Board of County Commissioners - workshop

welcome to a work session for the board of carroll county commissioners for deferral code amendments on age restricted housing and other related deferral items as we always do we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance in a moment of silent required reflection i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands Well, all right, so I will kick things over to Chris and Daphne to get us going.

Thank you very much. So as you mentioned, we're here to talk about age-restricted housing, potential code amendments. We also have two other sets of code amendments that we've been talking about, one related to accessory dwelling units, the other related to cluster subdivisions. We haven't specifically made this work session exclusively about age-restricted housing, but given the density of the proposed amendments and some of the focus of our conversations, that seems like a good place to focus in today. Certainly we have some materials related to the other two. Code amendments, if you ever want to bring those up, discuss those today or at our next work session next week, we can do that. So is everybody good with diving into age restricted? Okay. So we're going to walk you through a couple of slides. Some of them are familiar to you from what we presented, I believe, a couple weeks ago when we requested permission to schedule a public hearing on these. But really we wanted to kind of hone in on two key questions. As we've been talking about things and looking at the proposed code amendments, there are two pretty fundamental questions that I think would be helpful to our following discussions that would be really good to get your read on so that we know how to contextualize all the other conversations. And that is related to the number and types of dwellings that are appropriate for age-restricted housing. So I'll just walk you through the points on this slide. The first is that the Freedom Community Comprehensive Plan indicates that there is a need for housing for seniors in that particular area. We have similar language in the County Master Plan, but the Freedom Plan is where that's really emphasized in terms of the need for housing generally, and more specifically housing for seniors. The second point is that age-restricted villages provide a solution where housing for seniors can be provided without also having them need to worry about the property maintenance and some of those sorts of things that a standard subdivision homeowner would need to worry about. So this is a particular type of housing that meets a particular type of need. We have several zoning districts where that housing is allowed. But if we look at where non-age restricted housing is allowed, that helps to contextualize it. So first of all, we want to point out that townhouses, which is the predominant type of housing that we see coming forward in the proposals for age-restricted housing, are not allowed in any of our residential zoning districts. In our 20,000 zoning district, which equates to about two dwelling units per acre, The housing type that is allowed is single family detached. In our R10,000 zoning district, which is four dwelling units per acre, the principal permitted use of housing type is single family detached. We do have the ability for people to do two family dwellings as conditional uses. And in our R7500, which is about five dwelling units per acre, also single family detached as the principal permitted use and two family dwellings as conditional uses. In our commercial zoning districts, no single family housing is allowed. So this gives you kind of an overview of if you are not doing an age-restricted housing project or what's known as a planned unit development, which is sort of a master planned community. These are the types of housing that are allowed in our residential zoning districts. So again, our age-restricted housing allows for some varieties of housing. It allows for single-family detached. It allows for two-family. It also allows for townhomes. So really what I think we want to start out our discussion with is a question about what the density, when we're talking about age-restricted housing, should be and what types of dwelling units should be allowed in those communities. So right now our density is three and a half dwelling units per acre for age-restricted housing. That's allowed in our 20,000 zoning district.

Daphne, it was three and a half? I'm sorry, three and a half?

Three and a half in our 20,000, yeah.

Thank you. And per how many? Per acre?

Per acre, yep.

Thank you.

In R10,000 and R7500, there is no specific density that's set. That's at the discretion of the Planning Zoning Commission. But you can already see that allowing for an age-restricted community in the R20,000 zoning district gives them essentially a density bonus. It gives them the ability to develop housing for seniors at a greater density than what would be allowed in that zoning district otherwise. And because of the definition of what an age-restricted community is and our use table and our zoning ordinance, it also allows other types of dwelling units to be allowed if it's part of an age-restricted community. So we can infer from our zoning ordinance and the text in our plans that there at some point in time was an understanding that there was a need for senior housing that that senior housing could be developed at more densely than what was allowed in the zoning district and it could allow for other types of housing. So I think before we go into a discussion about all the the details contained in the proposed code that it would be good to get your take on these sort of fundamental questions. Is it good to allow for a density bonus when we're talking about age-restricted housing? And when we do allow age-restricted housing, what types of housing should be allowed? And is there a difference in terms of what types of housing should be allowed from one zoning district to another? So that's how I'd like to start out the discussion. And I'll just pause there for...

Before you started, one of the things that I, we've spent a lot of time on this, and one of the things you ask yourself for this and clustering is why are we doing it? What's the purpose? And so to me, I've become an expert now of the times I've been looking online and reading all this stuff, but it explains why it's so important to have a purpose paragraph. Why are we doing it? And it says here, the purpose paragraph, why do we do it, establishes the legal intent and framework for the regulation. It justifies the creation of the district. It protects the ordinance from legal challenges. And it guides planning boards when making future development decisions. And I know there was one. I couldn't find it. But I just wrote some stuff down. And I think if you know your purpose of why we're having this housing, then you can say, OK, What do we do to get, how do we, well, how do we get what we, what we're looking for, for our seniors? And I just, I, I'm just going to write what I sort of put a bunch of stuff together and just see if you agree or don't agree with some of it. And then we have some, a lot of it's in bullets and with Troy wrote, but you know, retirement village in homes, whatever we want to call age restricted, active adult, the purpose of allowing a retirement village and or retirement home designation on certain land use. designations is to establish comprehensive development criteria and regulations that allow for and promote the development of well-planned, high quality, safe and accessible age-restricted housing options for residents in communities tailored specifically to the unique needs of residents age 55 and older within Carroll County. Recognizing the demographic shift toward an aging population, these designations will collectively allow for diverse housing types ranging from single-family detached dwellings to multi-family options. Respecting the underlying land use, which we're required by law to do, from the management, we're required by state law and by our own law to respect the underlying land use of a parcel within a cohesive development which supports a choice of models and floor plans suited for the different needs of our senior citizens and aims to facilitate aging in place. And then to ensure the health, safety, and general welfare of the community Developments within this district are intended to incorporate best practice, universal design principles, explicitly prioritizing and incentivizing single-level living floor plans to facilitate aging in place safely, adequate barrier-free accessibility and walkable connections to communal amenities, recreational facilities and spaces, and supporting services. To balance community compatibility with specific modern housing demands, This framework allows for a variety of low to medium impact housing types, including detached single story cottages and villages and multifamily apartments, while implementing a strict density cap and clear open space conservation thresholds. The health and safety and welfare of seniors will be the priority in designing these age appropriate homes and communities with options available to suit differing needs and budgets. By defining specific parameters for site layout open space acreage these rules ensure that new retirement developments protect the rural suburban character of carroll county while optimizing emergency service accessibility and resident amenities further this district seeks to integrate senior housing harmoniously with surrounding neighborhoods manage traffic impacts preserve open space to provide for an active and social lifestyle and visual appearance and promote low maintenance living therefore fostering a supportive safe and socially engaged environment for the 55 plus population.

And can you repeat again where that's from?

I got a whole bunch of sources. I put it together to make it for Carroll County. So it's like a bunch of different things. So I mean, I took, there's all these different places that do these. And they suit them to where they're from. If they're urban, they're suburban. So I took pieces and put it together. So the reason that they recommend.

How long are you going to read to us? 15 minutes or? I've got questions, and we've only got two hours.

Can we start with the purpose of why we have age-restricted housing? I'm just asking, because that's what it's all about.

Well, I've got some questions about the purpose.

I've spent a pretty long time doing this. I can't hear you. I've spent a lot of time putting this together.

I did my first senior housing community 25 years ago, so I've spent a few hours on it.

but go ahead, read to us.

Is this AI stuff?

Why don't we let Commissioner Krebs?

I'm sorry, I didn't come here to be, if each one of us are going to read for 15 minutes, we only have an hour left.

Commissioner Krebs, wrap up and then we will ask our questions.

I think it's important to establish why we do this designation and why we want to give bonus because it's got to be right now. We're not getting a product because we haven't really said here's what we want. So we're getting all three story townhouses. We have a lot of problem with what's going on in the community. So we're trying to say, why are we? Why do we want this product? Why do we want to have age restricted housing? And the reason it's recommended in good planning code to do the statement is to have the statement of the text in the purpose paragraph gives you the legal authority to explicitly state it's protecting the health, safety and general welfare, which is the foundation for zoning law, because we're giving a special exception for these folks. Design standards embeds universal design and barrier free accessibility directly into the statement of intent. giving the Planning and Zoning Commission leverage to require these features during site plan reviews. And I'm sorry I didn't have copies because I didn't know Shelby was going to be off today. I'll get you copies. And then housing types and design intent, it tells you what our intentions are. Our intentions are getting cottages and villages, low profile single family detached, semi-detached or triplex units, highly encouraging single level living designs, no stairs required for primary living spaces to reduce physical barriers, and age-restricted multifamily apartments for the homes. It explains that. And then the vision in here, it says, underlying land use designation on approved comprehensive master plan determines the housing type allowed to be in harmony with surrounding communities, and that is required by state and our own law. Because you cannot have, in R20, you can't have two different types producing kinds of people. So I have that from Ned Kuman right here from Chapter 3.303. if you do not bring the proposed development regulations along concurrently with the proposed new plan, they're supposed to be in harmony with each other. So if you have your purpose and all that stuff's in there, that sort of leads you to what we're trying to get to.

So if I could break in real quickly. We have a couple of things that are in our plans that talk about exactly those types of purpose statements. So in the freedom comprehensive.

