Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. This the recessed meeting of the NX Head Board of Commissioners for Wednesday, April 15, 2026. It's hereby call to order. Uh the first item on the agenda would be the adoption of the agenda and a motion would be in order. So move. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I opposed. That brings us next to uh public comment. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Lighty.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At this time, the board welcomes members of the public to provide comment on matters of interest or concern to members of the public. Anybody who wishes to address the board, if you'll please go to the podium and start by telling us your name and where you live. Um, please note that this isn't an opportunity for dialogue and the board rarely responds to public comment, but if you wish to make comments to the board, this is your chance. So, is anybody here for public comment? Seeing none, we'll close the public comment period. Thank you. Uh, that brings us next to the consent agenda, which only has two items being the midmon meeting. And a motion would be in order. So, move. Have a motion. Is there a second?

Second. Have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I I opposed. Thank you. That brings us to uh item E1, public hearings. And I will turn this over to Mr. Lighty and to planning director Wyatt.

All right. Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. So, at this time, we will begin the public hearing to consider uh UDO text amendments that have been submitted by Albamar and Associates on behalf of Blue Moon 52 LLC, the Blue Moon Restaurant, to create a new accessory use to restaurants, which is characterized as restaurant waiting lounge with associated supplemental regulations. And to consider this, uh, we'll start off with the, uh, presentation of the staff's analysis presented by the planning, uh, and development director, Kelly White. Hey, good morning. Good morning, commissioners.

Um, as stated, uh, this is a legislative request to consider uh, a text amendment to create a new accessory use category called restaurant waiting lounge within the UDO. Um, I thought for the purpose of the presentation, I would um try to leave the redline version of the proposal of the ordinance on the screen. Um, and I'm happy to answer any questions along the way if you have them. Um while the uh request was submitted on behalf of Blue Moon Restaurant and prompted by a specific situation that they are experiencing, what's before you today is not a sight specific approval um but rather consideration of whether this is an appropriate tool within the UDO um townwide. If adopted, the new use would be permissible through the special use permit process. uh meaning that any future proposed use would still come back before you and you would have uh the opportunity for case by case review and um that is represented in section 6.6 table of uses and activities in the proposed ordinance. Um as outlined in the report, Blue Moon success has created operational challenges related to how and where customers wait during peak times. Patrons circulate through a parking lot. Uh they seek parking at nearby locations and they sometimes have even parked um along Dove Street where parking is not permitted. Um and that is due to uh wait times and just having a successful restaurant with a with a um people wanting to go there. Um, the owners acquired the commercial property to the south, Keepers Galley, uh, which is an indoor public assembly site to help provide overflow parking for the restaurant in an effort to maintain that parking relief while also making use of

the existing structure. Um, the owners are seeking this proposed UDO text amendment to establish a use that would function in collaboration with and remain accessory to the principal restaurant, Blooming Restaurant. Uh, the current does not provide a mechanism for a restaurant to utilize a separate structure in a way that remains operationally tied to that restaurant. At the same time, the town has historically been very clear and very consistent in not allowing standalone bars or similar uses. Um, this amendment creates a very narrow narrowly defined accessory use um that must be indoor and within a permanent structure. Um, so you can't use temporary structures, tents, things of that nature. Um, it must be under common ownership or control with the principal restaurant development. Um, it must be approved through a special use permit in a unified development plan. And it must be located on the same or contiguous parcel. If contiguous parcel, it can be separated only by a town maintained street. And a lot of that language is included in the definition as well as um within the supplemental standards. Uh the intent is to provide a designated controlled space for patrons waiting to be seated. It is not intended to expand the restaurant use but rather to better manage an existing component of it which is the waiting portion. Um, I do understand that a concern is that this could function as a standalone independent bar. Um, and while that concern may be valid, um, that is what

staff actually tried to focus on when crafting a lot of the supplemental standards related to this ordinance. Um, we do believe that we've incorporated several layers of control. Um those include that the use must remain accessory and subordinate to the principal use. Um it must serve patrons of the associated restaurant use only. It cannot operate independently. It must maintain the same hours of operation as the restaurant. It requires a special use permit approval allowing conditions to be applied by this board if they see fit. Um signage must reflect the associated restaurant. Um so you must have some um overlap in name to show that they are connected and um it explicitly it is explicitly distinguished separate from a bar, tavern or drinking establishment. um which we did go ahead and try to clarify that in an ordinance um in the UDO with a definition proposed as well for bar tavern and drinking establishment which is redlined and part of the ordinance that you received. Um, so while alcohol service may occur, it remains functionally and operationally part of the restaurant and not part of a separate principal use. From a parking standpoint, the ordinance requires that the square footage of the restaurant waiting lounge be included in the restaurant's total customer service area. And that's calculated at one parking space per 55 square feet of customer service area. That means any additional space is fully accounted for within the restaurant's required parking. Um, this proposal does not create a separate demand. It consolidates and

captures it within the existing restaurant use. From a regulatory standpoint, uh, this provides more predictability than allowing a separate principal use that would generate its own independent parking demand. Another important component is that uh this is not a byite use. Each proposed each proposal rather would require a special use permit and the approval of a unified development plan meaning the board retains full discretion to evaluate compatibility and impose conditions specific to each request. Um if there are operational concerns, hours of operation, layout, other factors, um those can be addressed through conditions via the special use permit process. Uh staff also found the amendment consistent with the land use plan um in managing intensity, maintaining compatibility, and supporting local businesses while minimizing the potential for nuisance impacts. Ultimately, staff views this as a narrowly tailored tool to address a known operational issue while maintaining the town's long-standing approach to not allowing standalone bars or drinking establishments. We also believe this amendment helps better manage uh existing conditions such as parking rather than potentially creating new impacts. Uh the planning board reviewed this in March and unanimously recommended approval with some additional language related to um connectivity. Um if you've got um uh contiguous parcel across a town street um which we're not at a sight specific evaluation yet, but if we were to get there um that would come into play with providing providing proper connectivity. Um

staff is recommending approval as presented. Happy to discuss um this further, answer any questions. Uh the applicant is here. Uh Jay Overton with Alamar and Associates has submitted this on behalf of Limoon Restaurant. Uh the owner Scott and Melissa Shields are here as well. If you have questions for them and um that's all I have to answer any questions if I can. Thank you, Miss Wyatt. Do does the board have any questions for Ms. Wyatt? I do. Yes, sir.

Um, Kelly, the the provision, the definition bar, tavern, or drinking establishment. I I'm I'm trying to parse out like those it it lists parts like um no I'm sorry this is not the this is not the section sorry let me get to the right paragraph I want to ask you about outdoor seating areas patios pergolas gazeos stages bars unenclosed gathering areas contiguous to and associated shall not be considered a restaurant waiting lounge and shall instead be regulated as part of the principal restaurant use. So that means it's a seating area. It's treated as a seating area or or as part of the customer service area under the ordinance.

Correct. Um we have some restaurants here in town um that have outdoor seating approved. Um one in particular has an outdoor bar. So I wanted to to ensure that any type of approved outdoor bar because that bar has been um processed against the 15% requirement within the supplemental standards for a restaurant sitdown, right?

That uh that is separate and not included. That that's regulated under that 15%. So um any type of outdoor service areas on the principal site is falling under those requirements for the principal use and not the accessory. So, under the current ordinance, without this ordinance that we're considering, let's say that one of those existing restaurants chose to have an accessory enclosed area that was calculated as part of the whole restaurant. Yeah, it it did the same thing. It met all the standards except instead of being unenclosed, it were enclosed. But it's it's a it's a still a piece of the restaurant in terms of all the numbers, parking um allocation, you know, the proportional allocation of spaces and all of that. So would we prohibit that currently an enclosed space on a restaurant property that was that was separate but part for under all the calculations and I realize it's theoretical. I'm throwing this at you.

Yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to put it all together in my head very quickly. Um, so essentially a a detached structure on the same property as the a two-part restaurant basically. I'm not sure that that's much different from what we have on the causeway with Sugar Shack and Sugar Creek. I realized that they now have two separate owners,

but when this was approved there there was a text amendment there to capture two separate buildings.

Okay. Okay. Good. I I I hadn't thought of that one, but that is that's a good example. So, I think about a couple of restaurants in town that have small or virtually no waiting area. They may have outdoor bars, screened seating, other things. But if they decided they wanted to address their waiting area consideration with a structure as Sugar Shack did originally on the same property, I'm wondering would they be able to do that or not? If it met again all of the criteria of restaurant proportionality and parking,

it we don't have to go we don't have to fully resolve that. It's just a question in my mind about this. Yeah. About about Yes or no? I have a add on to that question though with Sugar Shack just because we're using that as an example. I want to make sure we're doing apples to apples. Doesn't Sugar Shack also have an oyster bar? So they're serving food? Yes. Out of that secondary. So that's kind of operating somewhat as a restaurant, not just a waiting area or a bar. Correct. It's not a waiting area. That was approved as a as a takeout. Okay. Understandably, some seats have shown up, but yeah, it was originally approved as as a takeout. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So, to clarify, the 15% in the Blue Moon situation, just using them as an example, the 15% waiting area, the 15% entertainment area is in the is included with the new building, with the other building, the waiting lounge. No. So, um, um, it's very confusing and I apologize because there's there's so many, um, I guess examples within the town that we can talk about, but for Blue Moon existing, they have a bar. Yes.

Inside that bar is part of the 15% that's allowed for an onsite uh, for a principal restaurant use. That's part of the supplemental regulations. What's proposed is this waiting this restaurant waiting lounge would be separate from that. Okay.

So their bar is part of the 15%. Um their bar inside the building is 15% but the bar next to in the separate building would not be the 15%. Yes. Yeah. It would not be counted. This is a com. This is separate from this is accessory to the principal. So the principal has its 15% and then this would be separate from that. So if it's inside the principal, it aderes to the 15%. If it's accessory to the principal in a separate building across the street, it does not have to adhere to the 15%. So

that's correct. It would be separate uses. So, the supplemental regulations for sitdown restaurants don't wouldn't apply to this ordinance we're looking at today. Correct. The the principal sitdown restaurant would have to comply with the supplemental rags for that principal use. And this is a separate proposal. Admittedly, there's overlap because I know when we think about this, we think about what other existing restaurants have and try to fit it in there. So,

any other questions for Miss Wyatt? And you said there's no entertainment in the waiting lounge area or

so there's um that is not part of the proposed um supplemental standards as they are written now. But that's something that we can talk about that we you're inclined to consider adoption and you could add I do know that there's certain things like um you know right now this just says that the uh restaurant waiting lounge has to have the same hours of operation but if the principal doesn't close until 1:00 a.m. does that mean that the waiting lounge wouldn't have to close until 1:00 a.m. So, as part of this, the board can consider putting a condition for closing time. You know, you you could put a a time in there if that were preferential. Same with entertainment. This doesn't preclude um indoor entertainment or it doesn't specifically preclude outdoor, I don't believe. But I think that's something that is worth discussing is if you have your principal and your accessory and your principal has some level of outdoor entertainment. You have a musician out here playing. Would you also want the contiguous accessory to also have a musician outside playing side by side? That's something that should be discussed. So you could put specific hours on it. That's something that legal limits of the town.

Yes, sir. Uh other questions for Miss Wyatt Kelly. Uh anything else you want to present? Not at this time, but if other questions come up, happy to answer. We know where to find you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Uh, is there any presentation on behalf of the applicant?

