Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Finally get one of those outside.

All right, so I would like to call to order. Okay, I would like to call to order the July 15th Planning and Zoning Board meeting. We're going to have to make a change to the agenda. We're going to take item number four, new business, and move it up to the top so that we can swear and reappoint board members so that we will have a quorum so the meeting can proceed.

Come up front, please. JMR, you can stay.

If you want to grab your own paper, so you just say.

I solemnly affirm that I will support and maintain the Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution and laws of North Carolina

not inconsistent therewith, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as a member of the Town of Harrisburg Planning and Zoning Board. Very good. Thank you. Looking at the camera. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you.

Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I don't think I photobombed too bad. Congratulations to all the new members, reappointed members, maybe watching remotely to some of you.

Looking forward to a good year of this. Okay, so next item on the agenda would be any special presentations, which I believe we do not have tonight. Addenda adoption. Public comment. Anybody signed up to speak either remotely or in person? moved to adopt the agenda with the modification.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

Motion is carried.

Okay.

So now I have the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the draft minutes for May 20th, 2025? Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? So carried. All right. This agenda has been approved. Do not see any old business listed. We've already dealt with the new business of swearing in the members and establishing quorum. Now we need to elect chairman and vice chair. How would you like to have that process? We got it.

We got it.

I'm not made. Yep. I nominate Bill Leek for chair and Jessica Bava for vice chair.

So we have a motion. Do we have a second for those two appointments? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried.

Congratulations, guys.

Thank you. Good deal. All right.

then we have on a new business planning staff will provide boards an overview of planning board rules and procedures and board member duties so I was I was talking to I think Carly or Shelly I can't remember who before the meeting and I said we can just dismiss the four of you and then I could just talk to Robbie I will try to keep it as brief as possible but We do want a little refresher. One of the things that I think we've been successful at is getting you all some training. And it's important. because no two cases are alike and the law is always changing and now we have some proposed changes which could theoretically really be a problem.

So, Iswar, how are you?

This is Iswar Chamarthi.

You're good.

And so, you know, we really want to make sure that you have all the resources that you can get. And, of course, we're always glad to help. And if we're really in trouble, then we call Rich. So that's kind of the story. But let's... just kind of give a refresher overview. So Planning and Zoning Board is a board that is actually in the general statutes for the state of North Carolina. Our meeting's the third Tuesday of each month, and you will get packets, you will have information, and we usually get that to you a week ahead of time. The quorum is four, so if we have four, we can conduct business. If we don't, then we will not be able to conduct business, but we can have some offline discussion. How about that? So bottom line is that if the town wants to exercise zoning, it must have a planning board. And it also needs to have a land use plan, which we have both. So we're doing pretty good so far. Zoning amendments for those who have been on the board for the last year or two know that any zoning amendment, which is a change either to the text or to the map, has to go before the planning board for review. You've got 30 days to make a recommendation. If you don't make a recommendation, it goes on to the town council without a recommendation. However, if you make a recommendation, that's passed on to the town council. The board, at least under statute, must have at least three. Five to seven typically is what we have. And we have seven. And so we have, I mean, that's been as long as I've been here, and I think that's pretty standard for most communities around here. We don't have any alternates, so we need to make sure that we have four here to conduct business. There's also in the Rules of Procedure, also in the statutes, which Rules of Procedure reflects that, a requirement that we have at least one ETJ member. ESWAR is our ETJ member. ESWAR has a distinction of being ETJ member for the Board of Adjustment. and for the planning and zoning board. So he had to be, you know, very, very careful what he said in the in the Board of Adjustment because that's all under oath. But you can be loose as you want here. You know, this is not quasi judicial. You can you can have fun in this meeting. But actually, the way the statutes read, if you have a population over a certain size, you may need a second ETJ member. Now, Rich, I don't know of any communities that have a second ETJ member. I don't know if you're aware of any larger ones. but essentially it's a proportional number. So you take seven planning board members, I think you divide your population by that. And so we're about 24,000. So let's just say three and a half thousand. And if you had more than 3,500, then you would jump into a second ETJ. Actually, I guess you probably got to go all the way through to have 7,000. You'd need a second ETJ member.

The General Assembly is trying to get rid of ETJ anyway. Yeah.

Across the state.

And a lot of it's been emailed by people with annexes. So probably we won't have that.

