Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

live. All right, it's 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock. We'll go ahead and go to order the March 17, 2026 meeting of the Columbia Burough Planning Commission. And we'll call Chairperson Evans here. Vice Chair Lynn. Uh, member Wikenheiser here. Member or Secretary Lynn here. Member Cres Hartman here. Member Fischer here. MemberLair here. All right. Thank you. Happy St. Patrick's Day. We'll start um or next we'll um have We don't have a moment of silence.

You can we can still do a moment of silence and then we'll say 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. First item of business is consider approval of the minutes from our last meeting, February 17th. Any comments or corrections? Motion to approve the minutes for February 17th as presented in our packet. We have a motion from Mary, a second. Second. Second, Barb. All in favor say I. I. I.

Okay. Minutes are approved. Uh we have no zoning hearings to review, no engineer reviews of uh land development applications, no demo applications, um other action items or discussion items. We're going to come back to old business, a presentation that was given to us last month from DEC DCED um regarding the CATAP program and a potential um assistance they'll they will have for the burrow and the burough planning commission. Um they've come back to us. So we'll have a follow-up presentation with their scope of work um for comp plan implementation project and

Nick Nick from DCED um is here I guess to answer any questions we've been provided with the scope um based on some of the conversation we had last month. Last month we talked about um potential projects being the zoning map update,

simplifying the zoning code and bringing some areas up to date. We also talked about um some of the things that the comp plan implementation spoke to which was like bike pedestrian circulation, wayfinding, you know, around downtown and everything. um which you know I think we still agree is something we'd like to see um in not too long not too distant future when it comes to economic development and um pedestrian bicycle safety here in town. Um but what DCD has prepared is kind of a more of a immediate focus I guess or to help us finish off the the zoning implementation. Um so we were provided with this last week if we have any questions we want to have a discussion you know amongst the planning commission um it's here as well where do we start was there any paperwork that was handed out last month that Tiffany and I may have missed

um for this

no last the last month DC reps came and they uh did a presentation. It was just like a online presentation. I can share the I believe I still have the presentation that I would be able to share, but basically they just walked through the CAP program. um we're being we are they're working with us for 400 hours of technical assistance to to get a project in planning or community development done. Um, and last and we had discussed like Justin was saying kind of going through our zoning ordinance and um seeing where cracks are, whether that be uh simplifying our zoning district. Um I know there were other other things that have been discussed about as ordinances amendments to ordin zoning ordinance that um have maybe been discussed previously or that burough council has wanted to looked into um that have been brought to my attention um that also revolved around the planning ordinance. Um, so that's it was really just the presentation last week. No other

Thank you. paperwork. And Wen was here from county planning. Correct.

And uh, one of the things that she shared with us is that there was a later update on the simplified zoning that the planning commission had done and that that was available online. And I actually went back to Elise and had her send me the uh link to that. So I was able to see that. I think we had earlier um addition I'll say additions of the simplified zoning but there was a later September I think it was we had a May and June or something like that. that was shared to us with us that that was now on the county planning site.

Thank you. And if you saw in the scope, they're also going to look at parking. I know that's something we've always been kind of challenged by. And we're not but we're not alone. You know, other burrows or even cities deal with, you know, kind of the issue of

um on street parking for many um residential properties, but also as they've noted kind of in the in our rental related provisions as well. some good practices that might be able to help um with that. You know, we're never probably going to get unstuck from the bigger picture issue, but that's also kind of part of living in town, too, sometimes. Hey, just to kind of bring you up to date, at the um council's March meeting, they had drafts of numerous ordinances and they were supposed to be back at their regular meeting on the 10th, but they were pulled off the agenda. And one of those was a new rental properties ordinance, an ordinance 966. And one of the things I was hearing that evening as in that ordinance they are going to require two on premises parking spaces for single family rental properties. Also, not just multi- family. If you are going to set up a single family residential property, you're going to need two on premise parking.

Be interesting. So, that'll be part of the license requirement.

That's going to be part of it. Um, another another neighborhood there. is going to deal with. Well, they did just to go down the line, they they hit the rental properties, uh update the parking at the river park, uh food truck ordinance, revised the uh fire inspector ordinance, the key lock box ordinance, and there is a val volunteer service tax credit that can be applied and they are updating that also. So, all of those ordinances are currently being reviewed by the bureau by council. I just thought to bring you up on what I've seen attending council meetings because I didn't mean to sidetrack people there.

