Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I call the planning and zoning board meeting to order for May 20th, 2025. Welcome to everyone who's joining us here. We do have a quorum on the board. So, we are situated to do business even though we're not voting on anything tonight. We're hearing information. So, is there a motion to adopt the agenda as presented? Motion to adopt agenda. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. That has been seconded. All those in favor, please say I. I. Motion carries. The agenda is adopted. This evening, we have a special presentation, a presentation by Coderite Planners LLC. And this will be an update on um the UDO. We have been working, the board has been working diligently along with staff to add some clarity to the UDO and correct some mistakes that are in the UDO and it's an enormous document. So tonight, Coderight will will give us an update. So I will turn it over to them and if you would of course share your name and position with the company little intro. Um, did did did I miss it or did we do the uh minutes and Oh, it's fine. Um, well, good evening. Good to see everybody here. Um, you know, you all have been on this um board for a year at least. Um, you've heard a lot of cases. you have uh considered uh you've thought and uh you have um you've processed um a lot. Um, and tonight you're going to get the opportunity to hear uh from our consultants how we're going to go about u giving you better tools

um and giving the town a better guide book for managing development in um in Harrisburg. the um um the the goal really is for us to have a a UDO that is easy to use uh that is legally defensible uh that contains the content that we want um and that is able to be changed as necessary and flexible. Um and so the um the town has uh has hired the firm of Codereight uh planning and um my friend Chad over here will will will be the uh primary presenter but um Codright is uh is uh well known uh for their UDO work and for their work on ordinances and Chad will tell you more about that. Um I've known Chad probably for all 20 years I've been in North Carolina. Um, and uh, you know, Chad is is well respected. Um, he knows what he's doing. Uh, and he's got a really good handle on what is a good code, uh, what works. He has, uh, plenty of experience in that regard. And so, I'm going to turn it over to Chad, um, and, uh, allow him to, um, give you an overview of where we are and where we're going. Thank you, Zach. Awesome. Thanks, Zach. Y set. Thank you, sir. Good evening. Good evening, madam chair, board members. I'm Chad Meadows with Coderite. It's my pleasure to be before you guys. Thank you so much. Um I would like to take the next uh I don't know 20 25 minutes uh step through this presentation that we've put together for you guys and then I'd like to have a

little bit of opportunity to hear from you. Um, you know, as Zach mentioned, you guys have been reviewing projects, uh, thinking about the development regulations. Uh, we'd love to hear more about your thoughts about what else needs to be done, what aspects in your current development regulations need to be addressed. So, with that, uh, and your permission, I'll go ahead and get started. Yes, sir. Please do. All right. Very good. Um, so we'll talk a little bit about the project team, myself and Andrew, uh, and some of the folks who work with us. Uh we'll talk about the project goals, um the work program, the role of the steering committee in that work program, and and our observations to this point with respect to your current development regulations. Um, I want to be sure to clarify that our intention in this effort is not necessarily to reddraft your unified development ordinance, but rather to prepare a code assessment, a diagnosis, uh, a shopping list, if you will, of recommended changes uh, that could be made uh, if Harrisburg, the people who live here, and the and their elected officials decide to make those changes. Um these recommendations will be based on a variety of different things. Um best practice in the industry, what is legally defensible, um what we hear uh from from from this body, from stakeholders, uh from the people who live here in the community. Um one other aspect that's that is um different or unique or timely um is the state of legislation here in North Carolina. Um we obviously have a general assembly here. Uh North Carolina is a Dillan's rule state and that means that the autonomy of local governments is is somewhat controlled by the general statutes. Um general assembly uh goes

into session every year uh always takes up planning legislation and planning legislation related topics. Um 2025 is a particularly impactful year for us uh in terms of planning legislation and there are numerous bills uh under consideration right now that could have deeply profound impacts on local government's ability to regulate uh land use and development in the coming years. Um, and it's necessary for us, for you, um, to be aware of that, to watch that, and to potentially adjust your regulations in light of that, uh, as we go forward. So, I'll talk more about that as we get into the work program and so forth. So, this these are the topics that we'll cover. Um, if you have a question, please just stop me. Um, and we I'd much rather us get into conversation mode rather than presentation mode. So I'm happy to to answer any questions that come along. So um let me introduce uh myself and Andrew. Um so codeight planners uh we are out of Durham, North Carolina. Codewrite was formed in 2014 though I have been a land use planner for about 33 34 years. Um on the screen are our our client base. Uh we do a lot of work in North Carolina. I'll clarify for you that we do not do any private sector work at all. All of our clients are local governments. Um, and frankly, most of those are small towns and counties. Uh, we do not do a lot of work for large cities. Most of our client base are communities in the 10 to 20,000 person range. Um, so you guys are right there. Um, we have been doing this work for a long long time. Um, if you do decide to work with code right to update your development code, I think we're in the upper 30s in terms of the number of

development codes that we've drafted uh over the arc of our career. Um, code drafting is what we do. We are not an engineering firm who happens to write codes. We're not a bunch of attorneys who who dabble in land use. Uh, we are code writers. Uh, that is our vocation. uh and I'm principal of codewrite. Um I will be the project manager. I will be the person who sits at the keyboard to write your development regulations. I'll be the one standing at the podium answering your questions uh and working with your staff to make sure that this code assessment does an adequate job of getting to the issues that you guys need to be addressed. And I want to ask Andrew to come up and introduce himself as Andrew will be with us the whole step of the way. So Andrew, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to introduce myself. Andrew Wel, I've been a planner for about six years. Uh my primary experience drafting codes with the Charlotte UDO. Uh helped out with that team and have been brought on to kind of help Chad uh with several projects. Harrisburg not being the least of these and looking forward to supporting the project. Okay. Well, welcome Andrew. Thanks Andrew. Um I it it's my pleasure or my or my penance if depending on how you want to look at it. I mentioned that uh code is in Durham. I also serve as the board of adjustment chair uh for Durham City County. Uh and so I know just what it's like to sit at the deis and and deal with you know development applications and problems and challenges especially when it comes to difficult aspects of a development code. Um, Andrew and I also have an awful lot to do with tracking legislation for planners across the state. So, we try to keep pretty current on what's going on with the general assembly and and its impact on planning legislation. So,

we're happy to share our, you know, sort of insights and uh and our forecasts with you uh as we go forward. So, that so Andrew and I will be your team. There's not anybody else who's going to be in the background doing stuff. it is us who will be the ones who prepare your material. Uh there are several other planners who who work with code. Uh we also have access to other attorneys and designers and engineers as necessary. Um should those should the need arise uh we're happy to bring those resources to bear on a project. Okay. But on a day-to-day basis, it's us. So let's talk about the project objectives here. Um again, we're talking about a code assessment. This is a review of your current regulation in light of the input that we've received thus far. Uh the the situation that we've got at with the general assembly um and best practice in terms of how to how to how to best regulate for the kind of development that you're looking for in a community like Harrisburg. Now, our objectives, one, first and foremost, are more and better public engagement. Okay. We have heard um through your staff that the last time the the current UDO was drafted, there was maybe less than adequate opportunity for involvement. Um and as a result of that, this project has been heavily geared toward making sure that everybody has ample opportunity to weigh in and share their points of view. So more public engagement is one of our primary objectives with this body, the elected officials, the public, the staff. Putting out some some options for reorganization and reformatting of your code. Your current UDO has a lot of really cool whisbang gadgetry, which is nice. It is. It's wonderful. On the other hand, it seems that most of those

