Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'll give it one more minute. My phone. You know Tom Wines? Who? Tom Wines. He lived in North Beach. Okay, we're ready to go. Okay. Good evening everybody and thank you for streaming with us tonight. Um I would like to call to order um the Planning and Zoning Commission of Chesig Beach. It is September 24th, 2020. I'm sorry, I'm not even on Thank you very much, Commissioner Brown. It is September 24th, 2025 at 6 PM and I call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Let's start with Miss Han, Commissioner Han down at the end, please. Kelly Han, present. Mary Sue Gman, present.

I'm Cindy Greenold. Larry Brown, present. We present. So, please note that we do have a quorum for tonight's meeting. And next, I would like to uh ask everybody to stand for the pledge of allegiance. Ready to the flag of the United States nation, indivisible.

Thank you. Number three is approval of the September 24th, 2025 planning commission agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? I make a motion to approve the planning commission. Do I have a second? I can second. Any uh discussions or changes? Okay. All in favor, please, of approving the agenda, say I. I. Thank you. Number four, approval of the minutes of the August 27th, 2025 planning commission meeting. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. I will second. She wasn't. Do I have Do I have any discussion? Second.

Do I have a discussion um about the minutes? Any changes or deletions or additions? Okay. I hear nothing. Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes. I Thank you. Okay. Now it's time for our um public hearing for the um if you would note that uh Kelly and I both abstained because we weren't at last meeting

and I also want to also not thank you for for saying that. I also want to note that commissioners Smith and Redk are not present. So uh just for our notes we will have that but thank you for abstaining. Yeah, we need three. Um,

two, four, five. We need three. We need three votes out of five, right? Isn't that how we need four?

We do need four because our usual quorum is four. Yes, we do need four to approve. You're right. Right. So, um, that's good to be aware of that. Um, okay. So, we will, um, I'm going to have an an, um, public hearing in about two minutes. So, anybody who's streaming and wants to run down here, we have nobody in the audience as of yet to testify, but if uh, you can run down here in the next few minutes, we will uh, delay and hopefully somebody can show up. And it is about our draft or uh, ordinance which is on signage. Um, we've been working on this uh draft for I don't know, probably since January or February. So, we've put a lot of time and effort into it. Hopefully, we've tightened it up and we've added some things, especially with the um electronic me messaging centers, which are the digital signage that we see throughout the town. Um, we've added a whole new section for that. So, um I'm assuming that if nobody is here that everybody must probably appreciate what they're reading on our website. So, I guess I'm going to have to just assume that. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open it. Public hearing. We do have a quorum. Um, all commissioners that you see here are ready to go. Um, so far I'm seeing nobody coming in the door. Um,

can I ask Miss Franklin a question? has has uh Roland's or the peaking uh store up here or any of the businesses approached you about the signage? No. No, we only have the comments that the clerk has shared with you to this point. We did notice everybody. We have proper notification. I am assuming. Madam clerk, it was advertised and also advertised that you could send in a a public comment via email. Are you saying that there were comments? Uh, no. I mean, I don't have any comments. Okay.

I'm just saying it was advertised and you could it was also advertised that you could send public comment via I didn't miss anything. Thank you.

Right. No, I have no comments. Okay. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and if everybody is in agreement, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and I'll bring it back to the dis. Um, we're going to go to number six, old business signage. Um, is there anything you would like to add on a staff report, Miss Franklin, at this point in time? Um, so I think it's pretty good where it's at, but I will note that um, a council member asked me a question at town council meeting which I think has some validity, which is is the scoreboard over at Kumfield going to be a problem? Um, and so I think I think it's not really defined as a sign, but I think it's possible to clarify that now. I think it's possible to clarify that when it gets to the council or for you guys to clarify it this evening either way. Um, but I just wanted to make you all aware of that concern. What do you think uh how do you think we should approach this? Should we uh put an addition into or how do how do you think we should approach it? I um I do know that there are some towns that do put in something about the the ads that people put along the fences

of some of the ball fields. We didn't really address that either. I mean, we could probably do both if we have any issues about fields entirely. I think the ads would be okay, right? because there's there's not really a building and they're banners and they're temp they're functionally temporary signs, right? I guess you're right about that. There are temporary but um it would probably be a longer than 90 days a lot of times. Um I guess the question is do we want to did you already write up some language to put in here or how did you want to do that?

So there's two ways to approach it I think. One is to go into the definition of a sign, right? And state a a a scoreboard located on a governmentowned official sports field shall not be considered a sign and leave it at that. Right? That would allow if the school has a has fields that would have a scoreboard. I'm not sure. and Kellums. Um, or you can put it under exempt signs, right? You you don't it's not prohibited, I guess. Um, it's scoreboards at an official government facility. Right. Right. Right. Uh, okay. So, that's an idea that we hadn't really thought about is the scoreboard. Um, how do you all think we should handle this? What is uh what do you think about this?

For me, it seems like it would make more sense to put it in the exempt section since it feels like sort of specific to include in the definition section. I would I would I would agree with that and I think that was a good point by the council member as well. Commissioner Han, do you how do you look at this? I have a question first. Yes. Beach Elementary. Do they have do they have any fields that could potentially they want to put a scoreboard up so that if we put it just for Kellumfield or the government that this could then potentially impact them,

right? So I don't know, you guys probably have a better sense than I do if they would want to put one up, but they are government. So if you allow it on government property, then they would be allowed covered under it, too. They would be covered under the umbrella. Yeah. Commissioner Brown, I agree with putting in Okay, I think that's uh the call we're going to make. Then let's just put some language in the exempt portion. Official scoreboards located on government-owned property.

Yes. Yes. Do we need to indicate size or do we need to indicate anything about um do we need to include that they must adhere to the the EMC guidelines? So they kind of do have to because everything has to comply with all the other and no yeah that's true even though it's exempt. That's true. Okay. Well, then that's that's covered then, right?

So, I think it covers it just to exempt them clearly so that there's not any confusion at a later date at how to interpret that. Okay. Any other uh issues that we may have excluded or didn't think of that you know of, Miss Franklin? Not that I have come across. That doesn't mean there won't, you know, when it gets to the council, they may have additional things that, you know, we've missed and they will be able to add those at that time.

Um, does anybody have any last uh questions or issues with this draft? I do. Yes, sir. Please. Um, uh, G9F You want to turn to that? Got a extra word in there. Sh is used.

Can you tell us the page? Yeah. What page is that? 13. 12. To comply with the removal of provisions of shall just needs to be deleted. Okay. I think is that what you're saying, Commissioner Brown? H I think we just need to delete shell. Is that accurate? Yeah, the first shell. Yeah. Okay. Okay. The on the second line the section shell three times within 3 months. Yes. Take that shell out and it got it. Works. Um F 2. What page is that? BBC code. Excuse me.

Page. page number. Oh, I'm looking very faint. Yeah.

On page 10.

Signs which flash or blink. That one. Yeah. FL um where it says signs which flash or blink or which have varying intensity of illumination of less than 3 seconds. Why don't we make that why isn't that 10 seconds which matches over uh right we talked about that. Yeah.

So this is a little different than the changing of the display. This is um the 3 seconds was actually the safety recommendation from I want to say I'm not I'm not sure so I don't want to say but we reviewed safety recommendations from state highway and other various agencies and it was universally agreed that flashing or blinking that happens in a less than 3 second cycle is distracting to drivers and can cause accidents.

So 10 seconds would be less distracting. So the display staying up for 10 seconds, right, is less distracting. Yes. So you're saying why don't we say if it's less than 10 seconds? Well, elsewhere we talk about 10 seconds or of signs and the display has to show for 10 seconds. Why don't we just make this 10 seconds and be the same? Okay. I just want to make sure that's making it safer. So if it if it cannot less than 10, yes, it would make it safer. Okay.

So I feel like this is just for if something is flashing. Yes. Which does feel like it could cycle faster. I mean, I don't have a problem with 10. Just wonder if that gives people the the advertising spunk that they're hoping for because I do feel like a flash happening every 3 seconds isn't the same thing as like words scrolling across that you're like trying to figure out what they you know what I mean because when we're talking about flashing we're just talking about lights. We're not talking about words. We're not talking about anything other than just a light flashing. Isn't it?

