Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

understanding with them okay um and i know i mean we've talked about this in previous meetings but to like kind of annex someone when harrisburg the city of harrisburg limits are not around it that's something i thought we were trying to like get away from so i kind of guess like what are the annexation without water so are they going to be city or a ton of harrisburg residents they'll be able to vote right like so that's

yes so it is a non-contiguous annexation to your question um we do have an agreement so this is in the annotation area that we can annex um since they are just a property owner that's hoping to develop um they would be if annexed by town council they would be residents we would service them they are looking to connect to sewer and they would provide their own water okay and the land doesn't perk is that why they wanted to do this is

I'm understanding if we recommend and town council approves, it doesn't guarantee they're going to get that right away, though, right?

So if it's one home, you're under the threshold to request sewer allocation. You should be under the 600 gallons per day. So they shouldn't have to formally request anything from council. It's just an annexation to be able to tap in, essentially. And they have not signed up to speak, but they are here, so they can if necessary.

And just...

this does get annexed in and this doesn't work out for this current owner and they sell mm-hmm could more than one home be built on it in the future since you are doing a conventional rezoning technically yes do we know how many homes um so it's showing about if it's one home per acre it's a little over five max would be five but you got to think by the time you build the road build a road into the site you're not going to get that many and a lot of it I think is in flood zone mm-hmm so yeah five would be the hardcore max but I doubt they would ever get that close you're probably looking at more two to three any other questions all right awesome thank you very much I will go ahead and move to the recommended motion for this evening So it is recommended that Planning and Zoning Board recommend to Town Council approval of the Zoning Map Amendment 47340 Paul Inker Place and the motion to adopt the following statement of consistency. And it is written as the zoning amendment is reasonable and in the public interest as it is consistent with the existing zoning adjacent to the subject property and consistent with the provisions of the HALOP.

Okay. I will make a motion to recommend to town council approval of the zoning map amendment for 73 40 Paul anchor place. The motion to adopt is based on the statement of consistency as follows. The zoning amendment is reasonable and in the public interest as it is consistent with the existing zoning adjacent to the subject property and consistent with the provisions of the Harrisburg area land use plan. Second. Okay. All in favor.

Thank you all, and I'm back for the next one. Yes. Thanks, Frankie, for fixing the screen. So the next case before you is also a conventional, and it is for 9274 Naren Lane. So it currently now is zoned LDR as another low density residential. The applicant is asking to annex it and to place residential medium. It is currently a vacant parcel inside of the Bradford Park neighborhood, and the parcel is approximately 0.47 of an acre. There is where the property is. You can see that with the little red balloon, as I like to call it. Here is town limits.

So again, it'd be nunk.

Yeah. And I'll kind of, I think, give an additional background on this one, because I think it's a little unique. So as you can tell, this is Bradford Park. They're near Holcomb Woods. So current town policy is if you're looking to obtain public utilities, you have to annex and rezone. So while they are in an established neighborhood now out in the county, our utilities are actually in the road. And so we already service the neighborhood.

I always wondered why.

Yeah, this one's a little unique for sure. Sure.

a number of years ago i can't remember what year it was but a number of these neighborhoods like this one on the cabrera side and some some on the mecklenburg side were owned by a private utility and so what happened was the city of Charlotte wanted to take all of them, and they were buying all of these. But it went to the Utilities Commission. The Utilities Commission said the city of Charlotte couldn't buy any of the neighborhoods that were on the Barra side. So what happened in view of that decision was that the town of Harrisburg, contracted with the city of Charlotte to buy the ones that were on the Camaro side. And so these neighborhoods were located outside of Harrisburg, but the town bought them anyway. And that was back before they had the rule that you, you know, You had to be within the town to hook onto the utilities. So these neighborhoods were hooked on, but they were still in the county. And this is one of them. And so basically, the town worked it out with the city of Charlotte and bought all these. And so I see it was done a number of years ago. So that's the history. That's how we ended up with this one. Here's a few others.

Thanks, Rich. I appreciate that. I learned something, too, with that.

I think it's more than a little.

So can I just piggyback a question on that? Sure. Can the town annex them in, or does it have to be, like that HOA has to request it?

It has to be voluntary, yes, and they would all have to request to come inside. Okay.

