not creating an enclave, right? No. Okay.

No.

And then I guess the last thing I would say is coming back to your map. There is a pretty significant been in that road. It's been a while since I've driven down it. Yes, my my concern would be traffic you know flowing you know to the to the state highway there down. down this road. If there's somebody who's turning to get into the complex and you're used to motoring down that road at a pretty good clip, i would like for there to be i don't know what we do because of that bend in the road there but again we've got traffic habits and that kind of thing so i would just encourage the commissioners and uh the developer in the town of mount airy to be cognizant of you know turn lanes you know um the width of the road there um because again that bend that can come up on you pretty quickly people turning in um you know if you have a van of kids turning left to get into that park we don't want to have an accident there

Yeah, I watched the Mount Airy Town Council meeting on this project, the almost three-hour meeting they had. And the community is very much involved in this project. And some, not all, most opposed. I think there's recognition of the positives of youth sports and development of kids and the school grades and all those positives that come along with participation in sports. But I think the other thing is you've got to remember we're not here, as Daphne pointed out in the beginning, we're not here to say yay or nay to this proposed use. I support the annexation. I think it's within bounds of everything that that, you know, is typically allowed with an annexation. So I'm fine with that. I think the rest of the board is as well. It's the usage. And there are some things that came up in that town meeting that were not that have changed since the initial presentation by Elite Sports. And Elite Sports has a pretty good business plan. The two gentlemen that run that operation are, you know, have been involved in sports their whole lives and that's their goal is to spread their knowledge and get kids involved and with a good foundation and athletics and all that kind of stuff. but the the couple of things there's I think the initial conversation with the with the municipality with the city of Mount Airy didn't talk about 1,100 parking spaces now they're talking about 1,100 parking spaces and that's a lot so with that comes the traffic I think the number one objection, there were quite a few objections, but the overall number one that I saw was the traffic. And as Peter said, that road, carrying the volume For 11 now look there's not going to be 1100 cars at once maybe with tournaments and things like that's potential But that's a lot of vehicles to process through that road to get up to 27 and that intersection And that light and the timing and the effect on route 27 and etc, etc, etc. So a traffic study Not done by elite but an independent traffic study I think would be really beneficial to to the project the the only thing that came up recently was the because they want to me I think it was eight to ten baseball fields and then some soccer field soccer lacrosse fields and things like that artificial turf and elite was going to maintain the property and all that kind of stuff that's good stuff But then there's some studies out there about the effect of artificial turf leaching into the soil. And as we know, Mount Airy has some issues with PFSAs. Am I saying that right? That would be something that would have to be considered and looked into, I think, as well, because we certainly don't want to affect their water. We know the value of water in Carroll County, that's for sure. The you know, the other things that come with traffic, the trash and things like that, I think that's manageable. I think the the lighting that's that's an issue in many ball fields and the lighting, particularly the effect of the homes that border up to the to the property. You know, I don't know what time the games would be but if they're you know, it's fall ball You know, it gets dark early in the fall and it's gonna be under the lights Extra inning games extra inning games go late things like that. So the lighting You know impacts the neighborhood and as Ralph said, you know, it's the impact on the neighborhood is can be potentially big so I So, Commissioner Gordon, if you can include those comments, our comments in your letter to Mount Airy, that would be that would be great.

I want to mention one thing just to comment on Mr. Huff's comments, and I would agree with him. You mentioned hotels. and i know we're looking at this area over near mount airy but if we look at carroll county as a whole that is a significant challenge we we face both whether it be a sports complex whether it be people coming in to visit their kids at say mcdaniel college tourism So that that's an I mean, this doesn't totally fall in on this project, but as a whole, I think it's something, you know, I've been talking to a lot of different staff and and such. It is a major concern for us because we're either losing them to Frederick Hunt Valley, Owings Mills, Pennsylvania, whatever. So it is something we need to look at at some point. I'm not suggesting it's going to come in front of us anytime soon, but just something to keep in mind. It's a very valid point.

Yeah, I know the big issue is, is that like. Westminster is not a place you're not riding through Westminster going anywhere, so they have hotel occupancy rate is poor in this general area where get down close to 70. Obviously, I think they would be way better off than Westminster.

Yeah.

Yeah. Mount Airy, when they presented their their plan back, gosh,

A year and a half ago, but it was well thought out.

It was the best one we saw. The citizenry there, I think, is very well represented by the folks in the offices down there. And I think their vision is to take advantage of that proximity to route 70 and I think everybody agrees it can bring some financial benefit it can bring in new business it can bring in all those positives associated with that main artery of roots 70 in their proximity with 27 and all that so that's a very powerful thing to have in your community now how you take advantage of that and what the use is going to be is what they're trying to figure out and this is one of the things that they're that's proposed And who knows, maybe it's not the best use, but it is a use that does bring traffic. It does bring income to local businesses and things like that. It's a step towards taking advantage of that strength of being in proximity to Route 70. And this is one way that they're taking a look at doing that. which I salute them for that. Whether it's the right thing, I don't know. There's still some things that have to be fleshed out there. Public comment?

We have some folks.

Okay, public comment. Let me read my script. If you haven't signed in, please sign in in the back to make public comment. That goes for anybody here that's going to be making public comment. Speakers, please state your name, address, and talk into the microphone here to facilitate audio and video recording. You are on TV today and being recorded for later. Comments will be strictly limited to three minutes per speaker. Citizen testimony is not a Q&A. It's just your comment. Questions may be directed to staff after the meeting. If any individual fails to comply with these rules, the Planning and Zoning Commission chair may call the person out of order and may require him or her to leave the meeting. So with that, I'll turn it over to you, sir.

Thank you, is this on?

Yes.

Okay, great. So my name is Michael Rash, 2508 Kings Forest Trail, Mount Airy, Maryland, in the Nottingham community. So I wanted to thank the council for the opportunity to address the Warfield property annexation. I'm here to oppose it, and also to oppose the proposed use in terms of the sports complex. You may know that the Mount Airy Town Planning Commission concluded by unanimous vote that the annexation was not in the best interests of the town. They cited serious concerns over lights, noise, security of residence, and most importantly, traffic and access to water and sewer resources. Water has been a well-known issue and problem for the town of Mount Airy going back for decades. With as much water as the sports complex would consume, it is simply incompatible with smart growth for the entire town. For example, they are proposing an 1,100 car parking lot. The Safeway complex in Mount Airy, which includes Starbucks, a bank, Chipotle, and a bunch of other businesses, is about 500 parking lots and parking spots. So we're talking about double, more than double the parking spaces for the entire Safeway complex in this one sports complex right across from the Nottingham community. That is hugely disruptive to our community. The traffic patterns to support an 1100 car parking lot with Major tournaments and these kinds of activities are not compatible with a two-lane road into 27. In terms of impacts to residents, the Nottingham community is one of the three largest communities in Mount Airy with 420 households. That entire community is part of Carroll County, even though Mount Airy straddles four counties, of course. So we are your constituents We are unanimously against, for all practical purposes, against this sports complex. You referenced the June 10th town council meeting. I would encourage all of the council members here to go watch that meeting to see how united Nottingham is against this sports complex. One resident showed up in a hard hat because his property, now he wasn't a resident of Nottingham, but his property, his house borders the Warfield property. He showed up in a hard hat because he's concerned about literally fly ball baseballs coming through his windows. so none of us are against youth sports many of the residents support that and participate but there's a time and place for everything this sports complex will be hugely disruptive for the town of mount airy more broadly you know we urge the carroll county council members to assist in stopping this sports complex the vote will likely come up in the august mount airy town council meeting We are your constituents. We would urge you to please assist in stopping the entire project. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning, commissioners and planning and zoning staff. My name is Ralph Gantt. I'm the volunteer chair of the Mount Airy Planning Commission. And the last time I was here was to brief this Augustus of the Mount Airy Comprehensive Master Plan. So good to see you all again. I'm here to not sway you either way, but to give you some additional facts to the good information provided by Miss Daly and and Carlisle. the petition was submitted to the town in the june time frame of last year after it was verified and deemed sufficient by the town attorney and the town staff it then per our town code was referred to the planning commission to provide a recommendation to the town council town council has the sole authority to make the decision on approval or disapproval of the annexation given that annexation and i'm quoting our town attorney is at the pinnacle of responsibilities and authority of any municipal body we gave it a good wire brush we actually had to ask for an extension of our initial 90 days per hour code we studied this petition and its proposed land use for five months we provided roughly a 70 page analysis that, as mentioned, was then unanimously voted to oppose the petition and the proposed land use. Our town public hearing per code was held on June 10th. And as referenced here, and I must commend you by your comments, I see that each of you have done some really good homework, and I'm sincere about that. I know we're down at the bottom of Carroll County, but it's evidence here that you have shown good attention to this particular issue. June 10th was a public hearing. I add to the comments already made. It may be worthwhile to take a look at the sentiment expressed in that. And again, the way ahead, I believe, is to take the county and state 60 day reviews which are required by the state of this petition take those responses from the county and the state into the deliberation in July by the town council. And then I think after that deliberation, they will then probably go to their August council meeting to render a decision. Thank you again.

Thank you. All right. Any other public comment? All right. Well, we'll wrap it there. And Commissioner Gordon, I think you heard some items there to include in your letter of comment. Absolutely. Thank you.

And we'll summarize those as well and share them with you. Appreciate that. All right.

Thank you. OK, next item is the final site plan for EOTC Bachman Valley S20-0030. And this is a request for approval of a final site plan in accordance with Chapter 155. And David Becraft is going to lead the discussion.

Good morning, Planning Commission. Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Charles O. Fisher, Jr. I'm the attorney for the petitioner. I'm here today. Also present today are a number of engineers who have worked on this project and some clergy members and members of the board of the church, which is the petitioner.

Okay. Welcome. Thank you.

Perfect. And I am David Becraft. I am with the county's Development Review Division. I will be before you for the two projects that we'll be presenting before you this morning. The first one, as mentioned, is called the EOTC Bachman Valley. File number S200030. I'm sure many are familiar with where this is located. But for those who are unfamiliar, the site is highlighted here with the blue. You can see that there is a brown undertone on this property as well as all surrounding properties that designates the agriculture zoning district. We have Bachman Valley Road which runs right here also known as Maryland State 496 and then you have 30 over here with these red shadings that is indicative of commercial zonings as well and then you have some interspersed conservation zonings shown by this green shading here. So if we kind of zoom in on the property a little bit, you can see again that the property currently does have some developments on it with some buildings. Access to the property is via this driveway, which connects to Maryland State 496. So Maryland State 496, indicative of the name, is a Maryland State roadway. So the county has little to no involvement in the ownership, the maintenance of that roadway. The driveway cuts through a farm field. It serves two other adjoining properties here before getting to the subject property. And you can see that there's also a stream that runs through the western portion of the property shown via this dark blue line here. So zooming in a little bit more into the current property configuration, you can see that there are some buildings interspersed throughout. There is an existing pond here as well. There is a fence surrounding this pond and there is a gravel drive which leads to a gravel parking area. All properties in this area are served by public, or I'm sorry, by private well and septic systems. And that includes the subject property as well. So this project was first brought to the county for a number of reasons, first of which was to bring the property into compliance. So a religious establishment was operating without proper site plan approval. So a site plan was submitted to the county January 1st, 2021. During that time, a a religious establishment was considered a principle permitted use within the agricultural zoning district sometime in 2022. That had changed by the commissioners at the time who deemed that a religious establishment in an agricultural zoning district be a conditional use, not a principle permitted use. However, at that same time, the commissioners passed a resolution which stated because there are a number of developments occurring in the county with that code change that any projects currently in process are to be followed through under the old code that was in place. So even though the code had changed to a conditional use, this was continued to be reviewed as a principal permitted use as that is what was in place at the time of project acceptance and review. Following the submittal of the initial plan, which I'll show you here, THE PROJECT WAS SENT TO THE TECHNICAL REVIEW COMMITTEE MEETING WHICH IS A PUBLIC MEETING AND THAT WAS HELD IN FEBRUARY OF 2021. BECAUSE OF THE COVID SITUATION THAT PROJECT WAS A VIRTUAL MEETING. THERE WERE NUMEROUS COMMENTS THAT WERE RECEIVED FOLLOWING THAT MEETING. At some point, the project was also brought to the Planning Zoning Commission actually two times. The first time was in December 13th of 2022. This due to miscommunication, representatives of the facility were not present. So there were a lot of questions raised by the Planning Zoning Commission. And because those questions could not be answered, it was decided to table the conversation. the project came back before the planning zone commission for a concept review and direction in june of 2023 so roughly two years ago at this point during that time there were discussions that revolved around the noise concerns of the events that happened on the property the height of the freestanding sign that was proposed the activities of the church, and then at that same time, there are also various citizens in presence voicing concerns and questions in reference to the development. So since that time, there have been some changes made to this proposal. One of the bigger changes that we've seen, so when this was last brought to you, there is a combination of new buildings being constructed as well as expansions of old buildings that exist on site. That has since been changed to where there are no longer any new buildings being constructed. What is currently in the plan is strictly the expansion of the existing buildings. And I'll get more into that later into this report. One of the other changes is in reference to the freestanding sign that's proposed. So there is one freestanding sign that was proposed out along Maryland State 496. Originally, the sign was to be 20 feet wide by 4 feet tall, and this was to be on stilts that would be a maximum height of 30 feet. That has since been downsized to instead be 8 feet wide, 4 feet tall, also on stilts, but with a maximum height of 10 feet. So substantially smaller than what was previously brought before you. So as you can see, what's being proposed here, and I'll zoom in on the meat of the proposal, but they are still showing access to Maryland State 496, so there really isn't much changing in reference to that access point. You can see that there is a little bit of overlayment in the access drive here, so this sharp turn that's shown will be leveled out by a curve here. The access drive itself will be widened to 22 feet wide and it will also be paved. It is currently gravel at the current moment. And so moving forward here. So in the top right, you can see the sign that is being proposed. So this is from the most recent plan with the dimensions that I previously mentioned. There is the expansion of this existing facility here. So that expansion relates to a building addition in the front of 24 feet, a building addition in the rear of 18 feet. Also being expanded is this existing facility here, and this will be expanded by way of 13-foot expansions in the front and the rear. So 13 feet in the front, 13 feet in the rear. And then finally, the existing residence on site, which is used by the priest before and after church service, that is not being changed. And so to help visualize how this would look on site, I made something. You'll have to let me know if you like it or not in reference to what the plan looks like in reference to how things currently exist on the site. So we will see if this works. So this shows really that what is being constructed is an expansion of what's already there without any further buildings being created. In fact, there are two buildings, this building here, I'm sorry, this building here and this building here which are to be removed as part of this development. So I'm going to move past this only because it's mesmerizing. I'm happy to come back to it if you'd like. But I'm going to run through the rest of my report here. So again, access to the site, it will be from Bachman Valley Road. The state had reviewed the plans that were provided. The state does not require a traffic impact study. It is their roadway, so it is their call as to if they want a traffic impact study or not. There are improvements that are required as part of this development. Those improvements involve upgrading the existing entrance to a commercial entrance, which essentially makes changes to that apron that connects to Maryland State 496, modifications to the existing guardrail that's in place there, and then site grading to allow for proper site distance. As mentioned, the existing drive will be enlarged to 22 feet wide and will be paved. I'm going to run back here. So there were other items that you see along the drive here, one being this, and then these ones down here is These ones down here as well. So these are stormwater management facilities. So this improvement here is strictly to capture the stormwater management created from the runoff of this drive. There is, because this runs across adjoining properties and not the church property itself, there is an existing access easement that's in place. Because of the new access drive and associated stormwater management facilities are going outside of that access easement, a revised access easement is required and is actually one of the conditions of approval here. That way, if that property should change hands, the members of the church and adjoining properties have the right to use that drive. So zooming back in on the developments, County code states that parking requirements for a religious establishment is one for every four persons based on maximum capacity. Notes on the cover sheet of the plan note that the maximum capacity is 500 people. This equates to requiring 125 parking spaces. There are 132 parking spaces shown, seven of which will be handicap parking. And you can see that those are shown in this area here with one or two shown in this area. Also included is the inclusion of three bus parking areas. So if you recall conversations had two years ago, there were concerns as to when large events happen on this property, where those buses will go. So three parking spaces, four buses have been included on the plan to help facilitate that. so kind of moving right along with that and along with their generic church activities there are or were two to three annual events that happen on the property and these because these yield more participants than typical There were historically involvements with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office to help facilitate traffic going out onto Maryland State 496 and trying to minimize that impact because of all of the large participants involved. As I already mentioned, this property is served by private well and septic systems. The Carroll County Health Department has been involved throughout the development review process. They are the ones that review for private well and septic systems within Carroll County. What is currently proposed, and I don't see it on this one, is the installation of additional septic fields shown in this location. And these will work in conjunction with the existing septic fields that are nearby. There are well and septic plans that are included in the plan set on sheets 86 through 90. And the Carroll County Health Department reviewing these improvements has approved this plan. So they found that this was within compliance of all of their rules and regulations as it relates to well and septic systems. Moving on to the buildings that will be modified. So there are elevation plans shown within the plan set on sheets 93 through 96. And what these show are a varying of building materials and colors within the buildings. These are comprised of metal, EIFS and siding with colors ranging from brown, white and gold as well. And so running through what these look like. There is a five foot high retaining wall that's proposed near the multi-use building, which I will move back to. So this building here, there is a retaining wall that's proposed to help level out where that new paving will be located There's also a proposed dumpster that'll be located here as well to help mitigate that trash that's created from this use. And moving through, so this is before you as a final site development plan. They are requesting final review and approval by the Planning Zoning Commission. This is only before you because after being reviewed by county staff, it was determined that it was within compliance of all applicable codes and regulations. So I'm going to run through what some of those agencies were looking at, but I just wanted to let you know that The only reason this is before you is because it meets all regulations and codes of Carroll County. So with that, forest conservation for this site is to be addressed by an easement over the wooded area which is right near that pond on the west side of the property. um there was a variance that was granted to allow the removal of specimen trees landscaping is proposed throughout the parking area water resources will require an easement surrounding the stream crossing which is again along that western portion of the property floodplain management has granted approval of the plan also requiring a similar easement around that stream Stormwater management will be provided through the construction of multiple microbiome facilities. So you can kind of see these facilities here in between the parking as well as these facilities here. So all of those will capture that stormwater management facility and help mitigate runoff onto any type of adjoining properties. Stormwater management has granted final approval of this plan. So subject to that, um, pursuant to chapter one 55 staff recommends, uh, approval of the site development plan subject to the eight conditions that I have in this plan. I'm happy to run through those, but a lot of those relate to, um, conditions of agreements and easements being recorded and being conveyed to Carroll County. So I'm happy to answer any questions. As Mr. Fisher also mentioned, there are representatives here from the church who might be able to assist in answering questions as well.

OK. Thank you. Any questions from the board?

you know we've had a lot of public comments over the last couple years on this project um and you know someone did a information request for all the you know stuff for the police coming out for noise problems that we understand that they have a couple festivals or whatever they want to call them What are the regulations for time? Because I know like all these venues that are out there, they all have a time limit of when they can be in operation. Um and I know that's like one of the biggest concerns of all the neighbors is the all night noise and you know the traffic's definitely a problem but I think noise is the biggest reason we've had problems with being a good neighbor you know I'm a farmer I know what it's like to be a good neighbor not a good neighbor even though we have every right to farm in the Carroll County of anywhere around we still have to be a good neighbor without making everybody mad and I know because I made the town of New Windsor mad last weekend so um but I'm just that that's the biggest concern I think everyone up here has had we know they've complied with everything for the county you know the adding one to the building you know that's we're not building code people so that's not our jurisdiction so that's our biggest concern is

If I could just make a comment. I know that there are requirements in our code in the county code as to noise levels and hours of operation. For instance, between certain time at night and a certain time in the morning, you can't make any noise. So I'm aware that there were some complaints a couple of years ago that there was too much going on at night and it was making noise. But I looked at the code, and if you're in compliance with the code, that should take care of a lot of that.

So to add on to that as well, it has been conveyed that with the construction of these building expansions, most if not all of the operations of the religious establishment will be moved indoors. So that should help mitigate a lot of those noise concerns that we've heard through the years. On top of what Mr. Fisher also mentioned in relation to the county code and regulations. as it relates to those events that they have two to three times a year they are required to get a temporary zoning certificate from the county for those events which say what day they are but they're also reviewed for a number of items as well and so just running through what some of those look like is the access and traffic impacts and control emergency vehicle access availability of water and sanitation facilities trash and recycling disposal, anticipated noise levels, and a few other items as well. So most of the operations are captured by what's being approved on the site. But those few outliers, those two to three events, those are captured through those temporary zoning certificates, which are looked over and reviewed by other agencies in the county.

So anytime there's an event like that, there's a temporary permit issued that outlines how many people will be there, how much, how much traffic will be anticipated. And then the sheriff's department makes a determination where they need to be there to monitor the traffic. I mean, is that what I'm getting from this, David?

So when an event like that is to occur, um, they are to request that temporary zone certificate from the county, uh, that they're required. That's right. Okay. That goes through the zoning office, um, which then gets other agencies involved as to, um, meeting all of the requirements of what's necessary.

And so if they violate the terms of that permit, start too early, go too late, the next time they come and apply for a permit, that's the kind of thing that's on file and, you know, hey, You didn't adhere to the permit the last time. What makes us think you're going to adhere to the permit this time? So that's the kind of thing where there's a there's supposed to be a check. That's that's where it should balance out. Is that true, David?

So I will answer that by saying there have not been any temporary zoning certificates issued for events in the past year or two until this site development plan was to be approved. So there are certainly checks and balances in place that if something is outstanding, that the county is willing to not issue that type of document. Okay.

Has this been in front of the state fire marshal or anything like that? Because looking at that road, I don't know how you're going to get the size of water tanks up there to put a sprinkler system in these buildings because you are going to need to sprinkler them. And I mean, that alone is... I don't know where you're going to put one at. I mean, these tanks are 30, 40, 50,000 gallons that have to be buried. So do you know if it's been in front of the state fire marshal or anything like that? Because they're the ones that have jurisdiction over this.

So I'll mention that the county does have a fire protection specialist that was involved with this review. We also send the plans to the fire chief with the local fire fire department, both of which were involved with reviewing this plan. If it's gone to the state fire marshal, I can't say for sure.

