Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You know what's really weird? I used to be president of ways of excuse you. You bring yourself to order. Good evening everybody and welcome to the planning and zoning commission meeting of Beach Maryland. It is October I'm sorry it's November I'm so far behind. It's November the 5th. Um and I would like to call this meeting to order. Um can we have a roll call please? Um, let's start down with Commissioner Han. Kelly Han present. Christopher Smith present. Mary Sue Gman present. And I'm Cindy Greenold, Larry Brown.

So, please note that we do have quorum, but we are missing um Commissioner RK. Thank you. Okay. Approval of the Okay, we've got all approvals here. So, let's first let's do first do pledge of allegiance and then we'll start doing everything else. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible for all. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Now we're going to go to the approval of the November 5th, 2025 planning commission agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? Second. Any changes? Okay, I see none. All in favor? I. Okay, everybody. All in favor? Number four, approval of the minutes of August 27th. We need this due to a lack of minimum four count confirmative vote. Um, so we need again to vote for approval. Any um motion to approve the minutes of August 27th, 2025?

We'll make a motion to approve the minutes of August 27, 2025. Thank you. Uh, I have a second. Okay. Any questions, changes? All in favor of approving? I Any appro uh any abstensions or changes [laughter] that? Yes, Mr. Brown and I. Yes. and me. Two abstensions. Uh, now we're going to go to number five. Approval of the minutes of September 24th. I'm sorry. We didn't do those last time or did we have another same issue? No, we're in this is October's meeting, not November.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, approval of the minutes of September 24th, 2025. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. Any changes? Any concerns? All in favor? I. I. Thank you. Okay. The next thing I'd like to do is I would like to first of all, there's no public comments out there. So, um, we'll come back to the dis. I want to say congratulations to our planning director, Miss Sarah Franklin, for winning her oh four-year term to the town council of Upper Maril. Yeah, they may be getting Well, it's [clears throat] they rotate the mayor. Oh,

they selfappoint, so it's all good. So, you know what? She's got a four-year term. That is that means she's a high vote getter, which is great. Takes a lot of work. I know how that's a lot of work. Thank you. Good for you. Hope you enjoy the next four years. [laughter] Was so interesting.

I know. I know. Great. All right. So, now for the hardest work. land use classification table is what we are now working on tonight. We're going to probably spend at least an hour or so, probably maybe an hour and a half on this. Um, the first thing I'd like is staff report, please. So, just for the background, because I'm not sure who's had all that background, we were looking at home occupations specifically. And when I went in to address the home occupations, I noticed that it wasn't just home occupations in the land use table. That looked a little funny in comparison to what the comprehensive plan had stated for moving forward with um those changes to zoning. And so I went through the old land use table, the new land use table, evaluated everything for where the changes happened and whether that was consistent with the comprehensive plan and with what the intent of each district is.

When you say the old and the new saying prior to the one we have now and one prior to that is the old.

Yes. Correct. So you did a comprehensive resoning for the new people on the on the planning commission. When you establish your comprehensive plan, you review it every 10 years. You do a new a comprehensive plan update. It's a 20-year plan. And then that is the plan for the town. And you have to go back and review your zoning ordinance to see if it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. And you need to update. So, it's comprehensive update of your zoning ordinance to ensure consistency with your comprehensive plan. And we think that something happened. We can't identify what when the comprehensive resoning happened because something when you transition from one RV district, residential village district to two residential village districts, the actual changes you intended didn't show up in the ordinance correctly. they're in the wrong wrong residential village district. Um, and so there were a couple other issues beyond that. And so I've kind of outlined, you know, we have the residential planned community. There's some issues with the way that's been set up um with regard to like it's it's just not allowing all the things it seems to be intended to allow. Um, and then there's some current state law um that there are a little concerns about with regard to cannabis uh law and group home law. Uh we will talk about ADUs, but I I want to make that a more comprehensive discussion um because that state law doesn't have to happen go into effect until next October. Um, so I think those things are worth flagging. [snorts]

Um, and so that's the overview of my staff report. I was asked by the chair to sort of provide an overview of the zoning ordinance. Do you want me to do that? Um, now?

Yeah. What I want to do is because we have a a couple new commissioners who probably don't understand necessarily how the districts are set up and because so this is why I had them bring their their zoning code. Actually, if everybody could go to their zoning code book or onto the online and go to um uh 290 down uh 2910 uh actually 298 um article 3 zoning districts.

I think we need to go over what the intent of the districts are all about. And uh after the comprehensive plan uh the commission chose and then of course the uh town council uh went ahead and approved new districts. We completely changed uh not all of them but some of them up. So now there are actually additional ones that were not there let's say eight years ago or even six years ago. Um so it's a little more confusing but um if you read down on the purpose of districts and I'm reading this also out for the uh people who might be streaming in who don't understand really the intention of the districts and why we have taken a town of three square miles and have turned it into 11 different zones. I know it sounds like a lot for a little tiny town. Um but we when we looked at the town we determined that there were little pockets of this and that and we wanted to identify them so that we could actually be more precise in our uses and characteristics. So number one the purpose and intent of districts is to understand the character of the area and the current land uses. Number two, the suit suitability of each district for the uses permitted in each area so that when somebody comes to the town hall, they can talk to the planner and yes, this district will allow these particular uses in it. Um, number three, the encouragement of the stability of the district and of land values therein and also its uh environmental considerations and then these are uh these are recommendations of the town of Ches Beach comprehensive plan. So, uh, of course we always have to follow a comprehensive plan and so these districts do that. Um, and then if we continue on, uh, down below in our town code, it tells us about each particular

district and what each one is characterized by. And, um, if you notice, we were talking about, first of all, we have residential. We have, let me see how many residentials we have. One, two, three, four, five, six. We have um six residential zones. Correct. Six residential zones. We're in 2910. 298.8. Sorry, there's I think there's just five. You may have added residential planned community district. I'm sorry. Did you add because there's five. Did you add eight? I'm sorry. There could be. Let's see. There's one, two, there's three. Low density, medium density, high density.

There's the RV or the residential village. one and two because we divided up the residential village group as okay

Miss Franklin said and um then of course we have all the commercial ones down below as indicated up there. Um the commercial ones um were basically characterized by size and intensity. So your maritime commercial is of course your largest area where we've got a lot of you know parking etc. And we've got a lot of commercial such as the Rod and Wheel. The commercial plaza is where the Roland's Plaza is. So, of course, we have a lot of parking and some of our bigger um commercial uh facilities are in that zone. And then the town commercial district is like the um I'm trying to think is it the like the Leto's Picho? No, that's not the one. Is it the town one? The neighborhood one is like where the tangled salon is up on the hill. The little little tiny

um commercial zone. And then the town commercial zone is where the antiques. The antiques. That's right. Up and down 260 is the antiques area. Um where else is the town commercial? I'm trying to think where else we have the on both sides of the Just on both sides. Right. Also here like this little area.

Yeah, that's right. and that um so if you if you can all just read on your own exactly why we've designated those different um districts, it's all in the the land use or the uh the code here on 290 um 2901 etc. So that's important to understand. And also what else was important for everybody to understand is what the different um categories of use are. The permitted use the which is P um it's so everything is permitted subject to all applicable regulations. C is conditional use. Uses designated by the letter C shall be permitted subject to certain conditions and then the conditions are listed in another part of the the code. Uh SE is special exceptions. When you see SE that is special special exceptions um and I never really understood what those special exceptions were exactly, but I think that of course is for the board of appeals to determine and so that's why we have SE in there. SC is special exceptions with conditions. So it's a little confusing there. You see the special exception twice, but SC is the one with conditions. So um anything more can you add to the SE and the SC? Right. So [clears throat] the special special exceptions are going to be granted by the board of appeals and these are paraphrased, right? But the standards for the approval is that it's not detrimental to the public health, safety, or general welfare, that it's harmonious in character and doesn't harm the neighborhood if it doesn't impede development on

surrounding properties. It doesn't adversely impact town infrastructure. It doesn't create traffic problems, pedestrian and vehicular, and it's consistent with the town's comprehensive plan. Um, the special exceptions subject to conditions will have conditions, additional conditions on top of the standards that are in the um, zoning ordinance. And they, [clears throat] let me see what section they're in. Sorry. I think it's 10, but could be.

Yeah, it's 11. So 29011. So if you see it on the table, if if you're looking at your land use table. Yeah.

