Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of Carroll County, Maryland on July 8, 2026 to order. Welcome, everybody. We've got a pretty thick, aggressive, deep agenda this evening. So we have a lot to get to. So can we establish a quorum?

Yes. Good evening, number one. Mr. Kane?

Here.

Mr. Robertson? Here. Mr. Huff?

Here.

Mr. Kirkner? Here. Mr. Swayson? Here. Mr. Lester? Here. Mr. Smith? Mr. Gordon? Secretary Daley? Here. Mr. Chairman, please let the record reflect that six members are present and we do have a quorum.

Okay, thank you. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody had a chance to take a look at this evening's agenda.

Yes, I move we approve it without amendment.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. All right. Special report, Reservoir Run Retirement Village, S250007. Is David here?

I think Laura is going to stand up for David.

I almost said good morning, but good evening.

Good evening. Good evening.

Laura Matthias with Development Review. As you are aware, David Becraft was here in June presenting this special report to you. He is conveniently out of office today, so here we are. No, he will be back. For the evening and David be craft. So Kelly would you like to invite? anyone up with you How many chairs you need this evening it's up to you, thank you I Didn't hear any like fanfare or anything Okay, so So as I led off, in June, June 16th, David Becraft was here with a special report for the Reservoir Run Retirement Village S250007. At that meeting, we were down a few planning commission members, and at the end of that discussion, regarding this special report, the members who are here decided to table this particular agenda item until this meeting so that more members could be present because there is an action required on this, a determination to be made. So that is what brings us here at an evening meeting in front of you. So I am going to let Anyone and everyone who's with you, introduce themselves, if you would.

Thank you. Good evening. Kelly Schaefer Miller, 73 East Main Street, Westminster, Maryland, 21157. I'm here tonight on behalf of the applicant, St. John Properties. I have Tom Pilon with me from St. John. We have all of our traffic experts back there with us. We have Kyle Schmidt, Jackie Plott, and Mark Keeley. We have Matt Taylor and Ali from St. John. We have Jim Mathias from DDC, and we have Ryan from Century Engineering. So the same team that those of you who were here last time saw, we wanted to be prepared to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. Awesome. Okay, so I am going to go through the staff report again, as there were commission members who were not present last time for that report. And then any questions you have, et cetera, we will... Answer those. I guarantee you I cannot do this exactly as David Becraft did. I did ask Chris, our director, if I could simply play the video of him from last month because he did a fabulous job, but Chris didn't. He actually even didn't answer that. He just... Okay, so... Reservoir Run, specifically, we are here today requesting an action. And what brings us in front of you is a code section for retirement villages. And I'm going to read the code section verbatim. I think this is important to hear. So chapter 158, which is our zoning code, 0.161 for retirement villages 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. The determination of density shall not be increased at any subsequent site plan reviews. Okay. So that's the full package of what we're looking at today. But understand that density is the one thing called out that cannot be changed following your determination. From here, the plan, once you make your determinations, the plan will go forward to the Board of Zoning Appeals with a request for conditional use. So we are in the R-20,000 zoning district. As a retirement village, it does need to go to the BZA. So that is what we are doing here today. The code is asking us to be here. Keep in mind as well as we move through this that the plan in front of you has been reviewed by technical agencies But it is only at the infancy of its review, okay? It does not, we don't even have a stormwater concept level approval. After the BZA case, it will continue to work through our development plan review process. It will be back in front of you for a concept plan review and determinations. And please remember that when you see that as a concept plan, you have a wide range of authority, okay? from site layout to entrances, et cetera. The code grants you a lot of authority, and you know that. It then will proceed through the review process and be back as a final plan review, at which point in time you still have that same breadth of authority, okay? important to note david also noted at the same is it on this agenda too are we talking about retirement villages today oh good that's perfect so david also noted in his june 16th address to you that further down in the agenda we are talking about retirement home and villages possible code changes so you're well aware of that you're well aware of this conversation But before you today is what's in accordance with the code today. And I do anticipate the timeline for the retirement villages code change is being moved along such that hopefully that will be put in place by October 1. This concept plan that is still under review Knowing what I know from a long history of being here, it's not going to be turned around and be back in front of you before October 1 for a concept plan review.

So I'm just laying out the whole timeline for you so you understand what's going on in the big picture. Make sense? Okay. Thank you. Thanks for your patience. Okay.

So the property, I believe David said it really well, like we could close our eyes and I'll point to this property, the Beatty property on a map at this point in time. You've seen it a few times already for various developments on the different parcels. The Corporate Park, the Eldersburg Overlook, Retirement Village in R20 at the northern side of the property. And we are now looking at Reservoir Run, a retirement village at the very southern parcel on the Beatty property. This particular parcel is just over 20 acres in size. all right and you'll see it adjoins the long meadow subdivision a 1960s subdivision at the south side there are a couple of points of access that were left with that subdivision one is from long meadow one is from rolling view drive and the plan intends to utilize those In conjunction with, we know that the Beatty property, oh, I think it's the next one. Yep, the Beatty property as a whole has the intent, there is an intent to extend Georgetown Boulevard. So there will also be an access point into this community from Georgetown Boulevard extended. So this is the entirety of the build out for the property that's anticipated. You have seen these plans already in front of you for the other portions. Know that as well, a traffic impact study was done for the entire build out of the site, okay? You're well aware that they started off this reservoir run as a single family homes on individual lots. The traffic study was updated when they modified to a retirement village and there were actually less, there was a reduction in the trip generation by the retirement village. That traffic impact study did reveal that there are intersections that will need to be mitigated None of the plans for the Beatty property, not one of them, can proceed to a final approval from you until there is mitigation that is in place that is acceptable. So that is part of the review process. And that will be agreed on. The anticipation has always been, as stated by Mr. Pilon, that this corporate park will... be the first one across the finish line. So before that gets a final approval, before we are in front of you asking for that, those mitigation strategies need to be worked through. This plan proposes 72 two-story townhouse units. They are all proposed as being attached. There's no freestanding units. They're all attached, and they range from four to five units per building section. There are sidewalks proposed throughout the site with connectivity throughout the Beatty property. So the focus here is just on the reservoir run. So the 72 units, the zoning code does state that bulk regulations, so these are your setbacks, which I'll talk about in a moment, and the density in a retirement village shall be determined by the planning commission. The maximum allowable density shall not exceed three and a half dwelling units per acre. That with the 20.6 acres calculates to 72 units. And that is what is proposed, 72 units. The setbacks are a little tricky. We're looking at a site plan, so it's not individual lots. It's per the entire parcel. And the setbacks that they have shown are 20 foot from the roadway. So this... The roadway here back to the front of the house is 20 foot. There's some zoomed in shots which show it a little better, but they're in an order that I can't. necessarily okay so like along along here 20 feet um 12 foot from the northern parcel so up here is where the northern parcel you'll see this line is 12 foot setback um and 12 foot from the residential lots along long meadow so over here long metal drop um the area at the tournament of long meadow drive ah so can i get to that yes um this shows setbacks of 40 feet from georgetown boulevard and 50 feet from the two adjoining residential locks along long meadow drive and then 12 feet from parcels adjoining to the west so those are all the setbacks that they have included so the roadway network I'm going to go back to the overall. The roadway network is proposed to be publicly owned and maintained. The Department of Public Works has agreed to this, especially with the connectivity to the adjoining county-owned roads, as well as Georgetown Boulevard, which will be a county road as well. So that made sense to them to agree to that. So those two access points from the existing neighborhood, we have one here. coming through and then one here to Longmeadow Drive and then up to Georgetown. parking requirements parking requirements for Age-restricted adult townhouses are two spaces for each dwelling unit with additional parking for overflow and guest parking Required at the discretion of the Planning Commission. So each unit is shown as having a garage and a private driveway Additional parking areas are proposed throughout the retirement village. And if you want to know where specifically I'm going to have to ask

The engineer to point them out because I'm not familiar enough with the plan to point specifically to the overflow parking.

Right near the intersection of load A and B. There's a small right there. If you go right there. Okay. There's a cluster of them there. And then right there is another set of them. And then if you go on to the next sheet, there's a set of them. You see a set there and a set over there.

Your eyes are way better than mine.

See the stormwater pond on the left there? Yep. Right below that. Okay. Right here. I see that.

And then right there as well. Got it. Okay.

Thank you.

Perfect. The building elevations are included in this plan, and they've provided some nice renderings of those. The materials are not specifically annotated yet. You can see the intent of what these are to look like. There is street lighting proposed throughout the development. And as a reminder, we did, David did take this to our design and architectural review committee, and they had just a couple comments. One of them, which we hear on a regular basis regarding townhome developments for age-restricted is that they do look rather identical to one another. So if there was any opportunity to differentiate for people location, locating their specific unit, And the elevations also, I don't know if this has been, I feel like you talked about this last time. The elevations did show a step into the main entrance, and they're questioning whether that was best practice for age-restricted. I feel like you talked about that last time.

Yeah, just as a reminder, these elevations were actually submitted in response to those comments. So these addressed the comments that had been received. These were submitted after this August 12, 2025 DARK meeting was and the generation of these comments.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. So the project was at the TRC Technical Review Committee meeting back in May of 2025. We have received a few citizens speaking to either via email or were at the meeting and I would say the main concern there is probably likely people who are living in the southern subdivision and just that connectivity and of course there would be additional traffic because of the connectivity to the existing neighborhood. There are additional renderings that were provided last time. And I will slowly go through those so you can see what that looks like from this angle perspective. And then I will come back to any of them that you wish. And if Kelly and Tom would like to speak to any of them, I will go back to these slides. So these were just color renderings provided to give us an idea of what this actually looks and feels like.

Laura, just so you know, and everyone, we have actually some updated ones that just show a little bit more accurate landscaping depictions, as well as if you look at some of those, the adjacent homes look like they're just flat on the ground. So we've actually had the architect render those as well, just to get a more accurate perception.

Right, so.

Do you have them for this presentation? Yes, we do. Okay.

Would you like to see those? I think we have the, these are on the. Yes.

Yeah, compare them to what we just saw, yes. Yes, okay.

Okay, so that concludes the staff report. Again, as a reminder, we are looking for determinations from you specific to density, which again, cannot be increased at any subsequent site plan reviews. Exterior design and site layout. Yep, got it. So those are the terminations, the action that is being asked of you. And I'm here to answer questions, but most likely they will be answering all of your questions.

Well, let's see those new elevations.

Yes, absolutely. We're going to get that plugged in and set up for you. We prepared these so that we could more accurately respond to Mr. Lester's comments at the last meeting. These are even more realistic than the renderings that you saw at the last meeting, and we wanted to depict what the transition between the southern subdivision will be to these proposed units. And so some of the first images that you'll see here are just updated versions of those renderings that show that a little bit better. It's thinking for a second.

Should be a thing that makes them full screen.

Yeah. Let me start from the beginning.

All right, there we go.

So you'll note that these don't look too different. But like I said, if you really compared and contrasted the former images, the former images just had some rough, what I'll call rough landscaping depicted on them. These are depicted with the actual proposed landscaping, realistically, and put in there. Now, this landscaping that you're seeing specific to this project is being shown at a 5 to 10 year maturity. And the adjacent homes, you're also seeing in a more realistic depiction versus that flat sort of imagery. So please let us know if there are questions or if you'd like us to pause on any of these images, but we just wanted to have these as realistic as possible with the actual plans that you're seeing.

Okay, where are the stormwater areas on this?

So let me I'll go back to the the first overall plan for you can kind of see it from a right one right there. Yeah, so we tried the best so you can see these. These are the two main facilities that support Georgetown and portions of the retirement village. And then there's a stormwater facility here. There's also one over here at the end of the cul-de-sac. And there's also a facility. It's hard to see what the coloring but behind these units here.

Are the smaller ones microbiome?

Yes. So the smaller ones are micro-scale facilities, microbiome retentions. This is a pond up here, and then this is a submerged gravel wetland. So the two larger facilities are not – they're large-scale facilities, not microbiome.

So those smaller ones, the microbioretention ones are planted and they look much more like a landscaped area than they do a conventional stormwater pond. So those ones typically kind of knit into the landscape and they look and feel very appropriate for the area. So here, if you just pause here for a second, this is coming in off of rolling view on what will be sunrise. And so you're... We're on rolling view looking toward the site. This image, when we showed you it last time, didn't have the landscaping kind of in the background there. It's in between the proposed units. And so there's actually a retaining wall that runs along a portion of the property. And we made a point of this is actually beyond the requirement. We enhanced the landscape buffer along that common boundary. And there's some additional images here. So you can see, as Kelly said, This is kind of five to 10 years in with some growth on the material that it'll really soften buffer and provide a nice buffering between the two communities. In addition to that, as Kelly said, we went in and looked at where there's existing trees on the existing properties so that we kind of worked that in as well. You get a better sense of it's not just looking across from your backyard into someone else's and seeing into their house.

And the setbacks on those existing homes, it's 12 feet?