My big concern is that C. Carroll County is an odd county, so you can send it to those guys, but the people that actually have jurisdiction over Sprinkler, Firearm, all that is actually the Maryland State Fire Marshal, so they're the ones that ultimately for building this building are going to make the ultimate decision on all that, so I really think it needs to go to them so they can figure out what size tank you need, all that type of stuff, because you're going to need A lot, a lot of stuff. And again, looking at that road and knowing how big these tanks are, I don't think you're going to be able to get one up there.

And I can certainly I don't know if Mr. Fisher or any of the other representatives with the church will be able to to give an idea on on how they're looking to to mitigate those issues. I will mention that this will prior to any of these items being constructed, they will have to apply for building permits, which they will have to be involved in a a more more scrutiny of fire and EMS and all of those items as well.

I mean, my big concern is that something that has not been taken into consideration that is going to be huge because the costs to do that are there. It's not cheap.

I think we have a comment. Yes, sir. Come up here. This is Elias Bazzabi. He is an engineer who worked on this project. He's also a member of the church. And can you address this issue? Sure will.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. So regarding the fire sprinkler protection requirement for the building, currently, like David was mentioning there, we have submitted plans to Department of Public Works and the fire marshal, and like you pointed out, Mr. Smith there, once those drawings are approved, we'll hire a speciality fire alarm and sprinkler protection contractor who will be the one who will actually design the documents that need to be submitted to the state fire marshal. And we'll comply with that. That's the process, right? We get the business off. designed through the county, then we'll submit an actual shop drawing by a NISA-certified sprinkler protection contractor designer, including the tanks. When it comes to the tanks, actually, like you said, if we do one big tank, most probably won't be able to fit, but we'll be able to do multiple tanks, and actually we're trying to install two different systems, one for the multipurpose building and one for the archive in prayer.

So you're saying you intend to be in compliance with any regulations that are imposed by the fire marshal or anyone else?

Agreed.

Like I said, just making sure that that is on the radar because that is the difference in opening or not opening.

Lastly, the entrance, I understand, David, the state DOT has control over this road. Tell us a little bit more, because when you come down 497, I did it the other day, and I did it at five miles over the speed limit just to see. It's not a confession, fellas. I just, you know, assuming because I knew, you know, what do the kind of people that are going driving down that road like me, you know, I wanted to see how quickly that entrance shows up on your because you kind of come up, you come around that entry. What's what is this? What improvement is going to be made for that entrance for people pulling out and slowing down to turn into the facility?

So the state has not required any roadway improvements with that. They're requiring improvements to that apron leading into the property. They're making changes to the guardrail that's along the roadway. And they're doing some internal site grading so that you have site distance for people exiting. um but the state did not require any type of through lanes or roadway improvements associated with that and because it's their roadway they ultimately have that that requirement that call david this is hard for you to answer i know but i want to make this comment anyway when the state does a traffic study

especially a place like that, where you're talking about buses turning in and exiting that property with the amount of traffic that's on that road. And they say that it would be fine. Did they know that it's going to be 500 people going in and out of there at different times during the year? I was there. I visited the property. And I think that is one of the worst places for an access and an entrance and that i've seen in a while and for the state to make no comment about an organization with that many people coming in and out at different times of the year and make no comment on it no no turn off no pull off area that is disturbing That is really disturbing to me. And so we have nothing that we can say about that. To me, that should be part of the site plan. How are you gonna do this? And I saw nothing there. And as far as getting access vehicles into there, I'd have a hard time getting my farm tractors up and down that road right now in a timely fashion. So emergency vehicles. And no offense to the people trying to do this project, but this is a result of our own making here in Carroll County. For years we've allowed uses in the Ag Zone, and now we've made it conditional, but this doesn't matter now because the commissioner's grandfathered this stuff in. But this project right here is a result of our own making. And so now we're going to have to deal with it in one way or the other. And we have to deal with it based on the code that we have to comply with. So if we're trying to find different things, I mean, I have a whole list of questions here. Like if the distance to the property line, they're going to put 18 feet onto that church, does it comply with distance requirements for a public building? The building that's there, I saw the building and it's a very nice church that's very well kept, but does it comply with any of our local laws now as far as construction of it? To me it looked like I could get a U.S. Steel building off the internet and build that building. So does that comply? Moving forward, I mean, these are the questions that I don't see any answer to. The roadway, is that a use in common driveway now? Is that what you would call it?

Yes.

So that would be use in common, right. So then there's a majority of people that would be required to keep that driveway up other than the church. if it's a use in common. There's just so many things here that I'm concerned about, and we allow this because our code just says we can do it without regard to the consequences down the road. so that's my editorial comment in a way but it's also a lot of questions here that i just don't understand now the number one right now is does that current building comply with all the standards of our building code in carroll county for a for that capacity building

So I will try to answer some of those for you. As you mentioned, I can't answer all of them. I know that, David. For the road improvements, it's a state roadway. We have to defer to them as far as what they require and what they will allow. For the distance requirements. David, can you stop right there?

Yes. Interject here with that because I have similar concerns. When the application for the study was filed with the state, what were the conditions that the state was given to make this decision? Did they know it was going to be bus traffic? Did they know it's going to be 500 or 125 parking spaces and people in and out? Did they know all those things other than just pulling into a driveway to access a property? What does the state application or state know before making the term the determination on whether to do another study, do it to come back with recommendations? What what was on that application?

So I will mention that there was no traffic study done for this. The state did not require a traffic study.

But they didn't require it because of what? Did they know the full scope of the project?

The state received the same plan that a development review and all other agencies received on those plans. It shows that bus parking area. It denotes that there is a maximum capacity of 500 people. It makes mention of the two to three events that happen annually. So they did receive all of that information. If those were taken into consideration, I cannot say for sure.

You know, I mean I'll just say it out loud. I mean, I'm impressed that there's a congregation in our county that can get 1,000 people to show up. I mean, as a man of faith, I'm excited by that. My concern is that we get 1,000 people to show up and we read, well, I wake up on a Monday morning and there was a fire out there and a bunch of people died, or there was a Ford F-150 going 65 miles an hour, T-boned a bus pulling out. That's what I lose sleep over. I mean, genuinely. And so, you know, it's it's these regulations are not here to be punitive. They're for our own good. And so, you know, if if we want to do this responsibly, there needs to be a diesel lane so that you can you can these buses can just can slow down and pull in safely. And there needs to be a way for them to people to accelerate pulling out. making you know when when these buses pull out on on that that state highway and they turn left I don't know. I mean, unless we change the speed through there and say, hey, or we put one of those signs up to say, hey, when this sign's flashing, you've got to slow down. Something like that needs to be done along this stretch of road because this turn, the topography, it's beautiful topography, but at the same time, you're coming up and over a ridge and down and around a corner. That's dangerous. it's it i mean again i did it um and i i i was okay you know we need to pay attention to this it's just it's it's it's for our own own good that we're trying to say this stuff and so um uh yeah i i those are my main concerns here is that you know we allow like ralph said we've been talking about should we remove some of the conditional uses that we have allowed for a long time in this county just because you know it's we are mature county now whether we like it or not and we've had these conditional uses on the books for a long time and um i i this is the concern is that you know it this is a long it's i don't know how long it would take for EMTs to get to this facility because this is it's out there. And so in that it's out there, we need to make it a good experience for the people who are coming. So and I think the church would want that, too.

So, yeah, I'd love to hear from a certified fire department person who could go out there and look at that and say, what what do you see as far as problems with response time in in a situation like that and when you have that many people you have all ages all types of people with all kinds of conditions that happen and this is what worries me the other thing mr fisher Would there be any initiative on the part of the church to make a better access and exit facility along that road other than to just say we're complying with the state? That really bothers me, that access area and entrance and exit area. Is there anything that the church would be willing to do to make that better?

Well, obviously, I cannot answer that. Nobody's ever asked that question. You're the representative, and you're speaking for them. I'm not sure that they can actually speak to it either. They're representatives of a church council and a hierarchy. Are there any comments that any of you are in a position to make?

Go to the mic, sir, please.

Good morning. This is Tesfa Michael Bikili, who is also a professional engineer who worked on this project. And I think he's had contact with the State Highway Administration about this.

yeah so good morning again thank you for giving us this opportunity we have requested for access permit from state highway administration for this project we have made improvements at that intersection the required radius on both sides we have also provided a stop sign to slow down traffic that's going in and going out so we tried our best and the state highway had the full plan set to review And that's how we received the access permit approval from the State Highway Administration. It's not that we haven't done any improvement at that intersection and we're just going to follow the footprint of the existing gravel. We made improvements. On the buses notes that were made earlier, the buses are going to be there only during those two to three time annual events. The buses are not going to be there every time. And when we have annual events, we are going to work with the zoning department to get those temporary permits mentioned earlier. And we are working with police. Police is going to be there to manage traffic. And in the past services we had, we never had any wrong events or events that created issues. So those buses, I really want to make clear that it's only for those two, three events only. Thank you. Thank you.

Not yet. Not yet. We're just still questioning and answering here. We'll get the public comment. Thank you.

I mean, even with the two or three events, I mean, you guys know I'm an RVer and tried a couple of times to let go to Gettysburg, cut across old Bachman's Valley to get to 97. And that's just pulling a camper. And I won't take that road. And I go out of my way. because you know seeing tractors coming the other way and and that road is just not it i'm just saying if it's basically impossible for me pulling an rv with a tractor coming the other way because there's no shoulder there's no nothing um i get it's only two or three times a year but that road is not built and it is only a matter of time before something catastrophic happens without this road being widened to handle these buses

You also have Peter's feeding on it also. Yeah. That bothers me. I appreciate you calling me out. I'm toast, man.

I mean, they're going to get, yeah. Just go ahead and give me a ticket. I think I set myself up for that one, but it's already in the mail.

When he said five, it was really 10 or 15.

Self-confession. It was a Pete's five.

so I would just like to you know of course we've had lots of letters and lots of different comments you know we've covered a lot of but like one of them is is the water and sewer well obviously they have you know in the state of Maryland I think if you use more than 8,000 gallons a day you have to have a state water permit now I'm sure that's been looked at by the Health Department the Health Department approve the septic system that's getting put in. And at the end of the day, a lot of the stuff we're covering us as a board have no say over that you know the buildings once they get building plans that's going to be for the building and uh department to you know so we're raising concerns but we're raising concerns of things that we really can't do a whole lot about um you know these these are things that are covered by other laws and other people than us. We definitely have concerns. I don't know how we can bring these concerns to the state in future things or if there's a problem down the road. They approved it, and a lot of people, a lot of our more, well, it's just like the Mount Air thing. Everything comes back to traffic, and it's concerning. But a lot of times, we have no determination over that.

Any other questions before we move? Okay, let's move on to public comment. If you haven't signed in, please sign in in the back. I want to read this verbatim again. Speakers, like I said, must sign in to make public comment. If you haven't done so already, please do that. Speakers, please state your name, address, and talk into the microphone to facilitate audio and video recording. Comments will be strictly limited to three minutes, please. We have a lot of people, so three minutes. We have to cut it off at three minutes. This is not a question and answer session. It's your comment. It's not a back and forth. Questions may be directed to staff after the meeting. If any individual fails to comply with these rules, the Planning and Zoning Commission chair may call the person out of order and may require him or her to leave the meeting. So with that, let's start with public comment and your first.

Good morning. My name is Alex Votop in the Law Office of G. Macy Nelson. Our address is 600 Washington Avenue, Suite 202 in Towson. I have the pleasure of representing Shirley Appleby and John Tremolone, who are also here today, and I'm sure will share their two cents at a later date. My clients have concerns that this does not meet the requirements of the law, and I believe the Planning and Zoning Commission does have the authority to deny this application. I have a few things I want to cover, but based on the commissioner's conversation, I just did want to note Section 155.04052 B provides the Planning and Zoning Commission authority to require a traffic study of the developer. So you do have the authority to require that of this applicant before you approve this plan. You also have the authority to deny this application if it doesn't meet any of the requirements of either local law or state law. You can see that in Section 155.020A. So you do have tools in your in your tool belt to address some of these concerns that you've described. And now I want to cover some of the issues we think are in this plan. First, I don't believe it should be grandfathered under the previous zoning ordinance. I believe it should be subject to the conditional use requirements. I don't believe a resolution is sufficient to exempt it from the conditional use requirements. uh turning to the forest conservation plan this got uh smoothed over briefly there is a variance requested by this applicant to remove specimen trees and the applicant does not meet the unwarranted hardship requirement for that variance application the applicant has to show that they would be prevented from developing their property without the variance this applicant has 25 acres on this site that are completely i would say probably about 20 acres are completely unburdened with natural resources The applicant also owns the two adjacent parcels to the north, totaling approximately, if I remember correctly, somewhere between 70 and 90 acres of unburdened property. The applicant is choosing to locate the proposed development on top of specimen trees. It could relocate this property or the proposed development to another portion of the property not needing a variance. Therefore, the applicant has not satisfied the requirements for a variance, and the application should be denied on those grounds. There's also impacts to water resources that should require a variance that they have not applied for or received approval of. That's another ground to deny this application. I also believe there's inadequate landscaping and stormwater management. We provided a letter to the Planning and Zoning Commission in advance of this outlining those concerns. And a few more issues. The notion that this is on the expansion of existing facilities, those facilities, from my understanding, were not permitted previously. So they should be considered new facilities because they were not previously approved. And then finally, I don't believe the applicant has demonstrated that emergency vehicles can safely navigate the proposed drive. And I think that is something that should be required. I believe it's in the code. And because they have not demonstrated compliance of that, I believe you do have the authority to deny this application. So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

When chair vice chair morning members of the commission, I'm Carroll County Sheriff Jim deweese the sheriff of this County for the past 12 years. Also retired state trooper where I served for 25 years primarily in Carroll County that was my adult life has been policing Carroll County, my office me has serious concerns with this project and I'm adamantly against it. for a number of reasons, and I sat and listened to the commission speak about a number of problems with the traffic concerns, and I will start on the outside and work my way in. So the traffic on Bachman Valley Road uniquely falls under my office, even though it is a state route. My office has the primary jurisdiction for law enforcement services on Bachman Valley and to this location. We have been to this location since 2019, 57 times, 45 law enforcement responses, 12 fire and EMS responses. responses that we've gone to are primarily traffic complaints along Bachman Valley Road. Sick or injured individuals, including two drowning calls that happened there, those individuals did not pass. They were revived. Noise complaints, about 20 noise complaints since 2019. There is no amount of work. overstating that. There would be a massive amount of work that would need to take place in order for buses and the amount of traffic to come in off of Bachman Valley Road, whether they're coming from 30 or from the south from Route 97. The state is neglect for not commissioning a study. The state traditionally doesn't commission a study for projects like this until a couple of people die first. That's been my experience in 37 years of law enforcement. This is not an easy road to get in and out of, not an easy driveway to get in and out of, the amount of buses that come in and out of there. Making a left-hand turn going south, which the majority of them would, would be very difficult to do. As you start working your way into the facility, I have serious concerns about activity there, not only noise. I know that the pond is used for some religious services, whether it's baptisms that take place, hence the potential of drowning that took place there. um we've had some criminal allegations that have that have been levied at at that particular facility the criminal allegations have not been substantiated primarily because witnesses and victims became uncooperative as the sheriff of this county for 12 years i've never approached this board to um disagree with the project or or oppose the project this first time in 12 years that i'm coming before the board saying that i i oppose this project for a number of reasons um and if and if anybody from the commission wants to do an mpia i'll be more than happy to give them the reports that were generated from from this particular facility to close i'm not sure how much more the bachman valley community can take With the Piedmont Reliability Project plowing through their property and taking an awful lot of land up there, this particular project and the amount of complaints that come out of this particular facility I think would break the backs of the folks up there. So I'm against it.

Thank you.

My name is Judy here, and I live at 2300 Bachman Valley Road. My property is catty corner to the entrance to the church. And I have tremendous concerns about what Sheriff Deweese was just talking about and what you referenced with the traffic. It is not an easy access. There are people who pass the road and back up. because they missed the entrance we've had numerous people come and turn around in our driveway because they missed the entrance horns honking because people just stop without blinkers. I talked to the state highway department about a traffic study, and I was told there is no study that was needed because it was a church, and traffic wouldn't be during the week during rush hour, that it would just be one day a week. So that was the information I was given. Just to share. We are on wells and sewage and water is a tremendous concern with the number of people that would be attending this facility. So I just I don't want my well to run dry. you get 500 or more people there. Um, I know they brought in porta pots when they have some of their big events, but most people would prefer to use the regular facilities. Um, you mentioned when, um, the Mount Airy project was being reviewed about the community impact. There's a tremendous community impact for a religious establishment that doesn't welcome the community. The people who live in the area are not welcome on the property and Ken Kyler, our commissioner, made a visit and was stopped and was not allowed on the property. So that is a huge concern of all of us here in the community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey, how you guys all doing? I sent a letter yesterday evening, hopefully.

Can you please state your name?

Sorry about that. My name is Chris Tomlinson, one of the state delegates who represents District 5, which includes most of Carroll County. I'm here on behalf of Delegate Rose and Senator Justin Reedy, who's on his way as well. And together we were members of Carol's delegation to the Maryland General Assembly. And we're here to oppose this final site plan. So over many years, the church and its members, who I'll refer to for the most part as the organization, have proven that they are a neighborly and a nuisance to the surrounding communities. While at the same time the organization has been seeking approval from the county government to further develop the site and accomplish their goal of building a megachurch, the organization has committed one wrongdoing after another. And these are just but a few examples, and some of these you've already heard from other speakers. Members have been found wandering around neighboring properties and trespassing on private land, especially at night. This past March, a young woman from the church pounded on the door of a neighbor at 4 AM in fear of her life and made claims that she was being sex trafficked. Members who drove their own personal vehicles to attend service will park on private properties while waiting for service to begin. The church had multiple trees removed from a neighboring property legally without having approval from the property owner. Members regularly pull into Bachman Valley Road without any disregard for incoming traffic, which resulted in multiple accidents and close calls. And on a personal note, I'll make a point to say that my wife was one of these close calls when she was in her second trimester coming down the road. Somebody pulled out like a slug and she had a slam on the brakes and almost got in a terrible accident. Like it was mentioned, we've had elected government officials have attempted to visit the church and have been suspiciously turned away, which I don't know many churches that don't have an open door policy. There are many documented instances of the church using large speakers, as we talked about, to blast this music, or 24 straight hours of chanting that can be heard from neighbors over a mile away. Finally, the church has been busted multiple times for allowing construction to take place without having the required building permits from the county. so my point is if this is how the church and its members behave while seeking approval from the county what will their behavior be like once they get what they want the organization has been and continues to be a menace to the surrounding communities and we have major concerns that this misconduct and misbehavior will only escalate once they receive the approval they seek and expand their operation We stand with the communities of Bachman's Valley, Edvale, and Melrose, which is where I live, in opposition of the final site plan. And we kindly ask that the commission here not approve this plan. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, commissioners.

My name is Mike Henkel. I reside at 4365 Partnership Drive near the site in question. For the record, I am a licensed and practicing attorney in the state of Maryland, but I'm standing here today not as counsel, but as a concerned resident who's deeply alarmed by this site plan and the impact it will have on this area. Let me be explicitly clear. The opposition to this project by myself and the local community here is not based on race, culture, or religion. This construction project could be submitted by a Catholic or Methodist church, or a Walmart for that matter, and I would still vehemently oppose it for the same exact reasons. Regardless of the applicant, type of uh this type of project in an agricultural zone must be expected to abide by the strict constraints of our land use laws this project does not and it must be denied this specific project is entirely unsuited for the rural agriculturally zoned landscape of bachman valley road worse yet this plant's footprint sits squarely in the middle of beautiful and protected farmland enrolled in agricultural preservation programs. Indeed, as the Commission knows very well, Carroll County and the state of Maryland have invested millions of taxpayer dollars to permanently protect this very farmland from development. On its face, this planned project runs completely contrary to Carroll County's own stated master plan goal of preserving our protected agricultural farmland from high-impact development. This is not a small rural local church that is proposed. is a large complex with commercial-style parking lots, nighttime lighting, and if constructed, it will irreversibly alter our quiet, beautiful, and protected landscape. The zoning provisions in Carroll County that allowed undefined religious establishments as permitted uses on agricultural land were designed with a clear logical intent to permit the use by small local rural churches that serve the spiritual needs of the local rural community. However, this project represents a bad faith attempt to exploit a loophole in Carroll County zoning laws using the protected umbrella of a religious establishment to build a massive regional assembly and event complex that has absolutely no connection to our immediate neighborhood or the local community. What is clear is that this complex does not benefit our local community in any way. There are very few, if any, local worshipers attending this facility. Rather, the applicant admits that its intent is to hold assemblies and events almost exclusively for out-of-town worshipers, many of whom are bused in by the hundreds to a remote, narrow county road. In short, there is no dispute that the EOTC neither desires nor intends to serve our local community. Everyone in this room knows that this project completely circumvents the spirit of the code. I can see I'm running out of time here, but with the commission's indulgence, I would be asked to finish my statement.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you. I will state and emphasize for the record what should be obvious. A regional event venue intending to draw crowds of over 1,000 people from across multiple states belongs in a commercially zoned district equipped with municipal water, sewer, and highway infrastructure required to sustain it. It does not belong in Ag Preserve farmland under the guise of religious establishment. It is well documented that the EOTC has averted our zoning laws from the very beginning. It operated illegally on this site for years without an approved site plan on record in direct violation of our zoning laws. While operating without approval, subjected local residents to loud outdoor audio systems and event noise at all hours. The influx of out-of-town vehicle traffic and its events have caused numerous traffic issues, including multiple documented car accidents. As proposed, this plan would only further and more intensely interfere with and deprive local residents of our right to quiet enjoyment. Approving this plan will also set a dangerous and self-defeating precedent for Carroll County and its residents. If you open this door, any self-described religious establishment can buy up our farmland to build high-impact regional assembly complexes that completely bypass the intent of our rural protections. Such a precedent is nonsensical, and it runs afoul of the best interests and stated goals of Carroll County.

OK, Mr. Henkel, you could wrap up, please.

