Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

i don't get any opportunities to either attend or start a meeting on time so by god i'm here all right welcome to the july 13th yes 13th uh meeting of the alton county planning commission my name is josh first i am the temporary chairman of this body. We have Jerry Duke and and Tanner Sharp. Tanner, thank you, sorry. Staff, we have a forum, as I understand. We also have two guests. We have Chase Mader with William Seitzel, and we have Nick Yicks with East of Hanover. Jerry, could you do a roll call, please? All right.

Here.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Yeah, I'm here. And Mr. Commissioner. all right thank you very much everybody we are going to go to number two on our agenda this is the minutes if you've had a chance to look at last month's minutes would you please uh can you approve of them would you please give us a motion to approve the minutes If we get a motion and we can have a discussion, any edits or things need to be done to them. Is there a motion? Well, Mary, thank you. We have a motion to approve. Any issues with the minutes? Okay, no second. Second, please. You need a second, Bob Spandler? I'll second it. Okay, sorry about that sequence. I've been living in summer right now. I want summer vacation in my head. Sorry. Yes, I'm still there. Okay, any issues, questions with the minutes? Okay, hearing none, we have a vote all in favor of the motion.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Hearing no opposition, the motion carries. Minutes are approved. Treasurer's report.

Hang on one second, please. So the microphone in the room, and I don't know if you can do anything about it, but anyone else that's online, does it sound garbled to you? Very staticky.

Terrible.

So I'm concerned about the recording, and if you guys use that for minutes or anything, you may want to just write down some things because you might not be able to quite make out some of the words. So just a heads up there.

Thank you, Chris. Sorry about that. I have put in my own complaint about the overhead HVAC system. It's so loud I can't hear myself think, so that's probably part of it. How's that, Chris? Is my voice carrying better?

It's the same. So I don't think it had to do with your position in the room. Something's just not quite connecting right. Right.

Andrew is doing some audio-visual technicality thing. Please hold by. Hold on here while we stand by. Hold on.

exchange technically capable these are the new ones that are supposed to be better that sounds a lot better chris you're the arbiter of clock you're perfect now crystal how how's that oh that's much better crystal all righty so much for the new technology all right

we were at treasurer's report jerry uh yeah it's uh there's nothing really large or uh extraordinary this month it's uh 1351 uh just our standard uh number of application fees a little lighter than normal but still within normal or still within expectations this time of year all right well things have slowed down a little bit i think applications are down i think we need a motion

to approve the uh transfer can i get a motion please john thank you do we have a second please second each thank you very much all those in favor aye aye aye opposed eyes carry we have our transfer thank you everybody let's move on to reports report of officers any officers have anything to report i have nothing All right, let's move into B, communications and staff reports.

Yeah, three real quick things. First one on the agenda you'll see is 435 Fort View Drive. So Terra Township also has, again, this month there was an existing site conditions that was not recorded properly. It was related to this property. It was in your packet. In essence, what they're doing is looking to... uh notify us so whenever they move forward for recording they will be uh uh not we can sign the plans uh the second one and the third one are actually two items again they were in your packet uh there was a first one is a letter of notification of mid-atlantic interstate transmission for the Jackson Three Mile Island kilowatt transmission line. We don't have anything to do with that, but again, just wanted to point out that because of all the things that have been noted about the Three Mile Island, and so that you're aware in case something comes up in the future. And a similar, again, constellation, Energy has also been doing some notification of intent to restore storage tank systems. So there's a lot of activity happening with the re-issuing of power or re-onlining of the Three Mile Island. So we are getting notifications and I just wanted to make you aware of it, but not necessarily we have to take any action.

Okay, thank you.

How about program progress reports?

I'll take that. In June, we are going down through the transportation stuff we did. We're getting ramped back up for a round of Amish Mennonite and kind of plain sect community outreach. That's always a um we do that just about every year go out to meet with them uh they're they're a really important transportation related stakeholder out in our rural areas so that's really important um we are doing some early coordination for a regional freight plan that'll cover uh not just our mpo but also most likely involve franklin and lebanon county so it'll actually be a five county Tanya Kessler- Freight plan using at one is kind of the connecting tissue across all five you know at one isn't technically going to Perry, but the connecting the three MPs so that's coming.