tools aren't actively used by people who live in the community. um and you spend around about $12,000 a year to keep those tools in place, which is a lot of money um if they're not getting used. So, what other options do we have? Are there other ways for us to get some of the cool things that your current UDO has without spending $12,000 a year to get that? So, we'll talk about that. We'll explore that. It would be our hope and intention to provide your staff with a development code that they can keep themselves with software that you already have and that they already know how to use instead of paying a licensing fee to a third party. Okay. Reviewing and diagnosing the current code provisions. Um the laws are fluid here in North Carolina. They're always changing. General Assembly's always got some new new thing it's bringing to the table uh for local governments like you to to contemplate and grapple with. Uh that never ends and your development regulations need to be a living document that adapt and change to what's going on. At the same time, you've got new staff. Um you've got you've got new issues presenting themselves. Um, and let's face it, you're in the path of growth, right? Um, and so conditions are always changing here, right? And so, how can we make sure that your development code is is futureproofed to to deal with potential changes in administration, to deal with potential changes in outlook from your elected officials, to deal with changes in the growth patterns that are that are being brought to bear here in the community. So that's our kind of responsibility is to bring to you guys options for how we do that. Um and to be sure that the regulations that you've got are legally defensible, right? Um that that you you

will prevail um should you need to do so in a court of law. Uh and then finally, just these basic recommendations for improvement. How can we help you guys get the highquality design that you're looking for? You know, we've heard from your staff that we want when you hit Harrisburg, we want you to know it, right? That Harrisburg has a unique character, a unique feel that we want to embrace, you know, we want to maintain, we want to promote. Um, high quality community, a place for people. Um, so those are things that that that we're taking on board um and and learning about through our discussions with you and with staff and we'll continue to learn uh as we go forward. Those are our project objectives. Okay. Our work program has four tasks. It'll take us about six months to do this work. The outcome again of this effort is a code assessment, a detailed review of your current regulations, whatever land use policy guidance is in place at that time. Suggestions that we would make for the town to consider to change your development regulations, to be consistent with state law in place at the time, to be consistent with best practice and development regulation, and to follow on with what we've heard from your public, from your staff, and from your appointed officials. Okay, this is day one of task one, the project initiation. We'll be spending about a month working on this material. Um, what this sort of culminates with um is a is a pretty thorough analysis of your current regulation. Think of a summary table that stretches for way more pages than you're going to want it to. That goes into detail about each and every section of the current UDO. What's in there and what needs to change based on what we've heard, based on our

assessment of what's consistent with the law, based on best practice. Uh and that'll be the jumping off point for task two, engagement, where we start talking with the community about how we're going to uh what are the recommendations that we want to incorporate in this document. After we've had an opportunity, and I'll talk more about these in a moment, after we've had a chance to engage with the public, at least the first time around, only then will we start drafting. And the drafting part kind of happens in two different pieces. We do a draft. We send it to you guys. You review it. We talk about it. We revise it. We send it back to you and you look at it again. Okay? And make sure that we got it right. Uh and then and only then would we move into any sort of blessing um or embracing of the document um you know by planning and zoning board and by the elected officials. So this is in a nutshell our work program. Four tasks six months. Code assessment is the outcome. Okay. project initiation. We've launched our internal project management site where this is our introduction of the project with you guys. We began our stakeholder interviews today. Uh speaking with staff members, etc. Um and we've got this sort of thorough review of your current UDO. We will also look at your current policy guidance. However, we understand that the town is embarking on an update or new comprehensive plan. So, the policy guidance that'll be in place by the time we're done will probably be different. Nonetheless, we will review your current uh comprehensive plan for consistency um and make any recommendations that are necessary to be sure that we've got good alignment. Okay. The engagement task, continued stakeholder interviews. We're going to do about 10 of these plus minus. Staff is the one who identifies the people that we speak to. This is the development community. This is resident representatives, folks from the environment, um, you know, people who

are involved in the development review process, people who are knowledgeable about how development works in Harrisburg. Those are our stakeholders. We use them to help us understand the the situation, the contours of of, you know, development on the ground here in Harrisburg because we're in Durham. Andrew is close by, but I'm in Durham. We want to do public engagement that is a blend of kind of meeting people where they are. Okay, you guys know and love zoning. I know you do. Everybody wakes up in the morning says, "I can't wait to talk about zoning and and learn more about development regulations." Believe it or not, most people in the universe are not wired that way. people find have a tendency to find development regulations particularly at the UDO kind of upper level of things uh in a in a citywide context kind of boring. Um that's understandable. Um, what we are trying to do with this project is c is make it easy for people to participate as much or as little as they want to to get information into their hands as quickly and painlessly as we possibly can with an opportunity for them to weigh in where they want to uh in ways that they want to. Thus far, we're thinking about webinars. We're thinking about the possibility of some kind of, you know, maybe online survey, some kind of opportunity for the people in Harrisburg to weigh in on what the development regulation should be. Okay, this is a good practice to do generally, but it's extra important in this instance because it seems that many in the community feel like they didn't have a voice in the development of the current UDO. So, we want to address that uh and make sure that people have the opportunity to weigh in if they choose to. All right. We'll also be doing a lot of video work for you guys. So, it's a think of it as a 10-minute or a 15inute

video that you can watch at your leisure if you dare. Um, and learn about what we're working on and and why. Um, now staff has asked us to be sure to to create an opportunity for more in-person input if that's necessary and desired, and we've done that. So, there's an opportunity, should the town decide to take us up on it, to have Andrew and I come back and do some additional in-person meetings. Now, each one of these tasks that we've got in this in this process um minus task two has us coming into town for at least half a day. If you decide you want us back because you love us so much and you can't live without us, we're happy to come back if that's appropriate. Uh and we've built that into our our scoping system. So, okay, that's task two, engagement. Remember, initiation is figuring out what's in the code. Engagement is talking with the community about what we found in the code and looking for what do we need to do so that we can draft so that we can prepare this code assessment. Think about this thing as the blueprint for the new UDO page layout. We're talking what are the what does the font look like on the page? What's the numbering? What's the organization? Right? One of the complaints that we've heard is right now your current UDO feels scattered. There's numerous places where information is located and to answer a question you might need to look in six or seven different places. That's a mighty big ask, particularly for a member of the public who doesn't do this stuff for a living. So, how can we address that in ways that makes more intuitive sense, that puts like material together, that makes it um enjoyable to look at the the the language on the page, you know, that has illustrations and and does all of these things that we would expect from a code. Our initial code assessment draft is going to

highlight for you guys what those things should be, what form they should take, and give you an example of what that might look like um should you choose to to use it. Now, we'll also do a couple public webinars for, you know, the the folks to to to to give us some input about what needs to be done. My big problems with the current development regulations are blank or I think Harrisburg should do blank um to to make sure that we get, you know, better quality development or more appropriate development. We'll also do a webinar with the development community. They are one of the main consumers of these kinds of development regulations. So we want to be sure that we hear from them as well. It's not just the staff, the elected officials and the public. It's also the development community. They are consumers of this material uh and they need to have a voice in the process as well. So we hope to have one of those uh webinars with them. We'll summarize all of this um in a 15inute video that describes the recommendations. Then we'll come back and do a work session with your town council to go over the recommendations that we set down in this code assessment. Think six, seven, eight groups of recommendations. We'll call them key themes for improvement. They might be things like making sure that we've got the highest quality development possible. How do we best integrate incentives and flexibility into our development regulation? How do we comply with changes in state law uh and still reach our goals in terms of development quality? Those are kinds of of potential flavors of what these recommendations might take. We don't know what they are yet. We haven't reviewed your code or had a conversation with the community. But if your project is similar to some of the others that we've done, those would be very typical kinds of groups of recommendations. Each one of those is backed with six, seven, eight, 10 different subrecommendations. Uh, and you'll see that when it comes to

