Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Today's meeting was noticed in compliance with the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. This commission acts in review and recommending capacity for comprehensive plan amendments, text amendments to the Charleston County zoning and land development regulations ordinance, resonings, and plan developments. The commission has decision-making authority on road name change requests, public project reviews, appeals of administrative decisions on final plats and subdivision matters, as well as other matters pursuant to chapter 29, title six, section 629, 340 of the code of laws of South Carolina as amended. Those of you who wish to speak should have filled out um the sheet by the door. I'm Cindy Floyd. I'm chair. To my right we have Pete Pelotus, Luke Morris, Gary Lasain, and Anna McM. Bless you.

Thank you. And to my left, we have David Kent, Warick Jones, and Susan Cox. Andrew, would you introduce the staff? Sure. Yep. We have Nikki Grimble and Mare Miller, Win Carile, Tamara Avery, um Stephanie Ando, um Oh, sorry, Chris. I thought I said his name. I'm sorry about that.

And Chris. Okay. All right. In order to get a good recording of the meeting for the minutes, please speak loudly and clearly into your microphones and please don't talk over one another. The first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from the January 12th, 2026 meeting. Is there a motion and a second? Second. Want to call the role, please? Commissioner Lasain. Hi. Chair Floyd. I. Commissioner Jones. I. Commissioner Kent. Hi. Commissioner McConnell. Hi. Commissioner Morris. Hi. Vice Chair Palato. Hi.

Commissioner Cox. Uh the eyes have its workshop. Did we have separate workshop minutes, Stephanie? Okay. So, do you another vote on those? Okay. Do we have a motion and a second for approval of the workshop um minutes? Move to approve. Second. Call the role, please. Commissioner Lasain, I. Chair Floyd, I. Commissioner Jones. Hi. Commissioner Kent. Hi. Commissioner McConnell. Hi. Commissioner Morris. Hi. Vice Chair Palato. Hi. Commissioner Cox.

The eyes have it. Okay. The next item on the agenda is case SBDV-07-25-03150. A request to create a total of two lots from one existing lot at tax map number 029 00001 8340 Shingle Creek Road of property within 300 ft of Brooklyn's plantation which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. President.

All right. Good afternoon. Uh the subject property here we have uh for SBDV 03150 029 000000-001 8340 Shingle Creek Road in Edesto Island. Proposal applicant is proposing to take one existing lot and is creating two lots. Here we have the future land use map showing the subject property. The current zoning which is AGR agricultural residential again current zoning showing the map. The aerial view of the property the historic property and the buffer and we can see that the subject property is inside of that 300T buffer. the FEMA flood zone site photos from Shingle Creek Lo Road Road looking at the property um as well as to the left and to the right the corner of Shingle Creek Road and Laurel Hill Road. uh the plat showing the subdivision creating those two lots. Uh SC state law section 6-29-340 functions, powers, and duties of local planning commissions. Uh B, regulations for the subdivision or development of land and appropriate revisions thereof and to oversee the administration of the regulations that may be adopted as provided in this chapter. and see an official map and appropriate revision on it showing the exact location of existing or proposed public street, highway and utility rights of way and public building sites together with regulations to control the erection of buildings or other structures or changes in land use within the rights of way building sites or open spaces within its political jurisdiction or a specified portion of it as set forth in this chapter. Charleston County uh historic preservation ordinance section 21-6A. uh purpose in order to encourage the preservation of the historic character of historic properties and historic

districts preliminary and minor subdivision plat applications as defined in the Charleston County zoning and land development regulations ordinance for historic properties districts and properties located within 300 ft of the historic properties and districts must be evaluated by the commission prior to final determination by the Charleston County Planning Commission. Commission evaluation. The commission shall evaluate each subdivision plat application subject to section 21-6 subdivision plat application reports for compliance with the cultural resources element of the comprehensive plan. The commission shall provide a report on the application to the planning commission that addresses whether and how the application is or is not consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the cultural resources element of the comprehensive plan. A majority of the HBC members present in voting shall be required. The commission shall not defer a subdivision plat application. Uh and notices uh were noticed as required. 3.4.3 cultural resources element goal. And uh here we have the uh CR1 through CR5 element strategies, CR5 through CR10, CR11 through CR15 and historic preservation commission report. All nine members present of the Historic Preservation Commission stated the proposed subdivision is consistent with the cultural resources element of the comprehensive plan citing consistencies with the element goal statement and strategy CR1 through CR15. Uh again the element goal cultural historic and archaeological resources unique settlement patterns of traditional low country communities such as historically African-American communities and family settlements and traditional activities such as sweetgrass basket making should be preserved and protected from potential negative impacts of growth and development and again cited CR1 through CR15.

ZLLDR section 8.3.2 Two, planning commission review. Determine whether or not the proposed subdivision is consistent with all requirements of this ordinance and the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. Staff recommendation. Uh the AGR agricultural residential zoning district implements the agricultural residential policies of the comprehensive plan. The agricultural residential future land use designation states this land use category consists of rural residential settlement areas that have been subdivided into small properties. Proposed densities generally range from one dwelling per acre to one dwelling per five acres. By right uses include residential development, agriculture, and other uses necessary to support the viability of agriculture. Appropriate public services and facilities that are consistent with the goals and strategies of this plan should be permitted to ensure sufficient provision of services. Agricultural residential includes settlement areas which are small older crossroad communities, family lands, typical suburban style subdivisions, frontage lots along local roads, waterfront developments, and vacant land that has been subdivided for residential use that may or may not yet be built upon. The application complies with all requirements of the Charleston County zoning and land development regulations ordinance, including those of the agricultural residential zoning district. because the application is consistent with both the comprehensive plan and the ZLDR staff recommends approval. Public input. Uh January 21st Historic Preservation Commission meeting, the applicant spoke in support. None spoke in opposition. And as of uh today for the planning commission meeting, as of February 6th, no public input has been received and notifications were noticed as required. Um, we appreciate the reports that come from the Historic Preservation Commission and the staff. Are there any questions for the staff from the commission members?

