Planning Board - Regular Meeting

forward. Um, moving down to item C, approval of the agenda. Can I have a motion for approval of the agenda? I'd like to make a proposed uh changes. Okay.

I have three. They're very short items, but sounds like a long list. Um, couple of items of old business. Um, one is to um circle back and establish a calendar for the uh joint training sessions. I know we discussed that. um a couple uh actually I wasn't here but it was discussed at the last meeting and as far as I know the calendar had not been set then if it's been set we just need to announce it if not maybe we can get to agreement on when the training will be one item another bit of old business is to just uh get an update provide an update um on the um survey um of the mayor and commissioners that I was asked to uh provide a draft of for review by the planning board uh and make a determination as to whether that's something that we want to continue uh or suspend. And the third item is new business and that's simply to request earlier distribution of the planning board agenda packet. Um, I'd like I'd love to see one week in advance and right now we're not uh typically we're getting a getting it on a Friday or late Thursday close of business before the Tuesday that we meet. So, I'm wondering if it's feasible to get it a week in advance. That's those are the three items I'd like to add. Does anyone have any comments?

All right. Uh motion to approve the agenda as presented as amended. as amended. Excuse me. Thank you. Hi. Is that your phone? Let me silence it. Uh, all in favor? I I moving down to uh conflicts of interest. Are there any conflicts of interest for any of the items on the agenda this evening? Hearing none, we will move forward uh to approval of minutes. Uh assuming we can do this both in one motion. Confirming we can do both in one motion. You can if you don't have any edits.

Okay. Can I have a motion? I move to approve uh both sets of minutes. Oh, I'll second that. No second needed. But all in favor? I I learned that. Who Who made the motion to approve them? Rick did it. Rick. All right. We'll start with uh the um I didn't discuss this, but we'll go one, which is on the agenda, and then we'll go two, three, which was what was added, if that's all right. Yeah, I had planned to address a couple of those items anyways. All right. Perfect. The floor is yours. All right. So, we're going with text amendment first. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Since we're all queued up. All right. Good. Okay. Let's see. Um, these are the text amendments. TA I'm just going to say 02 2026. Our uh software puts five zeros on there. I'm not sure why. I hope we never have that many text amendments in one year. Um,

so y'all saw these uh majority of y'all saw these um at the last meeting. Um, minor subdivisions and lot coverage. Um, I did tell you I had one other one I wanted to put in there, private streets. So, I'm going to go over the first two of those kind of quickly because I'm hopefully you remember them. Um, first one, minor subdivisions. Uh, we're changing the definition on that um to those being uh no more than nine lots. Um, those that don't require dedication of public rideway, the installation or extension of public or private infrastructure andor shared amenities for the purpose of providing required access or service to the lots. And this includes public and private streets required for access water and sewer lines except for private taps, dedicated open space, shared amenities, easements, etc. storm water drainage, detention features, all of those. Um, and the intent of this is really to continue to allow property owners to create smallcale subdivisions of land that don't require major increases infrastructure. Um it's a much faster process. But what we don't want to do is to create loopholes in the current LDC, which we kind of have right now with some of these um which permit minor subdivisions utilizing private streets to be plotted in lots sold without design or provision for infrastructure. Um and I could see other instances where they're wanting to subdivide and there is a street that is needed to be put in something like that. So this would catch that as well. Uh, we don't want to have paper streets or paper lots. And this diagram, I tried to fix the lines on the one and realized they were kind of hard to see before. They're still a little bit hard to see up there. Um, the first is an example of a of a new minor subdivision, which, you know, we probably wouldn't have any issues with. Um, there's existing infrastructure fronting all those lots. So, you're just creating four new lots to access the infrastructure. Um, there's no real uh commitment required from the city on that or anything to be discussed. And