you. There's plenty of opportunity for you guys to weigh in. Did we catch everything? So, task three, code drafting. We we came, we figured out what's in your current code. We talked to the community. We drafted up this first version of this code assessment. We came and talked about that leading us to the kind of code assessment consideration. So, this is late summer, early fall. We've got a a code assessment that's been drafted. It's been vetted through the community. We're going to come back and do public meetings with the community to make sure that everybody's on board with what's in those recommendations. Remember, this is not the new UDO. This is the shopping list of recommendations for changes to the current UDO. At that point, if council decides to embrace this assessment, then you've got a decision to make, which is, do we want to move forward with drafting a new UDO? and how do we do that? Um, and I would say to you that those are decisions that you should be thinking about when we reach October of 2025 added benefit. We should know at that point where we are in terms of legislative change um here in North Carolina, we hope. However, you know, it's always kind of a guessing game. Um, the general assembly used to be part-time, now maybe not so much. They may still be in session in October. So, we'll just have to see. We'll have to cross that bridge when it comes. This is our work program. Uh it's it's a starting place for us. We wanted to explain it to you so that you could kind of see what's in our minds. It's a process that served us well in some other projects. If it works well here, that's great. If we need to make revisions, we're comfortable doing that. Um we're not a great big giant firm. We're a small firm and that makes us nimble and and we can respond to the needs of our clients and the conditions rather than just following blindly some

sort of uh recipe that we've used in other places. So that is our our work program. I want to talk about a steering committee. I think that the steering committee um should likely be comprised of a variety of different perspectives. Maybe there's some members of this body who might participate in the steering committee. Maybe there's some elected officials who might be in the steering committee. Maybe there might be some development community members. Don't know. That's really the town's decision to make. Who comprises this steering committee? They're policy experts. They serve as a sounding board to us, giving us first blush reactions, right, of hey, here's some ideas. What do you guys think about these? They're an information conduit. the people who are on the steering committee are great people to share with their constituencies what's going on with the project. Right? Sometimes in some places rumors get started in the public about what a project is or isn't. Uh and it can be difficult to overcome those rumors. It's nice to have a steering committee that can help get the right information out to various members of the public. So you might have a member of a development community or a chamber member or somebody like that who can share the proper information with their constituencies as we go through the project. Okay? So they're they can be an information conduit. Finally, they can be advocates. Okay? They can be advocates for this project. So you might have a a planning and zoning board member on there who's like, "Well, I know Andrew and he's great. I don't know about that chat guy, but Andrew is awesome and this work that they have done is representative of the information that we gave them. And council, we think that you should embrace this document. And that's what, you know, we would see as advocating for the project or perhaps advocating for it with a member of the development

community who might disagree uh or a member of the public who might think, well, this isn't too far or isn't far enough. I think those are sort of the the questions that we have to answer as we go forward. Now, a roster is yet to be determined. Staff will be assembling the steering committee and we'll be working with them and you through the balance of the project. And we wanted to be sure that you knew that this was an opportunity uh for you know interested members uh to to get involved in. Okay, let's talk about some of the observations that we've made your current regulation and these are all tentative, right? We have not sat down and and pulled out, you know, your current UDO and studied it in great great detail. That said, we we look at zoning codes from time to time. It's a thing. Um it is something we do in our spare time. Um and we've got some thoughts about some of the pieces of your current regulations. So, I want to talk about those before I open it up and hear from you guys about your thoughts about what we need to be thinking about. So, zoning districts, obviously the zoning district is the way that we administer the rules across the landscape. Um, and these uses are appropriate in these locations and are not appropriate in these other locations. What we found are some unclear relationships between the development types um and some of the parallel conditional zoning districts that exist in your development regulation. you have these development typologies that don't fit well with your current regulation, for example, your plan development or your conditional zoning. Um, you've got multiple layers of different sets of standards, and that's very hard and confusing to understand. There's a lot of distinctions um and and issues that cause confusion, particularly for small developers. Um and and I you'll just hear me harp on these development type standards which are are difficult. Uh it's another set of provisions that

layer that are layered on top of the zoning district standards. Um why was that necessary? What is there an easier way for us to make this more clear and more cohesive? Um your land uses. You got a couple of different tables of allowable uses. One for residential, one for non-residential. Sounds good except when there's overlap, right? Then not so good or you update one table but forget to update the other one. Right? So we want to talk about the problems and challenges and confusions that can flow from having multiple different use tables. Also the issue of principal, accessory and temporary uses. Okay. So not all uses are created the same. There are different flavors of uses and how do we handle those distinctions? Um unlisted uses, right? There is a whole body of of court precedent here in North Carolina about how we treat unlisted uses. Back in the day, a local government could say, "Oh, that use isn't listed in our code, therefore it's not allowed." Right? No longer. Um, after the bird ruling, um, local governments cannot simply take the position that an unlisted use is prohibited. rather you have to have a process under which an applicant can apply for and and a community can decide how we're going to treat an unlisted use. Okay. We also add prohibited uses. That's another kind of aspect that's grown out of the bird decision. So, we'll talk more about that as we get into this code assessment in the coming days and weeks. your subdivision provisions don't address the the so-called um expedited subdivision, one that we call a limited subdivision. The general assembly a few years ago created this special flavor of subdivisions that that has a quote unquote expedited process. There's very limited set of provi provisions that you can apply to these kinds of subdivisions. For whatever reason, your code doesn't really talk about those

very much and so we need to get that addressed. Um it's kind of unclear about whether your street and infrastructure and open space standards are applied only at the subdivision level or at the individual site plan level. That's a common problem and we need to clear that up so that it's very clear to everybody at the outset doing a site plan. Hey, the street requirements still apply to you. The infrastructure requirements still apply to you if you're extending water, sewer, sidewalks, streets, storm drainage, etc. So being very clear about that your performance guarantee standards. Okay, performance guarantee is a ca is is a a letter of credit or or or a or a cash shity that's given by an applicant to a town instead of finishing those kinds of requirements. For example, let's say I finished my project in August and I need to plant my landscaping, but it's August, right? Not a good time to plant in North Carolina. So, I might give the town a bond to allow me to wait until October uh or November to plant my required landscaping so it doesn't die, right? That's a performance guarantee. And there's a lot of different flavors of these kinds of things and they can be helpful and useful things. There's also a lot of rules at the state level about how those need to be configured. Your standards don't comply with those state rules. So, we need to fix that. Okay. parking driveways. Um there's a lot of different sets of driveway standards. Um be great if we could put those together. Um there's also been some recent changes from the general assembly about limitations on your authority to apply different kinds of surfacing and other kinds of limitations that are placed on you um in terms of compliance with NC DOT standards. So we need to be sure that we're consistent with that. We've got something that is embedded in your code that is generally a good idea