Good morning, mayor, commissioners. Uh, congratulations to the ones of you who are seated se seated here today that weren't seated here the last time I was here. Uh, and for those that are still remaining, same goes for y'all. Glad to see all of y'all. My name is Jay Overton. time with Albam Marlin Associates and here representing the Shields on this. Um, it's probably one of the few times that I've had the opportunity to come and present something or speak on behalf of someone where their problem was a positive problem that we were having to overcome. I mean, this is a a situation where they had a restaurant, they moved to a new location. Um, I think the the atmosphere of their facility, the food they serve, just overall it it causes people to want to come back and back again. That in and of itself is something that has created some of this challenge. The other thing is, I'm not quite sure, but there's probably somewhere around a half a dozen restaurants that we have lost on this south end here in the past 5 to 10 years. You got Kelly's, England. I mean, Pamelo Jacks, Owens. So, the the opportunity to go and get a meal like this has also been hindered. So, with that become a challenge. They're not having issues inside of the restaurant as far as turning tables and meeting the needs of folks, but it's just that demand that that people they're willing to wait for an hour, hour and a half, two hours. So, in doing that, that's something from a planning standpoint when these original requirements and outline of square footages were I don't think were anticipated. I think at the time that we looked at restaurants, we were concerned

about some of the late night activity and we wanted to reduce that and the 15% that we continue to talk about, I think is a byproduct of trying to minimize that area. Uh but when we look at the removal of that possibility in the late night to use those areas, we also restricted the use of that area in the earlier hours of the evening. So I think that too has contributed to it with the property now as it sits as it operates. The Shields went and purchased the property from across the street to be able to relieve the parking issues and I'm sure the police chief is very happy with with that. They've seen less visits from him. Uh but that also has created an issue with people park. But then where do they go? Where do they sit? uh during the summertimes it can get extremely hot in the afternoon with that western sun and there's no place for people to seek refuge. So utilizing the property and utilizing the existing building as an extension of the waiting area would seem to be a good way to overcome this. Now the alternative to that is right now that sits there as an event site. It's approved as an event site. it's able to operate as an event site. And I think that would be the worst thing for us as a community to actually have two things going on there. Having an event site operating and having the restaurant because then our parking demand is going to become even greater than what we're seeing now. Um so utilization of the building. What do you do with the building? If we're looking to minimize the impact with the parking and we're looking to take care of the patrons, then it it leads us to

the utilization of this existing structure to house those folks during that waiting period. This whole episode has gone on for months. We have spent numerous hours with Kelly and Andy. Uh Andy's tired of seeing me. Andy's tired of getting the calls from me to talk about this. And what you see before you this morning is the culmination of all those efforts. Um I feel like we had a very good uh discussion during the planning board meeting. There were a lot of good questions that went on in the planning board and the planning board offered up some suggestions which uh some of those as we talked through them one of them was incorporated and and felt that it would would be something that would be very very beneficial to this. So as a recommending board to y'all they too saw the overall weightiness of this and what would be in the best interest of the community. We've also got a situation where I feel like for the 40ome years I've been here, Nags Head as well as numerous other communities have looked at our small businesses and what do we do to help our small businesses. If we keep our small businesses strong, then we hopefully will have a domination of small businesses here and we won't have the chain restaurants that other areas are experiencing. So that too gets into the the overall of how we're actually making this occur to be for the betterment of those that are at the restaurant and those that are surrounding the restaurant and then those that are just in the community in general. So I would ask that y'all would consider this and see this as a very viable option. Uh I am open to answer any questions that you may have and I thank you for your time.

All right. Does the board have any questions for Mr. Overton. I do. Yes, sir. Tell I have the advantage of having been the architect for both of the buildings. So, have a recollection of the floor plans. So, the Blue Moon has minimal interior waiting area. Yes. Pretty small.

Um, it has an enormous kitchen. In fact, it has two kitchens because the some of the original was that they could continue to serve the restaurant menu downstairs and perhaps cater events upstairs at the same time. I don't know if they decided to do that or not, but they have a pretty big kitchen. The event building has a very small kitchen, correct?

Um, and just an an open floor space and has a minimal second floor. So, the question I'm trying to get to that I asked Kelly was If you took if these two buildings were on the same site, for example, they were on the same piece of property, primary and accessory, the total kitchen area divided by the size of both buildings met the met the kitchen standard, right?

And it met it met all the standards. It meets the park, you know, let's say it met the parking standard, met the proportionality of entertainment area, kitchen, etc. You could put two buildings on. You could have a Could you have a two-piece restaurant? In other words, can anybody do that on a single piece of property? I don't know if we have anything about the ordinance that keeps us from having an accessory primary and accessory, which I don't know if that's what Sugar Creek was originally because it had food service in both buildings. But but my I guess my concern is that if that a restaurant owner in town could already do something like this as a primary and secondary pieces of a restaurant if they could get them on the same site, meet all the parking standards. The the event site is being parked at the same standard as as customer service area which would be the dining area. So you know again it's meeting all of those meet seems to be in the aggregate meeting all the criteria. So I just you know feels like the except the the exception here is to let it happen on two sides of a street as opposed to on same piece property.

I'm trying to digest your question. Do you mean if the two properties were combined? Because right now, if you put that building on Blue Moon's current property, if they were combined, that's not big enough.

No, I'm saying if they were combined. So, I'm again, it's an ordinance amendment. I'm trying not to think about one specific piece of property. I'm trying to think about other restaurants in town. And the, you know, the Sugar Creek was a good one as as one that was had essentially originally, as I understand it, two restaurants, both with food service independent on the same piece of property, meeting all the town parking standards, meeting all the health department criteria. Everything else happened. They were on the same site. Now they're on two sites

with two separate owners. So, it appears that under the ordinance that we had, you could have two two restaurants with all meeting all the criteria on the same piece of property. And I'm just asking the question if you take these two buildings on two pieces of property in aggregate if they were on one piece of property and not separated by a street and all the numbers met all the parking standards met the proportionality of kitchen the proportionality of entertainment area and everything else met would that be permitted? But in this that wouldn't if that street wasn't there this wouldn't fly because this is 100% bar seating not 15% entertainment

right but it yes but I'm saying that we're we we have an applicant here that if you look at it in the aggregate is not doing anything different than another property owner another restaurant owner who if they had the space could do exactly the same thing they could have as long as they that again within the two buildings, the kitchen, the bar, everything else. They could do that. They could have a, you know, a if if they had a restaurant that had a a small bar, big kitchen, dining area, and a separate building that had a tiny kitchen, you huge waiting area, and it all added up with the common, you divide it by the area of the two buildings together. Would it do that? And could you do that on one piece of property today without this ordinance bill?

But would that not exceed the 15%. That's where I get hung up. Well, no. I mean, you would have to do that. I'm I'm suggesting you do all of that in such a way that all the criteria are being met. So, you're saying make 75% of those tables for food at at that space? No, I'm saying if you had them if they were on the same site and you were looking at it all together as one whole as one whole unit, but the kitchen and the other building and the kitchen in their building and the seating and the waiting area supplemental regulations would still apply for the short tables. Yeah. But would they have it? If they had it, but in this plan they wouldn't. Right. In this plan, they don't. It's not what they

No, I agree. I agree. It's not that's an interesting question.

I'm accepting that they don't have I'm accepting that they don't have that in this case. I'm just saying that the the the No, I'm just saying to get together in the aggregate. If I may, I think the way that I'm understanding what you're saying, if we've got two parcels anywhere in the town and they both meet the regulatory standards for use, there's opportunity for two businesses there. There two restaurants, if it's a restaurant, an event site, if it's, you know, whatever it may be, they have the opportunity to have two businesses there. And in this particular case that brought this about, there's an opportunity to have two businesses there. They're approved. In this particular case, one of the businesses is so successful that it has additional needs. So they are asking this because they're willing to give up by way of if this text amendment were approved and subsequent approvals occurred, they would be giving up the opportunity for that second business because they want to utilize that space of the second business to support the first business. They're not adding any more tables in the first business. I mean you so when you look at it in that regard they're what's brought this about is not something that was in their business plan initially it was something that they're trying to respond to that need that's come about through the demand of their customers.

So when you say they're not adding tables you mean dining tables. Dining tables. Yes ma'am. But while we're on that subject are there there will be tables. Will there be places for people to sit? Yes. Do we have a number on that at all or um that's in that area. There's like 1,200 square feet of seating area, whatever seats you could get in that area. Gotcha. So, I I understand what you're saying that they by not using that building as a completely different restaurant, they're giving up a second business, but can people walk in and get a drink without ever going to the principal restaurant? The intent is for everybody would be coming through the front door of the restaurant.

People there's no ability and and I accept that. But people can walk in, get a beer, and leave and go somewhere else. They can do that right now. They can walk in the Blue Moon and get a beer. Yes. I mean, there's there's not a sergeant-at-arms at the door that taking tickets, but the same thing's true at any restaurant. But doesn't that somewhat possibly create a second business without I understand you saying you're giving up a business because you're not going to have a restaurant there, but if you have a bar business there that's being called a waiting room or restaurant waiting lounge, it still could create a business demand.

It would be that same person that you speak of that may go there to get that drink would go to the bar that's at the existing restaurant to get the drink if that's what they were after. Right. The whole, you know, that that service is still available today as we we sit here. This would just be adding a third bar to that property. It would be adding additional waiting area where people could be served. Yes.

Okay. So there is a plan and this might be a question more for Kelly but um given the um pedestrian connection there is a plan for that given lot coverage and all that kind of stuff. I mean obviously you don't want them crossing at the corner of the street on the bypass. So um I've got an answer for you but it's my understanding I got to wait until talk about that. Gotcha. Approved. Gotcha. Yeah. We can't really talk about the specific numbers. Are there any other questions for Mr. Overton?

The only other thing that I would say is that if we're we don't find a positive resolution to what's been presented, I'm not sure how we solve the issue. So, we're trying to we're trying to put forth ways to solve the issue and um staff, planning board, we we've all owners, myself, some of the other folks in my office, we've all tried to put our heads together to come up with the best way to address this situation and this is what we've got. So if this is not agreeable, then I would hope that there would be some additional information as to how we solve it because we still got a parking problem and an issue with where people would wait for their meals. So thank you'all.

Thank you, Mr. Overson. Um does any member of the public wish to comment on this proposed text amendment? Does the board wish to receive any further information or have any more questions for Ms. Wyatt? I think I have a question for Kevin. Thought there was a pretty good chance there would be some questions.

Okay. So, we're looking at this not just as a specific site. We're looking at this all through town. So, has the board or has the staff looked at just potential sites where this could happen in town as of right now? I realize that new businesses could come on board any day, but right now, how many other businesses could take advantage of this same ordinance change?

Um, so yes, correct. This is the text amendment would open this use up to any not within the um C2 and C5 zoning designation. So it is not sight specific. Um I have not gone through and looked at every existing set down restaurant to see if there's an adjoining or contiguous parcel

that they could take advantage of this with. Um, I'm happy to do that. I can probably, you know, if given some time, I can do that today. I guess my thought would be that if a existing restaurant owned a contiguous parcel that was capable of housing another principal use, parking, septic, etc. They might have a different idea for a use than tying it up with their restaurant use with creating a access with with creating an accessory. I mean, why if you've got that, why wouldn't you just do a whole separate approved use as opposed to heming yourself up with all these 12 conditions,

right? Okay. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't and I don't know the exact number. But wouldn't it but hemming yourself up with these conditions still allows you to sell a lot of alcohol which is very profitable. So it would be advantageous for a restaurant to take advantage of this. I feel like

I guess I haven't admittedly going through this that's not been the lens that I have looked through this as it with the unified development plan. For me, if done properly and enforced, it would just be sort of an extension or complement to the existing restaurant. it to a previous point. If this ever became a scenario where people are going into this restaurant waiting lounge and sitting down and having multiple drinks with no intention of ever going to get a meal, yeah, that could happen a couple of times, but if that's became the predominant use of the property, I am confident that we would hear about it. we would know about it and then that creates a violation of the special use permit which can lead to revocation of the special use permit. Um so to be totally transparent and honest I don't I haven't looked at it through that lens

so I have a hard time answering okay that question for you and I I apologize. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I which brings up enforcement. You know, I'm sure that Blue Moon is doing this is proposing this because they will follow the rules that they need this for their extra waiting area. But how how would we enforce another business or several other businesses? How would how would that enforcement what would that look like if this was happening in many other areas of town?

Um well, so I think If it becomes obvious to staff, to neighbors, to onlookers, to anyone that you're having a significant number of people just go in for a beverage and then leaving, I think that staff would be made aware of that. And I would have to defer to the attorney on this. I don't know that it's permissible in North Carolina, but I do know some localities like you do have to provide a sales analysis. How much of your sales was dedicated to alcohol service versus food service? And if it exceeds 50% then clearly that's your principle and that might be a concern. I don't know that we can do that in North Carolina. We don't have anything like that in our ordinances currently. Um but you know providing a condition that documentation be provided annually to show that the sales percentages aren't that of principal sale of alcohol. That could be one way. Is that allowed?