Tanya Kessler- Soon, can we get some extra lanes on at one out of that you think.

uh well i don't know just asking for a friend sure well if that friend has has somewhere between five and seven billion dollars then the answer is yes uh but we'll leave that to depend on central office um uh we have our our uh ss4a supplemental planning grants that came through um in dolphin county we'll be looking at a quarter study for walnut street from Progress Avenue through Penbrook, kind of to the beginning of State Street, trying to get us kind of ready for the post-83 improvement conditions. So, you know, what kind of lanes are we going to be, like, what are the volumes going to look like, bike ped, safety, all that kind of stuff. We'll also be doing some and some additional planning work at the intersection of 743 and Loudermilk Road, with potentially evaluating a roundabout in that location. We installed two new suspect cycle racks, both in Dauphin County, one at the Jewish Community Center near Italian Lake Park, one up at Fort Hunter. those were a long time in the you know took a while but we finally worked with everybody to get to get that going and then we uh we submitted the 27 to 30 transportation improvement program so that's obviously a very uh important and uh high effort uh job for us is getting that all together and getting that submitted depend on that went in last week so A bunch of other stuff in here. If anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to answer it. But if not, that's all I had. Jerry, do you have anything from a county-specific perspective?

No, we'll be talking a little bit about the comprehensive plan as we come getting close to that at the end of the meeting.

Okay, thank you very much. LPA report.

yeah the uh the only thing really is uh you see in the report it was uh night meetings with related to uh talking about data centers okay i can mention jerry myself alexa and i guess lindsay our our regional planner attended an apa pennsylvania chapter of apa had a data center workshop um which was actually really very interesting very informative the representatives from ppl there uh susquehanna river basin commission uh there was an attorney who was the attorney uh john andrews from uh from these wallace kind of very very knowledgeable from the developer perspective and kind of some of these questions that we have

some answers but maybe not permanent final answers on so it was a more or less a full day event i think it was it was very worthwhile and i'm i think it was really good so i just wanted to mention all right thank you and of course every month i always take an opportunity to thank the staff for their selfless devotion and late many late nights away from home and hearth and family uh doing this job so we appreciate that I'm just curious, is our website updated? I'm looking at this constellation letter that's addressed to Bob Spandler. Yes, it is. They just have all the information. Okay. I was just curious. I only get, you know, like 12 months, 24 at the most of my, you know, moment in the sun here. So I'm going to let Bob take all the glory. You have it.

Bob was a very popular chairman, so I guess that's hanging on you. Thank you, Gary. Yes.

It seems to me, Bob, that they want you back.

Anytime.

They're literally writing me out of the job. Okay. Committees.

Any committee reports?

Okay. No committee reports. We're going to move on to five old business.

a subdivision land development matters we have approvals one in millersburg borough go ahead um i guess uh tanner if you want to kind of talk a little bit quickly about this tanner's our lpa for uh uh for millersburg who's been before showing or you know talking a little bit about it i think we're at the point where we're ready to take some action tonight uh and he can kind of go over that and also the applicant is here as well if you have any questions

Yeah, so I'll just talk briefly. So yes, we have the Mid-Penn Bank main branch building plan from Millersburg Borough. We had just seen their facilities building plan come through prior to this. They submitted this back, I guess, end of April. We accepted it for review back in May. So since then, we've done a review. The applicant has addressed Both all of our comments. The borough didn't really have any comments. They have addressed the borough's engineer's comments. um for us so i think you know at this point we're uh ready to ask you know we as a staff are recommending approval of their six requested waivers along with uh approval um conditioned upon the two conditions that are mentioned in the letter so i don't know chase if you have any please chase illuminate us absolutely um