Um and you go down to for example dwelling accessory. You see that that's a conditional use C. Then you go over to your zoning ordinance 290-11 and you're going to see that there is accessory dwellings. A is accessory dwellings and it has eight um conditions. So if someone comes in with an accessory dwelling, I can approve it as long as it meets these conditions. Whereas if you look at let's see do you have any SE must a tourist home.

You'll see that in the TCP and MC you can have a tourist home but you're going to have to go before the board of appeals with that. Are there any questions about these designations PC and SC? Does anybody have any questions? Because that's really important to understand before we move forward. Everybody has to know what those mean and what those uh signify because that's critical in determining what uses we're going to allow for all these different sections. And I think we're going to have I'm beginning to think we need to go back through all of them now. all the different not just RV2.

So I didn't I went through everything. What are the changes besides RV2? Because I think I'm noticing

right. So I tried to summarize them in the memo rather than be detailed because I think we need an overview. Um, one of the biggest ones is that the RPC just like created a situation where you no longer are creating a planned community, right? Um, so the the limitations on it um were pretty strict and I think what happened is that the RPC is a floating district, right? So when someone wants to develop a large parcel, they may request that the floating district be applied. But a floating district sits on top of your underlying zoning. And somehow in there, the floating district became the underlying zoning. This creates problems when people in Richfield Station come to me with for permits because they don't actually have underlying zoning. I mean they do but they don't on the map.

So I think in wanting to create restrictions in Richfield Station it should have been create giving it a category. Sorry.

Yes. So, kind of like if you think of your map, okay, this isn't a good analogy because y'all didn't used to do this, but we used to put layers. We used to literally take tracing paper and put layers on top of the map and draw things on them. And so, your base map has all of your it's the zoning map you're looking at. And then a floating district is a layer that you stick on top of it, but the what's underneath still remains like the critical area is a floating district. So hover [snorts] be more restrictive with your floating district. Um I believe so

because it couldn't be less restrictive, right? The other thing applies then it would just be more I mean each level you build makes it more restrictive. Correct. Correct. Have your first layer and that's the general and then everything that goes on top of it and builds becomes more restrictive.

Yes. except for was what the RPC is doing is allowing it. It also moves around, right? It doesn't exist anywhere on the map the way the critical area does or it shouldn't. If someone wants to come in with a development and they have 10 acres of land they want to develop on, they want to develop it all together and they want to preserve this and put a park here and put homes here that they can ask for the RPC to apply in order to create that development in an organized way. And so that's what virtual station did. And I don't know where along the line it became like the underlying zoning exists. It's just not on the map anymore. So it creates complications. And it also creates complications because when the zoning was updated, the residential plan community was changed to match what you all wanted for Richfield Station rather than just putting Richfield Station back to RLD or RM. If you look at the other town home communities, if you pull up your

That's what I was wondering why they weren't all the same. Why Richfield Station had a spe special designation. Yeah, I I don't I can't say what happened. Um but it if you look at the map, every other town home community has a zoning district that's on this list. We know what the original can't [snorts] you just

there is right right um but we should change we we we can know what it is and what I actually do is refer back to the original planning right um but the um the map should reflect the underlying zoning not the overlay Okay. So, are basically we just considering whether or not we should change Richfield Station to in RLD.

Well, so that's there's there's the problems with the land use map in the RV1 and RV2. There's Richfield Station's overlay zone. there's the fact that you don't allow group homes anywhere um which isn't permitted. Um and then there's the there's complications around the limiting of the can of cannabis sales and there's complications around ADUs, but I wanted to bring ADUs to you as a separate

Well, just just going to group homes. um the last uh board that not commission but the uh town council there weren't going to be any group and I think they went to court on this. Have you talked with the town council about this?

I haven't talked with the town council because it's zoning. Um, so I don't know about a past court case. I don't know if you guys know what happened with that, but I can certainly ask about that. Um, [clears throat] the thing about some of the stuff with state preeemption, like which we talked about and for state preeemption is when the state decides it doesn't matter what your zoning says, you're going to have to allow this thing. And we came across that with the critical area regulations because you all didn't want to allow solar. So you wanted to remove the solar regulations that were in the critical area. The state has preempted your ability to not allow solar. So you have to allow solar per state law. Um and [clears throat] the critical area commission is trying to help you make that solar be better for the environment and freer. So that's why you ultimately went and adopted the critical area regulations in reference to solar. Um so sometimes you can have what you have in the zoning ordinance, but if the state preempts it, the implementation,

I get that. But you're saying that there's supposed to be solar in the critical areas. I'm saying if someone comes in isn't going to develop solar, right? We can't actually we can't say in our zoning ordinance you cannot there's no solar anywhere in the town of Ches. I understand that but I thought you've referenced something about the critical area and solar and that's

so if you can't you can't prohibit solar in the critical area either. So the critical area commission established regulations around that solar to help protect your critical areas in the face of something that we're required to do which will affect it right I mean we can discuss how we feel about state pree [laughter] my face but I get okay thank you well from my understanding of group homes we're talking Commissioner Brown is that it's a federal issue. Okay.

Not just state. So I'm not sure we even have the ability to uh limit any group homes within our town boundaries. That was, you know, years in the the making. But unless you have new information where things change all of a sudden, but I I do not have information issue. It's a federal law that we have to allow group homes. What is where is that? I could Google I'm sure you find I'm sure you can find it. It's definitely something fair housing act. It's illegal for local government fair housing. Yeah, there you go. Discriminate. Thank you.

Um okay. So, are we going to just accept that it's federal? Are we going to accept that it's federal? Well, if it's fair housing that makes sense that Yeah, I know. I remember, you know, dealing with group homes before, and it's it's definitely the fair housing. And I mean, it's saying you can regulate land use, but you can't single out or redistrict group homes in a way to effectively ban or burden them. Like yeah, you I mean you could prohibit them in certain districts. You can't you just can't prohibit them entirely. And it makes sense to prohibit them in the critical area, right? Or in flood zones.

In certain flood zones, right? Exactly. But exactly.

Okay. Um what else did you want to share with us? Um [gasps] um so those are the the big ones. I kind of just broke down the zoning ordinance in this. Um I think we talked about that. I have the home occupations. We can go back to that one. This talks about the overlay and flo floating district. So you can see that's paraphrased again about the [clears throat] residential plan community. Um the intent of it is to provide greater flexibility in selecting planned community areas, create community open space and protect environmentally sensitive areas. And then critical area is also an overlay district that always exists. It doesn't hover around and only land when we let it. Um, and then the rest of the zoning I'm just this just has all the zoning ordinance. Stop me if you want me to not keep going, but you know you have dimensional requirements. So there's the table that establishes setbacks, height requirements that the lot coverage, etc. you have a section on parking and loading. I don't I don't think we need to go through all that.

I I want to also let them know that this map I wanted us to look at to understand exactly where the RV sections. So, what I want them to do is basically examine either on the computer or on this beautiful map you gave us where the RV2 RV1 I know that you combined them basically for uses, right? I mean, as far as I mean, you didn't combine them, but you have similar uses for the RB1 and RB2. Yeah, I'm suggesting generally similar use similar more strict conditions in the RV one, right?

So that it still maintains the residential character because if you notice in the um in town code, we're talking primarily residential when it comes to the RV1 and a little well, how does it describe it? Um they have an exact way and I think we have to be very particular about that. Uh do you have it written up where? No. Which one are you looking for?

So the RV1 is intended to protect the single family residential character allowing detached houses that are compatible in design and scale with the prevailing residential uses and the existing pattern of building streets and blocks. Um and then RV2 is intended to protect the primarily single family residential character while accommodating a variety of housing types compatible and use scale etc. um and so on. So I think it seems like it's very similar but there's just a slight distinction of RV1 being prim uh being mostly I mean just actually strictly I would guess

residential. That's how I'm interpreting that. That's how we've always interpreted it. Whereas the RV2, which if you look on your map where the RV2 is, it's uh across the street from Baya, if you know where the Bayia area is, um it's um over off of Yeah, Ches uh Beach Road over there off of uh Yeah, you did the firehouse. Yeah, they got close to the fire house. Yeah. Yeah, that that firehouse area. Well, the firehouse area is actually in the NC area, isn't it? It's with the neighborhood, the Leo's Pizza area, but it's corn. It's catty corn. It's adjacent to it. Yes.