We will now hear public comments. Each speaker will be limited to two minutes. Please state your name and address before giving your comments. The first speaker is Will Wright.

Good afternoon. Um, this property, subject property, has been my wife and my primary residence for over 20 years. Uh, we've got two adult children. Um, and are in process of trying to put the property into a family trust so as we go down the road, so to speak, that it'll be set aside properly for subdivision between the the two children. Um, as I say, this is kind of the final piece of the puzzle as far as putting the family trust together and uh, you know, we do it with estate planning purposes and and no entrepreneurial or you know, we're not thinking about selling the property. So, with that, I would just ask for your consideration to to help us move forward with the plan to subdivide the property and to to put it in a trust for our children when we are no longer here. So, thank you. We've enjoyed the property and want to make sure that it's passed on to our kids in in an appropriate manner and we thank you for your time.

Thank you, Brooks. Right.

The case is now closed to public comment. Is there a motion in a second from the commission for Go ahead. You You go forward. No, you go. No, you go ahead. They can Adam, please give us a motion. Okay. Do we have a second? Gary to do that. Okay. Any any discussion from the commission? Is there a motion and a second from the commission? We will get that. Is there any no discussion? Is there If there's no further discussion, it's time for the vote. Commissioner Line. I. Chair Floyd. I. Commissioner Jones. I. Commissioner Kent. Hi. Commissioner McConnell. I Commissioner Morris. Hi,

Vice Chair Palato. I Commissioner Cox. I The eyes have it. This is the final decision of the planning commission. If any person with a substantial interest in a decision of the planning commission chooses to appeal this decision, they may do so at the circuit court of Charleston County. Such appeal shall be filed within 30 calendar days after today's date. The next item on the agenda is proposed amendments to the zoning and land development rec regulations ordinance. Marsha Miller is going to present the staff's report.

Good afternoon. Today we have proposed ELDR amendments to the short-term rental regulations. Um, the proposed amendments include adding digital notification requirements to be sent to both the parties and interest and the community interest notice list within 15 calendar days of the issuance of limited home rental short-term rental property zoning permits and for short-term rental property annual renewal zoning permits. Note um public input was received for the request and the proposed amendments were noticed as required. And that's it. Okay. Any discussion? Should we do a motion first?

Okay. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. And this is for approval of the language. I was asking. All right. Okay. Any discussion? Any questions from members of the commission? gas today. Okay.

We don't have any speakers. No speakers. Okay. Should we do a vote? Okay. Call the roll, please. Commissioner Leain, I. Chair Floyd, I. Commissioner Jones, I. Commissioner Kent, I. Commissioner McConnell. Commissioner Morrisification. Vice Chair Palados. I. Commissioner Cox. The eyes have it.

County Council will hear this request at their public hearing on March 10th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers and again at their March 19th, 2026 planning and public works committee meeting at 5:00 pm. The request must then undergo three readings for approval at council's discre discretion. The next item on the agenda is the monthly subdivision report. Tamara Avery is going to present. So, we had uh a preliminary plat submitted that I'm bringing to you all. It's exchange landing phases two and three. It's located on uh John's Island off of River Road. TMS numbers 315 0000552 and 004. And the property is approximately 58.3 acres of Highland. It's going to be 141 lots. This is again phases one and two or phases two and three. We previously approved phase one. That is an additional 127 lots. They will be serviced by public water, public sewer. Um, and phase three will actually have an amenities center where it'll have a clubhouse, pool, playground area. Any questions? Okay. What was the total number of lots all together? So phase one was 127 and phases two and three combined are an additional 141. Okay. Yeah. Do we do anything with this?

All right. The last item on the agenda is the chair's remarks. I just want to remind you that a continuing education workshop regarding regarding public input engagement will begin immediately following the conclusion of today's planning commission meeting. If there's no further business, anybody have any business they want to bring up. Um the meeting of this should I have a motion for adjournment? Second. Okay. Want to call the role? This is a motion. Commissioner Leain. Hi, Chair Floyd. Hi, Commissioner Jones. Hi, Commissioner Kent. Hi, Commissioner McConnell. Hi, Commissioner Morris.

Hi, Vice Chair Palados. Hi, Commissioner Cox. Hi. The eyes have it. Okay. Um, the planning commission will hold its next regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, March 9th, 2026, beginning with the annual meeting at noon in the committee room with continuing education training followed by the regularly scheduled meeting at 2 p.m. in council chambers. Lunch will be provided.

Oh, and also there will be elections for officers of the commission. So, you will be getting a phone call from me. All right. You ready? Okay. Welcome. Okay. Welcome to the February 9th, 2026 Charleston County Planning Commission workshop. The workshop has been noticed in compliance with the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. The first item of the agenda agenda is continuing education training.

