Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thursday, July 23rd, 2026 open session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners. As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent reflection. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I hope everybody is doing well today and hope everybody will be able to get outside to enjoy some of this weather. Up first on our agenda today, item number one, approval to purchase courthouse security upgrades. Your Honor, please approach the bench.

Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning.

Before I forget, I just wanted to say, you probably covered this, Priority Carol, maybe in the last meeting or a week before that, but on July the 8th, we had the 250th anniversary celebration of the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Commissioner Gordon uh was instrumental in in that and it was a really terrific event you probably all heard about it and read about i'd say we must have had at least a hundred i would say people uh gathered around the historic courthouse for a reading of the declaration of independence And that's the first time I've actually ever heard the Declaration of Independence read in its entirety. It's really fascinating. And it was really good to see how many people showed up for that on a kind of a warm evening. It was pretty hot, even at 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, but... Nice tribute, so thanks for arranging that. I appreciate you allowing us to utilize the front of the property. It was the ideal, I thought, location for that. So good morning. Thanks for making time on the agenda for me this morning. I'm requesting today this board's approval of a grant from the administrative office of the courts in the amount of $64,669.01. There is a slight typo. It says the amount is approved in the FY26, but it should be 27 budget. These are for security upgrades, cameras on the outside of the building so we have better visibility out over the parking lot into the cemetery area where, unfortunately, from time to time there will be maybe some acts of vandalism and that sort of thing, people's vehicles, and we need to be able to have security video cameras coverage of that, and also to improve security in our eight courtrooms. So I can give you the details on that if you want. I have 16 Cadell with me, and I'll put your name again.

CARRIE DOLSKE.

CARRIE DOLSKE. And they can probably answer any technical questions.

Any comments, questions, or direction from the board? I'm just going to go ahead. I move the Board of Commissioners approve the purchase of security upgrades for the Carroll County Courthouse for Marathon Technology Services, Inc., in the amount of $64,669.01. Second. We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Your Honor.

Good to see everybody. Good to see you. Good to see you, too.

All right. Up next, item number two, Priority Carol and Commissioner Krebs. If you're up for it, we'll start with you.

Sure. Just briefly, it was so nice getting up this morning, coming outside, and it being cool instead of walking out into a furnace like we have been for the last few weeks and months. And it just brought to mind about all of our public works employees, and firefighters, and EMS, and just folks that still have to go about their jobs in air conditioned situations. And we all, I think, take that somewhat for granted. So I just wanted to just give accolades to them for suffering through this summer, and hopefully they'll have a little relief. There's a lot of folks. out there working and trying to do the best that they can. So just wanted to point that out. And then an accolade to Christina Green, who was one of our workers who was working at the Senior Inclusion Program. And there was a choking incident, and she was a hero and stepped up and calmly saved the day. And just wanted to, every day, good things go on with our employees. And just wanted to recognize that and shout them out. I know they're doing their job, and they would do it anyway. But just want to acknowledge it. Very well said, Commissioner. Thank you.

good morning carroll county um as we often do up here we we highlight our volunteer fire company carnivals that are taking place and just to remind everybody that manor volunteer fire companies carnival is still taking place you've got three days left to attend needless to say tuesday night was was probably a significant loss for them we had some really rough weather rolling through but the weather's great now and it's cool as was mentioned so I would encourage everybody to go out there and support all your volunteer fire companies. And don't forget about Mount Airy's Carnival. It's taking place right now, and you've got a couple days left to attend. And that's all for me.

Very well said, Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner Gordon?

Yes, thank you. Good morning. I'm going to follow on Commissioner Guerin's comments. We have Reese Carnival currently going on as well. Yes, as we all know, the weather's been a little tricky this week, but please do turn out. I know there's been, you know, good turnout so far given everything, but obviously... That is a huge potential, a huge financial piece of the lifeblood of our volunteers is that was the carnivals and other events like that. So as always, we do a great job in this community, but please do turn out and support our local volunteer companies. They do incredible work that we could not accomplish without them. And we're so incredibly blessed and fortunate to have them do what they do best. I wanted to mention two other quick things very briefly. I'm not certain if everybody got the opportunity, but it is Sunday, excuse me, was the National Ice Cream Day, was established in 84 by President Reagan when he proclaimed July as National Ice Cream Month and designated the third Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day. So in recognizing that, we decided to stop at Huffman's. out here near Westminster High School, but I would suggest anybody support your local businesses when you can, as we always do, and we do a great job of supporting local business in Carroll County. And then last, but certainly not least, wanted to mention the Carroll Hospital Blood Drive that is taking place this Friday on July 24th from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., This is a great opportunity to assist and save lives and to help patients and families in our community. And if you have the time and the ability to give, I would suggest if you could please stop out and do that for your community. And that's all for me. And I do want to make one other quick comment that is not related to Priority Carol. In a few minutes, probably in about another 20, 30 minutes, I'm going to have to excuse myself to go handle another county matter, but I may be able to make it back before I end the open session. So just wanted to mention that if anybody wonders where I have disappeared to.

Totally understood, Commissioner, and thank you very much for the wonderful comments as always. Commissioner Kyler?

Okay, thank you. Emanuel Lutheran Church in Manchester had their monthly breakfast this Saturday, and a lot of people there, a lot of good talk, all you can eat. And there's so many. I think Hampstead Fire Hall does. There's a different week on monthly too. It's so many of those around and you can't beat the cost and all you can eat and. You can sit there for three hours and talk to people if you want, so it's a good event. I participated in the vet talk that VIP does monthly at the Masonic Home, and it was a great event. And they throw out topics, and everybody gets to talk, and it was a great event. Jason wasn't there because I think he was driving his mom back to Texas, but they do it monthly. I told them my calendar probably doesn't let me come every month, but I'll try to make a couple a year, and it's just a great group, and as most things with... with the veterans, there were some requests about flags and about a few other things, but then it was just a great, great talk, and a lot of them knew each other. I knew a lot of them. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen for years. I met with the Central Maryland Chamber of Commerce, and that was a good meeting, and I forgot to tell the judge, one of the members that came and met me was a graduate of Drug Court in Carroll County and talked about how that changed his life. So that was interesting and we had a good talk. As was said, Reese Carnival is going on this week. Hampstead Carnival next week, Mount Airy this week, and please support them all. Tuesday, I know Reese Carnival canceled the band i'm not sure if they tried to open at all or not but um that was a they lost a lot of money that night you know um this weekend i got to go to the ag center the farm bureau was looking for judges their ag ambassador and many years they don't have multiple uh people trying for it but this year they did so they needed judges there and it was a great event uh i i don't think i gave anything to chris but um phyllis clark who's a fourth grade teacher and ryan zimmerman who's active with uh ag throughout the state and i were the judges And Cassidy Lewis was picked as the Ag Ambassador, and Michaela Comer was picked as the alternate. And just such great young spokespersons for Ag in Carroll County and in the state. It was so nice to see them. It was like a five to nine event and had dinner and 2020 couple people there. And it's funny, I've heard from other people that had conflicts and couldn't be there that wanted to. And so just a Farm Bureau does so much for Carroll County. And it was great to see a new ag ambassador. I got to go to Commissioner Vigliotti's breakfast and the food was good. No, it was a very good talk and a very good meeting. MACO is starting to work on their initiatives and there was a meeting of the Initiatives Committee and there was a meeting of the Legislative Committee this week. They're starting with... probably 33 possible initiatives, things submitted. They've been requesting for months people submit. They probably narrowed it down by either combining or eliminating a couple in the 20 someplace. They'll meet again during MAKO and again later in the year to, and MAKO's mandate is to have four initiatives. So they need to do a lot of paring down. But, um, Mako fights for local control and fights for us in Annapolis. And it's a good group to be participating with. And that's enough.

Well, thank you very much, Commissioner Collar, for the excellent comments. And as I always do, I want to thank all of my colleagues and extend to them my compliments for all of their continued service and their involvement in our wonderful community. So two quick things for me this morning. So first of all, pleasure is always for me to attend the regular meeting of the Commission on Aging and Disabilities. It's all right, Chris, you can put those up. I'll go ahead and you can put those up, Chris. I'll do that one first, and that's okay. So first, this week, I had the honor and pleasure of being the guest speaker at the monthly Chamber of Commerce breakfast. I'm, of course, very grateful to have both Roberta and Commissioner Kyler present, and I'm also grateful that the food was so good that Commissioner Kyler obviously didn't throw it at me, so I'm very grateful for that. So I was able to share some news and updates about things going on in District 1 in the county. And as always, the NPRP transmission lines were a particular point of interest for everybody. And everyone is incredibly grateful that we are continuing to fight those lines. And I want to thank everybody who gave up part of their morning to come and spend it with us. And then, of course, second of all, it was a pleasure to attend the regular meeting of the Commission on Aging and Disabilities this week. They're getting ready for the annual Aging Your Way Expo, which will occur this year on Wednesday, September 23rd from 9 o'clock a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. Again, that's Wednesday, September 23rd from 9 o'clock a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. at the Shipley Arena at the Carroll County Agricultural Center here in Westminster. admission as always is going to be free and there are over 90 vendors that have registered so far to attend so it looks like it's going to be a really exciting really engaging morning as they always are and that is all for me this morning is there anybody else who wanted to mention anything additional for priority carol i just want to thank commissioner um gordon for letting us know about national ice cream day because i didn't know it so i went and had double scoop just because i just wanted to support ice cream there you go there you go it was a great picture Thank you very much, Commissioner. All right. Up next, item number three, approval to purchase the property at 1590 Homeland Drive.

Good morning, Brian. How are you? Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. Great, thanks. Brian Boeke, Director of Public Works. I'm here for the approval to purchase 1590 Homeland Drive. The Department of Public Works, in coordination with Planning and Land Management, is requesting your approval to purchase 1590 Homeland Drive. This property would support a planned major street right in our way, included in the county's master plan. Acquiring this property would reserve a portion of the necessary right-of-way to advance future transportation improvements in the Eldersburg area and provide residents with improved access to Liberty Road. This acquisition represents a proactive investment in the county's long-term transportation network and planned growth. So any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Any comments, questions, or direction from the board?

I just want to thank you and staff for coming up with this. This is a very timely what we're all getting ready to do, and it gives us more opportunity to do it correctly. So I think everyone that was involved in acting quickly and seeing that it came up, it was a perfect timing for what we're trying to do. So thank you.

You're welcome. And just for the those listening, when when we're involved in land acquisition, there are meetings and discussions before this in closed because it's land acquisition and so we knew what you were working on and approved that you work on it and this is the final vote for purchasing it but there's been a lot of talk prior to this.

Yes, Commissioner, you're exactly right. A lot of closed-door conversations, a lot of due diligence. We've engaged with engineering consultants to make sure this is feasible to build the road back here. We have some preliminary designs that show sections and what this would look like. So we've been doing a lot of work on the back end to get to this point.

And if anyone from the homeland community is listening, they've been trying for years to get safe access. And I hope they all live to see it. I think they will. This will be a key part of that. So it's been long overdue. And I appreciate it. And I think we'll see some fruits of our labor.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments, questions, or direction from the board?

The board of commissioners approved the purchase of 1590 Homeland Drive for $590,000. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. All right, up next, item number four, change order for standard roofing assembly at the state's attorney's office building currently under construction. Hello again, Carrie, how are you?

Good, how are you?

Doing well, thank you.

The office of procurement cooperation with the division of building construction request your approval of a change order in the amount of $253,788 to dust and construction. This change order will provide for a standard roofing assembly that will align with the current roofing structures throughout various buildings of the county that the county currently owns and maintains. This change order is within the FY 27 budget.

Brian Boki, Public Works. As we were going through the design for the state's attorney building, there was an oversight in the design package that we didn't catch until now. We can get very technical if you want. I have a bunch of support staff behind me, but basically the design package called out for a one-ply roof. And that's not county standard. It's not good design practice. So we're just trying to make that right, get us the best product we can. A two-ply roof is what we have across most of the county. I believe there was an instance that the school board actually tried to save a little money and go down to a one-ply, and that did not work out well for them. So this is absolutely the right decision that we need to go back and fix this wrong.

Any comments, questions, or direction from your board?

You're exactly right. Thank you. No more one-ply roofs. No more. Not worth it.

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the change order for the standard roof assembly at the state's attorney's office building to Dustin Construction in the amount of $253,788. Second. We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, up next, item number five, contract award for Gillis Falls Road pipe and headwall replacement.

Good morning.

Good morning. How are you? Doing well, thank you. We're coming. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Division of Roads Operations requests approval to award the contract for the Gillis Falls Road Pipe and Headwall Replacement Project to MJKK Farms LLC in the amount of $102,440. Yes, $440. Road solicited proposals through the county's electronic procurement platform, public purchase, and received approval. five response responsive bids the recommended award represents the lowest responsive bid and fully funded within the fiscal year 2027 adopted budget good morning so we're at another storm drain pipe that's failing the ends have fallen off of the storm drain pipe that goes underneath the road the road has

given way multiple times our crews have been down there trying to repair it right now the guardrails very unstable. The road is very, the banks are very steep. About three weeks ago, we went down and tried to shelf the dirt and put some rip rap down there. But it's so steep, the rip rap just kept falling down to the bottom. So it's to the point to protect the road's integrity, we need to put new ends on the ends of these pipes in addition to build head walls on both sides.

Any comments, questions, or direction from the board?

So this issue is located at Gillis Falls in Davis. Is that?

It's south of Davis. It's at 2707. It would be the property address that's tied to it. There's a small pipe a little farther towards Davis. This is the larger pipe that's down in the bottom. You probably can see some patchwork, and there's been markings down there. We've been down there for a very long time trying to get it stabilized. Okay, thank you.

Any other comments, questions, or direction from the board?

Move the Board of Commissioners award the contract for Gillis Falls Road pipe and headwall replacement to MJ Double K Farms LLC in the amount of $102,440. Second.

have a motion we have a second is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you well while we have you guys here and some public works people in the audience um in my area primarily um we're doing some i call it tar and chip seal coat correct and uh i've gotten a lot of calls about it and uh I'm glad to see Carroll County has decided to fog seal it. People were. When when they put down the original coat, it was so dusty people had to slow down. They couldn't see the car in front of him and. all of us tend to be impatient. So they were, why are we doing this? And I said, just wait. They will sweep it. They will get rid of the loose stones. Just wait. And I think they're, I know Alicia Limber and I think Carol Wareheim is now fog sealed.

