Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, Gary, if you're ready.

Okay, good afternoon, all. We will call the August 3rd Dauphin County Planning Commission meeting to order. And do we have the roll call for attendance first?

Yep. Chris Dietz? Here. Mary Gieske?

Here.

John Kirshner?

Here.

Gary Lenker? Here. Brian Pomeroy? Here. Joe Robinson? Here. lisa schaefer here robert spandler here and i don't believe commissioner hartwick is not online is he and josh first is indicated to be absent okay we're ready got a quorum

okay we'll move right along then into the uh you all received the minutes from our last meeting july 13th is there any additions or corrections needed for those minutes and if there are none i'll take a motion to so approve no move okay joe thank you is there a second to that yeah bob spender i'll second that okay thank you bob

all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed motion carries move right into the treasurer's report payment of expenses um there's nothing outstanding different than normal just our normal fees being submitted for subdivisions reviews and applications to be transferred over from dauphin county planning commission to tread county

We do typically take a motion for that approval, correct?

Correct.

All right. Properly moved and second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? motion carries thank you very much moving right into reports report of officers do any of the officers uh have any anything to report or request i do not have anything i do not okay then we'll move right into item b communications and staff reports we have no communications and no staff reports Okay, then how about the next item, LPA report attached? Do we need to make particular highlights on that?

The progress report, Gary. I'm sorry.

I can handle the progress report. Some highlights. We finalized or at least have a file. We're going to be updating our congestion management plan and process for the region. We're going to be working with a consultant on some technical assistance with that. That's looking at congestion data for the whole region, including Cumberland County. So there's a ton of data. So we're kind of gearing up for that right now. We anticipate that happening over the next year or so and probably Completing and ultimately adopting that in the second half of next year. Transportation staff has also been working on what's called the Human Service Transportation Plan. That's a transportation plan that looks at specifically the needs of the disabled and elderly populations. in the region uh focusing a lot on on fixed route transit but then where the gaps are in that and how shared ride services are needed to fill those gaps uh worked a lot with um with rabbit transit and a variety of stakeholder groups in the in the region on that erin and rebecca from our staff have done a lot of great work on that uh in dolphin county we did install two new suspect cycle racks One at Fort Hunter Park, kind of at the very top of the Greenbelt. One at what is now, at least for the time being, the Jewish Community Center on Second Street near Italian Lake Park. So we're happy that the system continues doing well.

I happened to have saw the one up at Fort Hunter. I was up there for a gathering and saw the bikes up there. They're in a great location.

Yep. And, you know, Dauphin County Parks and Rec helped us with that and kind of blocked off parking spots for us and gave us, like you said, a nice visible spot there. So that's good. The last thing from a transportation perspective I'll mention is we did submit the 27 to 2030 Transportation Improvement Program, the TIP as we typically call it. So that's the four-year construction schedule. program of federal and state funded projects in the three counties. So that's all, that's kind of one of our normal MPO duties. So we took care of that and got that, everything fully submitted and on time. The rest, Jerry, do you have anything from a Dauphin County perspective you want to highlight here?

Yeah, just kind of a highlight. We don't have an agenda item on the comp plan, but just a note, we do have upcoming on the meeting on August 12th with the Dauphin County uh municipal planners and people who are associated with the on a local level um we're looking to gain some insight into to what they might see uh as especially important to them and we're also after that we're going to start looking to do uh the steering committee uh put together as we got our grant funding and we're starting to uh hopefully spend down some of that money to start getting that project finalized and completed by next year. We're doing some other things with the CAP project, which we've been closed out this last year's money, which we had a fair amount of projects. We've got another $1.2 million to spend for the next two years. That project is up and running. One of the main thing we're going to be looking at on a regional basis is how to use data from data collection and the improvements we're making so that streams could be delisted. That means kind of taken into a better category from DEP and hopefully that'll show some progress of what we're doing because we think we're doing quite a bit. The building activity report has been finalized. It's out for publication, so everything is there. One of the surprising or not surprising things, I guess, for those who are in the business is Harrisburg City had a fair amount of apartment conversions that had shown up that not had shown up before. So a lot of things are happening within the city. It's one of the first times within our report we see a lot of those things either being they're probably always going on but at least now it's being recognized so that's that's probably uh one of the big things it's on the tri-county website so if you want to take a look at it it's uh finally completed so that's pretty much it yeah and thank you for sharing that uh webinar that Cumberland County is having on the