Yeah, that's good to know. I mean and it's not just the map and I saw in school you know so we the the uses the permitted uses and we have a table in our current z ordinance for better or worse um but part of the challenge in simplifying the the districts is merging some of these different use areas and we identified some of those but you know I think another opinion and how to actually kind of move this forward you know, this seems to be what they would help us with, right?

And, you know, we're we're all kind of ready to be finished with it after all these years. Yeah. Remember walking around the alleys with Jeff Parking, doing the parking stuff, you know, that was probably six, seven years ago, I guess. 19. That was 19. It was summer of 2019. Yeah. Right before he retired. Yeah. And then we had the big zoning change of the different districts. That was December of 19. Mhm.

So we were going to jump into all of that and he retired and co hit and we just everything was a standill for Yeah. year and a half, right? then they get us the priority,

right? And and I think that was one of the things when we were looking at this um proposed consolidation. I think that was one of the things that kind of sidetracked this because it was looking at at the industrial combining light business, light industrial and general industrial. Yep. Like business, the only thing there was the McInness and we didn't know what direction Bur wanted to go. So that kind of held us up on that. There aren't any kind of decision on this future land use. So, right.

So, it's a six-month timeline. Um, you know, which is pretty brisk, you know, but obviously, you know, 400 hours and getting all that help. Um, you know, I guess if anything, it'll help us help free us up for other things that's kind of on our list items and comp plan implementation, but also, you know, kind of gets us back into the conversation at the sid track too much, but in terms of what kind of other resources we'll need to help with moving the comp plan forward, you know, whether we're talking about going back to Jessica, um, you know, for help with some of the things or whoever, you know, to to help us look into circulation and safety and you know some of those other comp plan things. So like even though we're hoping to kind of get this kick started or at least you know moved past over the hump um with the zoning implementation for the new comp plan. You know we still need to be thinking about like what it is that we're going to work on in our work sessions. you know, in terms of kind of keeping the burrow, I mean, the council has a lot on their plates, but at least trying to help keep the burrow focused on um implementing the plan, all the effort that went into it, all the stakeholders and community voices that said, hey, here the these are the priorities for our community. You know, we do have a job and trying to keep those things moving through implementation. So, you know, even though we're going to help, you know, we're going to turn this over to DCD to kind of get us over the hump, we still need to think about that. We want to keep moving, like Mary said, use 2026 to get back on some of these work sessions or use our lighter agendas to um, you know, use as work sessions. Yeah, I would sooner see us use our later agenda nights as work sessions

than schedule work sessions and then be here for a a 15minute meeting for our regular meeting. Right. Yeah. I'd rather start earlier than be later.

Yeah. Yeah. and you have mapping capability to, you know, kind of look at some of the areas and how much acreage and, you know, I mean, our complaint gets into that a lot, but in terms of, you know, the areas that would change zoning to have a better understanding with that. And I think when Gwen was here from county planning last month, you know, she offered, you know, county resources also to be able to work with DC on any of these. And may I ask who put this together? Did DCED put this together or

Okay.

Okay. I didn't know if if Elise was working with you on this or if if you had put this together. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, the direction we were headed with kind of this proposal or with, you know, before your vote, we were really trying to tie the the next round of zoning districts to the future land use map. You know, obviously there's not going to be a clear translation everywhere, but that was really the goal. You know, not just in terms of a number of classifications, but you know, where some of those districts kind of would overlap, you know, or are combined into one. Some of the how to resolve some of the land use table conflicts um between those two districts, how you settle some of those. That's big part of it. I hope that's kind of what you um will have in mind when you approach the you know analyzing the different residential uses and districts and industrial commercial industrial right.

Yeah. Um that was uh one of the the things I noticed uh immediately about your zoning ordinance uh is the number of districts and um the number of residential districts too. Um so I I haven't done a full dive yet, but that is those are the things that kind of stood out to me. Um I've been to Columbia before um a number of times. I live here in the county. I live on the other side here near here near here near here near here near here near here near here near here near here near here in Africa. So it's uh it's no trouble for me to drive over here at all. So kind of all you got to do is get through 220 230 and you got it made.