Fields kind of by Seagate. Yes, exactly. Um, so the RV2, as I recall talking about this, and maybe Commissioner Brown may remember, we always talked about it having those little mom and pop

home occupations, home businesses, where you see the shoe guy and the shoe repair man and the this and the that. Um, we see that in the RV, too. We have seen that historically, and I think they're still there. If I looked on my my internet, I could probably find them. Um, uh, so we don't want to eliminate that. And of course, it was eliminated in this chart. So, what we need to do is

put it back basically in my opinion. I mean, that's of course what we want to talk about. Um, right now it shows that it's all prohibited. Uh, again, I have no clue as to how that was modified or amended. I don't know what happened. Um, but we need to address that tonight. So, if we go back to the agenda and there is a list of the uses I think that are compatible in the memo. Oh, I Excuse me, Madam Chair. I have a question. So, looking at Richfield Station, which is RPC, which is residential plan community, does that also allow for businesses in it? Because I think our previous conversation it does not

does not. And we have people that have businesses in their homes.

So the home occupation and if you look at your memo, the home occupation is its own separate separate section because I think someone who's running a business out of their home that is just them and um and they're doing sort of consulting work or whatever their business is that is having no traffic impact. You don't have employees. you really don't know it's happening. Um, I don't know that prohibiting it in residential areas is nec is necessary from a consistency with your comprehensive plan, consistency with single family housing, neighborhood character, etc., etc. And so um the RPC is needs to be addressed on its own. But I think that by having two sets of conditional uses for home occupations, one for your um RV1, RV2, neighborhood commercial, town commercial, plaza commercial, and marine commercial. That allows you to have like one one or two employees, right? like and have some parking. So, if you're a doctor's office, you can have someone come in versus in the RV1, RLD, RMD, RHD, RBC, and RC, which is so, you know, if you already have a house in the RC, um then having that business in your home that is having absolutely no impact on the community, I think it should be allowed. I think it's consistent with a comprehensive plan to allow. I think you guys think it should be allowed based on what you've been saying and we just need to be careful to prevent it from having a traffic impact. So, I did actually add

one thing today. I had previously just taken out the parking requirement. Um, but I today I was thinking to add that just that there's no additional parking needed nor traffic generated by the home occupation as a condition. And then that way you can create two different types of home occupation, right? Your RV two home occupations where you have a hair salon or a doctor's office and your every other residential um home occupation where maybe you're running a photography studio out of your home but no one ever comes, right? Or you're do running a planning business out of your home. No one knows those things are happening. But what if you have a bakery and you have people coming? Or what if you have plumbing and you have deliveries made or they make jewelry and they have people coming. So I mean it's not potentially like you're at a warehouse where the supplies are coming or whatever, but there is still traffic coming. Depends like on how right like if you're So the first one was the baker. The bakery is just the way it's the way I'm proposing to [music] set it up. The bakery is only going to be in commercial and RV2 areas, not in any other residential areas.

Unless One question, would you be allowed to have a cottage bakery if you weren't selling from there? If you had a commercial kitchen, but you're going to the farmers market to sell, that would be

Yes. It's if you're having people come to your home to pick up any of these things. Obviously, if you have you're making jewelry, you're going to have Amazon down your street all the time. But you know what? We all have Amazon down our street all the time anyway. So, I'm not sure that that actually changes a traffic pattern. Um, but if you're getting pallets delivered, that may be a different concern. [clears throat] Actually, we did have a problem. Yeah, I was I think I told you about the alleyway behind my house. A gentleman was running a business out of there and he did have Amazon and FedEx coming up and down that little alleyway to the point where the alley is so broken down now because of the heavier truck

that now it needs to be completely redone. I just for argument's sake, can you blame that on this guy running a business and not just everybody's Amazon use? Um well it was an extraordinary amount of Amazon FedEx. It was just too many big trucks. normal family wouldn't have more than maybe one delivery a day. He had like two or three a day or something. It was extraordinary. Um but um I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to to do this. I think what we need to do is go down the agenda and look at the uses for the RV2 that you were trying that you suggested that we include and I think we need to discuss it.

That's what I'd I'd like to do. So if you go back to uh the first page of the agenda, uses for RV2 um they you start out with daycare center, nursery school, kindergarten or other agency giving care to persons as a commercial operation. Um what is every Now I I remember this one as a an issue because it's more than just a home daycare. You're talking this is a more commercial daycare where you're having

more than one maybe more than the person who lives there staffing it. You're having maybe multiple staff members. Is that I mean when you say agency we're talking bigger, right? This is not just a could be home daycare or home because we have down below we have a um let's see do we have that down below? Yeah, we have um commercial Uh, basically what I was talking more like a home daycare, a home daycare where a mom just has like six kids in there is a little different than say having several age groups of six each, you know, that kind of a thing, which I think of when you say agency,

right? So, the home daycare is permitted with or is it's a special conditional a special condition use in the RV1, RV2. So you can say this isn't what we meant. So we're not going to permit this one. This is just me. On the other hand, we [clears throat] are required, I think. Mhm. Maybe not in the state of Maryland as I think about it. I don't know. Um are we required to have allowed daycare in home daycarees in communities? Are we required by law here? Well, I'm not sure the answer to that, but you do require you you do allow home daycarees in communities.

We do allow them, but I was just wondering if there was if it's a law that we that the state of Maryland requires us to allow that. I do not know if it is a law. I know that they definitely want more daycarees.

Okay. So, the question is um are we okay with the daycare center, nursery school, etc. uh if it's within a certain criter a certain set of criteria in other words a certain size not more than let's say six kids or well whatever it is we decide can we do it that way shall we do it that structure it that way so yeah you can leave it at the home daycare or you can create conditional uses around a day a larger daycare so um whichever or you can just say no we're going stick with just the home day care. Um, but whichever you want to do, let me know and then I can um what does everybody think about a commercial [clears throat] operation for a daycare etc? What is what is your thoughts about that? Anybody have any ideas? What do you think? Yes. Does again if it doesn't do my mouth. If it doesn't impede the neighborhood, it just again if it's like something that's small I don't see why not, provided that, you know, and I don't know how it's not too loud for people that might be living next door that have something else going on. Um, and so I don't know how you do that, but I mean, daycarees are needed. So, I mean, it's a necessary part of,

you know, people going to work. Mhm. So, are we talking about like which districts are we talking about for for daycarees? Is that allowing? They're talking I mean I think you were talking about all districts I mean all resial. I'm talking about your RV 2. Um it is under the RV2.

Right now the daycare centers are only allowed in neighborhood commercial, town commercial, and plaza commercial. Um, in neighborhood commercial and plaza commercial, there are it's a it's a special exception with conditions. Um, and those conditions are in relation to setbacks, um, lot size per pupil, um, vegetative screening, uh, where the outdoor play activity or play areas are located. um screening and sound insulation related to those uh and architectural harmony with the neighborhood.

Well, if I understand you correctly, that means they couldn't be in Richfield Station. They couldn't be in Richfield Station. Correct. We have a problem because I know there's a couple of them in Richfield Station. So, a home daycare is permitted that. So, we're talking about two different things. If you look at your land use table, um number nine is a home daycare and number 10 is a daycare center. Um in [clears throat] Ridgefield Station, it's got to be a home daycare. There's not a whole building. Now, whether it's permitted, whether it has a permit or not, I don't

I don't know either. Um but it is permitted with special conditions and for the um home daycare. The special conditions are meeting state and local health department requirements. Uh safe pickup and delivery um location for all persons on site and meeting individual parking requirements of home daycare businesses in addition to any residential parking requirements for the dwelling. What you're talking about here is for RV2 and it involves family members plus one employee. So that's the that's the home occupation which is its own sort of separate. If you look at your land use table, if everyone can do that for me, you're going to see that you have the uses on the side and each of that those uses has a number and then you have the districts across the top. So home occupation is one of the uses. Um it is number I'm having trouble finding it now. Oh, maybe it says in my It's number 60 in your land use table.

So, customary home occupation is number 60 in the land use table um under unclassified uses. But what we're talking about at the moment is a daycare center which is number 10. So each each use we're talking about is its own has its own separate whether it's permitted and then its own separate conditional uses. You kind of have to have the land use table in one hand and the zoning ordinance in the other to go between them to understand the regulations. So, I think we're we need to talk about both, but we're currently talking about number 10, the daycare center. and specifically not a home daycare center.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm looking at residential uses number three, townhouse dwelling for the RPC.