federal the new federal legislation that you've heard me chirp about a little bit the last number of months the the 21st century road to housing i hope i hope all the commission members can get on that i'm looking forward to that what's the date of that again do you have that handy yeah it's right here it's the end of your packet on wednesday okay

yeah so if you go on to the end of your packet and uh there's actually two uh hot links that you can use to do use to get the registration so very good thank you and the one on the bottom so yeah do you know if they are going to um record that i'm not sure i i i can't imagine they won't but i don't i don't know for sure

i didn't hear i didn't hear what mary asked i'm hoping to get one at lunchtime she is she asked whether the the meet the session would be recorded and i said i'm assuming it will be but i'm not quite sure okay so we are at then committees is that correct uh well now we're on the lpa report lpa report forgive me

guys were hitting it pretty hard there and you got ahead of me so i thought you got ahead of me lpa report um nothing totally uh uh unusual as you'll see some of the municipalities are uh talking to us on uh their data center ordinances uh there's probably two or three uh notices of that including up and up in the orlandoff and they're also very interested in that so um that's pretty much a lot of the outstanding extra activity other than just talking about site plans and general planning issues.

Very good. Committees. I have to ask, where are we at with committees? Can you refresh my and the Commission members as to what committees we have?

Well, actually, we have two. One is One is formally established. The Stormwater Committee is to go over things that are associated with REP. We really don't have much activity on that in terms of other than updating you on this. We had talked about putting together a housing one. I think we'll start looking at that once we have an idea about what the federal one is and what direction everybody wants to go on that.

okay very good thank you any questions many commission members hearing none we'll move into new business item a subdivision land development matters i put them up on the screen for us i assume hello we're here okay i tap my Laptop by accident and somehow. We can.

Yeah, there's there's a the plans themselves. You know there's there's eight of them. You know, spread pretty much throughout the the municipalities. There's a I guess terms of commercial development. There's only I think only one that is the. Washington Township, Walmart has a little expansion going on, but a lot of them mostly are just a lot of changes or a couple additions of development. There is one in the city of Harrisburg where they're getting themselves ready to do Cameron Street. That's combining some lots. There's no housing shown for that at this point. There was a note on one of the plans that our maps were a little off, and thank you for Lisa showing or kind of bringing that to attention. So that's fixed now, but there was a missed label on one of them. This is in steel and it's kind of in our very rough stage and we made a lot of comments on this, but it looks like the steel plant site is getting subdivided in some manner. But again, there's not much information on that one and that's what we actually made a lot of comments on.

any questions by any commission members in any of these proposals proposed projects hearing none then do we have a motion to approve uh staff comments i'll make the motion pomeroy thank you brian do we have a second for a second okay thank you lisa

Any discussion on the motion?

Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving right in to zoning amendments.

Okay, the one zoning amendment we have is from South Hanover Township. If you recall, South Hanover had a zoning amendment they asked us to review a little while ago. I don't know if it was two months ago, I believe it was. They had gone and started reviewing that with the public. and a number of concerns came up from the public's viewpoint, and that caused them to pretty much go back and look at some of the modifications that they were wanting to do. They pretty much did keep the whole ordinance on what they had done previously. However, they made some more modifications to some of the the lot setbacks and the acreages and things like that. So our letter is very similar to what we had written the last time. We did not necessarily feel that they had changed too much. They have maybe gone a little bit more restrictive in terms of where they're showing in terms of the lot size and the patterns of having overlap within this overlay district with some of the residential districts. So we pretty much kept our same letter as the last time saying, you know, it's a very good ordinance. There's some things that we think they should look at from a technical standpoint. And that's why it's three pages. But we still kind of make sure that they're they're comfortable with that. They're not doing too much restrictions in terms of it being exclusionary whenever they come into office. uh receiving a uh an application so again our recommendation is uh pretty much the same as the last time we think it's a good idea that they put the ordinance together there's some cleanup type things but make sure you're comfortable that you're not feeling too uh exclusionary in terms of the use okay thank you jerry and any any questions on jerry's comments if not may we have a motion to to approve the staff recommendations to south hanover township

Chris Dietz motion thank you Chris do we have a second Mary thanks Mary discussion on the motion any any discussion hearing none all those in favor say say aye any opposed

motion carries moving right into lower paxton township prahl track rezoning um no that one was dropped carry you might be looking at an older one okay forgive me what what do we have up then then uh the next one is wayne township it's a it's a subdivisional land development amendment Yeah, you're not looking at wrong stuff, but it's just that's an earlier version. It's not the one that went out on Friday.

