Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

June 2026 meeting of the Town of Mount Pleasant Planning Commission meeting to order. And given the agenda, we'll ask for approval of the agenda as was posted. Is there a motion? I'll move to approve. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the same for the minutes. I read them myself and they look to be in order and representative of our discussion last month.

Any amendments or requested changes?

If not, the motion has been made and seconded to approve the minutes of the May meeting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we'll get started. Mr. Stone, Planning Commission Recommendations Update.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Planning Commission. Town Council took action on four items in their June meeting. They had final reading on the 10-mile community overlay district that is approved and is currently in effect. They took first reading on the Highway 17 North Village PD. That was denied and that will terminate that application. And first reading on both 883 Long Point Road and 2405 Old Georgetown Road, both approved for first reading for annexation and zoning to community conservation. That's all the staff has.

Thank you. Any questions or requests for color from Mr. Stone? Okay, and I saw that we did have correspondence posted, at least not as of earlier today. Okay, great. We received everything that was posted within the policy. Okay, so now's the opportunity for general public comment. So, for those of you who may not be familiar with these meetings and our protocol, we have, I think, three agenda items tonight that are public hearings. So, if you're here to discuss or comment on any of those, you're welcome to do that anytime, but we'd encourage you to do that specific to any of these projects then. Otherwise, you also have an opportunity, anyone has the opportunity make a statement to us as part of the general public comment period. Everyone is limited to 2 1⁄2 minutes per the town's policy. So anyone for the public comment, anything of a general nature? Yeah, good. Yes, ma'am. Two folks. Yeah, go right ahead. Yeah, you can get closer. That way we'll speed the process a little bit whenever she's finished. Yes, ma'am, and also if you would state your name clearly as well as your address for the record.

Thank you. Good day. My name is Myra Snipes Richardson. My address is 2755 Earl Johnson Lane, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. I am the current president of the Hamlin Beach Community Association. I am so proud that the 10 mile community overlay has been approved. I just wanted to state that the other communities, Gullah Geech communities in the Mount Pleasant area, we are actively reviewing Charleston County and also 10 mile and Mount Pleasant overlay plan for 10 mile. Hamlin full of representatives from the snow community. We are actively working to get our overlay started. 1 of the reason why we did not do it. The same time, 10 miles doing it, we were asking, but they say staff shortage. They could not do all of us the same time. So we participated in attending their meetings. So. Hamlin Beach has just done our area carriage appraisal. The approval file area carriage appraisal should be finished next week on the 25th through Charleston County third reading. And that took us about, we did a grant from Charleston County. It took almost two years. So those things we're moving forward. We're not dragging our feet about things. We're actively moving forward to get these protections in place. So one of the things that are coming up next month is the moratorium for the settlement communities. We're asking that it be extended as we are working forward to moving things in the right area, in the right direction to get all the protections in place. The other issue in the Hamlin Beach community, we noticed that there's a piece of property that's on Boston Grove Road that has been in the first stages of a site plan to do multiple homes, but they do not have access to a 50 foot right of way. So before these things are done, we're asking if properties are being taken out of the historic district, you do not have a review board like we have in Charleston County before or to say what is appropriate in our areas. So we're just asking you to think about that situation just like you have an overlay plan for 10 mile we're working, but you have a historic district for the old village. We're asking some sort of historic district be applied to our communities. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. And those topics have been sort of a continual part of our continual discussion. We appreciate your input. Yes, ma'am. Go right ahead. State your name and address for the record.

Good evening. My name is Aaron stampy. My address is 1, 230 illusion lane. I am a resident. And an board member for Gregory fairy towns. We have an agenda item tonight to change the area medium income. For our community, which is the 1st attainable housing community that Mount pleasant welcomed. Um, I've been a resident since the construction. I love my neighborhood. We would love to welcome more residents to our neighborhood, and it makes it very difficult for them to qualify with the current AMI. So I'm here tonight on behalf of our community to thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other? Yes, sir.

My name is Richard Habersham. I'm 2930 at Bennett Charles Road. And that's following up with what Snipes said about the overlay district. I've worked with the town of Mount Pleasant with Ms. Liz Boyle and Amy Puget. They came out. We talked to them about the overlay. And then we also had a survey done. to see what the community want and what, what, you know, what over there to look like. So speaking with Emily right now in the process of having another meeting with them, so we can get our overlay started. And I hope that when, once you get it, start, you know, finish with it, that the town adopt what we, you know, what we want. It's like, um, Mount Pleasant has been overpriced. It's been an overpriced area. And that's one thing that we want to keep. We're not trying to stop nobody from selling their property or stopping nobody from coming in. But we don't want to be priced out of our community. And that's one of the biggest reasons we want this overlay district. And that's one of the biggest reasons we ran into the historical district. So it gives people a chance to stay. And last, I don't know y'all where. that the building just passed with Cathy Landing sponsored about the property bill. And I think that was the first step to help people keep their property. Because once you change title before, it got ridiculous when they reassess your property. We had one gentleman, his father was paying $900. Now he's paying over $6,000 to property. He was born and raised on. And like I said, that overlay district will help us. And plus what Ms. Landon did, I think it will help the settlement community.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

Hello, my name is Kendall Grumbles. I live at 1238 Illusion Lane. I'm here for you tonight to urge you to approve our AMI change. I have been fortunate enough to live in the community since this construction. I moved in in January of 2022 in a very different economic time. We had low interest rates. everything was very different at the time and the economy now is very different and the new workforce housing that is being built beside the costco has the revised ami so we're asking you to allow us to change to that because obviously the economics have changed and we won't be able to sell our houses just like everyone else can so thank you thank you anyone else for the general public comment period

Seeing none, we will close the general. Well, I'm sorry, ma'am. I thought you were going to sit down. I apologize.

Good evening. My name is Plachette Grant. I'm at 1684 LaTroy Avenue, which is in the Snobby community. And I married into the community. And they've been there forever. And so I'm standing just letting you know that we have submitted for a historic district. And we also desire to work on the overlay eventually. And again, it's just a means of trying to preserve our settlement communities. Just wanted to give you an update.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? If not, now I will close the general public comment period. Okay, so we have several items on our agenda this evening, three of which are public hearings. The first is item 7A, a public hearing for 2377 North Highway 17.

I think it's a chair. This is 2377 North Highway 17. This is a .73 acre parcel that is currently unincorporated in the county, and it has dual frontage on Highway 17 and Old Georgetown. And I can go further into the site, but I want to first address two items. Basically, is this request consistent with the current comprehensive plan and the master plan for the town? And if this zoning is instituted, what can you expect to be on the site? OP1 is the request, and it's a two-prong request, but we'll start with the request for OP1, Office Professional District 1. And Neighborhood Scale Commercial is consistent with Office Professional District. And the second prong in that request is the desire to be added into the Sweetgrass Basket Overlay. And the overlay actually limits all commercial activity to OP1. So it's not only consistent, it's the only request that you can have. So you could ask for another zoning, but you're only going to be limited to OP1. So with that, in the Sweetgrass Basket Overlay District, you would be getting general office limited to 3,000 gross square feet per building. That is the limit on... building size in this overlay. And the county variation, they have a sweetgrass basket area. It allows for bank and medical office, but that would not be permitted within the town's version of the sweetgrass basket overlay. It would just be general office. So that is all that staff has on that. Glad to answer any questions you might have.