And we have town houses in Richfield Station and it says it's not permitted. So, this is part of the problem with MPC, but they're permitted because they exist, but they wouldn't be permitted if somebody came in. If if you decided, I'm going to take down my single family house and build two town houses here. Well, that would be strange, right? But but it wouldn't you wouldn't be allowed to. So, the developer that wants to develop the town houses that are coming up, how does that work since it's not permitted in these new regulations? I'm not certain, but they are approved for all of that under the floating zone. Right. So, it's a little complicated with the floating zone, but I think what happened here complicates things more because the RPC was never intended to create those limits, right? So, the RPC landed and and possibly the RPC is still on Richfield Station because Richfield Station isn't complete, but because it's been incomplete for so long, it the we have to have underlying zoning apply for people who want to put in a swimming pool or a shed or

So, what what would you change RPC to? I would put RPC back to permit a bunch of a bunch of things and I would just apply an underlying zoning category.

What cate? Well, it it will actually be multiple categories in Richfield Station because there's some areas that'll be RLD and then the areas with the town homes will be RHD um or RMD if you don't want to allow future but like as redevelopment happens that's a long-term thing but we need to look at that is what I'm saying. Um, do we need to look at that before he starts building?

I do not believe so because of the approval of the floating zone and he was approved under the floating zone under the previous like he wasn't he's not being approved for the floating zone now. He was already approved for the floating zone with what the floating zone was. So So the floating zone isn't going to be on the It should be on the table or it could be on the table. So you would you would have the the area in field listed as RV1 or RV2

with an RPC overlay. Yes. And then you'd have another column on that same same across line that have RPC. Mhm. Which would then negate what you put in the RV1. It wouldn't because the RPC can only apply when you're coming in with the here is my development, right? You can't apply the RPC to a single lot. That's what's causing the problem. No, I'm we're talking about numerous lots, right? All RV, say RV2, [clears throat] right? And then over in this column here, you're going to have RPC, right?

Which is going to say not permitted. RPC shouldn't say not permitted is what I'm saying,

right? is that RPC says not RPC is supposed to allow more flexibility and different ways of developing and preserving open space on the site, but the way this table is, it doesn't do that anymore. So, when the table was updated, what I'm saying is it's not just the RV1 and RV2 districts that got to be inconsistent with the comprehensive plan and the intent intent of the zoning ordinance. multip that happen in multiple places. I have a very complicated color-coded table that I use to figure out where the problems were. Um, and I think the RPC is one of those like bigger. So, there's RV2, here's a lot of things. RPC, here's a lot of things. And then you have just a few uses that are creating problems across categories. So, you only have two columns really that are problematic and then you have a few rows that are problematic. Does that follow? No. [gasps] Okay. So, the RPC [clears throat] should not prohibit things

that are allowed in only add to it. So, if it says not probed in in the column, yes, unless you're going to come up with a new chart, new we need to fix the chart is what I'm saying. I know you're going to fix it with a new column. What are you talking about? Some other fix. No, no, you're going to you're going to keep the RPC column, but like town homes shouldn't be not permitted. They should be permitted because

not finished. Not just the community is not finished, but if you are going to develop if an RHD can have town homes in it and you want to do a residential plan community, then what you're saying is your residential plan community can't have any RHD in it, which doesn't make sense from a preservation perspective because when you include that RHD, then you're able to preserve more land and create more open space. I mean, I don't know exactly what happened or what conversations you guys had. That's clear. I don't know if you were Okay, so the three of you maybe know or remember. Um, but I don't I can't say how this happened. I can only say it's it should be it should be fixed and it [laughter] has. Okay, if we go back, let's

Did you get any answer to your question? Did Okay, fine. [laughter] We'll move on. I it's just that we're going to update it. We're going to change it. We're not going to create a new column. We just need to fix this column. So, we're going to have the same chart with an RPC column and the other column, right? But they will allow the same things the same things if I can clarify. So, I'm I'm just trying to understand. So, the RPC you're going to further break down within those communities what's allowed, right? Yeah. Right now, if you look at your land use chart, there's an RPC column. But what Commissioner Brown is correctly saying is that it doesn't allow town homes.

Sure. It's mixed use in there right now. And it should be it should allow town homes to be consistent. That's what we need to update. That's what we need to do is we need to fix

this column. And that's in your we haven't gotten to that part of the memo yet, but that is in the memo. It comes after the home occupation section. Okay. So let's go back to um number 10. Number 10 is uh on the chart. Well, I guess on your chart or if you want to look at your agenda, daycare center, nursery school, kindergarten or other agency giving care to persons as a commercial operation. And this is not to be confused with a home daycare, which is I think what Commissioner Han is talking about in Richfield Station. And I bet you know the the mom who just has like a few kids you know whatever. So I think as I recall our discussion about this way back we were concerned about the impact in the community RV2 community. Um if you had more than a few kids you could end up having uh traffic u uh too many loud noises outside playing. Of course they're always going to go outside and do some play. So I think we were concerned. think that was correctly done um when it said not permitted. I don't think we wanted to permit that just for fear of all the impact uh to the residents in RV2.

Okay. Uh any uh that's my recollection. Anybody else thinking about this? I I certainly want to keep the small home care uh situation available, but the commercial daycare is a concern. Uh what do you all think about it? the uh Okay, I am missing Yes, I know. Okay, you're gonna have to go on to the computer, I think, because Yes, you're missing some of I know. Yes, I see you're missing the even pages. Yes, you are. Okay, that's why you need to go on to your computer and really Do you want me to bump it over here?

Yeah, there you go. Put it up there. Let me I'm gonna It seems to get lost when I bring it over here, but let's see. So, Madam Chair, what about the what about the home daycarees right now? I don't I don't know the specific numbers, but I'm sure that there are already in Chesapeake Beach, but wait, I'm trying to think of like is Bright Beginnings are they or there would be the commercial agency that I was talking about not wanting to have in the RV2s. the the home daycare is like when mom just says, "Hey, I'm gonna have six kids and that's it." And keeps it to a minimum, but the agency is when you get to that kind of commercial facility that I'm concerned about

because that's right on the corner of a that's on the corner. Yes, it is. And a lot of times if it's on a corner and the the playground is towards the busy street, it's not as much of an impact. But we don't have a lot of I mean, we might have enough of those kind of places in RV, too. I would just be concerned that if we allow it, then we're going to have a hard time, you know, keeping them out of the area. I guess we can condition it to death, but

Yeah. And the minimum lot size is 20,000 square ft. So, a little less than half an acre. Um, plus plus 2,500 square feet of lot area for each person cared for above 10 persons. So once you have more than 10 kids, you're increasing the size of the lot you need to be on. Um, no part of the building shall be located within 30 ft of any adjoining property in residential use. Um, vegetated screening and buffers are provided. There's like outdoor pl outdoor plate and recreational area shall be located in the rear yard and its boundary shall be at least 10 feet from the rear lot line and not nearer to any other lot line than the required yard setback.

So there's a lot of setback regulations and size regulations that would make it a unique lot. Yeah. Do do any lots even qualify for that in RV? There there are a couple larger lots that might a couple but yeah there aren't probably a lot of them and you put all of those simulations then like work. Yeah. Cool. You found the unicorn.

All I'm thinking about is these single moms trying to find a place for their kid and it is very difficult because there's not a lot of openings for kids. So while I understand us wanting to protect at the same time there is a need for daycare field station or general both. I mean I know I don't I know there's home daycarees. I don't know if there's like daycare centers but there's a daycare center just up the road here elementary school. Yeah. Right. that that's more. But what I'm saying is is I mean,

while we want to make sure it's safety and everything else like that, we also have to make sure we're meeting a need for our community. And this is a transient community. There is a lot of rentals, a lot of military coming in and things like that that they're looking for home daycarees or things like that. And if you've been on the Facebook pages, it's very hard for them finding and they're all looking. So, that's my only concern of when we're putting this in here. Yes, I want to make sure it's safe, but at the same time, there's a need. Okay. Um, and you Okay. So, does everybody want to go ahead and make it permitted um with those conditions?

Second though, I feel like we do keep jumping between home daycare and daycare center. So, can we go through and decide how we feel about home daycarees and like where we land if we if any of the zony needs to change for those and then can we go into daycare centers? So, home daycarees are permitted everywhere that homes are permitted. So, that's fine. We're good. Okay, cool. Every everywhere any Okay, so it is only daycare centers that we need to consider. Correct. They're not permitted anywhere homes are permitted.

Ex. So, how does the one fit in? Because that's not in a zone that allows for It's been there for a while. Yes. Yeah. It's been there. For beginnings. Yeah. Decades. No. No. Used to be a market. Remember, it used to be based on the represented it. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Has it been there for more than 5 years? It's been there for 10 years. Yes. Then it's grandfathered because it was permitted under the previous zone. Yeah. Um but that is the only it's grandfathered. That's the only.

