Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yay. First time. All right. I'll call to order the February 17, 2026 meeting of the Columbus Burough Planning Commission. We'll start with roll call. Uh, Chairperson Evans here. Vice Chair Lynn. Secretary Lynn, member Wikenheiser here. Member Crest Hartman here. Member Fiser here. Memberlair here.

Do you want to Sure. Yes. And Brad and Tiffany Lynn did note that they were going to be absent tonight due to a conflict. Um, we'll we'll have a moment of silence and then pledge to the flag.

Okay. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome to our guests and uh we'll start with minutes from the last meeting, January 20th. Any comments? I would motion to approve the minutes as submitted with the clarification. Um the comments discussion item A um any letter members discuss any hearing board protocol for planning commission. M Lenheiser stated the planning commissioner must be present at hearing or send a letter to state recommendation and that letter must be sent to the solicitor for the zoning hearing board. That is not a letter that can be sent to the members of the board. I'd like that clarification in there, please. With that clarification, I would recommend um approval of the minutes.

Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? A second. All right, second. Marilyn, all in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Okay, minutes are approved with the correction. Um, we have no review for zoning hearings. Um, no sound application reviews, demo applications. Um, anyone here for public comment? Anything that's not on the agenda? Okay. Um, no action items, but so we'll go straight to our guests. Um, first a presentation by DC for the municipal assistance program. Okay. Good evening. Is this

It's on. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Well, thank you for having us or having me tonight. Um I was supposed to be joined um by one of our staff planners, Nicki, but unfortunately he was sick and not able to make it. Um, but we are here to or I'm here to talk about the municipal assistance program and also the community planning technical assistance program which is a new pilot program that we have. So just to start us off so that um to kind of place our programs within the larger um agency at DCED um we are located we are housed the office of community planning is housed within the governor's center for local government services. Um, the mission of the center is to serve as the principal advocate for local governments, to be the one-stop shop for all of Pennsylvania's local governments, and offer a wide range of technical assistance involving experts in finance management, fire, police, land use planning, intergovernmental cooperation, taxation, and municipal distress. And our primary focus is to help municipalities increase their capacity and to better serve So within the governor's center for local government service two sides of of the house we have um the local um local government policy specialists and they primarily deal with um financial the financial side of things operations dealing with municipalities that are in financial distress. Um also they also have the municipal statistics program and then our office of community planning. We focus more on once you have your operations and your financial um strong foundation in those two areas then we work with municipalities to work on their uh broader goals and

aspirations. And you can go to the next. Um this is our mission statement for the office of community planning. Um it is to work with local governments to foster vibrant communities through education, collaboration and innovative local and regional planning. Um and as some of you may know, DCD has always had a planning component. Um but it's just our office is just about a little over two years old now. Um we went from one planner statewide to um 12 planners and we are uh the planners are dispersed across the state and regional offices. Um I am the manager for the eastern half of the state and I have um a great team of five planners. Um like I said, Nick Canestraasi, he is one of the central region planners that's specifically assigned to Lancaster County. Um we also have planners while generally all um planners generalists, but we do have planners that have special expertise in certain areas, experience that they bring from prior positions um that we can kind of draw on from all over the state, even if you know they're not based in the central region, for example. So, first I wanted to talk about the municipal assistance program. Um, this program has been around for a long time, so it may be um, one that you're most familiar with. Um, this is it's a funding program. It's typically about a2 million um, dollars per year that we uh, fund projects in two categories, shared services and community planning. And this is specifically for local governments. It can be any any municipality or group of m municipalities or a public or quasi public organization that's authorized to

act on behalf of a m municipality or a group of mun group of municipalities. And the municipal assistance program does have a strong emphasis on intergovernmental projects. So generally projects that are um multi-municipal are uh ranked more highly um than other projects. And these are some of the types of projects um that can be funded. Um just for example um regionalization of public safety um fire, police or code enforcement staff could be a f an analysis or feasibility study for a boundary change. Um community plans. So that includes things like comprehensive plans, neighborhood plans, downtown rev revitalization plans, economic development plans. Um that's it really covers a a broad range um of plans. And then a plan implementation. This would be things like updated zoning ordinances, salo, development of official maps, um development of design guidelines or other development of programs like transfer of development rights. Um and generally if there's a project identified in your comprehensive plan, it would um receive strong consideration under the plan implementation category. Um again um and then we also have amongst our policy specialists there is emergency services team and they work specifically on emergency services projects. It's kind of really outside of my area but um we have I think there's a team of three or four um staff that if this is something you're interested in we can put you in touch with them. They also provide technical assistance and they have a team of peer consultants