Well, we're talking about any type of flashing, but that includes lights. Well, maybe you want Oh, so it could be like the words flashing. So, as long as it wasn't scrolling, but if Right. Um, like if an open sign was going at 3se second intervals, I don't know what else would do that, but I'm trying to. But, this is obviously confusing because I know we've talked about it before, right? He brings it up again. So I think we need to clarify this to make it

more precise or as he says make it the same or something because I know I've wondered the same thing about that signs which flash or blink or which have varying intensity of illumination or on less than a 3se second cycle are prohibited. So why how is that different than a an EMC that is 10 seconds or less? How what is the what is the distinguishing feature between these two? Again, let's just say it one more time. Is this applies to things that aren't EMC's? So, like your open

Okay. Okay. Do we want to indicate that signs that are not considered EMC's? Maybe we want to make that distinction. Not that that would probably make it any easier for you to understand. It applies to EMC's too, though EMC's are regulated with that 10-second, right? Right. I don't think there's a problem with changing it to 10 seconds. I mean, I guess also though what I'm thinking would any of like the Christmas lights that are coming into town, you know what I mean? Like those are thing like if they're at 10 seconds, do you almost get the sense of a blink? I don't know. I'm just there.

But they're not signs. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Those are different. Yeah. All right. So, if you like I guess if you had It's really It's really going to be mostly your open signs, right? You know, sometimes they have the neon that will flash. Sometimes they like have the little Yeah. that move. Yes. You mean like um like a motion like um the motion of the LEDs moving around outside. So I just want to make sure I'm following this area that we're looking at. It's not allowed. So right now we're saying it can't be less than 3 seconds. Right.

So Larry's saying we move it up from 3 seconds to 10 seconds. So that means any sign flashing sign less than 10 seconds is not allowed versus 3 seconds. Yes. Then it's no longer flashing. Correcting.

Flashing signs are permitted anyway. This is just being very specific. Say this again. So flashing signs aren't being so we have a new section that says flashing signs you guys added as just a statement but I think I think having this time definition of like I I personally don't want arguing with a sign owner saying like well what is what does flashing mean and we have a definition right but I think the seconds are useful um for that now I think I'm more confused. So you're saying it it is important to have the 3 seconds. It's important to have something 10 seconds fine.

But do you think 10 seconds is too long? It depends on whether you want signs like flashing or not. Right. Having some level of flashing. You you know the EMC is changing and it's there for a long time. Um if you want a sign to go on for five seconds, off for five seconds. I mean I So if you had a sign and you had twinkle lights around it or something. Yes. That's you're not that's not allowed in this situation. Not allowed. Yeah. Um but if someone says that those twinkling lights are Christmas if they're around words though, it's going to be a sign.

Yeah. Yeah. And and you know that's a popular Well, I won't say popular, but I just you that would be a nice way to attract somebody is with that twinkle light effect or whatever. But but if everyone's doing it then Yeah. Well, if everybody's doing it, then you go crazy. Exactly. Am I right that these are signs? So, it's not when you're driving like Jen, I think it would be like mostly here. Well, I know it would be elsewhere, but it's not like you're necessarily having to read and then think about the message. It's simply something that is garnering. It's attracting you. It's attracting attention,

right? It's attracting attention, but it's not requiring you. Well, you might think, "Oh, I do need to go there." But I don't know that it's requiring as much thought as the EMC's because it's less of a verbal message and more of a subliminal. Well, it's obviously out there, but it could also be subliminal. I don't I don't know. But I just think anything that's safer. Trying to think of how long 3 seconds is. It's quite a long time actually if you do it properly. I mean, I can pull up the slideshow that it has EMC iss not flashing, but Well, yeah. Right. Right. If you want me to

um 3 seconds, you're barely at a flash. I mean, so but so in that way then I'm also like who cares? We can add it to 10 because you've kind of lost the right there's there's a lot of repetitiveness around this flashing because it's just really really really not allowed. But we we've left multiple versions of it in every time we've discussed it. Um so so is it easier if we just do uniform 10 seconds across the board? If we do that eliminates the blinking entirely, right? For someone that's walking or changing a flat. Well, I mean uh

can I ask a question? I'm and I apologize my mind is not as sharp today. We're saying that something's not allowed and then we're talking about what we're allowing, right? So, flashing sign, it is a little convoluted, right? Because flashing signs aren't allowed, but we also left in the thing that says that they they're not allowed if at a certain Actually, what it is is we left in the thing with the timeline and we added flashing signs. So why not just get rid of if we're if there's no flashing signs and there's no flashing signs in 3 seconds or 10 seconds we can get rid of that, right? Well, this is where I think that I think

so you're saying eliminate I entirely. Yeah, because then it just says flashing signs because flashing signs there's a definition of flashing signs, right? Do we have a definition of flashing signs somewhere? We do in the back. Yes, we do. sign whose artificial illumination is not kept constant in intensity at all times when in use and which exhibits flashing changes in light, color, direction, or animation. So, with the definition in the front, I think it's obvious what flashing means. I I mean, I think maybe we could eliminate I and Okay. And then just keep in I mean uh keep an L flashing signs, but take out I. What does everybody think about taking it out entirely? Deleting I.

Commissioner Han, I agree. Everybody, does anybody disagree and you agree? Seems more consistent with the purpose of what any Okay. What else? Commissioner Brown, you're on a roll. Uh H2 on page 14. Can you tell me what that means? H2. off premises signs except for right official traffic signs and other federal, state, county or town government signs. Yeah. I mean except for those Mhm.

what are what are the off- premises signs that are allowed in the residential zone? No off- premises signs are allowed. Then if you get to I2 Mhm. Um, off- premises signs in commercial districts, they're permitted as it shows in residential districts, which they're not permitted. Right. This is 22 at the standards prescribed therein, but there are no standards. So, so we've we've got

a meaningless statement. So 2A certainly we can remove at the standards prescribed therein, but it does have meaning because it's still referring back to the government signs. Like so it's saying the government signs are allowed. We could just repeat that here instead of referring back to the residential. Yeah, I would that would be better. Okay. Say say what it is you want to do again, Commissioner Brown. You want to take out a entirely H2? I'd say none except for official traffic signs and other Where's H2?

On page 14, something before except Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes. So, take out the words except for you want to take off premises. I'm saying premises signs colon none. No, no official except for the other. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Anything with the underline on it we added at the last meeting. That's sort of Does anyone else think it'd be I'm having some difficulty with the changes and reading it? I feel it would be easier to read if we had a cleaned up version. I I I just We can't clean it up. You mean taking out all the lines?

You can't. You can't. No, this is a graph. We have to keep it as is. Okay. Sorry about that. This is the way it has to be. Okay. So, let's go back. I'm sorry. Number two, off premises signs colon. None except for official traffic signs and other federal, state, county, or town government signs. You just want to add the word none. Sweet. I'm on the right page. That's on page 14. Okay. I'm sorry. So then now let's go to 2A then. So on 2 A, did you want to make any change on 2A? I would just put exactly what we had over here in um

none except for official traffic sign. Yeah, just repeat it instead of refer back to it. All signs permitted in permit required. Oh, I see what you're saying. So, for 2A on page 15, you want to say permit. No, see here.

I'm going to say none except for official traffic signs and other federal, state, and county other signs. So, you don't have to go back. because it's short such a short sentence repeating it doesn't really create any issues. So what do you suggest? No, I think that makes sense because because repeating it doesn't create any issues because it's

all okay. So it should read all signs. Okay, you read it the way it should be. Uh so I'll go ahead. two off- premises signs. A, none except for official traffic signs and other federal, state, county, or town government signs. B, signs used for directing patrons, members, or audiences to service clubs, etc. Certainly seems cleaner. I think it's less words actually. Your words, all signs permitted in resident, none except for official. Okay. Okay, got it. Okay, good. What else?

Commissioner uh Han, what do you think down there? Do you have anything that you're No comments at this time.

Uh, Commissioner Grayson, what do you think? I'm with Commissioner Hong. And Commissioner Larson Weaver, what do you think? No, no comments.

Okay, so it looks like what I'm seeing is is that everything it sounds like everybody is okay with everything except with um Oh, I know what I was going to go through and talk about. It's page two, actually, the A-frame sign. Um, it on number two, a frame A-frame sign, a type of freestanding portable temporary sign consisting of two faces connected and hinged at the top and whose message is targeted to pedestrians. But as I'm seeing it, the one right out here, they're trying to also target uh the cars, the automobiles. Do we want to add in automobiles or just just make it pedestrians just because that's what the typical term is used? But I know they're using them for both both automotive traffic and pedestrian traffic.

It also doesn't need to even say who it's t like rather than saying pedestrians or cars, can't we just say hinged at the top? Yeah, that's get rid of. But I think originally an A-frame was supposed to be like a sandwich board right along a sidewalk, right? And the interior next to the building, not on the um the middle section between this road and the sidewalk like they've got it over here. Right. So that there there's a policy question, right? Yeah. Yeah. Is are the signs that are that are they're I think those are T signs or they're not but regardless same thing, right?

