Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is September 29th, 7:30 p.m. I call to order this monthly meeting of the Town of Mount Area Planning Commission meeting. The first order of business, please, is the pledge of allegiance. Please join me

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Before we go to the next order of business, as I always try to do, I have sincere gratitude for the turnout here in town hall tonight and also for those that couldn't be here but are attending virtually through our live streaming through the Carol Media Center. So, thanks to the CMC for providing uh that venue, that method for um interaction with us tonight. Um it's always important from us seven volunteers to understand where the public sentiment is as a part of the guide for our decision making on various things that the code gives us the responsibility to review to analyze and when we have the responsibility and authority to decide upon. So again a genuine thanks for everybody that took the time from their evening to join us tonight. The next order of business is the review of our last meeting minutes. So, I ask for every commissioner to examine the copy in front of you provided by town staff, Miss Deborah Clinton, to capture last meeting. And I'll pause as I always do for you to collect any notes or thoughts from your review. And in the process for any decision making tonight, a motion can be made by a commissioner as to the approval or disapproval of these minutes, seeking a second, then any discussion or edits or amendments recommended by a commissioner. Once those are settled, then we will go to a vote to accept or disapprove the minutes. So at this point, is there a motion from the deis here as to the approval or disapproval of last month's minutes?

I will make a motion to approve as written. The motion's been made by Commissioner Bneck. Is there a second? I'll second. The second has been made by Commissioner Buts. I'm opening discussion and any opportunity for a commissioner to provide edits or amendments to the current writing. Chair, I have a question. Uh on Butler Road, I don't believe that's spelled right. It's a B O T L E R. I believe it's there's an E in there. Is that correct? My neighbors at Butler Road. Okay. B O T E B O T E L E R E L E R. Can we make that? B O T E L E R. Yeah. Do I have a resident from Butler here? I think we do. Is that That's correct, isn't it?

With the E. With the E. With two E. Yes. Thank you very much. And and thank you, Commissioner Ba. Uh any other edits proposed or recommended to the minutes? Hearing no other. Um, the motioner needs to now amend their motion to approve with the edit stated by Commissioner Ba. Do you accept it? I accept that. I need another second on that amended motion. I'll second. Commissioner Buds uh seconds again the amended motion. We're ready for a vote. All those in favor of the motion to accept the minutes with the amendment made by Commissioner Beer say I. I. I.

I. Those opposed, those who wish to abstain. The approval of the minutes with the edit is unanimous. Thank you very much, Miss Clinton and Commissioner Bea. At this point in the evening's agenda, I open the floor for citizen comments. Um, and to begin, I'd like to see a show of hands of those who would like to stand and come to the mic. State your name and whether you are simply a resident or non-resident of the town of Mount Ary. I don't need to hear your address. Just tell me your name, please, and your um residence in or outside of the town limits. And I will impose a no more than three minute time limit on such comments to be fair to everybody who may line up. So at this point, may I see a show of hands of those who are interested in approaching the mic? I have one, two, I think I see two in the second row.

I put it here because normally he would come through the hallway there. So correct. Okay. um the gentleman in the far back um uh there near the doorway if you could please approach and again uh three minute and uh I'll give you a bit of a warning if you're starting to hit three you know to be fair but again sir please your name and whether you're a resident or not. My name is Troy Shuckles. I am not a resident of Mount Air. I'm outside of town. Uh where this property is being an asked to be annexed is affecting my property. I'm right next to it. Understood. 3706 West Watersville Road.

So, I just have some points. I heard in the last meeting I attended, it wasn't last month, it was a month before, July, everybody asked why they want to annex. They want your water. There's no water on that property. There are two wells out there right now. And when they were drilled, I talked to the well drillers because I was there. And at the time, a developer wanted to develop. And he told me they wanted to do four houses, estate houses. He told me they didn't have enough water for one house, much less four

on both wells. So there's your question why they want to annex. I did a little figuring. I do work for a water company. I'm not going to mention who, but we are the eighth largest in the country that I work for. So, you can probably figure it out if you did a little research. An acre in perfect conditions for an inch of rain to irrigate 62,000 gallons of water. That's in a good year. A bad year growing season is 125,000 gallons. That's a week to get in rain. So I kind of know what your NDE permit says. You would have to ask to up it for the building that you're doing and that's being asked here for this complex to happen. The only thing I don't know is the only thing what Baltimore Sun is, that's all hearsay. I don't know how many fields they want to do. I did hear about a lacrosse field. I don't know if they're doing artificial turf. I don't know if they're doing real turf. So, I'm not speculating. I'm just telling you what real turf would take to get an rain in an acre. Saturday, you had the fall fest here. We had the mount area yard sale

30 seconds sir. I set three three light cycles on a Saturday. So imagine what that would be bring to traffic on weekends with the people visiting that park. We're just not set up for it on that road. I appreciate your time. Yes, sir. Thank you. And I believe in the second row on this side was a gentleman who raised his hand wishing to speak. I'd rather wait to hear what else y'all have to say to contribute.

Understood. I respect that, sir. Uh, one last call. I see a new hand up. Yes, sir. Come forward. Your name, please. And whether you are a town resident or not, please.

I'm not a town resident. My name is Ted Nettles. I live on the one of the roads that's going to come in to blend traffic into this area. And we have so much traffic right now. It's a cut through from 70 through Woodbine over. And this what what the gentleman in front of me was saying about the traffic on Saturday, the same thing. My road had uh five times the traffic on it cutting off of 70 coming through the back way to get to Watersville to get into town. So the amount of traffic and the water thing is is an issue to me. Even though I don't not a town resident, it still affects a lot of areas coming in and the road structure to get in and out the how many ways can you get in and out of that piece of property. Thank you very much for your time.

Yes, sir. Thank you for your public comment. I have a new hand up here, please. Your name and whether you are or are not a town resident.

My name is Marishell Payne Gasaway and I am a town resident and I echo what the gentleman before me have shared. Um, I live here and so I'll be the first to say in a regular morning getting out of Watersville, it is quite a bit of challenge. The light does turn a lot when the school buses, what have you, coming through. And though this may be something to benefit the children in the area, it can still create a lot of backlog. And I did wonder why is the annexation now an issue? And now I understand particularly with the water issue because being a town resident I'm dealing with the water issues as we have now. And so we've had some challenges with the water issue. So to bring something else to development that may actually stress our situation even more is very very concerning. And again as a town resident I am very concerned what that means for me.

Thank you again for your public comment. Any other last calls? One more. I would just like to be on the record. I would like You need to come to the mic, sir. No, I just want to say I I I'm sorry. It's it's on record for the public comment, sir. There's no halfway. I apologize, but you got to do it. Steve Lick Steve Lickman, not a town resident. I just would like to echo his comment. I would like to speak after the presentation, after we see what's being presented tonight, if that's possible. Um, okay. Well, thank you, sir.

Thanks, So I did anticip so I see no further hands for public comment. So I hereby close the public comment section and let me address the last gentleman's comment from two perspectives please. The first perspective is if I'm not mistaken, I believe tonight we are going to begin some interaction with the petitioner for that annexation. And that petitioner has now intended to answer some of the questions that this commission raised with public input at the previous meetings for the criteria. You may have recall if you were here before, I wanted to make sure that us seven commissioners had criteria or I use the term yard stick so we can measure this this application. Okay. Reasonably, defendably come up with a recommendation that we have now been given from the council the role to provide that recommendation to the council within 120 days. And so we we have a task before us and we're trying to do it methodically and fairly. Okay. Um, so tonight we're going to have that first interaction, I believe, John, with the petitioner to kind of answer some of the questions that we have begun to raise and that have been documented in our criteria sheets for the commissioners to make notes as that representative or petitioner speaks. Okay. I would ask that everybody here just poise themselves to let that representative speak without rude behavior, without your input. I gathered your input first. I got it. I opened it to you. I'm trying to make sure that I handle this fairly and evenly across

both the public's interests, whether they're for or against, and the petitioners interests. and the property owner's interest. And I think everybody could come to agree that's fair with a capital F. So tonight I'm interested in and these seven commissioners are interested in now the petitioner providing answers. Now, so what I'm alluding to, sir, is that I'm not opening the end of his presentation to public comment tonight. I'm interested in them gathering every bit of information based upon our criteria as we move forward into the next months. Again, we have a deadline of 120 days. We can ask the council for an extension and that may be something that I ask for commissioner opinion on as to whether we should go ahead and initiate that with the council. Okay. Um because I'm not so sure we can complete this task thoroughly. my personal opinion within 120 days just to be forthright with everybody. Okay. So, aside from the suspense, I just ask that everybody let's let's listen to what the petitioner wishes to say in reference to our questions created in the past two months criteria building. Fair enough. Okay. Um, so nobody should raise their temperature after that person gets up and speak. I ask that you don't. You know, let's handle this fairly. We are the town of Mary. We ought to we ought to handle it fairly. Um, now my last closing remark is this. I am not denying anybody from making further comments. As I said, tonight I'm not opening up for any further public input. I may open up the next meeting in October and the next meeting in November, but rest assured that when the recommendation is drafted and gets the consensus of these other commissioners,

it will go to the council and the council is required then upon that recommendation's introduction into their agenda, they have to set a date for a public hearing. So the opportunity clearly must exist and will exist for a public hearing. And that's another opportunity for anyone and everyone for, against, in the middle, whatever is is given that chance to get up to the mic and talk directly to the decision makers, which are the five elected council members. So just take that all in. abbreviating tonight to not include public hearing isn't pretending that I'm not interested. It's that I had two meetings already. I'm interested in the petitioners answers. We may have questions to the petitioners and then let's move on to October and November and build that recommendation that's defendable. Fair enough. and and and thank you for teasing this because I debated whether I needed to kind of get all this detail out, but um so bear with me. We're we're volunteers. We're trying to do our best per the code. That's that's who we sign up to defend. And and so uh that's the process ahead. Do I have any commissioner that wishes to add or counter what I just described? Are we all good? Okay, good. So I think I speak for all of us. I don't want to say that freely without pulsing my colleagues here. So good enough. So thank you sir. Okay. The next order of the public comments portion of the agenda is hereby closed. The next uh part of the agenda I will open is the Carol and Frederick County planners reports to us. Uh John, if I'm not mistaken, we have input that's uh written and emailed from the Carol County uh staff and uh copies have

been provided to each commissioner. Um and so what I'd like to do on this is just turn to you, John, and any other staff, town staff members, say, is there anything in here remarkable enough to make special mention of?

I don't I don't think so. Again, I did reach out to um our car Carol representative currently to have her hopefully have them to us in a more timely manner so we can have them inside the packets. Uh most of this is uh very generic. I will say that the county commissioners did elect to modify their EC zoning um because they had not not a lot of public push back for it. So they did modify the EP the employment campus uh district as they call it. Again there's some addition addition additional code sections that are going through the process of um review through the planning commission. Uh and I'm pretty sure I provided that to you guys uh via email. If I didn't, I'll make sure I did. I will. Um okay,

next week. Um but nothing else here that would really jump out to me that would be mentionable. If there's any questions you guys have directly, I can try to convey that to uh Miss Stewart. Okay. Um so would it be fair, John, if um since we just got this at the start of the meeting, would it be fair to look to the commissioners if they have any questions on this uh information to just uh email you directly? That'd be fine. That'd be fine. Okay. Is that agreeable, commissioners?

Great. Okay. Um, moving from the Carol County information uh to the Frederick County information, I do see Miss Vanessa Moreno uh joining us again tonight from Frederick County. Welcome, Vanessa. And if you could give us the highlights of what's going on in Frederick County, please. Absolutely.

Alrighty. Well, good evening, commissioners. So, just a few updates from the Frederick County side of things. Um, New Market is embarking on their update to the to their comprehensive plan. So, we will be meeting with them soon um to see how we can support them in their efforts. We had two reasonzoning amendments uh recently approved by the county council for um two developments um in the New Market area. one for a six lots minor subdivision and then for a um let's see and in the near future we should expect to see Bell Farm which is a 248 age restricted um development that will be coming to the Lake Linggonor area which is right off of Jaggertown Road if I'm correct and then um Linggonor Town Center just submitted a site plan for a new Dunkin Donuts and so that is currently working through our development review processes. And then lastly, Linggonor Town Center is in the process of recording their final site plans. Right now, they have 87 lots remaining and a few open space areas. And with that, that project will be officially built out. And that that's all I have for you this evening.

Uh any commissioner questions for Miss Marino? A quick question from myself. Uh any change or update on the 1,0 dwelling unit development, Cherry Cherry Run. Cherry Run. Thank you. Um they were recently approved for their water and sewer reclassification from the planning commission and now that is going to our county council for official review and approval. Okay. But aside from that, there is no there have been no major changes. Okay. And that water classification, does that stem from them realizing they have to punch the ground for that development? Um, I believe so. I don't want to speak out of turn, but yeah. Yeah, there's a rechange in that.

Okay. So, they have to create wellhead or groundwater supply for that development. Yes. Okay. And that of course will be in devel uh in coordination with MDE, I imagine. So, yes. Interesting. Okay. And and perhaps it's just me, but I think I would get an echo from the other commissioners. Any and all news, no matter how small, with respect to that 1,0 new homes going up on our western threshold, um I'll be sure to keep on my radar for you all. There you go. Absolutely. Very much appreciated. Sure. Uh Vanessa, thanks so much.

Thank you. Uh the next agenda item is the reintroduction of the water resource settlement for approval to move for approval from this body to move back to Carol County so they may initiate their 60-day review with the Maryland Department of the Environment. And with us tonight to kind of walk us through the water resource element is Miss Brenda Denny.

Thank you. So Brenda, thank you for coming down from Westminster area to kind of clarify some of the things. This is the second time that this topic has come before this commission and the first time we did have some questions about our role as a planning commission. Where's the water and sewer commission, another town commission um you know in this in this process. So hopefully u I'll reserve any other questions so that you can get through your briefing. Uh, but I believe if I may right now, uh, Dick Swanson, I believe I saw you in the crowd. Dick, thank you. Um, Dick, I I don't do this often, but you're in the batter circle on this topic. Okay, if you follow me. Um, and and I hope I'm not overreaching here to kind of impose on you the possibility that we may have questions that entertain the Water and Sewer Commission. Is that fair, sir? Okay, great. So, Brenda, please let us let us know what we need to know about this.

Well, thank you for letting me uh speak to you about it again. I apologize I wasn't able to make it when you when you discussed it previously. We have um a number of municipal planning commission meetings that are on the same evening. Sure.

Um but I am glad that I had this opportunity because I did watch your meeting and I know there are some things that you needed to have clarified and that you had some questions on. So, I put together a presentation to try to answer some of the um questions that I heard and so hopefully um it does that. And if you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer them as well. Um so I don't know how many people were here 15 years ago when the first uh plan was adopted but this is the first water resources element was adopted in 2010 as a result of a state requirement in 2006 that these plans had to be adopted as part of your town master plan or comprehensive plan or whatever you you call it. I know you call it master plan so we'll go with that. Um the purpose of doing the water resources element was to make sure that jurisdictions were considering the availability and adequacy of public water and wastewater and also um now storm water in considering uh your future plans for growth and development and then making sure that you then addressed that. So this is um this whole water resources element both with the 2010 as well as this current effort has been a joint process. It is not just a county document. Uh both times we have worked with all eight municipalities in the county together to develop the water resources element. Uh the bulk of the plan document is actually uh applies it's just an overview that applies to everybody and it kind of summarizes things for all the mun municipalities and the county in that and then it has individual system specific sections towards the back third. So that's where

Mount Airy and I believe John sent you a copy of the Mount Air specific section. Those are things that are specific just to Mount Area. Only Mount Area would um be looking at doing the action items that are in there. But it is one document that all nine jurisdictions are intended to adopt just like we did in 2010. It is a holist.

It's a holistic look at you know your demand and and the capacity available for those things and the opportunities and limitations there could be to growth as a result of look that look at water resources. It is connected to your town master plan in that it is an element of your plan and it's intended to ensure that water and waste water are adequate for future growth. We've also um need to consider storm water and water quality issues in your land use decisions and um this whole effort I if I understand you're in the process of updating your master plan. Uh we actually just adopted it back in May. Okay. February. February 6. I'm sorry.

