Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Planning and Zoning Commission of Carroll County, Maryland meeting of August 18, 2026. Can we establish a quorum?

Yes, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Mr. Kane? Here. Mr. Robertson? Here. Mr. Haas? Mr. Kreckner?

Here.

Mr. Swenson? Here. Mr. Lester? Here. Mr. Smith?

Here.

Mr. Gordon? Here. Secretary Daley? Here. Mr. Chairman, let the right reflect that five members are present and we do have a quorum.

Okay, thank you. Please stand for the pledge. OK, has everybody had a chance to review our agenda for today?

Yeah.

Can I get a motion for approval?

I make a motion to approve the agenda.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

OK, thank you. And the minutes, we have minutes from June 3rd and June 16 that were sent out. Everybody had a chance to review those? Yep. Any changes to the minutes?

I'll make a motion to review the minutes first. Let me try it.

June 3rd?

June 3rd and June 16th. Thank you. I second. Okay.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay.

Thank you. Commission member reports. I approved a minor subdivision M24039 a couple of weeks ago, and I I'm going to be attending the Maryland planning, Maryland Department of Planning training slash refresher course webinar tomorrow at 8 o'clock, or 4 o'clock. It's a webinar, so I don't know if anybody else is doing that, but I said yes. So I'll be watching the webinar tomorrow. I don't think there's any... It's for new... It's a state law that you have to attend if you're new. Obviously, none of us are new, but it's also a refresher. It's an opportunity to hear what's going on from the state level and interact with some discussions about what's going on in different jurisdictions and stuff. So it should be interesting. So I'm going to do that tomorrow at 4 o'clock. And that's all I have. Commissioner Gordon? I have nothing this morning. Thank you. Okay. Any other commission member reports?

I just have a comment about the June 16th meeting. And in the minutes, we talked about the ADUs, the extra housing allowed on lots. And I brought up the question about what kind of... decision had been made about AgPres properties and I had an occasion to visit the agricultural department a couple weeks ago and I sat down with the staff down at Mouth and talked about these ADUs on agricultural land. Apparently nobody down there even thought about that. So after about an hour's worth of discussion on the pros and cons of this, I was told that there was an attorney general that was looking into this and that the county had been in touch with MAUF about this. It seems like somebody should have had an opportunity now to make a comment on it from the state level. Has there been anything?

Not formally, no.

Okay.

We have not received anything formally from the Attorney General's office at this point.

Because before we move forward with our feelings about ADUs in the future in Carroll County, I think we need some sort of an answer. on this and we were all over the place when I was down there with the staff. It's like they never even thought about this.

So the tricky thing is obviously we're still waiting for an opinion from the Attorney General's office. The law goes into effect in the state on October 1st.

Yes.

We have a public hearing set for September 3rd, that's a Thursday, 6 p.m. in this room for the commissioners to have a public hearing on that ADU, the proposed recommendations that you set forth before them. We want to have something in place because otherwise then it's anybody's game based on state law and based on our current code. So we want to have something in place. We don't want to hold up the entire process to wait for the Attorney General because then we're losing out on the opportunity for other safeguards that you've put into place before that October 1st deadline. We absolutely have the opportunity to go back and add new things into whatever code changes we make according to the Attorney General's opinion. It may just come after the October 1st deadline, and at this point, because we have to have that notice published for the September 3rd hearing. Shockingly enough, September 3rd is in two weeks, which seems wild, but it's happening in two weeks. We need to make sure that the code is already published before that.

So, and that's what you're telling me, I'm not surprised. I pretty well knew that this was going to happen. But we can put recommendations.

We can absolutely make new recommendations once we get items from the Attorney General that may be able to better guide us and further change the code. Just because we have one code in place by October 1st by no means is that a final the code may never change again. We can absolutely continue to revise the code based off of what they tell us. We just want to have something in place by October 1st because of that state imposed change that goes in on October 1st.

Okay. I just wanted a clarification on that because I think it's an answer that we need and it just seems like the state has no thoughts on whether it's a problem or not or even whether it was ever on the radar screen, which it wasn't. I was assured of that. Okay, thank you very much.

So the Attorney General comments or recommendations that may come from them, that would affect any jurisdiction with this October 1st, right?

I suspect what they will give will be an opinion, which will simply say, We think this is how it could apply to the state legislation that goes into effect on October 1st. And then it's our job to respond to that within the confines of what we are and are not allowed to do. Gotcha.

So when you have the public hearing and things like that, that should probably be prefaced if we haven't received anything yet from the state EG.

See Elizabeth, what I'm really wondering about is we have the three different easement programs, basically. We have Rural Legacy, we have Mouth, we have our county program. And I'm wondering how much autonomy we have on each one of those programs. I mean, we paid 100% on the county program. You know, what are we allowed to do or not to do here? With that, then there's rural legacy, which is supposed to really be a tougher program as far as conditions, as far as conservation aspects and all. And then you have mouth, who sort of changes day by day, depending on who, what, and where. So I really want to keep working on this. And I appreciate your answer. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Ralph. Good point. Good point. It just seems like the state has, with so much in the pipeline that's coming through, has yielded decisions or delayed decisions on certain items to help formulate some, some, uh, uh, stronger guidelines around things, but that's okay. Well, like you said, we have an opportunity to do that after we hear their opinion. So that's good. All right. Um, any other commission reports, commission member reports. Okay. Uh, administrative reports, administrative matters, Daphne, uh,

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Liz already mentioned something that I wanted to update you on. I'll just expand on that a little bit. So we have three code amendments that are the subject of an upcoming public hearing that covers the accessory dwelling units, which we were just talking about, as well as proposed amendments for addressing age-restricted housing. and cluster subdivisions. So that hearing is scheduled for Thursday, September 3rd beginning at 6 p.m. in this room. The hearing covers all three code amendments. As you know, we've been working towards the goal of having something in place, hopefully by, that will be decided at the September 17th open session with the commissioners so that we can have it in place and effective by October 1st. That's our goal. Okay. So certainly everybody is welcome to either attend the hearing and or send in written comments to the Board of County Commissioners for their consideration. The other thing I wanted to call your attention to was you all, I think at the last meeting we talked about the site visit that happened with the consultant who's working on the Freedom Freedom Plan Small Area Amendment. They were here to talk with you guys. They have a second site visit planned for mid-October, and I sent you the dates and information about a joint work session that will be held on October 13th, I believe that's a Tuesday at 9 a.m. That'll be a joint work session between you and the Board of County Commissioners. And then that evening from 5 to 7 will be another public open house to receive feedback on their draft proposals associated with that plan amendment.

Okay.

Um, then just a couple of FYIs on July 30th, the, um, commissioners adopted the water resources element. So that is officially. adopted and it is part of our county master plan and then on September 16th coming up at 2 p.m. I believe in this room will be the annual tour with the Maryland Department of Transportation that's when we they come and talk a little bit about the upcoming transportation plan and specifically focused on Carroll County and the projects that are in the works. And that's all I have.

Okay, thank you. Any extensions?

Yes, we have one extension since the last time we met. This is a subdivision called Byron Hills. The preliminary plan number is P20071. This is the third extension of this four lot subdivision in Commissioner District 5. They are working toward, they've been all the way through final review and they're working towards getting their legal documents submitted to us.

Did you say 2,000? P20071. So that's been since 2000, 26 years?

Is that how you read that? No, P20, so 2020. They started their preliminary plan, and then they've worked through their final plans as well.

I feel better.

Okay. This is the third extension. We're almost at the finish line with this one. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Any BZA cases?

There are none this month. Okay, awesome.

Any other administrative business?

OK. All right.

Moving forward. Item number eight, the final site plan for Liberty Exchange first amended site plan, S230019. And it looks like sitting in for Amy.

Good morning.

Morning. Long time.

Yeah, it's been a while. Clark Schaefer here on behalf of St. John Properties. I have Annie Luttrell with me, who's the project manager for St. John's. Okay.

Anyone? You can pull more chairs if you want. Okay. All right.

We've learned that if you sit in the back of the classroom, you're less likely to get called upon. So I've told my people to sit in the back.

We missed you, Clark.

Your people.

Is that derogatory? I hope not.

It's the first time he's been at a loss for words. Good to see you, Clark. Good to see you.

All right, good morning. Good morning. I'm Laura Matias with Development Review, and I'm in front of you with the final site plan for the Liberty Exchange amended. This is the site plan. It is S230019. You will definitely recall this as we were just here, Amy was, in May with the concept plan for this project. So I'm going to give you a recap. of the details of the plan and remind you what the discussion and the direction was from the Planning Commission at that meeting in May. So again, we're here with a final plan. This is for consideration and approval. When Amy was before you in May with that concept plan, the Planning Commission had a good amount of discussion in regards to traffic. We had members of the public that had voiced concerns about existing traffic conditions. And direction was given to the developer to collaborate with the county's Department of Public Works and explore options to address existing traffic challenges and the potential exacerbation thereof with this project. So what was discussed specifically was a three-way stop signed intersection at Old Liberty Road and Exchange Drive, as well as proposed access from Lot 1, which they are developing, which is near Guerra Way, which is a subdivision. So those were the specifics of what you talked about and gave direction to the developer. Since that meeting, the developer and engineer have studied the existing conditions. They met with the county's Department of Public Works and the developer and engineer have information to present to the commission today. And the Director of Public Works, Brian Boeke, is also here with us today if you have questions for him.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry.

That's okay. Do I need to revise what I just said? I believe that's all accurate. Are we good?

He was just explaining to me. Never mind. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Laura, wasn't there also access from the one site on the old Liberty?

Yes, that was that other that I just mentioned. So their proposed development of lot one would access onto Old Liberty near existing Guerra Way, which is part of a subdivision there to the west. So there was interest in exploring the proximity of those two access points onto Old Liberty Road. Right.

Thank you.

Laura, can you, is there a zoom in that you can go to?