Um Do you want to allow signs that are targeted at cars, right? Or do you want them to not be allowed? Right. Like, so those signs wouldn't be allowed. Mhm. Um, double check the T-frame. We don't have like a whole lot of pedestri I mean, actually, the T- frames don't reference pedestrians. So, the T frames would be able to be So, I have a question. Cars.

A-frames. The town uses them all the time to notify us when they're flushing the pipes. Would this refer to them too or No, they would be exempt because it's not pedestrians that they are targeting. It's the people in the cars coming in and out of the neighborhoods. Yeah, that's where it gets a little confusing as well. Aren't we just in the definition section? Well, we are, but um No, that's the function. We're in the definition section. I think the question is, do we, as Commissioner Han suggested, stop at top or continue? We stop at top. We will

put a period at top and eliminate the rest. And I've got a question. I know this is a little bit specific, but does it have to be hinged on the top? What if somebody hinges it another way? I mean, could it be side hinges in any way? like it's A-frame, but they have like I'm just Well, I think this is just the definition of what is typically considered an A-frame. And I think okay, to be an A-frame, okay, it's got to be an A. If it's like this, then you've got a different kind of sign. Okay. Well, I was thinking of like arms, it would still be a gable, but yeah, I think that would just be a different and if it if you know, I don't know that anyone's going to care, but it just hit me.

Yeah. So, does anybody is anybody concerned that, you know, we could run a muck with these signs up and down the roads, sidewalks? I mean, will this because it's exempt basically, will we see a lot more of them because they're going to be used for both vehicular and pedestrian traffic if we don't put a specification in there? I mean, this had pedestrians for a reason. I think it's because originally we thought of them as a sandwich board kind of a thing, but these are not that. We use it in Richfield Station too for the for the food trucks. Yeah. Yeah.

I would say what people are going to do with signs is what they're currently doing with signs, right? Um, I don't like there's a lot of signs that that are prohibited and we've put a pin in code enforcement because of it or because of trying to modernize this. Um, so I I don't anticipate when the new regulations come that people would do different things. I think people are doing what they're doing. Um,

I mean, could it be like graffiti? Once you see a little bit, you're going to see a lot more of it. I don't know. I mean, I guess the concern I have is could we see a proliferation of them all over this this area? And could it look like a lot of sign clutter at the day? Wouldn't that be prohibited in other ways because you're limited with the number of signs you can have off the bit? Like, we've done other things to prevent that. So we don't have to decide in a definition who it's appealing to the total number of square footage. Are you saying all of the businesses along the street?

Well, and it could be by it could be all up and down 26. Yeah, it could be all up 261. Anybody who has a business there aren't that many businesses. No, I mean there aren't but you know could the ones that we have limited the commercial areas to very relatively small. Well, there aren't that many businesses.

Well, we have the town businesses up in uh up on the hill. We've got, you know, I mean, I think you don't notice them maybe, but you know, I think newbies coming into town would notice them if you had a whole bunch of these little signs up and down the street. I mean, I don't know. I'm just trying to think if somebody who's new to the town, who's never looked at and they come in, what would they consider as sign clutter and would that be it? So, just to be clear, a permit is required for one A-frame or T frame sign. That's on page.

This is just how we're defining them. It doesn't There's all sorts of regulations later on that say, so it's not like if we say it's for a pedestrian or a car, it's going to change what we've said later about how many signs and where you can have the signs and how big the signs and how many signs for, you know. So, the A-frame sign is, even though it's a temporary sign, will require a permit in a commercial zone. In a commercial zone, right? Exactly. Um, so that means if you want to use it in aid the HOA, you don't need a permit to show, you know, whatever whatever reason. Um, let me just

say does it be permit? So, let me get to the signs permitted and res. [Music]

Um, I suppose it would probably be considered a temporary sign. Not ex Well, is it exceeding 12 square feet? I'm not really sure. Think about that. No, it's not. Let's check. So, what do we decide? Did we decide that uh what did you say? What did where just do some math. What page 15 one A Okay. So on C at the top, one A frame or T frame sign is permitted. Uh shall not exceed 12 square ft. That's 3 ft by 4T. Most of them it looks like that that's the biggest A-frame that is manufactured. So, I think it it would be allowed in the residential area without an issue. And because in the commercial area, it's specifically called out separately. It needs the permit in the commercial.

Yeah, I see that. Mhm. Okay. I guess if everyone decided that they wanted to put up that type of sign, that is what you would see. But well, I mean, I just think of worst case scenarios because it'll be just like any other kind of when you have contiguous businesses and they all want to do a certain type of sign. I think that's just the nature of a town like that they're allowed to have obviously but I'm just saying is that is that okay with everybody that we would allow that right next to the road

all up and down let's just say everybody decided that was the most effective way to put a sign up I don't I doubt that they would in you know practical times I just go no we don't but they could right all the way up and down and including baya and you know whatever Um, is that a problem? And and uh or do we, you know, when we look at an a when I think of an A-frame or I always think of it being adjacent to the building, not right next to the road, but it can't be right next to the road as we see it here. It can't be in the right way. Those those are still going to have to get moved in closer. Those are still on the rightway. So, okay. These are on premises

on premises as opposed to those are not on premises. They're still Yes. Right. If you're on premises to Okay. So, do we want to go back to number two and eliminate after Commissioner Han says after the word talk, do we want to take out and whose message is targeted to pedestrians? Yes. You all agree to that? Whose message is targeted to pedestrians? Okay. So that

okay. Um so uh if we review the changes if we go to page two we've taken out the uh ending of the sentence on number two which is and whose message is targeted to pedestrians. And if we go to age Page 10, we go to eliminating eye. Signs which flash or blink or which have varying intensity of illumination unless a 3se secondond cycle are prohibited. Then we've gone to page 12 and deleted the word the first shall. Failure to comply with the removal provisions of this section three times within a three-month period shall result in blah blah blah. Then we go to page 14 and we add the word none except for

correct. And then on page 15 we add we just uh we are eliminating let's see what are we eliminating? We're eliminating all signs permitted in subsection. We're eliminating all of No, we're not eliminating. Are we eliminating all of that? Everything that's in section in 2A is deleted and replaced with none except for official traffic signs and other federal, state, county. But you're going to keep residential districts, right? No, not going to keep res. It's just it's taking the text that was in residential districts and putting it here. So we don't need to refer back to it because it's saying the same thing.

That's number 15. Page 15. And then is there anything else? I think that was it. Correct. The other one was on page 10 which is to add and I've made it number changed the numbering made it number three. Official scoreboards scoreboards located on governmentowned property. So all the other numbers shifted. So you went under G exemptions. Yes. And you added scoreboards. Mhm.

Etc. Put as number three because we were talking about government signs sort of in that area and then shifted all the other numbers

appropriately. And then um if everybody goes to the very back on page I guess it would be 23. Um Miss Franklin did a lovely service by basically giving us a reference table that goes along with uh our definitions. Uh, we asked for that actually and we were talking. What do you all think about having her include I don't know if it's going to be too much work having her include the um regulations the uh on the right hand side that column add those to the definitions themselves that if you're looking at definitions you automatically see where they're located in the ordinance or do you think this reference table is all they need which how do you how do you want to look at this or does matter. This is such a great reference table. Don't you think this is a nice feature?

I think that's all they need. Personally, do you think this should go in the front or where do you think this reference table should go? I think the front because it makes it easier to just sort of wade through easily some of what's not applicable to your situation. Franklin is thinking. That's good. thinking and I I want to ask madame clerk what if there's a way to put it you know when civic plus does it often the table is like a an attachment that you click on separately is there a way like if we put this in the text would civic plus keep it in the text so the flow of re you know what I'm saying

yeah that's what that's all I'm thinking Okay. I think that really helps the consumer. It was uh the it's a it's a a user friendly draft ordinance. I think this really I I think anybody can go in there and just Yeah.

just more easily figure out whether a sign would be applicable. Um okay. So, uh, any more thoughts about this before we actually create a motion and actually put this thing to bed or move it on to the town council? And I'd like somebody here to cleverly go through and uh, make the motion and identify all the uh, changes that we've just referred to who can do that and uh, in the motion include that we're going to then transmit this to the uh, town council. Who would be really clever enough to do this? I think Mr. Brown should do it since

you you can actually just reference you can reference the changes just noted in your motion. Would you like to do this? No, I'm not because I will attempt to do it. I bet she's got it already figured out. Okay. No, I do not. Okay. I make a motion for the signs regulation 290-22 to make the changes that we just discussed. Do I need to list the following pages or am I good? All right, that's it. You don't need those pages. Okay. All right. We'll trust you on that. You just review the chair just stated.