which is this flexibility provision. Think of it as a safety valve where staff can grant very minor what we call dimminimous deviations from requirements. maybe a a 5% deviation to a setback or a 10% deviation to amount of required landscaping because this portion of the site's going to be in shade forever and there's never going to be any sun so there's never going to be any plant that lives there. Having those kinds of safety valve provisions are very important in development codes. However, when we talk about them as waiverss, right, or or how we consider those kinds of requests for deviations, very very important. These are in effect administrative variances. And there's some specific rules that we need to be sure that we're following about when can I use this? How much can be granted? What happens if I want more than what's available? What do I do? So, we want to be sure that we've structured our safety valve provisions to be legally defensible and consistent with the law. Not sure that they are yet. Uh, in your current regulation, design standards. Um, it's unclear if your code is applying design. And by the way, you guys are big on design standards. Development quality and how things look is very important here. And that's great. um that's actually our preferred client and we agree with you that how development looks and design are very important aspects um to the kind of development template in a community. Um what's not clear is is how you're applying some of those standards to what we would call the missing middle stuff. duplex, triplex, quadplex, uh the mansion apartments, the live work units, the bungalow courts, all of these nifty

little jargony terms for different kinds of housing development that we're seeing that are not single family detached homes, but are not mult, you know, garden style, multifamily, 200 unit suburban apartment complexes either. They're somewhere in the middle. And how do we regulate the appearance of those things so that they fit in the context of a community like Harrisburg? Our landscape standards are applied by use. Okay. What happens when the use changes? Do I have to change the landscaping? We often apply landscaping standards at district boundaries so that we don't have to worry about changes in use and subsequent revisions to landscaping when the site's already developed. Right? I've already built the building. There's not enough room for landscaping. What do I do now? Applying this at the zoning district level helps minimize those kinds of problems. Okay. Sustainability, zero lot line standards, they seem out of place. Um, so you've got a lot of the the bones are in your code. We just wish that they were properly configured so that the skeleton made sense when you looked at it. Uh, instead of having to be sort of a hunt and peck as you move through the document. Um, permit procedures are organized by administrative, legislative, and quasi judicial distinctions. How many of your neighbors understand the distinction between a legislative and a quasi judicial procedure? Probably not very many. And is it necessary to make that distinction? Is that meaningful? Right? If I'm a person who's maybe interacts with the with the town once or twice in my life because I need a building permit for a deck and I open the book and it's talking to me about quasi judicial procedures, I'm going to be like, "What? I don't even understand what this is." All right. So, thinking about that, um, how do we structure and organize our information to be helpful to the person who's not using this stuff every

day? Your land use and dimensional standards could really benefit, you know, from some separation. they're they're they're together now and we would suggest they be separated. Um there's also a lot of duplicative references to to standards in other sections of the code or section you know references to your old code and and staff has told us a lot about that. There's you know it's already hard enough to use any kind of book like this but if your cross references are out ofd or overly circular or they're insufficient in terms of where they point to it makes it that much harder. Right? So I mean this is simple lowhanging fruit stuff. Um just basic organization based on our initial assessment and I say initial because we have not completed our review. It looks to us like there are some inconsistencies with the religious um land use and institutionalized persons act which is a federal statute um about how we handle religious institutions, educational facilities and fraternal organizations. All right, the federal government tells us those things need to be treated the same. There are also some problems with your telecommunication provisions. There are federal and state rules about telecommunication provisions that your ordinance does not properly address. Um there's some notice requirements that are inconsistent with state law. The submitt uh application submitt provisions don't talk about permit choice. Um we don't need to go into that topic now unless unless you want to. Um, there's a there's a a a deep body of law about vesting and the opportunity of an applicant to choose what kind of permit track they want to follow based on when they submitted their application. Your ordinance is largely silent on that material. The public proceed hearing procedures don't talk about standing quorum, the voting majority issues. Um, you have certificates of appropriateness um

listed as a legislative decision which is incorrect. But by the way, you don't have any um historic districts either. So why you've got a certificate of appropriateness is baffling. Um that doesn't make any sense and that material should be removed. Um there's details on criminal penalties in your regulation. That's not consistent with how the law operates now. A couple of years ago, the general assembly decriminalized all land use violations. So you can have civil penalties, but not criminal penalties. So criminal penalty is you go to jail. Okay. Civil penalty is you pay a fine. All right. Now your regulations need to be addressed need to be adjusted to to recognize the decriminalization of land use which happened a couple years ago. All right. I think those are the biggies. Um any questions about that? I know it's a lot to throw at you, but I wanted to share with you that you know your code has some good stuff in it. It's got some cool gadgets and some some, you know, some positive things in it. There's also room for improvement. Um, there's some issues with with legal basics that need to be addressed. Um, some organizational things that need to be addressed. Um, and I guess that brings us round to y'all's thoughts. um you know, as you're working through development applications and and dealing with stuff that comes before you, um what are y'all's ideas about UDO? Is it working for you? Are there things that you think, you know, gosh, we we really need to fix this or change this or what are our options for doing something in a slightly different way? Um and to that, I would ask, you know, those four questions to you on the screen. um you know, are there any is there anything in the UDO that we need to know about? What needs work? Um what doesn't need work? And you'd get mad at us if we

changed. Um are there other concerns? Um and so with that, um Madam Chair, in your permission, I'll I'll just I'll I'll open it up to you guys uh and be happy. Sure. Absolutely. That discussion. Let's let's open the floor for discussion. Any comments or Oh, yeah. I've got Yeah, sure. from the board. Please do shock. Um, so first thing was and and so correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that the hiring of a consultant firm was going to be to for reorganization and update and and making sure it was legal. I didn't I didn't think we were going to actually rework the substance of the UDO. Did was that not? So the um as Chad pointed out, this is really a two-step process. First step is like going to the doctor, right? You check up, have some tests run, see if there's any issues. Um and then Chad and his team are going to identify all those issues substance wise and organ both substance and organizational. Yes. Yeah. Organ. So substantive and nons substantive. And so at this point um you know and Chad and Andrew have done a cursory review. So there's some things that have jumped out. But as they go through they're going to you know every section every provision they'll look at and say check. Good good. Um this one we might want to think about reorganization. We talked about that before. Yeah. Um, I'm not going to lie, the way it's set up right now is very unorganized. It's not easy to grab something. We have to go through three, four, five different sections to find something. So, the the first phase really is to give us the

full assessment diagnosis with a list of changes that could take place. Uh, and we're going to be working all along uh to do that. Again, some of those will be substantive, some will be nons substantive. Uh the ones that are substantive, probably most, you know, important ones at the top of the list are going to be the ones where we can get in legal trouble. We don't want that. Uh and then there's other things. And we talked about sustainability, we talked about tree protection, we talked about um signage and parking, etc. So, we'll dig into those. And that's where we really want to hear from you all to say, you know, here's some things that we really want you to uh to look at and that'll be part be part of the assessment and the diagnosis. So really this is a no holds bar, right Chad? Um this is a we're going to look at this um exhaustively but hopefully we won't exhaust you. Um, but we do need to look at every aspect and there'll be some change. But there, you know, I think we've had this discussion. There's a lot that's good in the ordinance. There really is. The ordinance has some very good content. Um, there are some things that need to be addressed. Um, and there's things that need to be organized better uh to make the uh the ordinance more usable. But that is uh um really um the there could be changes the there may be some sections but we don't touch it all. That's right. We we're the think of the substantive recommendations as the whipped cream on the top. Ultimately you guys will decide if you want to make those changes or not. Um but but I can't as a as a code drafting kind of guy look through your code and say oh my gosh well we really need to change this organization. Oh, um, you know, you completely missed the RUOPA standard. Well, I'm not going to say anything because I can't have I can't talk about