Sure. And I'm sure my fellow residents would cede their extra time to me if that becomes an issue. Thank you. Pursuant to Chapter 155 of the code, the commission is duty bound to deny this plan for following reasons. As you know, the county recently shifted religious use in the agriculture zoning district for permitted to conditional use to prevent this exact type of heavy encroachment on our farmland. The stated purpose of the agricultural district is to protect farming and prevent incompatible uses. The massive scale of this layout represents a permanent industrialization of our farmland that clearly violates the spirit and intent of the zone you are appointed to protect. This commission should not permit an out-of-county entity to exploit a loophole that the code has now been closed. Secondly, critical well and septic deficiencies. This parcel is situated entirely in a no planned water and sewer service area. The plan introduces a massive complex to host a thousand people on farmland that is entirely dependent on private well and septic setup. Pumping enough well water required to service crowds of this magnitude directly threatens the delicate, localized well water that surrounding livestock operations, operational farms, and us private residences depend upon. Third, inadequate and dangerous access and egress. You've already touched on this, but as you've heard numerous times, this site does not interface safely with Bachman Valley Road. It simply does not. Bachman Valley Road is a narrow rural two lane agricultural artery. Heavy farming equipment frequently traverse access depends entirely on an existing residential agricultural private shared driveway. He's forcing high volume bottleneck traffic, hundreds of vehicles and charter buses onto a shared private lane over burdens. The road completely blocks emergency vehicle access and creates severe sight distance hazards on Bachman Valley Road. As the Commission astutely pointed out earlier, this road is not suitable for this project. This plan directly violates safety design principles and fails the road adequacy mandate set forth in Chapter 155. Fourth, adverse environmental impact. The code requires that development in agricultural district must preserve the rural landscape and prevent incompatible uses. The proposed plan requires a major grading within a sensitive agricultural watershed, replacing this natural agricultural land with acres of impervious services, commercial grade parking lots, and commercial lighting will accelerate stormwater runoff and promote erosion into neighboring active crops and watershed. Moreover, as the commission knows, Bachman Valley Road is part of the state designated Mason and Dixon Scenic Byway, forcing a massive complex, 126 space commercial parking lot, intense nighttime light pollution and a commercial billboard on this historical corridor causes severe visual blight.

Mr. Henkel, I really need you to wrap up. Another 15 seconds.

Thank you for your indulgence. In closing, this commission is the ultimate gatekeeper. Your fundamental duty is to protect Carroll County, its agricultural heritage, and its citizens. The developed record before you sets forth numerous legitimate business reasons for denying this plan. I urge Carroll County and this commission to hold its ground and enforce strict structural and infrastructure limits, just as other Maryland counties have in similar situations. I implore this commission to do the right thing, to stand up for our county's zoning integrity, protect public investments made in our preservation land, and protect the local residents whose resources will be severely degraded by this commercial size complex. And just one last point, as we found out the residents through surveying for the NPRP power line project, there are bog turtles all over this particular area. all right so under the code this commission cannot approve a plan that causes irreversible ecological degradation and violates state and federal wild wildlife protections that's a serious issue and i think you should take heed of that thank you very much thank you

My name is Michael Lang. I live at 2120 Ebbvale Road. I've been a resident here for a short time, about seven or eight years. I'm coming at this from three different directions, three distinct directions. I've been a master plumber since 1978. I did underground utility work from 82 to 94. So I've designed and installed these systems, stormwater management, et cetera. And the stormwater management plan, as I saw it, were incomplete. And the system design from a practical standpoint wasn't was not going to protect the surrounding areas, the surrounding residents and so forth. More importantly, the septic design didn't appear adequate to handle the affluents. By the developer's own admission, they sometimes have 2,000 people attending. That's a lot of people. I'll clean up the little plumber's joke about everything going downhill. There's a lot of streams there, there's a lot of watershed there, etc., etc., and it's not going to protect the area. This is from my practical viewpoint. breaching the amount of water needed from the same aquifer that the existing homes draw from, homes and farms draw from. With such a heavy use, a drawdown on a fresh water resource, you're over pumping faster than the aquifer can recharge itself, which is not a good thing. So people's wells are in jeopardy. And these are residents who've been there for years, farmers who've been there for years, and it's a problem. You know, compliance with law and safe practices for all the people adjacent to a project like this is certainly paramount. I believe that the statutes were written to cover the building of a community-type church. This is anything but a community church, where the residents would be welcome, because obviously we're not welcome there. The noise and traffic, the other, what I also do, I do audio engineering. The noise and traffic should certainly be considered as well. And as an audio engineer, I understand how frequency travel. I've heard it at 4 o'clock in the morning, I've heard various times, and that's not going to change if you have that many people there with what they're now going to build. With the history of the developer building and using this property without authorization, inspections, permits, et cetera, what makes you think they're going to now comply and be in compliance all the time? Once they get this built, they'll sneak another building in. It's common sense. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Shirley Appleby.

I am a active CPA and an active certified fraud examiner. And I'm retired now. But I did that for 30 years. So when I tell you that There needs to be some additional due diligence done on the part of the board here. I am speaking to you not only as an individual here, but as a CPA and a certified fraud examiner. You can take that for what you like. I don't want to go into details. I sent you my comments, and hopefully you've read those. But I live at 2045 Bachman Valley Road, Manchester, Maryland, and I have lived there since 1980. So my husband and I have been there for quite a long time. We've raised three grandchildren there. I'm worried about my well running dry too. And we actually went to circuit court and went before Judge Hecker about the water resource plan because when we asked for documentation, our lawyer did, as to how they arrived at their conclusion that there was water, adequate water resources, They couldn't give us any details. And they still can't. He didn't find anything wrong with what our lawyer presented on the points of why the water resource plan should not have been approved. He only turned back our request because he felt that it was not the proper timing. When he says that these things are all in compliance, they aren't. We currently have an action in front of the circuit court right now about the tree variance, the specimen tree variance, and our lawyer has alluded to that. They are not in compliance in all of these things. And it has not been two years, David Becraft. It has been three years since the concept plan. June 2023, I was there. And it's been three years, not two. And your plan says here, your code says, let me read it. One 55.0 52 site plan process concept plan. A to a concept plan shall be become boy 12 months after the concept site plan is reviewed by the planning and zoning Commission unless a final site plan has been submitted and accepted for review. It's been 3 years this shouldn't even be before you right now for a vote. We have pending action in the circuit court on the tree variance. And believe you me, we have a terrific lawyer and she has it nailed 100%. Thank you very much. I wish I could go on, but there are plenty here that are going to. And one other thing, just real quick. Jim Dewey said something about emergency vehicles. June 6, 2023, I saw a medevac helicopter fly over my land because I'm only about 1,200 feet from their property. I can see their lights from their building at night.

There was a child that almost drowned in that pond.

And that's the only way they could get in, was to bring a medevac. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is John Tremolone. I live at 2047 McLaughlin Valley Road, Manchester, Maryland. I am the citizen standing for this project. I don't understand why our locally elected county zoning commission people are going out of their way to try to get this passed through for this illegitimate project which is coming in on pretending to be a church and i really want to be a development i've had multiple buildings the problem is back when this first was put on the books that an agriculturally zoned area is allowed to have an exception of having a church Back then, there was a thing called common sense. People would know that means that church is there to support the local community residents, not to bring in some development that has nothing to do to benefit the county. I have not heard one ounce of how this project would benefit the county of Carroll County or the state of Maryland. It should be benefiting the county. If any of you have any integrity, put your place, pretend that you're living right where I live. How would you think this would go then? I still question the integrity of the person here who presented all of this about how this is all good and everything. i would double check to see if everything he said was true because i don't even think everything he said was actually true but why would they be going out of their way to be supporting this one day be there to say hey interpret the law as it is we had a dozen people roughly point out how this has been violations i personally had to stop coming around that bend by someone who looked like someone who definitely was going to that spot because they stopped in the middle of the road and tried to wave me around them on a curve with double lines, and I couldn't see where I'm going. Instead, a normal American driver would go up to the next intersection, turn, go find a safe place to turn around and come back, not stop and try to have you go there. They have an Ethiopian flag flying right there on their property to help people identify it because it's so hard to identify. Somebody has been pointed out several times. Sometimes there's going to be a death there because of this situation. And just because the state didn't have enough information to say, hey, we need to do a traffic study, doesn't mean no one can be done. THAT'S ENOUGH FOR ME TO SAY THIS. IT'S ALL BEEN SAID. YOU LISTENED. YOU'VE HEARD VERY INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE. YOU'VE HEARD VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE. HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT THE COUNTY? OH, ONE LAST POINT. HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST THE COUNTY? THIS IS AN ELECTION YEAR. I KEEP HEARING PEOPLE SAY, OH, WE GOT TO WATCH OUT FOR COST. WE HAVE A BUDGET TO CONFER TO. Okay, the only thing this project does is cost the county money. Thank you.

Thank you

good morning i'm senator justin reedy i live at 3301 brewster court in manchester just about a mile and a half south of where this property is just wanting to echo the comments of delegate thomason who really spoke for myself and delegate rose but this is something where very clearly there are serious questions about compliance with the way our laws and our zoning work And I've had frustrations in this county serving as a as a representative where we'll have a business trying to make some relatively common sense changes and expansions and they get no end of no end of trouble to just do some basic things on a property. This this just really seems very much out of whack from what I understand the law and the zoning to be. I wanted to just come and speak in favor of the community and say that this is not a project that should move forward in this way. I attend a very small, small country church in the Wolfsburg area. I know that you can have a church in an agricultural area for either Sunday type or regular services or even for a camp. But it's different than a massive multi building mega property. And so I'm not speaking with any technical expertise. I'm just speaking really from my heart, my experience living in the community. And it is a place. Bachman Valley Road is a very can be a very dangerous road if people if there's too much traffic and people are not taking care. So I'm echoing the comments from Delegate Tomlinson. Just wanted to add a couple of comments as well. And please, this is we need to not move forward with this, at least in this capacity. The code The lady that read from the code, I think, is very compelling that if the application expired, it needs to start from the beginning. So that's all I just wanted to come and say in support of the community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Excuse me. I just was not planning to speak, but I want to make sure I'm on the record. As you all know, we believe we have many, many issues in our zoning code that were written and not well thought out and not considered. You all have the power to change that. So does the commissioners. We encourage that our staff works for the people in Carroll County. They should be recommending these things for change. Our entire code needs to be looked at because there are so many problems with it, and this is just one. People come out, hundreds and hundreds of people come out and complain. We act like we can't do anything. Yes, we can, and it's not fair to the development community, it's not fair to these guys to not have predictability and clearly written code and definitions. so it's our responsibility i came back into this job out of retirement to fix this problem that has been permeating for years since our zoning codes were changed and not thoughtfully updated during covid and we need to remember who we work for and what we're doing and everyone wants predictability So I'm suggesting that it can be changed. It is not State Highway's responsibility to do traffic studies. It is ours. We can require it. If we look at the code and if our staff would give you the code, many of the things that were just quoted are accurate. The citizens should not have to be pointing these things out. What's the law? Our staff should be pointing it out. We need to fix it. I'm here to help you. I want to help fix it, and it's the responsibility of the county commissioners to make sure this is completed and gives you the support that you need as laypeople trying to do this job twice a month as volunteers, practically. So I just want to put that on the record. We want to fix it. I want to fix it. Some don't. But we're going to.

I'm so sorry, Commissioner, would you mind introducing yourself? I'm sorry.

I've always preached. You should introduce yourself. I am Commissioner Susan Krebs. Appointed for this very reason, I came into this job because I saw the problems that we have.

Susan, we need your help. We need your address to.

It's 1696 Springmount Drive, Eldersburg, Maryland, 21784. And anyone that has testimony, including whoever has it, just give it to us in writing so we have it in writing as well. So thank you. And again, we want predictability for everyone.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Kenny Nussbaum, 2419 Botman Valley Road, Manchester, Maryland. I'm the person that was involved when they was trying to get ready for one of their festivals a week before, and they come in and just started cutting my trees down because the state said they needed sight distance on that turn. If I wouldn't have had a call that day to go that way to Westminster, they would have had the whole corner knocked off. I turn around, come back, shut the job down. He said, you're not cutting my stuff down for sight distance. It's a bad turn right there. They come flying around. Motorcycles go flying up and down that road. I've lived there since 1996. called the county for the permit they have to acquire to have their thing and i said what's happening next week for that oh that's been approved i said how's that been approved i shut the site distance down they're not having their site distance they need so how they approve that they well they said the state said it was okay so that's a terrible road for traffic people fly down that road and the mornings like nascar going down through there witnessed one one morning one off the road up the hill like watching the dukes of hazard flipped upside down come down the road laying on his top uh it's not a good thing it's a bad place for that and they have more than three buses going there when they have their big things going on so you know you're not getting the whole picture you're not going to get the whole picture so So you need to consider the traffic is in the entrance is going to be a bad bad situation. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment?

Good morning, good morning. My name is Marilyn Merlot. I live at 2142 Hoover Mill Road. I was going to say Bachman Valley. Thank you for allowing us to speak and hearing our concerns. Many questions have been raised and objections brought to the board over the previous three and a half years and again this morning. I had a lot written, but I'm going to skip to the bottom because a lot has already been covered. I'm concerned that the commission may allow or may consider allowing a developer to build a commercial establishment with thousands of feet of asphalt, numerous commercial buildings serving hundreds, if not thousands of people on a well system in an agricultural zoning district. Mr. Becraft has continually repeated that a traffic study had not been required by the state. but the state has not approved the traffic study which has been stated because the traffic study was not required however we the the Commission or we the county can request improve a traffic study to be done and improvements to the roadway leading up to the driveway I appreciate the points that were raised by Ralph Robertson. They were well thought out and well spoken. Thank you. Carroll County, Maryland is home to over 100 places of worship. These facilities coexist and represent a diverse range of faiths and denominations, including Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, non-denominational churches, as well as synagogues and mosques. These congregations offer numerous community focused outreach programs that put faith into action through practical service, evangelism and social support to help many of our at risk Carroll County citizens in their time of need. They range from basic relief, emergency relief like food pantries, soup kitchens, clothing banks, benevolent funds, to community building events such as recreational groups, craft nights, or senior tech support, and long-term educational or mentorship programs that host recovery support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. and other 12-step programs. These community outreach programs are designed to connect organizations with the local populations to provide support, education, or resources. They bring people together. They help people in the community. This so-called megachurch, however, that does not want to help our community. They bus people in by the hundreds and post no trespassing signs at the entrance to their driveway. I've never seen a church that turns away anyone in their time of need, much less posting no trespassing signs. But the Marif Kadusian Kadish Arsimo Ethiopian Orthodox Monastery does not want to integrate into our community. They have not demonstrated that they're good neighbors in the past three years. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to question the county attorney on this. Since the initial application was put in, it was not complete. And then certain conditions occurred where there was not a building permit issued for the existing church. Why wouldn't that now be considered a conditional use permit or conditional use? Because I would consider this application we have in front of us one that would be valid under our current laws, the one that would before that was just a catch-up for a lot of things that weren't done properly. So why wouldn't that then, this middle today, why wouldn't that be under a conditional use? I don't understand the grandfathering based on the history that we've heard about here today.

So I just want to clarify, are you asking about the original building permit violations or the conditional use?

Those are separate issues. I'm I'm I'm talking about the application here.

OK, so we're talking about portion.

So when that was submitted, it was it was not properly done. You know, we we we ask them if they would come back with something better than what we had because there was no compliance. when I first go around. So what are you talking about? So I'm just trying to get clarification. All right. So what I'm wondering about is, is what? Yeah. Why wouldn't this be now considered under conditional use under the new under the new code? That's that's my question.

So we look at the time of submittal itself. So what we're looking at specifically was that at the time it was considered a basically as right, because when it was originally and I'm not talking concept site plan versus final site plan, those are separate from just the changing in to needing a conditional use. I'm just addressing the conditional use issue right now. So originally when it was submitted, it was allowed as of right on an agricultural property. Eventually, the code changed, as you mentioned, to requiring it to be a conditional use. However, We look at the time of submittal based on the time of submittal. It would, it got grandfathered because when the code changed to require a conditional use, a resolution was passed at the same time, which was voted on by the County commissioners was heard before them. And they agreed to grandfather all projects that fell under this into the previous set of code that it was a, it was not a conditional use.

Okay, then the second question is, it was brought up that we can require a traffic study. Is that right or wrong?

So I'm going to actually just read you the code because I think it makes it easier here for everybody. So specifically what was cited was 155052BG, two separate letters because they make it complicated. You are allowed to require a traffic impact study be performed by the developer or the owner in accordance with criteria established by the Department of Public Works or its successor agency. So you may require a traffic impact study. I will also note. that we can't require the state to do one. We have no authority to tell the state what to do. But we can require the owner and the developer to do one. However, they may also not be able to tell the state what to do. But you are allowed to require a traffic impact study, if that makes sense.

And Elizabeth, do we have anyone on staff who is competent in that area? And I'm not saying that, David, you're incompetent. I'm just saying, do we have a specialist within the county like we do on stormwater? I think this is.

Traffic goes through our engineers and our Department of Public Works.

So we have someone who is qualified to review that and say this is, because I'm dubious of traffic studies that are paid for by developers. Because I think we can all figure, right? We can all do math. It's all based on the assumptions you're using.

And on State Road, it's a state road. So we could have one of our DPW folks go out who's certified or whatever to do the study.

So if you'd like, I can actually just there's more to that section of code that I will continue to read for you here while we're at it. The Planning and Zoning Commission may require the developer owner to take any action necessary to ensure the adequacy and safety of transportation that are affected by the proposed improvements. And the Planning and Zoning Commission may require the owner to enter into a PWA that's an agreement. But again, I can't speak to that. But you could require them to make changes based on the traffic impact study at prorated rates that they pay into. It shouldn't find it.

OK, thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Chris has more explanation than I do.

Chris, I'm director of planning and land management. I just wanted to clarify the traffic impact study process. So when a project triggers the thresholds for a traffic impact study or if the Planning Commission requires a traffic impact study, our staff, our technical staff reviews the scope of the project and works with any other agencies that may have impact on that study so whether it's state highway administration or a municipality and so on so our staff coordinates the scope of that study in this case because the property only accesses a state highway roadway there's not a county roadway so the county would not be involved in the study there's no municipality it's only state highway administration And so when State Highway was asked if they wanted to see a study, they said no. So yes, you could require a study to be done, but the only agency that would review that would be State Highway Administration, and they've said they do not want to see a study. So yes, you could require one, but nobody would be looking at it from that perspective. This is stupid. So I just wanted to clarify how that process works.

That's a great explanation. It's amazingly, it baffles me. But thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I guess. So we get a study, and then we're the only ones that are going to review.

With the paper and the shredder. Excuse me.

And I'm not qualified to review it. I'm not qualified. I mean, give me a break. I'm in finance.

Commissioners, may I be briefly heard on a procedural note?

Yes.

I just want to clarify that if the commission believes that the application doesn't demonstrate requirements with the law, that's grounds to deny the application outright. I just want to make sure that standard is clear. If the applicant hasn't upheld its burden of proof to show that it complies with the law, then the commission has the power to say there's not substantial evidence to support a finding that they comply with the requirements of the law. Thank you for your time.

So we're being asked to. There's a request for approval of final site plan in accordance with chapter 155 with this with this project. So with that, I think we should probably take, if there's no other comment from here.

Well, I was going to make, because of course, just thinking back about all the things that were sent to us, one of the things was ownership of the property. And I just looked in the tax records, and it looks like the property was transferred from the individual to the church just last year. So did it qualify to be a church on private ground before that?

So anybody may operate a church under that's federal law. Anybody may operate a church. It does not matter who the owner is. A private person could own a church and operate a church in their house, in theory.

OK. It was just something they had commented about. OK. So

I'm looking for a motion.

And then we'll vote. Can we ask for a traffic study?

I think it's appropriate. Can we postpone? I think that's appropriate. Or it's a condition, or it's a, you know, what do we call it, the conditions of the... The motion is definitely one of the most glaring issues.

Yeah. One of what can we postpone?

So you would be making a motion today to require the traffic impact study and would defer the final approval to a later date based on your findings.

I'd also like to have a EMT or fire official come in and give us reassurance that that that all the conditions there are compatible with with what the EMT and the fire departments are looking for in new development or new commercial or religious establishments where you have that many people congregated in one spot. We haven't heard that. And I'm you know, I'm going back to this. Mr. Fisher, I want you to know that this problem is not your making. This problem we're dealing with now was the making of some bad decisions on our zoning that we need to straighten out. And that's just an editorial comment that I'm gonna make and I'm gonna keep making it. I've been harping on this for 20 years and the chickens have come home to roost on this one. So I'm not prepared to even make a vote on this right now, until I hear more information that what we're doing is putting a safe and sound institution here that would not only protect the citizens of Carroll County, but the citizens that's gonna be congregating in that church. That's our role.

Can we make that as a separate motion from the one that we- That's my motion. I just wanna make sure that we are We have each of those.

My editorial comment is not part of the motion.

But yeah, I just want to make sure that if we're doing the traffic and then you're asking for an additional review by fire and EMS, that we make those as separate just so that we make sure that we're keeping things

Mr. Moore, I'm more concerned about the safety and soundness of the community here. So if I would make that same motion as part of a traffic study here, EMT far over here.

We do not have any formal motions on the floor.

We're just making editorial comments. As long as we're doing that, I'm going to make one as well. And I'll say it again, I'm not against the Christian faith at all. What you guys are able to do out there, it really does amaze me. At the same time, there's a master plan that we are supposed to adhere to that talks about preserving urban environments. It talks about predictability and zoning. And just citizens health safety and well-being all of those kinds of things and so I encourage you know we're about to make a motion here I think that is going to require you to spend more money I encourage you guys like y'all heard some things today you I encourage you guys to really think about You're about to put a stake in the ground, and you're not going to easily be able to move it. And I'm not so sure you're going to get it approved, even if you spend the money and do the study. And that's not me telling you... My general disposition is to prove stuff because at the same time, I'm hearing a lot of things that are very concerning in terms of law enforcement, traffic. Is this the right place for it? Can we as a county support you in what you're trying to do? and we get EMT out there. Ralph, you're all over this. I mean, again, you call people to a place, and if there is a fire out there and there are 1,000 people in there and somebody loses their life, I will be beside myself. I will. I'll lose sleep over this stuff. And so I encourage you gentlemen, please think about what we're doing here because you're asking us to make decisions. This is totally, and I'll say this to the people who are here and in opposition to it, Our code allows this. And Ms. Krebs was right. If you want to see the code changed, you need to, we're talking about this stuff right now. And whether or not these, all these conditional uses, outdoor equipment storage, should that be, it's not just churches. So I'll stop, because we've been going on for two and a half hours without a restroom break for anybody. Would somebody like to make a, Matthew, would you like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion that would postpone the final approval until, and request a traffic study.

