Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

That was a clear

Yep. So, we will call to order the February 17th, 2026 Lane Antonian board meeting for town of Harris. Um, so without a quer, we do not have a quer. Need one more. Any motion? Huh? You need one more. One more. Can they adopt the agenda, Rich? Yeah, they can adopt the agenda. For what they're going to do tonight, you know. Okay. Okay. So, we have our agenda and we can adopt the agenda.

Yes. A motion to adopt the agenda. Motion to adopt. Second. Perfect. Favor. I. Okay. So, adopt our agenda. Um so, special presentation. We'll go straight to the special presentation. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Um chairman and board members. So, at the last uh public meeting, we had a legislative action um in which we discussed conditions of approval and such and uh I thought it'd be a good opportunity just to go over rules uh related to project review and conditions of approval. Um so just as a quick reminder uh the duties of our planning board planning and zoning board are called out in section 144032 of the unified development ordinance and you're all aware of these and have made these recommendations. So you advise on the comprehensive plan and land use planning. you advise on initial zoning such as if it was a annexation um somebody would go through with a reszone advise on zoning amendments and plan consistency. Uh I made note of this 30 days. So when considering a legislative action, sometimes the board may recall or call for uh a continuence to requesting additional information and such all within the um rules of uh board consideration. There is something in the state statute that says that um the board has 30 days to consider when they hear it consider a decision. Again, you can continue the item. Um but after that, the town council can call up the item and consider it. Now, I've done this for 30 years. I've never seen that happen. So it's never happened but it is in the rules just in the event that something gets caught up at a particular board. So I just wanted to just share

that uh you can also advise on other ordinances such as a minimum housing or if we had a historic district a historic preservation uh ordinances. Other duties is uh really the planning board is tasked with helping to monitor comprehensive plans. Many jurisdictions actually require the planning board uh to do an assessment, an annual assessment and report out to the council. Uh you can help facilitate uh excuse me, facilitate and coordinate citizen engagement uh regarding the planning process like your help at any of our neighborhood meetings that we had or public outreach for our comprehensive plans or the open houses. Um, and you can also serve on various special subcommittees on planning related topics. So, I just want to quickly I'm going to use the legislative process as an example just to remind the board of the process we go through uh to get a case before a board where whether it's a planning and zoning board or uh the town council. So if we have a legislative I'm going to say a conditional zoning any type of application we require pre-application. So they just meet with the town and they tell us they're thinking about a particular project on particular land and we lay out the framework for them and tell them if it's even possible um uh for what they're asking. Um, if they get past that, if it is something that's could be a viable project, we then typically ask them to do a sketch plan. A sketch plan is just a minor site plan on their way to uh a more uh welldesigned plan. So sometimes people

will refer to them as 30% plans or 40% plans. So uh somebody can go through a sketch plan and we may go through four or five iterations of a sketch plan. Um it is vetted by the entire DRC which I'll go over that um in a minute. So the DRC we meet at least twice a month. We actually uh have more meetings scheduled if we have a heavy uh workload during a particular month. Um, and it just keeps going through DRC every time they resubmit and we give them comments until it gets to a point where it's something that is in compliance with our code. Um, it may also include during the sketch plan phase if they need a traffic analysis, we go ahead and start that early. So that is all before a formal application for reszone is even submitted to the town. we have them really vet this out uh to see if it's going to make it through. Uh so once we get to a healthy sketch plan that's supported by the DRC and their traffic analysis uh traffic analysis is uh complete. It's in a draft stage. We then allow them to go to the neighborhood meeting. So the neighborhood meeting um is held right here at town hall. In fact, we have one this Thursday for two projects that you will be hearing about in on next month's um agenda. Uh so we have a neighborhood meeting and we notify property owners within 300 ft of the subject site. Uh and we host it. It's really a developer meeting. We're here to talk about process and parameters.

uh what the schedule is if it moves forward. Uh we are not here to def defend the project. It's up to the developer to present their information and we are here so we can also hear what the residents the adjacent property owners uh what their concerns are. So after a neighborhood meeting, uh we get the minutes from the meeting and we sit down with the developer and see if there are some major concerns, we try to see what we can do to help address those. So uh again, it sort of goes back to DRC. We work with uh the applicant to fine-tune their plan and then they're ready to actually submit a conditional resone uh plan if that's the type of case. So, uh, they file the application. So, at that point, the plan should be pretty solid at that point. Um, so again, it goes to DRC because we know we are getting it um in line for the agenda to the planning and zoning board. It may go through a couple of rounds with the DRC. We're trying to fine-tune it and establish conditions of approval to see if we've addressed uh what we as much as we believe we can. Uh so then it's scheduled at the planning and zoning board. It comes before you. Uh we present it. We try to answer your questions. Uh you do have the authority. Um there are some laws uh parameters about it, but you can place conditions on projects as well. and then your recommending board to ult ultimately the town council for a decision. So some projects, most of our projects take about a year to get from the very first time they call us to getting up in front

of the town council and some the larger projects take a little longer than that. So a little bit about the development review committee. So all the departments are represented and I see I missed one which is fire. So it includes engineering, public works, NC do uh attend the meeting of course planning department, economic development, uh park and recreation. We also route to uh the school district and inform Cabaris County so they can submit comments to us as well on any proposed project. So while every time this is going through DRC, we do uh give weekly reports or bi-weekly reports to the leadership team uh which is management here so they're aware of where a project is um and what's moving through the system. We also interact quite a bit with our our town attorney on projects just to en ensure we are following uh regulations or if they ask us legal uh questions, we do get back to them. And then also the sewer allocation committee, we do let them know early on that this is going through the pipeline so they can put it on their large spreadsheet as a possible u need in the future. So that is our development review committee.