substantive. You know, that would be a disservice to you for us not to point that out. Yeah, I I don't disagree with that. My um concern though is that your public engagement is a month during the summer. And I'm I'm really concerned that you're not going to get the engagement that we need in this community because it's over the summer. Okay. Um, Fourth of July week is right in there. Mhm. Um and so that is a concern that I have. Okay. Um another thing, so the comprehensive plan, is that different than the help? Are we keep are we looking at the help or is that being redone? Is that something separate? Is that the comprehensive plan? Yeah. So um the comprehensive plan process is is um probably going to begin uh with some preliminary work this summer and really get cooking in the fall. Um but the right now we've got a land use plan which in effect is serving as our comprehensive plan. Okay. Um and so you know typically uh the way you want to approach a comp plan and code um adjustments or amendments is to complete your comprehensive plan which really is policy and then to make changes to code which is process regulation etc. Um, now as Chad pointed out, the legislature is looking at making some changes. So, actually, the way things are working out, this is probably um a good thing that we're taking a little bit more time to assess uh what is the condition of our ordinance. Uh, but we'll be able to uh I think sync the two up. In other words, the code assessment that we're going to make. So, we get into October, we're going to

start in on the comp plan. That's really a year to 14 months. Um, and you know, as we get into the comprehensive plan, there will be some things that we'll want to change. Um but you know, we're going to have to take it um you know, in in conjunction with but uh it's it's going to be a little bit of finesse for us to make the changes, but you know, we've been making text amendment changes for the past four months. Yeah. And uh you know, some of those are just flatout practical. Um, but I will tell you that when we get into the comp plan and we start looking at bigger picture issues of how this what's going to look like in 20 years, that's going to that's going to require certain changes to our ordinance. And uh those changes can happen really at any point. But what what Chad is going to be doing is really giving us a framework when we're talking about this today. Um, you know, I I like I liken it to um an earthquake u proof building. Uh so an earthquake proof building is a building that has a very strong foundation, but that building is designed to move a little bit. So it does not um when there is an earthquake fall down. Uh and so the code needs to have a framework, but it also needs to be flexible. And uh one of the things that we're going to be uh looking at with with all of these proposed changes is okay um these are some things that we need to be considering and we may get to the end of that sixmon process and say you know what um maybe we need to wait a little bit on the comp plan to get through the first piece of it to see you know are there more things that we need to add to the list or are these things

enough. For example, you mentioned format, we can restructure the ordinance and not change the substance and then approach each section um as we uh as we need to. So, there are some moving parts. Um and this is not something that is going to be uh overnight. Uh it's going to take some time uh to do because while we're changing the ordinance, we're also using it, right? So, we have to keep we can't just stop and say we can't make any changes. But, you know, the things that we're going to want to to address, you know, as soon as there's removing uh you know, legal um problems um and if there are code changes at the state level, we probably need to address those. Uh and then we can get into um you know what Chad's talking about the uh the substantive changes where we really start to refine how we look at development um and and make changes that you know make sense and we'll improve you know the development process overall for the town. I I want to be sure I I I mean I I don't want to I don't want to interrupt you. I will say this, you know, the development code has many parts and pieces to it, right? There's procedures, there's the range of allowable uses, there's the violation standards, right? There's the definitions. There's a lot of things in there that really don't have much to do at all with what the potential outcome of your comprehensive plan might be. Your comprehensive plan is going to contemplate some uses. It's going to contemplate some densities, and it's going to contemplate some notions about character. Now, you know, it's our hope that we can draft this code in such a way that you can come into your zoning districts and make the adjustments that are anticipated based on the policy

guidance that flows. Um, if if this ordinance can't do that, then we miss the mark. Um, and so, you know, we we understand, you know, yes, ideally you'll do the comp plan first and then you'll do the code. Sometimes it just can't happen like that. This may be one of those instances even though that might be the case. The vast majority of the development regulation should you decide to revi rewrite your code which by the way we're not doing this is just a list of things we would suggest changed. Um should you decide to rewrite your code most of that document probably will be largely unaffected by the outcome of your comp plan. zoning districts very much so, right? Development standards. Yeah, probably. But a lot of it, you know, would be would be a proper development code regardless of what happens in your comprehensive plan, if that makes sense. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, sorry, I I'm sorry. I have a couple more. Um, kind of also back to the engagement. I think just having one mode of communication, you said mentioned the webinars. As a former teacher, we always, you know, uh, advocate for various forms of communication. Sure. Um, you know, not everyone's on Facebook and I know that's kind of a town thing, like how are you, you and this maybe not discuss now, but, you know, how is it going to be out in the public? How is it going to how are we going to get public engagement? Um, so that's just something I'd like the town to think about. And then, um, is the transportation plan also something going to be looked at to be revised or not? Is that part of this as well? Is that part of the comprehensive plan? So the transportation plan uh or I should say transportation will be addressed in the comprehensive plan process. Okay. Um but you know in in terms of the UVO um really the only place that we're going to touch on that will be uh when

we're looking at things like traffic impact uh standards uh for streets and things like that really um and so yeah extension of streets for neighborhoods all so that discussion you know that that it really complex plan is going to look at that. But this common plan really is much more thematic. You know, we're going to look at things like transportation, housing, environment, cultural, um you know, public facilities, those big uh issues uh that really are the foundation for any development to take place. And again, the car plan um is a blueprint for how you want to develop. And so you really have to cover a lot of different topics to give you that um you know type of u you know to give you the the guidance that you need in all those areas. Okay. And then coming out of that may be that well you know to get that we need to make a change here because we want to make sure that we're promoting we're reinforcing that policy whatever that might be. Okay. One last question. Um, enlighten me on why developers need to be involved in this because I feel like they have a different agenda than the people who live here. Absolutely. Well, you know, some developers may live here. Um, you know, there there may be people who who own property and live here in town. That does happen. I mean, I certainly understand the concern. Um I I think our perspective is we want to be sure that we hear from everybody. Um you know the citizens, the

b the appointed bodies, the elected officials, the staff, the you know like it or or hate it. The development community is one of the primary consumers of the development regulation. They also, by the way, are the people who sue you. And so we'd really like to know how they feel about the development regulation before we adopt it. Um if for no other reason than to make sure that that what we've got is is is going to going to be workable uh and keep us out of very expensive lawsuit. So that that's one reason. But I I understand your sort of point which is isn't that kind of like the fox guarding the hen house? Yeah. Um and and you know I I understand that perspective. At the same time um it it can sometimes be helpful to hear from the other side of the room about you know floating out some rules and and you know would this work or not? I so I'm not convinced that you know a developer could sit in that chair and say well why are you involving the public in this? they don't pick up the zoning code on a normal part and and and that's you know no that's not true it does impact them they should have a voice in it um and so I don't know I I think in in our experience there not involving the development community can only hurt you um because you don't know what they're thinking um and they're very likely to show up at the public hearing and say what is this we haven't seen it, you're shoving it down our throat. Um, and we've got to kind of go through that argument rather than sort of saying, look, everybody's got a seat at this table. You know, who's to say, you know, what what direction we'll take, but at least we'll agree on that together instead of one