I'll second it.

Take a roll vote.

Roll call vote, please.

Roll call.

Mr. Huff?

Yes.

Mr. Kirkner? Mr. Buster?

Yes.

Mr. Robertson? Yes.

Mr. Huff?

Mr. Smith? Yes. Yes. Mr. Swinson? Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chairman, let the record reflect. We have four yays and one abstain.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a second motion. I'd like to see the EMS people, the emergency services, and or the fire department personnel who's responsible for that area to be called here to give us an impact study on what they see and whether they can serve it in a proper fashion.

I second.

Roll call. Roll vote.

Mr. Huff?

Yes.

Mr. Connector? Mr. Lester?

Yes.

Mr. Robertson?

Yes.

Mr. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Swenson? Mr. Gordon? Abstain. Mr. Chairman, let the record reflect. We have four yays and one abstain.

OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if I could have just a quick second. Yes, sir. I'd like to thank Mister Robertson for bringing up those points. I think those are very valid. Any of us, specifically the folks who live out there, but any of us that travel around that area know how challenging that road can be at times. And, you know, I think Mister Lester had a very good point, too. You know, we are trying to look for the overall picture of everybody, not just the individuals that may be utilizing the property, but the community as a whole. So I just want to thank you for bringing that up this morning.

Thank you. any other motions okay all right so uh i guess at the end of the day here we're we are uh tabling this in a sense until we get these uh two things two studies uh done and then once we have those we can reconvene and go through thank you all for coming out thank you all

Chairman, could I request a break?

Yes. Let's take a 10-minute recess.

I'm sorry, you'll have to. And then you leave.

It's me again Good morning still so David B craft with the development review division of

As you mentioned, we have just one more project to discuss from development review side of things. And this is for Reservoir Run Retirement Village. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this property as this is considered part of what we call the Beatty property. So ultimately, this is before you as a special report. We do have a couple of representatives here and I will I'll let them introduce themselves.

Thank you, David. Good morning. Kelly Schaefer Miller, 73 East main street, Westminster, Maryland, 2 1 1 5 7. I'm here this morning on behalf of St. John properties. And I will say we do have everybody here to answer all of your questions. So we have our aside from Tom and I who are sitting up here, just please know that behind us, uh, we have Matt Taylor and Allie Phillips from St. John properties. We have Mark Keeley and Kyle Schmidt from Traffic Concepts, and we have Ryan Langrier from Century and Jim Mathias from DDC who've all been involved in this project. They are just seated right behind me, and I'll let Tom introduce himself.

Thank you. Good morning. Tom Pilon, St. John Properties, 2560 Lord Baltimore Drive, Windsor, Maryland, 21244.

Perfect. And this is before you as a special report. So this property is currently zoned R20000, so residential 20000. What is being proposed is a retirement village on this property. And per chapter 158.161 retirement village it says the authorization of conditional use for a retirement village shall be subject to prior concept site development plan and traffic study review and determination of density exterior design and site layout by the planning commission So before they move on to the border zoning appeals to request conditional approval of this retirement village, they first have to stop by here by the Planning Commission so that you can weigh in on those various items. And I will run through my report to kind of touch on what they are proposing with this development. I do want to bring up. So today's agenda is very interesting in that later today you will be hearing potential discussions in reference to retirement homes and villages as i run through this report i would like you to think about what is currently in code because although there have been various discussions at hand we don't know what will or will not be adopted as it relates to those discussions So, again, your purview is pretty broad already because you do have the determination of density, exterior design, and site layout. So that does already provide a pretty broad net as to what you may or may not request with any retirement village. But just because we have that one, that discussion later in the day, I don't want it to, I don't want you to be thinking too much in that forefront. So moving through with this development in particular, as I mentioned, this is the southernmost property in reference to those four that create the Beatty property. I'm pretty sure everybody can point this out on a map with their eyes closed, but I will still mention that this is down in the Eldersburg district. This is Bennett Road right here. This is Progress Way. We have London Town, Georgetown, and then 26th here. So the property itself is the highlighted portion here. So if we zoom in on the property, If we go the correct way, we will see that this property is roughly 20 acres and it's currently undeveloped. As you can see, it is comprised mostly of open meadows with patches of trees and there's also patches of wetland area on the property as well. There are no streams that currently exist on the property, but you can see that there is a stream on the northern property with various buffers that do extend onto this property. The subject property and all adjoining properties lie in the existing and final planning water and sewer service areas. So if we look at some of what's adjoining to this property, you can see that there is an existing subdivision here. So this is the Long Meadow subdivision. It was from the 1960s. It is also our 20 zoning district. This development was proposed and as you can see with single family dwellings on this property included with this subdivision were various ingress egress points for this property that we're talking about. So one of which comes out onto Longmeadow Drive about right here. and then another one is along this property or I'm sorry this ingress here so these have been incorporated into the proposed development So this is an update to the Beatty master plan that you've seen multiple times. So this property originally was to be comprised of single family dwellings. They have since moved away from that direction and are moving into the retirement village direction. I wanted to provide this just to kind of encapsulate everything that's happening with this development and to re-familiarize yourselves with what the end goal for St. John's properties is. So first we have the Eldersburg Corporate Park, which is here. This is currently in the final site development plan review phase. This was before the commission back in 2024. along with that we do have the proposed subdivision of that parcel as well this was a lot more recent which was last month it was before you for discussion that is also in the final plan review phase the site development plan will be back before you for consideration and approval once it complies with all applicable codes and regulations so you will see that again joining that is this other retirement village this is eldersburg overlook this was before you two times already once as a special report back in april of 2024 and a second time as a concept plan back in august of 2024. this is also currently in the final review phase and similarly will be back before you again once they meet all required rules and regulations. But something else to mention is that this property is also subject to the current deferral that's in place as well. So if they meet those rules and regulations before that deferral is up, then they would have to wait for that deferral to to expire before coming back before you to request final site development plan approval. Following that up to the north, we have Eldersburg Preserve. So this is in the R40,000 zoning district and currently proposes single family dwellings. So a subdivision plan. This was only before you one time as a concept plan back in August of 2024. So they are currently in the preliminary plan phase. Once they meet all rules and regulations of the preliminary plan phase, they will be before you requesting preliminary approval. So I wanted to give that broad overview because there is a lot happening on the Beatty property. And most items are looked at comprehensively as to how one interacts with the other. One of those relates to the traffic that all of these developments will be generating. So a traffic study was required and it was submitted to the county for all of these parcels. So understanding that all of these parcels will be generating traffic, one complete traffic impact study was provided to the county. The study determined that the combined impact of the four projects would in total impact the intersection capacity of 32 in Bennett and Johnsville Road, 32 in Progress Way, 32 in London Town Boulevard. At the time, there were some mitigations that were provided in reference to that. There were also some red line changes that were made to the traffic impact study to ensure that any mitigation that's necessary is being provided. And part of those changes were different phases in that traffic impact study. So there are three different three different numbers that were run and I'm sure they can go more into detail on this but the first one relates to just the Eldersburg corporate park being being constructed so just these buildings here being constructed the next one is in reference to all four projects having been constructed minus this extension being built So essentially, everything as is with the roadway infrastructure. And then finally, it was all projects constructed with this Georgetown Boulevard connection having been made. So these different scenarios were ran and were provided to the county in reference to what kind of traffic these developments would generate. There are plan improvements at the Maryland 32 and Bennett Road. Those have been incorporated into the Eldersburg Corporate Park site development plan. Understanding that the Eldersburg Corporate Park site development plan will be the first one that will move through the approval process. So those improvements will be constructed as part of that plan so that way they are done and complete. As you can see, looking at this proposed development, I want to try to limit what's being There's a lot to consider with this development. I don't want you to look at everything too much because it can be too overwhelming. My hope is, is that we can kind of look at what's currently being proposed with this development. So as you see this proposal, it does show connections onto this extension of Georgetown Boulevard. So the property line is here. This extension all the way up to the roundabout and the connection to Progress Way, all of that is shown as being constructed again with the Eldersburg Corporate Park Industrial Park. So this is showing a connection to that with the understanding that that roadway is to be constructed with that industrial park. There are also two connections made to the southern subdivision here. We have the one here and then again the one here. So running through those previous parcels of land that were reserved for those connection byways. And so moving more into what's currently being proposed. So as I mentioned, this was originally submitted as a subdivision plan for single family dwellings. On April 24th of last year, this site development plan for the property was submitted to development review and was distributed to the review agencies. With this development, the developer is looking to construct 72 two-story townhouse units within this retirement village. All units are proposed as attached and are shown in groups that vary from four to five unit buildings. There are sidewalks that are shown running along all property, all proposed roadways, and these will tie into the rest of the Beatty developments shown to the north. as i mentioned this is a conditional use in the r20 000 zoning district and just to reconfirm that we're looking for the planning commission to make determinations regarding density exterior design and site layout of what's being proposed so one of the items within the zoning code relates to the bulk requirements of such a development Let's see here. So although the Planning Commission is making a determination on density in a retirement village, the zoning code makes mention that the allowable density shall not exceed three and a half units. and i'm sorry three and a half dwelling units per acre so because this property is on 20 roughly 20 and a half acres the maximum density ratio of three and a half units per acre comes out to 72 units which is right where they're proposing their units at so they're not exceeding that threshold uh the setbacks um there are various setbacks that are depicted in the plan again these are also determined by the planning zoning commission so these setbacks are shown as 20 feet from the proposed roadways 50 feet from the residential lots along rolling view drive which is this one to the south here and 12 feet from the northern parcel and the residential lots along along Meadow Drive. So 12 feet on the north side as well as 12 feet along these properties here. There is also a area up here which has slightly different setbacks. These setbacks are shown as 40 feet from Georgetown Boulevard extended. 50 feet from those two adjoining residential lots along Long Meadow. So again, 50 feet against these two lots here. And 12 feet from those parcels adjoining to the west. So 12 feet along this property line here. So this development proposes a road network, which I'm sure you're familiar with because this road network did not change from the previous subdivision plan that was provided and reviewed. Typically in a retirement village, these road networks are privately owned and maintained. However, these roads that are currently shown, so Road B, which will be named, this connection road B as long as road a which again will be named um and sunrise drive here. These will all be county owned and maintained. So understanding the interconnectivity and the usefulness of those roadways. Parking requirements for age-restricted adult townhouses are two spaces for each dwelling unit with additional parking for overflow and guest parking being required at the discretion of the Planning Zoning Commission. Each unit is shown as having a garage as well as a private driveway provided. Additional parking areas have been proposed throughout the retirement village. So there is a parking area shown along Road B here. There is a parking area shown along Road A here, as well as a parking area shown down this generation.

David, how many extra cars would that encompass then in the extra parking area?

That's a good question.

I believe it's 27. And David, just so you know, there's a fourth area that's right above that label of Road A there. Yes, it's, yes, 27 additional spaces across the four. Yes, correct.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

OK, so I do also have zoomed in portions of the proposed development. If you want to look at anything individual. So I'll just click through these slowly in case you catch something or want to comment on something. But I am making my way to the architectural elevations that were provided.

Just point out now what is going to be county maintained.

So this roadway here so this roadway called road a as long as this roadway making the connection to rolling view drive.

Is that what you call it.

Yes that's right.

What's the distance between the units there. We got 4 and 5 units together what's the distance between. What's kind of access to have to get around and behind.

20 foot minimum.

And this is the terminus of that road A. So these are the elevations that were provided within the plan set. Proposed colors include tan, brown, blue, and gray with white trim and garage doors. Although the materials are not yet annotated, the rendering appears to depict siding, stone veneer, and asphalt shingled roofs. Decorative garage doors, trim details, roofline shutters, light fixtures, and custom windows adorn the facades. Street lighting is proposed throughout the development and the detail provided within the plan depicts a pole mounted light that's going to be roughly 16 feet tall. So those are shown scattered throughout running along the roadway. This development was brought before the Design and Architectural Review Committee, so DARK. They are an advisory group and they met to discuss this proposal. Comments received were very similar to some of the other ones that we've received, especially to those along the north. These relate to how the residential units look identical to one another. And so they were questioning if there were plans to visually distinguish the units to help the residents find their unit. One of the other comments made were that the elevations, When they reviewed them, the elevation showed steps into the units. Those steps were removed, I believe, in response to those comments as well as other comments made. So this development plan, it was subject to citizen involvement on May 15th of last year during the Technical Review Committee meeting. There was an email received prior to the meeting regarding the traffic proposed connectivity to the existing neighborhood and water usage in the area. There were also phone calls.

I'm sorry about that.

There are also a phone call received prior to the meeting with concerns of traffic roadway connections and the potential negative effects on the adjoining subdivision. During the meeting, there were three citizens in presence for the development to voice distaste for the proposal and the review from their property, as well as mentioning the existing flood areas on site. One of the items that was requested by the developer is how things would look from the opposite side. So from those adjoining properties, because they will be looking at the rear of these buildings. And you can see on the left side of the screen, there are two options that are shown, one with a walkout basement and one without a walkout basement. So staff and the developer are seeking determinations from the commission specific to the density, the exterior design, and the site layout. Following these determinations, the conditional use request may be heard by the Board of Zoning Appeals the concept development plan will continue to go through the concept review following the determination by the Board of Zoning Appeals and will be back to you for direction and review as a concept plan before coming back for you for final so you will see this again before having any determinations to be made Some other things that were provided were some renderings by the St. John's property team. And I'm going to run through what was provided. So this is an aerial rendering that was provided. This is that Georgetown extension. These are the roadways that are being constructed with Reservoir Run. and this is the reservoir run community. You can see to the north you have the industrial use as well as some of those other uses. This is on the opposite side of the reservoir run community. This is a shot at the end of that cul-de-sac looking back at the reservoir run community. And then finally, this is a lower shot of that. So if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer where I can as well as the representatives of the project.

Thank you. Any questions? The rendering of this is so helpful. I think we all require that.

Thank you. And just so you know, we do have some additional renderings that just provide all of the viewpoints within that. I think it is very impactful and helpful to see that in context. So we're happy to share all of that with you if if there's questions.

How wide are the roadways here? The streets? How wide are they? There's two different road widths. I just want to come to what we're looking at here. That's rude.

So it's 30 feet on a 50 foot right away and 25 on a 45 right away. So it's 25 and. Yeah. And it changes where Sunrise comes into Road A, to the east of that, the cul-de-sac, it's the 25 foot west of that and all the way down to Georgetown is 30 feet. That was at the request of Public Works when we sat with them. They told us how they wanted us to select those road sections. And just to clarify one thing, somebody asked about the ownership of the roads, where it would be owned. The parking is actually, private, it would not be the county's responsibility to maintain those parking areas. Um, only, only the, it's basically the curb area. So,

And I also just want to point out, and I was remiss in not introducing Kevin Scott, who's also here with us today, of Envy to speak to any of the specific architectural design elements here. But I do want to note that the architectural designs that you're seeing here were submitted after that dark review happened. And so we did address and provided additional details on varying the front elevations, the zero step entry, and some other architectural comments by providing the rear elevations and those sorts of things. So I just wanted to clarify that what you're seeing here was submitted after those comments were made.

I guess I'll jump in.

My preference would be to see a little less density on this site. When we originally saw this plan and the neighbors who live along there, I drove through that neighborhood this morning on the way in, And by the way, guys, I think those roads leading up to this, they are 30-foot roads. I stepped it off, and so I think this is consistent with what is currently there. I'm not sure because I didn't break out a tape measure. I didn't want somebody yelling at me at 7 o'clock. But I think, given that it was R20, I think the current – residents there they were all they weren't expecting townhomes lined up like this and so from a density standpoint and from a you know and again if we're going to adhere to the master plan and preserving neighborhoods and those kinds of things I think what we want to do is I would I you know, again, what they saw in that first rendering or the first site plan were single-family homes on this side of the stream. And so I think this is going to come as a shock to the community. And so I think if we could reduce the density a little bit or maybe make the units in threes and fours rather than fours and fives, that would go over better. And, again, I don't know if there's an opportunity to create a – couple of villas in there that are single-family and not in deep detached homes entirely I think that would be better received because that was what was initially shown on the concept plan you know for this portion of the property of the beauty property The distance between units, David, again, that's something that we've got to get the fire people to sign off on. I know that there were some concerns about some other things that have been developed in the area. And they look at it and scratch their heads as to why it was done the way that it was done. And I don't know why they were surprised by what was developed. And so unfortunately, I think Envy Homes and St. John's is coming in and the fog of that. So we need to make sure that we've dotted our I's and crossed our T's with EMT to make sure that from a distance standpoint that they're comfortable because this is over 55. There aren't gonna be fewer calls here. If anything, we're gonna have more heart attacks in this thing, not fewer. So initially, those are my comments. From a traffic standpoint, I'd like to hear from the the the traffic folks as to what we think the traffic is going to be in and you'll have we in terms of Coming out on 26, if you're trying to go into Baltimore County from this development or you're trying to get down to I-70, do we think we've done the best we can to allow these people to have ease of access on the 26? So I'd like to hear what the traffic people have to say about that.

Absolutely. If we may just respond to a few of those comments. So I do want to point out that in David's presentation he explained the change to the master plan and the master plan for this community, when I say master plan in that sense, and that these had previously been proposed as single family market rate residential units and has since been revised. Aside from the TRC meeting, I do want to point out, because I think it's This project has been going on for several years and sometimes we all need a bit of a refresher. But this plan showing the 55 plus age restricted housing project in this area was presented in November of 2024 during a community town hall meeting. So it has been publicly viewed. It has been put out there to the public and it has been a part of the overall Beatty property master plan for some time. It has been under technical review for much less time than that. But I just want to make that clear. And we understand the comments about the master plan. And what I want to say to that is that this property, this project that we're here talking about today, has a land use designation in the 2018 Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan for residential medium. So it was contemplated for that land use. If you look at that corresponding land use definition, in the 2018 Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan, that definition itself specifically calls out the allowance of age-restricted units at a density of 3.5 units per acre. So I don't know that it's necessarily a fair statement to say that this was unanticipated. I understand that at first the concept plan for the Beatty property did not show it as age-restricted. But since the adoption of the Freedom Plan, this has been contemplated. in that sense. And we are happy to call. I think I just want to say that we preemptively understood that you would have a lot of questions. We've been in front of you for the past few months on different projects, and we want to be as responsive as possible to those. So we are happy to call up any of our consultants and talk through things. and show you information on the screen that is helpful. We didn't want to assume and jump into details that you did not want to hear about. So we are happy to call our traffic consultants up and let them answer any questions you might have about the traffic study, the improvements that are being proposed, and the impacts. So I don't know if now is the time.

I'd like to hear it. OK. Absolutely. I'll hold back.

So I'm going to call Mark Keeley and Kyle Schmidt. They're both here from Traffic Concepts.

Whatever. We can squeeze in.

Good afternoon. My name is Mark Keeley. I'm a project manager at Traffic Concepts. My address is 7525 Connolly Drive, Hanover, Maryland 21076. Traffic concepts perform the traffic study for the entire Beatty property and I can speak about the reservoir run question. The original traffic study had 34 single family market rate units. And typically, when you have an increase in density, as is the case here, this is 72 townhouse units. That's a retirement community. Typically, with increased density, there's increased trips. However, there's a difference between market rate and retirement. So with the 72 units, the AM trips actually are reduced from 28 to 14, so that's a reduction of 14 trips. In the PM peak hour, the 34 units generated 36 trips, and that's reduced to 18 under the 72, and that's a reduction of 18 trips. And then Saturday, The 34 units, single-family units generated 39 trips and the 72 age-restricted units is 23, so that's a peak hour reduction on Saturday of 16. And the reason why there's a reduction in trips is that age restricted typically has a portion of the residents who don't work. So there's a reduction in peak hour employment related trips. And typically there's a lower number of persons per household. So that typically means there's going to be a lower vehicle ownership per household. There's no kids, so there's no school trips. And typically, there's some flexibility. If you're not working, you're going to have flexibility in your trip making. So the trip statistics that I just spoke about are from the Institute of Transportation Engineers manual that has studies for market rates, single families, and studies for the townhouses. So that's where that information comes from. And the ITE manual is required by State Highway, the county, and it's used nationwide.

So when you would... gonna push back just to hear here so we're going from 30 some odd homes to 72 right yes and we're saying that there's gonna be a decrease in traffic based upon the numbers, the assumptions that you used. When you do those calculations, are you given a range of numbers that you can use, and we're picking the median of that range, or are we picking the low end of the range? What are we using?

So in the IT manual, There's a number, it's a scattered diagram. So there's a number of studies that are placed on this diagram. And ITE gives you either a rate or a fitted curve equation. And we use the equation typically. So we the independent variable would be the number of units 72. So we plug that in number into the fitted curve equation and you get the number of peak hour trips. So it's I know it's I'm plugging the variable into an equation with constants. So I'm not I'm not you're not you're not given a range.

I'm not you're not playing with a range of numbers and you're selectively picked the low end of the range. So you're so I'm just I'm just the skeptic that, and again, I mean, traffic is a science, I guess. So I guess I have to adhere to your numbers. I just find it difficult being that we're more active, not less active as we get older. And I live, not everything's about me. I just know that, half the people I know who are my age we're all watching grandchildren during the summer and there's an increased traffic because we're getting grandchildren dropped off at our homes you know three days a week but I'm just I'm just you know it's it's a it's a weird thing and then two I mean with 72 homes in there just the prime deliveries and UPS and FedEx and everything else at between four and six o'clock in the afternoon I would think Now, that's not residential-based traffic. That would be commercial traffic coming to serve the people. So are those included in your calculations?

Yeah, all trips associated with residential units are included. So, I mean, I'm sick.

