Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We're live. All right.

Okay. I'll order the June 16, 2026 meeting of the Columbia Borough Planning Commission. We'll start with a roll call.

All right. Roll call. Chairperson Evans?

Here.

Vice Chair Lynn? Here. Member Wickenheiser?

Here.

Secretary Lynn?

Yeah.

member hartman yeah member leclaire here and i will make notes that unfortunately um of our member barb fisher um had to resign effective immediately due to some you know issues so um that is sad she's a huge asset i know mary and i were talking a little bit big leader of the comprehensive plan update process, council person, two-time planning commission member, definitely keep her in the thoughts and prayers. But anyways, we appreciate that. So we'll go ahead and have a moment of silence and then pledge to the flag. Okay, first order of business is approval of the minutes of March 17th, 2026. Any questions or comments?

We have a motion from Mary. Second from Brad. any comments okay all in favor say aye aye opposed okay minister uproot i i think just to note that these are our march minutes our april meeting was canceled due to non-publication in a timely manner and our may meeting was canceled due to no agenda business

Thank you, Mary. Okay, we have no zoning hearing applications to review, engineer reviews, subdivision applications. Pretty quiet there. No demo applications. We have pretty much one item on the agenda, which is a good one, the DCED workshop for some follow-up, some progress on comp plan implementation, zoning updates. So we'll go ahead and turn it over to our guests and go from there.

YES.

YES. SHALL I USE THIS MICROPHONE? YES.

Apologies for all the material there, but it'll be worth it, I promise. So good evening. It's good to see you all again. I was here back in March.

Is that microphone on? It is supposed to be on.

Should I, like, really?

You can adjust that as much as you want.

You can also take it off if you want.

Okay. That's better. So as I was saying, I was here in March, and it's really good to see you all again. So it's my second time here. With me, though, are some other folks from DCD. So I'll begin with some introductions. Lisa, if you'd like to start.

Thank you everyone. I'm Chris Chapman. I am a planning specialist in the emergency room.

Thank you. Thank you.

And shout out to Chris, too, because he's been a lot of help with the first phase of this CTAP project. So he's been helping me on this a lot. So with that, next slide, I think, is just our agenda. I hope to not really be doing too much talking this evening. I hope that we get some really good discussion going. But I'm going to begin with quick overview now that we've been introduced, followed by a progress report, how much we've been able to do in the last month and a half, and then get right into a guided discussion. We're going to cover some topics. We're going to cover some emerging themes that I think Chris and I have begun to see as we're digging into the zoning ordinance and Been looking at some stuff. So yeah, I've listed a couple of those topics there on the agenda. So get the old gears turning. Get ready. And then after we conclude, just kind of close and talk about the next steps and what workshop number two might be like. So for a quick overview, I've probably repeated this a bunch of times, but maybe a third time's the charm, just so that it's with us. The CTAP project here, our purpose is really just to help position you guys to think about how we can improve the ordinance clarity, the usability, district structure, any possible redundancies, things like that. And then as we move on through the CTAP process, begin to maybe develop and think about what some model ordinance concepts or examples or best practices could look like. the final product will be sort of a zoning report document to kind of help with some of the future implementation ideas you have. So next slide. Oh, I love this slide. I love the good arrows. So we start with planning support, which is me and Chris and Lisa and Kathy. Right now, we've done some ordinance analysis. And here, if you hit it again, yes. Collaborative workshops. And then one more time.

Ah, yes.