Yeah. So I think our population, uh, is around 1100 people in our ATJ. So we have one and each one is going to be representing the ETJ. Um, the role planning board primarily to advise the town council. on rezoning, subdivisions, Texas amendments, land use plans, small area plans. So you are the first review, and then it goes on to the council for their final consideration and vote. Under the statutes, the Planning and Zoning Board, or Planning Board under statute, can actually be designated as the final decision-making authority, meaning that you could decide the rezonings without it going to the council. Once upon a time, that was the case here. That's no longer the case. It is the case in Kannapolis, and I believe also in Concord. But it can go either way. Yeah, at this point you're all in the recommendation role. So you're going to be looking at the plans. What we try to do is give you as much information as possible so that you can make an informed decision. And we are, again, always available to answer any questions. But you're really looking at the things that, you know, maybe the council big picture, you're really trying to drill down and look at this from a man on the street, woman on the street. So that is your role, so you can be nitpicky in this role. So what do you consider when you're making decisions? Current land use, future land use, other plans, park and rec plan, economic development plan, utility availability, thoroughfare plans, which are the plans which show where all the roads will be. We have a transportation plan which is on the website. Town Council's also, their concern is the long run and whether the proposal is good for the community. The town council is accountable to the electorate. Town council of course appoints you all and so ultimately you're answerable to the town council. You all have terms of two years. You may have two terms of two years or four years total and then you would have to cycle off of the board. So, Planning board is focused on what are known as legislative decisions. If you are familiar with Board of Adjustment, their focus is quasi-judicial. Legislative simply means that the town council is making the final decision, so acting as a legislature. And so the advice that you give to the town council is going to be the basis in part for their review. And so, you know, the hope always is that there would be alignment between the planning board and the town board. That doesn't always happen. You may recommend something and the town council may vote No. Or you may vote not to recommend something and the town council may vote in favor. So that can happen. Your votes are majority, simple majority. So it's not a super majority. It's not anything more than just a simple majority. And if you get that, then your applicant has approval. Conditions can only be placed on conditional zoning requests. We'll get into conditional zoning for our new members, talk a little bit more about that, but essentially conditional zoning is a way to give the town an assurance about what will be coming, and also the applicant knows that if they get their approval that they will be able to do what it is that they have agreed to and all the conditions. And so you all, and I think probably in the past year or so, this has come up, you can add conditions if you would like or recommend the addition of conditions. Usually what we'll do is put together a staff report and we'll have conditions. And some of them are standard. Some of them may be unique to the project. But in the process of deliberation, you may all agree and come to a decision that you want to add a condition and recommend that that be added. And so that would go to the town council. I will say that in terms of conditional zoning requests, the applicant has to agree to that condition. You can't impose a condition on them. However, if they don't agree to the condition, the town council can deny their request. So no one's twisting anybody's arm. But if it's a condition, then it has to be agreed to. And then typically we will have a development agreement which codifies that condition or whatever the conditions are. and holds the applicant accountable. And also, if there's any public, usually investment, that spells that out, what the town will do. So if there's any public road improvements or utility improvements or land dedication, whatever it might be, then that would be part of the decision. So ETJ simply means extra territorial jurisdiction. I have to slow down when I say that. A lot of syllables there. And it simply is an area outside the town's corporate limits or the limits within which people pay taxes to the town. Pretty simple. If you live outside the town, you live in the county, you don't pay taxes to the town. If you live in the town, you pay taxes to the town and the county. So ETJ is an area that we, the town, you as the planning board, and town council have been given oversight of so even though the egj is not in the town's limits in terms of zoning and land use and code enforcement we have jurisdiction And the reason for that is so that, at least historically this was the case, that what you didn't want happening was around the perimeter of the town. you could have a completely different and maybe uses that were very much in opposition to what the town wanted. And so there was this band created of a mile for up to a certain population, then it would go up with population that went up. And so you could have ETJ within that area. Now what's happened over time, and I'm not sure when this happened, but there are what are called contiguous and then non-contiguous annexations. Contiguous would be if a property is immediately adjacent to the town's limits. That's contiguous. Non-contiguous means they're an island. They're separated from the town. But both can be annexed. There's certain requirements that have to be met for that. Now, you all don't get involved in annexation, so you could not worry about that. However, in most rezonings that we have seen, residential, they usually involve annexation. So you have some land that's in the county jurisdiction and developer wants to come in and build 150 homes, 200 homes. And usually to do that they want to provide utilities because most people want utilities with their home. And so town's policy is that if you are going to get utilities or we're going to extend utilities to you, you have to be in the town limits. So typically what we'll do is do both at the same time. You all will make your way in on the rezoning, but when it gets to the council, there's an action on annexation and an action on rezoning. So typically what will happen is council will act first on the rezoning and make that subject to the annexation. Do I have that right, Rich, or do we do the annexation first subject to the rezoning? Well, I think I think we I think we do it the rezoning is approved subject to the annexation So it's not activated and then the board council takes a vote on an annexation And they vote to annex and then that rezoning is effective. So there's a few different ways to do it. But yes Yeah, so But ultimately, the bottom line is you have to be in the town limits to get the town utilities.