No. I think the setback along that line was 40 feet?

50. The rear setback is 50, yes.

And the retaining wall itself is about 15 to 20 feet off of that property line. So that's the area there where you have available for landscaping before you use the retaining wall to get down to grade. Okay. The units are, generally speaking, the units that we're proposing are below the existing units along Rolling View.

So is there a walking path or just sidewalks?

Sidewalks through the community right yeah in the northern section the overlook portion of it. There is some opportunity there for some walking trails But through this area, it's sidewalks along the road a couple little the interior Of this is going to be preserved correct. Yeah, all that that you see is green is is all open space areas So can you show

where Longview comes in there.

So where my mouse is, is at the edge or the end of Longmeadow Drive. And this is, I think, we call it Road A. And then over here in the background, you can see this is where Sunrise connects into Rolling View.

And those were planned. Those are shown on the record plats for Longmeadow. Right. So when we talked to the county, you know, the question of public works was, do we need to make the connections or not? And they were, yes, absolutely, they wanted those connections. Okay. Which actually goes to the question of, you know, getting the ability for, This has three points of access, as does the northern one. So I'm a fire safety emergency access. You've got really good access into both communities, in and out of both communities.

Okay.

It's actually, we're kind of viewing it all as a single, even though it's technically two projects.

I was not here for all the interesting things. comments last time, but I think I'm kind of up to speed. One of the things that I've seen looking through all this is trying to have more deviation on the houses so it doesn't look like cookie cutters. And I realize the more you deviate, the more it costs and you have to have architectural plans for everything to make a change. But is there any thought in kind of being able to offset them a little bit?

Offset the units themselves.

So they're not like flush straight across.

These do actually have steps that feel from above.

Janice, are you talking about within each of the blocks?

Like within the block, yes, the houses. Right.

So varying the... Yeah, they all pretty much opposite. I don't know if there's two that are ever aligned.

Yeah, they're all offset from one another.

It's probably just difficult to see because of the image not being as zoomed in, but they are all offset by, what did you say, Jim?

Yeah, they step back and forth. So one unit's kind of at zero, and then the next one's forward two feet, and then it comes back, and then it steps forward again, and it steps back. In addition to that, if you go to the elevation, there are recesses as you go along. So the garage is, the house is built out much more over the garage than some of the other communities that we've seen. But you can see like the front entrance is recessed and things like that. So I think there's a decent amount of variety as you move along the units. The reality is they're attached units. So there's only so much that they can do with regard to that as far as the stepping back and forth and things like that. But I think it does bring a pretty decent variety. I've looked at a number of communities, and I would say it's in that right range. So it's an opinion, obviously.

And correct me if I'm mistaken on this, but I believe that these units are some of the same units that have been shown by the consultant as... desirable architectural style. So these are actually the same because it's NV product that he has shown as some of the other examples.

Keep going, Matt. Can you go back to that front elevation slide again? I'm curious if you could speak to the experience of the first floor, given that it's pretty much just a garage and a front door. What does the interior of one of the interior units feel like from a light perspective and that sort of thing?

Give us a second a second.

I think we may have the interior floor plans In terms of the interior layout I will say that the mate this is a primary Living designed on the main floor. So your main floor has all of your Necessities the second floor is an optional sort of guest bedroom. So Everything else is main floor designed for the age-restricted community. I

There we go. There's the floor plan there on the right side.

I saw Carol Vista, so similar.

Yeah, we actually prepared this to kind of show a side-by-side of Carol Vista. It had been pointed to at one point as one that had a number of things that would be desirable. So we did a side-by-side comparison. We actually modified it. proposal for open space based on a site visit that we did there we can show you that as well but what this is showing is there's a first floor primary with full suite of bathroom and you know laundry on the first floor there's a powder room as well obviously the kitchen, great room. And then there's an outdoor living area that's actually incorporated in the footprint of the building rather than have decks that protrude from the back of the house. It's a nice unit. So, I mean, it's got everything that you need on the first floor. There are projects in Howard County where this is being built, and these units are priced, I would say, at or above the unit costs at Nell's Acres, which is kind of the most recent thing that was built up here. But it does have all the first floor living that you'd be looking for. And then there is the second floor does have additional rooms for guests. It's a 28-foot wide unit, so that's a pretty generous.

So basements or slabs?

These are basement, and there's two different ways. The units that are on the south side of the site, so adjacent to the Longmeadow community, Those are in-ground units. And then the site slopes away. As you go to the north, it's dropping to the stream. And so the units on the north side of, I think it's labeled as Road A, those units are walkout units because the grade says it should be walkout unit.

So the in-ground, do they have the famous, the window access and come up?

They actually have an option for like an areaway that comes straight out. It's wider. Yeah, so it is not the pit that you see. Like I have one of those at my house. My basement has one of those with a ladder that goes straight up. This is a set of stairs that comes out straight out. Okay, yeah.

I'm pretty athletic, but I don't see me going up those ladders.

I will say I've climbed up and down my ladder in mine a number of times because you have to clean out the well every once in a while so you don't get the water trapped down there.

Could you go back to the overhead of the entire project, please? Sure. There's a turnaround at the end of.

At the cul-de-sac at the end there? Yes, sir. Yeah. And that's based on the county standard template. Okay.

On the right-hand side, right there. That is – so the width of that, the turnaround area is what? It's the county standard.

I think they're – I think it's 30.

45. 45. Okay. I just – that's what the – okay. Okay. Okay.

But again, appreciate all the work y'all did on the elevations and everything. And I'll just say it again, Tom. And I know I sound like a broken record. From a density standpoint, that's what we're really focused on today, right? That's what you want to hear about. I'm a little frustrated that we've gone from 34 single family homes. and prompted because of the lack of school capacity. We're now talking about 72, homes that are age restricted. And we don't have any single family or single units for over 55. And I think there's a market for that too. And I think this is a really good opportunity for us to, I think that would be more compatible with the existing community that's there. And part of what our master plan Asks us to do and i'm talking to my fellow commissioners on this is you know, we're supposed to be concerned about and preserve You know the the character of our neighborhoods and in our community and this Development. First of all, and I'm not kissing your ring, I want someone like St. John to develop this. Tom? I do. At the same time, the densities that we're proposing, not just here, but on the other side of the creek. This substantially conflicts with the existing communities. And that's a stated objective of the master plan. And so I'm really struggling with how we do this and adhere to the master plan. You know, we can talk about Georgetown Parkway and whether or not that thing gets built and who's going to build it and all that kind of stuff.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

No, I'm on a roll. Give me a second and I'll try to be quiet.

Honestly, I will.

But basically what we're going to do here is we're going to force most of this traffic. until Georgetown's built, most of this traffic's going to go out these neighborhoods that were developed in the 60s. They have no sidewalks. I'm just concerned about the impact to the existing community and what we're doing from a preservation of the look and the feel of the existing neighborhoods. And that's where I'm coming from on this. It's not the product that you're proposing. It's not NVR or NV Homes. It's none of that. I mean, you guys build a great product. It has nothing to do with that. The renderings you've got, they're beautiful pictures. I'm concerned with... the compatibility with the existing neighborhood. And so that's where I'm coming from on this. You can show us pictures until the cows come home. But the number of units we have in succession, again, I think that's a reach. I just think it feels more like something that we'd see um in howard and montgomery county and not carroll county because we've got these things lined up five and six in a row i think they should be twos and threes maybe fours because that's carroll county and that's where i'm coming from on this and so i you know i've said it i've said it this is two times in a row you know janice you weren't here the last time you you evidently may have listened to it that's where i'm coming from on this

Can I respond to some of that? Yes, sir. So first of all, I mentioned it before, and as we showed it to you at the last meeting, it's really two neighborhoods of a single development, right? And this is the southern portion of the neighborhood. The overall density between the two, what do you think the overall density between the two projects is, if you had to guess? Units per acre. Units per acre? 2.9. 2.9. Okay. 2.9 units per acre, 228 units, 2.9 units per acre. I don't want to jump into the other, but your draft legislation is eight units per acre. And currently we're authorized. The code would allow for up to three and a half units per acre. So from a density perspective, This is not an overly dense project. We did get some bonus density out of it. We use it. And when you pan back and you look at that overall, which I'm pulling up the overall, and you look at the amount of open space that's here. And I'm not here saying that there are absolutely natural areas here that should be and are being protected and things like that. But this knits in the way that you would want a project like this to knit in. As I called it the last time, it nestles right into the core of Eldersburg. It's as close to the services available in Eldersburg as you can get. And from a 55 plus community, you know, we've talked about that before, that those are the kinds of things that you want to have. And, you know, going from the 34 to the 72, I understand that that is a different thing. But I think you also – I would hope you would also recognize there's a master plan road that runs through this project that runs through – I mean, if you look at all of that master plan road that's in the low-lying area there, I call it no man's land. That's a requirement of the master plan. That's a – you know, the consistency of the master plan. But somehow that's got to be paid for, you know. And when you can spread that over 72 or 228 instead of – you know, 156 and 34, that makes that more affordable and things like that. Like, there's a lot that's going on here, but I still stand by the fact, I think it's a good project. And we can, if you're interested in seeing, we can show you a couple of exhibits that are right in Eldersburg, other single-family attached communities that are nestled right adjacent to single-family. They would actually have more units in a row than the five maximum that we're proposing here. They're immediately adjacent where they're back-to-back. They've got the landscape buffer the same way that we're showing here. So this isn't something that just simply exists in Howard County or Montgomery County or somewhere else. It's in Eldersburg. It already exists. The project that the consultant made reference to a few different times and listed in the examples that they gave was Winterford Manor. Do you have any guess what the density on that particular project is? is 13 units per acre. And when you look at that project, I think it fits in well there. They made that point. And I was looking at some of the demographics for Eldersburg. There's 11,000 residential units in Eldersburg. 82% of those units are single family detached units. There are plenty of options for people to buy a single family detached. Less than 10% are single family attached units. And this is another 228 that won't take it beyond the 10%. So I don't think it's, I understand what you're saying, that it's nice to have other options and things like that, but the options exist here in Eldersburg. This is just a product that, and this is head and shoulders above the project that's really getting beat up, Nell's Acres. And I'm not here to defend that project or not. What I'm saying is we paid attention to those things. We thought about those things when it was pointed that Carroll Vista was a good project. We went up there. We looked at that. We added two acres of open space by removing two units so that we could get that because we thought it was important. We wanted it to be a nice community, and I think this is going to bring all the types of things that people want and are looking for. I understand there can be differences of opinion, but I don't think this is overtaxing things in the community. And as I say, you've got 11,000 residential units, and less than 10% of those are single-family attached units. It's not... There's options. There's definitely options. And these are, you know, again, when you look at them as far as the price point and things like that, I mean, these are higher-end units. These are, even though they're attached units, these are quite honestly the units that are north of Bennett Road, not the units that are south of Bennett Road as far as price point.

So, Tom, I'm just curious. What's the density per usable acre?

How did we do that? It was a little over... Well, how are you defining usable acre?

Well, let's start by taking out the stuff that you can't build on.

I think we did that, man.

Again, I'm not going to debate you. When we start talking about the character of the neighborhoods and what – Carroll County really is and why people move here. And when we do all these surveys and stuff, you know, they come here for the rural nature. And we're always talking about how do we protect it? How do we preserve our neighborhoods? And this is, you're exactly right. And the reason this is getting so much, the reason you're getting the optics around this so brightly, or so intently, I guess, how do you brightly... look at something optically. But the reason you're getting so much attention is that this is the center of Eldersburg. This is the opportunity to connect the entire community, the stuff on the north and stuff on the south. And if we mess it up, we've messed it up forever. I mean, and we'll, you know, those of us who live there, we will live it. You know, if we don't get these roads right, the county's going to have to pay for it. We'll pay for it. And so, again, I'm taking up more bandwidth than I deserve. Y'all have been really patient with me. But, again, just for my – Fellow commissioners, again, I'll say that if you look at our master plan and what our master plan says we're supposed to try to do, I'm really struggling with this one. I hear you.

So to answer your question, if we include all the residential units, which includes the seven units along the north, it's 2.76 units per acre. OK. So we're still not at 3.9. Other than that. And that's kind of our point is that I understand Look, it's a single-family attached community. But when you look at it, especially when you look and compare it against some of the other ones that have been pointed to, it has a lot more breathing room than other projects do. This wasn't a squeeze-everything-you-can-get-on-it type approach. But we are trying to use the land efficiently. Yeah, I hear that. Yeah.

And I know I said this last time, but for the benefit of the members who were not here, in case you did not have the opportunity to watch, I think it's important to remember that we are dealing with the Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan. And that plan designates land use designations for these properties. This is consistent with its land use designation. The definition for that land use designation specifically calls out the age-restricted product and the density of 3.5 units per acre. That is in the Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan itself. So I hear, Mr. Lester, I hear your statements about the master plan, and perhaps there are other sections of that plan that you think it's not in keeping with. But the land use definition, this is clearly in keeping with that.