So they kind of relate to each other. I was really proud of that. That little swivel, you know, represents the relationship between the analysis and the workshops. And so we're on our first workshop. And then hopefully the second workshop and third workshop will be talking more about approaches and what some of the recommendations could be and what that looks like for implementation direction. But for now, workshop number one, we're going to cover what we've analyzed so far. next slide thank you project limitations so again this is not any by any means intended to be like a zoning ordinance rewrite you know but this is to help position the borough for the near-term improvements as well as future modernization opportunities next slide so where are we this is a real simplified schedule from the statement of work We're in June, which is kind of crazy. Time is flying by. It just seems like it was a few weeks ago I was here in March. But we are in June, and we're doing the first workshop. That's the second row. And if you look over two blocks, you see where they're kind of colored in underneath June. And we're doing the zoning analysis. We started in May. We'll continue that through July. And then we'll dig more into the model ordinance frameworks starting later this month and through August. We'll have workshops this month, hopefully next month, and August as well. And then we'll have a Borough Council workshop session in September, really hopefully get their buy-in and their thoughts and any comments that they may have on the work that we're doing. Next slide. Quick progress report. So Chris and I have been able to We reviewed the ordinance. We've gone into that pretty good. The official map, we've looked at recent amendments, ordinance 948. in 957. I believe those were in 24 or 25. That's when those were passed. And we've done some comparative review of the permitted uses and dimensional standards across the districts. And that's some of what you have in front of you I've printed out. Your zoning ordinance has pretty much all this information, but I put it all together on one very large sheet format so that we can readily see it. And we've begun working on the zoning district matrix, which is, you know, I don't know why I use the word matrix. Maybe I just like the movie, but it's a fancy word for just describing a tool. It includes a snapshot summary. of all the districts. I didn't bring in the full spreadsheet. It's a little ugly to look at. But it's a snapshot summary of the districts, definitions, all the standards. But the main thing we're looking at is the permitted use matrix and the bulk and dimensional standards. And then we're going to discuss them in terms of the emerging things that we've started to kind of see, just scientific observations. So with that, let's talk about how we're going to have our discussion tonight. Like I said, the matrix is a tool. This is shared diagnosis. This is not a final set of recommendations by any means. So this is primary analysis we've done first to ask better questions about district purpose, use flexibility, dimensional fit, and overall ordinance usability. So the matrix is really good at laying out all the puzzle pieces and sort of having this inventory of what you have. And then we can begin to see like maybe potential some potential patterns. And then we can have informed questions and discussion and followed by, you know, what some of the next steps could look like. And just some questions to kind of keep in your mind. These are some questions I've had in my mind. You know, what districts do you think are maybe prone to creating the most confusion? Maybe where do you see more of the non-conformities happen? What parts of the ordinance are the more difficult sections to administer? What feels a little bit outdated or unclear? So with that, we'll move right into theme number one. And this should all be in your materials there. The first thing that kind of jumped out to us is that a good number of residential districts have overlapping use permissions. If you look at your handout, you can kind of see what I mean. The rural residential and the LDR kind of group together. The higher density residential and the residential multifamily are also kind of grouped together. in the use table. The MDR, the HDR, and the HDRM allow similar housing types as well. So again, why could this matter? With that amount of overlapping use, it could indicate simplification or consolidation opportunities, overall readability, usability, consistency just to consider. And so the question, the first workshop question to kind of put in front of you tonight to discuss, are these districts still serving distinct purposes? What do you think of that? And with that, I turn it over to you guys.

I'll say this has certainly been an area where we know there's a ton of overlap. And so how do we kind of preserve the important nuances between the districts but also simplify I mean that's kind of the primary goal you know for administration for people to know where they're at what they can do that's been the biggest challenge the multitude of one of the bigger ones I think reading through the spreadsheet one of the other areas you identified that we'll probably talk about commercial districts the highway but anyways the residential there's a ton of overlap with you know as you pointed out and we kind of struggled at how how do we reduce the number of districts but also kind of understand what

spreadsheet is it's the you're looking at the same permitted and non permitted in the residential and low density residential you know you're really not looking at differences there and I'm trying to think where the the short-term rentals rural residential

where are one where it's like it really matters what district right that's been something that's been debated council debated here in terms of what the right move is so I know that that's one big differentiation between what is it about so low density low density and medium density I think I'm pretty sure because right now short-term rentals certainly allow out in the medium

And that's not in itself is anything but it a topic area that we're tackling because it's more of uh if there's going to be a change i think we would look at the council to point us in that direction and right now they're just looking at the uh rental ordinance they're not looking at the short term they're not looking at the short term they're looking right now which is more of an administrative right

the i mean you've got your density and lot sizes and setbacks i mean that's a whole other kind of topic and the interesting thing is in a lot of these areas you know say like medium density or higher or lower the lot sizes and setbacks are less of a being built out areas right we don't see you know those come into play quite as often but they you know how do we kind of recognize that as we combine things or try to combine things try to simplify it um the administrative end of things you know at least in the formatting department you know there can be different a lot of different various districts In these residential areas, for the most part, the lots are built on already. Most of the activity or if you're looking at redevelopment projects, we've had some. And, you know, they're trying to match that to the existing fabric around more than, you know, kind of stuck in, you know, whatever, middle lots, setbacks, etc.,

for us in the residential area or the residents in their homes.