I mean, I'm more if you have any questions, please ask him. But I mean, I at this point, I would assume a couple of you are aware of the combined project, more or less to say. Back in March, we got approval for the construction of a facilities building on a northern lot, and that was to relocate temporarily their operations from their current location on Union Street to this facilities building. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up on the screen. that building up on the northern lot which was a combination of three lots consolidation of three lots was approved back in march that is currently under construction once construction of that building is done they will be relocating their main branch bank operations from their current building which is that large hodgepodge of buildings into the facilities building Once they're done moving, then they plan on demoing and reconstructing a new facility on that existing lot. The existing building is upwards of 10 to 11,000 square feet, and they've had a myriad of additions over the years. So it is multiple different first floor elevations. You have one, two, three steps, a couple of ramps throughout the building. They want to consolidate it, make it much nicer, construct a 4,700 square foot building. um single story so as you can see the existing site is nearly 100 impervious we are greatly reducing the amount of impervious by adding in some landscaped areas along the edges uh both to the north along cherry street and to the west along the adjacent property we are not modifying the access onto union street which is the streets out bounding it to the south so one of our waivers is requesting the provision to provide the approval date and permit number of the hops early doors conversations regarding this project we talked to the staff about requesting a waiver from getting an hop period we were able to get some confirmation from pendot that we do have two existing permits for those driveways they just we're unable to locate the actual permit numbers in time. So we're just requesting a waiver from providing the permit number and approval date, which is a requirement of the SALDO. So we have those permits. I just don't have those permit numbers for you at this time. So at this point, we're requesting a waiver for that. If you would like, I can go through these waivers.

Oh, no, that's okay, Chase.

Okay. That pretty much is the basis of the project.

All right. Any questions for Chase? Any Millersburg natives who feel strongly about waivers? Now's your chance, Millersburg people. Okay.

Motion to approve.

Thank you very much, Gary.

Second.

Do you want to hear a second?

Chris, second.

Chris, thank you very much. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? chase you got yourself an approved project oh you have to abstain mary abstains okay thank you mary thank you chase and thank you everybody just to be clear that was conditional approval contingent upon meeting those last two items right yeah we understood that yes okay i appreciate it you've done a professional good job chase we really appreciate it also thank you thank you all right we move on to six new business

subdivision land development matters we have uh review and comments for 11 plans jerry highlights um just before there's a few a couple things going on within the territory some residential units uh upper paxton has a couple uh smaller uh type of things you also see there's one that's uh across both borders on some uh development there uh they were reviewed in both municipalities um otherwise it's it's pretty strange what is that project in the city habitat i saw a habitat project uh yeah habitat for humanity they're looking at doing uh six uh oh six yeah they're combining some lots and they're putting uh Four units together.

Those are the lots.

Gotcha. And they're combining them. Six units. Yeah, and then here's where the units are. There's four units, six lots. Got you.

And what is that address again?

Jefferson Street. Yeah, it says Jefferson. Jefferson Street.

No address.

I can't see it.

Yeah.

231-232.

All right, did you get that? 2312 to 2322 Jefferson Street.

Thank you.

All right. Any questions? All right. Anything else you want to bring up here, Jerry? Any questions from our commissioners?

This is Kirshner. I didn't know what Oviliquid was, but I figured it out that it's liquid eggs, and it makes it appropriate since it's down at the Crider facility there in Lower Swatera.

Thank you for telling us, John. I was curious about that, but too, too embarrassed to ask. Ovo liquids. That's the name of the project. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's right. Liquid eggs. Liquid eggs.

Yeah. I remember Alexa talking about.

Okay. So, uh, we need a, um, we're at six here. We need a motion to ratify staff comments. on these 11 plans. Do I hear a motion? Seven. Mary, thank you for the motion. Do I hear a second? First and a second. Thank you, John. So we have a motion to approve a second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Thank you. Anyone opposed? None opposed. Motion carries. You guys have your ratified staff comments. Okay, now we move to zoning amendments. This is 6B.

I'll start with Mr. Yinks first.