Yeah. Well, and I think you'll find the unique situation here in town is so you could have industrial on one side of the street and three bucks of row homes on the other side of the street with maybe a food store, a restaurant, and on the corner. And then uptown you have a church, a school, a CVS. So, you'll find some um existing nonconformities all over Colombia.

It's kind of just like with our historic district, one side of the streets in and the other sides out instead of using the avenues as as boundaries. It's, you know, things like that. Yeah. And so the challenge and you don't want to lose commercial property, you want to keep businesses and people having small ventures and all that sort of thing. But then it's always about trying to manage conflicts between residential and non-residential. And that biggest conflict is parking. Is parking. Yeah.

Because as soon as someone wants to open a tax shop or a beauty shop, that's the first thing. barber shop. That's the first thing that is talked about. It's a responsible way of approaching it. Absolutely. But it's also, you know, we won't lose business. So, you know, make it tough to do business in town. You want to be able to encourage. Yeah. There's advantages and disadvantages. Biggest disadvantages. You kind of the properties are what they are. Yeah. A lot of they're all chopped up and smaller. Yep. Yep. Um, so it is difficult in that sense for non-residential

because that was one of the things with the 2019 ordinance, the one passed in December that we needed to look. We had an expansion in the downtown commercial area and what we needed to look at was some of the language and uses that would protect what had previously been residential areas from having a machine shop moving next to a bright or something or an arcade, you know. So that was one of the things we needed to get to which we did and that's why it was still on the list of legislative priorities. I I reading through the the scope of work that was presented here. I'm very comfortable with what's been presented here and um to get help like model ordinance examples for us to go on our own digging for for model ordinances, you know, to have you have that capability. It's much easier, I think, than us to try doing something like that. I think that's a a great advantage there. And if you can find others who have adopted ordinances and they're working for them, why do we need to reinvent the wheel?

Yeah. Right. So, I I think that that is a big help here and and to have someone outside look at our zoning and say what could be improved. So DCED is going to look at our map where we currently have 17 zoning districts that we worked on to try to consolidate and got it down to seven, but we settled it at that and didn't finalize it. Right. Does Nick have access to what we finalized?

I will be sending over all of the documents that I have. So when you're talking about the seven districts that you consolidated down, are you speaking of the future land use map that is in the Columbia 2040 comprehensive plan or is there something else that has been worked on in addition to the future land use plan map? That is basically what we were looking at. That was our base for what we were working from. Okay. saying, but we had some and then we had

we had already started to mark up some of those like intersection areas where you're having like okay now this district and this district is I think the highway commercial and the other commercial you know Columbia Avenue and Linkster Avenue downtown. Yeah. Yeah. So but then there's like different uses in each district. So like we made progress with that and I think sharing some of those notes um that we had. I can And then there was and I think Jessica put this together. Yeah. This Columbia Burough zoning map future.

Yeah, I think she did too. I think she put that together and we were kind of working with that in the map. Exactly. That was what we were working with. We kind of ran out of budget. Well, well, we got sidetracked on doing Yeah. the revisions for the light business for the McInness property

and I have to question those revisions. Let me tell there was I I'll I'll just bring this out. I was at a council meeting where a gentleman was there and part of the discussion was that that is now zone that you cannot have any type of residential properties out there. And one of the comments when they were discussing with realtors and different developers was an over 55 community. right now that would not be allowed on that ground.

Mhm. So I I think that you know we did the best we could at the time. Sure. Sure. And uh but there's always times that you look back and say we should have. And I would look back and say we should have. Well, I mean to be honest, it was really headed towards major. It could still be, right? You know, but I don't think it was really in kind of like the reasonable amount of possibilities that the burrow was looking at. The burough was looking at industrial development. Yeah. Industrial business development.