Can I ask some questions first? Sure, please. There's so much misinformation on social media in the emails we see. What is age-restricted housing? I hear no steps. I'm 20 years past age-restricted. I have four stories. I was on three of them five, six times today. I have my printer on the third floor and my computer on the first. That's how dumb I am. And then I hear about aging in place. Brightview, Plum Creek, there are communities where you age in place. At 55, I don't think most people are ready to age in place. And as far as three stories or two stories, I don't see me ever downsizing to one of these communities. But if I did, I'd want three or four bedrooms so my kids could visit, my grandkids could visit. And they would be on the second or third floor. That doesn't mean I'd do the steps. Hopefully for another 10 or 15 years I can, but who knows. And I just, I don't understand, do we want totally handicapped facilities for people with special needs or do we want somebody 55 that doesn't want to mow their grass Um, you know, wants to be in a community and, and I understand the community amenities and some of the things we were pushing for. Um, I don't understand, uh, this age in place. And, uh, and I, I, and I'll be honest, um, I'm hard headed. I checked into a, uh, at a hotel at a resort and a beach that I needed a passport to get to. They put me in a handicap room. I went back to the front desk and said, you either need to give me my money back and I'll find another place to stay or put me in a decent room. I didn't want that. And some people don't want that. So I assume in elders Berg, there's all these three stories setting empty cause nobody wants them. You know, it's a, it's, it's a, these communities, um, I don't understand some of the hyper hearing. Well, when we went down, to Aldersberg Library for the Freedom Small Plan evening, I rode through Nell's Acre. There was one car in the finished areas. There was one car straddling the grass in the street. There was zero other cars on the street. There were 90% of the houses had people in their driveway. None of them were within six foot of a sidewalk. There was zero sidewalks blocked. So I understand that we want certain things, but do we really want to hyper-control the market on what people can build? I don't like to see 15 people telling 100 people what kind of house they ought to live in. And I think first, what is age restricting? Is it age in place? I mean, like I said, Plum Creek, you can be a cottage, a duplex, a townhome. When you want to, you can move into better care, but you still move. You don't live in the same cottage 20 years later. I know a lot of people in age restricted in Manchester and a lot of friends and they move in at whatever 55 to 60 at maybe 70 they move away because they want more care and and so i guess i i just want to we we can't make these suit every person and everything and uh and again i've wished before um wider streets wider walks more paving for parking, all increases storm water management, all increases sediment control, all increases the cost. I don't know that we have affordable housing for seniors in Carroll County, but we're definitely jacking the price up by every one of these rules. So to me it's like, why don't we want town homes? Why don't we want more density because I think that's what the buyers want, a lot of them. And almost all of our, before senior housing, were mixed use. And, you know, single families, very expensive single families, pretty expensive town homes. But that, and we're going to get, I'll wait until we get to, like I see the first thing on here, fire lanes. I live on 26 acres. If a fire truck wants to get the back of my house, he needs to drive through about a three foot tree and a lot of fence. It's not legally required. So I just, I wanna know where we're headed with this. Is this age restricting or is this age in place? And what, like I say, for 20 years, I'd be quite happy in a three-story. I'm quite happy in a four-story, but I can't speak for other people, and I don't want to tell everybody, you've got to live in a four-story because I do, or I don't want a four-story next door. We've got to do what... what's affordable and what sells. And the market will determine what sells. We need to do restrictions. And I agree. We need to tweak our zoning. We do. There's things we need to change. But to stop these people, it doesn't make sense. So I want to know first. And then I hear that age restricted, which I know the state Does the rules on that, not us, but you only have to be one 55 year old. And one of our board of ed people talked about bus access to a senior housing. I didn't think there were school gauge kids in senior housing, so I didn't think they needed a bus, but maybe I'm wrong.

So, so if I made to start the discussion, uh, the very basics, so age restricted housing. comes from federal government, and it's the Housing for Older Persons Act, which basically allows for discrimination on age discrimination in housing. It allows for a community to, a local jurisdiction to establish rules and regulations related to age discrimination to set aside certain types of development that can discriminate against people under 55 and create this type of product. And there are certain very basic guidelines to it. The federal law says that 80% of the units have to be age restricted for it to be an age restricted community. So by federal law, 20% of the units could be not age restricted. And then there are limitations on children residing there, time durations, like it's either 30 or 60 days is the maximum amount of time that they can live there. So there are these basic federal requirements. It's then up to the local jurisdictions and our enforcement as far as what additional provisions working with the business community and what model they want to put forth as far as additional criteria. But from an age-restricted perspective, the federal law is kind of where we're starting, and then we can build upon that other requirements that we want to have locally.

So we can restrict that more if we choose to.

And it's a cooperation between us and the developer, right, as to what their business model is.

Is the state restricted at all, or is it all federal? I believe... I think it's federal.

And the federal isn't really restricting it. They're basically saying if you're going to discriminate based on age, you at least have to have an age appropriate. So it's very broad. But there's a couple things I just wanted to keep straight. First of all, Plum Creek is a continuing care retirement community. It's a CCRC. So they have to be certified by the state, and that is you go in an independent, you then have assisted living, you have continuous care that you pay for. These are not CCRCs. Fairhaven is one.

But a lot of the social media is saying we want to age in place in these units. They're not designed for that. And people want different rules because they want to age in place. Well, that's not what these communities are.

Well, what I guess, you know, there's a lot of, like this is the biggest thing that's happening now in the United States is these types of homes all over the country. or having it all around us, and they're for you to age in place as long as you're able to. Many people can, and then maybe they've got to go to a nursing home, but some people move into the continuing care retirement community, which is very expensive, and you pay for forever care, and then some people just want to downsize and be able to stay there. So what I'm going to try to do, this is all in my district, I'm going to try to find the best solution.

And it's all in Carroll County, by the way. You can't do it unless you're on water. The five of us are Carroll County.

I understand, but what I'm saying is, it's only can be on water and sewer. So it's gotta be in our area. And right now we're getting only one product. We have, we're getting 600 more three story townhouses for seniors. And that's not the product that people necessarily want. We did a survey with, with, with, um, how many are, how many are built so far? Three, 129, 129 and 50% empty. Are they selling them? Yeah, I guess they're built up there, so I don't know. I'm going to check it out.

Yeah, I mean, I assume they're selling them, so I assume somebody 55 over wants them.

I just would like to ask, I'm trying to be constructive in what we're trying to get. Me too. Okay, but let me put forth what I'm trying to accomplish, and then you can say, no, it's terrible, and then we can. But if you at least would listen to what we're trying to do. So I'm trying to do what they're doing all over, and I want to be in that. It's an economic development tool as well. People in my district are looking for this product. I think people in our county are looking for the product. Keep in mind, we don't have to have a category for age-restricted housing. Any developer today could take a piece of property and cluster it together. And we have some of them. They're very nice. One is Coventry Meadows. One is down by us. It's 21 lots. And they can just cluster them together and put this product and put an age restriction on their deed or in their covenant. So that can be done today. Because we've started this, we started with the retirement homes years ago with assisted livings, and we just started having this product because there's a demand for it. And we just made this category up called villages now that are really homes. They're not for assisted living. They're not for medical need. And they're more active adult communities. You can make it 65. You can pick whatever age you want as long as it's at least 55. You could say it's 65. A lot of people are still working. Some people still have college kids. But their plan is to, usually, they're all not the same, is to downsize their home into something that's maintenance-free and they have less to take care of. But in general, the vision for the retirement villages and home should be set by the county in consultation with their planning commission. Execution comes from the developer. We say, here's what we're looking for, and this is what our community's looking for. That's why you have planning, that's why you have master plans, and that's why we have, we're a growth planned area, and that's why we're trying to plan it in our growth area, what we're looking to do. And based on the master plan that we currently have in place, because we have to follow, by law, we have to follow the underlying land use. So we're trying to put the vision together and if you had right now, our developers would not be in this flux. If we had clear guidelines, we have three sentences. You must be over 55 and you can get 3.5 per acre. Now I was a little confused because 3.5 per acre. If I lived in Kansas, you get little thoughts, but we don't live in Kansas and what I'm finding and Chris and I went over this the other day. If you have a property that has lots of hills and valleys and streams and and all sorts of stuff, and half of that property is not developable, you can now take the whole amount and divide it, multiply it times 3.5, and you can jam them all in one spot. You could actually have a piece of property that's 75% not developable for many reasons, and you get the same yield, you get the same yield, but you're putting it in a quarter of the space. And that's why they're so jammed together. And that's not really, that's not really, The reason that everyone's coming to do this is because you can get so much more yield out of this regime than anything we can do in a normal regime. Because it's called a retirement village, then you have to say, OK, well, is this product really serving the community that they're supposed to? Or are we just trying to get as many of these townhouses in to these properties as can be? And that's what is occurring. And it's not necessarily the best product we could give to folks. You say to yourself, why do people push for single-family detached homes? It's not because I don't like a townhouse. I have a townhouse. I own a townhouse in Delaware. I like it. It's a big townhouse. It's a big villa. We've got lots of daylight. But it's not about that. It's about people that want to move. Most people want to have their first floor living, and they want to have more than just their bedroom and some space. The other thing that when you're older that why you want detached homes is because you get something called windows and light. When you have six units together, four of them are in the middle, and you have your front door that's solid, and you have a little cover over it, which is good with the rain, and then out back you have a patio with a cover. You literally have no natural light.

We built many, many six-unit townhouses that I couldn't afford to buy, and so I guess people are okay. For seniors? And then seniors, one point I wanted to make, too, with the senior housing, the primary reason we're seeing so many of them isn't just the aging population. It's that we restrict... affordable housing because of school enrollment and carroll county's declining enrollment right now ccps would pay for more students and and they want more students but then i see emails saying these senior houses are going to overcrowd our schools well i don't know how many 55 year olds are going to middle school but it can't be too many so i it's just so many misconceptions And I understand your concern. I don't understand the portion of the county because everything we do down here to make houses more expensive, have less density, and the reason developers want more density is because that's what buyers want. Nobody wants a one acre or a half acre lot anymore. They can sell a quarter acre or a third acre for more money, actually, than a one acre. But it's hard, but unless Eldersburg decides it's its own tax district, Manchester people in their taxes are paying for things down there, so it's very relevant. They are, they are. And I've heard we should reduce their water and sewer bills. Well, who will pick up the difference? The Manchester people that have septic and wells. District five isn't flat and an island and you don't fall off the edge when you drive off it. It's very, very tied to Carroll County and very important to me.

questions if I might since we're talking about age restricted so Chris when we're looking at these properties I know and I'm looking at what is this page three we're talking about generational housing with multiple generations under one roof obviously I'm not going to go way down into this but obviously 80 uses a factor within that as well but if we have age restricted as was already sort of mentioned a couple minutes ago, you're not going to have a middle school age child living in an age-restricted home because that goes against the, I would assume there's an easement on that property or some sort of legal documentation to lock it in at that type of usage.