Yeah, Mr. Yinks, would you like to take it away, please? This is the data center.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. I see that we're one of a number of data center amendments to zoning ordinances before you. I want to thank your staff for reviewing this on rather short notice so we can keep this moving ahead and also appreciate the model ordinance, which was one of the sources that we used to put this together. I'm really here just to see if you have any questions. And if you do, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. But thanks for your time today.

I've got a question for you, Nick. What's your sense about data center pressure in the

in in dauphin county in the region here what's your observation well you know i don't have a good feel for what it's like beyond the county um so um i'm not sure that i can answer that that well mr chair um but certainly uh in east hanover as we're seeing with our neighbors either you know um we think that we might get an application imminently which is why we're trying to get ahead of this um either because we see our neighbors um receiving applications or because we recognize that in a lot of ways we're just geographically situated in a place where um you know such data centers might try to uh to uh be placed so what we're trying to do is to get some what we think are reasonable regulations in place before such an application would hit our desks

Right, because if you didn't have an ordinance in place, you wouldn't really have a mechanism for regulating, is that correct?

That's exactly right.

Okay, just putting that on the record, that's all. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions for Nick Yankst from East Hanover? No comments, no questions? okay so i'd like uh should we take a motion on everything or you want to take a motion let's talk about each one i'd like to take a motion to approve the staff recommendation uh that supports the ordinance with staff comments on uh east handover's uh data center uh ordinance can i have a motion please don't move please let's shafer thank you lisa we got a motion to approve do we have a second Yeah, I'll second it. Okay, who's the who's that?

Who's the second? Someone got in quick.

I said I would second it if we needed Bob. Yes. Oh, thank you, Bob. Bob seconded by Bob. Okay. We're gonna take a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposition to approving this the staff comments and the ordinance? hearing none uh our letter and uh comments are approved thank you very much nick thank you commissioners okay now thank you mr chair yeah nice to have you nick stick around if you want to you're more than welcome uh 6b zoning amendments west hanover township data center big surprise okay um west ten hour is there's nobody here for that

Okay, this one's a little bit more involved in terms of West Hanover. A lot of it was based upon our model ordinance, but they did have some things. We used a kind of a more of a textual review of the things in terms of some of the provisions nothing was majorly out of whack so to speak however there was a couple things in terms of some dimensional standards some definitions we just thought needed to be a little bit further clarified just to make sure that there's consistency among their their ordinance itself so it doesn't get them caught up. So we are, again, we feel they're doing a very good job by putting it forward, but there are just some minor technical issues that we think they should take care of so that they're not caught up by whenever something does come. So we're recommending with some minor text changes or considerations.

Okay. so uh west hanover township any questions any thoughts okay hearing nothing do we have a motion to approve the staff recommendation uh for west hanover's ordinance thank you john do we have a second second thank you that was gary yep thank you very much all those in favor aye aye opposed hearing none motion passes now we come to middle paxton township zoning ordinance this includes data centers but has some other stuff in it too it's also got well go ahead jerry explain okay this is uh this is a bigger fish um in fact it's uh probably um

It's a school of fish.

It's a school of fish, yeah.

Actually, this one dates back quite a bit. In fact, Middle Paxton received a grant from from Tri-County in order to start working on this plan or this about seven or eight years ago, update to their zoning ordinance. They hired a consultant from the Pittsburgh area to get them through the part of, you know, updating it, modernizing it. And also our staff has probably over the last five or so years been quite involved on almost a monthly basis on, on, They did take a fine tooth comb to a lot of the things. So we feel like they've gone and done a lot of things that are kind of going to help them out in terms of their ordinance development and moving forward. As with everything, as the moment came near the end, the data centers issue popped up on them. So they did have a provision of adding more as a data center within the inclusion while they're doing the work. And since we have we have some comments on that to make sure that some of the standards that they're using may not cause them some problems in terms of them being way too restrictive because they have very small acreage size. So that may end up being some issues that concern us about possibly being exclusionary based upon the amount of land that they have zoned. Also too, they do have some fairly technical, high technical requirements and sound measurements and things like that. So given the technical nature of that, we want them to make sure that they know that these things are of enforcement so that they're aware of that uh but other things like i said we we base uh and our general comment on on that concept and you'll see that a little bit later on as well uh because they've moved so far so long with this large ordinance we would hope that the provision of a data center doesn't get the debate shifted to just the data center components. So in some ways we think maybe it might be in their best interest if they take that data center as a standalone ordinance, move the regular zoning stuff forward, and then take the data center as a separate, because there could be a lot of discussion about the data center. They've come so far, we're not sure if they wanna, get caught up on something that's really you know they've made a whole lot of effort on some other things so we kind of cautioned about putting them all together so that may be a separate ordinance but otherwise we're supportive of it we have a fair number of comments in terms of technical end of things just sort of as you see there um and but overall with those considerations we we're recommending that they they pass the ordinance but take into mind some of the comments. That's good.

