Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Uh run just a little bit late. If everybody check your phones, make sure they're on silence for me, please. We're going to get started with public hearing this time. Uh today's date is December 8th. We're at 39 circle. It is 6:34. We are starting public hearing for ordinance 20259. Mr. Town Manager Gene Debor.

Uh members of council. The first public hearing this evening is ordinance [snorts] 2025-09 sign regulations. This addresses article 22 signs specifically section 23177 sign regulations for all districts. removing a time frame restriction for placement of political signs. It's a very simple um adjustment. It's modifying item number four, changing it to be removal. Any sign which is in immediate peril or menace to the public or any person is posted on pro on public property or any public rightway may be removed similarly without notice by the town. This does remove a political sign shall be not erected more than 60 days prior to any contested election and shall be removed within one week 7 days after the election or referendum date. First reading on the ordinance.

Council members questions comments if none audience anybody for or against the ordinance. This will remain open for uh two weeks and then come back January. Yeah. uh till January. That's right. We only got one meeting this month till January where we'll have a reading and be the first reading and then we'll have two readings. So,

okay. Moving on. Uh uh ordinance uh or B Jean. Second public hearing this evening is um item B501 and 503 East Market Street, Sussex County Tax Parcels 135-15.13-16 and 135-15.1317. This is a comprehensive plan amendment and a future land use map and a reszone application. And I'll turn it over to the director of community development, Brian Olac.

Thank you. Um so as referenced this is referring to 501 and 503 East Market Street. The proposal is to amend the future land use map of a comprehensive plan adopted in 2021 uh for these two properties uh and to change that from commercial designation to a single family residential designation as well as to amend the zoning map of the town of Georgetown for these two properties from HC highway commercial to UR1 urban residential. Um here is an overview map of the two properties right here on East Market Street. Um they are at the very eastern most point of the um of the highway commercial zoning um in this particular area and they equal about an acre of land between the two properties. Here's a more zoomed in look at the at these two properties. Um they are presently vacant. Um, and they've been vacant since the uh gas station on the um -16 parcel was demolished. Sorry about that. Um, so just as an overview of what the present future land use is in this general area. Um again I mentioned these two are designated as commercial and that's typically the future land use designation for um highway commercial which is a zoning district that is tends to be automobile centric. It typically involves large lots um and a strip center or shopping center type of development pattern uh gas stations, drive-thrus um of that nature. uh pretty much the entirety of Route 113 is zoned this particular designation. Uh but as you can see to the east um the featured land use designation of this

area is uh single family residential and we'll see that um the entire almost the entirety of the north side of East Market Street going to um Sand Hill is uh deemed as single family residential. You also see the um two properties or actually I guess three properties on the other side of the street which are also designated as commercial uh which is also highway commercial zoning. And then the pink color is uh what we call business. It sounds similar to the word commercial, but business actually refers to typically smaller scale uh commercial like uses. Um typically professional offices, smaller types of businesses, small retail um small service operations of that nature as well. Um and then you see at the top the purple is the um industrial designation. Uh and again the zoning map here uh these pink parcels that you see there are the highway commercial zoning. There's only six that are zoned that designation in this general area. Um and again as I said most of the highway commercial zoning in the town is along Route 113 which typically has limited um and directed uh vehicular access to them. Um and uh the UR1 is the residential district that this would be changed to. um if the proposal goes through as as you can see on the the map the green is the UR1 designation uh which is for um you can see on the north and the south part of East Marcus Street in this area and again the pink the the I guess the more salmon color is uh what we call UB2 which is sort of in between um the most intense sort of um neighborhood or downtown commercial uh or business as well as the um light

office types of uses that we can see sort of further down the street. Here is just a u picture of these two properties from the street. This is a um street view of there. Um behind this property is the Delm Marva Power Station which is the largest property in the area. Um and again is only one of a few properties zoned highway commercial. So, we don't typically expect to see any development on this property uh for, you know, a significant amount of time, if ever. Uh, but this just gives you a sense of what the surrounding area is. Across the street here, you see the sitgo and um and right next to it is the um shopping center, which only has four leasable spots um within it, including a Little Caesars and a Dollar General. Um so the general gist of this is that um this area is uh developed in a in a way that is not entirely uh coordinated as you might see along Route 113 where large swaths of the the um street frontage is developed under a common scheme typically with a single property owner. Um this is not the case in this area. Uh there's a couple um recommendations in the comprehensive plan for commercial areas that are not really possible. Um in these areas here u in the in the comprehensive plan, we typically like to see um shared access um between not just from the street but also between properties. Um that is uh difficult to accomplish in this general area. It's also difficult to um to have significant screening uh from residential properties or yes from residential properties uh plan typically recommends of large automobile ccentric uh developments uh because of the typically smaller nature

of these properties uh which are again are relatively uncommon for this zoning in the community and it it uh essentially it's very difficult to develop these um according to the the ideal that we like to see um in town when it comes to highway commercial. So typically when we look at whether it's a good idea to change the comprehensive plan or not, we assess whether it is u considered a minor variation uh from the existing comprehensive plan designations. This is a process that happens uh on the planning commission level. The planning commission did um denote that this was that this could be considered a minor variation from the existing land use. Uh and the office of state plan coordination also concurred that this could be considered a minor variation which basically um is a slightly different and less intense um inquiry that you have to make in order to um assess whether it is a desirable um project. So there's a couple criteria that we like to see here. Um the first one is whether or not the resoning is of a unique circumstance. It would not set precedence for other lands in the vicinity of the resoning. Um as I mentioned before, the these two properties are only uh two of six um in this entire area that are zoned this designation and these are relatively um they're they're very different from each other um overall. So we do not expect that this zoning would lead to other resonings um of this nature um typically because again of the generally smallcale nature of the development as well as um there is um significant evidence to suggest that there is um

uh that there is a a good precedence for residential zoning in the area. As you can see, most of the east area is zoned um you are one which would this would be uh considered. Second is the uh second criterion would be the relative size of the resoning or the variation from the land use recommended by the comprehensive plan is so minor that it would have no impact on the goals and objectives of a comprehensive plan. So, as I mentioned, these two properties taken together are um a little over an acre in size, and we um the planning commission determined that this was again this sort of met that criterion. And uh in fact, not only would it have a an adverse impact on the comprehensive plan, but it actually um would um increase the likelihood that um more goals would be enacted by this resoning. Um and again that is supported by the general residential nature of the street going east. And um and here's another example of of that as you can see. Um and then the third criterion is that the proposed zoning is adjacent to or in immediate vicinity of other similarly zoned lands and would not alter the pattern of development in the area. Um, it's also important to note that in the previous uh or I guess in the existing downtown development district plan that the town adopted in 2016, one of the recommendations of that plan was to actually look um at the highway commercial zoning in this area. Um, namely because it is it's not typical in Georgetown to um zone highway commercial um in these types of areas. Again, it's very typical to see it on on Route 113. uh again anticipating large lots, large commercial developments um the likes of which would not be uh very feasible in this general area. So that's why the

downtown development district plan looked or recommended to um have the town look at this zoning to make it a more um fitting zoning designation for uh for this particular area. Um so overall we believe that the um remapping and resoning of these two parcels would s would support the implementation of the following goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan which is um H1.1 which is provide areas for a range of housing types, prices and densities including various types of housing for senior citizens and H1-2 which is promote additional housing affordable to the average Georgetown household recognizing the needs uh of various household types. Um, so that I'm happy to answer any questions or proceed.

Council questions, comments. Yeah. Question. I have a question for you. The property that's right behind the two parcels um that's in that we're discussing. Is that Yes. Back up. So, is that substation the large parcel? It is a large parcel. Yes, that's that's the large. So that that's about nine a little over nine acres of land. Well, my should that be zoned something other than highway commercial? Uh well ultimately, you know, it's it it may not it may be a mood point ultimately because we don't expect it to redevelop anytime soon, right?

Um a a utility typically um a commercial highway commercial does allow utility type uses as well as industrial. So it could similarly be zoned industrial in the future. Um it ultimately wouldn't really change um how the property operates today. Um Okay. Because you were saying there's four or five parcels, but really you take that one out and Exactly. There's that many fewer. Correct. Yes. Thank you.

Anybody else there? Again, this is a a public hearing and Yeah. Uh it'll stay open and we've got one person that would like to talk. Uh Linda Dun, if you step up, please.

Good evening. I am Linda Dennis. I live in the village of Cinderberry. I am here to speak to the issue of reszoning this property. I just want to be very clear with everyone that allowing this reszoning allows for the development of the cottage program. Without this amendment, that cottage program cannot go forward. So, I want you to understand that. It's important, therefore, that if you're not in support of this proposal to go forward with cottage living, this amendment should not be accepted. Uh the other thing I want to respond to in terms of the comments that Brian made, I was on the planning commission for a number of years and participated in the drafting of the comprehensive plan. It's true that that area that was marked commercial was uh discussed and the comments that were made that at some future time we would reexamine that area for commercial development. The reason why I think it's so important to keep some parcel of commercial land in this area is because we have nothing left. The family court building took up two or three city blocks that used to be commercial property. So really the town is left with virtually nothing. And so you have to consider what are our priorities for the future in in uh sustainability and vitality of our town. So that's why I'm speaking against this amendment. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anybody else at this time have anything positive or negative they'd like to say? If not, okay, Sunny,

my name is Sunonny Gani. I live on uh 22512 Springfield Lane of Old Park Avenue. I'm kind of blown away with what Linda is saying. That place I've been watching. I've been here for 20 years almost. That's a eyesore. It's it's a brown field. How many commercial development are we going to do over there? If somebody wanted to do it, they would have done it, you know, for 20 years. Not a single person had stepped up to do anything. As a developer, I won't touch it because it's not worth it for me to do anything over there. by the time you get through with the denrech and everything else nothing is going to develop and I haven't seen anybody in the last 10 15 years come forward to say yes I want to develop that area it's you know just just don't start saying that this is the one okay you don't want like the little living that's fine but don't say that this is what is going to change it this is not going to change anything in this town it it that place is going to have a better use if there are something done on instead of that parking lot which is empty all the time and you know looking at the wire transfer station back there or you know Purdue plant. Thank you. Thank you s this this again if that's all the comments this again will stay open uh for the first reading in January or to come to the council to uh to see if you want to submit a letter of against or for please do if you want to come to the January meeting and speak up about it that's your prerogative to do so also so with that uh uh it'll stay open till January so that's the end of the public hearing at this time so we are going to move right on into the regular town council meeting. Everybody rise for the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Pastor Ne. Eternal God, we thank you God for your grace, your love, your mercy. We thank you God for allowing us to come back tonight God. We ask you God to be with us tonight God as we discuss discuss ter business God look upon us give us strength in your precious name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. You be seated.

Council members hopefully you've had a chance to look at the agenda. If there's no uh additions or deletion is I'd entertain a motion to accept. So moved. Thank you, Pan. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Tony. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. So carried. Approval of November 10th town council minutes. Council members, hopefully you've had a chance to review the minutes in your packet. If there's no deletions or uh additions, I'd entertain a motion to accept. So move. Thank you, Eric. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Christine. All in favor signify saying I. I. Opposed. So carried. At the point in time, council members comments. Uh, start off with Penaniel tonight.

It's good seeing everyone here this evening. Um, I know the clocks went forward in November. Make sure you check your smoke detector batteries. It's very important that your smoke detectors work. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel Christina. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here today. Good evening, Christine Tony. Good evening, everybody. Just glad you made it out tonight and just just cold now. Just take care of yourself and be warm. Thank you. Thank you, Tony. Eric, just welcome everybody. Thank you for coming out.

Thank you. Remember I spoke last meeting that uh we're going to show dignity and respect. We're not going to go after people. We're going to keep our comments to ourselves. No he, he or she say seesayes in the audience. If you uh uh interrupt uh you'll be given one warning. The second warning you'll be asked to leave. We're going to keep this civil and with respect to one another. So moving forward at this time, great fund recipient report back. Jean,

members of council, one of the requirements for the folks that receive money from the great fund is to come to the December town council meeting and provide a report back to the mayor and council on how the funds were used. So each of the organizations were invited. I think the first one is Sunny with his organization and Sunny here's the clicker for you or you just tell me to you tell me to advance the slides and I will Oh, okay. All right.

Uh so again, my name is Sani Gani. be talking about a green space which I acquired to help the historic society and the library to uh so we have a if people who don't know about 14 acres of green space right there behind the old tunnel building and I'm trying to convert it into a park and uh Asha community park and this is the future park we're trying to do the dog park is a minor part of it is about an acre or two will be dog park. Rest is going to be trails and everything else. So these are just invest. We got some money from you guys which is going to be taking care of the cleanup and engineering. It's going to cost a lot more than uh what we have but I'm still begging and going around. So if anybody wants any burning desire to help me with the park in this town, come and see me and tell me where I can get money. And I've been to the botanic garden. They spent more than $10 million. A beautiful place and people give a half a million dollar to put a corner with their name and everything. So if you want to leave your legacy here is in Georgetown. You can get a place put your legacy up there and do that stuff.

So I have a I had the thing. Let me see. Technical difficulty. We got all these things. Background community need site overview. I'll just give you the summary of it. Two minutes does go fast. required agency approval. I have to have a den zoning storm water erosion and uh public works and ADA compliance is some of the needed conclusion. AA park will uh is more than a dog park. It is a thoughtful community investment reclaiming unused land to serve Georgetown's families, pets, and future. This feasibility uh study confirms the initiative is timely, needed, and achievable with continued partnership and support. So again, it's a nonprofit 501c3. Anybody wants to donate any money, you can get a tax write off and uh anybody wants to come and volunteer, do some stuff, that's fine. We're going to be working on it uh next month when the weather gets a little warmer or softer to start making a trail. I'll make a trail so where you guys can walk at least and then you can figure it out what you want to go from there. It will be just mulch trail and if anybody has any uh suggestions you can do. So, want to put a little bit of pond for the kids to have a little fishing hole and just for the lot of people, for the county, the city, they walk, you can just walk in the green space instead of walking on this main roads up there. It It will take time, but it will be a beautiful place. It's a central park for Georgetown. So, come and enjoy that place. Thank you.

Thank you, Sunny.

Closing our kids. Hi, my name is Lisa McInn and I am on the grant committee for clothing our kids. I'm also an ambassador to the independence community and a clothing our kids buyer for Seaffort High School and Sussex Tuck. Our mission for clothing our kids is to improve the lives of at risk preschool, elementary, middle, and high school children by providing new clothes, new school clothing. Inadequate clothing will have a negative impact on the child's self-esteem, school attendance, ability to learn, and can lead to bullying. Clothing our Kids wants every child to have an equal opportunity to achieve academic success. We are an all volunteer nonprofit organization. Therefore, all grant monies go toward buying new clothing, new school clothing for for the children. Since 2012, we have donated over 261,68 articles of new clothing to over 40,513 children. This school year alone, we have donated 11,956 items of new clothing servicing 1,438 children. Clothing our kids has expanded to serve all elementary and middle schools and high schools in Sussex County. Clothing for high school children is much more expensive than clothes for elementary school children. As we include at all Sussex County high schools, clothing our kids anticipates greatly increased expenses and we are seeking all available funding opportunities. KO spends over $150,000

on clothing each year. Without the grant funding and clothing drives, we would not be able to provide all these new clothes to the children of Sussex County. Great was very generous with clothing our kids last year as well as this year. As listed in the grant applica applica application, your award could provide a full year of new clothing to the high school, which has a budget of $5,000 or up to 17 full clothing packages. Each one consisting of five new school outfits, socks, shoes, undergarments, a hooded sweatshirt, pajamas, sneakers, and a seasonal jacket. The Georgetown students receiving these packages are very grateful for your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Um Easter Seals is a recipient. Um their program actually starts this month, so they've asked to be deferred until the month of March to come back and present. Uh Everlasting Hope Ministries, I received word late this afternoon the presenter is out 6. I'll reschedule them. Uh next will be First State Community Action Agency. Good evening,

council, mayor, members of the public. Thank you for uh allowing us this opportunity. For the last four years, I believe, um, First A Community Action Agency has been partnering with the town, providing a community activity in the way of a community cleanup. Um, it's been our pleasure to partner with you. This year on October 18th, we had 67 volunteers come out from various organizations. Organizations including First State Community Action Agency, the town of Georgetown. We are supported by keep Delaware Beautiful, Senator Brian Petty, John, Representative Valerie Jones, Gilner, Springboard of Delaware, Shepherd's Office, Higher Ground, Jimenez Hardscapes, and Laazza Radio Station from the Voice Radio Network. Um, as I stated, 67 volunteers picked up a little more than three tons or 6,140 pounds of trash debris from your community. Um, this activity is, excuse me, this activity is not only designed to uh clean up the community, but it's also a community activity. So when we have representatives from the community like your council persons uh come out, residents like yourselves, um people from other organizations to get along and help build community. That's the focus of it. Um we wish more people would participate. 67 people is it's a nice crowd, but it'd be nice to have

more folks out. even if people just come out and pick up what's in front of their yard and then come and eat together, talk together, and get to know one another. Um, in closing, I would say that we spent the majority of funds on that one day event. Uh, you'll see on the report that we have a small balance and when spring breaks, we hope to do a series of smaller events where people can come out and participate just to keep the town looking pretty. just to keep you engaged. Sit down, have coffee with one another. Come out. It'll be a good time. Thank you for your support.