I'm not even sure if that's that.

Well I think when I first started here we had just the three residential districts. low, medium, and high. And I think the idea of trying to make them more specific was to keep people who wanted to do like a tax service or a hair salon, having them, to keep them from coming to zoning. Now this was in the 80s, so things were a little bit different in town. We are now a little denser. Parking is really the problem, and people wanna know now what's coming in their neighborhood. Not that they didn't wanna know then, but I think just the times have changed. So the rewrite had the business, and then when Jeff did the rezoning, there was some There were some residential areas that were kind of zoned downtown, so those people could put businesses in if they wanted to. And it kind of met with some pushback from some of the residents that, you know, they did not want their homes to be in a commercial area.

And that district was recently expanded.

2019 I think if you are not aware

what was your position i was the administrative assistant but i was for zoning and planning for about 20 some years so you've got a lot of background we're very glad to have deb with us and that's a good good point in terms of you know that we went through that with the expansion of It's the downtown commercial. We expanded the downtown commercial over to Walnut Street. Included some of Cherry. But I think what happened was we had three districts and then we went to a lot of districts. And the work will try to be just to kind of find a middle ground.

Find a middle ground. The downtown commercial, that's what expanded. And that was the idea was, you know, where in the homes, you know, like my neighbor, he has a business downstairs and lives upstairs. So that sort of thing. And of course, you know, parking is always, as you said, the hot topic. So having, I think that was probably the biggest pushback from folks that didn't want to see the district expand. But the counterpoint being, trying to open up more smaller economic activity for homeowners and things of that nature.

To bring some more of the mom and pop businesses back into the neighborhood.

Right. So I think you can still find that as a key fundamental theme of what the planning and zoning is trying to do and trying to promote. Yes, yes.

At the end of the day, you have a monster that you really don't see. Yep. So, yeah, that's one of the coverages. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The intention was good.

Sure. Oh, yeah.

yeah and do you now want in in again things have changed from 1980s until now you know do you want people coming in and publicly stating what they are going to do um if i want to take my home and open up um a tax service the neighbors probably want to know what's going to happen, how many cars are you going to have, people coming in and out, what are your hours, you know, and we did have one of those. We also had an antique shop, someone came in for that and that was down on 3rd Street I believe. So they, you know, you have to come in and you have to lay out your business plan to public meaning everyone's invited if you don't show up then that's you know your problem but you know you have a right to ask questions where they don't get to do that if they're able just to come in and get a permit by right although you know we would try to have people say on paper what they were going to do we would attach that to the permit but neighbors didn't know that so

So the way that the ordinance is set up now for home occupation, if you're going to have a business also out of your home, we have two separate categories of the home occupation. And depending on what classification of home occupation would be dependent if you need to go before the zoning hearing board or not. So not every single home, and it's also dependent on the zoning district, you know, for like a low density residential, if you have like a light home occupation, then it's just a permit process. Like I can approve that. However, if it's a little more like I'm gonna have signs up front, I have customers coming in, then that's when it has to go to the zoning hearing board. So, which sometimes can create some barriers because you know the zoning hearing board is a 500 non-refundable fee to um even be seen before them and it's not guaranteed that you're going to get approved so there's it's there's a lot of different new ways yeah things to remember when you're it's almost as if the zoning table in the ordinance almost

It's like it just says how redundant the districts are from the use-wise. Now, the idea of having, okay, it's denser here, and then you move up that way, it gets less dense. I mean, that's just kind of a natural progression of how the town built out, right? More room on sides and things of that nature. So it makes sense to have... you know, the graduations like we do in most communities. But that's probably, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, they may be still serving the purposes, but there's probably a better way to approach it, right? Right, yeah. Which residential areas can you have the opportunity for a

Especially now with the parking requirements, that's a huge deterrent for a lot of people to be like, hey, I actually cannot put a museum in the middle of downtown because there's no space for a parking lot to fit that many people.