And it was difficult. We didn't know lot sizes. We didn't know what industrial development. We didn't know what vehicles were going in, what streets were going to be used. Really, we didn't know much about the infrastructure part as far as sewer, water, street lights. It was just a general to get things moving forward. We realize they're going out for RFPs. They haven't really put them out there yet. what they're trying what they were trying to do was create some buzz before the RFP because they can only have it out there for a certain length of time. And with what they're asking from the developer, the developer will not have had time to put those things together. I think they only have like 45 days from the time they issue until they award something like that. This would be the light business district. So that's a it's an old airport, you know, like a small airport type of thing. So that's probably the only thing that's settled in the zoning zoning right now.

Yeah. In terms of for the future, that's that's that 41 acres. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm comfortable with what's been presented here and I think it it does outline and I'm happy to come in and kind of share with like like what I had taken notes like our progress was and I'm sure anybody's notes would be fine but I'm happy.

I will also reach out to Jess to for her to send anything that she has from those work sessions. Um my other question was so these um after our meeting last month, I emailed with Nick and um he asked for because they're going to look over our whole zoning ordinance. Um he asked for specific topics to look for um and to focus on while they're reviewing our entire zoning ordinance. These were the things that I had mentioned just based on conversations that um you kind of what I was picking out of conversations here. Also um what I know um you know I was given like a list of potential ordinances um that were previously worked on slashcurrenly being worked on. So I kind of picked those ones that were in the zoning ordinance. if there's anything that you think would be more beneficial to focus on within the Z zoning off ordinance. Um, that's what this kind of review is for. Um, I know for the parking standards, if there is an ordinance that's already going to be put before Burough Council, um, maybe we could see kind of where that takes parking out of the zoning ordinance and see what else might be a better fit if that's already kind of being something worked on. Um, just making sure that our 400 hours are being used the most effectively. We don't want to kind of I don't want to redo I don't want to have any work that you guys have already done re redone. Um,

well, especially if they're rental focus because it sounds like there's already a pending ordinance. So, I wonder if the rental focus is going to allow relief through the zoning ordinance.

I can definitely talk to Paula about that um tomorrow or sometime this week to see kind of where that is headed. Again, this is nothing that's been like passed or approved or anything. If it fa if it fails, we can always um work from what we're given. But um if it is focusing more on that, then maybe we could put some other focus that's in the zoning ordinance that would be beneficial for this project. I don't think there is any specific parking ordinance. I that doesn't it more fall in line with what the property usage is?

Well, I think in the zoning ordinance it requires you to have two off street parking for multiple units. Parking is currently in the zoning ordinance. It is based on dwell number one dwelling unites continue on. Um so I know that they're working on like the wordage of that. Sure. Um to make sure that it can be enforced and is um easy to understand. So I don't I I truthfully don't think that's something we want to that I would want to use these hours for. I think we have

I think that's fair. if it's there's already something that council looking at already. What other kind of topic area in that zoning addresses that really needs updated especially in mind of the comp plan there's anything identified other than you know getting the districts shaped up. I mean I liken the scope looking at you know the possibility for overlays. overlays can be complicated and can make it tougher, but it also may afford us the ability to, you know, lose seven or eight different districts and kind of, okay, well, this is all a certain district, but this is a little more different here. So, that might be a better way than having 17 different colors. Sure.

Um, so I think that's a good thing to look at. But in terms of swapping out the parking, if there's another topic area, we want to get to a lease, you know, in the next few days or something that we think of like when the comp plan is saying, hey, zoning ordinance needs to update this part to get more with the times or whatever economic development creation. So for ordinances that directly applied to the um zoning ordinant zoning chapter, it was really um parking. I know ADUs I put on there. Um, and just I think maybe something that might be beneficial would just be looking through seeing if there are any relevant like modern definitions that were like missing in the zoning ordinance. Making sure that there's because you know we were really you guys were really on top of like data centers and all of that. You have a definition for that. if there's any other like pressing, you know, hot topic definitions that should be in the zoning ordinance that aren't there yet.

Maybe it's like more, you know, catching up on more current land uses to make sure that, you know, the district the the bureau is if it's going to happen or somebody's looking, it's going to be in the right place. And when we met with council last year, I think it was last year with our joint session, you know, there was kind of like, well, is it warehousing? Is it, you know, the, you know, so we talked about different types of, you know, warehousing? What is warehousing?