I can sure see if there is. Can I just click? Yes, I can. Okay. Okay. So you'll see a way to the west of the subject sites and old Liberty Road is the one that kind of curves in the middle there with Exchange Drive coming down out of the existing business park. So existing conditions, Liberty Exchange was a site plan that started back in 06, was developed fully. except for these two front parcels, which were at the time proposed to be a high turnover sit-down restaurant and a convenience store fueling station. That has come to us. They haven't developed those yet. And it's come back in for this amendment to say, nope, we're changing that up. We'd like to do retail buildings on both lot one and lot three, which are at the front of the property here. And they are both around 9,500 square feet of retail space. So this is the plan we're currently processing. Okay, where's the plan? Can I go backwards with the mouse? I was looking for a plan. I apologize, I didn't know. Forward till we can find a plan perhaps. One more. There we go. Thank you. Sorry, I hadn't had a chance to review the slideshow in advance of the presentation. So what my mind is thinking and Amy's mind is thinking in terms of sequencing. We'll get there. So this is the proposal currently in front of you. The properties are zoned I-1, light industrial, again, existing business park. And we're developing those two lots at the front. Everything is served by public water sewer in this area. So both retail buildings are also proposed to have additional outdoor seating areas. And regarding traffic, just a reminder that these two retail buildings are, there was a traffic study done back with the original plan for this property, which did include the convenience store, the restaurant, and the fueling station. Convenience store, fueling stations, and the restaurant. These specialty retail buildings that they are putting in are going to generate less traffic than what those did. So there weren't any additional improvements required. All improvements were done with the original site plan back in 2006. The parking is plentiful. What we require is 778 parking spaces throughout the entire business park. There are 964 on this plan. And then if we could go back to the building elevations, please. Thank you, Daphne. The building elevations you'll see here. They have a brick facade with gray, white, red highlights on there. They are proposing 15 pole-mounted lights in those parking areas that you saw on the plan. And we have landscape plantings that are being provided at the eastern and southern property lines to meet landscape requirements. And all agencies have approved this plan. So all technical agencies have approved it. There is an existing stormwater management facility, which will handle everything in terms of stormwater management. Forest conservation was previously addressed. And final landscape approval is issued. So everybody has approved this. And at the same time as they are processing this, there's amended plat being processed to address the relocation of some water and sewer easements that are on the lots. And that plat will need to be recorded either simultaneously with or prior to the PWA for this project. So pursuant to Chapter 155, we staff are recommending approval of the site development plan subject to There are three conditions listed in your staff report, and I'm adding that fourth about the amended plot. So number one, the developer enters into a public works agreement with Carroll County that guarantees completion of the improvements. Number two, a landscape maintenance agreement is granted to the county commissioners of Carroll County to be recorded simultaneously with the public works agreement. Number three, any changes to this plan will require an amended site development plan to be approved by the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission. And number four, that the amended plat shall be recorded simultaneously with or prior to the PWA. So as you see in regards to the plan, the elevations, et cetera, there are no changes from that concept review that you saw back in May. We on our end have gone through the final review process with technical agencies. All technical agencies have approved it. And again, the developer and engineer are here to present information to you regarding the direction that was given in May as to looking at the traffic challenges that exist here and what that translates to. So I will hand off to Jim, Clark, Annie, whoever wants to speak first. to speak to that, and then any questions that you may have for them, please.

OK.

Thank you.

Good morning again, Clark Schaefer. We have participated in significant, substantial discussions with your public works department and the traffic engineering wing of that department. And I believe you have a letter in your file from the Brian Boke, who's here today, at least he was, the public works director, that says, in part, that based on our review, The department has determined that no additional action is warranted from the developer at this time. DPW will continue to monitor traffic operations at the intersection. We hope and think that that would address your concerns. To summarize, I was not involved in the discussions. The discussions were with the traffic engineer people and, I guess, Annie Luttrell. My understanding is that while we looked and looked and looked and you looked, there's no real solution to the problem. to the concerns brought up by the neighbors. I mean, I guess no real solution. I mean, I guess if we could reroute Old Liberty Road, we could throw our site plan up in the air and not develop the front part of it, et cetera. But what we come here with you, before you today with, again, is a site plan that, as Laura points out, not only checks all the boxes, you know, all the technical agencies have recommended approval. It has been double and triple looked at from a traffic standpoint. Obviously, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't in the planned growth area, in the priority funding area. And on top of that, what we're not really – you're not and we're not dealing with a blank slate here. This is a site plan that was approved almost 20 years ago. The only change that's involved in this thing is that we've reduced the traffic. As Laura pointed out, we've changed from a convenience store and a high turnover restaurant to these retail buildings. And as part of that, Nobody should think that there hasn't been a robust traffic review here. We were required to show your public works department, your traffic people, that in fact we would reduce the traffic significantly, these uses. We were able to show that in fact that intersection functions in accordance with the standards. Now, I'm not saying it functions in accordance with the neighbor's standards, because those are their standards. So, we're here today to ask you for your approval of this amended site plan, and we think we've checked all the boxes.

Okay.

So, retail, that does not keep restaurants out, correct? They can still have smaller restaurants.

That's correct.

I should mention that there was a bank there as well.

The original plan had a bank, had three uses on the same properties. One was a bank, one was what's referred to as a high turnover, which must be a term of art in Laura's and the development world, which is McDonald's, Chick-fil-A's, I think, is what you're talking about there. They sit on pad sites. They don't go in line. The in line restaurants do not generate the same kind of traffic. So yes, but restaurants would be. And in fact, as Laura pointed out, outdoor seating we've shown. My guess is that involves some kind of a restaurant use.

One of the traffic concerns was the three-way stop sign and how that tends to be ignored by folks. coming out of the medical facilities and other buildings in the back and just, you know, blow through there to get, see the green light go through and not paying attention to the three-way stop sign. Any discussion about that with DPW? Lots of discussion. Any way to address that?

Lots of discussion. The only thing we can think of, and we would be willing to do it, is to put a... warning sign on our private drive because I think that the complaint was people were as was described to me is people would see a green light and go I ain't stopping because I'm hitting that green light coming out so we we would be willing to and I know it's a it's a minor thing but it's it's the only thing we can think of is we would be willing to put a sign up that says something like stop ahead warning, stop ahead, maybe, and we'll talk to your public works people about it, stop ahead, strictly enforced, some verbiage or some signage that's in accordance with the sign manual that you know, is used for traffic that tells people, hey, you got a stop sign coming up, you should stop. That's the only thing we can think of. You know, as you, I think you recognized, and everybody recognized, this problem appears to be behavioral, which is hard to address. without law enforcement creating some incentives.

I can go into a little more detail on the background that we did. We did film the intersection of Exchange Drive and Old Liberty Road for two days. And unfortunately, I did watch all of it. So that was our first initial guess is we thought maybe people were trying to make that green light on Liberty Road. We actually found through watching it, whether the light was green or red didn't really have an impact on whether if people ran the stop sign or not. It seems to be what they do is they slow down, they notice no one else is there, and then they go if no one else is there. If there's another car there, they do stop, is what we observed. So that's kind of where, you know, when we were trying to think of a solution, you know, keeping that in mind after we watched those behaviors to see what the best solution would be.

I think the main question here is, is there really a problem? I mean, how many collisions have happened there?

We pulled accident data for a three-year period. It was 2022, 2023, and 2024. There was one accident at Exchange Drive and Old Liberty Road. Again, after doing a lot of research and looking into it, we really didn't see a major issue.

If I may add, in my experience with commercial developments, this situation at this location is pretty good in that it had a built-in access road. Everybody says, we don't want three entrances off Liberty Road. It's a through road. People are going 50, 60 miles an hour sometimes. But this had its own built-in road, which we liked and which we were required to reroute a little bit. That little eyebrow there, that was our... That eyebrow was our dime readily spent because... The traffic people at that time, 20 years ago, had a concern about stacking at the traffic light and coming back to Liberty Road. While we respect the concerns, and I think Annie added, fleshed out, not only did we discuss this matter with Public Works, we dug down to try to address the concerns.

I'm in and out of there frequently, but I may have been one of the ones that just kind of coasted through. If I did, I'm sorry. I usually, honestly, try to go up old liberty and avoid I know. And I've been through there multiple different times of the day and evening and I think having a sign prior to the stop sign or maybe a flashing something would make them realize because people are just creatures of habit and pull up and

Did that come up in the discussions with DPW about a flashing sign?

Yeah, we did discuss a flashing sign. It's not typical, and we're actually even looking into if it was allowed in Maryland. I'm not sure. We have our traffic experts here if we need to get into that. But that was something we looked into, and we just together decided it wasn't appropriate to do that.

I know it sounds small, but I know the neighborhood has raised that issue and I know personal experience has raised that issue. My wife had an appointment up there yesterday and somebody almost ran through the stop sign and nailed her. So it is a real issue. So anything we can do to help make that stop sign aware or people aware of that stop sign, I think anything there would be beneficial, even if it's a sign leading up to the stop sign or something like that. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, but I just think that may help change the behavior. It may satisfy the neighbors in the neighborhood, and it may prevent. I know we've had one accident in one year, two years, whatever it is. It just might prevent something. Have you looked into a speed bump? No.

Or a rumble strip.

So the issue isn't speeding. So those two things would be to counteract speeding. The other thing we did look into rumble strips, too. They can be loud near residential areas. So again, they're also for speeding. So we didn't feel like that was going to solve the issue, which is why we proposed a stop, like warning ahead sign. It's the same sign if you are driving eastbound on Old Liberty to alert you to the stop sign at one of the other legs of the three-leg intersection. So that's what, you know, from our research we were proposing. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that would help.

And we are willing to work, as we've said, with DPW to get an agreed-upon signage for there. That would be on our private driveway.

Yeah.

Obviously.

Yeah. Good. OK. Anything else? Anything else? All right. Let's go to public comment. If there's any public comment, I ask that you sign in. There's a sign in table at the back. Speakers must state their name, address, and talk into the microphone to facilitate audio and video recording. Comments will be strictly limited to three minutes per speaker. Citizen testimony is not a Q&A session. Questions may be directed to staff after the meeting. And if any individual fails to comply with these rules, the Planning and Zoning Commission chair may call the person out of order and may require him or her to leave the meeting. So do we have any public comment? Yes, sir.