that they can um bring in to conduct studies for municipalities on certain topics. Brief um these this is the the type of um in ineligible expenses or in ineligible projects for the municipal assistance program. is a 50% match. Um up to 25% of that has to be funded from non-state sources. There's limited cases where you can um request a reduced match, but that's typically for um communities that are in act 47. Next one. So this was the main reason that um we had reached out to Elise to talk about the community planning technical assistance program which is a new pilot program that we are offering through the office of community planning. Just catch up with my notes here. Um so the program is to support a local government capacity by providing planning services to communities to help inform decision makers. um decision making that impacts future the future of communities. And what it is is um offering 400 hours of technical assistance at no cost to the municipality. Basically to expand, you know, you could think about it as expanding your your capacity of your your planning office um by 400 hours. So what we what our office is finding is that there is in general across the Commonwealth a um a general lack of capacity. Um there's a lot of planning and there's a lot of plans kind of going on shelves and not being implemented. So um our executive

directors and saying planning is good, having a plan is better and executing the plan is best. So the our planners are going out in the field and sort of doing this planning work and helping to get projects moving and implemented across the commonwealth. Next slide. Um our technical assistance is offered in three buckets. uh we're calling them um the services and land use ordinances. This could be help developing uh model ordinances could be um conducting a zoning analysis which is like a comp a comprehensive evaluation of current ordinances providing recommendations. So we wouldn't be able to rewrite the ordinance for you but could analyze it uh compare it to your comprehensive plan. How does it align? where where could changes be made to um implement your comprehensive plan? Um community engagement strategies, assistance with requests for proposals and scopes of services, strategic planning. Um so this is the the pre-planning assistance. I've moved into that. Um light surveys and strategies also um downtown surveys and strategies. We we have a few of those projects in the works. And then lastly, the post planning assistance. So this is the plan implementation could include things also like project funding strategies, developing new programs. Next slide. And this is just a sort of a generic example of of how a project might come about if there's a specific need or challenge that the burrow is facing. And then an example of of the category

or the bucket that it would fall under and the type of project that may correspond with that challenge or need. Next slide. So um this is um some possible areas of partnership. Um I will say that the in the pilot phase of the project our office has been doing outreach to municipalities and selecting them based on a number of different factors. Um could be in you know involvement with the strategic management planning program or a recent municipal assistance program project. Um and then we do know um that you have the recent um comprehensive plan. Um so that was one reason I know Nick in particular had reached out to Elise. Um so the potential um areas of partnership would be implementation related to the comprehensive plan. Um and then act. Um for example, a project could include a 12 to 24month action playbook. It could include which it would include top 10 actions. So helping to prioritize all the actions in the in the comprehensive plan, identifying responsible parties, cost estimates, funding matches, and um decision- making trees. uh concluded funding map and a standing monthly monthly implementation agenda for the council or board. Um secondly, the active transportation and a bridgetobarrow connection package. And this would include potentially include a priority walking, biking network map, quick build safety toolkit,

identifying areas where uh meet crossing upgrades, curb extensions, signage markings, and a project short list with rough cost bands and next steps. And then third, the parks and public realm. This would be the goal of this would be to make the parks plan shovel ready. This deliverables would include concept sheets for the top two to three pro park projects including scope, cost ranges, maintenance implications, and equity access. A phasing and maintenance plan, um a program and activation calendar. And then um that program and activation cal calendar um the goal of that is to help build small events to or to build uh ownership the community ownership of the parks and to justify further investment down the line. Um the fourth potential was housing and neighborhood reinvestment and um with you demographics and and housing challenges. It's a problem across the state. There's reinvestment pressure and affordability sensitivity. And this project could focus on fixing regulations and process related to housing. would could include deliverables could include a targeted zoning or code. So, not the general code audit, but looking specifically at housing, looking at missing middle housing, ADUs, uh mixed use compatibility, parking reductions or alternatives and creating walkable areas, permit process clarity kit, so plain language flowcharts, timelines, and

