Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Morning everyone. Call the Montgomery County Planning Commission meeting, monthly board meeting for Wednesday, May 14th to order. Uh let the record show we do have a quorum in the room. Uh we are uh we have Nicole and Sandre joining us online. Um and both are expected to be in the room at some point. Um that I'll start with any board comments. Any board comments before we get started with our agenda? Okay. Um then I would ask for a motion to approve the Montgomery County Planning Commission's regular monthly board meeting minutes for April 9th, 2025. Is there a motion? So move. Move. Is there a second? Second. Move the second. There any comments or corrections in the meeting minutes? Seeing none, all the are there any negative votes in in approving the meeting minutes? Okay. And we'll have uh public comment. Is there any public or staff comment before we get started with our agenda? In the room, online, under the table, any of the above. Right. With that, then we'll move on to our first order of business, which is MONCO 2050 advisory committee update on people, places, and jobs. And it wouldn't be a meeting without Ann. Good morning, I'm have to start I'm gonna have to start doing Chloe, too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna have to start getting sick of me also. Never start. Um, morning. Morning. We have a new laser.

That's a laser. No, that's just a laser. Okay, that's fun. I promise not to point it at Stephen. All right. Um, it's not a lightsaber, right? Not a lighter. Um, that's okay. So, um, Chloe and I are here to present to you this morning the last of our topical presentations on MONA 20150, at least the the background information and the research that we've been doing into creating Mona 2050. Um, this is people, places, and jobs. It is a combination of information on demographics, um, economics, um, local downtown development. Um, so there's a lot in here. And, um, if you want to go to Oh, I get to go, right? Yes. Okay. Um, this is pretty much where we're at. So um for those of you who are new to this comprehensive planning process, I guess um we have been meeting uh with an advisory committee of individuals and since the summer of last year we and we had been working on this plan prior to that. This is we are several years in and the advisory committee is about to hear from us in mid June on what we think the um vision themes goals recommendations of the plan is going to be. So that that is a big jump for us. This is the last of the the key topics I suppose. So we are we taking all of this information

then shifting gears a little bit. Um but these presentations to all of you follow what we have presented to the advisory committee. Um next slide. Oh I keep asking for that. All right. So uh people places. So, back in uh the summer of 2024 when we first started meeting with the advisory committee, we we had breakout sessions and we talked about how people thought they wanted to see Montgomery County in 2050. And once everyone got over the fact that they probably wouldn't be around in 2050, we we thought about like how we wanted to envision. People wanted to see population that was active and healthy. They wanted a good quality of life for everyone. They wanted uh strong, diverse leadership at all levels of government and and across the county, strong downtowns. They wanted to see Nortown and Pottstown become um even better than they are today. And and that the county would continue to be businessfriendly and to attract um new new jobs, new employment opportunities and new sports tourism. That was Mike Bowman's com for sure. Um and so then we revisited this topic with the advisory board um the advising committee on in our February meeting where we talked about this topic and um and that people's feelings are still still pretty much the same but we got more in depth. We want we wanted to uh ensure that people who weren't necessarily collegebound had ways to train and gain meaningful employment. Um how can we attract lower wage workers uh that may not have the income to drive to

where their skills are needed business and employee um recruitment and attraction. Well, we talked a lot about um mental health issues and how we can provide opportunities for people to socialize and interact and and find meaningful ways to to meet other people. Um we also talked about how it costs a lot of money to go out and enjoy oneself. Um and that people don't always have the budget for that sort of thing. Uh we talked about again we talked about being a business friendly county and how the planning commission can support being business friendly through working with communities to provide them with the zoning advice they need to track the right kinds of uses. Okay. Um we say this every time we come up here to present to you but this is not necessarily a topic that exists by itself. um our demographics, our job centers, our our growth is connected to all of the other topics that will end up in the comprehensive plan, connected to how and where we grow, uh how we get around, uh where we preserve open space, and certainly connected to where people want to live. Yeah. Uh, moving on to the trends. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of demographic trends and then Chloe is going to talk more about uh commerce and economic development. So, um, our demographics in the county are shifting. Uh, that's no surprise, I think. Um, as of the uh 2023 American Community Survey, um, census data collection, this is a fiveyear estimate on our population and and where it exists. Um, we're we're changing. Uh, we are still primarily a Caucasian

uh, county. U, these are these are, you know, statistics that people selfidentify. Um, so we are still primarily Caucasian, but the numbers of people who identify as Hispanic have increased since um the 2010 census, I believe, uh, by 59%. People who identify as African-American are up nearly 20%. Uh, our Asian population and people who identify as two or more races have increased significantly as well. So while on the surface you would look at this pie chart and say well still mostly white um our diversity is changing and that matters because I mean it matters to a lot of people in a lot of different ways but it matters to the county and how we communicate with people, how we deliver services to the public. Um and it and this underscores that that information as well that not everyone in the county is a proficient English speaker. Um, we certainly are still primarily a county where people can and do speak English, but we have a significant portion of the population that speaks other languages at all or doesn't speak English at all. Um, we need to be mindful of how we communicate not just the planning commission's data and information, but how we um provide access to our parks and trails and what our wayfinding system be. Uh, how we let people know that we have senior services or provide flu shots or or other health services. People should move to Montgomery County and feel welcome. Um Scott just mentioned to me that that is likely going to be a topic of conversation at tomorrow's commissioners meeting. So you know making sure that we are mindful of these demographic shifts and how we work is I think important

and what's the difference between those two signs of um we'll see because it's up there you know on the left side is household what what language households speak at home that isn't about whether they can speak English or not it's about what they do speak what they in their own house So 16% of households speak a language other than English at home. That's right. Regardless of whether or not those people know know how to speak English. And then on the right is the percent of households that have no one in the household who speaks English proficiently. So only 2.4% which is still thousands of households of of households there's no one in the household that speaks English well. Um, but on the left you can see that 16% of households don't speak English at home. They speak another language at home. They choose to. They choose to. Right. So maybe it's for the fluency of their children to to learn a language other than English or that they're more comfortable in for whatever reason, right? They like my former in-laws uh are Russian and they certainly can and do speak English, but at home much too. It means I don't understand a word they say. They like obviously talking about you. Exactly. That's exactly right. All right. Uh moving on to how we are uh aging. Some of our communities are are home to more older residents than others. Um in 2020, the median age of our residents really varies by uh geography. Some places you are probably not surprised to see have a young population. um places with um college like college as a relatively younger population. Other communities maybe that are home to more age restricted communities and other uh senior friendly

amenities have interesting to see how our communities differ in this. And are all those burrows very young? Is that why they're all like It's hard to see whether they're white with nothing or they're the lightest 25 to 30. They're the lightest color. So, that's a very interesting. That's very interesting. For lots of reasons. Jen Town stands out as different from some other talking about colleges. Do the college students register in the census? Half assume that they do. Yeah. Um because a lot of college students don't choose their it doesn't matter where their permanent address is. What the census asks anyway, I mean people respond how they respond is like where did you sleep? Like where were you living on April 1 of the census year? Like where were you living at that time? So if people answer that accurately, it's for kids in dorms. Yeah. Otherwise, I couldn't imagine how a place like Brenath would show up as having a church. The church church. Yeah. Church. That's it. Another trend that we wanted to highlight that more people who live alone by themselves are seniors. um these people don't necessarily live alone, but more and more so our our single person households are made up by uh people who are 65. And so this again has implications for how communities plan for the future, how we deliver transportation services like shuttles uh or other group transport options. Um, but also thinking about how some people may have more space than they need in their homes. County, for example, has a

pilot program where people who have uh excess bedrooms can share their home with someone uh whether it's for a small amount of rent or uh some sort of barter of of services and assistance. Um but thinking about how we might you know leverage this to our benefit is important. Um but also how we enable people to continue living safely alone. That's how they want to. Um next trends that we're growing in population. Um and these are updated projections from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Uh, as of the 2020 census, Montgomery County had about 856,000 people. Um, when I look at these numbers, it um it's interesting to me to see just how much bigger we are than our the other counties that we consider to be our peers. We really are kind of in a league of our own, but in terms of our population, we kind of are. uh and we're continue we're slated to continue to grow but it's not because people are uh having lots of children. It is because we are um we're getting we're growing through migration uh that people are moving here from within the country or from elsewhere and that that is really what is fueling our population growth. Whether or not that changes due to a federal policy, hard to say, but um this is the the current projection that we will grow uh to over 100,000 residents or what we'll grow by over 100,000 residents by 2015. Uh and I know we keep talking about this and we've mentioned it before. So that we are we anticipate that some of our communities are going to grow a lot. uh some won't grow very much but almost everywhere we see some level of growth taking place. Um

Bridgeport at the bottom of the list um it is a percent change but you know there's a lot of construction taking place in Bridgeport right now and we anticipate that those homes will be built by new residents. So um it's still fairly a small population that lives there but percentage wise population what's the population? Um IC couple thousand typical borrow. Yes. Yes. Um but you know over time maybe it looks a little bit more like a Kra Hawin and less like a Bridgeport. any green lane and we would be up to six instead of whatever those new sidewalks that we're helping to pay for. Did you see that? Are they done? No, but there's they're they're dug out. Step in the right direction. More than ready for that. So, those sidewalks will bump it up to eight people. They're so narrow. They're so narrow that I'm afraid we're going to drop in population if anybody tries to use them. So, I'm not quite sure. You think that 2.4% would warrant another traffic light out there? No. I don't think so. So, here are here are the raw numbers. Raw numbers. So, okay. We had 12 people in 30. No, there's 30. No need to panic. Um, that's 2050. So, you got time into that. You don't want to do it. Um, why is it different? This is not% This is absolute. No, I'm

looking Oh, you know why? Because I'm looking at the wrong page of my news. Okay. Uh, next trend. pandemic upended how and where we work, but the county continues to attract the job growth. Um, we have lots and lots of people working here and lots of people who live elsewhere and commute to Montgomery County uh for the opportunity to work here. Uh, but what was interesting to us when we looked at these numbers is just how many people commute from fairly far away. um Montgomery County job number or these are people who live and work in Montgomery County. That top line um in blue I guess that number has gone down over time with a um percent of people who have who live and work here has gone down over time. Um, the numbers of people who live elsewhere and work here, the one that has gone up the most is this magenta one. People who live in locations that are not the ones listed below. Don't live in Lehi, Lancaster, Bucks. They live further away. Uh, I couldn't tell you if these people are telecommuting or only coming to Montgomery County once or twice a week, but they are living elsewhere and working here. And so, it could be because that's what works best. It could be because they can't afford to live here. Um, it could be because they go other places a couple times a week. But we found this kind of interesting that the shift is to distance. Do you know how I'm definitely really curious. Do you know how that question was phrased? So if you work for like Merc or that's that's in Montgomery County, but you live in South Carolina, would you say you work in South Carolina or you work for in Montgomery County where Merc is? Do you know how it was

phrased? It's where the place of work is. So my hypothetical you would say you work in Montgomery County. So that then maybe it's in line with kind of the pandemic for exactly the hypothetical I gave which is if you moved to South Carolina during the pandemic but you work for Merc you say I work in Montgomery County but you don't live anywhere near here. True but you can look at this line you see the last three years are 2020 2021 and 2022 but they're continuing a trend that did not start in 2020. So, um, I think I'm sure it's a combination of things and people. I'm sure some of it is people who are only working remotely, but not all of it, I don't think. And, you know, the other one that's gone up is Chester County in the red. It's a little hard to see. It hasn't gone up all that much, but most of the other ones are fairly flat, which is kind of This one darker orangey red color is Chester. So that's gone up a little bit from 5% to maybe closer to seven and a half or 8%. So the number of the people in Montgomery County percentage has gone down. Do you know what the absolute number is? People that are No, I don't have that number in front of me. The number of people that both live and work in the county, it's it's gone up very slightly. So even though the percentage has gone down, the absolute number has gone up, right? Okay. because job growth has been huge, right? And when you look like at like like with the Chester number right across into Chester, whether it's Phoenixville or right across from Pottstown where the development, if you look at those maps, you can see that there are people, you know, growing in those communities that just come across the river, you know, right? It's not not hard to imagine a short commute from a place. I'm surprised that Burks is not higher because the housing prices I've always thought were so much less in Burks and you could come into Montgomery County to work more easily. I'm