then on the right hand side there, those are paper lots and lots requiring substantial improvements. That's really what we want to try to avoid. Um we're actually dealing with some of those lots that are up there right now. Um and we don't have a ton in Waxaw, but when they do come up, they're difficult to uh help property owners with. A lot of times property owners will buy these lots thinking they can build a home there and just put a little gravel drive or something back there, but it requires a substantial upfront cost of infrastructure that was never u included. Uh private streets, this is a new section. This is the section I added in. I wanted to accompany this. Um I'm just going to read this. It's a little bit wordy. Um private ungated streets are permitted on a limited basis when the following conditions can be met. Uh a they do not provide primary access to any lots or larger parcels that they border except for those listed in section 5.13. Uh 5.13 is primarily commercial. Um and there are also town homes at front on community open space allowed in there as um as one of those. For those listed in section 5.13, they shall provide direct access to a limited number of lots on it or smaller parcels in a development and they are shorter in overall length typically of a standard block length or less. Private streets do not serve as collectors or through streets and are not intended to be the sole connection to or from future development on neighboring tracks or subdivisions which could hinder future development or access to said properties. When providing primary access to lots and or parcels, private streets shall be designed and constructed in accordance with the design standards for public streets set forth in this code and the town engineering design and construction manual. Private alleys, drives, and other improvements which provide only secondary access to lots or serve other purposes are not considered private streets for the purposes of this code. So, if you've got a business or you've

got a town home or a house and you you you front on a public street, you also have a private drive behind you. We typically don't get involved in regulating the construction of those private streets behind you. That's kind of that's your thing. You get to do with it whatever you want. You have your uh primary access to the road and that's all that's necessary from for servicing those lots. Um we did add this caveat in here. uh the zoning administrator and town engineer may agree to permit exceptions to this section in the case of non-conforming lots or other rare circumstances where it is deemed that private streets would better serve lots than public streets and when the general intent of this code is met. Um let's see payments that was just uh shuffling the sections there on payments in le um the reason for this we want to provide some reasonable reasonable but limited use of private streets were appropriate. Uh to reduce any long-term costs to the town in the future and minimize conflict between property owners to ensure that private streets when allowed are designed in accordance with town standards to ensure consistency across the town and continued access and safety. to prevent widespread use of public of private streets which can cause long-term issues with maintenance, ability to develop properties and continued access to both property owners and public safety and services. Uh very often you'll see this out in the county. We've seen it in a couple areas in town where we have some small private drives and streets. Um there are access issues between property owners. There's long-term maintenance issues. There's the expectation the town will get involved. Um really that's we we prefer to have a very limited number of private streets for that purpose. Um there are some times when they are useful um but we really want to try to limit that and try to prevent those kind of conflicts in the in the future and uh and substantial cost to the town in the long run. Uh just some examples here um pointing out some things that are in the

ordinance there uh on the top left. So, those that is an example of private alleys or drives that we do not regulate. As you can see, those units, they front on a uh a public street. Uh and the alleys behind them are just drives to access their driveways. We don't have anything to do with those. Below that are a uh those are some units that are legal um in our in our ordinance. Um but that alley is private. Um that would stay. We would probably allow that. It's a very limited in length. It's not doesn't serve the larger uh the larger subdivision. Um so that would probably be permitted still. Um on the top uh is actually an example of a commercial subdivision that we're dealing with right now. And that's really we've had problems with this one. Um it was subdivided um as a minor. There was no infrastructure put in and now they're looking to sell commercial lots there to be developed, but there's no street going in. Additionally, there's a big piece of land to the back. Uh their access out right now would be through a private street that they do not have any kind of easement or anything on. So, uh could cause legal issues and issues with the development of that property in the future. Um on the bottom, these are all public streets, but I just want to give you an example of of some where uh the green they might be okay. Those lots do have access to public streets. uh in the red. We wouldn't want to see those because those are really kind of primary collectors that go through to uh to another development as well. And then uh the other uh section was lot coverage and conservation subdivisions. Uh we really the the text changes were minimal um to this um in the uh section 4.12 which is refers to R2. We also did it for R1 and R3. We've added a section in