Look, all I can do is ask the questions. You're being great. I'm not calling you a liar, please. I did not. That is not. I just want to... dig a little here because you know this is that's a lot 72 homes is a lot based on where we were before and we are now going to you know those people living on long meadow we're going to let some of the anybody getting the 26 is going to go down long meadow anybody trying to get the safeway is going to go up to georgetown um so i you know i just want to make sure that we have not overburdened because i know their lives are going to change the traffic pattern is going to change that's not the issue the i guess the issue now let's talk about what's going on down at long meadow drive and at 26 are we making any improvements down there well we are not we tested those intersections and they're there's reserve capacity they're adequate and again um

So these units have access to Longmeadow Drive and to Rollingville. They also would have access to Georgetown Boulevard extended. So a portion of the trips would go north. So the numbers that I gave you, I'm testifying that these are factual numbers taken from statistics that, again, SHA, the county.

You rely on and so we do too.

So it's going to be, we're talking about 10 peak hour trips, additional trips that are making their way down long distances.

Meadow Drive to 26 and it doesn't it doesn't really it's it's not changing the delay at 26 with that volume of traffic during the I'll be I'll stop Mark though I did just want to clarify one thing that you were asked by Mr. Lester because um the approach that we have used is not is the most conservative approach when you talked about the curve and don't quote me on any of those terminology but you use the most conservative approach, not the most favorable approach, is that correct?

Right, and these numbers have, again, there's an average rate and the fitted curve equation, and the county's reviewing, and I try to be conservative. Okay. So I use the highest number.

Okay.

If I could just jump in real quick, I want to make sure there's also the distinction made that they're looking at peak hour trips. So not just all traffic and they've got flexibility and traded in those specific times.

Definitely point well taken because again, I yeah, yeah, you get to choose when you go. You don't have to be out there fighting with the buses, the school buses. Alright, so let's talk about Georgetown. Extended for a minute. Do we know how that roads going to get built and who's going to build it and how we're going to pay for it? Or and and Tom, this may be back to you. This is away from the science and down to the finance. Can you tell us where we stand on that and and and gas? Anybody else have before? I'm monopolizing the whole conversation.

Stick with traffic mark marks.

Stay stay up here for a second.

I think Mark anybody have a question for Mark?

Not yet.

Don't worry. He can always come back.

He's not going to leave. He's not going anywhere. We're going to phone a friend.

Tom's going to have to phone a friend, and we're going to need you. Let's go. Tom, can you tell us where we stand on the whole plan here for road improvements and Progress Way, too? I mean, I know we're primarily, let's stay on this development today, but I'd like to know as much as you can tell us about anything going on to Georgetown and 32 and Progress Way.

Sure, sure. And maybe just to go back to a point that David made, we're kind of front-loading improvements with the flex development or the industrial development. We're tying the improvements to that. We intend to start that, so the improvement at Bennett Road, and there's a reworking of the signal at London Town at 32. Those things will be done up front. We just figure... Better that way, right? Try to get those improvements finished early. But as far as Georgetown extended is concerned, we have spent a good bit of time, in fact, we were meeting with the county staff. We had a weekly scheduled meeting where we would go through the conversation about advancing the design and acquisition of right-of-ways and things like that and we'd give updates and we would ask technical questions. excuse me, they were reviewing plans and things like that. And that started over a year ago that we started working on that, like in earnest. I don't remember exactly. I actually remember where I was when we had the phone call. I was standing on the side of the road in Delaware, but I can't tell you the day that I was doing that. But anyway, we agreed that we would try to advance the design and see if we could acquire rights away. The county was, and the county can speak to that, but had had some conversations with one property owner in particular and got a pretty cold reception. And for various reasons, whatever, we did have conversations and we were able to get to a point that right-of-ways are, you know, we have the ability to acquire right-of-ways and such, get those in the county's hands, and we've advanced the design. We spent a lot of time working on the design itself for the roundabout. When I'm talking about this, I'm talking about the offsite portion of Georgetown. So from the bend there where it transitions from Georgetown to London town, There's a plan that would be for a roundabout. We spent a lot of time going through that. I bet we had six, seven different exact locations of where the roundabout was gonna be. There was shifting, trying to figure out the speeds going through it to make sure people slow down and et cetera. We looked at the various alignments of the extension, then leaving the circle and coming to the east and arriving at our property line. And we needed to do that for a couple reasons. Initially, we did it conceptually. so that we knew where to extend it on our side and have the dead end kind of arrive or the common meeting point so you get the two alignments to match whenever the other piece gets built and at the time my understanding was there was funding in the budget for the off-site portion and as i said we were having very cooperative conversations with the county it's my understanding now that perhaps that funding isn't there at this point for the off-site portion but we We would like nothing better than to continue that conversation with the county and see that project advance. There's been suggestions that the question has come up about who does Georgetown, where's the benefit of putting that Georgetown extension in? And you heard Mark talk about when that was connected that that would provide some mitigation and things like that. But even as you just, the questions you were just asking about, you know, if we make those two connections at Sunrise and then connecting to Longmeadow, that if you wanted to get to 26, you'd have to go through that community, the most direct route. And people are going to do that. But with Georgetown, you could actually go out and get to 26 without having to cut through a neighborhood. So if that were to actually happen, that's the benefit would be there. But we have been, I think county staff would agree that We've been nothing but cooperative with regard to that. We would love to see it happen. And if you bear with me one more minute, I could point you to three roads in Baltimore County where we did the same type of a thing. We worked cooperatively with Baltimore County, Lord Baltimore Drive over in Windsor Mill, We worked with the county. We helped acquire rights-of-ways and did design. We worked with county staff to acquire rights-of-way. We provided design, and the county did a capital project. And then Lord Baltimore at the time didn't come all the way from Security Boulevard up into a development that we were working at, and now it continues all the way. You can go to Liberty Road. That connection didn't exist before. So we did that, and that was in the... late 1990s, probably in the early 2000s. Dolefield Boulevard is now a four lane divided road that goes down and makes it really a much needed connection into Newtown. Same thing there, the county had made it known that if a developer came along that was developing a couple of properties there, that the county would be willing to pay for half of the right-of-way of the improvements. And we provided the design, and then the county actually gave us a grant they gave us grant money and we and we put that out to bid and we actually uh constructed that and then the county at the same time was was replacing the bridge that goes all the way back to hurricane agnes i guess they had like an old like pontoon style bridge crossing red run there and now there's you go out there and you see that and it's it's all there and you can make a connection over from red run all the way into newtown And then the last one, the most recent one, that was probably in the last five, six years, something like that, Campbell Boulevard over on the east side of Baltimore County. And the county had struggled for years. Nobody could acquire the one piece of property. And there was three property owners that you needed right away to get through. And we actually acquired one of the properties outright. Then the other two, we got option contracts to purchase right away or the entire property. In those cases, we were able to get right away. We provided design to the county and the county built it as a capital project. We have a lot of experience. I've been with St. John's since 1997. Those three projects happened over that 30 years I was involved in all of them. We know how to work through those types of issues and welcome the opportunity to try to do that here as well. Okay.

I'll say it out loud. Again, I'm the only one up here that lives here. I see this connectivity as being critical, how we get it done. We you us county. I'm not here to negotiate. I just want to know where you stand because it's not my I don't have the authority to cut a check. Well, maybe I'm not cutting a check. I'll just put it that way. Whether Tom wants to or not, that's his business. But again, I just want to know where it stands. Sure. And again, you see that extension. It does go across somebody else's property. And I just want to make sure it's not just a wish. It's something that we think we can get done. So that's good to hear.

We have clearly locked down the right of way. And what percentage would you say we're at the design? 50% or 60% through the design process on the road itself.

OK. Pierre, I'd just like to sort of piggyback on why we're here and why we're asking these questions. And I'll do this for something that I saw when I first got on the commission, and that was promises made and promises not kept. And so you may be the poster child for what's going to happen from here on out in the future. So I don't think anymore we're going to stand for dead-end streets. We're not going to stand for roads that should have been put in that never were. And a lot of that is not your fault. None of it probably is your fault. So I'm not accusing. I'm just saying that if we don't carry through with this up front, It may never get done.

And we have a history of doing that, Ralph. We've been really good at not doing that.

Absolutely. And that's us. It's time to put a stop to it so that when we have a plan that you have worked on and worked on and worked on, that we don't go back and say, why didn't we do this? We knew it should have been done. There was some sort of a vague promise that was never fulfilled. So we want to draw some lines and make those things a reality so that the people that live there will be better off in the long run. I mean, I'm trying to do an editorial here. Don't take it any other way. I'm glad to see that we're talking about this. I went from here on out to have these promises made and these promises kept. And this is part of it. I'm glad to see what you've done here. Put a lot of work into it. Maybe it's not perfect, but if we keep working on it and find the discrepancies and then make those changes and those discrepancies moving forward, then we'll have a community we can be proud of moving forward. And I hope you're a part of that.

Yeah, if I may respond just a little bit. Just to kind of that end, the master plan for the county in this area, I guess in particular, indicated that Georgetown was in fact a master plan road. And it had a, I'll call it a rough alignment for it. It actually went up the western boundary of our property. The vast majority of it was not on our property. when we looked at that and the county said, you know, there would, essentially the comment would have been that you gotta build the portion that's on your property, we're looking for that extension, whatever it was. And honestly, at first we were like, why would we be required to do that, whatever, but as we got into it and we looked at it, we, and it was very early on, it's probably three or four years ago, I remember, it was either November or December, I don't remember if it was 2021 or 2022, but we met with, with representatives from MDE, the Corps might have been there in the county, out there in the field, and we had staked out like four different crossing location possibilities. And then through that field visit, there was a determination that, this what we're reflecting on this plan where we're crossing that stream is the right place it would have the least impact the original alignment from the county that in one of the images that David shared shows that that stream as you go upstream into the property it actually splits so you got two streams coming together there and then continuing to the east across our site the original concept that was shown to the estimated line on the master plan showed it crossing two streams. So this is actually the least impact. So from an environmental perspective, all that, like we got into that, we figured out the on-site portion. That actually required an extension of progress drive to make the connection. Worked very closely with the county on the on-site alignment. So again, it's, you know, these things get refined as they go, but it's been I think the expectations have been there right along. In other words, the county has been clear with us, and we've been, I think, cooperative and responsive to those types of things. And that's a reflection of what you're seeing here today.

Just a question, Ms. Miller, or David, either one. Did this allow bonus density? We've heard a lot about bonus density. There was no bonus density part of this. There is because it's age restricted. I think the bonus density.

Because of the age restricted. Right. The age restricted allowance provides for a separate density calculation than the market rate single family.

Based on the 55 and over.

Correct. Based on the retirement village term. I want to make that clear. Yes.

Okay.

And again, Ms. Miller, I get that you would want to press the density as much as you can. My feedback on this from a community standpoint is some of those homes that are long rolling view. I think if you had a mix of housing in there that you could live with that had some single family villas that were still over 55. I mean, we sell single family homes and call them over 55. But, you know, 34 units, that's not reasonable for me to press on St. John's or in VR. So whatever – my concern just initially just looking at the site plan is, you know, could we put one more townhome on there? No. I mean, this is about as – tight as you can do it and I think it would be nicer, I think it would be more compatible with the character of the existing community if we had some single-family homes in there as well. So that's my initial

again feedback on it so um i'd go ahead yeah i was going to say i think everybody knows that we're in the process the county's in the process and has spent resources for a consultant to come in to give some direction to you know retirement homes and villages and they're due to I guess October 1st is the deadline for that. I mean, here we are middle of June and you guys are kind of I know you've been working on this project seems like forever and we appreciate that. And now things are changing and the consultant we saw a preliminary review of where they were, where they are a few weeks ago. And I just I just want to see I don't even know if it's possible. Does this balance or feed into or is it similar to what the recommendations are going to be from the consultant group? It seems to me not entirely. One of the things they talked about in their recommendations for retirement communities was this kind of feathering idea where you have the the cluster in the middle and then single family and going out for aesthetics and all that kind of stuff the other thing is two-story homes in retirement communities for retirees may not be the preferred architecture of retirees proximity to services and all that stuff you got it perfect open space walking paths things like that that's that you know unless that's part of the property that open space up top there but not that wasn't talked about but i just raised the issue that uh i think we'd be negligent if we didn't recognize the elephant in the room is this um referral plan that's uh you know a few couple of months three months away is going to change retirement communities moving forward so can we take advantage of what we know to be some of those recommendations that are coming in this plan and if you have tell us about them

Yes, we appreciate that question. And I just want to say that we are not privy to the text amendment that is going to be brought to you later today. So we are working on the same consultants information that you have been presented with so far. We do believe that the plan that you're looking at is very consistent with many, if not all of the recommendations. and I'm happy to walk through those. I did just want to circle back briefly to Mr. Lester's question comment. And I think that this also ties into some of the consultant's recommendations as well. But I think it's important to understand that we see this retirement village, this Southern retirement village as cohesive with the other retirement village that you all have already seen. And we'll talk about that in just a second, because I think that ties into some of the recommendations of the consultant. But in looking at the development that way, I just want to point out that the combined acreage of the two is 79.4 acres. So and if you recall the well, actually, let me not jump there yet that so with 79.4 acres that would support a combined density of 277 age restricted houses at what you would consider a maximum density allowance and 172 lots maximum for a market rate perspective if this were developing under our 20. And we combined for overlook and reservoir one run, we are proposing 228 units. So I'm sorry. No, I got that. I got that wrong. So yes, no, I got that right. 228. Sorry, my numbers are all blurred here. OK, so so 277 is the maximum density for age restricted. We are proposing 228, so significantly less than the maximum density.

Now, wait, Kelly, you're right. You're doing great. I'm trying. I just want to make sure. That's gross acreage?

Yes, correct.

So we're not taking out floodplains or wetlands and all that kind of stuff? That's the total acreage?

That is gross acreage. Okay, so now some of the plans that you've heard comparisons to over the past year or so. I think it's important to keep in context that the plans that have already developed that are age restricted, developed under density allowances under the old code. So during the comprehensive text amendment that happened most recently, there was a drastic reduction in density allowance. So we are subject to that. So this project is not anywhere comparable to some of the other age restricted housing products that you've heard it compared to from a density perspective. Under the old code, the density allowance, maximum density allowance in the residential zoning districts was around six units per acre. Now we're seeing almost half that as the density allowance. So the average, if you average out the units per acre, for these two retirement villages, you're looking at about 2.9 units per acre. When under the base zoning, you would be allowed two units per acre. So when you look at some, and this is where then I'm going to go into some of these consultant recommendations. So the consultant's recommendations that we have to work with so far, and understand we'll have some more details later on today, put forward in their report and they provide eight recommendations specific to chapter 158 and they provide four recommendations specific to chapter 155. some of those recommendations are more structural structural in nature if you recall one of them was that the it be in a separate section of the code obviously that's not really applicable to looking at the plan itself so i'll walk through the recommendations that i believe are applicable to looking at this plan itself

Before we do that, you're on a roll. I'm going to slow you down for a second. That's okay. So how many gross acres are we using for residential in this property? The Beatty property totals X acres. How many acres are we allocating towards residential use?

How much is the northern?

Approximately 85 acres.

85 total acres. Okay. And then how much of that is usable? How much of the 85 is usable? How much do you think? I guarantee he knows. Yeah.

I think I think the question is, what do you define as usable?

Would you not be permitted to build on or pull a permit on because of the Corps of Engineers calling it wetlands, streams, slopes that aren't buildable?

I don't know that we actually know that exact number. You don't know that number? I don't know that we know that exact number. Again, the requirement's gross. All right.

You're on a roll. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. So the density that we were just talking about relates to the consultant recommendations number three and five that are specific to Chapter 158. Okay, and those speak to some of the contemplations of the master plan, consistency with the surrounding area, and those sorts of things, all of which you've already heard me cite to you the definition of medium residential within the 2018 Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan. So we believe that we are generally consistent with that recommendation as it stands right now. Again, being at about an average of 2.9 units per acre for the age restricted product on the Beatty Beatty property. The And perhaps this is where some additional visuals might be helpful. So you tell me if they would be. And we've got some things that we can pull up if so. The open space and sort of recreational recommendation issued by the consultant sort of the generic recommendation insinuates a preference to some sort of provision of open space. And we have provided that on the plan. Again, I want to point out that we see these two as collective. So some of the and we can physically point you on this plan to where some of the provisions are on this plan itself. But also these residents will have the benefit of all of the amenities in Eldersburg overlook as well. And so we David, can you pull up the other? Yeah, that's a good start at least. So what we have also are those sort of more sophisticated architectural renderings that you saw presented that show specifically some of the amenities in the northern portion as well as the provisions in the southern. Is it plugged in, Liz?

This is, by the way, the extra. If you want to see those architectural renderings for the other.

We have paper copies. I just thought it would be helpful for anybody sitting to be able to see them on the computer, but we can also hand you paper copies. So this is all part of the amenities, and part of that goes into the open space. So while we're getting that pulled up, David, can you do the first one? Yep. Thank you. It's not a slideshow, yeah. It's just a PDF. So that's what you just saw.

I might be thinking a little bit. Yeah. These are large files.

We'll let it think for a second, but I'll just explain it to you because you all are familiar So I think you've seen several of these first ones that were incorporated into David's presentation. But Tom, can you point to, yes, there we go. Can you point to the specific places on the plan where the amenities, and this is Reservoir Run. So at Reservoir Run, there are specific community amenities that have been provided. There are two pavilions that overlook the environmentally protected area.

So Thomas. It feels backwards to me for some reason.

Can you see the cursor? I just wanted to make sure. Pardon my shakiness. There's an area here.

There's a little eyebrow here where the sidewalk goes in. It's got some seating. And then, Matt, was there just two or three? Matt, was there two or three of those? Two pavilions. Right here, one there. Yeah.

Over here.

And then there's some addition, I think there was some additional benches along the way, give or take. So some amenities as you move through this part of the community. We have a closer image of one of those later just to give you a flavor of what that would look and feel like.

You want to go to the next?

is you saw this before this is the street view this is coming in on sunrise just to get a sense of as you're coming over from rolling view into the community that's another view of the you might see that one before another view of the just gives you a general sense of the community itself And then this is one of those areas and we have a zoomed in version of that. I'll show you in a second. That's the same elevation you saw. I just want to point out one thing. These two different, this is for the walkout condition and this is for the in-ground condition. On the site plan, the units that are the ones that are on the south side of what's called Road A, in other words, adjoining to the existing community to the south, those are the in-ground units there's no but there's no uh walkout condition there the walkout conditions are just because of the way the grade works across the site as you go further into the site go north it drops and so you can actually see there that those are the those are where you have the walkout condition okay but there are no walkouts facing that so the scale of it feels the same And then this is an image of a little amenity space there overlooks the wetlands. It's got pavilion and some seating and things like that. So that they have access to the community building and things like that that would be in the main part of the development. But down here they're not second class citizens or anything like that.

look and feel it's it kind of view of this kind of sub-neighborhoods of the project this is uh we can get back into that one in a second so what we're also wanted to refresh you on and also show you are the amenities related to eldersburg overlook because they will also be shared by this community and that's important in your consideration i do want to note that some of these have been revised but are not on the plans that were under review yet. We have just made internal revisions on those related to some of these consultant recommendations and discussions. So they have not all been fully reviewed as part of a technical process at this point. But Tom, if you want to go to the next slide. So one of those is reflected in this first.

When you do that, let's do this first.

I'm going to skip past this slide and go to this one.

this is in the overlooked portion of the site this is the community building that's being proposed there's a dog park in this area here there's an outdoor seating area you know with tables and umbrellas and such we have worked in as we've kind of looked at this closer with these conversations have gone on. We worked in some areas where we have possibilities to be able to add some walking trails that aren't just the sidewalks along the road. And then in this back corner here, this would be the southeast corner of that community. We actually identified, we think there's an area there that we could set it up for like a community garden, which is one of the things that people tend to respond well to. So as you're coming up, this is just to be clear, this is Bennett Road here. You're coming in and you enter the circle. And I kind of view it as two neighborhoods. We've kind of got, you can call it neighborhood east and neighborhood west or neighborhood south and neighborhood west as you come into that part of the community. This just gives you another perspective on that, what the community looks and feels like as you go through. You already made mention of this. This just gives you a sense of all the services that are immediately available to this community. It's kind of, as I said when I was here the last time a couple weeks ago, it's kind of nestled right into what you would probably consider as the heart of Eldersburg. And in this image here that I kind of jumped over, This is something that there was conversations about the fact that there's a project up in Tawny Town, you may or may not be familiar with Carol Vista, that that was one that was pointed to as an example, a good example. It's not in the consultant's report, but it was one that was pointed to several times. So we actually went up and looked at it. We looked at some aerial photos as well. And what we noticed when we went through that community is they kind of have a kind of a forecourt to the community. You come in, it almost feels like entering a country club. They have a little gatehouse, and they actually have some, look to be par three holes, golf holes, as you enter into that community. So that was something that we didn't really have in this community, and we thought, you know what, that's something we could consider looking at. So what you're seeing here on the left and on the right is actually currently proposed as two single family units in that R40,000 area. And we're actually prepared to proffer those as additional open space. It would be a little over two additional acres of straight up open space that would be part of the development. And it gives some opportunities for more of the open, active open space. When we looked at that project, Carol Vista, we kind of did math. It's about, I think if I remember, it was like three times the size of this combined project or something to that effect, whatever it was. And we looked at that. If it's x number of units, how many acres of open space were available? And we tried to maintain that type of a ratio. So we feel like this probably brings what we felt was the one missing element from that perspective. And as I said, we're prepared to prop for that. We just feel like it makes it a better community. When we showed this to Ed St. John, he's like, why wouldn't we do that, right? So it just kind of adds to it, and that's something, you know, we feel like it's, as Kelly said, you know, we feel like we're bringing all the right elements as far as what a community like this would expect. Yeah, good.

So just specifically reference you, um, in the consultant's recommendation, it's recommendation number one related to chapter one 55, which talks about amenities. Um, so we, although again, we're working with generic recommendations, we do believe that this plan accommodates that recommendation so far. I don't know if there are any questions specific to this, or if you want me to keep going through the consistency with the recommendations.

Yeah, could you?

Absolutely. Yep. So I'm jumping backwards a little bit. And Kevin Scott, as I said, is here from NV if there are any specific questions about some of these components. But I will say that I believe it's consultant recommendation number four for chapter 158. that talks about site layout and supporting aging in place types of product. So NV provides, these units will comply with the universal design guidelines and will be consistent with the projects that they are developing in Howard County. So I think there was a mention of the second story feature here. So the second story is not any sort of primary living quarters. That is just, Kevin, tell me if I'm...