February. Early against I apologize with nine jurisdictions. It's hard to keep it straight. Um,

so when the next time that you do update your master plan, probably you have at least a review of it in five years, you can, this would be available to help inform you. The numbers would just need to be updated, which is recommended anyway. Um, your role in this is that whenever a an element of the comprehensive plan or master plan is updated or developed, it's the planning commission's role of course to uh review that and um ultimately make a recommendation to your elected body or town council for adoption. So, it really all starts with you and um therefore this is all connected. So um I think there was some questions previously about the connection between the water and sewer master plan and the water resources element. The water is the water and sewer master plan is not an element of your comprehensive plan. Um the the water the is and it's comprehensive but it's broad. The water and sewer master plan is much more specific. The water the is the um MDE does not need to approve it. water and sewer master plan because it's specific improvements that need to be made to your systems. MDE has to approve that document that's updated every three years with amendments done uh twice a year uh in between the trienal updates. The as an element of your master plan is only updated every 10 years. The

sorry

I do have to pause for a breath occasionally. Uh the W evaluates whether you have options available if there are water and wastewater adequ um capacity issues. I think I otherwise I think I pretty much the water and sewer master plan is more of an implementing tool to the water resources element. Just think of it as as a broad overview. There's action items in it that are things that can be done. They don't have to be done, but in the water and sewer master plan, if you want to do something, it has to be in there. So okay right so let's look at drinking water supply so when this was done we picked a point in time because with nine jurisdictions we had to like say all right this is when all this data is going to be good as of otherwise this would be continually in process and never be done with nine different jurisdictions changing information and that happens. So, we picked a point in time and therefore it recognizes that there could be things that are different since two years ago. Um, but that being said, the water in the upshot is that the water supply could potentially impact your plan growth, but in the short term. Um, so with your next master plan update, you can look at well, do we need to, and this is in general, like all the municipalities, do you want to decrease your future demand if you didn't have enough water supply or do you want to pursue measures to increase your water supply to meet that demand? for Mount Ary there. I have to say all of these numbers will look worse than they actually are based on the way the

water and sewer master plan is done. The water and sewer master plan um is is more of a like right now we have this much capacity and this much demand and that's pretty much the number the way that MDE wants us to do the numbers for this plan. it takes into account a lot of other numbers. So with the water supply, one thing they do is they add a drought factor and they assume you know your say highest producing well is out of out of service and that's why numbers look. So but that's the way that we have to do it. Um so it's it's not as bad as it might look. It's just keep in mind those things are are why it's looking that way for Mount Airy. We had a we had the traffic light system. So we had green um yellow and red. Green is you know you will have capacity for build out at the of the 2023 buildout of your water and sewer service area. Um yellow is you don't have enough but your limitations are are more easily overcome. Red is you know you you have a very difficult situation. So, um, you're just in yellow. And that could be overcome by just adding additional sources, increasing appropriations, or and here's where one of the things I wanted to clarify. The reason expanding your wastewater capacity is on underwater supply is because if your w if your water wastewater treatment plant, let's I'll just pick some numbers. And if you have a water a wastewater treatment plant that can treat 200,000 gallons a day, you can't push 250,000 gallons of water through.

So you need to make make sure that your wastewater treatment plant can it's a sort of a symbiotic relationship, right? You need to make sure that your waste your water supply can't doesn't exceed what your wastewater treatment plant has the capacity to treat. That's why that was on there because if you if you do increase, you know, the supply, you may need to look at increasing what your wastewater treatment plant can handle with that additional water. Does that make sense now? Okay.

Right. So this is kind of an overall look at one one of the things that we're trying to accomplish with this plan if from from our local perspective is to show the state that we do have water supply available for future growth. It may not be you know something that we have at this minute but um there might be ground water available. there could be um surface water sources available, but we could make water available to serve future development. And that's one of the things we that we wanted to show the state so that they're not looking to come in and um curtail our plans like each individual municipality has their own plans for development or growth or whatever it is that's on your plan. You want to be able to do what the town's desire is and not have the state come in and say, "Well, you don't have enough water, so you can't do it." If we if we're showing that we can make water available, then that's kind of what we're trying to do, one of the things we're trying to do with this plan. So, you'll notice uh as far as regional water supply alternatives go, reservoirs is at the top. It's been on there for decades, and it stays on there because if we ever take it off, we won't ever get it back in again. So, we leave it in there to make sure it always stays an option. And the way things are going with um changes in um our climate and precip precipitation and all that, you just never know when it could actually be something we need to pursue. So, that's kept on there. That is um probably going to be a county-led effort, right? The other items on there are could be county um involvement, but could be individual municipalities looking at each thing to see what works for them and evaluating that. But those are all possibilities for um water

supply besides obviously your groundwater wells

for Mount Ary. I worked with the staff for Mount Airy and um to come up with what your action items would be to address the different um you know protecting your existing water supply, developing new water supply when needed and water conservation and demand management. So, I just pulled out a few key items here uh to point out. And one is connecting the town twin arch mobile home park because that is um something that I think is more on your forefront. U PAS treatment. I know you talked about that

over the summer. So, that's another thing that is uh as a short-term action item to address. and then just balancing your land use plan demand with your anticipated capacity as needed. That would be the next time you update your plan. Um I should also point out that for in this plan short-term action items are um say 5 to 10 years and long-term is longer than that. So beyond 10 years, the water and sewer master plan only looks out 10 years.

Sorry. Um, and the other thing I wanted to point out is the action items in the plan are things that could be done to help achieve, you know, what we're trying to achieve with protecting water, existing, developing, new, all that,

but it's not a commitment. They don't have to be done. There's lists and lists of things that could be done, but like I said, it's not a commitment to do it. And I I believe um Mr. Swanson uh had mentioned when you discussed this previously that he had reviewed all the strategies and felt that they were um appropriate. So long-term with the supply additional local supplies and regional water supplies that could be evaluated for wastewater on areas in the green and for as far as capacity available to serve the 2023 buildout of your sewer service area. Um, now it's not on here because you you do have capacity available, but even in improvements could still be done and that would gain um some flow capacity to the wastewater treatment plant without spending as much money as some other options like expansion options. That doesn't mean that you won't need to eventually expand your treatment capacity at the wastewater treatment plant, but for now it looks good for 2020 through a demand. overall wastewater options. Again, looking for everybody, everybody should should be looking at doing INI because everything costs money, but that is at least one of the least less or expensive things to gain capacity and um because it reduces the amount of water going in to your wastewater system plant. Um water reuse, there's a number of different ways water reuse can be done. That's another thing to consider in the future if you really need to look at additional capacity. And of course, expanded and new wastewater treatment plants is on there. Um that's the new wastewater treatment plant is primarily up there for Union Bridge because they and there's a lot of dollars next to it

because they need a whole new wastewater treatment plant in another location. So, um that's why that one's on there. So for mount area specifically short-term uh you might want to consider requiring water reuse for high use commercial and industrial users. Um that's an option like say uh car washes if you don't already do it. Consider um having requiring them to reuse their water to help save your water and then not the INI improvements longterm expanding the wastewater treatment capac uh capacity. We know the plant has the ability to expand uh beyond what it currently is uh designed to treat. Three other things that we have to address with the plan. Storm water, climate change, and emerging contaminants. A storm water isn't expected to be uh a limitation for your plan growth because we've already have things in place to address it. You've got existing storm water regulations that address new development and um Carol County and all the municipalities are co-permittes on our um national pollutant discharge elimination system municipal separate storm sewer system permit. Now you know why we say MPDSM is4 but that storm water permit which is a federal permit requires us to um reduce the pollutants from existing impervious areas we have to treat and restore and this is for the county and all the municipalities. So um it also requires the that a plan be developed on how we're going to address um pollutants. The TMDL is total maximum daily load. If I'm sure you've heard a lot about the bay pollution diet for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment, that's

primarily what that is. But there are other TMDLs out there. Um they're starting to set temperature TMDLs and they have bacteria TMDLs and all kinds of stuff. We have to do a plan with the county and all eight municipalities and monitor and report on progress. So that's already being done. Um, we've got other programs and codes and public education and funding all in place to address existing impervious area and storm water. So, storm water is not an issue. It's already being addressed. And um, as I mentioned, we all co-permittes. We have memorandum agreement in place for joint projects and cost sharing. So, we literally work very closely on this. Um, and all of the action items are basically the same. So each individual section doesn't really have anything because we all share the permit. We all share the things we have to do. And that's in the countywide section. So for climate change, this is something new that wasn't in 2010 that the state um wanted us to add. So, but the thing is most of what you're going to do for storm water could also benefit either water supply, wastewater or storm water. So, we haven't added sections and additional sections to address climate change because it's already done throughout on the things that we have the action items we have listed for water supply, wastewater and storm water. Emerging contaminants is a different story. Um now a lot of these things are also addressed by something you might do in water wastewater or storm water. So a lot of them are integrated in the municipal sections. We do have one strategy countywide which is to mitigate and prevent impacts from the can

emerging contaminants. Um but emerging contaminants are POS which you're familiar with or microplastics, pharmaceuticals and personal care products is something that um hasn't doesn't have a limit set federally yet but um I'm sure it's coming. They just don't know how to do it yet. Um chloride or road salt it has been a a big issue for several years now and um that's required to be addressed in our with our permit. So everybody has stor salt management plans. So that's being addressed. Lithium is an up andcoming one and that's a natural source. It's not from batteries. Um but we do anticipate that the federal the EPA will set a maximum contaminant level for lithium and drinking water just as they did with PAS. So that's something we need to be expecting to come down the road and start planning for. So for your master plan, potential things to um when you update it again, some things you might, you know, questions you could ask yourselves to how how these impacts could um impact or what you would, you know, what would the implications for your master plan? And it's, you know, like can we overcome these limitations? Should we increase the size of the um designated growth area or the intensity of uses? Could sources be developed in the long term to accommodate or can improvements be funded to overcome some of those that are more easily overcome and um you know are planned land uses impacting water quality in any way I think it's important to note when it comes to these implications that the limitations that we have now are not saying that you can't have additional growth in the future

all we're saying you All that all this is showing is you might need to look for more sources and in the near term those sources are probably a little less expensive than they are in the long term and the regional and alter and other alternatives are probably going to be looked at at the point when you can't find those cheaper sources anymore. And of course again this is a point in time that this was done. So if um things you know we there is an action item in everybody's section to say to try to update these numbers regularly because that'll give you a better picture of where you are at any given time. So the review and approval process for the this plan. So the each municipal planning commission and the county planning commission all need to review the draft and um we did make some revisions since we started the process and that was to clarify some of the number differences between the water and sewer master plan and the water resources element because it is also your job to certify consistency of the water and sewer plan with your master plan when changes are made. So we added some numbers in to um give something for comparison and consistency for that look. So each planning commission then will give approval to send the draft plan out for 60-day review and uh at this point we um all the other municipalities have municipal planning commissions have given approval. We anticipate the county planning commission either October or November to give approval to send it out for review. Uh the once that so that 60-day review it we always call it 60-day review but that's called that because um the state

law requires us to give the state agencies 60 days to review and comment on the plan. So we call it 60-day review. After that 60 days is up. They're supposed to provide their comments to us by then. And then the planning commissions need to hold a hearing. So, as I did with 2010, I'm planning to to schedule a joint public hearing between all nine planning commissions. The good thing is we now have hybrid options, which makes it a whole lot easier. And um as you're aware, public hearings don't require a um discussion back and forth. You gen you just listen to what the comment is. Um and so that makes it a little simpler to do the joint hearing as well. After that then um you'll have comments from the public hearing, you'll have comments from the state and then we'll consider those like are any changes needed as a result of any of those comments. If so, we'll make revisions. Um, but ultimately when we have a draft that we're comfortable with, then the planning commission recommends that final draft plan to your council with a recommendation for adoption. So, as I think I already mentioned this, but the state agencies will review and provide comment during that time. It's we'll have a concurrent public comment period. So during that 60 days, we'll also have it open for the public to comment on. We'll hold a public information meeting during that time for anybody who has questions about it and then hold the public hearing. We expect that there will be changes because the state always has comments. So this is definitely not the last opportunity to make changes. We will we expect we'll be making additional changes later after you recommend it to your town

council. the um they will then review it and deliberate on what you recommended. They could make revisions at that time if needed. State law now requires that the elected officials also hold a public hearing. So your town council could potentially make revisions at that time. They could adopt it after that, modify it, remand it to you, or just disapprove it altogether. But ultimately, so you hold a public hearing and now the town council will also hold a public hearing before they adopt something. So the request for you is are you comfortable sending it out to get the state agency's uh comments on the draft of the plan? If so, then we you know we'd be looking for approval to send it out for that 60-day review period. And if you have any questions, first fire away.

First off, Brandon provide um you an updated one of these just because I um I clarified on the wastewater that it's to accommodate additional water flow.

Gotcha. And first off, uh thank you so much, Brenda, for giving us the detail um in this task before us for the water resource element. Uh, I do have some questions, but I want to respectfully defer defer to my colleagues here to initiate any questions for you. And before I begin that, um, Dick, would it be too much to ask that you join us at the table, sir? Um, Mr. Swanson is the chair of the town's water and sewer commission. This is obviously an area where, uh, all the commissioners here on the planning side greatly respect the focus on water and sewer capacity. that is um the mission of their commission. So, it's with that reason that I ask that uh he join uh Miss Brenda if that's fair. Uh and so I I turn now to any commissioner who may have questions on the presentation regarding the task before us and the in general again. I guess I'm Oh, Mr. Kelly. Sure.

Yes. Council member Kelly. Hi. Um quick question. Maybe a couple related questions, but um on page seven, so the making water supply conclusions are you the presentation you just made. Okay. So this is saying that based on the buildouts in the master plan, the water and sewer master plan, water and sewer master plan, we have a 299,000 gallon per day deficit. Correct. Right. If you factor in the drought demand that MDE requires and assume that your largest well is out of service,

right? Okay. Um, so I guess that so that leads me to the question of the second bullet is increasing appropriations is a a counter measure, right? That's based on no new water sources. That's it based on existing water sources. Well, the increasing appropriations would applies to your existing sources, right? So if if it's possible and I haven't done a detailed look at whether malary specifically can do that that's pretty much in in everybody's but um you could that could be a combination of increasing your existing appropriations and then adding new sources as well combination. Okay. Any of the combination of what's up there could

Right. Yeah. And the the appropriations they come from MDE ultimately or Correct. Correct. Right. Okay. Uh so, so that leads me to the actual question. So, do you know um do you have any comment on if so today we're you know we have a certain number that's uh that we're appropriated. So why is the county confident that tomorrow that number could go up from the MDE? I do not know that for

one never knows what MDE will approve. Dick, can you grab the mic if you're going to speak? I also want to make one statement and I'm not sure if it's incorrect or not. This minus 299,000 that's looking at anything with within our growth boundaries and that would mean like Watkins Park, Windy Ridge Park as what that could potentially be built out at. So those cap those capacities are part of that calculation. Is that correct? So like Wendy Ridge would never get built out and Watkins Park will never get built out. I believe it's based on the zoning of uh correct the current zoning.

Correct. Um but as as Brenda pointed out uh you know particularly with your your high producing well goes down for a while and all the other things that you get this amount of gallons estimated on the MDE basis of what we need to add water. I just point out that the method that's used by the water and sewer commission to recommend how much water we currently have available is does not include our well going down uh our largest producing well going down. So, and I think over the years we felt that was more realistic. So, you know, you have to take as Brenda said, basically this number is the worst case scenario and does not put as Brenda pointed out uh Mount AR in a red position on the uh

Yeah. So to clarify and sort of repeat my question though the the do we know why the county is confident that the appro the allocations the appropriations would be increased by MDE with the existing sources? No, we're we're not saying that at all. We we can't predict what MDE will do, right? We're just saying that that is an option for any municipality. Okay, is to pursue increasing your appropriations. It doesn't guarantee MDE will do that. Sure. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Um I have some questions. Um first off, I want to understand some terms that were used in this as remedies that could be considered with regard to meeting meeting the drinking water meeting the sewer capacity uh numbers that you presented. So in the discussion uh one of the options I saw as far as drinking water was surface water. And so I for one have seen in the water and sewer master plan for the county the existence of the Gillis Falls Reservoir as continuing to be put forth as one of those options for the county to exercise because clearly that area for such a reservoir is on county land. Um, so my quick answer is, is Gillis Falls Reservoir still in motion? Is it still a viable alternative or are we just afraid to take it off because we'll never be able to put it back on?

There's there's nothing in motion to pursue that reservoir at this time. Okay.

And there is a good chance it wouldn't get approved because now tier 2 waters, which are high quality waters designated by the state, have been identified there. But because of that, and we've already purchased property there, um, we're keeping that on the plan just so we don't lose it. But it could potentially be used for other water quality issues or in other ways such as a surface water intake or something as opposed to a reservoir. So, but we're keeping it there just so we don't lose it. Union Mills is a little different. That is um has more feasibility than Gillis Falls at this point.

