Town Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, it got quiet all of a sudden. Hello everybody. How is everyone? All right. Well, thank you so much for everyone that is joining us here in person and those online. Heather, are we good to go on the online streaming? Excellent. Um, before I call to order, I always ask for everyone to please silence your cell phones. So, just take a second and look actually at your cell phone and make sure it is totally on silent, not vibrate, but totally silent. Just helps with interruptions and making sure we can pay attention to each speaker speaking tonight. Um, we want to thank the staff for their work in preparation of this meeting. Um, without them, we really couldn't do what we do up here. Tonight is a very special meeting because it's a joint meeting with the planning commission and the council for uh three public hearings. Um and then the planning commission will continue on with the remainder of their regular meeting. So I just want to preface that to the public in case um this confuses you. It's not the standard practice for the regular planning commission meeting. I am the mayor and this is the town council up here and then we also have our planning commission members. So, uh, with that, I will call to order the town council meeting on April 9th. I have 60:03 p.m. on the clock up there. And Nate, as the chair of the planning commission, we also open the planning commission meeting.

So, we're going to call to order the town of Colonial Beach Planning Commission meeting for April 9th, 2026 at 6:04 p.m. Excellent. All right. And with that being uh the regular planning commission meeting, we will ask you to stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all. Thank you for that. And then uh we have most of our council here in person, but I believe a council member is also joining us online. No, she said she was just

Okay. So, not counted as present. So, uh, Miss Sanford is absent for this meeting then and the rest of the council is here in person. Uh, for the planning commission, um, all the commissioners are present with the exception of, uh, Miss Vicky Luna. Okay. Uh, do we have an approval of the agenda as written? Is there a second to that? Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Planning Commission. Uh, do we have a motion to approve the meeting as or the agenda is presented?

Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed?

All right. And with that, we'll move into our uh set of joint public hearings. All three of these public hearings are interrelated. So, we are going to ask that staff just present once before we open the public hearings because the information for the three separate public hearings, which are three separate sections of either ordinances or um and then the last one is the actual cup, we'll have to go separately. Um but since they're all the information is related to one another, we're going to do one staff presentation before we open that up. So, Miss Lawrence, come on up. Thank you, Mayor, Council, Chair, and Planning Commissioners, and members of the public and staff. Um, it's my pleasure to be here again talking about this topic. Let me There we go. All right. So, as you said, we're going to do a joint public hearing. I'm going to present for the zoning text amendment 2601, zoning text amendment 2602, and the conditional use permit 2602. Um, all of these together will allow for telecommunications facilities in certain areas of town with specific regulations presented together tonight, but as the mayor said, each will have a separate public hearing. Um the joint public hearing will happen now after council dismisses for adjourns for the evening. We'll have some other public hearings and then planning commission will come back and take action on this item later. Um originally we um had said that this that council would see this item at next week's meeting, but I believe that's now been moved to the May regular meeting. So, we do appreciate you coming out tonight and being willing to do a joint public hearing. So, um, people have asked about alternatives and

why we're doing this the way that we are. The zoning ordinance only permits communication facilities or towers in a agriculture A1 district. Um, and the definition you have in front of you and on the screen, there are currently no properties in town that are zoned A1 agricultural. Um, all the properties on on either side and behind this tower are commercial. It's in a commercially zoned district. Um, and so our options were either to reszone or to reszone the property agriculture and there's no other properties in town and it's between the commercial or to um come up with the text allow a tower where it's appropriate in the commercial district. So that's um what we initiated the planning commission initiated the text amendment. Um I I've heard I've been questioned about a variance through the board of zoning appeal and that is not allowed in this circumstance as per state code and our code. But um so zoning text amendment 2601 is just to amend the zoning code to add communication facility which is already defined in the code as a permitted use in the C1 commercial district with the approval of a conditional use permit. But then zoning text amendment 2602 adds another step to the location. So 2602 is permitting and regulations. And this was feedback we got from council and planning commission rather than just doing a cup with a lot of things in it. This sets the tone for future projects that come as well. So, um, as it's currently written in the draft text amendment, the location would be telecommunication towers are permitted in the C1 general commercial district. However, must be located no less than 100 yards from residential districts, schools, parks, and shorelines.