checklists for common projects. And um for the downtown catalyst sites, this would be picking one development or redevelopment site and going deep on that one specific site. So preparing a re uh C community engagement to help develop a reuse strategy um or or a reuse vision um in a feasibility a light feasibility package. So um what what fits what constraints are there? What would the infrastructure needs be? Helping to develop an RFP for the project. And um again that that public engagement um component and lastly uh community confidence and safety adjacent design. And this would include a focus on placebased safety. So things like lighting, visibility, street activity, and walkable design that supports the eyes on the street. And the deliverables could include hotspot public realm checklists. So really looking at identifying that those lighting, sight lines, crossings, and activity anchors, targeting small blocks for improvement, and coordinating the plan with police and community groups. So the um these projects were these are very preliminary. Um if the burrow is interested um sort of we'd like to know what if there's something here that was is a um high priority for you. If there's not something on this list um what else is out there? um what are the the high

needs and high high priorities. Um I know um Nick who had had prepared these kind of concept projects um thought that the first three noted on there were the um most likely to be um most likely to succeed candidates in terms of um what we could do with you know our 400 hours. So, but that that is not to say that, you know, it could be the other projects or something else on that list.

Um, and so when we met with Elise, we were kind of talking about, um, getting some more input from from you all. Um, and moving forward, if there was a a project and you wanted to participate in this program, um, we would develop a detailed scope of work and provide that to you for feedback, comment. it would be updated. Um and then um we would have a letter letter of understanding which just would be an agreement between DCED and the bureau just outlining basically holding DCD harmless. Um there there's no cost um associated them with the program. It's 400 hours technical assistance. So probably talked enough. Um be happy to take any questions. Um, and also just I can take any feedback now or I can um my emails on the last slide, but I can also leave some of my cards here.

Um, and then what's the I guess I'll start with Thank you. What's the uh kind of like what's the process to apply and like how long does that usually take? Yeah. So, well for MAP or the technical assistance? I was thinking more of the technical assistance. Sure. Yeah. So right now there isn't an application process. It is because it is a pilot program. Okay.

Our planners are going out or identifying communities that are like well positioned to take on a project or you know have the capacity to have somebody on staff that can at least serve as a liaison. um who are in a position like with your comprehensive plan, you know, having a strong plan in place um to work off of and then doing outreach. But in the future, we will have a form that that the communities or municipalities will apply for the technical assistance. I think one of the things and and I wrote it down here was when we completed our comp plan. I think one of the questions there was how does that align with our zoning ordinances at this time? So, you know, I would look at that as something for us to take advantage of to be able to have someone look at that. I like I said, I know that was, you know, some of our questioning when we completed our comp plan. Okay, we've got this, but now how does the in particular the zoning ordinance, how is that going to mesh with the the comp plan and the wishes in that as far as the the parks? I right now our parks they're just completing Mel Park that's being done. Jansen's Park there was just a new play area put in there. Rotary within the last several years that was redone. As far as our river park, we're at a standstill down there now because of Pendock. We've got a phase three plan for

all those acres of land between the bridge and we really can't do anything. So because of not knowing what Pendot's doing with that bridge, you know, the plan's there and it's sitting on the shelf and it it's going to sit on the shelf until Pendot, we don't know if they're going to use it for a, you know, a site or what they're doing. So myself right now, I don't see parks as a priority because I think they've been deal dealt with.

Um, we seem to finally have a a parks and wreck board that's doing something. I actually was at one of their meetings last week and they're looking at all types of events and things being able to do, you know, they're getting their feet wet and uh moving forward with some things, but um I really see the ability to look at the comp plan and the the zoning ordinance alignment as something that would be very helpful. And that's what we were talking about that done with the zoning agenda.

We're trying to take we're trying to consolidate some districts and try to align it with our future land use map. So it's not just a district thing but also, you know, revising how the land uses go in these different consolidated areas and being a burrow a lot of the setbacks and that sort of thing can be a challenge too. So that was one project that we were heading on and working with county planning.