So I thought Churchill Farms is in town limits.

Churchill Farms. Carly, you're the expert on all the.

Churchill Farms is in town limits. Yeah.

Well, no, that wasn't a requirement from.

Right, so there was a time where utilities were extended without requiring to be in the town limits. So that was maybe about 10 years ago or so?

No, Churchill Farms is only not that old. I'm just saying, because do you live in Churchill Farms?

So how is he ETJ when he's in town limits?

I'm just like, if he's ETJ, but he's in Churchill Farms, how is he ETJ when that's town limits? Oh, how is he in town limits?

I'm sorry. Oh, you're asking. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So as ETJ member, right? Right.

So, so I understand. So the, yeah, the, so the ETJ member, uh, under the rules of procedure, um, is an appointment of the county. Um, if the county does not appoint, um, And if they fail to appoint within a certain time period, the town can appoint. And we can appoint anybody we want in the town limits, outside the town limits, in the ETJ. We can do anything.

So the ETJ doesn't necessarily have representation.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious.

I was like, wait, I know Churchill Farms is in town limits.

there was an agreement between Charlotte and Harrisburg. Charlotte was going to take over a bunch of private utilities on both sides of the line. Some in Mecklenburg, some in Cabarrus. And the Utilities Commission said they couldn't take over the ones in Cabarrus. And all of those, and I don't remember, weren't all neighborhoods they were, but there were a number of them. and so utilities commission said they couldn't do that so they ended up having to sell them to the town and and so the town actually took over those private utilities but it didn't annex all those areas so there are some areas where we provide utilities in those subdivisions that are not part of the town

That was just my main question.

You got an education on ETJ utilities and all that. So UDO, I think everybody knows what that means, Unified Development Ordinance.

Halep, Harrisburg Area Land Use Plan, and I'll be so glad when we get a new comp plan because I really don't like that acronym. We're gonna come up with something really cool. I don't know what it is, but it's gonna be much better than Halep. ETJ, now. Listen, this is the work of someone who's sitting to my left wearing a red dress, so I'm not gonna name names, but So again, ETJ is outside of our limits. I'll show you a map in just a second. Maybe I have that here. Yes, okay. So in the green are the town's corporate limits. So if you're in the green, you get a town of Harrisburg garbage can. That's how you know you're in a town, right? If you're in that sort of pale orange, then ETJ. Now, Rich, correct me if I'm wrong, but if everybody in the ETJ voted to be a part of the town, that would then bring them into the town. That's called voluntary annexation. It used to be that there was involuntary annexation, I think that stopped about 2005 maybe, where the town could go out and grab land. and say, we want this piece of land, we're going to bring it in. You can't do that anymore. It has to be voluntary, which is why when a developer comes in, they request that we would annex and so forth. But if somebody in the ETJ wants to come in and they make a request, council can bring them in.

If they want to, yeah. And it doesn't have to be all of them. It just needs one parcel. Yeah. And there can still be some involuntary annexation, but the restrictions on there are so great that, like you say, it pretty much doesn't happen anymore.

If a parcel was put in ETJ through involuntary means, can they reverse it?

The only way it can be reversed is by the General Assembly. You have to go to the General Assembly to de-annex.