They are. They're all finished and they were moving to Harvey Gummel either late yesterday or today. I too have had a lot of complaints. I have responded to every one that I've gotten. I've tried to call them. Haven't reached them personally, left messages asking them to call me back. I have been in daily contact with the contractor regarding the traffic, the flagging situation, and the dust. It's been so dry. We've never had a dust problem in past years of doing this, which has probably been for 10 to 12 years we've been doing this. And we've never had a dust issue like we've had. And I think it's just the weather. But I have talked to them regarding not using that sweeper truck in residential areas. You know, if you're in the middle of an open field, you're fine, but do not use it in residential areas and just try to, you know, Be as citizen-friendly as you possibly can be during this process.

And no matter how good the contractor is, you always get some whip off of stones. You do.

And you do.

And they cleaned them up well. So it takes a while. And my argument when PennDOT started doing it, It does make the road look black, which makes the taxpayers happier than seeing tar and chip forever. But it eliminates the loose stones and the dust. It's meaningful. It's not just a con to the taxpayers. It's a good product. It is a good product. And I've heard back from people since, oh, my gosh, they did great, you know, but it took a week.

And we will also be doing the slurry. So we didn't do any slurry paving last year. So next year. next week they'll be mobilizing the first week of august slurry will be moving in and they also are working over in that area so that that's going to be a more of a traffic problem because that has to dry so that those you know sections could be closed for two to three hours depending on the weather but they too will have pilot vehicles and flaggers and the appropriate staff needed

yeah yeah micro and slurry are good product too and um i don't know that i mean people care but you guys have different levels of roads with different levels of seal code versus micro or slurry versus paving that give them different years and are cheaper correct and and i think you do a good job picking them i just wanted to mention it today and and thank the people that have gotten back to me and said, oh, my gosh, they're a good contractor. They did good. Well, while the dust was going, they weren't happy, but they got over it. Right. the more the more people see this the less they complain oh yeah yeah they're not used to seeing it and now that's being out in the forefront they see and it's like any construction while it's going on is the worst possible time when it's done hopefully everybody's happy but so thank you guys thank you thank you all very much all right up next item number six contract renewal for waste transfer and disposal services through northeast maryland waste disposal authority And I did compliment you guys in front of the director, so you're welcome.

Good morning. Good morning.

The Office of Procurement Cooperation with the Division of Solid Waste requests your approval to renew the yearly waste transfer and disposal contract through the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority with Republic Services Modern Landfill in the amount of $9,581,000. Funds for this scope of work are approved in the FY27 Solid Waste Enterprise Fund operating budget. Under this arrangement, Republic Services is to load, transfer, and dispose of waste from Northern Landfill Processing Facility and Transfer Station to the Republic Services Modern Landfill in New York, Pennsylvania. The county's contract is held with the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority, who in turn holds a service agreement with Republic Services.

Good morning, Commissioners. Just building on James's comments a little bit. Through our membership in the authority, an RFP was advertised in 2017, an agreement consummated in 2018 with Republic Services Group for the transfer and disposal of waste from Northern Landfill's transfer station. Again, the scope includes operations of the transfer station, the waste side of the transfer station itself. The current agreement had an initial term of three years, with seven subsequent one-year renewals at the county's sole discretion. Fiscal 27 represents year nine of the overall 10-year agreement term, which ultimately terminates on June 30, 2028. So next year, we will be going out for a bid on this. The fiscal 27 budgeted service charge is $67 per ton, applied to a budgeted transfer of 143,000 tons of waste. Therefore, we respectfully request the commissioner's approval for an estimated cost of $9,581,000. And if I could answer any questions.

Any comments, questions, or direction from the board?

Move the board of commissioners renew the waste transfer and disposal contract for the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority to Republic Services Modern Landfill in the amount of $9,581,000. Second. We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. All right. Up next, item number seven, approval to purchase EMS billing services for fire and EMS. Morning, Chief.

Morning.

Morning.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Department of Fire and EMS requests spending authority approval not to exceed $336,000 for EMS billing services to Digitech Computer LLC for the remainder of FY27. Digitech Computer LLC is an approved term contractor with Carroll County. The funds were a FY27 expense and approval to spend is required.

Good morning, Commissioners. Digitech is our third-party vendor, and they, since we began billing, have been our EMS billing entity. They work closely with our two county employees who are our EMS billing specialists who do the auditing of the calls, check everything for accuracy, and then Digitech processes this to allow us to receive the revenue accordingly. Digitech is a national corporation. They do billing for places like Baltimore City and the FDNY and have a great national reputation. They also provide us with data analytics associated to our billing and have been providing outstanding service.

Any comments, questions or direction from the board of the board?

Can you briefly describe the difference between a term contractor and a regular bid?

Yeah, sure. So like the term contractors, we went out to bid, I believe it was in 2022 for this, I think it was. So yeah, we're actively in a contract with this company, with Digitech LLC, because we went out for an RFP for this. So we're actively in a contract. Whereas a bid... Usually we accept the low bid on those or multiple quotes. It doesn't technically need to go out on public purchase, depending on the threshold, which ours is $50,000. So anything pretty much under that with a bid, you can get multiple quotes, go with the low one. But yeah, the term is we have a contract set up with them. We did the RFP process with them. And they were the vendor ultimately chosen we went into a contract with.

Thank you. I just have a more functional question. When somebody goes out to a call, EMS call, how do they get the information on billing from the person that they've gone on the call with? Does it happen right there?

Yes. So what happens is, as part of the reporting process, we get a signature from the patient or if not, it's automatically placed on the report. We audit every call we respond to gets audited within 24 hours. So part of that process is our medical people review the call for accuracy of medical care. Then it will come to our billing specialists and they audit certain items and then it's sent to Digitech. Once Digitech gets it, then the people will receive an invoice in the mail that explains everything. That is then submitted to their insurance And the insurance companies and Digitech work jointly together for them to get the third-party payments.

So it's not done right at the source. I mean, right? If you go to someone's home and they're older and they own Medicare or they have- No, no.

We have enough information. We do a complete digital reporting system. So when we do the patient care report, that's automatically entered along with their information.

So you have that information already? Yes. Even if it's private second-paying?

You don't have their insurance information.

No, because there was a billing issue. I mean, there was a lot of resistance years ago to even having EMS billing in some jurisdictions. But obviously, it's offset by.

Yes, we're all underneath the HIPAA regulation. So we're limited to where that information goes. So it exclusively is internal with us. and then goes to the third-party biller.

I was just trying to figure out at what point they collect it. Because when you go to a doctor, you go to the hospital, they're collecting it when you're being admitted. But when it's an emergency situation, it's like...

Right. No, no. There's no... And, you know, there's a certain amount that is written off from people that never pay, but... The objective is, and what was started by the commissioners initially, is that we would not be going after county citizens repeatedly for collections.

No, but I don't think that county citizens later. No, but I think people don't realize a lot of it is covered by their insurance. They don't realize it. And there was resistance years ago for the billing, not realizing that it is part of their insurance. And that's how we help to pay for insurance.

That's how we're going after is just people with insurance. Right.

So I mean, encouraging us to do that because the money is available. And I just didn't know we were following up on that. And the balance billing, that's a whole other issue. But a lot of them do take care of it. Yes.

Yes. Very good questions. Any other questions? All right. Do we have any direction from the board?

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the Spending Authority for EMS Billing Services to Digitech Computer LLC in the amount of $336,000. Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, up next, item number eight, FY 2025 Department of Homeland Security Grant Awards. Good morning to you both. Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners. We are here to ask you to accept the Federal Fiscal Year 2025 Department of Homeland Security Grant Awards. Assistant Emergency Manager Jacob Hill is here to help me go through this information. I'll turn it over to him first, and then I'll give you a little bit more detail.

Sure. All right. Well, good morning, everyone. So each year, Carroll County has provided a grant award notice, also known as a grant for each of the Department of Homeland Security grants it receives. The Gans identified the dollar amount as well as any match required. We have received the federal fiscal year 2025 grant for the following grants, the Emergency Management Performance Grant, the Urban Area Security Initiative and the State Homeland Security Grant Program.

All right, so at the end of the briefing paper there is a table that provides all of the detail about the amounts of each one of the grants. These are the traditional three grants that our jurisdiction receives as a routine basis. You may notice that it's a little bit later in the year. We normally bring these to you in the fall of each year. This has been delayed a little bit due to a lot of the administrative things that are going on between the state the federal level of government but we have them now so the federal fiscal year 25 emergency management performance grant that award amount is ninety seven thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars and eighty cents there is a required 100% match for that one that is the Cash portion of that is used for emergency management staff salaries. The match is met with previously budgeted expenses. We utilize part of the cost of our public safety radio system for that match. So there's no additional funding required. The Urban Area Security Initiative for Federal Fiscal Year 25, that award amount is $722,197.20. There is no match required for that one. That one is used for emergency management planning staff salaries as well as law enforcement tactical support, mobile command vehicle support, hazardous materials team, technical rescue support. all of those types of things 35% of that grant as well as the second one that I'm going to the next one I'm going to talk about are required to go towards law enforcement terrorism protection and prevention activities the fifth the third one the last one is federal fiscal year 25 state homeland security grant program that award amount for this year is $88,112.81 As I mentioned before, there is no required match for that grant. We utilize that one for EOC support, training and exercise initiatives, and interoperable communications, and then also law enforcement support. As I mentioned before, 35% of that is required to support law enforcement. I do want to make you aware FEMA has placed a programmatic hold on some of these funds. We don't have any idea exactly when that's going to be lifted. The reason that it's there is they have started doing a project by project review at fema so it's taking them a little bit longer to get through some of that that is only applicable to the urban area security initiative and state home lamb security grants so until that hold is lifted we have access to a portion of the funding but not all of it quite yet We're requesting that you accept the full amounts because that way we won't be delayed administratively to keep moving when the hold is lifted. So I don't anticipate it will be horribly long, but I cannot tell you exactly when it will be. That's a FEMA thing, something new that they have started doing for the for federal fiscal year 25. And we're just working through a very challenging landscape and trying to navigate it as best we can.

Better to be prepared. Any comments questions or direction from the board?

Move the Board of Commissioners accept the FFY 2025 Department of Homeland Security grants awards as presented. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion? I just want to know if you got the full amount you requested or anticipated?

We got the full amount that we anticipated. These grants are not ones that we ask for a specific amount and then get that back. They are specifically awards. So they're state-based. Every state in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, there's a list of how much FEMA is awarding to each state. And then there's a formula where every jurisdiction in the state receives a certain amount. It's normally per capita or population-based. So it's not like we anticipated getting more because we applied for more. It's not that type. These aren't those type of grants.

So you're still getting what would programmatically or formulaically be allocated anyway? Yes. Thank you.

All right. Any other comments, questions, or direction from the board? We had a motion for this one, right? Okay, I'm sorry. All right. Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Commissioner.

All right. Up next, item number nine, approval of resolution declaring the county's official intent to reimburse expenditures with dead proceeds. Morning, Jenny. How are you? Good morning.

How are you guys?

Doing well. Doing well, thank you.

All right, so this is just a formality. So I'm here today following the recent adoption of the FY 2027 budget. A resolution is required to be approved by the Board of Commissioners. For declaring the county's intent to reimburse the community investment plan expenditures intended to be funded with debt proceeds, the resolution is necessary in order to meet the Internal Revenue Code regulations for tax exempt bonds. The resolution covers $54,899 and $84 million. I'll get the extra zero. Too many zeros. $899,842. The detail of that is in your packets we provided, as well as it is on the website for anyone in the public that wants to view it. It's in our community investment. plan under the budget department. The details for those projects are in that. And the county attorney, Tim, has reviewed for legal sufficiency.

All right. Any comments, questions, or direction from the board?

Move the Board of County Commissioners approve the resolution declaring the county's official intent to reimburse expenditures with debt proceeds.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a motion in a couple of seconds. Is there any discussion?

I just have a question after we vote.

Hearing no questions on the item, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. All right. Commissioner, you have a question?

While you're here, I was going to ask you this anyway. You saved me some time. Obviously, our property tax bills have come out, the wonderful bills we receive in June. But I had a question about how we process them and if people are writing checks or if people are still writing checks. I know a couple years ago we've had some that it took a while to get cashed. Do we have a procedure now that's expediting those?

So unfortunately, I mean it is a little faster. They do get to scan them and we are really encouraging everyone with the price of stamps now and everything that's price cost to go online if you're going to pay with your ACH or your checking. It costs $1.50 for that. when you get the price of a stamp and a check and a letter or an envelope to mail them back. But we are working through that. Every one of them still gets hand-touched by a staff member, but I think it is moving quite fast now that we got our new system in.

Two things. Number one, if we're going to encourage people to do it online, and we did, but it was a little confusing. If it's $1.50 and we don't have to touch it, it'd be better just not to charge it. I mean, I don't know what we collect on it, but if you're going to charge it a different way, I see that. But for the $1.50, I'd rather encourage people, even if it's a saving a stamp, it's just an encouragement versus the extra charge. I know a lot of police has waived that because they want you to do it because it's seamless. So I don't know how we can do that in the future, but I would suggest that we would because it's just not worth it. The second thing is on these checks, they need to be deposited immediately. I know one time it took two months for our checks to get deposited. Time is money and float. So the ACH is the best way to go. But even so, you just make a copy of the check and you just deposit it. It should be deposited by the next day.

So that's actually easier said than done with the process that needs to be because we need to make sure that it's accurately getting posted against each individual bill and when it's just under 70 000 tax bills that went out we have eight full-time staff and we have three interns that are working right there plus all of the public that are coming in um and the lines next week if anybody wants to see the lines next week i'm sure they'll be back down to permit store um and taking time and we want to provide good customer service to those people that are coming in um and they like to talk and i encourage that the mail is what gets set back because that's not in person so a lot of people do like to still come in person and pay their taxes so I'm not going to discourage that either so we try our best to get that through that's the best answer I can

Well, the reason I'm asking, it's a cash flow. It's a cash issue of money working for you. And when somebody mails something and it takes a long time, you wonder if it got there. So the person that is bringing it to the door, they know that you got it. But when you've mailed it and it hasn't been cashed for a week or two or three or four or a month, then you wonder if it got lost in the mail. So I'm just suggesting if you take a copy of the check and put it with it and just deposit it, then you've got that money working for you and everybody knows that it's cleared and it's taken care of. And then if it is a problem, you're taking care of it earlier because you know the check bounced or something. Instead of a month from now or two months from now, you're taking care of it currently. So I just know in the organization I used to work in, we had to deposit stuff by 2 o'clock the day we received it because the float on that money was a lot. For millions of dollars, it can be. And the float on that can be something. Plus, it's the other reasons I just mentioned. So I suggest there might be a way to take that check, make a copy, process it later, and get the thing working and get it done. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Up next, item number 10, request for public hearing for Carroll County Water and Sewer Master Plan Spring 2026 Amendment Cycle. Morning, Daphne.