Um, so when you look at the town map, that is the entire area in the town that qualified um for a tower. The parcel that we're talking about, well, the tower will be located on the parcel off of Newman Robia Road. Thank you. That is Treed right there. Oh, the and then the other areas would be the property near um Food Lion and then just across the street next to the town houses and one little parcel at the Fast Smart lot that probably won't I don't think VOTE would allow that even if even if we did. So next um okay so the regulations that you have in front of you also include structure requirements. Um what we're I'll just hit the highlights. Um we are allowing Oh number three there has been a requested change. It says that those are being built. The applicant must show valid technological economic and physical justification to why collocation is not possible. next. And then lighting. We'll probably make some changes to this as well. Um, lighting is really kind of out of our hands because of the Telecommunications Act and the Federal Aviation Administration. Um, but for now, we're proposing leaving it in except for the last sentence under two that starts as part of the site plan approval. The town will design that. Um, it turns out that that's all controlled by FAA. Um, so we either would like to remove that or add a phrase that says to the extent permitted by applicable law. And then that formatting didn't turn out right, did it? Setbacks. Uh, the information is there based on the height of the tower, how far the setbacks will be. Um, and I'm going to just kind of let that

sit for a minute and you can see you can ask questions when we get to the end rather than go through this whole thing. Next slide. Some more setback information there. Um, next. Uh, signs prohibited. I know there have been some concerns. There will be no advertising of any type placed on the tower or related facility except that a sign shall be shall be required displaying the name, registration number, emergency contact of the tower owner. The sign cannot be more than four square feet in size and be located on the security fence in approved location. Next, and then security. So, you'll see when we get to the cup that we've actually allowed or suggested allowing a six foot chain link fence with three barbs at the top just for security sake. We would not allow that other places in town. Um but um we Oh, where'd you go? There. Yeah. So, they will fence in and you can see on the drawings that we'll get to in a minute that they have already designated where that where the clearing area and the fencing area will be next. Okay. And then I did not put all the other requirements, but you'll see um in the packet under J there's a bunch of additional requirements for facilities with a conditional use permit. And those are things that we'll be looking at and um supporting. again a J2. Um there's been a suggestion that we change the five miles within the from the town border to two miles and again to add the phrase to the extent permitted by applicable law. Um and there is a state code section um that relates to that. Um, and then under seven,

uh, per state code, a locality can't disapprove an application on the basis of the applicant's business decision or specific need for the project. So, we're going to ask that that gets that we strike that as well. Um and then 19. Um we also cannot require an application to provide proprietary confidential or other information. And these are things that were brought to my other localities have these in place but um we're asking that they be taken out. Um and that uh okay so that's the end of the zoning text amendment presentation. The cup then the conditional use permit. The towers LLC which is a joint venture of Verizon Wireless and Vertical Bridge request the approval of a conditional use permit to construct a telecommunications tower and related commu communication facilities on tax parcel 38812 off of New Monrovia Road pursuant to the approval of the two zoning text amendments that we just discussed and a substantial accord determination. So, um, uh, we've had some questions about the tower height, and council had sent it back and asked us to consider different heights. So, the coverage area that you see on the left is Verizon's current coverage area. Um, the red in the middle column would be how much additional coverage they would have if they had a 100 foot tower. And then on the right is 150 ft tower, a little bit bigger coverage area. That smaller red circle is that they would need a um small cell eventually, but that's not part of this cup. Next. So just a reminder, I think you both see both bodies have seen this, but the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. Um the purpose was to strike a balance

between the national interest in facilitating the growth of the telecommunication industry as well as local interests in making zoning decisions for tower sighting. So um we are preserving our local zoning authority. However, there are certain restrictions that we have. One of which um is a fourth bullet down prevents localities from regulating the placement, construction, and modification on the basis of environmental effects of radio frequency admissions if those facilities combine with the FCC's regulations concerning admissions. up next. So what is being proposed is the installation of a wireless communications facility consisting of 150 foot monopole tower with related ground equipment as shown in this picture. It's a monopole. It's not a radial tower that you um have seen. Verizon would take that top tier and then we could collate to colllocate two other companies in the future and then you'll see their ground equipment on the ground. Next um so on the right hand side where you see the kind of teal boundary that is the property that we are talking about. It's just over one acre one point I think 83 acres right there. Um to the left of that or to the west of that is the food line shopping center beach something shower is located in the middle there and then some ground equipment on the side. There's at the driveway you'll see turnaround points for each. Um the square is 50 by 50 and you'll see gates there at the beginning there. Where you see the dash line is where they are proposing a fence with bar three strands of barb wire on top of a six foot