You know, part of one of their initiatives is simplifying zoning and that's to a degree what we're trying to do and there's a lot of technical help in along the way. I I seem to recall with the you know bar with the comp plan um development process that you know kind of like the active transportation was a big or a key part of it with you know kind of bicycle pedestrian circulation and wayfinding and things too. Um so yeah there definitely are um topics that you know rise out of the comp plan to to implement for sure and Mary's definitely right in terms of the parks you know there's a lot of involved um

organizations and everything a lot of it's been addressed yeah I think and there's good management of the parks too you know amongst all the different parties but yeah certainly the zoning land use part of implementing and active transportation. But I think we would probably I think that much time would go a long way,

you know, assistance. Do so just thinking because we'll we'll have to talk and you know, we've already kind of been doing our own work a little bit and again we had these sorts of projects working and then kind of let off for a while because we had busy agendas. But um like if we're interested, I think we're we're certainly interested, but does like the council need to, you know, request that assistance, you know, it needs to go through council to request assistance. So they would either need to um adopt a resolution um in support of the the letter of understanding.

Okay. um which the scope of work would be attached um or just even just attaching a copy of of a minutes from a meeting where they approved it. It wouldn't necessarily need to be its own and that scope of work. Would that be something that like we develop with we would develop that? Well, so um I would work Nick primarily um would be developing it um in collaboration with myself and others in our office um and then providing that to you for review and comment.

Okay. Um, in some cases we've been having like if there's a couple projects that rise to the top, preparing two different scopes to take a look at and see which one um would be probably which who you would think would be most beneficial. And would this be something that that Nick and Elise that you know we would give Elise the direction to work this with you or how would you Nick be working maybe with Justin or you know how would we who would be working to develop that scope of work?

Yeah, sure. So, so Nick would be Nick would be the uh primary point of contact and the primary planner assigned to the project. He would also have support from um Chris Chapman who is another planner in office. He's based in the northeast but we are doing this in teams of two. And then um so Nick would be preparing it based on either feedback we hear tonight or that we we have you know a future call or an email about and draft that scope of work for your review. So there wouldn't have to and really the only thing that would be asked for basically um from you would be you know if there's materials um background documents GIS files um you know we don't have budget for printing or copying if there there was something that was needed like that for you know if there was a public engagement whether there was agendas or something like that need to be printed um you know potentially maybe helping facilitate meeting space.

But, um, to answer your question, M, I would be the staff that would be in contact with with Nick um, and anyone else on the project. So, if there were any information that you wanted to relay over to them, you can pass that over to me just to streamline any conversations. Okay. So, first we have council say, you know, we say to council, we're interested in this, you know, to help us with plan implementation. And then they say, okay. And either pass a resolution or have it in minutes that they're be that, you know, that they're aware and they're behind it. Yeah. And then Nick will work with the lease and just kind of come up with the scope.

Yeah. So we've had in some other cases, you know, the council will they'll vote to authorize the staff person, you know, to execute the the letter of understanding based on scope of work for plan implementation or we could I mean we could do sort of like a informal like hearing having the scope of work having you know giving it to you giving to council to take a look, finalizing it, um, or, you know, editing it based on feedback and then sending it for the final.

That sounds like, right, at least council knows what exactly we're jumping into. And we can we could we can definitely come back, you know, if they if we have a a work session or a meeting, you know, when they they wanted us to come talk about the project specifically. Um, we can definitely do that. We could also provide, you know, an executive summary um to go along with, you know, explaining the program and how it how the project fits into it.

Well, the first Tuesday of the month, council actually holds a work session and then their actual meetings are the third and second, Tuesday. Tuesday, second, fourth Tuesday. The first one's a workshop. Yeah, the first Tuesday is a workshop.

