Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Just got to love technology. recording your progress. Okay. Did you see some of the stuff the potential annex that they wanted to do on the map that he sent?

No, I didn't pay attention. That's a lot. Who where do they want to annex? out by on 18 out there out on County Seat and Trap Pond Road and all that where they're putting out here would be where they're putting that new development. Yeah. I I just saw on that map he sent Well, they they want to get that time water and sewer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's just because I don't think our lagoons can handle anything more for the sewer part. I know. We'd have to really make sure that that could get our hands are tied. We can't hold you. We're good. Yes. So, proceed. Okay.

All right. Good evening and welcome to the April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Georgetown Planning Commission. Our first order of business is approval of the minutes from uh March 18th. Is there a motion to approve? I move we approve the minutes from March 18th. Is there a second? We'll second. A motion and second. All in favor say I. I.

Opposed. Motion carried. All right. Our next order of business and primary order of business this evening is comprehensive plan five-year review. I assume Mr. Brian's going to walk us through. Why does it doesn't show the entire screen? Well, you can see most of it. Uh well, thank you everyone for um obliging me with my uh request that for you to do homework a um so yes. So, so today I just wanted to um go over some of the comments that I've received. Um I've sort of consolidated them in the agenda. Um if we go to the agenda, this was the um well let me go to the first. So yeah, so the one attachment on the agenda here was just a a consolidation of um parcels that people noticed where maybe the zoning and the land use didn't match up 100% or that there was something else that might be worth our discussion and attention. Um, so remember that the the topic or the goal of tonight is to just talk through some of these um sort of fixes to the future land use map uh and to discuss why one or another property might be the way it is. And I I have the map up here, the interactive map that I shared with you all. Um, so this can sort of give us some hints as to what uh some of the questions that you may have and their answers. Um, so I just also have this little PowerPoint here. So, this basically is just I'm just going to just go over some of the ones. Some the first three of

here are uh some that I noticed and that we discussed previously, but just wanted to put them in paper and you know, we can go through each one. We can talk about it or just say like, "Hey, this is fine. I'll make a note of that." Um once we go through all of these and if we agree on all of them, I can go back uh make a new map and show you that. Um, and depending upon where we are, um, the final map will be the third or fourth one I make for you all. And then, um, and then you can give your final, um, yes or no approval or, you know, uh, you know, maybe changes are warranted further and then we'll just go through that um, at a later date. Uh, as I mentioned a couple meetings ago, the I the intent was to also uh share the map or the proposed map with the uh with the town, with the community um and essentially request um like we did five years ago for the original comp plan. um basically request people um to um write in to see if they wanted to if they're interested in having their future land use map um changed for their individual property. Um, and so basically we'll do this tonight and then I would think we should get our first batch of um interested letters uh by next meeting by the May meeting and then we'll have the May and probably the June meeting to consider other um possible changes and then probably by the June meeting I should think um we'll be in a pretty good spot to um basically give our preliminary approval of a final map to send to the state for them to

review um and give their comments and then to push it through to um town council at the end of that. Is there any questions about the general idea of the progress from here to July August? Okay. Uh the first ones here were um this is South Railroad. Uh if you looked at the map, these are all um zoned zoned industrial and their future land use is industrial. This these this one and this one. However, they are all actually residential in nature and they have been residential for as um as far as we can tell. Um these four or five properties over here were actually vacant for a long time. Um they may have had houses on them at one time. Um but there is recent development happening there. As you can see, this aerial is actually from March of this year. Um so you can see that there is some development that's already happened. Uh, I know this building uh was built actually is still being in construction right now as well by a different party. And um and so and this one right here, as far as I can tell, has been residential for a number of years. Um any thoughts about that's can we make that recommendation to switch it to single family or is there any other discussion that you would like to have about it?

Is that that's where that materials place is? The the big parcel is here. Yes. Yes. That's right. Management was um because the soccer fields are across the street, right? where you Oh, yes. Over here. Yes, that's right. Yeah. So, I think this will also come up as industrial. Yeah. No, the soccer field a the short the lower case a here. I can show you here actually. Oops. Well, actually, so that is over here. So, it's even further. Yeah.

This blue parcel is the the soccer fields. So you want to make those residential uh just those those particular properties um that are outlined in red. Yeah. So they're already residential more or less they are resident the future land use says that they should be industrial. That's right. Which um why was that approved to begin with? That's that's what I was going to ask because if I if I live there, you know, and it's residential and you got the land, you know, the waste trash,

right? So So the um what I mentioned earlier was that our zoning code um you know, goes from the most restrictive, which is residential, to the least restrictive, which is industrial. And everything above the the last zoning district allows everything that was under it. So commercial zoning districts allow for commercial and residential. Industrial allows for industrial, commercial, and residential. So it basically allows anything. That's ridiculous. So those residential lots, if we make them industrial, they can do something that residential lot. Yeah.

That's industrial. No question. Yeah. Except for that one lot wouldn't be big enough to do whatever they try to do. Yes. So at any one time somebody could have opened a you know an auto repair shop or something you know. So I you know it looks like you know whoever did this last round or whenever this was done you tried to make things like they squared that off you know the street that's yeah street. Um but you know it doesn't make sense that they are industrial because they are residential. Those individual lots aren't big enough to do anything besides have a house on them. Mhm.