So... I know that you're putting forth the town homes in the whole community. You referred to Carroll Vista. They have a variety of homes there. They have towns. I think they might have some semi-detached and single. So I guess from what you're saying, it's not practical to make that kind of change.

Well, it's It's not practical to make that kind of change kind of where we are. But the other thing is that those, like Carroll Vista is three times the size of this project. So, you know, you do have some additional options and things like that. And some of the other places that were pointed to, same thing, you know, you may have 1,000 acres and things like that. Again, this is a, you know, you might not view it that way, but in some regards this is infill development. And like I said, I mean, if you think about transitioning from, The reservoir to the east, and as you continue west towards Mount Airy, it's densifying as you're coming in. And this is right nestled into that area. So it's the place where you would expect to see the most density, so to speak. And even that, it's not incredibly dense. Less than three units per acre is not an overly dense community. And again, I think when you look at it from the air, to me it feels right.

And I think... In Laura's staff report, she indicated that this is early on in the process. And it is from the perspective of this is a special report. We're not here for concept yet. But it's not for us, because this plan is 14 months in review. I think it's important to keep that perspective as well, that this was not a submittal that was made five months ago. I think that's important.

We've looked at this. We've noticed that you've made some changes from the original concept. I appreciate that part of it. I know that maybe we're trying to find a hill to die on. I don't think this is it. And... I'm not too sure that you haven't met the standards that are currently in place in Carroll County for retirement homes. I'm the one who made the motion last time to move this project forward. I know there's a lot to go on it. There are different things that may be changed, but as far as the density values here and how the layout is, I'm willing to reintroduce that motion and allow this project to move forward.

So we can't just reintroduce a motion. We'll have to make a brand new motion because it's a brand new day. I know that.

I'm just making a statement on why.

So before we get there, are there any other comments from?

I have a question for Laura. So you talked about the roads that ultimately have to be mitigated. Can you elaborate on that? Sorry.

Yeah, I did not bring all my notes. I can read from the staff report where I note. So the combined impact of the four proposed projects. Again, the traffic study was for everything on the site to be developed. would impact the intersection capacities at Route 32 and Bennett-Johnsville Road, Route 32 and Progress Way, and 32 and London Town. I feel like, is that all of that? Is that all? Yes, that's correct. Okay, okay. So there needs to be, through that traffic study, right, whatever that intersection level of service was,

the impacts of all of these projects combined on those intersections was taking it to a level of service that was below what it should be, and it needs to be mitigated back up to where it was previously. They need to mitigate for their impacts. No one's correcting me.

Is that because the... The retirement communities have fewer trips than half a community with individual homes in the retirement community?

No. The mitigation has not changed since that was a single family detached.

So it was initially done with all the projects including the single family homes.

I thought you said it was lower.

Yes, the trip generation. When they modified to the age-restricted for just that portion, it was a lower trip generation. So if you had those single-family homes and then went to, there were 34 single-family home lots, and then going to the 72, it actually showed a reduction in the trip generations. Yes.

But that did not change the previously. I understand. I just want to make sure.

A retirement community, the assumption for traffic study is it's a reduction in trips.

Yes. Peak hour trips.

Peak hour trips.

Go ahead.

I was just going to say, if you had something else you wanted to say, I was going to talk a little bit about the mitigation that's proposed and where we stand with regard to that. But if you want to say something else, I can wait.

Well, let me.

Go ahead. Go, Matt.

You know, the one thing that keeps coming back, you know, everyone talks about the traffic in the communities and stuff. And like last time, we were talking about, you know, the Georgetown extension. Who's going to pay for it? When's it going to get done? You know, really with that Georgetown extension, it's going to help the traffic flow immensely and keep more traffic out of the development. I mean, it comes down to it to me that if someone would say, okay, it's going to get done, because like Nell's Acre, one of the problems with that was they were going to do the extension up through there. Well, it never gets done. So it's always back and forth on who's going to pay for it and when's it going to get done. And I think it would make all these projects go much easier and much more acceptable to the community if someone would just say we're going to. Make sure it gets done.

So I can talk about that a little bit as well, if you like. So first of all, let's start with Bennett Road at 32. There was a traffic study. As a result of the traffic study, we looked at extending the existing right-hand turn lane as you're turning right on the northbound 32 off of Bennett Road. So the right-hand turn lane on Bennett Road, which is the county road, those plans are under review by the county now. At Progress Way, we had initially proposed to put in what's called a Maryland T, and we had gone through concept design with that with the State Highway Administration, and they had approved The concept plan, they told us to do two things. Submit what's called a design request, which is to modify a signal or design a signal brand new. And we prepared the access or the construction documents for the modification. When that went through review at the State Highway Administration, for whatever reason, when they first reviewed it, they did it, if I can say it this way, maybe more of an in-house review at maybe the district. I'm not quite sure how they made the determination. But when this distributed out to all of their agencies, they came back and said, we prefer that improvement not be made. And they said, you know, we'd be okay if you made a fee contribution to some other project that was going on or whatever it was. That's for the county to make that determination. But as a result, we stopped processing those plans because the state told us they wouldn't approve them. The intersection to the south of that, which is London Town at Route 32, we're modifying the way that the traffic signal operates there. If I get it backwards, just tell me. But I think it's currently coming off of Bartholow and off of London Town. It's currently, they call it concurrent phasing, where the left turns are happening at the same time and opposing lefts. And we're changing that to a split phase where the one side of the road operates all at once and then the other side. Opposite. I got it backwards. The point of it is that it adds green time on 32. And that plan is approved by the state highway to make that modification. In fact, even if I got the technical part of it wrong, it's a modification that's approved by the state highway. We have a permit to do that work. So we proceeded on with those things. In the kind of overall spirit of moving the project forward or moving what was at the time a county project forward, because we were required, and I talked about this last time, so for some of you I apologize, I'll repeat myself. But we were required to, because it's on the master plan, to build whatever portion of Georgetown was essentially going to be on our property. And originally, that was intended to go up the western boundary of our property. There's a stream that runs. There's two streams that come from the west, and there's a confluence on the site. And then as it goes through, it continues and leaves the site on the east. And if you went up the western boundary would have had across both of those streams. So it was a higher impact. Plus, the way the grades were there, it really wasn't feasible to get that alignment to work. So in December of 2021, we had a meeting in the field with MDE. I think we invited the quorum, not sure that they were there, and the county. and our consultant. And we had selected three potential locations where we could cross the stream. And we had six different concepts at each crossing. It was different types of structures, whether it was a culvert or whatever. And as a result of that field visit, the selection was the one that was to the most east, which is what's shown in our plan, which brought Georgetown sweeping through the site. But that was the right place to cross, so we started that design. And we committed to building that. And that's going to happen early in the process. And then the offsite portion, the county was planning to do an improvement there of like a traffic circle. They had looked at initially very rough alignment about going up the west side, but had never advanced those plans. So through a series of meetings over a, in fact, we were meeting weekly at one point, we have advanced the design for that. And we've got in a position that right-of-ways are available for that off-site portion. And up until this last budget cycle, I guess, it was programmed in the capital budget for, whether it was the extension work or the circle or whatever it was, it was a capital project for it. It's my understanding now that's not currently a funded project. But we were teeing it up so that the county would be in a position to build it. We were bringing the design and making sure that the right-of-way was available to do that. The county had been unsuccessful in trying to negotiate with the one property owner in particular, and they had suggested that maybe we could do that. And as I talked about the last time, I have done that. This would be the fourth project where we have worked cooperatively with the jurisdictions The other three were in Baltimore County, Dolefield Boulevard, Lower Baltimore Drive, and Campbell Boulevard. All three different scenarios. One, we got design done. The county acquired right away, diverted funds from other capital projects, and got Lower Baltimore Drive built as we built another portion of it. Dolefield Boulevard, the county had offered that they would fund half of the road section, and we actually did a grant with the county where they handed us the money And we did a private contract, and we got that built while they were building the bridge over Red Run, which now gives us second access in and out of Newtown and Owings Mills. And then the third one was Campbell Boulevard. And that one, there was a property owner that no one had ever been able to convince to sell her property. And we put that under contract. We ended up purchasing that and developing that property. And then two other properties we were able to negotiate right away. and then the county did a capital project and they built that road. That was a road that had actually been stopped because there was a stream crossing proposed, and of course they would not issue that permit until right-of-ways were. It was clear that it was a complete, a total complete project, and that road is built. All three of those, you can go drive on those today. So we're familiar with that. It's something we've done. We enjoyed being able to do those kinds of projects. But it does require a partner. And so, you know, we've done what we could do to try to advance that road being connected. And I do think that, you know, our traffic study would indicate that that would provide relief at 26 and 32. So, yeah. Okay. All right.

So when we read in the traffic study that an intersection is at E, What does that mean? Is it E versus F? I see your traffic man back there. When we read in your traffic study that something is greater than E, what does that mean to me?

Yeah, so the levels of service are based on seconds of delay per vehicle. In general terms, F level of service is gridlock, D is approaching gridlock. I would state though that the traffic study, so the traffic study looks at the overall intersection delay and in doing so it looks at the delay on each approach and then calculates an average delay per vehicle. So the study determined that all the intersections operate at acceptable levels of service. There are tables in the traffic study that look at individual approaches and then movements. There are several intersections that have E-level service. For example, 32 of Progress Way, the westbound left turn intersection, I think that was an E-level service, but the overall level of service was C. So the intersection operates adequately from an overall level of service standpoint, but there are movements that are, and the movements are typically on the side roads because the green time, the signal cycle is set up so 32 has most of the green time, which... which during the peak hour is fairly typical where the side streets.

So I just want to, again, clarify that E is not gridlock, but it's approaching gridlock. Is that what we're saying? Yes. So basically every intersection that we're talking about is an E intersection at this point. We're not doing anything. We're an E, and then some of them are Fs. That's what we're saying.

Well, no, what we're saying is, again, the overall intersection operates adequately. So the side streets typically have a D or E level of service. But when you calculate the overall delay, the intersections are adequate.

I'm sorry. Again, I'm looking at your tables, and I see a bunch of Es. And I'll see anything that's, I don't know what adequate would be, like C or A or B, I would imagine. But I'm seeing nothing but E's and F's on here. So am I reading this wrong?

So level of service D is adequate. I think the way the code says it's approaching inadequate, but that means it's adequate.

Maybe it would be helpful if you could tell us what page you're looking at, because perhaps what they're looking at is the turning page.

Sure, I'm looking at... Or the individual movements and not the intersections. Yeah, I'm looking at the... Pairing the two might be helpful. January 20th, 25, Traffic Concepts, Traffic Study. I'm looking at pages... There's no page number on it, but I'm assuming it's... Yeah, it's page 2 of 16, 3 of 16, and 4 of 16. All of those tables that I'm seeing have... E's and F's. I don't see, I see one D. And we're talking about every eastbound turning left, eastbound turning right, northbound. I mean, every intersection. Y'all, I mean, it's comprehensive. Y'all did, I mean, I'm certain you covered everything. But I'm just trying to understand if an E is approaching, and I do see a C now that I'm looking at it. There is one C. I'm just curious if E is, it's, approaching inadequate, and if you could pass that down so everybody can see it. If an F is gridlock, that's what I want to know. What is E? And E is approaching inadequate? Is that what we're saying?

Well, E is not an acceptable level of service. However, that's on that one movement. Again, progress way, the westbound left turn, I think, was an E level service. But the overall intersection, when you look at all movements and you calculate the average delay, it's a C intersection. It's still adequate. So that means that westbound left probably queues up while you're waiting for the green time. But because the average delay is C, I don't have that in front. It's probably 30-some seconds. Then that queue probably clears out. Right.

And so then when we talk about progress way, and we don't really have a solution to progress way because the T, which, again, y'all can't control. The state DOT has nuked it. But we're showing that traffic... comes back and will basically block your ingress and egress out of the post office. The traffic delay will prevent you from coming out of the post office and turning left on Progress Way to get out of there. Did I read that correctly?

Yeah, and so that traffic's... In the peak hour, it's going to back up, and then when the progress way gets green time, most of that traffic clears out. So then traffic from the post office can get into the queue.

Right now, when you're sitting behind a truck and you've come out of the post office or merit, whatever you've done, for that truck to sit on that incline and to put it in gear and pull out onto 32, he's the only one that clears the intersection as it sits right now. The truck. If I'm next in line, I don't clear the intersection from one semi. And it's not because the semi driver is inexperienced. It's any semi. It's not just we have one incompetent driver. I'm just telling you because of the slope and the incline there, to put the truck in gear... It's one truck that clears that intersection. So it's a mess. And so to not have a solution for Progress Way and to build the seven buildings that we proposed, which I think, again, it's a great addition for that piece of property. I'd like to see it developed. I want that tax diversification for our county. We've really got to find a solution for that intersection at Progress Way. Thank you.