I don't know why it wouldn't be. And it seems to me the primary way of enforcement would likely be observation. So having somebody go and inspecting and observing what's happening and and looking to see presumably because there's been a report and a complaint that a substantial percentage whatever that is of people that are going to the bar waiting area are going to the bar having some drinks and then leaving the site altogether. And I think if that became if it became apparent that that was um a primary purpose or a substantial portion of the business being done, I think you're right. You could go through the enforcement. Kelly's right. they could go through the enforcement process. And at that point, I think perhaps some documentation about sales. To the extent that that can be can be tied to people who are in one location versus both locations would be just one bit of evidence that might be uh relevant in the enforcement process or that might be relevant as a defense. you know, if they were able to show that 95% of our revenue is coming from people who we can show were here and bought a drink here and then went into the restaurant. You know, that would be one way of defending that, I think. But, um, so anyway, I think there are some ways of of potentially enforcing that. Um, and I'm not sure that the recordkeeping would be prohibited,

but in the idea of revoc revoking a special use permit, it where in this ordinance does it's do we have grounds to say people are going there drinking and not eating? Like is there something in this ordinance that that's directly contradicting that we would succeed in revoking a permit on that? because that feels like that could be here's just well we saw it our documentation versus theirs. I think the the the first question would be whether this restaurant waiting lounge is operating solely in conjunction with the principal restaurant use or is operating as an independent establishment. I think that's the core issue and that that is in the ordinance. Um

but with documentation of us seeing that people are going in there in your legal opinion does that mean we could say so now the principal use was a bar and we did

I think that I think if people were going there for you know one and done or for to hang out and then leaving without ever going to the restaurant particularly if there's capacity in the restaurant that they could have gone to and didn't and just stayed you know if there if that was part of the evidence I think that would help to show that this is not that this is operating as an independent establishment as opposed to as just being in conjunction with the principal restaurant use. Again, the question would be are people going and patronizing the um this uh what is now the event site. Are they doing that independent of going to the Blue Moon restaurant or is it a corollary activity of going to the Blue Moon restaurant? That's the real question or that would be the question in that situation. I guess I'm just confused with the way the ordinance is worded. I feel that it does say people can go in there and have drinks. I mean, it doesn't prevent it. So, I that seems a little bit of a gray area.

Again, I'm not saying that there's there's that it's not a broad standard, but the question is whether it's operating as an independent establishment. I'm sorry. That's one of the questions at least. So, the highlighted language, I mean, it's specific in here. The restaurant waiting lounge shall patrons of the associated restaurant and shall not operate as a standalone establishment independent of the restaurant. So whether you know whether that means one person or 10 people that we observe that's that's the questionable part. That's the gray part.

That's what I mean is if there's no standard if it's just saying that then there should be enforcement that no one should do that. if I'm I don't see how it's not going to go one or 10 or it should be none if it's a waiting area. And I'm not saying that that should be in there. I just without it in there, I don't understand how it's not a bar it just because it says that because it's so broad or some sort of enforcement of that. And I'm not I don't know what that enforcement would look like. I'm not sure that I think that enforcement is even possible. But with this type of ordinance, when I see that, I don't understand how we can make sure that happens without something in place to make sure that it happens or doesn't happen, if that makes sense. It's just um

feel like I'm in circles. It does. I guess I could liken this to absolutely every use within the town. There's a certain level of enforcement that um you know, at what's the tipping point, right? So there is no percentage there is no number associated with this but we talk about accessory use we talk about subordinate

we talk about for the use of the patrons of the principal um we you know it's referenced multiple times in there I do absolutely believe that it is within our capability if we notice an issue or we notice a concern, you know, it's first addressed with a notice violation, you are no longer in compliance with your special use permit. Um if there's no resolve then I think at that point we you know this documentation needs to be provided sufficient proof needs to be shown or we do have the capability to revoke your special use permit. It's that is within the ordinance and we certainly are capable of doing that. Um the ambiguity is understandably how how many is too many.

Well, and can you speak at all to the observation part? You know, we're talking about the enforcement and we'd have to observe and we'd be hearing about it, but if people are waiting sometimes two or three hours, it's going to be very difficult to monitor for that length of time. Have we got a situation where we've ever been able to observe something longterm like or you know for hours on end um to see what people are doing? It seems kind of awkward at best if not impossible to observe this

as neighbors or because it's you know it's going to be a big complex. I mean, we could certainly intermittently, if we suspect there's a problem, dedicate staff to doing that. I don't think it would be a good use of our time to send someone out there for hours on end. Um, you know, I think a lot of times things like this are very much complaint driven. Once we receive the complaint, we will go investigate. and to the extent what that investigation involves um you know we'll see that through but um understand

I think it's you know we would have to come at it from various angles I I acknowledge that yeah I mean I think one consideration for the board when drafting any ordinances and I think this is what folks are getting at is is it practical and do you want to create an ordinance that sort of creates an impract practicality and what type of enforcement and monitoring do you really want to have of businesses. So if you create something that's more practical, then it doesn't create this need to have this level of oversight. And so I mean it is it is a consideration for for an ordinance. I do believe the practicality.

Well, and also because if a permit was ever to be revoked, the board has to hear. I just can't imagine trying to decipher what documentation is real and accurate and the practicality of it and such a big decision to revoke something. That's the concern I have with that. All right. Any other questions for Kelly or anything further from you, Kelly? No, sir. Um Mr. Mr. You have something further to add on those those issues.

I just wanted to try to respond to Miss Lambert's um inquiry on that. Everything that we're doing, I'd like to think had an absolute. When I bring you a subdivision to approve and it has a 25 mph speed limit, I'd like to be able to tell you that everybody's going to go 25 miles an hour. And I would not want to have one of my subdivisions not approved because I couldn't guarantee that. But there are mechanisms just like you talked about with regard to there's if someone's going over the speed limit, there's going to be a complaint that is issued and then that complaint would be followed up. So in this particular case, I would see the same thing being the case. There's going to be people who um if they're observing something that's not right um they may complain or complaint the blue moon at the same time and I'm get kind of getting off in another avenue here but I mean they have a standard that they want to continue to uphold. So they've got people in there that will be the monitors just as they have in the other areas of the restaurant. So, I I don't feel like it's a scenario that would take on like a public park. We're not talking about a public park where we're going to approve something and there's no one there monitoring and anybody and everybody can just come in and do whatever they want to do. This is a business establishment that has a very high reputation and a standard that they have developed and they plan on keeping it and elevating it. So with regard to this and the special use permit, I think that's where you get into the opportunity. This ordinance has passed and then you're looking at each individual establishment. What is the reputation of that establishment? What is the

reputation? I think that's where you start looking at your special conditions and so forth if there is some concern. But again, I'd love to be able to speak to absolutes on everything that that we bring here, but none of it has an absolute. But I think that's a good point that you brought up and it's got everybody thinking, if you will. So, thank you. All right. Um, does the board wish to receive any other information about this uh proposed text amendment? All right. If not, we will conclude the public hearing at this time and the board may begin its deliberations on the proposed UDO text amendment.

Okay. Thank you, John. Um, a couple of thoughts about this, how to how to proceed because I um there were some questions that raised um that staff probably needs time to address um about Kelly was asked about other sites in the town that has the potential to do this. Concerns about enforcement um and how that might be handled. Um, I'm also aware that there's been discussion um about and I I can't remember if it came up this morning um about well, we did discuss the issue of of a separate business on that site and whether there is a form of independent business on that site that the board would be more comfortable with that perhaps accommodates or answers the question. So I mean there are two ways to proceed. One is to vote on the to discuss and vote on the ordinance that we have. The other is to table it to get these answers from staff on these questions and to consider other options that may solve the problem if the the board can articulate those to the staff. Well, I can discuss start a discussion. Sure. Um, I really want to help this specific business, but that's not what I'm looking at right now. Um, looking at this as a townwide issue. I am not entirely comfortable with this ordinance. Um, I think that the restaurant waiting lounge too closely resembles a bar and we don't allow bars at present. So, that is just one concern I have. Um, another concern is that

looking at this townwide, um, we just don't know who who could come along and and also do this. Um, we know that Blue Moon is reputable, but we don't know if somebody else is reputable. and are we allowed to issue um special use permits based on somebody's reputation? So, I I don't think that that would be a fair way to look at a at a a special use plan. I don't see how to be fair with that. Um, and another thing that just kind of doesn't sit 100% right with me is that this is allowing, even though it's a separate building, it's allowing one business a much greater percentage of of area to have bar sales than other restaurants are allowed to have. And what would not, you know, a new restaurant coming to town, why would they not want that same percentage even if it's in the same site? I just it just it just has a feeling of unfairness to me. So, while I want to help and I want to look for a solution um and I'm willing to look at um some ordinance changes to find a solution for them, but this ordinance as it's written is has a few too many concerns for me.

Thank you.

Um I have some notes. I apologize. I'm going to read from some notes because there's a lot of things here and I don't want to miss anything. Um, but like Commissioner Harrison, I do have several concerns with the or ordinance. Um, but my largest concerns come down to fairness, consistency, and unintended consequences. I struggle with the basic premise and the terminology. If a person can walk into this space without any idea of enforcement, um, order a drink, stand, sit, socialize, then functionally, I feel that this is a bar. Calling it a restaurant waiting lounge doesn't change how it operates in practice. Um, this ordinance also directly undermines our existing restaurant standards, particularly the 15% limitation on bar and entertainment space. Right now, restaurants are required to ensure that the majority of their space and seating is dedicated to dining, not drinking. But under this ordinance proposed, a restaurant owner could acquire an adjacent parcel, even across the street, and create a separate structure that is effectively 100% bar seating. So on one hand we strictly limit existing restaurants with 15% and then with this ordinance we would allow a new structure with no meaningful limit at all in terms of bar seating and I don't feel that that's consistent and it creates a clear loophole around the intent of our current ordinance effectively. It also creates an uneven playing field as Commissioner Harrison mentioned because only a small number of restaurant owners those with the financial ability and available land would be able to take advantage of this. Meanwhile, existing restaurants that have followed these rules would be at a disadvantage. If I were a current restaurant owner operating under the 15% rule, I would feel very unfairly treated watching another business build a bar that could effectively be 100% bar seating right next to them. I'm also very concerned about the broader townwide impact. When I did take time to look at this through the GIS lens, there's multiple properties in Nagad where this could realistically happen. The cumulative effect could be several large restaurant waiting lounges throughout the towns that are functioning as bars creating an

overload of enforcement for our staff. Many near residential areas that um in fact when I looked at it if some of these restaurants just half of the restaurants took advantage of this we could end up having more bar seating in Nag said than we have restaurant seating. And I don't know if that's the intent but that's what this could definitely create. If our policy goal has been to limit standalone bar types, this ordinance moves us in the opposite direction. It opens the door to significantly increasing bar style seating across town without actually calling it that. This ordinance to me doesn't create a new use. It creates a workaround. And it's something it creates a workaround with something that we currently restrict. And because of those concerns and a lot of the others that we've discussed, I have a hard time supporting this.