And so we're going to do a training. Actually, this is a webinar that Nikki did back in August um for the company, the software company that makes our public input software. So, the comments that you receive on all the cases that come to planning commission in addition to those that go to BZA, historic preservation commission and council um and now some other departments are using it to gather public input. This is a software that we now use. We started using it when Nikki. Yeah. And so Nikki is responsible the one who responsible for making it as great as it is. And in fact the software company just gave her an award. What was the title of your award? Innovator. Yes. Yes. So good job

and it's a very interesting webinar. So

yes enjoy. Well, I had a lot of great things to say, but Andrea tucked the wheel. But um today's training is titled Reszoning and Action: Community Engagement Builds Trust and Transparency. So, this training will discuss how local governments can build trust and transparency and explore real world strategies for effective community engagement in zoning and land use planning. And let's get it here. public input helps you with if you want to give a little background. I think it'd be helpful for folks to hear kind of how land use works in Charleston County and uh maybe share a little bit of the process pre input.

Sure. Um yeah. So um South Carolina state law requires that um that folks that are within a certain radius of um of a subject property must be notified of um any upcoming zoning change request. Um if they're requesting a special exception or a variance from the zoning ordinance or for um cases for historic preservation commission. um interested parties are notified um if somebody wants to have something done within one of our historic designations, whether it's a district or a single property. Um so we have our state law requirements for the radius um list, but then we also have in our zoning ordinance um our own requirements that are built in to notify interested parties. Um, so that would be folks that have signed up to find out everything that's happening um in a certain area of the county or they want every notification that's um for cases that are going before one of the specific boards. So um so it's really, you know, kind of hammered out to be whatever your interest is, which could be all of them. um you can be notified via email um or letter depending on which which brought you in. Um before now um we had always sent out paper letters which we still do for our radius list. We haven't been able to encompass that yet within um within public input. Maybe that's in the future. Um but um but we've built in all of our existing um community interest groups um as now they're subscribable. So um so all of those folks will get our notifications for upcoming cases to these different boards and commissions and um and county council. Um we would receive input via email, paper, letters.

um people would bring in um petitions with you know handwritten signatures um and then it was our job as staff to compile that in a usable format for the decision-making bodies and I think the part that got me was like sometimes that's a multi obviously you can have multiple meetings per case you're trying to keep track of all the stuff that's in different inboxes folders yes papers

yep yeah there's one case in particular where I think we had well over 400 comments that came over a series of several months and they would just come in in droves and trying to keep that organized. Did I print it? Did I not print it? Did I convert to a PDF? I don't know. Did I put it in? You know, it was just it seems simple, but it can be a very daunting task to to keep up with and make sure everything has been included.

Yes, there's certainly some pressure on some of those cases. I remember you were telling me about uh one where you were posting these things uh maybe to the record online and someone called and said, "Hey, I don't see my comment up there yet." It's like your comment came in late yesterday. We're working on it, right? It'll be up tomorrow. I promise.

Um so that that's a process that's changing. So maybe that's a good segue into um I think we wanted to break it up today in a little bit two parts. Like one is how is it different for residents? What's the resident experience like? Uh and also for you and your team, uh how has public input changed your process and what does that look like? So maybe we can kick it off with the resident side here today and we've got a few uh animated uh things we can share while we're talking through it. See? Yeah. So I think the first part we're showing is is the online piece. It looks like it's jumping into a random part of the uh the animation, but uh obviously this is more than just online, but we do want to make sure we put a good foot forward for our our residents. Here we go. So, that's engaged Charleston County. Tell us about this.

Yes. Um so, yeah, we have this set up um where each of our boards or commissions or wherever it is in the process has its own engagement portal. So each portal houses the um the current or the very recently um closed cases that were heard by that particular body. Um we have it set up where each project page is is pretty simple but um oh yes here's the case. Yeah,

no problem. Um the case map is really cool because we have our county is about a 100 square miles. Um, so it really is a big area. Um, so someone can just go and look at this case map and each of the dots or areas that are on there are places that have um a current um or listed um case. So you know someone is in this area which is Mount Pleasant, they can kind of zoom out just a little bit and touch on each of the um the locations, you know, in that general vicinity to see what's going on around them. They don't have to particularly have gotten the agenda or know of a specific case, but they can kind of move around the map and see what's going on.

That's great. So, each one kind of rolls up into its own uh mini portal we talked about briefly, like so each of these um the board of zoning appeals. You've got the uh historic preservation and a couple of the others have their own portal. Yes.

Yeah. So we actually have a board of zoning appeals meeting coming up. Um so we have sent out our notifications and we have posted our cases online here. Um so we we do provide a little bit of general information here at the front just about the meeting logistics but then um each particular case has its own um page where someone can go onto it. They can learn about what the request is. Um there will be a packet of um you know staff report presentation those types of things that are included on each case. Um and then we try to keep it really simple. So you know what area do you live in? Um what are your comments? And then we include a couple of demographic questions as well. Try not to make it too complicated. Um so it's not, you know, too much but just enough. I'm a doctor and my passion is to alleviate arthritis pain using nothing but natural methods. Can you guess the top three foods that I would recommend you to eat? The first one is olive oil. It has a

So, it's kind of a templated approach here. So, you've got the uh typically the map up top. You've got your your milestones and different meetings that are coming up. So, as a resident, I can see where are we in this process at a glance. Um, before I I dive right in with my comment, support or opposed. Uh, yes. Yes. Exactly. So, after each of them, we'll go in and we'll update. We'll provide a link um to watch a recording. So, if they didn't make the meeting, they can still go check it out. Um, and then they can provide comments after the fact as well.