Questions for Mr. Stone at this point.

I have one question. I mean, I'm fine with it all. I'm just confused a little bit about the language of the zoning code about the sweetgrass overlay. Under residential uses, it says lots in the old Georgetown Road loop, which I think this is part of that, right? They utilize uses provided in community conservation. So, what would be the allowance of houses like homes? Would it be 3 per acre or would it be. Because that's the community conservation, isn't it?

Or would it be it would be it would be limited to the. So we got 0.73. It would, I mean, at most, they would be able to get two, but when you have a commercial use on that property, and then you subdivide, you'd probably be, a lot of what we're seeing is commercial fronting Highway 17. Right. And then homes fronting on old Georgetown. And it's kind of a live-work situation. And that actually was the case here when we were zoning this OP1 a year or two ago. So the commercial is limited to OP1, but you're correct. There is the ability to utilize CC, and it's one of the benefits of OP1.

of the these properties only in the old georgetown loop that's with dual access because um op1 i looked at all the uses and i was kind of i mean they're all great fine general office there are other things that are consistent and then it says detached house dwelling and i thought that was kind of an interesting thing that was thrown into op1 which didn't make sense. The work live work unit made more sense than the detached home dwelling. So I just wanted to make sure that there has to be a commercial use that it's not, it couldn't just be a home and no commercial use.

That's, that's what it is right now. There is a, let's see here. Well, yeah, there's probably an 1,800 square foot house that's currently on the property. I don't believe that's the intent to keep that. I think there is commercial intent on the property. Okay. But it could be just strictly a residential. If they're allowed CC uses, they would be limited to the dimensional standards, but... there's far more value in commercial and the residential.

And hopefully we'll hear from the, I'm assuming if the applicant's here.

So I'm familiar with this area. What about water and sewage? Because all the properties, you know, adjacent to this 0.73 acres, they're all in septic tanks. You know, would we need or would someone have to get approval from the water authority? If they're, you know, if they're annexed into Mount Pleasant, would they have to get permission from the, you know, the water department? Because all those properties, to the best of my knowledge, along that strip are all in septic tanks. And so is that is that a consideration?

It is the motivating factor, actually, that you can see here. This is a close-up of the parcel. Water and sewer is available on Old Georgetown, and they would be able to connect in, and that is one of the motivating factors to annex in.

So basically, if it's approved, there'd be no problem tapping into the water and sewage? Correct.

Okay. okay um we can we can quiz uh mr stone a little further if we care to in a few moments but now be an opportunity for the applicant to present anyone here no no okay um also this is a public hearing so this will be an opportunity now to speak to this particular matter if anyone cares to do that Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public comment period for item 7A. Okay, discussion or further questions for Mr. Stone on this?

I think it's conforming to everything in town standards. And they're wanting to stay in sweetgrass basket overlay, so no issues.

Okay, good. Anyone else?

I mean, I agree. I don't have a problem with it, but I do think that it would be to put down on the list of little things we might want to tweak going forward. What I would suggest is to, under the permitted use table, when it says detached house dwelling, I might make that a conditional use as long as there is a commercial use on the OP1 property. I don't have any problem with someone having a home and an office or another business there, but I would just hate for it to turn into a purely residential property because that's not the intent of the OP1 or the sweetgrass basket overlay. okay and and then in fact it says the intent the old georgetown loop area under the zoning code for the sweetgrass basket the area is intended solely for low intensity professional office uses but i just don't see that as the actual legal you know impetus i think it the the detached house dwelling sort of doesn't really fit that so i think it would be an interesting thing just to

So OP1 is our old limited office. Limited office, you saw a lot of them on Long Point Road. It was detached houses that could also be used for an office. And so that's why the detached house isn't there is because it was allowed in limited office. And limited office district is now the new OP1. And the old OP1 is now OP2. Just to give you some context. Yeah. Why a detached house?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so given that, I think it would be smart to make that a condition because otherwise it could be read as a permitted use as a detached house dwelling, not part of a business. In other words, historically, I understand where it comes from. But just to sort of close, you know, I love to close these loopholes.

Michelle, while you're up here though, I mean, to recommend any provisions to the zoning ordinance, that would be something that would... have to be noticed and changed, right? I mean, is that what you're getting at, Pam?

I'm not suggesting we go for a vote, but I was giving them a suggestion.

Well, for the record, we have a list of things that we want to amend. Things that either we didn't catch or, you know, that changed that we've now been doing it for a year and they're not working. So we can add that to the list.

That would be great. Thanks, Michelle.

Thanks.

I just I had a quick question similar to like a couple lots down if this is split to like two lots one fronting 17 and one fronting old Georgetown but it's under the same zoning does that affect like the use of either half of it like

If they ask to subdivide?

Yeah, I mean, because it sounds like the intent of that zoning is that you would have the house fronting old Georgetown and a business fronting 17.

The CC uses are permitted within this overlay, so you have to draw the line somewhere and setbacks come to play, buffers. There would be a clear separation between the two, but it would be equally zoned OP1, but because of this overlay, it gives it the added benefit of being able to utilize CC uses. But you definitely have to draw a property line somewhere in there.

Okay.

Any other comments, questions, discussion?

If not, maybe Mr. Barryson, I think you articulated the A potential motion a few moments ago. Nice that you turned that to a motion.

Sure. I'll be glad to, Mr. Chair. I move to approve for rezoning to OP1 for the application. Okay. Is there a second?

Second. Second.

Second from Mr. Smyth, we'll take a vote.

Is that including, because the request is also the sweetgrass?

Yes.

Yeah, he said per the proposal. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Annexation and sweetgrass overlay inclusion. Thank you.

Okay. Everybody ready to take a vote?

All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. And here are my reasons. We'd really like to hear from the applicant to see exactly what the applicant has in mind for this. And so based upon no information from the applicant himself, I'm voting to deny.

All right. Motion carries. Item 7B, a public hearing for Gregory Ferry Towns.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is the Gregory Ferry PD. The area that you see outlined in red is the entirety of the planned development. The three acres that are shaded blue were a part of a PD amendment back in 2019 that permitted a attainable housing development. That amendment allowed for 36 attainable units constructed around 2021, 2022. It specifically stated that 80% AMI was the threshold for those attainable units, which for four people in a household earning 87,000, that would be the 80% marker. And just as a fact, the 47% of the buyers that are currently in this development are in the 20 to 29 age range so it's definitely served its purpose so the proposed amendment is for the definition of workforce housing and the the attainable definition so currently as defined it is anyone earning 80%, the proposal is to revise this to zero to 150% of the area median income. And that would mean right now the existing draft would allow for $87,000, and this is all for your threshold to qualify for assistance. The updated 150% AMI would put it at $166,000 for a four-person household. So the proposed amendment talks about HUD being the 80% AMI for this current development. And again, that's $87,000. And that is just your threshold to qualify for assistance. That does not necessarily equate to your ability to afford a mortgage rate or do so affordably. Typically, it's 30% of your discretionary income. And this is something that the applicant provided that this was a justification for why they are proposing this because really in order to be able to sustainably afford a $370,000 home, which these are going for now, you would need to be in this 120,000, 130,000 range. So this area right here is the problem they're trying to solve for. You may have bought into this development and 80% applied to you. Since that time, you have phased out of that, and now you're in this middle ground where you're not in the 80% anymore, so you're not getting that assistance, but you're not in the 120, 130,000 range. So there's this gap in between that really, you're just kind of stuck in the middle. And so the reason for the request was to address this issue. And it will be, it's a very interesting PD amendment because Most times we see master plans being revised, height or density. This is just a text amendment. So it will be interesting to see the commission's discussion. Look forward to hearing their feedback. But this is not coming from just out of nowhere. This has context from, as was mentioned earlier, the towns at Carolina Park, which was approved in 2024. And that final approval came with a range of 80 to 150 AMI. And this is trying to mimic that model and allow the range to benefit more people rather than just the 80%. This is going to allow it to benefit across the board. So that is all that staff has at this time. Glad to answer any questions. And I believe the applicant is here if you would like to.