Thank you. Well, I get what you guys are saying. Um, full disclosure for anybody that might be watching, I do own a restaurant. I did buy a lot next to it for parking. I mean, you know, when you're talking about twohour waits, I don't think the parking standards were designed for two and three hour waits. We have lost a lot of restaurants in town and it has, you know, put a burden on the restaurants that are still here, especially successful ones. And the burden of having this is is the waiting area is just constricted. And when your waiting area is very constricted, it creates a large crowd inside your restaurant. And that makes it hard to serve people, makes it hard to get around, makes it hard for people to get a drink. it. People stand at the door with the door open because they can't get in. Flies get in the restaurant. The AC works over time. I mean, it just creates all kind of difficulties and all kinds of problems. And I get it. You know, I you know, and I get what they're trying to do. I mean, I bought a lot. They bought a building. They got a building. So, they're trying to do something with their building. And they definitely don't want to tear it down. So, I understand that. Would it be a standalone bar? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they're I got a feeling. I mean, they're on a wait at five o'clock at night. So, the other building is going to be on a wait at 5:00. I mean, it's they're both going to be full. So, and you can go into any restaurant in town, get a bar, get a drink. I mean, get a beer, get a drink, get whatever you want. And you don't have to eat, you know? So, you can do that anywhere. And I mean, maybe this isn't the ordinance to to approve. Maybe it is. I mean, I'm kind of in favor of it. I don't know. I get your points. I see where you're coming

from. I see where they're coming from. They're trying to do something to enhance their business, to help their parking, and to help their waiting area. So, I mean, that's kind of where I stand. Uh, I appreciate the comments of all my fellow board members and I and I echo many of them. I guess for me and Mr. Overton, good to see you again, too. And I've I've seen you not on this board, but many times previously on the planning board, including last winter when I don't think you were here, but we looked at a an application um from this organization to allow bars in in the C5. that didn't, you know, it was uh we didn't follow it all the way through, but we looked it on looked at it on planning board last winter. So, um this seems to me I understand that it's that it's a workound of sorts, and I appreciate the fact that staff and the applicant have worked so hard, but I guess what it comes down to is that the specificity of this amendment is is a real concern to me. Um, overall does this amendment meet the development needs of our entire community? Um, to me, regards parking, I guess I see it a little differently. To me, parking is self-regulating to some degree. I mean, if you give people a place to wait, if you tell me there's a two or three hour wait, even if I can go here and sit and and have drinks, I'm probably not going to wait two or three hours. So, it seems to me that this is kind of just, you know, you're you're still having a lot more patrons on the premises for I mean, theoretically, I guess, two or three hours and no, we wouldn't be able to enforce whether they were ever going in the restaurant, whether they give up waiting and those sorts of things, but I guess I have questions about whether this is really a solution to the to the

parking problem. Um it it would keep people on the premises doing something I guess you know. Um I agree that this this amend would this amendment would lead to this happening in other parts of town and I see the same thing. I think Commissioner Lambert mentioned that you know are we going to create several large complexes throughout town. Um and what impact you you mentioned small business. We all support small business. Um but what impact does this have on other small businesses, people without the resources um or the space to buy property and you know and have this opportunity for them. So I always like to consider how it affects everybody in town. I'm not in favor of creating I recognize you know speeding of course speeding is a law right? So, you have a really great built-in enforcement mechanism, but this um is going to be very difficult to enforce. And I realize that um you know, but many things in town are complaint driven. This one's going to be really hard to to know what's going on. And then we're putting future board with the special use. I personally would like to see us always try to look holistically at the town rather than more and more special uses which put future boards in a situation of having to be up here making really difficult decisions. I certainly I wish Blue Moon all good success. They're a huge asset to our town. I don't want me or anybody else up here to have to decide, oh, we we need to, you know, look at this special use permit. It's not working out. And then, you know, it's the classic camel nose under the tent. Um, I think I think that's about it, you know. I that's it for me.

Thank you. Um, you know, I I've hinted at it, you know, and I've I've heard I've heard what everyone has said. I still think that and let me let me try to simplify the numbers for this thing that's in my head that I can't sort of can't let go is that under the current ordinance today you could have a principal restaurant building and an accessory restaurant building and I'm going to call the principal building 51 square feet and the accessory building 49 square feet so that's 100 square feet alto together. And if the principal building had 18 square ft of kitchen and the accessory building had two square feet of kitchen, then that's 20%. That meets the minimum kitchen area. And if the primary building had 5% entertainment area and the secondary building had 10% entertainment area, then that meets the 15% standard if you divide it all out by 100. And all the seating is calculated at, you know, one parking space per 55 regardless of which building it's in. So you've met the parking standard and it's on one site under one operation. So AOE controls the proportion of food and alcohol on that building on that complex. I think you could do that today under the current ordinance and operate at any any restaurant anywhere in town. And we have no regulations about how much food is served in the primary or accessory and um we have no regulations about what their hours of

operation are. So, you know, it it it seems as though we're concerned about the the narrow drafting of this ordinance for this particular situation, but that's created because it's two pieces of property on separated by a street instead of one, which another restaurant owner might have or have had, and to be able to do virtually the same thing. Um and um and so I was I was leaning toward this, but it it sounds like this is um based on the comments I'm hearing, I'm not sure this ordinance that we have in front of us is fixable. Um so um I guess I will ask the board, you know, what your pleasure is. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to table this request for today.

Okay. With a spec with which request to staff would we would we make? Well, I don't know if we need to. Can you I think we started there. You started there with this possible suggestion and then we got talking. So, I don't know if we need to discuss again and be specific with everybody about the things we'd like to consider. Well, we at least know we have some questions that Kelly Yes. is aware. So, but I don't know. I I make that motion to table it. All right. Do I have a second to table that? I'll second. Okay.

If I may, I recommend that the motion to table have a duration on it. um you know we don't want to table it indefinitely and I don't think that's the intent but I think maybe give uh staff a time frame whether it's 30 30 days 60 days 90 days to bring back whatever revised proposal y'all want to consider

well I guess we have the questions that came up and we know we need to bring back some answers to the questions you know regarding this particular ordinance you know, there could be other things that we modify or add to it. Um, the question is whether or not we think it's fixable, and that mayor just alluded to that. U, I guess the other question we would have is, is there an alternative to this ordinance that the board would be willing to consider um, you know, that may be more practical to enforce, that may be more fair? Um, and so I just leave it at that. That's something that maybe the board could address and help us um figure out a pathway.

Well, could we? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You want to go? You go ahead. Uh, could we consider um a modification? I mean, Nags Head prohibits bars. what we've defined as bars, drinking establishments, and you know, nightclubs I think is referenced or night. Um, could we look at a modification of that provision? Um perhaps for lounges, you know, we're talking about a waiting lounge, a restaurant waiting lounge. perhaps for lounges townwide

that would allow this very successful business and perhaps others to um to benefit and then we could I assume we could impose restrictions that would prevent it from turning into something that has been a long-standing policy that we're not interested in which is bars and nightclubs for the benefit of the public and for this board and for staff by bars and lounge definition bars bars means liquor, full liquor bar, and a lounge means beer and wine. Correct. T, right? That's that's my thing. I think we'd have to make some definitions, right? Okay. You know, I mean, right now the definition of bar would include all of those things.

Okay. You know, but I think there are circumstances where communities start to create a differentiation between places that serve liquor and places that serve beer and wine. And we currently allow micro breweries in our towns which can serve beer and wine just not liquor. Okay. And an ordinance like this would also would give us the flexibility I assume to establish other um things regarding hours and some of the things we've been talking about relative to this special use. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the supplemental standards would be something that, you know, we would do with any ordinance, you know, and

you know, when we talk about bars, you know, it's an interesting discussion. I I've thought a lot about this, you know, and there's probably folks out there that know more about why we do this than I do, but, you know, I know just from my history of observations of the town, you know, the the nightclub was sort of the most egregious thing that I thought we were trying to sort of pre prevent and I believe that's probably why we have the 15% standard because you didn't want a place that became it's like the once the restaurant turned over then the whole place became you know just a pumping nightclub and then people were consuming alcohol till 2 am and then the police are there every night and there's noise and parking and and violence you know I mean which is something that I'm I'm sure folks here could tell you a lot about.

None of us want that. Um but you know that you know what what happens after a certain hour hour is typically what's most problematic you know and and for for something that's like a nightclub. So that's one thing, probably the biggest thing. But then beyond that, just having a place that serves beer, wine, or liquor, you know, sort of making a differentiation between the severity of problems that might originate from those types of places. All those places had entertainment though, correct? The old the old places. Yeah. Entertainment. Right. Right. Right. Well, this wouldn't have entertainment, but

well, but something like this, a provision townwide, wouldn't necessarily preclude. In some ways, I see it as an as more of an opportunity than a restriction because why would we want to limit if somebody wants to have a small group or something playing for a few hours in the evenings in a waiting lounge or in another lounge, I wouldn't see where the harm is on that. So, in some ways, it would give more flexibility and opportunity. Well, if you say something's allowed, then it takes the pressure off to constantly enforce special use. Correct. Signage, separate business. But does that help them with their parking problem?

Well, but potentially you could create a separate business that everybody was comfortable with that allowed all the things they want to do and they choose to operate it at a lower rate. I mean, just because you've got permit and you've and you've set up the facility, you don't have to you don't have to necessarily run it as a separate business. I mean, you you've met all the rules. You run it the way they want to run it without generating the parking demand because you've you know, so you have their need because you meet that other need. So, I I could see a way

I also think that um possibly having a separate ordinance allowing a beer and wine l allowing it permitting it is is much more clear to the public what we're up to. You know, this seems a waiting lounge, which could be a bar is it seems a little bit misleading. Yes. And I I have spoken of several people that had no idea that this involved alcohol. And that concerned me because if the general public is going, "Well, what's wrong with the waiting lounge?" people just waiting there and they had no idea it involved alcohol. That makes me feel that general public might feel misled. Back to the question of how long to table then? How long does staff take long staff would take?

Well, I was talking to Britney about this earlier and and Kelly and I have been talking about this. Obviously, this is a fluid process. you know, when this ordinance came up, you know, I've been talking, you know, to everybody about the ordinance and I everybody today can't came came prepared to articulate their concerns and certainly those have been shared, you know. So, Kelly and I have been talking about ways to address some of the concerns and I think she's already been doing a little bit of research on this just to sort of get ahead of it. But, you know, where we're at now this month, we happen to have another week than we normally have to the next board meeting. You know, the board meeting is on May 6th. And so if the board wanted us to bring back this ordinance with some additional considerations to address the concerns and another ordinance that sort of articulates some of the things you just said, we could probably do that, you know, and and go to the planning board next week and still advertise for a public hearing for both at the May 6 meeting. and that and I would recommend leaving all of the options on the table. So come back with both tweaks to the existing ordinance, the new ordinance, and then have everything in front of you and you can make the best decision that you feel like is appropriate at the time. But I think there's enough time to to meet the advertising requirements, you know, for a new ordinance for May 6th, but I think you need to make a motion and vote to schedule a public hearing and state what that public hearing is.

Okay. All right. So, let's do this separately. So, can I um ask then I think Commissioner Vong to amend her motion to table this to the May meeting May 6 meeting and then we'll do a separate motion to schedule a public hearing on other potential amendments on other potential amendments for that same meeting. That makes sense. So, if you'll amend it for Okay. I amend my motion to table this ordinance in front of us until May 6 until our May 6th meeting. Okay. And did I have a second for that? Second. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I.

I. I. Opposed. All right. Thank you. And then um a motion would be in order to schedule a public hearing uh to consider this or other related amendments at the May 6 meeting. I'll make the motion to schedule a public hearing May 6 for this and any other related amendments related to the um related to blue foods application or any other ordinance that was brought forward. Yeah. Right. Does that cover or any other?

I think what we would be looking at is having another ordinance that allows some new uses to include lounge, tap room, wine bar, things of that nature, which would be sort of a new permitted use. Okay. And that would be a different ordinance than than this. Does that need to be a separate vote or No, I think it's it can be part of this motion, but I think it just needs to be comprehensive what what the public hearing is going to be to consider. Okay. So, I'm making a motion for May 6 to have a public hearing to consider the ordinance proposed today, as well as an additional ordinance to possibly consider lounges or tap houses or beer and wine lounges or other amendments to existing ordinances.

Or other amendments to existing ordinances. Okay. All right. Can I get a second to that? I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I opposed. Thank you. That takes us then to uh new business and that would be a presentation of the strategic plan update by Andy. Uh actually uh wait, do you want to take action to table the other public hearing, the second one? Uh I mean obviously you don't want to proceed on it because the ordinance to allow it is not has not been adopted but

right. So I guess yes as a safety measure we should because it right because we wouldn't be able to do it. We wouldn't be able to do anything with it if we if in the circumstance that we were to consider this amendment modified in some way and decide that was the way forward instead of the other way forward. We need to be able to consider that site plan. So yes, then I guess a motion to table the special use permit site plan on behalf of Blue Moon to the May 6 meeting. Second. Yes, I will make that as a motion. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I opposed. Thank you. All right. Now, new business. Thank you everybody. Ready? Yeah.