Hi.

My name is Mike Myers, and I'm at 5805 Artisan Drive in Eldersburg, and I'm a member of the community there right next to Liberty Exchange. And I'm actually a secretary of the board of Summers Hollow, which is the HOA right next to Liberty Exchange when you go up Garrow Way. And our community does support totally the businesses in Liberty Exchange, and we welcome these new retail businesses that will be moving in. And I'm glad you all were talking about the past few minutes about the three-way stop sign, because... That's what I came here to address, that we've been asking for something to be done for a while. And now that I hear that they're open to installing additional signage, we would welcome that because that's what we've been asking for. And I understand that the flashing lights, maybe they're not typically allowed or maybe not appropriate, but I do feel they could be appropriate because of these dangerous situations that we have. In fact, what you just said that happened to you the other day was almost an accident. And last week, when I was driving through there, making my left turn, the outgoing traffic, I know that I have to be careful. And somebody came out and I stopped. It didn't almost have an accident, but that's because I just knew that I had to watch out for that. But that doesn't mean all drivers are aware of that situation. So it would be great to have something that reinforces that they do really have to wait for the incoming traffic that they have the right of way. And if maybe, even though it's not appropriate or not typical, maybe the flashing lights around some sign just to really make them, make people aware that, yes, the incoming traffic turning left, they have the right of way. Thank you very much.

OK. Thank you. Come on.

Good morning. My name is Laura Thorpe, 708 Conservatory Drive in Sumner's Hollow. I'm probably going to repeat what Mike said. Still have concerns about the three-way sign. I understand what Mr. Robertson said is how many accidents have there been. Can't count near misses. And there are a whole, whole, whole bunch of near misses, like what Mike just said. The other concern is the egress from the West Platte, the egress onto Old Liberty is very close to Gearaway, and we're concerned about people not being able to see, people coming out of that retail site on the west side, not being able to see people coming from Gearaway. We have a lot of young kids, young people that go to Liberty. No, Century High School. They come down Gira so they don't have to go to the Linton Light. They come down Giraway and zip out there. So that adds to the traffic, not just our community, but the school and maybe even teachers too, I don't know, coming down Gira, making a left onto Old Liberty. they're not going to be able to see that egress. There are plenty of restaurants and retail sites that only have one exit, which would exit onto Exchange Drive, which would be, in our view, more appropriate. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Just a thought after hearing that. Is there any signage, that new signage that will be put on Old Liberty Road as you approach Liberty Exchange from the west to alert folks that, you know, there's, you know, is there, I mean, what's the speed limit? Is there a speed limit reduction as you approach that area? Or is it already 25 miles an hour, 35 miles an hour, whatever it is? Just another thought. That's for DPW, not necessarily for you guys.

Hello, Brian Mokey, Director of Public Works. I believe it's 25. It's 30. Okay, we can definitely consider the speed. Everything I'm hearing this morning, I believe Public Works can work with law enforcement to... increase the presence out here. I think the development team has went above and beyond providing us data between the video and they've trimmed trees both on Exchange Drive and the future site. Public Works is also concerned there's a very large tree at the entrance of Summer's Hollow that isn't our right-of-way. There might be something we can do there to help some visibility, but I think everything that the development team has been Fantastic to work with, and I think we could handle it from here.

That'd be great. That'd be great.

Mr. Bogey, while you're there, I have a question. It seems here lately some of these smaller communities like New Windsor, Uniontown, they have flashing signs that show your speed limit.

Yeah.

And I don't think I've been behind any car that hasn't put their brake lights on when that thing starts to flash. Not one. So who controls those signs? How can you put them in? Because it seems like, to me, that is an easy way to help the situation here. I've seen it. I mean, I go to New Windsor quite often or through New Windsor to other farms, and it slows traffic down when people see how fast they're going and what the speed limit is. It just seems like, and the developer seems willing to try to work on this one issue that's hanging us up here. Is there some solution here? I'm no traffic expert. I'm just an observer.

Yeah, so I think as Annie mentioned, there's the stopping issue and then there's a speeding issue. It doesn't sound like a speeding issue. Maybe the kids coming to high school in the morning might go a little quick, might be running late. And I think that's something a flashing speed sign could certainly help. I feel like the heart of the problem here is the folks rolling through the stop sign. So yeah, we can work with them. As mentioned, we don't have any of the flashing stop signs. It's not in our standard. frankly we don't have the staff to maintain them but bring power and change light bulbs things like that um so you know the the conversation led down to the you know let's let's do everything we can on the private side and we'll certainly even make the signs for them and and help get them out there but i think you know just just some additional warning coming i guess southbound um out of the liberty exchange is is really what the what the root cause is there right yeah so

I have been there when the kids are out of school and it's like a raceway coming down there. So for the safety of the kids, maybe one of those, I guess they're temporary. Sometimes you see that would be a good thing, especially the start of the school year and on a little bit because they're anxious to get home, not so much to be late for school.

Good to know. Yeah, we can certainly work with the sheriff's office.

Are you saying they're anxious to get home and continue studying?

No, I didn't say that part. Some may, some may.

Yeah, okay, good. Thank you all. Thank you. Yeah, I think, you know, look, we don't want to belabor this. At least I don't want to belabor this. But I think the point is this is, you know, like so many cases before us, it's a case with balance or requires balance. You know, you have the neighbors that are concerned about some issues that we've heard about. and you guys certainly have you know been amenable to making changes to coordinate and cooperate so that's much appreciated so I think I think that's the point we're trying to make here Okay, so you're looking for an approval of the plan, final plan review, and then we'll actually see you guys again, I guess, right? Is that right?

Or is this it? Subdivision plat. No, because that'll probably be just signed by the chair.

OK. Yeah, so looking for an approval with those four recommendations that the staff recommended, the fourth being the plat amendment. So with that, I'll take a motion. I only see three. Well, the fourth was the plat amendment that was added.

Okay. All right. I will make a motion pursuant to Chapter 155 that we approve the site development plan subject to the three conditions or conditions and propose it go to the Does it have to go to the commissioner?

No.

OK. All right.

I'll second it.

OK. We've got a second. Can we do a roll call?

Mr. Huff? Ms. Kirkner?

Yes.

Mr. Lester? Mr. Robertson?

Yes.

Mr. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Choyson?

Yes.

Mr. Gordon?

Abstain.

Chairman, like for the record, we have three yeas and one abstain.

Okay. Carries forward, so congratulations. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you.

All right.

Item number nine, deferral code changes, self-service storage facilities, a discussion. The staff's going to lead a discussion on the recommendations from Michael Baker Consultants related to self-service storage facilities, which have been the subject of a deferral in the Freedom area.

Self-storage.

All right, so we're here again with Troy Truex from Michael Baker International, who's the consultant working on the deferral code amendments. As you heard at the last meeting, He presented the findings from the first two tests in reviewing self-service storage facilities. He's going to dive into now the recommended code amendments that would help address the findings that he shared at the last meeting. So he's got a presentation. You also received a copy of the actual redlined text, which I have available if we need to pull that up as well. I'll turn it over to Troy.

Thank you, Daphne. Good morning. Morning. I'll just start right off here with the presentation slide. This should be on slide three of your packet. From an overview perspective, self-service storage facilities, the amendments only pertain to the zoning code portion. There were no site development amendments recommended. But just as a high-level summary, and we'll go through these in a little bit more detail, Chapter 158002, the definitions. Under here, we're recommending and as shown in the red line, providing for two separate definitions, one for drive up and the second for internal self-service storage facilities. The second item here, 158082, regulation of principal uses. Here we have recommendations where we're specifying where self-service storage facilities are permitted in the commercial and industrial districts, and also some recommendations in terms of amendments of how those are approved and then finally 158 158 self-service storage facility the use regulations here we have recommendations or amendments related to measurable enforceable and architectural site design standards also to layout circulation integration with the surrounding development and also the standards help manage the scale and intensity of development so i'll just start with the definitions right now you do have a single term defined for self-service storage facility but through our research and our recommendations as we presented earlier we're recommending through the amendments that we have both a term for drive up and also a term for internal distinguish these two types of uses again drive up is characterized typically as a single story In design, it can contain multiple separate self-contained storage units, but again, another characterization here that separates that from internal, these are accessed through individual exterior doors. So these are the drive-up, you know, first kind of one-story garage-style opening up, if you will. Then the second is the internal. This would be a fully enclosed multi-story building in which individual storage units are primarily accessed from internal corridors in which the loading and unloading of storage items are typically conducted at a designated area within the building. So if you've ever been to one of these, there's usually a place where you drive in your vehicle, car, truck, moving van, whatever. and then you can unload and go to your internal self-service storage facility unit. If you look at the rest of the definitions, again, these both are defined as to accommodate the temporary storage of non-hazardous personal property. They also may include, which many of them do these days, climate and temperature-controlled units, and also, too, the outdoor accessory storage of other vehicles, boats, RVs, cars, what have you, are typical, what you start to see in these. Also, no commercial activities or transactions are permitted in either use, by definition, except for the incidental sales of products related to the storage and moving, so packaging boxes, moving carts, what have you. You've seen the retail part of that and also it does not include contractors equipment storage. You actually have a separate use for that. So we made clear in the definition for these two that that was a separate defined and regulated use and that's not included as part of wouldn't be a use permitted or an activity permitted for any self-service storage facility. In terms of where the districts, these are permitted. So the changes here shown in the table, the use table and the code, now we're introducing differentiation, both drive up and internal. So we're striking the current terms and then simply adding the two new terms that would be inclusive of drive up and internal. And then also the same with sustainable community, which is Sphinxburg. We have a use, those uses are separated out. terms of where they're permitted by adding these the only real change here is that because we want to introduce a little bit more control or oversight before self-service storage facilities were permitted by right in the c2 and see through c3 districts but in the c2 districts That's an area where we want to have a little bit more control in terms of oversight through the process of public engagement and whatnot. So that would be by conditional use approval in C2. But where we would kind of want to encourage these uses, if you will, we want to permit them by right in the C3 districts. And then continuing on, they're still permitted by conditional use in the industrial district. Just to go through, I tried to make this a little bit more user-friendly. I took out kind of the code language in terms of the legalese, but tried to make it more simplistic here for presentation purposes. Just going through these by categories under the self-service storage facility, these are the use regulations under 158.158. So from a design objective here, permitted locations and site standards, we want through these regulations to establish appropriate locations, unit sizes, and minimum lot requirements for these uses. So in the terms of where they're permitted, as I just mentioned, in the C2 district, both drive up and internal, storage facilities are permitted by conditional use. In the C3 district, they're permitted by right, subject to use regulations. Also, too, it doesn't matter. We have use regulations, so if it's conditional use, you can add on other reasonable conditions, safety matters, et cetera, but no matter if it's conditional use appropriate or permitted by right, you still have to abide by the use regulations. And also in the I-1 district, they're permitted by conditional use when located within a sustainable community, and that's Finksburg, of course. We do set maximum sizes on these buildings based on our research. You know, most of these larger buildings upwards to about 100,000 square feet is the typical maximum size that you would get. So we felt from an industry standard that that's probably where we at least should have the ceiling set. And then the individual units themselves may not exceed 500 square feet. So the overall building size cannot exceed 100,000 square feet. And the individual units themselves are not over 500 square feet. And that's, again, based upon what you see in the industry. That's the going sizes that are being produced. Minimum lot size. So we differentiate between drive up and internal. Drive-up we're thinking in terms of because they're multiple one-story buildings, they spread out a little bit more over a larger area. We felt that a two-acre minimum lot size was appropriate, while internal are more of the multi-story contained building. types of design that a one-acre minimum lot size would be appropriate there, too. And then also, too, we recommended in our best practices research that adaptive reuse is one of the things we're really starting to see. I pointed out the reuse of the Kmart shopping plaza up in Carlisle. There's other examples as well. So we give an incentive. We want to encourage, you know, where you already have development, where you already have infrastructure, we want to encourage that's where we want these uses to go as much as possible. and where the opportunity exists, reuse those types of buildings. So we try to add an incentive there, as you can see, with a lot size reduction for those types of uses.