I just want to say as an aside on this, that I am a property owner out there and I'm going to have to abstain. The property that mine has been complex with for the past 18 years, probably one of the best data center sites in anywhere it's got a gas line it's got two overhead power lines it's got a lot of farmland it's got highway frontage it's got data and it's got the harrisburg water aqueduct that runs through it so all of the hot button issues that the data centers have to deal with are on that property And I cannot say one thing or another. I just think that we dodged the bullet on that one. So the sooner they get the ordinance and the more control they'll have over that piece of property or mine for that matter. So any other questions on Middle Paxton Township's ordinance? Hearing none, I'd like to have a motion from someone in the commission to approve staff comments. Thank you, Mary. We have a second. Second. Thank you, Chris. We have a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? First abstains. Motion carries. All right. Number three, B3, Swatara Township, zoning text amendment and saldo amendments.

Go ahead. Okay. This is a similar one, but on a smaller scale of fish. They went through a number of their ordinances and over the last year, they've kind of identified certain things that either there was granting of variances or inconsistencies. And so what they've done is they've kind of done an annual review. These are the things they want to change. And then also at the last moment, they put in a number of data center requirements. You know, the provisions they gave, a lot of them match up to what we are, our model. So there's not really a lot of changes that we're saying with that. But the first comment was, again, you've got a lot of things going on here. You've got a zoning ordinance, you've got a saldo ordinance, and within that zoning ordinance, you've got a data center ordinance. So again, you may be better off to split to allow people to talk about each one, they may get confused or you may get some concerns about whether or not you're doing it.

Correct. You want to do it right or you get it. If it's challenged successfully, you don't get it at all. Correct. So it's better to do it right the first time.

The only other thing we said is, you know, they did do some of the similar things that we talked about with Middle Paxson. is that they did put us some of the things in terms of the size of the acreage the size of the setbacks and things like that to make sure that they're not being too restrictive uh again one of the things that you can always are careful of if you you know if you squeeze too tight and no one can do it then you can everybody can do it so that's what we're kind of making sure you hit it right it's got to be reasonable correct it's got to be defensible correct so that's the only uh item we said so again Uh, we, we're in agreement that they, that they're, what they're doing is positive, but it's just, uh, you know, a couple of suggestions, maybe to think through this again, or a little further, make sure they're confident.

Okay. Do we have any questions about Swatara townships, uh, catch all school of fish ordinances and the staff comments there on any, any other questions, comments, hearing none. Can I entertain a motion to approve staff comments? shay for some of them go ahead is that lisa yes lisa thank you do we have a second thank you mary we have a second uh we'll take a vote on the motion all those in favor aye aye aye anyone opposed hearing none motion carries thank you jerry now we have lichens township this is number four

uh yeah lichens is uh they're going old school going back to a solar thing as much as yeah that is old school so uh yeah so well they've uh lichens is uh approaching this again talking a little bit about uh solar energy type of things uh It appears a lot of what they've taken is some of our model thing, our model ordinance. So we are not necessarily opposed to a lot of the conditions they put through there. The only thing that we do have some concerns with is that They do have quite a bit of prime soil designation classifications. Make sure that they're solid with how they're going to be reviewing that and or determining what the soils are based on their classes whenever there comes time to review.