here for conservation subdivisions to see section 59 for standards on those. And then what we did in here was um in R1 and R2 uh currently there is no um exemption. There is no we don't allow for uh higher levels of lot coverage as these lots get smaller. Um rather than they're 40% right now. 40 and 50% right now, I believe. And rather than just saying, "Okay, we're going to allow them to be 50 or 55%." Some of your larger lots that were in a conservation subdivision, you could end up with massive amounts of of uh uh imperous uh pavement and and uh and lot coverage in there. So, we thought that it would be better to create kind of a a ratio. So for each 1,00 square foot decrease in the lot size, we allow you to go up 1% in how much uh lot coverage you can have. Uh similar R3. Um really we didn't change much with that, but we kind of kept it we did the same the same thing with it, but we allowed 2% for each 1,000 square foot uh reduction because R3 does allow for a lot more uh lot coverage. And again, that's just to kind of show you with some of the um uh some of the graphics here. Um in a conservation subdivision, um these would both be 5 acre parcels with uh in R1 with minimum lots. Um minimum lot size has to be 100 by 200 foot. Um so you could see how the rest of that would be set aside for streets, infrastructure, required open space. The conservation subdivision allows for much smaller lots and a lot more land to be set aside for conservation. So you still get the same number of lots. You just have a lot more open space that would be uh conserved as part of that.

But the problem with that is that when you get into you can see the top row right here. These are the standard these are the 100 by 200 foot lots. Kind of the same thing. R2, R3, R4. You can see how they get smaller. The gray area is uh is area that you could still uh still buildable area that you could do. Um you could add a another driveway, patio, put sheds in, those types of things. When you get into these smaller lots in the uh conservation uh subdivision, it's it's it gets really difficult with the p with the percentages that are given. So, what we're looking to do with that u gradual increase there would be to allow for a little bit more u usable space to slightly increase the size of the house so it's closer to average. Um add in make sure you get enough room for parking, those types of things. And then again, these are the um these are the lot sizes. We're not going to include this in the um in the text changes just so that you can kind of uh see how as it reduced what the actual um imperous uh surface could be in each one of those.

Quick question, Kevin. Yeah. Um, is there uh any like mathematical reason the lot size might not be smaller and therefore the percent coverage even bigger than the largest you have here 3200 or is that is that mathematically the limit?

Well, yeah. So, what I'm talking about really is those at the top there, let's take the R1 example. Um, on there um you've got a 20,000 square foot lot in in a byite subdivision. You've got 40% you can have 8,000 square ft of impervious surface. I don't know that anybody would ever use that. I'm sure some people around here would, probably not most. Um, but once you get into the conservation subdivision, really the idea is that you're preserving land. Um, you're more environmentally friendly. Um, if you've got a 19,000, 18,000, 17,000 foot lot, if they don't reduce it that much and you went to 50 or 55, those you're actually going to end up with more square footage there that you can have. And so that's why we went with a ratio instead. It just kind of gradually allows you to go up as you decrease in size. Yeah, I just didn't I didn't know maybe a practical limit or mathematical limit so that lot size was smaller than 2000 because the percent coverage 100% is that okay?

Yeah, it ends it ends at I guess it comes out to like 56% in um in R1 uh 64. Yeah, go it goes from 40 by right in a standard subdivision to you can get up to 56% in a 4,000 foot lot. And then in R2 it's 50% by right. You can get up to 64. In R3 it's 60. And you can actually R3 already allows reduction of 75 or allows you to go up to 75 in a conservation. Um and I think they had intended to do something like that for this and the other two, but they never did when they uh did the ordinance updates. Um, and this actually just makes it more consistent as well and kind of

um kind of eliminates that problem of having a, you know, a 10,000 9,000 foot lot where you can have 75% lot coverage. Got it. Thanks. So, Keith, while we're asking questions, um, practically speaking, how many convers conservation subdivisions do we have in town now? And how many? We don't have any. We have one that we have one that has given us some conceptual designs, but we don't have any yet. Okay. So, all we're talking about here, these changes are strictly for conservation subdivisions and not anything else. That's right. That's the only area where the reductions apply right now. Yeah.

I apologize. I missed last meeting, but the conservation subvision these properties and part of it is of the lot and it's being set aside in perpetuity and it can never be developed. Is that what the whole concept is that they're willing to turn over part of the property to be deed in such a way that they can never use for anything but just um being left empty, whatever. And because of that, you're making these changes as far as the size of the develop part of the lot.

Yeah, that that's correct. There's there's a few things that are allowed in the ordinance. um uh natural space um farmland and um passive use recreation uh amenities um can all be included as part of that. Um but there does need to there does have to be um I think it can be deed to the town um deed to the county um or can be done through a conservation easement with um I guess it would be Kataba Lands Conservancy here. Um I I would actually prefer that. I'd prefer that a a nonprofit be in charge of that. U but yeah that the the the land that the land that's set aside has to be kept undevelopable.