Yes, it's recorded in the land records.

So then I guess we know it's reported in the land records, but just to put this out for all of us and also anybody watching, How is that then viewed? I mean, we know that if there's a community and it's, I don't know, 50 homes, we know that all of those within that home fit that type of criteria. It's very easy. It's not like we're looking at one-offs in a community of 100 homes or 50 homes or whatever. Because depending on things, we would almost have to set up, and I don't want to get into this ever, we would almost have to set up our own sort of quasi-ag pres department for aging homes. homes or restricted aged homes depending if we were to modify things too far out of it being within blocks of development as it currently is. But I think the one thing that's really, we've all heard this a variety of times, but You have property rights from the owners, plus they have choice of purchase. So if I don't want to buy a 10-acre house or a house on five acres, I won't buy it. I'll go buy whatever, be it a townhouse, be it a single lot that's an acre or half acre or whatever. I guess the question I think we all need to kind of maybe consider is, We're looking at, what, three-story town homes right now, maybe four, depending, but I think three mostly. Three stories. So we're looking at three. Then we're hearing it should be one story. We've heard that from some members of the community. I guess my question is, why aren't we considering looking at choice? Because I might not want a single story. I might want two. Someone else might want three. But I think one of the things we really need to take a look at, I'm going to share this with everybody after the meeting because this unfortunately is new information that I just got earlier this morning. But you had a survey done by the National Health Interview Survey that was done in conjunction with the CDC. And there was a survey called the Federal Older Americans 2016 Report. And it breaks down mobile disability by age. So they started 65 to 74. And that is a 10.6% disability. then 75 to 84, they show an average of 14.6% disability. 85 plus is 30%, obviously, as we know with age. Not that there won't be outlying individuals that won't maybe fit those criteria, but that's what they're looking at. And of course, that factors into inability to walk, climbing stairs, et cetera, et cetera. And then of course, we start looking at the federal data set. At 65 to 74, one in nine people have a serious mobility issue. At 75 to 84, it's one in seven. At 85 plus, it's one in three. And I think we all would presume that you know which can be dangerous that that would be the case and overall but i think one we need to look at that because if we're talking c or age restricted at 55 the average 55 year old by choice is not going to have an issue walking two flights of stairs maybe three some will but i think we need to take a serious look into how that's being looked at by the federal government with the cdc and the national health because We're not the experts on mobility. And that's not critiquing anybody. I just think we should take a serious look at is there a way to take, I don't know, let's say there was a senior housing community. Would there be the option to purchase X over here and Y over there? And that's then up to the buyer. Because to lock anybody into one versus the other, whichever version that is, I'm personally not a fan, because people should have choice on what they want to buy. And granted, part of that is market related, but we also have to give them the ability to have that choice. So I just wanted to mention that.

That's exactly what we're trying to do, is have the choice. And right now, most. I can't speak for everybody, but the market out there wants mostly single family, single level living. That doesn't mean you can't have an upstairs. But that adds cost. Right now, people that are seniors and are buying a three-story townhouse, maybe when they're 55 it's good, but they're buying space they don't use or need. They're buying one space. If you have things that is what they look, and you saw the pictures up there, that's what they have pretty much everywhere. I mean, pretty much very few townhouses in senior living. But we want to have different floor plans. Right now, we're getting everything exactly the same. Three-story townhouses, that's all the same. want to have different options for different people some will be if you go up to coventry meadows it's up off of um what rosette pond road um some of them have a basement and just one floor some of them have a basement and a second floor some have one and a half levels and they're not as expensive they're actually less expensive we have a community um by liberty high school it's it doesn't have a name it's called serrano drive look those up they're they're about 100 to 200 000 less than the townhouses and they're actually nicer and bigger they're all on one floor some have a half one But I'm not going to argue who wants what. The demand is there. We did a survey. It's there. This is what the market everywhere is doing. That's in Gettysburg and in Frederick and all over the place. Because this is what people are looking for. And what we're trying to do, I'm trying to set a vision for what I believe that's what the consulting came for. That's what people weighed in on. So I'm trying to put the best foot forward of how do we get the product that we're looking for. So they're little things. accessible entryways. We've talked about this thing. We don't have to go through all this stuff. The single level of living is the important thing. And the reason these are not big houses are not a white or lots we're talking are 20,000. So we're not talking big lots of nothing's big. They're all small. So how much will you put and what kind of product can you put on it? So, um, I w so that's what we're trying to get to here is not, is what, what do, how much direction do we give? Of course, if they went and built this in some other county, they're going to do these things, because that's what they make them do. But how much of this do we want to put into our code? Keep in mind, people say there's a moratorium. There is no moratorium. They could build market rate houses today on the properties that are there, every one of these properties. but they want to build this product because you can get way more rooftops out of it, but it's not necessarily the kinds of rooftops that our people really want. So we're trying to say, how do we give everybody a little bit of, how do we give them the kinds of homes they want on the property? Um, but this is all we have. I'm sure if there was, there is no variety right now. We're not getting it right. I, one of my favorite places in all of Carroll County is Carol Vista. You had it right up in your neighborhood. It's like 20, 25 years old. People flock to there. I mean, These products are very, very marketable. And we don't have them. So I'm trying to set a vision and trying to say, how much do we put out there that we would like? I think it will be a dynamic community. I think we would be a leader in it. We're losing some of our folks because we don't have the product to offer them right now. So that's what we're trying to say. How much should we do? I mean, what would be next? And listen, I'm gonna put forth and do as much as we can to get this to be a great product. You're gonna vote against it and that's fine. But just let us get to the point of at least putting forth what we're trying to get, what we're trying to get for our community.

If I could real quick, I'm sorry, just one other quick thing. I don't think anybody's here looking to vote against something. I would hope that we're all working together to find some collaborative vision for the community. But I want to make two other quick points. I mean, I think the question is, are we trying to determine collectively, the five of us plus county staff, what older individuals, how we think they should live or how they want to live? Because I think the one thing Very simply as this, I think most people want to remain as independent as possible as they age, whether that's their choice to be in a single family rancher, they had their three-story home that they've had for generations, whatever that is. But I think most people, if they're healthy and they are vibrant, they want to be as independent as they can be. I mean, we've seen that whether you're living at independent living or any other type of housing. But I do want to make one other really quick point, though. The AARP in the 2024 Home and Community Preferences Survey, which surveyed more than 3,000 Americans, found that among adults 50 and older, 75% wanted to remain in their current home as they age, which we can all understand that. Granted, there are factors of whether that can happen. 73% wanted to remain in their current community. We all see that. 51% said they needed a home that supports independent aging. That's where we get into the real dynamic question here. but then of course, you know, nearly half anticipate needing to modify those homes as they continue. But I think the question is, it's not, I know at times we all get very passionate about things, but we're all in here trying to work together for the best of the community. And I just want to make sure we all kind of keep that in mind. Um, I'm not pointing fingers or complaining at any of us. It's just effective. We're trying to do the best for Carroll County. So I think we need to keep that in mind as we progress down that. Yeah.

So, so if I may, um, So Commissioner, you provided what I think you're proposing as a purpose statement for the code. We have not seen that. If you wouldn't mind sharing that around to us all so that at the next work session, after we've had a chance to digest it, then we can have a good discussion about it. And you've mentioned it. I think the fundamental question, and this is what Daphne has presented and what we wanted to start off this conversation was, Density and type of house. And what I would submit is that the type of dwelling is the most important question. If you give an increase in density, you can still have those in single family detached homes. You can go from two units on an acre to three and a half, as it were, on an acre. And they're still detached. They may be smaller and so on, different options. The question that is really at the crux of, I think, all of this is, do we want to allow for attached, which we, in our code, refer to as townhomes. But that references a lot of different housing types. And we didn't want to get into defining all of them. because you're talking villas and quadplexes and triplexes and so on and so forth. But essentially, they're all attached. So we generally refer to those as townhomes. Do we want to allow those when we're talking about this product, which is this age-restricted village-type concept? Daphne has a couple of references on the screen, and there are a couple of slides that just indicate that from a Freedom Comprehensive Plan perspective, that there is this desire for age-restricted, there is this desire for diversity of type, but there are some other, points in the master plan, such as the bottom one, which says, should remain a place that will accommodate larger home sites that can accommodate in-law suites. That speaks to ADUs, right? So I don't say there's conflict in the plan, but there's certainly open for interpretation. And when we hired Michael Baker to go through and look at this, one of the things that they affirmed is that our current code is not in conflict with the Freedom Plan. Our freedom plan allows for these various types of desired products, and that's what our code allows for. Now, we are providing a lot of flexibility, and I think what we talked about is do we want to retain that significant flexibility, or do we want to dial it down a little bit to something more of what we want? So if I could suggest...

I'm just going to suggest something, and I don't want to get into the details of this, Michael Baker does not know all the details. When the Freedom Plan was adopted, it did not allow for this. And it said clearly, I read you this stuff, clearly it was not anticipated in the Freedom Plan to allow townhouses on any of this stuff. The other thing that you cannot do is you can't just, we don't allow it for regular, we don't allow it for, Joe couldn't buy a townhouse in this district because you have to be 55. It seems counterintuitive to me that we only allow it for senior housing when that's the least thing that we really want. The way I've understood it, and Mr. Kuhman explained it to me, he explained it in 2017, you have to have in the same zone the same ability for people to do stuff. You can't just say, and you have to follow the master plan unless we want to go change it. I mean, we can't just say, you can't just come in and say, hey, I want to do this now. Because you've got to follow, you're required by law, consistency, state law, consistency with comprehensive master plans. So you can't just say, oh, I've changed my mind now and I want to change it. then a few years from now when we update it, you can go back and change it, but then everybody has a say in it that goes out to the community. But right now, I believe, based on state law, it is inconsistent because we do not allow it on, and I don't know that he knew that, we don't allow it for regular housing on these zones, and you have to be consistent within your zone of who you allow it for. So I personally believe, and I've asked around, I don't believe it is consistent, and I don't think it should have been allowed to begin with. because it's not consistent with the land use, and you're not allowing it for all parties. We're basically giving a density bonus for this one product, and that's what's incentivizing it. You should incentivize the product that you want to get, because you're giving a bonus for it. You're getting more rooftops. One way or another, you're going to get more rooftops, and that's good. That's fine. So as I said, I don't I don't believe that it is consistent based on the master plan. I read you the articles and said we weren't going to have these things. And I think the expectation of the commissioners back then will all tell you that we're not planning to do these things. I showed you the articles. I said, I don't I don't want to go go go through all that. The master plan did not anticipate this. It was not written until 2022 retirement villages. And then the chart came out and it started to be interpreted that way.