Mr. Lester, my name is Jackie Plot with Traffic Concepts. Hi. Good evening. I just wanted to clarify to go back to the letter that you're looking at from Traffic Concepts where you referenced page 3 of 16. Yes, ma'am. Those charts are just the individual movement failures. the county staff requested that we show just the individual movements there. But if you go back a few pages and in the traffic impact study itself, if you go back to page 9 of 16, this is what we typically report. So at the very bottom of that chart, you'll see overall intersection, AM, PM, and Saturday. And you'll see CDD.

Yep. CDD and OCD, yeah.

So that's what the requirement is in Carroll County is based on the overall intersection delay.

So we're E, C, D, D. I got it. The overall intersection is C, D, and D. Correct. I got you.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, it's typical, like Mark was saying, when we report individual movements, the side streets are always going to be E or F at a signal. Because if they have to wait longer than 55 seconds, they're going to be an E. Well, if the main line is getting 55 seconds, the side road's automatically going to fail. Doesn't mean the overall intersection is, you know, inadequate. It just shows that that movement is getting more, not getting enough green time, which you can't. give it more because it needs to be on the main line. So it's typical at signalized intersections to see E and F levels of service on the side streets is why we look at overall intersection.

Thank you for that. Thank you for clarifying.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Comments?

I have a comment. First of all, I think you're doing a really good job of trying to meet all the needs that we're concerned with as well as what the community will be concerned with. So I applaud you for that. And I know it takes time to get all this through, but our job is to make sure that when the final product is done, that it's a good one. And I'm confident that that will happen. So I just want to let you know that we're still working on it and we'll get it done.

Thank you. Thank you.

OK, any public comment? No public comment. So I think we've gone through what Laura described, the determinations of density, exterior design, and site layout. Got a lot of questions, comments from the board answered. And I think we're ready, if there's a motion, to make a motion. I'm going to make one.

Hold on. Ralph, I'm so sorry. Unfortunately, you cannot make the motion because you made the motion at the last meeting, of which failed. You had moved to approve the density exterior design and site layout. Because that failed, we'll need someone else to make a motion if you wish to approve.

Well, if it was tabled, is that considered failure?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, so just a clarification, there were three motions at the last meeting. Yes. So you had made an initial motion to approve. That failed. I think, Pete, you had made a motion for something else. And then the one that ultimately passed was to table. Table.

Just to be clear, Ralph, I'll consider you a success. It was the motion. I'll have to go into therapy. Lay down right now. Here we go. You want to be both.

Can you tell me what your motion was?

I think basically it's two. It's for the density, the exterior design. Determinations of density. And the site layout.

Laura, maybe you better explain to us all what we're trying to decide on tonight so that we're clear on that. I'm not going to do it. You do it. I think I know.

So I did read it from the code, but I am going to review that again that – that you're making determinations of density, exterior design and site layout. That is what you're here for today prior to this plan going to the BZA for requests for conditional use. The code goes then on, it goes on to say the determination of density shall not be increased at any subsequent site plan reviews. Okay. So again, a reminder, the exterior design and site layout, which are also included in here, you will review that again as a concept plan review, at which point in time it is anticipated you may have more information about the proposed code changes moving forward.

And roads and whatever. Yes.

Okay. And you will see this again as a final plan review, at which time you also have all of those things within your authority that exterior design and site layout is still in your authority to make decisions, determinations on. Okay?

Great. So if we approve this, it goes to BZA?

Yes. I would say, but I would ask Liz, I believe that if you say as presented, I do not believe that that precludes you from making additional determinations of the concept plan review other than the density not being able to be increased.

They can change the density to lessen it, but they cannot increase it.

I don't think we can increase it.

Does that make sense? Everything else is within your realm of revisiting and discussing and making determinations.

Janice, you want to take a shot?

I do, I'd much rather say what she said. So I need a little help here, guys. So I move that, before I move this, it still comes back multiple times. And what we move is subject to what changes may be coming down the pike, so it may not be what you see now. Am I correct? Okay. I move that we approve this determination of density exterior design and site layout and send it to BZA. Is that correct? Is that good? Do I got it?

S-25.

S-25. I'll second the motion.

Mr. Ha? Just add S-25-007, Janice.

OK. What was it? Add? Oh. Yeah. As for Run Retirement Village, S-25-0007.

Correct.

Mr. Hop?

Yes.

Mr. Kirkner?

Yes.

Mr. Lester?

No.

Mr. Robertson?

Yes.

Mr. Smith? Mr. Swanson?

Yes.

Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

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

Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next.

Next on the agenda, educational facilities master plan.

Okay.

Signature.

Signature. I didn't.

My computer. You've got a letter. Mm-hmm.

So this is an item that we heard at the meeting last month, but because we lost our quorum, we were not able to take action on the letter. So I don't want to spend a whole lot of time going back through that simply to say it's the same letter. I believe we had some discussion at the last meeting about adding in

redistricting.

Pardon me? It's not stated that way in the letter, but yeah, we talked about the school capacities are restricting any growth down in that area.

So I did add in on the second full paragraph the language that you had suggested, which is we urge the Board of Education to consider all alternatives to address elementary and middle school capacity issues in the Freedom Area.

right so that was that was the only change that we made to the letter that was that was reviewed at the last meeting we can't use the word redistricting or anything like that but that would include the that's an alternative yeah I mean but we we needed to make that statement because that's a it's a it's a cap right now it's a it's a ceiling so that's added and

Well, I didn't use the word redistricting.

Oh, no, no, no. I knew that. I knew that. But the way you stated it implies they've got to do something.

Yeah, that is an alternative for sure.

Okay. So has nobody else has seen this, though? Or did you? Yeah, that was included as an attachment. It went around. She emailed it to us. And do we need to make a motion to approve?

After public comment.

Oh, I'm sorry. Public comment. Any public comment? No public comment. So I'll take a motion.

I think before we make a motion, it is the case that because freedom is at capacity and it's on a challenged site, whether we do it in this letter or a subsequent letter, I don't want to necessarily punt the ball. When's our next opportunity to see this letter? This is it. This is it? No, no. When's the next opportunity? How often do they come before us?

It's once a year. Now, I will say that you're asked to provide input on capital projects every year as well, so that's another opportunity for you to encourage... Action on the freedom elementary good.

Okay, so we will deal with that at that point time but there needs to be a Little bit more teeth. No. Well, no I think I think we ought to be encouraging our commissioners and the Board of Education to be looking for a site because we're running out of land in that area and we need another school site because I think we used our school site for us out for a senior center and

Well, a site or the dirty R word, redistricting, I mean. Yeah, either way. It's got to be done. Something's got to happen. Or else developers aren't going to be coming because they know they can't do anything.

So just know that that's an issue that we're going to raise under the capital improvement plan. Yes, it is.

And I was kind of hoping that Mr. Kane would have been here to carry that message, but he's not here.

So you're looking for a motion that I move that we approve the letter as submitted by Daphne and staff.

Second.

Roll call.

Roll call, please. Mr. Huff?

Yes.

Ms. Kirchner? Mr. Lester? Yes. Mr. Robertson? Yes. Mr. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chairman, let the records reflect. We have four yays and zero nays and one abstain.

Thank you. Thank you, Daphne, for making that change there. Okay. Item number seven, the spring 2026 amendment to the 2023 water and sewer master plan. Introduction.

so um i think you all have been introduced to ethan strickler who is a new planner on ours well relatively new few months um planner on our uh comprehensive planning staff and uh he's gonna run you through the um the one amendment that we have for the spring cycle of the water and sewer plan amendments We're here for an introduction. You can choose to take action on this amendment, which would be to forward it to the Board of County Commissioners, or if you want him to come back at another meeting, we can do that as well.

Good evening, everybody. I've been in front of the board, and this is my first time in front of the commission here, so it's nice to see everybody and meet everybody. We don't bite. We don't bite. What's that? We don't bite. Yes, there you go. I didn't expect you to. Usually. So tonight I'm bringing before you the spring 2026 amendment cycle to the 2023 Carroll County water and sewer master plan. Fortunately, it's a relatively simple amendment cycle because we only got one application for an amendment in this cycle. So just briefly, I'll overview the process for why I'm coming to you tonight and why we do this. So the water and sewer master plan, it furthers the orderly development and expansion of adequate water and sewer systems in the county and is consistent with the county master plan. and the community comprehensive plans. So we're reaching out to all of our communities here, asking them for amendments twice a year. So through a coordinated effort, all of the municipalities and the county, the Water and Sewer Master Plan schedules and sets priorities for water and sewer projects. based on a whole suite of criteria. And in accordance with the annotated code of Maryland, every three years, we actually do a large, what's called a triennial update. We actually got an extension from MDE to complete our triennial update in 2027. That's why there's four years between the 2023 Carroll County water and sewer master plan and and the 2027 date when we're doing our next triennial update. And then twice a year, we actually send out to all of our system operators, all the municipalities and internally, we send out basically a prompt if any of the municipalities have changes they would like to make to their water and sewer service area maps. We allow them to do that both in the spring and in the fall. So we accept those amendment requests twice yearly, and we are here with the spring cycle. I actually will be sending out the prompt for the fall cycle here in the beginning of August. So step one, the amendment invitation which Daphne sent out in February of 2026. We only had one applicable utility apply for an amendment and it was only for a water service area amendment. And this was from the city of Westminster. They submitted the following. They submitted a request to move one property from the future water service area to the priority water service area. and add a total of 288 gallons per day of water demand to the Westminster Water Priority Service area. That property is currently going through the development review process at Great Valley Propane for building an office down on a property that lies just outside in the county, but just outside of the municipal boundary of Westminster. They're actually currently going through the annexation process to bring that property into the city of Westminster. So we prepare a staff report. We come to first to the Municipal Planning Commission. So we went to the City of Westminster to have them certify this amendment already. We do that on June 18th and now we are before you this evening before hopefully forwarding with a recommendation to adopt and submit to MDE this request to the Board of County Commissioners. Just briefly, this request is moving one property from the future service area, W5, to the priority water service area. I included these definitions on here. It's an important distinction because whenever municipal system operators ask us to change service areas for particular properties, Properties in the future service area are not allowed to connect to public utilities, so they actually have to go through this process of requesting to be within the priority service area or the existing slash final planning service area. So that's why whenever this property was going through development review, they came to us with this particular request. Like I said, this request was just to move one property from the future service area to the priority service area. The current sewer service area for this particular property is already existing, so that's actually remaining unchanged and that wasn't a part of their application. This, like I said on the previous slide, this amendment is necessary for this proposed office building for Great Valley propane to connect to the city of Westminster's water system. The request is actually labeled in the staff report as amendment number two because Westminster has already done one water system amendment after the 2023 triennial update, and that was in the spring 2024 amendment cycle. Here's a map closer up of the property. It's kind of sandwiched in between, what was the name of that road? It's along New Windsor Road there, Maryland 31. The property, like I said, is going through development review. It is adjacent to the corporate limits of the city of Westminster and is currently going through the annexation process. I believe the city is waiting to hold their public hearing on the annexation until it's finished the development review process with them. Property is 2.4923 acres, and its technical address is 1199 McGregor Road. It is currently zoned I-2, heavy industrial in the county, but according to the application, it will be rezoned. Well, it will be zoned in the city of Westminster as IR, restricted industrial, once it's annexed. The city of Westminster uses different gallons per day multipliers than we do, which is why I included this slide. We typically at the county level follow the MDE multipliers for 250 gallons per day for a residential and then the commercial multipliers that are up on the screen. For this particular project, the office use, the city of Westminster let us know as part of their application that they use this multiplier of 0.090 gallons per day per square foot for office uses. So that 3,200 square foot office is going to generate an added usage of 288 gallons per day of water demand. which is reflected in the request. That request is so small compared to the city of Westminster's total demand that the projected water supply demands and planned capacity table in the water and sewer master plan doesn't need to be changed because none of the rounded numbers are going to be shifting there. And like I said before, the city of Westminster, their planning commission and zoning commission already certified this amendment at their June 18th meeting. That is the signed letter up on the screen. I gave this similar presentation to them as well. And so county staff this evening, what we are recommending that you do is is find this particular water service area amendment, the spring 2026 amendment to the 2023 Water and Sewer Master Plan, consistent with the 2014 Carroll County Master Plan. And we also recommend that the Planning and Zoning Commission here forward this request forward this request to amend the Westminster Water Service Area to the Board of County Commissioners to adopt and submit to the Maryland Department of Environment as a part of the Spring 2026 Amendment to the 2023 Water and Sewer Master Plan. And I believe on the letter, the exact language of the letter is to find the Spring 2026 Amendment consistent with the 2014 Carroll County Master Plan and to recommend that the Board of County Commissioners adopt and submit this particular amendment to MDE. That's all I have for you this evening. Any questions of me on this process or for this particular amendment?

So Daphne, the letter I have here is nothing about what Ethan just talked about.