Okay. No, I I understand that. Uh, another term used was interconnection, and I'm uh I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, interconnection speaks to crossmunicipality water systems. In other words, we would remedy our drinking water by interconnecting some piping with another municipal's water system and we do all the necessary arrangements. Is that a fair definition of interconnection? Is that It is. Now, it's not saying specifically Mount Ary should do that. that was that's kind of regional for everybody to evaluate whether it would work for them. Okay.

Um with the previous the there was an inclusion there for Hamstead and Manchester to interconnect to the York County water system in Pennsylvania. M now that's dropped off this time but if a reservoir was developed at Union Mills there'd still be an interconnection for um Hamstead Manchester maybe Westminster you know so there's still an interconnection that follows the development of a reservoir

and and and if I may on that topic of interconnection as a suffix to my question is there existing now any municipalities within the state of Maryland who have an interconnection agreement Does any of that ever exist now between two towns? There could be, but I'm not familiar with what's outside of this county. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, that's fair. Okay. Um, and then lastly, the term reuse, if I'm not mistaken, and I apologize if I'm being rather crude here. Reuse basically speaks to the treated effluent being circled back into the drinking water. Is that accurate? that's for portable water supplies such as Westminster's um pure water project,

right? That is treating wastewater effluent. They're they're treating it be to a point where it's um treated beyond what the water treatment plant would treat, but then it's going into their reservoir and then water gets pulled out of the reservoir and treated again at the water treatment plant. That that's a portable water reuse. water reuse could also be done in um such as just recycling the like I said the car wash water it I don't know that it's portable when it gets you know recycled through and used again but it's still reused another way to reuse water is um spray irrigation right

which is what Manchester does with their effluent for part of the year right you know and that may get less likely in the future too given PAS is an issue because it right you don't want to ir spray irrigate POS onto but that is another example of of water use

and and admittedly I kind of went to the extreme uh by describing we would take our treated eel right now and where it goes into the south branch of the papsco correct Barney uh somehow we would uh we would add piping that circles it back into you know our water system and so but I did hear And I acknowledge you said there reuse would probably be best described as a limited commercial application. Um car washes, uh I think you just gave an example of irrigation and so um so reuse kind of in a limited sense. I I understand it that way be different for each municipality as to what meets their needs.

That's that's understood. I'd also say that gray water is gray water right which is does not enter into the actual drinking water system but is comes out of the wastewater treatment plant is reused for uh mostly commercial industrial purposes. Gotcha. Thanks. Thanks Dick. And I guess I just put Barney in the and Julianne in the batters box. So So we actually got three experts here. So thank you Barney and Julianne. Um, another question is, um, our master plan currently went through a growth analysis. It's currently accepted. It's adopted. And it has a growth analysis that basically structured our growth into low, medium, and high profiles. And it was based upon the number of dwelling units we projected per year and two and a half residents per dwelling unit, etc., etc. Our master plan went through that analysis and we arrived at the low growth profile. No more than 12 dwelling units permitted per year, roughly 33 residents added per year. We adopted and recommended to the council that we see and foresee the wisest growth is a low growth profile. So with all that background is any of these numbers, the 299, the treated water, does it have a correlation to what we currently say as far as the rate of growth? I don't think it does.

No. Like I mentioned, we had to pick a point in time and with nine jurisdictions, if everybody kept updating for something that happened, it would never be done. that as of this time and then Union Bridge has also adopted a mass master plan amendment since we started and maybe some others. So what we did instead is in the action items we said um to go back and you know re-evaluate the numbers based on your current land use. Okay,

you know like look at it again. So this number is going to be different because you adopted a new master plan. So, but like I said, this is just that point in time. So, um the method that was used to develop these numbers is the method that MDE requires if you have to submit a capacity management plan to MDE. And that's something that when you hit 80% of your operating capacity, MDE requires you to submit this capacity management plan to show how you intend to uh keep operating and also serve additional demand without going over your capacity. Understood.

So it's the same method and um that could easily be updated. Gotcha. Um one more question. Uh, among the nine municipalities that you're trying to coordinate this through within Carol County, be honest, are we the lagards? Are we the last one? You were the first, but then we were the first, but then I watched the meeting and realized that I'm just trying to get a sense wasn't clear. I'm just trying to honestly get a sense, Brenda. Are we holding up the 60-day review at the state level? You're the last municipality, but the county planning commission hasn't approved it yet.

Okay. Okay, that that's fair. Um, could I ask John, could you go to slide 23, which showed the process uh that Miss Brenda gave us? I think it was 23. Um, yeah, back up one. So, um, to both Barney and Dick, where would we insert the water and sewer commission in that flow? Where would we pulse you at the expert level for the town water and sewer in that flow? I'm trying to respect the water and sewer commission here and not just make it solely a PC. Now actually what we do is is we just monitor this process and I was the representative of the town of Mount area for the WRCC and

right look at it there and mostly so it's not a matter of saying interjecting in a particular place it's just a matter for the water and sewer commission to be aware of what the issues are and whether we have an opinion to address that. So we're good. Okay, that's that's fair. And so, um, and and if I may stretch that closing remark, Dick, we're good means you don't have any problem with this going forward into the 60-day review. Is that Oh, no. No problem.

No problem. And so I turn the same question to if I may impose apologies Barney and Julianne. Same question to you from town staff, town engineer, the folks who manage oversee the actual operation day-to-day of both our wells and water treatment system. What's your opinion with this moving forward for the commissioners to understand? Yeah, we we reviewed uh quite a bit with Brenda ahead of time and um we're we're ready for it to move forward. Okay. And then the last swivel I have, John, as the director of planning, any reservation about this moving forward?

Yeah. No, I'm okay with it moving forward. My only question is we do look at the town as a whole, Frederick and Carol, for both of these. It's all of our municipal wells are part of this um Yep. I'm okay. You're okay. All right. So, for the record, we have both the chairman of the water and sewer commission. We have the town engineers and we have the director of planning all feeling comfortable with the content Brenda that the Carol County has put together for us cooperation with your staff. There you go. I like that word. Thank you. Well said. So, one more time I turn to the deis here with any last calls or questions from the commissioners. Commissioner Back,

I have a couple questions. How many Barney probably you can answer this. How many wells do we currently have down due to PAS? So um we are limiting the use of we have been limiting the use of well seven especially that was our highest PAS well uh but um uh we don't have any that are down completely. Uh we do use it they're limiting capacity. Yes, we we have we have um um been using one of our wells more uh to help compensate for it where again it still has PAS but it's not as high as um some of the other wells. Okay. Thank you.

Um my last question I want to clarify um with the boundaries of our usage is that current boundaries or is that potential annexation? Uh I believe this includes Harrison Liier or additional the green tree. I think it's our total water and sewer service area. Correct. Which which does include annexations. Okay. That includes the potential for annexations for long-term buildouts. Yes. I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you saying the numbers for capacity? The 299,000 299,000 does. Correct. Yes. The permanent amount does not. Okay. Correct. Thank you.

And that's what I was trying to get at earlier. So, anything that's shown on our annexations on our master plan, that being Dob's property, Harrison Lashier, um, Watersville, South Main annexation, all those are considered in that 299 number. So, these are items that aren't even built out yet. Correct. No, that would be reasonable. They're within the master plan. So, for that reason, and that's why it looks worse than it really is. Gotcha. Because all those items are still um understood calculated for to create that 9 299 but they're not annexed developed gotcha

or utilized Sean has a question based on that just to clar so yeah that number is not today correct that's numbers to your point right that number not it's not bad today we're probably green today with where we are right now but over on the scheme of the whole picture anything within that growth boundary area and that's what I was trying to say earlier is calculated into that 299. So it looks not so great on the paper but in reality we're probably double green you know or whatever at the present time it's a projection that's

and to be very specific Brenda it is this draft document that we are speaking of approving in a motion tonight. Is that accurate? Well, as I mentioned earlier, there's a whole plan document that has all the background information. It's actually 300 pages. So, all what you have in your hand is just the Mount Air. Just the Mount Airy section. Okay. And and Dick mentioned, I think, at the last meeting, that um there's there's countywide strategies in there and action items that are things for everybody to do, whereas what you have is only from Mount Airy, right? Things that you could do, specifically this,

right? and and um so he he's was also saying right that you he was comfortable with all the action items in there as well. We discussed those with at the WRCC meetings and gotcha

again not a commitment just things that could be done. And lastly, I promise lastly, um if in the subsequent after I adjourn tonight's meeting, if a commissioner has any question or suggested amendment to the Mount Airy portion, would it be appropriate to propose that that commissioner go directly to you, John, and you pass it to Mr. Swanson, or can we go directly to you, Dick? How would you like any such followup from a commissioner? because we're involved in the subsequent steps here. I would suggest that you send it to both Barney and myself at the same time. Fair enough. Copy of John because fair enough.

He he would read the real action item person. Is that fair, Barney?

Very good. So with that, um I just reiterate um commissioners, you know, I entreat you to kind of put eyes on this at your leisure. Uh we are going to be revisiting this in the in the process as you saw from uh Carol County's presentation. Um and so if you have any input, give it to both Dick and to Barney uh for them to review and entertain and consider. Is that that's accurate? Okay. Um so I think we've, as I often say here at the planning commission, I think we put a pretty good wire brush to this topic. Um, and uh, with the input from Mr. Swanson and the town engineer, I am now looking for a motion as to whether to approve this draft WRE that the county, Carol County has provided or to disapprove it. Do I hear a motion? Oh. Oh.

So, this is I think what Brenda was trying to get at is basically we're we're we're approving to send the draft to the state agencies for 60-day review. Is that what she said? I was trying to listen to her. I was I didn't use her words. I used my words, but I think I I'm in line with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um she's happy what she said. Yeah. Okay. Um any commissioner wish to offer a motion? I'll make a motion to move the planning commission give the approval to send the draft water resources element to state for the 60-day review and comment process. The motion's been made by Commissioner Hatley. Is there a second? I'll second.

Commissioner Bneck has seconded the motion. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Hearing no further discussion. All those in favor of the motion made, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstain? The motion for approval is unanimous. Thanks so much again, Miss Brenda and Dick. Thank you for your time and if you do have any other questions, please feel I'm more than happy to, you know, get get in touch with me. I'm happy to answer more. Fantastic. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Safe drive back north tonight. Okay. Um, I'm closing this agenda item and we're moving to the next one, which is the introduction and discussion for the possible approval of signage for the business to be known as the lactation room located um, right here on Main Street. Located on South Main Street. Correct. 114. Before we begin, I ask for any Well, you read my mind here. Thank you. And I'm going to uh Miss Sarah Early. Yes. Fantastic. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you.

Um before I turn to the town planner for background on this application for signage, I would just remind everybody the code stipulates what can and cannot be approved in town signage in chapter 112-11. both specifically describing every sign and defining it, but also having uh sections that give approved signs, prohibited sign, and various aspects of temporary signs and permanent signs. To my understanding, this is going to be an illuminated single permanent sign within the downtown zone. Is that accurate? That's incorrect. That Yeah, that's not correct. It's not going to be illuminated. Not illuminated. So, not illuminated. No. Okay. But this will be a single permanent sign.

Yes. In the downtown zone. Thank you for the clarification. John, if I may turn to you. Yeah. So again, this this applicant came in. They they currently had a business downtown. It was on One Park Avenue. Uh they've been providing health care for women and children u I think about two years. I feel like uh more three years. We're going on our fourth year. I I've been longer, but I mean I've been in Mount Area for 12 years, but we just have had the location on Main Street for over three. Gotcha. So again, they've they've relocated to a a bigger square footage across the street. Okay. 114 South Main, which is actually right here in the plaza above Tony Plaza is beside um Do or Die. Got

uh again, so the um they provide a healthc care service uh in the area. This will be a double-sided sign. uh so and and not illuminated. Again, the uh and it is actually two businesses that she runs out of the same location. Uh and I will let her speak to those two items.

So, lactation room is um they're both medical practices. Lactation Room is 12 years old. We have been providing um lactation and feeding support for mothers and babies since 2014 in the greater DMV area. PE women's integrative health is uh women's wellness basically. I'm I'm a nurse practitioner and I provide integrative and functional health for women. So we care for the spectrum of um a woman's life honestly. So you know preconception through menopause and then the lactation component of it is is about working with infants whether they are actually breastfeeding. If we've got women that have coorbidities where they can't make milk, we're able to help them with that. We help babies with bottles. I mean, it's just it's a a large um scale organization on what we do. We work with about 5,000 families a year between all of my locations and home visits. So, we're we're definitely busy and we're grateful for more space.

Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Um I'm turning to the commissioners for any questions you may have on this sign application. I I do want to mention one more thing. So, here currently you'll see the commons and the last word. Uh this is I think do or dies sign here. This is about the same size. Miscellaneous distillery was located here. So again, it will it won't currently have the gooseeneck uh lighted uh signs as the other two did. Uh but it will be on this most northern corner right in front of Tony Pazos. And this is what it'll look like from the plaza. And and with apologies for initially describing this as an illuminate sign. It was just in the staff report. It would be

I didn't I thought it said non- illuminated, but I'll have to look. That would be my fault. No, it it this sign will have two goose style lights to match the current sign on this structure. I will take that one on the chin. So that it should not be illuminated. So I apologize. And and I'm not trying to spear you, John, because I um but just for clarity, no illumination. No illumination. No. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. And and again, John, I wasn't trying to Yeah, not at all. I didn't take it

throw you under the bus there, buddy. Okay. All right. So, um again, I'll just ask any commissioner questions on this rather straightforward signage. And John, the square footage of the sign meets the code. That's correct.

Based upon based upon the frontage of the building for this business, it's in the code as to square footage limitations. Um, the code also says no sign can extend more than four feet out beyond the facade of the building. You're three feet. You meet that. Um, it also says it can't obscure any other business sign on that. I don't see that happening. And the code also says it can't extend above the height of the building. And that's not the case for your application. So, in conjunction with what John just said, I I don't see personally any problem with the application or further questions. So with that and no questions from the commissioners, is there a motion with regard to this application?

So move. Okay. Commissioner Buts, can you give us a motion, a full statement? Um, I would move to approve the sign application for the lactation room that has been presented to us this evening. Very good. Is there a second on Commissioner Butt's motion? I'll second. Commissioner Bneck is the second. Any further discussion or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of a motion from Commissioner Buts say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Congratulations. The signs approved unanimously. Thank you for your business in town. Thank you. I appreciate it. Have a good evening. You too.

Thank you. The next agenda item is also a sign application and it is for the possible approval of a sign for the train for life, a business located in the Backacre Circle Industrial Park. And I believe April, Miss April Dorsy, you're representing both the uh business and the sign manufacturer or just one? The business. The business. Very good. Welcome tonight. We'll begin as we did before with John giving us some background on your application.

Yes. So, my understanding is uh uh April has bought this business from an existing CrossFit that was there um and has continued on with the um patrons that were already there. Um again, I went out and did a site visit uh sort of looking at the area prior to the meeting. Um I saw them utilizing Backacre Circle and and um uh it looked to be very well attended and very clean on the exterior of the building. Uh and again the um planning comming staff is recommending approval. Uh again it is a non-illuminated sign. These are these are uh acrylic letters that will be mounted directly to the building. My only condition and I spoke with April was they currently have a banner in the front window and that would be once that sign goes up that that banner would have to go onto some interior wall and she was amendable to that.

Understood. Um Miss Dorsy, would you like to add anything that expounds on your application at all? No. Okay. Very good. Commissioner, do you have any questions on this application? Okay. This is for the TFL CrossFit sign. It is non-illuminated. It will be a permanent sign. and the staff has recommended that the sign be approved along with a condition that the banner sign inside the window be removed as a part of the permitting for the for the final sign. Uh so with that and no questions uh is there a motion regarding this application? I'll make a motion. Commissioner Bett,

I make a motion to grant the approval for this proposed sign for the train for life. I'll second as proposed. Is there a second? Shump the gun. Moving right along. I think I heard a second from Commissioner Hadley. I'll second. Yeah. And so, is there any discussion or questions? Once again, seeing none, all those in favor of the motion made by Commissioner Back to approve this application, say I. I. All those against, all those in abstension, congratulations. Your signs approved unanimously. Thank you for your business in the town. Okay.

The next agenda item is also a sign application uh for possible approval. Uh the property is to be known as the Atlantic Union Bank uh to be located at 425 East Ridgeville Boulevard. If I'm not mistaken, I use that term. It's the Safeway Shopping Center area. if I may. Hope Safeway doesn't mind that. Um, and so let's begin uh welcoming you also to represent this sign application. And I turn first and I'll give you a chance to add on, but John uh could you give us the back backstory?