We also have a lot of businesses. We're an old town. We have a lot of businesses that have been around a long time that are grandfathered in. And I mean, even on our own street, we have 18 wheelers coming in, and it's all residential. But this one little warehouse that's grandfathered in from decades back doesn't conform whatsoever. But yeah, there's a lot of... It's a lot of history, so in our town we had an enormous amount of industry and mom and pop stores and industry was mixed in with mom and pop stores back in the day and so at this point a lot of them are gone but some of them are still in districts where technically they shouldn't be.

theoretically they're allowed they're allowed they're living here the parking thing is always you know we've how many how many parking studies or whatnot at the event over the years and you know as opposed to say like medium density residential where the concern is the people that live there use on-street parking and parking is more of an issue in downtown and there's been more capacity added with parking lots to where you hate to see business opportunities get turned away because they can't provide parking um you know whereas there's a lot of duplicate trip opportunities right somebody's going to whatever you know but both businesses have you know would technically have to provide So it's like, you know, I can't speak for the whole and definitely not going to speak for the town, but almost like the downtown portion of those that are businesses that are proximate to a lot. You know, that's where you want to see. Somebody's gonna go here, and they're gonna go there, and the other, one car, but they're visiting multiple commercial businesses. That's a big difference to me than in the neighborhoods where there's a little bit more competition

If I can recall basically what that said is the parking is there it's just not necessarily where people feel it should be you know they can't just park right in front of the store or in front of their house but right and the one thing that we actually did as a planning commission I guess from 5th Street down and maybe over as far as Union Street, we took a couple evenings and walked the back aisles and the amount of parking that is available behind people's residences that they would have access to. And the discussions performed some sort of possibly public-private program that the borough could assist to upgrade, to make them more desirable parking areas, but we're digressing here now. Yes, I think that's who it was. What year was this? Yeah.

Yeah, and they basically concentrated in the downtown.

So, I mean, these are really roundabout answers to the question, but you kind of see, you know, why maybe there's different districts and some of the ideas we're trying to preserve without the complexity. Right. It's probably not the most exciting project zoning or...

I think paring down the residential will be easier than paring down... Commercial? Yeah, paring down the other

For the expedience of time, Elise, could you go to theme number four? It actually kind of ties into what we're discussing here pretty well, which is like this question, is it like, you know, these different districts still serving distinct purposes? Well, if you look at... Some of this stuff is differentiation by maybe perhaps geography and context rather than use since there's so much overlap with use. So theme number four was that some districts appear differentiated that way more so rather than by use. And the example I provided on your sheet is the comparison between DC and NC. They're kind of grouped together. And I actually highlighted the two commercial uses within those two districts that are actually different. And again, that could affect readability, predictability, and the zoning ordinance. And again, this question kind of ties into that first one. How should context differences be handled? Because, again, there's a lot of use overlap. And I think that could be like a question that can kind of pursue a little bit further.

Yeah, that is another one that we eat in on with the DC and NC coming through town and up the other end of that. Yeah, the use tables were very similar.

And it's a little harder to read. The print's a little bit finer. But on this one, those are the bulk and dimension tables. And if you look at downtown commercial and neighborhood commercial, they're kind of on that right side there. They are a little bit different, but they're not a lot different either. on the dimension side as well. It's communication antennas and microbreweries. Yes.

are having a better grasp on you know looking at like you said the context better you know geography we look at the zoning map you see the colors and you kind of understand the issues out away from downtown it's less dense generally speaking but you know how are those areas built out and are we trying to kind of mimic that versus you know, having some of these. I guess the concern is, like, you have to have good standards in place in case of redevelopment, right? Somebody buys five, six properties, says, hey, I want to take these old buildings down and redevelop something. You know, that there's some sort of standards that allow it to be built similar to what's around it. You know, more form than anything without it being like a form. i don't think so well i mean you know i don't know right yeah yeah we have some redevelopment sites some of them are you know say like habitat buildings some projects housing redevelopment authority taking some like fire properties that were burned and redeveloping them we have the developer out on white street yes putting young gentlemen yeah putting homes in out there right so you've seen some of that type of redevelopment in the residential areas right see what happens here yeah And that's kind of more of it versus doing, say, a subdivision activity and taking a bigger piece of property and cutting it up. We don't get that.

Yeah, especially because most of the lot sizes around here are relatively small to begin with. There's not a ton of lots that even could be subdivided.

unless they're put together and then you know right yeah that's out past the highway where it was more suburban that was the last large one i mean we've had a couple that had three four homes right but the the last yeah that was the last one right and that you're right you think about it you know coming down

down the hill we had the townhouses yeah that was an infill project we basically have infill as far as residential yeah so that's the key to try to promote that so how do you have you know what's the what's the best way to have good standards

That was a proposed development by a private individual who gave up on it and handed all the plans to Habitat.

redevelopments doing rebuild car damage on the street there church and avenue yeah so a lot of that's a lot of yeah the residential type development that we get in town so that i think most would probably agree you want to see you know that sort of activity that's made the reinvestment in bill would have been damaged

most of the infill residential infill we've been seeing is in the low

I don't think that's high density out there. It's definitely not high density. Everything around there is medium.