So the letter is referencing a staff report. It would have also accompanied that particular letter that goes over in detail the specific request.

So it's not part of this that goes... The only thing that's on here is the Westminster water service area, the one change.

Yeah, and that's the only amendment request that we received, and that's the only amendment request detailed in the staff report as well.

but it does talk about chapter two, you know, the change.

Yeah, so essentially what you're being asked to do is find this consistent with the county master plan. So these are the references that establish the consistency. and they speak specifically to things like promoting coordination between the town and the county, protecting the aquifers, promoting good growth, those kinds of things. Those are the master plan references that most directly relate to this. The last paragraph there, says, therefore, you recommend that the commissioners adopt and submit the amendment as presented today and summarized on the attached pages. And the attached pages would be?

That's the Westminster.

Yeah, the staff report and everything like that.

So it's basically saying we're okay with the way it is and there's one change. That could have been done in one page.

Well I will say this much so we are making an effort to provide more references when it comes to making a determination of consistency. I mean you could just say sure it's consistent but without any sort of actual language that says how it's consistent that doesn't really carry much weight.

When do we, because we've talked about this almost every meeting, water, water, water, water, water. And when will we do something to put some plans in the master plan? Maybe that's the time to do it or whatever. The CFP? The capital plan to extend public water and sewer plans. and commit some resource or some direction to that process. Because look, Ralph, every meeting Ralph comes in. He's a farmer. Matt's a farmer. They're praying for rain. And you were digging, helping a buddy today dig for a barn or something like that. And he went how deep?

Eight inches deep? After eight inches, it was nothing but dust.

Dirt. There's no groundwater. So there's a problem. So now the farm, I get, you know, but there's opportunity to expand the public water and sewer. We need to take a look at that. We need to bring that to a high level and put some action behind it to get that started because that's got to be on our radar. That's really important.

So I think, Michael, I mean, there's a, you and I are bringing two things up here. One is the We need to be looking for land for schools in the Freedom District. And we need to be extending water and sewer. So this is a capital improvement project, you know, once. And, you know, how our commissioners prioritize all that is going to be interesting. Because, again, you're not wrong. But I think that's one of the ways we can maybe impact or elevate some of those things in the capital improvement plan.

Yeah.

When it comes around.

It's necessary.

So that's A and B.

So there are two things that I can point you to. The first is the water resources element. Right. That is... close to being adopted, which has done the analysis to say, what's our ultimate capacity? Where are there opportunities and constraints for utilizing our water resources responsibly?

What I'm talking about is taking that to the next step, though. Right.

So the Water and Sewer Master Plan details the kinds of improvements that are needed in order to provide service according to the mapped service areas. So each system operator will say, we have plans to serve this area and we phase that by existing priority and future and it's supposed to be a 10-year plan so that water and sewer master plan says, here's where we wanna serve, here's where we think we'll serve it, or here's when we think we'll serve it, here's what we need to put in place in order to serve it, what we think the ultimate demand will be, how much capacity we currently have, how much capacity we need to find. And those capital projects then become They get on the radar screen and they become part of the system operator's game plan for how they will serve these particular areas. A lot of the things that we've been talking about in terms of limitations on development are significant issues when it comes to either upgrading plants upgrade or, you know, finding the getting the approvals from the state to expand capacity, that kind of thing. We've talked a lot about Union Bridge and Union Bridges need to build a new wastewater treatment plant in order to provide additional service and to grow responsibly according to their plan. that's a $20 million project. So we are pursuing those kinds of things with the town, but it's not as easy as just putting a line item into the budget because there's a whole lot else wrapped up in terms of getting the approvals that we need and making sure that the cost to put those systems in can be offset with with the growth that is expected to make use of those systems.

Okay. We just bring it up? We'll continue to bring it up?

Yep.

Thank you. Any public comment on water and sewer? We did that. How about if we take a five-minute break? Can we not approve that letter? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I already signed it.

For legal purposes, no, he didn't.

Okay.

I didn't sign it. Now we need an ethics investigation. Now we need an ethics investigation.

Wait a minute. I used my invisible ink pen. Okay. Can we get a motion to approve the 2023, the 2020, 2026?

I make a motion that we approve the spring 2026 amendment to the 2023 water and sewer master plan and authorize our friendly colleague to sign that letter.

Second. Roll call.

Yes, please. Oh, flip it. Mr. Hodge? Yes. Mr. Wester?

Yes.

Ms. Kirkner?

Yes.

Mr. Robertson? Yes. Mr. Smith? Mr. Swenson?

Yes.

Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chairman, I'll let the record reflect. We have five yays and one abstain.

Thank you all. Okay. Would you like to adjourn for five minutes?

Yeah. Can we adjourn for five minutes?

Can we make a motion for that?

Can we make a motion to adjourn for five minutes? And really, keep it to five minutes because we've got a lot more to go. Ready to go. I'll make a motion.

Second.

I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Because I've got to go. Item number eight, text amendment, accessory dwelling units, review and decision. Tiffany.

Good evening. I'll just start this? Yep. Okay. Just a little background catching up. Last year, the state of Maryland passed legislation that requires jurisdictions to create their own regulations that align with HB 1466, which was the state's legislation on accessory dwelling units. So, uh, we were directed, uh, by the County commissioners in April to come here to you. We've been here a few times. going over the proposed text amendments and we were directed by this Commission to create a new section that basically contains all of the the ADUs in one spot, so all of the regulations. And going through this, most of the regulations that we already have in place are intact and part of the new section. There were three parts that were really affected by the new requirements. Those were the size was redefined by the state, And in some situations, the new requirement will allow for larger ADUs. Others will remain the same. And in some cases, they'll actually be smaller. And then another place was the requirement for subdivision rights for detached accessory dwelling units in residential districts was something we already had in place. Now we do... That's been... We can't have that requirement going forward according to the state. And then one other one were parking requirements. The state says that local jurisdictions cannot have parking requirements that address just ADUs unless we have a parking study done. And so now we have the proposed text in front of us that you went over last session. However, there is a new section on parking requirements that has been added, and then there was a correction that was made. For time purposes, I could go through everything tonight, because some people were not here last time, or I could address the two out of the three, or all three, of the requirements that we were not able to move into the section that already existed, so I can go over just those changes, or go through the whole text. What would you like?

How about if we just go over the changes? Because you've presented a couple of times, right? Yes.

Yes, so the changes tonight would be the parking and that is in section one. That's the new section 158.156 accessory dwelling units on the second to last page. If you have that in front of you and I will move it on here.

Is it 156 or 171 70? I apologize for that. Yeah.

Right there. The highlighted portion. So this was not in the proposed text at the last session. So the site should accommodate the anticipated parking needs of both the primary dwelling unit and the accessory dwelling unit through existing or additional lawful off street parking where feasible and or available on street parking. Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing the creation of parking areas within required yards. In the design and placement of the accessory dwelling unit, consideration shall be given to the availability of parking and the potential impacts of parking demand on adjacent properties and public streets. accessory dwelling units shall not be subject to a separate off-street parking requirement.

So if I remember correctly, the state didn't address this at all. Well, they said we couldn't require it. Right.

Yeah, you couldn't require it unless you did a parking study to basically prove that you needed to require it.

So this is us now saying... Here's something.

Correct.

Any thoughts on that? Questions, concerns?

No, I actually spoke up on this, and I think this is probably about as good as we can do it without running afoul of the, because we talked, yeah, never mind. I'm good with what we got.

Or I get called to the principal's office. Yes.

All right, there was one other correction. I had a typo last time on H. It's also listed here. And so that just now reads, in commercial and industrial districts, an accessory dwelling unit must comply with the bulk requirement standards of an accessory structure in the R7500 residence district. Are there any other questions?

I actually have a question. I know this was brought up last time. Did you get any updated information regarding ag preservation?

So that was my job to research and from we reached out to the state. State expectedly did not answer. which I'm not shocked by, but to try and answer your question, we're not necessarily, there is a concern that it will make an impact, but how do we address that without, because you are dealing with multiple things beyond just mouth easements, how you address that is a totally separate question that we can unpack, but will probably take a while.

I mean, I think my concern, I know Mr. Robertson mentioned this last time, is whether it's a mouth easement, it's a Carroll County government easement. Let's say you've got a farm with two houses already on it and we extinguished all the other developmental lot rights. I've got two properties, two houses already there. Now I can have four in theory if I can fit within all the other requirements. Now, that kind of seems to... go completely against the reason that we extinguished those lot rights, be it the county taxpayer and or the state taxpayer. So then what exactly are we accomplishing and for whom?

So I will say that on the mouth held easements, essentially that would be up to the state whether they choose to address the ADUs on their own held easements. on easements that we hold, they are contractual obligations. The state cannot tell us how to contract or how not to contract by law. So in theory, assuming that it's in the easement that those lot rates have been extinguished, we could still enforce that because that's a contractual right as opposed to a code right.

So do we need language and contracts moving forward to make this clear?

We can add language that makes it clearer. The language already semi-exists in those easements, but going forward, we can always add language.

And how about existing contracts? Is there a...

So we cannot edit those existing contracts or those existing easements without both parties renegotiating, and that sends us back through a whole spiral of things that we might not want to open that can of worms.

They are definitive contracts. Correct. That defines how many homes can be allowed on an easement property. I don't care if it's MALPF or Rural Legacy or the county-held easements. the taxpayer has spent dollars to extinguish those home sites and lot rights. So it talked about no multiple dwellings on single lots that are released from the easement. And there's where my concern is. You know, if that's a contract from day one, that should be a contract, that should be a condition of the release of that easement, of that lot on that easement. So if you have a two, and most of them now are two-acre lots, because when you get the site distances from the wells and the septic and all that, that still doesn't say that you can't put that ADU on that two-acre lot. We've already made a contract with the original landowner that there would be no more than a specific number of homes in the future. So it could be owner's lots on mouth. It could be children's lots on mouth. In our county-held easements, it's a specific number of what you call unrestricted lots. But those unrestricted lots came with the expectation of being one home. So I don't see why we couldn't put something in our ordinance, something somewhere that specifically says that, and let somebody else test that then for us. I don't think we should be the ones that have to say, why didn't you guys think of it? I made a phone call also to MALF. Actually, I tried to go through the county here to get a hold of MALF. I never heard anything. So, and that's not uncommon down there, believe me, I know. I've dealt with them many times. But I feel like we need some definitive answer on this. We have 700 and some easements sitting out there. Now, I'm not saying that every easement's going to ask for an ADU, but there should be not one, as far as I'm concerned, because we've made that contract, and it's a definitive contract.

So my note to that is, so on the contracts that we hold, the easements that are county held, that's absolutely something that we can put into ordinance. We can put it into ordinance for mouth easements or easements that are held by the state as well, but I will note that the state doesn't necessarily, then we're impacting their ability to contract, which is also an issue. So we would be telling the state what to do on their own held easements, whereas that easement is a private agreement between whoever the property owner is, and the easement holder.

Yeah, but the state does not control our zoning. They're trying to, but they don't. They shouldn't. So we have considered that as part of the Ag Zone with condition. And so, you know, I know where you're coming from. I understand how you're viewing this, but... I'd sure like to see a letter from some attorney general that represents mouth or the state to see what their take is on this before we move forward. I, I just, there's just something wrong with this. I mean, really wrong.

And we can request that letter. Of course, this goes into these new laws. They need to affect one way or the other. October 1st. Well, we get a letter from them by October 1st or response at all. That's a separate question.

Do we have an ordinance to prohibit ADUs on these properties?

Would you repeat that question? I'm sorry.

Can we have something, an ordinance to prohibit ADUs on AgPres property?

No, we cannot prohibit. that's the whole purpose of what they're doing is we cannot prohibit ADUs. We can prohibit them by contract in the terms that we have contracts that are already held that may say you don't get additional lot rights. But we in ordinance cannot put that language in saying you just cannot have any ADUs whatsoever in AgPres properties. That would run afoul of the new laws that are going into place.

There's something wrong with this. So it's something that Ag Preservation Board needs to take up if they want to change the language in the county-held easements. They can't. They can't do anything about what the state contract says. I mean, really. Yeah. I mean, could you ever convince the state to change your contract on anything?

Maybe once in 10,000 times.

Yeah. So it's something Ag Preservation needs to take up. I would say. Not really else because that's really their contract at this point.

This is a subdivision problem, Matt. And, you know, we can talk about it, but it is a subdivision problem here because, see, what I'm worried about here, and I know there could be a very simple answer to this, and that is the lot has now been released from the easement. See what I'm saying? And it's a two-stage release. The first stage release is, of course, to allow you to get a building permit after you go through all the conditions of surveys and site distances and site plans and all that. First stage release. Second stage release is UNO. That should be the end of the story for that lot. Should be the end of the story. UNO. Then there are conditions on that, on the mouth easements, where only family members, the owner or the owner's children, of the easement seller. After that, it's gone. So, you know, there's a lot of moving parts to this, and it's, to me, it's just one more erosion of the ag zone. We've been eroding it and eroding it and eroding it over the years. You know, 39 conditional uses, 25 permitted uses on the Ag Zone. And here we are, one more deal where we're eroding our agricultural zone. And so that's my... And I just... The idea that there are no answers because nobody will answer the question is not an answer. It's not an answer at all. That is unacceptable. And so once we pass this, if we send this up to the commissioners, we pretty well miss the boat then on the questions that we have here, or that I have. I'll put it that way, that I have.