Yeah. So, you want, you know, something that's affiliated with a commercial or industrial business. But, you know, how do you how do you take out the ones that are going to have a lot of tractor trailer trips where that's not appropriate? And that that came back to the Mcinness conversation was right,

you know, is that a good spot to have a tractor trailers running in and out of a FedEx or an Amazon or whatever insert, you know, logistics thing company here, the the transportation infrastructure isn't really built for that. However, you know, if it's just kind of like a warehouse as part of that industrial use, it's going to be maybe more box trucks or less frequent, right? Then I think council and the plankers were like, "Yeah, that's more appropriate." But how we don't have in our ordinance right now the way to differentiate, you know, so some somebody really wanted to push the issue. Um we don't have the best tools to say, well, that that's not appropriate here maybe out there. So getting more up to date with some of the those current those types of land uses to protect the burrow from something that we don't want in a particular location where it's inappropriate. Um, also I another thing I was thinking and I think it mentions it goes into a little bit um in the scope of work but like accessibility of the zoning ordinance because um you know we're getting a lot of questions in the burrow about oh I had no idea that the parking was a requirement or like oh I didn't know that these things and just making sure that um everything is easily readable and accessible to the public. That's why when we're talking overlays, like I think they're really handy tool at some points, but sometimes they don't show up on a map and,

you know, they're hard to find and that makes it just a lot more complicated for um for people looking for the information. Um because, you know, we have a historic district as an overlay. Yeah. Um which is very helpful. Um and people, you know, they're very much aware of it. It's kind of advertised a bit, not advertised, but there are, you know, this town is very uh prideful of their historic district and their historic preservation, which is great. Um, so if it's something like that as an overlay where it's, you know, Yeah. understood by the community. Yeah. Um,

but I do think that we definitely have some zoning districts that can merge together. Yeah. Um yeah, just so maybe ways like recommendations on how to like make meet make it work better.

You know, the ordinance, you know, you've seen enough to where you're probably like, "Yeah, okay, this part and it's kind of difficult for a a property owner." Well, it could be something as simple as someone being able to look up the regulations for swimming pools, which are all in zoning ordinance and a regulation for fencing, which is in the zoning ordinance. So, those two things would would be a big help. But definitely being able to pick up that ordinance and figure out what you need to do because it's not user friendly. It is not. That's the biggest. Deb's worked with it for years.

Well, well, my boss would come in and say, "Can you find this information for me, for 20ome years, you did a lot of searching around, right?" Yeah. Just when you thought you knew where everything was and something else, well, we have to go back to this section and make sure this meets this and then go to this section and now you're flipping back and forth. Yeah. I

mean, the reality is we probably end up making you know, putting something together where we have made, you know, the bureau adopts, the council adopts, less zoning districts, trying to resolve that with the uses. But the reality is at some point the ordinance just needs to be redone completely. You know, that's the reality of it. But it's a lot easier said than done job and you you need a consultant. You will have to pay money for. Well, um, not to interject, but to, um, I guess just kind of drive the point home, at the very end of the the statement of work, uh, is task for. And that's that's the main product that you guys will receive at the end of this is a is a basically a zoning like review. So that like there's some insights and there's some key maybe recommendations or a lot a lot there. So that when you know it is time to hire a consultant, you know when it is time to redo the entire ordinance, you have a pretty decent road map for how to do so to you know what's really how to really work with the consultant and make sure you get you know what you want there. So that's just kind of like a forward thinking type of you know approach. But it seems like what we need to just get through this part is, you know, try to simplify it the best we can with what we have, but knowing that like five, you know, it's going to be at least five years before we have a new zoning ordinance. And that's if everybody council planning commission said, "Yeah, this is what we're going to do in a couple years,

you know." So in the meantime, it could be 10 years, it could be 15 years. So in the meantime, how do we make this better to administer, better reflect the comprehensive plan and you know hopefully not you know create more you know box out more opportunities for things in it seem like good feedback in terms of you know maybe swapping out or swapping out the parking standards you know a couple different um focus areas instead. Do you have I'm sure you do a copy of the reduced zone map that we had that we can give to Nick so he can kind of have an idea as to where we what we were looking at.