Yeah, to de-annex. Yeah. And I've seen that before. And, you know, pretty unique because you've got to go to the General Assembly. And so your local representative or senator who has to put a bill essentially before Congress The legislature has to pass and governor has to sign it. I mean it's So Let me see if I get to the next one, okay, here we go this one all right, so you see the the line that is red blue and Kind of orange ish That is the territory within which the town can annex. So again, voluntarily within that area. So we have annexation agreements with, starting at the north, Charlotte, our Concord, rather, we just re-upped for that. Midland, we did that last year. Charlotte, January 1st, we are, that's expiring, so we need to get an extension with Charlotte because we don't want them coming over and we don't want any land from Charlotte. But this essentially, theoretically, legally, the town of Harrisburg could grow completely into that area. And maybe, who knows, Rich, 50 years from now, the legislature may say, you know what? We're tired of all this, you know, no man's land. We're snapping the line and everything within that is the town limits. That could happen. But at this point, so what those annexation agreements do, and this one shows you midland to the east, the agreement basically says they won't annex on our side, of the line and we won't annex on their side. Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. And likewise, we have that with Concord and Charlotte right now. The UDO is your Bible, so read it before you go to bed and memorize the verses and we'll quiz you on it at some point. So this is everything that we base decisions on, we base our review on, you base your decision on, the town council. has to base its decision on. Because if we don't, then Rich has to go to court and get us out of trouble. So I explained to people that the UDO really is land use law. It's law as much as any other law that is passed, and we have to comply with it. Land use has to occur in conformance with that. So whether it's zoning, what uses are allowed, or parking, landscaping requirements, flood protection, watershed, All of those things have got to line up with our ordinance. The UDO does not cover things like fire code, storm water, or building code. So if we go through our whole process and sign off on a development, the developer then goes to the county and gets a building permit. We don't issue building permits. Now there are some communities, larger community cities, that do that. They have everything in-house, so they grant the zoning approval and they also grant the building approval. But that's not the case here. Every UDO is different, and ours is, Concord's is different, ours is different, Charlotte's different, and they're changing all the time. So zoning, essentially, where can something go? And if it's not allowed in a particular district or zone, then it can't be built. We have commercial, residential, industrial, mixed use. hybrids, some of which were approved a while ago. And so all these dictate everything from lot size to building height to coverage to, in some cases, parking. Although for residential, we do have minimum parking requirements as well. But we get down to the nitty-gritty. Now, if someone is in the county, they're not in the town limits, and they're not in the ETJ, they're subject to the county zoning. So there is county zoning. And so they regulate just as we would, whether what the use of building, height, et cetera, et cetera. Now, because of the decision that was made, policy decision that we weren't gonna give utilities unless someone was in the town limits, the county really doesn't approve subdivisions anymore. But back in the day, Rich, 20 years ago 25 years ago the county would approve subdivisions and the town would extend utilities or the i'm not sure what the arrangement was but and that's why you see today you know it could be some of these subdivisions still are not in the town limits but do have utilities so you know we have a little bit of a unique situation i will tell you one other thing that is looming out there, and Jessica, you may be aware of this, there are certain neighborhoods that do have private water systems. And some of those private water systems are failing. And so what will happen is we anticipate and we're expecting that when they get to the point where the health department says this is not functional anymore, the cost of a new water system would exceed the HOA dues. And so at that point, they would be coming to the town for annexation unless there's some other arrangement because we won't give utilities unless there is. And Rich, I don't know if we've had that situation yet.

We've got one that is in litigation with the state over that. The guy who owns the private system won't release it. But the town has indicated they can take it over. But it's... One of the situations where they apparently haven't worked it out. It's been going on for years. But their system is failing. And since it was privately owned by one individual, and he won't agree with the state, he won't agree to let the town take it over. It hasn't happened. That's the only one I'm aware of.

So there can be some sticky things that happen. But for new approved subdivisions, town utilities, town standards, town requirements are met. And that's what you all are. Fortunately, you don't have to deal retroactively with things that were approved 15, 20 years ago. So there are in the unified development ordinance, and the unified part just means, it used to be that you had subdivision regulations, and then you had zoning regulations, and you had site plan regulations, and they were all different. And so you had to deal with three different And I can remember, and this was the case, I've been in other states, and so someone got the brilliant idea, I don't know, maybe it was Rich's idea, to put them all together into one document. So... we don't have to have these different processes we can process everything under one ordinance and so subdivision regulations are contained in the UDO site plan as well zoning and so everything can be managed within the the UDO.