So nothing else. Even if you had a lot that met all of those requirements that you previously said about setbacks and all of that in a residential area, you could not have a daycare center. Right. You can only have it in the neighborhood commercial, town commercial, and plaza commercial. I think we should reconsider if it met the other slew of regulations and you are especially in like

some of these I I don't know I think in some of the residential districts if somebody chose to buy a house in one of those areas that could do it to turn it into a community into a daycare center I think that there that would be advantageous for the community that house it I mean because it's bright beginnings, right? That's right up here on 260. Cuz originally that was just residential and it slowly evolved. And if I'm looking at this correctly, because they're in a community, they would have never been able to happen. Correct. In the RV. Well, yes, that's right. I mean, the daycare center, it would have been it would have been unallowable. That size.

Yeah. And remember, there's a lot of parking for that size. There's a lot of parking needs for that size. you need for that size and I don't know how many kids they have in that. You're talking I usually see at least six cars there at least. So yeah, you're talking parking needs, you're talking more staff and um I mean over the years they've ch they've modified it. I mean you've seen it as it's grown and the the parking has gotten bigger and all different kinds of things. So but I just think of that one more than the other one down here because that one's really in a neighborhood. Mhm.

So, and I know a lot of kids go there. Well, I should clarify. I don't know how many kids there, but I see that it's always being recommended on the different Facebook groups. Um, Brown, what are your thoughts about it? [clears throat] You said that uh the home daycare centers permitted in all the there's special condition or special exception uses but yes they're permitted. But number 60 here under the customary home occupations.

No. So 60 is a home occupation but that's different from the daycare. The daycare is number 10 nine and 10. So there's multiple problem and and the one we're looking at right now is it's 10 number 10. So the home occupation is your home office when you're a business, not your home office when Commissioner Han is working from home, which you probably can't do anymore, but but that's not a home occupation. But when I'm working from home because I have a business, it's a home occupation, but I don't work in Chesapeake Beach. So, it's okay. My home is not in Ches Beach.

Read again, please. I would have to turn to Can you read again what the conditions are for the U for the daycare centers? Please.

The minimum lot area shall be 20,000 square feet plus 2500 square ft of lot area for each person cared for above 10 persons. No part of any building shall be located within 30 ft of any adjoining property in residential use. Vegetative screening and buffer shall be provided where the lot butts residentially used properties. Any outdoor play, active recreational area shall be located in the rear yard and its boundary shall be at least 10 ft from the rear lot line and not nearer to any other lot line than the required yard setback, which means 20 ft in the rear yard. Outdoor play areas shall be sufficiently screened and sound insulated so as to protect the neighborhood from noise and other disturbances. To fulfill this requirement, screening may be located anywhere on the lot as needed. And any new buildings shall be designed to be architecturally harmonious with buildings in the neighborhood, including but not limited to building facade, orientation, building scale and massing, materials, colors, roof, and roof lines.

Okay. So, 20,000 square feet is 1/ half of an acre. A little less, but yeah. Um, so that would be at least 10. I'm sorry. Did you say 10 kids? So, you can have 10 kids on your It has to be bigger, but you can have up to 10 kids for the half an acre, right? If you're gonna have more than 10 kids talking, you're talking 140 by 140. Building can't be what? Has to be 30 feet back from every edge. Building. Now,

your play area can't be more than because your rear setback is 20 feet. Even though it says 10 feet, it has to be 20 feet. Also, nobody could afford this dayare [laughter] beach that only has 10 kids with this bougiest daycare you're ever going to go to. I mean looking at looking at the map like the with the RL like the RLD the like the low density would seem to be the only properties that you could like do that you know with the bigger with with larger lots like that everywhere else I don't you can't meet those qualifications like it's

now the 30% rule doesn't apply here the 30% use of um isn't in home occupation you can't use more than 30% %. So, but this isn't a home occupation. But this is not a home occupation. This is now a business. Yes. So, the home occupation is totally separate. It's number 60. This is number 10. Yeah. It's confusing because there's multiple things we're trying to do. So, this is beyond the home occupation thing. This is not your shoe, you know, your shoe repair man who just, you know, quietly cobbles in his office. [laughter] have this idea of this cobbler. I like to see somebody come in and make shoes in their little house.

One of my small town, but I don't think Can we get a blacksmith, too? [laughter] Hey, I'm showing a little bit of a That is not a customary home occupation. How about a millinary [laughter] cats? We should We should Let me ask you, what if it's a What if the house is a split level? and you turn the whole basement into a daycare.

It's a home daycare. There's no there's the home daycare doesn't have a size. So, let me The the conditions for a home daycare are the applicant shall meet the requirements of state and local health departments. All such uses shall be located as to permit the safe pickup and delivery of all persons on the site and the operation shall meet the individual parking requirements of home daycare businesses in addition to any residential parking requirements for the dwelling in which the operation is located. So a daycare center is just that. It's a building for daycare. So So I just described a home daycare with your split level. Yes.

The daycare center is a building for daycare. And that goes against what it says here about RV2, which it's intended to protect a primarily single family residential character while accommodating a v variety of housing types. So we're taking now RV2 and turning it into commercial zone is what we're doing by doing this. I would I would argue that the daycare center is supporting the residential use. It's not going to be on every corner. But yes, I mean that's really for for you to determine does this feel I believe it can be consistent with your description

except that it's not at all a housing a residential um Right. Right. I mean, it's not it's not anything close to being a primarily single family residential character. Well, we're protecting. So, you're what you're saying by protecting the primarily single family residential character, we're allowing a commercial business in there that supports the neighborhood. But isn't that what a neighborhood

commercial center is? Or, you know, isn't that what that's for? I mean, I think that's what our whole argument was before with this particular facility is that it belongs in an area that is commercial because it's commercial venture and that we wanted to keep RV2 residential because that's what it indicates here supposed to have a residential family characterist, you know,

right? So, I was I was with the word primarily, right? So, that I thought, okay, here's a couple of uses that can and we're an RV, too, right? Um, so that could support this residential. They can be scaled and masked to fit in that character. That doesn't mean you have to agree with me. This is my here's some things I think you should look at. And I and that's the conversation that you all

I mean I'm just thinking okay if somebody says well you've allowed the daycare then why can't you allow my automotive you know I support my neighbors because I repair cars. I mean I'm trying to with that logic I'm supporting the neighborhood. I can think of a lot of things to support the neighborhood that don't belong in a area that's residential necessarily. I would argue though how we want the environments that we want our children in are different from where we want our car service. And so I understand why people would be drawn towards their children being in a daycare center that is in more of a neighborhood in more of a home so that you have kitchens and outdoor space and that it you know feels like that feels like a different value than an automotive repair. But I also feel like we are

we're making much a do about a thing that I'm not even sure if there's [laughter] a single place. I don't think there's a property. So in my mind I'm like we could say yeah or we could say no but it's not going to matter because there's not any property that it seems like.

Well before we say yes or no maybe we should look at some of these others and then maybe we can determine um you know what will be supportive. What other ideas do we have that would be appropriate as a professional facility? I mean, maybe the daycare is not a problem because, as you say, it, you know, nothing will fit, but I like to think of the worst case scenario that maybe somebody I can think of one property right now that would work perfectly. Um, he's got his vacant land for sale and the house right next door would it would be perfect for that situation. Actually,

you could consolidate pro the properties to create one unit. you can definitely consolidate property. So, if you bought up the guy next door or whatever, you would have easily have this. But, um, neither here nor there. Um, I I think there are definitely some things on this list that I think we should add. And, you know, maybe the daycare would be not a problem. I certainly think the home care is definitely a obviously something that we should have, but when I think of the professional center um where kids are taking their little trikes and going around around and everybody's got a lot of noise and fun and nobody, you know, curtails the noise or anything. Um it's a little different, but yeah. Um okay. Well, I I I'm not going to be the only one to say yes or no on this one because I you know I think you're right. I think there's right now very few opportunities, but there could be down the road somebody

Can we just vote on it? Yeah, we can just absolutely vote on it. So, let's go ahead and do that. So, um let's go ahead and suggest daycare center, nursery school, kindergarten, or other agency giving care to persons as a commercial operation. Um, who would like to put a motion to include that for the RV2 district? Who would like to make business line number 10? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Would anybody like to make a motion to include that in the RV? Um, I would like to make a motion, but can it be for more than the RV2?

Um, yeah, you can make your motion. Okay. Yeah. Uh, do we want to RLD? Yeah, RLD. Seems like I would like to make a motion that we would change the zoning regulations to allow for commercial daycare centers in RV2 and RLD. A second. Do I hear a second?