Good morning.

Morning to you both.

Daphne Daly, Deputy Director of Planning and Land Management. I'm here with Ethan Strickler, who is a planner with our division of Comrades of Planning. I'm going to turn it over to Ethan to walk you through the single amendment that we have for the spring cycle of amendments to the County Water and Sewer Master Plan. And then we'll request a public hearing, which is something that's required under state law.

Yes. There we go. All right. Good morning, everybody. Obviously, as Daphne said, we are here to present the spring 2026 amendment to the Carroll County Water and Sewer Master Plan to you all today. We're just providing a briefing and then a request to schedule a public hearing. We have a kind of targeted date for that public hearing out there as well. So we can go over that, too. Diving into this. So why are we here? The Water and Sewer Master Plan furthers the orderly development and expansion of adequate water and sewer systems. Here in the county, and it's consistent with the county's master plan, through a coordinated effort with all of our municipalities and system operators, the water and sewer master plan schedules and sets priorities for water and sewer projects based on a large set of criteria. And every three years, we actually update the entire plan. That's called the triennial update. Today, we are here because every single year, we go through two cycles of biannual amendments. So we have a spring. amendment cycle and a fall amendment cycle this amendment cycle opened in February I believe February 10th is when Daphne sent the prompt out to all of our system operators asking if they had any amendments and we will actually engage and start the fall 2026 amendment process during the first week of August so that's kind of timing and scheduling on that And like I said, these amendment cycles that happen in between our triennial update are just to keep the plan as current as possible for all of our systems and system operators as they move forward with development and planning and all of that. Like I said, the next triennial update is going to start in 2027, and we're already at a staff level kind of planning out how we're going to begin that process and engage in that plan, that full plan update that will happen to the water and sewer master plan. So as I stated, this cycle opened on February 10, 2026. And we received only one application for an amendment to the water and sewer master plan this cycle. That came from the city of Westminster. And it was actually an amendment request for only one property as well. So we'll overview that here with you. We took the request and presented it to the city of Westminster Planning Commission back on June 18, 2026, and they certified the amendment request that they had submitted as consistent with their city comprehensive plan at that date. And then on July 8, earlier this month, we took this to the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission to certify this. And they certified the amendment request that's consistent with our master plan and then forwarded it on to you, here the commissioners, for a request for a public hearing and with a recommendation to adopt. So now we're here today presenting the staff report. And the single amendment that we did receive was for one property kind of on the southwest edge of the city of Westminster. And that was to move this one particular property from the future water service area, that's W5, to the priority water service area in the city of Westminster's water service area. area mapping. And that distinction is really important because properties are actually not allowed to connect to, per MDE, not allowed to connect to municipal systems if they are in the future water service area category. And so this amendment is taking place in order for this particular property to be able to connect that shift from Future to priority. So this is a small amendment request. The proposed use will add 288 gallons per day of water demand to the city of Westminster system. And because it's so small, there's actually no changes that need to happen to the tables that have all of the big numbers of showing what everybody uses in their system and what they're allocated. The actual, the sewer service area, the current category for this is actually S1, which is an existing sewer service category, so that's remaining unchanged and wasn't included in the amendment. And it's an amendment that is necessary for this proposed office building that's being built to connect to the public water system. It's labeled as Amendment number two because Westminster has actually done one. In this 2023 Carroll County Water and Sewer Master Plan, they've already done one amendment. And as you come in for fall and spring amendment cycles over the course of the three to four years that a plan is current, we label them as Amendment one, Amendment two, Amendment three, depending on how many you actually come to us with. The property specifically is going through the development review process. Great Valley Propane, they have a proposed office use that's 3,200 square feet. The property is 2.4923 acres, just some simple stats about this particular property. And it's currently adjacent to the corporate limits of the city of Westminster and is going through the annexation process currently to be annexed into the city of Westminster to be able to connect. It's zoned I-2 heavy industrial with the county, but will be zoned IR restricted industrial once it's annexed into the city. So like I said, the Westminster Planning and Zoning Commission already took action on this and certified this amendment as consistent with their 2009 Community Comprehensive Plan at their June Planning Commission meeting. And then on July 8th, our County Planning and Zoning Commission found that this amendment request was consistent with the master plan and they have forwarded it on to you with the recommendation to adopt and submit to MDE once we hold or after we hold a public hearing on the particular amendment request. what are we doing today obviously I'm giving you this brief presentation an overview of this of this small amendment request and then we are at a staff level requesting your permission to schedule a public hearing for the spring 2026 amendment cycle and so like I just said I'll formally read it out here county comprehensive planning staff recommend the board of county commissioners schedule and proceed with a public hearing for the spring 2026 amendment to the 2023 carroll county water and sewer master plan and then what happens obviously we hold the public hearing um the board of county commissioners then votes to adopt the amendment we prepare a resolution that we can sign and send to mde um that that goes along with that adoption and then those amendments and that resolution are forwarded on to mde for their final review and approval so well thank you very much yeah any questions any comments questions or direction from the board

I have a question. I noticed this is one where you're going from a future water service area to a priority water service area. But I noticed in a few of the old annual reports that some people requested the opposite to get out of a priority and go to a future. Why would they do that? And what would that mean to them?

So sometimes our municipal system operators do that if they have properties that were previously in a growth area boundary and that are being moved out of a growth area boundary. I'm thinking of one property specifically with the city of Tawny Town that recently changed in a recent amendment update, I believe in the fall 2025. Amendment cycle, and there are several other reasons, but a lot of them have to do with inclusion in the growth area boundary or being excluded from a growth area boundary.

Does the property owner request that, or does the municipality request it?

It can be either one. It can be either.

No, I just noticed one. It was odd that they swept it out, and I think, and that was a few years ago, and then they came back, I think, and wanted it back in the service area, and I didn't know what the reasoning was for that.

Yeah, sometimes as well it might have to do with... timing of improvements to those systems and where capacity exists or where you want it to exist at different times based on maybe upgrades or enhancements.

So if that property owner still was planning on developing, it wouldn't be a deterrent to them to go out of it and then go back into it? They'd still get a priority? I'm just wondering what value it would have to them to go out and have to get back in because they already have the existing water service.

Yeah, I that might be a kind of a case by case basis. It's hard to generalize.

I was just it was just an observation. I just didn't know why someone would do that.

Yeah.

OK, thank you.

I move the Board of County Commissioners proceed with the public hearing for the 2026 spring amendment to the Carroll County Water and Sewer Master Plan.

All right, we have a motion to leave a second. We have a motion to leave a second. A couple seconds. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you. All right, up next, item number 11, briefing discussion on the 2025 planning annual report. Good morning to you both.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Okay, so just a quick background on what we have for you today. The state land use article requires that a planning commission prepare a report on planning and development related activity for the previous calendar year. So comprehensive planning division staff, in particular Tiffany, has worked with the county's eight municipalities and the county's planning and zoning commission to prepare this report and submit it to So I'm going to turn it over to her. She's going to walk you through our process in preparing the report and just walk you through the report in general.

Good morning. Morning. So as Clara has already stated, some of the information on these first few slides, so it might be a little repetitive, the report does catalog planning and development information for the previous year and no action is required today. Why are we here? The state does require planning commissions to prepare the reports and include information on planning and development activities over the previous year that are specific to things such as subdivision and site plans approved, development capacity analysis, agricultural land preservation, and so on. As Claire also mentioned, this report does include information from the county as well as the eight municipalities. And the county does provide this report on behalf of the county and the eight municipalities to MDP by July 1 of each year. And then municipalities provide the county with their planning information. that is included in the report. The annual report also contains local land use goals and data on specific measures and indicators meant to provide a way of tracking progress towards meeting the state as well as the local land use goals. And the development and other development related activities should be consistent with the goals adopted in those plans, the goals in those adopted plans and the jurisdictions and should implement the state planning principles. Also, I do want to note that although comp planning does prepare this report and submit it to the state, on behalf of all, this is a multi-agency effort with many staff members for the county involved as well as for the municipalities. And overall, the report tells a story of planning to development and preservation. And it goes through. That's the structure of the report. It goes from the planning portion of the planning through the development and preservation in the county and tells that story. The presentation involves, as you see here, graphs that tell the story at a very high level. And on page two, it shows 2025 development at a glance, that's the only time that the report kind of matches the presentation as far as graphs. The presentation itself uses graphs to tell the story of the report, but those graphs are not included in the report itself. So I'll be guiding you through the report and then the presentation will show those graphs that tell the story. So moving on to pages 3 through 18 for new plans adopted and plan amendments adopted. The town of Mount Airy had an update to their master plan for the 2023 to 2033 master plan. And Union Bridge had an update to their, had a master plan amendment that they took, that they did last year. There were several amendments to the Carroll County water and sewer master plan that became effective in 2025 as part of the fall 24 and spring 25 amendment cycles. These amendments pertain to Hampstead, Manchester, Union Bridge, New Windsor, and Tawny Town, as well as the Freedom Sykesville area. And again, those can be seen on pages 1 through 18, includes maps 1 through 8, and county-wide maps on pages 17 and 18 with maps 9 and 10. Next, we'll move on to subdivisions and site plans approved on pages 19 through 22. tables one and two show 14 plans were approved in the unincorporated parts of the county involving a gross total of roughly 145.21 acres and the pages on page 21 you can see tables three and four list all new subdivisions and site plans in the municipalities that were approved received final approval in 2025. That was a total of 10 plans that were approved for 97.477 acres. And this slide shows a combination of the non-incorporated areas, as well as the municipality's approved site plans and subdivisions, as well as the map 11 that shows them countywide, including the municipalities as well. Now, in the presentation, we have some trends for the next few slides shown that are not shown in the report. First, we have the residential 10-year trend for development for approved site plans and subdivisions. This is showing the number of lots over the last 10 years that have been approved and does not include the approved lots inside municipalities. Next, we have a commissioner requested information slide. This shows that same approved site plans and subdivisions for residential development tenure trend over countywide in comparison to the Finksburg and Freedom growth areas. With Freedom area showing four this year and Finksburg showing none. For non-residential development on this slide, we see the 10-year trend for approved site plans and subdivisions. It again does not include municipalities, and this is by acres over the last 10 years with 64 acres being approved for non-residential development in the county in 2025. And again, at Commissioner's request, we have the non-residential development 10-year trend in comparison for the countywide as well as the growth areas of Finksburg and Freedom area, with 41 acres approved in the Freedom growth area and none being approved in the Finksburg growth area. Next, we'll go back to the report, pages 21. 23 through 25 shows zoning map amendments. There were six annexations, including four in Westminster, one in Hampstead, and one in Tawny Town, and those are shown on table five annexations on page 23 and the rezonings included three in Westminster and two in Mount Airy and those are shown in table six on page 24 and both annexations and rezonings are shown combined on map 12 on page 25. Next, we'll go to zoning text amendments, amendments to priority funding area boundaries, new schools, transportation, adequate public facility ordinances, parks and facilities on pages 26 through 30. And that includes table 7 and figures 1 through 6. We'll start with the zoning text amendments on page 26. The revisions to the county ordinances that substantially affected future development patterns in the county included solar and employment revisions. And then Westminster was the only municipality with revisions last year, and that was three ordinance change updates. And on page 27, that shows that there were no changes to priority funding areas. There were no schools or additions completed in 2025. And Table 7 shows new roads or substantial changes in the county and to municipal roads as well. There were three changes to Carroll County roads, one in Hampstead, one in Sykesville, and 18 in Tawny Town. I think the majority of those were changing of ownership over to Tawny Town, the city of Tawny Town. On page 28, there were no developments that were modified due to adequate public facility ordinance restrictions and several changes to parks and also new parks. There was a new pavilion at Bear Branch Nature Center. There was a butterfly house that was built at Hoshua Bear Branch. There was boat trailer parking lot reconstruction and new pickleball courts added to Piney Run Park. And then New Windsor also had changes at Memorial Park, and Westminster had some updates at Wakefield Valley Park. The county changes and updates can be seen to those parks on pages 29 and 30 in figures 1 through 6. Next, we'll go into the measures and indicators. that starts on page 32 and on page 33 that's not part of the presentation but this is mostly a summary these first few pages of what's to come so on page 33 through 34 you'll see tables 8 through 11 that show dwellings new dwellings that were added inside and outside priority funding areas and growth areas that's just a summary of those And that continues for non-residential on page 35 and tables 12 through 13. And then recorded lots are shown on 36 and 37. And again, those are more of a summary of what's going to come starting on page 38 with building permits issued. Last year, the total number of building permits issued for new construction was 317. And those are shown in table 16. This includes permits issued within the municipalities And map 14 shows those on page 39. In this slide here, the graph shows that most of the permits issued were within the growth areas for both residential and non-residential. And this is a commissioner request slide as well, showing the building permits issued for inside the growth areas in Finksburg and Freedom compared to outside the Finksburg and Freedom growth areas. Out of the 213, 213 out of the 317 permits issued were issued inside growth areas with 0% being in the Finksburg growth area, 67% being in the Freedom growth area, and 1% being non-residential in the Finksburg growth area, and 2% being non-residential in the Freedom growth area. and 18% of the residential being inside other growth areas, and 12% of the permits issued last year of the 213 being non-residential inside other growth areas. Further on the slide, you can see that there were 262 total new construction residential building permits issued in 2025. Of those, 143 or 54.6% of the residential permits issued for new construction were inside the Freedom Growth Area. and 55 total new construction non-residential building permits were issued last year of those four or approximately 7.3 percent of those were issued inside the freedom area and two issued inside the Finksburg area next we'll go back to the report and look at pages 40 through 42 for the use and occupancy certificates issued in 2025 Table 18 shows the use and occupancy certificates issued by category in Carroll County. Those categories are apartment, residential, residential improvements, commercial and industrial, commercial and industrial improvements, and farm. And those are broken out by election district and municipalities. Sorry about that. And then on page 41, I'll go back. I didn't realize it was the same slide. On page 41, you can see the total number of residential and non-residential UNOs issued for new construction last year was 289. And that includes within the municipalities. And table 19 shows those and provides the percentages of each inside and outside the priority funding areas as well as the growth areas. And you can see those new UNOs issued by map location on page 42 in map 15. And here's the residential in the presentation, you see the residential use and occupancy certificates issued countywide ten year trend. Again, those are the move in ready certificates issued countywide over the last ten years, 237 shown for 2025. And that does include the municipalities. And again, Commissioner West, residential use and occupancy certificates countywide, 10-year trend broken down into countywide, as well as showing the Finksburg and Freedom growth areas. With 117 of those use and occupancy certificates issued within the Freedom area, Growth area, I believe most of those were the Plain Commercial Center, Long Reach Farms, and the Retirement Village of Nell's Acres was about 100 of those. And then none issued in the Finksburg area. For non-residential use and occupancy certificates issued, 10-year trend, again, in the presentation, not in the report itself. In 2025, there were 52 UNOs issued for non-residential certificates. And again, Commissioner request, non-residential use and occupancy certificates, county-wide 10-year trend in comparison to those that were issued within the Finksburg and the Freedom Growth Areas. Three out of the 52 issued last year were in the Freedom area and none again in the Finksburg area. Back to the report. do see on page 43 that there is a net density of new development that just shows growth per acre inside and outside or the dwelling units inside and outside the priority funding area and then we'll move to page 44 through 40h that show the development capacity analysis also known as the buildable land inventory that shows what we have existing growth in the way of existing growth and then what we have in the way of potential growth potential residential development lots are based on current zoning for the 2025 annual report and the methodology takes into account the limitations of the sustainability growth and agricultural preservation act of 2012 commonly referred to as the septic tiers law so in 2025 the existing dwelling units were thirty seven thousand five hundred seventy six within the growth areas of and 8,562 potential developable residential lots within the growth areas. Outside of the growth areas, there's 29,472 existing residential lots with 10,096 potential. residential lots, again, outside the growth areas for residential. For non-residential, you can see on tables 22 and table 23 on page 45, And that shows that the, I apologize, hold on just a second. No, that's residential still. Table 22 shows potential developable residential lots inside and outside the priority funding areas and growth areas and existing in table 23 and potential developable residential lots by priority funding areas and growth areas. And those residential buildable land inventory is shown on map 16 on page 46. Then on page 47, we start the non-residential development capacity. And the potential of non-residential development is based on adopted zoning categories that fall into the categories of commercial business, industrial, and employment campus. I need to make a correction to table 24 here. That does not show existing. That only shows potential. developable non-residential acreage. And table 25 shows the percentage distribution for potential developable non-residential acreage inside and outside the priority funding areas and growth areas. All acres are an estimate of what is potentially buildable. That is in both. There are estimates in both residential and non-residential. And the estimate of potential developable non-residential acreage does not reflect the water and sewer capacity constraints that exist with priority funding areas or growth areas. And those non-residential developable acreage is shown on map 17 on page 48. Next we move to pages 49 through 50 that show the agricultural land preserved in 2025 total agricultural land preserved in 2025 was 1066 acres and those are shown in table 26. The total funding for easement acquisition in calendar year 25 and seen in table 27 was $5,747,346 of which 63.6% were county funded. Carroll County has been actively working to preserved agricultural land since 1979 and as of December 1st 2025 a total of eighty one thousand six hundred forty nine acres were permanently preserved in Carroll County by a recorded deed of easement and those can be seen in map 18 on page 50 and then for trends again in the report in the presentation that are not in the report. You can see the five year trend for agricultural land preservation here with the 1066 acres preserved in 2025. And then also in the presentation, not included in the report, is the AgPres comparison to the approved residential development and approved non-residential development over the last five years. This does include municipalities' approved development. And this is based on approved site plan subdivision and ag easements. And the ag easements are the acquired. And commissioner request was to break down those, and I'll go back actually, to break down the approved non-residential development shown here by type and by county versus municipality. And that's what the next two slides show. So the first slide, county approved non-residential development by type 2021 through 2025. This does not include the municipalities. It shows commercial, commercial residential, industrial, public, religious establishment, and solar approved development over the last five years. And this slide shows municipal approved non-residential development by type over the last five years. And again, municipalities only. And this one includes commercial, industrial, institutional, public, solar, and utility. There was no set standard on how you would say what the type was. So we're going off of what the municipalities gave us for their own distinctions here. So you'll see institutional is added here. It's not part of ours. We don't use that term. But some of the municipalities did. So that's included in this slide. So all the municipalities have already certified their information, and that is located in the back of the report itself, copies of that. The Planning Commission certified this planning and development activities. on June 3rd, and then we did email the final report to MDP on June 29th. There was a lapse in there, and I'm going to go over that lapse here, because if we go forward to page 54, New for calendar year 2025, local jurisdictions are required to, or counties rather, are required to identify the amount of and location of the collection and expenditure of development impact fees collected for the prior calendar year, detailed allocation records, and for all impact fees, received between January 1 and 25 and December 31, 25 are provided in an addendum for addendum A, impact fee allocation report. And the addendum includes a complete ledger of building permits, fee amounts, and parks and education allocation. And a summary table is included here for quick reference. And that's table 29 on page 54. that is not a requirement for if the planning commission is not required to certify that information that information comes from the comptroller's office and is separate but it's just a new requirement for this year as well so that that lapse from June 3rd to June 29th was just trying to compile that information and I will say that MDP was even a little bit behind on this but they didn't really come up with guidance until May so or April or May in that time frame We already distributed hard copies to the municipalities and we'll be posting this on the website, the report itself on the website. And today there's no action necessary but if you have any questions or comments, please.