um chain link. Next. So, the conditional use permit shall be granted. We're we're recommending on the sending on the subject properties identified as tax ID 3A8812 and shall run with a land subject to the following. That the site shall be developed in substantial accord with the drawings that you have in front of you. That the construction of the approved project will shall commence within two years of final approval and be diligently pursued to completion. And that's a little bit different than what we normally have, but that's again a telecommunication facility has different rules. And then the condition for a 6-ft chain link fence with this three strand bar wire shall be allowed in the 50 by 50 foot area shown on SP2. All those other regulations that you saw under J I think it was in the zoning will also apply. Um, so the applicants representative uh both with Williams Mullen as well as Verizon are here as are the property owners. And I think um I would invite Brian to come up and and answer questions along with me or I believe he has a short presentation as well.

Come on up. Thank you, Miss Lawrence. And good evening, Mayor Schik, Chairman How, and members of Council and Planning Commission. Again, my name is Brian Prader with Williams Mullen here on uh here tonight on behalf of the towers and Mr. Sha Chai is our wireless expert and hopefully between the two of us, we can answer any questions you have. Um would like to thank Miss Lawrence for her presentation. I'm not going to be redundant or reiterate the things. I think she gave a very good presentation. So, we're here to answer any questions and we're really excited for the opportunity to bring some increased wireless services to the town. So, I will spare you the presentation.

Okay. We'll um open up a little bit of discussion now, but we're then we're going to hold the public hearing so that we make sure we do that aspect. So, is there anything before we hold the public hearing up? What was your name again? Mr. Brian Prader. Mr. Brian Prager. Prager. P R A T E R

Prader. Got it. Thank you. Anything before we hold the public hearing then on that part? All right. I'm not seeing any before that. So, we'll go forward with the public hearings for right now. All right. So, we've got three of them. First up is zoning text amendment ZTA 26-01. This is for amendment to the addition of adding the term communications facility underneath the general commercial zoning district conditional use portion. So we will open that public hearing now at I got 6:22 for the record. Planning commission, you want to confirm that?

Yeah, planning commission um is opening the public hearing at 6:22. Fantastic. with that open. Yes, Miss Oliver.

Okay, we will hold it with uh our rules in place. Um and so we'll do five minutes. So if you have a group, you can uh present um or acknowledge any members of your group that are here. Um otherwise uh we will cut them off at five minutes. That's okay. And we don't respond. It's not a back and forth in public hearings just in case you haven't been to one of these before. But we welcome all your input and then we'll take that into consideration as deliberations happen after the public hearings are concluded. Okay. So, do we have anybody signed up? Patson. Pam Tolson. Pamson. Sorry.

Welcome, Miss Tolson. Please state your name and address for the record. Pam Tolson, 134 10th Street. I'm begging you, please pass these amendments. Um, having sat on the planning commission, I understand what you're trying to do and what you you need to do in order to change the language. uh but speaking as a small business person who relies on the internet every day to keep our business open. Um I fully support what you're trying to do. I know that these towers aren't beautiful, but I also know that without them, this town will not grow and will not the businesses that are here are struggling every day to survive. And I get up when I moved here in 2013. I moved here at I had sold my business association management company in Illinois and I brought two clients with me and within three years I had to finally give up the fact that I can never depend on whether the internet was going to work or my cell phone was going to even record the messages. And all this time I thought my biggest issue was going to be health care for my 87year-old mother. And now here I am all these years later and I go into Colonial Buzz which is uh our business and the brewery. And we wonder every day when we go in if the internet's going to be working today because we have probably only one in four customers who actually pays with cash. Everything is always by credit card, debit card, and when you're in the middle of a a sale and the internet goes down, which