You are right to be corrected there so

So, yes, we are about to, yes, so Robbie, don't study the UDO too closely. We're going to change it. Again, we as staff have got to be able to navigate through all the pieces and parts, and you all are going to have to as well. to become proficient at it. One of the things that we're in the process right now is updating the UDO to make it better. And we're just in the beginning stages of that process. The Harrisburg Area Land Use Plan is essentially the policy statement for how the town wants to develop. And so what you see on the screen is essentially the centerpiece of all that. This is the future land use map. Pretty simple. In the green is very low density. In the light pale yellow is low. And then medium density, these are the residential zones. And then you're gonna get into employment, commercial, office, institutional, different uses. So when somebody comes in, and they're not in the town limits, and they have a piece of property right there. They want to annex what we do and what you do in your review is say, okay, you want to build a development or you want to build some houses at this number of lots. for every acre and out here it says it's less than one per acre and you want to build two per acre well then on its face it's not consistent with the land use plan and so that's one of those areas where you know you can weigh in and and say we don't think it's consistent with the plan Now having said that, I will very quickly say that the land use plan does not have the force of law. Is that right, Rich? So if you make a recommendation, you say it's not consistent with the land use plan, and it goes to the town council, and the town council agrees with you. It's not consistent with the land use plan, but we're gonna approve it anyway. They can do that. You, as well as the council, have got to prepare and make a statement of consistency, which is, is the proposed action consistent with the land use plan? And you could say it's not, but still be approved. Either the council can say it is, but we're going to deny it so they can do They could say, yeah, it's consistent, but it's not something that we think is in the interest of the town. One of the reasons why you need to update this plan on a regular basis is that conditions change. 2010, the town had about 10,000 people. 2020, it was just under 19. 2025, we have almost 25,000 people. And so with all of that change and with all the new developments and with all the activity going on, That's gonna influence land use. And land use is temporary. You can have a low density development and 20 years from now, that development can be completely razed to the ground, rezoned, and you can have a higher density. And so, but you do need to do, you have to go through that process for the land use plan. Also, at the same time we're working on the UDO, updating the comp plan. Well, put it this way. We're updating the Harrisburg area land use plan which will be a component of the comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plan covers more than just land use. Our land use plan pretty much confined to land use, doesn't deal with issues like housing, environmental, natural resource, transportation in a comprehensive fashion. So we're gonna have the first comprehensive plan that the town has ever had. And so that will then become the long range plan. And the future land use element of that plan will be the basis for your consistency statement. And so it'll be a fresh look. There will absolutely be changes in what you see here. No question about it. We don't know how we're going to organize it yet. Some communities organize it parcel by parcel. I have been in communities that do it parcel by parcel. The problem with that is conditions change, right? And if you have it parcel by parcel and someone comes in and say they're on a main road and the town's growing very quickly and nobody wants to buy that house just because it's on a main road and you say I want to develop it for commercial. They say it's not consistent with the land use plan. So that's a problem. So this plan is broader. And I will tell you that if a parcel is either on the edge or straddles that, It could go either way. Or you could have something in here and it really makes more sense to be part of that land use classification. So the process is just getting started and we will have a lot of opportunity for input. You all are going to be reading through a lot of stuff. hold on and get ready for that. But that will be a pretty big undertaking. So here's the land use plan, just describes all of the different uses. I'm not sure if the residential, back up, yeah. Residential out there.

Yeah, well the different ones.

Okay, yeah. So you can see there's a description of that land use category and then in terms of residential, is it one to two units, is it two to three, is it three to four? And, you know, likewise for commercial, it's a certain type of commercial. Is it industrial? Is it light industrial? Is it neighborhood business? Is it general commercial? Do you have a question?

Yeah, I'm just going to – are we going to look into possibly changing, you know, like developer math versus actual math on the three to four units per acre? Is that – where does that come from? Does it come from developers? Does it come from the state? Like why do we have to do – they do the whole parcel versus what is usable slash buildable, right, to get that medium density when it's really a higher density in the end.

So there's a couple different ways that you can do this. We don't have to put a density number in there. We could, frankly, just regulate it by, say, lot size. Some communities do it the opposite. They have a density, but they don't have a lot size. So basically, it's flexible. In the end, the town, and in the case of Harrisburg, town council makes decisions on what they want to approve and what they don't want to approve. I will tell you that, at least since I've been here, if the aim was one to two units per acre, upper would be two units per acre. A lot of development has come in at 1.3. And the reason they've done that is because the appetite for the council was, we don't want two units, we want less than that. So it goes both ways. And it's a decision that the council makes. In general, planning circles, and this is pretty uniform, not only North Carolina but across the country, you calculate density as gross density. You can calculate net density by netting out roads, you can net out non-buildable areas, you can do that. We could have something like that in our ordinance. We haven't done it. I haven't been anywhere that's done net density.

That's because they're getting paid by billing lobbyists. They're supposed to develop a math at the state level. Yeah.