surprised that that hasn't All right. Um I believe I got one more slide to share with you and then I'm I'm switching to Chloe. Uh how people Yes. Um we've certainly had a a growth in people who work from home. That is no surprise. Um even here for people who work from home. But um something that struck us as interesting here is how people use public transportation. Lots of people drive to work by themselves. That's not a surprise. But um we we'd like to tout that Montgomery County has excellent access to public transportation. Um whether or not it keeps running, I couldn't tell you. But um we've got 3% of the county's population who takes public transit to work, but just um not that different than Bucks County and Chester County, places that don't have the same kind of access that we do. Um so we were we were kind of surprised to see that the numbers were so relatively low. Um in any case with that uh Chloe is going to start to talk about more uh job related information. Okay. So we looked a little at what is what types of jobs within the county are predicted to grow. I mean, we're they're still forecasting very significant job growth in Montgomery County. More jobs, new jobs. What kinds of jobs are they going to be? This is everything that had uh more than 10% 10% or more predicted growth that also had more than like a hand than like 700 people total. So the anything with super tiny amounts of

people we didn't count but um you can see that the largest sector that's predicted to grow is home healthcare and personal care aids. Traditionally a sector that hasn't paid particularly well. Um but not a surprise that there's going to predicted to be like a strong need for that. So that's something to keep in mind. Um most of the rest of the jobs that are predicted to have growth have something to do with computers. uh information data. Um so you can see software quality assurance, software developers, computer programmers, system analysts, user support, IT um are all predicted to have high rates. And then we also see some things in the realm of social work. Um human services, child and family social work, and nurses. And the one kind of standout here, nonfarm animal caretakers is also among our micro vectors. That's like um uh dog walkers, doggy daycare people. Yeah. And I think like animal shelters and veterinary assistance and things. An actual veterinarian is a separate job but things in that realm. So interesting to note computer people. Um and then this is just showing jobs per population here. So these blue communities have more jobs than residents. And not surprisingly that most of the county has more residents than jobs. Um although there's some where it's pretty close. Um see our upper Marin is one that gets uh some public, you know, gets talked about as a place that has more jobs than people, but it's not the only place in the county that has more jobs than people. But we can see that. So, this is where jobs are located throughout the

county. Um, and the the concentrations are where the dark darker red and the brighter red are. But one thing we noted looking at this is that some of our older communities um that have great transit access don't necessarily have tons of jobs. So like Khaken is a little bit of an exception to that, but um a lot of these jobs are more located along highway corridors than along transit corridors. Um so that might be why we don't see as many people taking transit to work as we might expect. Uh and so thinking about where are our jobs and then where are our our people centers, where are our downtowns, where's our commerce, where is our fun and and should those be the same places? Uh, do we want them to be separate like they kind of are now? I mean, obviously there are jobs in our downtowns, but it depends. So, this is the map from MCO 2040. Um, thinking about where our older downtowns and main streets are located throughout the county. A lot of times on historic transit corridors, but not always. um what makes those great places and whether we want to try to make some of our job centers into more great places like these downtowns or whether we want to make our downtowns have more jobs or both. Um it's kind of a question for the future weigh in on. Another note on terms of places is that our malls are serving different functions than they used to. Uh, some of them are definitely struggling, but pretty much all of them have evolved. This is a dog parade inside a mall, uh, Lego lands. You know, they're doing things that different things than they used to do for us. Um, think about how that might play out in the future. Um, right. So another trend, we have

shopping shopping centers spread throughout the county and we're not seeing huge increase in retail square footage that the county has seen for decades now. So that's probably going to continue along those same lines. Um shifting a little to think about people and places. Um people are thinking more about health since the pandemic, both physical and mental health. and it's something that we've seen an increase in usage of parks and trails and outdoor events. Uh Montgomery County is considered a very healthy county by state and national ranking factors. Um so that's great. Uh we have those of you who were on the board a year ago, we showed you a version of this, but we have updated data from 2023 on uh children's mental health. This is a survey that's given to sixth, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders every other year. Um, asking them questions. This says, uh, are you feeling sad or depressed most days, even if you feel okay sometimes? And, um, the a lot of them were up in 2021, which was not that surprising because I think the pandemic was really hard on all of us, but definitely on kids. Um, and then the older kids, it's back down for 2023. I mean, this is still still relatively high and still concerningly high, but we see the trend reversing. Eighth graders down a little bit, but sixth graders, not really. So, um, still see, uh, lower than the the the sixth graders who feel sad or depressed. most of the time is lower than the state, but it's up from what it was pre- pandemic. And then some of

these other ones are the 2021 numbers were higher than the the current state, but uh eighth uh yeah, all of them I think are lower than the state. Anyway, except for question the board charts are the exact wording of that question on your Yes. Thank you. Thanks. In the past 12 months, have you felt depressed or sad? Most days, even if you feel okay sometimes, it's still a staggering number. It's still It still feels very high. Very high. Yeah. But how much also is the talk of mental health that children don't might not have known? I mean, you know, I mean, the awareness even of parents of these issues with their children. I mean I I I I'm not trying to minimize these numbers but the awareness and the conversations where there may never have been a conversation what it is when you're very young what it you know that it's acce acceptable even to acknowledge or what just the the the breath and depth of understanding of emotional issues and kids only goes back to 2000 only goes back 10 years. So thinking you know, they can't necessarily compare it with our with our childhood because it doesn't go back that way. I think if we went back to where our childhood maybe you're right where that mental health aspect wasn't necessarily talked about or right or even you know contemplated in the open like it is today. It's more readily more of an open conversation than it used than it used to be especially when I was growing up. So,

um, but this only goes back to 2015 and it's a probably weren't gauging this or even asking these questions, you know, 35. I'm not sure how long the survey has been running. How about far back? Well, we know we know that it's consequential and it's it's uh an area of great concern and what we do about it with the comprehensive plan is then really well close to 30% you know eighth grader in almost all of this staggering. It is staggering. But if you stop to think that two and five kids feel feel sad or depressed most days like that a lot. It is a No, that's what I'm saying. I'm not trying to minimize it. I just want to understand it's more socially acceptable I think to voice these feelings. That's right. That's and it's an anonymous survey. So that's what I'm Thank you. Thank you for coaling my my brain. I hear you understandable. But I also I look at how my sixth grader socializes with his peers. It's it's remote, right? You're you hang out and you play video games that it's not the same as being face to face with your friend and goofing off in the backyard. It's times are different. So something to be aware of. There's definitely some kids who are struggling in this area. Many many kids are struggling. Sorry. That's right. And then finally, you know, we've looked at some data related to this in the past, but this was some new um a new study that was done called Children First. Uh if you have a few months ago, um it looked at uh if you divide all

households in the county up by income into five groups. So you've got 20% of households that make the highest income. They're up here and then this is adjusted for inflation. So in real dollars they're the highest income group has increased their income over time. The middle groups have stayed more or less the same um gone up a tiny bit in in all of them. And the lowest group in adjusted dollars has actually gone down over time. So these folks, 20% of households, these are just Montgomery County households um are now in this realm where their their median is, uh less than $18,000 per year. So we see overall median incomes going up over time. We see lots of households doing well, and I think it's important to realize that there's some that are not. And in terms of real real money, they're doing worse than they were previously. So, uh this you also saw before some of you uh again same thing. This is this is a measure of um what it actually costs to live here. So, the United Way does this because the federal poverty level is set so unbelievably low that even people making double or triple the federal level poverty level still struggle to meet basic expenses. So they calculate kind of what's the minimum you can get by on to live and eat and get where you need to go and then they figure out what percentage of households are making less than that. So there United Ways calculation is that in Montgomery County 29% of households are not making enough to meet basic expenses. But then if you break that out by group you can see that some groups are struggling more than others. single parent female headed

households with children, 62% don't make enough to meet basic expenses. Households where the householder is under 25 years old uh are not are are struggling and black households only 50% um and then households 65 and older 45%. So those there's um definitely some households that that are that are not making enough money to meet what need very basically to make a income. So what's that what's Alice? Alice stands for asset limited income constrained and employed. So those are um well they what they look at is the gap between the federal poverty level and what you need to meet basic expenses. But these numbers represent those added together. So the 29% is just anyone making less than what they've assessed any household making less than what they've assessed needs in the county. But they've named it for this this group of people which we know exists who are making more than the federal poverty level but still really really struggling to find housing to have enough and we just look at the number and we say I mean what planet are you on? Yeah. Yeah. Look at the federal poverty level numbers there. very few places Mars that's Elon's trying to hit make more than the federal poverty level you see. So this and the reason they've named it that asset limited income constraint and employed is that most of those households who are above the federal poverty level but still struggling are working. There's working people in those households often working full-time or multiple jobs. So they're looking really trying to focus attention on that population. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know the two numbers roughly off the top of your head? Federal poverty and the loss threshold. Um, well, it depends on the number of people in the household. So, the numbers are different for different sized households. So, I don't

have it at my fingertips, but I can get that for you. Okay. So, that's that's the data. uh it ends on kind of a downer and I think that those last two slides are really important to know about and keep in mind. Um but it's also great to recognize some of some of the great things about the county in terms of the the topics we're covering today. The county is really a jobs powerhouse. There's lots of jobs here and job growth has been very strong and is predicted to continue to be very strong. Um it's a very popular place to live. You know, we we talk about the problems that this creates in terms of demand for housing uh and transportation issues, but it's popular because it's a great place. I mean, the county has so much going well and overall residents are healthy uh on on lots of measures. Um Montgomery Countyy's residents and workers have opportunities to learn from each other's many cultures and experiences. We have more people moving here from other places. because we have increasing racial and langu linguistic diversity for a variety of reasons. That's exciting. That's great. Uh creates lots of opportunities. Um and we haven't really talked about this, but there are great higher education opportunities within and near the county. And overall residents are well educated and doing well. Uh okay. So this is I'll just preface this with we as a small group of staff have worked to try to create what is our vision for 2050 in terms of all of the stuff that we've talked about. Create these vision statements. There's going to be seven of them. I'll show you in a second. And then once we've sort of settle on what is our vision for 2050, then we work to set goals and recommendations.

the recommendations or actions that the county can take to try to help the county as a whole, the county government can take to help the county as a whole move towards our vision. Right? We don't have the power to do everything as the county government. There's a lot of power we don't have, but what do we want 2050 to look like in Montgomery County and what can we do to get there? So, we're just for the moment, what I'm going to show you is just what do we want 2050 to look like in the county as it relates to these topics? And I'd love your feedback and input on these things. Once we settle on those, we'll draft the recommendations for how we might get there. Okay, there's four on this page and three on the next page. So, let's just go through them and then we can talk about them. So, what do we dream for 2050? What do we want this place to be like in 2050? So, uh, in 2050, the diverse identities and heritages of Montgomery County residents will be recognized, celebrated, and appreciated. And we went back and forth on this last part with no one feeling marginalized. Maybe we take that out. I don't know. You can let me know what you think. In 2050, Montgomery County residents who are struggling will be able to find appropriate resources to support them. In 2050, Montgomery County will be a safe place to live and work with excellent public safety and emergency services meeting the needs of the communities. In 20150, many places in Montgomery County will be distinctive, offer a variety of activities, attract place people to spend time and support social connections and a sense of belonging. Talking about our places and then this is related to jobs in 20150 Montgomery County. before you do that first. We're sure. I'm going to ask you pause here. We need we need to circulate this whole presentation so folks can go back, take a look at it and let it um percolate. Yeah, some of us have had the benefit of seeing this additionally

through the working on the committee. It's a lot and it's a really important information that ties a lot of things together. You want to chat about these before you see the next ones, Steve? Um, fine. I mean, that's up to the group. You guys want to continue on or you want to absorb this first? Actually, I was just going to say in response to what you just said, Dulce, these are just some of the vision statements. And I'm I'm guessing that we will come back to the board with a presentation that's about all of the vision statements. And I'm wondering if we need dots. We need dots that people would prioritize. I mean because that's really I mean not that none of there's going to be something in every one of these vision statements that's important but how we prioritize them and how we Oh yeah that is really important. I think that's that's really true. Um this I guess what we're to clarify what we're looking for today is like seeing all the information kind of understanding what's going on in some of these areas the brief brush at it. What do we want to understand that? What do we want to take with from that to 2050? Like how will we envision some of this changing or staying the same or being better uh in 2050? That's what we're looking at at this point. My only comment is do we this vision statement, do we want to be as specific as some of these are or do we want to be more general and then use the goals to get into the specifics that some of these statements make? So because that's that's the way I I approach this. I think they're somewhat too specific for a vision statement but appropriate for for goals in your comprehensive. Can you give an example? Well um the third one so so just keep it at the level of safe place to live and work and then go into details in the in the want residents to be have less struggles financial struggles. are going to be

safe. Um, first you use some of the comments in here, but I would think that you would want to use some of these statements to be more goal oriented than vision statements. So in the end, I mean that's really this is just opening the door for the goals and then the goals are where you know as you know every year we we go back and look at comprehensive plan and see where we where we're headed with achieving some of those goals or where we're lacking in achieving those goals. I think that's when you want to that's where the the information should be a little bit more specific and should be a little bit more um aspirational and then we get down to action steps. That's also Have you historically done a couple or three goals around each vision statement? Is that the way it's structured? That isn't the way the last plan was structured. The vision was like this kind of couple pages at the end of the document and the goals were throughout. We're trying kind of try to tie them a little more together to picture what we want 2050 to be like and then what kinds of things need to happen in order for us to move in that direction towards that for 2050 to tie the tie the goals and recommendations a little closer to vision statements. s is the declaration of independence goals and objectives is the constitution kind of whatever you say. I guess I'm just wondering if if you as a board would benefit from looking at all of them all at once. Let's let's do the other one. Let's look at these three on this side. Montgomery County will continue to be an attractive place to start a business. Montgomery County will have wellpaying jobs in a wide range of sectors.