Um, and I know the comments been made a lot that, you know, your future land use map should reflect what you expect it to become, not you know, a future pipe dream. It's like we should be actually talking about resenting those properties if if they are, you know, slated to be so in my mind they should be residential because we're not there. Yes. Right. Well, it seems to me the industrial title has no teeth to it. You can put anything there you want. That's that's true. That's true. And I think this was originally

I mean, isn't that down the road there could be dangers from you're living on industrial site? I mean, it doesn't even seem safe. It's kind of it's ridiculous. So, we're going to go through a process where if it's industrial, whatever we call it, they still can do whatever they want there. That's

right. Right. So, so right now you know changing the future land use would be the first step and then um you know maybe a few months later we go back and we say okay we've changed the future land use of these parcels uh we do have the right to propose um to change the zoning so that it matches the future land use. Now that hasn't I mean we may have done that in the past to proactively zone things um maybe not recently but but that is within our power as a town that it's a legitimate governmental interest to um uh to zone things what to align with our planning priorities. Um so yes so we need not do it at this moment in time. Actually the feature land use map helps us go along the process because we've already done the the thinking work you know to say like okay so it you know we've identified x y and z reasons why this should be residential we change the future land use map and then a couple months later we could go back um and do the zoning and then so we don't have to do everything from scratch you know we've already done the u the analysis that's required to say like this makes sense from a planning perspective and it's in her comp plan and it matches our comp plan. So that's that's already, you know, half the battle is to prove that there is some planning legitimacy to um that action.

I just don't get it why we have to do anything because it's industrial and they can do anything they want now anyway. So why do we even have to bother with saying, "Yeah, we want it to be industrial, but you know, you do whatever you know, if you want commercial, if you want residential, it seems like it's they get you know, whatever they want to do there. Industrial doesn't just make it stay industrial. Right. Right. And that's that's a sort of a that's something that we do need to look at in the zoning overall. Um

and yes, that we should if we want to zone something as industrial, we probably want it to be industrial. Um, I think this structure of the zoning code dates back to the 70s, um, when Georgetown first created its zoning code, which was based on the Sussex County zoning code. And the idea was just to make sure that you included everything in your zoning ordinance. You didn't need to really think too hard about it. And remember, I mean, the 70s in the county is a lot different than today in Georgetown. So I think we just have that heritage of the way the ordinance looks. Um so I would recommend you know in the near future for us to look at taking out things from the industrial districts that we don't really want in the industrial district. Right? If a house pops up right in the middle of something, you know, then you've actually made industrial development in the general area harder because then we require all these buffers, uh, you know, which significantly reduces the developable area of some of these parcels, right? Um, and and it clearly, you know, is a conflict like maybe we don't want people living next to uh a concrete crushing facility, right? I mean that's that's something that we have legitimate reason to you know to to control and to consider you know throughout. Um so this yeah again this is to me this is one of the lowest hanging fruit of things that like oh yeah we should probably update this. Um some of the ones are a little more you know in the gray area and that's why we're here is to hash these things out. Um um so what do we think? Do we does this make sense or should we move on or can we do we have any more questions to discuss?

So you're saying they're industrial now. The future future right now they're residential, right? But the future you want to be the future right right now our future plan says that they should be industrial. Yes, that's correct. But we already got houses there, right? Oh, we just let houses be built. Correct. Yes. So, we really should make the future land use plan match what they are today because there's no because we don't expect this we don't expect that area to turn over to industrial in you in the next 60 years. Um the the only reason that it's probably industrial right now is because there's an industrial use on that one parcel,

right? And I can't really speak to why those particular parcels were indic, you know, designated that. Um, but the the few parcels that have buildings on them and that have had buildings on them have always been residential in nature. So, um, and the current zoning is residential.

Actually, the current zoning is industrial, which is Yeah. So the future land use and the zoning actually match, but they don't really match uh what we may want to see going forward because it's again the industrial district allows you to develop residential. So even if we wanted this to be industrial, we're not currently letting it just be industrial in our zoning code because that's just the way it's structured in there. Um because again, if you have a big parcel like this, um you can pretty much do whatever you want. Um because it allows commercial, residential, industrial. Uh even though from a commercial standpoint, it doesn't make a ton of sense because it's not really a great access point for regional traffic. You know, um Railroad Avenue is you two lanes. So, um, if you want to make that into a shopping center, it's not really the best place for that, but the zoning allows for it. And, um, uh, so that's just some of the the considerations that we have to make is like zoning ordinance lets us do a future land use says B, but in reality, it's always been residential. So, I think um, part of our work is to make all these things work together at the end of the day. So, can it be divided at all? Like, can we leave the back industrial and then just say the front on the road frontage there is residential?

Yes, we could. We could say that. Yeah. So, we could add these couple parcels in here. Um, make them residential. I think this is not sure what this parcel is. This is um I think this had a house on it at one time. Actually, this has a mobile home on it. So, it's it is residential in nature. Um, that's what I thought you were proposing was the ones that are outlined in red to make them residential. Yes, that is that is what I'm doing. Yes. Yes, that is. So, if there's a residential house on there, I would say it should be residential. Yeah, especially on the road frontage. I could see if we'd leave the back for the fresh people.

So, instead we could we could make all of these um residential except this one of course. residential and then the rest can be industrial.

