Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

6 p.m. and I call the meeting to order. Good evening and welcome to everyone to the town of Leland Planning Board meeting. Please note that the public and media may videotape these proceedings at any time. And at this time I would like to remind everyone to place their cell phones on vibrate or turn them off so we do not disturb the business of tonight's meeting. Let us please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. Does anyone have any amendments to the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, can someone make a motion?

So move approval. Okay, is there a second? Second.

It has been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, well the agenda's approved. So we'll move on to the approval of the minutes. Okay, is that legal? Okay, so there's no discussion, no comments? Can I get a second?

Second.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded for the approval of the minutes. Okay. Let's see. Yes.

If you can do all in favor.

All in favor, thank you.

Aye.

Okay. On both accounts, yes, thank you. So at this time, anyone who signed up to speak during public comment period, the start of this meeting may come forward after all registered speakers have finished. Anyone who did not sign up or wishes to provide the public comment will have an opportunity to speak. Mr. Golonka. Do we have anyone signed up to speak during the public comment?

No, ma'am.

Okay, thank you. So let's see here. Then I guess we should move on to the discussion topics. Unified Development Ordinance, Article 10 Draft. Mr. Andrea will now begin the discussion.

Thank you. Good evening. Last month in your agenda packet, you received the draft of Article 10, which is the article relating to violations and enforcement. In this article, it would include what is considered a violation, who is responsible for correcting a violation, how the town staff would investigate once we hear of a violation, allegation, or complaint, The article also sets out a procedure that includes three notices of violation. And at that point the case would be referred over to town legal. Uh, this is something that we don't currently have in our ordinance, but we are doing it in practice so that we're making sure that the process in which we investigate violations is the same no matter who or what the violation is. anywhere in that investigation or violation process. Someone who's in violation has an opportunity to work with town staff to create a, what we're calling a corrective action plan. That is essentially a mutually agreed upon a plan for how they are going to correct their violation with specific milestones and dates. Uh, and upon, agreement of that plan, the violation procedure would pause, and so long as they completed what they said they were going to do in that corrective action plan, the violation procedure would not continue. On the other hand, if they did not reach those milestones and continue forward with what was agreed upon, then the violation procedure would resume. This article also sets out what we will include in a notice of violation, who would receive it and how they could receive it as far as like what methods, hand delivery or postal service or another similar delivery method. And then finally, this article sets out the remedies and the penalties for violations that the town could pursue. So with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions or hear any feedback that you may have about this article.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ben, just really quickly, this is just codifying the text amendment that we had done earlier into the UDO?

This includes that language. That language has already been codified. It's in the ordinance now. But that language is also repeated in this article, which is essentially an update to what you all saw in that text amendment.

Are there others? I think this question's been asked before, but whenever we're looking at this, we're verifying that there is legal conforming language, right? I see that there's a reference to state statutes, so we're following all guidelines that the state is prescribing, understanding that those could change, and we may have to make updates in this process along the way.

Yeah, that is true. Anything that we're putting in front of you is compliant to the statutory requirements or allowances. Those are subject to change. There are some bills floating around that could affect how the UDO is written, and so we'll kind of cross that bridge when we get to it. But in the meantime, what you're seeing is compliant with the state statutes.

And one other question's a little off topic, but I think since we're talking about violations, maybe it does fit in. If new development, new commercial space is developed, they're gonna submit a plan, it's gonna go through technical review, it's gonna go through all those approvals. Within that plan, we have requirements for plantings, tree calipers, things like that. how long does enforcement last over that? So I had the question posed, what happens if someone develops a property, they're supposed to plant 10 trees, those 10 trees die in a week? Do we just let them wilt away and that their hands are washed of it? How does that work and how would that work in this process?

Yeah, that's an excellent question and a great example. What our ordinance doesn't do now is address that specifically. And what we will do in this example in the chapter that talks about landscaping in particular, we'll say essentially, you know, language to that effect of how we, how, uh, the amount of time in which the plantings need to sort of become thriving. In any instance, if there's a situation where there's an element that was required by the ordinance and approved on a plan that is no longer in place, that is technically a zoning violation, something that we could go after. So let's say someone removes the plants or someone restripes their parking lot and that results in less parking spaces than would be required. Any kind of site changes like that that alter the minimum requirements of what was approved as part of their site plan is technically a violation that we could pursue now or in the future with the current ordinance or with the updated one. All right, thank you. You're welcome.

So I have just a comment. How much leverage do we have in actually looking at the wording?

Ms. Akinwal, can you speak into the microphone for us, please?