Well, thank you very much for the report. Do my colleagues have any questions or comments?

Of course I have questions. I don't want to leave you off the hook. A question. I'm going back just to the presentation on page three, our page three. I guess it's your page, slide six. The difference when you look at a residential lot and something as a site plan, does that count as one lot or does it count as the number of units that would come out of that site plan?

Say it one more time. I apologize.

So when the subdivisions and site plans approved, you know, a site plan is one piece of property. Let's say 100 houses get on that. Does it count as 100 or does it count as one?

It would be dwelling units would be 100, lot could be one.

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. So when the subdivision is site plan approval. So if you have a subdivision and it's got 10 lots, it would count for 10. Correct. If it's a site plan, it's one lot, and it has 100 houses. So does it count as the 10 plus the 1, or does it count as the 10 plus the 100? Is it the unit that's going to yield, or is it the actual site? Units are included separately. So if I'm looking at this one, I'm just looking at 23 new residential lots, 21 units. So on that particular one, I'm just trying to get the difference. Are we comparing apples and apples when you look at a subdivision versus a site plan?

It would be the same. If there's one lot with one house, that's one lot, one unit. If there's one lot with 100 apartments, let's say, that would be one lot, 100 units.

So on this slide, on six, I guess it's slide six. Mm-hmm. so the new residential lots no sorry so this one here yes yes yes okay so 23 new residential lots and this is for this for the whole county or is this for everything so is that this one's everything okay the the slide itself is everything so how many units would that how many new homes 21. only 21 homes. Then what's the 317 on the second page on page four, I'm sorry, at a glance, I'm looking at at a glance new construction 317. So how do I get from the 23? I'm just trying to, I'm trying to get my arms around what the numbers mean. So it's one slide number four. Okay, it's page your page two. Yes, that's it. So the 317 is right in the very middle at the bottom under new construction. So that's how many building permits were issued. But on the one we just did, the other chart, it says 23 new residential lots. So how do I?

Absolutely. When I first came here and started the report, I had the same questions. And I've learned so much over the last few years as I do the report that it really does tell the story from planning, and then it goes through the process. So the start of the report shows the approved plan. So they went before the planning commission last year at the municipalities or our own planning commission. And those site plans and subdivisions got approved at that level. Then the permits are issued further down in the development process when they're starting to develop. They've already received the approval and now they're ready to shovel in the ground and they have to get their electrical permits and their building permits, their construction permits. And that's what the 317 is. So the number of lots that were approved is like the beginning of that process, of that development process, and then it moves through the development process to the point of the UNO being issued where they're move-in ready. And in between, there's the recorded lots, there's the permits being issued, and then finally the use and occupancy.

So we're looking at housing units, right? We had 317 building permits issued on 23 residential lots. Is that right?

No. That was the, you'll eventually see, and here's Stephanie going to.

I'm just trying to figure out what to look at.

So something that got a building permit last year was probably approved several years earlier. So those numbers, those lots, would have showed up in like 2021's annual report under lots approved.

It would have showed up as 317, or the actual number of lots. If a site plan count is one, it's like plan count is the yield it's going to give. On the number of permits issued.

Permits issued would have been for the units themselves.

So when we're trying to look at roll numbers, how many new units did we put people in housing?

Yeah.

So we would look at the 317. Well, that's a permit.

2025, yeah. 2025, yes.

You'd look at 317. But the actual number of lots is 20. Let's say they're the same year. They're not. It's not exactly the same. But the 23 lots are going to yield a lot more if some is a site plan than it would if they were just individual lots.

Yes. Right. So I mean, I think when you're talking about how many lots, that's most germane to the plan approval. trying to understand how many lots were approved to move through that development process further down the line when when that project that got approved is under construction then the most relevant number is how many units there are so when we're looking at housing right now so at one site if it gives 100 houses counts as one new lot

And then, but over here, the building permits issued for that year are 317. Now, does that mean that they were, can you get a permit and then they not get built in that particular, how do we know how many new units came online and people actually use an occupancy? How does that compare?

Those are use and occupancy.

Okay, so we got 317 permits issued. How do we know how many people were able to move into those houses? Was that the UNOs? That would be the UNOs.

Yeah, because those are, those are issued when that unit is ready for somebody to move into.

So when a permit is issued, do they usually build it right away, or can they carry on? How do we know what is the actual number of units that people moved into last year in Carroll County?

289, use and occupancy.

So the use and occupancy. So if you have permits out there, 317, and only 289 came online, it could be a timing issue, or can they hold onto those permits for a certain amount of time and not build them?

Yeah, I don't know how long a building permit is valid for, but it could take six months, a year, however long to build that housing unit that you got a permit for. before you're ready to then get a use and occupancy permit. And that might bridge between, say, let's say they started construction in 2024 and they didn't finish until 2025.

But they eventually catch up. Yeah. They're not lagging behind. The reason I'm asking, as you know, Ms. Fawcett, we had the Housing Affordability Work Group last year, and the key number that the consultant came up with that Carroll County needed to keep pace is 194 units a year. So that's sort of a number. you know, keeping the back of my head of what they came up with. I might have changed since they did that. But so I'm looking, okay, the 317 would not be what I would be comparing it to. It would be the use and occupancies last year that actually were given out.

Yeah. Those are the units that are available for people to live in at that time.

But eventually, hopefully these permits are moving their way through and we would get those as well. So we're above what we thought we For that year, we're above 194. You have to look over time to see where we're heading. I'm trying to see what's still in the pipeline. Thank you for adding these breakdowns. I'm not sure why we don't put those in the annual report because for us, the commissioners, we're the ones that deal with the unincorporated areas, so it's nice to know the stuff that we're dealing with, the breakdown. Because when I read the past annual reports, you can't see the breakdown of the unincorporated growth versus non-growth. it's sort of all lumped together so these documents you did are very very helpful but I'd like to see them in the annual report if we could do that because it's it's something that you know then every growth there would be broken out because right now freedom is included in the whole unincorporated area and you can't tell what's in the growth part and and thanksburg as well and what's not so this this stuff i believe should be in the annual report as well going forward because it's hard to look back and see where things occurred and without going back to the powerpoint you've already prepared it so is that something we can do

Yeah, we can. I mean, the state tells us what has to be in the report, but we can certainly tailor it to what we would like to see.

That's a good idea. Maybe including something like this, like a guide at the very beginning of the report, would be a good way for any citizen, for that matter, to get a sense of where to go if they want to find something particular in the report. Like a summary report like this at the very beginning, which would act as a guide for everything else. That's a good idea.

Thank you. And the reason they don't give you the basics is because every county is different. Some have no municipalities. Some have all municipalities. So us, we're hybrid, but yet we have the one unincorporated, but we have growth area within that. And then it gives us a clearer look The way you did this is much easier to understand. But then also, how many new units did we actually put people in last year, which is your UNO, versus permits issued? It just explains it better. And then I like the details of the residential site plans and subdivision. And I've learned a lot. A site plan is you can have 500 houses on one site plan. So that's something I didn't even have any clue about. So the number of site plans, it might take a long time to do that one site plan because there's so much on it versus one little house that you build in the woods. But it also helps. I know the election districts are on here, but it also helps to know some of these subdivisions, you don't know where they are. If there could be an address put in there. Some places there are where they are, but others it's just the election district and you really don't know what something is because it's like one unit and you put an address you'd be out just you know the street address you'd be able to figure out may I ask for clarification on that where which page you're looking at all of them when it says the tables I'm looking on the tables in the plan county residential site plans and subdivisions you know it lists them but they're by election district and if you just put like the street address you'd say okay what's Woodland's wish you know You don't know where it is. You'd have to, I mean, there's a thing on the map. I'm picking that out because it's sitting in front of me. But Woodlands Wish, where is that? It shows the map. But if there's an address, then you'd say, oh, this is the one that this is. Because some of them are very, some you know what they are and some you don't know where they are. So it's all good information. I suggest, though, that we just put it all into the report and then explain how many units do we actually, because that's where we're, how many houses do actually people, move into last year. And then you mentioned forecast based on current zoning. So if our current zoning, we've been talking about this retirement village thing. So if your current zoning is our 40 when this was in the past and you could put 20 houses and now you do a village and you can put 129 houses. So it's six times more. Does that, how do you count that when you're forecasting? Because it could have been 20 underlying and then because of this it could be 129. That's six times the difference. How do you account for that possibility of what, the differential between that and the underlying land use?

Stephanie might have. I don't think that's accounted for.

Well, and that's a big deal in our area because you're putting six times as many houses currently or more on the same piece of property that we're only accounting for. And I'm looking at even on our map, the underlying land use never changes, and it looks like it's a certain color, but actually what's built on it is a whole different color.