The third Tuesday we have. So, you know, we could prepare a draft scope of work or two potentially to pass around and then, you know, if we felt like it would be helpful for us to come to a work session um or, you know, whatever meeting is appropriate, we could we could do that

to do something like that for us to review and then present to council that we would review scope of work prior to submission to council. So we just for my own clarification. So we want to get a scope of work or two come back and review it at planning commission and then once you guys make notes then present it to council after that. Is that correct? Revised revisit for the next Okay. to March

and then potentially go to council in April. Yeah. I I would not want to go to council with this is what we're looking at, but what do you think? You know, we've had these thoughts. I would like to be able to go to council and say this is what planning commission feels would benefit that we would like to be able to move forward. I'd rather have it that way than have it drag on and on back and forth. Yeah, we're firmly behind it scope. Yeah, that sounds like a great plan. So, I'm definitely hearing the the zoning analysis, right? Sounds like that that

maybe something. Is there any other projects? I mean, and it doesn't have to be decided tonight. The the one or two projects that we would write up that could be we can have further conversations. You know, you can you know what? I would like to focus on one project at a time and get it done because it's been dragging on for a long time, right? Instead of I I don't know how other finish one thing feel about that. I think it's a great idea to do it. You get too many balls in the air, you lose track of them. Yeah. Yeah, I should do that. Barb, your thoughts?

Is there a time frame that we have to use these for? the analysis. I also um the transportation I think is also important. Um and I was considering I my interest was peaked with the housing and neighborhood reinvestment. Um yeah, I'm not I'm not sure where we are in in in that here as burrow but and where we can go at this point. Um, from my perspective, it seems like that's not much focus has been on that.

And to go back to your question about the there's no time frame um, but it is one discrete project. So, um, as part of our scope for work, we will have a a timeline in there about when the the project the project milestones and So, we're only allowed to do one project and once that project's done, then we're done with the hours that we're allowed for now. Yeah. It doesn't mean you couldn't come back and once this program is really kind of up and running and and request technical assistance under the same Okay. parameters in the future. Okay. Okay.

So, it sounds like as a pilot project, you're still setting parameters. Well, the the program, so we even kind of had like a pre-pilot, which it's before this. I know it's it sounds silly, but we were working um for example, we are doing projects in Sunbury right now. We just completed a zoning ordinance analysis um there. We also have projects in Johnsonburg. They're doing a blight um inventory.

And then um Beaver Falls, they did a funding plan for there. So from the lessons learned in those three communities, the program guidelines were drafted. And so because we don't have um you know there there hasn't been publicity about this program, we don't have communities filling out forms or or requesting the assistance. So this is like our initial outreach and to to to get communities into the program so that we can also start demonstrating um the services that we we now have. Okay.

But are are these other municipalities doing several different shall I say studies or are they focusing on a topic? So in the in the what we're calling like the pre-pilot yeah there's um in Sbury there was we have um three phases for project there um in Johnsonburg there's two two phases there um when you say phases like two two projects two different projects yeah okay

um and so one thing I guess um our management kind of learned I guess from that was that the the amount of hours that our staff has to dedicate to this technical outreach with our other responsibilities and administering the the municipal assistance program. That 400 hours um at least for now, you know, unless you know that could change in the future um is a good amount of time to um dedicate to a a single project to a municipality and and that way too we can spread the technical assistance around as well. Is it 400 hours per project? Yes.

All right. Well, thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

That's great. Very promising. Okay, we'll turn the You're ready to move. hear what Gwen and Christina have to say about guess a followup on the simplifying zoning you guys have had it's probably been six eight months since you were here so I mean it'd be good to hear what um what's been going on with that okay do you mind if I don't go to the podium but actually go and sit down at one of your things and turn your things I do better we'll allow it thank Yeah, that's fine. I didn't see an issue with that. No,

you need access to the computer. No, I'm not a computer paper on me. All right. Yes, I do appreciate um you asking us back. Um I'm Gwen Newell. I am a senior planner at the Langster County Planning Department. Um I am not your liaison. That is actually uh Christine.

So um I'm just here because I have a big mouth. So um so yes, the simplified zoning um was phase one was completed. Um, we do have half a dozen documents that are available on the county website as resources and uh technical assistance for municipalities in taking a look at their zoning ordinances. Um, and we can further explain. We do have a how to use them document because it's not when we first imagined creating a simplified zoning document. In my brain, I was imagining um one huge magical zoning ordinance that municipalities could pull from. Um, and that's a lot of work. So, we did not create something like that. We created the individual uh documents. Um so we have a how to use them kind of thing. Um it does sound like your zoning ordinance is a little old and you're looking to holistically update it. Um so we could we could encourage and and you can use our resources a couple different ways. We did finish them because we had we have a new executive director and he's very he comes from the transportation side. So none of this oh the project keeps going on for two years three years you know it'll be yeah we have a we have a date that you have to get it done. Um, so we do recognize like all regula regulation uh ordinances um the second you get it done you go oh I should fix that I need to clean that up I need to so we were hoping that

there was a phase two on these documents um but our priority has departmentwide um we are also working with fewer resources, fewer people.