Yeah, you got to be able to defend. Not everything is class one. You can't just say, it's all class one and we've zoned it for ag only. And then someone comes in and says, I just did a soil test and it's class four. You're going to lose if you got ag on your face and your ordinance goes flying out the window. And that's our main problem. Right. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? OK, we're going to take a motion to approve staff comments. We have a motion, please.

Yeah, Bob Spandler, I'll make that motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can we have a second, please? Mary's our standby second. Thank you, Mary. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, thank you. Likens Township comments pass. We've done East Hanover. This takes us to Intergovernmental Reviews, which is C. And we can do all these in one fell swoop if you'd like. Yes, we would like that. Thank you.

All right. The first one, Lower Paxton Township Possibility Playground is seeking a DCD Greenways grant, looking to improve the park. Again, with playground equipment, safety service, some other type of access provisions, they're asking for $200,000. The next one is within Derry Township, it's the silos. They're looking for funding of $8 million from PAGCD's business financing site development division to redevelop the former yellow cocoa bean silo complex located at 150 Trinidad Avenue in Hershey. So it's to do a wide mix of development, mixed use of event space, housing, I think, I believe there's housing in there, but a lot of mixed use within that. So they're seeking funds for that. The third one, Elizabeth Philborough Greenway Trails and Recreation. This one actually came through a little while ago last year. We've done it before. They're looking at approximately $150,000 to do the design for the park for improvement of, I guess, the borough park. I don't know if it has a name. It does have a name, but I can't think of it. Let's see. Okay. West Hanover, Manor Drive and Route 22 safety improvements. They're looking to do a $230,000 for transportation safety improvement and accessibility improvements at the intersection. They're looking at signals, upgrades, ADA compliant pedestrian crossing, new sidewalks, curving, and all the other bells and whistles go along with that. uh the next one is actually there's two grants uh it's actually two grants two letters that they'll be asking Mr. Chairman to sign, but it's for the same project from two different grant sources. One is, the project itself is Asylum Run Streambank Birdment. They're looking for the design work for a planned stream bank restoration along Asylum Run located along the Veterans Trail from Andrew Drive to State Farm Road within the township. So they're asking for $200,000 from one program. the Grown Greener, and the other one is another grant avenue within the Grown Greener for $250,000. Andrew, this is the one you have, the 441 and Oxford Drive.

Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. They're doing a fairly large multifamily housing development there. and they're looking for support for their transportation improvements, turn lanes, raise medians, sidewalks, pedestrian access improvements.

And then the last one is Perry County's annual comprehensive plan update. This is actually, Picture Perry was a program, a little bit different kind of comprehensive plan in which they do looking at programs and projects and things like that, and they go and look at either adding projects or deleting projects from it. We don't really have a say on it, but we just are commending them on continuing the planning process.

So those are all the items. Thank you very much. Any questions about any of these items? Hearing none, do we have a motion to approve the staff recommendations? It's motion. Thank you, Chris. Do we have a second, please? john kirschner thank you john yep all those in favor please say aye aye aye very much anyone opposed hearing none motion passes thank you very much now we are at seven additional items and i have uh one that i'd like to throw in when we're done talking about the comprehensive plan okay

Comprehensive plan, I think I mentioned last month, we did get our grant funding, both from the DCED for the maps grant for $75,000 there, and also the gaming grant. We got $75,000 there. One of the major components is the outreach. We have been doing some outreach. Hershey for a their community park Saturday event, which were in that. And we were also downstairs at Strawberry Square during a lunch day, asking people, basically, what do they consider the best things within Dauphin County? What's their favorite place? That part of the outreach was to just basically try and find what our strengths are. So by people telling us what they like the best gives us a sense of what's something that we want to keep and make sure we enhance. The next phase is we're going to go into the deeper dive with some of the officials and such. So on August 12th at lunchtime at the Terra Tantra Municipal Building, we've We're hosting an interactive discussion gathering feedback from planning and zoning officials. to get their idea of what this comprehensive plan can do for them. They're the ones who are writing these letters asking for support for their projects and everything else. We want to make sure that what we're going to come up with matches with what they're going to be doing either in writing their plans and everything. That's the first step. You are welcome to come if you want.