Montgomery County businesses and institutions will be able to find qualified workers for available jobs. Those are the jobs and workforce related first draft of them. These these seven vision statements address the issues that were brought up in the presentation. If we achieved these, if we reach this vision in 2050, will this get us there? Sure. I can go back and forth as many times as you like. There's no visions. There's no component of this that talks about the natural world and because that's not the topic we were on today. Oh, okay. So, we're just doing places and jobs. That's why Ann is saying there's a ton of other ones. What I'm asking is based on the presentation you just saw, did we address the issues that we raised there? I don't see anything. You know, we we all reacted to the the mental health issue. I don't see anything. just wondering that same thing. Yeah, it's incorporated tried to be incorporated in this um one but maybe we need something cuz you know financial struggles are very different from mental health struggles and and a lot of times they're they're connected that's true definitely so I think I think it would be worth in putting together the vision statement is to emphasize that there are specific I'm not telling you how to I'm not telling you specific ways I Right. But specific there there are struggles specific to financial and there there are struggles specific to mental health and that sometimes those are directly connected. Now I don't know that that's not a goal, right? But also, I think it's something worth putting in a vision

statement to to address that the county needs, the county should be proactively um addressing. Both of those struggles are increasing. I think that that's that's the one glaring thing that's missing from from our conversation, our reaction to the information you just presented. You go back to the other. Yep. Please. Yeah. Once again, I think my my opinion is communities can be coalesed into into one comment and then put in be more specific in Yeah. Be more specific in the goals. I I'd like to know, you know, we've got the goal for 2050, but how will Montgomery be the be Montgomery County be able to have well-paying jobs in a wide range of sectors from, you know, what's the ch what's going to change between 2025 and 2050 to have that end result? Yeah, that's go ahead. Yes, probably like the well-paying jobs and the uh be able to find, you know, qualified workers for available the jobs. What's what's the game plan for that? Well, I think that's the purpose of the comprehension plan is to set out those goals and let policy makers and policy makers determine how they how they see fit to to achieve those goals. And I think the the the uh recognition here is that it is going to take it's not a

fiveyear solution. It's a 10 20 year solution. And that should be something that so I think this sets out the the vision and the goals will set out the policy decisions being made today for what we envision from 2050. And I think in the next 25 years hopefully the policy makers are making the moves to meet those goals. When you're talking about policy makers, you're talking about townships in general and the county all levels we can do certain things but then what is our power things that are outside the realm of the county? How do we encourage incentivize that at the different levels of decision makers? Yeah. So I mean let's for instance you know the county's the county's goal the county's ability to affect change is in its relationship with the municipalities its ability to use its state state representatives and state senators to affect or to influence policy statewide that enables the county and also municipalities to do certain things. Um but then also the county has its own way of you know affecting its own mechanisms, its own departments as to how to you know incentivize businesses to come in here, incentivize, you know, we've talked about a bunch of things. Incentivize a whole bunch of things um and what what and how that gets done. So some of those things need to come from the state and aren't there. some of those need to be happen need to happen from from the municipalities and maybe there's not legislation to allow that to happen. So I think I mean it's much like we do in the count much like we do in the planning commission to come up with model ordinances. We come up with studies that set the groundwork for the things that we want to see change or we want to anticipate how they're going to change. And I think that's the idea

of the comprehensive plan. And I think it would direct planning commission, it would direct the the the department of health, it would direct whatever the infra in infrastructure to say if you want to meet this goal, this is how we plan on doing it over the next 25 years. We have resources. We have financial resources that we can leverage. you know, that's why the the 2040 um um the awards that we give out, you know, to incentivize behaviors that we put in the 2040 plan. Now, some of them were very small projects, $69,000, $15,000, but some of them are really big ones that leverage state grants or federal grants. Then we we have the bully pulpit of our conversations and our interactions with these municipalities to take ideas out and present them to decision makers who might not be getting them, you know, and the better our connection is with decision makers, which is really important. How we get the message out. And it's not just our um staff here that work with the 32 or 34 municipalities. We have contracts. It's how the county commissioners use their political and connectivity with these communities to get, you know, a more unified consensus of act activities. And the county has more power to do that than sometimes they realize. But that's what the comprehensive plan kind of focuses on and gives a path forward and it's policy, right? But it's a good question of like we can have this vision for 2050 and then what do we do about it? And it's different for different ones. So like this one the county has more influence over because we have a whole workforce training program and workforce staff that work for the county directly. So the recommendations can be things like um ensure the trainings that we

offer get updated frequently to meet the changing needs of employers in the past, right? which is kind of a softball because that is something they're already doing. But I think it's important to still say it, but we have a little I mean we can't solve everything, but we have a little more direct influence on this because we have our own county programs. You know, this is trickier. Uh but I think there are things we can do. We can encourage municipalities through zoning to allow things like uh community kitchens and um shared spaces where small retailers can can install, you know, things like that. There's the number of small things that we can work with partners to try to encourage and other types of things. That's just an example, but we come up with what kind of actions could we take that might in influence some of these things. Chloe, what in one of our uh previous meetings, I think it was the last one for um the advisory committee, there was a set of information on these jobs that we really need um people for the lower paying jobs for um mental health and education, for child care, for support services. But these other jobs at whatever a dozen, it said how many people we think we need, what education they will be needing to take that job, what the pay grades are. It was very concrete and I think extremely helpful for for us to understand but also I could see for high school kids or or the parents of high school children which way you kind of channel your children depending on what their interests are, what your financial, you know, support system can be. I thought that was really interesting because where those big needs for workers, how do we get people to want to do it? We certainly know housing and transportation, all that stuff, but people don't even know what those those jobs entail in training. There are a

couple jobs in there where you didn't need a whole lot of training, but there's a great need for people to work there. Other questions? Can can I just can you flip back to the to the previous It's a little bit of a tangent off of what Nelsey just said. Um is and I forgive me because I don't know the other categories beyond people, places, and jobs. Is there one that talks about education? When I think about people and I think about children coming out of high school, out of college, into Montgomery County, should there be a vision statement around our populace, our our younger populace being well educated and prepared to enter the workforce? I I don't know if that gets captured in another in another section on schooling or whatnot, but in specialty training school. Absolutely. a kid doesn't, you know, somebody doesn't somebody that's not not well tuned to go to a university or to a college for four years or whatever may find themselves better in a situation of a tech school or a school or or training for computers or for I mean there's there's plenty of programs that don't require you to go into college but also come out with enough come out with training that could provide you with a good job well educated does not equal college. Well, educated has a wide range of opportunities. I think that's an is that what you were Yeah. Yeah. I think just I mean again these are general but something around preparedness for career and and uh you know ensuring our our populace is well well educated and well prepared. I mean I have a good friend of mine whose son is you know would never have found his way in in college. went to tech school and you know came out as a welder and you know making making a good living and he found his way through something that wasn't traditional education. So

thanks for that. I'd also say um the graph about the um kids and their emotional well-being. I think we also need to understand that a lot of seniors who live alone which was another chart that you did also have lots of mental health issues and so when we get to the goals and objectives we don't want to leave that cohort of people out. Yeah, that's where the home health care increases can tell you about that. Other impressions? A lot of stuff. Yeah, a lot of stuff. Yeah, we can send out this PowerPoint and I can also send a link to the report that Dulsey mentioned, which I think is really interesting is done by in fact our uh workforce folks at the county about called careers of tomorrow or something. It's actually on their website, but I'll send a direct link to you guys so you can take a look at that. It's very interesting. and with all the the corporate entities and businesses, how we find that link to incentivize training programs or uh stipens to get people, which I'm sure there a lot of them are already doing, but this company has um a portal for you to learn skills that will help or are our are forgiveness. if you come and work for us for four years, we forgive um you know 50% of the debt that you have for whatever the training and those kind of things that will incentivize kids to fulfill these these spaces that we need filled. seems like you're you're constantly changing, you know, dog chasing, but at this point in 2025, in three and a half years, there's going to be another census. So, by the time this really comes out, it, you know, the numbers will be good for two and a half years, three years, and then like all these

numbers are going to potentially be impacted again. But they're also basing it off of trends. So, also I agree. Yeah, you're saying some of the numbers you're saying different, you know, those trends will either continue or they'll some things we get good data on every year and some things we only get good data on every 10 years. So, well, we need a reason to keep coming back and making presentations every month for jobs. Yeah. You know, it also underlines my feeling. The comprehensive plan is really important. You know, it's it's important for a vision and a pathway for decisions at this very large county that's going to have more people, more jobs in the next 20, 25 years. But it also allows people in the municipalities to find resources and use our policies as a stepping stone to decide what they're going to put their resources on and maybe attract resources because you say this is the policy of the county. We're thought we want to do this. It does help. All right. What else we got for the That's it. We're done. Thank you very What's next for the What's next for the 2015? So that's um like we said the end of the five kind of major topic areas that we presented to the advisory committee. Next is fleshing out the vision, goals, and recommendations and running those by staff, the advisory committee and all of you. So yeah. and the policy maps. What do you think the timing is for that? I mean, we will have a draft of those at the June 12th at Magic. Don't laugh. Follow up. Follow it up by coming back

here sometime in July. Be back here sometime. July, September, something. July or September. We also have a we're planning a September town hall end of September which will be the biggest kind of public event that we've had in a while on this. Um and they're trying to do some informal events like pizza with a planner type things. Two or three across the county leading up to that pizza way to do it there just for the pizza. As long as the past pizza doesn't have pineapple, I don't understand that pineapple. Pizza on your pizza. I don't understand the pineapple and guck with my mom and my dad eating it. I do disgusting. What are you a vegetable on your pizza kind of guy? Got to plan ahead. Black onions are the worst. In the survey pizza toppings that people hated the most. Black. How we digress? The vision plan. All righty. Did you get all that, Karina? For order. Extra black olives from Jonathan. I have a quick public service announcement. Um because we've just realized we actually have all current board members in the room. Uh, we're thinking of doing a group photo after the meeting right at 11:30 if you're willing. We didn't give you We don't have to. You sure? Sorry. Our next uh our next agenda item is

grant summary highlights and Matt Bill online. Bill is sick. Bill is sick. I will be attempting to cover much of this solo today. Um, last question then. That's what we're here for. Um, I'm not sure about the slander about pineapple on pizza to get started. Don't start with I agree. I got to tell you that explains so much. Say no more. Well, you jump in the swim lane. Anyhow, um, so good morning everybody. Uh we are bringing a second round of a MCPC and grant funding presentation to you. Uh this presentation was I believe originally given last February by um some other Matt that used to work here. Um and I'm now stepping in. We're trying to update it a little bit more and give uh the board generally a sense of the funding that comes into the county from outside sources. We call it in some instances grants. Um there's a lot of other pieces of it that kind of exist on a large continuum. Um we're trying to talk about in this presentation things that come in from the federal and state levels um that we then use here at the planning commission to implement projects and um fund some of our own activities and really make things happen for the citizens of Montgomery County. So, here's what I'm going to run through uh hopefully in the next couple of minutes here talking about big program competitive grants work uh money that we get for our staff funding for those large infrastructure projects um that kind of straddles the line between a classically called grant and something else. Uh a little bit on some of the things that we're pursuing right now actively as a planning commission. Uh I