Second. any uh conversation discussion now let's go to RLD let's take a look at that residential low density district it's intended to promote a pleasant and safe living environment to create preserve and protect a single family detached residential character to keep these areas free from land uses that are incompatible with andor might adversely impact single family neighborhoods and to conserve the physical qualities of the landscape that attract people to the town. So, um by adding that to your motion, we now have another um variable to consider. Um what does everybody think about the addition of the RLD?

RLD is is larger lots. Larger lots. So, it quite possibly already meets this number one on F. But I would point out that your mother in uh RB1 practically running a daycare. Nobody's getting paid. [laughter] And I I live there. I don't care. But yeah,

but you know it's uh techally a daycare center one. Yeah. What are you saying, M Commissioner Brown? What is your [laughter] RV? What are you saying now? Make them that they're all and we just make it special conditions maybe.

Yeah. Because if they can meet that like in RV1, she wouldn't be able to make that a daycare center anyway because of all it's not a it's not a half an acre. It's Yeah. So I All right. I would like to amend my motion. Okay. Say that we would allow daycare center commercial daycare centers in all residential districts uh under if they I have a second for the amendment to the motion. Second.

Okay. Now we need to discuss the amendment uh which is now all daycare uh all zones to have the daycare center. Um what you're saying is change the SC to P. Yes. Uh well no it'd be condition. It'll be conditional, right? To keep to change NP to NP to SC. NP to No, it' be Wouldn't it be conditional or be SC?

SC is Yeah. Um, again, the only concern I have is that you're taking away the residential character of the um of the um the um what I'm trying to say the the residential character of these communities and that's what one thing they wanted to keep was strictly residential. But isn't

and it's just for the quiet because in let's just say RV1 let's just go to RV1 for example if somebody down by the you know or up on the hill or whatever wanted to have a couple of the properties and they had just enough they had 20,000 uh square feet there would be a lot of noise and a lot of traffic and remember in that area it's really tough to park in that in those neighborhoods and you could say well I guess you could try and put condition that everything has to be onsite parking you'll will be required to meet the commercial parking requirements. So, yes,

but commercial parking is not on site, is it? I don't think it's all on-site parking. And I think in our neighborhood up in the campground, there's no place for any extra cars. So, you would probably be having extra staff, moms that come for their, you know, for whatever holidays and cramming the the streets and everything because remember every holiday you go to to do every little thing with the kids. So, I was just at grandparents day in Florida, so I know how that works. And you're parking everywhere. So, the question is, can every community handle extra parking, extra noise? Um, I don't think they are. Parking required offshoot parking spaces shall be on the same lot or premises within the principal you served or where this requirement cannot be met within 400 ft of the principal you served within the same district on a lot of budding a commercial district subject to the requirement. So there's there's not a provision here. I mean I yeah this is the

daycare center people dropping off their kids. They aren't partying. They're they're just dropping them off. So what you're talking about employees? No, I'm talking about like, you know, a lot of times I would go for Valentine's Day. We just had grandparents day. There's, you know, Johnny's birthday. I have to bring cupcakes. So I have to park and take the cupcake. You know, just random things. You park your deliver your cupcakes and then you're gone. It's three parking spaces per classroom. Yeah. On site. on on site or within 400 feet on not on the street. So, it's onsite. It's an on-site parking requirement.

Okay, say that. Okay, read it one more time, please.

Okay, hold on. That 3 ft is elsewhere. Sorry, I got to get back to it. Um, required off- streetet parking spaces shall be on the same lot or premises with the principal use served or where this requirement cannot be met within 400 ft of the principal use served within the same district or on a lot abuing a commercial district subject to the requirements of article 3290-9 which is um where we just were. Parking for private residences in residential districts shall not be located within the front setback area between the principal structure and the street. A parking space in a garage or enclosed carport shall not be counted towards complying with the parking requirement for residential dwellings. So that's a little different. Um but then there's a table table of parking requirements. Parking spaces shall be provided in accordance with the following schedule and subject to conditions in all zones. Either space for parking and storage vehicles shall be provided or the applicant shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the planning and zoning commission that adequate parking is provided. Um and so in that table number 10 home daycare uses requires three parking spaces per classroom per classroom. So if you had one big room, it doesn't talk about how many kids or how many, you know, families. You're talking about the state classroom.

State has requirements to be a licensed daycare facility. How many kids can be in a given? So those regulations would come on top of that. So you can't just like have a freeforall room any children and your dayare or I mean your your dayare center your daycare center license. Okay. Well anyway we've I think we've discussed. Anybody have any more questions or issues about this? So you're saying make it possible in every zone to have a commercial daycare center. Okay. Let's vote. All in favor?

Any opposed? No. Okay, so it passes. Um, next one. Professional school, studio for music or art instruction, dancing school, similar, etc. Um, we should be so lucky. Uh, why do we have the term professional school? What is prof do you mean professional mean? Do we do can we just have studio for music or art or do we need profession? What do we have? That's just what it's called. Number it's 11. No, not. But you're not talking about anything other than a a music, art, or dance studio. I mean,

is this in reference to homeschooling? No. I mean, this doesn't have conditions on it. And but if you were to put it in your RV, you could put conditions on it. Like, this has to be located within your home, within a home. Um, but no, I mean a home school is not a professional school. It's a home school. Excuse me. Seems like there's something missing after the word similar or well yeah that. So that's kind of how if it's how the table's written like or similar. So

yes, it could it could be more clear, right? Um but that is how it's written. It can be this when we fix this table we can fix that we can say or um let's see or similar use maybe [clears throat]

290-11G says with frontage about 261 One 290. So it's weird that Oh. Oh, there is there is the special condition in the neighborhood commercial district. The special condition is limited to properties with frontage on 261. [clears throat]

Um, that's just right here. So, what is your your recommendation then for this? Is it for uh just the RV2? I think they could be allowed in RV2 and maybe there's the condition that they be located within a home rather than a commercial operation. An RV2, right? Yeah. Okay. Let's anybody question uh the the number two which is professional school studio for music art or instruction. Anybody have any issues with that? Should we make a motion for that one?

No. The you've got people going to studio are going there to stay for that period of time. You have 10 students coming in, you need 10 parking spots. They might be dropped off though, too. Having had a student at was Abigail's and now is North Beach Ballet Studio, dance studio.

Even when you're get getting all of those drop offs, it is like a lot. I mean most of the parents are staying there for the hour and it would become very chaotic especially like between you know one class is ending another and now you have 20 cars. It does and congested. It get it got would get pretty congested over there and that had more room right. Yeah. But what about for the RV too? Are you against it for the RV2?

In just some context, most of the rest of these are referring like they should have a condition that they be in within a home type building, not a commercial operation. Not necessarily limited to home occupation, but the building size. There should be a building size limitation so that they still fit. So, would this be like would this be if somebody was doing like piano lessons out of their home? Would that count as that? It depends on how they're running it. Okay. Really? Right.

Um, well, technically, yes. Right. Technically, if you're charging people for piano lessons, you're a business and you should be running it as a business. Um, but it's not exactly a customary home occupation. Yeah. Well, so you could put conditions on this. You could say you could say no more than one student per every hour or something like you know you could do it that way or no like you can put a size limitation because you can't if you put a size limitation then you're limited on how many students you can have period. Mhm. Um, yeah.

So, you keep it. The idea is that all these uses here could be in what looks like a single family house that other than the the daycare center, all of the rest of these have the possibility to be smaller scale and consistent, but we would need make make them conditional bills. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that actually would solve that. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Um,

you do have to change G, which says it's limited to properties with frontage on Maryland 261. Well, that's for special that I could approve that. So I can approve a professional school for music or art instruction with this condition. But if it goes to board of appeals 260

on 261. So it's SC versus SE is what I can approve versus what the um board of appeals can approve. And so it's a little different. As it's written right now, it says permitted in all commercial areas and the town center is on route 26. So, this says it's limited to route 26. It's flatout permitted uh in the commercial areas. It doesn't have this condition. This condition only applies here. Um I think the highlighted

11g 11g doesn't apply. 11G only applies to neighborhood commercial. It doesn't apply to town commercial, plaza commercial, or is that I got put on my glasses? Marine commercial. So that the it's just flatout permitted without any conditions in these three areas. Here it's permitted with conditions. What we're saying it you're saying is here it could be permitted with a a special exception. Not a special exception with conditions, but a special exception that solves the problem of this condition.