But the chair just reviewed. I second the motion. Okay, we've got a motion, we've got a second. Any discussion, questions? Okay, all in favor of moving this sign draft sign ordinance to the town council with all the changes and additions that we've we we referred to u just prior to this motion. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you very much. We did a you did a great job uh Miss Franklin. We really appreciate it because there was a lot of work here. I know you put a lot of work into this and we kept going back and forth a lot. So, thank you for that. You all put a lot of work into it, too. Congratulations.

I like what you did sitting there at front of the TV trying to do all this stuff. Okay. TV with this one.

Okay. So, we're going to move on to something that is uh really important. Um discussion on home occupation. And I know Commissioner Brown's going to go, why are we discussing this? And um maybe we'll go ahead and get a staff report and then we'll we'll find out why we're we're reviewing this right now. So I should start by saying it's more complicated than home. It turns out to be more complicated than just home occupation. And this is why the chair was just saying what I was doing in front of the TV because it is what h what seems to have happened is that the planning commission adopted a comprehensive plan and then initiated a comprehensive resoning. And somewhere in the process of that reszoning, some of the intent and consistency with the comprehensive plan got lost. Now, I I think it's possible that the planning commission did their work and then it went to the council and the council made changes, which they have the right to do. Um the concern that a concern that's been coming up is there's this home occupation. So people are saying, "Okay, I got an office in my home and can I have a permit?" And I have to say, "No, you can't have a permit for your office in your home or whatever you're doing in your home." Um there certainly there are things that the planning commission never intended for people to do in their home, but businesses being run from the home that have zero impact on traffic or visual or anything of that nature, my understanding is that was never the planning commission's intention to prevent those businesses from existing. Um, and so but that is what the ordinance does

specifically in the RV one. I think the RV1 and the RV2 might have gotten a little mixed up. Um, but let me I I have a big table now, not just the the one you guys have. So, give me a sec. So, it it's no longer permitted in any of the residential districts, neither RV1 nor RV2. Where where does it say that? So, um if you are in the zoning ordinance and you go to the land use table, uh item number 60 is customary home occupation with one employee. Do you have a page number?

It's the table in the back. If you look at the table that I have, it shows like the green is the changes I was recommending and the black is what it currently exists as. I can also I can bring up the land use table for you guys to look at. Oh, do we I don't know how to do that. know if you got your new copy or not. So Sarah, as this is coming up, so I understand. So like any kind of like soloreneure kind of person who's working from out of their home is technically in violation. Yes. Um but can I just add one thing? Um, we you may want to help me on this one, but at uh three or four years ago, the RV2, which is the area, right? And you may want to bring up that map to show everybody what the RV2 is. that

RV2 and now part of RV1, but RV2 was always um at least in the early days when I've been on the planning commission allowed to have more than just an in-home office. They could have a little beauty shop if they had a one-stop beauty uh shop or they could have a, you know, the shoe repair man. They could have a little bit more extensive business than just the home office like what you would have. Um they would have people come to I'm sorry they would have sorry they would have people come to their business in the RV too. That was always Do you remember how that was too?

This table's a little but all of a sudden we look on the table and it's not permitted. Yeah. Yeah. And that that there so something happened between you know one day and another when it got onto that chart. Right. So that's it's also not it's just not even there. The home occupation with more than two employees. If you guys can see this this is the the complicated table. It's hard to follow but home occupation used to be allowed as conditional in this RV. There used to be just an RV zone. Now there are is RV1 and RV2. Mhm.

Um Oops. Uh and so the home occupation you're speaking of was conditional the previous zoning ordinance, but it's not even right something that's allowed at all. Wasn't permitted at all now. Yeah. It's not even mentioned anymore. And so the customary home occupation with the one employee went from conditional to not permitted. And I'm going to take this headache inducing table away and give you your zoning. There you go. Can you enlarge it a little bit or No, I can enlarge it.

There you go. There it's good. I guess I have one question which is when the comprehensive plan went to town council, was the did this like maybe get lost in translation or was there an intentional decision for this? Like are we have they already had this discussion and made this choice and now we're like just bringing it back up or do you know? So I I wasn't here for the comprehensive plan or the comprehensive reasonzoning. Um, so I don't know what happened when the council looked at the

comprehensive resoning, but I do know that that that's where the changes that were questioning came from. And that once I started digging, which is what that complicated table is about,

I found that some of its consistency with a comprehensive plan is possible but a bit of a stretch in some places. And so it's possible that the council wanted to do it and asked if it could be made consistent with the comprehensive plan and the planner said, "Well, yes." Right? Because there's some level of interpretation. Um but because we're having these permitting problems and we I started looking at this with the chair and bringing up these concerns, she was saying, "I don't remember this." I think it's worth having this discussion again. um because some of these questions some questions especially around home occupations have come from the council now and so if we can make this more consistent with the comprehensive plan then I think it's worth looking at

I agree I just wasn't I just wanted to make sure we weren't like about to I mean but granted we have a very different town council at this time than that time but you know I was like wondering if if there was going to be support if we did this or if they that was an intention So, sorry. Um, so I Yeah, I think it it's tricky and I'm not trying to overrule anyone. I'm just looking from an implementation perspective and saying there's some concerns here. When I bring them to the chair, she says, I don't remember us doing that. So, that's why we think that that's where that change got made. And since those concerns are now coming up from staff, even though it's different staff, yeah,

I think it's worth revisiting um because some some of the questions can have legal implications too. So I don't remember. Yeah, that so that's what Okay. So it seems like a little bit of a glitch. Something couldn't get into the documents.

Okay. because uh I definitely know that RV2 in particular was always a more liberal form of the home occupation than let's say uh the uh L uh let's see any of the others. Um, I can I can try and make I mean once I make it bigger, you're not going to be able to see, but um I don't even remember the RV1's having that same uh because you're in the RV1 and do you remember that ever being part of your zoning? The other thing is I remember what No,

the liberal interpretation of a home office that you could have a hairdresser next door. I don't remember it ever being discussed in in this. I would say that RV1 wants to be

then RV1 and RV2 right now we're identifying those two as having similar um zoning uh qualifications there. So basically um what I mean what you're recommending here then let's let's go ahead and and take a look at what your recommendation is. If you look on page one of this home occupation, um you've taken this from the current zoning, have you at the current code? Yeah, just this is here is the current code

and what you've done is just changed it to conditional for the RV1 and RV2. But the RLD uh lower density, middle density, high densities are all uh not permitted and as well as RPC and then you have the of course the commercial zones are all conditional. So that would make sense. Um and then the RC is not permitted. I think it I made it conditional in all the residential zones but added more intense conditions. So, so because right now if you're in the RLD and you are a planner working out of your home, right? Yeah. You're technically in violation of code, right?

But are you really having any impact on anyone? And does the planning commission really have a problem with that? It certainly isn't inconsistent with the comprehensive plan,

right? Um, so I think I set and I'm turn I don't have the agenda here, but there's a there's the conditions that exist for the commercial districts for customary home occupation and then there's a second set of conditions that I created for the res RLD, RMD, RHD, And I think RV one because RV1 is supposed to be mainly residential.

Yes. And that's where the other issue that we're going to need to talk about comes up because somehow when it got adopted, the RV1 allows all the things and the RV2 does not. Yeah. And that absolutely doesn't make any sense. So, so there's there's more to come with this. Can you refresh my memory? R1, which which is which area is RV1 and which is two? RV1 is here. I think there's some a little further. Do we have an RV1 down here? Why did I It's all up by the

Okay. And then RV2 is right here. And oh, here's a little RV1 here. Here's some RV1 here. RV1 in a residential planning community RV1. Why wouldn't we want to extend the same rights, privileges, whatever to our low density, medium density, and high density areas. See, why are they different? in my opinion, and it's probably not true for the RV1 because they're pretty high density in that area too, but parking is an issue. So, if you have

the RV2 has more I always thought it was just RV2 that had the more liberal standards, but obviously now the RV1, not the problem is parking in this town. So, if you start having people parking who are coming to the business, right, that's where we get into a little bit of a problem. Unless you've got extra parking on your lot if your lot is a little bit larger or something, but you don't want to have any off off on street. We're going to restrict the low, medium, and high density areas, but we're not going to restrict RV1 and RV2. That's what we have to discuss.