Well, it's the one out of the comp plan. Yeah. And we had already started making some, you know, notes on changes and things. Yes, I'm happy to go back through what I have. It's the map 82 and you've given him that already. I believe I do. You have the link for the comprehensive plan. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

So, it's map 82 in there that was map future land use. Um, I also just wanted to note, uh, for your reference that we do have, um, ordinance that have ordinances that have passed in recent years that aren't fully codified. Um, so they're in our public document section of our E code, but they're not reflected fully in the code. Um, so just another thing to pay attention to because we do have a couple changes in the zoning ordinance that just hasn't fully been codified yet. um like the one for the light business property probably has not been codified,

right? That that hasn't been that table permitted uses hasn't been fully updated um as an attachment. So the table is reflected in the ordinance that was passed. However, it's not in the official table of permitted uses. And that's the same with um I know the like tattoo parlor definition the yeah there's a couple things that we have but don't have in there yet and that was all part of that same ordinance the tattoo par yeah 957 I believe

yeah the big one so so looking at the scope of work that's before us here the change that we would make would be to eliminate the parking standards for rental focus. Yeah. Since it's underway, as a just a point of clarification, um is that because we don't want the 400 hours to be going towards the parking um analysis or Well, it sounds as if like there's an amendment in the works right now that council's already I guess Well, it's maybe I'm not

on their plate or something, but basically um not that it doesn't need looked at, but it sounds as if there's it might be more of a like it might be something that's currently being worked on and like they want something done sooner rather than later. So, I don't know if it's going to I don't know if that's something that they'd want to wait on for like six months down the road. Um but again this can I can try to get more more information if I can about that and see see where everyone's heads are

because they seem to be the discussion at the the work session the March work session of council when they got discussing this I didn't print off a copy they it was part of the packet for the work session but one of the things that they seem to be discussing ing was this idea of specifically now right now with single family residential rentals there are no parking regulations for that they're treated as a residential property and uh they want to put two car on premise or that will eliminate 3/4ers of the Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. From being converted into single family residential which they can do by right. They don't have to come to zoning to do it. I mean all they have to do is get their inspection and register. Yeah. Check with Paul on that. But that was my impression as far as parking on the rental focus. Are you talking longterm rentals? No rentals. They did not specify short or long-term. They just said rental. There was no discussion there regarding the short term.

Yeah, I believe that there there's specific langu language in the ordinance that makes it a little more difficult to enforce. Um, so they're trying to make sure that is it is enforceable if that's what is wanted. Yeah, I didn't get the feeling that it was short term that they were talking. It sounds like it was long term. You know, it sounded like I said if you in short terms already have to have a certain number of off streets. Yes, they already have additional requirements. Right. Right. But the the rental ordinance was in the packet for the March 3rd meeting. March what meeting?

March 3rd. So interesting. any other thoughts techn I'm going to cover any other materials that we have in our notes or whatever and want to share you know to show you where we left off where we had gotten to feel free to share what happens when this is all done and we have a final um report or whatever then what

so I think you know my guess is we'll have a report. It's going to make certain recommendations and you know maybe even kind of like here's a path forward to you know kind of getting down to reducing the zoning districts and the uses. We'll probably still have a little bit of leg work after that. Um but I think the point is is that trying to establish a direction for council you know where we're coming at and if this is the right direction then it comes down to trying to get it into an ordinance format.

Yeah. their um DCB um is not going to you know write our ordinances um and this is the same thing that the county set they can provide assistance but they're not going to write our ordinances for us. So once we have this you know planish you know path to moving forward then it will be it can come to the table to actually write the ordinances and try to get them passed. So basically like hey this is the direction we're looking at. We want that to reflect where we've gotten to so far and you know where we're trying to get to in our work sessions. And then if council says yeah this is generally would generally be acceptable then we have the job of okay now taking the report and the findings and the and everything and getting it into how it would actually amend the zoning ordinance. you know, probably a new map, a new map and maybe some whole wholesale change to the use tables, readoption of those or something. And then whatever focus areas that are in there that are found kind of logical, whether adding definitions for current land uses and making sure they're provided for in the right place, that sort of thing. So we can streamline it but also get it more in sync with kind of current land uses that municipalities having issues with

and like you said the definitions that our definitions are up to date. Yeah. And I think like this task three would simply be in there to look at the ADUs. Yep. Yeah. as another um because the the parking there is the the rental focus and I just don't know at this time that we would want to spend our 400 hours on parking rentals

for rentals and and parking as a whole. That's correct. Yeah. And I think that parking survey that you guys did, I mean, the discussion and the whole coming about of that was to eventually offer some kind of incentives, right, to private property owners to look at their properties for those that could come in off of a paved alley and park in the rear of their property. And I think that was the whole scope of that or the focus of that.