Okay, make a note of that. Okay, next one here. I did mention this the first time. Um, this is a similar situation. Um, well actually it's It's a little different. So feature land use of this parcel is industrial. The zoning is not industrial. It's multifamily. It's MR1. And this is where the formerly known as Kingfisher Apartments is being actively developed right now. Uh they changed their name so now they're known as Savannah Grove for whatever reason. Um but this is similar situation where it may have been missed in a previous goaround. Uh uh but this should likely be orange which is the multif family designation um in the land use that would actually make the zoning and the future land use match in this case

right um and yeah so if that makes sense to you uh we can absolutely keep going with that. Okay, I also mentioned this the last time. This is um Jaclyn Drive, also known as Northgate. It's a town home community. Um

presently, it is both zoned business and is indicated its future land use as business as well. Um it's very unlikely that this could be used for any other business use. Uh each individual property, you know, is loted. So it's um there could be individual owners here. Although I would I think maybe se at least 75% of these lots are owned by the same person actually. So um so there is a possibility although remote that they could consolidate those lots and do something different in the future. Um

one could only dream. Um so yeah so that's the I so of course if you actually want something different there in the future maybe it makes sense to keep it the same. Um, yeah, but this was just one thing that stuck out to me. The rest of these parcels are variously zoned um UB1, UB2, um, along Bram Hall Street here.

Yeah. So, I think if I go over here, Yeah. So, the orange is UV1. So that's pretty much the entire area here with West North Street here being a UB2 designation, which is a little less intense. You're supposed to have a business that looks like a house in UB2. Um, which may or may not be the case for some of these properties, but o overall this this zoning is the same zoning as um North Race Street, which is like a a pretty um intense downtown business use um category. Um so so yeah, it's up to you. Um if you don't want to see a change there, it can it can be it can just remain business as is. Um again, nothing really changes. The developer or the owners of those properties could again consolidate one day and do something different. Um um and if they did, they could do a business use otherwise um it will remain multif family for the foreseeable future.

So right now it's business. Right now it's zoned business in designated as business but in actuality right is town homes, right? Yeah. Residential, right? You think residential? Okay. Business. Anybody who owns one of them can open a business technically. I guess so. Yes. Today. I mean, how do we know they're not already operating the business there now? Um, yes. Although of course there's other requirements like parking and other things. So, you know, it would be difficult, but the use does allow you the to have business uses. Yeah.

Now, there's something that you could I don't think they have. Uh yeah, there's some parking. Um other Yeah, barely. Right. Try a fire truck back there. Yeah. Exactly. Um so you would want that to be just residential. Well, that was my initial idea, but again, if you So, they don't just pop open some business in there. Yeah, that's the thought. Who owns that now?

So, um technically it's these are all individual lots. I I think I said threequarters of the properties are owned by um gentleman who is building the Holiday Inn off the highway. I forget his name, but we've had a lot of contacts with him. Yeah. In the past, not good to work with.

What What did we just make King Fisher Fisher? Uh multif family. That's the orange. And that's for both apartments and for town homes. You would They're pretty much considered these would be considered multif family because of the town of home. Yeah. Nature. Yeah. So what would we do the same? We could Yeah, we could. What do you say? Do the same as King Fisher what we just did. Yeah. Town homes or for multif family. Okay. Pretty much the same thing,

right? Okay. So, these are ones that are based on um your comments or your some some of them you've submitted over time. So, these are I think this is two school lane and 106 Spicer Street. These are um indicated as business future land use. Um but they are residential by nature right now and they are in a residential neighborhood

in this area here. Um they are currently zoned. Let's take a look here. Wait a minute. Just Oh yeah. So, they're actually all zoned residential right now. This entire neighborhood is zoned residential. Um, yep. So UR2 UR2 that's a residential districts but they're and actually the rest of these are um zoned um or designated as business but this is on West Market Street and we thought that for these properties anyway it might make sense to zone these something else in the future. Um, right now a lot of them are zoned UP3, but since we're just talking about these two, they're sort of set back from Market Street and um, and they're otherwise currently zoned residential. So, the future land use, I guess the I think um, Larry, this was your your catch here. So, that was

probably the idea would be that that they would be single family. That's what they are. That's You unless someone came in and bought that entire block, they're never going to be anything other than what they worked. Yeah, exactly.

Uh Okay. Yeah. So, what do we thoughts? What are what are our thoughts? So, what is there now? Two two hos two houses. Hell yeah. I think back here's it's across from school. Yeah, it's back by the gym. Yep. School lane and Spicer Street. I didn't know. What did you say? Are they I'm sorry. School lane and Spicer Street. They're both um single family residential. But so what's on there? Is it Is it residential on there now? No. Well, they're zoned single family, but they are indicated as business land use. And they're not a business, but they are not a business. And we probably don't

It probably doesn't make sense for them to be business in the future. Yeah, it doesn't. Um, makes more sense to make them family residential. Yep. So, the blocks the same. Okay. Wow. Yeah. All right. So, if we seem good with that, Yeah. I'll keep going. In the world, they're the weirdest stuff. Yep. Uh Larry, this was also yours. These are two properties actually. These are actually I think Yeah, there's like a little script. I Why is that strip along the highway?

It's really odd. You're right. And actually, so that is actually owned when when you click it, when you go in here, um it's actually connected to this larger parcel bank here. Um so if I click this, yeah, so these both actually. Yeah. So I think this is we had this discussion with the um applicant because it's the same owner as the Shore Auto um development that's happening. is that's where we had um Ruthie's property that was they had a small part like that. Okay.