group exerting its will over the other group. That's the hope. Um, and you know, our promise to you is the elected officials are the ones who get to decide what's in this book and and how it works. And if they don't like it, it ain't going in there. Thank you. I would also just broaden it a little bit because, you know, developers really the tip of the spear. All right. There is the engineers, there's the surveyors, there's the all of those people who are involved in the process. I absolutely want to hear from them. Um, what do you think of this? How is this applied in real life? I mean, Bill can tell you, um, you know, there are some landscaping regulations which make no sense. Um, you know, you you may have had a graduate student, uh, who just finished their first, uh, landscaping course that, you know, takes out their their book and say, "Let's really beef this up." And it makes no sense. It's not workable for a lot of reasons. So, um it's not only the developer, it is the private sector that we need to hear from um and make sure that um you know, and again, Harrisburg has very high standards. U we're not going to lower those standards, but at the same time, um we want the standards to be clear, understandable, and if somebody wants to develop, then it should be pretty straightforward. this is the path that you can go through uh you know to get there and and and I can also tell you and Mike is in the audience um if there are problems with our code and we have engaged and developed community I can tell you whose phone is going to be ringing and whose email is going to be blowing up uh so absolutely we need to bring everybody in and if we bring everybody in everybody

has a voice at the end of this uh then then I think we'll have uh got a pretty good perspective. We're going to do the same thing with the line. We want to hear from everybody and anybody to hear I I guess I'm just going to say I don't think they should have as much of a voice and that's yeah listen it's a difference between um you know driving the car and being a passenger right um and so I think somebody can be in a vehicle uh and and and say you know what about we we go over here uh versus listen the town chess I said elected officials, you all are going to be uh saying what is in the best interest of the town just like you do when you review. And I think that that's where I'm coming from because that's from my and I could be wrong, but from my point of view, that's what we're here for is the best interest of the town. They their best interest is their their bottom line in their pockets. So, but I appreciate Chad's reasoning why and they're going to do their thing and that's and thank you. That's that's all I have. Great questions. Thank you. Um I have two comments in a question. Um so my two comments are I'm excited about sustainability. I think that needs to be a big part of it. Um and I'm also excited about the missing middle. Um because I agree with that. I think we are missing some other types of housing in Harrisburg. Um, and then my question is what does it look like with this board and the steering committee as far as like are we going to be hearing from you as often as the steering committee? Is it going to kind of be like are they going to be hearing from you more often and be more engaged or are we going to be like what does that look like as far

as like how information is given and shared? I know it'll eventually have to go through us you know for voting but Right. Right. Right. Exactly. It it you know we'll come back to this body. I think the steering committee will be the group that we interface with the most as we move through the process. And I would encourage, you know, staff to to seed that steering committee with those members of the planning and zoning board that are really detailoriented and and can read volumes of material and really love zoning. Um, and you know, this steering committee work is a fair amount of review. there's a fair amount of discussion. Um, and you know, I I always tell potential people, be careful what you ask for because you might get it. Um, this code assessment will be every bit of 150 160 pages long. Um, very dense. Um, beautifully written and well illustrated to be sure, but but still, you know, complicated uh complex land use stuff. Um, and if this isn't like if this doesn't light your fire, uh, it's going to be a real slog. Um, so just kind of factor that into your decision making. Um, I think that the town, you know, rightly wants to cast the net broadly and be sure that there's good participation from a big cross-section of the community to consider this this code assessment. Um, and I think it's for that reason that they want to use a steering committee instead of, you know, a particular body. But at the end of the day, you know, I that that's not our call to make. Um, you know, we suggest a a group of steering committee members because it does give you a lot of different perspectives. Um, it can lead to long meetings, but at least we've got different viewpoints, you know, that that we're that we're grappling with, and that makes for a better assessment

and ultimately a better development code. Yes, I know you're waiting. I really don't have a lot to say. I'm looking forward. I really am. I'd like to see what you got. Um, for me personally, yes, it is not very user friendly. I mean, it's sad that their old code, which was from a 1990s countywide unified de development or was easier to understand than the current code. So, you are not alone in that perception. Uh, we've heard that today. Uh, and and that is a little sad. I do to address both of these ladies concern. I would like to see a lot of transparency which I think is beneficial for all the stakeholders. let citizens know where developers are thinking, vice versa. Now, I know there's challenges with transparency because the whole world can't be in the steering committee. Right. Right. But I I think this this board at least should feel the pulses. You we should see some of those comments of meetings we not may not all be here. Those members aren't on this other committee. And again, the citizens, developers of town, let everybody know what the other person's feeling. If you want to come to some type of consensus, I know staff that make floor tells you because you have to edit it because there's just some things that can't be shared. I understand that. Right. But I think that would help the process if that was at the beginning said the last one didn't have it at all. Right. So if we're going to do it again, right, that would be beneficial. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the recommendations are so we can get in there and start fixing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's all right. Well, I too found the document to be quite cumbersome. The parts that I've been over, I I'll admit I have not read it all, but the parts that um were necessary for us to make our decisions

and to evaluate, of course, we delve into that and it was just so cumbersome and the repetition or the duplication, so many requirements. You're in one section and it tells you to cross over to this other section and then I'm having to print that page out, put it beside the other page, and then there's redundancy there. And I'm like, well, why didn't it just say that? in one place instead of sending me all over the place to get the information that I need. So I am very excited about the assessment and look forward to the findings and um I think that it is important for everyone to be at the table. We've had a history where people have not been allowed to be at the table and we need to make sure that we are transparent. So I think it is important that as as much of the public that we can engage we engage them. whomever is involved, whoever is involved in the development process. Yeah, we want to hear from you. Right. I don't have a problem with that because ultimately I know that town council is in the position to make the final decision and they are going to look out as we are for our town. So just having other people in the room with differing opinions doesn't bother me. So um yeah, I look forward to that. And again, transparency was what I was thinking as well. Bill brought up the word. So, just want to make sure that the public is engaged as much as possible. Surveys, I love that when you mentioned that and maybe a series of it cuz people miss surveys sometimes, you know, if they're on that vacation, right? Or oh my, I missed the deadline. I saw it but I didn't get back to it and now it's gone. So, as much of the public involvement as we can get, you know, I'm looking forward to that and just hearing what you have to say when you come up with your final product as far as the the assessment of what needs to change and legally, you know, we need to get in line and get where we need to be. That's uh frightening to hear. So, um I don't know

if it's possible to extend the public engagement period. I heard you say there was like six months was the idea, right? So, if that's possible in light of what Jessica brought up, which was an excellent point about the travel season. So, um really looking forward to the changes. So, what what about that in terms of extending that? So, that's something that we'll have to talk about with staff um and and go over with them in terms of what works for their workload, what works for their budget. and we're happy to, you know, we're, like I said before, we're we're nimble, we're small, and that allows us to be able to adapt to to different situations, uh, relatively easily. So, you know, we we'll take that on, you know, the question about, you know, the substantive change, the concern about the timing, the concern about the duration, um, the policy guidance question, which you raised, which is a good one. Um, and then finally, you know, believe it or not, believe it or not, we spend a lot of time trying to get people to come out and participate in these things. We really, really do. And most of the time, they don't come. Um, and so, you know, that's why you heard us talk about webinars and videos and things is we're trying to figure out how do we reach people in ways that that is meaningful. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, if you have suggestions for us about, listen, the right way to reach out to Harrisburg and to get your finger on the pulse of Harrisburg is to do this or do that, we'd love to hear about that. Um, you know, budget is always an issue, timing is always an issue, resource is always an issue, but you know, we want to hear from people and and and we recognize and we, you know, I might even Andrew isn't jaded, but I might be a little bit jaded after after, you know, sitting in big rooms uh of of you know, engagement opportunities where there's one person or two people and it