My first question, when I saw this on the agenda, I mean, I was very supportive of these. I think most of us were when this project was presented to us a few years ago. I'm pleased that it's, you know, apparently been fairly successful thus far. I'm curious as to the various models that have been adopted by attainable housing properties, not just in our community, but possibly elsewhere in terms of what sort of AMI thresholds or some other barometer is used for purposes of qualifying residents. I mean, is there only like one or two or three approaches or does it really run a wider range? I was a little surprised just not having a background in this category that what was being presented to us, you know, was even a challenge because my fuzzy recollection was that maybe some of the AMI requirements would have had some sort of moving scale. And they don't otherwise we would be faced with this this proposal tonight. But but I also don't know whether that is possibly a model that's been adopted for other projects or similar projects elsewhere. Does that make any sense?

It does. It does. And I'd say among municipalities. widely held as the 80 to 120 model that's that's typically what you would see in standard zoning codes but we did see the the 80 to 150 with 120 150 and they split it up at carolina towns where it was equally divided it wasn't everyone's going to file into one ami it was equally divided amongst all three of those And so that was the one chance that we've gotten to see, and it's under construction now, so we're kind of seeing it play out, but typically 80 to 120 is what you would see.

And the AMI is adjusted per, I guess, federal standards by community periodically, is that correct? Correct.

So the AMI that I'm referencing here is for Charleston area metro, and that is updated annually.

Okay. And is there a prevailing model? Is the one that has been proposed here more of a prevailing model than the one that was in place or is in place presently? Or is that hard to say?

Yeah, I think the residents would let you know it's getting kind of tight. I mean, you've kind of limited yourself in the 0% to 80% is pretty limiting, where everyone else has that at least to 120%. So I don't know that I've ever, this is the only one that I know of that is strictly 0% to 80%. Okay. In this area, obviously they exist elsewhere, but all the other workforce housing models we have, 80 to 120, this one definitely locked into that 80%.

Okay. Good. I'm sure there'll be additional questions, Peter. So is the applicant here to speak tonight? Yes, sir. Come on up. If you would state your name and organization and address for the record.

I apologize for being a few minutes late up here. Traffic and whatnot. My name is Benjamin Brown and I live at 1241 Illusion Lane, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29466. I'm the HOA president for Gregory Ferry Towns and I have lived there. as one of the original homeowners during construction. So I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys may have and do my best to kind of fill you in on why the community has decided to propose this to you all. with a pretty large majority vote from our community vote.

That was going to be one of my questions.

Yes, sir. A vote was taken, is that correct? Yes, the first vote that was taken was from the HOA board. We kind of always do that initially before we push out something to the community. And any big decisions that we have for the community, It has to be a we have to meet quorum, which is at least 19 of the residents of the 36. And then from there, it has to be a majority vote over 51 percent. I believe it was 67 percent around with only one person voting against the vote. And then everybody else was for it.

The rationale behind the dissenting vote, did anybody share that with you, or what is their arguments in opposition?

I didn't get a chance to talk to that one homeowner, unfortunately, and I'm not sure I wrote the... I wrote it. So it may have been confusing. There was a lot of there was a lot of numbers and a lot of stuff going on. And a lot of it came from our master deed, which obviously you guys have probably seen a lot of deeds. And that's a lot of legal stuff. So that, you know, I may have not organized it very well.

That's OK. Well, we appreciate your candor in that regard.

Yes, sir.

Ma'am, we're not we're not allowed to take comment from the. Oh, sorry.

That's okay. Is it okay if she comes up and talks about that, or would you like to hear from her? It's your invitation. Yes, she's a part of our HOA board. That's Aaron.

Yeah, it's your invitation.

We'll do that. Thank you.

It's not to be rude, ma'am. We just have to abide by state meeting protocol.

Oh, no, I apologize. My name is Erin Stampy. I'm a resident as well. I had spoken during public comment. I just wanted to let you know that I did speak to the resident that did dissent, and English is a second language to their family, and they did not fully understand what they were going for. But after speaking to them, they were on board as well.

Good, thank you. Okay, questions for the applicant, director?

I had a couple. Ben, yeah, thanks for some clarification. One of the things is, is this neighborhood, are y'all 100% that all of the residents in there are bound to the AMI? Because I think Carolina towns,

is a mixture uh and i may be wrong yeah yes correct so from what i understand about um the towns at carolina park obviously they're having some 80 some at 120 some at 150. they also have different building plans there where ours is just the same all of our town homes are the same square footage with the garage underneath um at caroline park they have some that do not have garages um so a little bit different concept there but when our residents all purchased yes they were bound by the zero to eighty percent ami so that's why we were trying to do it across the board to be fair to all residents um it's kind of hard after somebody's purchased a home to say hey by the way these people are going to be able to sell possibly for a broader range of applicants or people find And you're stuck with this. So that was the reason to keep everybody the same across the board.

And just so I understand the whole dilemma. So if if somebody looked to resell the person or the family that would come in to purchase would still have to fit under that small or lower income model, correct, to be able to qualify to purchase?

Yes, sir, that is correct. So whether it be a single person or dual income household, it caps it. 80%. So if a dual-income household makes $95,000 a year with this year's AMI at 80% being just under that at $94,000, unfortunately, you know, they would not qualify to be able to purchase. Right.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Any further questions of the applicant?

Yeah, I guess I'm just newer to the board here. So I don't fully understand the ins and outs of this, but the goal of this community is so that people that make less income can move in. So if you keep raising, I mean, it's pegged to a Charleston area medium income. So theoretically that moves over time. But if you keep raising the income level, aren't you defeating the purpose of the original intent of the development?

Well, I think, I don't want to answer for you, but my thought is, if you have zero to 150, then anybody within that, in other words, you would qualify if you made $100,000. not just 87, but also it doesn't have to be 166. And my thought was that when you're originating a development like Carolina Towns, nobody has bought yet. And so it made sense to me when I was hearing about that to have it done in quarters. So that 25% would be at 80, 25% at 100, et cetera, et cetera. But when people have already bought, it would be unfair to restrict some of them or make or limit the pool of potential buyers, let's put it that way, to people that are 80%, you know, as opposed to 150. So doing it in that sort of segmenting wouldn't make sense when you've got an existing development that's got everybody's already owning it.

Of course, the downside is over time, the portion at the lower end of the range gets priced out.