In terms of the commercial end of things,

I mean, there's certain things that are kind of have targets on them, you know, that we understand from council. The tattoo things was a big deal.

Smoke shops.

You know, kind of the usual suspects are certainly, you know, have been depromoted. That's where, but, you know, I think a lot of opportunities in downtown and the commercial areas it's like what it's almost like what don't what doesn't the town want to see in some of these primaries where you have people coming to visit crossroads intersections that had some commercial around the neighborhood corner store that sort of thing exactly in the bigger picture you know having more things for residents more more places goods and services walkable I think you know is good just for the citizens as a whole let alone trying to attract people that want to come live here fair enough right yeah right ironically yes and in reality will that ever come back i mean we tried to zone it to to have that come back um but so that kind of begs the question are we more concerned about the form of things than like we are concerned with the activity but like well if the corner store could go right there I mean, there's lots of pitfalls.

I mean, it's not that simple, right?

Yeah, there's a critical aspect.

Because they'll come in under the guise, which has happened. It's retail. We're a retail store. We're a grocery store. We have milk. Well, they also have other things that it's not.

Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, they are, yeah, they said there's no, to figure out what they're going to do about it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, they'll pull them out of the clubs too.

And that's unfortunate because I know clubs that, you know, they reduce that revenue to pay taxes and, you know.

Well, you bring up Harrisburg. At a recent council meeting, they were at a Birds Association conference in Hershey and were advised of numerous house bills, some of which want to do away with parking minimums in municipalities. There were four different ones, and basically what it would do is gut municipalities only

They're not going to fly. I think we really need to look at combining the downtown and neighborhood commercial.

Plus combining, look at what we can do to combine some of these residential districts.

Yeah, I mean, you identified those.

I think that's where it makes a lot of sense.

What is the best way to tackle that, given kind of the context? I think a lot of people want to see, you know, small economic activity. They want to see... Fresh faces, investing, reinvesting, live work, but then you also have parking, all that sort of thing, which may or may not be an issue, but I think it is for a lot of people. It's the form that matters when it comes to what gets filled in for redevelopment.

I'm going back to your theme three here, the life business district. And that was basically the Ordinance 957. And that was specifically done, the only Lake Business District in the area

kind of the south end, the lighter slate blue.

Yeah.

You know, that for like a business park, innovation park, something of that nature. It's owned by the borough.

Yeah, it's 41 acres. 41. The light, yeah.

Yeah. Was there talk about an airport or something?

That was. That was. Okay.

It's been decommissioned.

It's been decommissioned. And remediated. And that is the property that is very controversial now that the borough put out

yes the borough that's 41 acre loss yes so to answer the question for free it's almost kind of wrapped up i guess you would say i mean there was they haven't decided what to go to but in terms of what it's there and why it's the only property that it's it was about the only large Yeah, undeveloped piece of property in town. And the idea was to have some sort of job creation, innovation, business type of thing.

Yeah. Exactly.

They did put out an RFP. They did receive a bid. And they rejected that sealed bid. can only be sold as an auction or a small bid and what was the third thing that the three ways if they put it out for bid they rejected the bid there was a technicality within the bid that they received that went against the emphasis so they had to reject the bid based on that not on what the buyer was basically proposing to do with the property. So now they are in the process of putting it out for a second bid. If they are not successful there, my understanding is at that point, or it can be placed in a realtor. I may be wrong on that, but there is a point where a realtor can become involved. There is a portion of that property that they are keeping along the back side, the south side there where that green is. towards that. There's a quarry in there, an old quarry. There's woods there. They are maintaining that as a trail, a park where they want to put a playground in there. They want to use that as a public space back in there. Right. But the thing is that light business, that is the only light business district within the borough. It's mostly commercial and industrial, you said.

Right.

Residential is not committed. So when you had this theme three with that for light business, I wanted to...

that's that yeah to be fair you know we had a joint meeting with council a couple years ago to get on the same page in terms of helping to amend the ordinance to fit for it was. So that, other than I think that maybe you have to get some bolstering data center standards or something to that effect, otherwise I think the intent for that district remains the same.