Um, and we are now working on updating or making sure our rural strategy um is on par because we've been concentrating on our urban areas for the last couple years. Um, we're still trying to work out where our urban growth areas should be located. Um, but we are going to be updating our comprehensive plan, the county's comprehensive plan, um, in 2728. So they want to just get a head start. We've been telling the rural municipalities, we'll get to you later. Well, later is now 2026. So I have not been given the task to update the simplified zoning documents. So they are what they are. They're very good documents, but some um some can some could use work. Um we have the big fixes. Those are the 15 dot 15 things that you could do to make changes to your uh ordinance right away. Certain things like um taking of the first one um taking a look at your zoning districts, seeing if you can reduce the number that you have. Um, and can instead of having a commercial over here and a a manufacturing industrial light manufacturing industrial over here, can you combine it into one mixeduse zoning district? Um, we have gone through and created um because Langster County has 60 municipalities and over 540 individual zoning districts with 540 individual regulations on how to interpret those. So, we did go through and we came up with a list of zoning

district names to try and be consistent with consistent purpose statements. We do encourage you to take a look at your current zoning districts. See what can what matches close to it. Um, but try and one way to simplify your zoning district is zoning ordinance is not to have quite so many zoning districts. try and simplify them. And we do have an excellent resource here that's on the website um with a list of what the zoning districts were encouraging um to have. Um and then we also have a pretty darn good uh bulk regulations for each of those zoning districts. So, um, if you do use the DCED resource, you know, have them take a look at this these documents and and see what the regulation should be within those zoning districts. Um because one of the things we realized and I I apologize if this is a repeat from the last time I was here but another way to simplify your zoning district is not every zoning district has to regulate the exact same thing. You know, we took a look and said, "All right, in certain instances, you need to regulate front, side, and rear setbacks, but in certain cases, maybe agricultural, you really only care about the front. You know, you don't need to have a 50-foot sideyard setback on a 100 acre farm, you know, kind of thing. So, one way to simplify it is we took a look and we sat down with our planning partners, um, some municipal officials, some developers, um, and like EDC and and you know, that kind of thing, act preserve board and say, okay, what do you actually need to

regulate in this type of zoning district? Um, so in our bulk standards, you will not see all the same exact regulations. We're like, "All right, here's what's important to regulate in a mixeduse commercial. Here's what's important to regulate in a residential zoning district." Um, but they're not all the same. So, um, only regulate what you need to regulate in each zoning district. So, we encourage you to take a look at start with your districts. see if you can simplify them. See if they match any of the counties and then take a look the bulk regulations and see if you can go, "Oh, this works for us." Um, here in Colombia,

where are the bulk regulations? What is that? In which it's actually going it's like uh we've titled it the bulk regulations for proposed zoning districts. Okay. Well, there it is. All of these are in are in the website. Okay. Um, under our publications. Yeah, you um I had these from somewhere.

We have also um if you're looking for just the zoning districts, we have a page that just has the zoning districts with a purpose statement and the characteristics. Um, so you can take a look at this as well. um and use that as a resource stuff when she was here.

We also spent a long time talking to our um housing partners and our housing people. And one of the unique things in L in the state is that there's no magical definition for all the different housing types housing terms. it is it's it's frustrating. So, we went through and we created some definitions um quite a few 18 pages of definitions. Um, so this is not the only definitions that we recommend putting in a zoning ordinance, but I encourage you to take a look at the at least the housing language and go, okay, if we can improve and simplify regulations across the county, if everybody uses those same definitions. Um, so this is what a duplex is called. Um and again we tried to we tried to we took a look at existing definitions and said well why is that in there that's restricting or what that that's it some were too long you know they were too