Tell me if I'm wrong.

OK, thank you. I was like, oh, gosh, did I say something wrong? So that is not any primary living quarters. That is just an additional sort of accessory space that one could use. All of the primary living quarters are on the main level. And there are specific other elements, again, if you have questions, Kevin can speak to, but I do just want to clarify that this product has been developed, has been reviewed in accordance with those criteria and exists in Howard County. And those are the same types of units that we will be providing for here. So we do believe that this is consistent with the consultant recommendation number four, um, accordingly. So talk through that. We talked through the amenities that were proposed. Um, the, uh, The consultant recommendation number three, specific to chapter 155, talks about public roads and ensuring that they are built to certain specifications. So I just want to clarify for you that you understand the access and the roads. All of the roads that are proposed related to this plan comply with the design manual. So they all do meet county specifications and have been reviewed accordingly. So we do believe that we are in compliance with that recommendation.

Are the sidewalks larger? Are they five feet? I mean, I think that's what the consultant was.

Five feet? Yes, five feet everywhere. Okay. Yes.

So you kind of beat me to the punch, Mr. Kane. I was going to say that consultant recommendation number three and number four, number three for chapter 158 and number four for chapter 155, both talk about sidewalk pedestrian connectivity and circulation throughout the site. And we have provided sidewalks throughout the entirety of the site, all to that five foot specification. So again, we believe that we are in conformance with those recommendations.

Kelly road with wise I mean even the roads that are not to be dedicated but will remain part of the homeowners association are those the same width of the road that you're proposing on throughout the property of these the same width so they are they for 24 foot width and we did receive a comment enough as part of the fire marshal review

that there would be no on-street parking allowed with that. And we've accounted for that in two ways. One, we have the, and I'm talking specifically about the overlook area, 24 foot wide width, no on-street parking posted clearly at the beginning. And then overflow parking as well as each unit is a two-car garage with a two-car driveway. So we feel that we've provided plenty of parking and fire access widths and all that. We actually had our fire consultant review both plans and he gave us letters indicating that both of these meet all the requirements of NFPA requirements. So you have fully suppressed homes, fire sprinklers in the homes, and we meet all the distances that would be required for access.

So to that note, it's consultant recommendation number seven in Chapter 155 that talks about providing adequate guest parking and overflow parking, which we've talked to you through and we believe that this does. I do just want to say that if the requirement is two spaces per unit with some discretion at the Planning Commission to provide for overflow, So if you look at the required, the base required spaces without that discretionary overflow, the required spaces are 72. I'm sorry, first 472 units is 144 with that discretionary overflow. We are providing 315 spaces, so we are providing much greater than the requirement and also have the specifically designated overflow, which we believe are in conformance with the consultant's recommendation.

That includes the garage parking?

Yes, it does include the garage parking. That's correct. So jumping to consultant recommendation number six for chapter 158, that talks about ensuring that this community is a 55 plus community. So I think that there are several ways that that plays out here. First of all, this is a defined use. It is defined as a retirement village, and that has a definition in the code, which therefore makes this site plan itself enforceable by the county. The practice of the county is that those age restrictions are also in the chain of title for any of the purchasers. So the way that you often see that accomplished is a declaration of covenants that controls the community. And then all of the home owners, um, are subject to that declaration of covenants and that is noted and specified in their deed. So that is in the chain of title and that is how. This has always happened in the county and has been maintained. That creates a private ability for someone within the community to challenge somebody who is not complying with that. There was also a suggestion by the consultant that perhaps there would be a specific note put on the plan, which we are happy to do related to this plan as well. All of those allow for both county enforcement and private enforcement of the age restriction. We believe that this plan as presented does comply with the consultant's recommendation number six accordingly. I think that might be all, but let me make sure. And I believe that that was my summary of the consultant's recommendations and the consistency of our plan. But overall, I would say,

So far and again, we have not seen the text amendment that's being proposed We do believe that that this plan already conforms with the consultants recommendations almost entirely If I could just add one thing I think it's super important to recognize that from day one we have presented a Comprehensive plan for the entire of the property even though it was four parcels processed as four separate plans and But when it comes to this part of the development, recognizing that this is two essentially neighborhoods working in unison or subsets of a community that's a retirement village. And kind of keep that in mind. Look at it in its whole. And kind of go back to the question about the environmental areas and things like that. We have the only impacts that we have to those areas, those sensitive resources, is the stream crossing itself, which is mandated by the master plan. And we, as I mentioned, we went through an analysis there and we found the least impactful area to perform that crossing. and then outfalls for the sanitary sewers themselves. We don't have, correct me if I'm wrong, but we do not have additional impacts beyond those. So the project is, it's below the densities that in theory you could achieve, that you could be allowed, It's also sensitive to the environmental factors and things like that. In other words, from an engineering perspective, we would say, what were the constraints in the site and have we respected those constraints? And we let the constraints drive us. We didn't try to drive the constraints, if that makes sense. So I think it's a really good project. We're proud of it. We're happy to be here presenting it. We just would ask simply that you Look at it in its whole and maybe not in its smallest pieces, if that's a fair way of saying it. Just bear that in mind as you consider things. And we appreciate, as I said the last time I was here, we have really appreciated the opportunity to be here, have these types of conversations. We've appreciated the feedback and everything else. And we're trying to just bring a good project to bear. And we believe it's in the right location. It's in a great community. It's a place where people will be able to be near their relatives and things like that. They don't have to go an hour away or other places like that. So we just feel like it's a good project in the right place and we'd love to bring it to market. So thank you.

Any other questions?

I think another thing we need to be cognizant of is that you have a limited amount of space here to do all these things that we're asking you to do. And I think you've moved along very well at trying to provide the amount of amenities that the space allows. So that's one of the big considerations here. I want to be clear on that. I'm glad you were open to re-looking at this and saying we have space enough to do this, this, and this. And then just one final comment. I feel then that it's up to the buyer to determine. whether those amenities suit their needs. And not for us to demand that you have a Dunkin' Donut in the middle of it or something like that. That's not for us to decide. That's for the buyer to decide. So if that buyer... I'm more concerned in this phase of the development plan that the... dwellings that you're putting in there are safe, that they're constructed for the future for people that are not 55 but 75, that those certain things be accomplished, that it's safe for EMT and fire to get into them, that the roads are completed the way they should be, and then the rest of it is up to the buyer. So there there's what we need to concentrate on I think we're doing that and we're moving in the right direction and so you know we need to blow a little sunshine here sometimes and and.

Well rough it's a good service to share is thinking about putting in the par 3 golf course I think that's one of the most important things for her.

I do want to clarify one thing there, just in case it wasn't clear. Those two acres that we're proposing there, we would actually be removing two units from the units along Bennett Road. So that would go from seven to five. And we're well aware that that's a concession that we would be making, but we think it makes sense. It's kind of what the project would be calling for. And I really appreciate all your comments. I mean, the units, you know, they're designed, they meet those universal design criteria, at least as they're established in Howard County. These units have been received well into the market. We've thought about, you know, the active lifestyle as well as you become less active lifestyle and things like that. So again, just appreciate all your comments. I'm getting hungry.

Yeah, we we I appreciate we appreciate all the twists and turns that you endured through this project. I mean, it's a lot and a lot of changes and you've been very amenable to all of them. Think all of them. Most of I'll say most of them. And we really do appreciate the cooperativeness. No question. Thank you.

Public comments.

Oh, yes, public comment. Sorry. Please.

Yes.

I need to go back to work. I'm sorry.

Wow.

Good afternoon. My name is Irina Tolos, and I live at 6213 Long Meadow Drive, Eldersburg, right that street. So it is a shock to the community. I don't want to lie. We have I've been living there for eight years, and I know a lot of people. First of all, 55 plus, they don't sit at home. They're active. I'll be in 10 years. 55, I don't want to stay at home. So the traffic has already got heavier. I take my child to the daycare every morning. So it used to take a couple of minutes. Now, getting from Longmeadow to the Liberty Road, I have to stay there for a couple of minutes. I could go another way through the McDonald's. They built Wendy's there. It's got heavier. We have another community 55 plus couple miles away. It's amazing place to be there because it's just by the road. Nobody's bothered. Amazing. This one, it's beautiful project. I love it. But it looks like it's the community inside of another community. So to get into there, you have to pass us. It's beautiful. They have sidewalks. Us, Long Meadow, all those streets, we have no sidewalks. We have zero lightning. So it's a risk for us, our children, and it's a safety issue. Because if it's getting a little bit dark, we walk on the street. We don't have any sidewalks. And our children, teenagers with the bikes, and everything else. So it will be different, and it will be much heavier traffic. And this is also preserving whatever we have now. It's beautiful. When I walk, I see this field and trees. It's amazing. I love the community. So again, it's a beautiful project, maybe not the right place, maybe a little bit less, I don't know, lower amount of houses or something, but it's gonna impact us for sure. And our community is not happy about it. And thank you so much for this opportunity to say this, to express, and I will follow up with this and my neighbors too. Thank you so much again.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

It's a lot of work right now, but thank you so much.

Thank you. Any other public comment?

I'll bring one next time.

OK. That's not a threat, that's just yeah, it is what it is. Alright, OK. Kelly, are you looking for an action from us on something?

Yes, we are looking for an action.

I was afraid of that.

We're looking for a.

You want me to say it or you want to say it? I'll correct you if it's wrong. Okay.

I'll just say it then.

David, you say it.

I'll believe you.

I'll let David say it. I'll correct him if he's wrong. I'll read from the code. We are looking for a determination of density, exterior design, and site layout by the Planning Commission.

I yeah, I got told you guys what I thought I mean I would like to see it reduced a little bit softened a little bit along that that. So the portion. It just I it just feels like we're putting a wall of. And if we were back in the back this is what I would say these guys were in the background I which we're not supposed to do I guess so yeah. So I just talking out loud i it feels like we're just putting a a wall of of homes against a a community that has been single-family homes for a long time um you know i i don't question the quality of it guys you know nifty homes does a great job what you're showing the effort you'll put through i mean again i i applaud it all That's just that's on I mean at some point you do have to ask what you can you can you put one more in the police, I mean you know you can't I mean it's it's wall to wall in. And we did see There was a moment when we had 34 homes on the same piece of land in the same linear feet of road. And I'm assuming that worked from a financial standpoint, too. So I'm just going to push back and say, Look, I know I don't don't fault someone for maximizing profit go for it good for you from a community standpoint I would love I would love to see some single-family villas along that along that stretch of road I'd like to see a mix of you I'd like to see a mix of the types of the style of homes for the age 55 and over crowd and not just um street up yeah not just not just i mean this is this is better than a brownstone it's better than a townhome a three that's not a three-story townhome but guys i mean you've got two windows in front two windows in back no windows down either side i mean for for for most of the units on this property uh there's very little daylight and i just I don't know. I just would like to see a more diverse and a softer transition as we move into the community. Because we do, there is a limited amount of space here. And so I'm asking a lot of y'all as developers. But the truth is, again, we saw something and it's in my head. We saw single-family homes a long time ago. and on and they can still be over 55 and you can still go for greater density single-family homes and that this feels like this is a lot from track in the end again I get our traffic man he put me to shame I'm just there this is gonna be an increase in traffic it's gonna be more spread out because they're more flexible it's also gonna be more challenged because they're they've all got you know glaucoma so yeah that's not good I need to shut up

Mr. Lester, just briefly, because you, you compared it to the 34 units and I understand your point about the 34 units could be age restricted as well, but I do just want to clarify, because I think perhaps there's some questions lingering about why this plan changed to the age restricted product. And I do just want to explain that there is not adequate school capacity for 34. market rate units and because of and I can go into the whole details because we have we have made requests we have been part of the process but because of funding action there are no improvements planned anytime in the foreseeable future that would change that and so I I do not think it's a it's necessarily accurate to to not that you have said this but to say that this could be changed to 34 market rate and and proceed forward so I just We didn't explicitly address that today, but I assume that that's sort of an underlying question here. And I just kind of want to get to the forefront of that because you're right.

And again, the fact that we have challenged schools about capacity in Freedom Elementary. You're all over it. And by the way, item 13, he's going to get this can be scorched earth. You guys are getting off easy. I mean, we're going to we're going to we're going to talk about.

So anyway, here just to counter some of the things you said. Yes, sir. Maybe we're not getting everything that we envision in the future for for this particular project. But we've made a lot of headway here and as far along as it is and the amenities that have been put there, knowing what the the the area is, my recommendation right now is to move this forward.

Is that a motion?

That's a motion.

Can you say that as a motion?

I move that we move this forward as a presented as.

Yeah. Could you read the sorry. Clarify for me a little bit more in that motion.

Let me find the thing. The determination of density, exterior design, and site layout. I recommend that we move that forward based on what we've heard today.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Roll call. Mr. Hopp? Ms. Kirkner? Mister Buster no. Mister Robertson, yes. Yes. Mister Gordon staying.

Yeah, I believe you need to come. Mr King, please.

No.

I think we need to wait for the defer stuff.

Mr. Chairman, let the record reflect. We have two yeas, two nos, and one abstain.

So, Liz, what does that mean?

The motion fails.

If the motion fails, it means you did not approve the determinations for density, exterior design, or site layout.

So then what do we do?

So do we table this until we get better information on the... What are we asking here?

There is the option to table the decision on the request for approval of the density exterior design and site layout until you have perhaps more information related to the direction of the recommendations for code amendments related to retirement homes and retirement villages. If you feel that that's going to give you maybe a little bit more direction in terms of how you wanna take action on this item.

And we should be seeing those soon, right?

So we'll be getting into them later this afternoon. And we anticipate Our goal is to have those recommendations from the Planning Commission completed at the July 21st meeting, by the 21st.

We understand where this is.

Maybe we should have had those recommendations in front of us before we even talked to these people.

Well, that's so my, my point that I'd like to raise is that today we are here under the code as it exists today. So you're being asked to review this plan under the code as it exists today. And we understand where that there's a greater process going on here and it is difficult to separate the two, but it is important to separate the two because. plans cannot be held to hypothetical code changes at this point in time.

I feel like we did, but the motion did separate the two.

I don't disagree.

So, Kelly, I'm going to make a separate motion, and that motion would be that I move that we table this until either we have the revised code or you as the applicant revise the plan so that it's more in concert with the character and the exist of the existing community along long meadow that's my concern and and so i would move that one of those two things needs to because the the new code will require it i think the a softer density along that southern portion of the property might get you exactly where you want to be. And so my motion is that we table it and you have one of two ways you can go. Can we cannot do that?

You may make that motion.

But before you do.

Yes, sir. I think we do need to separate here. I think our job is to go under what is existing today, not sitting up here and saying, well, maybe they'll change it because we want to see mixed use or lower density or whatever. I think our job is to go by what we see in front of us today, the code that exists today, That's that's why this is on the agenda. And believe me, I'd like to see a lot of changes. I would like to see the changes made. But there's also a code of fairness here based on what we have in front of us and what we have to deal with. I'm talking about the law. Well, Ralph, and part of this. Hold on.

Hold on. I believe we have a motion on the table. We have not heard a second. Can we discuss if we're getting to a second discussion before we get into a new discussion?

Okay, your motion is just to table this right now. Yes, sir. And I sure would like to see more members here for this vote. I sure would have liked to seen that.

So is there a second?

Table it until when?

The motion was to table it until either we have a revised code to work off of, or the plan is revised to be more consistent with the density of the adjoining neighborhood.

I can't get a second, so can I remove my motion?

The motion would fail automatically if there's no second.

I got nothing else, guys. I don't know what to do.

So one of the things that I do just want to clarify is that normally when, you know, if you're looking at a plan, you're reviewing it based on the existing code and that's your legal responsibility. And if there are other code revisions in the process or being talked about until they're adopted, you can't hold a plan to those things that are being contemplated. The wrinkle in this, of course, is that we have a deferral in place and they are not allowed to receive final plan approval while that deferral is in effect and as far as i know everyone has been advised to kind of proceed at your own risk given the fact that there are changes being contemplated and if those changes are adopted prior to october 1st then they would be subject to whatever code changes are in place.

But this exercise was put together to move it to the BCA. Board of Zoning Appeals, yeah. That's our goal. That's not our goal. That's our job here today to determine whether or not to move this toward BCA for the conditional use type, for the change.

Right, so it would still come back to you after the BZA. The only difference would be that the density, the site layout, and the exterior design would kind of be locked in place.

Yeah, and that's where I'm asking for some relief from.

We have a conundrum here.

just want to make a few comments Susan Krebs thank you Susan Krebs Commissioner I'm talking my Commissioner hat one of the things and this is just one of the things it has not been brought up that's a very big issue with us is parking is talk about all these parking spots where are they are they near the people where they live or they have a mile away. No one's really looking I haven't looked at it I can tell you we have a problem with something has been approved lots of problems with it that's why we're here today we're trying not to repeat those problems. I can't see where all those parking spots are. I can't see if they're accessible. They're accessible to folks. We now have a community where people are parking on the sidewalks because there's no parking allowed and they're going to have to live with that. They don't have any parking. I see a lot of parking this far away from the residents. These are over 55. These are people that move in when they're 55 and hopefully they're going to be there till they're 85. They're going to need handicap parking. There are any wide enough driveways. I know the current plan that's been proposed. The driveways are not wide enough to put two cars in and open your door and get out on a slab. If you're on a walker, you're in a wheelchair. You can't open the door and step on the slab. They're not wide enough. I don't know if anybody's looking at these things. They should be. They should be in code. Is it the expectation that the Planning Commission sit and measure these things? You can't expect no parking on the street. so that fire trucks can get through 20 foot and have no parking allowed unless it's, you know, half a mile away or quarter mile away. I can't tell by looking at this plan, but it needs to be looked at. We cannot repeat what we've done in the past on plants. I also am concerned about not having a bunch of variety of housing. We have all Feesburg, they're mandated in Frederick. We don't even mandate any of that. So we're talking about a mix. Unless we mandate it, it won't happen. It's not done voluntarily because you can build more units. that's why we brought a consultant in that's why they've he's done a phenomenal job of making these presentations we should have had that all along when these villages were just defined during the last code update we never had retirement villages before it was never a category in our in our code and it wasn't done well it said 3.5 houses per acre what does that mean The amenities are fine. We're all about having amenities and open space. It's really about housing and living and how people are going to age. Our examples in Carroll County are an embarrassment to me. We can do better. We want to do better. It's my neighborhood. We are losing residents because we don't offer a product where people want to go. People are already moving out of the one community that's built like this and moving up to Gettysburg because the product up there is what people want to move to. Do they sell them? Sure. I don't fault St. John's. I fault us. We should have predictability. We should have stuff written into our code, what our expectations are for this, for the stuff that happened in the meeting before this with the church. We see a problem. We need to fix it. We're trying to do that. Unfortunately, we've been delayed. This would have been done now. It was delayed at the very beginning. It took months and months and months to even get our consultant on board for reasons I never can explain. And now we're where we are. And we would have been done if that delay had not occurred. I'm asking you guys to take a close look at this. I want to work with them. Once we get all this stuff done through the consultant and pick what we want to do, we'll expedite these projects. We want to get them done. We want them to be nice. During the master plan process, if you read the master plan, I went through it this weekend. I have 10 pages I will send you about predictability and fitting in with existing communities. I was there for the entire master plan process for years. It took hundreds of people. In fact, it says thousand people showed up and talked about existing communities. This was supposed to be our 20 single family homes, market homes. The agreement was to have seven warehouses in the middle. I don't think they belong there, but the community said, okay, they can have a commercial there. I don't think it fits there in the middle of residential, but now we've gone from someone after that, years later, writes a new definition for retirement villages. long overdue it's two paragraph one paragraph and then two chapters later it says oh exceptions you can put 3.5 in these retirement communities if you really read your code you'll say what is this where did this come from you look at any other county you look at our own towns you'll get westminster they've got good definitions they tell you what they're going to expect you look at carol vista you look at tawny town I heard this like Mickey Mouse. No fault of anybody, I'm pointing it out, we're gonna fix it. It's all about expectations so that the developers know what they should be doing. I'm opposed to taxpayers paying for roads that connect to a development that should be part of the cost. I took it out of the budget, three road connections, $11 million. And I did that so we could put it through 26 improvements that have been promised to our community for 30 years. And no one in the commissioners has ever put a dollar toward the money that's required by State Highway to start planning a project for Route 26 and safety improvements. So all this traffic goes on to 26. It's a mess. it's like driving in the suicide lane all the way up and down nobody's ever put money into that one penny nothing was moving forward our county does not leverage getting road money because we don't put the planning money in so we took it out the expectation is in the future like they do most places especially on something that road has been like that for 30 years that we've lived here is it a sharp turn yes Would we really need the roundabout if this project wouldn't come in? No, it would never be done. We would never pay for it. We haven't paid for it in 30 years. Why are we doing it now to a project that was unexpected, was not planned, was supposed to be our 20 single family homes. I know that it could be R20. It could be clustered single family homes for retirees. We need retirement homes. We need over 55, but we need to do them right. And so I appreciate the amenities. All this stuff is nice. No one's talking about stormwater. No one's talking about gross versus net. A lot of this open space is stormwater management ponds. We don't do a good job of it. You go up to any of these projects in Frederick, anywhere, you don't see stormwater management ponds anywhere. They're either an amenity of a fountain in them or they're all underground. They're required to be underground. We don't require that. We just have swirls everywhere. You go to one of these developments, you couldn't walk your dog on a flat spot because it's all swirls. That's not quality project. These are the things that the planning commission needs to look at. We need to go out on site, see what we've done and fix it for people that want to buy these things. You could say it's market market driven and it is, but we deserve some level of quality in the middle of our community.