And if I may, because I want to be able to get feedback for your question, if that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. That's why you're here for it. And we have spent several months talking about this and going over this, and I've spoken with a lot of people in the community about it. whether that's housing for all, who does our qualifying. And obviously we want to keep it as attainable workforce housing. And I don't think this was your misconception by any means, but sometimes the misconception is that it's affordable workforce housing, but it's actually attainable workforce housing because there was no down payment assistance, no government subsidies to this. So it's a traditional 30 year mortgage for the homeowners. And the reason we're trying to do 150 versus staying at 80, even though that does raise the amount of some money somebody can make to come in with the calculations of a traditional mortgage being 30% of your income as the price that we're allowed to sell the town's homes go up. People are trying to sell that a little bit higher each year, which they're allowed to do because the idea of the development was to this be your first home, you build equity in it. And then when you, you know, get increases with your salaries or maybe you become married or have a partner that when it's time to move out, sell this first starter home, you'll have some kind of down payment for that next home, which we know if we want to stay in Mount Pleasant with the area with the median home price in Mount Pleasant, that's also going up each year. So while we're trying to keep it affordable for attainable housing, for workforce housing, we also have to, realistically, we have to try and weigh that balance for people who are going to eventually sell and leave Gregory Ferry to go on and hopefully purchase their first home that has, you know, the yard and the picket fence and the ability to have the American dream for their family.

I just, I guess like the next batch of homeowners, then they're going to want like 200, you know, like everyone's going to want an increase over time.

Is there anything in the master plan that allows for only a certain amount of an increase, like of an appreciation or...

so the um the way that the uh answer yeah so the way that the value of the town homes is increased each year and the way that um calculation is done is through origins sc who does our qualification stuff and what affects that is the original price so whoever bought the town home so some of the town homes aren't going to be able to sell for the maximum number which this year is 421 421. Some of those are going to be a little bit lower than that because the lower the purchase price plus the calculation for inflation and all the other math that goes into that, I don't have exact numbers for other people's homes, but they may be capped to where they can't sell for more like maybe $385, $390. So even though our max sale price for the community is $421, not every townhome would be able to sell for that. So the hope is the lower the price tag for the home, then people who... make less than maybe the $150,000 or $120,000 area median income, they would still be able to qualify for a mortgage. But right now, and just to give you a real world example, I had my house on the market for probably a little over a year, about a year ago. And I had to end up taking it off the market because every single person who came to see the home and thought about buying it either made too much money, over the 80%, or if anybody was under that, they couldn't qualify for a mortgage and they could not afford to buy the townhome. We were kind of in an interesting space where we're almost stuck. And that's the reason also for it.

You're saying theoretically the maximum sale price now is $421 something. What was the original sale price of this development?

Each townhome was individually priced at a certain amount. Obviously, just like any development, as more townhomes are sold and we get closer to those last few or that last building, the prices go up. And units cost more than the middle units also originally as well because it's a townhome building. I don't know everybody else's, but mine personally, I paid $329 for mine, and that was five years ago. So they haven't gone up substantially. And I don't have an exact sale price of what I could sell mine for today. I would assume it's probably close to 420, but I don't have the exact calculation for that.

But I guess the point that I was hoping to be made, which you made, is that it isn't just like you could tack on another $200,000 and try to sell it for 600,000. There's a formula where only a certain amount of inflation and appreciation is allowed. which, you know, is protection. And the other thing is if you've got a household income, if you've got a couple that are each making $50,000 or $60,000 a year, that's over the 80%, which is really tough. And although salaries are not great for people around here, they are, you know, they are they do go up a little bit every year so i do under i appreciate at first i thought 120 percent made sense but until i realized that carolina towns is goes up to 150 and that makes sense to me um yeah i mean i think it still is staying attainable but it's but it's not locking homeowners out of a reasonable pool of buyers and it's not locking buyers out of the opportunity.

Yes, ma'am.

Do you guys do a comparison with the open market on what your townhomes would be worth if they weren't under this arrangement?

We don't, as far as I know, the people that do our calculations for us who is a service out of North Charleston, they, that's not in the calculation just because, It wasn't there in the beginning, so I'm not sure how that would work in. But I can tell you a similar townhome, which is even older than ours. They were built, I believe, about 15 or 20 years ago that are really close to us. They're actually right around the corner. You know, they're selling in the mid to low sixes um and you know we've kind of seen those go up quite rapidly compared to ours which makes sense because again we want to keep ours to where they are obtainable and part of it but to answer your question I there is no like formula that's compared to current open market so and then just the front like raising this doesn't raise the formula for what they can sell the house for

That's a separate formula for how much it can appreciate or be sold for per year. That's a separate.

Yeah. Ben, if you could, I mean, just for all of our education, there's a state agency that manages price points for the attainable housing, right? Or workforce housing.

So the... They get their numbers from HUD, or they use HUD, the federal department, to go off for the numbers to be able to figure out who can qualify as far as the area median income. And then they also, if you would rent your townhome, which the way the rent is set up, it's basically so that you can rent it, but you're not going to profit from it, which is good. That's what it was set up to do. And the... I believe they're a nonprofit technically, Origins SE, but I believe they're funded through the state. They get a certain amount of their funding through the state, and they also get money from any purchase or sale of one of our townhomes, a certain amount. I think it's 1% goes to Origins SE to pay for the calculations and the work that they do for us.

Yeah, the origins SC, I think that's what I've heard before. Yes, sir. They kind of manage it. So I'll let that answer kind of question, Clay.

Any other questions for the applicant? I appreciate the background. That's been helpful, especially since we haven't addressed this in actually a few years now. Yes, sir. Great reorientation.

Michelle, anything? No?

No.

Okay.

Thanks, sir.

Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Well, I think I understand the conundrum that the residents are faced with, and I'm empathetic, and I think their request is reasonable. There may be pitfalls that I don't understand, and that's what this That's what we're here tonight to hopefully wrestle with, but I don't think the proposal that's been made is out of range. Any other thoughts or comments?

You know, I think, as Pam iterated earlier, too, I mean, it's kind of a – we've seen a predominance, obviously, with Carolina Towns, and I know there's a – development on Clements Ferry just across town of Mount Pleasant jurisdiction, same developer. And I think, you know, it's been very successful there too. So I think it fits a good niche and I definitely understand. And your absolute statement earlier, we're a lot different case today from 2022 from where price points are, you know, cost of living, everything else, interest rates. So, you know, and Case example, you've got a house that was on the market for over a year, and it's finding that perfect formula for somebody to come in. It makes it hard.

Any other thoughts? Does anybody want to make a motion? It's a public hearing. It is a public hearing. Is anybody here to comment on this particular? I think we heard one comment beforehand, maybe two, but now would be an opportunity to speak if you haven't done so already. Got ahead of myself. I apologize.

Myra Snyde Richardson, 2755 Earl Johnson Lane, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The gentleman asked what was the range, so I looked it up.

The original price for- Could you just speak a little bit louder?