Thank you. That's a big question in a lot of those grant programs is, is your request your project consistent with your county's comprehensive or your municipality's comprehensive plan so yeah people should have they should if they want to ask for for money they should have a plan yes so we're kind of wrapping up but starting so to speak we're kind of in the middle of a lot of the

A public outreach, we got the survey done. We got the responses back. We got, I think Alexis said close to 300 responses. We're kind of pulling all that together. Now we're going to go and ask some of the officials. We're going to be putting together the steering committee above and beyond the planning commission with other people meeting with them, kind of coordinating what already has been done with the regional growth management plan. of putting that all together and then kind of us formulating the next steps of how to how to make the plan a very useful document for the rest of us so i will not be able to be there i'll be celebrating my mother's birthday out of state so i otherwise would come and give some very illuminating and inspiring comments you'll have to do it without maturity we may be able to wire you in yeah you don't want to thank you uh okay maybe on the next conference the plan will have a 3d image of you

yeah okay the the lesser version of me okay i have an a uh item i'd like to add we can all laugh about it but i did promise a former chairman of our commission here that i would bring it up and that is what's the update with tanner's run tanner wanted to give us an update on tanner

ah oh boy you can make it short if you want there's progress being made please say that sort of okay um i'm trying to think back to the to the last uh was it back in june was it what's that was it back in june or may what was that um well i i was just up at the uh at the borough's planning commission here at the at the beginning of the month and the only substantial update is i think the borough had sent a letter to uh uh to the property owner of the apartment complex where the whole yeah where their parking lot punched through and everything and they had started to do some excavation work there but then found that uh there is what at least what if i remember right like a three-foot or so metal culvert that runs into the concrete that's underneath the building. And when they exposed that, it was mostly blocked up. And if they were to go in and remove that blockage, it could potentially, because it's right under the building's foundation, could potentially undermine that building. So they stopped work. They didn't do anything else to that. sent a letter to the property owner basically saying, hey, we feel that you should be concerned about this. And that letter was sent to them both to us and the township as well.

Okay. Thank you, Tanner.

Go ahead, Jerry. I will also say that, too, we've been working with emergency management. They've been identifying potential funding sources for flooding issues. uh they've given us a list of a couple we've shared that with the uh the borough uh as part of the rep program and we're kind of seeing uh an analysis of what is the next step for possibly trying to find somebody we we we have momentum going on there's activity people know about it it just you know i think what created part of the problem is that nobody knew if anybody was doing anything and if it was being done know what to do about it well i think janet can kind of vouch for this i mean i think everyone knows what's going on how to get there is kind of as always been the sticking point and i think also too making sure that everybody who's in their lane is staying comfortable in their lane and doing what they can't now again this is being you know there's private development uh private issues with the property owners there's also part of it being in a two different municipalities, where the choke point is, is one municipality, there's the feeling of, you know, is that their responsibility and, you know, the people upstream, of course, are trying to, they're part of REP, so we can help them to a certain extent, but again, going back down. So maybe if we see there's an opportunity for funding of the money, maybe that'll help with that, right at where the problem may be identified as being.

most scary so to speak okay thank you look i mean we know more now than we did a year ago or two years ago and that's all i think the stakeholder who asked me to bring it up wants to know that's all just a question mr chairman is there any public is there any public funding that is assisting millersburg borough and upper and upper paxton township in this effort well that's why i mentioned gary the uh the rep program has

Within our ability, we can go or one of the services we offer is the grant writing to identify the funds and we're working with with hazard mitigation or the emergency management group of people, because there may be some emergency management funds that would not necessarily be available other than through them because of flooding is being recognized as the number one issue within Dawson County. So yes, there's no money right there right now, but that's what we're trying to find.

And you're leading that, the county?