Commissioner, I'm going to take the rest of your three minutes and just say that I give you all the credit in the world for initiating all these concerns. They need to be addressed, and they need to be addressed as quickly as we can do it. My problem with this is that we're seeing incremental changes here with the project developer knowing that we're looking for changes. There's so much they're allowed to do and so much that we can just stop them on. At this stage of the game, in this particular one, that's what I'm basing my determination on, that it's so far down the road that I think it's time then, I mean, what I'm seeing here I think it's a determination whether they're building this because there's a need for somebody to come in and buy them, and they're going to buy them up. So the people that buy them up are going to say, I'm satisfied with this, but we know we could make it better, but we're so far down the road on this that I'm concerned that we're not going to do the right thing at the right time. And, you know, I don't know what it would look like. You put a couple individual homes in there. I don't even know if I'd want to live as an individual homeowner, a bunch of old people like me. You know, there's so there's a so much common sense here. And then there's so much that we really need to do that has been neglected. We don't want to neglect it from here on. So there's a conundrum that we have right now.

on the issue on the single family.

So, Peter, you know, your motion to table it had condition, had all these conditions with it. And we don't even know what those conditions are going to be. That's what bothers me.

I hear you. I and and and I know I know St. John's has rights.

I know how passionate you are about this. And and you don't know how much I agree with you and how much I totally agree with you, Commissioner. But we're talking about this one particular project against everything from here on out in the future.

What I'm asking you to look at on these site plans for over 55 is accessibility and parking. I mean, one of the issues we say there's four parking spots, having two parking spots in a garage that's very narrow and two cars behind them on a pad that is very, very small. It's not force. It's not four spots And then if someone stops to visit you are they going to park at the other end of the street to walk down? This is an over 55 community. I just think if you would look at well-designed communities, they're all over they require them They have extra parking there might be some here I haven't looked at this closely. And when we talk about single-family homes, I'm not talking about big lots. One of the reasons that seniors like single-family homes is because of light, daylight. They have windows. They're close together up at Carroll Vista, but they're all one story. And they're maybe 10, 15 feet apart. And then there's some space. It's for daylight. That's why most areas require a certain number, maybe 70%, because that's what people desire. We're just asking you to look at this stuff and we're getting all of the exact same product, all of the exact same floor plan where maybe they'll sell them, maybe they won't. But I'm looking at practicality. People, even if they're if you put no parking signs up, who's going to enforce it? somebody stops at your house they're going to stop it at the end of the shoot this is about approving a site plan that has not considered those things and i don't care if it's 300 space or 500 spaces if they're not convenient to where you're living they're really not very practical so i'm asking you just to take a look at those things because we've made the mistake once and i don't want to repeat it again we don't have any there's not much property left in carroll county to do these projects on unless you change something so Please take a look at it carefully pretend you're living there and where we can access thanks. Thank you know the road issues have been worked out either and I'm not sure why we wait till so late in the process when we really haven't had any discussion on what these improvements are going to be because that's a big issue.

Commissioner, you may have missed part of the conversation, but we talked about the roads and how they relate to what we think are the recommendations that are going to come from the consultant, and they've addressed the roads width and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot more. Can we? Thank you. Can we?

Do you mind if I? I don't mean to be rude. Yeah. No, go ahead. Do you mind if I just interject one thing? I think one thing to bear in mind, Eldersburg is a large community. I live in a non-age-restricted community. I'm 60 years old. I've been living there since 2010, and I have no desire, no plans to move anywhere else. If I wanted to, right outside my neighborhood, this 55-plus community is designed just like this community. Eldersburg is a large community. If you wanted to move to Eldersburg as a 40-year-old, as a 20-year-old, as a 55-year-old or a 70-year-old, you have many options. This is an option that's being brought to market. We were told to go look at good examples. We looked at good examples in the adjoining counties, not another state. in adjoining counties, and we brought to market what we believe is a well-designed community. The response to the market needs is first for the living. It incorporates universal design standards. We have the adjacent parking areas if you do have the overflow. We've provided parking spaces in a manner that meet the county requirements for parking spaces. All of these things. So we have done, and as you pointed out, we've made adjustments. We're willing to make the additional adjustment. There's a sub-prof for the additional open space. We've brought a very good plan to you, an excellent plan to you. And, you know, to have somebody or anybody say that we haven't met requirements or I haven't put a measuring stick on this plan and I can't tell you a distance to a parking space and things like that, we've done that. We've provided that information. We just walked through all of that with you. So, you know, that idea that, like, it's a target you don't even know what you're shooting at. So, you know, it's just, well, we do know what we're shooting at. We know what the code is, we've read the code, we've followed the code, and we've brought the plan forward. It's just a little hard to sit here and have somebody say, you know, that we're bringing to market something that's not gonna be accepted by the market, especially where you have a big community that has a lot of options to live within this community. As a 55-, a 60-year-old man, I can choose to live in any of the communities in Carroll County. And I could move into a house that's one-story living. I could move into a house that's multi-story living. Can't really move too much, I guess, into multi-family settings. But we have looked at the other projects, the ones that were pointed to and ones that we weren't pointed to. And by the way, the ones that the consultant looked at is not the list of all the projects that we have been pointed to. Bethany Glen in Howard County, We've looked at other ones in Howard County. We've looked at some over in, we looked at Gers Farm over in Baltimore County. So we've looked at all the different ones and we went and we looked and we thought, what is missing from what we're proposing and how do we bring that into it? And these are not the open spaces that we're providing. These are not some little twirly that you can't walk your dog in and things like that. We've provided all those things. And on top of all that, we provided the stormwater management that's required here, including 100-year management. And we still were able to meet all of those things. So I just think it's a good project. And I understand you guys have a job to do. I don't necessarily envy the position of the job, but but I do think we provide you a really good plan and we would love the opportunity to move forward with it.

I think it's a good point, too. But my pushback on it is the transition from, you know, upset it for the transition from the existing community to the what basically looks like a multifamily apartment complex. It's not that. It's not that you've done better than that. And that's me being overly blunt. It's hyperbole. But, you know, that's my concern is that is that I think I think if we could soften it a bit, I think it'd be, you know, not simply a nice plan, but a great plan. And that's that that is my feedback. Because again, what we're what we're also charged with in the master plan is is encouraging development that is compatible with the existing character of the community. And we're doing a lot here. You're achieving a lot. The one thing is from the existing character of the community, if you drive around, there's not a lot of this. There's not. And so you're asking for us to do something a little different. And what I'm asking you to do is consider a transition, which we had. when we had the 30-some odd units there. We had that transition. We had kind of a buffer, so to speak, to go to the business park and the over 55. We've totally removed that now, and we're going from the single family to this. And so that's my observation. If we're trying to protect the character of the neighborhood, and the existing homeowners that that's why I'm pushing back. So anyway, I've said it and you've been kind to push through it. And frankly, if we had one or two more people here, you probably would have gotten it done. So if that's what you want to do is table it and let them do it again next week. And I probably won't even be here a little sell right through. So do whatever you want.

I was thinking that might be appropriate to have more members here to say, when we do a vote, we hear more from the other commission members. So could we tape? And I can't make a motion. That's coming from somebody else.

All right. If you wish to do that, I would make a motion to place this back on the agenda at the next Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, which is July 8th, July 8th.

I make the motion to table this and put it back on the agenda at our next meeting.

I'm good with that. I'll second it.

Mr. Huff.

Mr. Kirkner? Mr. Lester?

Yes.

Mr. Robertson?

Yes.

Mr. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Soyson? Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chairman, let the right hand vote. Sorry, we still need them. Still need Mr. Cain's vote.

Mr. Cain? Yes.

You know the record fact we have 5 days of abstain.

We're used for we're used for or use.

Move this will see it see it on the scene a couple weeks open and run anybody's vacation, thank you, thank you.

Thank you all. Can we recess for lunch break?

Would you like to move to amend the agenda to move your lunch break up prior to item 11?

I move that we hold on.

But before you do that, I also was thinking item 11 and 12. Well, first of all, we can we can hold item 11 until the next meeting. That's not time sensitive, right? Item 12 is It's all internal staff. We don't have anybody who's coming from outside for that item. So if I may, I would suggest that we reorder the agenda to move the break to prior to item 11 to postpone item 11 until the next meeting and move item 12 to the end of your agenda.

So 13 is our next item.

13 would be right after lunch.

All right.

Followed by 14 and then item 12.

A move that we. And then the agenda so that we have our lunch now. We move item 11. To our next. Working session meeting our next meeting yes, right good. And we moved item 12 to the end of our agenda so that the next thing we will do and this is a note to their films and education for probably watching it. That their own next.

And then we'll still have the deferral code changes followed by the text amendment for ADUs, right?

Right.

Second.

Roll call. All those in favor? We can do this by voice.

You can do this as a yeah.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you adjourn for lunch. okay we're back we're back in session so as you can uh see if you're watching um we are short of a quorum because we had some members that had to uh to leave and we changed around the agenda so our next item is um The Education Facilities Master Plan, and Bill Kane is going to present, and then we could ask some questions and things like that. It's an item we don't vote on anyway, but there is a letter that we send that we have to approve, so we'll have to wait until the July 8th meeting for that, I guess.

Yeah, so you will receive a draft of a letter that change, modify, approve, whatever. And I'll walk through that really quickly. Will's here to answer some questions you may have. Hey, thank you. Let me start over. So you all received a draft letter of comment, and this is something that is required for your finding of consistency with the County Master Plan. I'll walk through what that says in draft form. Bill will be here to answer any questions you might have. And then at the July 8th meeting, we would look for a motion to approve your signature, Mr. Chairman, on that letter to send it. With that, I'm just gonna quickly breeze through some of the things that we pointed out. Of course, Bill was here last meeting to kind of walk you through some of the findings of that education facilities master plan. And so the letter kind of summarizes some of those findings. Very similar to the letter from last year, highlighting the schools that have been found to be either inadequate or approaching inadequate during the six year fiscal fiscal year period that the plan covers. So the the plan found that during that time frame, no schools would be classified as inadequate which is 120% or greater of capacity and two schools would be in the approaching inadequate category that would be Freedom Elementary from 2026 to 2031 and Sykesville Middle from 2027 through 2029. And then the letter also highlights the fact that additions to Freedom Elementary and Sykesville Middle were removed from the plan due to lower projected enrollments. But there's still the option to explore some relief for those facilities in the future. I also want to point out that on page six dash five, the plan points out that Sandy Mount Elementary is projected to be inadequate by Board of Education standards. And those are different from our adequate public facilities standards. And that future capacity relief options will also continue to be explored. The rest of the letter points out some things that are sort of master plan related. So we wanted to highlight the fact that a good quality educational system and the facilities that support it are really important to achieving the master plan goals because we want to make sure that the county continues to be an attractive place for people to live, to send their kids to school. A great school system is a real benefit to attracting employers. And we want to make sure that we continue to support that so that we can achieve other goals related to growth and growth management. And then lastly, I'll point out that there are a few facilities that are noted in the plan as needing some improvement. I highlighted the fact that the number one school that needs modernization is Liberty High School and that that was recently funded in our county community investment plan. to address the low physical and functional assessment scores that are noted in the EFMP. And that William Winchester and West Middle School continue to be kind of the number two priorities. And this letter emphasizes your support for continuing to pursue those types of projects for William Winchester and West Middle. So those are just a few key highlights from the letter, which is in response to the findings of the EFMP. If there's anything you wanna ask Bill questions about or suggestions that you wanna make to modify the letter, we can make those and bring them back to you at the next meeting.

Thank you. And thank you, Bill, for adjusting on the fly.

Luckily, I didn't have any meetings today, so it worked out.

Great. Thank you.

We did.

Started at 9.

So I heard. We had two long meetings. We've covered two topics.

And we've lost people along the way to try to kill yeah, so anyway we're we're still here from 3 me goes are here and commissioner word.

I have I have a question is about the the freedom elementary. We basically have a single family home housing moratorium in that area. because of the facility inadequacy in Freedom Elementary. And we have developers saying, well, you know, we can't develop anything if it was zoned single family because there are inadequate facilities down there. So the question is, can we not be a little more aggressive? It's more of a, how do I, where is the question? Can we be more aggressive in pursuing how we district students, pupils, and allocate students to those, because there's capacity at Eldersburg Elementary, and it's within a mile and a half of Freedom Elementary. Can we not... allocate students to that elementary school and free up freedom so that it has additional capacity.

So going back pre-COVID, there was a committee formed. The Board of Ed appointed a committee to look at the Freedom Redistricting Committee. And they looked at that because at the time, the projections and the actual enrollments, there was space at Eldersburg. They were looking at can we move... the next set of projections came out and the the overcrowding got became bigger it was more than just freedom and eldersburg was getting closer to 100 so they didn't have as much space to take as many carrolltown was over 100 so they formed a southeast area redistricting committee covet happened we paused during covid because enrollments dropped they picked it up afterwards but um because of the drop in covid numbers they you know it took a little longer to come up with a plan a plan was finally presented with with some options were presented most of a couple of which required additions at um and and the redistricting became larger it was elementary and middle were impacted too in order to not try have to move kids from eldersburg all the way over to winfield and then winfield all the way down to mount airy because the the seats were in mount airy so moving kids from eldersburg to mount airy from a transportation perspective from a community perspective became problematic so the committee had a couple of options that had additions the board asked us to do a study to look at how much the additions would cost and were they possible at specifically at freedom we did a study the new projections came out and supported the addition so you know they said they asked the county commissioners funding for design we started designing it it It takes about two years to design through the site plan process. So we were in design. Another set of projections came out. Enrollments were lower. Actual enrollments came down a little bit. We started to worry a little bit, but they were still somewhat supported. We were in the middle of design. Last year, the actual enrollments were lower. We decided, well, that's two years in a row the kindergarten numbers are down, which means knowing the projections weren't done, but that generally lowers projections. The board paused it, and ultimately we decided in this plan to remove the additions because the state pays for additions based on justified enrollment, so you have to be overcrowded for them to participate. So where we are now, Eldersberg does have more seats than it did three years ago to handle it. It's possible. It's certainly feasible. Unfortunately, it's not a quick process. The Board of Education could certainly create a boundary committee it generally takes about a year for you know six months to a year we we don't redistrict kids once they're in the middle of a school year we wouldn't be able to do it for next school year so now you're talking the fall of 2027 would be the soonest if they started their process now because they have to have recommendations to the board, you know, really almost a year ahead of so parents can adjust. So it's possible, they certainly could. And you know, in the meantime, you know that you're still dealing with the same issue now the the new set of projections it freedom elementary is no longer considered inadequate it's approaching inadequate which is a little bit of a different for for the county as far as how you handle the developments but there's still obviously a concern but um really it you know redistricting to allow the growth to happen is above my pay grade, let's say. It's a Board of Education you know, ultimately board, you know, the board of commissioners are responsible for zoning and growth. Right. Board of Education is responsible for redistricting. They're both I think rezoning and redistricting are probably two words that get ears perked up the most within the county as far as citizens.

So, yeah, well, I guess I'm looking for some relief so that we can have you know additional housing stock developed in that area where you know if we have we want to solve affordability there there's only two or three ways to go about it one is to increase supply and we're not doing that and so um and and we can't do it until we have school capacity in the freedom district and since it's a designated growth area we got to figure something out and so um you know the my children went to freedom elementary and they had a great experience there at the same time it is old it is a challenged site i'm wondering you know in that um eldersburg elementary has such you know a it's a large site i mean what could we not add on there rather than freedom elementary because i mean we We need a new school site. That's the bottom line to replace Freedom Elementary, but they're not making any more land down there. So we've got to figure something else out. And so I don't know where to send this message, So I'm sending it to you. We need relief. And unfortunately, I hate to say it. I don't think you and I are the guys that are going to solve it, but we can ask the questions. And so that's the spirit that the questions are coming to you in because we need we need to we need to do something and doing nothing. on the elementary schools is not the answer. So we need to figure something out. So let's do this. I'm in. Whatever you need from us, encouragement, light a fire, send up smoke signals. How many analogies do I need to give you? I'm here for you, all right? So anybody else?

I agree. I think doing nothing is not a strategy, not an option. Just a possible solution. I mean, you were drafting this letter about the findings, which Daphne just went over. Should we include in the letter, you know, we recommend that it's time to take a look at redistricting rebalancing uh however we word that to to bring it to the board of education's attention that you know it's pretty it's on our radar and it's on our developers radar we we just heard you know it's impacting everything it's impacting everything that they you know we had a change in the development um they went to a different plan entirely away from single-family homes because of the school issue that you know there's the constraint the stop is the school capacity so and like Pete said it's a designated growth area and there's more growth plan down there and there's, what's, I forget the, what we see on the July 8th agenda, I think there's some re-overlay of the growth area, so an expansion of the growth area. And so.

Not an expansion, just looking at the commercial zoning in that area.

Commercial, but it's expanding, it's growing down there. and the constraint, the stop is that school capacity. So the developers are losing incentive to do things down there. The shift to 55 and over is welcome and that's okay and it's needed, but it's not, that's limiting the developers and the home builders and things like that down in that area. So perhaps we need to incorporate language in the letter to address that and bring it to the Board of Ed's attention that we'd like to see that something needs to be done. We'd like to see that.

You're right. It it actually affects our master plan all the way up and down the scale, because if if that's a growth area and we want what I call balanced growth and we're not seeing that now because of the issue of schools, that's that's one big limiting factor. And so it's shifting the demographics of a lot of different things and it's also winding up pushing development in the areas where maybe we don't want it. And so all these things have an effect on it. School systems, we have a great school system. What we have to figure out now is how to make it compatible with our master plan, our vision of growth, and where this is located so that we're not behind the eight ball all the time. We can't afford to play catch up.

I will say we're in a much better situation than we were when I started. When I actually worked at the county 22 years ago, and you looked at a map of the inadequate school districts, the whole county was red. So there was no area in the county that wasn't inadequate from a school perspective. So every developer in the county had to make those same choices. Luckily, we're just talking about one small elementary district. It just happens to be that's where two large developments are.

And I do want to ask you about the tiny town area and the school system in that area. I know there's some visions of of larger developments taking place up there. Where do we stand there as far as adequacy?

So so there's been about 400 to 500 permits over the last probably five or six years in the tiny town elementary district. The enrollment has gone up maybe 20 kids. Okay. So I would have expected I would have expected it the enrollment to grow and to be looking at that area but for whatever reason the type of families moving into those homes isn't either they're not bringing their children to public schools or they're not you know we haven't done a survey house to house to see who lives in those but right but you know you know they they certainly are you know they're talking about another large development at least one there is capacity at tawny town elementary running meet elementary also handles part of tawny towns students and then northwest middle has some capacity so you know if if it starts to happen there's capacity you know will it fill up you know it depends upon how many houses and who moves into them but and where are you on the schedule of these single rooms or two rooms that's being built for the pre-k

Where are you in that process?

So the kindergarten additions, the last of the full-day kindergarten additions at Cranberry Station, Sandy Mount, Friendship Valley, and Tawny Town all are opening this summer. So those schools had two more kindergarten rooms, and we added a second pre-K in all of those because we knew the pre-K expansion was happening. the next round of schools that are the six just pre-k classrooms they start this summer there's you know three in westminster westminster elementary william winchester robert mountain elementary are getting one then we have elmer wolf spring garden and runnymede are supposed to get an extra pre-k classroom they start this summer and they'll finish next summer so and then that's then you would be up to compliance i guess so we the pre-k additions you know when blueprint originally the the blueprint law originally passed we we anticipated needing um an extra pre-k classroom at 15 elementaries in addition to the ones we were adding at the four schools that were getting kindergarten additions so phase one of that project was these six that are starting the summer Blueprint has been evolving every year. They keep changing how long it's gonna take to do, slightly how you're going to implement it. So we haven't seen the pace of increase in pre-k students that originally we anticipated so phase two and phase three of those 15 pre-k additions we've pushed those two phases out two years so we're not even going to be looking to start designing for two more years and then we'll see what the if the enrollments don't show up in two years we'll prep we could defer it again so but this round The four kindergarten additions that are gonna open this summer and then the six pre-K additions that'll open next summer, that's 10 additional pre-K classrooms. We feel pretty confident that can absorb the increase in pre-K over the next four or five years.

And then the tech center, I've asked about this before and you've given me some good responses on it. But the tech center, there's a building complete on that. Yeah. And and now that it's complete, How's the capacity? Are we looking ahead towards anything more?

I would say they always are. It wouldn't surprise me, because it's based on student interest and new fields of jobs out there, wouldn't surprise me. We designed and built it to handle the programs that were told to us at the time. it handles all of those programs but just like the last center they they added programs over the years because they felt it was important to offer it to kids and they found room in the facility maybe not ideal room wasn't designed to be that type of space but they used it because they felt like it was important so i there the programs are full as you know if if you know some programs they run they might have 20 seats but maybe they only get 15 kids but every year they get 15 kids they you know that's still a success to them but there's some programs where they have 60 seats and they have 120 kids that want to take it they still have a wait for some programs are so popular that they still have a wait list to get in i don't envision that changing and like i said over time if they want to add a new program Maybe there's an AI programming. They want to offer that. They certainly do those things. Our career and tech folks are always looking out for the future and trying to get as many kids interested in different programs as they can. No, it's doing very well. Like I said, I think a lot of people view it as a jewel of the county, and I think we have one of the better career and tech centers as far as a model across the state. Thank you.

so to to the question on our letter do we want to insert um we as a planning something along the lines of we as a planning and zoning commission encourage uh the board of education to consider all alternatives with respect to the designated growth area which is the freedom district yeah i think that's appropriate to do that okay that's appropriate specific to elementary schools Elementary schools and Sykesville, I think, right? Because Sykesville is overcrowded. Sykesville Middle is approaching inadequacy. And thank you.

Yeah, so I'll work something up. You'll see that in our revised letter for your action at July 8th.

Great. Thank you for all you do. Thank you. Thank you, Bill.

By the way, just as a note, I saw an email that we, as a county, spend like $18,000 per child. And we're the lowest in the state. I mean, that's good and bad, which is fantastic. Good for you to getting it done. Because I think we're like the 25th rated, Liberty's the 25th rated high school in the state when you include all the high schools. So you guys are kicking butt. I'm not complaining. You're getting more done with less. But I think we as a county, we're the lowest one on per capita spending. I think that's what I saw.

Per pupil. It's when you add the county portion of funding with the state, and then you divide it by how many students. It just works out that way that we end up being on the bottom end.

I think we're like 18.6 or something like that was the number in my head. So way to be. Thanks.

I think that is a plus. Yeah, me too.

I can't. That's more on the operating side, but I'll pass it along. We're getting it done. So yeah, grades aren't falling.

Let's go. Certainly positive. Absolutely. Okay, so next. We didn't do public comment.

Yes, you need to do public comment still.