If I may, I apologize. So I understand we're having a discussion about choice and different options for people, and I take that point completely. But it occurs to me in this discussion, going back to the two questions that are the fundamental initiation for the conversation, that when we talk about an age-restricted community or an age-in-place or continuous care community, they are fundamentally different things, at least in terms of their definitional construction. So to me, with those two questions about density and whether these houses should be attached or detached, you know, what kind of housing we are actually talking about. Because, you know, when I think about age-restricted, and Sue and Kenny have both made the point that you think of a certain age, and Chris, you very well defined what the federal government considers, you know, discrimination based on age for a certain reason. And so, obviously, if I, you know, am 55, to Kenny's point, that, you know, I can still go up four flights of steps. I don't necessarily need to be in a community that is continuous care. But at the same time, you know, if I am in, you know, place where I'm ready for that kind of community, that's the kind of community that I'm going to seek out. And so I think part of what has to guide us in this conversation is, you know, what is it that we are talking about? So, Susan, the definition that you or the vision paragraph that you presented to us referred to such a community as age-restricted, but then you also provided for aging in place, which in a simple contradistinction is different from age restriction. So as far as the density and as far as the attached or detached question, the question that I have for the two of you when it comes to the three and a half dwelling units per acre in R20,000, how do you arrive at three and a half dwelling units per acre as an acceptable number in R20,000? And then when you move beyond that to R7,500 or R10,000, how do you determine what is an acceptable or an appropriate number of dwelling units for those kinds of designations?

So that evolved over time. So going back to, I want to say the 70s, when the retirement home definition was in place, that evolved to include the community type single family community, not just a multi-family apartment complex type building. So sometime in the 70s or 80s, that evolved to start allowing for that in our code. But it was under the same definition. Retirement home allowed for both the multi-family as well as the individual dwellings. And it started differentiating the density. So in the early 70s, that density was 14 and a half units per acre. And then as this recognition of this model of single family homes evolved, The multi-family stayed at 14 and a half, and the density for the homes, or not homes, the village-type concept slowly decreased. So at one point it was seven and a half. It later then got reduced to four and a half. So, Commissioner, you mentioned Antlitz, which is the one over by Liberty High School. Yeah, when that one was approved, it was four and a half, and that's the density it was built at, four and a half dwelling units per acre.

Do they cost or do they do a retirement? No, it's a retirement village.

Yes, but under the definition of retirement home, because that encompassed both business models. We've talked many times about Snowden's Creek and Nell's Acres and a desire when the new code, when the code was revised in 2022 to protect that from happening again, as it were, right? When that happened, it became important to separate those into two different definitions because which zoning district they were allowed on changed. So the issue was that Snowdens Creek was zoned R20 and the desire was not to have that kind of dense retirement home allowed in R20 anymore. And Nell's Acres was on R40, and the desire was not to allow that on R40 anymore, but still allow it on R20. So it became very complex to maintain the two different types of uses and have different allowances where they could be. So that's why they were separated into the retirement village and the retirement home, because the retirement home is not allowed on R20. Retirement villages are allowed on R20, per our current code. So and at the same time, we reduced again the density for the village concept from 4 and 1 half down to 3 and 1 half, what it is currently. So I can't tell you where the decision on the exact number 3 and 1 half came from. But just understand, I guess what I'm trying to convey is over time, over the past couple of decades, that density has continued to reduce from 14 and 1 half to 7 and 1 half to 4 and 1 half, and now it's 3 and 1 half. that three and a half is actually documented in the freedom plan so it says that medium density residential which is our r20 allows for and i think if you go up one back down one one more there so that is from the from the freedom plan and the definition of residential medium density and it has that indication of the 55 and plus age restricted and so on at a total density of three and a half units per acre So we certainly could have a discussion as to whether that's the appropriate number, but going back to the discussion of, of staying consistent with the master plan, if we change it to anything other than three and a half units per acre, we're not consistent with the master plan.

I'm sorry. Before I lose a train of conversation and exactly to that point. So I, I appreciate the context and the historical perspective on that because I did not know about the origin of it coming from the 1970s. So thank you for that. And so for me, in addition to that, the distinction between the kinds of homes that we're talking about, what you would expect in a particular community, what you would expect seems to me would determine the kind of unit that you're going to have. I guess what the standard width of the door now or the FDA is what, 3.6 or 3.36 inches or something? And so maybe in a continuous care home that might have to be a wider doorway because you have to accommodate, I don't know, like a medical bed that you bring in or out if somebody gets really, really infirmed or really, really elderly, right? And that, of course, is going to determine the width of the house, how many of them you can put next to each other, whether they can be attached or detached. And so I am wondering Again, do we, in approaching the discussion about the density and whether they're attached or detached, do we need to go deeper specifically as with respect to what exactly it is that we're looking for, what we're talking about? Because again, I take very clearly what all my colleagues have raised so far this morning, the options, the choices, right? But obviously, if we're talking about a retirement community or a retirement village, that certainly I have a different expectation versus a continuous character.

Yes.

And so does that help guide our discussion today if we try to understand specifically what kind of a community that we're looking to talk about?

We're not talking about CCRCs at all. This is about... Okay, right. That is a very large undertaking. They don't happen often. We have two in Carroll County. Carroll-Lincoln Village, and we have Axe, which used to be Fairhaven. That's the two. And they're... We haven't had a new one in a long time, even in the state. So it's very, it's a high bar because it's a nursing home component, assisted living, it's very big. So we're not talking about any of that. This is not assisted living either. This is just independent living. You don't have health needs. You might have, you know, like the other day when I drove over to see, what's it called again? Edlitz. Edlitz. Somebody was sitting outside and I went over to remind myself, and it was a gentleman who used to be a firefighter. He just had open heart surgery. And I got out of the car and started talking to him and he said, this is like their dream home. because it's one floor, it looks like some of the, they couldn't find something like this. He said, I couldn't be able to go to bed tonight because I can't get, can't go in. I just had open heart surgery. And that's, you know, people, you don't ever think you're gonna have that problem, but you can stay, my mother's 92 and she's able to stay in her home because she has a first floor bedroom. I grew up in a rancher in Westfield, it was very small, and they came here and could not find a first floor house And so they built it, but thank God they did, because she would not be able to live there. So the point is, when people do downsize, you don't expect that you're going to have these issues, but you're ready for it. So the key on the 3.5, there's several things. We do need more housing types. I agree with you, because not everybody wants to buy the exact same thing. So if they're detached, if they're cottage style, you can have one and a half floors. You can have two bedrooms downstairs. You can have some upstairs. There's up, these people, the envy homes, Lennar, they have these products right up the road. They sell them in communities up there. They have the models. They're very nice. They're beautiful communities. I go up there and I drool about, you know, this is what we, our people are moving up to there. So I want to have that here for them to buy. And they do have those products. And give it right, you go up to Frederick, you'll have five or six things you can choose from. Different floor plans, some have a basement, some have one floor, some have a half. So there are different things. But they have most of their living on the first floor. It's bigger. It's bigger than just this narrow. It's got exits to get out versus just having one exit to get out the front. So I do believe we need multiple floor plans, models that they offer. Some are going to be bigger, different price points. Right now, the only difference in a price point in the ones we're doing is if you're in the middle, there's four in the middle and there's two on the ends, And the ends are obviously more expensive because people would rather have a little bit of light. So we do want that variety. The issue of the 3.5, it's a very big deal because it depends on the site. If it's 3.5 and we're in Kansas, you can maybe put more than that on there. Maybe you easily put more. But if you're in Carroll County and you have a site that has lots of unbuildable space, you're jamming all of that density into one spot and you're getting a very, very very claustrophobic feel. And if you see one of the plans, a lot of it's unbuildable, so you just put it off in this one space. So having the whole issue in Carroll County, not Kansas, or not down on the Eastern Shore, is the gross versus the net. And some properties it doesn't make as much of a deal on, and some it makes a huge deal on. And that's why we're getting projects that are really, I mean, even in the paragraph that some of our staff has written on some of these, these feel very close together. They're really small. I mean, they're jammed together 10 feet apart, six in a row, 10 feet apart. But the net versus the gross is gonna make a difference. And maybe, I don't know what the number could be, it maybe could go to 4.5 if you use the net.

If I may, Commissioner, out of the five projects that are deferred, four out of them, the net and gross is almost identical.

You get the same yield. We've said that. You get the same yield.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry, not the calculation. The actual physical area, the net developable area, four out of the five do not have any environmental constraints.

It depends on what you define as environmental constraint. I mean, one thing that we've got to concern, I mean, in these communities, One of them has 32 stormwater management ponds. One of them has 11. That counts as the open space. If you don't put it below grade, it needs to count as environment. I mean, you have to take it out of the net because you end up with no usable space. These communities have nothing. I looked on these plans the other night, went through all of them. I learned how to read them. There's like no usable flat space. because everything is in a stormwater management pond. So if you're not going to submerge your stormwater, I know it's more expensive, but there's benefits of submerging your stormwater. You have less birds that fly into the water. You have less maintenance. You have less warmth in the water. So there's reasons that people want to go underground, and most of them have a lot of the stuff underground, so at least you have lawn on the top. At least you have green grass. Because if you have to jam them all in and everything else is stormwater, you literally have no, and it's not open space for fun stuff. I'm talking about just walking in the grass.