Thank you, Bruce. [applause] Next is the Georgetown Public Library. And I have an easel for you.

Hey there. How are you? Okay. All right. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Rachel Culver. I'm the director of the Georgetown Public Library. On behalf of the library, I want to thank the town of Georgetown for awarding the great fund. As discussed during the original presentation, the library's mission matches that of the great fund encouraging recreation, education, and art for everyone in Georgetown and beyond. Um, I wanted to bring this display board instead of doing a presentation because this has the town right there listed on our board. So, showing the support that um, the town is giving and you know, the the library carries the town's name. So, it's important that the town that we we show we're partners. Um the funds from the town cover about half of our materials and programs. So we're still raising money for the other half for the year. Um this town support is critical. The library is a partner with the town but also a partner with the town's partners meaning um you know this list uh Easter Seals Clothing Our Kids First State Community Action um I think there's one more and cheer center like the the recipients of the great fund. the library is the infrastructure that kind of unites them just like the town does. So we're the foundation that they can do their programs with. Um so the the library hosts, you know, hundreds of programs every year, but I want to specifically highlight that we do programs with these town partners to show that uh giving a grant to the library goes beyond just the library because it supports these other amazing organizations with their mission, reaching more people that way.

Um, so I want to thank you again for this grant. Uh, I think all the council people have a paper, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And then, um, I look forward to seeing all of you at our, um, model train display, our uh, 14th annual this, it'll be this Saturday and then one more. So, see you there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. You know, I I've I've noticed you're not as nervous now as you used to be when you come in here. [laughter] Are you Are your hands sweaty? Oh, okay. All right. Wouldn't be you if it wasn't, would it?

Uh, next is the historic Georgetown Association. Hi, my name is Lynn Moore and I'm not nervous, but I'm scared of the fact that I've got to give tell about Historic Georgetown Association in only two minutes. I can hardly say hello to people with in two minutes. So, um, we are historic Georgetown Association formed about 35 years ago by my uncle Carlton Moore and we own the, uh, Georgetown Train Station Museum, uh, which was built in the late 1800s and which we've restored to look like it did back then. And um we have open houses there uh through May through August. We also have uh a car show in September every year and next year for return day being the 250 uh celebration. We're hoping to do something special uh historic Georgetown Association for that. Uh and we also have Christmas at the train station which we've already had our first event December 6 and it was uh a turnout of about 80 to 90 people. We gave out presents to 40 children uh who were glad to sit in Santa Claus's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Uh we also had music by um Dan Taber over there on his harps accord. Um, and of course we provide all of this, all these events, um, at at at no cost to the public because we we we really strive to meet the three criteria of education, arts, and recreation that the great fund was established for. And we do meet those with our museum that has so many uh relics in it and so many items of interest to Georgetown and also trains. We also um have the Georgetown's first firehouse uh which we've dedicated station station 77. The names of all firefighters that have served Georgetown since two since 1904 actually when it

was first formed are on that board and we constantly try to update it um uh every two years with any new members. Um and we also have a special place uh for those couple of of our brave um firefighters who had gave their life uh in service while while in service. So uh we recognize them as well. We also have a few items over in our our firehouse museum. That firehouse was about to be destroyed because it was on the pro u property where you had the uh um uh southern states u property and it was sold to Microtel and then Microtel um uh that obviously was going to tear down those buildings and somebody had mentioned to my uncle Carlton Moore who founded HGA uh did you know Georgetown's firehouse is in the middle of that building and so we rescued that firehouse from that building and then put it um on our complex. We own the property where the train station is. We rent on a 99-year lease at the whopping amount of a dollar a year uh to Norfolk Southern. Um and we have the train station over there, a firehouse over there. Um and we also have a garage. We are planning on using some of the great funds for not only these expenses here that we incur, but also we're in the process of one of the scouts from um troop 95 is currently um seeking his Eagle Scout status and to meet his Eagle Scout status he is creating a um a small track for us to run Little Toot on. Little Toot. Some of you know who that is, what that is and some don't, but Little Toot is a converted lawnmower that was made to look like a train engine. And we have a couple of cars that pull behind it. And we take children for rides at our events around right now around the gravel yard. We're planning on having this track built this

by this year or this this space at least created this year. And around that, we're going to try to use some of these funds from this great fund to um we're going to take we're going to try to uh create these um like six foot long uh plywood boards that have pictures of some of the historic buildings in Georgetown. and we're going to place them around the various parts around the track so that children who take that ride can learn a little bit little bit about the history of Georgetown uh as they see the old firehouse, the old courthouse, the and various other historic buildings within the town. That will we'll try to probably start out small with four to five or maybe six of those and then try to add to them as we get a chance and they'll be removable so we can take them down and put them in storage. So, um we do have our next Christmas at the train station event December 20th. Um, and everyone's invited to, the public is invited to that. It's from 5 to 7 pm at the train station. Uh, Santa Claus will be there to again give out little gifts to children. Um, we also have a light buffet uh provided by Maryland's catering that we pay for and it's free to the public. Everything's free to the public. Um, and uh, we say light buffet, but if any of you know Marilyn Hastings and Maryland's catering, uh, you can get filled up on her light buffet. So, we welcome everybody to come to our um special event on December 20th and we deeply appreciate the great committee as well as the town council for their support.

Thank you, Mr. Moore. [applause] Uh next is Lasanza.

Hello. Hi, my name is Chenise and I'm nervous. So um yay. So um I this is my second time coming so I mean um I am nervous. Uh so I was here in August I believe and I um was asking we were asking for um funds for our citizenship class that we host at Lasparansa and we wanted to say thank you so much for um awarding us with the funds. We really appreciate it very very much. Um these past couple of months have been a lot. there's been a lot happening with immigration and so I am one of the immigration representatives in Laranza along with being the citizenship instructor. Um, and so I'm just like, wow, it's great that that we're here to give you updates on on what we have done with the funds and what we will be doing with the funds because the class, our next class starts, um, January 13th, so we still have like a month. Um, and so, um, if we don't, if you guys don't know about Larons, and I'm sorry I didn't bring a visual this time around, but next time around I will. Um, LSPD's mission is to assist Sussex County Latinos on their journey to achieve stability, integration, and success. And it is my honor and it is a passion of mine to um be serving in Lasparansa um in helping many um many of my fellow um Latino um uh friends and you know, people in our community to to integrate into our community um especially through the citizenship class. So, this is for um people and clients of ours that are eligible to um apply for citizenship, but they have to do it in English. So, there there have been a couple of changes in these past couple of months where the test went from 100 questions to 128 questions. And so, um it's a little more rigorous and and that's and that's okay because I mean, you know, update it's not it's not there's nothing

wrong with updating, right? Um, and so the class is a 10-week class in which throughout the past couple of years that I've been teaching it, um, we've only been able to host like a small group because our facility, like we don't have the space to host a bigger class. And so we've always had the interest but not the space. Um and so we want to thank you guys because we will be using our funds to um host the class in um at a church where um it's it's a bigger space and um we also have purchased six laptops in which we had 10 but we purchas purchased sorry purchased six more so that um our 15 um students that were to that are to register um can take their ESL. We we have a we have a process. They have to first take like an a pre-ESL test through um the laptop so we can see on their English level. Um so we're pretty much seeing on their um where they're at with their English level and we want to see if they've grown with their English level um by taking the class. Um so update is that we have 13 students registered and so we only need two more to you know fill up the class and make it 15 students. Um, so that's really exciting because that's never happened before and we wouldn't have been um we wouldn't have tried to register a lot of students because we we didn't have the space. So why why try and register a lot of students if you don't have the space? You don't have have the capacity to do it. Um and also now that we have the laptops, we'll be able to do the testing. So um also with the funds we've purchased um uh what's it called? So, we've invested in purchasing like the law books, more up-to-date law books because um I am the citizenship instructor, but I'm also the like one of the immigration representatives and I need to be up to date with the changes. Um there's been

so many updates um with immigration policy. And as we expand this class, we also want to invest in our immigration department so we stay up to date with the law because we're we're teaching the material, but we're also giving legal counsel while we're while we're um teaching the class. So um so yes, we have plenty of students registered for this class. So I'm super excited. 13 students registered. Class starts um January 13th. So, if you guys know of anyone that needs to take um that is wants to apply for citizenship, but they have to do it in English, they don't qualify to do it in their native language, you can reach out to Lasparansa, okay? Cuz we are still trying to fill up the class. Um I think that's pretty much it. We just want to say thank you once again.

Could you tell the audience uh how many you have put through that program um throughout in the last year? No, last three or four years. How many total people have gone through the citizenship program? Because I know there's been the graduations out to the college. Yes. I I'd say I'd say I don't have the number exact number right now, but I want to say honestly 50 to 50 to 70 I think um that have applied for citizenship with us and then um I'd say a little less than that that have taken the class with us. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. [applause]

And the last one [clears throat] is Sussex Post number eight. They submitted something in writing. Um they started their um use of the funds November 19th. They identified four families in need. They've dispersed $1,000 of the funds to those families and they're continuing to look for others and they think it'll take about five months for them to complete the total dispersement. That's all I have to know. Thank you, Dean. Well, let's give them all a big round of applause. [applause]

For those that don't know it, this Georgetown the Great Fund is something that uh when somebody comes in for a building permit and building uh the the houses and everything, there's a percentage. What's the percentage, Gene? It's a it varies based on the total dollar of the improvements and it goes into that fund and then that way we're able to give it out to the nonprofits to help because there's a lot of nonprofits that struggle that don't have any money and that's what we put it in there for. So, and it's working like it should. So, thank you

members of council. Item number seven on the agenda is a presentation of the draft downtown development district plan update and I'll turn it over to Brian again.

Okay. Thank you. Um so I'm going to do a very brief introduction and I'm going to hand it off to um our consultants. I wanted to introduce um Nicole Wy who is um a a project manager and engineer and no not engineer but um she she works for uh Wallace McGomery and Associates which is a planning and engineering consulting firm. Um we the town hired them in I believe it was March of this year to uh help us uh reddraft or update our downtown development district plan. um in the runup to actually applying for our renewal of the downtown district or downtown development district, which is um very vital to um our economic uh base and success in the in the downtown area here in Georgetown. And we'll talk a little bit about what that process has looked like and what hopefully the next um at least five years of this program will involve.

Hi guys. I heard a couple people say two minutes. I didn't know anything about that. So, I'm gonna go as quick as I can. No, you're not limited to

Okay. I was like, I don't know how I'm doing this in two minutes, guys. Like, I'm good. I'm not that good. Um, so, as Brian said, my name is Nicole Wy. I am not an engineer. Um, I work for an engineering firm. I am a public outreach specialist, grant writer, um, and planner. Um, so I was very excited to get to work on this project. I'm going to go through it pretty quickly. I know I'm not the most exciting thing on the agenda tonight. Um, but this is exciting and this is important. It's hard to follow up all the great stuff you guys were just talking about through your um great funding, but this is pretty exciting, too. So, um what is the downtown development designation all about? Um Brian had mentioned it earlier. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the fact that downtown that Georgetown is a designated downtown development area. So, what that does um is it's funded by the downtown development um act of 2014. Um and it creates a designated area downtown that incentivizes people, businesses, developers, um private investment to look at the downtown area before looking at places maybe out on, you know, 113 or other other areas. It it really encourages people through incentives. Um, and those can be facade improvement grants, um, uh, building permit fee, um, waivers, things like that. Um, to incentivize them to focus on the downtown area, bring business downtown, revitalize downtown, attract people downtown, which I think everyone can agree, you know, you want that. So, the timeline that we are on, so as Brian said, we started in about March. Um, you guys were designated in 2016. In that time, up until now, I'm trying to talk to everybody. Um, so we have done a lot of public outreach. We had a public survey that was hosted online. There was one specifically for business owners. There was also one for residents. Um, we did get some great feedback from that and I'll I'll go into that in a little bit. Um, we also did an open house right here. Um, we did a couple stakeholder interviews. I actually had um Oh, he must have left. So, I did actually get to talk to Historic Georgetown. Had a great conversation with them. Um, we

talked with Sussex County. We talked with housing. Um, we really made sure to do our homework and really talk to a lot of the key players in this business area in the downtown just to get some feedback on what we're hearing. Um, and pair that with what we heard through the public survey. Um, we kind of want to make sure that everyone's kind of on the same page. Um, taking all that information, what we did was we updated the 2016 plan. Um, we kind of pulled out some of those key issues, some of those key ideas. Um, we looked at some of the incentives. Are they working? Are they not working? look at some of the businesses that you've attracted um and looked at some of the goals that Georgetown's looking for moving forward. So, what happens now is we draft the plan. Not draft the plan, we update the draft plan, present it to the public, so it will be available for you to review as well. Um and then we apply for renewal. So, that's where we're at right now. Um so, there is um the ability for you all to go on to the project website. This is on the town's website. So, if you go to the town's website and you scroll down, there's a little logo to the right, you'll see um you can click on that. On this website, you can review the draft chapters, which will be posted probably later this week. Um you can look at the surveys. You can look at the downtown designation map. Um which kind of shows what's being um not requested.

I'm sorry, boundaries.

Yes, boundaries. Sorry, my brain was not finding that word. So you'll see um what we're looking at for this round for this update. Um and you can see project meeting updates. So we've updated on there when you know this meeting is on there. Um there'll be a public hearing next month. So you can find all those dates and all that information on that website. Um here's just a summary of some of the things that the downtown development district has provided. Um so I won't I won't read through all of them, but there are a lot of benefits to this program um to those who choose to use them. Um, so you'll see we've had over $260 building permit fee applicants. Um, we've had um 19 applicants and $7,800 distributed for business facade improvements. Um, this can be new windows. This can be um anything that's going to improve the outlook um the outside of your business for downtown. We want things to look nice. We want you to feel excited to come downtown. Um, we've also we Georgetown has also um given out $11,640 in waved um building license fees and property tax exemptions in the amount of $30,260. Um here's just some overall totals to date. Um there are other larger projects. You can find this information again on the website. Um but just fun big numbers to, you know, get you excited. Um, so you can see here two large projects, 15 small projects, and all the different rebates that have gone through this program. All right, with the public involvement, um, this came from the surveys, both business and residents. This came from the public outreach meeting, um, Brian was at Wings and Wheels, um, with the table and was talking to people. So, you may have seen him there. Um, no surprises here. I think you know, if you guys took the survey, you gave me these answers. Um, so this is what we're really looking at in this plan to address moving forward. Um, so we heard

a lot of this actually in the 2016 feedback. Um, so how can we fix this? How can we work on this? How can we incentivize businesses? How can we um address the concerns that we've heard to make sure that we are attracting business? That we are encouraging you as residents, you as business owners, you as stakeholders to be downtown. Um, so this is just kind of where we're at right now. Um, with the plan, it is required that we provide key priority recommendations. So if you look, um, on the website, I believe you do have the old plan posted. Um, you'll see key priority recommendations from 2016. What we did was review them step by step, every single one, and then um, kind of remove the ones that maybe were outdated that they accomplished. Um and then you know took the public feedback that we heard and reworked some. So these are some of those um you know develop communications and marketing for renewed designation. We want people to be excited. We want people to know that this is available that this funding is available. These incentives are available for you. Um again I won't read word for word. Um look at existing zoning which Brian had mentioned earlier. We want to make sure that things are zoned correctly so that when businesses are looking to come downtown it's there aren't a lot of red tape. There aren't a lot of speed bumps. We want development to happen. So what are our next steps? Draft plan review. So like I said, that will be posted on the website by Friday. Homework. Um and [laughter] then um it will be available for review. Please take time to read it if you're interested. Um if you're not interested, please still take time to read it. Um feel free to give some feedback. My email will be on the last slide of this as will Brian's. This presentation can be posted to the website as well. Um, take some time to read that. Look at what Georgetown is doing. Look at the work that they're putting in. Look at the incentives and the funding that they're providing to make downtown, you know, revitalized, to make it, you

know, exciting to come to coffee shops, restaurants, like this is what everybody is hoping for. This is what we've heard. Um, so we need that buyin from the public as well. The next step will be a public hearing. Um, that is also a requirement um of the funding and of the plan. So that will happen in January um right here. So, you are obviously welcome to come and voice any opinions. Um, and then after that, we will submit the application for redesignation with the Office of State Planning. And that's it. I think I'm over two minutes, but [laughter] I got it. So, any questions, comments? Um, I'm I'm here. Um, I'm going to hang out, so I'll be here after or there here's my email address. Um, I'm happy to answer questions um or get you any information if you're a business owner and you're interested in the program. What's the total funding for this year for?