Sir, while you're on that. Yes, sir. On a drive-up self-storage, two acres at a maximum of 500 square feet, how many units would that be?

Oh, I'd have to – it really depends, too, in terms of – How much stormwater? How much parking? I really don't have an answer for you, Commissioner, because it just all abates upon site conditions, layout, et cetera. So again, what you can fit. in terms of a lot is all dependent upon parking, stormwater, other access, and then what's left over for the building. So that really, that two acres is not all built out of just the use. It's inclusive of. That's all inclusive of the two acres. Yeah, so it's the minimum lot size in terms of like, and that's nothing unique. That's how typically it's set up. To begin the use, you need a minimum lot size, but then the applicant needs to factor in all those site development requirements in addition to the actual facility or use improvements itself. I guess that's where you were going with your question then, is that correct? That's where I was going. Okay.

And that's pretty standard here too.

Yes, yeah. Again, a number of these focus on design treatments. So again, front facade design and orientation. We want to ensure that storage facilities resemble high quality commercial buildings rather than industrial compounds. And I tell you just, if you, once you walk out of the building today, I was in the parking lot and I was reading over my notes, just take a look at this very building that we're in. It could be a mass one square block. But it's really well done architecturally. So these things that we're recommending are not something out of the ordinary. So if you think about, and I'll talk about some other areas too, in terms of there's no blank walls, you have nice design in this building. So just much like this could be a massive industrial commercial building, even though it's like an office building, you think about what it could design if there would be no kind of focus on the architectural treatments of it. It could be a huge mass just blank walls, solid walls, like a warehouse building. So it would be very unattractive. So in this case, making sure the front facade is compatible with surrounding development. Storage units, we want to make sure those units and that activity is facing inward to the site. If there's a residential or fronting the street, we don't want to see that activity. We want to hide that activity. No drive aisles, loading areas, or storage aisles. They must be between the building They can't be facing the public street, if you will. And then street-facing facades, again, that design treatment, window display areas covering at least 20% of the ground floor frontage or equivalent architectural treatment. Again, we're trying to get away from blank, mostly industrial warehouse-type buildings or just blank front facades, if you will. Massing and composition. This is where I was starting to think about my previous comment about just take a look at this. You stand back and look at this building, how it's designed. So for example, buildings should feature a clearly articulated base, middle and top. This building does it. Ground floors should be distinguished from up-low floors through cornices, banding. So if you look on the outside, there's an actual concrete style of band around this entire building midway. Awnings are similar architectural elements. This building, again, just take a look at this type of building design. You'll see these very types of architectural recommendations in the building that we're in. Prominent entrances, primary building entrances should be clearly identifiable. and integrated into the building's overall design and massing. Even the position of this building facing the street, parking is in the back or along the side. Again, a lot of similar types of architectural treatments and site layout went into this building on this location. Street-oriented designs is exactly what I was getting at there in terms of building massing and primary uses should be focused toward the primary street frontage. And corner and double frontage buildings. So if we're on a corner type of lot, buildings with frontage on more than one street should establish both primary and secondary facades to ensure a cohesive architectural appearance. So again, pretty standard but pretty simple ways to accomplish those objectives. Parking and access and circulation. Again, we want to ensure safe, efficient site operations while minimizing conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians, and neighboring properties. So office and employee parking. So again, one example we talked about actually had an on-site residence for a manager's residence. That was the one in Mechanicsburg, VA. So you can have an on-site management office could be permitted, like a live-work type of unit. Employee parking must be located adjacent to the office and required parking spaces must be really available for parking. It may not be used for vehicle or equipment storage. So that's pretty typical, pretty normal to meet parking standards. Access and internal circulation She noted here the 20 feet for two-way traffic and 15 goes back to those NFBA standards that we talked about a lot and the age-restricted housing. So we're incorporating those requirements here as well. Site design must accommodate emergency vehicle access and maneuvering. Internal circulation should provide clear ingress and egress routes and vehicle backing movements onto public streets are prohibited. So really the internal access off some type of service drive and these aren't necessarily coming in off the main route where you have these conflicts occur. And then you mentioned this in the previous application discussion about site connectivity. We want to make sure that if it's adjacent to another development that we're having those integral types of access between those two lots to kind of resolve or mitigate any kind of movements back out on the street just to get to the next lot over that might be a commercial related type of use. Use limitations. Again, we want to ensure that these facilities remain compatible with surrounding properties and are operated as a low-impact storage use. So permitted uses, again, by definition, they may only be used for self-storage activities, including the accessory outdoor vehicle storage. And then business operations unrelated to storage are prohibited, like a contractor's bay. Again, that's in the definition. Accessory outdoor vehicle storage, again, it's permitted as an accessory use. Storage areas may occupy, these outside storage areas may occupy a maximum of 20% of the total area. Again, this wasn't meant to be an outdoor storage lot and just have a small area of indoor storage. The primary use is a storage building facility with an accessory use, so that makes sense to have a cap of 20% of the total lot area devoted to outdoor storage. And then again, restrictions on the outdoor storage there as well. And then also regarding vehicle storage must be legally registered. Again, we don't want these to become somebody's used car lot or, you know, a collector's place where they now have a junk. It's almost like a junk storage place. We want to try to avoid and mitigate those issues as well. Again, some additional use regulations relating to operations. No retail sales. Again, contracting businesses, repair shops, or commercial workshop type activities are prohibited. Limited sales of packing and moving supplies, of course, is allowable. Outdoor public address or loudspeaker systems are prohibited. You typically don't see that here. It's not a contractor's yard. You're not moving loads around, etc. So that's Normal, but we just want to make sure that that's addressed in the requirements. And then facilities adjacent to residential areas must limit public access between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. So something that this body might want to consider if that's acceptable. But usually, you know, we want to avoid any overnight use of the facility. And especially the ones that are drive up, doors closing, shutting, somebody might be making noise of loading, unloading their items in their storage units. And then, of course, goes without saying, hazardous materials, that's usually a use limitation regardless, but except any fuel contained within the registered vehicles or boats or RVs that are stored on site. We talked about some development incentives, encouraged mixed use. So the whole idea is to encourage adaptive reuse of larger storage-type buildings. So climate-controlled, multi-service storage facilities may exceed the maximum permitted floor area by up to 20% when, number one, the ground floor includes active commercial frontage along the primary street or the facility is integrated into a mixed-use building containing retail or office uses. And then adaptive reuse opportunities. Existing commercial office and industrial buildings may be converted to self-storage facilities through the conditional use process in both the C2 and C3 districts. Exterior modifications must comply with applicable facade and design standards. So again, I used the former Kmart shopping center or building in Carlisle. U-Haul came in and they did exactly that. They did the facade all over, adaptively reused it, met site requirements, other design requirements for that district. And that was all part of a master planning process that was going on for that entire corridor. So it worked out really well. And then to encourage redevelopment of existing buildings over Greenfield, the BZA may grant relief from certain development standards as part of the conditional use approval. So we've built those into the amendments as well. And then finally, for design review, we want to ensure and leverage your design advisory review committee. So all self-storage facilities in the c2 and c3 districts are subject to review by the dark plier to Planning and Zoning Commission approval so you will have the benefits of getting their comments of how they evaluate the design plans and the elevation plans that are proposed and you can see they're making sure that they're evaluating the applications for these uses and relative to the architectural design standards that include facade articulation, building materials and finishes, and overall site integration and compatibility with surrounding development. And then finally, next steps, working with staff, Daphne and Chris on this, I think we're recommending that just like you did with the age-restricted uses, we may anticipate more work sessions. After today's presentation, your ultimate recommendations would then be sent to the County Board of Commissioners. They'll then set a date and time for a public hearing and adoption for these proposed amendments. So thank you for your indulgence, and I'd be happy to answer any further questions that you have.