Just like you said there's one that's kind of conceptualized here in Waxaw that come with is it a situation where they're taking like the various lots and putting such a way that they have like a common area. So they have this big area like so they got four lots and the corners are all the would be conserved. So you have kind of this big space in the middle that's being conserved. Is that kind of what they're kind of designing? Yeah, typically on the conservation uh subdivisions, you'd prefer that most of that land be contiguous and kind of be um set aside. What we're looking at right now is is they've actually got um probably about 30 or 40% of the total parcel all on one side that's completely preserved.

Um and then they do have they have some open space and some trails like you would have in a typical subdivision that goes between the houses and all that. um which is um it's not conservation land, but it's it's preserved open space for the development. And you end up with really probably about less than 40% of the entire um uh parcel that actually gets developed for streets and for houses and stuff.

And okay, um I put a couple things in here. I think you guys know the drill with these. I am requesting tonight um that you you do make a uh a a motion on this if you can. Um you can uh consider the proposed text amendments and recommend approval of the text amendment petition, the statement of consistency and reasonableness of the comprehensive plan. You can recommend for approval with conditions uh changes to the text amendment petition with a statement of consistency and reasonableness with the comprehensive plan or denial of the text amendment petition with a statement of inconsistency and/or unreasonleness with the comprehensive plan. Uh staff this is staff sponsored um text amendments. Of course, we are recommending for approval of 0002620 0002, my apologies, 2026 and the land use plan consistency statement as provided. Um the statement we've provided is that the text amendment is consistent with the Waxaw 2040 comprehensive plan and reasonable and in the public interest in that it improves site design to improve residential development, maximize environmental conservation and improve transportation connectivity and provision of public and private infrastructure.

Thank you Kevin. Any additional questions? Can I make a motion to accept the recommendation? I'd like to make a motion to accept U TA 0026 2026. The text amendment is consistent with the Waxaw 2040 comprehensive plan and reasonable and in the public interest in that it improves site design to improve residential development, maximize environmental conservation and improve transportation connectivity and provide um provision of public and private infrastructure.

Thank you, Ted. We have a motion on the floor. Um assuming no discussion, we'll move to vote. Any discussion? All right, we'll move to vote. All in favor? Opposed. Okay. Thank Thank you both. Thank you.

Kevin, you want to give us an update on the training dates and the survey before we move on to new business? That was new business or that was old business. Excuse. So, we're still in old business. We're in old business. I don't I don't Did we put this in new business or old business? I don't This is new business. It's new business. The letter. Yes. The grant application. That's in new business. Do you want to go ahead and do this one? Uh I'd rather cover the get out of the old business.

All right. We can do that. All right. Um All right. The uh the dates that were provided um we probably got ahead ahead of ourselves a little bit. We threw those out kind of as an example. They were not finalized yet. We did notice that there was at least one holiday that was in there. So, we are going to update those. Um, I did receive uh notice uh from at least one person on the board that the first Tuesday is going to be difficult to meet at the times provided. So, I really need to make sure that we've got a time that everybody can meet um on those dates. It's just not if somebody's going to be there miss one day, not a big deal. But if you're regularly not going to be there, then we need to try to find a different time when everybody can be just so they can it can work for everybody. Um so, I'm open to y'all making some suggestions on that. Um, and we can go from there. Before it was Tuesdays, it was the first Tuesday um of the month. Same time uh 6:30, but the first Tuesday of the month.

Yeah. I'll I'll say I'm the one that can't make um the first Tuesday of the month at this time slot. I could do earlier than this time slot. I could do later than the time slot, but um I have a a conflict that runs from 7 to 8 on first Tuesdays. Since this is training, what's the time frame as far as how many months or what are you thinking about doing as far as

we we would like these to be to to have an hour and a half set aside. Hopefully, it's an hour, but we would like to have a little bit of extra time in case we go over also time for you guys to discuss and we're available anytime. We can do it earlier. I know that some of you guys are working and have to get here though and and so whatever really works best for y'all. So, are you looking for this to be ongoing then for every month or? Yeah, and I'd like to talk about that also if we we can find a if we can find a time that works. We can discuss about how frequently we want to do them. Then you're looking for about six sessions, six monthly sessions. Is that about right? Um it's not set in stone.