Oh, I knew someone was going to ask me that. Um, it was on the slide, I thought. A little over eight. I think it's been the same in the last the the the state funding's been the same the last three years. I I think so. But what's come to Georgetown is as far as the state into projects in Georgetown is the $1.1 million. So, it's important to note that there is $8 million of private investment that has come to Georgetown that may not have come without this program. So, that's that's I think the the topline thing to remember how important this uh program is. So, you're of course your continued involvement and and um input is very welcome.

Thank you very much. No problem. Pardon me. Questions for mayor council? Anybody? Christine, Tony, we Okay. All right. Moving forward. Uh, uh, traditional housing issues.

Okay. Members of council, uh, the next item is an update from the supportive housing issues committee, a progress report, and I believe the chairperson, Mrs. Dennis, is going to make this presentation. Okay. Hello again. I am the chairperson of a 10-person uh committee that was appointed back in September. We've had uh three meetings so far. Next meeting will be January 8th at four o'clock. Um the members are most a lot of them are in the audience but Adam Bowski, uh Andrew Thur, Eddie Wise, John Barnby, Sharon Pitcher, Tammy Kesler, Trish Hill, Janet Halco, Dennis Wiz Whiz, I can never say your name, Dennis.

Yeah, thank you. Wiz Wizerri. uh that that is the uh membership of the committee and they've been very good about attending the meetings and contributing to the discussion. So I'd like to thank them publicly. Okay. And of course I would be remiss if I didn't also include Jean who gives us the staff support. So thanks Eugene. Okay. So, we've gone through what we started to do was to go through the report that was done back in uh 2012, the supported housing report, and we went through it and we looked at some of the recommendations and changes that were made, and we um made some uh recommendations to change some items that were in there, including distances between residences and so forth. So, um, we kind of went through it and and decided that there were the majority of the report stands pretty much in terms of what supportive housing is about, but things have changed with regard to how they're monitored, who monitors them, and so forth. So, we are looking at those issues as well because I know that came up at council meetings. Uh, Councilwoman Diaz had several questions about, you know, how do we know what these facilities are doing in town? So we did look at that issue. There were a number of perceptions and we all know that perception is like reality. So we wanted to uh examine some of the things that were on uh the citizens minds about supportive housing. And one of the issues as you can see is that um there is a perception that it's a drain on our fire, our EMS and our law enforcement. And in looking at the uh three years of the call data that Gan supplied to us, it's uh been pretty clear that that is not the case. So we want to make that clear so people understand that uh the facilities in in your neighborhood and

they're sure that you all live close to some of these um housing programs do not uh interfere with the delivery of services by our EMS and uh enforcement people. Um the other notable uh problem in a lot of people's minds is that because there are number of uh 25% of our tax base if not slightly more is um nonprofits, churches and government buildings uh are exempt from paying taxes. So some folks have lumped these facilities in the non-paying category and we found that that is in fact not true. that out of the 38 properties, six are exempt from property taxes. The remaining 84% pay their full share. Okay. Another false perception. Supportive housing is exempt from rental inspection and occupancy codes. That is not true. They are inspected just like everyone else. They're expected to [snorts] uh comply with housing codes when in fact they're not. Then the code enforcement people will get involved there. Follow the same code stipulations as everyone else in town who has a property that they rent. We kind of shifted gear gears in I don't want to even say in the middle of our discussions. Um it started out with the the uh premise that we were going to look at the 2012 housing report and homelessness at the time was really not on the purview immediate uh um convening of the group but it shifted its focus because once we finished the review of the institutional issues we moved on to the [snorts] issue that's hot push button issue in down and

that is homelessness and what can we do about it. We are going to in our future meetings we're going to have representatives from the service providers to come and discuss what they do for this population specifically. How do they help? How do they make referrals? How do they get referrals? What services they provide? What happens when somebody is terminated from service? whether they're terminated successfully or they're terminated because of inappropriate uh either behavior or they no longer need the services. So we have a whole list of organizations that we intend to have some discussions with higher ground for state community action, Georgetown navigation center at springboard, Georgetown Police Department because they do have staff there that work very closely with this population. Georgetown Recovery Hub, which is a new program right here on North Bedford Street, Love Incorporated, State Service Center Emergency Assistance. We already heard from the uh the director of that program and her assistant and they give us a lot of information, good information about what the service center provides. Um but interestingly enough uh they did reinforce the notion that a lot of the state services are in a silo kind of configuration where they provide the services but there's very little interaction or common uh planning around an individual client. So they may serve the same client but you would never know it because not an individual service plan that's identified along with all of the providers that contribute to that service. So that is a big issue that uh actually um uh

can't think of his name. Senator Pitachon and uh and uh Representative Valerie Gilner have started a group that's going kind of parallel to ours. They're looking at some of the same issues. Their focus, however, is to how they can impact state services and get them to talk to each other and provide a coordinated approach to services which would help us at the local level tremendously. So, they are going to Valerie came to our last meeting. She gave an overview of where they are with that process. It's new. It's they're in their beginning phases. She will come back. She will keep us informed and at some point one or more members of our group may be able to join them and listen to their discussions. But that's an important uh piece of information that we all need to know that the state representatives are interested. They u know Brian was here at one of the meetings. He heard from you all firsthand about how you feel about the issue of homelessness in the town and how it impacts us. So he and Valerie got together. They convened a meeting. I think Jean was there also.

Yeah, it was myself, the mayor, uh chief of police, and the two lieutenants. Yeah. And and there were a number of state agencies representatives from all state agencies

there. So they're again their goal is to get those individual agencies to communicate with each other and provide a more coordinated approach to services that will help everybody. Um [sighs] we want to look at the leveraging of Georgetown homelessness and addiction effort with the state legislators as I just mentioned. Um they are I know in speaking Valerie's presentation was very very uh adamant. She was very adamant in her desire to see this thing through and to make it work. So we're hoping we can see something positive come out of it. We're going to continue to look at the challenges and the issues and and solutions and also the best practices. What's what what is everybody else doing? I mean this is not a a problem that we face alone. It's a national problem and there are some programs out there that perhaps we're not even aware of yet that we would like to examine how they approach the problem. What is their success rate? What are they doing that's right? What have they done that's failed? So, uh these are all things that we're going to look at in the future. So, we will report back. We have until we had six months.

Yeah. Till March. March.

March. the eyides of March um to finish our uh deliberations. Uh again, our next meeting is January 8th at four o'clock here in town hall. It's a public meeting. Anyone who's interested, the agenda is always posted. You're more than welcome to come. Uh if you have any questions about the proceedings, it's posted online. Um, if you have um hearsay information, which tends to go in a very negative direction, [clears throat] I would suggest that you look at the minutes, talk to somebody on the committee, better yet, come to a meeting and express your concerns. We'd like to hear them directly. Any questions? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Linda. You're welcome. [applause] We have a please.

Okay. Members of council, first item um 9A is the purchase of a new street sweeper. The town solicited bids for a new street sweeper to be funded via realy transfer tax revenues. Responses to the solicitation were as follows. Atlantic machinery $234,520, Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems $236,492. and Steuart Amos Equipment $244,389. Pricing was evaluated by the finance staff, public works superintendent, and myself. It is recommended based on their vehicle based on vehicle availability that we award mid-Atlantic waste systems in an amount not to exceed $236,492 for a Tao model 435 regener regenerative air sweep. Pleasure of the mayor and council.

Questions, comments, council? If none and entertain a motion. [clears throat] Thank you, Christine. Do I have a second? Second. Pendle. Thank you. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. So carried. Jean 9B is just information. The administrative Ford Explorer will be 220 currently a 2023 will be replaced via Enterprise Fleet Management with a 2026 model year vehicle. uh the equity that's built into that vehicle will be rolled into lease and this was approved as part of the fiscal year 2026 budget. Council members, questions, comments? If none, I'd entertain a motion to move forward with the

I I guess I do have a question. Okay. Um, do you think we should get other bids from Ford to make sure we're keeping Enterprise honest with the selling or leasing of that vehicle to us? I mean, they're in business to make money. So, just my opinion, but I think I would get other bids to make sure the money we're spending is

make that motion. I make a motion to get two other bids to compare Enterprise Rental on the Ford Explorer 2026. Thank you, Penel. Second on that. Second. Thank Christine. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Roll call. W one I. W two I. W three I. W four I. And I'm an I. Thank you. 50. Moving forward. Uh first reading ordinance uh 202513.

Members council. This is the first reading for an ordinance to amend the comprehensive plan future land use map for two parcels totaling.5 plus or minus acres from single family residential to business. an amendment to the code of the town of Georgetown, chapter 230 thereof, entitled zoning to change the zoning map for two acres totaling or sorry, two parcels totaling.5 plus or minus acres from urban residential UR1 to urban business UB2. The properties are located at 3 and 7 Parson's Lane identified as Sussex County Tax Map parcel 135-15.17-121.0 00 and 135-15.17-122.00. There [snorts] was a public hearing held on this prior. This would be um let's see the planning commission uh reviewed the application. The town had town they had their public hearing. The town council had a public hearing November 10th. Um the town council finds the proposed use and amendments are compatible with the town of Georgetown comprehensive plan and also the town council finds the amendments are compatible with the adjoining uses and the future land uses for that area. Therefore, that herebys that [snorts] the town comprehensive future land use map identified as 10-3 is amended to change 0.5 plus or minus acres Sussex County tax parcel map 135-15.17-121 and 135-15.17-122 from single family residential to business. Section two, the current Georgetown zoning map be amended for the properties identified as Sussex County Tax Map parcels 135-15.17-121.0 and 135-15.17-122

by zoning 0.5 plus or minus acres to a classification of UB1 urban business section 3. This ordinance shall take effect immediately upon adoption of the majority voted members council. Pleasure the mayor and councel. Council questions, comments with that and entertain a motion. Uh, no first reading. So, we just got to let it go for two weeks. Okay. Till January. Till January.

Okay. Moving moving forward. No action required there. Second reading and adoption of ordinance 20257. Hey, members of council. Uh, this is the, uh, ordinance 25 2025-07, an ordinance to amend the code of the town of Georgetown, chapter 230 thereof entitled zoning and chapter 194 thereof entitled subdivision of land. This is I'm adding an item H, cottage housing development and all the different design guidelines, design standards and requirements, site design, parking and accessory uses and structure. And the second piece is uh modifying chapter 194 subdivision of land. We did receive several pieces of correspondence. Um do you want me to read those now or would you rather

only if they required it to be read?

Okay. So um the first one is um from Miss Kimberly Wills. Dear council and city manager, I'm writing to encourage you think of your track record in becoming the state's guinea pig. Springboard came to you saying you would be one of 12 cities they would be building pallet villages in. They are based in Wilmington, yet Georgetown is the only site they have. Now that you have a new idea of tiny houses, you are willing to change codes, designed area, uh designate areas for zoning and property assessments to accommodate the new magical solution. The property is not zoned for this residency. Your codes don't allow this type of structure. Your property assessments will go down for neighboring houses to substantiate the building if this the building if this project surprised. The first magical solution is planning on piggybacking to make money off of your code changes. Also, you have to see that these people take you as fools. You are building more apartments that were properly zoned and designed. You have multiple apartments being built that will increase your availability which may lower prices. Instead of working with known developers on highdensity housing which could be affordable for the working poor, you are chasing someone's magical solution. The solution is a dream. The residents are well aware of this are the residents are well aware this will become yet another nightmare for Georgetown. This is not a wise choice for the county seat or your constituents. signed Kim Wills. Next one is um from Sean Campbell. Uh dear members of the Georgetown Town Council, I am writing to express my strong support for the proposed cottage housing development ordinance 2025-07 and provide clarity regarding the design standards, construction quality, and community intentions behind the market

street village project currently being developed by littleliving.org or and designed by SLC Designs. As the designer for the SLC designs, I want to directly address several important points that have been raised in recent public discussions. There has been some misunders misunderstandings in the community about the scale, quality, and purpose of these homes and it is important that the record accurately reflects what is being proposed. Number one, all homes will meet or exceed the required building code. Our design standards follow the international residential code and applicable Delaware building requirements. These cottages are not temporary, lightweight, or substandard structures. They are permanent, code compliant, code compliant homes engineered for durability, safety, and long-term use. Number two, all homes will fully comply with the Sussex County energy efficiency standards. Energy efficiency is not optional. These homes are designed to reduce energy burden on residents, which is a critical part of making housing affordable. High performance insulation, modern mechanical systems, and efficient layouts ensure low operating cost and long-term sustainability. Number three, the homes will be built by high qual the homes will be built with high quality, durable materials. Affordability does not mean cheap construction. These homes will be with will be built with materials that meet or exceed industry standards for long-term performance. Our intent is to create a community that lasts, not something that deteriorates or burdens the town with maintenance concerns in the future. Number five, flexible home types to meet community needs. Our plans offer one-bedroom homes, two-bedroom home, three-bedroom home. For the two and threebedroom models, the additional bedrooms can be located on a second floor, allowing families and individuals to select what best suits their needs while keeping the building footprint modest. The Market Street Village concept is not

speculative development and is not designed to bring transient housing or social service-based transitional housing into Georgetown. It is intended specifically for the missing middle workforce. The same nurses, teachers, retail staff, hospitality workers, seniors, and veterans referenced in the prior letter you received from Thomas Mccelroy, PK PGK of Little Living. Without the Cottage Housing Development Ordinance, this project and any other future development designed to provide attainable workforce housing cannot proceed. This ordinance represents a modest but absolutely necessary update to zoning that will allow Georgetown to address real housing needs with quality, sustainable solutions. I respectfully ask the council to approve ordinance 2025-07 so that projects like Mark Market Street Village can be built providing safe, stable, and affordable homes for residents who support and strengthen this community every day. Thank you for your careful consideration and your leadership on this important issue. This is from um Aftaba Chima. Dear Mayor West, council members and town manager, the nonprofit organization that I founded and serve as executive director Hearth and Shelter Foundation is highly supportive of the cottage housing development amendment to UR1 zoning in Georgetown. Hearth shelter is ready to invest substantially into workforce housing on multiple on multiple acre land we have acquired in Georgetown. The town's CHD rules are well written and provide scope for beautiful, compact, permanent homes for dozens of local workers, retirees, and veterans in our planned development. We plan to offer our homes to qualified sub AMI builders, I'm sorry, buyers in fe simple sales. We look forward to helping many good Georgetowners become homeowners so that they may take their first steps towards building generational wealth and stability or

enjoying the dignified retirement they deserve close to their families, houses of worships, doctors, and their favorite local businesses. I grant permission for this letter of support to be entered into the public record and to be read during the upcoming council meeting. We also received a letter of support from the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. Um, an investor, uh, Mr. Richard Harnett. Um, this is from Interfaith Community Housing of Delaware. Dear Mayor Bill West and members of the Georgetown Council, Interfaith Community Housing of Delaware, Inc. is one of Delaware's largest nonprofit community housing development organizations. intern uh interfaith community is a HUDcertifi has is HUDcertified since 1968 with a proven track record of building rehabilitating and managing over 100 1,500 affordable homes for low to moderate income households across the state for more than 55 years. We have helped working families, seniors, and veterans to be housed in dignity and security. We have also helped thousands of families to achieve their dream of home ownership via our Neighbor Works America certified home ownership center. We urged the Georgetown Council to pass the amendments to your UR1 zoning rules to allow cottage housing developments. Cottage housing developments have been a successful, safe, and uncontroversial solution to workforce and affordable housing for more than 20 years. There is no evidence that such developments cause crime or decrease property values. and the benefits to towns that allow them flow directly to the residents, local businesses, and local churches. I grant permission for this short note of support to be entered into the record. We also received correspondence from Mr. Toro Lubie, who I believe is going to speak. Uh we received correspondence from Mr. George Mgalo and we received correspondence from Neighbor Good

Partners and also from Anthony Poccastro and Annette. Let's see. She wants this one red. Sorry. I am a small business owner employing 17 Sussex County residents. I was born at Salsbury Hospital, graduated from Delmare Schools, and attended DelTech. Today, my woman/veteranowned storefront headquarters is in Rehobath Beach, Delaware. So, I have a history across this county. As a single young mother, in order to attend DelTech, I had to move back to the family farm in Laurel because no safe and affordable housing was available in Georgetown. As a married woman with a Marine returning home from Iraq, we had to have our son and his wife move in with us while he finished college on the GI bill because affordable housing was unachievable. All of my employees live in outlying towns like Georgetown because of the cost of housing in the Roth Beach area. Any work done to the office in upgrades, both construction and technical, require workers come workers coming from outlying areas which include Georgetown. Additionally, as our communities age out, where will seniors who cannot afford assisted living go when their home is too big? Even those against this change will [clears throat] need smaller living quarters down the road. Um, I believe it's a typo, road of they live long enough. Our future is not living large. It is living within our means and helping Georgetown become the place to do it is putting Georgetown ahead of the game. I am asking for approval of ordinance 2025-7. I am sorry I cannot attend the December 8th meeting but encourage my thoughts to be considered for the long-term future of Georgetown. And then there was one other piece of correspondence from the Ultra Solar Group and that was signed by Mr. Andrew Timonss and there was um material supplied from Mr. Sunonny Gani that's included in your packets. All these letters are on the website with the agenda. That's all I have on that sir.