Can you quickly just say who represent the sewer allocation committee are they appointed town staff volunteers? per our policy. It is town staff, it's uh leadership, uh the uh town manager, deputy town manager, public works, engineering, economic development, um planning. I'm trying to see if I'm missing someone else. No, I believe that is that is it. It's based on our policy. All right. So that brings me So that's a little bit about plan review. Moving on into the conditions of approval. So as uh provided in my last slide around the process, we work with the DRC team to try to establish cons uh conditions based on the site plan for your consideration. Uh these are presented to the planning and zoning board as well as the town council. Uh we also include conditions of approval in development agreements on our larger residential subdivisions or anytime we may be uh entering into a public private partnership. So on conditions of approve approval there are some basic limits to what we can condition in every case um our goal is to stay out of trouble and that's because we are lawbased the state identifies uh the parameters um and so we do push as hard as we can on on uh conditions of approval in our plan reviews But you have to show an essential nexus when you place a

condition on uh say a conditional approval. So you have to show that relationship. Um you can't require uh something that we are are not lawfully allowed to do like impact fees are not not allowed. we could not um require I'm trying to think of a a a certain uh situation um something that is just totally unrelated to um the project. Maybe you can come up with an idea. I'm drawing a blank but there has to be a relationship. And then also, you may have recalled at the the last meeting, um, one of the representatives talked about proportionality. There's supposed to be a rough proportionality tied to the proposed condition as it relates to the project. So, those are really the two things we are looking at. Uh again, Harrisburg, we have the zoning ordinance, but most of our projects are above our minimum requirements, and we try to push as hard as we can um without getting in trouble with the the state and attorneys. Um they conditions um are supposed to be set uh to mitigate impacts of the development as well. So again that's part of determining that relationship the nexus is it related to an impact they are causing uh and then it has to be proportional. Um so that is all I have on that. I don't know if you have anything you'd like to add on that proportionality or nexus.

Well I think in a general way that pretty much covered it. I mean, you can get into some specifics which you did to some degree. Um, you know, it's it's got to be related to that project and the impact that it'll have and and there's only certain ways that you can you can frame the conditions, you know, because you can't have impact piece, correct? which you know if we had that that might make it a whole lot easier to to deal with but you can't do that except except with um parks you know that really is an impact fee they don't call it that right so payment and lo

but certainly the biggest one that's you know that we dealt with we haven't dealt with it lately because you know the Supreme Court decided that was um you know the impact on schools

Mhm. Um and you know the this board can consider um the impacts on schools but but has to understand that the the town has no control over any of that. Uh so so we can't make it a centerpiece. If we say if you get let's say a 500 lot subdivision is going to come in Harrisburg. I mean that would based on what I remember the of the number of students that would um um um generate um would almost be at least half of and maybe 3/4 of a new elementary school um and you know and of course that would make a huge impact but that really it's up to the school board to decide that and and we we they give they give you their numbers,

right? They do which they share, but but

any decision that's made out here doesn't have any impact on on them um on what they might decide to do and they could move students around between schools. They have that power. So So we just we have to deal with some impacts that we really can't completely mitigate. Um, so it's it makes it makes your job tough on some of these ones of that sort because you have a certain freedom to decide, you know, what what you're going to determine is is relevant particularly for the Harrisburg area. But you you don't have unlimited ability to to deal with with the conditions that may be caused by by you know a new development. So it just um you have to kind of pick out the ones that you can you can deal with and and kind of let go the ones you can't and then you know kind of try to proportion them like Shelley says um to to what is being presented by this particular development and the impacts that it'll have in different ways. So it so but you have a lot of you have a lot of discretion in a lot of ways but in certain ways on certain projects it can be kind of limited. And and so and so part of what you have to uh be able to to understand about that is is which ones you can affect and which ones you can um which ones you can't and then fashion the conditions to to deal with what you can and hopefully, you know, have the project fit into everything else in

Harrisburg without it having some sort of big impact uh that you that you know that you really can't deal with. So, thank you. Okay. Do you have any other questions? I know that was real brief, just a quick overview. Well, we've had it before. Yeah. Nothing. Okay. So, next we have public comment. Nobody signed up in person. Anybody online waving their hands? Nobody online speak. No old business. No new business. The consent agenda. We cannot vote on. Right. That's correct.

Cannot vote on the consent agenda. So old business, new business, nothing. Staff updates. Yes. It's crash.