Yeah. So uh so I think this might actually be an error um in the um in the parcel database and we did ask the applicant to clean this up. Like we're not really sure if the deed actually says that there's frontage here but it's really connected to this back. Yeah. but is actually also connected to this rear parcel. Um the subdivision between these two properties I think happened maybe in 2000 or 2024 if that sounds right or 23. There was a subdivision of these two properties and the future land use of this was changed to commercial

uh which is allowing them to go forward with the development and yeah there's this funny little thing back here. Now, it's not unheard of that the parcel database is inaccurate in certain respects. It's not technically uh um not really supposed to be used for purely legal purposes. Um it's really meant just for taxing. But for our purposes, we can say that whatever land is here um should be possibly commercial, right? Um, even if it's actually the same parcel and it appears in two different places, we would say, but actually we want this to be commercial. Yes.

Going forward. Anything on Dupont Highway, especially since it's the entrance to the commercial property. Yes, exactly. Um, and then it was this other parcel here you you mentioned as well. I think there is this is actually owned Yes. So these two are owned by the same person here and and he developed all those houses. So obviously he left that front one thinking that someday that will be a commercial parcel. Yes. Yes.

So um so actually you didn't mention this Larry because you included this one and this one but I wonder if this one also could be. So basically the the question is should the three of these um be commercial or not? Well, do you think the owner of that one on the corner is going to want to take that option of putting a house there away because the rest of the houses are that's in my neighborhood. though. I don't think he I I think he would have put a house there if that was his

So, actually, the owner did come in uh or maybe it was the the son um the son of the owner um came in to talk to us a couple of months ago. They just wanted to know what their options were and we did notice that like, oh yeah, this funny little parcel was in the front here. I don't know why that is. Probably the D doesn't say that there's a strip right there, but it appears in the parcel layer. So, is the landlock parcel owned by Wilson as well? Uh, yes. This one and this one are both owned by the same just I'd hate to see something butt up to the rest of these houses. It's a commercial right there in their backyard. Okay. So, that's that's a that's a a consideration to make. So, that's a nice quiet residential area.

Even if you wanted to do this as commercial, it would have to probably be done in tandem with other parcels. Um, so I guess it's up to Yeah, that's a possibility. It's up to us to make, you know, that determination. Obviously, there can be buffers installed um to block any, you know, views and but I definitely think the one closer to the red orange should be commercial. This one, that yellow little strip. Oh, this one definitely. Yes. Yeah. And then that Yeah. And then this one. Yes. Like I said, this Yeah. So these two could be remapped. Uh and then we can

Yeah. I mean that that one is a toss up. Yeah. A toss up. Yeah. So it might makes this might be one that we will reach back out to that owner um since they did come in recently to be like hey this is what's hap this is the discussion that's happening. Um what are your thoughts? you know. Yeah. Um and that's actually too, you know, what we will do um further down the line once we're ready to um

to to send this up the chain, you know, we we will be mailing notice to the people who we are changing the designations of um to make them aware obviously um and if they want to speak on behalf of that at the town council meeting or not, it would be Yeah, it'd be up to um to make that decision or to make that um choice known or not. So we can leave that as a tossup for now. Leave it single family and until yeah check the error

make these two as okay. Okay. Moving on. Um, yes, this is an interesting one. So, this is another Larry one here. Um, Har, this is off of Harris Alley and Love Lane. This is Let's see what this actually is. Right behind left.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, this one here. Okay. So it's indicated as business uh as a business feature land use and I think it's currently used Yeah. as a single family dwell president to house. Yeah. Okay. Um yeah it's you're you'll be hardressed to open a business on two alleys. Right.

Right. Exactly. So um so yeah so if that makes sense um yeah we can recommend that to be single family residential okay couple more here. Um some of these are sort of funny. Um, so there's one at the corner of Front and Harris. Uh, Chris, we talked about this one the other day. Um, it's an old I mean, it's an old house, but what is odd is that it's zoned UR3. And it UR3 is, and this is also weird, it the the existing land use says it's retail, but I don't think it is. Um, it's owned UR3, which is the rarest zoning designation in town. Um, it's basically you're not allowed to do basically anything except very large lot residential. I think the minimum lot size is 10,000 square feet, which of course this is not 10,000 square feet. Um, so that's already a strike against it. Um, the only things that are zoned UR3 in town for context is these parcels out here that are owned I think this is owned by the county. Yeah, owned by Sask County off of the new Park Avenue um extension realignment here. um

Sand Hill Fields also zoned UR3 and this property across the street I think it is just and it's vacant. Um, so why that little property right there is zoned this very rare zoning designation sort of doesn't really make much sense to me. But, uh, as you can see, it's surrounded by this other designation called UB3.