Thank you. Okay, moving on. We've got uh 17 17 people that want to speak. Let's or 18 18.

So, let's uh let's five 10 minutes. Let's suit everybody. We go much longer than that, we're going to be here uh serving breakfast. So, uh I I want everybody to have a chance to speak what's on their mind to say uh what they want to say about it. The first person is Mr. John Peterson. Would you please step up? Good evening. Uh, I'm going to try to keep mine to 90 seconds.

Good evening. My name is John Peterson. I reside at 304 North Bedford. I stand here as a Georgetown resident committed to responsible community development and in support of ordinance 2025-07. The old filling station on East Market Street is contaminated, decaying, and becoming a liability. It harms the environment, perpetuates blight, and exposes taxpayers to rising costs. Ordinance 2025-07 provides a lawful technical sound solution. Little Living, a nonprofit developer, will remediate the site and build a robust micro home community for veterans, seniors, and working households. This intervention removes a hazard, restores a neighborhood, and creates jobs. Long-term, it generates property tax revenue, reduces municipal maintenance, and of course, expands affordable housing. Acting now ensures Georgetown sets its own micro living design standards before Dover imposes oneizefits all rules. Your yes vote affirms the town's positive role in addressing housing insecurity. Your yes vote turns liabilities into opportunities and opens the doors to safe, dignified living. Thank you for your service to the town.

Thank you, sir. Second is uh Miss Bunny Burton.

You filled out the form. I didn't. [laughter] I'm here to oppose the little houses. All of you people that are sitting up there were elected by people from the town of Georgetown. You realize that the majority of people in Georgetown that have lived here for years do not want this. we could get you a petition with thousands of names if that's what you needed. We we didn't go that route. We really thought that by coming to the meetings and you know the last few meetings you've seen the opposition of this town people are saying sunny you're doing that beautiful park out there but it's on Southward Street. We're going to be going through town or coming into town to a parking lot. A parking lot is going to be where the Brown station used to be. How is that going to be attractive? How is that going to be the people of want to move to Georgetown? It's just not going to be also what benefit is this to the people of Georgetown. If we have people moving in here, that's not benefiting us. We need to take care of our town. We have problems in our town. And I feel like we're creating more. It is going to People's homes values are going to go down that have lived here for years. Do you think they're happy about that? Ask them. Ask the people that live around there and they will tell you they are not happy. Um,

also this is not the place for it. I'm not against those old houses, but this is not the place for it where people coming into town are going to see a parking lot with 24 cars, 30 cars. How is that attractive? How does that want people to move to this town? It's just not going to. We have enough issues in Georgetown with homelessness, but this isn't going to help the homeless population. That's what we need to be working on and helping them. You know, people are being harassed for money. People are on street corners. This isn't Georgetown that we want. Um, I'm very against it. I I'll be the first to say it. I know many many people that are. We don't want this to be in a year or two. We say to you, we tried to tell you. We told you so.

Thank you, buddy. All right. Eddie Wise, Old Park Avenue. Um, I was born and raised in Georgetown. Um, you know, I find it kind of funny that we have people standing up here talking about downtown development and bringing businesses to downtown, but yet we're wanting to take away two commercial properties and put people on a brown field. If they can get rid of the brownfield, why can't a business? Yes, it's it's expensive. I realize that, but it can be done. We don't need to be getting rid of our commercial property in town. We already lost enough of it out on the highway to the state. Um, you know, there was Tuesday night we had a a meeting for the supportive housing, which, you know, is great. I'm I'm all for supportive housing. But come to find out there was a meeting after our meeting that none of us knew about for the little living. But yet they say that they wanted people in opposition and support. Well, the

only ones who knew about it was in support of it. Okay. How was how are you going to have opposition if they don't know? Um, they were talking about I read an article that they said there was 63 different lies that were brought up about it. One of them was that Georgetown will not be a guinea pig for it. That there's projects like this all over the United States. Georgetown is not all over the United States. Is there any other one in the state of Delaware? No, there was no other ones for the pallet village in the state of Delaware. We are the guinea pig in the state of Delaware. We don't need to be. We have more issues than that. Um, there was another thing brought up that um, I've stood up here the past two meetings and said that if this ordinance passes, it's a big mistake. Jean, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you pass this ordinance the way it reads and somebody has a 1acre lot and they meet all the requirements of the code, can any of you sit up there and stop it from being passed?

Well, I think that the ordinance calls for a minimum of one acre. Okay. But anybody could take a lot that's in town today and put a tiny home on it. Any lot right now you do that because we don't have

But right now they can't put 12 on it. This ordinance allows for 12 units per acre. Now granted, I know you can't get 12 units because of all the other stuff that is required, but that's not a lie. They won't be able to stop it. If the development meets all the requirements, you could have these popping up on any place that has a 1acre lot or more. I have two acres. My neighbors ain't going to want a bunch of them out there. I won't do it because I love where I live. Um and and in those letters that you just received, Jean, um they said they they were built on they were permanent residents. Permanent foundations. No, they're not on permanent foundations. Um I was actually told that they were like mobile homes. They were going to be anchored. Well, that's not permanent. Um,

and then another one of the letters stated that they were going to help people become homeowners. Well, these aren't becoming homeowners. They're renters. You know, if you guys want to pass this code, do it under conditional use so that anybody with more than one acre parcel cannot just put these up. It's a big mistake to put it in UR1. You will have no say other than what's in the code if you keep it like it is. Thank you. Thank you, EDDIE. Judy Hill. [snorts] [clears throat]

Hi, I'm Judy Hill. I live on 100 West North Street in Georgetown and I've lived there all my life. Okay. I'm opposed. Definitely opposed. You come in out here from the north, you have the Martin House that anybody coming in, that's a site you're going to come out here. And if it's not looking good and I just don't think that it suits when they're coming in town, I just I I don't know what's happened to the town. I mean, we're all taxpayers. We should have a vote, you know? I mean, and if you guys you saw the last time we had a meeting, you even said, Mayor West, how many people oppose the little homes? How many people raised their hands? We oppose it. You got to take an acknowledgement of that. I mean, you know, we work hard for Georgetown and Georgetown is is really it's hurting. That's all I got to say, but I am opposed.

Thank you, JUDY. Sony

my presentation probably not on there. It's on their It's on their

on their packages. Okay. Again, Sunonny Gani and uh I made a little nice colorful presentation which you're not going to be able to see now, but uh the council can see. Let me explain it to you. I've been here for about 20 years and uh the only person who ever said any truth sitting on that bench is panual barrett he say I don't like this this is I'm talking about few years ago which is fine I like that there were a lot of other people here which are not here now in the different council and they wishy-washy not saying this not saying that and again I've been coming here for about last decade and complaining about housing, affordable housing. I've been talking about housing for 10 years and been telling you guys that you got to do something about the, you know, density so we can do something. Let's first figure it out. A lot of people have this confusion that this ordinance means little living. I don't care about little living comes or not. This ordinance what it does is gets the things changed. If you're not going to do it, state is going to shove it down our throat and we're going to be able to accept it down the road anyway. So if we are accepting this, it doesn't have to be on East Market Street, but at least we giving an opportunity where we can make houses where people can live comfortably. Now, let me read my chapel here, which you can't see. All right. Uh I'm here tonight to speak in support of cottage housing development ordinance. I am not talking about any particular housing development. I'm talking about the ordinance we are ready to pass. Try to get this thing very clear in your mind. We are not talking about a particular project. We're talking about

an ordinance which will give the city an opportunity to do something which we haven't be able to do it in last two decades. I've been doing affordable housing for 20 years. I know what it takes. I know how people are suffering and they can't afford to live for, you know, $2,000, you know, housing rentals. Georgetown is facing challenge that many towns across the country are dealing with the lack of modest attainable homes for the people who make our town work with every day. our teachers, seniors, health care workers, young adults, and veterans. Right now, too many of them commute long distances because they simply cannot find a home here in Georgetown. I was a landlord. I know how difficult it is for people. I used to have a long line of people who wanted to get in. The ordinance gives a responsible solution. Cottage homes are not sheds, kickabins or temporary structures or as some have suggested. They are permanent stickbuilt houses that must meet or exceed all Sussex County building code requirements. According to the ordinance, every cottage home must include full kitchen, bathroom, HVAC, insulation, and utilities to be built on a permanent foundation and range from 350 to 850 square ft of finished space. These are real houses designed for long-term living, not stop gap units. And I was offended by I was not even in the country but I listened to this uh October 27th chapel and Linda Dennis said that 800 ft oh square feet dogous or not. That's embarrassing to say to

people I would love to live in a 800 square ft if I'm by myself. I don't need a 3,000 or 5,000t home to live in. So, you know, don't degrade people who cannot afford a 2,000 ft² homes. Beyond that, the ordinance includes strict design standards that ensure these neighborhoods fit perfectly with the Georgetown character. Every cottage home must have a covered front porch, sidewalks, pathways, landscaping, private and shared open spaces, and screen park. Screen parking. So no cars parked in front of the homes. The setbacks, spacing, and design review process ensure these communities are orderly, attractive, and fully aligned with Georgetown small town values. It's all important to note that this ordinance isn't tied to any developer or any one project. A broad range residents, civic groups, faith organization, and local businesses support this because it provides a tool for Georgetown to guide responsible growth. It affects values. [clears throat] It reflects values of our town has always held modestly, modesty, stewardship, neighborliness and care for the people who already contribute to the daily life of this community. And again, there was all these slides you can see. Cottage housing is not experimental. It's used in more than 35 communities nationwide with the earliest built over 20 years ago. These communities show stability, pride, and long-term success. Passing

this ordinance allows Georgetown to offer attainable housing for local workers and seniors. Support our business community for reducing long commutes. Protects farmland by encouraging in town growth ensure that all future cottage housing meet strict design and quality standards. This ordinance is a forward-looking, responsible and community centered step for our town. One that honors our past while preparing us for the future. We are not Mayberry of 1950. We just guys I'm a minority in this town. A lot of people you don't realize I'm looking we might have got two or three of them. Bruce is one of them. More than 50% of this town is minority. You guys don't realize it. And you know get up and smell the coffee. You know these guys are not going anywhere. They're going to be here and there will be people coming. We I can understand you don't want anybody in your cinderberries or your meadows but you got to get a place where people can come and live and work in this area. So I support wholeheartedly and you guys decide what you want to do. It's not had anything to do with a little living. It's ordinance which we are passing if we're not passing a one project. Thank you. [applause] Sue. Sue.

Yeah. While Mrs. Barlo was walking up, we got a text from the Georgetown Chamber. They were not a letter in support of the ordinance or against the ordinance. They were in support of increasing the amount of workforce housing and how essential it is to people who keep our community moving every day. So, I apologize for that error.

Hello, my name is Sue Barlo. I live at 703 East Laurel Street Extended. I've lived in Georgetown for more than 50 years. Uh needless to say, I disagree with everything Sunny said. Everything to start out with, I from day one, I have opposed this because I just feel that it doesn't belong in Georgetown. It certainly does not belong in East Market Street at Georgetown. I live the the where they're h putting it is it's going back right up to the development I live in now. We are small houses. I My living room is almost 800 square ft and I live in a tiny two-bedroom house with two dogs. just me and two dogs and we're not we don't have too much room. The thing about this ha this project is it's going to stand out like a sore thumb. When people come through this town, they come in from Lewis beautiful, beautiful old historic buildings or homes from Market Street to to this place that used to be a gas station.

[snorts] and it's just going to stand out like a sore thumb. And I have just always from from day one when I saw the first little houses go up there, the first thing I thought was sharecropper shacks. Still think sharecropper sacks. I and when we first Little Living started talking about this place, this addition or this

project that they're working on. Uh it was it was we they were going to put um 22 homes with this new ordinance we passed tonight. They're planning on adding another 12 10 to 12 homes. So that's going to be 32 to 34 homes. on two acres of land. The remote parking is going to be on a brown field that is not allowed to be paved. So, the parking lot is going to have gravel or something that is not pavement. What kind of a parking lot is that going to be? The other thing is an article that I read about this little living house homes that they're they're talking about um the 450 to 800 square foot homes. Um the the the rent when we first started talking about this was $800 for the for the onebedroom and um $1,000 for the twobedroom. Now, the rent is $950 for the for the um onebedroom, $1,100 for the twobedroom, and $1,200 for the three bedroomedroom. At this rate, uh if the price keeps going up like this, after two months, by the time they get it built, it'll be the same as the apartments out on South Bedford Street. We're talking about lack of housing. In in the last couple of years, how many houses and and apartment buildings have gone up in this place? Too many. Too many.

However, I I have to I have to tell you guys, I have been in your position for for 19 years. I served on this council. And not in those 19 years did we have something like this come before us that that just it this this is just wrong. It is wrong for Georgetown. It is totally wrong for Georgetown. And it's time that all of you guys thought about the people that live here now. There are lots of senior citizens in this town. Our property values are going to drop like a rock when this place gets put up. So, I'm asking you to do what is right. Not what is politically expedient, but what is right for the town of for the citizens of the town of Georgetown. We are the ones who voted you in. And and I just think that you have to think about us instead of this project that sounds like um a a a wonderful thing. It is not a wonderful thing. And [laughter] I laughed when when I heard them when I read the article about them hiring a public relations person. So the perfectation person is here to to sell us what is essentially a and try to put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day, it's still a pig. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Sharon Pitcher.

My name is Sharon Pitcher and I live at 16 Elderberry Street in the village of Cinderberry. When I w heard I was listening online to the last time we had a hearing about this in October and I wondered how many people sitting in these seats said the thing same thing about us when they were building our community that it was going to do this and it was going to do that. I just listened to all these different speakers saying it's going to decrease your um h their value of your houses. That's just not true. Google um little these cottage houses and see what it said. It never did that in any of the towns that had them. And another thing I want to say to somebody that said that we're guinea pigs. I'm proud to live in this town. I'm very proud of the pallet village on a lot of my friends. I taught at a large university and a lot of my friends are all over the United States and I saw something on Facebook about how how a lot of them were talking about homelessness in their towns and I said in response that I live in a town that created a pallet village to help people to become off of homelessness and people were like where do you live that's incredible they want to know more about the pallet village we should be proud of the pallet village not act like you don't know what's going on there. People are changing their lives. And one young man that is at the Pallet Village came to our I'm on the um the assisted housing committee and one young man came to us from the Pallet Village who would love to speak here but would be afraid of how you would treat him. Truthfully, he said that to me and he said that to a couple of us afterwards. And then he said he showed me his bank book. He's working. He's putting as much as he can in a bank book, in a bank account, so he

can maybe sometime get an apartment. Now, how's that going to happen? He had from for saving for six months, he had $1,400. This was huge for him. Think about the people you're talking about. I want you to think about the teachers, the nurses, the people that are servicing your children, your families, the seniors that live in this community that are going to lose their housing. And what are they going to do if they're getting $2,000 a month for um social security? Let me ask you where you would get an apartment with that $2,000 and still have food money for food afterwards. Think about those people. Some of the things that you've just said about the h about um your the cost of your housing or the value of your housing going down, that's not true. Look it up. It's not true. research shows that that is absolutely not true. The other thing I have to say is I've only been living here 10 years and that piece of property that we're talking about is god awful looking and we all know that for 20 years it sat there and there is no business that's going to go there. There is no business they're going to invest money into doing that. Now we have people that are going to turn that awful looking property into something that we can be proud of. They're going to turn it into if you look at those houses that people are saying first of all they're not mobile homes they're houses and if you look at those houses put a porch on the front of it and then ride down further on Main Street and you'll see it's almost minute miniature versions of houses we already have on Main Street very close to those houses if you look at it with an open mind and if you think about the people if you're going to live in one of these houses you're going to live in a community that's going to have report little little house and we're that's not part of this ordinance but the little house um group talks about how they

wanted to create community they even have a space for that community that doesn't happen in the apartments I'm going to tell you most of you know that that doesn't always happen in apartments where people are coming and going it it's going to happen in these houses and these are people that are going to walk down Main Street and support our restaurants support our businesses is they're going to be around. So, I asked the council to really think about one of the things somebody said is you would get a thousand votes um a thousand signatures if you did a petition. I can tell you just in the people I know and I've talked to in the last week. Every one of them supported this. A lot of them are seniors that don't want to come out late at night. So, I did try to pull more of them in. But, um I am here saying that easily they support this. And I think you might have people more people supporting it than the few people in here that are being negative. And I feel so sad for people that don't want to that don't aren't proud of our town because you don't want other people to come in here and are not proud of the kind of things we're doing to help people. I am very proud of that and I'm proud to say that I live in Georgetown. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause] Lisa Lincoln.

