Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Hello everyone. I'd like to open this meeting uh planning commission for July 3rd, this Thursday at 6 PM. And first order of business will be the administrative minutes. Are there any changes or adjustments? M places first. And I had uh on page two um no it's not really paragraph the second long paragraph all the way down near the bottom where is talking about one or two non-metered spaces will be lost to development depending upon a new design which the planning commission can approve. I think that should say cannot be oh okay any others all right do I have a motion for approval All those in favor? I. Kevin, would you please present the old business that we're going to review? The only thing on your agenda? Yes. All

right. I'm going to skip over a lot of this. Um the um application was reviewed by the planning commission on May 1st and June 5th. Um the uh concerns uh uh are enumerated in a letter on uh dated May 2nd and also dated May uh June 6th. The request for uh the request is for approval of 3,300 ft² one-story commercial building constructed on a 15,000 foot lot. And it also includes request for a special development for outdoor dining and a waiver for stacked parking. Um the U property requires 22 parking spaces. The developer is proposing 23 spaces accessed from Alicean Street. Uh as part of that 16 of those spaces are proposed to be tandem or stacked parking. Uh section 16551F1E uh requires that the planning commission has to find that there is no adverse impact on the proposed use or the circulation. The uh applicant has proposed to stencil the parking spaces as employee or customer. Uh and they've uh will provide signage related to the allocated uh to the allocated spaces along with a chain barrier for employee parking to mitigate some of those impacts. So they're doing several things in order to keep people understanding that that first row is for employees only. Um building footprint is uh proposed to be 7 feet off of North Bond which was an adjustment from the first goound and then 10 feet from the adjacent uh

property to the north which is 108 North Bond. The um applicants provided a large version of the existing and proposed parking spaces and Alicean Street um has five existing five metered spaces and two non-metered spaces. The proposal would be to reduce that by one non-metered space. So they would relocate the existing meters and then they we would end up in in as the final layout losing one non-meter space. However, the that relocation is required because several of those spaces are not up to code. They're not long enough. And so that by adjusting that and including the access to the site, they are um having they're losing a a non-metered space which you guys can approve. Um let's see. All of this the relocation of the meters, the striping the new spaces and any repaving is the responsibility of the applicant under the supervision of the DPW. concrete walkway on the north side of the proposed building will remain. Uh that is done in conjunction with the adjacent property owner in order to share that uh that access. Uh the access uh to the refuge recycling has been removed and the um storm drain has been realigned so it doesn't so has minimal impact to the existing street trees along bond. Um, the elevations and renderings have been provided to the town architectural consultant and his comments are are uh were sent under a separate cover, but you've been given a copy of them by email and you should have them in front of you. Um, I I don't think that they

found any issue with the revised elevations. Um outdoor dining uh for the restaurant use the exterior dining capacity cannot see exceed 27 seats. They have shown a layout graphically of tables and chairs on the site plan which is what we kind of really needed to show that everything fits in there. Um two shade trees have been relocated to Alice Anne Street which is fine with the staff. Um a and Lou is proposing the amount of $3,600 to satisfy the mitigation of the existing trees that were removed and there's really no place to to put them on site and you can't double count street trees and other required trees. So, um there is one additional recommendation or actually an elaboration of a recommendation uh under site plan number three. Um approval of the 16 stacked spaces as shown in the revised site plan based upon pavement stenciling, signage, and chain barrier as indicated on the site plan. So they're you're approving that, but you're conditioning that approval on those items that they've predicated on their site plan. So I kind of expanded that a little bit. That's all I've got. Okay. Yes, please. Kevin just outlined all of the comments that came from our last planning commission meeting. specifically between customer and the employee parking spaces. We adjusted the building location from 108 North Street and then the seven ft from property line back. Um we adjusted the sidewalk for the town's

request to connect and as Kevin outlined we are requesting that we always turn it away for me. Um, we're requesting uh to relocate and bring the five metered spaces up to code compliant for spacing and sizing and then there'll be one additional non metered space. Um, I also wanted to point out at our last meeting there was some concern about the buffering between the church and the parking lot. Um, and we changed the species of the shrub to be something that grows taller between 8 and 10 feet tall so that there's more of an adequate buffer. between the church and the parking lot to screen the parking lot. We've had no feedback from the church about this issue at all. So, well, good. It's good thing to do. Like Kevin said, we're also stenciling customer and employee on the parking spaces. There will be poles and a chain separating them. And there will also be signage indicating where customer should park and where the employees should park. And I know that there was some concern about the odor control for the nail salon. Uh and the exhaust system for the nail salon will be provided with a source capture system capable of existing not capable of existing less than 50 CFMs per station for the 2021 mechanical code. So we will meet code requirement. Think that's everything that we changed on the plan. and I'll show you the new elevations. The the walkway that's in between 108 and 102, that's going to remain concrete because at one time they talked about making it brick and so that's still in conversation between both owners on the