Sure. This is uh Atlantic Union Bank is buying out all the Sandy Spring Banks in the uh in the region, I guess. Um, and this is one of the uh last ones what I understand hasn't been approved. Uh, and I think they're due to to put up new signage within the first week of October is my understanding or so. Second week of October. Uh, again, so um, currently, uh, the Sandy Spring sign is located on two different faces and we're trying to get to that real quick and rotate it around so you can see. Um uh this is the entrance of the current u Sandy Spring Sandy Spring Bank. Uh and again if you notice the signage is actually a reduction in the total square footage from uh the existing sign for the Sandy Springs Bank. There's also one on the east side of the building uh which is up here. Very similar same. This one's a little bit bigger but it's still in in the guidelines of approval. So, uh, again, staff is recommending approval of the, uh, illuminated sign. These again are box letters with their their standard logo, uh, in front of the Atlantic with the green I guess I'm going to call it a pine tree, but I don't know if that's true. Uh, what the the the green symbol is, but um, and that's it.

Gotcha. And and if I may, is it Miss Marino? Yes. Yes. So Betsy again, welcome. Anything you wish to add to the staff report regarding your application? No, replacement in kind. Gotcha. And so this is an application for two permanent illuminated signs in this application. And so I turn now to the commissioners for any questions that they wish to ask the representatives. No. Okay. And I will say that this this type of sign is very common in the shopping center. So, very similar to the rest of the signs in that shopping center. Agreed. Fits right in. Agreed.

Gotcha. Um, with no further questions or no further input, uh, is there a motion with regard to this application for signage at the Atlantic Union Bank? I have split. Commissioner Hadley, go ahead. I'll make a um recommendation to the planning commission grant approval for all proposed signs for Atlantic Union Bank. Okay. And if I just may modify, uh, make a motion to approve. To approve. Yeah. Mo motion to approve. Is there a second for Commissioner Hadley's motion? I'll second.

Commissioner B to second the motion. Any further discussions or questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion to approve the two permanent illuminated signs for the Atlantic Union Bank. Say I. I. Those opposed? Those abstaining. Congratulations. and sign is approved unanimously. Thank you for your business. Thank you. Yep. Send me that email. Thank you.

I will I do want to say one thing and that's the email she was speaking about. Um, for some reason in this round of um, sign applications, we uh, they were receiving a couple of the applicants had been receiving uh, erroneous emails asking for many thousands of dollars that to pay their their permits for through the town. Uh, so again, it is a scam. Uh, and uh, we have our IT department looking into that. Uh, so just be always aware of anything that What's that? The email address.

Yeah. And um the email address was so if anybody uh they received it from planning.mmountairy.mdusa.com. So if you receive one of them, don't pay it and call me. You came close. Oh no. My gosh. All right. Thank you. Thank Thank you for that PSA. I mean it's it's

it's unfortunately I think the climate we're in now. Um moving to the next agenda item which is the discussion and the discussion of the annexation resolution in draft presently 2025-47. Uh using the criteria that this planning commission has developed I ask for representatives of the petitioners to come forward. And while you're getting settled if you want me to hold it,

while you're getting settled, if I can and if we need another chair, um there's a rolly over to your left, gentlemen. If you need is are you three good there? Okay. Okay. Fantastic. Um I think I think John's looking for an eel or something. You want to put it I guess for you guys. That'll go. Yeah, it work.

That'll work. There you go. too many. They're right.

And John Hyo Giddy send it in. I'll um I'll endeavor to get a bit of a staff's report background to the public here on this. So, as I may have mentioned earlier, the petition was provided to the town. A draft resolution regarding that annexation was drafted by town attorney. It was introduced into the council and then the council did what it has to do which is refer the petition to the planning commission for our recommendation. So that's the process that we're in right now and as I mentioned earlier the planning commission has a deadline in order to get that recommendation back to the council. The code states that we have 120 days, but if we don't find that sufficient time because of our review process or whatever reasons, we can then go back to the council and we can petition the council to grant an extension. And so right now that 120day deadline takes this commission to roughly our November planning meeting. And so if if we're really good and efficient about addressing all the information accessible to this commission to render that recommendation, we endeavor to provide that back to the council within that 120 days. But I just mentioned we do have an ability to ask for an extension if we need to be more thorough, we need more time, etc. Okay, so that's kind of the rules of the road. And so for the past um and so if I'm not mistaken it was introduced to the commission for our recommendation work in the July meeting if that's accurate John

that's correct that's correct. Y okay 728 2025.

There you go. So July 28th was when we were first given that and that is when the 120day clock started ticking for us to get this job done. And so what happened then is we began discussing what are those yard sticks that a reasonable volunteer commission would want to consider in order to reach a defendable recommendation back to the town council which is our task. And so in the August session we introduced uh a set of draft criteria. We accepted public input as to amending and enhancing and expanding that criteria because of things that homeowners concerned about. And we incorporated all those into a revised criteria document just to put it in print so everybody including the public including the petitioners can see those yard sticks to be fair and transparent. Uh, and so as I understand it, now turning to the petitioners before us, I believe you're representing um

purchasers. The purchasers. Okay. And the purchasers are also accurately described as Elite Elite Baseball. Yes. Elite Baseball LLC. Okay. And again, for the public that are just coming in on this topic, the annexation petition has both your names and correct me if I'm wrong, the petitioners are both elite baseball. the purchasers of the property and also of course the Warfield property owners, current owners. Is that accurate? That's correct.

Those are the two petitioners now that have come to the town with their petition for annexation. And that annexation petition included the names of these petitioners. They also included the meets and bounds, the accurate survey, and all the joining properties. And lastly, they also in the petition recommended a proposed zoning, a zoning of R1 if I'm not mistaken. Okay. And within the R1 zoning within our code, allowable use, allowable land use under the R1 uh code for the town does include recreational, privatelyowned recreational facilities. Those words to that effect. I should have that memorized. But that's why I believe the proposal of R1 was made for this for this u annexation. So if all of that is accurate to kind of bring everybody in the room up to date, um I believe tonight, if I'm not mistaken, John, we're poised to hear some of the petitioners answers to some of the criteria that we created. Is that fair, gentlemen?

Yes. Okay. Okay. And I believe in conveying that to us, you'll speak so solely amongst yourselves to the commission. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. There's no other contributor in this explanation or in this in this providing answers but you three. Is that is that accurate? Um for for the presentation. Yes.

For the presentation. Thank you. Um, and then, uh, what I would then say is to the commissioners, both the purchaser or elite baseballs briefing and the criteria can be considered as worksheets for you to jot down answers as they go through, if that's fair. I'm not I'm not by any means trying to tell you how to suck eggs, but I'm just trying to say I'm sorry um how to how to do that. But um but that's that's your worksheet the criteria or your worksheet to record because at some point we're going to have to revisit all of your notes to come to each individual recommendation. Is that fair? And that's that's the only reason I mention it. Okay. Um so if there's nothing more, John, uh I would turn to the petitioners for them to go ahead and start answering some of the questions. Is that fair, gentlemen?

Yep. There you go.

Okay, your floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. I got to say the egg sucking is a new one on me. Um anyway, um we appreciate the opportunity to be here and make this presentation. One thing I will clarify, um we will be handling we meaning myself, Tim Park, and Brian McKenna. The presentation it's basically going to be Tim and Brian. We do have some other supporting personnel who have helped us in the analysis here. So we'll go ahead and give the presentation if there should be questions that they can contribute to constructively they can be made available. And and with apologies that I'm interjecting here, what I'm getting at is I don't wish to allow tonight any member of the public to be brought forward to your microphone and speak from a public resident perspective.

I understand the answers that I want are from you. And the reason I am restricting those possible proponents of this annexation is because as I explained at the outset of this meeting, I am not allowing any further public comment from an opposition standpoint. So I would think personally and unfair if you were to bring forward any supporting resident proponency to your answers. Do you understand? I do. These aren't pardon me. Uh these aren't resident proponents. These are a traffic okay advisor and other technical advisors. Okay. Who have helped us

to gather the information that we have for the presentation tonight. That's all I was trying to say. That's that's very clear. And so let me reserve then and close this particular issue with this as we finish your presentation. And if there are questions from this deis that require you to turn to that expert, I will allow it. That's fine

because we're all about getting the accurate information to make a judgment here. And so I I would I would see that as no harm to the greater public limitation that I imposed. Okay, fair enough. Very good. So let's get on with it. Well, I appreciate um your comments earlier about the fairness and I appreciate your comments. Now, um for at the outset, we do have to make something clear for the record. Um we have some concerns about the scope of the material requested by the draft consideration and criterion. We have I can tell you I have no question about your motives uh and respect uh that the extensive list of materials uh in embodied in the criteria is just an effort to get us get information so the commission can make an as a well-informed decision. I I don't question that at all. The concern has nothing to do with the motive but the actual breadth of the information that was requested in the nature of the guidance suggested in the criteria. Um for instance, some of the guidance of state and other authorities that's mentioned uh land use article section 3-201 um have nothing to do with annexation and are I guess you could say legally irrelevant to the issues in an annexation proceeding. Um that particular provision is from title three of the land use article and it deals with comprehensive plans in in subtitle two. It's the first section in subtitle two and that's basically some guidance to a planning commission when they are preparing a comprehensive plan.

Right. So the relevance of your plan to the annexation immediately um is that that plan uh that you've recently adopted included the property within the growth boundary the municipal uh growth element of the plan. Um some of the other broader con uh considerations are just not mentioned in the um authority conveyed by the state code under the land use article, excuse me, local government article with respect specifically to annexations. So um secondly, the scope of the requested material has also been a concern for us. Practically speaking, some of the information requested isn't available to us. It doesn't exist, at least not at this stage of this proposal. Uh some of the more technical information. Um much of the information requested is essentially information that will go into an adequate public facilities review. Uh your code provides that not this annexation stage but later as a part of actual development review process. uh once we can get more details about it and have uh measurable variables that we can plug into some of those. Um so for that reason, I just want for the record to protect my clients to indicate that um we are willing to proceed as best as we can uh without prejudice to those objections uh in and when they may need to be raised. and we certainly hope they don't have to, but I needed to address that situation up front. However, we do have a presentation to make tonight for the commission uh without prejudice which does provide a lot of information about

the uh issues that were spoken about in July. We've done the best we can uh and we genuinely want to be as transparent as possible about our intentions and what we anticipate this project if annexation occurs is going to look like as best the crystal balls broken. I mean the best we can anticipate. Um, so we hope that and again we appreciate the chair's comments and the extension of the courtesy to us um to make our presentation tonight uh to let us go and and have our our side be heard um and and that's about it. And I'm going to turn it over to Tim Park now. Just make sure your green lights on because

Good evening and thank you allowing Brian and I to present tonight. We're really excited to finally share what our our vision is of this project. Um over the past few meetings, we've heard a lot of assumptions and some mischaracterizations about who we are and what we're trying to do. and we're really looking forward to clear some of those up. Um, what you see in front of you is an illustration of what we think this property has the potential to become. It's not a site plan yet. It's just our vision of what we what we would like to do in the town of Mount Ary. We know a project like this is going to bring some strong feelings, excitement, questions, and concerns. Our goal is simple. We want to show what this athletic complex can mean for Mount Ary. how it directly answers the goals of the town's master's plan and how it benefits not just athletes but families, neighbors, and the community as well. Having grown up, played and coached here in Maryland, we seen the impact of field shortages, canceled games, late practices, parents traveling hours each week. This project eases that burden. It keeps kids local, and it supports the small businesses that make Mount Ary special. We know questions come with a project of this scale. We'll address the potential impacts so you can see not just the benefits, but how we've planned to respect this community and minimize those impacts that don't fit into the standard of living that Mount Air is known for. By the end of tonight, we hope you'll see this project as an opportunity to build something that Mount AR's community can be proud of. You can go one more.

Yeah, you can go one more. And like Tim said, thank you very much for having us here. Um, I do want to give you guys a little bit of background on both of us. Um, we're both born and raised in Maryland. Uh, we own Elite Baseball Maryland LLC. It's just a small business in Colombia where we do baseball training and coaching.

Um, as I said, we were both born and raised in Maryland. Tim currently lives in Sykesville. I live in Mount Ary. Tim lives with his wife. I live with my wife and my a six-year-old daughter. My brother's also a resident of Mount Airy. He has a four-year-old son and his wife. So, we do have some ties to the community. Um, again, we're not some large outside big corporation trying to come in and take over. Um, we are part of this community all the time. Uh, my wife was at the gym in here earlier today. My daughter was at her therapist in town earlier today. So, we are a part of this community. We understand how great it is to live here and we are trying to do something that will obviously hopefully add to that. Um, after playing baseball, we've spent many of our years now as coaches. I think we have over 25 years of coaching high school baseball on the volunteer level. uh we understand how important that is to a community um on multiple levels and as Tim kind of mentioned as we've been going through this process we've noticed the need for more fields more accessible fields um probably more highquality fields and we realized that how again that can impact the local youth in a community but just the entire community as a whole and that's kind of what kind of brought us into this this venture and this this dream of ours. Pass it on here. What we're trying to do here is build a place where sports and community come together. The fields will be private and we look at that as a good thing. It means they will be taken care of and ready for kids to play on when they need them. At the same time, the amenities, we're planning a trail, a playground, and other recreational spaces. They will be public open for everyone to enjoy. We think the balance is important here because this

this complex will not have success without the without the buyin of the residents of this town who will be the ones who will use it week after week. Growing up, I lost count of how many times I've been kicked off of public fields, going to public fields, trying to use them, trying to take batting practice, and I would just see that white parks and wreck van come down and tell me that I have to get off. Public doesn't always mean accessible. Too often it means games are getting cancelled, kids are at home, why the fields are fields are not being played on. We would keep the we would fight to keep these fields open. As Brian alluded to, we've volunteered at high schools for 20ome years. There's been countless days where we've done everything we can to make sure those fields are playable so kids will be able to play on them. That's what we'll do at this complex. From the very beginning, we've made transparency a priority. Within days of signing our contract on the property, we reached out to town officials to make them aware of our intentions. At that point, we didn't even know what annexation was. We just reached out to the town and said, "We have a property that's close to your limits. This is what we're planning to do. Do you want to hear more about what we're trying to do?" We shared that vision with town officials early on. It's the same vision we're sharing with you tonight. When we formally asked for this property to be considered into the town's master plan in the future annexation areas, we were upfront in our letter and again we spoke at the workshop meeting of what our intentions were. And since then, we've kept in regular contact with staff and officials making sure there are no surprises. We've been honest, open, and clear about what we're proposing and why. For over two years, we've invested time, resources, and effort into carefully planning this project. Reaching this

point has been no small task. We understand there is still ways to go, but getting here has been has been a feat that it's very difficult in this state. It represents years of dedication and a culmination of our professional experience. This is our best chance to deliver a facility that this area truly needs, and we're committed to seeing it through. And as Tim mentioned, um, or at least speaking for me, prior to this process, I didn't know what a master plan was. Um, I don't think I knew what a planning commission was. So, um, as we've gotten further along, we've obviously become more educated and when we, um, learned that there was potential for annexation into the town, we obviously then became more familiar with what the master plan is, as well as its purpose. Um once the master plan was released, we had a chance to read it and quickly realized that a lot of what we were looking to provide was in the master plan. Um and we kind of took a couple here to put up on the slide. Um and the first thing comes from the Mount Air athletic field assessment in 2006 which revealed an overall shortage of between 8 and 11 fields. Um, we directly would be able to help ease that shortage. Obviously, um, this 2020 town survey asked residents what were their top four likes about living in the town. Only four of the 1740 responses placed the town recreational facilities as their number one response. Um, on the side there you see the 2020 town survey of the number one desire of the residents in the town of what facility they would like. We plan on providing all of these um including the top two um most desired ones, but even the ones further down on the list. Um and I'm not going to just

read the rest of it, but I think there's um multiple instances in the master plan where I think exactly what we are trying to provide coincides which exact with exactly what the master plan was hoping to have in the town um in the near future. the next one. All right. And when it comes to our vision with this project, um I just want to kind of go over a little bit of what you see up on the screen, we do want to have eight fields. Um four of them being high school size or we refer to them as 90 foot diamonds. Uh those would be the larger fields. They are also multi-use, so we could use them for other sports including soccer, lacrosse, field hockey. Um, we would have two artificial youth baseball fields. So, those are typical like the smaller ones you would see on like the Little League World Series. Um, and then hopefully have two grass multi-purpose fields towards the back. Those could be used for all sorts of practices or potential against soccer, possibly football. Um the plan would be to just make this as multi-use as possible for as many sports as possible. Um besides the fields, we would like to have more things that serve the whole community, not just maybe, you know, the youth sports. We would like to have state-of-the-art basketball courts, pickleball courts, um a hopefully gigantic great playground for anybody to be able to use while on the complex. Um even looking at trying to have some whiffle ball fields. Um we would like to have what we call a player entertainment area, just somewhere inside for families to also have fun. Um and then a walking biking path around the entire um

fields I would I guess describe it as and then also just a smaller indoor baseball training facility which is what we currently um operate over in Colombia. Um, but I think the big part that we want of our vision is to provide something for not only the youth in their athletics, but for the community with the other amenities that are provided on the property as well. So, we look at at our prop our project as serving hopefully everyone and improving their quality of life, not just the youth, but the other residents in the town. I think we're good.