My voice is gone, okay, but I'll try. The original price for the Attainable Workforce Townhouses at Gregory Fields, now known as Gregory Ferris Towns, was medium range $200,000 to approximately $310,000. When they broke ground, the base price was $240,000 to $269,000 for standard floor plans with large or upgraded units going up as much as $310,000. So my question, and like I said, it's a learning experience. When you're dealing with a workforce, attainable homes, and especially in the Mount Pleasant area, we see all the rates that are going up, and it's not affordable. We have schools in this area, and then you have a teacher coming in, first year teacher coming in. What's the base salary for those teachers? Firefighters, firemen, police officers? And to change the income, Will it raise the price of the home if those people are coming in and wanting to be near their work? One of the young ladies said, she's actually in the audience, she made a comment about having homes close by schools that the teachers are able to rent those places or purchase those places so you're not traveling from North Charleston. Goose Creek. So those questions need to be answered before changing something like this to see how does it really affect the general public or the workforce public. So I'm not sure if it's towards where they're trying to maybe sell. their homes to see if they can get a larger amount. But what does it do to the person that's coming in that can't afford that higher income? How does it change it? So maybe there's more of a discussion that needs to be had. before approving it, not saying it shouldn't be approved, but maybe it needs to be more of a survey going out to general public about something like this, because if you're saying you're trying to do attainable homes, especially for the workforce, how does that affect all of us? Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Margaret Tierney, 1260 Illusion Lane in Mount Pleasant. I am a teacher here in Charleston County. Good. I'm actually teaching at Wando High School next year and used to for the past five years was at West Ashley High School and moving in with my fiance. So currently, if we were trying to purchase the house that we have, we would not qualify because our incomes together would not work. The starting salary right now is $6,700 for a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree to teach. And having owned my home over in West Ashley, I know that I would not have been able to even afford a down payment. um on one of these homes at the prices that they're at currently um so i would not have been able to qualify you know with an extra income to be able to just afford a house in general and then i surely would not be able to afford the house just by myself without with where the prices are but i think that's just an overall mount pleasant community interesting community and how um everything has just been increasing so just wanted to share that perspective thank you for your comments

Anyone else for the public hearing portion of this proposal?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm Blachette Grant, 1684 LaTroy Avenue. So I have the opportunity of teaching in the school district as well. As I said earlier, I'm in a settlement community, and it just makes me think there's all the more reason why the historic district and our overlays are important in our communities. Because when our young people come back home, they can't afford to live outside of our communities. but with all the over development that's happening if it if the historic districts and the overlays aren't kept in place to help us be able to have some place to live a lot of our kids would not have a place to live because they're not starting at that price point that's being discussed for affordable housing i just wanted to say that thank you thank you

You can lower the microphone, man.

Otherwise, you're going to get a cramp in your calf.

There you go. So I bought my house in January 2022 at the ripe age of 23.

Ma'am, if you would, I know you've done it before, but if you'd state your name. I'm sorry. Kendall Grumbles.

I live at 1238 Illusion Lane, Mount Pleasant. I bought my house at 23. I was a designer to civil engineer. I still work here in Mount Pleasant as a civil engineer. I was able to buy my house by myself. I paid for my own down payment. It was just me. So I was very fortunate and able to do that. But most of the people that are moving into these houses are not going to be able to. It's attainable, not affordable. If you are working a good job, if you're working as a teacher, if you have a husband that's a teacher, two people that live and work in Mount Pleasant who have reasonable salaries would not be able to afford a house today. That's the reality of the situation with a $94,000 limit. they would not be able to buy, and that is why many of my neighbors are not able to sell their houses. We're not trying to make it out and be millionaires. We're just trying to sell our houses when we're ready, when we want to move into a house that has a fence, has the yard, has the ability to have somewhere to enjoy just a bigger space. So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

I came in a little late, Hattie Ori, and I live in Mallard Lake. And I wanted to ask this. At one of the meetings, I sort of made a statement about housing for teachers and professionals about, and this is probably something that the school district could look into, that when they do build new schools or even create housing for our teachers and our nurses, that it would be close to the school like Myra mentioned, but it would be incorporated when you develop schools or new hospitals could come through the hospitals like MUSC. be incorporated into the budget of the school district. And as close to the school, they can even do small development townhouses or whatever. And those housing would be strictly for the teachers or the nurses or the firemen and the policemen. And the other one I wanted to say was, is there a, underneath probably the same program or something, is there a housing allowance? that could be developed for the teachers and our professionals that have to be in place to take care of our children and our, you know, streets and everything like that. OK.

Thanks for your comment. Anyone else? OK. Now, we'll close the public hearing portion of this particular agenda item. Okay, any further comment or thoughts before?

I mean, I don't know. I just, something seems off about this to me. I'm not exactly sure what, like it's a big jump to go from like 80 to 100. Like everyone says they can't sell their house, but the house will sell at the price, you know, their market dictates. They just don't want to sell it for that price. So we're raising the price on these houses that are supposed to be for people like they were when they originally bought. And I feel like we're just like taking that away. Like you might want to sell it for 21, but you could probably sell it for less if you really want it.

So I don't think that what they're asking for is not the ability to be able to raise the prices of the houses way up. Again, what we talked about earlier and maybe... And I'm not a professional at this at all, but I think the Origin SC sets and the housing prices are dictated and limited. So they can only appreciate to a certain level. And it's not just by what the house half a mile down the road is selling for a light townhome. The challenge is the pool of people that can come in and buy that house. is restricted based on an old standard. And that, that old standard, just like the gentleman said, he had his house on the market. It wasn't, the price was great. He probably had tons of people wanting it. The people that could qualify to be able to purchase that house, uh, his pool is, you know, handfuls and sounds like he had one person and he couldn't qualify for down payment. So I think what they're asking for, is to open that pool a little bit based on market standards right now, not to increase the value of their homes, if that makes sense.

I mean, I understand that, but to me it sounds like the Origin SC, I mean, if they get 1% of the sale price, their motivation is to increase the sale price.

They're non-profit, though. They're not really profit-making.

But I guess what I'm saying is their calculation doesn't seem... agreement with how this development was like set up if it's not penciling out like like I think there would be someone that qualified to buy the house if the price was at the point where they could buy it which is what this entity was kind of set up to do If the adjusted mean income of Charleston County or North Charleston, Charleston area, I don't know how that wouldn't be appropriate for setting the workforce housing number. Maybe Mount Pleasant is some outlier and it's a Mount Pleasant problem. I don't know.

It's not the value of the property. It's what will qualify someone to be in a position to purchase.

Yeah, but if you lower the price of the property, then more people can qualify for it.

No.

But if somebody's bought the property at $300,000.

Why do you say that?

Because the index is with respect to the AMI, not the value of the home.

I know, but I'm saying the 80% of the Charleston County area income is what? Would you say it was $67,000? 80% is $87,000 for a four-person household.

So $87,000. Someone that makes that amount of money can afford to buy something.

at a price you're saying no one lives in this area making eighty seven thousand dollars is buying a house anywhere in the charleston area i mean maybe if a lender uh would uh that's the issue would uh give them a loan for that amount of money i mean i i you know i don't know what there's probably other prerequisites too that you know we're again we're not i'm not a professional in that area but There's pre-qualifiers, prerequisites. So just because if you make $85,000, there may be other debt income ratios, other cost of living things that prohibit you from that.

About not only the income, but also the qualification for a mortgage. That's the thing that I think is really important to remember here.

But it's the mortgage for that.

So you're asking people to take to sell for less because there's a buyer that can only purchase that less.

I mean, that's how the market works. But I mean, I can want to buy a $10 million house, but it doesn't mean I can afford it. so well this is like a separate car valve so that people with the lower income can afford to get into a house in mount pleasant and we're just like making that even harder i mean am i wrong about that i think so i think so okay because i understand your perspective yeah and again i think it's a great avenue for

young homeowners or service industry folks to be able to have housing and buy it. Because they couldn't go down the street at the $650,000 townhome and purchase it.