Do they know that?

That's another thing. The legislature, a number of years ago, pretty much eliminated .

Right. I can see a good and bad thing.

Yeah. And to your point, yeah, the fact that they're one lot in a neighborhood that has sewer and water, because the homes that are already there are established in the county. We have had that conversation with the applicant. I think, obviously, their hope would be to build in the county and still tap on, but that's not policy. We did have internal conversations about what that looked like and the path led that if they're going to build and attach to water and sewer like their neighbors, they need to annex.

Yeah.

So yeah.

They'll be the only home in that neighborhood that can vote.

I will say there are a couple more vacant lots. So maybe. I know there are. Maybe we'll see some more. But I think as of now, yes. They definitely would be the first.

So sorry. I'm just going to. Sure. I know it's a bleaker list, but if they wanted to get annexed as a whole neighborhood, is that something like they would be charged? Like would they have to pay to be annexed?

So, I mean, they would have to request, yeah, to actually like all come in as a whole. We'd probably process them as just one application that everyone could sign. But, yeah. And their fees would change because they're paying, I think, out of county they're paying county taxes not town well also I think they're paying out of town utility fees versus in-town fees so I think there's some rate differentiation as well okay okay thank you yeah no of course this one was really interesting to research for my entire team and I and to your point also it's another like non-contiguous it's not correctly you know adjacent but It's in alignment with the other lots in the community. So we definitely thought that RM would be more sufficient. Obviously per RM you can do two to three units per acre, but realistically it's a half an acre lot. So you're getting one home regardless. So this one I think is a lot more straightforward compared to the last one. But yes, we do have utilities in the road. So it does align with the HALOP. It shows that it is low density residential. You'll see on the far left the red star. It is consistent with the goals of the HALOP, so limited to single-family residential use as is. It is within an existing single-family residential neighborhood, as mentioned, and it is in alignment with the other one, so it is an appropriate zoning classification for that area. Another, just to kind of show you guys what the applicant was talking to us about, that is where they're looking to put their home. I do believe that this individual is hoping to build and then sell to a family. So I don't think it'll be the personal home for this individual, but And they're also showing a 55 foot stream buffer along the back But it does not inhibit them from building on the site We did work that out with the surveyor So we've also asked those type of questions to make sure that an actual home can be built on the lot And we don't have conflict with their driveway being across Naren to intersect with that other one. We have also worked through that detail and So staff recommendation is that you all recommend approval because it is consistent with the decision criteria and it is a reasonable request in the public interest and it is consistent with the HALOP and it is consistent with the goals of the HALOP. It is also appropriate zone of classification for that area given the lot size. Any questions? That concludes my presentation.

Can you clarify the existing county zoning that's LDR, and that's up to two?

It's one, one home per acre.

Okay.

So ours, they would be able to do up to two and three per the land use plan, but as you can tell, it's half an acre. So they're really only getting one lot regardless.

But is it two or three?

Four. So R says between two and three, and then if you look for the land use plan.

Okay.

So then that's where the zoning kind of drills in and gives them more analysis.

Yeah, it's inconsequential for this.

Good questions for when you see larger projects, for sure.

Okay. I wanted to clarify whether it was two or three. I thought I read two and how up.

It's usually like a two, two, three is what I believe it says in there, but then it depends on the actual zoning placed. I appreciate that. Awesome. Thank you all. Tonight, this is the recommended motion. Motion to recommend Town Council approval of the zoning map amendment 49274 Naren Lane. Motion to adopt the following statement of consistency. It is stated that the zoning amendment is reasonable and in the public interest as it is consistent with the existing zoning adjacent to the subject property and and consistent with the provisions of the Harrisburg Area Land Use Plan.

I'm going to put forward a motion to adopt. The recommended motion is to recommend to town council approval of the zoning map amendment for 9274 Naren Lane. The motion to adopt the following statement of consistency is consistent with the zoning The zoning amendment is reasonable and in the public interest as it is consistent with the existing zoning adjacent to the subject property and consistent with the provisions of the Harrisburg area land use plan.

Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

So since we have some new members, welcome. We will have a quick training. And I think most people, if you've served before, you're definitely more than aware of how planning and zoning board works. But it's definitely staff's goal to make sure that, you know, as we welcome you new ones to the board, that you kind of get a brief overview as to what this looks like. So for me, it's a place that you can ask questions as we work through this. Please don't wait to the end, but I will try to move very quickly. So you have your rules of procedure before you. You all have been provided with one. So as you know, you have terms, you have two terms. They're two years at a time. You need a minimum of four to have a quorum. If you don't vote, it is counted as supporting the vote. So keep that in mind. We will also cover conflict of interest later in the presentation and then members can be removed for excessive absences. So conflict of interest, that is covered under state statute. Basically it's that you shall not vote or make a recommendation where the outcome is likely to have a direct substantial or readily identifiable financial impact on you. And then also if you have people that do close family business, that could also be a conflict of interest. So when in doubt, don't vote. You can recuse yourself. So the role of the planning board, we actually legally have to have a planning board. We also need to have a land use plan, which as you guys know, we have and we're working on a new one in the Juan Harrisburg plan. All zoning ordinances, text amendments, map amendments, all go before all of you. And then you have 30 days to make a recommendation, but you guys are great and tackle it at every meeting I've attended. So no worries for that one. Just to note the importance of us here, we have seven regular members, one ETJ representative that we're hoping to actually take in August to get them added. So they will be able to serve on both boards. They had to get voted in by the county first or appointed essentially. We have an additional ex-officio member, non-voting, one primary and one alternate town council liaison. Yes, we have one sitting tonight. Secretary, you guys all know Carly. She's going to send out your agendas, pack it, make sure you have any questions, issues, feel free to ask her. She'll keep a quorum. And then obviously all of us in the planning department, we serve you all. So the role of the planning board, kind of talked about some basic things that you guys see. You will serve as an advisor board to town council. Some places have more authority to make decisions, but in the places I've worked, this is a standard practice. So you guys get to do hopefully fun projects, and you're gonna review and make recommendations to elected officials. We provide staff reports, maps, presentations like you've seen tonight. usually if it's a conditional you'll hear from the applicant so you'll get to see all these different pieces move as you work throughout your time here this we've shown before so if you've seen it welcome if not it kind of I think helps people understand all the different pieces that go into projects that you're seeing so engineering public works and CDOT we work closely with them obviously planning sometimes economic development parks and rec We coordinate with the school district. And then obviously Rich is great. He's helpful for us and for you guys. We have a sewer allocation committee and then, as you all know, leadership. So assistant town manager and our town manager. So whenever you guys are actually looking to make decisions, you'll want to think about the plan before you, the UDO, any small area plans, comp plans, thoroughfare plans if they are necessary. And then town council really kind of takes that extra step to make sure that whatever's going before them is good for the community in the long run as well. So I think those are kind of the pieces that are maybe different. And then obviously citizen concerns. If it's a large condition rezoning, you guys might see people come out and vocalize their perspective. Which I know you've attended plenty of meetings, so you understand what that looks like. So you guys will really be dealing with legislative cases. So there are decisions that are made by town council, advised by you guys. Here we currently still take preliminary plots through the system. So that's another additional thing that you will see that as the UDO changes will probably change as well. So those are different types of things that you'll see. That was kind of funny. Because I've actually heard somebody, unfortunately, make the joke that it was the extraterrestrial jurisdiction instead of the ETJ. But that is an area that you usually see outside of town limits. We have zoning authority over them. They are not actually annexed into the town, though. However, we do have annexation agreement with Midland, Concord, and Charlotte, and they are all updated. Here's the boundary. Any questions so far? It's pretty cut and dry. Cool, all right, you guys have probably seen the UDO online. It covers tons of different things, subdivision ordinances, parking, landscaping, floods, watershed protection. Fire code is not in there, it is separate. It's under building code. How we break it out here is a minor is less than five lots with no new roads, major is five or more with new roads for platting for subdivisions. Here's the HALOP. As I mentioned to you guys earlier, we are working on the One Harrisburg plan. That should be coming before you all this fall. We have an updated timeline where we'll see some summer outreach as we end in the summer towards August. We'll go before the Harrisburg business neighborhood and talk to some business networks. Then once we finalize that, we should come before you guys. I want to say we're targeting October, November. So hopefully we will see that done and adopted before Christmas. That's a goal, right? We can all have goals.