I mean, but that would be changed. That would be something brand new for the um uh all all of those residential districts because they were always not permitted. Even you know as long as I've been here it's u it's been not permitted. So that would be something entirely new. So just to make sure Richfield Station in Bayiew Hills is RPC correct? Yes. And it's NP for there too. Yes. So how does that work? Because I'm in Richfield Station and there is a lot of Oh sure. There's a lot of home businesses in there and here it's saying it's not permitted,

right? So, so the issue came up because most people probably aren't asking for a permit, right? Um, and there was a person who was trying to use it as an education component the rules

of how to follow the rules with their f their children, right? And so, um, so I had to tell these children no to a use that doesn't really have an impact on anyone. Um, and so it it felt a little odd. Right? Here you are trying to follow the rules. There's lots of people doing something, right? And but it's difficult to enforce because if you're just working out of your home, no one really knows, right? Unless you need a permit to operate to sell whatever you're doing or whatever. If you need a license, then you might need a permit. But if you don't need a permit, then maybe you're just working out of your home and nobody knows.

Um, it wouldn't be different from anybody like everybody who works from home now because technically they're allowed to nobody's allowed to work from home, right? Technically, you're you're I wasn't sure if it was just businesses weren't allowed to be run from homes, but if like I mean, you're right. It's not a business ring run from home, but you have an office. Yeah. In your home. But I mean, the developers all put offices in the homes. I just think in the postcoavid like how many people are working from home to have this regulation that means then nothing is ridiculous. But a home office but a home office I think we were talking about different things here. Home office

nobody should need a permit for a home office. That seems like technically not allowed. That you know I I don't think it's we've ever talked about home offices as not being allowed anywhere. That just seems um a little silly. But what we were talking about with the RV 1 and two was the home business where you had the uh you had customers coming to the the business and that's the difference on on the town's website. I haven't looked at it recently but it used to say there are 30 or 40 I forget the number of businesses that were in these areas. Yeah. local businesses support

but they can't be I mean by by the code that we there's an error somewhere because this was never there were this was never like this that you know a few years ago so something happened but um we definitely need to look at it and make some changes and that's what we have to talk about is how you want to change these also was it one of those things that almost didn't come up because you're thinking well nobody would ever go get a permit to be able to like work from home and so do you know what I mean like because you wouldn't need a permit, then we were restricting the thing that we don't mean to be restricted.

So, what is the difference between you working? Well, what is the difference between Commissioner Han working from home and Commissioner Weaver working from home, right? The difference is Commissioner Han is working for someone else and Commissioner Weaver is working for herself, right? But functionally, from a zoning perspective and from an impact on the town perspective, is there really any functional difference? And so that's kind of what I'm saying from the zoning perspective. It as long as the there are these extra conditions in those residential areas where you don't have I I I because I have this pulled up. I don't have the other one in front of me, but I'm I'm remembering what I wrote. And it's like all the same conditions plus there are no employees. There is no additional traffic. There are no customers served in the home and no like large mailing and shipping out of the home. It's like something like impact on traffic. You guys have it in front of you. Um and so that's that's the point I'm making is from the comprehensive plan plan perspective which is these areas should be focused on single family homes. That's accurate. And with so many people working from home, you're basically restricting the same thing for one person and not for another.

So then shouldn't it be all of the RLD, RMD? Like all of those should move to conditional and not not that's what it should say in your packet. I thought the one you had just showed a change for RV1 and RV2 old version. Give me a second here and I'll pull up the packet. And I would imagine that somebody could create if if they had to create a corporation, right? Yeah. And then you're employed by the corporation that you created.

But again, I think I think we're not talking about the same things. What RV 2 was special about it is that you could actually have a business where you had traffic coming back and forth to the the business, right?

Whereas a home office doesn't require traffic. You're just taking your, you know, part of your house and you're turning it into whatever, you know, desk. You got a desk and a computer. But the the concern was in some of these uh like the um the mediumsiz like in my area for example, people would be concerned about the parking and the traffic on these. You know, our streets are so narrow and to have a FedEx truck coming up. We had a guy in our little, you know, we have a house right behind us with an alleyway. He kept having uh Amazon and FedEx trucks come and pick up all of his he was running a business out of there and it damaged this little you know the alleyways that we don't know who really owns. Well, it really damaged this little alleyway because the heavy truck kept going up and back and down. So, the question is um what conditions do we put on? What you know what will we allow? And uh do we want everybody even in the high density to be able to have people come to their locations to go to a hair salon in that house?

You know, right? So that's the difference.

I didn't I didn't show the conditionals in the in this table here in the memo you have, but I created a second category. That's this one where it says this is this is something I'm recommending, right? conditional use in the LDR RLD RMD RHD RPC RC subject to the requirements of the district we're located. Most of this is the same as what's above here, but there are some exceptions. So um this instead of it not just that it's secondary to the use but it's conducted entirely within the dwelling or accessory building. So there's nothing happening outside in the RLD RMD RHD RPC and RC's.

Can you give me an idea what you mean there? Um, so in these other zones, it's just that the occupation is conducted. Oh, no. I'm sorry. It's it's the same. I don't know why I thought that, but basically, you're not you're not running a car repair or anything that requires you to be outside working, right? Some people, I don't know if you I don't think you guys have this here, but there are other places where people are they're buying a car, they're fixing the car, they're selling the car, they're doing it all from their home. Um, it's not a lot of cars, but it's two or three extra cars in their driveway. That wouldn't be allowed because it has to be entirely within the dwelling.

So, if you have a car detailing business and they bring the car to you and drop it off at your house, that's not allowed unless you're in a garage entirely. This is for aesthetics. I would take it in traffic as well. Not just aesthetics, but the comprehensive plan is calling for residential districts to be residential in nature and feel residential in nature. Um, so to be consistent with the comprehensive plan that that is not residential, right? That's a more industrial type use. Got it.

So, okay. So, that's there. Um the other thing so one of the things I did add was all employed are family members residing in the dwelling right so this is you you're not employing other you're not having an employee come to your house every day and add one more car on the street and more traffic right is that reasonable I mean is that reasonable do most people who have a office in their home have an employee coming into their home to the I mean, I think it's possible.

I mean, I'm just Let's say someone's an eBay reseller, sorry. And they have someone that comes in and helps them package up things, let's say, or make labels or get values. I mean, is it Well, now you also you now have two employees, not one employee, right? because you're an employee and then you have an employee, you know that then then you think if you're a sole proprietor, how are you an employee? I mean, an employee would be employed by a third party. You're just the owner. I I for for government documents, I am considered an employee of my own business. So, okay. Yeah.

Okay. There's been such a blur of lines since co co with and everybody working from home and remote and yeah

but there's a difference when you buy a house in RV 2 RV1 and you buy it with the purpose of having your let's just say I keep going back to the hair salon because that's where you have a customer come uh maybe once an hour. In fact, I my hairdresser used to be in her house actually. Now I think about it in Dunkerk. But um um the question is uh now you didn't put in here anything about parking on site. You're allowing them to park on the street. So in this number H number

besides required parking for the dwelling unit, additional parking located to the side or rear yard shall be provided as follows. one space for each non-resident employed. That's the existing um so that's those are the conditions those are the existing conditions. So the stuff that's in black. So did you change that in

I changed that in the green because because in the black you can have one full-time non-resident employee on premises. Right. So in the the black it talks about besides required parking at and the dwelling. Um but if you look in um in the green right so towards the bottom is where you get to get the new stuff right um no article or commodity is that one well you changed C too you took it from you gave that except that one full-time non-resident employee now you're making it all family

right I changed C then um Yeah, the parking is still the same whether it's family or not. I mean, if you have one, Am I wrong? Well, your family's there anyway, right? So, if you have five kids and all of them are teenagers with licenses and everyone has a car, then you might some may maybe the spouse goes to work or one spouse goes to work and then there's now there's an empty space. I mean, see the problem in in our area up that area, the campgrounds, whatever up in that area is that a lot of these cottages use the streets as their only parking area.

So, if your next door neighbor starts needing the extra parking area, this is why it was never allowed in that area for the for the for the businesses that that are more than just a home, you know, a home office. We're not talking about that. I think there should be a distinction made between the home office and the commercial business where you're actually having people come to your house. I think it's a whole different type of business. I think that and I think that maybe like what what would not be acceptable where you are let's say parking might be different in another area.