But again, here's where the conditional zoning comes in. So someone comes in and they want to do RM2, which is 15,000, I think, 15,000 square foot. It's tiny. It's tiny. It's tiny. It's a conditional rezoning, and so the council says, we want a little bit less. We want you to come in under that. In other words, not as dense. And that's really been what's happened the last two or three years since I've been here. I frankly haven't seen any that have even hit the mark on a one to two acre. It's usually been 1.3, 1.4, 1.2. because the council has said, this is what we're aiming for. So that's one of the benefits of conditional zoning. And one of the reasons why we haven't, and at least to this point, you can do it either way. There are communities which rezone or pre-zone. So let's say for example we have an area of the town that's AG, agricultural, which is essentially farmland. The town could I'm not saying that it would. So you know what? We want to rezone this RM1, which would allow for single family at 20,000 or two units per acre. You pre-zone. Now, we don't do that. We don't rezone anything. We haven't rezone anything unless someone comes in and says, we want to rezone that property. now if we already have zoning on that property that is a little bit different we haven't had a whole lot of those i don't i'm trying to remember if we've had one we may have had a small sliver that was residential next to commercial and it really wasn't developable for residential, so it was rezoned to commercial. But typically, we won't rezone something or we haven't rezoned without conditions on the approval. So whether it's a residential or a non-residential or mixed-use, That is the way it goes. So we'll see. Shelly mentioned this legislation, which was already approved, which, among other things, did not allow for down zoning. So that basically means if someone can build three units to the acre, the town can't come in and say, you can only build two units to the acre. So that is right now the law in North Carolina. I don't know if anybody's challenged it yet, Rich, but I have heard that one community got exempted from that. I don't know what the community is, but I read in the legislative bulletin for the Planning Association for North Carolina, one community got exempt from that. Others tried. But right now, everybody is subject to that down zoning. And then there's an even bigger bill that's out there, and it's not a big, beautiful bill. It really is a very, very I'll put it this way. It would gut a lot of local land use regulation. We take a lot of land use discretion away from the town, essentially allowing density in whatever measure. parking requirements would be could be eliminated. Um and uh yeah so there's there's a lot in that bill and hopefully um there'll be enough uh shouting that it won't happen.

Have they started a process where they're going to start pulling pieces that out and sticking it in other legislation? Have we seen any of that yet? Not yet.

They're in process. That omnibus, I guess it's 205? It's got a lot of pieces to it. We'll get a copy of it to you so you can see for yourself.

I'm familiar with the original. I'm waiting for it to arrive. Let's slip it in here.