yeah it's like just keep it simple too narrow too yeah like let's just keep it simple um so we tried to keep it simple stupid when we came towards or definitions. Um, so we encourage you to use that resource as well. Um, there are definitions, acronyms, and abbreviations because there's quite a few things that

new people are like, I don't know what that is, acronym means. So, we have that as a tool. Um, and so we have if you're looking to do and this this is harder because you're over you're looking at your whole ordinance, but if you were only going look, we have a housing issue, we have a housing concern, this um big fix document can go, all right, if you want to work on building heights, you need to adopt minimums as well as maximum building heights because in

in urban urbanized areas. You don't want one story everywhere. You do want to sort of force the minimum as well as the maximum in certain zoning districts. Um we encourage you to increase your density and lock coverage requirements along keep transportation routes because along the key transportation routes, you know, you need to support public transit usage. So you have we we encourage you to address and deal with your transportation and active transportation plan like to implement that kind of thing when you're looking at your zoning districts um and zoning ordinance. And we recognize that not everybody's going to want to use the county's language in the county's documents. So in some in instances simplifying zoning can also mean looking at your neighbors and looking at what their regulations are and their definitions are and go, "All right, we're going to be consistent with, you know, Marietta with the housing definitions or we're going to be consistent with West Hempfield on whatever commercial or whatever urban definitions and urban uh districts that they have. Granted, you are very unique that you are one of our largest burrows. you are our largest burrow, so you're going to have different needs than Marietta. We acknowledge that. So maybe you take a look at them and the city and sort of compromise kind of thing.

But we share, you know, like we meet up out the highway L462. Yeah. With Westfield on a commercial strip, you know, so it makes sense to where it where it makes sense to try to tie that in too.

Yeah. Um, you do want to be careful that you don't like if their if their zoning language is 10 years old, you may not want to use their language. Um, I know that Manheim Burrow, while farther away, just recently updated their zoning uh whole zoning book. So take a look at like things that have been updated in the last five years and see if their time and effort if you can piggy back on what they've done, if you like their language because again if we can get 58 instead of 60 different R1 zones, you know, that's simplifying zoning throughout the county. So um definition so I love hearing your presentation because again we this is we created this this this these documents. We can come out and help but we are not we cannot come out monthly and do this. we we cannot be staffed for municipalities that are going through updating their their zoning ordinance. So, um if you can get outside resources to help you with that, utilizing just taking a look and seeing do you like it, do you not like it, we do not expect every single municipality to adopt every single thing or even half of what's in these documents to be honest. you know, we know that it's just one of the many resources that you guys have, but um we're proud of what we did. We did one of the other things in addition to acknowledging that um not every zoning

district has to regulate the exact same thing. We flipped the script on what land uses should go in each zone district to what does that what what do you want to um what are the impacts that you want in those zoning districts? What do you want to have and not have? Um and then based or are we don't have a list of land uses within each of these zone districts. We have a list of impacts that are acceptable and permitted. And if your land use has those impacts, then it's a permitted land use. So, it speeds up their process. But if you need uh a loading dock for your land use, those aren't allowed in the residential zones. So, we're not listing every single land use that may or may not have a loading dock. We're actually implementing the we're we're referencing the impacts. That's a very unique thing that's not anything that's ever been used as a in a zoning ordinance, but we think it's a very efficient way so that you don't have to go, "Oh my gosh, there's data centers out there. Now we have to add the data center definition and add regulations. You know, it's like what are the impacts of a data set? If it's too much noise, if it's too much, you know, too big of a building, that's then covered. So, but that's a that's a unique concept. It's going to probably take a decade before municipalities are comfortable um going down that route, but we do think it's a good route. It's one because it is a new

concept. That's the one that I most that I think needs the most work. So if you use those regulations um do it with um going that might not be you know so um that one out of all of them I would love to be able to go back and and clean up the impact one. The impacts one. Yeah. Yeah, because we couldn't we couldn't we were we were literally inventing the wheel on that one. We couldn't we couldn't copy that from from other documents.

So again, it's just sort of a repeat. Here's what's here's the So these are all adopt the six. They are they have been moved through and formalized. Yes. And we did go through and um because we had a deadline that we had to complete them by. We completed them and then our editors in our office said, "Well, I didn't get a chance to read that." You know, got so we do have um last revised dates and I do believe September.