All right. So, from from hearing the last couple couple meetings and the comments made tonight that that this is what everyone wants to know why we're here for annexation. Um, short answer, it's the sewer. Because of how the propertyy's set up and the composition of the property, the sewer septic system on that property is only in one location, that would make the design not really advantageous to us or the surrounding neighbors because it's stuck in one area of the property. You wouldn't be able to touch that grading and the way it would slope. We'd have to put fields that wouldn't affect that slope. And then now you're putting fields a lot closer to property lines. Whereas, if we're part of the town's water and sewer, we're able to make the complex a lot more efficient. We're able to take into account the neighbors. We're able to add buffer zones. It just gives us a lot more flexibility. So, the main thing with with this is the septic. There is enough water on the property. If we were to go through the county, if we went through the county for a septic system, we could only basically put restrooms on one side of the property than have to use a lot of portable restrooms when we would have tournaments. Um, we feel that the advantage is also we're going to find out a lot earlier in the process. Right now, we're meeting with you guys giving giving our vision way earlier than what is typically done. So, we're going to get feedback from the commission. will get feedback from the public and we'll learn a lot more earlier on instead of years down the road where maybe it is not viable. Um we're hoping that when we have if we do happen to have an annexation agreement with the town that it's going to address a lot of these proposed uses that we're planning on for the town. The benefit is you guys now get to oversee everything we're trying to do. You can make sure this fits into what your vision is for Mount Ary. If we go through the county, we're we're asking the county these same

questions. They might not they might not see the same way that this commission might see or the town council might see. So, us looking there, it gives us flexibility. It gives us flexibility to design what we think is uh a top tier athletic complex. It gives us the ability to design with neighbors in the community in mind. and it gives the local government the ability to oversee exactly what we're doing to make sure that we adhere to all those standards. Um during the rest of the presentation, we're going to take a look at the potential impacts of this complex. Things like economics, harmony with the neighborhood, utilities, public safety, open space, and traffic. And this isn't our opinion. We've tried to be as thorough as possible with our research. We've gathered information through Freedom of Information and public information requests. We've contacted parks and recck departments that manage similar similar complexes. We've we've reviewed studies conducted by counties and towns that have built similar facilities. We've also hired independent experts to make sure we've had accurate professional assessments. We were limited in some areas due to we just didn't get responses. There are certain places, certain counties that we reached out for trying to get information and we just never heard back. Um, so all the information that we had is from information that's primary source from them. So what you're going to see is you're going to see information that's grounded in real data, real case studies, and expert analysis, not just opinions or assumptions. So, the first one we wanted to cover was the potential economic impacts of the park. Um, we use Patriot Park North,

which is over in Northern Virginia. It's probably the most comparable um, park to what we're trying to build. Um, their report came out from the Fairfax County, excuse me, sports tourism task force and in year 2023, they had a 4.4 4 million direct revenue into the town and then 2024 was a 5.9 million direct revenue. Um we would assume that we would see similar um economic impact with our project. Uh since we'd be able to keep so many of the local teams here for practice and games, we'd expect them to be more likely to spend money in the town than if they were leaving to go, you know, further away for either practices or games. Our tournaments would obviously bring in people from outside of the town who again on a weekend would be spending money in the town whether it was at um restaurants or just other things for entertainment. Um Mount Ary is a very friend familyfriendly town and a great destination for families. So, I think bringing people into the town for our park, I think they would be more than likely to be drawn into downtown and Main Street for, like I said, it's a it's a very very great place for for families. Um, and the other part about this is our project would be able to provide an economic boost without actually increasing residents into the town, which I think, um, is something that could potentially be appreciated. All right. So, our next slide is um talking about harmony and dealing with uh sound. And first, we'll talk about the setup of the property and how that will um help with the noise pollution. We would have minimal PA and speaker use with the fields close together. We wouldn't want distractions from one field to the other. It wouldn't be like a high school football game where

they're blasting entrance music that you can hear from half a mile away. We wouldn't want the third baseman getting distracted by the speaker system on the other field. Um because of the site design, if we are in if we are annexed, we have the potential to do natural barriers, whether that's burming the property with the with the soil on site or adding trees as a buffer zone. We also took into account the distance buffer between the fields and property lines. If you can see, most of the sound and foot traffic and seating is towards the center of the property. So, because of that, we're trying to get the sound away from the perimeter. So, it gives a a much further distance for it to carry for it to impact the neighbors. There are pretty much no studies done on decibel readings for athletic complexes. You can find them for stadiums. You can find them for large events of 10, 15, all the way to 100,000. So, what I did with this is I went to a couple local parks. I went to uh Blandair in Colombia and Kowandis Wallace in Elicate City. And what I did is I just took readings at those parks. So, Blandair, it was they had a field hockey tournament on that day. There were 20 teams at Blandair and 20 field hockey teams. 10 that were playing, 10 that were warming up. And I went through different parts. I went right through the middle of the fields. I went around the outside of the fields. I went to all different locations trying to get a good idea with the signs. Blandair has the highest peak sound. They also had whistles going on and they also had scoreboards with a buzzer going on. So the peak sounds you hear there when when those were happening. Um, Kowanas Kowanas Wallace had 11 of their 13 fields playing that day for baseball. That was the one that's probably a little bit more towards what we're going to do from a baseball standpoint.

Um, the decimal readings there were typically average between 55 and 60. The one that I had the most location was when I I watched the game about for about 20 minutes where I just stood behind home plate recording and that's about center of the graph there at the 20 minutes that was about 5758 with a decimal. Um one thing I should have mentioned is just to give us sort of um a baseline. So, I used the same sort of app that I used there to do the uh meeting tonight, the first 15 minutes of the meeting and it was an average of 65 dB with a peak of 88. So, just to give you a idea of what the average decibel reading was at the complex from varying distances. Um, if you go into the science, the science behind it, every time you double the distance away from the sound, you lose about six dB. So, for instance, if I recorded a sound that was at 60 dB from about 20 ft away, if you go to 100 ft away, that sound goes down to 46. If you're 300 ft away, that sound goes to 36. If you're 500t away, it goes down to 32. So, the sounds are like a quiet library, a quiet rural night. So, if we're able to design this property this way where we keep the sound more towards the center and we're now talking 500 to 700 feet away from the property lines, it's going to it's not going to impact nearly as much. Um, and one of the things that we did do is we did reach out to Fairfax, Wakcomo, and Howard counties to talk to them to see if they've received any any incidences or any reports on light or noise. And what we heard back from them is that and we asked them for studies or incident reports. They said they do not have a mechanism to track incidents because they do not receive any. So they

said we don't track anything that we don't get any complaints for the Fairfax County. The only inc or only report or complaint that they received was that they were told that they don't really build or they didn't really build as many fields as they should have. So they don't they don't have any incidence of noise or light. They did get complaints that they didn't build enough fields. Uh, the second from the harmony standpoint is the lighting. Technology's kind of crazy now with how good they can focus the lighting, how they can keep it so there's no upward spill. They can keep it to the perimeter of the fields. These are just some similar fields and complexes where you could see what a four baseball field complex would look like, how little spill there is, a rectangle complex where you can just see that there's no there's no upward glare at all. Um, the company that we're we've been consulting with has actually just put in lighting at Westminster High School in Liberty High School. So, if if you wanted to check out the new technology there and if you want to go and swing by, they're at the football games. So, those lights were just uh just put in, but we feel like we can we can add lights to this complex and still maintain neighborhood character, environmental quality, and keeping the skies dark. One of the other areas we um got some information on was the water usage for sports complexes in the region. Um we did Henry S. Parker in Wakcomo County, Patriot Park North, Fairfax, Blandair and Columbia, Koalas Wan, Kuanas Wallalis and Columbia. Um and these are the peak water usage for a threemonth span at these parks. So this isn't the average. This is their highest total over was it a three-year period about?

Yeah, highest total three years.

Over the three-year period. Um, and we compared that to what would be typically used in a development with seven houses in it. Uh, we chose seven cuz we that's what would be basically allowed on the property right now as is. So, we just wanted to use that as a comparison. Um, you can see that we would use significantly less water than even seven houses. Um, and if you see the second chart, it says over the two years, if you average that out, it is quite a large difference in how much fewer um, gallons per day usage would be used at a park like ours. Um, there really aren't too many things and from what we've discovered that you could develop on the property that would really actually use less water than what we are proposing to do. So, um, that's all I got on the water and sewer. All right. So, this is with the, uh, fire and EMS impact. Um, what we did is once again, we reached out to four four local parks to figure out how many what their incident rate were. Um, you have Patriot Park North in 2003. That was that was the highest rate. I want to say that was actually at at 22. Now the the thing with Fairfax County is they do not give times. So they don't they they say that's um um they they just don't do that for their for their incident. So there was one day where there's four reports. I don't know what time that happened. I don't know if that it wasn't actually on a day where they had a tournament scheduled. So, I don't know if it was a car accident at the intersection. I'm not sure what that was, but that's why that rate is a little bit higher. Most of most of the

complexes see about six to eight each year. Um, those are only boys and girls club, which they have about 15 fields. They run a lot of major tournaments. Blandair, Kowanis, Kowanas actually in 2024 had zero incidents reported. Um, so if we take uh the incidents from the Mount Airy um website, the volunteer fire company's website, and then we average that out throughout the whole year, we're basically looking at about a quarter to half a percent increase in the EMS and fire services due to this athletic complex. We also have a uh study done that was by the National Athletic Training um association, the Journal of Athletic Training, where it basically did 1845 teams over six years and they were studying the emergency transportation for those teams and they came out for every 10,000 baseball players. 14 require medical transport from um an injury and across all sports it's 0. 29 and that includes high school and college with the college rate being a little bit higher. [Music] Um the next area was open space. Um it currently we anticipate that 25 to 33% of the property will not be developed. Um our plan is to have the walking and biking trail all the way around the property. Uh the project will not create residential or other uses that place demand on public open space. Instead, it will help at least indirectly to lessen the impact of the town's existing deficit in open space. We have to be honest, we're not entirely sure how we fit into the town's open space. Um but we wanted to express that we are willing to do what we can to approach any ideas to help it. Um, we obviously we believe it's helping the

open space because it's a nice open space area, but um, we are looking forward to trying to find a way to make sure it basically is, um, coinciding with what the town would want in their open space requirements. And as far as the safety and security goes, um there would be back stop netting um covered areas to protect the spectators. The field configuration would prevent balls from reaching adjoining properties. Um as we have it now, the fields are about 500 ft from town or excuse me from the uh surrounding properties. That would be a heck of a hit to get it 500 plus feet. So um we plan to fence the perimeter of the complex providing safety not only for our property but for the neighbors around. Um we plan to have you know video surveillance security system and a potential for automated gate to close the parking lot during overnight hours. So we do want the safety of not only our park but the surrounding neighbors will be addressed. um the business hours that we plan for the athletic complex, we're going to have minimal minimal impact on the morning rush hour, especially during the school year. We're not going to be open. So, I I know that was a big concern mentioned by a lot of the residents. The Watersville 27 road where it goes across to the school and how that has a lot of traffic in the morning. If school's in session, we can't be open. So, that those those will never overlap. There are ways to mitigate that from a scheduling standpoint. A lot of times you have complexes that just say, "Hey, all games start at 10:00 just for convenience. Why can't you start them at 10, 10:30, 11?" So then you have a flow of traffic that's 10 to 15 cars going into a field instead of all the fields

coming in at once. So we're absolutely open to doing that. Uh, the amenities we have are designed to keep the players and families at the complex. That limits trips. I'm sure if you've been to different complexes that there's nothing to do there, you drop your kid off an hour before the game, take the other kid somewhere to go somewhere else, and then you come back. So, you're doubling the amount of trips that you have there. We want to limit the the traffic because traffic leads to a poor experience. and all my years playing and all my years coaching, I've never sat at traffic because of an athletic complex, if we were the first one that causes traffic, no one's coming back. So, we we have just as much incentive as anyone to make sure that that does not happen. Residents with kids in this town who are playing youth sports, they're already traveling multiple days. This keeps them local. Instead of them traveling and getting on the road and traveling 30 minutes, 45 minutes away and then coming back, they're traveling a couple minutes down the road. We did get a traffic study done that was conducted by Lenard Traffic Consulting and we found that from the county and state that they met the town of Mount Area requirements or the roads did and the intersections met the Carol County requirements as well. Um, it shows that the athletic complex can be supported without compromising the adequacy of the roads.

And just to summarize a couple things in conclusion, um, our athletic complex would meet a critical need in the town. It would strengthen the local economy, still preserve the neighborhood character of the town while minimizing the strain on the infrastructure. Um, we plan to have it as safe and secure as possible and we believe it would promote the health and also their the community and the pride. Um, so our project will help Mount AR meet its critical need of more athletic fields. It will strengthen the local economy while preserving the neighborhood character of the town. The project will accomplish all of this without being a strain on the town infrastructure and will create a space that the entire Mountaineer community will benefit and be proud of. We have spent over two years already trying to make our dream happen and we are excited to have the opportunity to work with the town and hopefully make our dream a reality. Thank you.

I have a couple of things I'd like I'd like to add just to follow up. Um uh Mr. Chairman, you were correct. We've asked for R1 zoning. Um why? There's really nothing magical about it. There is a provision in the town code that says all annex properties coming in are presumed to be R1 initially R1.

Yeah, R1 worked for this project, it was an easy decision to make sure. Um, to the extent that there was suspicion that there was something nefarious about that choice uh of a residential designation, they're taking a heck of a risk buying a property to try to flip it to somebody if that's was their goal. Uh, that can't really be developed to the extent the value that they're paying for it. The other thing I did a quick survey of your zoning code. Um, this use is basically allowed at least as a special exception in every residential district. Uh, RE, R2, R3, R5, and R seven. And it's permitted use and special exception with some variation in the conservation zone also. So there there really was nothing magical about the choice of R1. Um in terms of the open space, this has been a very interesting question. Um we are not usually adequate public facilities ordinances and and and studies are done to uh mitig find out what needs to be done to mitigate the impact from a proposed development. We're not proposing any residential development. Um you can see the impact from the water uh usage is on a broader scale low end minimal. But I'd ask you to consider your town open space adequate facilities statute says that the planning commission may wave strict application

of the park and open space adequacy standard provided that each development project provides at least three acres of open space pardon me at least three acres of park and open space per 100 portions. or prora thereof of projected populations from residents in the proposed development project. We have none. If you look at section 98-23 of your code, um a percentage of open space must be reserved is detailed in this section and is generally based on housing density.

We have none. So we believe there's an argument that the open space that we were asked to address um may not be in the regulatory cards if I can say it that way. But certainly there is a willingness to address that issue uh should that should that issue come up. The fact of the matter is we're not creating the kind of impact that the open space requirements are designed to address. So, uh, that's all that I have. Yeah, first off, thank you for that information. I think it does kind of, uh, give us good data. Um, I do have some questions, but I want to defer to my fellow commissioners. I'll address both the open space comments, Mr. Berthox. Uh in my in my turn here, uh I will also address your comments leading with regard to the land use article and its relevance as part of our criteria. I hope to sway your opinion about that. At least give you my personal view as to why that's part of our criteria. Uh but again, I look down the deis here to any commissioner who has questions. Commissioner Hadley,

I have a question regarding open space for Tom. In the other projects, open space, did it have to legally belong to the town to be counted for our open space or go against our open space requirement or because they're saying open space as they want everybody to use it, but I believe there's a distinction like it actually has to belong to the town or no.

Uh, yes. what you're referring to is the deficit and what and what counts or doesn't count, right? Um so it's an adequate public facilities ordinance or an APFO for short. And uh um we have always looked at it that uh what you count is what the town essentially the town owns and is therefore maintaining and available for public use. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. And that I just had one other question. Sorry. Um I What did you include? How many Maybe I missed it, but how many parking spots you're putting on there? I It's a lot to count in that little Yeah. So, let me because it's uh 1,135. That's what's in the drawing right there. That can change based on how we have to mitigate traffic and the entrance into the property and things like that. That was just basically look at looking at the bottom of that drawing as we weren't putting any fields there. So that has the potential to address any parking issues that we would have there. Okay. I see. All right. So I have to go ahead.