That's great. And I know we'll talk a little bit about those formats, but the uh the location one's unique and then the the demographic module. Uh love the way you've applied that. This was one of these things where the National Institutes of Health uh did a study where um if if you're going to ask demographic questions, typically you see a drop off, but they were able to reduce the drop off by about 30% by telling people why uh they were asking for this information. So uh by default these these little modules tend to have a a preface which you guys have baked into the process here too. So same set of questions every case. I guess this is the same module across all those.

Yes. Yep. We try to keep you consistent. So maybe down the road if we need to notify a group of folks that are in one specific area, then we can use the um the location features to grab all of their contact information um and you know look at trends over time. um you know who what age of people are participating, what planning area um do they live in or do they own property in or are they just interested in providing input? Um down the road I feel like that information will be really glad that we captured it early on so that we have it for the entire life of of the platform.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we love kind of building that over time. I know we'll touch on that a little bit with some of our our cool data visualizations later. Um, and of course near and dear to our heart is going beyond the online. You know, how do we embrace that you already have a process that's working today that is not just an online? We don't want to add something to it. We want to recognize that each of these channels is uh potentially another subsegment of our residents or our constituents and we want to give them an easy way to participate. Yes, exactly. That's great. And so this is set up on every project or every case, right? just you're automatically spinning these things up for for each case.

Yeah. So, it's really cool how it's set up where um someone if they don't have a computer or they'd rather just talk, they can call and leave a voicemail comment and each case has its own project code, so it's all funneled into the same location. Um each case has its own um specific email address. So folks can just send information directly to there instead of to one staff person or to one, you know, general inbox. It's all everything is going to the place that it needs to be. Um but the the cool new feature is the text option. So you create a a text code. Um and it's the same thing. It's all funneled into the same area. Um, it just gives people options of wherever they are in any part of their day and they're ready to, you know, make a comment and they have all of these different ways that they can do that.

It's awesome. Yeah, as a parent, I totally get that. It's right. Sometimes you go to practice and you're like, "Oh, wait. I have 15 minutes. Let me let me do this real quick." So, try to make it as easy um and approachable as possible. That's great. Um, obviously this is if if you're seeing this for the first time, you're probably saying, "Oh my gosh, all these different channels, all these things to manage. So, what's going on? How is this actually easier than before where people had to show up and we probably had fewer folks commenting because they had to make the track to the meeting or otherwise?"

Right? So, I'd say, you know, setting up a project ta page and getting all of that, you know, the there's a QR code, the text, the phone number, um, all of that takes me about 5 minutes total um, to set up a new project. So, it's really simple and intuitive to set it up. You know, you don't need to be a tech wiz to, you know, you kind of know where you should probably click to look and then you build your own cadence. But um but just by using the templates um or a previous project that's similar, you can copy all of that over and apply it to a a new case or a new project. Um so the admin experience, you know, my biggest takeaway is that you have everything in one place. So instead of sending emails from your Outlook app and um getting phone calls from your telephone or your voicemail system um and then creating a PDF in another system and saving it in your share drive and you know having all of the these different locations for things to go live um everything can be done within this platform. So you can look through all of the emails that you're getting. You can tag them. You can pull a report of the emails that you received or that you sent out. Um, same with the text messages and the voicemails. Those are all transcribed. Yep. So, here's a picture of the text messages. So, you can look at it and, you know, the format that it would come in and how the questions are asked. Um, and then whenever you get over to the reporting side, it just looks like any other comment. So, you know, having these different options, but then pulling it all together in the same format has really been awesome for us. This one in particular, we had a lot of people call in. Um, we have definitely noticed that like the older crowd enjoys the voicemail part. Um, the first voicemail

we got was so cute. It was a wife and her um her husband in the background saying, "Now say this, now say this." Um and it was so cute because you know they felt like they had an avenue that they could use um that was easy for them and that's exactly what we did all of this for. So so it's been interesting to kind of see how it's evolve how different cases people will tend to comment in different ways. Um but it's so cool to see it come across the different avenues. Yeah, that's wonderful. We've definitely seen some fun anecdotes, especially with voicemail, bringing out folks that were otherwise probably not involved in the process before.

File free in the app if you didn't file with us last year. Just file with Turboax do it yourself by FE. And one of the other dimensions, I know we want to pull up the map here, but as long as someone shows up either online or they're participating through one of these digital formats where we can pull a location, uh we're trying to map those folks. And I was thinking back to like the conversation we had around like how that potentially affects reporting. Obviously, we'll we'll show some reports here in a moment, but how does it how does it change the process to have the location for all the people you're hearing from here?

You know, a lot of cases and we've had um our decision making bodies ask us before, well, you know, I know you received this many comments, but how many of those comments were people that actually lived there? or how many were of the comments were people that just own property there, but they don't actually live there and they might not be affected by something as much as someone that's living within that area where the change may take place. Um, being able to break that down if it's requested is huge. Otherw you know in the past it was going through and every single person that provided their address we'd say well we you know out of this many letters that we got these this many included their address and of that number you know XYZ are how many live in that neighborhood. So, um, you know, another benefit is if something is going to happen right there, then we have these folks mapped so we can get in touch with them,

um, every day. Yeah, it's great. Well, that that whole compounding nature of this is like you're bringing out different voices with each case, but ultimately your database storing all of them for whatever comes down the road. Um, I know we have a couple example reports to pull up here. uh who are the typical folks that you're reporting this out to? So, we um we always provide a report link to that's included on our packet of information for the cases. So, that link is shared not only with the public but also with um with the decision-making bodies. Um great. Here we go.