I think that is the intent, but they are also looking at a drafting a data center ordinance. get specifics it would give heights it would give where this could be yeah um yeah like specific use criteria type of thing mary were those smaller lots that were purchased by the borough where they added on to the whole parcel that is all one parcel after the

That's too bad because some of the smaller parcels may have been able to be sold off for someone to build a house. Because they were, because there was one house there that was torn down.

Well, that's where.

They got re-sub, consolidated and re-subdivided. They divided off the conservation track.

Yeah, the parcel on South Wall Street. that run right there at the end. That everything else was consolidated and they redid the boundaries. I thought it was, I couldn't remember. They're looking at an ordinance to regulate data centers that would section 220 of the BRCA. So they're looking at trying to push back is my understanding before they go out to do that so that any bidder would know what their limitations, what their concepts are. And the other thing, yeah, the other thing is when we did that, we found that the data centers were permitted. So what they're looking at is making the in the lb is to make it either a special exception or a conditional use 41 i i can't that doesn't seem big enough for me to me a data center we did that a couple years ago before it was it was just kind of We were a little naive at the time.

I've been seeing a lot in the news lately about data centers, so I did my own deep dive into the Internet about data centers. There's good and there's bad. We're a small town. We're completely landlocked. That's the last major tract of land that we have left to throw in a data center. Your average data center, artificial intelligence data center, requires approximately 5 million gallons of water to cool their center per day. And we have the Susquehanna River. on the other side of town. So I really don't really know how that they would interlock that. Plus, there's no way that our grid could possibly handle an artificial intelligence data center. It's just my personal opinion. We had 300-plus people come to that meeting a couple of weeks ago, 285 did anyone say at that meeting if the water company ever spoke about their capacity because you know when the plans come in there has to be

capacity ladder from the water company. There used to be one from the sewer plant, which I'm assuming, you know, we'd get them from ASSA.

Well, what they were, what the outcry was, was apparently the bidder said warehousing for that. So we, at that point, had no plans. And that was what allow council to reject the bid because he did not want to pay in full until plans have been approved and under the mpc payment and pool must be made within 60 days of awarding the bid is what i understood correct So they were able to reject it based on that, that he would not make payment in full within 60 days of the bid award. That could have been years out until they would have gotten it.

the money till it went through all the planning processes and approvals so okay moving on yeah that's number three that's that's number three it's got a history it's got a good idea but it's also a very current topic but for the most part i think the standards we have in place are what you know we worked out right okay well good um

Moving on to theme two, the last few minutes we have here together. Be respectful of time. But it kind of ties in nicely with some of the earlier conversation when you guys said my favorite word as a planner. I heard someone say form-based, and I got a little bit excited. But downtown standards. Speaking first from personal experience with Columbia, I love walking downtown Columbia. I think it's really a great asset for a community of this size to have such a unique stock from the 19th and early 20th centuries. And so looking at the zoning ordinance, the downtown standards reflect A lot of traditional form. And back in the day, things were mixed. Back in the day, it kind of was about form. And things were mixed. And downtown commercial allows small lots, zero setbacks, high building coverage. So why it could matter. you know, it gets my planner brain turning. You know, the standards in place may already kind of lean towards adaptive reuse and historic development patterns. And so, you know, the question maybe to, you know, conclude with tonight is what downtown form should zoning protect or encourage?

Most of the downtown commercial, tell me if I'm wrong again, Most of the downtown commercial is in our historic district. So there is that. There's a good connection there. There is the connection there that helps to maintain that

But the hotel redevelopment, you know, keeping the facade and things of that nature, you know, helps with that. But he's able to build a functioning, you know, hotel. And like we'll get with the apartments over there, everybody keeps the facade, keep that street form, but he was able to modernize the building and create good housing.

And it actually blended very nicely.

It did, yeah. So that obviously, and I'm sure a lot of most just, while promoting the redevelopment we've had a fair amount of redevelopment downtown over the last 10 15 whatever years you know so we want to have codes that promote it but also provide that you know base level guidance for

out next to the window is actually a picture is the historic district ordinance

It's the window to the office here. There is a map of the historic district there.

To help people know.

It's also on all of our building and zoning permits, if you'd like to take a copy with you. I believe we have a... I don't know if it's still... Yeah, we have the Shawnee Run overlay. Yeah. That's like... And then it's like a little bit extending kind of that floodplain.