You can always make further amendments if we get some kind of ruling from an attorney general or something like that that says we are allowed to restrict these in some other way that we haven't done yet. I don't know that that door is closed even after the commissioners adopt something.

I'm not opposing ADUs here. I'm opposing with condition.

I get it. I think it's a reasonable thing, particularly given the fact that the intent of the ag preservation. I think it flies right in the face of it. It sure does. I think you're right to be raising the question. I don't know what we can do about it, but I think it's worth I think it's worth us either writing it into the code and letting the state come back and say, you know, you guys were wrong to do that, or I don't know what the right answer is. I don't know what the right solution is.

But I think. So what you're saying, Daphne, is that in this, if we write this into our code, at this stage of the game, we could write it with an amendment.

You mean, so what I was suggesting is if we want to try to get a definitive answer from whomever, mouth, from an attorney general, whomever, but obviously that we're trying to get a response and we haven't gotten one yet. these amendments could continue to move forward. They could even be adopted so that we have the things in place by October 1st. In the meantime, we can be pursuing this quest for a definitive answer on ADUs with respect to easement properties. And then if we get some kind of additional information that would suggest that we can add some language into the text that directly addresses it, then we can always come back with an additional amendment. Of course, it would have to go through the typical process of public hearing and all that sort of stuff. It's not the cleanest way to do it, but if we wanted to continue to move forward and still seek those answers, that would be an option.

We'll write it in the amendment now. Exactly. And if you're having trouble getting their attention, they might get their attention, and then you can have the conversation.

I would go that route and ask for forgiveness because we've done everything they've asked us to do. Let's write it into the, I'm acting like I know what I'm talking about, but I think it makes sense. We've spent money on this.

And so did the state.

And so did the state. And so we're protecting what they've done and what they've committed finances to. And so it makes sense to me to do exactly what you're saying, Michael.

But I will say, from a guy that has three houses on ag preservation property, Of course, I do have lot rights that I could take them off if I wanted to. For a farm, you can add a employee house, and then you kind of get in that sticky wicket. Can you add an employee house that's still part of a tenant house?

That's what I'm saying. I can't believe that there wasn't one person in our entire legislature, well, maybe I can believe it after I saw him in action, but didn't ask that question. And we rushed this thing to judgment. We're rushing it to this crazy October 1st deadline for everything. And in my mind, I'm not satisfied at all that we've been given any answers on these questions. And I am so reluctant to move this stuff forward. It's like giving somebody a blank check. and you don't even know who they are.

And that's why I think what Mike's suggesting is the conservative right. I understand, and I agree with you. Let's pass what we can, but preserve what we can, too, at the same time. And then if the state says, you know what, you guys were wrong to do what you did, well, we can always take it out. But I would err to the side of conserving what we've done in Ag Post.

And Matt, to address your concern, just make it effective. October 1st with any ADUs, whatever.

Because we already have language that if you don't have a debatable lot, you have to do it.

You're covered on that, Matt. And you understand that very well about tenant dwellings. And they're permanently on that farm then, unless you would take it as a child's lot or an owner's lot later on. So there are definitive rules that really narrow these things down. And they've been tough on this kind of stuff. And then we come up with this, which just said, well, forget about all this stuff we were tough about. Let's just do lazy fare here on everything.

I think it's unintended consequences. It could be. Just didn't think it. In the past I know Dan Huff had reached out to Justin Reedy and he worked with him on some stuff. Maybe talking to him can move somebody?

Well I'd just like to get an answer from somebody at the state level and believe me I know how hard it is. It's all you know it I know, I've been there. I know exactly how it is. And I've made phone calls too down there, Liz, not to undermine you, but just to talk to a few people that I know down there that maybe would even ask the question or see if anybody's ever asked that question. And I tried to get our office here, our AgPres office here, to get in touch with them. I never heard back from them either.

Well, we are on the same level, apparently, Ralph.

That's a pretty bottom basin level from there, I know. I understand that. Okay.

So are you suggesting that we add, for instance, a letter Q that says something along the lines of, Accessory dwelling units shall not be allowed for single-family dwelling units subject to an agricultural preservation easement.

To lots allowed on agricultural preservation properties.

Okay.

I think that's the easiest way to say it. And that includes rural legacy, our county-held easements, and the mouth easements. The majority of our easements right now are mouth easements. The second most are the county held, I guess, by now. And then the rural legacy. And that's pretty well determined in the areas that they're in. Right.

Can you say that again? So they're not, shall not be allowed for lots?

Allowed.

Will not be permitted.

Permitted. On lots allowed on agricultural preservation properties.

Okay. Okay.

And if you want to just clarify, I'd say it just flies in the face of, you know, the number of lot rights that are allowed or lots. Because we're kind of in the gray area here, lot rights and houses.

Well, that's the argument.

I don't think you want to put that in the amendment. I know. We can't. We can't. Because we haven't, you know, we haven't. You're right.

I agree with you.

If that's all we can do, then that's what we're going to do.

If they come back at us, then...

Undo? No, just pull that down and see. Just turn them off.

I don't know why it changed to D. I don't know why that happened. And now I've got nothing. This is being recorded, so... Yeah, and time is a ticking pill.

Okay, so the language that we have for a new letter Q, accessory dwelling units shall not be permitted on lots allowed on agricultural preservation properties.

That's about as good as we can do right now. Okay. Straightforward. Thank you. Good job.

And... Kind of along the lines of what I was suggesting before, we'll continue to try to get an answer for that. And by the time this goes to public hearing or what have you, we may have some more information that we could use to kind of massage this language if we need to before it's all finalized.

Okay, very good.

Thank you. Daphne, are you looking for a motion on this thing at all?

Please, yeah. So we would be looking... We need public comment first, right? Yeah.

Any public comment other than Ralph's? All right, no public comment. Now you need a motion. Thank you.

So we're...

We're looking for a motion to approve the text amendment as presented with the addition of new letter Q and to forward that to the Board of Commissioners.

That's my motion. Second. Third. What she said.

All right, roll call.

Mr. Huff?

Yes.

Ms. Karpner? Yes. Mr. Lester? Yes. Mr. Robertson?

Yes.

Mr. Smith? Mr. Swanson?

Yes.

Commissioner Gordon?

Abstain.

Mr. Chairman, please let the record reflect. We have five yeas and one abstain.

Terrific. Thank you. Good conversation.

Thank you. And thank you guys so much for all of the good thought on this. It was a slug, but really, you know, I think we have a good product.

Yeah, I agree. Been killing it. Tiffany did a great job on that.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, moving along. Number nine, deferral code changes. Cluster subdivision.

Oh, no, Chris needs it. Retirement Homes and Villages Review. I forgot which one we were talking about.

Congrats, you're the proud owner of our keyboard.

Oh, wait, no, it's not cluster subdivision. It's retirement homes and villages.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's retirement.

I'm skipping ahead.

You want the keyboard. All right.

I don't need the keyboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got my notes. Okay. We're good.

Yeah. Well, it's a lot of, we've had a lot of reading material. I can't keep it all straight.

Okay. So just to catch everybody up, we had a presentation from the consultant. We've had two presentations from him. At the last meeting, June 16th, He went through kind of high level recommendations and gave you a little flavor for the kinds of code changes that you'd be looking at here tonight. So we have, well, where I do that extemporaneously, I should have a slide here. We have a set of code amendments that are Responding to the deferral on retirement homes and villages, what we'll go over with you affects three sections of our code, fire protection, development, and subdivision of land and zoning. And it touches on a number of different sections, including the definitions, various development requirements, parking uses, bulk requirements, and then specific use requirements. And you can see on the right-hand side in the blue area the various areas that the recommendations, the various topics that the recommendations address. So just really quickly to recap, The planning document consistency and best practice recommendations were presented by the consultant to the board of county commissioners who directed you to work on amendments based on those recommendations. Those were presented to you in June. Since then, we've had a public open house on June 24th, and a survey was conducted to help fill in additional information about what people are looking for in these types of developments. We have been consistently posting the various versions of the text amendments as well as presentations on the website and encouraging people to send in the comments. on those and we have forwarded all of those comments to you as we've gotten them. The presentation that I'm gonna go through tonight tries to summarize those, but obviously you've gotten them, you should have read through them all. We also received a couple of comments early this week, so those are not necessarily reflected in the slides that I'll go through. but we can touch on areas where there's some consistency or divergence. Okay, now I'm going to turn it over to you to go through the terminology, because these are your slides.

So before we get into the various text amendments, just wanted to establish a good baseline of understanding of the various terminologies that we're using and discussing. So subdivision, a very basic term, and refers to the division of land. So you're starting with one large parcel and you're subdividing it into sections. smaller parcels. And those parcels, when you're talking about a residential subdivision, each of those individual parcels are owned by various entities. And then you also would have public roads that would be conveyed to typically the county or a municipality, et cetera. And there is potential for property that may be conveyed to an HOA. The HOA would be the residents from the HOA. They're responsible for that. But the county would maintain the roadways. There are no commercial, the developer, after he sells those, the developer is no longer engaged in the subdivision, right? And so these subdivisions are really not part of the scope of what we're discussing for, as we're talking about age-restricted. Now that being said, there are subdivisions where, as a marketing strategy, the people who are selling that subdivision market it as an age-restricted subdivision. So they put deed restrictions on the individual lots. They sell it as age restricted. Those individual lots are restricted. But it's a regular subdivision, and they do not get any benefit out of doing that. It's a marketing strategy. The only benefit would be related to school APFO. So if they came to the county and said, this is how we're developing it, we're age restricting all the individual lots, they would not be subject to the school APFO. But there's no additional benefit. And we have some of those here in the county. One example being Coventry at Westminster, right outside of town here. So that was marketed as age restricted. It's in the deeds for the individual homes. That's the type of community. But they did not get any benefit from being an age-restricted subdivision other than not being subject to APFO. So again, we're not really talking about subdivisions here. We are talking about site plans. So site as a term indicates one overall property that's owned by one property owner. often a corporation or a business, for the purposes of commercial or industrial type work. And the image on the right shows, I believe that's a veterinary clinic. It's the parcel on the left. Again, it makes sense. It's all one parcel owned by one owner. The one on the right, there is a condominium business model where again that site is owned by one property owner but then individual units are sold at like a condominium in this case it's a health care so so the offices are sold individually same thing can be done residentially right you have an overall owner and then the individual units can be sold as a condominium So what we're talking about for these text amendments, we've got the term age-restricted homes. So currently in their code, it's termed a retirement home. The consultant recommended active adult home. As staff, we weren't really keen on that terminology because we didn't think it really reflected the age-restricted aspect of it. So our recommendation would be to call it an age-restricted home. It really doesn't matter what we call it, but our recommendation would be age-restricted. But if you all feel differently, we're happy to push a different term. And what this is, is it's a site with multi-unit building or buildings located on that site where there's a corporate owner of the common property that maintains that property for the benefit of the residents that own the individual units. So the individual owners, they don't have to mow lawns. They don't have to shovel snow. They don't have to do anything like that. And there are amenities that are maintained. Sometimes it could be as simple as gazebos or walking paths. or it could be clubhouse, those sorts of things, but it's a corporation that owns all that and maintains it, and then the individuals own the individual units. So that's what we're referring to as an age-restricted home. We also have what's termed an age-restricted community. So in this case, Our current code calls that a retirement village. The consultant recommended active adult community. Again, it didn't have a reference that age-restricted, so we're recommending age-restricted community as the terminology. And what this is is single-family homes located on a site. So while the individuals own the homes, they don't own the land. And again, the land is owned by a corporation that maintains that for the benefit of the residents of that overall site. Just as a bit of a history, we'll be talking about density and the number of units and so on. Going back to 1971, the density that was allowed for these types of single family and site plans was 14 and 1 half dwelling units per gross acre. So you took the overall gross acreage, 14 and 1 half units times that gross acreage, that's how many units you could put on that site. In 2009, that was reduced down to 5.8. And in 2021, that was reduced down to 3.5, which is what it is right now. So that's been the progression over the years. Now, what's interesting is from 1971 to 2021, we had just one term, and that was retirement home. And that covered both the home and the community, the multifamily and the single family uses. And that's how there's an example there, Winifred Manor, which had both. So it had the middle portion. Those are multifamily dwellings. And then surrounding it are quads. So they're single family attached. So when this was developed, this was developed under that common term of retirement home. In 2021, we differentiated the home versus the village concept or home versus community concept. It didn't really recognize the Winifred Manor example where you could have both, where you could have a community that had a multifamily component to it and single family. So our recommendation is to essentially fix that rather than recombining them back into one term or one use, is just recognize that there is a situation where you may have a developer who wants to do an age-restricted community that includes a home. So to create that kind of business model that Winifred Manor is, which has both multifamily and single family. So that's a recommendation there. So hopefully that covers a base understanding of the various terms and exactly what we're looking at. We're looking at site developments here, where there's a corporation involved, and that corporation is maintaining infrastructure and so on for the benefit of the community, for the people that live there, whether it's multifamily in a home or single-family units, whether attached or detached for a community. Good?