Right. Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of potential for variations in what gets built on

piece of property because our zoning ordinance ha you know you have to allow for more than one specific use it's hard to forecast a number of lots because number of lots is one thing yeah the number of units is different right if you're doing a site plan it's one lot but it could have 500 units on it and so how do you for how do we forecast it it's a it's a big difference i don't know how the towns do it but i'm just saying it's the way we're doing it currently it's hard to to forecast that, even for water and sewer allocation. Because right now, everyone is coming to the Freedom District to do the retirement villages because we allow so much more density with nothing in return. So that's what we're getting out of what we have today. But we're not really accounting for it that way. We're not saying those lots could have been way less and then we're getting way more. So it's hard to forecast. And unless we fix, I call it truth in zoning, we should get what we think we're going to get. But everybody keeps saying lot yield is the same, but it's not right now the way we have it. So it's hard to forecast that. So appreciate the detail. I think it's pertinent to know. I mentioned on the last agenda item about the sewer capability and water, and I think I got it from reading this report. Now I'm thinking back. So there's an example, and I think in the towns there's a number of them, but there's on page four of the annual report, it says four single family dwelling units. This is just one example. They moved four single family dwelling units from the existing area, W1, to the long-range future service area. and then subtract that out a certain number of gallons. So why would someone move out of a, I said it before, but move four out is because they're not anticipating that they want the hookup, whether it's water or sewer. And there's a number of those all the way through.

Which town in Manchester?

No, it's at the very top, the very first line. That's just the first one that came to mind. The town of Manchester might have some as well. But they moved four out. So would that be someone's request that they moved out of the future, that they didn't want that anymore?

That particular one, if I'm remembering correctly, was related to a subdivision in which the property had been Let me just say, I have to verify this, just going on memory. I remember there was an amendment in which a property had been in the planned service area They went through the subdivision process and it was determined that they didn't want or need to have service for that particular property. It was logistically going to be difficult and expensive to do. So they requested to be taken out of the service area so they didn't have to connect. I would have to verify that, but that's the kind of situation that you might have.

So if you're in the service area and you build something, you're expected to connect. Because what I'm looking at, a number of years ago, a lot of sewer capacity became available because they took a lot of future people that were on septic that might need if they have failing septic systems they might need to hook up and they took a number of those out but then the question becomes what if they need to get back in for a reason in an area with it would it be available because they're there on their in a growth area but they were built a long time ago and there's a lot of houses that still have septics would they still have capacity of all those communities needed to upgrade at some point yeah that's

That's something that probably we should spend some time digging into offline. There's a lot of opportunity to connect, for instance, failing septic systems in an emergency situation. But as far as water and sewer planning goes, We we try to account for where we anticipate that service will logically be extended and be available, but also account for situations that might need to be remediated if there's a lot of failing.

There's a lot of older communities that are on old systems now, whether they can upgrade them successfully to the new when they need to or not, just want to make sure there's capacity Because we sort of gained capacity a number of years ago, like, boom, with capacity. And I think because they took a lot of people that were in existing that might need to hook up at some point and took them out and freed up a lot of service, which maybe is more practical. But then if we need it again, would they be able to get back in as a priori?

yeah that might we'll have we'll definitely be looking into that when we go back to update the to do the triennial update that's when we get to take a look at the whole service area and make sure it is what we want it to be that it's consistent with the the plans for the area Then in the case of freedom, when we do the full update to the freedom community comprehensive plan in a couple of years, that'll be part of that as well, making sure that everything is matching.

One more question, that's it. Some of these communities have been approved years and years ago, like 25 years ago. Same project, keeps moving forward, keeps getting extended. They already have an allocation. Does that allocation stay with them? I assume that when they started the project that they had water and sewer allocation. Does that continue to stay with them for all that time until they develop it, or do they have to have a certain amount of time to hold it up, to reserve that allocation?

I don't know about for the municipalities. For us, for the county. For like the Freedom Area. I think that there is a reservation that's made under our adequate public facilities ordinance. I'd have to get back to you on how exactly that gets kind of confirmed and at what point in the development process but there is sort of a difference between When a project comes in the through the development pipeline and what our capacity is at that moment versus the long-range And usually when something comes in to get approvals and start pulling building permits,

that water or sewer um check will be on the existing like that day what the so they're not holding it they're not reserving it because what I'm looking at is sometimes it could be reserved for a long time and then we do either do an expansion or an upgrade because you're getting to a point where you think you're running out because of the reservations and you don't want that to be somebody can reserve something for a very long amount of time and then force an upgrade or an expansion. So I'm just throwing that stuff out there because I'm noticing some of these projects have literally been proposed 25 years ago and then stopped. And then they started and then they stopped. And that allocation, obviously, they're all in water and sewer. So that allocation, is it reserved or not? And are we basing any? Because we might be upgrading or expanding sooner than we need to, and they should have a certain amount of time they have to pull it within. And sometimes 15, 20 years is not a reasonable amount of time to be able to reserve something.

Right, right. Yeah, let me get some information together that we can share with you all on specifically how that process works and how it might affect.

The reason I mention it, because I think I mentioned last week, we did a project a number of years ago, Warfield, and literally they were getting holed up because this is, they're not held up anymore. But they were held up because they didn't have the water and sewer allocation. But then all of a sudden, it all became available. And so I'm just trying to make sure that we're not in that situation, again, of artificially holding somebody up when really they shouldn't be.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Any other questions or comments from?

Yes. Slide 15, I think we talked about a little bit that there were 289 UNOs. um but a lot of those were non-residential so it was only 82 237 that were really residential i think and then slide 17 shows that of the 237 117 were in uh freedom area correct

Correct.

Yeah. So so slide 15, the 289 includes commercial, industrial, whatever UNOs, not just residential.

Correct. That is total shown on there.

What's this? What's the total number of residential units that got I mean, that we occupied last year?

237, 237, 237.

Commissioner.

Yeah, I just wanted I just want to thank everybody for for for making the additions. A lot of work went into this. We've we've seen a few of these, but this is this seems to be answering a lot of a lot of the questions up front. And I appreciate the effort that staff probably went through to to make sure the solar is included in what we're seeing here as as this board continues to to struggle with with that issue. So thank you.

I want to give a big shout out to Tiffany as as you know this is a lot of numbers it's a lot of data she has to do a lot of coordination with the municipalities it's it's a Herculean effort and she's done a fantastic job thank you very much during the session here you guys thank you yes you might know what you're doing

Do you ask them, do they give you it in a uniform way that you can? I mean, because obviously we've got to count the municipalities. Do they give it to us in a unified way so you can put it together, pull it together easily?

We have created a template for them to fill out for us.

Because it's definitely easy, like you said, with the solar and all, to have this in a snapshot. I mean, I went back and looked through, thank you for providing me the last five or six years. And I literally went through them all. And it tells you right there, these are the things we built in Rec and Parks. These are the things we built for schools. And it's all in here. And it's helpful to have it all there. It's one place. I don't have to keep asking for stuff. Someday, you don't have to give me anything. It'll all be in here. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Well, thank you all very much again for the hard work, and thank you for the presentation as well. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. All right, up next, item number 12, grant approval to submit application and acceptance of award for an FY28 Maryland Facade Improvement Program grant from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

OK, so we are before you today to we're looking for approval to submit an application for the Maryland Facade Improvement or to the Maryland Facade Improvement Program, which is administered and offered by the Department of Housing and Community Development. The funding that we are requesting, this would be our fourth year of applying for this funding, and if we receive it, would total just under $300,000 from the state that we would have been awarded to facilitate and make improvements to the Finksburg Commercial Corridor. So I'm going to turn it over to Carlisle to walk you through exactly what we're requesting from them. Good morning.

Morning. I'm going to go through the budget and then details of the program. So the grant funds we're applying for from the state will be used to partially fund the facade improvement program. The total budget for this cycle is $127,913. 100,000 of that is requested from the state grant. There is a $25,000 participant match. and a little under $3,000 in kind match for staff time to administer the program. We offer grant funds to eligible property and business owners in Finksburg to improve the appearance of building facades and signage. The facade improvement program is an 80-20 match. meaning we offer up to 80% of total funding for the project. And property or business owners are required to provide at least 20% of an investment in the facade improvements. The grant will be offered on a rolling two-year basis as funds are available. Applications are accepted year round. As you can see on this map, this shows all of the eligible applicants. This includes all commercial and industrial zoned properties that front Maryland 140 or adjacent to a property that fronts Maryland 140. They're all highlighted in blue. And outlined in red is the Finksburg designated sustainable community. Property owners as well as business owners tenants and business owners with authorization from the property owner can apply for funding.

Who decides that boundary or do we have input into that like like I'm looking at Finksburg Plaza is included. He lines funeral home a little bit behind it isn't included what happens if they want this there they're excluded because they're not in the boundary right.

That's correct. They're not actually within the sustainable community boundary, and that is one of the requirements to receive funding.

Do we have input into that boundary, or who sets that boundary?

We do have input into the boundary. Every five years when we reapply for the sustainable community designation, we can make a request adjustments to the boundary. The state does look over that to just to make sure that we're within the parameters of the intent of the designation.

okay and and maybe uh maybe nobody outside the boundary requests it you know so maybe maybe maybe what i'm worried about isn't even an issue you know but yeah i'm wondering if when the boundary was um created that that funeral home building hadn't been yet built i bet because it's fairly new i mean it's probably within the last five years but i don't think it's a lot longer than that maybe Yeah, so maybe it wasn't even contemplated at that time, but we certainly could going forward.

Sure, yeah. And I will say the sustainable community boundary follows the priority funding area and the growth area. It's kind of wonky. Those boundaries actually don't line up. So we had to do a little adjustment as to what the actual sustainable community boundary would be. But for the most part, we tried to follow the growth area and priority funding area.

And it looks like, for instance, the potentially new Royal Farms on Dede Road is in the boundary. Now, it's not highlighted. It doesn't exist any yet. And they probably haven't asked for anything, but they're in the boundary, so they could request.

So the actual Facade Improvement Program is only eligible for existing businesses to upgrade their facade. So that's why they're not actually shown as eligible, because the site's not improved.

But in two years, they might be.

Sure, yeah.

OK, gotcha. Sorry.

Oh, no worries. So we can incentivize property owners to make improvements by pairing this program with Economic Development's Gateway Renovation Tax Credit Program. The criteria is the same, basically, for the Finksburg Facade Improvement Program. Um, comprehensive planning administers the facade improvement program. And as previously stated, we've estimated a little under $3,000 for the in kind contribution for staff to administer it. We also partner with the Finksburg planning and citizens council to implement the program. They are instrumental in establishing guidelines for it, reviewing and helping us market the program. That's all I have, but do you have any questions?

I'm prepared to make a motion unless we feel like we need to take a step back to, OK, copy that. All right. I move the Board of County Commissioners approve the submission of the FY28 Maryland Facade Improvement Program grant application, and if awarded, accept the grant award.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you both very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Up next, item number 13, exercise option to purchase agricultural land preservation using the lump sum payment option on the David A. Yingling property.

Morning. Morning to you both.

Morning, Commissioners. Lucky number 13.

Lucky. We'll see.

Motion denied. How lucky do you feel now?

All right. Great to see everybody this morning. I know it's been a little bit since we've been up here. Um, but as you said, uh, this morning, we're here before you for final approval of the David, a Yingling, uh, property is a County count Carroll County ag preservation program applicant. Um, here's the farm just north of, uh, pleasant Valley, um, between, uh, halter road and Hugh shop road. The specific address is 2300 U Shop Road in Westminster. It's a 204.451 acre property. We're retiring 24 lot rights from this property, and it is in District 1. The fair market value of the land only is $2,136,235.50 per our county points-based appraisal. The cost will be $1,495,000. $364.85, which works out to $7,314.05 per acre, which is 70% of the fair market value of the land only. Here's how the property fits in with other farms in the area that are preserved. Here's a pretty good view across the top of the property.

That is beautiful.

Once again, we're here for final approval of David A. Yingling property, 2300 U Shop Road in Westminster, 204.451 acres and retiring 24 lot rights in District 1. The cost to the county is $1,495,364.85. Well, I hope my colleagues will grant me the privilege of making a motion on this one.

I'll make a motion to exercise an option to purchase an easement on the David A. Yingling property in the amount of $1,495,364.85. Second. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion?

I have a question. I support what we're doing, but when you do the valuation, and I know the state has taken away the ability to do farms the way they used to, develop the whole thing. So if you can only get seven lots per farm, but yet you really could have gotten 24, how do you reconcile that with what the state says we can't do anymore?

so uh if you go back to this slide here this is a multi-parcel property is that that what helps it so so the seven lots is seven lots per parcel for that that bill so when when the state changed and said you could only do seven per per parcel how what did that do to people's values if you could have had It certainly takes away some of the equity that they may have if they're a large parcel. In this case, it was a multi-parcel property. So we do base the development potential on seven to nine lots, giving them full development potential in the value of our appraisal.

But you're doing it based on what the state has artificially said we have to do. I'm just wondering how that changed the values of somebody's potential. Because you can build other things on it, obviously. You just can't build houses, even though we seem to want houses. So this, because it's multi-parcel, is how you got the more yield. But if you were all one parcel, you'd be having less lot rights, and you'd have less of an appraisal just because you had one lot. That's correct. It seems arbitrary to me. I hate to say we, but they. The state did. I did not agree with what they did. But it seems like they arbitrarily sort of, no matter what size lot you had, you got seven, period. So I know we fought against doing it, but it took people's values away. even even for the preservation because they have less lot rights to extinguish that right that's correct okay okay I'm just making a point of something that one more thing we said any other comments or discussion all right hearing none all those in favor aye all those opposed

Motion carries unanimously. Thank you both very much. All right. Item number 14. Briefing and discussion on the completed application for HB 548, State Bill 325. I'm coming. You can drive.