And we try to keep it nice and simple. you can see, you know, a heat map, um, is what this format's in where you can see where the majority of the comments come from. Um, we love that it includes the folks names and when they commented. Um, also if somebody happens to provide an attachment, you know, you can click directly from this. So, the best part is that it's a live document. So we are not, you know, manually adding these comments and updating it for the decision makers and, you know, reprinting things and hoping that our account is up to date. Um, we can receive comments up until a certain time, turn it off if we want or not. Um, and whenever that person goes to click on the link, then it's all up to date right there for them.

Yeah. Back to the Outlook analogy. you're not going, did I export this one? Yes. That's great. I love it. And and you mentioned the link thing. I know we had a couple examples of that. So, the the ability just to share that link, but also, you know, going back to that, hey, can you show us what people said that, you know, lived near this uh or live coming from this neighborhood versus maybe uh own property or from out of town?

Exactly. Um also, you know, customizing the date range. So, um, let's say we wanted to, um, narrow it down to folks that had commented before or after one particular meeting. Um, see if the comments changed from, you know, before versus after. Um, or if there were more comments or less comments received. It's nice that you can really customize this to, you know, exactly what you're looking for, or pretty much have it at the tip of your fingertips. If someone were to ask for the information, you could say, "Oh, hold on. Let me see what I can, you know, put together on this report, you know, go do some filtering and and get the information that you need."

Awesome. And I know some of the folks on the call are probably wondering, "Yeah, but I want my my spreadsheet." U I too am a spreadsheet nerd. I I love getting in there and slicing dicing, doing pivot tables. Same filters, same power tools are there. Yeah, it's out there. You can uh we we don't have that in the slides today, but um we're here for it, too. Yep. We started with the spreadsheet and then we quickly moved to the dynamic reports for that very reason. We the spreadsheet is what we know, but but then Oh, but there's other options. We don't have to do that anymore.

Gosh, yeah, the real time thing. I love that that the board has embraced that. Was there any like uh initial like h but I like it the old way or I guess were there things you had to do? They were pretty embracing. Um, you know, it's almost been like a gradual process. I guess the first step was was a few years ago when we moved them from printed binders of information to iPads, which was groundbreaking. Um, especially because we have a nine member council. So that means we have nine council members, nine and also nine members on each of those boards. That's so much paper. Um, if it's a case that has a ton of comments, we're we were constantly swapping out those pages, adding pages to them times nine. I mean, it was a huge organizational feat. Um, but with this, they have the link and, you know, then they can access it from wherever they are. So, if they're on the go, they can pull up, you know, the link on their email, on their phone. They can, you know, scroll through, they can look at it on an iPad, computer,

um, you know, whatever is available at the time that they're ready to receive the information. Um, it's right at their fingertips. So, that's really been huge. That's great. Build a website you love with Wix for your words. Yeah. I couldn't uh My dad served on city council for a number of years. I remember like the the uh the speed reading right before the meeting of like I got to get through the packet. That's certainly uh you can have it on the phone. We don't like to hear that people do that, but we do know happens. We're all human. We're just trying to get through all the things we have on our list. Right. Right.

Well, u we wanted to talk a little about communication. So, one of the unique things about public input is we spent a lot of time and effort to build in this whole communication stack into it. Uh so, what does that look like for um for you guys? I know we have a case queued up here. Maybe we can kind of frame it out around a use case.

Sure. Um Oh, yeah. So, um this 10mi community overlay zoning project, that's one that we actually are right in the middle of. Um so, it started out as a series of three community meetings. Um that started about a year ago and now it's actually going before our planning commission. So, that's kind of the first step of the project being adopted by um county council. Um, so instead of doing a new project or a new page for each of those meetings, um, we just kept it all within the same one project. So the codes never changed. The email address has stayed the same over the last year. Um, we have been able to send out these notifications. Um, so you see here like we had the three different meetings. We actually had a, you know, a freak ice storm. So, we had to cancel at the last minute. Um, so, you know, we were able to just hop on there, grab all the people that we had sent the notification to before um and then resend them, you know, a notice that we had to reschedu. Um, it makes it so easy. But also, you know, looking at the bigger picture, this is all contained within that project. So,

you know, we'll probably have at least four notifications, I'd say, going out through the planning process to get it adopted, you know? So, let's say in five years, we need to amend this um this overlaid district. And we want to go back and see, well, what did people originally say like at that first community meeting? What were their comments and what have we changed from there? you know, it's all contained within this project um through the life of it. Um, so for archival purposes and for those of us that are real data nerds and want to maintain the data, um, it's so awesome that it can be contained within this one thing and you don't really have to worry about um, formats changing or staff changes that, you know, maybe this person saved it this way and in this folder, but following staff came up with a new way to do it. You know, here, you know, it is what it is. like it's all here. This is what we sent. This is what we had posted. Um, you know, it doesn't really matter what changes in between now and then. So, so this has been a huge benefit to be able to have these notifications built in and easy access to send them out.

Absolutely. Yeah. And and in terms of like what that looks like, we've got a quick example here. Um, a lot of these gifts are kind of like we're getting into the slide halfway through the the animation, but we'll we'll see it loop back around here. Um, essentially the the things you're used to in terms of tracking emails are all here. We the added benefit of all this is like it's tying back to all those profiles. So if someone participates through that email um if they open the email, all that's kind of logged onto their uh profile so we can understand who's engaging um even where we're getting engagement from. And some of that can be helpful helping us understand like where the gaps might be and and who we're reaching. But uh ultimately the the wins here it sound like are just having it in one place which makes it

right you know and I guess unfortunately or not you know some folks let's say there's a foyer request that comes up down the road and says hey I want to know who all you sent this to we can just go right back in here and say okay well here's the list that we sent it to. Um here's the people that unsubscribed. I mean you can get very deep in as deep into it as you want to or not. Um, but there's just so much information that that we didn't even know that we wanted or needed, but know with that knowledge now know that moving forward like, oh yeah, wait, I can go grab that and see, you know, see what that was at that time.