I have a quick question. Um are there any other examples of this kind of facility anywhere in our somewhat immediate area that you could you could reference so we could take a look at it? you could speak to what's unique or different about them versus what you're proposing.

Yeah. So, the the comparable ones that we would say would be Blandair and Colombia, that would be the closest. So, they have three rectangle fields, two baseball fields, they have um three um playgrounds, they have tennis courts. Um it is in a highly populated area in in Colombia where there's a lot of people are able to walk to it. Patriot Park North. It is a trip to Fairfax. That is probably the closest one from a standpoint of the design with how many large baseball fields and small baseball fields there are and how they would run tournaments. That that complex caters a lot to locals. Ripken and Aberdine is mainly younger baseball and that is more of a tourist attraction. Teams from all over the country come to that complex. So I I would say Fairfax and I or Patriot Park North and Fairfax and Blandair would be the two most comparable.

Okay, any other questions? Commissioner Heather. Commissioner Heather

Wallace. All baseball, no softball. Is that right? So the the way the fields are designed is that they have the potential if you look in the corners of say field three, the left field and right field corner, you can actually make them into youth fields. So it has the potential for doing that. So that's the one thing if we were able to do artificial turf, you'd be able to either have a larger baseball field for high school, smaller fields for softball or youth baseball, as well as making it either lacrosse or soccer fields that there'd be space for doing that. So, there's a there's a complex up in in New Jersey, Diamond Nation, that does that, and that's how they're able to do youth tournaments on the same baseball field as larger ones. We don't see that as we look at that as more of an option that there might be some youth tournaments where we'd use one or two of the bigger fields, but there's such a limit on 90 foot baseball fields in this area that we see that the 90 foot fields are going to have the most demand. But we're putting it in there just just in case to give us a little little flexibility.

Anything else? Chairman, any other questions? Chairman? Nope. Yes. Quick question. So on the traffic study slide, so the one bullet says using CLV methodology, all study intersections dot dot dot, which intersections were part of the study? Um, chair, would we be able to bring up our traffic expert who did the study? Indeed. I would love that. Yes, let's bring the traffic expert up. We apologize. We don't have a seat for you, sir, but we do have a microphone. A rolly. There's a rolly, sir. Can I Can I share your Okay, cool. Thank you. And you're welcome to peel that. I'm good here. Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead.

Good evening. Nick Dribbon with Thank you. Nick Dribbon with Lenhard Traffic.

Yeah, that's good enough. Uh Nick Driven with Lenhard Traffic. Uh in terms of the study intersections, I believe there was some coordination between the applicant and um the commission to establish the study area. So we looked at five intersections. We looked at Watersville and Maryland 27, Watersville and Bottler, the site access point along Watersville, Waters, Watersville at RNLs and Watersville at West Watersville. Uh, those are the five. I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Wonderful. I have a lot of questions. Okay. So Blandire in Colombia where you guys are familiar with that you're familiar with the way they mitigated the traffic around that whole with the traffic circles two-lane roads feeding into 175 feeding back to Oakland Mills. Right. And then we got Quantis in Elicate City. So that they expanded Frederick Road to four lanes to accommodate people coming out of there and going back the other way. How do you foresee a two-lane road handling the amount of traffic that you're going to have at that park?

Yes. So, I I I think I'm not as familiar with those other facilities. I know Bland Air a little bit. Um I I'm happy to go back and look at them a little bit more, but in terms of the work that we did for this site specifically, um I think one of the distinctions between Bland Air and this site is that Bland Air is in a much more uh urban area and the volumes along the roads feeding into Bland Air Park are higher from a starting point. Watersville Road is a very low volume road. Um and so and so why

there is when when we do a traffic study, there's a methodology that's accepted by the county and the state. Um and then the town of Mount Area also has a adequate public facilities uh requirements for traffic studies. So the study that we did was in compliance with all three of those agency requirements. Uh the study starts from going out and collecting traffic data. So existing condition counts uh at the five intersections I mentioned. Um that's the basis. Those counts were conducted this September. Um we conducted counts on a Thursday and a Saturday. The majority of the counts were September 11th and September 13th. Those were a Thursday and a Saturday. There was one intersection that was added later in coordination with um the planning commission that we conducted just last weekend actually. Um so those would have been the the 18th and the 20th. Um the analysis for this site uh as you heard was uh primarily focused on the evening peak hour and the Saturday peak hours. So when I when I say the word peak hour I mean the busiest hour during uh during the evening hours between 4 and 7. Um so your rush hour is a colloquial term. And then on a Saturday, it's typically between 10 and 2 p.m. 10:00 a.m. and 2 p.m. We didn't look at the AM peak hour because this site will not be operating during the the morning rush hour um when kids are in school. As you heard the operator state, the numbers that we use to develop the site traffic are based on a manual called the IT Institute for Transportation Engineering Trip Generation Manual. Uh it's the accepted manual used by the county, state and um by you know by by default would be the the mount area uh it's it's used by the county and state so it would be what's used for any traffic study conducted. Um it's a national manual where they've gone out and they've conducted uh traffic counts at similar facilities. So whether you have a single family housing development or a hotel or a convenience store um or in this case a sports complex um there

have been studies conducted of where someone sat at a driveway uh for you know 5 10 20 100 sites and uh and counted the traffic throughout the day to develop if you build this many fields in this case this is how much traffic that site will generate. So it's an equation uh in this case based on fields. The one I think thing I want to be clear on is that the IT trip generation manual does not include specific to a baseball uh complex. It does have a soccer complex which uh I think for all intents and purposes you know in terms of the number of players on the field and the types of um activities going on there is going to be a very similar trip generation rate. So that is what we use to develop uh the trips for this site. So again as I said um So during the morning peak hour um this site would be projected to generate a total of eight trips. So that's not that's you know it's a handful of trips here and there. That's why we didn't focus on studying it. It's not going to be impactful in any way to the surrounding roadway network. Um during the evening peak hour, the site is projected to generate a total of 131 trips. Now when I say a trip, that's a trip into the site or out of the site. So 131 is essentially equivalent to like 65 trip 65 vehicles in and 65 vehicles out. And that's during the single highest busiest hour of the of the roads in the area. That's not to say that only 130 trips are coming in and out for the entire evening, but during the one busiest hour, which is what we look at in a traffic study, there's 131 trips for the Saturday peak hour. Uh again, based on the trip generation manual rates, there are about 300 trips during the busiest hour. So about 150 in and about 150 out. Um again, that's not

to say that there are not more throughout the day. In fact, I think there very likely are. um but 300 during your busiest hour. And so we what we do is we assign those trips to the roadway network based on existing volumes and based on population centers, the you know I7 uh major roads that people would be coming from out of the area as well as locally, you know, based on neighborhoods and things like that. Um and so we come up, we take the existing volumes, we add the site traffic and we come up with total volumes. All of this again is based on county and state standards as well as the town's uh APFO requirements. And when we put all that together, we look at the adequacy of an intersection based on what's called level of service. Level of service is the same as your school grades. A is really good, F is really bad. Um different jurisdictions have different adequacy thresholds. So the state and county both allow level service D to be uh the intersection operation and still be considered adequacy uh excuse me still be considered adequate. The town's requirement is a level service C. So it's a little bit tighter. Um in this case when we plugged all the information into there's two different methodologies uh that are used under the state and county methodology. Everything was shown to operate at level service B. Uh so that's well within their adequacy requirements. Um and under the town's methodology there were uh the intersection of Maryland 27 and Watersville was shown to operate at level service C which is right at the adequate adequacy threshold but is considered adequate adequate.

Um Brian yes you live here in town right? Yes I'm I'm in I'm not in the town proper but I'm in the mount area like zip code. Okay. So I I think everyone in this room is familiar with the twin arch stoplight. Yes. And that stoplight is a D I believe. Sean, is that correct? You were on streets and roads, right? I don't remember intersection, but uh it was it's failing.

Yeah, let's let's say it's failing. So um that's that has three points. So you have a you have a dedicated left, dedicated right, and a dedicated straight. And it's still a D. And I'm pointing to the fact that the municipal fields or the ball fields are over there and during those peak hours that you know that gets quite lengthy and people have to wait several I believe there was a a may maybe even a citizen that was talking about waiting there the other day. Um and that's my biggest concern I think for for me being part of the neighborhood that's adjacent to that um and some other folks that are living around it. Um the volume really is is is is frightening to me is, you know, I can't even get out of my neighborhood and that stoplight, whether it's a C, I still have to wait there for 45 seconds at 10:30 at night to go to Walmart, you know, and I'm just the only car. So, the problem for that with me is I would need to see that road widened up. I would need to see the timing on the light changed and before because what I want to do is keep the traffic going to 27 and coming into the field and not going around Butler or going down the back roads to the railroad tracks or people finding other ways to get around the around the traffic problem. I want to keep it that people are coming in and going out the same way. You know what I mean? just having that road widened so that would be helpful in getting people out

and not bothering the other citizens that live around it. I don't I I think the project's wonderful and it's a farmland. I like to call it Field of Dreams. That's my own internal name for it because it's built on a farm. Um but anyway, I would like to see that that kind of convergence of the the people coming in and out of there and that smooth flow of traffic. um because there's 406 homes on the other side of the street and there's already a lot of families moving in and out, you know, driving their kids places and hopefully to your ball field maybe someday, but at the same time they're going all over the place. So, you know, having that traffic not being a concern for them or the other citizens in the room, I think would be beneficial. Um, speaking to that,

if I could address your comments, I I I understand exactly what you're talking about at this. My job here tonight is a little different. Um, this is an annexation. Uh, and we're looking for a recommendation on the annexation. If it goes through and this property has a site plan submitted for it, you will have ample opportunity to review that site plan and the traffic facilities and conduct an adequate facilities review and make other requirements which is in the planning commission's discretion as part of that. Um, and that's one of the reasons we've tried to give as best a snapshot as we can at this point. But I think your comments are well taken and if I can speak for my clients, it is something that they are concerned enough about that they do understand they have to address that as part of the site development uh aspect of this if we're lucky enough to get there. Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm just having a chitchat with them.

Okay. And this guy over here, have have have you been to um Ali Boys and Girls Club? Because that would be sort of this most that is that is the similar. Yeah. Yeah, I did I did experience that with they have the very very the two-lane roads going in and out of there, but it's I don't know from the aerial picture it seems smaller. So or or less densely. So So So OBGC is probably going to be triple the size and they have about 18 fields on it. Oh wow. Yeah. Okay. That's where I help out at that complex a little bit. So, and how do you feel going in and out of there? Um, I haven't had no issues with that there. Okay.

If I can just add to Commissioner Bea's comments, um, what I do remember from the streets and roads commission, there was at least one citizen that showed up and was and gave us color about what was failing about that intersection, Watersville 27. It was the data is the data fine. But it was cars were at certain hours cars were backing up past property owners driveways I think up to or past Butler Road if I'm not mistaken. That was so just some color for this conversation, right? Is there's the volume I think that was taken into account, but that's the anecdotal color of these citizens are already experiencing backups past driveways and intersections on that road right now.

So, just added color. Um, because once again, I have no idea about any of this. Is there How easy is it to just get a light that has a turn signal to it? I I'm I'm just curious with that because it is it is just a single light. There's not a turn arrow option on it. Correct. The for a left-hand turn on to does not have a It does. It's just a green light. Yeah. Is it? It just just just a green light. You have to wait to turn left. There's no dedicated left turn signal. No dedicated turn. There is a left lane with a loading capacity of about eight cars. Eight cars be beyond eight cars. that that line now extends into the straight ahead lane and blocks it.

So, um, and so it's that reality of of limited left turn capability for those that are trying to travel south. Okay. Yeah, I I I love the solution oriented here and that's a state road that compound matters, right? So, yeah, but that was just some color I do remember from the commission there and these fine folks are confirming my memory. So, thank you. Yeah. And and I think that as so as if this were to move forward, the state would be involved in the review of the traffic impact study since there's a state intersection involved as with the county and uh your staff as well. Correct. Um signal timing and you know things like a left turn lane or or a left turn phase are things that we can look at as part of the uh the analysis. Correct.

See how those affect queuing. Yeah. Um and Mr. Bower socks is I'm I'm not trying to overstep my boundaries obviously. I know this is an annex conversation. I just want to, you know, chat with them about it. No, seems like we're all educating ourselves here. So, we're just having a little um Commissioner Bay, your questions.

So, the only thing I have to point out with Sean's point is that the state the county has already told us that we're number five on the list for widening 27. 32 took I don't know how many years 20 25 years for it to widen if not longer. So that is also my concern as well because 27 backs up can back up on either direction and same with Twin Arch. I live off of Twin Arch and sometimes I can't even get out of my road. So or I could go through three or four lights just to get out. Um, so I do want to point that out is that Mount Airy or 27 is number five on the list. We're the last on the list with the county to even think about widening 27. So that is a big concern to us.

Thank you. Any other commissioner questions? I have some questions. Uh, first off, when you talked about the reason for not committing to this purchase under county zoning and current county code, you mentioned septic. Um, let me, if I may, use my terms. It didn't percolate well. Is that accurate? It percolated in a certain area. That wasn't conducive to how we would set up a complex.

Understood. Okay. Um, you gave us some feedback as to our question on are are there in similar parks any complaints as to a similar operation and you said there was I believe correct me if I'm wrong there was really no avenue to collect that data. Is that accurate?

Um, when I made the the calls to the the parks and wreck, um, basically I was asking do you guys keep track of any of your complaints? is there like official? And they said no because they don't get the complaints. They said they have no recorded complaints or they don't have any anecdotal evidence um other than the one guy just kind of half jokingly said the complaints we get are we wish we had more fields here. Um and he also mentioned that the quality of the lighting now is so good that um and I think they mentioned Musco um specifically that the light issues now just don't exist that used to exist 20ome years ago. Okay. So they just said they didn't have anything to record.

And so staying with complaints in our interest in any record of those um would it be something for and you don't have to give me a definite answer but it would it be uh within the consideration if and when we get to site plan, concept plan and all of those processes if annex were approved by the council as part of that examination by this body at that point. Would you consider a community advisory committee that would provide you that local resident input as to can you turn down the sound? Can you can you cut off the lights? Can you address the three balls that ended up in Joe's backyard? Can you address the four-wheelers or motorcycles that we're hearing that have broken your fence and are racing around on your So, you get where I'm going. So although you've presented that there's really not a good collection point for other fields complaints, I'd like to create one as a thought if you do establish a partnership with the residents in that area. Is that fair?

Yeah. So to clarify, they said they would have, you know, potential like um if there was something going on on the complex uh that a person in the area didn't approve, if there was a fight going on or something. I got that. Yeah. So they they have an avenue for that. I'm I'm I'm advocating a new animal. Oh yeah. So So there there we would obviously yeah be more than willing to make sure there was some way to reach out from the community to give us fair to regard that answer as yes. It's possible. Yes. Is that fair, Mr. Bower Sox? Is that Yes. Okay.

Very good. Um hours of operation, we've heard a kind of a varying won't be operating during school hours. Uh, so for me, I only have grandkids. Uh, does that mean the activities on this proposed idea would be roughly a 300 p.m. start for for the weekdays? Yes. For the weekdays. Okay. And staying with the weekdays, uh, we would end all activity and the lights turn off and the sound systems gone and the gate closed roughly 10:00 10 p.m. at night. That would be that would be on certain days. So the way we'd have it set up and also with the new lighting, you only have to light the fields that are actually being used. No,

I got that. So what we would basically do is if all the fields were being used, yeah, 10:00, that's where we'd end during the weekday. But if say two fields were rented, they'd be the two fields at the middle of the park while the auxiliary fields on the outside don't have their lights on. So we'd basically try to And again, Mr. Park, you understand my question is in the harmony question, right? You don't want to become a bad new neighbor, right? Okay. Um on the traffic issue, um am I taking your study to say there would be based upon the projected capacity and the number of cars and the staggered hours of games, which I thought was presented as a way to remedy the rush of cars. Is that fair?