Well, that's true. But even the roads are such that you know if you have two people parking it's only barely able to get one car down the main road. I'm thinking about like in the in Bayiew Hills and I don't know what it's like in Richfield but you know they've got visitor parking. I mean I don't know that people are I mean help me understand this. The roads are public. People can park there no matter what. Right. So, how can we restrict telling them in a business you can't have somebody come and park on the street which is public business? That's how

well I mean that's the question how this little tiny town with limited parking and with houses that don't have garages and driveways. That's what we as a planning commission have to figure out how to accommodate everything and not res not if there's no parking then there's right I mean it's the same thing when you're in the city and they all fill up you have to walk aways and park but do we want to add to the congestion by allowing in certain areas do we want to allow more congestion well to me it's kind of like in Annapolis you know where you want to park but it says this is this section is for residents holding you know Well, permit parking. I mean, if you want to get into permitted parking, that's another issue.

No, I know. I'm just saying though that sometimes there's a way. Well, I mean, but or do we need to have it in every area? I don't know. I mean, that before it was really just the RV area that allowed these extra uh commercial ventures where you could have people come to your house. It wasn't allowed in my area. I mean, I know specifically that then that's why I we talked about this because I saw it one day in that chart change and I go, "What happened?" You know, something changed.

But it was always um just home offices alone were allowed. I mean, I never remember that ever being an issue. And then the home occupation where you have the business was only in the RV2 and maybe RV one, but I was really I thinking RV2. So, I don't I wasn't here when we did when when they did the um the comprehensive plan, but I can tell you I know that there are numerous businesses in Richfield Station. Home occupations or you mean people coming to the house or like like a daycare or daycarees are allowed everywhere.

Yeah. I mean, that's not I'm pretty sure there's daycarees. I'm pretty sure there's dog walking businesses or they bring the dogs over and drop them off for them to watch them. Um, I think there's grass cutters. I mean, there are numerous businesses that are in there. And I think there is Yeah. So, and that's why I'm saying when I'm looking at this and it says that RPC it it's not allowable. I'm like, wait, there's no way that when we went through talking about this, I would have agreed to that just because I know what's going on in in my in real life. Well, just one clarification. You've got two lists here. Yeah. list number one and list number two and

list number two has RPC low density medium density all but you didn't change the um grid on yeah well she I didn't she she knew that yeah under RPC for example it should say conditional and then right it should

conditional would be the second list Right. And so I I didn't modify this memo from last time because there we've there's more, right? There's more than just this that we have to deal with. Um and I've been weeding through that more, but I don't have everything for you yet. Can you give us a hint what the more is that big table that I had up and where did that go? And you want to know? Yeah. I'm like confus cuz I feel like I keep hearing reference to this table. This big thing you've had to Well, I've read through. So, what is that? Let's see. What is that? Did I Did I get rid of That's your screen saver.

Well, there you're talking about the table that is specific on each this table right here that I keep bringing up. It goes into all the different occupations basically.

So, what this is is this is your current zoning. This is the zoning you had before the comprehensive resoning. Now I have all these little notes to myself and I've been going through and identifying right so um if you see where um this highlighted is it means there's a potential issue right in the RV2 you can't have a library museum community set like did you mean that did you mean to do that um but also like over here in the RV1 you can conditionally have a clinic but you can't conditionally have it in the RV2 and I know you didn't mean to do that. Right. Right. So,

so I'm going through this and then there's a bunch of stuff in the RPC is a little complicated because RPC is technically an overlay that is supposed to apply to new new areas that are residential plan communities. And so if you say that you can't do any of this stuff, if you have a a new RPC come in, then you can't allow it to have any mixed use. And was that the intention? And is that really cons? It's not necessarily consistent with the comprehensive plan. So those ones are still highlighted for me to look through.

Okay. But but these are my notes from this big document which is taking a long time to evaluate and then compare each section to the comprehensive plan to determine if what is inconsistent is actually consistent with the comprehensive plan or not. That definitely sheds some light on help explain but to be to to to be explained further. Okay.

So, the new the new area, would that be in an existing like for Richfield Station, would that be where the developer wants to build new houses that would fall under this or would it be another house outside that there's no house already on the land?

Right. So, the RPC is is technically meant to be kind of like a critical area overlay, like an overlay on top of another area. So if you annexed an area that was not developed and someone came in with the subdivision plan and that wanted the RPC overlay, that's what it's supposed to be. So there is there is an issue with that as well. Let's go back to Okay, let's go back to page two. Page two was going to replace page one. Is that what I'm seeing here? Or you don't have lines through it though. But um the board

you're going to have both then you would have one and two, right? So you would have and I'm So you would have a set of conditions for RV1, RV2, NC, TC, PC, MC, right? So, your commercial districts would have one set of regulations that would allow for parking additional people to park and come in and for you to have retail sales or whatever it is in that location. Whereas in your residential district, you can't have retail sales, you can't have additional employees, you can't have additional people coming in. So that is consistent with the comprehensive plan because it keeps keeps it residential,

but it allows people to operate these smaller businesses out of their homes. So that's what the two different sets of conditions were for. And so I've kind of highlighted I started highlighting the um the differences. And let's see if I can I You probably won't be able to see them if I put them both up, but I will try. Okay, so this what are we doing? We see this.

Very good question. what are we or whatever. And so like what what do we do with this information? Like what's the what's the next steps for us as we can or did you want us to go through what we have right here and just say yay or nay? we're looking at the right right direction of going in with these two different uh you know the uh customary home occupation versus the or or the residential versus the non-residential whatever you call it.

Did you want us to go through and just say yay or nay to that right now or how do you want us to look at this? So I think initially right when I first sent this to you and we didn't have a chance to discuss it the idea was say yay or nay we move on we push this to the c town council and we move forward then when I started delving in and seeing that there's more issues than just this issue I think that what we should do is let me finish this analysis bring you a whole okay memo with everything but I also think we should be doing this concurrently with the coastal resiliency because I don't want to lose it.

Um so if everyone agrees that there are yes problems that need to be resolved then I will outline what all those problems are and present you with a resolution to them um while also working on coastal resilience. Okay. Yeah, that's what because I think all of us are kind of like I was like okay well we still got so there's what I started doing and then what happened once I got in Pandora's box right

okay so we will go ahead and uh um wait on this until next month to see what other fun information you have for us um but right now it's it's interesting I think we are headed in the right direction and trying to figure this out and get it straight. Um, okay. Let's move on to the next one, which is our our overview of the coastal resiliency recommendation. Are you ready, Miss Franklin? Go right ahead.

Yes. Let me just put this into a slide show mode so it's a little bigger for you. Okay. So, um, the Chesapeake Beach coastal resiliency plan was adopted in 2023. Uh, it has a lot of recommendations. Not all of them are zoning related, but I have pulled out the ones that are zoning related for us to discuss. Um, this is sort of a timeline. I guess it's smaller. So, the idea is that in for the next two months, we'll evaluate the zoning changes and talk about the overlay zone. Um, and then we'll start drafting new language and revising over the winter. Uh, and then we would hold public hearing and send to town council for approval hopefully in the spring. Um, we'll see how we go along with that. Um, so I don't know if you guys all have the coastal resiliency plan. I'm not sure if that's in your packet anymore, but

I think we already we got it right there. So in chapter 4 um there is a recommendation page oh okay yeah I should have put the page numbers but I did not I apologize um it's 32

so the strategic flood management and sustainable zoning or drainage um this recommends that the zoning ordinance be amended to map properties in the 2100 maps flood area to include certification by a professional engineer here um to ensure that buildings can withstand storm surge associated with the town's projected sea level rise. Um so I think this ties back in sort of references back over to the flood plane management ordinance which is not zoning but zoning can reference over to it for that requirement. That's pretty straightforward um change except for the the mapping piece, right? And so that's where we we'll get into the overlay, but not yet. Um, recommendation number four is to amend the zoning ordinance, including critical area regulations, to require all storm order management practices and techniques for developed or redevelopment projects be proven to be effective with the 2.4 foot rise in sea level assumed as the base condition. Um and so that again is a simple change once we have the mapping of the area which is there is mapping of the area but we've got it incorporated into the zoning. Um then this one didn't I don't I believe this is a number. I think it's in here. It says amend the zoning ordinance to prohibit from areas mapped in the 2100 flood area all group homes, convolescent centers, nursing homes and hospitals. Um, one of the other issues we found is that group harms just aren't permitted anyway, which is an issue. So, um, but we'll make sure that we keep them not permitted in this area and permit them where they need to be permitted. Um, recommendation number five, thoroughly evaluate the zoning ordinance to determine regulatory opticles that

prevent raising of buildings or other improvements that protect public safe and healthy as public health and safety um as time moves on and sea levels are rising. Um, so there I I wanted to show area A because there's specific recommendations for area A. Everyone sees that it's up here um in the north part of town. And so for area A, um the town should seek to minimize any further forest removal by adjustments to the zoning regulations. Um the town has already implemented an urban forest program to increase forest cover um and coordination to preserve land but the zoning changes minimizing further forest removal.