And you're kind of seeing that with the redevelopment the redevelopment authority on Fifth Street. Right. Right. They're taking those properties and they're going to create as they rebuild them. They're going to put off street parking, you know, behind the homes. That was the focus and that's why you guys were in the more congested downtown area. We kind of stayed down below Fifth Street. Correct. Yeah, correct.

What we did as a as a board that year, we would take an evening and we had maps and we would walk the alleys of the burrow and see where there were areas behind properties where parking could be placed by the individual property owners. And like Deb said, with the idea that we might be able to start some sort of program where the burrow and property owner could cooperate and, you know, incentivize to put the parking to the rear of their properties to eliminate or save some of the street parking for those who didn't have that ability. So that was part of our focus with during that.

So ultimately it would have become less of a zoning issue and more of like how can the burrow and like Mary said figure out a way to get more parking off the streets um to kind of alleviate the issue which is still yeah and uh worthwhile. Within a couple years, the burrow actually had a group in and did a parking study, you know, now they went and they looked at, you know, the the parking lots and street

on street, you know, they they weren't looking back in the alleys like they were looking at what was easily visible as far as parking. And I think we're also kind of operating a little bit, you know, with the potential for some funds to become available for community development type things like that. You know, back with the conversation about selling the sewer plant and you know, how to reinvest, you know, again, it's how to reinvest that money back in to um you know, town infrastructure, property owners, providing support, things like that. um which you know never really I guess never really materialized in that sense.

So that's probably the increase

you know that is needed to kind of facilitate that because you know that's a pretty big undertaking for for property owners property owners. So without the financial incentive it gets a lot tougher you know to to help alleviate that sort of thing on a property bypropy basis. Yeah, I think this is well laid out and um I would be willing to to see us move forward with this with council's approval. And I've been pointing out what we will get and what it's going to cost us. Yeah.

Which is paperwork. Again, I think it's good. I mean, we, you but for us trying to be conscious of, you know, the spending and, you know, we had,

we were getting, you know, the engineering firm, you know, how to plan our own staff and she was helping, but you know, I mean, that's all was all ours. And so, we kind of got stuck in where we could take it with the map. you know, we can draw them, we can take notes and here's our idea. But, you know, how do you you know, start to visualize and put it in, you know, you know, take take all those ideas and now the feature land use map becomes a zoning map. You know, that kind of technical aspect is beyond what we can do and what I think really is in the house with the burrow like most municipalities. Um, so this is a big help in I think getting us over, you know, getting us through this part and hopefully making a change to the Z. That was probably where we got stuck was we still needed that.

Yeah, we need the resources aren't necessarily right. Um, is have you made Jess aware of what we are doing here with DCED or what we are anticipating? I don't think so. I can't remember. Um, I don't think that I have made her aware. I will do that this week. Um, because I'll be asking for any documents that she has from previous work. Um

just a question for my benefit. Um the work sessions um I just you know up to two of them. Um, and I I really have like it's like kind of open-ended like I was just kind of curious what you all kind of envision for that, you know, have you worked on, you know, some of this stuff before in like that kind of format and work session format. Is there, you know, um, yeah.

Well, like when we were talking about our work sessions, we've been having work sessions for years. So like in the bigger picture, you know, like our work sessions are, we would schedule a six o'clock work session. So that way when we were in the heat of everything, we knew that we were always going to have at least an hour to work on planning comp plan implementation or you know these various topics that we've spoken about. So our normal meeting would be at 7. So if we had agenda items, we had plan reviews and application reviews and everything that we knew we had at least from six to seven to work on implementation in this regard. I mean I think what you've identified like our I think work session would be you know here you're kind of presenting uh like your working drafts or you got to this point you want to look back you need feedback at certain stages that's probably the work session that you're talking about scheduling to work with us. Um it says two with the planning commission two with the burough council. Do you think it would be better for it to be like three with us and one with council? Like we're probably in a much better position to give feedback on some of the kind of the nuance conversations and everything. Not that council isn't,