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. Nice to see you up here. Yes, thank you. It's nice sitting back and watching all the good stuff that our department is doing. Nice to see you both.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning. So we are here to discuss the Maryland House Bill 548, Senate Bill 325, the Maryland Housing Certainty Act. that was passed just this past legislative session and goes into effect on October 1st of this year. The purpose of the act is to address vesting for residential development. As you're familiar with, in the state of Maryland, we are a late vesting state, which means that up until the point that you have all of your final approvals and you put a shovel in the ground, codes and regulations can be changed. I like to think of it as the rules of the game that the developer has to follow. So the rules that they have to follow can be changed up until the point they put that shovel in the ground. What this act does is it sets those rules early in the process for residential development. And it sets them when the developer submits their plans to the authority that's reviewing them. So the rules then get locked in place so they cannot be changed during the time period that it's going through the review process. So this doesn't affect any of the, it doesn't allow a developer to get away with anything. They still have to get all of their approvals, they have to meet all of the code regulations and so on. All it's doing is locking in what those rules are, is the rules when they submit those plans to the local jurisdiction. So the state law allows the local jurisdiction to dictate, to state what comprises what they're terming a complete application. What information needs to be submitted so that we can then begin our process? And the reason why the state left that open is because every jurisdiction is a little different. So for example, we require a pre-submittal conference. Maybe not every jurisdiction requires that. We require development fees and so on. And Laura is going to walk through what our current policy is. The various things that we require before we then take that plan and say, okay, we're going to start reviewing it, differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and we can define that. What we're going to talk about today is what our policy is, and certainly if the board wants to change that policy, we will talk through that. We have talked with other jurisdictions, and those in the state. And everybody that we've talked to is consistent in how they're viewing this, which is, again, they all have slightly different requirements as far as what's on their checklist of things that needs to be submitted and so on. But every jurisdiction we've talked to is all consistent that if those documents are submitted and we start the review process, that's when the complete application and the vesting would be set in place. So with that, I'll turn it over to Laura to talk through our development review process.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning.

So most importantly, a complete application looking at how the state has worded this and what that means to them. So I am going to take a second to read the entirety of this. So a complete application. means a housing development again we're focused on residential right a housing development project application that includes all materials and information required for processing and substantive review as determined by the commission or the local regulatory authority but may contain non Substantive. Substantive. I keep wanting to put the emphasis on the second part. Substantive errors, omissions, or similar inconsequential deficiencies, right? So it's what we need at the very baseline to review a project.

I say substantive, too. Don't feel too good.

That's what I kept defaulting to. Thank you. I appreciate that. So to communicate to our applicants those required materials and information, Development Review maintains what we call plan submittal checklists. We have these on our website, available for the applicant to utilize as they work through the process with us. So we're going to go through two different plan submittal checklists. First, a site development plan. So we may have a residential site development. One single property that is proposing a residential development on it. So that applicant would utilize the site development plan submittal checklist, which is online. Once the applicant has held a pre-submittal conference with us, we've talked through the project, where it is, what they want to do, what's being proposed. Once there is a site plan name that is given to the project as well as a county file number by which we track that and they pay their review fees, which we have generated an invoice to them, the plan review fees, then they can move forward and submit what we call an initial plan package. So, this checklist is to be included in that package, and all of the items, they need to use this as a guide to submit these materials to us. So, we're going to focus in on a couple of these things to make sure everybody And if you have questions as to what they are, we can discuss that. So obviously, number one is just that pre-submittal conference. They tell us when it was held. We say, yes, for sure. So number two, a completed site development plan application. So the application is also available on our website. And it includes information which is pertinent to the property. the development that they are doing, and then who the owner, developer, and surveyor are, all that's included on the information on the application. We already talked about number three, proof of payment of the review fees. Number four is the required number of copies of plans and supporting data. Well, what does that look like? How do they know what that is? We have our transmittal form online, which outlines those agencies that are going to review this. Now, of course, you're familiar with we've In the past six months, moved to a wonderful new world of electronic document review system. Project Docs has been fabulous. So we've had to add some information to our checklist, which say, if this project is in Project Docs, that's going to look a little different. So you're not submitting 20 copies of the paper plan for us to hand out and distribute. You're submitting it electronically. We click a button, and everybody gets that simultaneously. But the transmittal helps the applicant to know who's reviewing the plan. Okay. So you'll also see on the bottom of the plan submittal checklist that we require the owner, the developer, and the surveyor to sign here. So everybody's certifying via those signatures. And development review, we verify that all items have been submitted. If so, then we consider it complete and we distribute that plan package for review to all the technical agencies. If it's incomplete, if there's something missing, maybe the review fees have not been paid yet, we immediately go to the applicant, alert them of the insufficiency, and they can correct that out. So, again, the checklist items are the materials and information that we require for the processing substantive review so that's for a site development plan we have also our subdivision for residential subdivisions you would use our subdivision plan submittal checklist many of the items you'll see are the same there are a few differences here also this is available on our website same process we do hold a pre-submittal conference We give that subdivision a name that's approved, a county file number. They pay those review fees that we've generated, invoiced, and they can then move to submitting that plan package. The application for the subdivision. Again, they have to fill this out. You'll see this is where we have those owner developer survey or signatures for this. It was on a different form for the site plan, but we're getting that every time, so they certify everybody's aware of this project. We're moving forward. The transmittal, also substantially the same. You'll see a few differences, like the Board of Education is part of our distribution process for subdivision plans so they become aware of that. And we do also include a concurrency management application that must be filled out and submitted with the initial plan package. It indicates the plan type You'll see at the top what phase that plan is in, the number of units, the property information, the facilities that are being impacted, and if there's a traffic impact study, as would be required by our Department of Public Works design manual. And again, we're getting the owner's signature, the developer's signature on that application. So again, if all items are submitted to us and everything down the checklist, check, check, check, we verify that, then we distribute the plans and documents for review. So the checklist items are the material and information that is required for the processing and substantive review. And of course, if it's incomplete, we bring that to their immediate attention for them to correct out the insufficiency. I would say to summarize, development is a design process which evolves and is fine-tuned through the review process, which we know can take potentially years. But these checklists are the way that we communicate the necessary materials and information required to accept an initial plan package and distribute it for review.

So before I open up the floor to my colleagues, I just want to say thank you to you both for this presentation. Even beyond the changes that have to be made, I want to say that, I mean, for me at least, and I don't want to speak for my colleagues because I know they are quite well versed. For me, this is a good refresher of everything that goes into this process as well. So thank you both for putting this together for us. Absolutely. Any comments, questions?

Prior to this coming up, Did you tell developers you're complete or was it just understood that if they weren't complete, you'd be asking them for stuff? And will that change now? Because I guess my second part of the question, so if I submit all this to you and it's approved September 15th, October 1st, it gets frozen. If I do it October 5th, October 5th, if I do it after October 1st. So is there a statement saying you're complete?

So we. acknowledge back to the applicant that the project has been accepted for review and distributed. So that means it's complete. Yes, they are notified when that happens.

We don't, this is new terminology. I know, I know. But yes, we do notify them. And also what I would point out is that you're familiar with the technical review committee. So as soon as we have everything we need, we schedule the applicant for the technical review committee. And so they know, they're moving forward in the process.

and and so if if if you give me a technical review meeting that means i'm complete and we're starting a process yes i got a couple questions obviously this is important for everybody but um

You mentioned about collecting of fees. I know we can't collect any kind of development impact fees. Can we still collect fees, the other types of fees you were suggesting, the processing fees?

We already do. We already do.

No, no. I know it delays the collection of development impact fees and development excise taxes until after construction is complete.

so is that that that's the other thing that part of it yeah that's another aspect of of the state law that that we haven't really delved into um we being our department because that is more addressed on the building permit side and with um department of public works and the impact fees that the board of county commissioners have established for development

so one thing on that we should be careful about because it's sort of tricky and i understand there's a lot of money up front but you know if you build a development sometimes it takes years it takes five six years so you want to make sure you get the impact fee on each unit as it comes due because you're not collecting up front So I think we've got to be careful of that to make sure we can collect the impact fees. We, I think, have the lowest impact fees in the state. But it's still something that we want to collect. So I think making sure that we figure out, and maybe it's another department, how we're collecting those fees at the end of each, before UNO is issued. Because once you issue a UNO, it's sort of hard to get the money if somebody runs off. So that's a key, because you're not starting off with it.

So just make sure who- They're currently collected at permit issuance.

Right, but now you can't do that anymore. You can't do it until after construction is complete.

Before UNO then, yeah.

So before UNO. I mean, it's a big difference because it depends on how long it takes to build the house. Some people take years and some people take months.

That's all in permits, but good thing to mention.

No, mention before any UNO is issued because you don't want somebody, because then it's hard to go back and get the money. After received all required approvals, I've been doing a little research on this. I know that the counties are, because it's so much unknown and things come up, the state tells us we got to change stormwater management. They tell us we have to do something. Does that count into this five-year thing? That hasn't really been answered. I agree with trying to get some of this stuff expedited because it takes way too long. But on this, it's almost way too short. You get 30 days. And if you don't get back to them, it's automatically approved. So I'm under the impression that the other counties have checklists. And it automatically says, if you don't have this thing checked off and it's approved, then you automatically are not approved. So they know. It's not like somebody can just be on vacation and forgot to tell them they weren't approved. The checklist in the system, yes, we've said OK to this. We've said OK to that. So it can't be an oversight, because that oversight can be a big deal. So I think they're trying to make sure that it's systematically, this approval has happened. And you can't do one without the others. You can't do them all at the same time. So until we get a feel for what is how this is all going to play out. I think we've got to make sure we're protecting our own interests as much as possible. So what is a complete application? I think we should make it very clear it's all materials and information necessary to process and review as determined by the commission. And we are able to set that. So we've got to make sure we've set it a high bar. For a multi-phase housing development project, each phase should be treated as a discrete housing development project for the purposes of determining the applicable law investing rights because some have different parts to them. How do we write that? We've got this application here, but how do we write that into the policy? that each phase of your project is something different. Here's phase one, here's phase two. How does that?

So if a project is submitted in phases, and a developer submits that first phase, then when they submit that first phase for review and so on,

when it when they make that application for that first phase that first phase then is vested and then they submit the second phase and that's vested and here's what I'm trying to get it so a lot of them like a lot of them have different phases but they're looking you're looking at everything as one project for APFO for whatever stormwater maybe you're looking at as one project so just because one phase is finished the other phases are not because you haven't finished those steps for the whole project am I correcting that

Yeah, so you get into some complexities with defining a project. So if you have a project where you have a large parcel that you then subdivide and you do some residential over here and you do some industrial over here and so on, we treat each one of those as a separate project. so the first residential component if that's the first project that comes in of that phase of the development of the overall property we would be looking at that as its own singular project and when you submit that information for us to begin the review process that's when the vesting would start because they've submitted that

But throughout the project, I mean, I know on one, we've been saying we're looking at the project as a whole for traffic, for APFO, and they've done that study together. So for something like that, when it's all done at the same time, the impact on the project, it's got to be done that the whole thing is one. because you haven't resolved those other pieces to it you know I'm saying so I mean this is I've been talking I've been doing some outside research on this and it seems like that's the way it's it's got to be so that one piece is not complete until the rest of those things are done for the whole unless they've unless they've figured out in the first piece whether it's the stormwater management that might be somewhere else or it could be the the roads some somewhere else because

what this is is literally just you have submitted all the doc this is pre this complete application what we currently consider a complete application and that you're ready to go through our process is before any review occurs so there is no at when you've when you've gotten your TRC meeting date There has been, by the time you get that date, by the time the meeting happens, there's been review. But by the time you get the date, really no one's reviewed anything other than to say, yes, you have all the sheets of the plans that we need, and you have paid your fees, and you've met with us. There's been no traffic study. There has been no review by any department yet or anything else. There's been no review. So if we go forward on October 1st with this process, as it is today, then someone can come in with a package of all the paperwork that they need and say here it is Laura and we make sure that everything's been checked they've had their pre-application meeting etc and they've been had a complete application we only have 30 days to consider a complete application and if I if I I'm paraphrasing so I may not be saying it exactly correctly But if we have to extend it for any reason, we have to give a justification of some sort. Now, clearly it's an easy case if they haven't filed a particular layer of plan that they need to they didn't give us the the road layout well clearly then or they didn't have a signature or they didn't have the fees paid those are clearly going to be easy justifications that they don't need a complete application but I want everyone to be very clear because I think this is your concern Commissioner Krabs that that as it stands right now If the state asked us for a definition of complete application, this would be our current definition. If there's a desire to change it, to add actual reviews to occur within that 30-day period, then we need to have deeper conversations on what that would look like and how we would get that.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

The other counties obviously are doing, and they're in the same boat. Everybody's trying to be cautious because they're in the same boat and it does lock things in for a long time. So from what I'm understanding and to do a little work on this, um, that they're trying to hard code the gatekeeper requirements. So this, this is not hard coded. Like the gatekeeper requirements would be upfront mandatory submission of the traffic impact study. That's a gatekeeper requirement. Number two, stormwater management plans, forest conservation, delineations, that should be gatekeeper before you can't move forward. Because those are all big things that you're now locking in something when you just have more of a concept. So it seems to me that the counties are moving in that direction at first while they're figuring this out, that they're doing these rigid black and white intake filters and hard coding what I call, they call them the gatekeeper requirements. So I think we should be putting some of that stuff in here that it's not going to be like it was before. So we do. That's the reason for the discussion.

Yes. And I'm sorry, Commissioner. We do. So if you go back to the ‑‑ where is it? to the checklist some of the things that that you talked about there regarding um forest conservation and storm water those are required to be submitted as part of the complete application and um so we we check the box yes you have submitted a storm water management report and and it doesn't have to be approved it doesn't have to no no right it's just you have to submit it and we check the box it's submitted and then we're going to allow you to begin the process of the review The review can take a year plus, but the purpose here is to then say that the codes that you are held to are when you submitted all of those required documents. You had asked the question, and it's a great question that I wanted to look into, and it was regarding if state laws and so on change. And in the bill, it says the requirements of the section apply to a local regulatory authority and the commission only to the extent that the requirements do not conflict with other state or federal laws or regulations. Typically what happens, and we're going to see this in the relatively near future with new stormwater regulations, is that the state comes up with grandfathering provisions that if you've met this certain state phase in your development plans, then you follow the old laws if it's after that date and so on. The state will be taking care of that. This early vesting will not apply to stormwater from that perspective.

What about like electrical codes updated or fire codes? Things like that we sort of go to a standard. Would it be under the old standard for five years or would it be under the new things that are outside of what we?

So electrical codes and things like that, those aren't part of the site development plan. Those are building permit items. Okay, like the fire code, like with the road widths and things. Yeah, and so fire codes, those are our guidelines that our fire reviewers, fire and EMS reviewers look at. If there is a federal or state requirement that changes that, then that would be covered by this section, which says that our local codes cannot, it doesn't apply to an updated state or federal requirement.