Yeah, I love that where it's like the the worst case scenario is covered. Worst case being like someone's demanding all this information in a foyer request or otherwise. Uh, in best case, it's like we actually uh are following through on this project. We're uh we're seeing it come to fruition. Now we need to go follow up with the people who participated in the past. Make sure we're uh recognizing and and taking action in the context of what we heard. Exactly. So together. So cool.

Well, um I think one of the things that I was excited to hear you talk about is kind of like big picture in addition to like a better process and a better experience for residents like the things that are changing on a macro level for your or uh for your team and um a little bit of the data there, but maybe just hearing you speak to that a little bit. We'll walk through some slides here.

Sure. You know, it's always easy to know what's better once you've lived through something in the past, but I see the managing subscriptions here reminds me of how we used to collect our um our folks that wanted to be on our IP list. Um which was through an access database that came through on a you have to open an Excel sheet and we had a smiley face icon that we had to click on and only certain people could get to it. And so we it was a totally manual and mundane process to add someone's information because they wanted to receive an email. Now folks have all the control over what list that they want to be subscribed to or not. Um they can be subscribed um via email or text. um they can join and drop off as often as they want to and that's all built in to the page where you know they get to maintain it themselves. Um we can add new list. Um so that yeah that was a very it was a terrible process but you know it was what we had and that's how we how it got started and so that's just kind of how we maintained it. So that was actually like our first order of business when we got this platform was to import all those all those lists from that database and never use it again.

Gosh. Yeah. Well, and one of the the exciting things is just seeing that like trend line of like each case adds new people because they obviously there are folks that are coming back, but this total contacts that you can reach in the database with each interaction and this is a pattern we see across a lot of organizations is you know the they might have a list in place but it's not necessarily growing a whole lot but just by having everything on the platform and and with every touch point we're building our our database be that for that that project specifically or another kind of topic that they're subscribing to, right? A few years later, you're like, gosh, we've got tens of thousands of people. You know, in some organizations, it's like we've got half the population of our our county here. But yes, we're building towards that.

Yeah. You know, one you just mentioned about projects folks had participated in, you know, that's a huge thing, too. So no, maybe they don't subscribe to one of the interested parties list because they don't really want to get these notifications every month or week if you know, however the authentic schedule is, but they would probably be interested to know if something was happening with this case that they had previously participated in. And so that is captured and we are therefore able to if we need to go back and say, "Hey, this case is coming back up. you participated in it before, you know, they're going to be really happy that they got that followup. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that that's been

some of our resonant surveys we've done, like the biggest predictor of of growing trust, uh, is do we close the feedback loop? Do we follow up and let people know what happened after they they provided input. Um, and and each time you close that feedback loop, we're just building, you know, essentially building trust, we've always said, is not like something you can get any home runs with, but you can get a lot of singles and doubles when you do it right. And so definitely love to see your process there. Um the other thing that was near and dear to my heart that that you mentioned and then I went and dug and found some data on was the um the change in sentiment. Uh and

as a transportation planner, I had this like feeling uh that our world was being shaped by a handful of voices who are either financially interested in the outcome or like very opposed to the thing. And I just imagined our world being shaped in that way. I was like, we've got to get other people to the table. We've got to get uh call it the middle of the bell curve or you know just more voices. This is a sentiment chart here. Yeah. Overwhelmingly positive. It's these are zoning cases. We're going to have a lot of opposition here, but I I see some some weeks and months where you're getting more positive engagement. So, I guess yeah,

I'm kind of uh paraphrasing what you share with me, but I'd love to hear you talk more about that.

Yeah. you know, that kind of goes full circle back to what, you know, what is it that is going to push someone to participate and almost always it's going to be that they're really against something because I mean we are talking about things that affect people's lives. Um, and so it's much easier for someone to comment if they're against it um than it is to if they are in support of it. You know, they're just like, "Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea." And then they just go about their day. Um, but providing, you know, this platform where people can provide a one a oneliner. I like this idea. You know, they can do that via text message and it's super simple. They don't have to put any more effort in, but they are actually, you know, having their their voice heard about that they're okay with this moving forward. So, you know, that's the end goal is to have a a better picture or a glimpse of what the general public feels about it and not just the people that are really against it.

YouTube Premium is adree YouTube and the YouTube Music app alto together. How does how does affect everybody? Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, and when I saw only 16% positive, I was like, man, I was hoping that number would be a little higher. But then you you shared like maybe before uh was it one or two% maybe really low. Yeah. And if it was, it was somebody you know that probably like you just said might have financial interest in it. So they said, "Oh yes, I support this." Um yeah, you know, this this is a better visual of, you know,

what what other people are thinking besides just the people that are affected by it. Um that's great. Either in a bad way or financially. Well, I I think that that brings us to kind of like the a little bit of the zoom out and the uh the Q&A period here, but overall it's just like really exciting to see what you've achieved in just a short amount of time with the platform. And it means a lot to see the the way your team's embraced it and innovated and thought of creative uh applications of the tech. But I really like the uh the outcomes too. You know, it's like getting more people to the table um making a difference in the planning process. So, it's what we're here for.