Thank you, Troy.

Maybe I missed it if I did refresh my memory. Security. I'm not worried too much about the single story or the multi-story buildings or whatever, but the single storage units. Is there anything in the code that requires fencing around these properties for security reasons, especially where you have outdoor storage for cars or things like that? Yeah, so if you look at... Where are we with the... I mean, maybe I'm missing... No, that's a great question.

If you look on page 7 of the actual redlined amendments... here paragraph h on that page screening all structures storage units commercial parking areas accessory vehicle storage areas aisles security fences or walls okay um yep so there's chapter 150 that's a screening perspective i guess what we maybe want to look at from us myself and with staff with daphne just to go back and make sure from an area-wide security typically there's a fence because they don't want to they want to control ingress and ingress and egress to the storage lockers themselves so I'll double check on that to see if there's anything existing that's more about it must have a requirement to have a security fencing cameras it's probably where you're going type of comment around there. So that's probably one area that we probably maybe just want to double check and maybe as necessary add some language there that requires a permit or security to the operations.

I think the more secure that facility is, the more secure the neighborhood would be.

Yeah, I would agree. Now I'll have to admit, it's not always applicable. only from the standpoint, like the U-Haul in Carlisle. And if I had my best practices slide, I can show you. So if you remember that, that was part of an existing parking lot shopping center, no security. So because they're internal, There's no, it's already secured.

That's a different story. I'm more concerned about.

The drive up. Yes, sir. The drive up. And that's where you'll see the differentiation between the two. So I think we just need to make sure that it's not applicable to internal storage. It's more applicable to external or the drive up type of storage is where like a security fence needs to be. And I think that's probably operationally what they would do anyways because they don't want somebody without proper access being able to pick a lock and start to steal items. So, yeah.

I think as you drive around the county and see self-storage units, they're all pretty well screened. That's something as they came through, whether it's any agency, they look at wanting to make sure that it's screened. Dark, that is something that is In the future, that will be established. Is that correct or not?

The design advisory review committee already exists. What the recommendation here is that they would be, we would be required to send self-service storage facilities to them for review. I don't know what the kind of, criteria are right now for triggering their review. I don't know. Do we have any specific, can you speak to the specific points at which DART would be involved?

And isn't that something that staff usually does before it comes to us?

Yes.

Okay. Yes, we do.

And who's on that committee? Is that part of your department, Laura?

I'm going to answer one at a time. So the plans that come before them are generally site plans, right, where we see building elevations, landscaping. These are the type of things they respond to. It is that composition. Right now we have a CAD designer, an architect. One second. We usually have a representative from economic development on that. We did have a landscape architect. That position is vacant right now. These are volunteers that live in our community that volunteer their time to review these plans and give feedback to you. So we would like to boost that back up and replace that person that did leave us a little while ago. Okay. Any other questions? This type of project, they definitely see.

But it starts with technical review, and technical review is part of that design architect review.

They are separate. So the technical review committee are made up of staff that are doing their reviews in accordance with the code. The design and architectural review committee, again, they're volunteers that we connect with and say, we do have a plan for you to look at. Let's take a look. Let's meet. Let's get your feedback on that.

Okay. The adaptive... I think it's great. I don't see a lot of properties with the exception of maybe here in Westminster, which is probably out of the county review. That would be something, but I think in the future it would be something that would probably be good. The designs, I think... that definitely there needs to be some designs, but I think people that are using self-storage typically don't have room in their houses or their apartments or condos and it's not exactly, you know, they may not have a lot of expendable funds to do that. So the more impediments we put on the properties that the developer has to use, ends up being passed on to the end user, so we want to be careful. You know, this is a beautiful building, but we all know the county has lots of money. Ha ha. So, but, you know, it's probably not realistic to say that's what a cell storage should look like, but there are some.

Yeah, and I would just say too, I think that this is one where there's such competition in the market. It's almost like retail space or there's a price point where it's either going to pencil out for the developer to do the project or not. So it comes down to, I would put form and function of the building considering this is your community. And if you want to come and do business in our community, you have to look at the financials on your end of doing that, cost of that doing the business. Because if I'm a user of that product and want to store my stuff, I honestly probably don't care what the building looks like more than what am I paying per month to store my stuff. I'm going to go, maybe it might, hey, I might be saving a few more bucks, but I'm going to drive a few more miles down the road and store my stuff there because the price is cheaper. So I think it's a well-noted comment, but I would say, too, I think this industry is more price-driven because of the competition. And this would be one that I'd say from a community design standpoint, this is what we're seeking to have more. We don't want blank wall facades, industrial warehouse-type buildings being built adjacent to residential communities, I think is the bottom line is what we want to try to get away from. So I think that's one more.

You can set design standards that's not – that much more costly i mean that's what architecture is about yeah i mean it's it comes down to i think what we're talking about in carroll county we're so confined in so many things we're trying to do here in these zones that we don't want to ruin a neighborhood or an area because of one mistake like this. So I'm, you know, and I agree with you, Janice, the taxpayers built this building. Right. And they're not going to build a self-storage building. No, but I think too... But the design standards can still be... compatible with the community that it doesn't ruin what we're trying to achieve. Aesthetics mean a lot to a community. They really do. Yeah, they really do. It's not that I don't want to see something horrible in Eldersburg because I live in the New Windsor area. I'd like to see Eldersburg look as good as the New Windsor area. Yeah, it's amazing, too.

You even look at the industrial distribution warehouse types of buildings that are being built these days. They're They're more concerned more and more with architectural design and treatments because they're being required to. I live in Carlisle, kind of the capital mecca of warehouse development, and I can see from day one until now how they've changed. They're still big buildings, but there's some level of attractiveness, if I can call it that. It's all relative. But there are treatments there that you can see that they've paid a little bit more attention to what the community is wanting and the feedback they're getting on these things.

well that's where it's incumbent on us to to see that if you don't ask for it or don't require it they're not going to do it yeah and i like what i see here keeping we could go ahead most of what we see here but um we could though could you go back to the slide on uh you had a slide i think it was three or four before regarding access to uh the properties I'm not certain which one, but you had one where you were talking about access between certain hours, 10 to 6. Oh, yes.

That was probably on use standards or use limitations.

6 to 10. 6 to 10. Right. 6 a.m. to 6 a.m., whatever.

Sorry. We'll find it. Okay.

oh there it is there it is so we're talking about access we're talking about competition and we're talking about impediments be it to business the use of the consumer whatever i do have to ask the question though so if we're looking and i understand it's facilities adjacent to residential to limit public access between 6 a.m or 6 to 10 p.m one of the benefits for anybody that uses self-storage is the ability to access it So if you're coming in late at night and maybe you are storing, because I know we mentioned in here, that car that you can't keep at home, that you're storing it properly in that facility or whatever else, I have to question... where that puts us competitively. And I know we're talking a lot about Carlisle, but have we looked at any of the local self-storage facilities in Carroll County to see what their regulations are on that type of a situation between 6 and 10 p.m.?

Yeah, this is kind of a standard kind of operating hour requirement, and that would be one. I'll go back and get some more information. I'd be curious.

I mean, I'll bring it up for two reasons. One, the concern both for the community, because obviously late hours at night you don't want large amounts of noise, but then also the access to those that are renting those facilities. But I can tell you from personal experience in Carroll County, and I've had several over the years, I can access it 24-7. So to me, obviously you want checks and balances. That's always important for the surrounding area in the community. But if current facilities that already exist allow access 24-7, typically with a PIN code and then whatever else, but we're going to have new facilities in the county that we're going to say only between X and Y, are we creating an issue for those new entities that would be potentially built? It's not really equal. And I question where that puts us.

One thing I would say is that we might want to look at this in terms of the role of the Board of Zoning Appeals. They typically will set those operating hours as conditions of their approval. we could look at rephrasing this in a way that for the because it's listed currently proposed to be a conditional use in the C2 district so we could add some language in here that sort of says hours of operation may be limited by the board of zoning appeals or something like that so there's some indication that hours of operation can be limited if there are conditions that warrant it. Um, and in this case that would be a, uh, proposal in a C2 zoning district with that.

Would we then turn around and go back to those examples countywide that currently exist and have them modify their hours as well?

So this code would apply right now as it's drafted assume in our scenario world here that this gets passed as drafted this would apply to all facilities that back up to a residential area. So even the currently existing facilities that allow 24 hours, if they back up to residential, would now have to follow this. You cannot then send those folks, say you say it's now conditional, needs to go to the BZA, you could not send those existing facilities back to the BZA because they would then become something we call a legal non-conforming use. because they're essentially getting grandfathered in to the old codes because we cannot force them to go back to the BZA. But if they ever were to change or do something that would send them back to the BZA, now they may avail themselves of the purview of the BZA.

appreciate that one other quick question so we're talking about conditional versus permitted and Daphne correct me if I'm wrong on this I think I am correct though so we're looking at changing some of these to conditional whereas right now they're permitted in this draft am I correct that former Board of County Commissioners took them from conditional to permitted and now we're looking to go back to conditional

Yeah, so during the 2019 code revisions, when we were moving from two business zoning districts to three commercial zoning districts, there was a review of all the different uses, and one of them was self-service storage facilities. The Planning Commission at that time made a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners that those uses would be conditional. The Board of County Commissioners in their review determined that they wanted to make them principal permitted uses. So I think that that gives you a picture of some of where the Planning Commission was and where the commissioners ultimately ended. It gets a little bit into it. I believe that their discussion around moving from conditional to permitted was the concern that they would create non-conforming uses. It gets into what Liz was just describing. Businesses that are currently permitted that then get classified as conditional are allowed to continue to exist as legal non-conforming uses. There is, I think, a difference between a business that goes from or a use that goes from permitted to conditional and one that goes from permitted to prohibited. If they are conditional, then if they wanted to expand or they wanted to do something additional on their property, they would just have to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals to get conditional use approval. Whereas if it's prohibited, that's a whole nother story. So I think there's kind of a little bit of a gray area. But that was how I understood the thought process at the time. Originally suggested, conditional, recommended or adopted by the commissioners as permitted.