All right. Thank you, mayor and commissioners. Um, just want to thank the board and staff u for all the time and effort they've put into the strategic plan. Um, just for the public's sake, we had a board retreat uh back in February. I believe it was February 26 and 27 where we uh discussed a lot of different things but one of those things was strategic plan which is something that we've been working on for many years. Um I believe in the strategic planning document it talks about the origination of the strategic planning going going back to 2021 and we've had several facilitated retreats since that time. You know, during the first few retreats, we talked about the town's vision statement, the mission statement, you know, some of our goals and values and and those things were sort of crafted at the time, readopted and put into the strategic plan. Um, as time has gone on and we've made updates to the plan, this the vision and the goals and the mission statement have all always stayed fairly consistent. And I think that's one of the interesting things about this process and about the the town and the boards that we've had is is I believe that there's been sort of a broad consistency amongst different boards about the vision for the town and and the direction of the town. And I I think that speaks to the nature of the spirit of the town and how the people feel about it and and the vision is fairly clear. Um, and so, you know, we haven't seen situations where we do a strategic plan and then the board, a new board comes in and sort of upends everything and we end up with something completely different. I don't don't feel like that's that's the case and I think that's a great thing because then we all share the same vision and we see the continuity amongst different boards. And

so, you know, I think that's reflected in this plan um that the board discussed at the retreat. we see that consistent vision. You know, if we get into the plan, you know, you see some things that look familiar because they were in the previous versions of the plan. And um we have our mission statement, our vision statement, which haven't changed. We have our goals, which haven't changed. So, what has changed are some of the um action items really, and a lot of the action items look similar to what was in previous plans. Some of them are slightly modified and then some of them are new. Um obviously we've accomplished some things and so those things sort of become business as usual. And so with this version of the plan uh you you can see on the screen uh previous versions we had a little bit less detail in here. We've tried to add detail in this version of the plan. So what what you'll notice is the in the table there's a new column that says description. And we realize that when we're communicating to the public, we need to be more specific about what we're talking about. A lot of times the public won't know what we're talking about when we say update the water rate structure,

you know, and so we've added some information to help people understand what that means. And so you see that description column that's been added. And then as we go through the plan, there are some things we talked about at the retreat that have been completed or have become part of the sort of ongoing or or routine business. And so we decided with this version we would keep those in here just so the public can see it, but we've sort of broken it out into a separate table um to recognize that it's it's done and that was an accomplishment. So, you know, we kind of go through this and I won't necessarily go into describing each of these action items. you know, I know the board has gotten this. They they've had a chance to re review these items. And then we also have at the end of the plan a table which looks at our priorities and and what we tried to capture were the things that the board said would be priorities um for for the coming uh year or more. So those are on page 18. Uh so with that said um you know it's interesting because as we go through time we we learn what works and what doesn't work. We learn how to be more specific when we need to or or more broad when we need to. And then sometimes our our goals and our action strategies change because we have to be opportunistic when opportunities arrive. And and one example would be the grant funding that we've been pretty successful with, you know, over the last five years. There's been a lot of that that has sort of been presented to us and it's caused us to change our our focus a little bit because we have to take advantage of those things when they present themselves to us. And so that that's where I think the public might see a little bit of change in the plan and the action items over time is the the opportunities that we get presented with. So, just want to make that note.

Um, uh, with that said, you know, we have a website that was created with the last version of the plan that makes this a little bit more of an interactive document. And we've updated that and we're ready to make it live once the plan, the new plan gets adopted. But that that has links to things that will help people go and research what the town's doing. Like when we reference our comprehensive plan or or you know we have a status report we normally do for the board each year to talk about the progress of the plan. This website will allow people to link to these external documents and read a little bit more about what's going on. So, um, that's something that Britney and Robera have already been working on and are ready to launch whenever this plan gets adopted. But I guess what I'll say is we we'd like any feedback from the board on whether this reflects your priorities and whether these action items capture what we discussed and also whether you have additional things you'd like to add. Um, but this is really presented for your review, uh, presented to the public to see what the town's up to and welcome any feedback. So, thank you.

All right. Thanks, Andy. Um,

a couple of couple of things about this. Um, you know, I think this this does reflect um, uh, the discussion. It's it's interesting to have a couple of days boil down to, you know, a few action items. Um I I want to I want to thank the board and staff and our facilitators um and all you know we had a lot of staff participate in those meetings over the over the couple of days um for the work that they put into this plan. Um, you know, I get to talk to other mayors and the county board chair. Um, and I get to to be at meetings where I see other community leaders. And this kind of strategic thinking is unfortunately rare. You know, it it's surprising the towns and counties that don't do anything like this.

Interesting. I understand we have a lot of resources, but you would think in a place with fewer resources, this would be even more important and and yet you you don't see it. And um so I'm appreciative of the fact that we get to do this and that we um we do we do commit ourselves board by board to a vision and a strategic plan. And I mean, I think the discussion we had this morning, the the richness of that is a is a reflection of, you know, how we work as a town and and how we eventually come to consensus and we keep, you know, we all keep moving forward and the town uh the town as we know and love it is is protected ultimately. And um and so I I I think this is really important work and I I again I I just want to say I appreciate it.

I agree. It's great to have this tool and you guys have done a great job with it and when I get questions about stuff that you know people want more than you have time to answer anything like that, you can always direct them to this website. Oh little detail. You might not know them but you're supposed to. We can get this out together and look at it. But I think it really the the public interface is wonderful that you know I appreciate um everything that staff does on that because it it is out there for people to know about. So the transparency is critical and making it easy for people in several ways to find out what's going on. Keep keep in touch. Y

yes I didn't know I was taking it for granted but I was. And um no it's been hugely helpful too just as a new board member to have it all just laid out. here's what we're doing and it's it's very organized and everybody's had a lot of input and I really appreciate that too. I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this um and especially the consistency from prior boards to this. It's really nice knowing that we're on the same path and I'm proud of that consistency and the hard work that went into it from our staff. Very good. Thank you, Andy.

Well, I guess so we need a motion. One of the things we would ask is that if there's no further changes, you could consider adopting it today or certainly if you want more time to think about it, we could put it on your May agenda. It's really up up to you at this point. We'll probably suggest having another retreat um in the fall, so not so not so late next time, right? And that'll be our next opportunity to talk about that. And I think we'll spend more time on it next time. And we've got some other ideas as well, but Okay. But anyway, yes. So, it'll probably be, you know, sometime in the fall, but that'll be up to the board. Okay. That's what we would suggest. All right. Well, um, does anybody want to make a motion to adopt?

I'm happy to make a motion to adopt the strategic plan as presented. All right. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh the next item is uh consideration and of a resolution in support of the midcur bridge. And I will not read that um today like I do some some of them. I I will tell you um this this um came up during the last lunchon of the mayors and the chair of the county board. Um and it was it was discussed in in passing and then I saw that the county had adopted um a resolution. Um in particular, Southern Shores has asked that there be additional time to consider um this going forward. I think did everyone get there was a letter um I think from a Southern Shores resident.

I didn't.

Did that only come to me? Anyway, um the the bridge has um achieved several milestones. It has its permits in place. Uh it's been designed. Millions and millions of dollars have been spent on on it to this date. Um but the discussion now is is about its economic viability and you know um has the state considered all of the tolling models that might be considered um in order to get the bridge built? Uh that's not clear. So, Southern Shores just asked if we would all support leaving it in for one more cycle to see if it couldn't if there couldn't be a um a model found that would um that would lead to the bridge going forward. And if not, then it's o seemingly over.

Uh but but uh given where we are, just give it give it one more shot. And that's basically what we're asking. Okay. So a motion to adopt the resolution would be in order. I move I move that we adopt this resolution in support of the mid county bridge mid bridge. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Thank you. Uh let's see. That brings us to uh any items from the town attorney. Um and we do have one.

We do. Yes. Yes. Uh Mr. Mayor. Uh we um are requesting a um an amendment uh to our existing contract for legal services. We last uh sought an increase or adjustment in our fees in 2023. So it's been three years. And what we've proposed is um a uh an amendment to our fee agreement to adjust our fees um essentially based on the consumer price index um as of February. Um I actually checked those numbers yesterday. The um the March numbers are now out and if I waited a month, these numbers would be a good bit higher because there's been that much more inflation. But, uh, in any event, that's what we've, uh, proposed and, um, happy to answer any questions about, uh, those adjustments.

Okay. All right. Any questions for John? I'm sorry, John. You said the last one was three years ago. Yeah. 2023. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Effective July 1. And that would be the same as this one with the beginning of the new fiscal year. Okay. Right. Okay. Is that sort of the average cycle of things every few years or

two to three? I think one year we waited four years. Um but um you know in a perfect there really wasn't that much inflation for the first two years of this last one. And then you know since it's been three I started thinking about this back at the uh at the end of the calendar year. I talked with Andy about uh making an adjustment and then ran the numbers and drafted this revised agreement in February and um asked it to be put on at the meeting in April. So,

okay. All right. Um, in that case, a if there's no further questions for John, then perhaps a motion to adopt to approve the uh contract for legal services would be in order. I'll make a motion to approve this contract. Okay. Second. Thank you. I have a motion. Second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Right. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Andy's gone. Thank you, John. Andy is stepped away, so I'm going to um start with the board of commissioners agenda and I'll start at my left with Molly. Do you have anything this morning? I don't have anything today.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Megan. I do not. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Clean sweep. Nothing today. All right. Good. Um just on the mayor's agenda, um I will be out most of next week. Uh Tuesday and Wednesday are the coastal leadership institute and then Thursday and Friday are the um beaches, inlets and waterways which my wife always remembers as rivers rivers, roads and rail. She that's what she calls it. Um I'll be at at that conference uh Thursday and Friday. Anybody else register for that? I'm not able to do that one. No.

All right. Very good. Um and uh if I am going to try to get on the shared calendar uh today and I don't know if every Okay. All right. Okay. Good. Well, we'll be efficient with our time. That that's good. Uh we have no uh closed sessions published um before we go to the adjournment uh or the recess to the stormwater master plan. Um any other business to come before the board? Did you have anything from the uh manager since we skipped over that? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Come back to I'm sorry. Yes. Come back. I didn't have anything else.

Okay. All right. Good. Uh All right. Hearing none, then a motion to recess to the stormwater master plan workshop would be in order. I'll make that motion. All right. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion. A second. Um all in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Right. Thank you. All right. Very good. So, we're in the workshop. Yes. Uh, and we'll take a break if you need to take a break.

All right. Okay. The board is now seated for the stormwater workshop and we'll turn this over to David. Uh good morning, mayor and commissioners. Um good morning.