Yes. Okay. Given all that, I think I'm hearing that the traffic study says there's no need for improvement of the Watersville 27 intersection. That is what the the analysis shows. No need for any improvement

and that's consistent. So obviously that's specific to this site, but going back to some of the concerns related to that intersection, I did go back and look at previous SHA counts. They also show the intersection at level service B. Um, and we've done previous work in this area and that's consistent with with that analysis as well. So, this isn't just one fluky count. There's a there's a history showing that today it's level service B with this additional traffic with most of it hitting, you know, the weekend is the heaviest peak. Weekend volumes in the area along Watersville and along 27 are lower than than during the weekday. So, when you have your heaviest volume coming out of the fields, there's less volume conflicting with it already on the roads. And and again, I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying to parry with you, sir, at all. I'm just reminding you of those residents who routinely use Westwatersville Road and speak to having to bear several cycles of that single green light in order to turn left. Now I know you have mitigated that argument by saying the operating hours will not occur during those peak rush hour periods but nonetheless I think the concern is is real and and to say there's no improvements projected in this design um just worries me. Okay frank with you

understood and I'm not trying to parry with you either. I I think in terms of sort of like looking at what could be out there. We talked about the potential for signal timing changes at Maryland 27. You you spoke about trying to get out to go to I understand it's a different intersection, but trying to get out to go to Walmart and you're the only car waiting. That's not a that's not a volume issue. That's a signal timing issue. Um and so there are things that can be done in coordination with SHA to to address that. Um, I I will say I think the other thing that I've that I've mentioned to the to um to these guys is the idea that the the site access point is almost certainly going to need auxiliary lanes to get into and out of it. So even if

even if we weren't doing anything anywhere else, you're going to have a left turn lane in. You're going to have a del lane going westbound along Watersville and an axel lane coming out of the site. So there it's not to say there are no improvements and certainly I think having worked with them throughout this process I think they're willing to to examine and obviously to hear what everyone has to say about the issues and and see what can be done that all I'm reporting tonight is that we conducted a study. These are the results of the study. That doesn't mean we're shutting the conversation down at that point.

No, that's that that's totally fair. And just a reminder not only to the applicants but to the general public and that is if annexation were granted and if the petitioners put forth a site plan in that process a concept plan has to be hammered out and presented to this as a part of chapter 25-5 within your code this body is required to apply the adequate public facilities ordinance against that concept plan. One of the seven elements of that judging the adequate public facilities is the traffic and signaling facility. So it would be specifically focused if and when that concept plan were to get to that point. We would put a wire brush to traffic and signaling and not approve the APFO at the concept plan level if the answers weren't

acceptable. Is is that is that accurate? Understood. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, okay. So, thank you very much. Uh, no other questions. Just a quick one on that point right there. I I want to um looking forward if again if with everything you just said, if we all partner and we're moving forward uh and um um these petitioners retain your services, would you be able to help the town and the petitioners with that traffic dance with with with the county and the state? Absolutely. We work with them. Uh we work with them all the time. I actually was a former state highway reviewer for traffic impact studies. So I know all the the players over there and certainly happy to interface.

Thank you. And I believe over on this side we had a question or did we Commissioner Wallace?

I don't forgive me if you did already. Thank you. Forgive me if you did already say this, but did you figure out how many visitors there would be per field? So, I know you figured out kind of like how many kids are playing on each team. Is it like roughly two cars per per player? And like are you are you f factoring that into the volume of the parking there? Is that why you have so many parking spaces? And then I know you're talking about staggering games, but I mean ultimately there would be a lot of people there. So, I'm just wondering like at max capacity, what are you figuring for how many people would be in that facility at a time? So with with the parking basically this is the design that we had was the bottom fifth of the property we weren't going to be using.

So when when we made the concept draw and it was just let's just put all parking there. We don't know if we're going to be using all of that some of it or need to need to adjust a little bit to add more with that there. Um, if the parking is at if the parking's at right now 11:35, that is more than adequate, it's probably, please don't quote me on this, but it's probably 75% more than what like Blandair has for similar size. So, if you take the square footage of that parking lot there, that parking lot there is probably 50 to 75% more than what Blandair would have for the similar amount of fields. Yeah, I wasn't really I wasn't addressing adequacy of parking because that's like later in the process, but um what I was trying to figure out was just the volume of people that would be in that facility at a time.

Got it. Got it. So, the way we would look at it from a baseball standpoint, if you're going on if you're going on a field, you could have max with the older teams 15 15 players per team. So, you're at 30 players per field. And then you could say that if two parents are going on it for each one and maybe a family member, what you say 60 to 75 per field that you would have there at max capacity. The thing with most of at least from a baseball standpoint, there's a lot less usage for baseball as there would be other sports. Like if you were to put I don't know for instance if Nike wanted to do their flag football event there you'd have a lot more players per field than you would from a baseball standpoint. So we know baseball it probably 60 to 65 per field. So that's that's what we would think with that.

Okay. Thanks. Any other commissioner questions? Uh, seeing none, I'd like to address the two topics that you brought up with us referencing the land use article paragraph 3- I believe it was 2011. 3201.

Yes, sir. And so, Mr. Powerox, the reason that we've incorporated that as part of this commission's consideration is because the land use article says that the planning commission must be able to state the reasoning for any annexation proposal in their master plan. And it goes further to say that reasoning that should be provided to the council for their eventual adoption should include reasoning such as the annexation would support good civic design and arrangement, a healthy and convenient distribution of population and so on and so on down the list. And so the only reason that it was included as our first criteria is because fundamentally when we go to the council and have to address those five elected officials, I want to be able to stand in front of them say from the outset, why is that property even in the master plan and the land use article reasoning is what it gives as our reasoning to support that question from the council members. That's the only reason that it's shown in there. It may be in your regard illrelevant to an annexation, but it is definitely relevant to us being able to look in the eyes of those council members and say, "Why is it even in there in the first place?" If you follow my rationale and with regard to the open space comment you made, as you know, and I've already stated, 25-5 of our code requires that we do an APFO analysis at the concept plan stage. Open space and parks are one of those seven criteria that I mentioned. And I already referenced traffic and signaling devices. Now the council imposed on this commission that any development regarding of zoning that comes at to that stage at the concept plan stage has to go through an open space waiver deliberation as part of that APFO analysis. And so you're right. When we get and if we get to that part of the plan, if annexation is successful and the plan for this proceeds, we will put

an iron uh we will put a wire brush to the open space and we'll resolve kind of how does it fit in with a recreational facility? Is that fair? We're required to. Yes. All I was saying is um because this is not your typical residential subdivision. Gotcha. Where those are flash points, the language of of the code 255 uh talks about a linkage of open space to the number of people generated from a residential development. That's all I was pointing out that there's there is some question at this point.

Right. Um what the open space requirements are going to be fair if any.

Yes, sir. And and that's fair. And again, we'll just have to if it gets to that point in the plan development, we we will we will scrub the answer for that. We are required regardless of what the development zoning is, we have to go through that waiver process. And I think and I I'm at risk here at speaking as to the motivation behind the waiver process. It's to incentivize any developer regardless of zoning, regardless of whether it's this or 500 homes to encourage the developer to offer something to the town in regard to additional park space, deed land that can be open space for the public enjoyment. you understand that

and and so that's a good thing because we all enjoy our public spaces and and the opportunities to go to there. So, um it's it's a fair comment, but I just wanted to add we'll get there if the plan gets to the concept plan stage and and that's all I was getting at. Sure. Um it's it remains to be seen what what implicate whether there is an implication for this kind of a project. Gotcha. No, Perry, just agreement. No, I I agree. Listen, I I mentioned initially and I meant it. Uh I don't question your motives at all. Okay. Uh I have a different role here in representing this client. Understood. Uh and that's the only reason I'm

trying to protect them when I do. Gotcha. U to everybody here and including the commissioners and in the interest of time I just have one I'm sorry. What is your vision for the model of how Maya and and you know local sports organizations would um utilize those fields? Um so we had a pay to play I'm sorry like a paytoplay.

So we had a meeting with a couple of the administrators and basically we went over what their budget was for field rentals and we had on the onset of this wanted to make sure that Maya would have access to the fields. Um, again, these were all just initial talks. It depends on how everything plays out, but our plan was to during the week and probably in the fall and the spring, they would have first come, first serve to use all of the fields for practices, games, whatever at a similar rate to what they're already paying to rent the fields that they use right now. Um, and then as we probably get into the summer season when the tournaments are probably a little more often, they wouldn't maybe not have as much access, but still access. But the plan would be to have them have, especially during the week, the first come, first serve, they schedule out however they wanted for whatever sports they needed for. We would accommodate it and then we would try to schedule around that afterwards.

Okay. Thanks. Um, in the interest of time because I think we're keeping everybody uh rather late and there is one more agenda item. Well, there's actually a couple more agenda items. Uh, let me close this if I may with um with with this kind of proposed way ahead to my fellow commissioners if their agreement uh can be gained. And that is we have given the petitioner an opportunity to give us answers to our questions that we crafted. I think at least speaking for myself, I'm able to take these answers from tonight's presentation and fill in our criteria sheet to some extent, if not the majority of the criteria questions. Um, and so what I would propose is that we absorb this feedback and this briefing and this information, including the Q&A. We each fit this into the criteria worksheet that we created pat once we adjourn. you fit that in and then in the next meeting, John, if it's agreeable with you and town attorney, if it's agreeable with you, we will then go down and discuss that criteria sheet as to what we think the answers are in order to get some resonance and some consensus as to all those questions we asked. Um certainly that next meeting and that kind of deliberation up here uh invite you to be here in case there are additional questions to be fair to the petitioners. Okay. Um but then again I reserve the right to open that next session to the public now to intercede and give some feedback to what they heard tonight. Fair enough. Okay.

Understood. Understood. Okay. So with that what I say is we close this agenda item. we kind of take as our homework assignment as volunteers to go and try to take all this absorb it fit it in and then we're poised at the next meeting John if we could put on the agenda the continuation of the annex area annexation criteria and um and we just do as I said uh folks is that is that good enough that's a winner okay thank you for the opportunity to make the presentation tonight thank you Mr. McKenna Mr. Park and Mr. power socks. I appreciate the thoroughess and everything you've done and thank you so much. Thank you.

As I close this agenda item, I know that we have a rather late night here and I turn to the commissioners and to John as to whether we should postpone the discussion on the green tree parking resolution. I know Barney has a presentation. I say we move on. I think uh it won't take that much longer, I don't think. And we should just go ahead and Okay. Commissioner input. Um I'm I'm looking at at least 15 to 20 minutes. I know we have the respective parties here tonight. Uh do you want to drive on or I agree the whole night.

I agree. So let's move to the next item which is uh the green te uh the green tree conditions of approval. I'm just going to read I'm just going to take it from Ralph Genslips. Uh we're now going to examine how the town staff proposes to resolve the eight parking spaces for public use within the Green Tree development. Is that fair? Sure.

Okay. And as background on this, and I beg your pardon, John, I'll just quickly go into it. Um we made a conditional approval for the green tree preliminary plan. In that conditional approval, the condition, the foremost condition was that the developer and his engineer restore the eight public parking spaces. The background on the eight parking spaces were an understood agreement between the developer, the engineer, and this commission as affording the public parking dedicated for their enjoyment of the rail uh I'm sorry, of the trails and the public space that was going to be provided by the developer in that development. Fair enough. That's the backstory. And then as we went through and into the preliminary plan, we saw the absence of those and that generated the conditional approval. the absence of it, we we we decided we'll approve the plan under the condition that that parking is restored in some manner. Okay. And then as we went into August, the last meeting, a proposal was presented by John to us that said this is a way that we are looking at the town staff decision level on this. We're looking at resolving it. We provided feedback across the deis that we wanted other options to be explored beyond that one presented in August. Am I accurate?

Okay. So that's where we are. And so let me end with this statement. in talking with the town attorney and in talking with John, the conditional approval that we gave the town back uh in July with regard to this said to the town, we want them restored, but now it's on you, the town staff, to explore how to mitigate that absence, how to resolve that absence, how to restore those parking spaces. But the town staff chose in a collegial manner to continue to partners with us as an advisory role. In other words, we want to share with them what they're demanding, but we know we've got to make a final decision with the developer engineer. Am I off mark at this point? Unfair.

That's right.

Okay. Okay. So, with all that, here we are tonight. I believe you're going to tell us uh Barney um other options beside the one we saw in August and then I believe the way ahead is for us to ask questions about those. We try to find an optimal solution and then what I intend to do is I don't look for a motion and a vote on any one of those options. I'd look for a roll call. I'll just ask going down the deis here of those options or any others that you may want to offer to the town staff. what is your feeling about any of the presentation on the ways to get those spaces back? Okay. And so again, I I am trying to respect the fact that we have handed this decision making to the town staff given their good engineering with the developer and we are still advising them as to what our perspectives is on solving it the best way. Okay. So Barney, your floor.

Thank you. Um, so in this uh memo I provided a lot of background information, just things that I studied and looked at and did comparisons, but um I'm not going to go through all that unless you really want me to. Uh, I think we just want to talk about those eight spaces and and um um the reason why that had to get removed or relocated or you know it went away from the plan was because that storm water management area did expand. It had to they had to um provide access road down to the bottom of the pond. uh things like that that we've commented on as town staff and um and they had to work with the county engineers to to make that work as well. But you'll see that area expanded. And u so we looked at how we could recoup some of that um uh that land that was being taken away from the storm water area. And um we're we're seeing that two two ways you could recoup that is one either you lose houses. Obviously the developer doesn't want to lose any at this point. And uh the other was maybe take away some of the open space to kind of create that that area. Um mainly in that main ball field next to the storm water area. Um and we didn't as town staff I'm not sure that that's the best solution. Um uh so um we looked at some of these other options. One um the suggestion was mentioned in the court maybe putting in perpendicular spaces coming off the end of the court between the storm water area and the row of houses that's down at the bottom. Um our code doesn't even allow to have perpendicular spaces that back out into a street. Um and that's what we would be creating. uh it is maintenance headaches for uh public works and uh causes other

safety issues. So uh we try to avoid that. Um the second option was to um look at the parallel spaces that were part of um the last plan that came to you last month um and uh utilize that as a solution. Um the fire company looked at it. They gave comments. They don't want parallel spaces in the courts. They uh or in the the lower court. Um they don't want um uh any parallel spaces within 15 ft of a hydrant. Adjustments had to be made. So that got adjusted and they came up with a similar parallel space plan since the last meeting. Um that still meets the same uh parallel spaces that they showed on the last plan. They didn't add any, but they at least showed that they can provide that. And again, those are above and beyond what uh code requires as far as spaces in the community. But like Summit Ridge, uh Nottingham, you can park on the street even though you still have your three or four spaces in your driveway in your garage. Um they're they are above and beyond, but you know, they're not spelled out exactly where you park, but it just shows you that you can have excess parking out there. So I think that's the goal here is to provide that. Um one of the uh mentions also was um the desire to have perpendicular spaces and so the only place that we without taking away open space or taking away other homes was to go to the um the non-residential area and working with our architect. Um they gave us a sketch which John has up on the board right now. The gray areas are the public parking areas and that represents about 25 to 30 spaces. This is not a final

plan. We don't have a final layout but it will be most of those spaces are going to be utili are uh available most of the time. um they're talking about a conference or training room uh which may or may not happen initially uh but um spaces would be utilized for that but I don't see that being a room that's used all the time every day. Um so um we feel that uh there's going to be more than adequate perpendicular spaces, public spaces that could be utilized for overflow if somebody wanted to park there to walk anything. um that uh that would be a second option. And so our our solution is looking at the on street parking spaces in addition to the perpendicular spaces and the non-residential area that should provide more than adequate spaces um that you so we're looking to hear if um if you would agree to that. So to summarize your your recommendation to this body uh for advice is a hybrid of on street par on street curb parking within the residential section joined with additional public parking in the non-residential portion of the parcel.

Right. Both of those together. So I use the term hybrid. It's it's both of them. And and is it fair to say that that hybrid would provide well beyond eight additional parking spaces? Yes. Okay. And um because you're invoking the non-residential portion, which is not specifically the developer's residential portion, can you with authority speak to that being a feasible option on the nonresidential portion? Can you represent the town in offering parking to solve this problem that originated in the residential portion? Do you follow what I'm saying? Yes.

Okay. And I turn to the town attorney saying, is that valid to ask him that? I I I I accept I agree with you that um what you're asking. Can I represent the town and saying absolutely we can have those. Maybe that should come from mayor or council. Uh but um but I I think it's you know I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to use that. I I and and I'm just make and and I'm not trying to put you under a a hot you know heat lamp here. I'm I'm just saying that any option for us to comment on and advise the town staff has to be fundamentally a feasible option.

Sure. If you can't speak with authority as to offering up the solution for the developer's problem on the other part of that parcel, you follow what I'm saying? Then it's not a it's not a feasible option. But what I gather from you is you've done the coordination, Barney, to say it is okay. We can do that. We can offer this to to the commissioners here as a part of that solution for those eight spaces. And I think what you're saying is and by hybriding the solution, part of it over in the residential, part of it over here in the police department development, we're actually going well beyond eight spaces. I think that point is being made, too. Is that am I accurate?