Gotcha. OK, go right ahead.

uh wayne township this is a very simple one uh wayne township uh has uh codified in their ordinance uh uh actual fees that they were collecting uh and that was back in the 90s for different application type of things so what they've done is gone in and said we're we're not going to put the numbers in but we're going to pass the the changes by resolution rather than having it uh more locked in stone in the subdivision ordinance itself. So this is a pretty standard procedure. We recommend that everybody do it. And therefore, we're also recommending in Wayne Township pass this change.

Okay. Any questions for staff on this? If not, may we have a motion to approve the recommendations? Kershner moves. Thank you, John. Second, do we have? I got Bob. Okay, good. I'll let you be the referee on that, Jerry. Thank you. All right. Any questions on the motion as made? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And any other, anything else under zoning since I?

No, that's it. And then we have the next one. If you don't have yours up there.

Sewer modules.

Yep. Yes, this is a sewer module in Susquehanna, Tatcha Creek Heights Apartments. It is a Proposed development of a 14.95 acre track located on the terminus of Russell Drive at Cul-de-Sac Roadway. They're looking at 144 unit multi-family apartments consisting of eight apartment buildings and leasing office with other amenities. They're looking at 146 EDUs, 144 EDUs for housing plus two for the amenities that are part of it. they're going to be putting in some pump stations and force mains and it's a capital region water is uh generally from our understanding accepting of the uh of the thing but of the improvements but uh again this is starting the planning process from our standpoint and we had no issues with the submissions of information and that's for harrisburg city blackberry street no this is for tuscalhanna Creekview Heights Apartments in Susquehanna. Okay.

We'll do these individually, correct?

There's only the one in Susquehanna, and then we'll do the intergovernmental reviews after that.

Okay. We have a motion on the sewer module approval.

I move to ratify the staff comments.

Okay, thank you, Mary. Do we have a second?

A second, Lisa Schaefer.

Thank you, Lisa. Hearing no questions, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Intergovernmental reviews.

Okay, these are, there's three of them that are very similar in nature. There's There are three safety pedestrian improvement projects in three different locations. Again, there are three different projects. The first one is on Front Street. The city of Harrisburg is looking for installing from the multimodal transportation funds to install safety enhancements along Front Street. So they're looking at doing flashing beacons, moving the crosswalks. from their current locations and then adding some new ADA ramps and other type things, as well as a roundabout at the intersection of Front Street and Division Street. The second one is Susquehanna Township. They're seeking funds to get some pedestrian connections at four priority locations to improve safety and mobility. The project locations are Linglestown Road from the Township Building to Deer Path Road and within Christian McNaughton Memorial Park off of Laurel Glen Drive. Shell Street from the Susquehanna Township baseball fields along Silver and Place to Wood Street, Elmington Avenue from North Progress Avenue to North 36th Street, and Schoolhouse Lane from Wood Street to the Township line. Again, this is to do pedestrian safety, including sidewalks, crosswalk, curb ramps, and the walking path within the park. The final one is Harrisburg City, Front Street. Or I mean Blackberry Street. I got him. Oops, got him in the wrong order. That's Harris Town Development's kind of leading the charge on this one. They're looking at expansion of pedestrian walking areas along the length of Blackberry Street between the Amtrak station and 2nd Street, providing raised pavers to match existing curbing. Also overhead of additional overhead steel or arbor trusses. and also including some other bollards and other safety items as needed for pedestrian protection. So again, all three of these projects are pedestrian access mobility improvements that we're always in favor of, so we recommend that they are consistent with the comprehensive plan.

And we're okay doing them one motion for all three?

Yes, that's typically how we do it.

Okay.

Any questions of staff on any of these? Hearing none, do we have a motion to approve the recommendation? Move. Second.

Second, Chris.

Okay. Properly moved and second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Any additional items? We have none. Any commission members have any items or comments?

Just a word of thanks, Gary, for stepping in for Josh today.

Oh, well, thank you very much. You did a fine job. He said he's bringing me back a candy apple from the beach. Something like that. I don't know.

There you go.

very good well then uh our next meeting is uh wow september can you believe it boy this summer sure has flown by hasn't it yeah so september the 14th bypassing labor day that's uh gives us a little break uh from labor day so we appreciate that and uh if not i will accept the motion to adjourn

I'm going to try and attend this information session just to get a little knowledge.

Oh, yes. Yeah. Very, very beneficial. I encourage everybody to do that. Motion to adjourn.

I'll make the motion to adjourn.

Okay, Brian, thank you. Do we have a second?

I'll second, Lisa.

Thank you, Lisa. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Sorry if you do. Enjoy the rest of your summer. Take care.