Don't we already have regulations on removing trees? So that's what the so the urban it it actually the coastal resiliency plan recommended implementing recommendation for an urban forest program and so that is what it the tree the what people call the tree ordinance is actually forest or the trees urban forest ordinance um and so it's a little different because the urban forest regulations refer to trees this is referring to forest forest removal, which you know, a single tree is not a forest, right? Um, but profound,

right? I'm glad I could. But if you have to get a permit to remove a tree, then you would need a permit to remove multiple trees.

Not necessarily. Because if the trees are are all small, if you have a a forest or forested area, but all of the trees are small, then they could be removed. um ba but there are regulations around the size right because the forest conservation is part of the zoning ordinance. So it's looking at the forest conservation it's looking at if there's a higher kind of regulation or different changes that you want to make to other parts of the critical area or just other parts of the zoning ordinance. So this is something this is something that needs to you know I I need to look at the people that we're working with critical area um engineer town staff etc need to look at and come up with recommendations to implement this goal and then you guys would discuss that um

might want to identify area that has these coro small trees. Mhm. Well, yeah, this is just like area A, so I'm not I'm not really certain specifically what they were referring to because I wasn't part of that. Can we see like where because we don't have that map in our thing? It's in the coastal resiliency plan, but it's it's not in the recommendations. It's earlier on when it splits up the areas. Um I was trying to like what street are we? basically north of that's 260, right? This is 260. Yeah. I mean, and that's 261. I get the one in the zero mixed up.

Definitely. So, right. I don't know what it's referring to, right? Because I can't think of a forest that's over there. Over there. like it's not the but the coastal the the group that formed this plan made this recommendation and so part of it is me working with the group that formed the people that formed this plan and saying what what were you referring to and what do we need to look at in the mapping? Um so it's on 27 in the coastal resiliency plan. Okay. And so it could be that I come to you and say I found that there is no

that there are no forests to remove over here. So there's nothing we need to do with this, right? But I just want to do my due diligence with every piece related to zoning.

So then we get to alleviate recommendations number one. Um, and this has to do with facilitating outward migration. So, the coastal resiliency plan recommends moving moving out of the area that is going to be inundated, right? So, it recommends retreat basically. And so, the zoning ordinance should help facilitate that retreat by really through restrictions to intensifying any development in that area. Um, obviously the retreat piece needs to be managed at town council level, but we need to do our piece from the zoning end. So, incentivize or require retrofitting of parking lots. Um, this was a picture that was in the plan just to make sure that there's more open space or places that water can go or come and go from. And so the zoning ordinance in the parking regulations, it can either incentivize or require or both. So we can look at making that happen. um ensure any future development on open parcels especially in this zone occurs in concert with plan mitigation efforts in the surrounding area. Um so this this is just something that needs to be studied because this might require revisions to the map. I'm going to save that to thought for the end realign recommendations. Um, and so this is this is about allowing

more flexibility in how houses can be constructed to adapt to flood waters. This is um an amphibious house. Uh, and you guys talked about these in the comprehensive plan, but I know not everyone was here. So, if you don't know, it's kind of your foundation is a box, right? And then you stick stick your house in there like it's a Lego thing, right? And it has guides. And so when the water comes in, the house is buoyant and it floats. But it floats up on these guides. You have to like pump it like, you know, like a um

Nope. It just it just automatically it automatically floats up. Um there's a lot of good videos that explain it, so I can probably send some of that to you guys when we get to discussing that. Sorry, that question.

Okay, so that now we're in area B, which is kind of near Fishing Creek. Um, and so this recommendation, the main zoning recommendation is also to remove to minimize any further forest removal. So I think that's going to be sort of I think it was a universal recommendation that is only going to apply in certain places. Um, oops. Can I go forward? Pretty sure there's more slides. Oh, that that must be that's the last slide. Okay. So, that's the last slide that references any zoning recommendations. So, what I will say is that um one thing we talked about when we were doing the critical area update is we talked about mitigation and making sure that people who live in areas that are going to be impacted by sea level rise that those areas that can have storm water management and additional mitigation that can allow people to remain in those places should be the focus. of mitigation. And so that was when we talked about increasing the fee and increasing the mitigation amount. More people were going to need to use fee in L because they wouldn't be able to mitigate on site. And so creating a higher fee in L and putting that fee in L in a bucket to focus remember we talked about this

to focus. What is this fee in L? You're saying if if an area can't I'm tying this back into coastal resiliency. I promise. So, if you live in an area, I I don't know where you live, but if you live at a lot that is going to be impacted by sea level rise, um then you probably live within the critical area and you have a mitigation requirement and your mitigation requirement is more than it used to be based on the new critical area overlay. Let's use Horizons on the bay because if I remember correctly in the comprehensive plan, the sea rise is going to it's going to rise right there and it could potentially flood their parking lot.

So, I want to go back to using an individual lot m because well, not because it's more complicated, but because Horizons isn't isn't going to ask to build something right now and so they're not going to have to do mitigation right now, right? But if somebody comes and has to do mitigation and their lot doesn't have enough space for them individual small lot but I'm trying to like have a deck and we're saying right I mean or something like that that patio more likely but yes right so now you have to mitigate but you are planted out and you don't have any place else to plant because the planting requirement is higher

right the idea that we talked about was in these areas Now, what we actually want you to do once we've developed the program is to pay a fee in loo because there is a solution for this street or neighborhood to increase resiliency in this street or neighborhood and funding it becomes the question from the town's perspective because it's a big town storm water project or whatever it is. And so that ties into this because what we were talking about was using these 2100 maps that are in the coastal resiliency plan to create an overlay zone within the critical area where all these regulations we just talked about would apply. Right? So if we go backwards, right? Here's these houses, these amphibious houses, right? Do you need an amphibious house in Ridgefield Station? No. But maybe do you need an amphibious house um on Well, no, you don't need one on Sea Street, but you get my point. You need you need one somewhere. And so the regulations that allow you to do this will be permitted in this additional overlay zone is the approach that I'm recommending that we take because it allows us to focus on the properties that are impacted in the areas that are going to need the most change in regulations and potentially projects from a public works perspective.

You have a do you have a picture of the overlay? So, it would really be it's it's really in your it's in the coastal resiliency. I didn't put it up here, but

you don't know which page it's on actually. Now I can pull I think it's really broken down by area and so we'll have to see how these areas in area A you have different sea level change so we'll have to we'll have to to some extent create it you know make I want to say so this 2050 2100 so we we would probably take these and I think we have the mapping or can access the mapping that was used to develop this but that's how you would create the overlay is you would use the maps that are in the coastal resiliency plan.

I'm assuming these maps in the coastal residency um report are from FEMA. I'm not sure where they got that. Are they FEMA? This one does say FEMA, but I mean it's small print on identifying where they're from. Kind of blurry too. There's also new mapping um tools that are available from the state. So, we can look at those as well. I'm thinking we could probably do that. Yeah, it might be helpful for them to see. We were shown these maps during the comprehensive plan, but

you know, these guys who didn't get to see those would really really be interesting. This is kind of hard to identify where everything is, but there's a there's a particularly nifty new tool um called the Maryland See if I can bring it up. I got to keep looking. You guys keep talking and I'll see if I can find it. like talk amongst yourselves.

Well, yeah. But I think the most important thing for you all is to have better maps that we can identify where I almost feel like a field trip is in order, you know, just to see everything in the flesh. I certainly would like to know where this the big marshes next to the fire department that you can smell that when you go in there and play bingo. How that's Well, you can actually see how that's already enlarged. That whole swamp area has gotten bigger. But uh they I don't know if Miss Franklin can show us, but certainly the engineers actually have identified where we've had changes the last 10 years just of you know sounds like Seagate is going to be in for some trouble.

Um but uh we've got all the areas all across the you know this whole area including this area that you know is questionable.

Yeah. Um, and that's why a lot of the recommendations on the comprehensive plan were created were from these FEMA maps, seeing the the the size enlarge so dramatically in the in the next 50 years or more. But um, and that's why some of the codes change from residential in this area to non-residential because, you know, people were concerned, why would you put residential um, zoning in an area that we know is going to flood, right? Um, I guess some people would argue, well, you could put in those floating buildings, I guess. I don't know. I So, there's all that, but um I think you have to try and mitigate what's here now. It seems to me to help with flooding.