will quickly touch on federal funding and how that works uh and interacts with how we are doing things here at the county and a little bit at the end about how our success or our county has been working with our individual partners. So a lot to get through. Let's get to it. Um, when we were discussing hosting this presentation in the first place, one of the things that Scott wanted to make sure was touched on was the question from the board of how do we decide what to apply for as a grant in the first place. Overall, how budgets have been unfolding over the last couple of years and even getting into decades at this point. the decisions have been made by the state and the feds to say more of the money that is available should be competed for competitively speaking. Um so we are funding a lot of our capital projects through discrete chunks of money that are handed out by our state partners, our federal partners instead of those much larger block grants or formula funding uh that used to come in and have individual entities use the budget process to sign things. Certain environmental programs can offer funding uh as a you know on ongoing as needed purpose. Uh things that are still you know accounted for at the state level. We know we have to do recycling and hazardous waste um implementation at the county level. Um but a lot of the other pieces of county dollars they get handed out as discrete projects. Our county capital budget is getting more and more constrained as we go along. the money that is coming into the county to fund a lot of these projects, especially, you know, a certain large one across the street. Um, it's it's really sucking up a lot of the attention and availability of funding that we have. So, we in MCPC often have to go some of those other routes, applying for state funds, applying for federal funds in order to make the projects that we want to have happen happen. It's really

a balance that we have to award our own grants down to our municipalities, find the other funds for the things that we want to do, and also work with our own municipalities at times to help them get those grants at the state and even the federal levels. We're working with them. We can often provide consistency letters or support letters throughout that process. Um, but we're trying to get money as much as it is available from any source that we can um whenever we're able to. So, let's start talking about some of the competitive projects. And our administration staff does a great job of keeping track of everything that we have since they're partially responsible for paying everything out and making sure that all of the financial paperwork is kept properly. um auditing is uh smooth and easy to do once we get through a particular calendar year. Based on the grant database that we have available in our county right now, we're currently standing, this office is working with 26 different grants totaling over $46 million. Um if you strike the crosscount trail portion of that, which we'll go into in a lot more depth in a little bit, um that has five grants that just by itself comes up to $40 million. So a lot of these grants are what you would call on the smaller side in that five to six figure range, but they range across a very large number of programs um and are touching on a number of different things that the county is expected to provide to its residences as services. Um we'll touch on some of these more specifically uh going forward. First one uh and I do have a phone a friend available in the back room to touch a little bit more on it. Um since this is now his Bailey Wick in terms of uh new management in in section roles the county stom talking I mean like a little bit there's there's

some fun he wants to pave over all the trees some of you know what's your complaint Matt you got to give him an opportunity no I mean appreciate everything that John's able to do for the camera Back on the ice. Awesome. I would like to be sarcasm officially noted in the John, would you like to talk about the county stormwater plan? So, the county has received uh ARPA funding to do a county storm water plan. Um what it does is it will it looks at the county as a whole. Um we are getting it will identify 60 sites that have been identified for flooding issues that will get planning level uh solutions. You know they're not engineering but it's the next step towards that. What is great about this is it coaleses county efforts around stormwater planning. It gives the municipalities and the organizations an opportunity that entree into projects and it really will set us up for future grant applications through growing greener to do a countywide act 167 watershed plan. It does and also it does not include the peri uh because that is getting its own uh grant-f funed flooding study. That was great. Thank you. Appreciate you too. Almost seems like they play each other. It's getting better just like that. Uh I have another phone friend possibly in the back of the room as well. Um who's already provided some information on farmland preservation stuff in terms of how it relates to grant funding that is available from state. Um and would you like to walk us through this slide? One bonus. It's a special millionaire episode. He's just coming off his desk. So, uh I'm pretty sure that most of you

are familiar with our farmland preservation work. Um this is a program that's been in place since 1990 and and each year the county allocates funds that the state then matches with additional. Um, so in 2025 we allocated just over a million dollars which got a $2.9 million match from the state million dollar that um we expended pretty quickly. Land is expensive and preserving farms. So at the end of last year we preserved just over 10,500 acres on 191 farms. Um we have and this this program remains popular. We have a lot of first time applicants this year and um Eve is organizing a tour so to speak uh of the applicant properties out on Friday with the farm board. Um I anticipate that this is a program that we will we will have around for a long time for this and around the state. Councing is a leader in farmland preservation and it's a it's important to um to people um both at the state and at the local level to do it. Thank you, Ann. So, this is two different examples uh from the state level being able to fund projects and things outcomes that we want to see in Montgomery County. The third one um which I will speak on behalf of bill for um is the amount of funding from the state. Two different departments both DCNR and DCEED um were able to provide funding through either C2P2 programs or the local share account uh to provide money for the connections around the

Etheim farm trails um cross county and whisten crossover uh in the White Marsh and Springfield area. Um, we're getting very close, I've heard, to being to able to go out to construction for this. Um, this is right near where the Philadelphia Cricut Club was with the golf tournament a couple of, uh, or last weekend, I guess. Um, construction's been estimated at $11 million and the grants are going to cover 16% of the total construction cost. So, this is another one of those projects that is solely on the county otherwise to fund. And if we're able to find particular pots of money spread out in various um programs that the state is able to offer, we're generally happy to to jump on it as much as possible and and grab that for uh defaying some of the county's costs. How's the other 84% county's capital? Next, we'll touch on some staff grants and the things that is used to defay our ongoing operating costs effectively. Um DVRPC is um the main provider of this. It's just basically federal funding as pass through amounts. Uh we get money through both the highway performance uh plan and transit supportive plan dollars to fund a lot of the transportation sections ongoing um salaries and and benefits and staff activities. We also receive GIS uh dollars to pay for some of the um work that gets done especially supporting those sorts of regional level projects. Uh we also have a regional safe streets for all grant. Um that is part we are helping DVRPC's regionwide efforts. Um that $71,000 is coming straight uh to Montgomery County to help us support DVRPC's efforts. We'll touch a little bit later on about the county's own Safe Streets for All grant. And we're also getting funding um from D for the recycling coordinator position about $50,000. So, this is direct money um

updated as of this fiscal year to support the actual ongoing operating expenses of county staff. What do we use these for? It's trying to help our own operating budget. Um and it gets really spread across different sections. It's not just transportation. GIS is able to use some of it. Environmental and even community planning um can tap into some of those dollars at times. What does this end up translating into? Um on the GIS side, you know, they're able to develop and share some of those data and shape files into things that are worth sharing out via our county's uh overall map portal. Um, we're working on an update right now for the region's long range plan, uh, as we work on the county's long-range plan as well, the operating hazardous household hazardous waste collection program, of course, and as we mentioned earlier, crafting that regional vision zero plan, which will then allow municipalities underneath the entire region to start pursuing some of their own uh, implementation grants if they so desire. So that was kind of the official definition of grants, ideas where money is set aside directly for a project. Oftent times when we're talking about how the feds and state fund county operations, some of those large infrastructure projects come in and a lot of that really ends up being more formula funding that is available. um some of the crosscount trail and ridge pike projects which we'll talk about in this section don't ever necessarily say hey this is a grant that is awarded to you but it is still federal funding and state funding that is coming into the county to support our own infrastructure our own roadways and trails so it's worth talking about in a presentation like this one um these are really large projects requiring basically at this point eight figures worth of dollars um we've tried to break everything up into different parts parts and sections to allow for a more efficient

administration, but there's a lot of money flowing in um at the end of the day and the federal funding sources are often our primary bucket, whether it's the congestion mitigation and air quality program or CMAC um the bipartisan infrastructure law or infrastruct uh infrastructure investment and jobs act um which had the carbon reduction program which is funding a lot of the cross county trail at this point. Um, in addition to just straight community project funding or also known as earmarks, um, we have one uh, specifically for Germantown Pike that's helping us with um, the construction of the bridge for the Cross County Trail itself. This requires a lot of coordination work with DVRPC making sure that the projects are shown properly on the region's transportation improvement program. Um, but we're happy to take the money and use it for uh, fun things like building massive uh, side areas near bridges. Uh touching first on the cross county brid uh trail portions of this. Um this is the section from the completed portion in Plymouth Township right near the metroplex at Germantown Pike. Uh we have to get across Germantown Pike which we'll see in a second as well as winding our way up Butler and over Flowertown to get to that next uh connection area at the Erdenheim Farm um section which is still hoping to go under construction later this year. um this piece of it we're we have already started preliminary engineering. Um we're hoping to be wrapping up with that in the next couple of months um and making our way between this um important gap that currently exists in the county trail network. This is a little bit more uh zoomed in at the actual bridge over Germantown Pike. Uh this is the one that as I mentioned received that earmark of $2.5 million. The county was required to match that on our own. Uh so there is some skin in the game and that's what a lot of these grants are asking for these

days. Um you know from MCO 2040 projects that any sort of time that you are able to get a municipality to say we're committed to this project. We're going to put up some of our own money, it always makes for a stronger project and shows some level of commitment from the local uh municipality. We're the same thing going up to the Fed saying we are serious about uh making this bridge happen. We have a 20% match that we're willing to put up next to that year mark. The $20 million in congestion mitigation and air quality funding is going to fund the overall construction of this trail segment um from the current terminus over to uh the KYW property and the start of Burdenheim Trail. Uh that one is fortunate and that does not require a county match. Uh so this will be just straight federal funding. Uh this is similar to how the Chester Valley Trail um extension in King of Prussia, Bridgeport and Nartown was funded. Uh that was Cmac dollars for construction and required no county match. However, the county did participate on some of the engineering uh and right-of-way purchases with a local match and I'm assuming the same thing will happen with this project too. Overall, uh, the C County Trail has been very fortunate to receive a lot of the, um, congestion mitigation and carbon reduction funding that has recently be become available thanks to a lot of a boost from that IGA bill. Um, in total, $17 million in congest uh, carbon reduction program funding is going to uh, sections of the Cross County Trail, predominantly on that eastern end uh, towards Upper Dublin and Abington. um that will be able to fund engineering, the construction, construction management, and construction inspection costs. All pulled, as we mentioned at the beginning, with that grants uh amount, we're up to $40 million in federal funding that is coming to help finish out the county's major trail priority,

um the crossount trail. And we've started PE for two segments already, but we're going to be working on this for sure the rest of the 2020s, probably well into the 2030s. It just takes time to get all of these projects through, especially now that they have federal uh transportation dollar oversight. That means PENDOT has to be involved and that in adds a whole new set of reviews and and time for um how this construction can work. As you all probably know about the Ridge Pike project, we are trying to uh reconstruct all of Ridge Pike between Narstown and Philadelphia. Um section D, which you see here at bridge 257 um over the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks, is currently under construction, um out of the $40 million, uh total allocated for the construction project in section B, we spent 9.2 million in construction in 2024, and that's just on the construction contractor JD Ecman. Uh there was also construction inspection, construction management, engineering services during construction. Um but out of that 9.2 to specifically just for example purposes. We received $6 million back um from the federal and state governments as part of this. So even though Ridge Pike is a county asset for the time being um we are getting a lot of participation from the feds and the state in order to help us rebuild it and turn it into a modernized uh facility for the next couple of decades. section A and section C kind of on either side of this section in Plymouth Township around the car dealerships is also currently working through right ofway um expenses and a lot of that is receiving reimbursement some 80% uh reimbursement some 95% reimbursement um but the Montgomery County Transportation Authority Board um is responsible for taking care of all of those hoping to get section A out the door and into construction by the end of this year possibly early next year um that'll be just on the other side of this

particular bridge project. Um you can kind of see it in the distance there. All right, next section. Uh talking about some of the grants we are actively pursuing in 2025. And when I say active, I mean filing actual requests for community project funding earmarks within the last couple of weeks. Um there were a total of three that we put in um to try to request funding from um our US representatives uh and our US senators. And we'll go through them quickly. North Golf Road Trail Extension, Germantown, Sunnytown Pikes, and Academy Drive. First off, the North Golf Road Trail Extension. This is one uh that was handled largely by the Open Space and Trails uh team. Upper Marion is trying to grow out its trail network. Uh we have Oh, I heard there was a laser pointer here for some reason. We have the Skooko River Trail uh running on the other side of the river from Upper Marion. We have the completed Chester Valley Trail uh running through the southern end of the township and into Narstown. Um there is still a connector kind of missing in the way here and part of the issue is that parts of this have already been or are about to be constructed. Um as part of the finishing up of the 422 river crossing project, a uh new trail segment will be extended down um right about in here below the 42223 intersection. There's also a trail that extends through the village of Valley Forge. um separated multi-use trail. Um so the question has been how do we knit all of these segments together and also connect to the existing first avenue linear park the hopefully soon to be underway more road multimmoal trail linear park and then maybe over to the crowreek trail um on the eastern side or central part of Upper Marion Township. Um, so we're trying to connect these in another fashion, especially running