Thank you. okay so the rest of the slides look a lot like this where we try to break them down by by each of the code sections look at the proposed revisions provide a rationale and then we've noted in the far right-hand column, for instance, where we might have gotten some feedback, notes, considerations relative to each section. As I noted, the comments that we've received, which include both things that have been emailed in, it includes feedback that we heard at the community meeting, it includes at a high level as an analysis of the survey that was just recently closed. So we've tried to capture that at a high level, but hopefully you've taken the time to read through everything and understand some of the comments that have been received. We have gotten comments that have suggested the need for a work session to work through some of these things in detail. So at this point, I'm happy to start running through each of these from the top and get your feedback or suggested changes. But I wanted to pose the question to you as to how you want to move through this knowing it's a pretty needy and dense conversation.

Has everybody had a chance to? Well, first, Daphne, you have some things here that The highlighted sections, they've been changed, right? Yeah, thank you for pointing that out.

So we've had multiple revisions of this code available for people to comment on. The highlights are things that changed since the last time you were emailed a version of this code for your review.

And we got the comments from the St. John's folks. from Kelly, which aren't on that feedback note. That's right.

Those came in on Monday after these had already been put together.

So to answer your question, let me throw it out to the commission here. Has everybody gone through this and studied it? You ready for the final exam and all that kind of stuff? It's thick reading, so I don't think we need to go line by line, but... unless as we're going through this I know I have some questions and made some circles on some things and have some questions in certain sections that weren't highlighted but so can we can we go through the highlights and then just like you know general any any questions on the general section and open it up to some feedback from us and if there isn't just keep it moving

Well, I know my biggest question is, of course, I saw the feedback that Kelly wrote for St. John and then also the guy from the, what was his?

APF or AFP.

Yeah, and it was comparing it that we're way above and beyond what we're proposing is way above and beyond what the surrounding counties have. that's the most concerning thing to me is we already have a affordable housing problem in our county and we're just making it that much tougher by adding quite as much as what we are here um and i was under the impression matt that

We were behind other counties when the consultant gave his report. So I'm a little bit confused on where we're really at.

I took that as we are behind, but what the consultant is proposing puts us further ahead. Aspirational.

Yeah. So I think I looked at the fire stuff and I think for the most part, it makes sense. I mean, that seemed to be, and the Chief Robinson has reviewed it all and affirmed it, so I don't have a lot of heartburn here.

There was some concern raised I want some of the feedback about the signage and the 50 feet and it was going to become like a mess. I see Kelly shaking her head. Might have been Kelly. And that makes sense to me. So I don't know if the 50 foot requirements should be reduced or expanded. Yeah, I said it the wrong way. Or signage when you're entering into the community.

You know or something to the effect I think I think that was where they had the fire lanes and they wanted the lanes like marked it in color and all that and signs I think I mean, I think even in parking lots you see signs, you don't see, you may see a cross hatch keeping somebody out, but not, you know, it's kind of ironic because we talk about all the designs and the standards and then we want to have like colorful all I can equate it to is kids out there with chalk on the sidewalks making all those things so I would think signage would probably be

So we did clarify or verify, I think, that the signage standards here that are described are consistent with kind of the, it's called the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the MUTCD, which is kind of what everybody uses to determine how and where to place signs. So what's in here is, is consistent with that. So it's the kind of signage that you would see in any other development.

The other thing that I would point out is that that section E on the marking specifications, it says where required by the director of the Department of Fire and EMS. Right. So it's not an absolute. So you're not required to put markings and signs everywhere throughout it, right?

Just where they say this is vital to our access.

Exactly. And so one would suppose that in, say, a... age-restricted community where maybe it's not necessary to have stripes and curbs painted and all of that, that if at the determination of the director of fire and EMS, if it's not needed, then it would not be needed. but on a site where it's more critical and they feel that it's needed, then they have the authority and the right to require it. Yes, it's subjective, but it's subjective as to the expert in the county on this subject matter.

Other thoughts on the fire apparatus section? No, ma'am.

No. Nope. Nope.

Okay, we can skip to... We only had one change to Chapter 155, which is our subdivision and land development and subdivision section, and that was... to bring the width of access drives into conformance with the other, how it's addressed elsewhere in the zoning change proposals. So you see there a change to go from a minimum of 18 feet wide to 20 feet wide. And then just adding a reference, like a cross-reference, that additional parking design standards would apply for age-restricted homes and age-restricted communities. Just so that if somebody's in the subdivision code and they're looking at parking standards, they know to go look for additional ones in the zoning code. Moving on to Chapter 158, which is our zoning ordinance. This is where we really start to get into the meat of this. So our first section deals with definitions that would be needed in order to clarify what this applies to. We are suggesting to strike the definition for common open space simply because the way it's described is essentially the same as open space. And to call that out as something different or distinct from open space when there's not really a defining difference, we thought would be unnecessarily confusing. We also have new definitions for net developable acreage, which is used later in the code, and new definitions for what would become age-restricted home and age-restricted community. And a couple of points on those new definitions. that I would just want to call out is that it specifically talks about these types of developments meeting the needs of senior citizens and cross-referencing the Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995, which is what allows us to create age-restricted communities. And then they talk about, especially in the age-restricted community, that it consists of a mix of housing types and that the age requirement needs to be noted on the approved site development plan.

Can you... So when you're talking about the net acres, it says, you know, the floodplains and no steep slopes. Steep slopes is kind of subjective. I know the county does have or always did have a Percentage right percentage that you couldn't go beyond I think that should really be spilled out So it's not just saying steep so what's interesting is that in a review of other codes and we looked at a number of other jurisdictions and

I know for sure Howard County and I believe there are a couple others that I saw. When they defined net developable acreage, they said basically it was gross acreage minus flood plains and minus steep slopes. When we started looking at steep slopes on various projects, examples, we noticed that we require developers to identify existing steep slopes. And we were seeing little sections of steep slopes identified in the middle of parcels that the developers were proposing to grade out and develop. the restriction that other jurisdictions say of existing steep slopes in our minds didn't make sense because you can grade those out. So our recommended definition for net developable acreage does not include steep slopes. We took that out. Now that being said, there are some other environmental type features that you can't develop on. Streams, buffers, flood plains, habitats for rare threat endangered species, those sorts of things, you can't develop there. The bog whatever. The bog turtles, exactly. So our thought was that the net developable area is going to be that area left over when you essentially remove those environmental features. But we're recommending not to include steep slopes just because of what I explained. Steep slopes where you have environmental features like in stream valleys, those are going to be protected by the stream buffers and floodplains anyways. So you don't have to worry about those. So it's a nuance there on steep slopes, but our recommendation is not to include it because a developer could grade those out.

So in the past, when you would go to develop a property, you always had, you know, you couldn't include the roads and all that. And I mean, they just used to take kind of like 25% out of it. So is this going to... make it harder to develop? Would it be now 30% or 40%?

I don't believe so. Because again, that net developable area, you're excluding those areas that you can't develop in any ways. And this term is only used in one of the maximum lot yield calculations that we'll get to in a minute. I don't think it's going to cause any greater restriction on on where can be developed all of these items that are listed You can't develop there anyways Any other questions on the definitions I

Okay, our next section, and we're just going in kind of chronological order in terms of the code, even though some of these things may not make sense in terms of their order. So this is talking about parking spaces. And first we're talking about age-restricted communities. And the proposal is to require two spaces for each dwelling unit, and that's the same as what it is now. But there is a proposal for some kind of expansion on that so that Garage areas would only count as one space. And that would be regardless of whether it can accommodate more than one vehicle. There's also a proposal to address overflow and guest parking by requiring one guest parking space for every five dwelling units distributed throughout the development. And that can be provided as on street or off street spaces. And then some additional language about where off-street guest parking is provided. You should provide accessible parking spaces so that they're accessible or in close proximity to building entrances so that people can easily get to and from.

What is the rationale for one space for a two-car garage? An appraiser... says a two-car garage he gives it weight he appraises it at two and he appraises it the higher value because you can put two cars in there versus one car

Yeah, I think that was in response to concerns about the fact that many people don't use their garages to park their cars in, and that creates additional demand for off-street parking or creates a situation where people are parking their cars into the area where there's sidewalk, that kind of thing.

The other part of that, I think, Janice, is that if you're if you've got a spouse or somebody who's using a walker or a wheelchair if you got to get them in and out you can only get one car in there anyway to be able to get them in and out yeah it does that make sense well to a degree but um you know it's people buy a two-car garage

People buy in a community outside of age restricted. I'm sure, do you have a garage? Nope. You have a garage, I know.

I have a two-car garage.

And do you put both cars in there? No. So it's almost restrictive.

If you keep asking, you'll find somebody that can pull two cars in. You can do it, Janice.

I've got a two-car garage and one car That's not in a garage because it's a workout room.

I'm talking about two different things. You're talking about appraisal. I get that. I appreciate I have a two-car garage and I'll be appraised as a two-car garage. Right. But whether or not it affects parking is different than the appraisal.

Right. But it's a personal decision where somebody would do. I've been in many homes in you know, $800,000 communities that have their garage loaded with junk so they all park out in the driveway, on the street. So if I may, so...

So I think, too,

I think it's a disservice to the age-restricted or whatever.

You got it.

That we're saying you only get credit for one when you've got two, and you're paying for two.

So this is more from a code perspective, though. And I honestly don't think this is an impact to the developer. The reason being is that this is more to get rid of the misconception from a site plan perspective. Because what we see often is that a development will show that every dwelling unit has a two-car garage, and you can fit two cars on the driveway. And so they're saying, well, we've got four parking spaces per dwelling unit. Well, our code only requires two. And we're not changing that. So to meet the code, having that garage and having that driveway, you meet the code. So there's not an impact. But we also have the provision that you need to have some guest parking that's not located at that dwelling unit. So the one parking space for every five, that's not taken into consideration on people's individual driveways or garages. That has to be in some clustered area, on-street parking, that sort of thing. So this is more of a clarification from a... what the reality is. And so you don't see a parking tabulation that says, well, we needed 100 spots, but because we've got two car garage and two down the driveway, we're providing 200 spots. We'll give you credit for the 100 spots, and that's what you're required to have. But now we're also requiring some additional guest parking. So I don't think it's going to affect the developments. It's just more of a clarity in code. Does that make sense?

Sure.

Bye. I totally understand what you're saying from a real estate appraiser and so on perspective, but we're not affecting that. So they're still going to have a two-car garage. They're still going to have the driveway. You can market it as a two-car garage. We're not saying that you can't market it as a two-car garage. All we're saying is from a parking tabulation perspective, you're supposed to have two parking spots. You probably do have two parking spots because you have the garage and your driveway.

Okay. Do... See, I'm like a dog with... You and Ralph. Does that, like for townhouses, if this wasn't age-restricted and it was townhouses, would that be the same restriction that would be put on the work?

This is only for age-restricted.

See, why? Because a townhouse community would...

have the same thing.

I agree, but we've got enough to increase the scope to go and start talking about every other type of non-age-restricted residential. We can tackle that next. We are looking at tackling parking requirements.

OK, I'll let it go right now.

And we're saying that Frederick basically requires one guest parking space for every three units, basically, a little over. Yes. Three and a third unit. And we're doing one every five. OK.

And Frederick's two. I'm sorry.

Well, it's two spaces, but an additional point. Howard's one for every three.

One for every third.

And what we want to stress here is that as we go through a lot of these, we needed a starting point for the discussion.

Sure.

So our recommendation, one for five. If you feel that should be one for three.

Similar language to how that should be. distributed throughout the site and provided so that people can easily access the building. So the next couple of sections, the consultant is recommending R10 and R7500 districts would go from conditional use to principal permitted use, age restricted home in here, and also changed the conditional use for age-restricted communities in R20, R10, R7500. The rationale for this is that there, we'll see this later in the text, but the proposal is to remove that extra step that you just saw Reservoir Run doing earlier today, where they would come to you for kind of a an early approval, then go to the BZA, then come back to you. So this is an attempt to streamline that process because there are additional criteria in the regulations that are going to hopefully address some of the concerns about needing to get conditional use approval. So this is the proposal so that these communities and homes move from conditional uses to principal permitted uses with this additional regulatory scrutiny.