Today we are going to go over the stormwater master plan update. Um this has been a work in progress for the past year plus. We've been working with our engineering consultant uh McAdams on this. Um and today we have Cameron James here and Graham Cheryl uh in the audience um that will also um co-present some of this information. Um I've also left at uh with each one of you. Um this these are some of the CIP concepts um that we'll be talking about in the presentation. Um we thought that we would just provide a a version for you that you could follow along with um as we start to talk about you know some of these project areas and um some of those improvements that are being proposed with that. So just the overall agenda for this presentation um I'll go ahead and provide just a project overview and then it's broken out into several different stages. Um some of these have already been completed to include the survey and condition assessments. Uh there's also a GIS dashboard which is a a new tool um that we'll have for our staff. Uh then also the conceptual plan development um with with the documents that you have in front of you. And then the prioritization and the deliverables. And so overall, um, what we're looking at as far as a schedule goes is that we'll come back to the board, uh, probably late summer to talk about prioritization of some of the CIP project listings and then, um, to wrap up the report um, probably looking at November time frame to come back with a final storm water report presentation, um, so we can go ahead and get

everything um, completed. did in advance of the performance period for our grant which is December 31st of this year. Okay. So, some of the goals that we've tried to achieve with the stormwater master plan is to go ahead and assess the condition of our existing drainage infrastructure. Uh we've been doing a lot of uh maintenance over the past five six years. Um I think we've we've really gotten it down to a welloiled function um where we're going through performing maintenance activities. Um but as far as individually looking and assessing our infrastructure um that's been one of the deficiencies that we've had. So we've seen that this has been an opportunity to go ahead and capture um some of these key focus areas and just get a better um understanding of the condition of our existing infrastructure. Um also we've completed a lot of work over the past five six years and so we need to go ahead and update our inventory especially within our GIS uh database in order to go ahead and caption capture all of that and just make that current. Um so one of our goals was to go ahead and make sure that we uh brought our inventory at the current. Um another key component was um stakeholder engagement and and um reaching out to the public. Last year it was in August that we had a workshop um where we were able to obtain some citizen feedback as far as uh identifying some of the problem areas in town. Um, but we've also uh captured a lot of the citizen complaints that we have heard over the years and incorporated some of that into our work. Um, as well as just observations that

we've had on our own um to be able to assess and evaluate the per performance of not only our existing infrastructure, but also uh capture those historically flooded areas throughout town. So, um it's kind of a combination of of feedback and observations um when we went ahead and developed this uh CIP listing. Uh also wanted to go ahead and establish some new tools and metrics uh that our staff could use. We want to make sure that they have everything that they need that when they go out in the field that they can go ahead and have a point of reference. And that's the updating the GIS database and and having additional tools um will help them go ahead and be able to locate and identify features within town. Um we also wanted to go ahead and evaluate the performance of projects from our prior CIP. Um back when we started our last uh CIP update, it was in 2015. that carried on for several years. We had 13 projects. Of those 13 projects, I believe nine are completed or in the process of being completed, but there was several that were either deferred to maintenance or um they didn't meet the cost benefit analysis. So, uh, we didn't want to leave those out because some of those areas still have issues and so maybe we looked at them through a different lens um to come up with different solutions um to aid with addressing some of those areas. Um, a a big thing that we wanted to to go ahead and focus on also was analyzing the South Memorial Avenue corridor. That's

where our main drainage trunk line exists. And we know that we have an older standard and because of that older standard that um maybe some areas of that system um weren't functioning at their at their peak performance. So we wanted to go ahead and identify uh existing deficiencies within that system um to be able to see what improvements could be made there to go ahead and increase that level of service. Um also we wanted to develop a scalable um plan um and look at potential phasing within projects and we also want to make sure that we also consider funding as part of this um because there there some of these projects are very challenging and very complex and we've got some that we've got four separate projects tied into one overall project. So we wanted to go ahead and look at how we could make that scalable and uh be able to be implemented over time rather than have one large project um which required a lot of financial resources to be able to implement. Um and as always we always want to position ourselves to to to be competitive and create opportunities for funding. And we also want to go ahead and incorporate those methods that we've used on other projects that have been successful um and try to incorporate those into future work. Uh when I talk about that um talk about the um the sock pipe or the perforated pipe that we've used here extensively on recent projects that we've had some really good successes with. uh that addresses not only what happens with surface runoff but also uh manages uh groundwater

elevations and and that's a key component here in the coastal environment because we've got high groundwater and we've got surface runoff and so you know we look at the shared benefits that we can have whenever we try to uh move forward with this project work. All right. So, this project is uh funded through a $400,000 uh planning grant that we received from DEEQ in the Division of Water Infrastructure. And uh as part of that grant, we had to develop a project scope. And so, we've got it broken out into uh various parts. Um the first part was asset inventory and assessment. Um there was also the development of a interactive GI excuse me, GIS dashboard. Um, I guess a large bulk of the effort was with the problem area ID and then the development of conceptual designs that you have in front of you. Um, as I noted earlier, we're going to look at project prioritization. Um, and we'll come back to you for that. and then the completion of a storm water master plan report and then also a watershed action plan which will go ahead and create additional funding opportunities uh for future project work. And so at this point I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Cameron James and he'll go ahead and talk about some of the survey work that has been completed. Well, thank you, David, and thank you, mayor and commissioners. Um, so as David mentioned, one of the key components of this project last year, perhaps the main component last year was conducting an initial survey um of several areas

throughout town. And so you can see um that map on the southern portion of the page. Um our boundaries in black there um as well as infrastructure that was collected by McAdams. Um so in total, we surveyed approximately 540 structures that were collected. Um so that could be a flared in section attached to a pipe or a manhole or a drop inlet. Um and in total we collected 344 individual culberts and storm mains across town. So um a considerable number of features that were collected um and our initial approach for determining um which areas required that focus was assessing the town's existing um storm water inventory, identifying where there are some gaps in the data. Um also pairing that with some of the flooding hotspots that we'll get to um a little bit later in the presentation and then determining those those final areas that we want to to put effort on. Um so from that um we while the data was collected um we did a conditions assessment of all infrastructure um so we were making note of the overall condition which um admittedly was a little bit subjective but you know assigning that a rating of you know poor or fair or good condition of the the asset. Um, also looking at items like the clogging percentage, whether there was difficulty accessing the infrastructure, um, and and photos were collected for each item as well, which, um, we'll share in a little bit when Graham does a a quick demonstration of our GIS dashboard. Um and so in total after McAdams completed our survey, we compiled our information uh the previous information that the town had um and their storm water inventory as well as some asbuilt data from uh previously completed and projects that are in

construction to a a final updated uh database of all um storm water assets across town. um which in total is about 1658 structures. Um again comprised of manholes uh storm water junctions could be a pipe flared in section or or or head wall um and about 1,320 um individual covers and storm names. So, um, a key component of post-processing the data was taking our information that we collected in the field relating to the conditions assessment, um, and getting that boiled down to a overall rating score that the town could use to prioritize um, areas across town and and um, infrastructure in particular that that needs the the most attention. Um, so the approach that we took for that was determining for each asset um whether it be a manhole or inlet or a individual pipe section we look at what is the likelihood of of failure for that item um and also what would the consequence be of failure for that item. Um so related to the likelihood of failure that is attributable to um just the condition of the pipe um whether the pipe is clogged if it is what is the degree of clogging what is the material of the pipe. So, um, conditions like corrugated metal, I know as many of you have seen across town, are much more susceptible to to damage over time versus something like concrete or HDPE. Um, also looking at maintenance access, uh, whether there's, you know, a a blind junction. And then by that we just mean a an apparent uh intersection of two pipes, but we can identify where the vanole is. Um, um, and also looking at

downstream conveyance. Um, whether there's a section of pipe that is uh larger in diameter than the pipe downstream of it, which could potentially lead to a a uh capacity and conveyance issue. Um, and for the consequence of failure items, a few of those considerations that we assessed were so if the pipe or asset were to fail, you know, where is it geographically? Is it along a private road or is it within a townowned rideway? Um, is it within close proximity to critical infrastructure such as a hospital or a doctor's office? Um, and just the ownership of the infrastructure as well. Um so using both of those criteria, the likelihood of failure, consequence of failure, um really helped us boil down um all of the information and assets that we collected across town to really a a focused list of some of the the items um for remedial action, summarizing some of the top ranked assets. and the town has already started to integrate some of those into their um into their assistance and and repair. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Graham Shirley to discuss our GIS dashboard and do a quick demonstration.

Good morning town. Thank you for taking your time today. So, as you might have realized by the amount we've been talking about the GIS dashboard, this was one of the bigger aspects of this project. So, we wanted to make a tool that would allow the town staff to really know what was out in the field and to be able to quickly look up things like the condition of what's out there, where things are, the type of structures, pipe material, and basically all of the surveyed information collected into one easy to view dashboard where you can click around, see photos of the pipes that we took, and um just see a combined um see a combined database everything. So I'm going to switch it over to our actual dashboard now. So this is the um dashboard. So on the left hand side you can sort by um any different types of structures that we collected. So whether it's inlets, manholes, discharge points, um culverts and then from here you can see on the right it has all of our actual surveyed things. And then once you click on one of them, you can see a bunch of information about that feature. So if we click on this and then go over to feature info, you can see the town um name for this inlet. You can see the type of inlet. This is a combo inlet. You can scroll down see that this is this inlet has a CMP pipe flowing into it. It also has another CMP pipe flowing into it. You can see the elevations of these. you can see um the condition. So, this one is in good condition. There's a couple comments about um the shots taken. And then if you scroll all the way down, there are photos of the actual structure box as well as photos from outside of the location. And then at the very bottom, it has link to our

priorization or our condition assessment report where you can see this is a very low priority ranking. This one's in good condition, like I mentioned, no clogging, and it really allows for the town to have all of this information in one place with a variety of features. So, another thing you can do with this is you can actually set filters. So, uh, one of the important things about this dashboard is we were combining a lot of data. So, McAdams ourselves did a survey. We had a previous town GIS dashboard that we incorporated data and then we also incorporated asbuilt data from the previous years that was in between the town's last survey. And from that you can um do things like you can sort by what source of data this is from. So let's say you only want the McAdams survey. you can set a filter and the town staff can see, okay, this is only the inlets that McAdams ourselves surveyed. Or maybe you only want um maybe you only want pipes that are in poor condition. And so you can quickly go through and just easily visualize everything in one place and see um you can quickly click around as the town as town staff can do this and prioritize what projects they want to look at. You can sort by the project priority ranking and then you can also have a visual representation of what's actually out there in the field before going out there and you don't have to spend nearly as long looking around trying to match up is this inlet this inlet or is it here. There's just one dashboard that has all of the most up-to-date information for the town in one location that's filterable, searchable, and allows people to access things quickly. So, with that, I'll turn it back over to Chairman.

Lots of nods and whispers up here. That's a That's a cool tool. Everybody's excited about that. I know staff's excited about that.

Yeah, seriously. So um towards the end of last year and and the beginning of this year, the focus turned more from our survey after we completed our initial um asset conditions assessment, the GIS dashboard. our focus turned toward the individual flooding hotspots across town um and developing some conceptual level plans um for potential projects um to implement into the town's uh CIP. Um and as David mentioned previously, a couple of these have a few phases that are a component of the um the plan such as the Soundside Road project which I believe is split into four individual phases. Um and also as David mentioned previously, the idea behind that is to provide some at least some mitigation um and sort of break out the projects and certainly one of that scale for Soundside Road where it it merits um separating it into phases such that um initial work can be done at a lower cost to provide at least some relief in the the near term. Um but also looking at potential future phases to provide even additional mitigation beyond that. Um, and so before I get into each of these flooding hotspots, feel free to um, review the the documents that have been provided today and follow along. Um, they should have a little bit more detailed information um, than what will be presented in the slides um, such as preliminary cost estimates and some of the um, intricacies and constraints of the site. Um and you'll start to see a theme emerge with most of these and that is just that um additional infrastructure is really the main need across town and some of these critical flooding hotspots. Um and for some of them that are in close proximity to the sound um such as Southside Road and South Old Road um it's really looking at what can

be done feasibly within the site um recognizing that the water table is is very high given the proximity. Um and so we'll get into the first one. So one of the northernmost project uh flooding hotspots is the Carolinian circle area. Um and you can see in the map there it borders to the west of South Croatan Highway. Um really the the main issue with this area is just a a lack of infrastructure um along Carolinian circle and in particular where it goes to the loop um sort of on the the left side uh right in here in this northern corner. Um so it leads to some some nuisance flooding of the neighborhood area. Um it does receive drainage from some of the Jockey Ridge um hillside which contributes to the the flow and runoff in the area. Um, a couple of the constraints of the site are that the Plaza del Solo parking lot system um does have a an existing storm water conveyance, but it is separated and isolated from um the Carolinian circle. So, it really we determined that to be not feasible to tie in or utilize that existing system. Um, and also looking at the existing storm water conveyance on South Croatan Highway being an 18inch system. Um so really that you know looking at the size that we want to propose for something we want to consider what's downstream that it could make sure it can handle that additional conveyance. So elements of the design um consisted of adding some additional yard inlets and drop inlets along Carolinian circle um connected by a new uh HTP sockpipe uh storm drainage trunk line. As you can see, um there are some water lines to negotiate with this design. Um and then tying into the existing, uh storm drainage system that flows on the western side of South Kan Highway.