through Valley Forge Park, connecting some of the major destinations, um, along the North Gulf Road corridor that runs through here. Um, the county applied for $300,000 in community project funding grants. Uh, it actually had to go to three separate US congressional offices just based on how the district uh, boundaries are laid out. Right at this spot here, stop shaking a little bit. Right in there, uh is actually the triple point uh for three different uh congressional districts, Hulahan, Dean, and Scanland. Um so we are trying to let all of them know that we are interested in doing something like this and providing a facility that would service uh the residents in their districts. um the funds plus that $100,000 county match would cover the engineering uh costs specifically for this area um between the Top Golf and the Diligent Valley Forge uh connection that's already been done. So we are underway have submitted that request up to those three uh congressional representatives. Germantown Pikes. Uh M as you may remember the Monco Pikes report back in 2021 uh compiled information about how to make six of the county's major roadways um the upgraded facility standards for the 21st century. Uh and an awful lot of projects were provided on every single um listed roadway. uh we now need to focus on which ones we can actually implement uh and which ones roads and bridges will be able to handle with their county capital budget uh needs and requirements over the next couple of decades. We focused on Germantown and Somntown out of the six uh total pikes since they were the ones that really needed the highest amount of potential infrastructure investment. Um there's certain stretches in here where we're um proposing widening for a center turn lane, widening for a bike lanes, shoulders, sidewalks, everything else

that needs to be uh part of a facility. So we're kind of in the stage between the planning, which has really been done with MCO Pikes and moving the project into an official um preliminary engineering stage. We're basically calling it advanced feasibility of a study. So, we applied for a $500,000 community project funding um amount from Representative Dean and Senator Federman um with a $250,000 local capital budget match. Um we are also applying to the state for this one. So, that's an example of where we're taking advantage of as many pots as possible. Um if we got both, that would be a good problem to have. Bless you. and we would probably figure out which um grant would be most compatible with how we were able to move this project along. Third, uh is the Academy Drive extension. Uh I believe we've talked at some point about how the this is another laser pointer. Uh the county owns still the Plymouth uh quarry area off of Kahaken Road um in Plymouth Township. Uh we are still discussing how to reuse this site overall. Um, but one of the items that has been noted for a long time is that the actual connections via transportation really aren't ideal to get to this site. You have Kaken Road through here. You have Allenwood Road that kind of comes off to the edge here, um, facing Ridge Pike, but there's really no good way to get through between these two. Um, Fire Academy Drive basically is a small private road that services our public services training center in here. Um, but does not connect all the way over to Allenwood Road. Um, so we are trying to make that connection as part of the um, ability for the county to fully market this site as for highest and best use purposes. We applied for $3 million in community project funding uh, to assist with the engineering and design of this roadway connection. uh the right of way of which has been set

aside as this um I think it was the Amazon warehouse was uh installed just off of Ridge Pike. Um additional construction funds would still need to be procured, located future grant rounds perhaps for future county capital budget uh purposes would be available. So those are the three grants that we put in uh for this particular cycle of community project funding. Um last year's community project funding actually saw most of these get submitted. Our representatives looked upon them favorably. They were sent along through the process and then the decision was to continue to fund the federal government without any eararks at all. So we have basically resubmitted a lot of things this year and that just shows kind of how even when we have the best of intentions and best of ideas and when projects and programs are uh shown to be available at the end of the day something can get pulled out of the 11th hour and then we have to keep looking for different ideas which brings me directly to the current federal funding outlook. Um, you may have heard that there's differences of opinions on how to implement some uh overall funding amounts from the White House uh in 2025 as opposed to 2024. Uh, some grants have been flatout canceled across many different sectors. Some have been frozen um while they're undergoing some sort of review with a indeterminate amount of time um for how long that uh review process will take. uh we continue to pursue those opportunities in the programs that are currently defined as open and we will see as uh all of this unfolds how we continue to approach this. We actually have live information on one of the grants. As I mentioned earlier, the county itself has a Safe Streets for All grant uh that was awarded late last year for $400,000 to look at a county-owned roadway safety study for all 75 miles of roads from Ridge Pike down to the smallest roads we have uh up in the

northwestern part of the county. Uh the award was given to us in November. We started working with our FHWA contacts in early January to get a funding agreement together. January 21st, we were told actually We're going to put that on pause for a little while. And then we waited and waited and waited. Just within the last week or so, we have now heard from our FHWA contacts that whatever review was taking place either in Harrisburg or in Washington has now been completed and we can continue once again uh to try and get that grant executed. So, we're relieved and happy to hear that this is still going to be going forward. there are some new requirements that we have to um abide by which is why the grant agreement is currently under review by the county solicitor's office um before we uh try to execute anything further and we will see hopefully this will still be able to to continue forward but that's just one example out of a host of many different programs that are out there um for how we're attempting to progress through this kind of brand new landscape. There may be new legislation that comes up that affects how formula funding and discretionary options are done. Um, as of right now, everybody is encouraged to go after safe streets for all because the IGA said back in 2022, you must spend $1 billion on this sort of work across the entire country. For now, we are assuming that that is how it is going to proceed. Can I promise you that that's absolutely how it's going to proceed? I can't promise you much of anything uh these days. So, we're going to continue to do our best. And as the bottom line here is probably the most one that has been thinking about in a bunch of different uh arenas. If federal funds are diminished in one particular area, whether it's health and human services, transportation, other items, local and state funding sources are going to have to pick up the slack in one way or another if we want to continue to deliver the same sorts of

levels of service to our communities. So, we'll end up with some happier news, um, grand success throughout Montgomery County recently. Um, we've had some pretty good success here in the county with, especially with our municipalities going after individual grant programs. You see, uh, four of the more popular ones that our municipalities are able to pursue. Um, DCNR, C2P2, we've received $4.3 million over 2022 and 2023. D is growing greener. uh 5 years worth has gotten us back $4.3 million um across 26 different projects for watershed protection grants. The big ones for transportation right now are the ones that come from the state. Um the multimodal funds that are uh managed by both the Commonwealth Financing Authority under Department of Community and Economic Development and the PennDOT multimodal fund itself. um in their history, which now stretches um nearly a decade for CFA and over a decade for PENDOT multimmoal fund, we're up to $104 million um between those two grant programs for projects in Montgomery County municipalities. This particular past year in 2024 was very successful for the CFA. 18 different municipalities received funding for various projects to improve the transportation network. Um and then Upper Providence and Talson were successful in the Penn multimmoal fund in 2020. All of these are available on our transportation grants um web map that is uh up on our website and we're able to hope to share continued information about things like environmental grants, farmland grants, trails grants, anything else that um the individual municipalities in our county are receiving. We want to put out the word. It helps for other municipalities to know what sorts of projects are fundable. Um if they know, you know, somebody else was successful in going after this, maybe we should too. And

it's good for us um as we try to continue to knit together all the different funding pots and sources that are available throughout the county to get everything done that we want to get done. And that's the end of our presentation. Questions for Matt? Comments? How do the projects that you go after decide? I mean, I'm sure there's a bevy of projects that you could apply for funding. How do you select the ones that you're going to move forward with? So, we tried to touch on that at the beginning. It's it really can depend on the specific details of each of the programs. Um, sometimes there are things that fit perfectly, but we try not to, I'd say in our office, go after new projects just because funding has available. Really has to meet with the overall efforts that the county is already doing, that our MCPC uh staff is already doing. You've seen our work program. It's pretty full already. Um, we don't have a lot of room to say, "Oh, let's go after this and and start to do it." um that would mean staff headcounts that get increased and um just a lot more things going on. So, it's it's a discussion amongst all the managers to try and say, does this fit with the things that we're pursuing? Are we the best ones to go after this? Should it be some other county department? Should it be one of our municipalities? Um we try to be in constant contact with as many people as we can throughout all of this. Um it it really is a case-byase basis ultimately. And speaking to the transportation grants, a lot of these programs are highly competitive and I believe the other grant programs are as well. And so you have to look at, you know, it takes time to go after these grants and you want to go after them. You just to put the applications together and you want a lot of times those that rise to the top and are funded are those that have already gone to a certain level, have some level of project readiness, have investment already made. You're not starting from scratch.

I know with the municipalities that we work with that's a lot of the education that we do and the county understands that and so projects that they well positioned to be looked upon favorably for these grant programs that has a is a big determining factor in that uh prioritization the county have lobbyists in Harrisburg and Washington we do have exgovernmental affairs department that was created with the new administration so they serve some of that role in Harrisburg We'll have someone located there, but but the ef the effort to uh advocate reach out lobby is much stronger than it used to be. I know in Lansdale we spend money every year uh investing in engineering these projects so that when the grant funding becomes available we can just do your feasibility studies, do your preliminary engineering, all of those initial efforts and those types of activities. No matter what type of grant program, it just positions you above and beyond other applica applicants that may not have gone to that level. Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, it's the skin in the game part that is really really important with more and more limited funding. A lot of the grant programs only want to fund construction these days. So the municipality is almost forced to do all of that work on the front end to make sure that they've been burned too many times by projects that were awarded grants and then they couldn't follow through because they didn't do their due diligence and the project fell apart. So it's that was a great great um uh presentation. Thank you Matt. Very well presented well visualized. One thing that I would ask not just for you but for the group. It was great that in our packet we had all the uh municipal contacts with who which of our planners with pictures. So help us all keep up with who's who's where. We need a new acronym chart. I mean some kind of dictionary for new people so we have

some idea um to make sure that everybody knows what we're talking about. There were a lot of outcomes. I did my best to spell all of them out where I could, but yes, I know you did, but I just think sometimes we even need that cheat sheet and Scott, I know I've asked for it before, but it's really important. It's a code book. I used to call it a code book. Zone. Yeah. Um it'll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple years. you know, the the two large the two large bills that came from the federal government um during the last administration are going to start to, you know, be spent be allocated or are spent or are allocated. And then you know how how that changes the the grant network going forward because you know the lump sum the lump sum grant the lump lump sum money that comes from the federal government to the states to be administered in some some of the programs that you have there and even some that are created because of those are you know you know be interesting to see how they dry up and what kind of pressure that puts on counties and local local municipalities. So, the transportation reauthorization bill will need to be dealt with during this conference. Any other comments for Matt? Great. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Next up is UpperWinned Margo and Jeff sitting over there ready to go. Good morning. Sit over there. We should have had to go first. Let's see. Location work.