I've got a question related to this. This table brings it to mind, and it may come up again during clustering. Should there be a difference? And this is a question. Should there be a difference? Does it not make sense for it to be 3.5 in R10 and 5 in R7500 and 2.5 in R20? I'm making it up. I'm just making it restricted. And all of a sudden, I'm just suggesting that we might want to vary the density based upon the underlying density.

Let's talk about that a little bit more when we get to how you calculate density. I will say, though, that there is a change that's being proposed in that in the commercial district, there is no density calculation or limit.

You can go high rise.

Well, no, because you have bulk requirements. So you still have to conform with all the bulk requirements. So you can only be 50 feet tall maximum and so on, and setbacks and all that. But currently, there is not a limit on the number of dwelling units in commercial if you meet all the bulk requirements. Now, what we're proposing is that we're taking kind of the opposite approach of what you just said, is that we're just making a uniform that commercial, residential, where it's allowed, that it's the same density calculation. So I totally get what you're recommending for discussion.

That adds complexity. Yeah, it adds complexity, but I think it makes some sense. Because, again, what we're hearing is, you know, this is not what I bought. I didn't anticipate looking at you know, brownstones basically, you know, behind my property. A line of, you know, I didn't anticipate looking at a line of structural

line of homes behind me so so but remember there's a difference between density and dwelling type right the man so a density speaks to the number of dwelling units on that property exactly right so uh but so you could have the different calculation for density, but you could still get the same product type. You get a five in a row and then nothing.

Right. Got it. Got it. I got you. Interesting. Okay. It's an education.

Can you... I'm sorry. Can you... Tell me the difference here between age-restricted community, including age-restricted home, and then the next one is age-restricted community. The previous one doesn't allow it in R40 or R20. age restricted community is allowed in R20. So help me understand the difference here.

It goes back to that definition.

So I think if you look at the first line, age restricted home, that is not allowed in R40 and R20. So then if you And then you look at age-restricted community, it's not allowed in R40, but it is allowed in R20. So I think the, you could have gone either way with it, right? If you have a combination development, You can allow it, it's not allowed in R40 either way, but you could allow it by saying that, well, age-restricted community is allowed, so if they're adding in a home, we'll allow it in R20 as well. Or you could say, well, age-restricted homes are not allowed in R20, so we're not gonna allow them as part of a combination development.

either and that's the that's the route that's shown here but certainly you could you could make a suggestion in another direction yeah I think it's fundamentally that homes with the multifamily are not desired in the r20 and so if you're going to add those as part of a community that knocks you out from being allowed to be in an r20 okay

Other questions or suggestions on this particular slide That's confusing all right we'll move on then now we go into the book requirements for the residential districts the only thing being changed here is well nomenclature terminology change under b4 and then you'll see under C exceptions This is where we're taking out the language about the Planning Commission establishing the bulk regulations and density at the time of initial site plan review, those kinds of things, because these are already going to be addressed in other parts of the code.

Right.

um and then again down on the business and industrial parks just changing the name to age restricted homes all right then we get to the use table for commercial industrial and employment campus districts much of the same that we just looked at for residential pretty much sticking with the permissions that are already allowed in those non-residential zoning districts. OK, so now we get to the new proposed Section 158, 161 currently is called Retirement Village, and it's very minimal in terms of what it says. So the idea is to repurpose that section to a much more detailed section. that pulls all of the age-restricted community and age-restricted home regulations into one place. So the first slide has a pretty lengthy description of the purpose and intent of the age-restricted community and age-restricted homes. And it's meant to provide some clear expression of what the hoped for outcome and intent for these types of developments would be. So you see there, a few of the key points to support an active 55 plus lifestyle, promote safety and security, ensure context sensitive design, and encourage efficient and sustainable development patterns with some kind of expansion on those ideas in the text that follows. And then also a further purpose and intent to expand housing choice affordability by providing a range of housing types and styles that will accommodate of varying income levels okay and then we get to the oh I'm sorry I should any questions or anything you want to that's just that section definition explanation

So these are just what we would like to see. It's not saying St. John has to put all of this there. Right.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm not picking on you guys. You're sitting there.

It seems like that's a little lengthy to me.

Does it even need to be in code?

Yeah, in other words...

It has been requested by the commissioners that we have a strong purpose and intent for code sessions.

I'm okay with the purpose. Then it gets here to the goals of the design standards are to promote diverse... It seems a little deep to me. I'm not sure we need all that.

We're open to suggestions.

I think that's a little overkill on that. The more I read it, the more I just don't think we need it there. I'd strike that whole thing.

What are you going to strike?

I'd strike after the adults age 55 and older and then the goals. Yeah. I think we've already, we're getting redundant here. Mm-hmm. So I'm not sure. I don't think that's needed.

So from the middle of A1 down?

Yeah, where it says in the first sentence, it says lifestyle and wellness needs adults age 55 and older, period. Uh-huh. That's enough.

For the whole purpose and intent section.

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

See because then you go to two and then we start getting into the meat of it. I don't think we need that Let's let's start to simplify some things here So just a suggestion in for all a B C and D no I'm gotten to that yet Think there's a lot in here and to me it's like a preamble of

A code. There's nothing code specific in there. It's just desire. Right. Or direction.

So you're saying just strike the second sentence of A1.

Wouldn't a code be something that here's what you need to do, not what you're...

If you're required to do.

Yeah. In reviewing other jurisdictions, it is pretty common for other jurisdictions to have a purpose and intent section that gives the reader of the code what is the purpose of this section of code. So it's not unusual to have this kind of language in a section of code.

In defense of all this, I'll say One of the things I've been complaining about for a couple of years now is a lack of design standards on multi-mixed use in these retirement villages. And so I'm glad to see more of this, not less of it. Because, again, I think we've been looking for, you know, if we can't do it right, let's not do it. This might, it's... You know, we're not telling them you have to use a certain type of aggregate, you have to use a certain type of construction material, but we're starting to get into some things that we're setting expectations, and I'm in favor of that.

The other thing is that part of the general theme of the changes that we've proposed is to provide you, as the Planning Commission, some understanding of what's trying to be achieved. So that as you're looking at these age-restricted communities and homes, having an understanding of what the code, what the vision of the code that gets passed. So for generations to come, why do we have these sorts of things? And they're kind of... I don't want to use the word guiding principles. That's sort of a planning terminology. But still, it's prompting you all to be thinking about certain things. And you'll see some of the codes that are proposed are very subjective. And it's more for you all to say, you know what? We need to be thinking about this component of code. It doesn't necessarily, it's kind of a qualitative, did the developer meet it? But you all know that you should be looking at that component.

So it's more of a may do instead of it shall do.

This section is more of a why. Why are we doing it? And what's the intent? To set the stage.

So Yeah, but a good lawyer can argue these things.

And I'm not too excited about any. I mean, we're okay until we get down to number three, where we say expand housing choices and affordability. How in the world can we define affordability? I mean, that is a choice of the buyer and the seller. That, to me, is just wasted space. I think we're okay with expanding housing choices. Housing choice of age. The only person that this affordability word is going to affect is some politician that says we're going to do some affordability and then ask him to define it. You can't. Tom, do you feel strongly about having that word in this section? To me, that's between the buyer and the seller. I don't even want to see that word in there.

The more amenities you put into a community, the higher the cost I saw where there were some complaints about the HOA and condo fees. I have a place down the ocean, which is, you know, you get where you're living, but it's maybe 1,250 square feet. My condo fees are $1,100 a month. Yes, a month. No, that's affordability against my... Yeah, so, but, you know, and we don't use half the amenities, but it's it didn't start out that way but it's so it's you know the cost to maintain all that's not cheap you know and and we have 244 units so it just continues to rise sorry moving on

Moving on. So I have for this section a suggestion to strike the second sentence of A1 and the word affordability from A3. Okay, now we get to the density.

Let's stay on that for just a second, please, because here we go again. I've read this a couple times, and there was another part I had marked. It said, let's see, where was it here? Here we go, about this affordability thing. The standards seek to achieve efficient site design rates, but it talks about, where was it now? I lost my place, I'm sorry. Providing a range of housing types and styles including single dwellings that that are affordable, again, that meets the needs and household size standards of effect. What I'm saying is I'd still say it's between the builder and the buyer. They're the ones that determine what they can afford. So if we require all the amenities that maybe somebody might want or a wish list of amenities, every amenity is going to cost something. So I don't think if we put all these design standards, I'm okay with doors being wider, I'm okay with handrails and all that, but when you get above all that stuff, It's between the buyer and the builder and the buyer. How many amenities are they willing to afford? And so if we keep requiring all these amenities, like more parking spaces means more impervious service, which means more stormwater. You see what I mean? So where is the line that we draw? So if we would make, let's say, an affordable project, would that affordable project be less parking spaces so that it's less impervious service? And then if we require underground stormwater over a stormwater pond, that adds to the... So now all of a sudden all this has become way unaffordable. So it's, you know, I think we have to take everyone. I'm okay with certain requirements to make life easier for an older person. I'm one of them, believe me. I try to make life as easy as I can for myself because it's getting hard. But I don't want to have to pay for everything that I don't want. I don't need and in Carroll County with our smaller developments that we're seeing because we don't have those open spaces like the like up in Frederick where you might be able to put a an amphitheater in or something like that so we have to pick and choose what amenities we can put in these certain development areas and So we can't be a one-size-fits-all. And that's what concerns me about some of this stuff. I don't want to go overboard, Chris. I want to make these places amenable to people so they might be able to stay there after they're 70 or even after they're 80. But after they're 80, do they really need that outdoor gazebo or that pickleball court? yeah so can i help those people so there there's my you know this just my overall concern about what we're doing here so we need changes we need to do some things but let's let's be common sense about it because some some big mistakes have been made in the past we don't make them in the future on the other side of the coin yeah

So C has a lot of stuff about sensitive design and utilize high quality materials and cohesive site planning that contribute positively to community character. That whole area there is, I think, subjective. We know what we're talking about today. Five years from now, nobody's on the planning commission that was there. And they take all this to heart and they say, well, you've got to put, you can't just put vinyl siding here. You've got to put high end something. I think even though it's a may do it, I think it leaves this open for interpretation that unintended consequences can occur.

Well, the funny thing about it to me is we actually discussed this today in terms of height. Is there a way for you to offset the things? Right. Some of it. We were talking about this.

Not all deaths.

Yeah, exactly. But again, I'm saying... I think having this in here is like we said earlier, I think Chris said earlier, and I think it's correct. It allows us to reflect when we read the code. It allows us to reflect on, okay, this is an element that we should be considering. We're not telling them what to do. We're saying it's a consideration when we approve your project.

And I think it's a good thing to have it in there.

Matt?

I said my piece I'm from.

I just don't know why we've got to codify our wish list or our vision. If we are, then put that whole section out in front of all of this as a preamble to the new age housing and all that kind of stuff. Because it applies to everything. Just a thought.

So this would be the first part of that restricted section.

I'm not the only one here. And I'm hearing that I might be the only one. i'm just saying i i'm used to it don't worry i know but i i think it's just it's like this is what we want and i agree with that i'm cool with that this is what uh you know the safety and this is what the 55 and over communities are all about and this is you know all that those kind of things but to you know a purpose and intent it's like we're defining what we want and and And we are in 55 and older communities, but I don't know if it needs to be in the code. Yeah, I agree. I don't get it. It's like a preface to a novel or, you know, something. You know what I mean? There's no, it's not like, you know, the driveway has to be 18 feet or 20 feet or 30 feet, whatever, you know. It's just narrative. Yeah.

Well, we can note that there's a desire to trim the section down, and ultimately it will be the Board of County Commissioners that make the decision. Yeah. So that's an absolutely valid comment. I mean, I can go either way.

I mean, I'm not being too anal about it or whatever, but I think, you know, it just seems overkill.

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Okay, moving on to the density and unit mix requirements. So we touched a little bit on density already. As Chris mentioned, there are... set densities for these types of developments regardless of their zoning district that are being proposed i'll walk you through them on the age restricted community it is eight units per Net developable acre. So we'll just spend a second on that because I want to make sure that that it's clear that the Current density that we have is three and a half dwelling units per acre for age-restrictive villages But that's based on the gross acreage the what's being proposed here is eight units per acre of per net developable acres. So it is a higher number but it's based on a smaller acreage.

But the problem the problem with it is though is you can't figure this out until you have stormwater and everything else figured out So you're making people spend their shit pile money today when do something that they don't really know what the number is until all the calculations are done so Stormwater is part of the developable area.

Yeah, but impervious and everything well, but so so you don't have to calculate the stormwater so Stormwater is part of development So that's going to be part of your net developable area. So you don't have to calculate that to figure out what your net developable area is. So all you're really looking at is where do you have floodplain and streams, easements that prevent you from doing development. All of those are easily identifiable up front. And then you basically have your net developable acreage.

So net developable is... Yep, so stormwater is within... You can't build on it anyway. Right.

Right.

It's not as bad as it sounds.

No, it's not as bad as it sounds.

It's also not as easy as 3.5.