Well, I that's complicated because then you've got to get funding. You've got there's a whole that's a big big issue. Yeah. Right. How do we want to start? How do we want to start with this? Um I mean I know you've got these recommendations. Do you want to Is that how we're going to proceed is just by going through these recommendations one by one or how are we going to do this? We're going to and I know you've got people that you want to have come in and address us. Uh you've got them listed right down below which I think is important.

How do you propose the timeline should be set out? we should probably have like in you know November this and December that you that's how do you want to do this? Mhm. So, I think it would be helpful to have the critical area commission come in earlier, right? Because this is this is something we've talked about how to use the critical area regulations to implement this.

Um, and then I think that gets you guys this basis and if we agree this is how we're going to proceed, then we start drafting and we start bringing in people to advise as as those drafts are being made. So, so your first uh speaker would probably be uh let me see there the the CAC representative. Hopefully you could get them in quickly. That's not the right. You don't need to see my um I will talk to them and see if I can get them in next month. Where is

and you know if not them we would sure like to have somebody from public works if they could come in they could start out with what they're seeing right now with the changes in which areas and they could probably uh start giving us a very local evaluation of how what they're seeing. So we could also do them in October. Okay. I would say those two are are the first ones, right? Just to give everybody an overview of what's really happening in this town or what the changes are. Okay.

Let me see. you know, let me have some calls with critical area and I'll talk to town's public works because we we need to coordinate with Calver County Public Works, but that might happen sort of internally between the town and the Calvert County and town here. We'll see. Right. Right. Um, so you can't see this because it's too small. This is from the agenda. There you go. Yeah. So, you have someone specifically in my local government insurance,

right? So, Legit is the town's employer and one of the requests you guys made was to have someone who does flood insurance to come in. And so they'll come in for free um and they advise you uh and so we'll just reach out to them and they will send the person who is best able to speak out to whom? Uh legit local government insurance trust that go by legit um and and they're the town's insurance provider. Um there there is a Maryland flood insurance person and they have speakers that will send you a copy of that. Okay.

Yeah, that's up I mean it's up to you guys. I just know it's having your own insurer might be more affordable or preferable. It's up to you all. So, okay. So, do you want also next month to come back with a timeline, a time frame as far as how do you how you want what you want to accomplish and how long this might take and everything? Is that going to be a possible task? Yeah, accomplish. Let me see if I can find the timeline that I had.

Might be a little bit harder to So, I guess this was very small, so I'll just try to blow it up. So the idea is that next month we're we're a month behind, right? Because we were going to start this presentation I was going to give last month. Okay?

So we're really so it's October and November that what I'll bring you is more of a memo like here's here's the changes they're recommending. Here's what we have right to. So we're looking at the zoning changes and determining what the overlay zone is going to look like. And then really December through March, more likely you're going to start looking at language. We're going to go through each area of language and any revisions and then hopefully it's really like April that you're holding your public hearing and sending it on. Now I that may be an optimistic timeline, right? But the idea is if we can agree on this here once we get then we can start getting the text together and move forward from there.

Anybody have any questions for um Miss Franklin or any issues up? Okay. Um I think we have an idea about where we're headed. I think we can see we've got uh a lot of work ahead of us. I hope there's nothing else that's going to be on the agenda in the next year. It's important. Um but this is very both are very important very important issues. Um is there anything else you want to add to that uh staff report?

I think I think we have a plan to move forward if everyone is is on board that this sort of and and that's what we'll talk about and we can look at this. I'll send this viewer to y'all that this overlay is the way to go. Once we get that agreement then I think we're good to move forward. Great. Uh, and it sounds like we have somebody for a a tour of the town. We need to get our maps in sync and just identify where we're having the beer issues, but we kind of know where it's all going to be and it's writing be in this area down.

Yeah. So, just like just because I'm going to send this to you and so you guys can see, you can play around with it. These are historic flooding events. So, you've had this level of flooding before. Um, you can zoom in and see. Is that a website that uh I'll send it. She's called Are you going to give us the link on that? This is a new tool that just came out like maybe last month. So, what's the date of that information?

So, there you can get all the information on the layers. Um they just put this out. So, really, let me let me go back. So, what you're looking at here is 4.68 ft and 20 I don't know. Oh, that's that's sea level rise. Sorry. Historic event is what I'm looking for. So, historic event, this was your hurricane Isabel was 5.18 ft inundation. Um, this is your October 2021 storm. Here's your January 2024 storm. The supertorm Sandy is down here. You can toggle this around. That shows you the historic events. You can see your high tide flooding at different times um that are anticipated. So this is 2070 and then you can see and sea level rise and I think 2.4 four is what the coastal resiliency um

what's the earliest date the historic event timeline is supertorm Sandy is the first is that right no sorry 20 yes hurricane Isabel Isabelle had the most but yeah I lived through that

um Commissioner Gryer was talking about current mitigation like around Seagate etc that isn't really what we're talking about. I mean, this it's part of what we're talking about, but we're talking about a much bigger project that's going to incorporate the whole town, not just little areas that we need, we definitely need to mitigate, but I think we've been trying to mitigate for a while. But what you know, how would you tell Commissioner Graceman, how do we not just look at one little area like Seagate or how do we I mean, are we assuming that nothing's going on right there right now with Seagate as far as mitigation in that area or what are we assuming about current mitigation issues? So mitigation for projects that exist has already been completed, right? So the zoning ordinance is really addressing when you want to change something, then you have to meet these new requirements with what already exists. if there are larger public works projects that need to be done to mitigate that are done on public property then I don't know what those are right um but identifying them and using funding from the fee and loo structure to fund them is what we're talking about because unless you have private development redeveloping in the area, you can't come back in and say, "Now, now you need to do this on your lot, even though your project's already done."

So, what if somebody was going to come in with a site plan right now? That was pretty major. I'm just would be, but how are we going to accomplish any of our goals if we have a big project coming in? Do they come under the guise of the the changes that we're going to make with the

So, right now they're going to be coming in under you. If a site plan comes in tomorrow, it's coming in under your existing regulations. You do have higher mitigation levels in the critical area than you did before. Um, and that could trigger some fee in loo. So probably along as we're doing this at some point I'm going to be it's the fee and loop program is an internal program um that will be developed like here's where the money goes here of all of that but you guys will be kept a breast of that as we get through there. Um, and ultimately the goal is that it is tied to the projects identified through the coastal resiliency plan and potentially anything we talk with public works about for this plan.

Okay, good. No, we're talking about like increasing the fee and loo program. Like are we currently doing fee and loo? So we don't really accept F and Lou. At some point there will come a plan to the desk whether it goes to you all or just comes to me where the mitigation cannot be met on site because the mitigation is higher now than it was before. And just wondering like will there ever be money in this program to like do do you know what I mean? like cuz all of these things seem like they're potentially really expensive and so that you would

need a fair amount of money coming through fe so I was just

I so I can't really say one of the things you will want to consider as we go down this path is in addition to the changes you're making to this do you want to make changes to how mitigation is right now the overlay says that mitigation must be done on site unless it it can't cannot I don't know the specifics and then it goes to fe it's possible that you change it to say any property located in XYZ zones will use fee and loo for 50% of their mitigation and that funding will go into the program to fund the projects in their neighborhood that are needed. So, that's one thing we'll consider as we go down the path.

Okay. Any last observations or concerns about the uh coastal resins recommendations? If not, I don't see anything. Uh let's go to the last one for eight comments by commissioners. Um Commissioner Han, do you have any comments or something you'd like to bring up? Just looking at our schedule, did we discuss November and December meetings? Because the November holiday is Thanksgiving Eve and the December is Christmas Eve, right? I thought we changed. We already changed those dates way back

week before. We will make sure those dates come out to you. I'll have to look. You probably have those listed. Yeah, she'll email me all those out to us. But thank you for for bringing that up again. Um, any other questions, Commissioner Han? Not at this time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Graceman. Nothing further at this time. Nothing to add. No further. Okay. Well, I think we are at a point where I could use a motion to adjourn. And we're going to leave five minutes early tonight if that's okay with everybody. Well, maybe we could talk about signs more or chickens. No, the chickens are done, too.

Motion to the cookings are the second the chickens are cooked. Do I have a second for the motion? Do I have all in favor? I We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you again for all that work on that sign. That was hard. I thought did a good job there. I think it looks really clean, really good. Also, I think though it's good to remember that if we care about these things, it means site plans are coming through without the thing.