I've been in North Carolina 20 years and every year since I've been here there's been proposed legislation that everybody goes like this and then it goes away. This legislation that was just approved was the first time in 20 years I've been here that there was some stuff in there that wasn't very good. This bill that is being considered would be really bad. It's so bad that I don't think it's going to pass. I do think that probably there are going to be pieces that pulled out because I don't have enough votes to pass the whole thing. But again, ETJ is one of those things. So theoretically, if ETJ is done away with, a developer could put something right on the border of the community and we'd have nothing to say. And you could look out of your window and see this monstrosity, whatever it is, and not be able to do anything about it. So we'll stay tuned, but I'm somewhat hopeful that it won't be as bad as we think it could be. Thank you. Land use plan, again, this is a big picture policy. This is how the town wants to grow. The vision, what it wants to be, residential, commercial, all those pieces. And we're going to revisit that for the comp plan. And things have changed since this was adopted in 2018. Seven years in North Carolina is almost like a century for a growing community. It's recommended every 10 years you do an update to your plan. A lot of communities go five years and say we need to update this because things have changed so much. So we will be working through that and it's going to be a process. So staff role sort of touched on a little bit. Our role initially is to meet with developers, meet with applicants that want to develop and want to build. We, you know, walk them through the process. We explain to them what is and what is not allowed. The process that we have in Harrisburg is very front end loaded. And what I mean by that is by the time you see it, there's probably been six to nine months of pre in some cases a year of work done before you ever see it because in virtually every case it's going to be a conditional zoning and so We don't want to bring something to you or the council that is not going to be supported. So we are really trying to thread the needle with development to make sure it's consistent with the land use plan, it meets the zoning requirements, and it's something council will support. So I mentioned earlier about legislative process. Legislative process means, unlike the Board of Adjustment, developers can have all the discussions they want with the council. Individually, they can talk to them and they can get their input, they can make some changes. They can talk to neighbors. We do have a process where formally they need to have a meeting with the neighbors. But they can have all the discussions they want. They have discussions with us. But we try to make sure that when we bring something to you, it's going to have a fairly good chance of being approved so that we don't waste everybody's time. Because it is a long process and in Harrisburg the standards are high and so when the standards are high it takes a little bit longer to go through the process. So people who want to develop in Harrisburg have to understand that this is not come in, sit down, file an application, come before the board the next month, go to the council and get approval. It's not going to happen. Now, for property that's zoned, whatever the zoning is, and someone can build, With that zoning, then you won't see them. We'll deal with whatever it is. We've got a couple of those that are in consideration right now. where the zoning is fine, and typically that would be commercial. You know, it's in a general commercial zone or whatever the zone might be, or it's employment, and it's all good. Then we just make sure that it meets all the regulations. But typically, you know, it's going to come before you accept it. The zoning is all good. So what do we do? In between our naps, there's a lot of detail that we go through. And for those who have been around in the process and understand it, you know that there's a lot behind the curtain. There's a lot that goes on. And so, you know, everything from application review, we have meetings internally with different departments, engineering, public works, fire, park and recreation. Everybody comes together and makes comments. We modify the plan. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes, especially if it is a conditional rezoning that has an annexation on top of it and maybe there's another twist to it. Maybe we have to change the Watershed overlay or there's some other unique part of it so it can get in get complicated but Again, the ordinance is what we we go by and that keeps us out of trouble And we try to stick to that as close as possible now I'll just mention one thing and I think some of you are aware of this but We, when we're looking at the ordinance, somebody comes in and we're going through the process, and we make an assessment or determination, whatever it is, on use, on layout, on what is required, and we make that determination, and the applicant says, that's not the correct interpretation. they can appeal the administrative decision. We've had a few of those, and that goes to the Board of Adjustment, and then the Board of Adjustment will make a decision. Was the decision correct or was the decision not correct? Does it need to be modified or is it good the way it is? So that's the check, at least on us. You are advisory, and we'll talk about conflict of interest in just a minute. So there are some things that you need to be aware of. But if somebody gets approved at town council and someone is not happy, they can challenge that and have to go to court. superior court and they could file a lawsuit and then Rich has got to prepare for that case and go through the process. There can be an appeal from a decision by a town council. There can also be an appeal by the Board of Adjustment. The You end up in court, and we have to go through that process. Fortunately, we don't have a whole lot of those. It seems like we've had more code enforcement cases, Rich, that have gone before the court than land use. And again, you want to stay out of court. Typically, that's not the case. There are instances where that happens. But it's pretty rare that a decision would be appealed from the council where they would prevail. But they could prevail if the council did not follow the UDO, which is why it's really important to follow the steps. And I can remember when I was in Huntersville about 15 years ago when the consistency statement was just enacted into law. Remember that, Shelly? So everybody was getting used to this, and the Huntersville Town Board of Commissioners approved the development and did not do a consistency statement. And so if somebody did not agree with the decision, they took them to court, they got overturned, because they didn't follow the regulation. So number one, follow the rules. And if we do that, then we're in good shape most of the time. So the town attorney will again advise both planning board, advise town council, advise board of judgment, advise us. We will call Rich up and ask him questions. about different matters and that's what Rich is there for. Sometimes we need to bring in some other attorneys because things start to get a little More complicated, we had a few of those cases recently, and that's something that can happen.

But you will always have- The complication is not from the issues, it's more from the fact that you have to have different people advising different parts of the procedure. The ward needs an attorney to advise them. The staff needs an attorney to advise them. And in the most recent one that we had, the town was taking a position that was different from staff. So we had to have an attorney represent the town. So that was because of the situation. But it wasn't because the issue was all that complicated. because of the way it turned out.

There can be a lot of moving pieces. So we make sure that we're following rules. And hopefully we won't get into any of those. I have been doing this for about 35 years. I've had a few cases. And usually... I don't think there's ever been one that we did not win, except that one . But it happens, and that's where you get precedent set at the Supreme Court level. OK, so here's the point you've got to pay attention to. So conflicts of interest. An appointed board, which you are, and I'm just going to focus on the highlighted portion, you shall not vote when the outcome is likely to have a direct, substantial, and readily identifiable financial impact on the member. So Bill, you have a family member who stands to make a lot of money. for a development, and you are championing it as the chair. You're up there cheerleading this, and that would be a pretty obvious conflict of interest. And Rich, I don't know that there's very many of these cases that come up, but they can.

The bar's pretty high though. We don't have that many out here. And typically, between staff and me, if we know that there's something that kind of touches on this statute, we give you advice as to whether we think it could be a conflict or not. If we know that you let us know that there may be something that might touch on that. So we can help with that. It's not always that clear.