Moving into project area two that we identified was the West Blue J Street, um which is a little bit south of the Carolinian Circle. Um this is a a very steep road. um also receives uh some runoff from the maritime ridge. Um and the main issue that we have noticed and has been experienced at this location um is that it flattens out there at South Pamelo um drive. And so really there is just a need of additional infrastructure to capture um the drainage there where it ponds at the bottom um and just get it off of the road and out of that low spot and convey it to South Croatan. Um, additionally, there's only a portion of Blue Jay Street that has curbon gutters. So, one thing we would propose as part of this design would be extending that curb and gutter along to the full extent of Blue J Street uh down to South Croatan. Um, and then adding a new storm drainage system there. Um, starting at this curb. Um, this is really where it flattens out. Um, proposing a double inlet system there and tying that into a new storm drainage. 24 in um HP sock pipe system for this one as well. Moving into our third project area which was uh Buccaneer Drive. Um this one does experience flooding. Um it's a lowlying area sort of is situated in between um Jockeyy's Ridge and South Croand Highway just in a in a low spot. Um some of the constraints and issues at this particular site are that um in addition to the the ponded water along the road, it it does also experience some backflow and backwater um from the swale um that is on the western side of South Croan Highway here. Um so with our proposed

design again um we are proposing to add new infrastructure here to capture that runoff and drainage as well as install a new backflow prevention device at the outlet there where it ties into the existing swale. And then the next project site at West Lookout Road uh just to the south of Buccaneer um very similar issue going at this location also situated in between South Croatan Highway and the Jockey Ridge runoff. Um sort of collects there along West Lookout Road. Um also experiences from not noted from local property owners in the area of backflow from the swale at South Croatan um backing up into the road. Um so with this one, we just called for the outfall pipe which is uh right here to be cleaned out. Um, we determined through our conditions assessment that it's really not in bad shape. So, why not just reutilize that outfall pipe um and then we would add a new storm drainage system consisting of the HDP sock pipe which really allows for that infiltration. It's the perforated pipe and so it provides uh storage in in the pipe itself as well as increased infiltrative benefit. So, getting the Soundside Road. I know this one has been a long-standing issue for the town. Um, water ponds along Soundside Road in several places and we understand um that it can stay uh water um takes days in some instances to potentially a week or more to fully recede. And so given the scale and magnitude of of this site and given the proximity to the sound, this was one of the areas where we really wanted to assess um you know looking at at separate phases where we could

propose an initial phase to alleviate some of the the flooding for a lower cost and then looking at some additional um future phases. Um so again to to reiterate the issues um currently experienced at this site um so outside road experiences um overwashing from the sound um and also uh flooding um from storm events. Um there's approximately 200 acres in total that all drains um from the east side of South Kotan Highway um and come comes across and really collects along the full length of Soundside Road here at the bottom. Um the water table's very high here given the proximity to the sound. Um and there's just room for proposed infrastructure there. And so we will get into uh the first phase of this one. So phase one includes installing just this bottom section um along Southside Road, which would be a new I believe a 36 inch HDP sockpipe drainage line along Southside Road, which would be a closed system. It would not have any outfall, but it would serve to provide flood storage and add infiltrative benefit uh beyond the the state that the site is currently in. And then phase two um would consist of adding a new storm drainage system along Ridge View Way, which is uh situated up here um where currently we understand there's just a lack of infrastructure in this area as well. Um and it would benefit from adding some some inlets and piping. Um, also it would include the need of piping down through this private property which would consist of getting a permanent drainage easement along this corridor where it uh borders the property line

and would tie into the southside road system proposed as part of phase one. Moving into phase three of this design and project would be the purchase of an empty parcel um along Southside Road there at the intersection with Dearing Street and converting this into an infiltration basin. And the idea behind that would be to provide additional flood storage during high flow events. Um there would be a potential to tie in or have the system designed and constructed as part of phase one for this trunk line to directly outfall into that infiltration basin. Um and really just provide additional flood storage benefit in doing that. Um, additionally, the Dearing Street project, which we'll get into on the next slide, um, shows how that may be also, um, able to utilize these infiltration basins as an outfall to this proposed design. And then finally, phase four of the Southside Road system would consist of adding a pump station and force main. Oops. and acquiring a couple of these properties that are currently owned by the state near Jockeyy's Ridge and providing an area that's further separated from the water table such that um additional infiltrative benefit could be provided by pumping the water out of that infiltration basin during high flow events.

Moving into the West Dearing Street project. Um this was the one um just to the north there of Soundside Road. Um the issues that are currently experienced along Deering Street um again is a just a lack of infrastructure in particular along some of these driveway covers. Um and in particular um there's some flooding that happens along the swailes that uh are within the right of way of West Earing Street. Um and also at the breezeway and westppies court intersection. We understand that ponding occurs uh frequently during storm events. Um so with our proposed design for this project, we would propose to install driveway covers along some of these um entrances here and also grade uh swailes and reconstruct to um better convey runoff down West Dearing Street and into the proposed infiltration basin. That would be phase three as part of the southside road system. Um, this one could also be constructed independently and would just outfall at the current swale um that serves as the existing outfall of West Dear Street. Moving into the Barracuda Drive project. Um we understand that this project um leads to some flooding that goes from the Hesperdes drive right ofway um flows to the north and leads to some flooding of private properties that border West Barracuda Drive to the north. Um this is mainly just due again to a lack of infrastructure in the area to either store or convey this runoff. Um it's also not feasible to install curbon gutter um in some of the areas here. So one element of our design for this

project would be to install a grass swale with a couple check dams. Um and by that we really just mean an earthn check dam where we raise the grade and help retain the water um upstream of that to just help slow down and also provide additional infiltrative benefit. Um, in addition, we would install a new 30-in HP sockpipe close system, which would serve for additional storage and allow the water to infiltrate rather than flow down and across West Barracuda Drive. There is also um the Salmon Court and Mackerel Courtacs that currently experience flooding. Um, Mackerel Court in particular is situated in a low spot with no great outlet or place to um, have a new storm drain system outfall. So with both of these, we would propose uh dry well systems um consisting of dual 15-inch um HP storm pipes that would connect to those dry wells that which would be constructed in the center of the culacs and allow that runoff to get away from the private properties and to um utilize the culac space for infiltration. Moving into the dune street project area 7. Um this one um we understand that at the eastern end of Dune Street with the intersection of South Virginia Dair Trail um water frequently ponds here during storm events. Um again due to a lack of infrastructure in the area to either store the runoff or convey it um downstream. And so our proposed design for this project would be to install a 24 inch perforated sock pipe along the uh southern ride ofway of Dune Street.

Um there currently is a water line on the northern side of Dune Street which would inhibit um putting it on the north side. Um this is another one that we have split into a phase one and then a potential phase 2 A and 2B. And so you can see the phase one is the in the black here, which would only consist of the closed storm drainage system to uh store the the runoff and infiltrate. Uh phase 2 A would consist of installing a new uh storm drainage pipe and direct to allow all of this runoff to outfall to an existing swale um that is approximately 750 linear feet north of the Dune Street intersection. Um, and phase 2B would be the potential to acquire um this parcel here located at the intersection of Dune Street and South Virginia Dair Trail to install an infiltration basin to allow for storage of that runoff.

I have a question while you've paused. Yes. Um those dry wells that are in the middle of those culde-sacs, um is that proposal to cut the pavement out and have a small grass area with a dry well or is it a dry well kept by a manhole? David, would you like to answer that one? Okay. It would be very similar in nature to what we did in Old Nad Place. Okay. So that that was the thinking there kind of using some of the concepts that we've applied in the past towards some of these future projects.

We're looking at the size. I just wasn't sure if we could meet, you know, like fire turning radius and all of that and still get the grass area in those. Yeah, the the two culde-sacs in question are very large and so um yes, for the planning process, we would look at the radiuses for fire trucks sanitation to make sure that they could still navigate. Okay, thank you.

Okay, moving into the seven sisters subdivision, which is our project area. This is along Enterprise Street um to the west of South Virginia Dair Trail. And this flooding hotspot currently um just has a a lack of infrastructure along Enterprise Street and experiences uh flooding during storm events as well as backflow from the existing uh swale and channel that borders South Virginia Dair Trail to the west here. Um and currently the driveways of these properties along Enterprise Street are graded such that the the bottom um is of the driveways are utilized for channel and and swale conveyance um versus you know typically thinking about a driveway that may be elevated to have a culvert go underneath it. These driveways are inverted such that it it allows that water to to be channelized down. Um so what we would propose for this project consists of again installing a new um storm drainage system consisting of the HTP sock pipe as well as regrading uh some of these driveway inlets um and allowing water to uh outfall into the existing swale on South Virginia Trail. um as well as installing backflow prevention to ensure that water does not enter the system from the swale um along South Virginia Air Trail. Moving into the South Old Road project area, this was another one that we have split out into a phase one and then a potential phase two. Um given the proximity of this site to the sound, um really it it becomes a matter of what is feasible to do here and what will provide uh a measurable benefit. And so for phase one, um we are proposing to install a new storm drainage trunk line

along South Old Road here to help capture and store some of the runoff. Um I believe it's only seven or eight acres in total that drains down through here. So, it's not a lot of drainage, but the problem is um between the the low spot there and the proximity to the sound and also getting some overwash from um there's a channel uh just through here. I'm not sure if you can see it with some of the the contours, but there's a um a channel that drains some of the golf course and so there's some of that backs up into South Old Road. currently um there is an existing outfall uh that exists but there is no pipe um currently at the site. So we would propose to install a new outfall here and have it outlet before the existing wetlands um and install backflow prevention um at the outlet of this as well as uh at the northern end of the road as well. Um so that would be our phase one for this project. Phase two would be looking at the potential to acquire this parcel at the corner of uh West Lakeside Street and South Kotan Highway uh with the intent of converting it into an infiltration basin and pumping the water from South Old Road um up to an elevation that has more separation from the water table such that it can infiltrate. Um, so really that that's what you're looking at with the South Road project and with the Southside Road project to provide a a meaningful reduction in the flow to see a lasting impact. You're really looking at pumping the water out. Um, that's not to say that the the initial phase ones that we're proposing as part of the design um would not be beneficial. They will. It just will be a lesser degree versus, you know, pumping the water out to a higher elevation. If I can interrupt you again and I don't know if this is a question for Nancy or David.

I don't know how many backflow pre flap drain flap drains or otherwise we have in the town are we prepared for the maintenance? I mean because if you know Yeah. How do we keep it from do they ever get stuck?

Well, if they're not maintained Yeah, they will. I I want to say that we have close to a dozen flap gates or or backflow preventers in town and yes, from a maintenance standpoint, you you definitely have to pay attention and keep your eyes on it. Um I know on some of our ocean outfalls, we we do have some some flap gates as well as other infrastructure throughout town um just to um address some of those tailwater conditions that can be detrimental. Yes, it does introduce an additional layer of maintenance um to ensure that they don't get clogged, they don't get caught up, and that you still have continuous flow through the systems. Okay, thank you.

But it's one of those where the risk out or the benefits outweigh the risks as long as we're maintaining them.

They they do and you'll see and as we go through um we've goten different areas where we've got title connections to the ocean, tidal connections to the sound, and we get that inner tidal flow sometimes, and we're looking at trying to minimize that um because that can have an adverse effect in some of the groundwater conditions and infiltration and everything else. So um we we do understand from a maintenance perspective that you know that that provides an additional layer but it also provides a greater benefit on the front end.

Thank you David and I'll add one note to that. Um so the type of backflow prevention that we are would propose um you may see in in your packet a couple pictures of some flap gates that would be installed. So for the HDPE, the corrugated plastic pipes, it's really just a hose clamp that gets installed at the outfall of the pipe with a a flap gate um that would prevent versus some of the the CMP corrugated metal pipes that outfall into the sound have a much more robust um backflow prevention flapgate device. So the the degree of maintenance will also vary depending on which type of pipe and what material it's being installed for as well.

Is the maintenance more for just the basic one? I would say less arguably less. Yeah. And it's all plastic. I assume that. Correct. On the PVC, it's a plastic gate with a plastic uh arm. So, correct. Are you saying that the flap gate is at the very end of the pipe? Correct. So, you can see it if it's not open. Correct. It's not up inside the pipe.