happens not just once or twice, but over the course of a decade, you know, you start to sort of form warm up some ideas about, you know, maybe people truly, you know, don't care or don't understand and don't want to come or don't have time or or whatever the, you know, the problems might be. And, you know, it's not a problem that is insurmountable. How much do you want to spend, right? You know, could we go knock on every door in Harrisburg and talk about the development code? We sure could. Do you want to spend $4 million to do that? Probably not. So what's the right balance? And and that's what you know our pledge to you is to try to find that and to find a way to interface with people in the community in a way that they can can can handle it you know not that they can you know in a way that is attractive to them instead of coming to a meeting on a Tuesday night. Well my thought was can we incentivize maybe have a barbecue? I was going to ask something and invoke invite people out. No. When is the next rock in the video barbecue? When is the next rock in the bird? That's what my suggestion is going to be. When does the next rock in the bird use little promo videos? So, or even have um you know some printed surveys or a link a QR code for people to do on their phones right then and there. I mean we get how many people were at the last one do we know the number of people at the last I mean on the t-shirt but I think a rock something at rock and the bird all t-shirts with QR code. I'll wear it. I'll do it spring if you show up. One one of the things that um that Chad me want to pick up on um that the reality is this has something to do with public um you know interest and involvement people are not interested in things that don't affect right and so like Chad said there is a lot in the UVO

that even for people who are interested they're not really going to care about the process that we have to go through for a zoning change. They're not really going to be concerned about how we do text amendments, how we, you know, interpret all. So, what I think we want to do and and you know, Chad's talked about these these seven and 10 things. Um if we have these areas of you know thematic uh where you know people we're talking about for example tree safety that's something people can at least have some opinion on. Um, it's hard for the average person to look at the UDO and and say, "Yeah, this is what I think about the um uh the the the the use table and um I think that your um your heights are out of proportion with your setbacks." And that's not what we're going to get. So, we need to really be asking people about things that they can really be interested in and focus on. I will tell you that the comp plan is going to be much more community interest and engagement. Okay? Because we're talking about big picture policy, right? Uh but for example, you know, on a on a UTO change, you know, one of the things that that we have heard uh is that it's not easy to use. Well, when uh when Chad has a draft of a structure in an organization, you could show that to people, random people on the street and say, "Okay, this was the old one. Here's the new one. Which one do you like better?" "Oh, I like this one better." "Well, thank you." you know, I mean it it it it sounds a little bit um you know, simplistic, but you know, it's those kind of things where people give us a reaction or we talked about it today about, you know, we have a process or procedure that we can outline, you know, even within the code and then we

take someone and say, um, we'd like you to do a little bit of code, uh, looking and tell us, can you get through this? Is this understandable? Do you know what this you know here's here's the path? Can you actually understand it? So um you know almost like marketing people do when they say uh what do you think of this? Well I hate this. This doesn't taste good. I don't like the way that looks. Uh so there's things we can do to improve. But at the end of the day the thing that's going to touch people the most frankly is usability. Um and also the type of things which touch them signage um street trees uh open space park and recreation all road connectivity. Yeah. So I see what you're saying and I I think I I was kind of maybe getting the comp plan kind of it is where I was wanting more. Um so so yeah I mean very good points and so we might not need as much maybe in the um design and because it's really not our comp plan is what's going to be going to impact people what they see the most. I think and and I I will tell you that when I was in Canapolis and we we did the code and then we redid the the UDO. Um and I I found it really helpful when we brought in the civil engineers and we brought in the architects, the people who really have to because they will tell you straight up, man, your code is really not easy to use. But you know what? This look, this is really much easier to use than yours. So, uh there are some things that we can get out of having meetings with with people. Um but we can also get it from you talking to

some some citizens and and we put the call out and say uh we we we have a little taste testing. We want you to taste the code and see what you think about it. Um and you know get some ideas. I just wanted to add I liked your idea about, you know, when we do have to, you know, reach the public to do, you know, things at our events, but then also reaching out to local businesses, grocery stores, and seeing if we can just put a flyer on their door with a QR code to get to the survey, you know, just have it plastered everywhere for those people that don't use Facebook, for those people that don't check their emails, you know. Um, and then I think it's going to be important that we just like we even get confused with it a little bit is like that we're letting the public know as public know as well the difference between the UDO and the comp plan so that they don't feel like they're getting left out of the UDO planning when it's not as important for them just so that they understand the difference. I love the idea of the videos because I think something that most people don't get and I still like you know I'm almost at the end of my first term have to look up terms you know and still don't always grasp what we're talking about and have to like dig in deeper. So for a lot of people I think just hearing the phrase planning and zoning you're like what what is that about like what is that going to like am I going to have to know like legal jargon? Am I going to have to like understand what they're talking about? So making it as you know much in layman's terms as we can so people understand so they don't feel like afraid to talk about it um is going to be really important and if there's a way even I know sometimes things have to be phrased a certain way legally but if we can try you know when we're working on this stuff to make it in as plain English as we can so people can actually understand

king we will yeah I think simplicity is really important. Less is more. Um, you know, one of the things and you probably all seen these I know I've used it in teaching. Um, you take a complex subject and there are plenty of good videos three minutes. This is what planning is about or this is how it could do that pretty easily. Um, and it's not real complicated. Oh, you want to build a Well, come on inside. Let me show you how it's done. There's an application fill out with our our staff. We review the plan, right? Bring it to the plan. The planning board looks at it. They have some suggestion. They bring it to the town council. The town council has some suggestion and then it gets approved and then voila, here's your brand new building. I mean, I'm just that's a little simplistic, but most people don't know that that's how the sausage is made. And so, there's things that we can do uh to help people understand better. You know, most of and Carly deals with people on the front line all the time who are calling up for a building permit on the deck. Uh they want to, you know, put an addition on. They want to do this. They want to do that. Well, do you need to get a permit? Do you not need to get a permit? Um, most of what we deal with at the stage that you're going to be looking at is a little bit more complex. We're getting calls from attorneys. We're getting calls from developers. We're getting calls from engineers. We're not getting calls from people uh you know, who are saying, gee, um, you know, can can you talk to me about development? I most of the time it's going to be, you know, those that are already engaged. Yeah. And I will tell you one last thing.