Yeah, and the bar is pretty high. Direct, substantial, readily identifiable. It's got to be pretty... Now, and I'll say this, it could be that you vote on a subdivision and you may benefit from it, but... The bar is pretty high, you know, this direct, substantial, readily identifiable. You may, the overflow, you may somehow benefit from it, but it's got to be pretty egregious, you know, to fall into this. So I think you all, in signing your forms, have the language that you're seeing. And then the second piece of that is an appointed board member shall not vote on a zoning amendment if the landowner of the property subject to rezoning has a close familial, business, or associational relationship. Say that 10 times fast. So again, if you have someone that you're doing business with and you're on the board or you're on the council. And frankly, this is more likely to affect a decision-making body. I don't know that there would be too much for an advisory board that you would get sued on something. You always could get sued. But council, it may be that someone can say, somebody on the council is going to get rich if this is approved. And they just voted on it. Now, as Rich said, and I've seen this happen before, you can always ask ahead of time and say, you know, I might have a little bit of concern here. And then you would just recuse yourself. And that's something that you would do at a meeting. And, Rich, I believe there's a vote.

But I think the part of that that would probably apply to this board that they need to be most careful about is bias. having making the decision on something in advance in your mind where you've just decided this is the way i'm going to vote before you've heard the case that's that's the one that i think comes up that the uh or the hardest one to deal with. Because you've heard a lot about a project, even though it hasn't been presented to you, you've already decided you either like it or you don't like it. And so if you have a fixed opinion in advance, that can turn out to be a conflict of interest. You've got to keep an open mind. Because in your situation, you can hear about it outside of the hearing. Like Jack has pointed out, the developer or whoever can come and talk to each of you individually about it and try to give you support. And you might hear enough outside of it before it's been heard in the hearing. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, Rich. So developers can call you up, Robbie.

And they may call all of you. They may email all of you. I don't think they could send them gifts, right? That's not legal. sitting as a planning board ETJ rep, can talk all he wants outside of this room, but board of adjustment, you get a call, you hang up, right? I mean, that's the difference. You can talk if it's planning board, but if it's board of adjustment, you can't. It's similar to court. Jurors can't discuss the case outside of the courtroom. So anyway, this is not something that you have to be afraid of. But if there is something, then just bring it up. Either myself, Rich, we can have a discussion. And typically, if we've got seven people and we... If five can do it, then if we lose one, we'll be all right. So don't feel like you've got to stay in there for everyone if you can step down. Open meetings law basically means that public decisions have got to be made in an open forum. and not behind some door where a decision is made and then it is announced afterwards. I will say one other thing, I was gonna mention this, but You are considering a case, and it's a very complicated case. You don't have to decide it one night. You can continue it to the next meeting. I think a couple times you've done that. So you don't have to decide something in one night. And I've been in a couple different places where it's been continued two or three times. And sometimes the developer's okay with that because they're trying to work out whatever the issue is. And so, you know, and I've seen cases where developers come before the board and all the neighbors show up in force and are, you know, being very, very much in opposition, the developer will say, I'd like to continue or recess or continue the meeting and then meet with all the neighbors and say, and they can do that, just as they can meet with you, they can meet with the council and say, what can I do? What can we do? And they can have a discussion and they can have a negotiation and It may be that they'll come back in and be all smiling, maybe half smiling. But that can happen as well. So all the actions have got to take place in a public meeting, including your meeting. These are the three important plans, Harrisburg Area Land Use Plan, the HALOP, the UDO, and the Harrisburg Transportation Plan. And I think, is that it? Oh, no, we have one more. So, the Blue Book, are we getting, everybody getting the Blue Book? Robbie getting the Blue Book? You got it? So, Anyway, this book is very helpful. North Carolina has very good land use and planning expertise in the school of government through, or UNC school of government has a very strong presence where they will give courses for different, and we'll tell you about those when they come up, both for Board of Adjustment and for Planning Board. The quasi-judicial handbook is for Board of Adjustment. You don't need to worry about that unless you're on the Board of Adjustment. So you've got to read both books each one. I'm sorry. You really ought to... It gets your reading down. But the ordinance, the UDO, is what you're really focused on. And hopefully, as you get more familiar with it, you'll be more comfortable with it. But we will walk you through it. and the different features that are important for a rezoning or a text amendment or a, whatever it may be. So for example, comprehensive plan. You all will review that comprehensive plan when it's all done and there's a bow on it. You will make a recommendation to the town council. You recommend approval, recommend Not approval, you recommend. We want to approve it, but change this. You have to do that. And you will need to do that. So it could be varied. You could be voting on a residential subdivision or on a comprehensive plan. It can be a text amendment. It could be a zoning map change. So there's a lot of different things that you can be asked to do. Questions?

Thank you Zach. A lot of good stuff. If nobody has any questions with that we have our next item is staff updates. Do we have no staff updates tonight? So lastly an adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? So moved. Second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much