That is a professional office district. So, you're allowed residential, but it's um, you know, you can also have professional offices. So, like your accountant or a law firm. um this whole neighborhood is zoned that. So the fact that this is zoned something completely different and also very rare and I would say a bit irrational. Um it it makes it makes sense to me to have it be consistent with the rest of that neighborhood

and to have it be some potential um professional office in the future. Um the same thing here with um I think it was this parcel. Yes. So this is just a house. It's zoned residential but it is surrounded by business um UB2 specifically. And right now it's it is single family residential. So it can it can remain single family residential if we desire. Um but again it seemed like the intent when we at one time reszoned this entire area of East Market Street and the surrounding as um UB2 is that somebody was thinking that we would we should have some sort of um small business district there. Um it could make sense, you know. So, East Vera Street is is still very businessoriented in that area. Um, also North Kimmy Street and North King or Yeah, Kimmy Street, North King. There's also some businesses on these blocks. It's less uh common in this south portion here. I don't know if there's many businesses at all. Um, this is a vacant land. This is a new house that was just built. Um there are this is a multif family building. So um so yeah. So I guess Larry, you didn't I don't think you had a specific idea of or

I just think you make it consistent. I It doesn't make sense that you have these little oddball things need to just be with the rest of the what the majority is. Yeah. Within reason. Yeah. I think I think that makes sense too because again our UB2 zoning already allows for single family. This is what I was discussing earlier. And you this one says all your neighbors are allowed to do something better than you, but you can't.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's a that's a a really good point because it's like what's what was the original? Did we forget that? Did somebody forget that at one time? Was it changed for you know by uh request at some point in time? We could do some research on that um potentially, but it seems like it would be further back than our records would would track. So

um so if it's up to or yeah, if it's up to us, it's it sounds like the consensus is to maybe change it to the business designation. All right. Um, I think this came up a couple with a couple people here. Um, Tom, you you noted some of these and Larry, you noted some of these, but these are um larger buildings on North Bedford Street. Um, and one on North Dra streets. Again, you sort of have some uh odd men out here where the surrounding parcels are zoned one thing uh but this one particular building is zoned residential. And actually the rest of these are a mix of different things. But if you look at the zoning for these areas, um it's not really super consistent. So right now the zoning for North Beer Street is almost entirely residential. And while that might currently be the case, there are some businesses that have come to the town interested in doing something. Um so our feature language map indicates that really most of them should be business. Uh although maybe one or two people suggested no, I don't want that. Um, you know, I do know that some of these properties, I think this property was just purchased, um, and is not being used as residential currently.

But again, North Fer Street being a one of the four major, you know, streets in town, uh could make sense to make this the rest uh make the rest of these businesses or um and of course that might mean so we should really think about the zoning because you can't really do commercial here uh because they're not zoned for commercial or business right now. It's zoned a mix of UB1, UB2. Um, some of these are actually there's a number of Yeah, there's a number of businesses here. So, you know, I said in my email to you, there there's two questions here. you know, is North Bedford Street really going to be a, you know, business district in the future? Possibly, you know, but right now it's primarily single family homes. Um, but if we're saying that yes, it is going to be, then why are these, you know, handful of properties singled out saying you can't be business?

Yeah, exactly. It's a good question. And I if I could hazard a guess that's on the property that's the Lshaped this one. Yeah.

Um that's this one here. Mike Sama is the owner. It's currently Z or it's zoned UR property is single family residential right now. Now, UR2 is interesting um because you are you are required to have a two-story building. Not in UR1. You're allowed to have a one-story building in UR1, which is most of town, this darker green. But the lighter green requires you to have two stories. And it's an interesting decision. I believe it's probably because this is zoned UR primarily because the homes on North Bedford Street are two stories and um and it might have been a way to sort of preserve the existing homes um on North Bedford Street.

Well, that L-shaped the house actually the driveway comes off Sween avenue. It's what? It comes off Sween avenue. Okay. And this is just empty right here as far as I know. Okay. Oh, okay. Cuz if you turn to Swain Avenue, there's a And then that's towards the ambulance garage, the first house on the left. Second house on the left. It's a real small house, but it is all the way to Bedford Street. Yeah, the land does. Oh, I see. Yes, there it is. Yeah. What do you consider Shepherd's House or Shepherd's Place? I mean, so that is it's still in Bedford and it's not residential. That's commercial or business. Yeah.

Right. So that is true um so far. So right now here's the main building of the Shepherd's office here with their um parking lot. However, they have recently bought this property. Um we're not sure what they're going to do with it because it's not zoned. Well, they've made some indications that they wanted to do church services there. However, it is not approved for church services because it's an assembly occupancy and you need fire,

you know, obviously you need to get approval from the fire marshall. Um, which they have not. So, and it was a single family home until until it was bought by them. So, it seems to me the property next to it that they also use used to be a card used car lot uh over here. Um the other direction next to the building going north. Oh, this one. And then a little further out is the Oh, yeah. Here's the place or whatever taco place now. I mean, there's more commercial out that way.

Yes. And that and and it does reflect the zoning does reflect the commercial aspects. It is sort of odd that it's commercial out here further away from the town center. Um, so these are actually all UB1. And again, that UB1 is is a pretty um intense commercial or business use. So even if we did want to zone these a business type of use, maybe EB1 is not the best one. Um, but currently, yes, this area is zoned for that and that has allowed some other businesses to develop in that area. So, do we want to preserve closer to the circle like get out of that commercial area making it sure that it stays residential?

Well, yeah. I mean, that's a that's an option. This area here closer to North Bedford or closer to the circle is that uh res residential office professional office um zoning and that had that is the case. There are a number of smaller properties that retain some sort of office. Um, but you're only allowed to do residential and offices, nothing in between whereas UV1, you're allowed to do any any number of things. Um, retail, restaurants,

and isn't and in there there's in one of the homes there's a lawyer's office, I thought in there probably. Yes. So it's they are already residential and professional business. Correct.