Chris, before you lose that train of thought, what were you going to?

Yes, all I want to say is I think we have addressed that in the proposed code, and we are going to get to that. What we had hoped to discuss, and if you could go down a couple slides to the first question.

It's fine with me as long as we're looking at it.

The first discussion that we wanted to have was first the most basic, which is density. And so what we've got here is in the different zoning codes, what the existing code is and what our proposed code is. And so if we wanted to have that discussion, see if everybody is on board. Obviously, we're not voting on it today and so on. But if there needs to be discussion, this kind of sets the stage for additional discussion.

I'd like to talk about this. just density but we can get to townhouses and whatever before um in our jurisdictions in carroll county very few of the lots are bigger than a third of an acre very few many or smaller and most people were happy so if i'm in one of those and i want to downsize i sure don't i i can't imagine anybody wants a half acre lot so let's look at the three and a half density, that's 12,445 square feet. So if you do a 3,000 square foot footprint house, which would be huge, that's a quarter of the lot. You've got lots of space around your house. Most of the kids today want They want their house to be half the size of their lot. So you could go to 10,000 and still meet that here. So I just feel like if you want to downsize, my kids are approaching average 50. If they downsize, it'll probably be to a condo. it probably won't even be to a single family. They don't want a single family. They've been there, done that. And, and, and that's what they want. And, uh, and they want affordable. Um, but I don't, and, and if, and I understand you with open space, uh, I don't understand the underground stormwater management. I've done it. Um, it's, I love out at a couple of the shopping centers we have in Westminster have underground stormwater management. I challenge anybody to walk through them. Um, they probably all need replaced. Um, and, and my gosh, um, that's a lot of money, you know, cause they're all under the parking lots. But anyway, um, if we want to control open space, let's control open space. Let's make requirements for open space. And, uh, And Carroll County, Howard County, Frederick County, yes, there's some rolling landscape. And the joke in Howard County 20 years ago, 30 years ago, was all the good lots have been taken. Now it's the rough stuff. But with the segmented retaining walls, and my daughter has a segmented retaining wall to make her house fit. because she's 15 foot from the street, and they had to do it, and she's happy with it. So there's so many things to make us efficiently do smaller lots, and I just think that 3 1⁄2 per acre is a good compromise. I'd like to see it for... non-senior housing. It's, it's just, uh, like I say, our jurisdictions, Westminster, Manchester, Hampstead, um, I bet the average, I bet the average lot isn't 10,000 square feet in, in any of the jurisdictions in Carroll County that, and I know Ellersberg isn't a jurisdiction, but it has public water and sewer.

And to Kenny's point too about sizes, right? So I understand that there's the 3.5 dwelling units per acre for our 20,000, but for our 10,000, our 7,500, there isn't that number. And again, I think I know part of the answer, but walk me through it as if I don't. If I'm a developer and I want to build on our 10,000, constraint that I'm going to have based on the number of dwelling units that I can put? I mean, is it the lay of the land? What's being put on there?

Yes, so it's all the development type, business type constraints. So what is the product that they want to build? What are the site constraints? Are there environmental features that they have to avoid? And so on and so forth. They go through that process of developing a concept plan and that conceptually lays out and says, hey, this is the density that I want to get. They're not capped at a density, but they indicate that on my whatever size property, six acre property, I want to put 20 or 30 some units. They then bring that to the Planning and Zoning Commission. And the Planning and Zoning Commission looks at all aspects of that access and look and feel and density. And then the Planning Commission approves that density. That actually applies not just for the R10, R75, and commercial. It also applies to the R20. R20 is a maximum. There's a cap, a maximum of 3.5 dwelling units per acre. It has to be less than that. And some developers may come in with a lower density because again, they're looking at all the constraints and they're looking at the business model of what they want to sell and so on. And so that's why in the R10, R75 and commercial, we didn't have that cap and we left it up to the discussion between the developer and the planning commission. In discussions with planning commission, their recommendation was to cap the R10 and R75 at six dwelling units per acre. So if you recall back to the original slide, our 10 is basically four, our 75 is basically five, and so here we said, okay, let's, a little bit, again, a density bonus of being, because of the model of what you're trying to propose, and kept that at six. The recommendation from Planning Commission was to leave the commercial the same under proposed conditions. Again, it's a commercial, so it's a business type environment. So the developer would bring that. The one example that's been deferred is the Johnsville Road. That's a split zone. Half of it is R10, half of it is commercial. And again, they basically brought a proposal to the Planning Commission that had I think it's, if I remember right, 32 units on six acres. And the Planning Commission looked at the layout and looked at the density and approved that to move forward.

So Chris, thank you very much for that. And let me ask you that question now because this goes to the heart of what my colleagues have been talking about as well with the variety of options. So I take the point that we want to encourage the greatest variety that we possibly can. I also understand that we have various constraints based on sites, based on circumstances, whatever the case is, right? So is it possible to look at a variety of product as a determining factor in the granting of the density? So for example, if I'm a developer and I come to you and I say, hey, I purchased this plot of land and I want to offer these kinds of houses and I want to build seven of them. And Planning Commission, everybody comes back to me and says, well, you can't build seven here, but you can build four based on what you're doing. But if you were to provide a range of options, age-restricted and continuous care, we could bump you up to six. I'm just using it as a random example. I know I'm not mathematically falling into anything categorically, but so is fostering or is encouraging Is it possible to encourage greater variety with the use of density?

Yes. So the one caution about what you just said, though, is we need to keep continuing care separate. That's a separate use than what we're talking about. So I just wanted to make that clear. Okay, fair enough. But what you're talking about, I think, is leading to the second question, which is the housing type mix. in our discussions is the biggest question and biggest impact to projects that have been deferred and so on. The number of houses, the density, as it were, is not as big of an issue. Because again, you can take three houses and put it on one acre, and they can still be detached and single houses, right? They don't have to be merged together as townhomes. difference from a perception perspective of somebody who lives adjacent to one of these. If they live on an R20 normal development, so they're on a half acre lot, and they're seeing this coming in across the street from them, the biggest difference is going to be are they townhomes or attached type housing type or not. That's our opinion, is that that's going to be the biggest question. How many of them are close together and spacing and so on? Sure, maybe a little bit of an issue, but what type of houses are they? And so the issue with our existing code is, and again, the Freedom Plan basically says there's a desire for a mix of type, including townhomes and so on. Our code allows for 100% townhomes, and that's what we've been seeing in these recent developments that have been deferred and also Nell's Acres, which have been talked about, is it's 100% townhomes. And in discussions with the Planning Commission, the question was, do we want to require the diversity of type, which the Freedom Plan talks to? And where we came down on it was the recommendation that if a community has more than 50 homes, that at least 30% of those need to be detached. So that seemed to be a good compromise, that it would still allow a developer to provide a variety of different types, but we would get at least 30% of those would be single-family detached.

And that's a suggestion that's outlined.

And that's the recommendation that we've got here. But the point, and we put it in circling red, currently we do not allow townhomes in any of our zoning districts. except for these age-restricted and PUDs, but PUDs are separate. We don't do PUDs anymore because there's no more land for it. But that's really the question and the input we're getting from the community is we don't allow townhomes in the underlying zoning districts. Should we be allowing townhomes when they're part of an age-restricted? And that, at least to me, is the most fundamental question that we've got here. And does that vary by zoning? Is it for R20, we don't want to see townhomes? Or is it as has been recommended, if you have more than 50, it's 30%, right? Is that different for R10 and R75? Do we want to see townhomes? That's a great question. In commercial, do we want to see townhomes? So that to us was the most difficult question to be asked. And it's going to be the most impactful. Because frankly, if we require a certain percentage of single family homes, on any of the projects that are deferred, that is going to be a big impact. They are going back to the drawing board on their projects.

And the bigger impact, and I, listen, I sympathize with that. All I'm going to say very clearly is I do not believe it was ever allowed to begin with, and I'm sorry that they got caught up into someone allowing it because it is not in the Freedom Plan. It is not allowed on any of these densities. You must have your zones be the same by law. and I don't think it was ever allowed. And every single, I'm not going to get into all of it, but no commissioner envisioned that. It was never discussed of having townhomes in these districts. And it's counterintuitive, as I said earlier, it's counterintuitive to give a bonus, to give an incentive to build a product that is not what you would say optimally want to age in place. There's, we want variety, but there could be, I'm not talking about big houses. When you say 3.5, we're not talking about them all being on their own little lot. We're talking about they're gonna be closer together because the whole purpose is that you have some things to be able to have your space to put the things that they wanna offer. And it depends, we don't wanna dictate what they have to offer because it depends on the lot size. If it's 100 acres, you can do more than if it's 25 acres, if it's 500 acres. So we just are trying to say you have to have, you're allowing the density, It's maintenance reasons, but you're also allowed so they have things that they can go out and do. And right now, there is very minimal amount of space that is usable space left because we're using the unusable space and we're counting it as part of the, I'll show you a map after we're finished here and you'll see what I said. I understand. You're basically getting nothing out of it. You're getting, it's all stormwater management ponds. Or it's the stream and the stream bed. You're getting nothing usable. There's a little teeny community center and maybe a little patio behind it, and that's it. I mean, there is not even grass between the homes. I mean, it's a ditch. So that's my point. You're not getting an attractive community. So if you go look at Carol Vista, that's an attractive community. It's close together. I think they think that it's 20 years old, but it's more attractive than what we're proposing here. But I think they even have a problem with the road width, which we'll get to. No matter what, I think what's happening, I think there's an effort to try to say, we don't want anybody to change anything. Let's just put some little tweaks and things. The fundamental, you can't just tweak this to get the thing right. I'm not sure why, like the one, the Freedom's Grant, the one project was ready to move with 100 houses. They had the plans all approved. And all of a sudden, they said, oh, let's go this way. Because it got changed. And you can now get 2 and 1 half times as many houses out of it. Is it an opportunity to make more money? To me, the county is giving away an incentive. The incentive should be to get the kind of product that we want, that we visualize, and get more density out of it. But it's going to at least give us the product, and then some of that money is going to go toward hopefully giving them some things to gather around or something to do, depending on the size. of the property. If it's a big property, it'll be more things. If it's a little property, it'll be less. And we don't want to necessarily dictate those things. That is part of their marketing. But if you see the property, again, we're not Kansas. We're not the Eastern Shore, which is very easy. You don't have to worry about that. But when you set some of these properties, you could actually have more yield than you could literally fit on the property in the little spot that's left that's built. That's why I beg people to come see it, because once you see it, then you can visualize what I'm saying. like times two of that. And it's not, even if it's all single-family homes, it still has to be unbuildable. It has to be calculated. When you use a space, you're going to have no law, no law.