Yeah, but I was in Park West the other day and they're advertising new townhomes starting in the threes. And I don't even know if that's like...

For a studio, maybe. I think you're probably looking to Carolina Towns. Yeah.

And that may be the ones you're talking about. That's between Park West and going to Costco Carolina Park. Those are the, that's the comp that we're talking about now. And they've got a myriad of product in there. So some of them are maybe smaller, lower end. I think the Gregory Ferry Townhomes, it's all the same product. So there's, I don't know, Carolina Towns may have some of the smaller units that are in the threes, but they probably got some in there to reach up to the fours and maybe more. So you're right. But that's only priced at that point because, and people that come to buy there have to meet that price. perfect window. You can't just make $500,000 a year and come in there and buy it as an investment property. Say, I want to buy five of these and rent them out and make money.

And for that, because they've developed it with those four quarters of the 80% is 25% of them. 100% of AMI is another quarter of them. Somebody who comes in with a higher amount than the 80% of AMI isn't eligible to buy a quarter of those homes. So in other words, they're saved for the people in that lower end. That's something that you can do when you're first developing. But when you've already got people who've bought these individual units, you can't then start discriminating and say, half of you can only sell to people who can afford this, so you've got to lower your prices, whereas the other half can increase their prices. That's unfair. That's why this is very different from the Carolina towns model. And, you know, I would also say that there are certainly there are single people that are looking to buy, but there are also a lot of dual income young couples that want to buy. And if they are only making $50,000 each or $48,000 each, they can't qualify right now. So we need to make sure that we're allowing for the fact that, you know, they're couples. And then when you get into the mortgage qualification, In order to purchase a $370,000 home, you have to make between $120,000 and $130,000. Otherwise, lenders are not going to lend to you. And so the mortgage rates and the mortgage qualification requirements have changed over the number of years, too.

I view that to be the biggest factor.

Absolutely. Which is why I wanted that to go back up.

So what happens when mortgage rates go back down at some point? Like we're adjusting now to like high mortgage rates.

They're not high. Historically, they're not high. Yeah. Historically, they're not high. We had artificial low for a number of years and it's not going back there.

You don't know about what it was like in the late 70s and 80s.

Yeah.

Where it was like.

You can tell my hair is a different tint from yours. I can assure you we're not going back there.

Yeah. So I'm going to move to approve.

Okay. Motion has been made to approve. Is there a second? I second. Second from Mr. Davis. Any further discussion? If not, we'll take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'll be opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Okay. The third public hearing this evening, public hearing, is for 1465 Stewart Ingalls Boulevard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a request at 1465 Stuart Ingalls for a 0.34 acre parcel that is currently in the county. They are looking to annex and zone area-wide business, and they are next to Wanda Crossing and the 526 Highway 17 interchange abutted by AB2. Actually, you can see a good bit of AB2 in here, but mostly AB. And the town scale commercial would support AB at the current request. And that's a pretty straightforward one. That's all that staff has.

Okay, questions for Mr. Stenner on this? Okay.

Pretty straightforward.

Is the applicant present this evening on this? Most everybody's gone. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Stone if not some discussion or possibly a motion?

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. And just one quick question, Peter. I guess the existing business use you feel like would be conforming to the AB1 zoning? Do we know? Or

I would venture to guess there might be four or five businesses in there. Oh, really? Yeah, just passing by and seeing. Okay. But, I mean, it's currently in the county. It is compliant in the county. So, I mean, even you might notice the setbacks. That is a compliant thing in the county where if you're – Setbacks if you have no buffers, then you have no setbacks and it's just a zero setback So that's me knocking forming in the town for a little bit. But as far as the uses That'll be sorted out through business license.

I

Yeah, I mean, it's just I'm curious because if it's existing use, just curious their motivation to bring it into the town. Oh, yeah.

Sorry about that. Water and sewer. Yeah, on the street. Spoke to Mount Pleasant Water Works and they are coordinating with the property owner to get them off septic. There's been a big push and initiative at Mount Pleasant Water Works to really start clearing septic off the rolls.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Peter, do you remember offhand how many residences or businesses are still relying on septic? I remember we had a presentation a few years ago on that. I know that the number had gone down, but I can't remember what those benchmarks were.

I honestly do not. I remember seeing that presentation as well. Yeah.

I was just curious. Okay.

I just wanted to ask a question because I think in the past, you had said that it's not required to be in the town to get water and sewer, but you have to ask. And then if it were denied, then they would still be able to get water and sewer even if they weren't in the town?

That's correct.

But they can't even ask without coming up and trying to be a part of the town.

You have to exhaust that process.

Okay. I guess the only other question is like, The more people that do this, I guess it puts a little more demand on the town from like trash removal and

other stuff like what yeah like well is this like a win for the town typically or not not commercial business it's the opposite that's taxed at six percent whereas a residence is four percent you could say that about some residential properties where it's you know you have to go out of your way to service and it could be a net loss but for commercial properties that's not typically the case we we like to see commercial properties come in okay

Okay, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone to speak on this particular matter this evening? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public hearing portion of this proposal. Comments or further discussion or possibly a motion?

I'll move to approve.

Okay.

Ms. Mansour made a motion to approve as presented. Is there a second? I'll second. Second from Mr. Davis. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7D, sketch plan for 1751, Rifle Range Road.

Those two are a little strong, yeah.

Oh, both were shot. Oh, you know what? I think I printed this before the withdrawal. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Both these sketch plans have been withdrawn from the... Okay.

That's my mistake. I think, again, I printed this before they must have been withdrawn.

Okay.

Next item is discussion regarding the...

chapter 155 land development regulations this is a continuation something that was brought forward miss Ireland it was the author of this one it was sponsored by a couple planning commission members to put this on the agenda and have this discussion and so I'm bringing it back before you for further kind of I guess direction and and and I guess just to talk it talk it through a little bit with what Some of the things the town has going on in relationship to what I believe the intent and purpose of this was trying to achieve The three main points that were provided did address well, they were all focused in on the settlement community preserving the character and of the neighborhood. As you see, it's here, character of the neighborhood. The lot width and subdivision should remain similar. And I believe down here, it all kind of speaks towards access to the character of the existing properties. So they all, you know, three of the main points were centered around and focused on preserving the character of the settlement community. And I hope that's a fair assessment. So in doing that, I tapped Mr. Brains over here, Mr. Peter Stone, and I was somewhat familiar with the overlay district that was currently moving forward that was brought before y'all. not too long ago that kind of brings that into a overlay district. And I felt like it was pretty good timing with all the discussion and settlement community where development is occurring, mostly on the fringes. And then these particular areas are seeing a lot of development pressure. So, so I, I asked Peter to kind of go through for you guys kind of a high level of the overlay district, and then maybe we can circle back and look at maybe what the next steps could be, because this is about character and character is a little nebulous. And I think, I think Miss Ireland is hitting at the right target because density is, It changes character. It's one of the main things that really does change the character of a neighborhood. I mean, you could look at the old village and see what's happening there.