it does quite often, most of the time it comes back up within a few minutes, but you end up giving away products because you're not going to take the product out of people's hands. And the bottom line is with every single sale we make is important to us to be able to keep our business up going, paying our food taxes, paying our staff people. And while these towers aren't pretty, I understand there's some things that can be done. But this town is not going to keep growing and giving the services that we all demand. streets, garbage, water that works um without it. And so I'm speaking on behalf of myself, speaking on besa as the business owner for the buzz. Uh Chris Lumpin could not be here. I'm speaking on his behalf from the brewery. Uh how many times do we have people come into our um business and say, "Do you have any internet? I'm staying at the Airbnb down the street and it's not working, you know, and that's the first thing they want. Not coffee, not even beer, you know. Um, they want that internet service. So, that's another service that we provide to this community to keep the tourists happy. Um, I'd also like to mention that this weekend's the Osprey Festival. We're going down to provide coffee service to the volunteers. to people coming in and we rely on a hot spot in order to sell the coffee or and we end up giving almost half of it away. Last year the everything went down the internet and we just rather than walk away we just gave away

our product and we can't afford to do that and stay here. Um, the other thing that the brewery and other small businesses do, we plan events and we rely heavily on being able to provide the uh the the movie, the the presidential speech, whatever it is we're listening to without the internet going down while we're here. Uh, so I I appreciate the fact that you're even looking at facilities. Where's the best place to put this tower? I don't care. My backyard's available if you let me. I'm that desperate because I rely on it so heavily. Um, but I know there are things that can be done to make them a little more attractive. I see it up and down the east coast when I drive. But I think you that you're smart enough and have approached it from the perspective that this is the most logical place to place the tower and there's no reason for us not to move forward if we're going to keep this community growing. So you have my vote. I will tell you real quick.

Thank you, Miss Tolson. I had you can sign up for the next public hearing. There's three of these. Okay. Thank you. Next up, welcome Mr. Knuckles. Clarify what was the five five.

Okay. Thanks. Will Knuckles 204 Monroe Bay Avenue. Um in the word planning commission. This there's no planning, right? We're running the town as like all you have to do is sort of show up and say, "I want to do something at a particular spot, right? Not townwide, but a particular spot." and we will rewrite the town code for you. Right? So, it sort of makes the fact that we have a comp plan silly really, right? Because really it's more about like do you have a enough influence? Do can you actually go through this process, right? In terms of the rewrite the code process as opposed to trying to go like I'll work within our boundaries, right, about like what we said was possible or try and start a broader dialogue, right? So, in terms of the the 01 part about the the piece that's sort of starting all this off, um what is I'd like to talk about the bodies that are here, right? And I'd mentioned this before at the last town council meeting. At its basis, what we're doing tonight is about rewriting C1, right? So, I had mentioned before, anybody that has a connection to it, anybody that works in, owns, has family, anything that connects to C1, y'all shouldn't have a proc part of this, not just the final vote. You shouldn't be steering the process. shouldn't be running the meeting, should like no part of this. It just screams of of special interest in this and makes everybody distrust the town government, right? So, it's not in your interest to have lots of rumors around town about going like, "Oh, they must be somebody's getting something out of this." Like, who's the one getting the kick, right? Because you sort of tee yourself up for this when nobody ever steps back, right? It just really makes the town belief in you so much worse. uh going to the substance of this right now it's kind of an op priori sort of statement that the variance thing isn't possible there's no analysis in that you know we do have an expert here but it would be nice if that was actually something that you could digest right so we're just taking this as a oneliner because I think that's important because if there are other

avenues that could be taken and if you had that sort of in writing then the public could opine on that analysis right um but we don't have that unfortunately right so that you could consider pausing until you had that anal analysis because it seems like that has great language in it about like public interest, no undo harm to the sort of like imue impact on the neighbors, you know, sort of some hoops that you jump through to sort of go like, hey, it's a good thing, right? If we, you know, that process sort of tees up those things automatically. So, if that's a viable process, sounds like a decent process. Uh, the other part is you're looking at this just as C2 while the dialogue is about like do we need better internet or better cell phone communication, right? You could have done C2. We could look at rewriting the pud, right? So if people don't want this stuff anywhere near the road or don't want a sort of series of these right as you're driving to town to be like the hallmark of what is Colonial Beach known for a bunch of towers when you come into town right that's a hallmark right we could stick them in the back right the other you know so there's other things other than this one zoning category the reason you're fixated on this one zoning category is the one applicant happens to be in a C1 right um and the flip to being agriculture is I look at the property to go like the easiest thing would be to go like reszone it because right now it's It's timber like it's full of trees. Like if you sort of treat it like an agricultural product, timber it. Go like that's a reasonable like use of what you would do with a fully wooded lot. And then you go like my problem is solved. Then we just move on to the cup process that's already built into the system and you just say just follow that process, right? We don't need to change the we didn't need to spend any of this time on this. We could have just said hey just go down that path, right? Our predecessors had said here's a path. Right. The only quirk is that um this one is acting as if it's a commercially viable, right? But it's not. It's it's a wooded lot, right? It sort of looks like timberland. Um I have other comments on the other sections, but uh I will leave that uh at now. Oh, other than one space about an alternative analysis, always like I've been in the fed, right? Federal government side of things always alternatives analysis. No action is