So real quick, going back, just going completely backwards to the issue of purpose statements. I am a fan of purpose statements. What you proposed or read, we haven't taken a look at it yet. It makes perfect sense to me because you've got to start with boundaries. You've got to start with those guardrails. That's sort of how I've spent a lot of my lifetime working as a requirements manager, and you've got to have those set. So I am a fan of the purpose statement, and we should take a look at that. I don't know if the consultant recommended that or not, but it's something we should take a look at. As far as townhouses go, yeah, I've never understood why if we don't allow townhouses within the county jurisdiction, we allow them in retirement age-restricted villages. That's never made any sense to me. That is, to me, counterintuitive. But in terms of what we're taking a look at right here, so the 50 dwelling units, at least 30% must be single families. So I'm assuming that the other 70% we're talking about would be duplexes, which are very prevalent within retirement communities, and they work very well. In Mount Airy, there's this retirement area called Wildwood. I might be misnaming it, but it's a mix of single villas and duplexes, and it seems to work really well. So is that what you're talking about there, when the other 70%?

So our code right now, the proposed code, simply requires a dwelling unit mix, and then has this additional language that at least 30% have to be

single family detached so so what's the other 70 percent is is open but what though i mean it's got to be it's got there can't be an infinite number of variations there i mean what are we really talking about i mean take take the townhouses off the table for now i understand that's currently an option but what are we talking about then yeah so so the the intent was to to because the the single family detached is the um

From a developer perspective, maybe the least desirable. But from a community perspective, the most desirable. So we wanted to encourage those detached homes and require at least 30%. That other 70% could be whatever the developer wants as a business model. They could be duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, whatever they wanted to do. But at least 30% need to be single family detached.

I mean, could that include? condos, apartment-style buildings? I mean, I'm just trying to nail it down. I know condo is a legal term. That's probably not. But I mean, I'm just trying to get my head around exactly what you mean there.

Yeah. It could be basically anything except for the multifamily. But we have addressed the multifamily scenario differently.

So I know I keep going back to this, but we have a plan in place that we just can't change. We are required by law to follow the vision in the plan. it might say there's a mix but we're not like what's that identified clearly we have land use on these properties and you can't have a different use this is the townhouse you can't even i don't think put duplexes because it doesn't allow for it in other r20 so that's an underlying foundational principle of planning One of the things I really think that we need to do is really get people to read up on this stuff, because it's out there. It's just what it is. When you tell somebody this is your land use, until you change it, you just can't really say, I want to change this. I mean, there's a process you have to go through, and it's got to be consistent along zones. Our 20's got to be our 20. And if we have it somewhere else in non-incorporators, which we do, it's got to be the same. And we don't allow it for regular people, for conventional housing. So the question I have on R10. So the product on R10, can you currently, under the current land use, can you do duplexes on that? The one project we have which is commercial and R10. That to me is an appropriate place to be talking about that. So what could you do on R10 right now?

You could do a single-family detached or a two-family dwelling unit.

What's the difference in a two-family and a duplex?

It has to do with how they're divided structurally.

I mean, I always thought duplex is two together, triplex is three. So is a two-family one above the other? Or is it still one next to the other? Because we use both terms, and I just don't know if they are the same or not.

Yeah, let me look at our specific definition so I don't misspeak.

I think more people know what a duplex is than a two-family, but maybe I'm wrong. You know what a two-family is?

And actually, I know maybe it's a little semantics, but it is actually, I think, a pretty good point. And of course, you and I have talked about this before as well, because in speaking with some of these developers who want to do these things, they'll refer to some of their products as villas. Villas. Right. They have different names for them. Is that use of differing names a way to get around the need for a mix? Like, for example, if I was to say I'm going to have 70% of my units be townhomes, and then I'm going to make 30% of them villas. I mean, is it a way to work around the... Yeah.

No, that's a great question. And that's why we tried to keep it simplistic and not differentiate all the different types of business models of... quads and villas versus townhomes and so on. Basically, we're just differentiating attached versus detached. Got it. And so what our recommendation is, 30%, if it's over 50, over 50 units need to be detached. So here's what you envision, a single-family home standing by itself, right? The remaining 70% can be whatever they want. And it can be all attached. And that attached could be townhomes. It could be duplexes. It could be quads. It could be any sort of combination of homes attached together, including, I would say, even one on top of another. Two family living with one family living on the bottom, one family living on the top. We left that flexibility, but we wanted to ensure that type of the detached. is going to be a component and a significant component at 30%. Now, there's nothing magic about that 30% number. I mean, if you all wanted to make it 10% or wanted to make it 50%, that's entirely up to you all.

And that's exactly where I was going with this. Because if I'm coming up with different names for different products as a way to get around, I mean, how are we able to, again, That 30% number, where, I mean, and Tom, you might be able to help, because I know you've been in all these meetings as well. Why 30%, I mean, why is that? I mean, it seemed to be the best possible number, the most constructive. What was it about 30% that said?

We debated lots of different, there were a lot of different.

Like 31.4%, I mean, you know. I think 25%, 50%.

I think ultimately the Planning Commission thought 30% was a reasonable number. A reasonable metric. But there's no magic.

And see, what we're trying to do.

Thank you.

One of the things in the master plan that we've tried to do is say, compatible with existing communities. We went through the master plan, and it was a painful process. And that's why I'm very passionate about this. Because every one of these properties we're talking about was debated ad nauseum. And it was agreed upon with everybody there. That's why people get irritated, because here's an agreement. This is going to be x. This is going to be why our code says it has to be matched to the community. So on the one property they put our tech, they put our 40 on the front to the match the stuff here and then they put our 20 around the whole back and then they, the rest of its commercial, which no one believed along there, but that was the, that was the, that was the bargain. You can have your commercial, your seven warehouses, but then the stuff around it is going to match the community next to it. And now in the seven warehouses but guess what we're gonna put townhouses all there too so i think people feel like hmm you made this deal and it says write the code you can't do it but somehow you're doing it anyway which i think it should not have been allowed i don't think it was interpreted properly if somebody really that was in the planning mode would look at it because the underlying land use is not being consistent the zone from you know from here to wherever else it is just for seniors and it's And it's counterintuitive to why we would do it anyway. Why would you encourage a product that is not really, it's not really something to aid you in place? And that's why you put the purpose. Why are we encouraging a product on these different zone properties? People want to know when they buy something what they can expect. And just because you, I remember Rich Rothschild telling me this. He was one of the ones that made this point. When you buy a property, The value of that property is what you can build on it based on what the zoning is. It can't be that, oh, I'm going to buy and then I'm going to make everyone else. You can't just put a nuclear power plant there. You know what I'm saying? I'm exaggerating. But there should be expectation for the people around it that it's going to be consistent. And that's why you have buffers. That's why you step down with things. That's what planning is. That's why people come to places. So when you're densely together, it matters. If you're out in a farmland, you don't really care where people are. But when you buy into a community, we're not talking big lots. We're talking quarter acre, fifth of an acre, half of an acre. So you're right next to your folks. So you're trying to get some consistency and compatibility. So that's why I'm very adamant about the underlying land use. It's got to be respected. I don't want to bore you with it all, but I can tell you that everything says it. Everything was intended to it. All the people that will talk will say they were there. It was done. that voted on it will tell you that's what it was, and it should not be violated. Now, the question then becomes, you know, what can we do? And I think there's an effort to just not have to redo a plan. I don't know what we can do to make up for that, but this product, these houses are going to be here for 50 years, these communities. We want them to be nice communities. We want to keep people here. We want to draw people here. So it's an inconvenience. And it's a cost. And it's something that probably shouldn't have happened. But I think, unfortunately, some of the folks were guided that way. And it shouldn't have been, not by us necessarily. And they took a risk. And they settled on the property last year after all this was sort of penned in. They settled in 2025 on the one property. So they made sure it was all wrapped in a bow. But you've got to remember what the community was told and what elected officials thought. At the time, that's what, that's what was approved.

But commissioner, if I may, um, but the county code was passed that explicitly states that town homes are allowed as part of an age restriction. And that's what, that's what the code says. And that's what was adopted by the board of county commissioners.

We can certainly change that, but you didn't do it concurrently. It's required. When you adopt the master plan, you can't wait three, four, five, six years and say, Ooh, I've adopted this language, but now I'm going to change the rules. And they were not adopted concurrently. at the same time. And that's what it was. You know, I, I remember that cumin, we all said, I did a, I did a whole written piece on this should be done at the same time. And it wasn't because that last, and I understand the last board of commissioners wanted to get out the door and they didn't have time to get the definitions written. So they wrote them over time later and they should always be together. And they weren't, they were not aligned with intentions of the master plan. So it says here, it says in state law, You know, if you do not bring the proposed development regulations along concurrently with the plan, proposed plan, or an update of an existing plan that's consistent with the new proposed plan, then you are not complying with the requirement of Section 303. By not complying, you create an official document inconsistency, confusion, and open up legal challenges in the use of the police power granted by the state. Sorry. By official document inconsistency, I mean, where the official zoning of record zoning maps and texts are not consistent or accord with the adopted comprehensive land use. This was written in 2017 by Ned Kuhman because he's the guru. He's this man's still the smartest guy planning I've ever met. And he put, he put all this stuff in testimony years ago, and I put stuff in testimony and even commissioner Weaver. said in the newspaper, we should not be doing this without this together, but they were getting out of office, and they decided to pass it. And I think they trusted that the stuff would be consistent, and then it wasn't, and for whatever reason, and then all of a sudden we see this stuff coming up. So that is the law, and this stuff was written over time, and this was never intended to have townhouses. On R20, and I don't want to keep arguing about it, but you're not going to change my mind because I lived through it. And I think there was a risk taken to make sure that that happened and everybody was going to agree with it. And then there's some sour grapes about it.