I'm sorry, am I not? Oh, thank you. How much leeway do we have in actually helping write the language, so to speak, the wording that's used in these documents? Sure. For example, in 10, Dot three, dot three, under inspections. There is a line there that says, dot, dot, dot, may enter beyond the cartilage upon land or inspect any structure. I know that's legalese, but I'm a person of plain speak, so I was just wondering, for the layman reading that, if someone wanted to abide by these rules and regulations, would they understand what you're talking about?

The average person probably would not know what that word is, but in the context of a police enforcement or a police power, which code enforcement falls under that, that is a commonly used term. I can look and see if there's something else that we could replace that term with.

That would be good. I'm a student of what's called plain speak. Many years ago, a lot of people were tasked with going through documents like this and looking at synonyms and just putting in wording so that the average layman could understand exactly what they were looking at or what they were being charged with or not charged with over the period.

Sure. To answer your original question, everything that you're seeing is drafted by staff, so we have total control over what this says, what words we use, and we do want to make it understandable and user-friendly. So pointing out things like that is helpful, and if there's other suggestions similar to that, don't hesitate to point those out. For this one, I'll take a look and see what we may replace that with.

Any other comments? Thank you. So are we ready to move on to old, new business? Sure.

Under old and new business in your agenda packet is the draft of the next article that we'll discuss next month. This is zoning map and districts. This article includes what we're suggesting to be essentially the menu of zoning districts that would be applicable in the town. You have from now until next month, or at least we'll plan to talk about it next month. And as you read through this, if you have any questions or things you want to talk about, feel free to reach out to me. Otherwise, we'll discuss it at your meeting next month. Okay?

Okay. Now we move on to staff board committee monthly reports. The planning staff will now present the monthly reports.

It's me again. in the month of may town planning and inspections office issued 220 total permits and performed almost 2700 inspections 91 of those permits were for new homes we are seeing a resurgence in residential permitting last year the numbers were down a little bit compared to the years prior we're seeing that pick back up even as early as january this year Value of construction was over $35 million as far as what was permitted last month. At the Town Council meeting last week, there were no public hearings. As you may recall, last month you had no public hearings on your agenda, so Town Council had nothing pertaining to planning or land use on their agenda. Similarly, the Board of Adjustment did not meet in May. We did not have any agenda items. I've talked about the data center text amendment that the town adopted and kind of the traction and the publicity that that has been getting. That continues. The Cape Fear Council of Government invited planning staff to do a presentation on that text amendment and that was pretty great because the Cape Fear Council of Government includes Pender, New Hanover, Brunswick and Columbus counties and all the municipalities within those counties. So staff was able to share what we created as far as that text amendment and hopefully a good takeaway if others are considering similar text amendments. Christian Brothers Automotive, which is over in the Waterford commercial area, received its development site plan approval, so now they can move forward with getting their building permits. And a couple weeks ago, we welcomed a new intern for the summer, Elizabeth Hilbert. She is a rising sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill. She'll be with us through the next couple months. She's majoring in political science with a minor in urban studies and planning. So as we consider kind of what long-term, long-term I mean summer project she'll be working on for the staff, we hope to give her some experience presenting to you and at that time we'll introduce you to her. Glad to take any questions that you all may have. Otherwise that's all from me. No significant transportation updates to discuss. The MPO continues to talk about the options for the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement. There's not any additional details to share beyond what has been kind of out there in the news. As you all probably know, the Roundabout, the new teardrop roundabout, has opened up near Walmart. That seems, in my observation, seems to be somewhat effective. That's really the extent of transportation updates for this month. Any questions related to anything going on transportation-wise?

I do have one about the crosswalk, the new crosswalk right there at the new roundabout.

Ms. Eckenwald, if you can speak into the microphone for me, please.

or the people in the back? The crosswalk, they're about the roundabout, the new roundabout, the crosswalk that's supposed to be on the drawing board. I was looking at the timetable for that.

The crosswalk near the Aldi store, the Cross 17? Yes. That's right, it's getting close. They are through the design phase now and working through any kind of right-of-way acquisition. I don't have the date in front of me, but last I recall, the estimated start time has been moved up sooner than what it was anticipated. So I expect that we'll see work to start on that fairly soon. I'm sorry I'm being so vague. I just don't know exactly when. I do know that all the work that will be done will be done at night. They can't shut any of the lanes down on 17, so hopefully it will be not an issue for the daytime traffic, but at nighttime there will be some lane closures as they do the work out there. But it's still in the works, and we're getting close.

Okay, great. Thank you. Any other discussions or comments? Well, does that take us up to adjournment?

Yes, ma'am, it does.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? The meeting is adjourned. I know, it's amazing. We aim to please.