And if I may, just to clarify one thing, part of the reason that I was concerned about helping our LDRs do something, give us a little more teeth, was because we've got these overlays that have been under discussion but that are taking a long time to get. And so now we have the 10-mile, but we've got others that are in various areas. stages of process. So I was just concerned that it's like beating the clock. A lot of developers try to come in and get in before these overlays can be approved and before the details can be worked out. And I know there's a moratorium which is coming up hopefully for renewal, you know, and that's, but that's only for subdivisions over four. And so this would be try to kind of almost a band-aid approach or, you know, sort of an adjunct.

No, I get it. That's understood. I think what staff needs is a rational basis for making an ordinance. Just like we had the subdivision on aggregate access easements, and density exemption. That was already a standard. We just removed the exemption on the access easement. That was a different type of use, which was reasonable to say that somebody's driveway should not count towards the minimum lot size. So that was, I think, a good justification, a rational basis for moving forward with those particular orders. Just to give you an example of where staff would be coming from to make sure that there is some reasonable justification for moving forward with an ordinance. And that would be a character, you know, I think a character assessment and making sure that that is tied to something of a larger, broader plan. So I'm going to turn this over to Peter and let him kind of just touch on a couple of things and we can come back and talk a little bit more about it.

Thanks, Kevin. Well, Ms. Ireland, as you mentioned, July 2025, we did institute a joint moratorium with the county, and that was largely due to the influx of properties attempting to annex into the town to evade their zoning process. And so this moratorium was put into place so that we could continue to study our land development regulations, our our overlays and then we were able to achieve the 10 mile community overlay here recently and it brought along this map which we now have as an overlay which we can assign standards to and really the thing that has been coming up actually even in this meeting but the area character character appraisal was brought up in may in the committee meetings Council Member Whitaker mentioned the area character appraisals and as well as Council Member Tinkey and they both suggested that these historic communities had voiced the desires to have these guidelines as a part of their code and Mr. Tinkey suggested that actually the guidelines be actually included in the zoning code so it would be the area character appraisal and the source of what each community desired to see and what they wanted to preserve and how we create land development regulations and subdivision process around the desires of each community because it's far from a unanimous decision that you have unique needs and unique kind of just a woven fabric of different types of development patterns throughout each. I'm thinking about Scanlonville might be our most uniform platted neighborhood in the entire town. Yeah. But then you have Hamlin Beach, which is, yeah, which is, and Phillips, which has this amazing organic growth pattern that you can see. It's just, it's more, this is, this is how the community kind of Evolved and accessed and it was. That's great, but it would be easy to just say, oh, we'll just have a blanket land development regulation for all settlement communities. But it's pointed out here that these are unique and they have unique needs. And so as these area character appraisals come in, we'll be able to better identify and respond to those and develop some of these provisions. Kevin, I think got you here. Yeah.

So in conclusion, you know, we just put out some options to request and conduct a planning committee of having a, you know, an investigation done on the settlement communities to provide that basis, that rational basis for us to move forward or request the settlement community, you know, develop characteristics, you know, in sets of standards for architectural and building materials have the members do that. So, I mean, those, those were a couple of ideas that we kind of threw out there for y'all's discussion. But, but yeah, I think just, it's very difficult to define character and that's what we're having struggle with. You know, we would,

But I also believe that it shouldn't be abandoned either. We shouldn't be defeatist about it, but at least give it a go. I think a facilitated effort obviously with members of the community would go a long way. I'll tell you somewhat parenthetically, but I think it's instructive for our situation here is that I'm finding that the Historic District Preservation Commission, by my observation, isn't abiding by the character standards. They tend to vote almost as if it were a, some of the proposals were variance requests more than anything else. But all that notwithstanding, there is a framework. And there are standards. and there are exceptions um but there are there are guidelines that uh that provide at least a framework for those decisions uh i think we we should give effort across the settlement communities toward that in this situation too that's my view ma'am um

so i brought this up a number of months ago and since then i've been encouraged by the fact that this commission and also council have denied requests that while there were ongoing settlement community discussions about their overlays and so i'm less concerned about this at this point given the fact that as we've heard the settlement at least several two or three of the settlement communities are working on their character assessments and the various details that could go into an overlay. If there's anything that can be done in the meantime, to help a particular settlement community, I would think that the settlement community members should be the ones that tell us that. And we want to facilitate that to the best we can. But I think this was suggested by me when I was concerned that there was nothing coming forward at that point through the county. Since then, there's been a lot of movement because the 10 mile has been done and a couple of others hamlin beach and um is it the six mile or is that uh phillips maybe they're starting to work on some so yeah so i just wanted to kind of give that as a framework i'm less concerned about trying to put something in the ldrs specifically until we have the overlays but i'm certainly open if there's something that the settlement community you know in particular feels that is a is an approach. I'd love to hear about that.

I guess the question for me is, do you have confidence that the county and town will continue to keep pace on that?

I mean, it's going to take some time, that's for sure. Everything is as slow as molasses, unfortunately. But I do think that it's very, to your point, Kevin and Peter, it's very difficult to implement particular measured measures you know, land development regulations that apply to all the settlement communities because they are very different in the way that they're configured. So I would want to be, you know, that's why the overlay idea is so great because it's specific to the specific settlement community. And I don't know enough whether there's anything that could apply, you know, to them until then. I just was recognizing the problem and we felt like we were sort of hamstrung while this was going on which is still a dilemma to some extent.

Like what has the overlay district changed? Because like this character, yeah, the character-related stuff really needs to come from, like, a historic-style commission because it is, like, not as cut and dry and formulaic, whereas, like, planning and zoning needs to be, you know, more analytical. So, like, having the overlay districts great, but until you also have, like, a historic commission, commission that is doing something like the character related stuff is going to be really hard to say anything about. I mean, I was on the historic commission for like five years. And the one thing I would have to say about that is That commission is set up where only one member can live outside of the district, which I was that member. And then they also had a requirement for having one design professional on the commission, which I also filled that. But when you have everyone on that commission living in the neighborhood, You know, they see the values going up all around them. They don't, you know, they're hesitant to like limit things because they are members of that community and they're not seeing it from the outside big picture. They're seeing it from like the inside, which I would... hope that like other historic commissions kind of get I mean like really what you want is like people who are like experts in historic preservation but you know when you limit it to people that just live in a tiny little area that you call a historic commission you're not going to get those people so I would just you know when you're going forward with that you know, setting that up, just I would keep that in mind.

Yeah, the best intentions could have the unintended consequences. Right. Yeah.

I mean, they thought like having people living in the district would like be the most protective.

Right.

But it kind of can backfire.

I can see that.

Isn't there still, or I guess I should ask, what is the status of deciding who the enforcement, what the enforcement body will be for the 10 mile? Because I remember one of the options was put one or two members of the settlement community on the historic district commission so that you're not creating a new commission of people that have nothing to do because only one property may come up every year. And then having those people get more of a vote when it has to do with their particular area. So is there a status as to who's...

There is no status. It was determined that it's far too soon to dictate that until the rules are met. It's just a conversation not even worth having at this point. I will tell you I've offered a position that I don't think it's equal for the county and the town to have a joint commission, but we haven't heard from the county on that. I suspect all of that will

Okay. So one more, like, slow roll. That's my point, yeah. One more real slow roll. So is there anything that can be done?

The moratorium creates, it's only four or less?

No, it's a moratorium on anything over four. So anything up to and including four is not covered by the moratorium.

And what about, like, that subdivision of a property into four?

Mm-hmm.