I I think it ought to be an ongoing thing, but I did since it's two of y'all have mentioned it. Um it's something that we may want to do it every other month. We may not want it to have it be every month. Um, and I'll just go ahead and tell you that um, part of the issue that we've run into is that the training modules that were available in the past from school of government were great. They were uh, they were about 45 minutes long most of them and they had, you know, little um, you took little breaks where you could answer questions um, as part of like a quiz on there. So, kind of kept everybody involved. Um, those been replaced by summaries now that are only like 15 20 minutes long. So, we're trying to find some materials to present to y'all without reinventing the wheel. We've also got the two-hour uh presentation that Love Lady, Adam Love Lady gave, and I think some of y'all were here. Um I wouldn't mind reshowing that. I think we do have a couple uh new people on the board. Um problem with that is that uh probably about twothirds of it is just watching the back of everybody's head in the room while Adam is talking. So, uh, we're probably going to have to do some editing on that, um, so we can actually see some of the visuals that are, um, on the screen at the time. Um, and, u, I've got to talk to the communications director about that. So, u, I would recommend that we start these in June if possible. That gives us a little bit extra time to pull those together. Um, I wasn't quite aware the the status of those when we made that list. Um, but I do need a good a good date to have these on, a good regular date. Um, it was also mentioned the um the joint uh BOC and planning board meetings. I think it would probably be advantageous to go ahead and do those at that one of those on one of those dates maybe couple times a year.

Is there um besides Tuesday for staff and knowing the other meetings besides T was Tuesday? I assume Tuesday was picked for a reason. Tuesday is I think good for everybody on staff. Okay. Um I mean I I can do I'll have to check with the rest of my staff, but I I can do Wednesdays. Do we have any other board meetings on Wednesdays? We have we there's conflicts with advisory boards on on Wednesdays and Thursdays, some Mondays. Okay. Um but Tuesdays is usually, you know, the second and the fourth or the BOC. So, and then you have your meeting on the third Tuesday, right?

So, the first Tuesday was was the best. It would help if you had five weeks and every month, but you don't have that. So, maybe um um looking at a a possible a Monday. That's what I was thinking. Um that might meet, you know, maybe the first Monday of the month or the second Monday of the month. Okay. might be a a good um um a good idea. That way you're not conflicting with any advisory boards other than the ABC board meets on the fourth Monday. So the first Monday and second Monday, is everybody available on those dates? First and second. First and second Monday. First or both?

It won't be both. I'm just asking. I'm trying to Yeah. Trying to do a Google poll right here live. see how it goes. I I mean I'm in a situation where kind of goes monthto month depending on kind of what happens and most month most months the first or or second Monday works great. Okay. But if this the idea like for June the first Monday in June my schedule's got a problem. Okay. But again I I can most times I can get it to work most for the first Monday or second Monday. Okay. Yeah. These I mean understandable that you know y'all are going to miss one every now and then too. I mean there's conflicts that come up especially during the summertime. So, um, okay.

And we don't have the fourth to worry about with the Monday. So, I think if you want to check with staff with either one of those and send a note out to the Let me let me do that and let me make sure with Deepa that she can um she can make that as well. 6:30 is okay with y'all. Yeah. Yeah. But Monday is a little difficult because at work uh and reaching here by for 6:30 meetings for me Tuesday works but uh depends on everybody and if that's the only option then I will make it happen but uh Mondays are tighter. I think most likely it would be same with Deepa because a lot of site and travel happens on Monday.

Let me let me do this. Let me um let me uh get with Barbie and talk about um potential times that we've got. We don't have conflicts with other uh boards just to make sure be another option. The only conflict on the Thursday is the second Thursday HPC meets on that. Right. Right. But let let it it sounds like I need to It sounds like we need to I I'm going to send out a a poll to everybody and just let you Perfect. Show me which ones are available. It seems like that's going to be the best way to handle this. Yeah, I guess that would be the best because uh everybody will have different preferences. And you're saying we are looking at how many months? Four, five, every month.