We've talked about this today. Came up a couple times. The uh the value and the benefit to uh improving our ordinance is going to be for us and you mostly. Um and and what I mean by that is you just said it. When you have to go like this and we have 19 criteria, uh 10 of which are redundant, that doesn't make your job easier. Not at all. It makes our job more difficult. So, you know, we simplify the process. We make it understandable. It's easier for us than to explain it to someone else. And at the end of the day, we don't want to make the ordinance overly complicated. We want people to understand it, to understand very simply, yeah, we have high standards and this is how you do it. Um, we're not going to hide that, but uh, we can make we can make it. Great. Okay. One last thing, and we didn't say stay, so I wanted to make sure we didn't miss it, but I think it's apply. We need to think about the technology, the platform this thing is presented on. You know, town has the best website that it can afford. We need to be thinking about budget when it's time to redo that because it needs to be a machine gun, not a pop gun. That's a lot of the problem with hyperlinks don't go where you know when you have to scroll page to page to page to page to get to a section and we need to look at the technology that this laid out to people that's that's a lot of clunkiness of I mean it's understood technology out there you can buzz through an Right. Right. Agreed. Uh and I assume that was part of it. We didn't say anything about technology. I I mean, you know, in many ways, we take that kind of stuff for granted now. Um, you know, a highly illustrated,

well-written development code that works on the internet that's easy to use and is searchable and has the breadcrumbs and all of those things that just kind of, you know, you just sort of expect that, you know, it's like when you go to buy a car, you know, you have some basic expectations about, you know, what that what that vehicle is going to do. And I think it's fair uh for a local government to to have those basic expectations. Well, I was surprised to hear you mention that there's a $12,000ish fee that the town is paying for is that hyperlinks or or for someone a platform. Can you just talk more about that? Code was rewritten back in 2021. Um the firm who did it uh also has a platform to host the ordinance and so okay pull up your computer your smartphone right now uh you know Harrisburg u pull it up there are links and and so that is hosted on a site um and so yes we do pay um for that annually uh and you know the question is is there a value added for that or is it something that we can host internally? I mean that's a question that you know we need to answer. I will tell you the first and foremost thing is to make sure that all the links work um and that they go to the right place. Yeah, that's that's 101. That helps. That's pretty basic. So, um yeah, I mean with technology does come cost. um you know if you're going to have a a black and white document with this paper pretty cheap to reproduce but it's going to be pretty difficult to use. Uh so we do want functional technology. Um and it is very easy. Um and again the ordinance does have some nice features.

Yeah it does. um you know you there's a there's a search feature and if I you know today I was looking for something about you know burden of proof or a zoning case so I pull I put in you know burden approvement it pulls up the code because I can't remember everything in the ordinance right or you say uh residential subdivision pull up everything and give me the list of so that's a nice feature um but it would be nice if it was organized has a laid out a little bit simp. [Music] I had a question. Um, firstly, thanks for speaking to us and I think this is really exciting. Um, and then I was just wondering how into the weeds will your recommendations be in terms of like Well, I'm sure there's lots of sections that we all feel need like a revamp. Um, like Faith, I'm really interested in the sustainability section. I know you said that needs to be moved somewhere else, but when you're looking at those sections, whether it be sustainability or driveways or anything, are you making uh recommendations based on either obvious things and like maybe legal issues, or do you are you going to go deeper where you might suggest what could be in those sections? Yes. And it depends on what the section is. Um, will we go into the weeds? You better believe it. Um, and you'll be you'll be hating yourself for asking that question. Um, because we we do go very very deep into the weeds, particularly with respect to this first round of kind of summary table of review of your current reggg. Um, you know, that table will probably stretch for 50 pages. Um, that's a lot of table. Um, but you know, this is a four 500page document. So, you know, it stands to reason that there's a lot there.

Um, you will absolutely see from us a variety of recommendations, okay? Comments and questions. Um, you'll see in there discussion about this or that. The standard says this, is that really what the staff wants? Why? or your code says we want to zigg when we know that state law or or best practice says zag. So we might say why do you want to zigg here? What is the reason for this? And the answer might be something that's not very obvious and requires discussion or the answer might be I don't know because that's what sounded good at the time and you know and then we can those are changes that we can make. It will be a blend. Some things we'll go into more detail than you would want us to. Other things we won't go into as much detail as you would have looked for. Um that's, you know, human nature. There will be questions. There will be comments. There will be recommendations. Um and I promise you it will be thorough u because that's that's who we are and we pride ourselves on our thoroughess. Right. Thank you. And and you know there's multiple levels, right? You I just gave a couple examples of the link is not working. Well, fix the link, right? I mean, that's not real complicated. Or you realize that we just repeat this line twice and I'm giving you examples of things I found. Um a misspelled word. Well, we and then we start getting into things like why does this why do we have this doesn't make sense because I just read over here this and now it's different there and so then you start to put things together and and

it becomes a almost a a web that that you know it goes one to another so it it really is a multiple level some of it is just simply structure um grammar, spelling, um you know, and some of it is wow, this is really doesn't make sense. All right. So, does the board have any other questions? No. Well, I thank you very much. Uh and we look forward to uh to seeing you guys again on our next visit and uh perhaps sooner. So, thank you so much and um feel free to uh if you have other questions uh or something occurs, have staff reach out and uh and we look forward to our next meeting. Okay. Well, thank you so much for this thorough presentation and again we are all excited because this is this is really overdue. So, we are so glad to hear that that you you guys your team is going to be on top of it and and we're just looking forward to all those questions, recommendations, and whatnot. So, thanks. Thank you. Thank you both. Okay, we don't have anyone for public comments. So, we will move on down the agenda for this evening, which is uh next up is the consent agenda. And the consent agenda is considering approvement approval of minutes for April 1st and April 15th, 2025 meeting. So, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay, we have a motion to approve the consent agenda that has been seconded. Any discussion of those minutes? Okay. So, all those in favor? I I Okay, motion passes. The consent

agenda is approved. We have no old business, no new business. Do we have any staff updates, Zach at this point? Well, when when does the new term start? July one. New term. New term. July one is a new term. Okay. Oh, yeah. So, tomorrow we're doing interviews. Um, and so we will be doing those. Um, yeah. So, that'll be happening. Um and um other than that uh well I guess my question we plan u at this point in time we have no items in the pipeline. So if we haven't I mean are we going to be if we've reapplied will we also be interviewed? No. Okay. No I'm sorry. And we have we have some some new people who have applied and there's some open seats. So we do need to fill some open seats. But no, you don't have to reapply. They just don't have to be they don't have to be interviewed. Yes. They made a decision this. [Music] Okay. So we are Yes. We're still on it. Yeah. And so um the uh the plan is to do the interviews and then I think at the June meeting we would have uh

recommendations and appointments and then July one the new board new crew. Okay. Yes sir. So, we're not meeting in June, but we are meeting town. Okay. When do we get our tickets for all the events coming? So, we are not the board is not meeting in June. Is that correct? That has not been confirmed. Okay. At this point in time, we're unaware of any unaware. Okay. As of now, we will let you know. Okay, that sounds good. We will find out if we have the in prior to that council has to approve it, but there'll be staff report that will be available when the council packet is published. So that pull in there [Music] is June next. So that they don't know about that because somebody in place don't want to do what we did a few years ago which is Yeah. So we set up so when the new year Okay. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the board this evening? Okay. I will entertain it and a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. Motion. All those in favor? I I motion carries. We are

adjourned. Thank you. Two tables. That wasn't intentional. Well, what do you do? Um, okay. Good luck. Well, you're too welcome. A great question. [Music] I'm telling myself that I'm still gonna like log in and you know at the same time when you don't have to be there all things I'm like I really want to still [Music] like it tomorrow. tomorrow and Thursday. Yeah. Totally get it. That's why I want to make sure I miss Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Good. part of it. I mean, think about I mean every property should have some input into you know that's that's the other part of it. So you don't and developers are people who own the property, right? Not that I like to be on their side because they're always kind of pushing the envelope and wanting to do more than maybe they should be allowed to. Um but um you know you just don't want to you got to keep that in mind