Is it also going to include transportation plan as well, or are we keeping the current one?

We're keeping the current one.

Without any changes?

For now. Yeah, we have a lot of other plans that I think through this process we've seen that we probably should do the same type of analysis. Transportation, maybe the park plan. So it's just trying to figure out what we're attacking next.

And where are we with the UDO?

Sure, so Chad has started phase two. He is working hopefully diligently on it. We've seen the development review process and we've worked through based on the how that you see here, new zoning districts and to make sure that we are in alignment. We should expect to see chapters one through three as he is now calling them in September. Yeah, so I think in a different timeline than what we all initially figured. It's my understanding, I think we expected it to kind of be in alignment with the comp plan. But it does sound like it will be closer to next spring before we have a full document. Which, as many legislative changes as are happening right now, might not be a bad thing. Because I know he's trying to actively keep up with what's changing to make sure that our code is as up-to-date as possible. Because that would stink to have to already make text amendments once you get a new one. But yeah. Great question, thank you, because I just had that conversation today, actually. So as you guys see, this is more of what staff does. So we review minor site plans, issue permits, and we have a great code enforcement guy, so we will investigate violations. We also answer questions, citizens hopefully answer questions from you guys if you guys have any. We work with other departments. As I show you guys on DRC, we talk to engineering, NCDOT, which is not an internal department, but we work very closely with Jason. So it takes a lot to make something come before you guys, but hopefully you guys know that it's vetted by professionals. And then we try to do our best to interpret the UDO and the HALOP. Rich, you want anything to say? This is your slide, man.

Let me look at it.

Basically, he just advises us of legality matters, procedural issues. He does not tell you guys how to vote. Rich has said it before. He pretty much will stay over there.

You might get that ask again, Rich. I don't know. It might be a thing. And that's right. I will not tell you how to vote. It's not my role.

Rich is pretty good, I think, to just wait until you have questions.

try to make sure that you what you do stays within the bounds of the law you know in a general way i did want since there's a something on here about conflicts of interest i did want it to add to what um ontario said early earlier if you think you have a conflict of interest you need to bring it up at the meeting and let the board vote on whether it really is And I will give advice on whether I think it fits within the statute. But if you don't tell us, and then you vote, and someone finds out later that it was a conflict of interest, it can affect the decision of the whole board. So we need to know about it at the time. And actually, close familial, as they put it, interest includes a step and a half of relationships. just so you'll know. You might think it's just based on blood, but it's not. So that is kind of an expanded definition of that. So if that would ever come up, I say the main thing is just bring it up to the board before there's a vote on it. And then the board will vote on whether it constitutes a conflict of interest. I say I'll help give some advice. But we want to be ahead of those kind of things, not behind them.

If we feel there's a conflict of interest, can we choose to step out, or does it still have to be voted on by the board?

Well, not if you don't disclose it, because you do have a duty under the statutes to vote. You have a positive duty to vote, so if you're not going to vote, there has to be an exception that allows it.

So it gets approved. Okay. That's all I was checking on.

Makes sense.

That's a good question. I've actually never heard anybody ask that one before. Thanks, Rich. Sure.

In the event that there's not, let's say we have a quorum just by the minimum amount and then someone feels they have a conflict of interest and so they abstain, what happens in that situation?

We may not have a forum at that point. We'd have to deal with that. The matters might have to be postponed. It really just depends on the situation. We have enough people on the board. As long as we have the minimum, then we'll cover it.

Thanks. See, this is exactly what I was hoping for. We get questions out. I'm hoping it's pretty chill. Training is a little painful, but it's an important part of the kicking off the new year. I think even I've read these things quite a few number of years at this point. So obviously, these are open meetings. We public notice them. It's a public record. That's how we function with most of these. So yeah, we will conduct a hearing, deliberate, take action, or just talk about business. I won't summon you guys here or call you guys here without a project. So you shouldn't see me after this unless there's something going on. Any other questions? Because I tried to get you guys out on time. I know, right? Cool. That concludes my presentation. I was hoping that part would be informal so you guys could ask questions.

Any staff updates or information? All right. Thank you.

Motion to adjourn.