I appreciate that. I just want to mention that for anybody that might be watching that doesn't know the whole back history there. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

And I should say, um, I don't think, I think I would have to verify this, but I don't think there was the distinction between the C2 and C3 zoning district. I think they were originally both. permitted are both recommended for conditional as opposed to this recommendation which is oh no strike that I think there was a distinction I will check on that for you thank you so are we going to go through these changes and comment today or are we so if we follow the the trajectory that we've been following with pretty much all of the code amendments we've brought to you over the last couple of years. We would take some, any initial comments that you want to offer us here. we can integrate them into the redlined version of the code and then go back through that with you at the next meeting in fine detail. And then you can choose to continue to review it. You can choose to make a recommendation. at that time, whatever your comfort level is. But I think our intent would be to take anything that you want to offer us today, make revisions, and then come back to you at the, I think it's the September 2nd meeting will be our next one, to go line by line through the recommended code amendments. And you can choose to do whatever you want with them at that point. based on how much you want to continue to work through it.

Okay, so we still can at the next meeting?

For sure, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So can we talk a little bit about this 20% incentive? If all the climate control, all those factors are met, there's a 20% incentive for the developer for...

is that for additional space there is that what is that incentive yeah I'm trying to go through the code amendment here and just look this make sure I yes if you look on page boy sorry page seven of the red text code amendment so it would be paragraph and development incentive so internal so that's internal it wouldn't be the drive-up right it would be the internal storage facilities, may exceed the maximum gross floor area by up to 20% provided that the ground floor includes active commercial frontage. So again, it might be one where they're trying to use a building and they say, hey, we've got more space than what we can use for storage. I'll just use a Kmart example. They don't use the entire building. There's a perfect opportunity to have another user come in and divide it off and they can get rent off of that. So you want to try to maximize. We've got a ton of parking out here that's still a sea of parking. And the only thing that uses it beyond that are trucks that park there overnight for the warehouses or Planet Fitness down the street. So this will be one where, hey, we've got a large building. We're trying to reuse it. So we'll give you an increase of your floor space if you can activate other parts of that building for other commercial uses, if you will, or compatible or permitted uses in that district.

Okay, so it's not... We're talking about redevelopment only.

Right, yep. So, again, for development incentives, the ground floor... Yeah, so the ground floor includes active commercial frontage along the primary street. So it could be a new development for internal storage, but they have another user on the ground floor out there. So it's a mixed-use type of building. The second one under N2, the building is integrated into a mixed-use structure. So again, retail or office uses. So both are trying to activate that front floor area from a mixed-use or other type of use perspective is where we're going with that. Got it. Does that help answer that?

It does. Thank you. And vehicle storage and vehicle and or boat, I think you use as examples. Are they... Stored inside a unit or no?

Not necessarily, but it's interesting. They're getting more rent charges if they're covered. So it's outdoor storage, but oftentimes you'll see uncovered or covered storage. But sometimes, too, there's even one, again, not the same one going to Lancaster, I just noticed. It's a former farm. that has pole barns, and they've converted all their pole barns to storage facilities. And they specialize in RV storage.

So they're big enough to accommodate that type of use. There's a big one off of 97 down by the airport, too, that used to be a big, like, printing shop or something like that that they converted into indoor RV and boat vehicle storage.

All right. Cool.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions, thoughts?

So are there any things that you, I don't have any notes right now for things that you want to have us work on some amendments to.

I think one was what Commissioner Gordon brought up, the hours of operation, some flexibility in that, or some kind of language that You know, you're not handcuffed to that 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. And then the language about security that Ralph was bringing up earlier.

That would be for drive up only.

Yeah, drive up only. Do we have a map of the C2 and C3 properties that would be affected?

We can get that for you. I think that would be nice to have a visual. We have a list of those, but I can get that for you prior to next meeting.

Awesome. OK, any public comment? Step up to the microphone. If you haven't signed in in the back, please do so. State your name, address, and talk into the microphone to facilitate audio and video recording. Comments will be strictly limited to three minutes per speaker. Citizen testimony is not a Q&A session. Questions may be directed to staff after the meeting. If an individual fails to comply with these rules, planning and zoning chair may call the person out of order and may require him or her to leave the meeting. You've heard that before, I think.

Many, many times. Hi, my name is Audrey Novak. For 36 years, I have lived at 6505 Carroll Highlands Road. I am two lots. south of the proposed facility. The Carroll Highlands facility really is the test facility for all of these regulations. And I congratulate Mr. Baker on all of his recommendations, his being so thorough. But sadly, these were the points that so many community members brought up. for more than four years ago. First and foremost was this separate the definition of a drive up and a huge storage facility because when those conditions were set down, I think the only facilities that were available were the drive up ones. We mentioned, you all are talking about storage of vehicles. We've brought that up. I just, Ms. Kirchner, you talked one time about coming from the eastern shore and seeing things. I just came yesterday. I passed a huge, huge facility that just opened in Easton. It's right next to the Royal Farms. It's fine that it's so big and huge. It's not next to a residential neighborhood like ours. The storage facilities, we go through Roxana. There's an outdoor vehicle facility. It looks like a junkyard. It looks like a junkyard. Please don't allow that. And how do you enforce non-hazardous materials? How do you enforce that? Mr. Lester talked about fire hazard, you know, with these batteries that catch on fire. How do you enforce that in a facility so close to a residential, right on the property line of residential people? I urge, I beg you, to limit these to C3. Limit these huge facilities to C3. As far as one of the items talked about, safe and efficient operations. That intersection at Carroll Highlands Road is where Liberty Road merges from two lanes to one lane just at the intersection of Carroll Highlands and Liberty Road. People speed to get in front of everyone. They want to be first in line when it goes. And that would be right where traffic would be pulling out of this storage facility. So we need to take that into consideration. The community design, Mr. Robertson, I applaud you. You've several times mentioned the community design. Look at the Dunkin' Donuts right there on Liberty Road. It's beautifully merged with the character of the neighborhood. That's what we need at the site that we're talking about and future sites. Thank you very much. We appreciate all your attention. I'm speaking for so many people who work and can't be here today.

All right. Thank you. Any other public comment? No? OK. All right. Well, thank you.

Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Thanks, Fred.

Thank you.

Can we take a 10-minute break? We need a motion for that.

Yes. To adjourn. Or not to adjourn.

To move. I need to make a motion.

Recess.

Make a motion.

Recess. That we take a 10-minute break. Second.

All in favor? Aye. 10 minutes. OK, we're back in session. All right, next item is item number 10, capital projects. Staff's going to review the capital projects recommended for inclusion in the community investment plan and in furtherance of adopted master and community plans. And Daphne, you're going to lead that.

So I'm going to turn it over to Scott Graff, who's a planner in our comprehensive planning division, but I'll kind of tee it up just a little bit. I think that I had mentioned this at a prior meeting that we wanted to try to engage you all in a discussion about the recommended capital projects sort of earlier in the process for developing that. usually you see something kind of towards the end of the capital budget creation. We're a little bit late for starting something for starting that discussion and really building something in this year. So what we'd like to do is give you a preliminary look at the projects that we think are worth advancing into the recommended or the staff recommendations for inclusion in the capital improvement program, and get your feedback. Great. And so if there's anything that you want to add or prioritize, we have an opportunity to do that.

Awesome.

Now, so I'll turn it over to Scott. He'll walk you through it.

OK. Hey, Scott. Welcome. Good morning.

The land use article of the State of Maryland not only empowers the Planning Commission to provide recommendations to the Board for plan adoption as far as comp plans and functional plans, but it also gives the Planning Commission the authority to periodically recommend to their appropriate public officials programs for public structures, improvements in land acquisitions, and financing programs like the CIP. Recent project submittals, you would have recurring projects, generally agricultural preservation. There's money in the budget for that every year. Also items like stormwater facility renovations, bridge maintenance and repair and replacement, watershed assessment and improvements. You would find those usually in the budget year after year. you can also find large one-time capital expenditures like recent pre-kindergarten additions at multiple elementary schools throughout the county along with the eldersburg proposed library replacement or rehabilitation and the liberty high school modernization projects and then there's also the occasional capital roadway project that might be included recently riding our way was uh recommended for the budget along with Monroe Avenue as well. And this is the upcoming budget cycle that Daphne had mentioned. We're under a pretty tight time limit at this point. The projects are to be submitted to management and budget by late August, early September, which is right around the corner. And that's followed by a preliminary budget recommendation by late December, early January. And at that point, staff will come back before you to present that budget to get your determination as to whether it is consistent with the county master plan. That would occur roughly in mid-February. And then we would go into... presenting the recommended budget by March of 2027. And this is where we want to build in some lead time for next year and come back before you and begin to discuss projects for the following CIP, which would be the FY29. And the proposed budget would be completed by the end of April of 2027. And then the commissioners generally would be adopting the budget and wrapping it up by the end of May. The potential projects that we could have in the CIP covers a wide gamut of transportation infrastructure such as roadway connections and realignments and sidewalks, recreational projects like park expansions and trails, land acquisition and public facilities such as schools and libraries, expansion of water and sewer facilities, or refinement of water and sewer facilities, stormwater management, and the like. So these are ideas that could go in. What staff is presenting this year is a handful of projects, all of which are roadway projects, two various segments of Ridenour Way, the service road in Eldersburg there. And I'll show you some visuals here in a second so you can orient. to these projects. Georgetown Boulevard extended, that's another recommendation, along with the Arrington-Raincliffe Road realignment, Protheroe Road extension and reconfiguration, along with putting some money in towards two state projects, Maryland 32 from Second Street to Main Street, and the Maryland 26 corridor. These two visuals, the first is riding our way. That would be the green line to the south of Maryland 26. Maryland 26 is the magenta line on that map. So that's the entire corridor. We would be looking at doing two small segments of that corridor, one towards the reservoir near a piece of old Liberty Road, and then another segment we'd be looking at putting in that came about as a result of a recent purchase of property by the county. And then the aerial there to your right would be Georgetown Boulevard, putting in that segment that would connect Progress Way down to the convergence of London Town and Georgetown. The Protheroe Road extension, this would be in the very southeast corner of the county where Protheroe Road would terminate right now. We would bring that east to basically the convergence there of Marriottsville Road and Ridge Road and sort of reconfigure that intersection there. And then the Arrington and Raincliff Road property, or project rather, would straighten out the three sort of very sharp turns in that area. Maryland 26, there was already monies committed by the county for a short segment between Georgetown Boulevard and Homeland Drive. We're proposing to continue to commit county monies towards the completion of the rest of that corridor there as far as matching funds. And then the last project would be a small segment of Maryland 32. And this is just north of Sykesville town limits from Second Street to Main Street. And this would include intersection signalization improvements, left and right turn lane. as far as traffic safety overall intersection modifications. And with that, I'll turn it over to you for any questions you might have.