material. I know that 108 would prefer brick, but at this point it hasn't been a final decision hasn't been. We don't require that at all. Well, we're not requiring if I'm just trying to keep us out of any issues regarding sort of easements that they're still they're going to work all that. I had uh one item that I just want to get clarity on. I think more so than anything. Uh and I should have said something at the last meeting. I I had it in my notes and did not bring it up, but uh it's the grease trap. It's in the front corner of the building outside your outside eating area. It's near the front near Bond Street and over near Alice Anne Street. My concern with grease traps is maintenance of them. They got to be inspected. They got to be kept maintained, cleaned out. I don't see where a truck could safely get to it from Alisanne or Bond Street. I'm gonna invite Tom Miner with Frederick Ward up to address. Sure. So, um the grease name and Tom Miner, Frederick Ward, five South Main. Um so, the grease trap where it's located, um it'll definitely be monitored obviously because it's near where people are going to be sitting. So, they're going to m make sure it's maintained. Um but uh you can park um a pump truck uh maintenance truck in the parking area and you can run a hose to to suck it out when needed. Um similar to any septic system. Isn't that a good thing next to a dining area? So I've done so with grease traps. Um the old ones a lot of times will have kind of smell to it, but you can get ones that are sealed. um so that they're not going to, you know, nice rubber gasket and stuff. A lot of times the reason

they stink is because they're not wellmaintained. So, um that's kind of at least been my experience when it comes to the grease trap aspects of things. Um for heavy loadings, um a f restaurant shouldn't have that heavy of a loading quite frankly with their grease creation, but um it's soups, so it's not as much of it's not going to be frying that kind of stuff. So, it's just a more of a clarity. The the reason we have it there and not kind of in kind of some of the more typical areas is really the way the grades fall on the site and then the storm water management facility where we kind of have to have it placed in the back there. Um, we don't the other utilities are in the way. So, we kind of have it placed where the best kind of the only place we can kind of put it. So, where it's located. That would be a great idea. I would like to see it modified. Okay. We um we can add more details to ensure that it's um more of a sealed system to where it's not gonna, you know, some type of Kevin, how would you like that to be kind of tabled as far as a I don't have grease traps memorized as far as what type of systems and I apologize. I should run. No, no, it's fine. I just I to to make sure that we're complying with the with what you guys are concerned with and equally um we can just say it's a sealed a sealed system or has good a gasketed system is that well I think one of the things we could do typically grease traps are the responsibility of the health department to m to monitor I would say that we could condition the approval based upon uh a review and approval by the health department because they're going to have to do that anyway. Yeah, they they got

to prove it anyway. Yeah, they're already included in the site planos motion, right? It's a good point though. I appreciate it. Could could you explain to me? I don't understand uh the fence or the the uh chain. How does that work? Is there one per slot? Is I mean, so I'm an employee and I drive up. How does that work? So, I probably wouldn't have one between every single location, but every we got eight spots. Um, I would probably place one uh we could we could put a poll or something like that. You don't want one at every spot so people can back out, but you're going to have probably three nail salon employees and then you're going to have four to five um restaurant employees. We probably would place a chain point between that because that's when you're going to have the in and out on that. The main point of the chain is really to ensure that patrons aren't going into the deeper spots and getting themselves stuck when realistically the whole point of the deeper spots or the other those secondary spots are for employees that come in when before everything starts and leave after everything's done. So, u we would stretch it across there. So, they physically drive in and move that chain to get into their spot. Is that how it function? Yeah. It's mostly to allow patrons the to let the patrons know that they can park in the spot behind the employee that they're not going to be reluctant to do so and then they go out and park on Aliceanne and muck up all the spaces along there. So if they know there's a chain there, then I think it would be kind of communicate that yeah, these cars aren't moving anytime soon. I still think it's going to be a problem. Yeah.