Correct. And we made note of that um for the I believe the Barracuda project hotspot. A couple pipes that outfall into the swale that borders South Croatan to the to the west. There are corrugated metal pipes there currently that do have um very old flap gates. And so we were able to document that with our conditions assessment. um some of those flat gates that have have failed over time, but all right, moving into the Wellbone Junction um flooding hotspot. This is located um near Gulfream Street and South Old Oregon inlet Road um adjacent to the park and uh Janette's Pier. Um currently this site um near the Duneberger restaurant in particular uh the parking lot experiences some flooding um due to runoff from South Virginia Dair Trail that comes up from the north. Um currently there again in this location is um a lack of infrastructure to either store this water or convey this water downstream. Um so our design for this project is split into two segments. And so the first segment on the north side would be to install a a valley curb or curb ramp um in front of the Duneburgger parking lot and regrade that corridor of the road and connection to the parking lot as necessary for that along with some uh curb inlets there to capture that water and then convey that northward to tie into an existing storm drainage system which flows through uh the Wellbone Park area Um and then on the southern end of our proposed improvements is a new um 18inch HDPE uh storm drainage trunk line um along

some of these driveway entrances. Uh there's a swale there currently um and water uh ponds in those areas as well. And so just getting all of that water below the ground um and also tying that into the existing channel um which comes across there's a pipe uh that goes ac across Gulf Stream Street and then outfalls into a swale here um that ultimately drains and and flows across and outfalls into the sound. Um the third component of our proposed design for the wellboom junction hotspot would be the installation of a flat gate uh backflow prevention device at the outfall of the existing 30-in HDP pipe. Um I believe there's another image of what that type of backflow prevention device would look like. Um but we all do also understand that a component of the flooding issue at this hot spot is backflow um that comes from the sound and enters this storm drainage system which inhibits its conveyance capacity and potential to drain some of these upstream uh flooding areas. moving moving excuse me to the south um of the south old Oregon inlet road uh near the ramp one outfall. Um really the main item with this location is just uh that the existing corrugated metal outfall pipe experiences backflow from the sound and gets into the swale on the western side of South or Oregon and Inlet Road which inhibits its ability to drain. And so we would propose for this project to install a new junction box and uh flat gate uh backflow prevention um along the existing 36 in uh outlet pipe. And again I believe in the the concept exhibit the image of of what that type of flat gate prevention would be would be a little bit different since

this is a corrugated metal pipe. um we would be retrofitting into a junction box versus having a backflip prevention at the outfall of an HDP pipe such as in the other flooding hotspots. So really just installing a backflip prevention for this site. And then moving into Memorial Avenue, um as David mentioned previously, uh the trunk line of Memorial Avenue going all the way up to 8th Street on the north end um has two outfalls into the ocean. And so we spent a good bit more time with this uh trunk line in particular um running hydraologic and hydraulic analyses. We built a model um delineated drainage areas to individual inlets and pipes along this system to analyze the capacity uh the conveyance capacity and and see where some of the critical areas are that could really benefit from either upsizing the pipe or replacing the pipe. Um and in some areas it it came down to just the fact that in the existing conditions some of the pipes are reverse graded. Um so not as conducive to u positive drainage not severely reverse graded but um just you know having the outlet invert higher than the inlet. Um, and so with all of that, we are uh coordinated with David in the town and boiled the results of that analysis into four areas in particular along South Memorial Avenue that we believe will best benefit uh from some storm drainage improvements. And so the first of those areas um is this project area one uh here along South Memorial Avenue. Um Graham, do you recall what this street I'm trying to if there's a label for where this is located.

Atlas Street. Okay. You may be able to see it more clearly on the map in the exhibits. Um so our modeling indicated that in the existing condition, these pipes flow full in the one-year storm event. Um the town's level of service standard um and and target goal is the 10-year storm. Um and so we just determined that these these culverts in particular could benefit from uh replacement. Um some constraints at this location, there is an existing water mane um in the area. It is on the um the southern or the western side um of the road. Um but just given the proximity to that and other utilities anticipating that being a constraint with construction. Um and also uh across the South Memorial Avenue trunk line um the town also does have the standard of having the minimum 24in diameter pipe uh recommended uh for storm drainage improvements. So that is what we proposed here as well. Um and then as part of this design we would regrade um the new storm drainage pipes such that they would be positively graded and a little bit more conducive to uh to flow. The second area um on South Memorial Avenue that we identified was uh near Admiral Street. Um our modeling indicated that the system does flow full in the 10ear storm. So it would be meeting a a lesser level of service. Um a couple key issues with the site um again is uh the reverse grading or negatively slope pipes in the existing condition um proximity to existing water man and some other utilities in the area. Um, so our design for this project

would consist of upsizing the existing 24 inch HP pipe to a proposed 30-inch pipe and also would integrate with ongoing construction and improvements uh there near Admiral Street for uh storm drainage and sidewalk um that is either currently under construction or or nearing construction of this site. Um I believe that is it for this one. The third area uh that was identified along the South Memorial Avenue trunk line was near Bonnet Street, the intersection. Um there is a pipe, it's an existing 15-inch pipe which crosses South Memorial Avenue. Um our modeling indicated that this pipe uh search charges in the two-year storm event. Um it is also restricted by downstream conveyance capacity. Um so we would propose upsizing this to a I believe a 24 in HDP um just to provide some relief and um additional conveyance capacity of that system. And then finally for area 4 um the hot spot that was identified along South Memorial Avenue is near the East Baltic Street intersection. Um our modeling indicated that this site uh sirch charged in the two-year storm event. And so when we charge. We mean that the existing pipe would be flowing full or that the water would the elevation would be above the the crown or the top of the pipe such that it would be potentially coming out of the structure or backing up upstream of the structure. Um again uh key constraints of this site um include proximity to existing water man and other utilities in the area as well as restriction by downstream conveyance. Um and so with all of these

each of these four project areas along South Memorial Avenue. Um, we had to assess the location of the site in relation to the sizing and type of pipe material that is upstream and downstream to make sure that our proposed design fits in um, appropriately. Considering that um, so for this one, our proposed design includes upsizing the existing 24in corrugated metal pipe to be 30-in um, HDP storm pipes. Um, and also regrading some of the swailes along the eastern shoulder of South Memorial Avenue uh to be a little bit more conducive for positive drainage. And the last flooding uh hotspot and proposed project that we have is project area 13 um on East Upstream Street, I believe, pretty close to here at Town Hall. Um really this one uh we did some additional modeling at this site and um deemed that some existing portions of the 24inch pipe that is there currently is uh hydraulically insufficient for its upstream drainage area. Um and so we're proposing to upsize a stretch there um from the uh northern side of East Epstein Street to um there is a dual 24 in pipe that flows back to the west here um and outfalls into a ditch um on the east side of South Croan Highway. So, we'd be proposing to upsize um a couple sections of existing 24 to be 30-inch pipe um to increase that conveyance and increase the hydraulic capacity of the pipe. Um on the uh western side of South Croatan Highway is the fire station 16. Um where there have been some previous uh recent improvements to the pipe which crosses

the entrance to the fire station. Um I believe that was upsized to be a a 36 inch pipe. And so a component of our design would be to also upsize the bounding pipes to that to also be 36 um to better promote uh conveyance. So, taking all of that information, um, all of our projects, um, the next step that we will have, and David will speak more to this, um, as he wraps up next steps, um, but what we will do next is, uh, pri prioritize each project. Um, and we will look to use the town storm water management standard operating procedure to do that and follow the table that you can see there. Um, which lists several factors such as the frequency of flooding, um impact of flooding, the system condition, um constraints of the site. Um a big one is the the budgetary estimate or cost estimate for the project. And really boil that all that information down into a uh the prioritized score for each project. Uh similar to how we prioritized all of our survey uh asset conditions assessment information as previously discussed. And so the next step will be to compile a a prioritized capital improvement project list um for the city's consideration. An additional component of this project is a watershed action plan um which is addresses uh some impaired waters uh that currently exist along the Rono Sound shoreline and between Drachis Ridge. You can see the star on the northern end. um to the the well bone junction area on the southern end. Um following the um EPA 9 element wershed

plan to um assess the the wershed and the contributing drainage areas to each of those impaired waters. Um assess the potential for some redevelopment or water quality retrofits within those drainage areas. And really with the the goal of this to be to tee those potential projects up for um uh section 19 or 319 grant funding through uh the EPA. Um so this will be a uh interactive story map uh similar in nature to what we provided um for our survey and asset condition assessment um as well as a a portion of our final report um covering the scope of this watershed action plan. and I will turn it over to David to discuss deliverables.

While you're still there, I have one more question. I didn't want to interrupt. David, you can come on up. This is going to be this is going to be brief. Back to um project area 10 where we're putting the flap gate in in that ditch, but it looks like the bank of that ditch might not be looking at the grades. And I realize this is rough. Is the the bank of that ditch might not be any higher than about elevation four. And we have elevations four and five in the park. So, do we need a a burm or some other kind of protection on the north and west side of the park? I mean, we bother to put in a flap gate. What if it what if the water just over tops the the ditch? So, where we have the flap gate positioned is on an existing drop inlet structure just on the uh north side of the park. And yes, like you alluded to that there is a connecting ditch that runs from uh south to north and then crosses South Groen Highway and goes over to the catfish farm.

Right. and and so yes, the elevations there at the park are right around a five for the finished grades. Um the bottom of that ditch is probably somewhere around a one and a half or a two uh in reference to mean sea level. So yes, there there could be some additional grading that could be done in connection with that to provide additional protection to the park and any backflow water through there. Okay. All right. That's all. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So, a lot to digest.

Um so, what uh when we look forward to next steps, um we'd like to go ahead and get your feedback on on these concepts. Um, you know, these are are still very conceptual in nature and uh they they can be adapted as needed. Uh, I know we do have some some easements. We've got some property acquisition. Um, some of those we've got a little bit of flexibility and so uh there's nothing set in stone for those. Uh, and we know that when we get to that point, you know, sometimes, you know, We're making some estimates here and in reality they may not work out. So um when we looked at each one of these project areas we we try to give ourselves the most flexibility to be able to adapt. And so um yeah so we would like to go ahead and get your feedback um if you have a chance just to go through the materials that have been given to you. Um any comments or questions that you have um yes we'll go ahead and we'll take them and see what we can do to incorporate that. And then um late summer um we'd like to come back to you with that prioritization um of these of these concept drawings. So then we can go ahead and move forward to uh CIP listing for next year where we can go ahead and um have a plan in place uh to be able to um to carry these projects forward. Um and then in the interim there are some other action items with the watershed action plan and then the finalizing the storm water master plan. And again um in November um we estimate that would be the time frame to come back to you to go ahead and wrap up all the deliverables and finalize

that report and present out to you. Great. And um we'll be glad to take any uh questions or comments you have. Board question. What's the total of everything that needs to happen? What is the big number of all the projects if anybody's added it up? I don't know. I was like totally in my brain. So, um, broken up to all current phases, not accounting for future potential phases, the total is about $3.9 million. Wow. For all 17 areas.

Considering future phases, integrating into that is an additional 2 and a.5 million um for a grand total of everything being about $6.4 million. Okay. and and we can go ahead and share that table with you if it's not. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, if you would please. Yeah, no questions. Just thank you so much. Especially those I'm excited about this together. Yeah. No, I don't have any questions. It's a lot to appreciate.

It's a great job. I mean, I really I really think this is very well done. Thank you. It's very comprehensive. So, no quiz, right? Thank you. We sat down and maybe a pop quiz. We sat down and reviewed this um a couple weeks ago. And what I was impressed with is there's so many different ways to slice and dice this. Yeah. Like there's different phases and different levels of service you can achieve. And you know, you could do the first phase and see how it works and then decide if you want to do the second or the third, whatever, you know. But there's just so many ways to cut this up and also incorporate it in with our existing drainage work we do as part of our neighborhood paving work.

Some of the is some of the soundside road is that already incorporated in the eastern shoreline project or it is it is not it's not okay. All right. But not to say that we can't create opportunities to do so. Right. Well, it was it's a teeny tiny note on the drawings, but it's a really big issue where it says coordinate with, you know, the Eststerine Shoreline project. So, yeah, that's and this might be a dumb question, but if you are applying for a grant for storm water projects, it has to be specifically for one of these things. You can't just say we need stormwater money. That that is correct. That you basically have to have an actionable project to be able to carry forward.

Okay. All right. Awesome. Great. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. All right. Um I think that brings us to the end. All right. That's it. Well then, um motion to motion to adjurnn. I make that motion to adjurnn. Second. All right. All in favor say I. Opposed. Thank you. All right. We are adjourned.