Well, just to give. You said this happened when, 2016?

No, this was written in 2017. 2017. The master plan was adopted in 18, took seven years, but none of these definition changes happened, that one didn't happen until 2022, five years later. So five years later, I mean, different things happened at different times, but it was very artfully done, very, just certain words were changed, and it was done during the COVID era, and it It was done and it's not aligned with the plan. And it's supposed to come, when you adopt the master plan, all your definitions are supposed to be you adopt one and then the next vote is you adopt the other one. It wasn't, they didn't do that because it wasn't ready.

And just to be clear, I want to, you know, I know that you're not intending to blame staff or anybody because they can only do what the commissioners, they can only do what the commissioners decide to do. But so I guess, Commissioner, what I want to get to, see what I want to get to the heart of here is, is Uh, are you comfortable with 30% or do you want to eliminate townhouses completely from retirement villages?

I want to stick to the underlying land use. I'm not trying to eliminate. I mean, there's a, there's a narrative out there. Susan doesn't like townhouse. That is a poor narrative. The narrative is we were all involved. this is what the plan says even the words of the plan the variety doesn't mean you have to have a writing on that same site the variety is we we have a hundred and some here already of townhouses we're going to have more here right now we have no variety this will give us some variety so the land use you know whether we allow an r10 it'll give us some natural variety which we don't have now we have none of this so commissioner but to point out

Our current code does not allow townhouses in any zoning district.

I know that.

So if we are going to stay consistent with the underlying land uses you're saying, then what you're saying is prohibiting townhomes at all on age restricted Because it is not allowed on any zone.

Well, what I was asking you about is R10. I thought somebody said something.

It's not permitted in R10.

But something else is permitted.

Duplexes.

Two-family, which includes duplexes. And one thing I didn't understand. You said we don't do PUDs anymore. But I was looking on the chart. And PUDs allowed these things in R10. So why don't we use PUDs anymore? And what do you need to do to turn something into a PUD?

Because there's a minimum acreage of R10. And that doesn't exist anymore. In the county.

It just seemed odd that you allowed it in the pod, but you didn't allow it in the other art tech. I mean, that's yeah.

So can, and, and maybe, and maybe I slightly misunderstood this and, and I guess this, this maybe is a more metaphysical question relating to this entire process, but something commissioner, uh, you brought up about doing things concurrently, right? Now, what is it that we're supposed to be doing concurrently? Because I'm trying to understand that now because if we're out of order, if they were out of order a couple years ago and we're out of order now because our master plan's back there and we're up here trying to amend the code, aren't we therefore doing the same thing in violation of the spirit of concurrency that previous boards have done?

What I'm trying to do is put it back in the bottle. Put it back the land use what it was. Now, putting some of these you know, that you want to mix. I mean, I don't know if that's, the underlying land use is the type of home you can have. What I'm doing, what I'm attempting to do is put it back to where it was and what it should have been. We're not changing it. And if we want to change it, if we want to have a discussion during the master plan process, it's up for renewal in 10 years, that's a couple years, a year, you can do it any time. Then you go back and have a discussion about, thoughtfully, where does it belong? But right now, we have the plan in place, we have the underlying land use, and I don't think that making the road widths and changing that necessarily, I mean, that is a safety issue that we should have been doing all along. I'm not sure if that is in the same as to the underlying land use. You can answer that question if it's something. We're finding that there's a safety issue with regard to how we're allowing lane widths, road widths.

Right, and I took that point from the beginning that we want to be concerned about road widths, right? So then if the 30% of total units is not the issue and if the underlying land use... No, the 30% is an issue because...

Okay. Well, when you say a variety of houses.

Well, let me ask the question. I guess the question itself, then, is because, again, we're trying to get to density and whether they should be attached or detached. So are you proposing that we revert the code to what it was 10 years ago? I'm just trying to know.

No. The underlying landscape for R20 has always been the same. And it's always been the same for all the residential. What I'm suggesting is that we revert go back to the underlying land use these things, these products can be built and we want them to be built. Now, the other thing we could do, this is a, this retirement regime is sort of a bonus that we allow if everybody, if it's too controversial, we just take it out and say, we're not doing it, but we are, we made a commitment in 20. Well, part of the problem was when we did this village, we separated from the home, which we needed to, because we're doing something different. It was a bad time. It was, we had pandemic. there was no community discussion of what this village should be and there was two sentences put in you must be over 55 and you must do 3.5 well if you look at most people if you look at anybody even even westminster and tawny town they have codes that tell you what you're expecting to get out of there in frederick there's two pages just like we're talking about we're giving you an exception we're giving you a density bonus we're letting you put these closer there than you could before for regular ball and because of that we're expecting these things in return And some of it might be the open space piece. They're still building a house. And some of the things we make them do doesn't necessarily make them more costly. Making a wider doorway doesn't make it costly. Zero step doesn't necessarily make it costly. One of the other concerns I have, we'll talk about it later, but I don't like the fact that it's not safe, that we have window wells. and in basements and then there's ladders to climb up for people that are seniors. I don't think.

So if I may, uh, commissioner to answer your question, um, it would not be a matter of reverting back to what was approved because, because what we did have it, we'd be, we allowed for the retirement village type business model with town homes prior to the changes that were made in 2018 at the time it was called a retirement home. And we have examples of, of developments that occurred in the county. included town homes and so on so this is something that's been in existence and so the there were some minor code modifications following the development of the plan which is a normal process um commissioner feels that that it should have been done immediately at the same time but it was done but regardless a the board of county commissioners made a decision and that is the decision that we are living with right now as to what the code says And we can certainly change the code. And that's what we're looking to do if there's a difference. Relitigating how it was done and so on, it was done. And so the Freedom Comprehensive Plan was developed. Co-changes were made to make it consistent with the Freedom Plan. And actually the county master plan was also adjusted at the same time. So everything was consistent. Now we are seeing the results of what the code were put in place. Some developers arguably are taking advantage of what the code allows. And so now we're looking to the future. What do we want to change moving forward? But this type of development has been allowed for decades. So we can't just revert back to what was prior to 2018 or 2017.

Thank you. I'm sorry. We've got about 15 minutes left. And I know you and I have been kind of guiding the conversation here. And I want to apologize to our colleagues. I mean, does anybody else have anything that you want to add or contribute before we run out of time?

I think we're probably going to have to save that for next week. So with all due respect, I think that we knew this was going to be a significant portion of the discussion, right? Right. And really the question, if I could boil it down to a question, is should townhomes be allowed in R20? And we know Commissioner Krebs feels that One Direction, Commissioner Guerin, I think you've expressed opinion as well. So that question, should townhomes in a restricted communities be allowed in R20? And then the following question is, does that also apply to R10, R75, and commercial? So that if the answer is that no, they do not belong, To me, that is the biggest impact to the code change that we're discussing and will have significant impacts to the projects that are deferred. The rest of the codes are kind of minor in comparison. So that's why we brought this forth as kind of the biggest question.

Of the deferred projects, how many have townhomes?

So the four that are communities, they all have townhomes. The fifth is a home. It's multifamily, so it does not have town homes, but the four do.

So four of them did designs, went through the process because that was the rule at the time. Yes.

And I'll add three of those are 20, and the one that we've talked about is split-zoned R10 and commercial.

And I don't know. I'd like to be consistent. The one that's in R10 and commercial, what they could put there and what they're putting there now is much more acceptable, the product, than what they could do because it just, at least from what I understand. So it's because it's split. You can do X on this part and this on Y part. So that's an odd, it's an odd one to try to accommodate something.

Yeah, so just to clarify, we do not allow residential and commercial. And on R10, you could subdivide to R10 subdivision. So the underlying zoning, what would support it? Commercial, you would not be allowed to do residential. I thought we did.

No.

No, you cannot do residential and commercial. And on the R10, you could do 10,000 square foot lots. That would be the underlying zoning. So what you're saying is if we want to be consistent with the underlying zoning, we would not allow townhomes on that project.

So there's no commercial in industrial, no retirement homes. I think there is.

Well, retirement homes, yes, but non, I'm sorry. I wanted to clarify with non-retirement, regular residential development is not allowed in commercial. But retirement is. But retirement is.

But is there, are there, and there's no, underlying requirements for the Planning and Zoning Commission to approve that? I mean, it's contiguous or, I mean, there's nothing there. It just says you can do it.

Yes. And now it has to be approved by Planning Commission. And the way the current process is, they specifically early on look at what's being proposed for density for commercial and for R10 and R75. What we are proposing is putting a cap from the density perspective on R10 and R75, but leaving commercial as is. And then the question of type, that's where we thought a compromise of more than 50 units and having 30% being detached would be a good compromise. But if the board feels that no townhomes are appropriate anywhere, then that's a change.

I'm going to just tell you, it's going to be challenged if you do townhomes because it clearly is, even though they've done it when these little things over the years, long time ago that nobody challenged, this will be challenged and I think it will tie everybody up and I think we should make a decision because I, if I didn't, it's not about the, it's about breaking the trust of people that went through the process and this was, vetted tremendously. And the people that are now pushing this were there. They heard the conversations. They knew what it was. So it's not a surprise. So that's what sort of irritates me. This is not a surprise. You were there. You heard what was said. You heard what was promised. You saw the land use. And now, oops. So I don't have as much sympathy. There was a risk taken knowing that that was not what was going on. It was a very, very long. I've got it all in writing. the letters, the promises, the news articles, it's, it's all there. So it's, it's, it will be challenged. And I think I'd rather get the thing over with, you know, the underlying land use is X and then move forward. These are going to be nice. These are going to be nice products. They're going to be, there's beautiful communities. I would like a beautiful community, just like they're building around us. So it's, it's something that we want to keep our people here. We want to attract people here. The one neighborhood I visit that you just mentioned the name, I keep forgetting. One gentleman had moved up because his son's a fireman at the fire hall, and he moved from Howard County. He loves it because he's near his grandkids. That's what you want. That's what the product, they don't want to get, they want those choices, and we don't have many. We just have 21 of those in our whole area that I know of that is in that posture, and they're lovely. I've got pictures of them I'll show you. A picture is worth a thousand words. If you see this stuff, it'll be much more visual of what I'm talking about.