Yeah. And it's so that can be a good transition to heavier commercial to have that be like a residential office type of zoning. Sort of like what you see on East Market Street or I'm sorry, West Market Street where you have a lot of larger older homes that have been converted. And actually I have to change this this property right here because that that's the dental office that was just approved. So, they did get their zoning approved. Um, so it's not green anymore. It's actually dark orange here. Um, one of the questions that we may want to ask ourselves in the near future is should we proactively in order to make this all actually business future land use, should we reszone some or all of this area? Um, we don't need to decide that right this minute. Um, but that is those are some of the issues that come with designating something on the future land use map. uh different than what the zoning might be. Um, so but you know your your question is a good one Chris because it's you know should we can this continue to be preserved as some sort of residential uh possibly but um you know we've we've actually already designated as business so we sort of need to figure Are we going to go in whole hog or are we going to um sort of go back?

It seems to me that future use will be an option for professional. I can see that becoming more of a professional as people move out. A lot of new people don't want to live in town in an older home. They're use and but professional they want to be near the circle when the business is here. So I think that should always be an option for that area for Beckford Street.

So yeah, so if we actually extended this um zoning up here that this is again pretty low low intensity, you know, being a professional office use. So it's it it you won't get a bunch of tear downs, you know, because you can't really do all that much um in UB3. accept professional office. So that might be a compromise. Um something to also note is that so as you may know we're trying to as you may remember we're updating our downtown development district designation. So actually we're we've extended proposed to extend the boundary of that district north of Depot Street and to include parts um of this property up here. So definitely I would say in the near future we should look at this area u to be reszoned possibly and then you maybe some of this area later. Um so those are some things to consider. Um but again designating these as business doesn't mean that we need to make it intense. Uh like this orange here. So we could make it this pink which is UB2 or the orange which is UB3. The question is do we make some of these the outliers sort of match the rest of the neighborhood or not? I personally think they should match. you know that's you know the the color is a bigger question. Yeah. So, actually the color the uh the actual zoning district it's it's good

that we don't actually need to to decide that you know today um and to actually maybe you the yeah we don't need to decide the zoning district tonight but it might make sense from a policy like a direction a goal oriented perspective. It's like what do we want the rest of North Bedford Street to look? Do we want it to match that way or do we want it to stay the same or option say something different? Ideally, it turns into West Market Street. Do you keep the house and turn into a business? I can see that.

So, if they buy a residential house and want to put it in turn it put their business there, do they have to go through any jump through any hoops to be able to do that? Well, they do have to uh receive approvals from us. It would be called a tenant fit out, which is um so the part of the building that they want to convert um for their business.

Yeah. They need to So there's there's a couple different ways it could go. It could be a home occupation uh which is one thing. It's typically a lower threshold for approvals. But if you want to turn the entire building or a significant part of the building to a commercial use or a professional office use, you do need to go you still need to go through an approval process. You do need to also um um talk to the fire marshall to make sure that your right accesses and standard do they have to come to the town to get any other kind of permits?

Uh they do USP because it would be a building permit ultimately because they're doing work. Um, it also depends on if they're going to be adding any facilities that might require more water and sewer usage. So, we look at that or parking even or parking. Right. So, so that that's those are the things that we look at, right?

Sort of what are the impacts of what you're proposing and do they rise to the level of do we have to look at a plan? you know, some of these places are um, you know, have significant parking already for whatever reason. And like actually some of these are are definitely already used as as offices like this one and this one. Um, so and they're they're not zoned that way, right? So they could have had a an older approval that allowed them to do that, but the zone but the future land use says that we should really see that as business anyway. So that's that's compliant. Um so um but yeah, did that answer your question?

Yeah, that's okay. So yeah, we always like to see or want to see definitely the larger something becomes, the more triggers that start to, you know, like, oh, is there enough water and sewer capacity? Is there parking? Do they need lighting? Um, that those types of things don't tend to come into contact or come into play when you're doing like a homebased business like a barber shop or something. um or you work from home, you know, type of thing. So, uh what do we think?

What do we think? Yeah. What do you think? I mean, you've written down what we discussed. Okay. So, we So, is that all we look at tonight? I don't have any more slides. No. Uh there's actually one more. Oh, yeah. There's That's the last slide. So, I I just wanted to um confirm that making these business for the time being makes sense if that was where the direction we were going in. So making them business that's professional business that's so so that will come through the zoning.

Okay. right now. I guess the the good thing right now is we're we're basically trying to indicate a direction for these parcels. We don't we can say we can probably say that we might want them to be professional office in the future that will come with whether you want to what zoning we give it. That will determine the character whether it's professional office or something a bit more intense that allows like retail or restaurants or things like that. Um um so right now we're really just deciding can it be any type of business. Um again the amount of uses that are allowed doesn't really change until we change the zoning. Well, what if you went down there and looked at how many were actually residential now

and change them to yellow and see what versus business? Would that make a difference? You know what I mean? Like if they're scattered within. Yeah. I mean there's there's half a dozen I know right now residential. Yeah. They're zoning business. Yeah. The majority of those places are still residential. That's Yeah. So some of these are are zoned residential but are actually you know office. Like this one is an office. The funeral home. This one is too. Yeah. Um but other than that they're single family. If the residential and they put an office in there, I don't see why we even Yeah.