Okay. So, who would like to make a motion or who who has any questions? Actually, it looks like people are still studying over here. Uh what [laughter] commission? I was going to say you're studying this very uh assiduously. What what uh questions do you have or what are your concerns about it? I'm not able to articulate anything at this moment. Just you're overwhelmed. Exactly. Yes. Yes. No, I can just look on your face. You're overwhelmed. It's like when I first tried to learn bridge.

Did you Did you have any questions for um Franklin on this? and we can just keep it the way it is if that's what you want to do. I mean, you don't have to, you know, but I think people are probably having um piano lessons in their house whether or not we say yay or nay. I don't think that's if we're not disturbing our neighbors. I don't think anybody's questioning if you have one per hour and somebody comes and picks up the kid. This is if you have a whole slew of people uh from a dance studio coming out all at one time.

Also, that could unheard of for neighbors to have problems with things that kind of are permitted or like so to have if if if somebody decided they had a problem with it, even if it was happening at what we think is reasonable of just one at a time, but a neighbor is upset. So I think we want to make the the zoning match what we actually believe is fair. And the idea behind this group of uses is this group of uses is consistent with you know the last one on this list is professional services including barber shops, salons, laundry d the uses you're kind of saying like people should have their salon or their bakery or these things out of their house in this RV2 district. So I picked out the uses generally that you could have in a house whether you live in it or not. Like you can live upstairs and have it downstairs or you can convert the whole thing and you're generally going to be able I think

the character of

to do it and keep this character of the RV as the intent. I again I wasn't here so I don't know right if all of these things were the intent or not but I think all of these things could fit in the intent and that's why they're in this for discussion. Well, it doesn't matter what it was. It [laughter] whatever you all want to do now is is what's going to happen. Um, I think what everybody should try and do is just keep to the character of the residential community and make sure that it's not being impacted by too much noise or or traffic, etc. And if we can do that, we're good. Um, as far as I'm concerned, the RV2 area, um, everything else on this list kind of fits into what I think would probably fit fine in an RV2 area. Um, if you read the rest of the lists, it kind of looks fine to me. Um, professional school, as we said, dance studio, etc. Um, library, museum, community center. I mean, a community center, I don't know what that means really. Um, I am not sure that that makes any sense to me. The community center.

Okay. Or a library. That again doesn't seem residential, but you know, I guess it depends on size. Some small communities, right, have these like little little ver quaint versions of those. That's what I was thinking, right? I understand. I understand what you're I know. I've seen those. That doesn't mean that you're still looking for Yeah. Um I mean, I guess the question is how is it going to impact

the real estate value of your homes next door? Will it will somebody will a family want to buy next door to a you know whatever? Who knows? A community center or a you know orphanage. An [laughter] orphanage. A group home. That's true. An orphanage. That's sure. I know that word is even applied in Yeah, that's that's what's in your zoning. But I was think you know like nursing homes you can have those smaller nursing homes so people can feel like they're Oh, yeah. The boarding care, the assisted living. Yeah. Right. That's right. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. That that's why that's in there. But but orphanages and nursing homes and other That's more like a group home situation.

The way your your ordinance is written now, they're all those are more like group homes. Yeah. Um there it is. I mean, I feel like there's Can we go back? Yes. Can I do a motion and we'll just see where we land on the professional schools?

Yes, of course. uh because I feel like all of the other things that I think okay anyhow a motion to change so that to allow professional schools and studios in the RV2 under uh special exception special exception. Do I have a second? Okay. Uh, any discussion on allowing um the professional school studio for music or art instruction dancing school similar? I'm not sure if we like the word similar. [laughter] The attorneys don't like the word similar.

Um, uh, any more discussion on that before we vote on it? Got a question. You said special exception, not special exception subject to conditions. Special exception would mean it came under has to go to the board of appeals but people thinking about like considering what their particular use was and if that made sense. Okay. So that would be that's a little more of a stringent requirement. Yeah. Than with exceptions actually. Yeah.

Well exceptions. You can have a special exception with conditions where the board of appeals has to also apply conditions but there's an existing condition for this type of school that would be hard to apply. And I think the board of appeals understands the intent, right? Oh, because the board of appeals can only approve it if it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. So, they're not going to be able to approve this new commercial building. It's going to have to look like a residential building for them to approve it. Inside this residential building, is there any sort of like like for these studios? It's kind of hard to like to know, but like any like sort of code that they have to follow to maintain a business inside, you know, like you know how in the daycarees we talked about the

you always have to follow code, but zoning zoning is not concerned with what the code inside the building. So like code is is governed by a different piece of your town's ordinances that is not zoning. And so we don't have the oversight of that which which so the special so is there a difference between special exception which I think you were indicating there was sort of like conditions but there are conditions I'm not sure where what's the I guess I'm a little confused then between the difference between SE and SC because when you

so talked about E you mentioned the word conditions Right. So a special exception SE is a board of appeals will have to approve it. A special exception with conditions is it can be authorized by the board of appeals, but there's also conditions. And then to answer your question, conditions are listed on the right hand.

Th those conditions are listed under yeah section 290 usually 11. And but then for the board of appeals, there are standards. So if there's no conditions, there's standards. And the standards are that the established maintenance and operation of the special exe exception and this is number D in 2902 um are of the special exception will not be detrimental or endanger the public health, safety and general welfare. The special exception shall be such that it will be harmonious with the character as well as appropriate in appearance and will not be injurous to the use and enjoyment of other property in the neighborhood for the purposes already permitted, nor substantially diminish and impair property values within the neighborhood. The establishment of the special exception will not impede the normal and orderly development and improvement of surrounding properties for the uses permitted in the district. established of the operation of the special exception will not adversely impact the capacity and or safety of town infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer, drainage, etc. The special exception shall be such that pedestrian and vehicular traffic associated with such use shall not be hazardous or unduly conflict with the existing and anticipated traffic in the neighborhood and the establishment, maintenance and operation of the special exception are consistent with the town of Chesapeake Beach comprehensive plan. So when the board of appeals reviews it, they have to find all of those standards to be met

under SE. And then under SC they still would have to consider those standards plus the conditions. Correct. Well for this particular use the condition is specific like is clearly created to be specific to one area. Um so the the neighborhood commercial that special condition is created so that only on route 261 are you allowed to do it. So if we do SC then we have to rewrite the conditions. So Paula um okay we're in the middle of a motion. Are we done with questions or any um any questions for the motion? Okay. All in favor of including professional school studio for music uh art instruction dancing school. It's similar um for the RV2. Uh please raise your hand if you approve. Any opposed? Okay, it passes. Um, I hate to say

only in RV2. Only an in RV2. Yes. Why not? LDM MDH. You have to bring that up at another date. We We I'm sorry, but we're going to have to move on to the next section now because we are we've got only 20 minutes before somebody turns into a pumpkin. We've got your hand. No. So, we're here. I'm not going to say who, but I'm going to say we have to now move on to our second item of the day. So, let's put if everybody can just keep this for next month so that we don't have to re copy everything. And just to let you know, next meeting critical area commission will be here. So,

and critical area will be here. So, we probably need to are they going to be here at what time? Do you know 76? What? Um, I assumed we would have them early, but let me know if you disagree with that. 17th November. Yes, it's going to be they're coming on. They're like at the beginning of the meeting. Yeah. At six o'clock. I'm sorry. May I make a request to Need that login information. I don't I'm looking Oh, my doc is there for some reason. I can't see it. That's why I'm looking. You think I'm looking at you, but I'm turn. No, November meeting is November 17th. That's a Monday. Oh, sorry.

Pumpkin is coastal resency. Let's let's start that please and staff report. Thank you very much.