No. Tough or t or tough? Tough. Had a great time. All righty. So, go back here. So, good morning. Um, I am I've never done a presentation here before, so I am probably a new face. Um, so I'll introduce myself. I'm Margot Petrusca. I am the community planner contract for Upper Burgund Township. Um, so I'll be going through the previous contract from 2022 to 2024 as well as the new contract which was started this January. 25 until 2027. And then Jeffrey Bond will be joining me on the um the new contract, specifically our our big project that we're working on. Um it's me. Okay. All right. So, starting off with location, as many of you know, um it is a relatively centrally located um township within the county and we have it completely encompassing um North Wales Burrow. It is about 8.13 uh square miles and it has a steadily growing population around 17,000. Um it is it has a lot of good road, trail and um transit connections with the surrounding townships, burrows, communities, and so it's it's exceptionally connected. Um and they all work together very Okay. Um so the township has some beautiful natural resources and community oriented spaces. Um we have

Gwyn Preserve. Oh, it's a little bit blurry, but in the top right corner, um, which is about 240 acres off of Swedesburg Road, um, near Township Line and it has a diverse variety of habitats and is open to the public for people to visit. Um, and then we also have another gem is the township complex. So, this is Parkside PL um, Parkside Place. So it has the township complex is located within Parkside Place. A big complex um includes exercise, jogging trails, basketball, tennis, pickle ball courts, now new basketball courts. Um and um includes some pavilions, a very old gazebo that has that was a celebration of their hundred year, their centennial. Um they've also added more parking pavilions and so on a nice day you're going to find hundreds of people out um full of families, teens, kids, everyone out and about doing walking, running, things like that. Um Everin is also one of the eight municipalities taking part in the Liberty Bell Trail. Um, and so this section related to the township is 2.3 miles of trail installation from Parkside Police Complex to Stony Creek Park in Lansdale. Um, and so this is an important connection um, which will connect the two municipalities and residents to Landdale, what it has to offer, shopping, events, restaurants, things like that. And so going into the past um planning assistant contract, so this was 2022 to 2024. I Marley was the primary planner for UpperWinned through most of this time. Um I joined her in early 2024 and I attended some final meetings,

revisions regarding landscape ordinance, which we get into a second. Um as well as some other the regular contract duties and eventually taking the reigns from her to now be the main. And so the main achievements highlights of work uh through the few years were 2022 starting off was a pretty substantial completed review of u proposed to 2 overlay district which I'll get into on the next slide a little bit more. Um 2023 was the completion of the draft landscape ordinance and recommended plan chart. So this was pretty substantial amount of work for doing it was mainly in solido but also in zoning as well to do a complete rewrite. Um in 2023 there was also um an identification of uh movement of test bridge and then in 2024 working to bring it bring the landscape ordinance all the way through to adoption and um doing any additional revisions. So going into the to overlay district um so Marley had done a a very substantial review of the proposed TOD ordinance which would um essentially so there's already a TOD ordinance but right over here it was for specifically two tracks of or two parcel track of land which was about 5.75 acres um located at 1,500 Penrook Park Parkway parkway within the township. So essentially this addition to the to um this to 2 overlay was adding in one of the components of the comprehensive plan which was to expand residential as a permitted use um within the walkshed or the main area within the

close to Pemrick station. So instead of TOD just being um within I believe 500 feet, it is the half mile um was the TOD 2. Um yeah, so essentially it was for that that I just circled parcel of land. Um and so this ordinance that was put in facilitated the workforce housing project um about 60 units on Pepper Parkway which we also reviewed in 20 and so in 2023 the main focus was the draft landscape ordinance and plant chart and so it happened in a few different phases. Initially they were asked we were asked to um audit the ordinances for changes that they needed to make to in order to become a Tree City USA to get the designation. Um and then also reviewing other recommendations that they received from the PEC Pennsylvania Environmental Council um with regards to green storm water. Um, and then after that first process, they then asked to write a whole new landscape ordinance, which Marley worked on with Tim Ketchi, um, incorporating elements of the work that was done prior, and then also creating a riparian um, buffer ordinance within within the salo and within zoning. So again, as I said, mainly the code work was within Seldo, but coinciding changes to the zoning as well. So another highlight um of 2023 was a pedestrian bridge movement. So essentially the road bridge of 70town Pike um the road bridge on um so 70 pound pike over second near the township

building was being replaced and so there was going to be some sidewalks um put in but the pedestrian bridge that currently connects the north side of town Pike um over Wiken Creek is still in good shape. So essentially there was Marley had identified that based on the grant application that they were looking for money to get this um to get all the improvements that they could potentially move the existing pedestrian bridge over um and that a separate pedestrian bridge was no longer needed and so reached out to the township to see if they could relocate from Sunnytown Pike over town Menson where no pedestrian accommodates accommodations currently. And so on the next one, so essentially moving a whole bridge over to add. So rather than just having one pedestrian bridge connection, there's going to be the sidewalks as well as a new pedestrian bridge. So that bridge is not that old. This I am not sure how old it is. I mean I think Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So essentially it is going to create some more pedestrian um opportunities and walkability. And so this the idea of having a pedestrian bridge over townson Creek was identified in the comprehensive plan um which was written in two um and so this was already a sidewalk gap. there was um we had done a sketch of the idea of a potential pedestrian bridge and so the the ability to be moving a whole bridge over um obviously seems like a very very big feat um but they have um identified grant funding already state

grant funding and it is going through the process to do this can do this just any bridge he's dropping bridges as poss possible. Don't think you can move every sign up. It's unique. It's unique and there is a obviously a certain amount of money um that will take to do it, but it is probably less than doing a whole new one and also being I mean, yeah, it was about $500,000 or a little over $500,000 with engineering work. And so already there was a a little over $300,000 grant from DCD. Um as of engineering work was No, that was included. It was like 560,000 including engineering work. I think it was split up like 150 and like not that it was surprising. Yeah. No, it was that was including all the engineering. I didn't think I haven't hit him yet, Bob. include [Music] just so there's no confusion. So now we go into the new contract which has just started um and so this essentially was relatively general in comprehensive plan implementation but um the main projects and focus is going to be the parkside playground concept plan and design work. So this is in the Parkside police complex. If everyone knows the big castle park, I will show some photos next. Um then general flexible assistance, um especially with the playground, some grant identification and assistance as we go through this process. Um as well as some potential zoning saddle amendments as the township requests. Um so this will be the main focus of the contract. Um this playground is was

built in 1995. Um it was built in a um community build format. So about thousands of volunteers came, not sure if any of you have that were part of it. Um and so it was a community build by Leathers and Associates in 1995. There were a lot of sponsors. Merc was a big sponsor. Um and it has a science theme and has Yeah. So it's located within the Parkside uh or the Parkside Place complex. Here is actually from 1995. It won a Montgomery merit award from Montgomery County Planning Commission. So fun little history. I found this. Um and then yeah, so this is the existing it's a big it's a destination playground. A lot of people a lot of people know it and have a lot of strong um historical connections to it because it's fantastic. Um, and so but in 2022, Leathers came to do an assessment to see how how it's been holding up. It's wood. It's 30 years old. There's going to be it needs some it needs some fixing. And so essentially um they determined that there would need to be significant renovations. And so either through um a complete rebuild or a targeted rebuild. The targeted wasn't necessarily um recommended, but there it's very open right now because of this. The township then reached out to us to do some community outreach, research, conceptual design work to see what are the potential options for rebuild or redesign. Um, and so the project team is me, Patty, Jeff, and then Marley and Eric are also joining in and have joined in for some of the process. Um, so we've already started this. Um, so what we did before starting the outreach process, we wanted to do some research. So that research was going to a lot of different playgrounds um in the

region playing on a lot of different equipment. Um, it was in the middle of winter and it did snow, but it was Pennsylvania. We're self-promoting by Patty. Oh well, I think the other 10 selfies, we we took a selfie at every single um playground. So, so we went through all the equipment um trying to observe the different types of unique equipment um that could potentially be implemented into the Castle Park project. We went to Black Rockck Park in um Upper Providence, Kids Castle in Boil Sound, which is very similar to Park Sai um in that it was also a leathers and a community build um and is of similar age as well. Um and then we also went to Lions Pride in Warrington which has a lot of unique nature play elements um which Jeff will go into Mandro Park in Limmerch as well as Northampton Miracle League. Um and then we also worked on a memo to compile all the information as well as some like national playground trends before creating um a survey and launching the survey. So, we did just do that um in last last week, two weeks now. Um what? May third. May 3rd. So, it was May 3rd and it was their um Unity for Kindness Day. So, it was a food truck festival. So, we went out, it was a beautiful day, the weather held out and so we launched our survey, had some interacted interactive activities with kids and so essentially picking their favorite like right there with all the dots, love a dot thing. Um, and so they all would pick their favorite elements of the park and we have a survey and we also have a kids survey which we're going to put in. Um, we're going to do another outreach event just at the playground where kids will come with some drawings, things like that. Um, focusing more on just getting kids involvement. Um, so yeah, we got great initial feedback and it was a very

exciting start from the top left and top right of I know, right? Yeah. So, I'm just going to zoom in. So, the the top left is the tower structure. So, as a whole, the entire tower structure is I mean, there's so many different um aspects to the playground, but this is the this is the main one that everyone knows of. And it's fantastic. It is very dark. It's all wood and it's it's hard to get around if you're bigger than this. So, so it's but it's but it's amazing structure. And then on the right all the way the top right is swings. People love swings. Um always the most one of the most popular swings and slides. So the other one that has a lot is going to be their big slides which are very fun and we did go down all of them. What's on the bottom right? Um oh it's like this AR Yeah, that's kind of hard. It's this rock arch structure that I don't even know if it was meant to be a part of the playground, but people it's like really tall and people kids climb on it and we thought it would be kind of like a safety risk, but people loved it and nobody has gotten hurt as we do. It was I mean that's better the least like but you liked it a lot. I liked it. And when I when I was there, there was there was a lot of people climbing all over it. People that said two years don't do it now. Challenge. Yeah. With a little risk involved. Like it was added after the original build as well. They've added to over the time. Yeah. And some people didn't know about about it, which other people were like jumping on. So yeah, I'm gonna hand this over to Jack. Thank you, Marggo. Morning. This is my first presentation as well as your new design section manager. I appreciate you uh allowing me

to talk about the design process for this and and uh the ogre color. I've never seen that one before. Well, that one that was Marggo Margot did I never saw that one though. Um so she did the slide uh backgrounds and things like that. I just added two. But um I look forward to working with everybody over over the hopefully many years I'm here. Um my back just a little bit about myself. When I was introduced as when I was hired uh everybody it was a snow day, so everybody was virtual. So um I'm a landscape architect by trade. I have a license. I most of my work is in the public public realm. I uh worked on parks, streetscapes, landscapes, public spaces, playgrounds, you name it. And in the public realm, that's that's kind of where my passion lies. Um and so I have 20 years 27 years experience in the design sector. So I have a kind of a set process that I when I approach these projects that um kind of works for me and I think you know will work for this project easily. So, we always start with, as Marcus said, we always start with the steering committee. You know, we we want to hear what the the town uh desires, what the public is uh in tune with the park because this is such a beloved park that um you know, we want to know what they want. We don't come to any with any preconceived ideas for design process and and and anything like that. So, we want to get that feedback and then we design from there. Um, so just a little bit about the existing conditions. So the next thing we do is site site analysis. Existing conditions. Which one is it? This one. There we go. So as Marggo said, this is Parkside Place. You can see the municipal building here. The playground itself is this kind

of this little odd figurine shaped piece here. The box here that I outlined is a potential for expansion. said, you know, more equipment or more facilities uh come into play during the concept process. Um but just gives you a sense, you know, there's the pool is next door and then the tennis courts and pickle pickle ball courts and basketball courts. So, it's right in the heart of this park. Lots of activity, um lots of foot traffic in comparison to the other playgrounds we looked at. Um this the side park is 19,000 ft². Black rock park was 17,000 ft². Manderact playground was 28,000 ft². Lion Bride is about 32,000 square ft. They all have different elements and they have different they have different processes. So you know we'll kind of go through and we'll see some of those in the other pictures that I'm going to show. But the size of this orange rectangle is about 80,000 square feet or 1.75 acres, there there. So the existing conditions. So the existing conditions as we know it's 30 years old. The a lot the township has maintained this park and this playground beautifully over the years. Um, they have had to do upgrades here and there. They've had to replace boards with tracks. Um, they they they stain it. They go back and do an an assessment every year to make sure that everything is safe and and and um safe for the residents and the kids to play on. One of the and one of the unique challenges of this existing conditions, but it's also an advantage is the existing site. There's this mature tree canopy which is shown in these two images. So on the right there's no leaf. The

playground kind of goes does this kind of weird shape throughout the tree canopy, but you can see in the on the right hand image that there's a lot of mature tree canopy. What this what this does is it gives a lot of shade. A lot of the other playgrounds that we looked at did not have that shade because they were either new or that trees were on the perimeter. These the trees in this playground were integrated with the playground and it is um a really big advantage but also provides challenges. How do we work around those root zones? How do we make sure that those trees survive when we actually design the concepts for this? One of the other aspects of this playground is there's not a lot of topographic change. There's not a lot of hills. There's not a lot of grade change. Kids like to go climb things. They like to That's why all equipment in the tower is probably one of the things they like to be high. They like to look down on things. So, it's a relatively flat site. The one of the things we may introduce is maybe some topographic change if that's something that's desired. Other unique challenges. As you can see, these are just all existing photos. Um, the existing playground was built before the ADA requirements were mandatory. Uh, it was built 30 years ago. In March of 2012 is when they, uh, ADA requirements for playgrounds were uh, enacted. And so, we're going to have we're going to be looking at more concepts that make the playground universally accessible for all kids and and similar places to play for kids of all abilities. The other unique challenge is of course because it's such a beloved playground, how do we preserve the history but move forward? Is there a way to keep some of the pieces? Is there a way do we do we