What do we need to do? I mean, they've already been able to do that, right? And that's what I get concerned about is if it's residential now or it's business and somebody's living there and then comes in and says, "Well, I'll buy your house." And just turns it into it's less they have to jump through for business. Well, that's true. Yes. Ultimately, yes, it would be they don't need to change the zoning. Correct. To do what they want to do. Um they don't really have to do anything. No, they could come in there and say they want to have, I don't know, dog groom in place, which there was one up here. The dog the a dog a girl and a dog. Same thing. And they wouldn't have to It's already business. They just have to get approved. I mean, they had to come in front of the council and all that. I remember that. We voting on that. Yeah.

Now, of course, that means that we follow through with the resoning to sort of make that make that work. Now, with the the dental office, they had fewer hoops to jump through, although they still needed to change the zoning, right? They didn't we didn't need to go to the office of estate planning to say hey is this a minor variation because it was already um it was already indicated as business in the future land use map. So we didn't have to change that. All we changed was the zoning to this to the orange. So so yeah so that's just one step removed. We could remove two steps if we did both the zoning and the feature land use for these properties that we're talking about. So, we would have an option. We Yes, we have we we certainly have options.

So, if it's like some off-the-wall business, we would have the option to say, you know, that's not appropriate in that area or would they just because it's also got businesses there, that's their right to put whatever business they want. So something that we can always do is again reszone this as the less intense versions of of business, right? And then if something is going to be if somebody wants to do something that is a little bit more intense than we expected, we can require extra safeguards. Um,

I mean, we could also do a conditional use. Those are always options. Or there's also, um, other ways to permit things that doesn't make them reszone it entirely and then have them pay, you know, what is it? $1,200, $1,500 for the application. Um, you know, go through, you know, planning commission hearing, town council hearing to get it reszoned. You know, ideally the zoning gives us and a developer or an homeowner some predictability, right? To say what what is actually allowed here and what we, you know, want to see in a property is what we is what we zone it as. Now, of course, it doesn't always work that way because there's things we can't always predict that we may actually want. Um, it's just for us, we need to start somewhere, you know, we need to start with a with a statement of like, okay, North Beer Street is going to be some sort of business as as an example. Um,

so Michael, now you think we should just leave that alone or what? What are you thinking? Well, ultimately I'm thinking what you brought up, let's I'm just throwing the Shepherd's office. Let's say he buys up all three of those lots and it's all business now. He can take that whole block and pretty much essentially turn it into it's easier for him to turn into a business. Yeah, that's true. So, we want to leave it residential so he doesn't have that. So, we protect that area or but he's still

I mean I'm not targeting that area. I'm just using for example like I said before it it'd be interesting to go along here like Larry said primarily most of them are residential. So if you were to say okay if you reverse this map and said hey let's take the ones that are really residential and make it yellow and the ones that are commercial make it the purple and see what that looks like. Yeah let's because like I know Campbell's got his office there and um it's a commercial where the old Buick used to be. You know what I'm talking about. Tom Harold or the old old that red red building. That's about the the old old one when you were like a baby, right?

I mean that's commercial there. I'm pretty sure on that corner right by m's house. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to see what's I'd like to see the map with the colors of where everything is on that north bed. You want to see like a proposed like what what we want it to look like as a as a for example or I don't see on there on North Beepford. I know that's got to be still commercial. That red go further out. Further out, right? Yeah. Oh, you mean further this way? Yes. It's See, Bram Hall Street is where she's talking. She's talking about the corner of Bram Hall and Oh, okay. Yes. So, it's actually

So, these are all whatever orange is. Yeah. This is that higher level commercial UV1. Uh but surely there's already some single family. Oh yeah, this is single family. There is the three bears on the corner, right? Right over here. Used to be. Used to be. Yeah. Mhm. Single family. She was going to turn that into a restaurant at one time. Right. But they fell through. Yeah. They couldn't get the parking even though they had the lots. They own the property behind them. Um, see this is that's the old southern states.

Yeah, little industrial. Listen to us. That's the old this, that's the old that. So there is some indust or yeah, retail types of uses happening here. Um, you know, I know Brandell Street can be challenging. So, and the funeral homes are in there. The funeral home is a business.

Yeah, cuz there's that brick house down there on the left. You have all the resials on the right that Terry McGee used to actually still small house on the right literal residential. Mhm.

And then the roach house on the corner across the street like from Graham Hall. The roaches used they sold that. I wonder what they were going to turn that into because I thought they bought maybe that and something else next to it. What do you think, Larry?

So, I'm the one that put this on the agenda because I don't think it makes sense that there we have a handful of laws that are inconsistent in the future. Again, you know, if it makes we could make it all business and then in the future somebody wants to have it reszoned, it just makes it a little bit easier for them, but it still provides that extra step that takes a lot of time. And

so like right now, if one of these handful of lots, if most of these lots came in said, "I want to do this business on my property," they would have to go right to a zoning request. These four properties would have to say, "Is this a minor variation to plan, go through that process, and then go to a zoning?"

Exactly. And really, you know, really the state really wants us to have like a one forone matching with everything. Like we really shouldn't have, you know, we really it's not advised to have these two like the two maps not really matching um at the end of the day. Um because what the land use the future laptop does have some level of regulatory oomph to it. Um so you don't really want to get yourselves into a place where they conflict significantly.