Or less.

Mm-hmm. There is nothing else.

That's the only thing that can happen right now.

That's the only thing that can be stopped right now. Yeah. Or that's the only thing that is prohibited is a subdivision of more than four in the area.

If it was given a historic designation.

And that's about right.

And there's really only two that have historic. Is there one that only has historic designation and or from what we are? So 10 mile to mile and Phillips does not. Phillips is a historic.

Correct. It's on the register. Right.

But it's not a district by the town for the all three are county historic districts.

OK, so Phillips, Phillips, Hamlin.

So Phillips is county historic and it's on the National Register. Right. Hamlin Beach is county historic and 10 miles county historic. Now town also town overlay zoning. So the the enforcement. for 10 mile comes from staff through that zoning overlay. That's where the enforcement comes from. And if it's a subdivision, the enforcement is through this body. The commission, the talk like David said about a commission to review things, there's nothing to review. that's what characters right analysis and that's why councilman tinky mentioned perhaps once that's done those those character areas and whatever that looks like could be incorporated into the zoning um but that's kind of where we're at right now with with all of that so

I thought the zoning just defers to that historic commission for like the old village for certain things.

The zoning overlay is like every other zoning overlay we have in the town. It has nothing to do with the county. The county doesn't have any jurisdiction over properties in the town in that overlay. So if if somebody in that overlay and they're annexed into the town wants to do something on their property Staff reviews it based on that zoning code overlay You have to meet the zoning just like you would any other zoning There is no commission for them to go through

No, but what I'm saying is what is needed is the entity that now reviews for character, et cetera, in like the historic district. You need something like that for 10 mile.

But there's no, like David said. First you need the character.

You need the character first.

You need the character area appraisal done and those areas identified first. Because if you put together a commission right now, what are they enforcing? Right.

Well, I don't know the history of the old village district, but it sounded like people in that area started it, like they instigated it themselves, I think.

That's what's happening here. The county doesn't force this on any community. The communities have taken it, and they've worked very hard, the communities have taken it upon themselves to do the work. The county is there to assist them. And keep in mind, I think with the exception of Snowden, most properties within these historic areas are in the county. We don't have jurisdiction over them. So we are kind of waiting to see what they do with the county, and then we can mirror that. And so that is what we did with 10 mile. There was no reason for the town to work on with the 10 mile community exclusively for two properties, because the majority of the properties in the 10 mile community are in the county. And so when we talk about, we've been waiting for a long time, the process is taking a long time because They have to work with the county, figure out what they want, and then we try to sort of mimic that for those properties that are in the town. There are very few properties in these areas that are actually in the town and under our jurisdiction. So it's a conundrum. It's like mental gymnastics. And so it's a process. And we've made it through with the 10-mile for the most part, and we're going to start working on the other communities. But until they work this process out with the county, there's nothing for us to work

work on it's for us to be involved in the process and see what comes out of it and then hopefully for do those go through the same process that we did with 10 mile michelle i think you answered the question but i thought maybe there were things that we could do or at least to encourage uh to work in parallel with the under the assumption that some of these communities would come under the town's jurisdiction but in my view based on what i'm hearing it sounds like we're too early

Well, we are and just know that we have staff in our department that is intricately involved with this. Sure. So we're involved throughout the whole process so that we know what's going on and then we can take action once the county does what they're going to do.

And it seems like from my prior recollection of the last number of months that the only power we have at this point since we don't deal with annexation we deal with rezoning is to deny a rezoning and that way it's not happening and we're not giving the permission essentially to um to do what they'd like to do that might be outside of what the community's intent is yeah we do have some council members that have have where they've wanted to deny these annexations to preserve the integrity of that overlay until we

get something in place that would protect them very similarly. I will say also the moratorium on subdivisions in the settlement community is on the committee agenda and for consideration to extend that. And I think it's a resolution that could be extended if council decides to do that.

And that's been our advice is the quickest, best ways to deny an annexation. And right now that is the best thing in many cases, whether that is a policy decision that council wants to make is for council to decide. But that right now is the most effective way.

Well, and I'm glad you're raising this, David, because my next question was, does doing that place the town in some sort of difficult legal situation?

denying an annexation no no denying uh any other kind of change rezoning or changes well reason why waiting on i mean rezoning and and i don't want to minimize anything but of course if it's a what we call a default zoning and it's something that would come in as cc and it's denied well that's a problem because then there's no zoning and you know then that there's no use for the property. So that would be a problem. But I don't think it's a zoning issue. I think it's an annexation, whether they're in the town or not. I take a different position. I don't think zoning matters in the least in this decision.

The only reason I mentioned it is that annexation doesn't come before this commission. The only thing it does is a rezoning. And if we recommend denial, that is sending a message.

If it's a denial of something that has an automatic zoning, right cc we're not seeing you know ab in these districts we're seeing typically what they come in at right and that i'm just saying that practically they don't have the annexation we just don't have the right to do that if you're denying cc well then that then there's no zoning in the To Mr. Bennett's point, that becomes a legal problem because an unzoned property has zero use. Or, like my good friend Peter would say, it could have any use. It could be anything if it's not zoned. It depends on where you look at it, right?

I look at it as sending a message to council.

Yeah, I hear you. Okay. So I know they're looking for input or direction from us. I think we've learned and so.

Yeah, I mean, I have felt more comfortable at how these individual requests have been handled between now and then because everyone understands that this is a work in progress that is, yes, it's going to take a long time, but it is in progress at least. It's not like it's not happening. So I don't feel that there's anything we really can do in the meantime. Although just as to option two, if members of the settlement community had something specific that they thought that the commission could look at in terms of adding to our zoning, I'd be happy to hear it. And so I at least want to send that message out.

I think the only thing we could really do is if there was something in the zoning that said you can't subdivide smaller than like like how you had written like whatever the properties are in a certain radius you can't subdivide less than like a certain percentage like just to try to match the surrounding area I mean you gotta have you gotta have a rational basis for doing something like that so

Who says 300? Who says 500? Who says right next door? And for what reason? So that's where I would have to craft something that has some rational and reasonable basis to be able to do something like that.

And to Peter's point, other than Scanlanville, which is really pretty much platted, you know, with very, very similar lots, the others really have a variety, which it's very hard to, you know, find a common denominator. That's right.

Well, I think we heard at least, you know, a couple of occasions even tonight that there is enthusiasm for moving in the direction we've been discussing. So hopefully that influence and pressure will continue to be placed. And, you know, because I'm sure the county commission is sensitive to that and they'll want to keep things moving along as well. Any other comments or thoughts that may be different from what you've heard so far? Michelle?

No, I think we have to wait until there's overlay. And then you can go back and say, this is what the lots look like. This is the size or topography. And then that goes into the character. So, yeah, I think we're trying to be ahead of ourselves. We would like to be ahead of it already, but...

Yeah, I mean, I agree, and I totally understand the intent. I think it's just such a big undertaking, and until the county puts something out, I think that we can try to piggyback on where we're at.

Yeah, and it's really got to be driven by the Sunwood community members, and that's what they're doing.

Yeah, I agree with that.

But yeah, the intent is there. We don't want... someone to go in and have it look like Ion in the middle of the settlement community.

Right. Okay.

Okay.

An exercise. Yeah. All right. Anything else?

No.

If not, we will adjourn.

Thanks, y'all.