Yeah.

We got rid of the airport stuff when the airport went away. We got to get rid of the rings.

Right. So there's the...

Thank you.

yeah we don't have too many i mean the historic thing there aren't any more the airport went away yeah that helped answer the question for the downtown we've had good info projects there's the apartments down at the bottom there so you get more some more mass you know some more housing opportunity especially with the redevelopment not dramatically increase the population by any means, but improve the quality of housing, provide more opportunities for a broader range of folks.

This might be a very obvious question, but just for me personally, what are the reasons why Columbia is sort of landlocked? Are there specific reasons why?

It goes back a long way from what I've come to understand, truthful or not truthful. The McGinnis family that owned that big parcel of land, they owned a lot of Columbia at one point, and they sold off a lot of land.

We actually have a portion of Manor Street that one side is in Columbia and one side is in Westmanfield. Now the road is the same. Now the road is the same, yes. So, yeah, it goes back many years and it's, very unfortunate because we we could have probably been out to at least prospect road then the boundaries can change you know

We are totally surrounded by West Hemfield.

The river is actually in West Hemfield. We do not even have the river.

Once you get off of the banks, you are in West Hemfield.

When you go across those bridges, once you get over the river, it's West Hemfield. No. It goes all the way to the other shore. Once you get to the other shore, then you're in York County.

It's not split down the middle. It's Lancaster County all the way to the other side.

There's a little portion down at the bottom there that Manor Township surrounds it with a little bit. but it's mainly what's temple their police department has to go through Columbia to get the accidents on the bridge yeah

So that is the reality. We're a landlocked community like many boroughs. So it's trying to make the best out of the few acres, the small amount of acres in Case McGinnis, like business, but also trying to promote. That's the economic activity.

All right.

I guess we can go to the end of the slides here. Yeah, that's fine. I guess as far as next steps go, we've had a good discussion, so thank you for um for help for help for doing all that and um facilitating making mistakes yeah yes the real work is trying to pull out yeah you know kind of how to how to turn those comments yeah yeah and so that's what we'll be doing next um and we're gonna try to finish up the the matrix analysis uh and um You know, I think we'll do a lot of workshop preparation for next month. We'll do maybe some conceptual before and after. Just some conceptualization for those residential districts, maybe some of those commercial districts. Just come up with some hypotheticals, you know, and see how that looks. If we have time, also begin to introduce alongside those concepts some of those model ordinance type of things and best practices and what other boroughs, other places are doing in Pennsylvania and around the country similar. They're like Columbia, so comparing apples to apples or at least a citrus to another citrus. But that, I think that's pretty much it. Any other questions for us?

Or thoughts?

We look forward to it.

thank you thank you thank you that's great all right we look forward to the visit again um we have nothing else on the agenda is anything comments for the good of the order i go to council meetings and we're sorry

and thank you for your service now as i said they're looking at a new rental properties ordinance and changes to the existing structures property maintenance and fire prevention code so these are that would be uh chapter one and they did propose a new ordinance covering data centers and that goes into multiple definitions, building placements, setbacks, parking requirements, safety, power, power lines, buffers, emergency contacts, I think this was a boilerplate, but I think they're looking at environmental and community impact analysis, building colors. These are all things that the ordinance that they tabled. Was zoning involved with that?

No, it was just a kind of road council.

No, not us. I think it was generally like a stock type of ordinance that they put on the table.

The solicitor pulled it together. And I think they're looking at having something in place before they do that. And I think one of the things that we brought up is the fact that I guess we were all kind of naive, us and council, in allowing that as a community piece. You know, now it was brought out that in our zoning we do need to accommodate all uses that I think they're looking at. One of the things being to either make that a special exception or a non-conforming use where they would have to go.

They have to go to zoning?

Have to go to zoning where they would have to lay everything out.

Did we specify under the permit a use filling size? I don't remember.

957 we changed we changed the minimum lot we changed minimums yeah it didn't have anything to do with data centers specifically we added that table of permitted uses right because at that point we did not know anything

It just sounded like an office building with a bunch of computers.

Yeah, we looked at minimum. We looked at setbacks and side yards and maximum lot coverage. For light business. For light business.

To shape the future development of the business. our next meeting is july 21st 2026. i have a motion to adjourn the meeting second all right moved by tiff seconded by mary um 8 15. meetings adjourned