but they've been more detached. I mean, they're handling, you know, kind of the business of the bureau. Uh, while we've been very focusing on things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So, we've got three new council members. Yeah. So thinking more like the council thing towards the end like here's here's what we worked through you know here's you know your advice here's the the reports here's what we've kind of worked on

if you use this as a sounding board almost with these work sections you know feedback on the products as they go you know maybe you've kind of run into an area you know these pollen stuff you know kind of have some insight um but you want to kind of bring those think maybe um so I don't know if it makes more sense for three kind of sessions with us and one with council towards the end would probably be more productive to be fair. Okay. Yeah, that's yeah I think it was two and two.

Yeah. If that helped is this like for feedback. Yeah. And that would be that would still be apart from the um final report presentation, right? Like there would be like a at least one work session with burough counsel. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we definitely need their buy in at minimum, you know, so they can at least hear of where we're at because ideally the next step again is to turn this into an ordinance, a new map, whatever it may be that they have to vote on. So, you know, having that presentation, getting up speed kind of gets them in the loop and like you said, a little bit of a crash course for some of the newer council members. And if we know which months they are ahead of time, we could probably still schedule the six o'locks too, right? Too much of an inconvenience.

Yeah, if it means, you know, being able to get more in without going later in the night, I do the best. We're still going to have a liaison here. Yes, Jeanie Cooper was here last month as our as our planning maybe zoning planning commission leaison. I don't think Yeah, Eric.

He's now so from us or anything like that. No, this is just a review. Um, so for for now, I guess we'll we'll see another draft maybe. Is that okay? So for the for the next draft, is that something that we want to see again next meeting or is that something that we want digitally shared um so that we can review via email um and it doesn't have to wait from like a month from now. So we can kind of get that ball rolling or do we want to make come back in April at our start at our meeting and have the same kind of format of review?

I'd say just in my opinion would be to update it and then just send it by email and does it kind of more or less check out with what we talked about and that way you're not waiting another month to say yeah this is what we talked about and then just kind of lost the month. So at this meeting tonight, do we want to say to make a recommendation to move forward based on the changes requested to the scope of work? If you want to make a motion and kind of make it solidify it, that's fine.

Sounds like you made it. Yeah. So, we have a motion to recommend moving forward with this with the amended scope as the discussion. That's what you're saying. Yes. Okay. We have a motion from Mary. I'll second. Second. Okay. Any further conversation? All right. All in favor say I. I opposed. Okay.

And and I would hope that with that for us to see it the digital to confirm that the changes have been made that we discussed this evening that this could go to council in April for their review and approval moving forward. Yeah, makes sense. All right. I'm glad you're president now. Talking. Okay. So, that's it for the agenda. Um, that's all our business. So,

oh, for the good of the order, Mary. Another thing that happened at the last council meeting with the uh Rivertown Summit proper rivertown estates summit is Habitat estates is South 9th Street. There was approval given that they are not putting in one of the handicap ramps at the corner of 9th and Avenue X. What they found out was that this the uh lay of the land out there that it was prohibitive that they just couldn't put it in. That's weird. back in there.

So, it's right there at the cemetery, right? No, this is down across from Mcinnesses. This is down Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Down off of Manor Street. Okay. And so what they approved was the change to the plans to take that out. Now, the plans have already been recorded, so there will be an additional reporting referencing this. the council approved money to be placed in a fee in lie of account until such time if that section of 9th Street is redone then it

then the handicap ramp would be put in and it's at Avenue X and 9inth Street and there is no sidewalk on the other side of Avenue X for that to even connect to. So, I just wanted to give you an update on that that those were plans that we had approved and now you know this was a change and I asked about it and they said there it would be recorded and the two of them be referenced with one another. So, okay. I knew there was something else. Council meetings are interesting. Okay. Okay.

Try try one you like it, I guess. Okay. All right, thank you for the update. Um, anything else? We'll journ. Okay, next meeting is April 21st and um go from there. So, motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Second. All right. Uh 80. Thank you. This one does not turn off.