Hello. I'm uh Lisa Lincoln. I'm a VA social worker and I'm the homeless outreach coordinator for Kenton Sussex County and I'm here in support of the ordinance. Okay. In my role, I work with veterans in Georgetown and other regions every day. There are men and women who served our country and now need safe housing, safe, stable housing they can afford. The veterans I'm talking about are not homeless, but they are one serious life event from losing their housing or they have means or they don't have means for permanent dignified housing, but simply cannot afford or find anything that's priced modestly. Rising rent rents, fixed incomes, and a lack of compact, highquality homes mean that too many veterans live in housing that is unstable, isolating, and simply unaffordable. Cottages represent a crucial safety net for many veterans. And I believe it is our responsibility as Americans and as neighbors to work tirelessly to make decent housing options available. The veterans I serve aren't looking for handouts. They're looking for homes. permanent, easy to care for homes that allow them to live independently and age with dignity. Cottages meet this needs. Cottages are not temporary shelters. They're well-designed built homes that fit veterans lives and needs and values. Council members and Mayor West, this ordinance creates the conditions for our veterans to remain in the community they serve, close to their family, close to doctors, and close to the VA center. I want to share for instance from my colleague an example Mindy Bacus who works with veterans transitional housing called warriors helping warriors and that's a place where a lot of our veterans go who are on the streets and when they go there they're able to reestablish themselves there's social workers there's case managers that will help them get a car get a job get whatever help and medical they may need

and once they graduate from that program that would be the veterans that maybe can afford once they have a house, I mean a job and get more settled, have a vehicle. Those are the ones that the VA would refer to the cottage houses. It's not somebody right off the street. This is somebody that's already gone to try to make their lives better. I want to share. Okay, let's see. Many many veterans in our area would jump at the chance to buy or rent a cottage. for those who choose to buy, they would be establishing their permanent homes. Now, also too, the face of homelessness is changing. Whereas before, we always thought about the men or the women that are on the streets because they're drinking or they're using or whatever, nowadays, I don't know about a lot of you, but I know I am two or three paychecks away from being on the street. And that's the reality of what we're living in right now. So when we have these these rents that are so high that they're not even capped, people can't afford that anymore. So I am seeing veterans, not just veterans, I'm seeing their whole families that now can't afford to live like they used to because maybe somebody got sick and couldn't go to work for a couple weeks, right? I'm seeing families with children that are now not being able to move to any other services because they can't afford it. So this is the face of homelessness is changing. It is not what you think is standing on the corner. Oh yeah, you're going to have the ones that's solicited. You're always going to have those, but those aren't the kind of people that we're talking about that need homes. We're talking about families. We're talking about veterans who have served this country that come back. It's a lot of times more damaged than they went there. And that's the reality of our world right now. So for this, you know, they represent our homelessness too. Everything from mental illness, substance abuse, they represent everything. So, cottage housing offers what many ve um many veterans are searching for, a

manageable home, a good neighborhood, and a chance to live fully and independently. The cottage housing ordinance does not approve any one project. It creates zoning tools our communities need to build the kinds of neighborhoods that work for veterans, seniors, and working people. I don't know if you're aware, but Sussex County has the largest group of elderly veterans. We have them down here. A lot of people retire down here. So, our population is also aging. Okay. So, that being said, there's things that could be done for some of this housing that makes it more accessible, like walk-in showers. People don't really think about that, but that's really important as our seniors get older. I asked the council to approve this or ordinance, not grudgingly, but as a reflection of our Georgetown values. Veterans deserve more gratitude and a disc than a disc discount card. They deserve more and better options for their home. Thank you. Thank you, [applause] Thomas Malroy. You know, I know how there's pros and cons to this. I know how it's touching people's hearts one way or the other, but this is about an ordinance that we're talking tonight. That's the only thing we're talking about. We're not talking about Little Living being at that one spot. We're not talking that one spot. We're just talking this ordinance to put it into play if so the council decides that could affect the town of Georgetown. I got a text message the other day from one of the head legislators that uh in Dover and she's coming down tomorrow to visit this. And I think uh Little Living has been contacted about going to Dover and

starting something up there. And then her comment to me was, "Mayor, you might be first looking at this, but everybody else is going to come on board." So, just keep that and and be keep that in your mind that this is probably what's going to happen in this state, you know, and uh it's up to this council, whatever they decide they want to do, but just keep that in your mind that it's going to happen. And it it's better to happen with us making the decisions on what it should look like, what the zoning should be, instead of the state coming down here and saying, "Oh, that piece of property, it's a brownfield. We're the state. We can do be neglect with a brownfield and we're going to put section 8 housing there. It can be done, ladies and gentlemen. It can be done, Angie, out by your house. Same thing. Property, they could buy that property that's out of town and make it in town and make that section 8 housing. Do we want the state to come down here and do things like that or we want to control it ourselves? That's what we got to look at. So, I'm sorry,

Mr. Mayor and the town council members. might I'm going to try to keep it quick. I'll go as quick as I can, but good evening. My name is uh Tom Mroy. I'm the executive vice president and treasurer for Little Living. And it's a nonprofit [clears throat] that we're interested in developing here

on East Market Street, a site that would be beautiful pocket neighborhood of compact permanent stickuilt homes for this is the important for Georgetown's workers, seniors, and veterans. My comments here tonight, they it's about the ordinance. They overlap a little bit relative to the site, but it's all about the ordinance. Presid provide the opportunity about having a cottage housing development, which is a townwide resoning tool, not an approval on any specific project. So, a vote on this ordinance does nothing for Little Living other than it lays the framework for any other project that can come along if it meets all the other location. and um standards of the of the uh town. In the last two council meetings and on social media, we have carefully noted 68 different concerns raised by a small number of worried residents. And we did this based on going through transcripts of the past meetings and looking at minutes. We looked at each one to see which ones we thought had actually had merit, but many of them uh we found did not because they didn't necessarily relate to the ordinance alone. they related to factors that are outside the ordinance more about preference of community uh standards or what things might have been like. So there were a lot of myths, a lot of truths or actually more myths versus truths and so many rumors of misunderstanding and a couple of them like you know here is one that cottage housing with a little lower uh property values in our research. You can go out as Dr. pressure said you can go out and research this and you can find data that tells you that we could not find any of these in these areas where any of the property values decrease. It's the same thing with crime. You know, it says that this is going to bring crime because we're going to have transient housing, etc. We could not find any statistics

that that showed any increase in crime related to these cottage units that are outside the country. And I'm going to come back to that in a moment. But the other one of the other myths is that uh Georgetown here it is. Georgetown shouldn't be a test site. Okay, it's not a test site. There are 35 different cottage unit developments that are across the country. There's actually more, but there's 35 that we identified that were unrelated to uh homelessness and transate houses. Thank you, Simon. And you can see they're all across the country. Okay. Okay. And yeah, there's only this one. There's not any in Delaware today. Okay. But there wasn't some in some of these other ones either, but they're but they're growing. Okay. You can see they're all across the country. Red states, blue states. Uh they're there. Okay. Some as old as over 20 years old. Okay. So, these communities are growing. You can again you can look at you can find them. We'll have the statistic. You can go right to their website. You can see the picture of them. They look like pretty darn nice communities. Now, some are zoned a little different than what we here. The zone here is calling for 12 houses per acre. Okay? Some of them are nine. Uh some sites may not even though they're zoned for 12, you may not get 12 on it because of the shape of the property and whatever other limitations come about because the town would like to see something different, a different configuration, more green space, etc. But these cottages are successful, you know, and they're growing and there's going to be more just like uh there will be more in Delaware here at some point. So after we completed our analysis, we actually went out then and we actually started talking to people and we did we did talk. We met with a lot of different organizations and groups. They were consisted of Georgetowners and people outside of Georgetowners being people that work here, people who are involved with the community, not necessarily all residents, but they were faith leaders,

business owners, veterans, housing advocates, and residents from every part of the town. And once they saw the facts of the ordinance and examples from other American towns, they understood that the benefits to Georgetown's workers, to its seniors, to its veterans, uh, were very very positive for the businesses and also for our churches. So, one myth that I I just touched on has been particularly harmful, which is one that we pointed up here. Again, it's the myth that we're a guinea pig. Guinea pig implies that it's something that's that's bad. Somebody has something has to be the first try to build and be a leader. And that's the one thing when we started when we came here and start to look and disc have discussions. The leadership of the town wanted to make a change. They wanted to do something different. They looked at those lots and they looked at some other areas of the town and they said there there should be something different. No one's wanted to develop on this commercial space for over 20 years. What could we do different? What could we make happen here? And that's where we went from thinking, oh, one lot, maybe maybe there's an opportunity for three and because we're uh an organization that is looking at workforce housing, there were opportunities within Denre that could provide the funding to remediate this land, okay, to make it something usable and livable around the houses. Now, there are some comments here tonight about a parking lot. Okay. Yeah, there'll be a parking lot there. Okay. Because one of the reasons is that Denrech has come back out of their concerns. Even though they don't believe, they think that a lot of the aspects that were there 20 years ago no longer exist as beta. Just to be safe, what they're asking is we would like to see that area to the um I guess north north side for up uh towards closer to town, lot 501 that that be paved over, not with stones, but

actually be solid pavement to prevent any type of uh um potential for gases or any type of uh contaminants to be leeched out of the soil and into the air. It'll be it'll be effectively be locked. Okay? And that's why that's going to be a pavement. We plan on not making it an eyesore. We plan on putting some fences and some screening around that. We actually plan on putting a solar panels and covered roof around it. Okay. Something different to make it economical and affordable for these uh individuals and families that'll live there. So there are other, as I noted, there's many other towns here that have done this and they've prospered. So what I like to do uh Simon the next one who so we talked a little bit about who's here you me we mentioned these names but do you think about it there are workers and medical workers teachers veterans many of the people that we spoke to said well you know my kids are back living with us they could not afford the apartment they were in or the or the rents went up even though they had maybe had two incomes and they worked in Georgetown they wound up moving back into town with their parents because they couldn't afford. And this is coming from the parents who are trying to help them. I don't think any of us like that scenario. We want our kids to step out on their own and to grow just like many of us did when we came when we started in in in real life. Okay, that's what they want. So again, it's not just these people, but it's their children and it could be our parents also are looking for something to to live with. So members of the council, Mayor West, Mr. Councilman Barrett Evans, Tony Neil, and and Christina, I can't see that far. But I want to tell you what your vote here does today relative to this ordinance.

It will adopt a careful evidence-based zoning for cottage housing. It will keep all the current and future building, fire, environmental, wellhead protections fully enforced. You lose nothing. all the regulations stay in place. It will preserve the council's full authority to approve or reject every project one by one if they want to come forward. And this will be done in public, not in discrete back rooms. The other thing this won't do tonight, this vote will not do, it does not approve any specific project or parcel. It will not tie your hands, councilman, or create uh automatic up approvals. It will not wave public notices, hearings, or proper public consultation. So, on behalf of Little Living, uh, a nonprofit which wants to invest in Georgetown, again, all the money that we put into this project will stay here. All the monies that come from rents will stay here. Okay? All that, all the money that we're able to raise for remediation efforts will stay here. Okay? So, I respectfully urge you to vote yes on this very normal, very helpful, and well-written ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. You got You're on the list to talk. Yes, you are.

Paul uh what is it? Bush Bushner. Bushnes. Hello, Bob Butchnes. I've been a business owner in Georgetown for 21 years, most of the time out at DelTech. I've been there since uh 2008, um actually 2005. And I've also was out at the airport for 5 years and also at the Cheer Center for 5 years. I'm a caterer and I love Georgetown. I love riding through Georgetown several times a day. I love the way it's dressed up for every holiday. I love the circle. I love the way the ladies take care of planting and making it beautiful. I love the fountain.

And you Thank you, cuz it it's great. And I come in early in the morning, 3:30, 4:00 in the morning, and unfortunately, I do see things that aren't pretty. I've seen people on benches. I've seen people sleeping on church steps. And that's sad. and I hope that something can be done for them. But I'd like to als you also to know that out of the 10 full-time employees I have, there's only two that live in a house that they own. The others all rent and 90% of them travel over 30 minutes to get to work and back uh one way each each time. It would be nice. They would all like to live closer to work. People don't want to drive 30 minutes. And as time goes on, the driving here gets harder and harder and more frustrating. As we all know, I think that if we have things that are more affordable for younger folks, not so younger folks, that it would make Georgetown a better place to be. You would have a better workforce, a workforce that's close. you'd have people that could get to the businesses and support the businesses in Georgetown. And I'm asking the council if you would to consider all that. Um, vote yes for this ordinance and the future employees living in Georgetown, not having to commute. The businesses that will harvest from the new residents that'll be in Georgetown will reap the benefits of new residents. There'll be new taxes to be re to be reaped in to help the town to continue to be a beautiful, wonderful town that needs what every town needs, love and support from the community. Thank

you very much. Thanks. [applause]

Surprise, surprise. I signed up and didn't do it. Um, that's my wife. She volunteers me for everything. Um I have a question for for you sir. Um you mentioned remediation um of the property and then you mentioned about black top and over. What is it? Remediation is taking all that that brown out and then but what you're doing is capping it. Any business can do that. They haven't come in here yet because it hasn't been remediated yet. Yeah. Come on. Let's hold your questions. Talk to them afterwards if you want to, okay? Or write them down so we can get them answered and we can put them on the web page.

Okay. Well, I could just keep on talking um to the to the clouds because apparently nobody's listening. Um I saw on WBC $350,000 was already granted to Little Homes, Inc. or whatever they call it. And and they specifically said East Market Street. So, how in the world did they get $350,000 and nothing's been approved yet? And specifically for that property, there's my one question. Two, you keep bringing up veterans. I'm a veteran and a lot of us a lot of veterans um that served in Army's, Marines, and everything are wheelchair bound. In previous meetings, they talked about the bathrooms not being ad ADA approved or large enough in order to in order to get the space. They would not be able to um have these people getting in and out of the bathrooms. And um so you can use the veterans as as a good gimmick to get in, but if they can't use the the facilities and and you know they've had injuries, you know, my son looks as healthy as anything, but he's 125% um disabled and by government standards. So, I mean, these things are long-term stuff. And, you know, you can talk about using the veterans as as a as a ploy to get people. And it's just like, you know, certain sides of the aisle use um the children all the time. You know, it's always about the children. Well, the veterans is is another one of those ps and that I'm sorry when someone tells me you can't have ADA um bathrooms, then you turn around the other um and again, you know, re remediation. I said something to Bill about that and um one of the meetings that you know said they're planning on remediating it and he shook his head no. So, how can you

say you're going to black top that over, which would be good, but then on the other hand have all that contamination under the ground. If that was the case, we could have commercial properties coming in there. And we have lost so much commercial property in town because of this monstrosity of a courthouse that we have. And then we've lost all the properties out here, you know, um um taxpaying businesses. We get the Hardies, the Arby's, um the shore distributors and Bard and all they've had to move because now they're going to take up that space. So this commercial property is is important. Concept of little homes is good, but not there. My god, that's been my argument from the, you know, day one is move it out. You know, Railroad Avenue, there's properties, there's farmland out there. It's it's it's not on the main stretch. We're trying, you know, this is a historical town. We have all these signs up here and the church over here 1791 and the town um you know, it's establishment is out here. There's history here. and to put that in this town where you want to do it. And yes, it's going when you have a 800 square foot home next to 4,000 square foot homes, it's going to take down the property values. I'm sorry, but just the way it is. And um you know, you can you know, I was I wasn't born yesterday and uh I I've been around and I just I'm against it. I think you're for his dislocation. Um, and today we had to call the police station because the dad blasted homeless were out there holding up traffic trying to get money out of cars trying to leave this town, trying to leave Walmart. And I had to call the police station to get that done. Um, we've complained constantly about God's way. Now they've

taken half of that overhang and enclosed it with plastic and everything else. Domino's has has called and complained numerous times to get that state of the subject. But this is all associated with this dad blasted town. We're just losing our town to stuff that's just not good for our town. And I am a taxpayer and I've worked my butt off all my life to get what I've got. And I darn if I want to see it wasted. Thank you. Angie Townsen.