Uh probably every other. I don't want to I don't want to wear everybody out coming in here and it's not something that you know um I think it's just enough to give you a refresher on stuff. So I don't think it's something you need to do on a monthly basis, but we we'll try to do it every other every We will have this meeting scheduled as is, right? This meeting. Yes. Yes. This is an addition. Yeah, it'll be it'll come in here. It'll be a um um I guess it'll be an official meeting. You'll have a quorum, but it won't be you won't be having any business to decide or anything like that. It'll just be a kind of a workshop kind of thing. You could set it up as if you do the trainings and you have all the dates. You could set up a training schedule and we can use that as the notice. Other other than that, we would have to notice it as a special meeting.

Yeah. No, that's exactly how I want to do it is have it announced ahead of time and have it be a some somewhat regular thing, right? And then we can put it on the calendar for them. And uh one more question uh these are in-person meetings, but if you are not able to travel or if you're if you want to attend virtually, is there an option or they're mandatory as inerson meeting? Uh I I think in person be preferred, but we can we can look into that too. Okay. Currently the boards cannot meet virtually. Okay. Because we're not in a state of emergency. Okay. Got it. Understood. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Kevin.

Let me ask you this also. Um, is there a preferred topic that you would like to start off with? I know that Deepa had talked about um rules of procedure. Um, that's typically something I get into on like the second or the third meeting, but if there's something you guys feel is pressing, we can we can address that early. I I would personally love to get a um uh an overview of the uh land plan. Um

I mean I I I have the land uh use plan, but um I would just love to get a an overview of the priorities, the intentions, the big um big messages that are buried in there. Okay. All right. duly noted. Okay. All right. Moving on to survey update.

Um thank you. Uh just a quick recap back in uh at our January 2026 planning board meeting. We voted unanimously for um me to draft um a survey um of the board of commissioners um that could be uh reviewed that draft could be reviewed um by the planning board as well as by staff before it went to the board of commissioners. Um I did draft that survey and um uh at the end of January. Um but um in the uh interim between then and now um the idea has been discussed and explored with the board of commissioners and town staff of having uh joint sounds like either annual or uh twice annually um joint sessions with the board to improve synchronization and communication between the two boards which I think is a fantastic idea. Mhm.

Um I wasn't sure whether that was uh intended or agreed to be a replacement for doing the survey. Um and so I just didn't want to let the um approved request to conduct a survey of the board of commissioners just disappear without an action from this board if that's what's desired for us to either suspend it or kill it uh or to proceed with it. But right now it's sort of in a state of suspended animation. I I I won't say that was to uh replace it. Um but I think it would be a good preface for it. Um would be to have that joint session and maybe um bring up that idea with them. I think it sounded like the board might not be there might be some confusion about what exactly you're trying to get out of that. Um and the board might, you know, having that discussion with them might might help.

Um yeah. So if I understand that suggestion would be um it might make sense to do an occasional survey of the board of commissioners. um and how the planning board might improve their value to them and to the community. Uh and the suggestion that I'm hearing from Kevin is that uh it might make sense um to consider doing that after we have a joint session uh to see if collectively we all agree that that might that's that that's good feedback or that's a good practice. Yeah. Um um so let me just bounce that to the rest of the planning board and see is that change direction. Yeah, that's the intent. um in and talking with uh the mayor and let's have a discussion on it. Okay.

Um and see how we can best work together as well as communicate um as as opposed to kind of not blindly sending them something but kind of having a discussion about I think at the time too we may have been a little bit premature because we had several new members uh and I think they were just trying to get their feet underneath them as well. So yes, the the the intent or recommendation, however you want to look at it, is to let's have this initial joint meeting, have a discussion. They may go, "Yeah, this is great." Or, "No, this isn't or how about this." I mean, having a a a dialogue, I think, will be much more efficient. So, um I think if we need I don't think we need any action at this time, but uh just knowing that that's going to be on the agenda for our first joint meeting.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Um, and I think you'll probably hear some stuff come out of that that will kind of help to steer that, too. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on to new business. Uh, consider approval of the letter of support for Waxaw's SS4A implementation grant application.