Yes, definitely. that Trisha, I don't know if you've got anything in the chat you want us to tackle uh from a Q&A standpoint.

Yeah, we do have one question. Um if you go to the next slide, I did have a couple announcements and I want to say Nikki, this whole access database, colorcoded spreadsheets and smiley face icon just sent a chill to me because I remember that the smiley face though that that had me laughing. But um I just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for joining us today. We're so grateful to connect with our longtime customers and those of you exploring u public input. Um had a couple reminders. We got the Q&A. We do have one question in there. We got two now. Thanks for using that. If you have questions, now's the time to put them in there. We'll send the recording out in 24 hours. I also put Nikki's email here so if you want to connect with her later and have other questions um she's happy to connect with you. And then just a little plug for those of you who aren't familiar every year we do a state of resident engagement report. Um it's coming soon. I love that you have your phone out Jay because I worked really hard on that QR code. Um that's the code and the link to last year's report if you're not familiar. Basically, we talk to residents across the US about what their perceptions and experiences are engaging with government and it helps us understand, you know, ways we can help make it easier for them. So, um that's my little plug there. I'll get to the questions. Um the first one is about geoloc and the question is the location information something that staff has accessed using Google or how is that data quant quantified? Yeah, let's see if I can find that slide. Admin experience. So, we looked at the um the reporting I think for some of this. So, uh I can take a crack at it or what do you think Nikki from? Well, in our particular situation, um we do ask

people to either give us their address or at least share the um the closest intersection so we can have an idea of where, you know, they're coming from. Um but maybe they don't want to give us their full address so we can just have, you know, a general location. Um that was just our preference was to require people to provide that. Um, but there are options to be completely anonymous. You don't have to give any information. And I I do think there might be some geoloccation things, but I'll I'll let the expert speak to that.

Well, the we we really built out the geoloccation things with um the idea that it might not always be something where we ask for location. Obviously, you guys are really consistent with asking for it, which helps a ton. Um, but for every person that arrives on the site, we're using kind of the same technology used by like Lowe's or Home Depot. when you go and it tries to show you you're near a store when you go to their sites. Uh, under the hood, we've got something called GeoIP, which is pulling the general location of someone. And so, it's assigned that location to their profile until they provide us with something that's even better. So, if they provide a zip code or if they give us the cross streets like this person did here, uh, or even an address, you know, getting really granular, there's a lot of different ways people can provide location on the platform. ultimately our job is to manage that and then put it on the maps as the step one. But I think the question um was around like how do you quantify that too? So one of the things we didn't dive into today is is segmentation. Uh if you remember the report uh there's there's some of these pre-built segments that um uh get set up either as part of uh implementation. We we'll help you build these out using if you've got GIS data to create those uh those areas. Uh then as people participate we can segment uh using their location them into these groups and so you could see like the number of people that participated from that area you know in terms of quantifying it that way. I know a lot of times council districts are a big deal for that. It's like I want to hear what what my constituent said. Uh you can certainly do that with the reporting there but uh happy to answer more technical deep dives as as we go if you want to follow up with us over email can make that happen. Maybe next.

The next question we have from Sheila. She says, "Do you still have to send out notices by mail based on state code requirements?"

Um, we do to those that are within the 300 foot radius of a property. Um, you know, maybe one day we could connect our public input site with our assessor um data, which is how we pulled that at this point. Um, but you know, it just depends on what our tax assessor collects. So, if they are able to collect an email address, then that would be amazing. But, you know, when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, we are trying to notify the owners and within that radius. And so, what the best information we have is their mailing address where they get their their tax bill.

My name is Laura Raj. I'm 8 years old. I've been seeing since I was five. Unfortunately,

that's right. And this is one that we could revive potentially. We're spending a lot of time thinking about like the future of land use on the platform and like how do we plug into existing systems like in your case I think Tyler Intergov behind the scenes for the u the case records. Others might be using something like an Asella or Civic Plus. You know, we're we're looking at how do we pull from there to save you even that five minutes it takes you to set up. if we could cut that to one. Um but the uh the other side of that is parcel data. We had looked into it was right before the pandemic. We were working on um importing parcel data into the system to do that kind of site selection. The pandemic took us in some different directions. We worked a lot more on what we saw today in terms of the virtual the meetings and the uh data management. But that's somewhere I think if we hear that feedback enough that's that's a direction we'll go back. But there's there's ways that we can certainly um I think there's there's different providers for mailing via API like we could anyway I'm brainstorming now. This is what we do and uh look forward to iterating on that and I love the question. So

this is piggybacking on the mailing thing. Another person asked, do you include links to the site on the mailed notices?

Yes. you know, my favorite thing, and this probably will show my age, but um so each project um you can generate a QR code, which is so cool. Um so on those mailout letters, we always include the QR code that will take folks directly to the project page. Um, and then we have it set up where you know how to participate and then we list out one, you know, participate in our survey, here's the link, two, send us an email, three, um, you can fill out the do the survey via text. Um, or four, show it to the meeting. So, we try to get this information out as much as possible. Um, one of my things I would like to implement is, you know, most of you all probably know we have posted notice um, requirements. So we actually go post physical signs at the location where the potential change is um for us to include um the QR code on those signs is kind of my next level of of um you know implementing what we have.