I'm Angie Towns and I live at 20293 Andis Road. I've been coming to these meetings, hearing people talk, and what it comes down to is you're going to vote on it tonight. But before you vote on it, I want you to think back when you first took your oath of office and what that oath of office said. It's that I do proudly swear to carry out the responsibilities of the office of town of Georgetown mayor council person to the best of my ability freely acknowledging that the powers of this office flow from the people I am privileged to represent and that's us the taxpayers that have been here week after week after week talking against this and to me this this This this process does not make sense. I went to the planning commission meeting for 501 and 503 East Market Street. Change the zoning. So the comp plan, the planning commission listened to us. We got up and spoke against it. They listened to us and they voted against it. They want to keep it commercial. But then all of a sudden now it's coming to council. were writing an ordin ordinance for little homes. Why do we need an ordinance for little homes if this property hadn't come up? So, it doesn't make sense to me. And now we have a public hearing at the beginning of the meeting. But if we pass this ordinance, that [snorts] public hearing is going to pass because who's going to turn that down? And when I read, my husband and I, we were really, really upset, kind of pissed off when we read that they received $350,000 in a grant for 501 and 503 East Market Street. How' they get a grant if it hadn't nothing has been

approved yet? I wouldn't know. Nobody's answered that. And it's a nonprofit. Are they going to be taxexempt? There's 74 acres, so the town owns. It seems like the town is its driving force behind this project. If the town is so wrapped up in this project, let's do a compromise. You own 74 acres, donate an acre out on South Avenue. Donate an acre to them, but don't put it on East Market Street where everybody that drives into town is going to see these houses 10 feet apart with one and a half cars. I haven't figured that out yet. How do you get a half a car? So maybe it's a little Fiat. They're about the size of a half a car and a paved parking lot. Where are kids going to play? And the odors that come from Purdue. We've all talked about it. We've all talked about it. And everybody talks about home ownership. All right, that's fine. But these are rentals. Who's going to profit from this? And like I believe it was Sue said, every time you hear somebody talk, rents go up. The amounts go up. So what is going to be the rent? and who's really going to profit from this? But no one has answered my question as to why why the rest of the oath says, "I further um swear or affirm always to place the public interest above any special or personal interest and to respect the right of future generations to share the rich history and natural heritage of Delaware." So, I think you need to listen to the people that voted for you guys and put you there in office. Thank you,

John Gossart. Mayor West, honorable members of the council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. [clears throat]

I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening and to lend my support and the support of VFW Post 7234 Ocean View, Delaware for approval of ordinance 20257. I am John Goss. I am the past commander of VFW Post 7234. I am the current judge advocate and I am the captain of the honor guard. I am a Vietnam veteran. I am not a gimmick. Our current commander, Chad Meyers, sends his greetings. Our post is the largest in the state of Delaware. We have over 4,000 members and we are active in our community and uh in our help a veteran program and we spend many many days every month at the Georgetown veteran cemetery f pay paying final tribute to our deceased comrades and veterans with volley and taps and the folding and the presentation of the United States flag. Affordable housing is an issue of great concern, not only in Georgetown, but throughout Sussex County. In particular, it is a real life issue for our veterans, our seniors, and young families. Approval of this ordinance may be and can be the first step in enabling the creation of cottage housing here in Georgetown and in Sussex County. Let me address my remarks to veterans. Cottage housing is not a new concept and has and continues to meet with great success throughout the United States. You saw the b the the map this evening.

Delaware and in particular Georgetown and Sussex County should help advance affordable housing for our honorable veterans. It is the right thing to do. It is not enough to honor and celebrate our veterans only on Veterans Day. In the summer, late summer of 1969, I returned from Southeast Asia. I landed in Oakland Army Air Force Base and I was being discharged from the United States Army. Having served my tour and completed my service, I left Oakland Army Air Force Base in my dress uniform and I went to the San Francisco International Airport where I was going to fly home to the East Coast and be reunited with my wife and my family. While I waited at the San Francisco International Airport for a number of hours, I was verbally abused. I was called terrible names. I was spit at. I was dishonored. Me, a veteran who served his country. The abuse and the rejection of the Vietnam veteran was shameful. Well, this clearly is not the same issue today. Today, we do not we do not we do not turn our backs on our veterans. Our veterans, many who are disabled or on fixed incomes, can benefit from cottage homes where they can seek a safe community and a safe place to live and a

safe place to call home. I respectfully urge that this council approve the zoning ordinance and I thank you for your time and your consideration. [applause] Sir, we all thank you for your service. [applause] Tish looks like Gayla G. Okay. I'm sorry, honey.

That's okay. Uh, I'm Tishk Galoo. I live in Ocean View. Um, however, I'm representing the St. Fitz Depal Society for the Council of Wilmington, which has 30 active conferences throughout Delaware and Maryland, and one is right here in Georgetown. And our goal and our mission is to help our neighbors remain in their homes um whether they're rental or home ownership um have heat in their homes and food on their table. Um we have been in existence in Delaware since 1928. We visit with our neighbors and we try to help them as best we can with pending bills, but also to direct them to additional services. Some of the programs that you've heard here tonight, we utilize as well and work together. The neighbors we meet are trying to maintain a home and pay for all of their needs. And they're not homeless. They're individuals that have been paying for rent in this area for a long time. But as was mentioned by many people here, the cost of living has been has increased dramatically. um what it costs to pay have someone pay for rent and then also make a car payment, pay for their electricity um and pay for their other bills has become extremely difficult and that's why we are servicing thousands and thousands of families each year. Um, we have spent in our dascese over a million dollars to keep people in their homes and pay for their electricity and their other costs. Because if you if your car breaks down, you can't get to the job that you have. And therefore, what do you do? You lose your pay. You can't pay for the car to get fixed. It's a it's a revolving circle. what a what an affordable house

like this through this ordinance would be is a real home for someone. There could be the possibility in the future of renting with the possibility of buying those that has been options for some of the um tiny living or uh little living that have been in other parts of the country. So, we support this ordinance to be passed here to help our neighbors, to help them live and be able to continue to work here. Thank you for your time and listening this evening. Thank you. [applause]

Is it Torah? Tori T O R O [clears throat]

Greetings to Georgetown Mayor West, to all the council members, um to the town manager, and I'm sorry, but I I didn't get your name or or title, but to you too, young lady. Um and to everyone that's here tonight, and everyone who's uh observing this virtually, my name is Toro Lubie. My business has a Georgetown address and my personal residence was once in Georgetown. Georgetown is special to me. It's the place I called home when I moved to Delaware. It's the first place that I found this state, this county, this community had a way of being personable to its neighbors in a way that makes a person feel at home. I've lived in several places along the East Coast, and I proudly tell my family and friends how I've never felt more welcomed in a community than this one. Ever since being a resident, a sense of heartfelt warmth about Georgetown has stayed with me. So, for this and many other reasons, Georgetown holds a special place in my heart. That's why I support ordinance 257 202507 to allow cottage housing developments in UR1 zones in Georgetown. I lived in Georgetown for years before my rental became too expensive. I currently work from my residence in another part of Sussex County. Now much of the money that I would have spent shopping, doing business, dining, and donating in Georgetown is spent elsewhere. No doubt this same exodus has been repeated thousands of times by hardworking people, including honorable

veterans, along with graduating students who enter the workforce each year. This will continue if not course corrected. In closing, it's a fact we are in a housing crisis throughout the country. Let's also note that the strength of any town is directly related to the choices it makes to care for its own most vulnerable residents. One step in solving the problem is right here before each council member. Supporting ordinance 202507 is a step sto towards solutions. This vote is not about any single development idea. Each of which has to be crafted on its own merits. This vote is about creating an environment for effective, mutually respectful, and civil dialogue to brainstorm as a community a solution for housing for all people in a way that represents the best possible solution that humankind can offer. Let's have all sides make sincere and genuinely well-intended suggestions towards a solution. in how to craft this concept concept. I urge each town council member to vote [clears throat] yes for ordinance 202507 to allow cottage housing developments in UR1 zones in Georgetown. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. [applause] Michelle, [clears throat]

thank you. council and community members for allowing me to speak. I'm Dr. Michelle Williams and I'm a longtime member of the Sussex Housing Group and a member of the PO of of the uh subcommittee on policy for the state's affordable housing production task force. There's [clears throat] been a lot of confusion in the community. So, I'm going to start with the most important fact. Passing this ordinance does not approve, [clears throat] of course, this is going to happen when I'm going to talk. Passing this ordinance does not approve any one development, not a single home, not a single project. Nothing changes on the ground tonight. This ordinance only creates the option for applicants to have to propose cottage housing, smaller houses, starter homes, whatever you want to call them in the future. Regardless of what they're called, every proposal still has to go through a full site review. Thanks, Jean. Uh, planning commission hearings, public comment, and finally council approval. Now, here's what's matter. Here's what matters. First, Georgetown, Delaware, and across the country. The people who keep our community running, teachers, police officers, house hospital staff, retail workers, young adults, seniors, and like me, a veteran cannot find cannot find housing at a price that their wages allows them. When the workforce that sounds serves a town cannot afford to live in that town, long-term stability is at risk. This ordinance gives us one practical, scalable tool to begin closing that gap.

It's not a solution. It's not the solution. It is a solution. Delaware's housing director Matt Heckles put it plainly when he said, "We cannot meet today's demands with yesterday's development patterns. Our housing system no longer matches our economic reality. We need to modernize." And that's exactly what the state's affordable housing production task force rem recommended. Expand flexible zoning. allow cottage courts and small-scale housing and reduce barriers that prevent communities from meeting workforce needs. This ordinance, the one that you're considering tonight, follows those recommendations precisely. It's not radical and it's not experimental. Cottage courts, also called cottage clusters or micro communities or pocket neighborhoods, they exist all over the country. The National Home Association of Homebuilders estimates there's about a thousand of these type of communities that were under construction as of two or or built out as of 2021. So that was four years ago. This type of missing middle housing has proven to be stable, attractive, and low impact on the neighborhoods for over two decades. Second, I commend the town of Georgetown for choosing to update your zoning terms rather than having to wait for Dover to impose these rules on you. And we don't like mandates. Well, I'm speaking for myself. I don't no question about it. The mandates are coming. But the town of Georgetown is taking a proactive path, adopting a thoughtful, locally tailored ordinance before the state dictates something broader and

less flexible. This keeps the control here in Georgetown where it belongs. [clears throat] So, let me close just by bringing us back to the heart of this vote. This ordinance doesn't approve any specific project. It doesn't build a single home. It simply gives Georgetown a modern, transparent, predictable tool to consider small-scale, modest housing options that support our workforce while preserving every layer of public review. And it's amazing and wonderful to see everybody out here. Uh, passing this ordinance helps Georgetown grow responsibly, maintain local control, and support housing options for the folks that work for you every day in this town. So, I respectfully urge the support of this ordinance. Thank you. [applause] Only two to go. Dennis Windsry.

Good evening. Dennis Winsenreed, 23365 Park Avenue in Georgetown. Um, just couple of things. When I was first married, we lived in a three- room apartment. Okay, rent was oh $450 a month including utilities. That enabled us to save up enough within a year to buy our first house. Okay, this is what we're talking about here with this ordinance. Did a little research and workforce housing. Workforce housing is defined as families making between 60 to 120% of the area median income. For those of you that don't know, did the research, Georgetown's area median income is $49,000 a year. Okay, what does that translate into? Okay, affordable housing is defined as no more than 30% of income. So, if you take $49,000 as the area median income, okay, 30% of that works out to a rental of $1,225 per month. Okay, if you go down to 60% that works out to a rental of $735 per month. If you go up to 120% that works out to $1,470 a month. Little more research. The Oaks at Georgetown. One-bedroom, onebath apartment. Monthly rental, $1,525. There's obviously a gap here. There's a gap in workforce housing. This is what this ordinance is designed to

implement to allow. It's I don't necessarily support the location for Little Living. Need to do a little more research on that. But in order for us to address some of the problems in Georgetown, in order for Georgetown's young people to be able to grow up in this town like many of you did, and stay in the town, we need this [snorts] range of housing in Georgetown. This is what the ordinance is about is this range of housing. Otherwise, what's going to happen is your young people when they get their first job, they're looking for their first apartment, you're going to have to go out of town, maybe even out of state. So, if you want Georgetown to continue to grow, if you want it to continue to be the family town that it is, and you want 20, 30 years down the road for somebody to say, "I live here and I grew up here, you need to approve this ordinance." Okay? This is what it's all about. You know, I've heard people say, "Well, it future George future generations of Georgetown, protecting Georgetown for future generations. Your future generations can't afford to stay in Georgetown. That's the problem." Okay. Um, guinea pigs. No, this is something that's proven. This type of housing is proven. It's starter housing. It's to get people going. It's for people who retire and want to downsize and need to cut back. Social Security doesn't cut it for paying these kinds of rent. Okay? Most people on social security can't afford it. So, this is and a lot of people, myself included,

I'm on social security. I'm retired. I'm not disabled. A one-bedroom, one bath apartment for me just by myself would be great. And the beauty part about this is these are not smaller. I mean that the the one 953 square ft $1,525 a month. Okay, think about what a cottage apartment would be or a cottage dwelling rather would be. Your rental say it's 950 a month. Okay, for that you get one bedroom, you get one bath. Guess what? You get a front porch, you get a yard, you get space, you get your own private space, not living with somebody next door or above you. Personally, I think this ordinance should go forward, deal with the approval on particular pieces of property as they come up, but Georgetown needs this housing. You talk about the homeless situation, okay? People who are experiencing homelessness, they go through transitional housing. This is not necessarily for them. This is for people who have gotten back on their feet, but aren't ready to haven't gotten to the point yet where they can afford that first home. This is a step on the way to it. We need to have all of the steps in place. If you have one step missing, the ladder doesn't work. People can't climb up. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank [applause] Michael Rue. Thank you for letting me speak before the council tonight. I'm Michael Rue from Blaze, Delaware. I don't have a horse in this race uh for a couple reasons. One, I don't live in Georgetown. And two, I'm retired. I'm a wid 67 years old retired widowerower and living with my three-year-old Australian shepherd. Um, when you look at this, you need to look at having some compassion, some empathy, some sympathy, and also some caution in this process. Um, I lost my mother and I lost my wife a month apart back in 2018. Okay. I got hit by a Mac truck basically. Uh, not good fortune, but I settled the estate with my mother and I have some resources to fall back on. But I worked at DuPont for 17 years. just got laid off in 2001. I come out of the army, back up a little bit, come out of the army in 2000 or uh 1984. Bought a house in blades 335 $33,500 in 84 11 and 78% interest paid on it for 30 years. the value of my house regardless of what other people may consider because I'm going out feet first is how I'm leaving. I don't feel

like packing up 40 years worth of stuff. Um the value of my house is I don't have to pay rent. I don't have to pay a mortgage. Me being retired and a small pension from DuPont, not counting other resources I have at my disposal, which are finite, my monthly income is just a little bit above $2,000. I would like somebody explain the math to me of how you can make $2,000 a month and pay $1,500 a month for an apartment. We bought a three-bedroom house because that was all was available. I was looking for a rental. I had four dogs, two cats that I brought back from Texas with me and they said, "You're not going to rent it anything. You have to buy a house." Bought house through USDA. It was had been returned to them. That same house just was appraised by Sussex County for $191,500. Square footage price is $200 a square foot. A tiny house is $500. That's $100,000 for a house that's half the size of mine with a mortgage on a 30-year mortgage is going to be about $650. I my last job I worked for an engineering firm doing septic design and and subdivision planning uh for a very tight boss but it was a fourperson shop. When I left there, when he was getting ready to retire, when I left there, I went through 60 resumes,

13 interviews, and had one guy say, "Oh, you're asking too much money, and you got too much knowledge." And I kind of bit my tongue on the too much knowledge part. I was asking $15 an hour. And this was in 2017. Now I could go into Royal Farms, make the same amount of money. But my last job, swore I would never go back to factory work, was working at the Purdue plant in Georgetown in ground chicken in 40 and 50 degree temperatures at 60ome years old. And my take-home pay by the time you take off 30% for taxes was about $10 an hour. They were paying $15 an hour. Take 30% for taxes. Okay. 10 * 40 * 4 is $1,600. How's the math work on that for the chicken? And how many people in this room eat chicken? You know, I I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but we all rise together or we all sink together. If you think you come down here from Jersey or wherever and cheaper taxes and cheaper housing and you're not paying attention to the people at the bottom to allow you to enjoy that retirement down here, we all either rise together or we all sink together. The homeless problem is not going to go away. the people living in Pallet Village. And I will say this, the cautionary part I saw a beautiful presentation of and I can read an architectural plan. Beautiful presentation of how Pallet

Village was going to be laid out. storm water management, 22 foot wide access for emergency vehicles, uh landscaping, everything was going to be laid out. And as soon as it was approved, I could see the plans going in the trash can. You got to have the followup. It's not just approving and setting the guidelines for what you want for a development, but once it's approved, don't just pass it on and say we're done. It was also supposed to be a two-year pilot program built on temporary funding. So, you know, you have to do the follow through on these things. You know, you have to I'm firmly believe in a hands up program, not a handout program. And as far as little living, I don't know much about them other than what I've read in the paper. But to me, some of these houses probably need to be uh similar to the Habitat for Humanity. put some sweat equity into it because if the person has to put some work into building their own home and if you can build a shed, you can build a house. Me and neighbor and his 70-year-old father put up a 3500 square foot house with a fourc car garage and a sevenpiece 52 foot beam in the summertime. So, I made a mistake of volunteering for this job. uh but he served as his own subcontractor. Well, I and I know this is not directly with uh Little Living, but if you right now, if I wanted to put up a tiny house

in Delaware, I had to buy a halfacre lot, AR1. I have to turn around and put in a well, $10,000. I have to turn around and put in a septic system which is another 30 to $50,000 depending on where it's located. And then you're talking about a 500 square foot house that if I get somebody else to build it, then I got another 100,000 tied up in it for something half the size of my There's no place to put a tiny home. There's no pl you don't have homeless tent encampment in the zoning regulations. You don't have tiny homes in the zoning regulations. Nobody wants to do anything about it, but the freight train's coming down the road and it's either be proactive like you're attempting to do of coming up with guidelines, making sure the guidelines are clear and having a method to enforce those guidelines or wait till somebody else tells you, well, you got to do this or you got to do that, you know. and I I appreciate the time and I thank you all for listening to me. Thank you. [applause] Okay, council, we're at the point where uh it's in our court. We uh have got this uh second reading and uh and approval or disapproval of ordinance 202507 before us. And with that uh I entertain a motion to move forward with the the resolution.