do we kind of work around the existing and add to is there? So there's a lot of lot of discussions that going to have to be talked about and that's what we're going to be getting all that feedback from the survey. It'll give us a sense of the pulse of the community and um and we'll see and we'll go from and we'll see there. And then there's also cost implications as well. Survey are they going to survey the the foundations for the existing playground footings and things like that? Leathers already did an assessment of every single piece of the equipment and that was in 2022 and they gave a cost estimate of if they would um redo it or uh like a complete rebuild. So our our survey is just community survey to find out the different pieces of equipment that are used the most because we know structurally what leathers has said and that it needs to be there needs to be some improvements. Yeah, I'm talking about the foundation. Yeah. So with the playground, I'm sure there's probably a lot of pure footings and Yeah. And that that will probably come out during the actual like we're we're taking it to concept level. So, we'll probably we'll I don't know if we'll have that as part of this process, but we'll make recommendations based on if it's still standing. And like I said, the municipality has taken a care of this over many many years and they do assessments to make sure everything is still uh engineering quality and and it's not and it's safe for kids to use. So, yeah, I guess my point is if they can figure out where those where those are and try to reuse some of those, it would save some cost, right? If if possible. Yeah. And yeah, and that'll we could we'll definitely take a look at that in the concept stage as far as you know approximately where they are. We're not going to have a full on site survey um when when we're doing the concepts, but we'll we'll make recommendations that you know, hey, this large structure could possibly be located here and reuse some of these foundations and they're structurally like sound. Can you get can

you obtain the original design drawings? Yeah. Showing you the foundation. I've asked that and that and they're they're not available. Yeah, I um at least that's what I was told. So, unless somebody has other connections, but yeah, we we've asked the from the township, but leathers, but the manufacturer uh leathers may I guess. Yeah, we could we could reach out to leathers to see if they have Let's one of the first ones that was done and there was a huge public fundraising participate. I'd never seen anything like it. It was at the time I remember it was like over $100,000 and it seemed like so much money. Yeah. And it was I think there was estimates were like 3,000 people came out in a 4-day period. They camped out on site to do community build. It's an interesting it's an interesting uh way to look at how to do these things. Um whether or not you would get that same involvement nowadays that you did back then, I don't know. I mean that this community seems very tight-knit and very involved. Surprising when that happened. I was surprised because I just think and Leathers is still around and you know that's not that's you know that's something that they want to you know they recommend a rebuild I think is what their recommendation was and not not retrofitting everything to make it accessible uh because of the cost versus a rebuild. So it would be similar in in you know maybe using not natural wood maybe to be using more tracks and be using more of those kinds of things but it would also be that community build something that people can actually build. So what are we going to be talking about with the steering committee and what we asking for like what are these types of ele elements and what are our inspirations. So nowadays you see these playgrounds. We have these modern play structures. You know we have we have it, you know, this is a large tower at uh Black Rockck Park and

playground and has the slides and but this isn't this probably isn't the same kind of scale as the one that's there now. So there there may be uh more interest in going larger, but it has more it's steel, it's powder coated steel, it's ropes, it's plastic slides, swings and zip lines. Um this shows the universal ADA access. And you know, so kids have the similar experience right next to a kid who has the ability to do a zip zip line. There's a seat here for a kid with a disability that could Yeah. Is that all Black Rock? Are all those three all Black Rockck? Yes. I believe this one is black. No, no. I This is This is Warster. Yeah, this is um this is one of the parks in Warster. Someone like that in Shane. So the and the playground playground manufacturers will have all of this information tuned and they're they're always saying okay well you know if you have this experience for this kid then uh and this type of ability then you know they want to integrate as much of the experience as possible so that friends can play with their friends. What's the schedule on this project? When when are you expecting that? We're going to be doing plinary concepts for the summer. This summer, final concepts in the fall and then probably next year the township is going to be in getting trying to raise the funding and the capital and all that kind of stuff to get know it's going to take like what's their formula for raising funding? Are they do they have private donors? Are they looking for grant funding? Combination of all of the above, I am sure. Um, and are they cap do they are they putting capital funding in their budgets? They have some money allocated already from their parks plan. Um, but we will be looking for a lot of grant funding and we'll be working on that. So, there hasn't been a are they doing community build again or is it going to be that's what we're we're trying to find out. Everything's up in the air

right now and it's all very conceptual, but it's a it's a consideration that would be is it's very exciting, but there's but there's some downsides to it as well with and who else is involved in the design? Is are you guys solely doing the design of the playground or is a consultant coming in with with the playground equipment? So, we're we're going to be probably talking with doing detailed concepts designs, not necessarily picking the exact play equipment, but we're going to be conceptualizing, okay, this is where the large power structure, this is the theme, this is um you know, this is these are the slides, these are the types of equipment that you want to see and how allocate certain spaces for for those kinds of things. Um, and I would imagine and it's up to the it's up to Upperquined whether or not they want to um uh engage a landscape architect to continue on um doing the the construction documentation that obviously they would need to do that. Um or if they want to engage a playground manufacturer like if they pick landscape structures or compound or one of these companies or they or if they want to go back to leathers and do a full community build. So those are so your work is primarily you know you did the you did the initial survey work and and and fact and gathering of information you're putting together the the preliminary and conceptual designs and then there's another round of this that will be more further engaged detail consultants and and the township. Yeah. Scott, remind me our history with Upper Gwenned. I can't have we always had uh I don't believe Oh, no. It I don't know about before, but this current version was resurrected with a comprehensive plan order. The third consecutive contract. Oh, so we have Okay. The previous one was uh the first one. I remember when they weren't Yeah. No,

was that's what it was. But I'm clicking on Well, and he actually was instrumental bringing us on and he just recently retired. Yes. No, thank you for So, in effort of time, you want to Yeah. So, where we are here? Yeah. So, um I only have a couple more slides here. Um you know, we're talking about multigenerational play with them as well. This is 5 to 12. So, we're talking about maybe adding exercise equipment for adults and things. Um again, that element of topography. Um, Lion's Pride has these great hills which is all universally accessible. There's a trail that kind of winds its way up to the top so a child in a wheelchair can get up to the top and have similar experiences. Music, that's another aspect that is always fun for kids. And then nature play. Um, are we going to incorporate water features and how does that get how do they want to incorporate that? as it more naturalized in a in a man-made stream or is it just a standard splash pad and things like that? How do we integrate the the mature trees in the natural setting that this is this site is uh involved with? Do they envision this as a community playground or a regional draw? I know now that I have grandchildren through all these ages, these playgrounds, my my kids will drive an hour and a half to a playground that they like and then they go to lunch and they just did it on Mother's Day. I I believe we just went to this one two weeks ago with my 5-year-old and three-year-old grand. They wanted to stay a destination playground while still being obviously for the community, but destination is what Yeah, it was it was started So they were specific. So basically next steps um you know we're analyzing the

feedback. We're going to be doing more survey more events over the summer. We're working on preliminary concepts and then um and the final concepts in the fall and then we're going to turn over a large report and concept design to the township and Great. Move on from there. There's any other questions? Hill's going away. So, a lot of people open this year and then it we have any other questions for Margo and Jeff. Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh, so we have one more thing. Uh, just a brief update on the this uh so this topic of the fully charged EV planning tool launch uh we've talked about this uh in the process and at the beginning and got a lot of great feedback and had some good discussion with the board on that time good title there this is just an update to show that we released it we presented to the commissioners last month to do the five minute version so all right you y all right um my name is John Leer I am the environmental planning section manager. I am here today to now very quickly introduce you to fully charge a Montgomery County planning EV tool. Um it is what is it? We used experience builder product. This is hosted on the planning commission's website. So I will speak shortly but you can spend hours exploring it on the internet at your leisure. Uh what we really wanted to do was we wanted to support our municipalities transition to EVs. There are we've over the past years we have received question after question. How do we do this? Where can the chargers go? What comes first? Um so we are hoping by helping our

stakeholders make educated decisions about the need for placement of electric vehicle infrastructures. Um we they can make those decisions easier. As I move forward, I know I have a short amount of time, but I would be extremely remiss. I am the one speaking very quickly now, but this project was not possible without the help of and the work of the whole planning commission. Matt Popc, even though I don't like him because he hates trees, he was instrumental to this. And he likes pineapples on his That's even worse. Like I'd rather chop down trees than eat pineapple beer. Hey, there goes my new job. And now I'm done. Um, but Margo, Tim Kedki, Patty, Jeff, Robert Cardier, Anastasia, Kevin Shuvu, all extremely instrumental in making this happen. Fully charged. Fully charged. Um, since we will not be able to explore the website, this is what it looks like. Um, you can Oh, I got to do two hands. So, you have the ability to read it as a complete narrative. Every word in there is beautiful. I recommend you read every one. But if for some reason you wanted to skip around, it gives you the ability to jump to the different sections. going through very quickly. Wanted to make sure that everybody was on equal footing, understanding the issues, understanding what EVs are, how they work, the different levels of charging, so that way every stakeholder, whether it's an elected official, a township manager, or an EAC member, whoever it may be, can come in, be fully educated about what the issues are and how we're talking about them both. This is the fun part. We were talking about what these chargers are, how they work, where do they go. We wanted to really be able to have the community be able to explore their

municipality, their neighborhood, and look at all the issues that surround it. So, you can go into this interactive map and you can look at things like where are the chargers now? What are some radiuses around those chargers? Is it within walking distance of um multifamily? you know are we what sort of populations are living in these areas all those sorts of things you can run click on it and get educational material about that layer so really be able to understand your community where you populating the information from uh it is from DP penda census data data that we already had we did get data from DVRPC they did do a study previously uh for county owned facilities looking at where the most effective charging locations would be in relationship to multifamily housing. Are you also populating with existing charging location? Yes, we are. And where are you populating that from? That is from Yeah, the DOE. And that is something that's static when we grabbed it, but we can update it as we move forward. Yeah, we one of the conver one of the questions we were asked earlier was this really shouldn't be a tool like you're not going to be driving around and going to the planning commission website to be like, "All right, where's the next charger?" It's a tool for planning. It's a tool for planning. Correct. So, if we had more time, I'd pull it up and show you the interactive part of it. We do have this menu with all sorts of drop downs, so you can really explore your community and think about where infrastructure is most appropriate. There are lots of issues associated with EVs and EV infrastructure that municipalities are asking us. So, we wanted to be able to tackle some of those issues in the most forthcoming way possible. So, we talked about there's a section on frequently asked questions, the municipal issues that um we are facing. So, a lot of them around the

economics of EV charging, how do you pay for them? How do you promote charging on non-residential properties? permitting, you know, who's going to use it, and then how do you get people moving using the best information we have? This is something that as new issues arise, we can add to it or we can also as best practices come, we can incorporate those. And then we have ones about basically the physical infrastructure. How do you maintain them? How do you deal with a charging in a homeowners associate with a homeowners association? Um the potential fire hazards that have been discussed, trying to alleviate some of those concerns. Um, and then multif family and attached housing, like how do you deal with the on street charging? This is one of the things I'm going to uh tout our work. Um, Bucks County did a great job and they did a model ordinance previously and it was amazing and we stole a lot of it because it was really good. But one of the things they didn't address was how can we start to tackle the on street charging and that's something that we have tackled in this product. Yeah. How Um, we will get there very quickly, but then you're going to have to do your own research because I only have another minute or two. Um, and that's what we're here for. We're here to answer questions and to help communities. So, um, we did create a model ordinance for EV infrastructure. Um, you can go on, you can read it on the website or you can download a PDF. So some of the things we talk about, we talk about uh the design standards, you know, things like fire safety, accessibility, installation standards, what these what the chargers should look like. We tal Did I skip one? No. Um, we did talk about how to regulate some of the charging, the off- streetet charging, you know, allowing it all zoning districts, having requirements for multif family, a new development,