So, if you guys can um so so with coastal resiliency first, we're going to have um critical area commission here on the 19th. to speak with us about applying an overlay zone. Um, and just sort of the background on this because because I'm not sure if everyone was here for the process of the critical area regulations. And when we were looking at the critical area regulations, there was an idea to have a 200 ft buffer so that there would be more stringent regulations with regard to planting and lot coverage on a larger area of the town for the purpose of protecting those areas as sea levels rise and storms become more severe. The problem was that the buffer, the way that buffer overlay zone works is that everything is related to shoreward. So when you expanded the buffer out 200 ft, you suddenly might have two properties and now you're saying you can't do anything shoreward, but there's houses already shoreward. So that wasn't working from a logistical perspective. So, what we talked about doing was getting the critical area ordinance passed with the 100 foot buffer and coming back to look at how to help these areas that are going to be subject to sea level rise and storm surge be more resilient. Um, and so that's why coastal resiliency is part of this topic. And so we're asking critical area commission to come and talk to us about how to work together to implement that as a critical area overlay with more stringent block coverage and planting requirements

that will help those areas ultimately be more resilient to sea level rise. Um, at the last meeting there was a lot of discussion of the maps and what does it look like and what areas are we talking about and it was hard to see in the um coastal resiliency plan. The maps are not great quality. So, I wanted to show you guys this tool so you can play with it, look around on it um between now and the next meeting because I think that will be helpful in framing the discussion with critical area commission and our thoughts about applying this overlay. So, the tool is the Maryland Coastal Flood Explorer. It is a free tool. You just have to stick it in Google and you can find it. Um I have no idea if I spelled that right. Yes, I did. Um and and so when you're in here, just to familiarize yourself with what it can do, there are a couple things. There's sea level rise down down at the bottom. There's high tide flooding and there's historic events. And so you can zoom in. We'll zoom in a little more. Um and then you can play with this. So you can say, okay, sea level rise. And of course, I cannot see these numbers from where I'm at, but um I think that's 1 foot of sea level rise. And that's what that looks like here, right? Um 2 feet of sea level rise looks like this. So you guys can look [clears throat] at the areas and compare with the coastal resiliency plan and see like, okay, what does high tide flooding look like at these levels? And you can also, then this is very useful, you can look at your historic events. What did it look like when in J is that January 2024, I think.

Yeah.

Right. What did it look like? I think this is Hurricane Isabelle up here. Um what what did what impacts did we see? Um, and how does that tie into the overlay zone that we're trying to create within, you know, the coastal resiliency plan lays out what the plan is for areas that we're going to attempt to stay in place and just become more resilient. And then you have areas right like right here where that's not going to be possible over time. And so there's a managed retreat plan in the coastal resiliency plan over here. So I just wanted to show you how to use it so that you can look at it um and think about it uh ahead of that next meeting. So do we have questions about this? Anybody have questions on this particular It

it's an amazing tool that the state just released. So interesting. How do we connect to the internet? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Um, let's go to the but then you are you already a member of that? You have to be able to access I don't have access to it. Thought it was the password. Just chest. You should be able. This is free and open to everyone. Oh, okay. This I talking about the other stuff that you put up. I don't have credentials for that. The municipal whatever you have to sign in. Oh, which one?

The one the zoning ordinance. The Yeah. When I when I tried to go into it, it code360.com. Yeah, e-code360.com. It asked for um uh so that is actually your town code and and I don't know how you tried you might have tried to go in and I I went into e-code 360 because I didn't that's what was up on the little tablet there in the search bar. That's the only thing I did. Yeah. So it it's your town zoning code. You can find it online. I think you just go to the government. Go to government planning commission. I'm under planning commission. Yeah, let's see. Um

on the left. Is it on the left? Let me let me look. Well, I'm under planning. Let's see. About government business explore. How do I? And then so you're going to go to government planning and zoning commission. Let's see. Let me do it on the left. Oh, okay. Wait a minute. Is the zoning ordinance on? Why did I think it Okay. And then let's click on ordinances. Yep. Click on ordinances. Um where Oh, okay. Then click on town zoning ordinance. Okay. Thank you. And then you're in e-code and you can you can access all the town code from here.

Oh, well that was [laughter] Thank you. Yes. No, it's just because you tried to go in through e-code and it didn't know [clears throat] where you were. Sure. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yep. Oh, the overlay we're talking about, would it be just an overlay over all the areas that we're looking at app or just going to do a free form or are we going to do one for the Fishing Creek area, one for Seagate area and are we do separate? How does that work usually? So, what we'll probably be doing is a map amendment to our critical area map. Okay.

Right. So, we have the buffer now. We'll also have a coastal resiliency or whatever whatever we decide to call this overlay. Um so it is going to be a map amendment and it will apply. Yes, that it might be here and disconnected by Fishing Creek. So it would be disconnected. It won't be ambiguous, right? It doesn't it's not necessarily going to be Okay, that was my question. Little Yeah. Any other questions about this Maryland coastal flood explorer? Um what else did you want to dis How did you want to start? What did we want? What is it? What is it based on? The the data for this um what year was it?

Yeah. So that a lot of that is in here. I'm trying. Okay. So this is this gives you the information. Um

look at that data modeling. So that there there's a ton of information like this. So what did I click on to get here? When you click on this info button, see the right here, right? Yeah.

That's going to give you all that information about the different layers and the modeling. Um, so, um, I think the other thing I wanted to talk about is, you know, our timeline and and who we want to talk to. So, I've heard back from, uh, the Maryland Flood Insurance Agency. I contacted them um at your request and so if we could have them in December or January, but I think we should kind of keep moving forward with what we're doing and then have guests that can inform the discussion. Um but one question is like do you do you need someone from the public works department? Like do you need Jay to come here and when are you requesting him to come here? Just so I can kind of schedule that out. But I I'm not sure we should have multiple guests at each meeting because you have multiple things you're trying to do. Yes, exactly. Um, so we have critical commission next month or this month I should say and then we've got somebody already for December it sounds like.

I'm hopeful that maybe it's whether they can come December or January and then we asked Jay to come the other day. Okay. I think that's how we should try and do it. Okay. Do we have goals for each month? I mean the November meeting December. What are your goals as far as what are we going to accomplish besides the the interview.

Yeah, I think after we talk with critical area commission, this is why I want to have them first. Then I can start drafting, right, what we're doing. But you guys wanted to ask questions of these other folks about how it's going to impact and what their needs are with regard to storm water or what the insurance concerns are because it's not just the overlay, right? There's more in the coastal resiliency to do than just apply the overlay. Um, and so what we'll do is as we tackle each piece and have the different folks coming because you're going to have to talk about raising structures or amphibious houses or something like that as well. Um, we can talk about each section and how how the draft update of that would be.

So I'm assuming we're going to go to their recommendations in the back of the coastal and and deal with the recommendations. Is that what we're going to try and do? Right. So the slide presentation that you had in September um outlines the recommendations that are specific to the zoning and min zoning and planning and zoning commission. Um and so drafting each of those along with each guest to get us to where we need to be. Um okay, good. So hopefully everybody holds on to their coastal resiliency plan as well as all the information we had tonight for the um um the zones that we're still working on. Um okay. So uh tonight then um is there anything more you want to discuss with the post resiliency besides showing us this? We could probably do a little homework on that.

Is there anything else you want to discuss about close resency tonight. Yeah, I just want I mean just wanted to go over this. Okay. And discuss the Okay. folks work. Okay. Good. And if everybody can kind of reread those recommendations and if you want to go back and of course read the entire plan, that's not a bad idea either. Um all right. Uh the only other thing that we would have tonight on our agenda is comments by commissioners. So, um, who would like to begin or does anybody have anything? Commissioner Han,

uh, two things. One, I would like to thank, uh, the town for their assistance in getting the roads paved. They are getting paved in the back of the Richfield station um, this week and next week. So, that's really great because it's been since 2012 since the developer left and has left them undone. So, thank you very much for the the heavy lift of getting that done. And then also thank you for um supporting the federal employees and having the drive tonight from 5 to 7. Yeah, the drive at homes. Yeah. Right. Yes.

Thank you. That was that was something needed to be said. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Always nice to hear good comments like that. Okay, sir. Um, I I would also just like to just reiterate like how how great uh when our community shows up for people in need like this. You know, this uh the longest uh government shutdown that we've had and it's uh it's no fun for anybody. So, um Yep. continue to look out for our people.

Good. Um, I think that I got an email from I think it said community action, but I think it was maybe from the town and it gave a link where you could uh it was like I think like end hunger in Calvert County or something. So, I made a donation. So, if you're also looking for a way I guess it helps the food pantries um in the county especially important now. We my wife volunteers down it's it's uh down at Prince Frederick front table every Sunday. from from uh from 10 to 10 to two. Okay. So,

all right. So, that's just I mean, and so I'm I'm I'm we're talking about appreciation. I appreciate the fact that, you know, we get the newsletters and we get information and there's good links so that you can you don't have to wait. You have an impulse. You want to make a donation, you can. That's all. Perfect. Thank you, sir. anything

um with the the uh post resiliency. Um you mentioned bringing someone in from the town's public works because for example water park which is being done now what two years before it's done. So I don't know specifically that was the I think the latest complete the water part.

All right. Um Rachel, what do you think? [laughter] All right. If there are no comments, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Any second? I'll second. All in favor? All right, we will adjourn to November the what is the date? 19th. 19th. Thank you. Adjourned. Okay. Well, thank you for that help in getting me where I needed to get. I didn't have to lo anywhere. See, turn this off.