And I I have a couple questions. Um something I was listening to here tonight. They've already been awarded a grant for $350 or $50,000. Can someone explain how do you get approved for a grant that the council hadn't even approved the site going there? Can I mean that's a question that's been asked like three times tonight and I haven't heard answer yet. Yes, please come come up come up to the mic.

Dupont looked at what we were doing. Dupont came down and looked at the houses. Dupont interviewed us three times. They said, "What you're trying to do is a wonderful thing. We'll give you $350,000 if you can build that project." So, we don't get it unless that ordinance is passed unless we build our whole project, then we get it. So, it's not in our pocket now. We're not g we don't take any money out of the project. None of us get paid. There are no administrative costs in Little Living. None of us make a salary. Every single dollar we raise goes into that project. Every single dollar of rent we get, we have one we'll have a mortgage on that for probably a million, too. It's going to cost us about $4 million to build that. Uh, by the way, the the uh downtown development grants, we if we build that, we'll be the probably the biggest grant given in Georgetown over the course of that whole time. The grants haven't been coming into Georgetown because there's not that much building in Georgetown. Number three, we've already spent about 180,000 on the remediation. I just signed an an approval of another 150. They're going to take that old gas station foundation out. They're going to dig out the dirt. They're going to put new dirt in. We've done testing. There have been 27 wells put on that property. We know where the where the hot spots are. Those hot spots will be remediated by taking the dirt out. I heard somebody say that the parking lot. Why are you putting the parking lot in if you've remediated it? because we don't want to take a chance on people's lives. Furthermore, I just read this morning that Georgetown has requested $21

million to fix the water system in this town because there are contaminants in it. Well, there are contaminants in the ground that that go into your water system that we're pulling out that can have been sitting there for 20 years. So, we're not asking for anybody anybody money. We're not spending that 350 unless we have the we have the project built. Um I don't know how else to answer the question. All right. Thank you. I've got one more question. I was reading an article back in September. The Kent County officials declined a pre-application meeting with you guys.

That was because misunderstanding. We are having an applica pre-application meeting with them probably sometime in the next week or two. Number one. Number two, Kent County is extremely interested moving forward on this. Uh we've talked to them privately about it. The the reason it was declined is because there was a misunderstanding about one we parked one of our small buildings there. We were moving it to another location. We parked it there. They thought we were we were going to put it there permanently. So they thought we didn't get a building permit for it. That wasn't the case. So the building that building is gone now. There is no there are no nothing else to stop the meeting. The meeting is set is the engineer is scheduling the meeting in the next week or two.

Thank you. Anything else? Nope. That's it. Jean, this is for you. Um section B in the public hearing with the comprehensive plan amendment. This ordinance does not get passed tonight. then we really don't have to worry about the reasonzoning application. Is that correct? No, I think they're two independent items. I think the reasoning can still go forward.

Just reading through the notes and everything. We have a planning commission that's appointed for the town of Georgetown. Um, not one planning commissioner voted for this ordinance. Not one. you know, they look at all the information before the information comes to town council.

So, if not one of them thought that this even should change, then I don't see how we can overturn the decision that they've already made. Um, one comment tonight, conditional use instead of you are one. That makes a lot of sense. the council, no matter who's up here, would have more say on what goes on in Georgetown. If we pass this ordinance tonight, our hands are kind of tied. We might be able to hold it up for a while, but when the lawsuits start coming, eventually we're going to cave right in. We always do. Um, that's all I've got. Thank you.

I just want to make one clarification. I think in the case of the ordinance, the planning commission voted in favor of it with a recommendation to council. In the case of the reasonzoning of 501 and 503, they voted unanimous [snorts] that. But in the ordinance, they did because there was changes they wanted made. The first one was the incorporation of the purpose. The second change was not allowing it for it to be a owned home on leased land. And the third one was adding the um prohibition that it be um eligible for anything that's defined under supportive housing in our current.

Anything else? I'm good.

Eric, anything? Um, yeah, Ryan, a good ordinance. You you did your work. I had questions. Um, and it was good ordinance. So, if nobody else wants to, you know, you did your work. So, thank you. [applause] I I could come up with a whole lot of um fors and a whole lot of guests. Um the tiny houses, you know, where I work, we have a minimum 12,200 ft of living space where I work and um all the houses are that big or bigger. And all the houses are coming in right around 350 to 600,000. Um my son looked for a house for a long time and he wanted to stay here and he's in Queen Ans because he couldn't afford a deer. So, and he and he's got a good position here in Georgetown. [clears throat] Um, when I first moved here, we bought a small house. I'm I'm very old-fashioned, so I may not look old, but we believe that my wife had to stay home with our son. You have to live below your means. We bought a one or two-bedroom, one bath house because there was three of us. That's what I still live in. didn't upgrade it in the aspect of I'm going to go buy a three-bedroom house. I'm going to buy a five-bedroom house. No, there's only two of us now. I got an extra bedroom. So, I think about all these little things and I have no problem whenever we try to um do a development or I love planning. I love planning and developments. I I love picking them apart. But I think whenever we're looking at these small homes and the design of them

and where they could be, I think we're looking at something that would be healthy. So I'd like to put a motion on the floor if I can. I have a comment before we do that. Okay. All right. Go ahead, Christine.

I'd like to make I'd like to acknowledge first of all all of you who are here with your concerns both pro and con. I have turned a tried to turn a death ear to the conversations around the little living project because this is not what this is about. Um I want to I want to appreciate what my colleague former colleague and council person Angela Townson had to say and we do need to be reminded from time to time. Also sitting here tonight, I saw Miss uh Dennis refer to an issue regarding accountability that I brought up when all of what was happening with the homeless when we met at the time. But also remember that under Penuel Barrett's direction and uh former commissioner Dennis, Miss Dennis, I also had the pleasure of working on my first municipal project which was the rental issues that we were having in town. And so I I've learned a lot. And today I sit here as a 73 year old woman trying to make a decision on an ordinance that potentially between here and now I have about five nine years according to what a woman's lifespan is to make sure that the decisions that we make here tonight is going to be for the good of the future of Georgetown. And so I want to appreciate the the the both the pros and the cons because it

makes me want to be vested in this in this ordinance. I'll have you know that I'm on my third term as a council person here in Georgetown and I moved here in 2016. I am originally from the Dominican Republic by birth and an American by choice. I love Georgetown. And I've come to understand what living in a small community is. And sometimes I've had to learn the hard way. They call us come here. And I'm proud to be a come here because there are people that are proud to be from here and they paid the dues for the rest of us to come. I have uh when I got here, my intent was to work as a volunteer and give back to this community. For my first five years, I've worked for Habitat for Humanity full-time for five years while doing volunteer work. I have seven years working with Habitat for Humanity as a mentor on as a former vice president and retired of a for a Fortune 500 company. I proudly answer the phone, take out the trash, talk to any and everybody who comes through those doors. I have uh bent down and nearly had my head cut off trying to plant flowers or pretend like I'm planting flowers or know what I'm doing with uh arts and flowers. I have spent many hours working with nonprofit organizations here on leadership and helping people groom people in the Latino community to take responsibility for being in this town and contributing as contributing members of this town. We don't want to take away. We want to add. I have served my three I will soon have

served my three terms. All three uncontested. I don't have to be reminded of the people I serve. I meet every Friday with my town manager to discuss issues that I wouldn't even discuss here in public because I'm ashamed of some of the things that I see in this town. i.e. listen to people on that phone call every single day single mothers, veterans, most of whom are living in broken down mobile homes falling apart. Millions of dollars have been spent on patching up some of these broken down homes. There's a project right now at Habitat where I am getting I am the first line of communication to people and there are those days when I come home and I wish they wouldn't have told me their stories. They first start telling you the stories and you just can't stop them. So I I worry about the ones who won't have or don't have an accessible bathroom, but that's not their problem. They have water coming through there. They have issues with electricity. People who are single mothers, people who have lived in this town and made it what it is today. I think we suffer from what I've seen in the years that the years that I have been proud to serve as a council person is that we make decisions and then we wash our hands and then we think it's all going to work out. We all have to be vested because if you look around, where is the youngest

person here? Is that you, Rachel? No, that's you, little lady.

And you. We're making decisions for you because some of these projects, some of us here will not see through. But we have to get vested. We don't have to wait till the Linda Dennis of the worlds have to work backwards to make it work. And congratulations. you're now again working backwards on the homeless issues where we're now trying to deal with the things that you put together for the rental situation we're having. Don't let me talk about the rentals and this and the fact that we have lost so much property to rental housing and our houses there. People go to Milford to look at beautiful historic homes. Where are our historic homes? And so for the first time I need to say this because it may be the last time I'm able I'm going to be allowed to speak but I think that the planning commission needs to get their coonas together and make sure that if this is passed this evening that it is a challenge not just to the planning commission to all of us to make sure that whatever happens here tonight works or we find some other solution because the thinkers that are here today are not going to be here in the future. And the few little ones that are here is because their parent have an interest in having them here. And this little lady has been has been here and has gone through her misery. And I hope you do stay in this town. Not like a lot of the younger people who leave. The ones who stay are the ones who are going to be paying for whatever

decision we make here tonight. I'm not We have heard some of everything today. Some of it substantiated, some of it unsubstantiated. And so my hope is that whatever we do this evening that we come together as a town and we got a lot of business to take care of and we get to it. Not just when it's convenient to come together and just talk and shoot the breeze about it, but roll our sleeves up. I will continue to do whatever I can in the town of Georgia until the day I die as a volunteer. And out of my own resources, I have participated in many events that have been of benefit. And I'm proud to say that as this community that I represent, I represent the entire community. Bill says he appointed me vice mayor, although he doesn't let me do anything. Um, that uh I was a translator and that's what I was hoping to do. I was hoping to help people understand those who are pro and those who are against. And sometimes, yes, I get myself upset because I get emotional about things. And so we need to stop talking. We need to make sense of the things that we don't understand and we need to be honest with each other because the people that need to be here, we're making decisions for the people that still have a few years to live. But we need to make decisions for the people we're leaving behind. And I feel like whatever decisions that are made here today has to come with some commitment. and the planning commission is given an opportunity to get ahead of the problem, not to have the people to have to deal with the issues that come because we didn't fix the problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Christie. Oh, gracious.

Uh, no matter how this vote come out tonight, we still have to learn to respect one another. That's the bottom line. I I listen a lot of things. Uh I mean a lot of things good and some weren't so good. But I'm 70 years old and I've been in this tale my whole life. I seen things that I shouldn't have seen. But I I I shortened it a little bit. My dad, my mom was my hero because in where we lived at, we didn't have a whole lot. We live across town where they didn't have just running water outside bathrooms and stuff. It wasn't easy. We lived two bedrooms with seven kids, but we made it. There was no hero. You know, not saying everything would be perfect, but I look at and try and find nuggets of life. I was 14 years old when my dad and my mom went and got a heist built through USDA. They were the happiest folks in the world because somebody gave them a break. Somebody gave him a shot to come from across the railroad tracks to come up town a place that we weren't allowed to be sometimes. I'm I'm just being real. But my dad every day from cross town to out here to ter he walked every day watching them put every building this house. You hear me? He was the happest man in the world. Now he taught us great values and a lot of we didn't have a whole lot of money but we was content with we had and I just believe my heart believe is is looking at a different way. You know somebody got to give somebody a chance. We have we got a lot of stuff that we

ain't going to work. We'll work whatever. But I believe some things can work will work. But we have to give it a chance and we have to be real about it. If you see something that's broken, it's not working, let's try and fix it. Let's try and make it better instead of creating some kind of chaos to tie it down further. So, you know, I respect everybody in here. I've grown up with a lot of people in this room and your families and they knew me. my dad, my mom, and we was good old good old Georgetowners. We seen a lot of rough things, but one thing about it, I learned through life in this town, we learned to respect one another. And I think we need to go back and get that back. I guarantee we'll make this this will make Georgetown great again, a respect.

Thank you. Thank you, D. Just just a couple things for me. I've heard $350,000 uh three or four times tonight and uh on social media that was posted that uh the town manager and I had done some backdoor dealing.

I want the person to write that wrote that to put it in writing of how we done the backdoor uh deal for the 350,000 and then uh show it to me cuz I can guarantee I can sit right here on a Bible and tell you right now it did not happen. It did not happen. He told you where he got the money. The town had nothing to do with it. So, I hate the lies that are being posted on social media. I hate social media anymore. The other thing is looking around this room, there's a lot of people in here's been lucky. Lucky we had a mom and dad to take care of us. Lucky we had a mom and dad that put us underneath a roof and took care of us, that put food on the table. And we were lucky to grow up and not be killed in a car accident or killed by alcohol or drugs. And we matured to become adults. And we've had to work through that all of our lives. And look at each one of us now that we can be proud of ourselves of what we've become. And when the comment was made about the code of conduct and and what's supposed to be done, but them words that we rep people in this town, not just the white people, not just the afroamerican people, not just the Hispanic people, but all people. So when we sit up here, we got to look at what's best for Georgetown, not what's best for the white people, what's best for the town of Georgetown to move forward to be something in years to come. Thank you. [applause]

Eric, you want to move forward with your motion now? I can do that. I'd like to make a motion that we um approve ordinance 2025-07 as written. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Christine. All in favor sign by saying I. I. I. Opposed. I. Roll call. Ward one. I. W two. I. W three. I. Ward four. I Oh, no. No. [laughter] You got You got it right, B. You got it right.

And And I'm an I. That's uh four four to one. So, the ordinance passes. Uh so we can move forward there. [applause] It's just the ordinance. They've got to go back to planning and all now. So it's just the ordinance. It could be put somewhere else. Resolution 20257. Jean members of council item number. We still got business to go on. people, please. What you take it all outside.

Stay in the cold. I didn't mean to. We still got business to go on, please. Members of council item number 20, item number 12, 12A on the agenda, resolution 2025-07. This is a request to allow Davis Bone and Fredell the town's engineer to found an application for a Delaware emergency emerging contaminant small or disadvantaged community grant from the Delaware state housing and Delaware Health and Social Services to design a treatment system for emerging contaminants within the town's drinking water system in amount $950,000. Pleasure of the mayor and councel.

Questions? Councel? If none, I'd entertain a motion to move forward with a res resolution 202507. So moved. Thank you, Christine. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Penal. All in favor signify saying I oppose. Roll call. W I. W two. I. W three. I. W four. I. And W me. Five. Five. Moving forward. Resolution 202508.

Members of council. Resolution 2025-08 is a resolution authorizing the preparation and submission of an application to the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Public Health, Health Systems Protection for participation in a Delaware Emerging Contaminants, small or disadvantaged community grant program in order to receive up to $20 million to construct an emergency emerging contaminant treatment system. Pleasure of the mayor and councel. Questions, mayor or council? If none, I'd entertain a motion. So moved. Thank you, Pan. Second. Second. Thank you, Tony. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Roll call. Ward one. I. W two. I. W three. I. W four. I.

And I'm 50. Thank you very much. And to give the public a little bit of knowledge of this. There'll be more in my report. There'll be more in his report. But the water is safe. There's been comments out there about the water not being safe. The water is safe or the state would have shut us down. So I I don't want to hear that no more from the public that we've been hearing. So moving forward, resolution 20250, Gan.

Okay. Resolution 2020 2025-09 is a resolution adopting 2026 holiday schedule. New Year's Day January 1st, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19th, Good Friday, April 3rd, Memorial Day, May 25th, Junth, June 19. Independence Day, July 3rd. Labor Day, September 7th. Election Day, November 3rd. Return Day, November 5th. Veterans Day, November 11th. Thanksgiving Day, November 26th. Day after Thanksgiving, November 27th, Christmas Eve, December 24th, Christmas Day, December 25th, and New Year's Day, 2027, January 1. Pleasure of the mayor and council. Questions? Mayor or council? None. And entertain a motion. So moved. Thank you, Penel. Do I have a second?

Second. Thank you, Christine. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Roll call. Ward one. I. W two. Hi. W three. I. W four. I. And I'm an I. 50. Thank you. Uh, moving on. Resolution 202510 council.

Council resolution number 2025-10 is a resolution adopting the 2026 town council meeting schedule. January 12th, January 26th, February 9th, February 23rd, March 9th, March 23rd, April 13th, April 17th, special meeting. April 27th, May 11th, May 26th, which is a Tuesday because of the Memorial Day holiday, June 8th, June 22nd, July 13th, July 27th, August 10th, August 24th, September 14th, September 28th, October 12th, October 26th, November 9th, and December 14th. Pleasure of the mayor and council. Questions or comments? Council, if none, I'd entertain a motion to accept 202510. So moved. Thank you. Pen, you'll have a second.