Okay. Um, I don't have all of James's. I think he gave gave you guys a little update in there. I don't have a copy of that. Um, but I I can wing it. Um the uh the safe streets uh for America is a uh is a is a federal grant um that we received uh we received funding for the uh for the study um and now that we are applying for the follow-up grant um for that um and it's to address uh safety um concerns with the uh primarily with the pedestrian network u but also with the vehicular network um and uh there are several several uh areas of town, several streets in town where improvements were mentioned. Um staff uh brought some recommendations to the board. Um and the board has come up with what you see on the screen right there, primarily downtown focused. Um and this is a um an 8020 grant. So it is 80% funded um through grants um and then 20% matched by the town. and that is over a five-year period. Um, so this would be millions of dollars. Um, but it will also be uh 20% of that that the town will be paying and it will be broken out over a 10-year period. So we'll be paying roughly 4% of the total cost per year for these improvements. Um, these are sidewalks. Um several of them have been priority high priority for the board um and well for everybody uh for for quite some time including uh Waxaw um Indian Trail Howy Mine Road um uh improving the um improving the sidewalk uh that's there right now. um sidewalk parking um and um street widening on Caldwell um

parking sidewalks on Pro South Providence. Um South um I guess that's uh South Broom there as well. College um Price Street. Uh we've got some we've already got plans to extend a portion of that, but this will actually hopefully um help to um um cover the cost for that as well. um as well as Church Street. And this matches up well with several of the um funded improvements that are already uh being made, including the uh 16 widening and the Broom Street corridor as well. So, um really what we're looking for, it's not 100% necessary, but it really looks good when you have u letters of support from as many city um agencies and boards as possible. Uh so, we're looking for a letter of support u for this grant. Um, so we can go ahead and submit that.

Great. Any questions? I have one. Go ahead.

Um, for the Howie mine uh improvement here. Um I know that I've been present at a number of meetings where it's been um either implied or explicitly described that some residents maybe a lot of residents on how mine have been um concerned um about that is to say resistant to uh improvements in the sidewalks there. Um, so I'm wondering what role, if any, does uh do resident um positions have on um that being a priority in this grant? And what do we do about um acceptance if that appears to be um a point of concern?

Um and and you may know better than I because I wasn't at all of the meetings for this. I came in probably about threequarters of the way through the process. But I do know that there have been multiple uh community meetings about this um with with um ample um time for input on that. Um I know that the board um has felt that it's a necessity. So, um kind and and just to clarify, the board of commissioners

board of commissioners. Yeah. Um that the um howy mine is a u is a is a priority. Um and I can tell you I don't think what's out there right now is safe as well. Um it it all comes right into downtown. I really think we need to it's it's a major safety issue at this point. Um we do have I believe we have ample ride ofway um on there as well. So I don't think that will be a problem. Um some of these other streets there might be some ride-of-way acquisition but I think on how we mine we have enough. Um so uh the board is going to have to this is not a done deal.

Um we're applying for the grant right now. The board will have to approve the grant once we get it as well. Um, so there will be public hearing and an opportunity for anybody out there to come and speak on that if they're concerned about it at that time. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Do I hear a motion to approve u our support for the Waxaw's SS4A implementation implementation grant application? Uh yeah, I can second the motion. No, just I need somebody to make the motion.

I'll make Well, go ahead. Want to make the motion? Yeah, I can make the motion. Motion to approve the letter of support for Waxaw NCSS4A implementation grant application. Motion to approve. All right, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor? I opposed. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. All right. Uh, moving on to new business. Item number two. Uh, packet update timing. That's what I wrote down.

Yeah. I'll just add a few words and just say um in the last several months, we've been receiving the packet um for each board meeting um late. I say let's say by close of business on Thursday preceding the Tuesday meeting. um that um just hasn't worked out to give me very much time um to um both review the packet, ask for additional information or material um and be ready um for the meetings on Tuesday. Um, so I'm wondering if it might be feasible, and I'm I'm not looking to make work here for anybody, but it would be great for me personally anyway, uh, to have a bit more time to consume and interact, um, uh, ahead of the board meeting, uh, the planning board meeting. um according to your rules of procedure that you all adopted um on June the 17, 2025 and it was ratified by the board, the BOC on June 24th, 2025 that the agenda packet follows the same timeline that the BOC gets their packet which is 5 days prior to the meeting. It's written in your rules of procedure under part nine as well as 6:10. So, it's Thursday by 5:00 p.m. is when the packets distributed. Um,

does that does that um prelude distributing it early? I'm I'm not saying that it's