And again, I understand that. And I mean, I do think that what has occurred in the past I think Mr. Hines said it best. We can't go back there. We can't change that. What's in the past is in the past. I haven't lived in that area. Completely agree with you. Something started to go sideways a long time ago, and, you know, you can't fix it in one day, but we're doing our best. But I'm sorry to go back to the C1 and C2 thing again. I just want to make sure I understand. We have a shortage of commercial zone property in the county. Now, some of it may not be as suitable as others, but we understand that. But are you telling me that the Planning and Zoning Commission has the autonomy just to take a commercially zoned piece of property and just say, yeah, you can do retirement? Yes.

Yes, it is. So yes and no. In current code, it's a conditional use. So the way our current process is that, yes, and it's a little convoluted, and we're actually recommending to eliminate it, is that the way it currently works is is that a developer who owns commercially zoned property develops a concept plan that shows what the layout that they wanna have and from that there's some sort of density, but they wanna show the layout. They bring that to the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission approves the density and the layout of that plan conceptually. It then goes to the Board of Zoning Appeals for approval of that conditional use. if the Board of Zoning Appeals approves the conditional use, as in it's, you're familiar with the BCA approvals, right? If they approve that conditional use, it then comes back and continues through our regular process of the concept design going to Planning Commission and final approval and so on. That says remain unchanged up here on the shelf, so we're not really... We're recommending to change that process because we have added in additional clarity and design requirements, we did not feel that it was necessary to go to that BZA conditional use step. So we're recommending to eliminate the conditional use and make it principal permitted. However, it still needs to go to the Planning and Zoning Commission for all approvals.

And you're doing that for all these, taking conditional uses on?

Yes, yeah. Just that convoluted step of first Planning Commission, then BZA, then back to Planning Commission. If we have it well defined, then we really don't need that conditional use step. Conditional use is better appropriate for like kennels and things like that where there's an impact like that to the community. So that's one of our recommendations for streamlining this process.

And you're going to find, I believe, that once this stuff is better defined, we're not going to have all these issues. It's going to be here's the requirements. They read it. They know what it is. The staff knows what it is. The planning commission knows what it is. it's followed, because it's written, it's clear. And I think predictability, I do have sympathy for our development community. We have so little clarity. I mean, on these retirement homes, we have one sentence. You must be over 55 and you get 3.5. That's no clarity at all. And I think clarity is good, and it doesn't necessarily cost more to have clarity. It's just this is the kind of stuff we're looking for. The one thing I did not mention, and it slipped my mind, there are a lot of infill opportunities all over There's one project that we've sort of off the radar screen, it's called Doralee Gardens. It's an infill project down from Macbeth Way off of an existing community of R10, smaller starter homes. But that must have been, infill means like there's a lot in the back. There's a piece of property back there behind these houses and somebody sells it. Now they can scoot back in there and it's in between all these existing houses.

Well, they've got to have a, I mean, assuming they've got an easement and they can access it.

It's fully approved, and the plan was approved back in 2009, I believe it was. They decided to, or 2010, they decided to hold off on building permits and start construction right away. They waited a few years, and they've taken their time in construction. So, yes, it was approved back in, I think it was 2009 or 2010.

So some of these projects are 2020? Mel's Acres was 27 years old. But what I'm saying about the infill, so the decision we make is not just about the big property. It's also about these infill opportunities. And you want to make sure that they fit in with the existing community. Because this, you go in, you get in between two houses. And they're single-family homes, but they're one-fifth of an acre. And you go, I guess they bought an easement or they had an easement. And you go back, and then there's all these townhouses. And it's like they're just stuck behind somebody's backyard. I don't think it's good planning. I think it should have been something that was somewhat consistent. There's no parking. I don't think the fire truck can get through. I don't know. I asked chief to look at it. There's four parking spaces extra for 28 houses. Some of the houses have single family garages, which means you only have one spot. And I, I just think it's a problem waiting to happen. But again, it was put in many years ago and I think we somehow have to review these things again, but it was just sort of stuck on a couple of two acres or three acres of property somebody owned. And then they just put in a whole nother product in the middle of the community. So we got to remember whatever we do can affect that infill, which is in somebody else's, you know, I don't know where the situations that are all there, but in this particular situation, um, it really is not, is not consistent with, and that's one of the main things all the way through the freedom plan is just having stuff that's consistent with the neighborhood. And they're all, again, they're, they're entry level homes.

So if I may, we are just about out of time. So, um, I wanted to find out from the board how you wanted to proceed. We have a scheduled two hours a week from now, but obviously we have barely scratched the surface regarding age restricted and If the board wishes to talk about cluster and ADUs also, those things need to be discussed too. So we still have the fundamental question of R20 and townhomes and so on. So maybe that's a first topic for the next time we get together. But I just want to make sure that we are providing you all enough time for this discussion and so on. And we only have two hours scheduled. certainly looking for the board's direction as far as how we move forward.

First of all, Chris, I want to thank you and Daphne and everybody for putting all this together for us. I mean, I've learned a couple of things today. This really has been helpful for me, especially the discussion in particular about density and variety of homes and attached and detached and everything. And I really do appreciate that. And so when you say you are looking for some direction from us, are you looking for that today, next week, at some point in an open session?

Yeah, so if I may, from a timing perspective, these codes need to be in place by October 1 and working our way backwards. So we're looking to come before you all for a final determination to adopt on September 17. So between now and September 17, we need to get you all of the answers that you need so that you can make an informed decision on September 17. And like I said, what we have scheduled is two hours a week from now. If that's not sufficient, do we need to schedule additional time? That's what I'm looking for direction on.

But if we give direction as we go on some of these things, like I believe on these projects, at least one I've looked at, some of them I have trouble reading, but the one, the road width is going to make them go back to the drawing board and the parking. So I think I would hope and pray that going back to the drawing board would not be your number one.

That's not my concern. It's not your concern.

I'm just saying if somebody thinks that somebody's not going back to the drawing board, that means we're not going to fix the road situation because it almost can't be done without going back to the drawing board. So one, I'm going to understand that. So you can, I know that I would love to not have to go back to the drawing board either, but it's a, it's a inconvenience. I would fast track what we ever, we could to fix, to get fixed some of these placements, but one way or another, if we're going to either have the roads wide enough, have the parking, you've got to go back to the drawing board because right now there's no way to fix it. You can't put lipstick on the pig with the things we need to fix because they're fundamental width stuff. When you have such tightness and your drawing boards are so, you can't just add width to your street because there's no width to add because they're so tight to begin with. So one way or another, you're going back to the drawing board.

So, so Chris, if I might, my, my suggestion for the board would be, we go ahead with our, uh, work session, uh, next week and maybe what we do before then, because we do have limited time. If anybody has any specific questions, get those to Chris and Daphne ahead of time. So we can be prepared to talk about those next week. Um, and, and short of that, because we are, uh, so, uh, I mean, we were sporadic on time. I think probably beyond that the best thing that we could do is we have questions to email you or come talk to you or call you or whatever because otherwise we simply don't have enough time to meet the deadline that we're looking at. So then that is my suggestion for the board that we come or we in advance let Chris and Daphne know the specific things we want to talk about next week. Uh, that way we are prepared to talk about them next week. And beyond that, any additional questions or concerns that we have, uh, is a one-on-one thing with Daphne indoor. Chris, that's my thought.

And the other thing I just want to bring up while we're talking about it. Um, when I look at actual underlying land use and what actually it presents on the land, what's built that we don't change the map, let's say that was acres. Like it was supposed to be one acre lots, 21 acre lots. We now have. 129 townhouses. So it still shows up as light yellow. It still shows up as one acre lots on the map. So the map doesn't give you a real picture of what's on the ground. And that's everywhere. So when you cluster, everyone's clustering. I know it's supposed to be for certain reasons. And it used to be for good reasons. And they had different sized lots. Now it's just abused. Every single lot is all the way down to the lowest. If it's R20, it's R10. So you basically, and I guess Ned Cooman wrote that again, about masterizing the process. It's not really truth in zoning to allow that if that's all you're doing is taking it down to the next zone. And the map doesn't clearly show what's actually on the ground because we sort of let that happen over the last couple of decades. And that's something that we've been trying to get back to. What was the purpose of clustering? And it wasn't just to get to the next land use down. It wasn't just to take R20 to R10. And so that's why the purpose paragraphs are important because somebody might say, oh no, I want to do it because I want to just get X out of it. And that's why the community, we just don't sit here and decide it. It's supposed to be something that is done through the master plan process. And what's the purpose of doing this and what we've been told the purpose of and then what it's been done. And we've grandfathered the ones that were far along, but everyone's clustered down to half of what the zoning was. That's not really, again, truth in advertising. It's not necessarily, it's not really transparent. It's not really what the purpose was. It was trying to have different sized lots for environmental purposes. But when you just take it all, I'm not trying to change it for the people that are in the process. But I think for the future, we need to look at that. So people know what to expect. But I'd like to know if there's an easy way. I mean, you've got a lot of them. If it's too hard, don't do it. I just mentioned about the infill. It does concern me about the infill. These are just big parcels everybody knows about. These infills could be, you could be throwing a bunch of, if we do this, you could be putting a bunch of townhouses in between these infills. And it could be, it could not be. It could be a lot of hodgepodge, and that's not... Well, we can certainly talk about this. I don't know if you have a map of something that is what is not developed. I know you've got a lot on your plate, but I know there's like 4,000 more lots out there. I don't know how many of them are big lots or they're just on these little infill spots.

All right, so we need a motion to adjourn. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion. We have a second to adjourn. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? We are adjourned. First one.