always in a determinative analysis. Putting this in other zoning categories, which I already mentioned, should be in the in alternatives analysis. The alternatives analysis is not really the full suite of the public policy options you have before you. It's the like if we're go if you've already predecided that this applicant gets to do this at this spot um and that's your policy goal then your alternative analysis are smaller. If you said hey we'd like to have better communications capabilities in town that's not your alternatives analysis. Thanks.

Thank you. That's all that's signed up, but I always open it up to anybody that's in the audience. Would anybody else like to come on up? I have to say something here. Please state your name and address for the record. Joe Kelly, 413 Street.

I've done leases with Verizon, AT&T, Cricket, uh, Comcast, and on this very issue here for the last 30 years. and uh look at what's going on here. God bless it. Go for it. If you can do it and get it done, fine. The problem I have with I'm at my house, my my internet service is up 99.9% of the time. But it's be not because of of Breezeline. It's because of the Dominion power. You you're find if you do some homework, you'll find that the problem is not not the internet service, it's the quality of the electric that affects your router. My router for example runs on a UPS box. So I have constant power and I have 99% up. You probably have a UPS box at the back that provides connectivity for here. So, I would encourage it and I listen to the the reports from the uh the sewer guys and and they talk about power problems all the time and it's like because if you doing some homework you'll find out the reg the voltage is up and down up and down up and down. Routers don't like that. They want smooth even power all the time. So, you you know we we we have a fundamental problem here in town with the connectivity and you know issues with power. I have a friend who lives down on down on a point by me. He his uh his boat lift didn't work last year because the voltage drops so much. Now, he could blame breeze line if he wanted to, but it's not the question of that. It's a question of the quality of the power that's going on here. I I listen to this stuff and say, "God, go for it. You can stretch it out." You know, you my I'm in a breeze line, which is connectivity issue different than Verizon. and Verizon is all uh wireless connectivity running on on the backbone of the of the fiber and such. The main fiber in town runs right down 205 around

the corner here and and cell phone towers can't be that far away from fiber. I know that for a personal fact that because I have three fiber sources in my building in Silver Spring and where where we have to have it the towers don't connect to one another. They connect to the tower and then they use fiber to go out. So you have to have to understand the fiber. The town's fiber, for example, goes around from 205 down through the town school down through town over to the old town council to here. So you need to understand the con the the e economics and the electronics involved with how this all fits it together. You can't just blame Breezeline because it's it's it's a whole f system of issues that need to be thought through and addressed correctly. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Give it a second in case you're just maybe thinking about it. Okay. All right. All right, with that we will close the first public hearing at 6:36 p.m. Uh, planning commission, you want to echo that? Planning Commission closes the first public hearing at for ZTA 2601 at 6:36 p.m.

All right. And then we'll move forward to the next public hearing. So this is zoning text amendment 2602. This is a different section of town code. That's why it's a separate public hearing. This is the section of town code that includes all of the telecommunications requirements by adding them to a conditional use uh permissible option in C1. So that is what this next public hearing is for and we will open that public hearing at 6:37 p.m. Planning Commission

Planning Commission opens the zoning text amendment public hearing for ZTA 2602 at 6:37 p.m. All right. And with that, we now have an open public hearing. Welcome. Okay. Same. Got it. Will Mr. Knuckles again Will Knuckles 204 in Monro Bay Avenue on some of the technical language that relates to this. So um the way that the map is being done and I do appreciate some of these efforts because the earlier drafts meant that I would have one of these possibly right across the street from me um in my residential neighborhood. So, I appreciate the language that's trying to carve that out to make sure that that can't happen.