Correct. Okay. All right. Um, any questions for Barney on what he's presented as the parking remedies for those eight spaces? No questions at all. I'll go. Okay. Um, okay. So, if I understand correctly, the um the the option two um the on street parallel parking is basically what we already had before. Correct. Yes. It's just realigning. So, we didn't add any additional spaces. Correct.

And then the other option, the option three is the spaces in the commercial or lot. Yeah.

So, my issue with this is we had a a development come through with it mixed use. We have mixed use. It's supposed to be all together. Then we split it up and it became just the residential and then it was going to be commercial. So, we go through with the residential section. We say this is good. This is approved. This is the eight spaces over here that we needed. Then they get pulled away. And now we're at this phase where we're not going to make any adjustments. They acknowledge that the spaces are gone. They need to put them back. But now we have we're going to take a piece of this other property that we got rid of and split up. And we're going to use it to to make this piece go forward. So my my problem is we're peacemealing these and we're using it for whenever we need it and when we don't need it. So to me, it either needs to come through all at once, but since we didn't do that way, we're section at a time. We can't be borrowing from one. It should only be coming from one section. If the residential section needs the eight spaces, we need to come up with eight spaces in the residential section. If we're looking at the commercial section now, I don't think that's valid and I don't think we should be able to look at that because it's a separate thing at this point. Um, and that's just I don't know how everybody else feels about it, but that's just how I see it. Can I address that?

So, keep keep in mind these are once in a in a sense that um the requirement in town code is for residential is three parking spaces per house. We have four parking spaces per house. Um so the requirement for 60 homes um is 180 spaces, right? We have 240 off street spaces currently without the non-residential. You also have another 44 spaces on street. Um so you're well above you have over a 100 spaces more than town code requires uh per code. Um so do you have to steal from one, you know, to feed the other? You don't have to. It's just what happened to been shown in the sketch plan just because they were just trying to show you that there is an abundance of parking uh when it was sketch plan time. Do we have to meet exactly what was in the sketch plan back then? I mean I I don't know that you do uh I know you're you're looking for that but uh I don't know that that's a musthave.

So that from from our perspective as staff we're looking at code. looking at what the requirements are and they're well above what the requirement is.

Uh so we don't we don't feel that we have to take eight spaces from non-residential. It's just to show there is a way of showing that what was in there will most likely be there in abundance even there above the eight spaces. No, no, I agree that that the the numbers I think are one separate thing, but I think it's when we put through the the approval, it was that they come back with the eight spaces is it was approved with the eight spaces. But I I just think it's kind of I understand the position you're in, but I don't think we should be able to borrow from a separate area to meet that. And I think but I understand the numbers and I understand where you're coming from. It's just that's the way it was approved. You know, the numbers that are minimum requirement. I understand that, but it's that's the way it was approved. And so, again, we're either holding ourselves to that standard or we're not. So, that's just my view.

Um, I know I have a question here, but to follow on to that while it's fresh, will the space restoral be satisfied by strictly option two without hybriding into the non-residential portion? Would just option two satisfy the restor of the eight parking spaces

above and beyond what was on the sketch plan? Not nec No, I don't think I I believe uh what was on the sketch plan is equivalent to on street parking is is similar. So I don't know that it's restoring the eight additional spaces, but is it adequate is is a different question. Um I guess what I'm trying to do is trail on what he said that it's not in his view right that we try to find the solution from outside the developers residential portion. Mhm.

And so my question is if we exclude that portion of the solution, the non-residential portion, the public parking for the police station, does option two, which resides solely within the residential development, satisfy the restoral of the eight part will eight parking spaces be seen in option two? Yes, they will. They will be there, but above and beyond what was on the sketch plan? No, not necessarily. Uh so again, is it will it be adequate? Absolutely. But is it because you're already

is it above and beyond? No, because it showed the same with eight perpendicular spaces in addition to that. So, I mean, again, what was on the sketch plan was above and beyond what they needed. Um, I know there was eight specific they talked about for the walking trail and stuff like that. There will be nine spaces in that lower red sunset um avenue on street that would make up for those eight spaces. Um, that but it's parallel not That's correct. They're parallels with

it's curb parallel parking curve parking. So you can't That's what we didn't like because when they presented this last time they were here, they had parking all around that circle. They had it all the way up the street and that was our biggest concern. We wanted parking spaces, not parallel parking, perpendicular parking, right? And without taking away homes or taking away open space, the best I didn't say about I mean No, I'm just I'm just saying if you look at it and look at it carefully, that's really all you can do

and and um the um the spaces up by the where the police department will be to us would be adequate. I understand they're perpendicular versus what Steve is is saying as well. So yeah. So my other concern is that we're not seeing the entire sketch plan. We're seeing small snippets of the proposed alternatives. I want to see the entire um do you have the the sketch plan that was last presented

with the actual what we're trying to determine because this does not give me much. But okay, we're putting no parking here. We're going to put no parking there. Now, we're going to move the parking spaces to the um non-residential space. But I want to see everything because that's where we caught this eight spaces being taken out of the plan without being notified. Yeah. Is that a is that available, John? I'm looking for right now.

Gotcha. Okay. Any other questions? Well, the if correct me if I'm wrong, but we have not seen a plan as a whole that shows the no parking areas that have been designated, right? Because when you presented that last time with all the the pictures of the cars on the streets, that had not that didn't take into account what the fire department was going to mark as no. Correct. Right. So, that's what I there is a plan that they provided. Um, I I thought we might have it here.

The other thing I was going to mention is that, you know, and this is kind of going to Sean's earlier point about, you know, the traffic study and the numbers are one thing like you, okay, oh yeah, that's four parking spots. Sure, they have a 20 foot long driveway, one car, right? Right. They're probably not going to park in their garage, right? Because it's part of their storage. Um, so that there's the reality of, you know, you're talking about all the like Friendly Acres and all that stuff. Have you been in there? I mean, horrible.

My community there there's two streets that you can't There's one one townhouse on Chessie that has one parking space, which is their well two. Their driveway and then and the parking space right adjacent to their driveway. They don't have another driveway. They don't have another parking space. So then they have to go park across the street from their house which is not feasible. So we have we have several streets into an arch that I can't you know you have horrible parking. I now have a much bigger vehicle and my vehicle doesn't even fit in my garage. So I I'll speak to my experience in Summit Ridge. Um twocar garage, two cars in the driveway. Um, and most people, us, us included, we have one car in the garage, half of it as storage. So, we have one car space that we use for storage, but still they still h we still have three parking spaces off street, which meets the code um that most people can park there. In your community, only half of the houses have a driveway. And of those, there are only a single car garage and a single car driveway. Um, we're talking about double those ones and none of the other ones that don't have a driveway. So, I mean, you're you're comparing two very different things. your your alleys, your your driveways, not really roads, driveways are between the perpendicular spaces are 24 foot wide. You can't put parallel spaces there in addition to those. So, um on this street we have minimum 34t road. You can put a 8ft space parallel and you still have two 13t lanes which is more than adequate for like two large trucks to go by each

other. Um, so I mean you're comparing apples to oranges. But you could say that comparing Summit Ridge to a town home development is comparing apples to oranges. You have a you have a huge basement to That's what I'm saying is Green Tree is more like Summit Ridge, not more like the townhouse community. Single family versus a townhouse. Town. Yeah, but look at the parking. The parking I'm referring to, not the houses. The parking. Yeah. four four spaces off streetet for every house. And just just saying, but you can't compare single family living to town home living. That's all I'm saying. You can't you cannot compare because you have a two-car garage. That's your basement. It's taking up half of your basement. Right.

Right. So, what are they going to use it for? Storage. Most likely. They're not going to They might put a car in there if they're lucky. That's all I'm saying. So um just to clarify on the on street option two the additional parking to solve this problem that parking would be limited to only one side of the street. True. Yeah. In every case um with that new plan it's all on one side street. We verified all that. Right. and the marking of those spaces would or would not delineate the exact address of those people adjacent to those spaces or would they be totally open first come first serve spaces? Um, and I know I'm getting in the weeds here, but it's relevant to

so those are my home spaces and those are guest spaces. Generally on street we would not mark this. We would not mark so it would be first come first serve whether you're the public or you're the resident. Correct. Correct. Okay. All right. Um and the two open lanes because of one side parking, we're assured that apparatus, fire department, etc. can pass to and from through that remaining width of the street. Correct. Yeah. And that was part of the fire company's u review after the last meeting.

Okay, fair enough. Um, and and again, it's a key point for me, and maybe I'm just the dummy here, but option two, standing alone, will or will not solve the restoral of these public spaces. For my opinion, yes, it will. It it meets more than what the code requires. And by putting those additional spaces, which are going to be unmarked for that, right? They're not they're not going to be marked. None of the spaces will be marked right there. Will you you give us the assurance, Barney, that the other spaces are beyond what is code required for the residents.

Is that is that an accurate statement? Yes. Okay. Okay. And I'm trying to blend a little bit of what Steve is is concerned about. I'm also trying to blend a little bit of what Commissioner Bay is concerned about. uh because again I reiterated we we're here to advise what we think are the best ways to go about you know cooking this problem you know solving this problem um and and and in all of this I'm assuming that these options just as I mentioned they're feasible with regard to the town's interest on the non-residential sign do you have assurance with the developer that all of these options are feasible with regard to him and his engineer executing any one of them you choose.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um there was another question. I have one more thing. So what happens if we're in a state of emergency with snow removal and you have all these cars parallel parked along the road and we're trying to plow the streets. What happens then? the

somebody's car gets hit because you have the snow plows coming in. They're pushing snow. There's no place in a townhouse community to push snow because now you're taking up all the parallel parking because you're trying to push snow into areas that you don't have it. I was witnessed in that big snowstorm that we had of 20 20ome inches of snow. They actually had to bring in dumpsters to remove the snow, right? In a townhouse community. So, I don't agree with the parallel parking at all. I think it is

dangerous. You have people trying to get their kids out. I don't agree. That's what was presented in the first plan that when the when the eight spaces were taken out, you guys didn't inform us that it were they were taken out. Then you go and add parking spaces as parallel parking. Those eight spaces ne perpendicular need to be added. I don't care at this point if it's in the non-residential space or the residential space. At this point, I want the eight spaces and perpendicular.

Well, again, I can talk to the snow remove light. Have plowed snow for the town and also for the county. Um, you know, going through this community here, there's on street parking everywhere. You plow around those cars. You do your best job you can. You put the snow where you can put it. The snowageddon was a quirk. Every municipality, every county had to bring in dump trucks. That's a normal operation, you know. I mean, you you push the snow where you can push it. Uh again, in in my my respects, like the culde-sac, I would push it down to the bottom there close to the inlet for the storm water management, you know, for an inlet, excuse me, to allow it to melt uh and dissipate into the soil. um you know to to the on street parking. I mean again we have it throughout the whole community.

May I regarding on street parking? Um so we mentioned Summit Ridge and we've mentioned Noddingham. What width are we looking at on that street compared to those neighborhoods to an arch? So this is a 34 foot road which is wider than uh Summit Ridg's railroads. I think I think these are 32 in Summit Ridge. So, this is actually a couple feet wider. Okay.

So, in a sense, you're going to be blocking those vehicles in that are parallel parked or you risk damage because you hit some ice, those snow plows go plowing into somebody's vehicle. Then it's on the town because it's going to I would assume it's going to be town roads. Also, when I had that 27 in of snow, they actually brought in front-end loaders to move it because the plow trucks couldn't push it. So then you're talking about either bigger plow trucks that are like state plow trucks, right? Or you're talking about bringing in frontend loaders to come in and b, you know, pick it up, move it, and you're taking a lot. It It's just crazy to me. It's just absurd that we're talking about this.

Okay. Uh any other questions with regard to these options presented by the town engineer? If not, then let me summarize and begin the roll call as to what each of us believe is a reasonable uh way ahead for the town staff to act upon. And let me start with this conclusion by saying um personally I feel like we could avoid it tonight. Let me just say that at the outset. We could avoided tonight if we had had a little bit better communications between the progression of plans and the things that happened under storm water management and with changes that had to be now imposed upon the engineer and imposed upon the developer. As I understand it, we had a concept plan and a pattern book that locked in eight public spaces. I'm giving a bit of history here from my perspective. And then when storm water management examined that plan, we realized that the storm water management area had to broaden and expand which now forced the movement of those initial agreed eight spaces to somewhere else. Am I on track?

Right. Right. And so the somewhere else that was resolved by the developer and the engineer was to move them into the utility easement area. Am I accurate? Right. And so the utility easement now became the new landing zone for those eight parking spaces that we had an agreement on when the utility easement and BG specifically reviewed that encroachment along with the trail design which incurred which occurred through the rightway and the easement. Uh their feedback was redesign the trail and here's how we want you to do it and remove those eight parking spaces because we don't want parking spaces in the utility easement. Am I still on track?

Yes.

Right. And so at that point the developer engineer basically said they're just going to go away. And that wasn't communicated well to us. And then we in addition to the director of planning saw its absence and that what began this whole journey as to we advising you got to get them back in. It was an agreed part of the plan and so on and so forth. So I guess let me summarize because it's getting on toward 11:00. Um I hope we never are here again with regard to any element of our plan review discussion and agreement. I really hope that this is somewhat of a lesson learned to any developer and any engineer hired by that developer that you've got to keep us advised as to any changes in agreed elements of a plan. I mean, it's only fair. You can't just unilaterally say, "Oh, they go away." When the commission, seven volunteers have spent time saying it's a necessary part of that plan, and the developer and the engineer say, "Yep, got it. It'll be in there." and then it disappears. So I don't want to use the words admonishment. I I actually want to use the encouragement. Let's encourage all developers and engineers never to bring us to this point again because look at all look at all the manh hours are spending on examining options deliberating on optimal solutions etc etc and and I think I would have broad agreement on that statement. Okay let's let's just endeavor to never be here again with any development process and I'll leave it at that. So, let me begin by going to my right. Commissioner Ali, your comments with regard to these four options or any other option as to what to advise the town staff on solving this problem.

My comments is uh I still don't think any of these options meet what we said as a requirement. Okay. No options solve the problem. And and I'm asking both Barney and John, you're recording kind of this advisement, correct? Okay. Um, Commissioner Bea, option three is fine with me. Option three is to um the perpendicular spaces at the uh uh government the residential place that we're going to have built. Understood. Uh, Commissioner Hadley, option three works for me. That's the non-residential portion. Also, public parking. Uh, Commissioner Buts, same for me. Option three with regard to non-residential solution. Commissioner Bay, I agree with Steve.

Um, no option exists n to solve the problem. Commissioner Wallace, I don't think uh I'm not asking for a vote. I'm asking for your advisement. I'm sorry. I also agree with Steve that um that doesn't work.

Okay. And for commissioner again, I believe and I understand that option two will solve the problems and provide beyond the eight spaces in this solution. So, I'm I'm leaning toward option two with your explanation. So, with all seven provided some advice to how to solve this restoral of the spaces, um Barney, let me turn the question to you. Do you have enough now to act upon? And and and John, do you have enough to act upon and now close this issue with the developer and and his engineer for the final plan? Yes.

Okay. All right. Um, with that, I'm going to close this agenda item and move to now planning. Um, reports and other business. Uh, Council Member Kelly, can you give us a quick report? Uh, I can do it quickly or email it, whichever you prefer. Uh, just high points if I may ask.

Great. So, uh, the council met on September 8th. Um, Chairman Gent gave a great recap of the Southside, the final stages of the Southside Plaza approval. Thank you. Uh notable uh items from mayor and liaison reports uh storm water drains continue to be uh um inspected. 700 of them uh have been inspected as of this date as of se September 8th. Uh inspection of the rest of the 2,000 is ongoing. 28 of those 700 were found to be in uh some uh in need of some remediation or maintenance. Uh let's see. Uh the traffic circle at South Main is uh has been started and is expected to take se to 7 months to complete depending on weather. Uh and the weather uh task force is taking shape. They continue to recruit members. Ordinances that night, a new ordinance to increase the water and sewer rates were introduced. Um and uh after some discussion, the decision to amend chapter 4 of the 2023 master plan was postponed until the next meeting. Our next meeting is uh this Monday, October 6th. Any questions?

Any questions to council member Kelly on that report? If not, um John, do you have any highlights um that you need to mention? Nope. There's any administrative reports in there and that our next meeting is going to be on uh October 27th, 2025, 7:30 p.m. here at town hall. Fantastic. Uh with that uh then I am going to adjourn this meeting. It is September 29th and it is 11 p.m. and I think we've set a record for the Yeah. Thank you everybody. Well, it's not as bad as it used to be. They used to go till midnight.