Okay. So if you printed it out the June 20 there September versions have been edited and cleaned up. Okay. Yeah. Cuz I think you brought these when you came. You were here like in July or August. Some of them still had highlighted areas that you were working for sure. Okay. So September 2025 all of them in September. So

Okay. And if you have any questions, if you want um we are still very excited to be part of occasionally stepping in and providing feedback on on zoning ordinance updates. We just can't do it on a weekly basis. And it would be uh Christine that would be that person. Okay. Well, absolutely. Yeah. Hi, Christine Lee with Langster County Planning Department. Um, I just wanted to highlight that West Hemfield Township, your neighbor, adopted their comp plan December of last year. So, it's really good timing to start that conversation, that relationship. Perfect.

Yeah. Great. Thank you. And if it's something, you know, like if we, you know, work with um DCED, something if you wanted to follow along with or just kind of see how it unfolds and, you know, the help we're getting and you know, because I think, you know, we're coming back to this, you know, we have a couple ideas for projects, but definitely the zoning implementation, you know, we've been trying to keep up with the simplified approach. That's what the comp plan called for. So it might be interesting, you know, to see some of that. That's the way we go to get help. Thank you. Thank you, Gwen. Yeah. Thanks. Question. Thank you.

No, that's good to know. Thanks for the update on, you know, the documents, the products, and we'll be sure to check them out on the county's website, September updates. So, we are, it is much easier to answer email questions, you know, as opposed to, you know, okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Gwen.

All right. Uh we'll move to our last item of business. Um which is basically just to take a look at the activity report and any comments or feedback on that before we send it to council. At least do you know what we're supposed to do for council? just submit it to them or, you know, do they want to hear from us? Oh, I I'm not sure. Okay. Um, it seemed probably Okay. Yeah. Um, we're we're taking reports from all the committees and putting them in our workshop

and um that way the whoever comes to the workshop, they can see what every in all of the different committees that report and use it. I used to have this submitted as part of a council packet but then whenever this would be in the council packet I would attend meeting if there were any questions you know the council might have. So, first Tuesday,

Genie, what this is under the municipalities planning code, the head of the planning commission is required each year by March. There's a date specific March 15. You gave me the paper. Yeah, I gave you the paper that this must be submitted to the governing body each year by the chair of the planning commission. So, this is a report that under the municipalities planning code we are required to make to burrow council every year. This is different than the regular monthly report. Correct. Yes. This is a yearly report.

Yeah. This is an activities report of what planning commission did in 2025. I look forward to Okay. What What time is the meeting? All right. See if I put it on my calendar now. Are you available on the second Monday? The first Monday. First Monday. First first Tuesday. Oh, all right. Okay. So, you were testing me and I thought first Tuesday. Okay. Yes. I'm putting it in there now. Okay. So, I don't forget. You might want to make sure it's on the agenda before you just show up. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, I will.

Yeah. I will give this um once it's once you guys are all good with this activity report, I'll pass it on to Paula tomorrow at work and she will make sure it goes on whichever agenda it is meant to go on. Okay. All right. Put that in there just so I don't forget. Okay. So, I'll follow up with Paulo then. Okay. All right. So, that's suitable. I don't know. I'm good with it. Okay. I good with it. No. Yes, I'm good with it. No, we don't have to. All right. Anything else from the public or Elise? Anything else from

commission members for the good of the order? Okay. Well, next meeting will be March 17th, 2026 or St. Patrick's Day. Interesting. Do we want to try at that meeting? Too early. If we have no other business to get back to this zoning consolidation, we're kicking around. Well, we may we may end up having scopes of work to look at. Yeah. Next meeting, too. So, one way or another, we'll progress. Okay. I think that's a great idea. As of right now, we don't have any applications in for planning. I mean, I don't expect 12 applications tomorrow. That's the deadline. Um, okay.

But as of right now, we don't have anything, but I'll let you guys know if anything changes. All right. We'll plan to plan. This will be our next meeting. Okay, I have a motion to adjourn. Motion by Mary. A second. Second by Marilyn. All in favor say I. I. All right. Meeting is adjourned. Told you this was the best