Is this working? Yeah. Think. Let's see. There we go. So, I just wanted to give an opportunity to uh the board to ask any questions about any of our projects on the development map. Again, we try to update it uh with new site plans or resubmitts uh weekly. Matthew has done a great job in keeping this up to date. Uh so, I can go over particular projects if you'd like. Are there certain ones you'd like to talk about or have questions about things under development? Um, most of the information again is provided, right?

Not really, but since you landed on the hospital, do you know where they're at on their state petition? I do not know where they are on their state petition. They have an older one that I believe authorized them a certain amount of beds, but they want to go larger. So, they were going to uh resubmit that. In fact, I believe the town manager mentioned that today. They contacted him, was asking for a letter of support. The two for next month are not on the map yet. Which ones? I don't know. That's Do we have two cases? You said next year.

They are on the map. So, the two cases that are uh scheduled for the neighborhood meeting is the um Black Wilder and um let's see a uh I'm sorry, Peach Orchard. Peach Orchard. Yes, I apologize. So, yes, I drew a blank here, but I was like, what do you mean they're not on there? So, Black Welder is this long, skinny parcel that is a proposed subdivision. The plans on the website. Um, we've been reviewing the sketch plan which is on the site on this

the website as well. So, the sketch plan under review, the notice of neighborhood meeting is also on here. Uh it sits this is uh Alurn is actually completely built out. It's right off of Black Wielder. It takes access from uh Lakeland and it will provide a connection I got it wrong last night but all the way from Black Welder over to Roberta Road. Uh so uh people will not have to go up and go all the way around anymore. come through 74, they'll be able to come through right to uh right over to Roberta. So 66 lot subdivision. This is not a conditional zoning. You're seeing it for a preliminary plat. It's a byite development. So the existing zoning is residential medium. uh they are exceeding the minimum requirements in lot size and buffers etc for uh the residential medium um classification. Uh the preliminary plat will be heard by this board uh and then go to town council for a decision which we will accompany the preliminary plat with the development agreement. um development agreement. Uh so it's not uh it's not a very uh processheavy project. Um but it they've worked pretty hard on the design based on uh the configuration or the of the lot. It's such

you have any grandfather approval. I mean, I'm unaware I'm unaware of any prior approval on this site. I have not seen it. Uh so it's uh again the zoning's there. It's vacant. Uh I in fact I've never looked back and maybe I should look into that to see when it was actually annexed into the town. I really don't know. And how long? Well, you may be thinking about a a project that was on some box welder property next door. Right. Right. I'll tell you, staff has worked a long time on this project.

This one? Yeah, this one got a little complicated because it is a very unusual shape lot. So, it was harder subdivision to to work. Yeah, it it is. It is. So, it was hard to work on. They have basic rights under their zoning for development. So, um, who's the builder? Yeah, it's been a little while on this project.

So, the other project is Peach Orchard. It is on here as well. Let me see if I can pick it out. Um, it may be familiar to you. um in the past. This project had a prior project approved on it back in 2022 um and was heard in 2023. It was called the divine property and uh it was disapproved by town council a couple of years ago. Now uh the PTE group is the applicant. This is 175 acres. They're proposing a 143 lot subdivision. Um their neighborhood meeting is uh this week as well. uh in their design, I'm not sure what that means, but uh in their design, uh they are including uh a 20 acre dedication for a public park to the town. Within this one, it includes greenway, um the multi-use path, greenway, uh large dedication. uh they had to do uh they will be doing some traffic mitigation as well and u the rest I'll share at the meeting or you can come to the neighborhood meeting.

Yeah. So, right. So, I don't want to do the analysis here, but they've been working with us for some time. Um,

some time and they uh we've actually talked to multiple developers over the past couple years on this property and this this team seems to have been the best so far uh working with us on uh the site design and so forth. So, this is again going to uh we'll have a neighborhood meeting in this Thursday and we anticipate it being on the planning and zoning board's agenda for March. They're both this Thursday. Yes. Both neighborhood meetings? Yes. Consecutive? Yes. What time is this? They're both there.

Six. That's 6 o'clock. So, six normally what? 6 to 7 and 7.

Yes. So yes, we try to limit it to no more than an hour for each project if it takes that long. Uh we notify uh we use the same notification as we would for the planning and zoning board. So all property owners within 300 ft of the site are notified and able to to come in uh attend. Again, it's a developerdriven discussion. We're here just to help facilitate and um let an open dialogue with the neighbors uh occur uh between the developer neighbors. So good deal. Thank you for that.

Yes. So are there any other projects? You asked about the hospital. That's a nice big project in um the other two. Are there any other projects? Try to think of anything new that's come in. Uh, Panda Express was released for construction. So, that will be happening in Harris Square. I still wish we could see what's coming to DRC. I'm sorry. I still wish we could see what was coming into DRC. I'm very busy front side of this. What's being proposed for development,

but We don't have Well, again, that's a staff level uh analysis. Anything that gets a formal application is put on this map. So, the only thing that the public doesn't see at DRC would be like the pre-applications. Again, they're not a formal application. somebody has an idea and we talk with them about it and um yeah, you ultimately see exactly what DRC uh when the project moves forward. But yeah, anybody got any other questions? That's all I have.

All right. I believe that was the last item. So number six is adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjurnn. You can consider that one too. Thank you.