So if the state says, and I haven't read the details of it, but the state in 2024 said that we must adopt, counties must adopt the NPF, whatever it is, fire codes, which I got to look it up. That's what I was told, that they had to. So if that would occur, that you had to use the most updated standard, which we would want to use probably, there's different pieces to it. How would that weigh into it to what's in subs?

Yeah, so again, this vesting only applies to local regulations. And so if a state or a federal requirement that we are required to follow changes, the early vesting would not apply to that.

It's only local that are less strict. Okay. So I'm just, I know that counties are trying to... tiptoe into this until they can figure out because 30 days is not very much if something is not as complete you're checking off a box saying something's complete doesn't mean it's a quality completion it doesn't mean it's a um absolutely no it doesn't even mean that it it I mean the current I mean as as Laura said this is an iterative process

takes several years to get through the process so the plans they submit today are not the plans that they end up building almost assuredly I mean I bet that there is they can count on on a couple hands how many times a a particular aspect of a plan just one aspect of a plan has gone through start to finish without any changes I bet it's almost non-existent so in the entire plan so yes you're absolutely correct I mean this is a pretty easy bar potentially for them to get and it's only as easy potentially as we let it be that's why they're letting us that's why I'm suggesting that we talk to the other counties what they're doing and I've done some of that

So hard coding the gatekeeper requirements. Mandatory upfront submissions would be traffic impact studies. If you're going to be vested and you had to do it right away, stormwater management plans, forest conservation delineations. So those are big deals. And then for us, if we have a traffic impact study, one thing that I've been a little frustrated about, sometimes they'll say, oh, we did a traffic impact study. Okay, what does it mean? What does it say? Because just because you did one, everything could be failing. And sometimes they just, that's all they know. We did it. Well, did we look at it? Did we make improvements? And often, we have not done that in the past. So we want to make sure that that study is done and that it's completed and someone's had some eyes on it. And if the DRA, which was a great idea, but we've never used it, I mean, I think having that tool in place for that, whether it's traffic impact study or whatever thing we say we want them to do, that should be in place, too, complete application because otherwise you're locking in something for a long time with unresolved issues that are major issues. And so I think some of the counties are making them actually have a more strict, complete application requirement. They will not allow to work concurrently with easements. They must obtain them first. APFO and the site development they need to come up with that first so and we can always back off but once we move forward and don't have that in there you can't go back so I'm just I would like to make sure that we're we are requiring those things up front so it's not just automatically let's get this in and lock it in and it's got to be for an entire evidently they're having lots of discussions and work sessions these things in other counties because it's so so important that's why we're here okay so i'm just suggesting that we have some of these things more in place and back off later than have less in place we're that's why we're here that's why we're here to discuss this and if i may um so no i i agree this is incredibly consequential it's it's it's good we're having this discussion how

Whether we agree with the legislation or not, it's happening. I've taken the opportunity to review the bill a little bit while we're talking. Surprisingly enough, it's not as convoluted as I imagined. They do get into definitions for what phases are, and it looks like there's a five-year limit. on a vesting period as well. So if the five years elapses, which is often the case, I'm not sure, but it sounds like they've got to do like a reapplication under this or some sort of provision where they've got to come back again. So that's encouraging. That's a little encouraging as well. And then It doesn't limit the ability for jurisdictions to enter into DRAs, which is good. It allows you to increase density if you'd like to. I mean, of course, that's not surprising. So, yeah, a lot of the concerns and questions are spelled out in here. I wanted to make sure I reviewed the bill, too. ensure there wasn't anything that we had to be you know any pitfalls or anything we need to be particularly careful about um just making sure that people are meeting all these guidelines up front obviously is the goal yeah but it sounds like this is going to happen but um having looked at the bill a little bit more yeah yeah i can i can you can actually understand it when you read it

It got diluted. I mean, it did get watered down quite a bit from what it was. It does leave it up to us to either put the guardrails in place. I mean, I just look at, you know, the dumb little issue. Not that it's dumb. It was an important issue, but about with Mount Airy. People happened to be off, and they didn't see it in their inbox. That's consequential, but, you know, that shouldn't be... something that would cause something to move forward. So if you have the automatic yeses or nos as somebody checks a box off and then they have to do the next step, it sort of pauses things so something like that can occur because if it's not in place, you could have something that

nobody paid attention to they checked off all the boxes and 30 days went by boop so that's why they're allowing us and that's why people are taking time to make sure the right things are in place because it sounds like at least you and maybe the rest of the board is interested in putting as many things in requiring them before you know to been done before they submit as possible certainly we already require you know the forest conservation stuff and and what stormwater management stuff and probably other things so we can maybe what I'm just thinking outside the box here we could put together a list of what we currently require you know all those things that we were currently required to be submitted if they're not listed individually they are listed here are they all listed individually so maybe there are other things that was the second thing I was going to that could be required upfront that we don't currently require like a traffic impact study for example I don't believe we require that to be submitted with all the other stuff or Dewey, it can be submitted. The problem with traffic impact studies is that they have to be done during the school year. So if you want to submit an application in June, after let's say July because we know schools out in July goes way longer in June than I ever remembered as a kid but I guess that was the same for me too but anyway in July you or August you you're you can't because we won't accept it so I don't know how we would deal with that particular aspect of an application. Maybe you guys have some suggestions.

The other complexity with traffic impact studies is our requirements per the DPW manual are that if you generate more than 50 peak hour trips, you're required to do a study. If it's between 25 and 50, then it's up to the county's discretion. So a developer submits a complete application of here's what I want to do and so on. And they indicate that they're going to generate 30 peak hour trips. until staff starts reviewing the project, so we've accepted and we started reviewing it, we can't make the determination whether we want a traffic impact study. So we receive something, we see, okay, they're predicting that they're going to generate 30 peak hour trips, we review what the use is and so on, and we say, you know what, we think there needs to be a traffic impact study. Well, if we have it in the checklist that it's required, But we don't know if it's going to be required until we do the review. So that's one of the complexities of requiring a traffic impact study to be submitted, because we don't know until we start the review.

But the other problem, I'll make it clear for me. One of my goals in all of this is we do need to get the process Tightened it should not take years and and projects should not be able to be approved 20 years ago And then they just keep getting extended extended. I mean that stuff's got it that got to change but There's got to be a way that it doesn't, because time is money. And so I'm sensitive to the fact that it takes years and years, and they don't know. And that's why we're trying to put the rules. What are our rules that are in place? Instead of always wishy-washy, it's not fair to them to have it. So the Planning Commission shall determine how many parking spots. They shall determine this. They shall determine that. way too much way too much leeway and then we're not getting good product out of it so I think what we're trying to do now is say this is what you need to do and they clearly know and they want to know how many parking spots do we have to have is it zero or is it ten or is it fifty so we're moving in that direction that's absolutely having that clarity is going to be easier up front to say yes we've met these criteria we know what to expect early on instead of it keep getting added on but it seems to me at least where we are now and learning a lot is we look at this traffic stuff and really make a decision on it so far at the end there's so much investment already in the project and and we get we just get a study and it's oh yeah you got a study it's fine No, the study says everything internally is failing. So what are we going to do about it? Well, we're at the end of the process. That should be decided earlier on in the process.

I would submit it's decided earlier. It is decided earlier.

It needs to be decided, not just that it's done, but that the results of what is done there.

Normally, those are conversations that are held right in the beginning. There's one example of one that is not, and we've discussed that previously.

Well, we're stuck with a lot of projects that did not have... for whatever reason. Maybe we're not determining them on accessibility versus how many trips somebody makes. Because just because it makes trip doesn't mean there's a way to exit and enter a project. So I guess what I'm trying to say It seems like it's sort of one-sided. We require a study, and then their person comes and says, oh, this is all fine. And then you look at it and say, well, that's not fine. What about these things? But there's no decision made. And so that's why we do the DRA. So upfront, they know. If you're going to do this project, this is what's going to be required. So at what point would that If you have to approve something and lock it in, you could almost delay it forever if the DRA is not done. And that doesn't seem fair either. How do they know earlier on this is what the expectation is going to be for what the road could be substantial, could be nothing?

So our process is that it's, for simplicity, it's a two-step process. We have a concept phase and then a final phase, right? And so when an application is submitted, when all the information is submitted, they're going through the concept phase because they are conceptually what is it that they want to do, right? And we review that concept for all the applicable codes, right? So someone wants to develop a sheet on a property. Is a traffic impact study required? They do the study. What are the impacts to the surrounding roads? What kind of mitigation are they going to do to address that? generally where is the building located do they can they physically provide enough storm water management those conceptual type um reviews analysis are done including the traffic impact and what kind of failing intersections there may or may not be in the surrounding area that they are impacting And if they are contributing to that failure, which is what our code says they have to address, how they're going to mitigate their impact, right? So all of that is discussed and put together and from a staff level reviewed. It all meets requirements. And then that concept is brought to the Planning and Zoning Commission for them to review and provide further comment. It's at that point the mitigation for any sort of traffic impacts is discussed. Like we have identified these issues and here's how it's going to be addressed. Once we get past the concept review and planning commission has offered their opinions on things they'd like to see different and so on, then the developer moves into the final design phase, which is where you start putting together the details. So for example, the concept may say, we're going to need a retaining wall along this side of the property. the final design does the structural engineering of how that retaining wall is going to be built and so on. All those details of what conceptually everybody agreed to was going to be built on there, those final details are provided and all of those are then reviewed by staff. and then when it comes the final plans are brought to planning commission planning commission knows that those construction plans can be constructed they're signed and sealed by the engineer who has designed them and they meet all of the county code requirements so your question about when traffic is decided and so on that all is done in that concept phase so that we know what the mitigation that needs to be done uh at that point and i hear what you're saying but that's not what's happening in reality and that's why we're having the issues here ask how

Well, I mean, I look at right and narrow way. We never followed the rules for that. It was never approved plan. It was never under construction. It was never within six months of completion. And no building permits were supposed to be issued until all that happened. They're all issued, and it's finished. And the road will never. I'm just saying that's one example. The other issue that we've got is the contributing to the failure. Because on some of these issues, This stuff's already failing. It's E. And they're just contributing even more to make it F. And F is gridlock. So they never have to really do anything because their contribution, hey, it's already E. They have to address their contributions. But their contribution just keeps them. It might be at an E minus, and now it's going to be at an E plus. That's how we've gotten to where we are. And then we end up having to remediate it. I say we, the taxpayers of Carroll County. And we don't really ever, or we say, we're just going to waive it. You don't have to do it. And then the next guy comes, and it's an E minus, and now it's an F. So that's why this needs to be done early on in the process. And I know you might have development A does 100 houses, 100, 100, 100. None of them themselves contribute. But when the last guy comes, you're now at gridlock.

You are absolutely correct.

And we don't require any contribution for A, B, C, D, E. And then we end up either not doing it or we end up footing the bill for it. And that's not the way it should be done. That's why we've got to somehow have A, B, C, and D putting some contribution in. And then F, the last person, does his part. And then, hey, we got the mitigation. Yeah. That is not in place, and we're just not getting this stuff done.

Can I interject, please? Because again, the issue of the application, as I mentioned earlier, it is very consequential. I think the staff understands that. We've got to reach a consensus on any sort of changes we want to make to the process as a board. I think the county administrator has already offered a good solution moving forward that if there's anything we need to change in this, the traffic issue seems to be a relevant one. I think what I would ask as a board, if we can get a consensus, because we've got a lot going on here, is to just take a look at the application process, take into account some of the concerns you've heard here, and let's make any changes here as soon as possible because October 1st is approaching quickly. That's my concern right now. We can't solve everything today, but... I want to make sure the application process obviously is airtight.

What we can do is I think come back with a list of all the things that they submit, and we can see if there are other things, and then where you want to ensure that they submit that. beforehand. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And if you need to hear from, and I don't know if there's other, I mean, if there's other. So I believe that, I believe we have everything.

I mean, I think it would benefit all of us for literally like. You guys know the list because it says everything you need, but I don't think it doesn't say it to me. Maybe it's me.

Can I ask what you think is missing? I mean, we are happy to work and provide any additional information.

Traffic study, the landscaping plan. I know you discussed the traffic study, but the landscaping plan.

So not every project requires landscaping. So to require a landscaping plan on a checklist and they haven't provided one, do we reject them because they didn't provide one when they don't need one? So landscaping is one of those nuances that you submit the plan, we review it.

If you have an item on the list that says landscaping if applicable. And that way, it's on the checklist. So if I'm doing something that doesn't require landscaping, then I obviously don't have to worry about that particular item. But if I do, it's there anyways. And that reduces the number of forms that you have to generate.

Well, they already know they don't have to, I guess, somehow.

And so the difficulty then is for a development review coordinator who is looking at this. And since someone submits it and there's no landscaping plan, and it says, if applicable, we don't know if it's applicable or not until we start the review. So putting it on a checklist.

A little like the traffic study. It's the same thing.

Yeah.

So you would submit that everything's on this checklist that you know up front needs to be done.

Absolutely.

That other things are circumstantial. They need to be done if the circumstances are right. They don't need to be done. Yes.

And again, developers are not getting away with anything with this and the change to code. They still have to go through the entire process. Every application, all the plans will be reviewed per the code. All this is doing is saying what code they are held to. Is it the code that's currently in place or can the board of county commissioners for example change the code midstream and require them to do something different before they get to the end of the process all the state law does is say that the board of county commissioners in this case can't change the code once it's submitted and and we're in the review process for that project yeah so nobody's getting away with anything it's only the rules of the game that you have to follow no but for carroll county

Considering where we are right now, which I wish we weren't, it's very consequential. Because most of these counties, I mean, we don't have, in some areas, good regulations at all. One paragraph says you may do this. We're trying to fix that, because it's something that's unique to us. Nowhere else can you do this. So it's very consequential that we don't allow that to happen. And we can fix this stuff. Because other than that, we look pretty stupid if we don't somehow make sure that the changes to some of the stuff that should never have been like that to begin with don't get changed. I'm just suggesting that we need more strict, complete application requirements. so like and maybe again i'd like to see what the other counties are doing i started doing some of that work last we can do that at mako even because they they want to be in the driver's seat for now and then you know if we can loosen up then you loosen up but if you start off this way you've already you've already cut your legs off so so like one example will not allow um work concurrently like easements must be obtained first they must have the easements before their application is complete

So regarding easements, easements are determined through the review process to figure out where easements are required. So we can't establish the easements until we start the review process.