I'm just saying by what's what you have adopted as part of your law and your rules of procedure 5 days prior to the meeting. If you want to change that, then you would have to do um rules of procedure amendment and rewrite that section of those rules. Um, I would caution that you think about what you're doing for staff time because lots of times the planning department is still finishing up finalizing everything they need to give to you for you all to review on that Tuesday night at let's just say five o'clock on a Thursday. So, um I don't I think it would be prudent that um all of the board members when you have everyone here is to talk about that timing if you wish to um amend your rules to give you a little bit of time. um when it goes out on Thursday, you have the time that you receive it on Thursday, you have at least 6 days before that meeting is on Tuesday. And you've got time to talk with planning staff if you need to. But again, um that would need to be a an amendment to your rules in order to change that. and um feedback from uh the planning staff to make sure that they would be able to accommodate that that change in the timeline.

I I think a reasonable change in that timeline may be achievable. Um I'd be, you know, careful with asking for stuff too too early. This stuff's not difficult. You know, we've got this stuff ahead ahead of time. But when you're dealing with applicants and stuff like that say more times than not, sorry I'm going to jump in. More times than not in the past since I've been here, we've especially when we're talking about applicants, there's been multiple times Barbie's had to send revisions. And so my concern is we move it back, you're just going to be getting more revisions. So you're going to be doing your homework twice, so to speak. Um, and I know I interrupted you, so I'm going keep

No, no, that's exactly what I was going to Um it may this may be a great topic when we have more of the uh staff uh present. Maybe this is for one of our first trainings just to have this as just a collaborative conversation as opposed to kind of guessing both sides and we can put that as one of our topics. Maybe that can be our um icebreaker for the first one. Well, I I do think that DIPA wanted to have the rules of procedure as the first training session. So, that would be a a great way to start um dissecting what you want. That's a good point. So, um to do Okay, I like it. That works out well for us in terms of material. Yeah, I was going to say that's an easy We've got that already. So, that's a easy first. We can go over that with y'all. Yeah,

you can write the lesson plan for that one pretty quick. Yeah. All right. Great. Can make one small request though to along with this. Um, is there a way we can get it um when the PowerPoint's put in here to put it in like notes format instead of PowerPoint format? Because if you're on a iPad, you're like constantly going back and forth from slide to slide because they're all in different one. Half of it's in portrait and half of it's in landscape. Yeah. I I could try to remember to to do that. Yeah. Yeah. The the images might be a little smaller. Yeah. But if you got a if you got it on a tablet or something or a laptop, you can probably enlarge them a little bit. So yeah, but it's pretty tough. I'm trying to Okay.

Struggling with it myself. Just remind me. I'll try to make sure to do that next time. Small thing, but be helpful. Thanks. I have one question. I know. Is it uh all these packages we get printed, but is it mandate to have these printed and on the screen? because we use a lot of paper and I my concern was if we could make it as a preference if you don't need paper printed copy this is like 20 plus pages and for one meeting so it just my conscious uh I just wanted to put it I want to hear it from everyone so so Barbie sends those out so I would ask for her opinion on that

I had one member to ask for the packet so instead of having one member have the packet. I chose to provide the packet for all members. And if all of you do not want a packet, then I will not print a packet. Generally, what I do is just print the copy of the agenda and that's all. Um, but since we had a member that requested a packet, I just thought I'd be be gracious and give everybody a packet. But um I'll continue the same practice I've always done is give you the agenda and provide a packet for the member that requests. I would appreciate like this consideration but uh it depends if we want to discuss this and collectively decide uh it's a good idea but I would suggest uh just agenda would be good for uh like previously we did the same thing. So just the agenda and whoever needs the package because we get soft copy with all details. Thank you.

Great. I think we've talked about packets enough. Um, thank you, Kevin. Um, moving on to item number H. Do I have a motion for adjournment? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. All in favor? Yes. I No descent. Thank you, everyone. Sorry.