I thought at some point there was a conversation about putting median strips or those concrete things down 26 in specific areas. Is that still something there to keep from everybody turning where they shouldn't?

I don't think we're at that point.

So if you want to go back to the slide that illustrates 26, basically what we're trying to do is further the study of those types of recommendations. There was an earlier study that was done about possible improvements. The section that's shown to the upper right of the slide between Georgetown Boulevard and Homeland Drive is advancing in its design. So they're getting closer to being able to make some improvements there. What this recommendation would be is to to encourage state highway to continue to, um, uh, do their kind of concept design for that entire corridor. Um, this project at this point would not actually require, um, county money because state highway at, at that concept level, um, funds their own studies. But once, gets ready to move into actual design engineering then we would want to put some county money forward in order to advance that the medians would be part of part of that kind of study to see is that the right solution what would that look like where would that be that sort of stuff

And the same thing holds for 140. So, because I know definitely there was some Medians that they talked about and redirecting traffic around From the reservoir up to in the things burger. Yeah, which 91s had some nasty Accidents and some other spots through there Yeah, I would have to check on the status of that 140 proposal Okay

Daphne, we make a lot of conversation about improvements on 26 and maybe the 32 corridor too, but 26 in particular. At what point does this commission meet with their elected delegation and get them encourage them to make this a top priority. Because it seems like when you're dealing with the state, you know, we can spin our wheels here at this level, but that's about what we're doing. In order to initiate some sort of a bring the bacon back to Carroll County initiative, It has to start with our delegation. And I just think that somewhere along this planning process, whether it's budgetary, whether it's the next phase of planning, whatever, I think we need to make it very clear to the delegation that one of their priorities from our standpoint should be to try to find money to help fix these problems here. That's number one. Number two is I think we need to hold pretty fast when we are working on some of these development projects to make sure that the developer helps with these road connections. We have too many dead-end streets. We have too many promises for the future that have never been kept. I think these are the things that we need to just set some standards on and put those standards in. We'll deal with them down the road. They never get dealt with until it's too late and too costly. I'm on a high horse here maybe, but I'm telling you that we're not going to get a thing done on that corridor unless we get our delegation the people that represent us at Annapolis to put pressure on the people. I mean, look at all the people that come in from other areas. So it's not just a Carroll County issue here. This is the next county issue also of people pouring in and moving out of our county through that corridor. So I mean, I'm just throwing the question up. And Tom, I'm going to throw this on you. Where do we need to engage? Where do the commissioners need to engage with the delegation so that they start pinpointing really big, some big problems in that area that have been brought up over the last few months now? They've been there. They're growing day by day. Where do we address it?

Instead of just talking about it. You and I both know that's a valid point you bring up about the concerns and challenges there. Obviously, it's August, so we do have the upcoming discussions with our elected from Annapolis. the delegates and our state senator regarding things we want to see brought forth. And I can tell you this is one thing that's on my list. Great. Because to your point, we need this to be comprehensive but inclusive of everybody up here working together to get this resolved.

And not just Eldersburg, but that 140 card or two.

You're right, Janice. But I'm kind of using this as an example. We have to start somewhere and then get really serious about trying to fix these problems. Well, yeah.

And I think if you prioritize them, I would say 26 is probably a number one priority. and 140 is a number two. I mean, just the designated growth area down there, the growth that we're seeing down in the Freedom area, and we've spent a lot of time and money on Freedom area in the past few years. I think that would be a number one. Number two would be the Finksburg. Finksburg, to me, is more about the visual aspect of it and the safety aspect of 140 coming up from the reservoir up to 91. You know, one of the things that, you know, I've been thinking about this 26 stuff a lot because we've done tours down there, we've had meetings, and We hear from the community almost every time about whether you're exiting from the proposed storage facility property or whatever. I don't understand what triggers the state to action. Is it a high volume of accidents? I think that's a big thing. That's a big thing, right? I have no idea what the traffic incidents are on 26. So I think we need to, and I agree with you, and getting the state, our delegates and legislature involved, they need to beat the drum on this. But they need to go armed with some ammunition. So I don't know what... the incident rates are on 26 with accidents, you know, all those kinds of things. We know that there's certain times a day that traffic, look, traffic's heavy. I don't think it's completely unbearable, but it's hard to navigate certain sections. And how do we make that better? Whether it's a median and right turn lane only, out of establishments, out of businesses, and you go down to the next traffic signal or two down to make a U-turn, make your way back out. It's obviously connectors behind some of these commercial properties and retail properties. That makes sense. But there's got to be some trigger to get the state's attention to help us here. The other thing is, this is a growth area, designated growth area. The state blesses the designated growth area, right? I mean, we define it. They love it. They're like okay with it, but they do nothing to support it in terms of roadway and flow. So that kind of baffles me a little bit. I might be wrong about the designated growth area and all that stuff. But aren't they part of seeing this and knowing what's percolating and bubbling up and all that stuff in the community?

Yes. So the fact that it's a designated growth area, priority funding area, makes Eldersburg and all of our PFAs in the county eligible for state funds. I think then we get into how many state funds, how much state funding is there, and how is it distributed around the state. And I think there's always more demand than there is funding. But then that gets to some of Ralph's points about advocating for the priorities here in Carroll and trying to get the support and funding that we need. Everybody else is doing the same thing. I do know as well that having some kind of, it's one thing to say you support a project, it's another thing to actually put money behind that, and a lot of other jurisdictions will sweeten the pot, so to speak, by contributing towards the construction of the projects. The last thing I'll say is we do have an opportunity to look at how we can... Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Lessen the impact of the traffic that's on 26 by trying to construct some of these planned major streets that we have. So just as a heads up, and I think I've mentioned this before, we have a consultant who's looking at the... local roadway connections in that area specifically Ridenour and Dickinson which were envisioned as sort of secondary service type roads so they're looking at taking that planning alignment and really seeing can this be constructed where can it be constructed how can it be constructed so that we have the information to then go and try to start putting in some of these secondary roadways and perhaps then consolidating access points on 26, closing entrances and requiring the people come in through the back, that'll help as well. So it's not one single solution. I think we all need to be doing lots of different things to try to address traffic circulation, safety, all that sort of stuff.

It's difficult because we're dealing with existing conditions. It's not like you have an open slate and say, well, I need a parallel old Liberty Road to run.

But the frustrating part about this is that we keep approving these projects And with down the road knowing that every project adds to the problem. Every project adds to the problem. And then we're talking to the developers and they're saying, well, maybe sometime, whatever. I don't want any more maybes. It's got to be frustrating on your part, the planners. to see all these problems just being enhanced and enhanced and enhanced when there are solutions. Now, they're not perfect because some of it is beyond repair, but not all of it. And when we toured that area down there the other day, it was just obvious some little tweaks could make things so much better. But then we need help to do that. So where is the help? So that's why I go back to our delegation. I would love to meet with them and just get their perspective. We need to go to Annapolis and say, we're not down here to fight you. We're down here to help you, to help us a little bit. And we need to do it. 140, Janice, you're right. It's the same thing there, but we need to address the things that are, we need to prioritize them and then go at it.

Well, at least 140 that police love to sit. that helps. They come out frequently and nab people but you know that's a big speedway. So looking at the baiting property when and if it comes about I think the Georgetown extension will be a big help down there, not only coming out of Georgetown to 32 and Liberty, but it'll also be able to go up the other way. And then if that development, no matter how it's developed, goes through on the bottom part of Beatty, it's gonna go over and ultimately come out at that light up there too.

London Town?

No, not London Town. Bennett? Where Wendy's is, that traffic light.

Oh, I know what you mean.

But the downside of it is the traffic, they may come out, and I can't think of the road at the moment, but it comes right out there at Liberty and it's not a huge road, and it's a neighborhood road, which will be, and it's tough getting out of there, because I've had properties back in there that I've sold and shown, and coming out there is...

traffic signals along 26 obviously but there's these connections there is some pain involved to make these connections like you know i was writing some notes after looking at some maps when i was bored i didn't have anything to do i said i need to look at some maps and uh homeland road if we could cut something over to Bonnie Bray and then over to West Hemlock to the signal on 26. So I know there's a shopping center there.

I THINK HOMELAND COULD, I MEAN, THE LORES THERE, WHICH SITS BEHIND HOMELAND, I THINK THAT COULD COME OUT. YEAH. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU ADD THAT TO YOUR PROJECT LIST. JUST A LOOK.

SO I THINK WE ACTUALLY, SORRY, WE ACTUALLY DO HAVE THAT. WHERE IS IT? Okay, so on this list here, you can see it's the second one that's listed there. The county did just recently purchase a property that is off of Homeland Drive across from where the extension of Lures. Avenue, I think, would sort of come out with the intention of trying to create that secondary roadway back there.

But there isn't a traffic signal there, is there?

No. There's not. But it's this sort of incremental thing that we want to try to be able to get in place so that As we're able to, either through capital projects or through developer-funded projects, we are able to start putting this in place. This is what the work that the consultant is doing will help us do, to pin down a more workable alignment than just kind of a line on a map. And then hopefully be able to get to the point that we can be consolidating access on 26, directing people to signalized intersections, all of that sort of thing.