Any public comment on the Educational Facilities Master Plan?

All right, we're good.

All right, so now moving right along, we have our deferral code changes, the retirement homes and villages, the discussion and presentation. Sorry, there won't. Discussion is just limited to the smaller group.

But we're the most important. I was going to say, the most important is stuck behind. Don't believe it.

You did not say that on public record.

So just to tee this up a little bit, you remember Troy Trucks from Michael Baker who is the consultant he's one of a team of consultants who are working on the all the different code changes related to the freedom area deferrals and thank you Troy for hanging around Last month we had an intro to the findings that the consultant team made on the retirement homes and villages and Troy's going to follow that up with the first of probably three different conversations that we'll have with you on specific code amendments that we might make in response to their findings and recommendations. So I'm gonna turn it over to Troy. You all received both a copy of his presentation and also some red line text. So I think he's gonna focus on the, presentation itself but they they're kind of companion documents and you might see some very slight modifications to what you received earlier versus what he's showing just because it's kind of a living living document work in progress is this what the commissioners has already seen No, the commissioners have not seen the text amendments.

This is what we're sending up.

Exactly. Yeah. This is what you'll recommend. Okay.

Okay.

So good afternoon. Thank you for having me again. As Daphne said, the PowerPoint on this screen might be a little bit slightly different from the copy that you got. It's only because, as Daphne said, we're literally still trying to go through. We got probably 99%, as we would call it, I think, in place. But I think this is the opportunity really to start the engaged conversation with starting with Planning and Zoning Commission to start to get feedback. And as Daphne said, this is going to be one of three meetings. So you'll have today it's kind of an intro conversation and then staff is going to follow up in the two July meetings, the 8th and 21st, I believe, are the scheduled meetings. So Daphne and team will take the lead on following through on those. But I'm always around to to pinch hit or chime in however we need to. Because we're evolving, we're working on the other uses as we currently speak to. So a lot going on. So I just wanted, again, this is at the 60,000 foot level in the PowerPoint. All the details are in what we would call the red line document. And the way this document's set up is literally taking text from your code and showing in red text A new text, and if it's struck out, that's existing text that's being struck out. So again, that's kind of the game plan, and that eventually would get to the Board of County Commissioners, and then the county attorney then would take it over and put it into like an ordinance amendment type of format for official enactment at that point. so the two main components that we focused on again this follows up to the presentation we've had or presentations we've had culminating with your presentation the last time was here about age restricted housing again retirement homes and retirement villages we focused our amendments in this document for chapter 91 fire protection and that's really on access in terms of making sure these communities are developed Because right now your code, and I can get in more details, it doesn't really incorporate from a site development standard and your fire protection only talks about adequacy of water supply. It doesn't actually incorporate specifically any requirements relative to access roadways for fire apparatus. So that's where we're coming from with these types of standards. And then also two changes specific to zoning, Chapter 158. Through this process, at least this one, we're not touching anything largely on 155 site development. It's mostly with Chapter 91 and Chapter 158 as we go through. So on chapter 91 again fire apparatus access standards and I'll get into more details here. Enforcement and coordination so I heard you talk about your earlier plan 55 plus community where the fire marshal the fire chief of the county reviews we've put that specifically in the language he must or she must sign off on these plans from that type of review. Again we're not saying it's not being done we want to formalize that. is what is our whole goal here and then we have site design criteria again specific to fire access for site plan projects and also that the regulations include fire lane marking standards in that as well for chapter 158 we've modernized the terminology so you'll start to see a term or terms called active adult homes and active adult communities also too we've established a consolidated section so we've actually brought all this information into one section under zoning we've updated the use tables that are currently in the code in terms of how these uses are permitted but also the terminology in those tables We've refined and updated and added parking connectivity and design standards, and also a requirement for a community amenity plan. This is a subtle change. We're going to call it a report. There's certain connotations after Chris Daphne and I talked about it. We'll call it a report, if you will. um so starting with chapter 91 these are the two specific definitions we've added in uh to this section uh again chapter 91 is fire i forget the name the title specifically but really it's fire safety fire prevention and what it really focuses on water supply so this would actually under section 91.004 and the definitions add fire apparatus access road consistent with nfpa one And also fire lane, also consistent there, adding those two in because those are the terms that are being used in the specific amendment language that you'll see. For this presentation, I didn't put all the details in there. You have the copy in front of you to get down through the details. So some of the key requirements, again, no site plan approval and no final certificate of occupancy will be issued without fire DMS review and approval. Access roads must be installed before vertical construction and remain free of obstructions throughout that period. Again, we're talking about fire safety. Doesn't matter if the project's complete or still under construction. We're requiring these must be put in at the onset. And then required clearance width and grade standards. So there's a couple items there. One, it doesn't matter what the road width is, but you must maintain a minimum 20 foot cartway so you have the fire apparatus can on both bidirectional can pass each other. so when if if if a developer is proposing on street parking and they have the width to do so fire marshal has to review that and approve if they have the width and meeting this standard so it doesn't matter if it's on or off street parking they have to meet at least a minimum cartway width for fire apparatus apparatus passage and give me again you said how many how many feet it's 20 feet let me just double check uh the code i'm going off the top of my head here again um it's on the second page just one second yeah so under d if you look at your sheet if you have the document in front of you so if you go to code amendments it probably is page five maybe yeah it is um it would be paragraph b d or excuse me paragraph d and if you look under d1 fire apparatus access roads shall be designed to provide a minimum of 20 feet of unobstructed width So it's not telling you how to design the road of a cartway. It's just saying whatever design standards you have, you better have a minimum of 20 foot unobstructed cartway width is what it's telling you.

Okay, so I want to stay here for a second because this has been a thing. So if we allow on-site, on-street parking, curb should be kept to cars parking the side right. And we're saying that we need 20 feet to pass between we're saying we need a 36 foot road. 8 foot for the car 8 foot for the car correct correct.

So yeah, that's the bottom line this this doesn't tell you the width of the road from curb to curb if you will this is telling you the cartway the travel lanes you better have 20 feet of unobstructive driveway so if you can or can't it's all going to depend whatever the design standards tell you the width of the road needs to be or what the developer is saying if they want on-street parking and they have to make it at least 36 feet wide to obtain that to achieve that 20-foot cartway That may answer your question.

Yes, sir. So from from this document to our building standards, do we who make sure that this gets translated to our building standards for. Or when somebody comes in with a construction drawing and says this is what we're adapting, how does that get translated to the building standard to our building codes?

Well, I think we would want to go back in and look at what our design manual says for roadway widths. And in particular, I think it varies from one type of development to another. So we would want to go back in and just kind of compare those.

Yeah. And we, we actually started this, this amendment was actually in the site development section and we actually pulled it back over here and there was, there was ongoing conversation. So if it's a determination, we want to push it over there collectively through here. We can, we can do that. But the idea would be that this is all inherent of part of a site development plan review, but because you already had a section of 91 that dealt with fire safety, um, that was kind of like the starting point of saying, let's, let's make sure fire safety is with fire safety.

Good, okay, thank you. Thank you, very good.

And then, Then there's apparatus hose, so you have distance requirements, minimum distance requirements for a fire apparatus set up from the front door of any dwelling unit in the development and also to the reach of the fire hose itself, there's requirements. Again, all NFPA standards that we've, and we had a specific discussion about not incorporating by reference any standards. Let's codify what we want specifically in here based upon those standards. The next going to 158. This is the zoning section. Now we turn direction to specifically.

Yes, sir. Can I ask you a question? Would you go back? Yes. The next one back, please. Okay, you talked about the width of the roads. How about the turnaround areas, the cul-de-sac?

That's also a great question. That's also specified in the design specifications. If you look under paragraph D, of that document again i just provided the summary here commissioner um so if you look at it would be on page five of the red line document if you have it okay we we that already talks about the turnaround the minimum radius of that i also did some research and found like the minimum inside turning radius for is needs to be 45 feet and that's based upon a chart that had all the apparatus in there and had like the biggest standard and there but also to again going back to your fire chief making sure here she or he they're reviewing that and they know that exactly exactly right that's where we're coming from. So we totally rewrote the entire kind of section on age-restricted housing. So starting with the terminology, we don't use retirement home anymore, and we totally rewrote, and you'll see, I didn't put the cross-check, but if you go under page six of the red line document, you'll see the definitions there that we're talking about, and you'll see how we actually very much elaborated and expanded upon your current simple basically one one line definition for retirement home what we tried to do here is make sure that for an active adult home in this case we specify up front it's a multi-family dwelling or dwellings so it can be multiple types of dwellings or units if you will specifically designed to meet the needs and exclusively for senior citizens senior citizens is defined in your code already and it includes the definition that that's 55 plus so again going back and forth with Daphne and Chris we chose to use senior citizens and also too we cited housing for older occupations older persons act of 1995 that amends the Fair Housing Act where developments of 55 plus have the legal authority to restrict age, have age restrictions in a development. So that's exactly what that means. So we've built in to your definition concrete standards and requirements of what we mean by active adult homes and likewise you'll see the same thing on adaptive adult communities. And then we further add language here that really gets to kind of the heart of what we want to achieve and see out of these types of developments. We specifically exclude by stating that this is not a continuing care retirement community. So it's not that use. This is not that, if you will, because sometimes an applicant might come in and they might try to use this. Well, your definition didn't call it out. It's not a CCRC. We want to make very clear that this is not equivalent to that type of development. And then two, this was brought up this morning during your previous project about deed restrictions, et cetera, covenants. That last sentence is exactly what that's for. So we've added that in. At least it's our recommendation of where it should go. The Planning and Zoning Commission might have some other thoughts of where you might want to put it. And that's clearly up for discussion then too. We're starting point, we're putting it in the definitions. but it's something that needs to be tied to a note on the site plan, incorporated into a recorded deed restriction against the property. And also for retirement homes, usually have lease agreements on the units. So it needs to be included in that lease agreement. So again, that would be something that when you're approving the developer, you would want to ask, I want to see a sample lease agreement that has your language that causes that to let the property owner know that this is age restricted property.

but if it's not a lease, it would be included in the deed restriction.

Recorded deed restriction that would run with the- That's right, yeah, correct. So for active adult home, we added literally the lease part on it because that's typically what that might occur. So again, the county attorney has to be the satisfaction of the county attorney, whatever that language is. So that's written right in there too. THEN ACTIVE ADULT COMMUNITY, THE SAME TYPE OF THOUGHT PROCESS. WE'VE WORDED THESE TO BE CONSISTENT. YOU MIGHT SEE SOME NUANCES, BUT THEY'RE OVERALL CONSISTENT TO INCLUDE THE REFERENCE TO THE HOPA ACT. And then also too, we put the age restriction requirement clearly knitted on the plan, incorporating the deed for each dwelling unit, recorded against the property, and in a form that's satisfactory to the attorney, county attorney here again too. Same type of logic. Also, too, we've added a term, common open space. Again, this is a term where we're thinking about common open space in terms of the area within the usable space within these developments. So we spent a lot of time trying to wordsmith this and actually make sure we had at least a good starting point. So common open space means an outdoor area that is intended for use by residents and their visitors, not including private individual lots and shall not include off street include streets and off street parking areas. So again, we're really trying to focus that there is an intentional that this needs to be usable space within that development. Also to net developable acreage, there's ways that we're applying that in terms of how things are calculated. What this means is you have the gross and then you have the net. We spent a lot of time making sure we went back and looked at your other types of terminology in your code to make sure what's applicable here. Chris and Daphne were really helpful in trying to make sure we, I think we went round and round probably about three hours in Chris and Daphne's office one day of looking at these types of terms and other things. But net development. Excuse me, sir.

Yes, sir. You talk about the gross and the net, but is that based on ratios?

total space so if you had a hundred a hundred acres and and a ratio would say 15% be 15 acres is that how you know it's really just a true calculation of for example if it's gross let's say a hundred acres you'd have to figure out from a net based on this definition the total acreage of a lot or parcel the gross and or track remaining after you deduct. So the net is what you deduct out. And what you're deducting out based on the definition is existing easements that prohibit development activity, existing rights of way, Streams, stream buffers, 100-year floodplains, and habitats of rare and threatened and endangered species. So basically, of your parcel, your gross area, you'd have to assess what areas on my property or project area meet those types of areas. You subtract those out of the gross. Homewater ponds.

uh no no we did not include stormwater ponds and there's a because of the way chris i might have to have chris come up here and help uh the way they're permitted uh uh by the state well that's a function of whatever it is you're going to develop right so what you have is you've got the gross acreage you've got what's usable and from there you're then also going to have

Yes, that's a great clarification. This would be the existing easements, and those easements right away might be some type of existing stormwater feature. But whatever's existing in terms of an easement or right away, what we're trying to figure out, how are you calculating your certain leftover area for common open space or other types of uses or applications of net developable area based upon the gross? So we're trying to extract out, and right now you don't have any terminology in your code that actually evaluates properties in these ways. It's all based upon gross types of development.

Chris, isn't a stormwater area an easement? Yes. After the fact.

After the fact.

After the fact. Yes.

So but so when we're talking net developable area, you're talking about area that you're doing development on. Right. And you're doing and stormwater management is part of your development.

OK. That answers it.

Yeah. And we also were paying attention to what other jurisdictions, how their codes read. And those jurisdictions that look at net developable area, they subtract out the ones consistently we saw were floodplain and steep slopes. But they left everything else was considered part of the net area.

OK.

So we dialed into a little bit more specific what we felt was more appropriate.

Yeah, I think even steep slopes, we had it in there. But we decided, hey, you have rolling terrain. Most of your project might be on steep slopes. But engineering controls, I've worked in communities where they've had lawsuits over steep slope definitions. And nobody wins. Because a steep slope, how you define it and how you determine almost your entire property is a steep slope in some cases.

Well, and also you can alleviate steep slopes. We looked at a couple of sites where steep slopes were called out in the middle of the property, but when they masqueraded the site, the steep slopes were gone. So is that really a metric that you want to limit your not developable area by? So we didn't think that was appropriate.

Yeah, any good grader can fix that. Yep. Thank you, Chris.

Then residential, we modified the existing term residential uses by actually just adding active adult community, active adult home, and then removing retirement home, retirement village. Again, you'll see the red strike out, the actual physical changes, but for this presentation, just showing what was added or modified. The next section, just in order, minimum number of spaces, and that's the way the code reads now. It's part of the parking section. I put in the brackets parking so we knew what we're talking about here is parking. But the actual section is just titled minimum number of spaces. so active adult community and a couple slides down we actually are comparing these as chris just mentioned on the the definition for net developable area we looked at other communities as a comparable so i'll show you a couple comparisons too after we go through the parking standard so for active adult communities and what we're talking about here is single family two family and townhouses Those are the types of housing units that you're currently otherwise are providing for in your codes. That's why we're identifying them here as what we're talking about in terms of what's included in an active adult community. But you'll see later on an active adult community can also include as part of a mix of uses an actual multifamily active adult home. But for an active adult community, the way we would calculate it is two for each dwelling unit. We also gave consideration about how do you count the parking spaces in a garage? So typically you're allowed to count, if it's a two-car garage, you count two. If it's a one, you count one. But we're saying, hey, we don't want to over-park, if you will. So we're suggesting, recommending that if you have a Yeah, garages should only count as one off-street parking space. You can have the driveway count as off-street to meet the two. So you can have, in this case, one in the garage, one in the driveway, is how we're calculating that as a recommendation. Also to overflow guest parking, that was a topic of discussion this morning as well, that we're recommending one guest parking space per every five dwelling units shall be distributed throughout the development in centralized or clustered guest parking areas. And then the overflow guest parking can provide it as on-street or off-street parking spaces. Depends on the way the development's laid out. You'll see back in the design standards, we also have a distance requirement. So that's something we want to call your attention to. How far do we want these kind of satellite parking areas, overflow parking areas, be away? Right now, we're starting with like a 10-minute walk shed, where if you have multiple satellite parking areas, we're suggesting a typical... 10 minute walk shed that might be too much you might want to think about reducing that down for a 55 plus community but we're starting off with this as an active adult community they usually like to walk so and have other activities but we can we can see the point if you want to neck that down in terms of the distance again that's in the design standards Then for active adult home, we're pulling that back to one and a half spaces per dwelling unit. Then also to an additional 5% of the total required parking supply shall be that overflow parking, if you will. And then here are the examples. You'll see some commonalities here. We looked at Frederick County, Howard County, and Queen Anne County for their comparable requirements for single family, multifamily. I'll just let you read the screen. You can see there's consistency there with our requirements for minimum parking spaces and how some of your surrounding neighbors are requiring the same.

That's an interesting notion, half space for each bedroom in the dwelling. That's an interesting notion. I don't think I've seen that before.

Yeah, there's different ways to kind of slice and dice it. You can see that. If you're looking at Frederick, so it's one space per unit. They're getting the half space, so it's a little bit more than one and a half spaces per unit, if you will.

Get a half a space for an EV.

So I think the main point here is that there are many different ways to codify this. We took what is basically similar to what we currently have, but we are certainly open to other ways to skin the cat.

Okay, I'll just move on. So then we get to the use table. So this is showing you, I intentionally wanted to show the red line text because this is literally showing the changes, if you will. So on the left column, it's really just replacing the current retirement home retirement village terminology with the like active adult home and active adult community terminology but one change you want to bring to note these uses right now in the residential districts we've kept them permitted but we've changed them from conditional use to permitted use and one lot one primary reason you don't have standards now terms of design standards other standards now you have standards so we're increasing the requirements on these uses so we thought for flexibility in terms of making sure they don't have to jump through a lot of extra hoops through a conditional use process but again that's that's up to you what you think our recommendation is no standards before that's why you probably went through a conditional use to actually put more scrutiny on them now we have standards so we're thinking that the trade-off would be allow them by right as long as they meet these standards allow them by right So it's one area that for your consideration and feedback you might want to think about.

We also felt that this simplifies the process, right? So actually this morning we were going through that process of where we bring it before you all for density and design, then we go to the BZA and then we come back to the regular process. Again, like Troy said, because we are now establishing all of these design criteria, do we really need to go back and forth and is conditional use, is the BZA determination of conditional use really appropriate for this type of development? We often see it in conditional uses are we see are very appropriate for things like contractors equipment storage yards or kennels or things like that where they're going to be additional conditions put around the development that are impacted by the use. But here we're talking about a residential development. Is that really appropriate or does that need to go to the BZA especially now that we're proposing these criteria? So that would be a simplification of process because of the additional criteria.

And then under 158 for the bulk area requirements, the only thing that we changed here was just simply adding the terminology in this case under paragraph B, item four, adding active adult homes. There are no changes being proposed to the current Vulcan area standards. So I know that was brought up, at least some of the concerns that some of the applicants had talked about. And that wasn't a driving force for us. We felt that your Balkan area standards are adequate right now. It's more about we're getting a lot of design and other context concerns that are coming out of these discussions. That's why we're focusing more on the design and other types of standards, but Balkan area We're not making any recommendations to change that. And you can see the term active adult homes was added to item four above. Active adult communities is already addressed because in that section it talks about other permitted or conditional uses. By default, active adult homes falls under that. It's not specifically called out. Under the section for light industrial, just changing again, updating the terminology. Here, that's the simple change here. And likewise on the table, there's no changes to the use. So in terms of how they're permitted, they're currently permitted by right in those commercial districts and the EC district, it's just updating the terminology. So now going on to section 158, this is the beefiest section in that amendment. So number one, it goes back to our recommendation. Let's combine all the requirements for these types of uses in one section. So the current section 158, 161 exists. We just changed the title now to be active adult community and active adult home. So we're combining everything for these two uses in this section in terms of their purpose and intent. as well as the design standards. So the purpose and intent, we really embellished on that, and that was intentional. If you look at the actual text amendment, there's a lot of language in there that supports this type of development, really reinforces the need and how you're really making sure these are designed for those active adult types of lifestyles and communities this just simply gives a brief summary so again some of the key goals espoused in that purpose and intent statement diverse attainable housing options for active adult older adults including a requirement for mix of housing you'll see that in design standards we want safe walkable and context sensitive environments Developments that promote independent living, social connection, and long-term stability. Housing choice and affordability. Again, we require as part of these standards a mix of housing in the developments, especially of obviously the community, the active adult communities. um bearing we want to make sure too we're talking about making sure that we're providing products that meet all types of needs my mother-in-law right now if she could sell her house she'd probably better off in a small little patio home with limited maintenance that would be ideal for her but she's refusing to leave and she wants to stay in her two-story in 1940s in the borough of carlisle and tend to her garden she's she loves doing that But again, the idea would be her type of opportunity would be something she doesn't need to have a two story or a larger home. She needs like a little cottage dwelling. So that's what we're trying to make sure that we're understanding that to encourage efficient, flexible and attainable housing design. We have design standards in there and we have core design outcomes and we'll get into those a little bit more in detail here going forward. So the density, so this is a big, big item that you ought to pay attention to because we talked a lot about this section and we have in the notes that you can see on the screen why we're recommending. So admittedly, by these numbers, we're actually increasing the density allowable. So active adult communities where the amendment specifies eight units per developable or net developable acre. So going back to that discussion right now, it's calculated on gross, but we're recommending net and one comparable is your neighboring Howard County. This is exactly how they this is the density that they prescribe. And this is how they calculate the density in Howard County. so again we talked about who are your comp who your competitors who are your peers howard county be one example that's often talked about so that's that's 1a item b for active adult homes one dwelling unit for every 3 000 square feet of gross area uh that maintains your density as to what it has been since 1971. so in this case it's one deep dwelling unit for 3 000 square feet is actually 14 and a half dwelling units per acre that's how it's been since 1971. so we're actually staying consistent and true with that that that calculation And then item number three, if you have an active adult community that includes an active adult home use, the calculation would be consistent with that. One dwelling unit for every 3,000 square feet of gross area, but the active adult home component of the site must contain a minimum of 75% of the proposed dwelling units. So we're putting the density in the high rise, the multi-story building, if you will, and making sure that the community, the regular single family, detached town homes, what have you, are in that 25%. So your density is being contained, if you will, versus being spread out over the landscape is the idea. Chris and Daphne, if you want to add any additional flavor there.

All I would say is that that 3rd option is not a not something that we've seen proposed but we figure it's possible so let's rather than trying to deal with mixed use on a on a parcel. Let's address it right from the get go.