We're working with the borough, correct. The borough itself will have to be the applicant, but we're the ones who can help write it together, put together some of the funds to help write that application, even some of the engineering stuff that might be needed. That may come out of our rep funds, so that's kind of out of a collective fund. We are going to be the ones helping lead the push together to write the grant, but when it comes time to actually do it, the grant has to be with the borough. Yeah, you know, Gary, I think you know this.

I think you've known it for a long time, but I just have to say it for the record. I think the challenge with Tanner's run is that it was so fragmented in terms of jurisdiction, ownership, choke points, and the left hand would naturally not know what the right hand was doing until we you know created a body so to speak that had you know two hands two arms two legs to make it all happen and uh it's not happening i think as fast or as dramatically you know a solution as people would hope but i think this underground pipe which i did not know about It's kind of a symbol of the whole problem. There's all this constructed infrastructure, built human environment on top of this kind of like time bomb, if you will, this water bomb that slowly was eating things away underneath. And only when it reached kind of critical masses for temporary periods would people kind of like notice the problem and it got worse and worse and worse. so we're not going to be able to fix it overnight i don't think anyone ever thought we would but i do feel pretty comfortable that we're on it enough people are working together on it that we will find solutions because there's no one solution but we will find a solution to point a point b point c i i hope people agree with that that assessment gary does that answer your question yes As you can tell, I've run for office before. I can filibuster if you want me to keep going. No, I don't need that. Thank you very much. Oh, go ahead. Yes, sorry.

And then one last thing, and this came across kind of... Yeah, so Cumberland County, along with us, is hosting an information session for municipal officials, other stakeholders. I don't think... Nobody will be prevented from attending. If somebody is not necessarily associated with a group, but is interested in this, they'd be more than welcome. I think the intended audience is certainly municipal officials and other stakeholders, but a virtual kind of public information session or municipal information session on the new housing act. So that's going to be next month, August 5th, 12 to one. So I just wanted to, we'll start pushing stuff out on social media. We have a newsletter coming in the next few weeks. This will be in there. So if anybody on this call is interested, I can certainly forward you the email or keep an eye out on our social media for the link to register and everything. But I just wanted to say.

Andrew, I greatly appreciate you bringing this up. You actually took the words out of my mouth. As many of you know, I have mentioned this topic and subject, and if I may have 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, just to share.

Please, Gary, we've never heard you on this subject before. Please bring us up to speed.

No, not a problem. Just to confirm that everyone knows that the 21st Century Road to Housing Act became law on July 11th, marking the enactment of the most significant federal housing legislation in nearly 30 years. While no single law will solve the housing challenges facing communities across Pennsylvania, And our County, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act demonstrates a shared commitment to expanding housing opportunities and equipping communities with new tools and to meet local housing needs. So tying in with that session that is being presented by Cumberland County, you know, you have heard me talk about the most, what I feel is where the most important part in this legislation is called the housing supply frameworks. Local government zoning and land use policies have been identified by many housing market researchers as one of the several contributing factors to an undersupply housing. relative to demand in some areas of the country. One federal approach to affecting local zoning land use policy has been to provide guidance, technical assistance, and research to promote certain reforms designed to increase housing development. In this legislation, it requires the HUD's Assistant Secretary for Policy Development Research to publish guidelines and best practices in consultation with a task force consisting of academics, practitioners and state and local officials with respect to state and local zoning and land use policies referred to in the bill as zoning framework so uh i i let the group know that this was in this legislation and now it has become law and it'll be interesting and anxious to see uh how this all plays out and how our county planning commission gets involved in it so thanks for sharing yeah it's exciting i mean

it's it is a big issue we hear about it everywhere i mean it's it's in the news this issue is in the news constantly and uh it's it's a big nut to crack but thank you gary appreciate it uh any other additional items comments insights hearing none i'd like to have a motion for adjournment so moved i heard somebody i heard three people all at once we have a second please gary thank you all those in favor please say aye aye hearing no opposition we adjourn thank you very much folks see you next month have a good day thank you guys

so yeah that's