how many char how many parking spots should be dedicated to EV charging or be EV charging ready. Maybe not install the chargers, but have the conduit run so that when the market makes it appropriate, it's put in. Um and we talk about options like a fee in lie of which is something that we haven't seen before. If a development cannot or does not want to install them there, there is a fee where now the township can install it in a publicly accessible area where there may be more need for it. Um residential on street charging. Um the ordinance does allow it in the public rightway. Um, and it does have regulations on reserving the spot by putting the enforcement onto the land owner of calling a towing company, things like that. It's not perfect, but we're taking steps in that direction of trying to solve this issue. Um, and then municipal EV charging stations, giving the municipality some latitude and installation, ensuring safety and consistency because we want our municipalities to be able to be leaders in this. and when possible have publicly accessible charging. So we have it, it's available, it is on our website, you can link to it. What I love about it, it's an online tool and it's going to allow us, this is a changing technology, changing market. We will be able to adapt our tool. we'll be able to adapt what guidance we give and we'll be able to adapt the model ordinance as we learn more and become better adept at using this technology and installing it. Um and then yeah, we're going to start to publicize it um as much as we can um to get the word out and hope make it a resource for our communities. And I'm done. Awesome. I think it was good overview. I want to get into the website. People have

questions for John. We can sh I can share this with my guys. Yes. So I can start to look at this. Yep. Awesome. Yeah. Chad, do we have any idea how many electric cars are in Montgomery County? We do. And I should have the know the number on the top of my head. The highest number it county in Pennsylvania. Yes, I do know that. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head. But we have the we do rank first in the state in EV vehicle registration. The interactive mapping has by municipality has a total of five by municipality. Correct. Correct. I can see all that in there. 9,11. Thank you. The voice from above. Is that my conscience? Thank you, boys. Oh, all right. Well, now I got to update the constantly increasing. Oh, wow. Well, it be I mean I I'd love to go through this. I I think beyond street beyond street or the neighborhood parking especially in areas like Nars town where you have row homes or or hatched homes and it's more difficult to get EV charging is is the problem that needs to be solved and is the biggest is the biggest issue with you know widespread EV charging not to mention also you know treating treating EV charging like it was a gas station right now that's not they're not quite there Even with the DC fast chargers, I'm just not quite there yet for that. And how to how to solve that those two issues would be is the is the big step forward for you for electric vehicles in general. So no, I agree. I mean it's as as a owner of a Philadelphia row who cannot charge at my house. I mean it's it's something that we definitely tackle with um you know trying to figure out how to regulate on street so that it's equitable for the whole community

is is a tough as far as the technology goes like the the fast charging making that even faster. Yeah. Um it's it's interesting because we need the momentum needs to continue that people need to continue to purchase EVs because that'll drive the technology and the research to make that happen. Yeah. And then but and I brought this up before, you know, there's been some there's been some movements in in especially highly populated areas to create PV parking lots that are specific to those neighborhoods. So whereas they're open to anybody to use, but people in the neighborhood within a certain distance are charged a separate number than people that are outside of the neighborhood because and it allows them to treat it as if it's their their charging location. So, for instance, like if you're in the middle of, you know, Narstown or let's say Northern Liberties and you had a parking lot or you had a space where a parking area that could be all EV chargers. They would be all like level twos and people that live within a certain radius of that would be charged a certain period amount would be charged a certain amount for for kilowatt whereas and people that are outside of it would be charged a different amount. So it gives them the advantage of being able to take take advantage of the lower costs that people like to people that want to use EVs on a regular basis because DC fast charging is expensive. But if you can do the level two at a lower cost then like you would do it at your house and it's worth it and people that are outside of that area would be charged almost at a separate fee or it's a higher rate. How do they keepable? Is it open to non-EV vehicles? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't the specifics of infrastructure of how you get in and out of the parking lot. I can't answer that question. But all the

spots in the parking area are are are d are or level two charger stations. Yeah. I mean, so but that's I mean that's the kind of thing that has to be somehow we have to we we have to solve that problem because people that are living in densely populated areas that you know they're not going to run an extension cord across their sidewalk. So they may I living in Philadelphia I see that all the time people Yeah. Even in townhouse communities in the suburbs, you see it all the time. And the other thing is gonna have to be the other thing that's going to have to be thought about, I don't know how probably hasn't gotten to that point, but you're getting all these other electric vehicles, uh, scooters and and bikes, and people are using them for commuting. And they're commuting not just, you know, five minute rides, they're commuting, you know, halfhour rides, um, up and down Skoo River Trail to get from one location to another. and if potentially they need to be charged is another factor. Talk about that on the trail, but we have charges on the trail. So, I mean, it is interesting that it does make commuting to work on trails more viable because somebody may be like, I'm not willing to bike that distance, but if I'm on an electric bike or a electric scooter, like I'll take the trail and I can go from my own and then be, you know, multi- use on those trails. I mean, you have a bunch in the morning, a bunch of people on their electric bikes and other people walking for Yeah, it's it a lot of issues. We'll make Bill solve that one. I mean, he's out he's not sick. We'll give that one to I'm not worried about that. It's not as problem. Not issues, opportunities. I mean, you know, I am just Yeah, it what I find very interesting about this project is the fact that it is an evolving like I'm proud that the

planning commission is out there putting this out there to have the conversations to to work with communities because that's the only way we're going to solve these is by getting communities to try stuff, right? And it's going to be market driven in many ways. I just said to Nicole, when you start seeing these Teslas in the upper perk valley, I mean, a lot of them surprisingly. I said, you know, the the profile who drives a Tesla is will be changing and it'll be market driven and people see that they work and you know, whether it's a Tesla or another electric car, we need to be ahead of that curve if we can. Marorrow planning commission has talked about EV charging. Thank you very much. Um, starting with staff news director's report. Uh, first I want to introduce uh our latest intern Penelopey Valente who's with us today here in back. Um, we won't put her on the spot too much in the interest of time, but she comes to us from Kosoga High School uh working with us month of May. U that's the main term. Welcome. Thanks for coming on. Um, and we also have uh I think I mentioned last month the retirement of Amarie Mi on June 6. So this will be the last I thought she was already still here to give a parking pass or two, but um she's over across the hall again. Um and we will definitely miss her. Um there has been uh this is a good time to update you. There's been some reorganization and management. In fact, some of it you saw today with Jeff. Uh you may not know he's the new design um section manager, but he is. We have implemented a plan uh that put Patty into the deputy director role. Um before she was assistant director, but also uh running the design department. Uh she is now our sole

deputy director and uh I'm looking forward to the things that that will open up uh in terms of the top level management of the department. Um, and Jeff coming in as assistant manager and now moving to and able to move to manager has really uh helped enable that uh transition as well. Uh, and as you as you know, John is now the environmental section manager taking over the reigns from Drew Shaw who retired last month. So, lots of change. Um, it certainly is a challenge to balance all these things in new blood, but also exciting uh with the freshness and and the uh where we're headed around the corner here. Um, we have three openings uh technically uh for uh positions in the in the agency with a new trails and open space planners starting on Monday. That's Doug Maisy who comes to us from Campbell Thomas. Uh we have a transportation pl we have two transportation planner positions open. Uh interviews have been ongoing for that and offers uh moving fluidly as we talk. So uh hopefully those building soon and then the senior environmental planner which will fill the space left with the seat from Drew retirement work under John. Uh so that's uh again uh more change but but those are uh good things. Uh obviously our transportation environmental sections are very busy and working at less capacity than they need but we'll get there. Uh and then finally on staffing front, this is outside the department, but we have been particip John and I have been participating in interviews for the county's chief sustainability officer. Um so which will be located in the commissioner's office uh but working closely with us on many aspects uh as well as other many outside of his department uh for other county departments in improving the county's sustainability focus uh and

and direction and we've had great candidates. So I'm excited about uh the ultimate person who is selected through that process uh SEPTA. So, as you all know, uh hopefully the budget crisis they're facing and the full court press needed right now to hopefully uh move Harrisburg in their support of SEPTA's budget. Uh we've seen the the you know doomsday spiral plan uh that would result as of January in the elimination of five regional rail lines uh and significant reductions in service across the board including curfews and non no service for special events. It's it's really bad. Uh our commissioner Makija who is on the SEPTA board fully recognizes this and had been really uh out in front. Uh quot yes on a weekly basis the county is doing uh press press uh events, social video, social media videos that have been out. You may have seen a couple. They were at Binmar station uh a week or two ago having students talk about the impacts it was having on on them or would have these cuts take place. Uh they'll be out in King of Prussia in June talking to the business about with the business community there. Uh in fact this week they're uh doing something similar uh with the press event in Nar's train station with Senator Capetti and Representative Daly. Uh every week there's going to be something. So if uh best place to see a lot of it is on the county's Facebook page, but they're really good and I'm glad we're making every effort we can support this need commissioners. It is. It is. Yes. Um, speaking of commissioners, tomorrow the MONCO 2040 grant program awards will be announced uh at the commissioners meeting and we'll be presenting that um to the public and revealing those awards. Thank you to everyone participating on the committee for chairman. I'm going to come down and

thank you Doulsece will be joining us. So, thank you for that. Um, Monco, we talked about Moncoet. The Nortown Prison RFI deadline is tomorrow. Uh, it was extended in April, but May 15th is the final deadline. U, all I can say I am not allowed to see because I'm on the review committee, but uh, there are two full submissions that we had as of last week with eight in progress. Uh, so if we get even half of those in, I think that's there'll be a good selection of opportunities to look through. There is a review committee set up uh mostly county staff uh across different departments but also we're reaching out to a couple outsiders to allow them to be part of the process and submit their feedback on what they see in the results. Um and then the uh other the APA PA conference in October, we just had four presentations accepted involving county staff addressing uh storm water planning building energy conservation ordinance. So both involve John uh census data utility with Dave Greenberger, David Greenberg and uh our uh Montgomery County planning players are again assembling for an ethics presentation. I think is this is now going to be a permanent thing it seems like. I I don't know. We're doing another group of Shakespeare um vignettes. Yes. So Matt, Eric, and Patty will be there. Uh this conference is in Harrisburg, so we hope to have a se a good contingent of staff attending as well. Uh I was just selected for the Urban Land Institute's Commonwealth Housing Exchange. This is a I think it's a new program. I don't know that they've done it before. Uh it's taking 15 professionals from the Philadelphia area and 15 from the Pittsburgh area. Bringing them together in two two-day sessions, one in June, one in September. First one will be in Pittsburgh, second Philadelphia. A range

of backgrounds from government to uh the planning to developers uh housing professionals and I'm really excited that I get to be part of this and uh hopefully a lot will come of it. There'll be uh tours, experts talking, but mostly workshop and talking to each other. Good ideas. Ideas. Um and your events list is out, so I'll skip over all that. uh with the exception of GVF bike day if anyone wants to hop on a bike and join us on May 29th the morning from 9 to 10 we'll be doing a press event at the KOP park and ride and then riding into Nortown's transit center with commissioner Makija and hopefully some Chester County commissioners and anyone else who wants to come. So that's my reporting. Montgomery awards and the Montgomery Awards. Reminder for submissions, nominations. Um if you have any ideas, I know in the past you reached out to me and said something, please still do that. Um and we'll see if we can find something or have somebody nominate something. So um there's still a couple weeks, but hoping that if you have any ideas, you'll reach out. Um I I have a question. I know there's been a tremendous amount of reorganization and new uh positions in the commissioner's office. Would you let us know what's going on up there? Just so you know. I mean, seriously. I mean, does anybody know? Sure. I mean, who the people are? I mean, I don't, you know, it would be helpful in case we bump into them and, you know, Oh, okay. I won't lie. Sometimes there's a new face I see and don't know. Um, but no, we I we are, as I have said before, we're integrated much more greater. I'm at a weekly meeting sitting around. It's essentially like a cabinet table meeting um with with a couple other department. You don't have to say how wonderful they are, do you? I mean, it's like that. No, no, there's no coverage. Okay. Uh we don't have time for that. It's it's a lot lot of business being done. And so, uh the one person I do want to actually

mention, um Meera Bale has been hired as the new deputy COO. Um there are three deputy COOs although currently there's an empty empty seat in there as well but the one that oversees PL or the planning reports to as does commerce and motors couple others um she's she has a background with the state uh her background is in in in law uh but she's had a lot of impact in and jobs within the administration of of Shapiro previously Uh I know I knew her brother actually was a planning graduate classmate of mine and uh so she has a lot of familiarity with what we do and has been great so far in the month and a half she's been here. Um and it it you know I used to always report directly to Lee Altisiac COO um and who is fantastic but you can only get so much of his attention. So it's great to have now this multi-tered way of working with this which is important. But yeah, I I'll I'll see if I can give you any a better more holistic overview of what's what's right. Um, that's all. Any other comments before we adjourn? Thank you. Forjourn. Thanks everyone. Thank you. comments.