Second. Thank you, Tony. All in favor signify saying I. I. Oppose. Roll call. Ward one. I. Ward two. I. W three. I. W four. I. And I'm an I. 50. Thank you very much. Council. Moving forward to departmental reports. Down. Town manager Gene Deorn.

Okay. Members, council. Couple items. First one is an update on some projects. So the salt barn, we did achieve substantial completion. This is a picture from um three different angles at the front of the building. So we have three direct bays that we can store materials in and two drive-through bays on either side. The concrete pad was poured. Uh we should be putting into service shortly. Number two, pump station rehabilitation. The last pump station was the big park pump station. So the meadows, three bells, the health unit, blowers at Gordy Street and Stevenson Lane have been completed and the big park pump stations have been completed again achieving substantial completion. The only things remaining um as you can see the controls have been redone is we're waiting on windows and doors which are backordered and they will be um installed once they're received. Um with respect to emerging contaminants, so we did install our pilot plant at the Stevenson Lane um water treatment facility, we are testing four separate absorption media uh to our granulated activated carbon. One is an ion exchange resin that's mic macroorous and one is an ion exchange resin which is a gel type. This is to treat POS and POAS which are known as forever chemicals and are present in all drinking water. Uh the police department will be um ordering four new police vehicles um taking advantage of the ordering window which is open now and we will handle disposal of the vehicles that they're replacing. Update on street lightings. Burton Street has had the light replaced or installed sorry at the end of Burton Street at the um access to the Georgetown to Lewis bike trail. Old Park Avenue. Our efforts with Verizon continue and North Bedford Street. We're in the process of getting that scheduled. the um deposit that was necessary for Delma Vaparo has been submitted. Upcoming events, the Georgetown Police and Public Works facility groundbreaking will be this Friday, December 12th, 11:00 a.m. at 700 University Drive. The America 250 committee will be meeting December 15th,

3:30 here at Town Hall. Reminder, town offices will be closed Wednesday, December 24th for Christmas Eve and December 25th for Christmas Day and on Thursday, January 1st for New Year's Day. And in case anybody didn't hear me, the groundbreaking at the new police station and public works facility will be on Friday, December 12th, 2025, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. 700 University Drive. Parking is at Deltech and there will be um people to help you escort you across the road and there will be receptions following that at the clubhouse at the Village College Park. Please everybody come out please. Any questions uh to Jean Council?

Nothing. Okay. Uh, moving forward at the point of time of uh, public comment. Now is the time to hear from our public. We welcome your comments which are very important to us. Note that all comments are limited to three minutes. As a reminder, please go to the podium to comment. Please give your name, address, and address your remarks to the chair. Note that we will not be entering into dialogue at this time. The purpose of this agenda item is for you, the public, to inform us, the council, about your views. Miss Sue,

I'm Sue Barlo, 703 East Laurel Street Extended, Georgetown. I can't tell you how disappointed I am in your vote. I thank every council member that voted for violated your oath of office because you did not protect the rights of the people that are here now. instead of looking at what some pie in the sky project that's coming down the road. I'm very disappointed. On top of that, I've got a real com complaint about the lack of code enforcement. I could ride from here to my house and and five five or six code violations. not enforced. Been been going on for months and months and months. North Bedford Street code no code enforcement happening there either. It is a mess. The streets in this town, especially in Ward 2 that I visit every day because I volunteer at Robin Hood. The streets are horrible. And Laur Street Extended, we have grass growing in the middle of the street. streets are terrible, but I have seen no progress toward any of that. No progress toward code enforcement. And that's one thing that you really at least if you can't if you can't respect us as homeowners and everything else, at least you can try to fix uh make the business part of this town look a little better.

code enforcement in the new Gustapo.

Mark Rogers, Sunderberry, uh, I'm going to agree with uh, Miss Barlo there. Very disappointed. Um, mayor, you said a couple times and so did people from the Little Living and stuff. This was just about the ordinance. I heard one council member ask some questions. Councilman Barrett about it and everybody else talked about rough times and what they had to do and grow. You guys changed it about little living in the colleges not about the ordinance. Every one of you with the exception of Councilman Barrett was about the ordinance west you reminded people of we were here just for the living for the ordinance. Little living they stated several times oh this is just about the ordinance nothing really to do with them. Well, I don't know any other group that was interviewed by the news tonight prior to this meeting. I don't see any other group here that this is really going to help with this ordinate being changed. Mary, you also said you don't like social media stuff putting on there. I told that's one thing you and me do agree on. I've seen the Facebook post, too. People who don't agree with this is heartless. I don't agree with this. And I can tell you right now, I'm not heartless. There ain't too many of you in here. I said it last time that gets out of your bed at 2 in the morning to go to the pallet shelter to perform CPR or to go to the tent city and help carry somebody out. I'm not heartless, but I disagree with and I'll say one more thing. We saw some pretty charts. I can give you some charts. Make them look good, too. Let's not do that. We talked about how other [clears throat] places how this works. Well, we just that was just words. Don't take my word for it. Do what I said to you last time. Go to the carriage place where them houses were built years ago by Habitat for people who were having trouble, who didn't have the money. Go there. You can't get down the roads. They're overcrowded. We Nothing was even said about the

veterans when this was first brought up. And then when it started getting some heat, we started talking about the veterans. And I agree with Mr. Townsen. I think we bring up the veterans because we have a soft heart for them. I can tell you right now, if 20 veterans moved in there, I'd be I'd be happy. If 20 moms with little kids moved in there, I'd be happy. Maybe I'll come back two years from now, and I hope I do come back from two years now and I'll have to apologize. And I was wrong. But I got a feeling two years from now, some of you council people are gonna have to look at me and say, "You were wrong. That place will be overcrowded within two years." Within two years, you won't be able to get a fire truck if one of them places catches on fire. Go to the carriage place. Go over here to the department Joe's body shop. I said that last time. I'd like to know how many council people I know you won't raise your hand. Took me up on that. Wrote through the carriage place at 11 o'clock at night. Went to the went over here to these places over here. Again, if this was going to be about the home the uh veterans and young families trying to make it, I'm 100% on board. these places will be overcrowded in two years. If they're not, I'll come back and apologize. Um, again, very disappointed in council and you know, people has been saying maybe people like me need to get involved. I think that's what I need to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Linda Dennis, the village. Yeah, village Cinderberry. Um, I'm I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. But I want to move off of that. And I I I really feel that the town has lost an opportunity to advocate for a different strategy when it comes to affordable housing. We have thousands of apartments that have been built. All of them or most of them advertise themselves as affordable housing, workforce housing, which we all know is bunk. No one has stepped forward to try to put the county in the hot seat since most of these projects are within the county's authority and not the towns to ask or demand that builders set aside a certain percentage of all new construction for affordable. I don't even want to use the term affordable housing for lowincome housing for the same types of people that this project is attempting to serve. There have been I don't know probably five or six thousand rental units and we're about to see another hundred or so 200 or so in our own community. Not a single one of them is being set aside for anybody and the rents are exorbitant. They go anywhere from 15 to 22 to $2,500 which encourages overcrowding because a lot of people are doing multiple situations where they have to share the rental. That's not the solution. The solution is to try to get the developers through the county. We should be advocating with the county. Gan and Mayor West, you need to meet with the people over there and start talking about setting aside units in all new

developments that are being are either in the planning or in the planning process through their planning and zoning commission to set aside a certain percentage. Doesn't have to be 10%. Anything would help and it would help to solve this problem. It's not the not so much the burden on us. We're not approving thousands of rental units. The county, it's in the county's hands. We've missed an opportunity to make our pitch to them and I think we can still do it. So, I would suggest that you both meet with Lawson and whoever is over there in the planning department. I don't even know who it is anymore, but talk about a proposition to set aside a certain percentage of all units, especially rental units. The housing units, they're not going to do. I understand that when it when it comes to rental properties. The other thing um I just want to remind people that we have approved 150 homes that are rental homes that'll be done off of Parson's Lane. That group when they came before the planning commission talked about serving the same types of people that we were talking about tonight, professionals who can't afford to buy a home. And I had made the suggestion before that talking to Shell Brothers and the Wagabin family about setting aside a certain percentage of those homes for this type of house.

You're talking Barton Street, not Parson's Lane. Parker Street. Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. Had me confused for other Parsons Lanes. I don't remember any development. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No development on Parson's Lane. Okay.

Yeah, I got that confused. Anyway, um I still think that's worthy to of some discussion because there are solutions out there, but they're not directed at the people that we these people are saying they need to serve or that we should serve as a community. There are options out there. We just are not putting our case forward in an effective way. We don't have the control over the units the county does. That's where we have to make our pitch. Thanks for listening. Thank you.

You know, I've been sitting here all night listening to all these people talk. Let me tell you how we got here. Five years ago, I had serious cancer. I almost died. Half my insides were taken out. I didn't think I was going to survive. I had lost my business. I sold it at a penny on a dollar because I didn't want my wife to have to worry about it after I died. Well, obviously I didn't die. I'm still here. After that, I started I said, I got to do something. God kept me alive, so I had to pay him back. So, I started feeding some people in in Lewis. I I was told there were 45 people there. 30 30 adults, 15 children needed to be fed. I had no idea who they were. I had no idea how I was going to pay for it, but I started feeding them twice a week. The number grew to about 80, and I fed them twice a week until just recently when a group of people took over that project. Those people were supposedly homeless, but they weren't. They were out working every single day. They couldn't find a place big enough, so they were living in a hotel room. They had no kitchen to cook. I said, "This is America. This is wrong. I came from a little small town. I grew up in a little two-bedroom c bungalow with seven of us. My mom, my dad, my two sisters, and my three brothers. My sisters had the bedrooms. My mother had and father had the bedroom. The three boys slept on the floor on mats. We survived. We all went through college. They put us through they put us through Catholic school, college. We all graduated. We all did well for ourselves. I said, "We need to do that for these people that want to do that." I didn't know how I was going to do it. Came up with the idea of Little Living. This is not about houses. It's not about cottages. We are talking about, in my mind, building a community.

I want to tell you something, and I'm not looking for sympathy. My cancer came back. Five weeks ago, they removed half my lung. I'm not supposed to be here. I said, "I've got to be here. I don't understand people that are talking about all these crazy things. We're not trying to destroy Georgetown. We're trying to create a little village in Georgetown to help people. I'm sorry I lose my temper. Apologize. Your health's more important than anything, sir. Take care of your health.

Adam Bowski, 200 South Bedford Street. Um, like Linda said, like Mark said, like Janet said, uh, like to say I'm surprised about tonight, but, uh, I'm not. Um, it's amazing between five of you. Um, that's 10 ears and only two of them seem to work. So, thank you, Pennual. Um, someone listens to the people of this town. I guess you guys are hoping the uh I mean, some of you get to run uncontested, so I guess that helps. But uh the residents of the town will be voting accordingly when it is the opportunity to do so. Um clearly your support for this was not from within the town. I would say the majority of the people from within the town did have reservations or opposition to tonight's item on the agenda. Um, I do find it rather strange that we had a first reading on something that until the ordinance was passed tonight. Um, would have essentially been null and void. I do feel like we were putting carts before horses here. Um, once again, it's kind of predetermined. I, you know, hate to say it, but at this point, it seems like, uh, you know, it's Bill West's town and we all just happen to live in it.

I've been told about going after people. Okay, one more time and you're out the door. [snorts] Almost make it through the whole meeting. You kicked out at the end. Um, yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of how we feel. Sorry if uh your poor management has led to people feel that way, but here we are expressing our views. Just very disappointed guys. feel like you had a whole town here telling you how they felt and you decided to go with the voices of outsiders. So, you're the one that has to lay down your head and uh think about that tonight when you go to bed. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Adam. Anybody else at this time?

I'm Brent Marsh. I'm an old man. I I I soon I could compare high school graduation days. Anyway, mine Georgetown High School, class of 64. I did not know I was going to be so educated tonight. And and and I was really coming here to talk about how thankful I am because we just had Thanksgiving. And I am thankful thankful for a town where people can voice their opinions. I'm thankful for a council here that works together. I'm thankful for a mayor and his wife who seemed to be everywhere and have brought so many good things to the town. And I am thankful for a town manager who knows all about about sewage treatment pumps and also how to get a grant for $20 million. I am really thankful for all that. I don't think that everybody here represents the whole town. There's a whole other town out there like like Sunny says,

the majority of the town is is is minority and they're they're part of our town, too. So, I'm I guess I'm I want to say thank you and I'm going to also say this. I'm thankful that I'm not homeless. Thank you, Brett. [applause]

Since he called me, so I had to come and say something again. This is Sunonny Gani. Good thing is I'm class of 64 too. So Sue and you and me are of the same age. That's the interesting thing. It's a one good thing we got common in all of us. A lot of people are still confusing the ordinance versus passing the little living. I just don't understand why they can't separate those two things. And then some people are still saying that there is a complex coming around around the that's a voucher program. This is a regular free housing which people can rent or eventually similar housing can be bought. And I'm looking at this as a opportunity for the certain areas of this town where people can build houses which I've been complaining for about a decade that give us a chance so we can start putting up something so we can get rid of this overcrowding and other issue is somehow this uh ordinance and the little living got so close to each other that people lost their way. It has nothing to do, the ordinance has nothing to do with the little living. It just happened to be that they closed. The ordinance is needed to have this town grow with some of the areas which are kind of dead and that now the investors can come in, the builders can come in and they can do something with those properties where now the tent people are living that can be changed or some other places which are just sitting vacant. So think about it you know what you did. I know that a lot of people are disappointed and hey I'm it's okay that if somebody has to be disappointed and somebody has to be happy.

So it happened to be I happened to support this ordinance. So for me I think it's great and Barrett feels strongly which is okay. That's perfectly okay. That's what the democracy is. I remember few years ago when we had uh three people on this bench they did certain things just to out the spite to do things just because they could and you know that's what the democracy is now we have the tide has turned now we have enough votes to do things which the other way and it's offend offending a lot of people but it's not bad or good ordinance is needed for this town to grow So don't think about it good or bad and how it's going to reflect on other people. What you guys said it makes sense. It has to grow. And that's all I got to say. Thank you. Hopefully I can build a couple of houses now.

Thank you, son. Yes, ma'am.

Hi folks. I'm Reina Thomas. I I live in Roth. just wanted to um say that I work at the VA clinic and when I started working at the VA clinic in 2014 um the we were over on uh by the Taco Bell. I'm jealous you have a Taco Bell. We don't have one in Roit. So um and uh that building was obviously outgrown. We had uh 2500 patients when I joined as a physician there and then um I'm uh now we're looking into the um 7,000 8,000 range. Um, so we're talking about um this population um in coming to Georgetown and living in Georgetown. And so I just wanted to say that some of the concerns about veterans being um um paraded um as as a sympathy um uh evidence of of of or support um or to to garner support rather. Um, I think it's important to keep in mind that, you know, Lisa's here, I'm here to represent the people that we see every single day who are people who are working. Um, they're coming home. They went to Sussex Tech and Sussex Central and they can't afford their housing. Um, and, uh, I also wanted to clarify something about a disability in veterans and that, um, you know, the person who had made the comment said that the veteran um, that his son, the veteran had, um, service disability, but you couldn't tell. So that the majority of service disability is not related to um you know what would be uh paralysis or something that would require a wheelchair. Not to say that that wouldn't be um ideal in a in a perfect situation, but we're only talking about a a certain amount of houses here in a lot of people with need. And there are veterans that the top five disabilities are um tenitis, migraines, PTSD, things that are not muscularkeeletal in and things that would not require accommodations that we can't um uh fit into this current plan. We are talking about things in the future in other places. But I don't want

that to be something that sounds like um um inongruous in our in our um intent and our plan. Um, you know, I think uh the VA is here in Georgetown and um the amount of patients here are clearly um you know, part of this community um that have come from here um deserve to have people like Lisa and I who are working there be their voice. So, thank you. Thank you very much.

Actually, I just wanted to offer a quick PSA. Um our board of adjustment is one of our uh boards and commissions in town that actually has a vacancy that we've been trying to fill for a number of months. Uh so if you are interested in planning and development um might be a board for you. Um the board of adjustments sees and um judges relief from variances or special exceptions from the zoning code. um not as exciting maybe as uh some other things, but it's very important to the appeals process um in a development. So, if you're a bonafide resident of Georgetown and you have an interest in planning a development, um there is a committee interest form on the website that uh you can fill out and send our way or if you have any questions about it, you can email me or Jean and we'll be happy to answer any questions.

And the board of adjustment does not meet as often as the planning commission. That is correct. They only meet as needed. Um, typically it's on the first Wednesday of the month, though I feel like in the past year they've only met about six times. So, thank you, Brian. Thank you. So, anybody interested? Let's get involved. So, anybody else at this time? If not, motion to adjourn. So, moved. Thank you, Pan. Second. Second. Second. Thank you, Tony. All in favor signify saying I have a good evening. Got to bite your tongue. This is the bread.