Yeah. And I know there's a Larry County may have also done that. Just thinking through the the folks I've talked to about their land use process. I I I'm a QR code believer. I was a skeptic in the early days but then they added it to our cameras. I was too. Yeah, it's like who's gonna download an app to get the SC. Oh, it's in the camera. You to love it. Yes. Yes. What we got next? Next question. Are we able to implement inspection requests or permit applications?

I think we we've had some cases where that process is more closely tied to like the um the followup after a permit um application like, "Hey, how was your experience?" or after an inspection. We've seen those where we can do a programmatic um followup with the resident and um I think it'd be a good one to dive into in terms of what that would look like. Obviously, some of those might be uh more public than others. Uh and I'm not sure how much you want to put those onto a public portal, but you could put those onto a portal. Um so, definitely something to explore there. Short answer is I think so. Let's dive in.

Well, this one's kind of piggybacking that public portal. Um, this person asks, "Nikki, are your public input pages serving as your official project web pages as well?"

Yes. Yep. So, we have actually moved all of So, we used to post it on our county web page. Um, and we do still keep some records there like meet, you know, official meeting minutes and that sort of thing, but you know, it's just made it easier that we're not having to work with the IT department to do all of our, you know, posting work for us. Um so we have now redirected um anyone that visits our planning um web page is there is then redirected directly to our um our public input pages to get information on the cases and agendas.

Yeah, I think a really big point around again the resident trust thing is u using a subdomain of the county website for it. So, a lot of residents, unless they're sending it to a public input email address, they may not even notice that they're on a public input site. It's all Charleston County's branding and engage.charleston county.org. Um, so all those things kind of add up to an experience that feels like the website anyway. So, exactly.

Yeah. So, it's great that we've been able to take a lot more ownership of, you know, instead of saying, "Okay, dear it, please upload this packet. Oh, I don't like how you formatted it. Can you please rephrase this? Um, you know, now we we have the control over doing our room posting and everything. So, that's made it really nice. Awesome. Well, the 45 minutes went by. I love those questions. We'll follow up. Uh, we've got a couple more that queued up just now. We should probably wrap and give folks back time here. Just in time. I'll follow up with the rest of the answers via email with the recording. I hope everyone has a really good day and thanks for joining us. Thank you so much.

And please reach out if you have direct questions. I'm happy to happy to work with anybody. That's awesome. All right, we'll see y'all. Thanks again. Good job.

Yeah, it's been very exciting to have three or four staff members that can use it from my assistance. some of the other process of not requiring address because I know you said the corner So, but ultimately I think decision makers like to know where these people are and are they legitimate?

That was something that we definitely let someone intersection are in that neighborhood or whatnot. But you know, that's one of those easily that way information. Well, well, these days I can certainly understand why people don't want to put their their full address in,

right? And I think it'll answer it down to on the on the geographic case where we had a lot of people that were in the same But curious about

Atlanta is mentioned when you're near a certain store. So I don't know that a little bit are dismissed.

Yeah. County direction. Charlotte now you find that certain demographics on that will fill it out there's a certain or is it Yeah, I think it's a case by obvious but That means probably because it'll ask you question and it is funny. lot of times thank you so much for the help.

So that is something that I do kind of plan on looking at anal How many contacts do you have now?

I think it's about a lot of people whenever they commentister. Pretty cool. So, can you estimate like how much quicker things can get done with this or is it if it's too hard? I was just wondering you like does it cut your workload in half or a quarter or

Yeah, I mean my back so she had a lot to do with Usually we'll get you'll have all the comments in one place and I tag them over time at one time the start always kind of driven my interests that we got today and we have people saying my email so much and feel comfortable that we provided you everything we I would say that's

all the time we would spend were people calling in or emailing I want to be on your interest party for this or take me off your interested party for that and then emailing it here's our packet can you upload it and then checking it and oh we don't like the way this is you need to fix that and then checking it so it takes away a lot of that stuff too which is great for us and for it too they don't have to deal with user Yeah. Really thick. Yeah. Yeah. All of the information that we saw, it's all very interesting. I need to go and look at all of this stuff. Is all the stuff that we saw available to people who access platform everything?

No excuse. usually keep the current months and then as it goes through the council process all those projects stay on the site commission process with a memo to the project that's constantly small thing. I don't know whe you said that the comments that came in after the meeting. I've never seen comment about the meeting.

Well, now you can click on the link. No, no, I know we were doing that.

But before,

but we could go look at we could go see what the what the outcome was. I mean, what the input was.

So if I wanted to subscribe to the list, but then also there's a little dot It's a larger plan out there's different permitting stuff that isn't going to a board or something. We have recently opened up our permitting software entervs and search the permits and on their own without having to contact us. So

easy as yeah it's pretty it's on the that is on our portal our customer service portal. Yeah you can go it's a different because it's our permitting system that we're tied in with building services and storm water as well for issuing permits. So there's things like plan review. The only thing we don't have on there are code cases. So code cases code enforcement people have been banned. Yes.

But it's only active cases plus one month. It's not a database of things. So what Andrea is talking available to an extent it doesn't really who is on our peritting customers.

So once that moves on. It's archived. You just have to go find it. Yeah. We have it all on one page. information that we did in 2026. We'd be able to go back and pull that information. Cool.

Anything else? because Yeah, you get credit. Yeah, you can get credit. Yeah. Make sure we all get our credits except for Logan. You have any? Okay. All right. Is there any business that nobody wants to bring up? There's no further business. This training workshop stands adjourned. As a reminder, the planning commission will hold its annual meeting on Monday, March 9th at noon in the committee room, followed by the regularly scheduled planning commission meeting at 2 p.m. That's the one where lunch will be served. All right.