That would make your – I'm just telling you what the other county is telling me. Okay, what county? Frederick County. And I'm going to start with them.

I've never seen another county do this. I'd like to talk sometime. I don't care if it's 1 o'clock. I've done this process. I've done traffic studies. I've read. So I'd like to. This is something new. It's something new. It's up to you. We can do whatever we want.

So you have something from Frederick County saying that they're

going to actually had a workshop on it yesterday. And I don't know what the results of that were, but they're really like looking into each of these things to make sure they're not stuck off counted off guard. And they already have I'm not sure if they have particular issues they're worried about. We do. We have a particular issue that we're worried about because we do have very, no language really for certain things. So we want to make sure that we can do what we can to be able to have the tools to fix our problems. And so they were mentioning about not allowing work concurrently. um with easements they must obtain them first again in the old days it didn't matter because you couldn't you you didn't you didn't tie yourself to a certain thing so what happened before is really irrelevant because you still had an opportunity to fix things it is relevant now because we might we will get stuck with possibly having um roads that are not wide enough for people to fire trucks to get down things like that that we are trying to fix to make it what it should be So it will be very consequential if we don't have the tool in place to make sure that occurs.

So if I may, please don't get me wrong. I don't support this state legislation. No, no, no. But we've got to make sure we do what we can. I think it's terrible because there is definitely a use case to speak to. where local jurisdictions should have the authority if there is an issue with their codes to be able to fix them and so on. So I 100% agree that this is an unfortunate code or law.

I agree 100%, but they also made it very loosey that we could define what a complete application is. And that's, you know, when you bring it up to my colleagues that made these rules, they're like, well, you all determine what it is. So I think in the spirit of that, in the spirit of trying to get a quicker process, we should make sure that if something happens, we can't just point their finger and say, you made us do this. No, we gave you the ability to say what's in a complete application. So I want to make sure that we take the authority that they've given us, the flexibility,

to make sure that we're make crossing these t's and dotting our eyes and getting things in place with a goal of having certainty for everybody down the road yeah all right commissioner kyler you had something you wanted to yes yeah yeah um i i think one of the things that that you need to bring back to us probably is what happens in the technical review that that starts after the application is complete because That could change what traffic studies needed. That could change landscaping. That definitely will change stormwater management. That could change street widths. Some of this is just very premature to put in a complete application. And I don't think it follows the intent of the law. And I don't know quite what we're afraid of. There's one issue. We always have problems. We always need to tweak zoning. And maybe we haven't been good enough doing that. And I don't like this law. But it doesn't change that much of the process. And we've talked about we need to better define the process. Most developers know what to expect when they come to Carroll County. They know that. Now, I want to be thankful. A good engineer knows the process. Some of them don't hire good engineers, and that's understandable. If the subdivision comes out on a state road um we can't make the state care about a traffic study i guess we can make people do one even even if the state says don't but but there's a lot of factors in this and and the other problem i have with it and uh we're headed into a pre-election uh session Everything we require extra on an application raises the price of the houses in the subdivision, and we're talking about how the state makes us waste money, and they do, but we can't be guilty of the same thing and think we'll ever have affordable housing. If our goal is to have people not develop in Carroll County, I don't agree with that, but it's... It's that's where we're headed. So I think we need to I think you need to be familiar with the process before you're telling what ought to be in an application because some things can't be. And and I've said it before. I keep hearing about traffic studies and they're great. And the county reads them. The developer reads them. The contractor doesn't so much. The residents don't so much. The engineer does because he has to design the plans based on the outcome of it. It's it's a good tool and. The problem. And I don't know if you guys want to say this or not. The problem is setting up here. Over half of the things you talk about, this county's done foolish. it's because the three or five commissioners voted to waive something and uh as long as we can do that that that's that's my uh my biggest worry is uh you know like some of the roads you talk about commissioners waved at and We have the right to do that, but we can't blame them because they gave us good advice and we said, never mind, we will waive it. You know, so this this this isn't as black and white as it sounds. And to make it harder. isn't making it better. We need to make it better. And there are some things we probably need to include. A traffic study in the application? No. Landscaping in the application? No. I don't know if any of you have been to a technical review, but what, seven, eight parties are going to tell you things that they don't like about your preliminary plan and you need to change it. Yes. And to do stuff before the preliminary plan, and I don't know, I mean, can we make them do a, and a traffic study costs money and takes time, but so if we do the technical review and a bunch of stuff changes, the entrance could change.

Mm-hmm.

um where it is um so do we make them do another traffic study or we've already made them do one you know it's it's i i think uh making it hard on the developers isn't the answer to a better system so if i may commissioner um appreciate the comments and um

Keeping and informing the engineers and the developers as to what the process and so on, absolutely. That's at the forefront of what we do every day is trying to educate so that people can understand the process and get through it as efficiently as possible. And that's why we require that pre-submittal meeting, which is before you even submit anything, schedule a meeting with us, and we sit down and we look at – They tell us where the project is going, what they're looking to try and do, and we bring all of the technical folks that may have a significant stake in that to talk with the developer before anything gets done. So if there's a major stream through the middle of your property and you're going to have floodplain issues, we'll bring our floodplain specialist to that pre-submittal meeting so we can talk about it and be aware of this and so on. And we also describe the entire process. So face-to-face, we describe what the process is that they have to go through. Very early on during that pre-submittal meeting, if someone is proposing, say, a super Walmart where it's obvious that there is going to be a significant amount of traffic that's going to be generated, we will tell them right from the get-go in that pre-submittal meeting, you're going to have to do a traffic study. There's no question. And as somebody I think mentioned, there are requirements for when you can do the traffic counts. School has to be in session. And so timing is very critical. So if it's May and you're coming to us with a pre-submittal meeting and you're doing a super Walmart, you might want to get your traffic engineer out tomorrow and start counting traffic while school is still in session. So yes, I appreciate the comments and yes, we try and educate and lead the developers and their engineers and surveyors through this process so that everything is crystal clear.

I'm sorry. I'm going to exercise my discretion as president to move things along at this point. We have still a number of things to get to, including going into closed after this. This is a good kickoff discussion for this. I think you have a pretty good sense of where we are and where we are interested in going and what we can further discuss in the future. So I know you will bring back something phenomenal for us to further discuss. So you're bringing this back?

Yeah. And my goal, I just want to say, my goal is to make it easier for everybody. It's not to make it harder. The more people know, the easier it's going to be. And that is the goal for everybody, is to make it easier.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody, for the discussion. Thank you both for entertaining us as well. All right. Up next, we will move into the public. Yeah, for sure.

I'm sure that's who the commissioner would be glad he was thanking there. Yeah.

Up next, we will move into the public comment portion of our agenda. Roberta, do we have anybody here for a public comment?

Yes, Mr. Lou Donahue. Come to the microphone. State your name. You have three minutes.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. My name is Louis Donahue. And I work for the Carroll County Public's Work Department. I'm also part of the non-exempt employees union that has been trying unsuccessfully to secure a meeting with the board for more than a year. I want to speak to you today about an issue that has become impossible to ignore. The contractional between what the board says publicly and how your own employees have been treated. Many times, we have heard members of the board expressed frustration that Annapolis doesn't want to hear you and state level leadership dismisses local concerns or that the county voices are overlooked. You said that the leaders should listen to the people who do the work commissioners. We agree. We are those people. Your employees are unhappy with a great deal. especially what the changes made under chapter 36. We've been told these changes were made for fairness across departments. But in reality, it's that they have created significant unfairness for the Department of Public Works. Bottom line, the change has hurt your emergency personnel here at Public Works, and there is no platform no pathway and no visible support for positive change. We have tried to address this the right way. We have gone through HR. We have followed the chain of command. We have been patient. But every time we are told we will talk to the commissioners, we are later told no. There is no upper-level leadership willing to stand up for us or advocate for us. There is no one fighting for the people who keep this county running every single day. And this brings us back to the contradiction. If it is wrong for Annapolis to ignore Carroll County, then it is equally wrong for Carroll County leadership to ignore its own workforce. If the leadership should listen to the people doing the work, then the principles must apply here at home. All we are asking for is consistency, fairness, and dialogue. We are ready to meet, we are ready to talk, and we are ready to work with you. We simply need to be willing to hear us. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Robert, anybody else here for public comment? No, sir. All right, thank you. Chris, do we have anybody on the line for public comment?

Yes, sir. We have one caller. Caller, if you could use star six to unmute. You'll have three minutes. Please identify yourself.

Yes. Good morning, Commissioners. Catherine Adelaide, a member of the Carroll County Republican Central Committee. Can you hear me?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Good morning. And, uh, I do appreciate, even though they draw out the amazing attention, nobody could ever accuse this board of running a dog and pony show here. So I appreciate all the effort that you make to have this transparency and really letting the public see how you grapple with issues. I think it's just wonderful. Anyway, thank you for the opportunity to speak at public comment. I always appreciate that. I'll start with Carroll County Republican Central Committee news first. We had our last meeting on June 25th and, um, It was a long day for me. I had the last canvas for the primary at 10 a.m. That probably ran until about 2. And then I had the Central Committee meeting. And after that, I attended the Tri-District picnic on Saturday, July 18th, despite the rain. And Kelly, the new member-elect of the Central Committee, and myself both spoke at that event. I appreciate the commissioners mentioning the carnivals. Reese is finishing up. I will be there tomorrow night. Hope you'll come visit me. It can end Saturday and we do need to support the carnivals. Uh, then we'll have Hampstead beginning on the 27th. And then, um, we have a great rally for the Republican party with our annual picnic, um, on August 23rd at one o'clock at the Bennett surf park. So we hope you'll save the date for that. Then we're also moving on to the general election where we, Got a lot of exciting races, our Board of Education, some of the commissioner races, delegate races, two parties going on here, the governor's race, Dan Cox. So we'll be moving forward with those plans. Next, I want to move into my pro-life report. I'll start with Maryland Right to Life. The big thing is to save the date, October 15th, for our annual banquet. This is the major fundraising event that helps our one-paid lobbyists fight these horrible infanticide bills and assisted suicide. So I really hope you'll save that date on your calendar. Up next for Maryland Right to Life is the Maryland State Fair, August 27th through the 30th, September 3rd through the 7th, Labor Day, and September 10th through the 13th, when people volunteer for three hours, you get a free pass. So I encourage people to do that. Finally, I'll talk about the Carroll County Right to Life. We had our first in-person meeting at the Senior Center on Thursday, May 16th, and we had a great turnout. We had six elected officials or former elected officials and Board of Elections gals showed up. Everybody was anxious to, they hung out for a while, but wanted to see Trump's speech on election integrity. We have no meeting in August to accommodate vacation schedules. We'll have a back to school meeting in September. And I did also travel to Prince George's County to help them set up a right to life. We'll be trying to participate in their Labor Day Festival. And I wish everybody a happy weekend.

Thank you very much. Chris, is there anybody else on the line for public comment?

That's all I have, sir.

All right. Thank you very much. We will now move into admin session or admin open for the agenda. Does anybody have anything today for admin open? All right. Hearing none, we'll move into agenda review. Good afternoon, Wanda. How are you? all right so up first the first week the week of monday july 27th monday july 27th shows nothing on the formal calendar tuesday july 28th ribbon cutting for historic durbin house with commissioners gordon kyler and krebs wednesday july 29th alta alta valley winery ribbon cutting on hughes shop road and westminster commissioners gordon and kyler i just want to take me off of durbin house and put me on to alta valley and try to get to that okay Thursday, July 30th, 8 o'clock a.m., Board of County Commissioners closed admin followed by open session at 9 o'clock a.m. Item number one, Priority Carol. Item number two, BGE Finksburg to Westminster substations transmission presentation. Item number three, primary post-election report presentation. Item number four, change order request for additional construction phase engineering services for the improvements of the Hempstead Wastewater Treatment Plan project. Item number five, proposed amendments to Chapter 150, Forest Conservation. Item number six, Adoption 2024 Water Resources Element. Item number seven, request for public hearing for a text amendment for age-restricted housing presentation of Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation. Item number eight, Request for public hearing for a text amendment for cluster subdivisions, which is a presentation of the Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation. Item number nine, request for public hearing for accessory dwelling unit text amendments, which is a response to House Bill 1466, which is a presentation of the Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation. And then item number 10, fiscal year 26, year-end adjustments with resolution. followed by public comment, admin open and agenda review. Friday, July 31st shows nothing on the formal calendar. Saturday, August 1st.

We're also supposed to have the meeting with the health department that asked. Which one? Oh, that's right. That's not on there, though. Right. That's their meeting. Right. Oh, okay. What day is that?

That's Thursday.

The 30th. You're invited to their meeting. That's right.

Okay. Sorry. Forgive me. No worries. Better to make sure than not.

That is here. No, no, no. It's at the health.

Okay. Saturday, August 1st, shows nothing on the formal calendar. And then Sunday, August 2nd, I have the podcast. Are there any changes or alterations for the first week of our public agenda? All right, hearing none, I'll move into the second week of our public agenda for the week of Monday, August 3rd. Monday, August 3rd, 8 o'clock a.m., Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the 4-H Fair. Commissioners Gordon, Kyler, and myself are slated to attend. Tuesday, August 4th, annual national night out going on around the county at various locations. Commissioners Gordon, Krebs, and myself are slated to attend various events. Wednesday, August 5th, shows nothing on the formal calendar. Thursday, August 6th, 8 o'clock a.m., Board of County Commissioners closed administrative session, followed by open session at 9 o'clock a.m. Item number one, Priority Carol, including a Farm Museum proclamation and Emergency Management Month proclamation. Item number two, request for approval for bylaws for Veterans Advisory Council and the Commission on Aging and Disabilities. Item number three, approval of the FY27 town-county agreements for Tawny Town and Westminster. Item number four, renewal for support and maintenance of computer-aided dispatch. Item number five, spending authority for inmate medical services. Item number six, briefing, discussion, possible decision on the exercise option to purchase the Jane Bloss Shaw report. Vocable living trust property through county easement. Followed by public comment, admin open and agenda review. Friday, August 7th shows nothing on the formal calendar. Saturday, August 8th shows nothing on the formal calendar. And Sunday, August 9th, Commissioner Kyler has the podcast. Are there any changes or alterations for the second week of our public agenda? All right. Hearing none, at this point, I need a motion to go into closed for land acquisition and then to adjourn thereafter. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? All right. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.