So forgive my color because I I told So the is that is that primarily tan or whatever that color is this one right now. Yes. Yes. So, this is tan. That's the um the the professional office right there. So, that So, so all the all the one all the houses on the you right where you're click. Yep. Yeah. All those What is that zoning right now?

These are all So, that's these are all zone residential right now. It's UR2 is the lighter green. UR1 UR1. But again, they're all well, except the the UR1's for some reason are the ones that are single family residential. The UR2s, even though it's pretty much it's extremely similar to UR1, still residential. It doesn't allow any commercial, those are the ones that were decided to make commercial or business, but they're not right now. No, they're not right now. Right now, they're residential.

Right now, they're residential. differentiation from I'm looking back here between light green and dark green or is that just all sufficient? No, there is a Yes, there is a difference. So, the UR1 is basically what most of the town is zoned um single family residential 7,400 foot lots 60 by 120 and then UR2s are a little bigger um and is what I mentioned earlier you are required to have a twostory house.

Okay. Okay, got that. So that's really the only difference between the two. But again, I don't know why the UR2s were redesated as business and the UR1's were not. So I mean that's really mostly the difference. It's not 100% of the difference, but it's a lot of the difference. Um, so but yeah, most of these single family. Well, you're going to write this up and send it to us so we can ponder it a little. I can I can do that. Yes.

Yeah. So, we don't need to make that decision today. Certainly. Um, but I will try to contextualize this this discussion and be like this this is what it looks like today. these are the issues um because this is a a bigger policy discussion and I'm glad we're having it. So I can I can boil it down to a couple key points about what we should be looking at in this area. Next meeting. Can you give us each an individual color code so we can look at it here and know what's green again? What's orange?

Yes, I can also do that. No problem. Okie do. All right. So, that is actually all of those things. And if you if you find something if you're looking at this and you're like, whoa, I actually think we should look talk about this, we can certainly do that next meeting as well. Um u though I as I mentioned I do want to begin uh I'm gonna be talking to Gan in the next few days. We'll put a note on the website sort of indicating that we are receiving we are accepting um requests for reconsiderations of people's future land use like we did the last time. And there'll be a link of where you would where you send the your letter. We'll basically ask people to state, you know, what property you're talking about. Do you own it or not? Uh most likely people who own property will be writing us. Um and then we'll basically ask for justification uh as to like why it should be reconsidered. and then we'll sort of do what we just did now but with those um those requests that might take a couple meetings. Um but again it doesn't stop us from having that continuing this discussion and then again seeing any other possible um fixes that just need to be done that you've looked at in your spare time. Um yeah, really the goal of course is to the the state is okay with us going over our sort of deadline in July uh because they know that it's happening which is

the important part and they're not going to like you know give us a violation or anything but u but it's just good for them to know that we're doing our thing. So anyway, u but the goal really should I I think is in the July time frame is to get the adoption hearing process started. Are these all the abnormalities in the whole town? It seems like we just were focused on one section or is this just the ones?

This is the ones that that that uh that you guys called out and again if you are looking again and you want to talk about others um we should we can definitely do that as well. So, no, it it's not really all-incclusive. I picked out some of the first ones that seem the most um glaring or obvious. And, you know, we're always going to miss a few. Uh and some of these may have been actually specifically requested by a property owner many eons ago and it's just remained. Um, so but yeah, this is sort of a quick way of just being like, oh, that's a weird difference, you know.

So, um, but yeah, I don't think so. Yes. So, as I mentioned before, like you are one, you are two. If any other oddities come up, can we look at them next? Yes. Yes, that's definitely. Yep. That's what I was saying. Yes, definitely we can do that. Um, that's enough for today. That's no problem. Yeah, this isn't your first and only, you know, chance to look at this thing. So, I just wanted to make sure we got started. Okay. Otherwise, that's all I have on this. U, I appreciate

the discussion. I think it was it was great and um and yeah, so hopefully we'll we'll get this done. So, I don't believe there's anybody on line, so we don't have to worry about public comment. Do you have any other general updates?

Um, just a, um, so, um, as you might know, we were selected to join the, um, Senate Joint Resolution 8, um, land use and zoning reform technical assistance program, which basically state pays for a planning consultant for us to help revise our zoning code in a number of ways. And so we had our kickoff meeting today with that team which was from uh Spark Growth America which is a a nonprofit um that does this type of work and seems like a good team. Um it will probably take about a year to complete. Um and so we will be I think there'll be a moment there'll be at least some time to sort of have a discussion with you all to talk about what are some changes um regarding housing specifically um may need to be considered as a part of that process. And then of course you will see the amendments um when they're proposed as is typical for you to review all zoning amendments before they're adopted um for your input and comment. Uh but that's the big thing. And uh Tulsa, Oklahoma was pretty cool. Uh I didn't expect to um I didn't know what to expect actually. I thought it was going to be like sort of arid and dusty, but it was very green. Very nice. So, but a lot of good work, a lot of good presentations, and uh got to explore Route 66 a bit, which I'd never done before. So, so that was pretty cool. Otherwise, that's it.

A motion. Yes. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Okay. I make a motion that we adjourn. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Go ahead. All in favor? I. Motion carried. We're journed. Thank you everyone. Thank you especially for rescheduling. Okay. Look forward to your notes. Here you go. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.