You know, I'm always amazed. Macbeth Way off of 32 hooks into Georgetown. And I take it frequently if I'm going, like to go that way just to avoid that whole intersection at 32. But it's a very... small population that travels that. You just, you know, people zip down 32 to 26.

Claire, you got something to put?

I just wanted to mention a couple things. You all were talking about 140 through Finksburg. So before we can begin any sort of design on that corridor right there in the growth area, SHA has to conduct what we call like a planning level study for that area, and that's one thing we have been asking for in the past couple CTP priority letters is for SHA to initiate that study. So at this point, asking for any sort of like... or putting through any sort of funding from the county is probably not what we're looking for until we get through at least that initial study and see what the actual recommendations are as far as like and what improvements need to be made are they receptive to doing the study Yes, I think it was last year, right before we put it in the priority letter, we had a discussion about it and they were pretty receptive to the planning study. Nothing was put into this year's CTP, so we'll see what's released in October in their draft CTP, and we can hope that maybe that's included in there with a bunch of our other priorities that are in our letter. One other thing I wanted to mention, I heard you all mention timing. One thing that we look at is certainly with bringing some of these projects forward is timing. And I think the Arrington Rain Cliff project road connection and realignment is a great example that has the age-restricted freedoms grant development that is proposing to build a section of that and without the county's continue build of a section to the west that would connect into i can't read that um is it slacks and I think it's slacks at Raincliff, that intersection, you know, that developer, the portion of the developer would be building, we may have to come through and reconstruct that if the county portion doesn't get built, you know, in relatively similar time frame. So that's just something I wanted to bring to your attention as far as timing is concerned.

Thanks Claire and I think that that underscores kind of the why this looking at capital projects is within the purview of the Planning and Zoning Commission because it's your job to kind of say take this the high-level scan of what's going on in the community and understand where the priorities need to be based on what you know is kind of in the works, what you know is on the ground right now, what you're hearing from the community, and what the master plan and the comprehensive plans say are the kind of the goals for the county, for particular areas of the county, and then try to advance those. This is why we've looked at both the Arrington and the Protheroe road extensions over the last several CIPs, because those developments are kind of working their way through the review process. And we hope to try to, we hope to be able to provide you with the information from some of the studies that we're doing right now that will say what additional areas, particularly in freedom, do we need to look at for capital projects. Now we've been focused on, excuse me, we've been focused on roadways here. But the capital improvements plan covers a whole lot of different county facilities. So if there are parks that we know we need to explore in order to serve areas that are that are growing in the county or renovations to facilities that we know are needed. Those are also part of these discussions. And that's where digging into the plans and looking at what they are recommending, what the aspirations of the community are, and how that aligns then with real on the ground projects is where we need to have our conversations starting early in the spring next year so we can try to build those in. Of course, then it's up to the commissioners to figure out what the funding situation is and which of those projects are realistic.

Right.

Okay.

So our thought was that we would introduce this to you today, give you some time to kind of ponder what sorts of capital projects you might want to support. We've given you the list of – where is it? The list of staff recommended projects. We would certainly steer you in this direction because of the timing this year. So if there's a completely new idea, we would need to do a whole lot of work to try to get information to include that in our list of recommended projects this year but but certainly up for discussion so we'll come back to you at the next meeting to get your take on the staff recommended projects and anything else that you want to discuss and we can convey that in our in our internal communications through the through the budget process

Any other questions? Any public comment? No public comment?

I don't think there's a public comment.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Number 11, Mayester Plan Update.

We haven't seen that on here in quite a while. Yeah. So I don't even have a presentation for this item because really I just wanted to kind of refresh everybody's memory on where we left off. It has been a while. I believe the last time we looked at things related to the master plan was early May.

Wow.

Again, this is not a huge discussion item at this point, but my hope is now that we're past some of the super time-sensitive code amendment work sessions and getting through all of that very detailed work that was, like I said, time sensitive, that we can pick up with the master plan discussions and continue to advance that. We've done a lot of work so far, all of us, on laying the groundwork for updating our master plan, getting community feedback, going through the work groups last summer, and you were diligently going through the work group recommendations. The last time we talked about them, We were about two-thirds to maybe three-quarters of the way through with those workgroup recommendations. So what I would like to do, as time permits on our agenda, and I think we'll have time in the upcoming meetings, I would like to pick up with those workgroup recommendations, finish out your review of them, and then look at how we can bring those all together into the kind of a draft of a revised master plan. We have also been working on a sort of a red line edit of the existing adopted master plan, the 2014 and 2019 amended version of it so that you can see what all has changed, if anything, and that we can then use that to kind of layer in some new recommendations. What we've heard so far is that there are a few key issues that we need to spend some significant time addressing, but that on the whole we don't want to make a radical shift in the direction of the master plan. So I think with what we've got so far in terms of the public feedback, the work group recommendations and red lines to the existing plan that we can probably bring those all together in a way that opens up discussion on these key topics that then you can develop your recommendations around and then probably I would suggest another joint work session with the Board of County Commissioners to see how you all are where you all are sort of matching up in your thinking of things and what else to address with the draft of a revised master plan. This is all a little bit a work in progress in terms of how it will come together because we're still making some of these. edits and going through the work group recommendations. Just wanted to plant a couple of seeds in terms of how we could work through this moving forward. I didn't want to just throw it on the agenda and have you guys be expected to pick up right where you left off months and months ago. So I will, for our next meeting, assuming that the agenda is going to have some room on it for us, I will send you a copy of the work group recommendations where we left off. So you can kind of refresh your memory and we'll we'll plan on picking back up with those. I think we were on the if you recall, we were looking at the recommendations based on their kind of their categories. We went through the policy ones. We went through the land use ones. We were partway through the regulatory ones, so we'll want to finish that up. And then we have the capital or financial-based recommendations that we'll also want to work through. But like I said, I'll send you a copy of that table that we were working off of so you can refresh your memory. And we'll pick up with that hopefully at the next meeting.

Awesome.

Stephanie, in that regard, I'm just going to make a couple comments on that. I know having the consultants come in, it hasn't muddied the waters. It's kind of brought forth some of the problems that we really need to look at that maybe we wouldn't have looked at if we wouldn't have had consultants come in take a look at the different areas so you know we've been concentrating on freedom but a lot of the things a lot of the feedback that i've been hearing here relates to the whole county and i hope we keep that in mind when we put together the final version of our master plan that uh we're trying to to balance what the citizens want with how we can orderly move forward for the next, say, 10 years through this master plan process. So I think it might have changed the way we look at the final product here and see how we can create the answer of the needs of the community that we've been hearing time and time again against progress, whatever progress we think is necessary for our next 10 years of survival in the county so we can be moving forward. I think it's been very helpful. I know it's put a lot of stress on your staff. I know there are these deadlines that have been imposed by the state that I just, that's a whole other story that has not helped us at all. But I think overall what we've heard from the consultants has brought forth many of the issues that need to be talked about that maybe wouldn't have been, that we can now consider as we put together this master plan. So just to blow a little sunshine at your staff, I know it's been tough, and sometimes we're not sure which direction we need to go next, but we'll put it together. I think we're better off for it.

Yeah, thanks for that. I agree with you that we have some, maybe some... Maybe they're not even new issues, but more clarification of some of the issues that we've heard a little bit about already. And so certainly as we're trying to pull all those threads together into a complete product, that'll be a great opportunity to try to build in some of what we've heard over the last couple of months and reflect that in the plan.

I am empathetic to the community that has spoken out so loudly, but it's not one size just fits them. It's got to be one size fits all.

The county.

Yeah. That's correct.

Work in progress. It is. Daphne said it. Ralph has intimated it. There's been a lot of progress. Even though we've been in recess from the master plan for it seems like forever, all the stuff that has happened in the last five months has a cumulative effect of that. There's been a lot done as a result of you know, whatever, um, that's outside of the master plan, but it's certainly going to influence the master plan and help drive us to get it completed. I, you know, I still think there's probably a couple of things that we will talk about this and, and possibly add, you know, I know there are, um, but that the consultants certainly bring a shine, a different light on things and a different perspective. I think the goals for the communities, I don't know that they change that much, but the approach that we take with them changed, at least for me, in certain aspects. uh so i think the the um i think it's in good hands and and you know i know we're all you're gonna need uh longer arms to pat yourself on the back you know that stuff but you you guys do a great job you support a lot and you support us and you've been very responsive to all of our needs and and we really appreciate all the hard work you guys have done and look if we can get through uh the code changes we can get through anything we That's what I think. I mean, the master plan might be a piece of cake compared to going through that stuff.

But, you know, I'm confident we'll get it done. So...

I like your approach. Pick it up where we left off with the work group discussions. I would ask, do we have a, and I'm sure you do, a list of all the things that we've said, oh, this has kind of got to have it in there. And I guess that's the red line portion of the document. So yeah, that'll be great. And then we can jump right in and knock this out the next however long. But yeah, we'll get it done. Cool.

I got a question about this.

Yeah. I thought we were going to talk to the consultant and turn in our comments.

What happened to that?

So if you have things – they were not scheduled to come back to – meeting and talk with you but if you have your feedback that you want to provide to them you can either give it to us if you have it in paper copy or you can email it to them I'll give it to you okay yeah it doesn't everybody I did I did it via email I just made a PDF and sent it to them Daphne I copied you on it

There you go.

I'll look at it with all my other things.

It looks like there's a few that will be passing things on to you.

Perfect. I'll make sure they get it.

Thank you for not calling them out. Don't feel bad. I'm one of them too. Richard did that. He'd be the teacher's pet, Richard.

My buddy. All right.

Continuing on here, do we have any public comment about the master plan update discussion?

Do we have any public in the building? I don't see any, so no.

Any general public comments? That's the same answer there, right? So I'll take a motion for adjournment.

I'll make a motion and we adjourn.

I'll second. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you.