But uh you know, it's their problem, not really towns. Okay. All right. I just wanted to comment favorably. Could you guys get a copy of Mr. Ed's report? And yeah, these processes I felt bad for the applicants having to come in here now the third time. Thankfully, they didn't personally have to come tonight, but uh you ended up with a better plan than you started with and I'm always happy when I see it giving it a positive review and it's very attractive. I I think it looks really nice. Yep. And I was very impressed on the citizens that came in and spoke on their behalf. One of them was even a competitor. I thought that was admirable. That was pretty cool. But okay, ready. Should we move forward? Ready. I move that the uh planning commission find that the application is consistent with the 2022 comprehensive plan. um as outlined in town code 165-19. Second. All those in favor? I I keep going. Okay. Site plan. I move that um we approve the site plan condition on the following one. Prior to building permit application submission of a final site plan for signature incorporating comments from this staff report and comments from uh Harford County Health Department, uh Harford County Soil Conservation, Beller Public

Works, Beller Architectural Consultant. got Maryland Department of Transportation. Uh number two, coordination with public works department regarding site access on street parking and meter locations on Alicean Street shall be indicated on the final site plan. And three, approval of 16 stacked spaces as shown on the revised site plan based off based upon pavement, stenciling, signage, and chain barrier as indicated. plan. Is there a second? Second. Madam Chair. Yeah. Where do we put in for them approve where we approve the non? Okay. I just didn't know we had this. Okay. Jimmy I Phil I Don Hi. Peter. Hi. Chair votes I as well. Okay. landscape plan. Madam chair, at a minimum, um, we propose or I'll spit it out here. Um would we approve the landscape plan condition on the following prior to the building permit issuance submission and approval of the final landscape plan incorporating comments from the staff report a provision for fee and llu in the amount of $3,600 for woodland areas and unique vegetation mitigation must be u provided prior to the building permit issuance. Second second. Okay. Phil I Don Hi Jimmy I Peter I chair votes I as well. Madam chair I would also um

submit that we approve the special development for the outdoor dining bar service use. is based upon the following finding of fact that the applicant has adequately demonstrated that the proposed dining area meets the following performance standards as provided in section 165-53 IN2 lowerase I amplified music for public address are not permitted between 9:00 a.m. or excuse me 9:00 p p.m. and 9:00 a.m. Live entertainment and ational games are not permitted between 900 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. Outdoor dining and bar must adhere to requirements of chapter 345 of the town code. The exterior area is limited to 75% of the capacity of the principal permitted use. Any temporary enclosure must meet the provisions of section 165-71.C and no physical bar for the service of alcohol is proposed under this application. Alcohol consumption or service must be approved by the Harford County liquor board. Second, Jimmy I. Okay. Bill I chair as well. Yahoo. It's done. Hey, it didn't take as many meetings as Taco Bell took, so And now that we're still starting over again, hopefully not that many this go around. Thank you guys very much. Have a great holiday. Thank you. So, are we going to go any further this evening? I have five minutes, but you don't have your computer here, so it may

not it may be a moot point. Um, I wanted to talk about McFale Roads um, playground and I took some pictures of of it over off of uh, by Homestead Village, Homestead Park. Homestead Park. And we only have one signage basically coming from Maryland Golf and Country Club Park to uh, 924 that apart and then there's other limited sight distance coming from 924 to Molin Country Club the rise and then coming down and people are going a lot faster there now than they have in the past so I can I can come to to the board of commissioners and show it more because I know it doesn't happen here but we just need we need to do something over there. You're concerned about the sight distance from the concerned about the sight distance. Well, first off, I'd like to get a sign on on the on the side of the road heading from 924 to Maryland Dolphin Country Club showing that there's a park there. The sign should be double-sided. There's Well, there's only one sign. The one sign is further down here. The park's here. I'd like to see a sign up on this on the same side as the park. Okay. Yeah, there's there's a sign at the entrance that's double-sided that that can be seen from both directions. You're not you're saying that that's not the case? I don't remember seeing the back side of that. Okay. And then I candidly wouldn't mind seeing some sort of like like we have with the bike pass like you know we show show people riding bikes in the road something white that says slow down you know children play or something in the

road in the road itself because I can tell you from being a homestead resident for the past 41 years you know the amount of traffic has increased the speed has increased and probably got more people using the park because of pickle ball. Yeah. Yes, it's definitely getting more use. It's getting a lot. Um the and with the playground which is just opened a few weeks ago. It's a nice playground. I've been over there like six times with the grandkids. So, um that one of the things to I took I took the other You weren't playing on it. In the old days, I took took my kids over there, you know, threw them in a wagon. Maybe it was just you. The um one thing to remember is that McFale Road is a county road. I understand. So we have we can certainly suggest things to them. Well, isn't our half like the center of the road or is it all county? It's the entire thing is county. So they now one of the things that we had a person I had no problem going down and saying hey well we had a person uh request a crosswalk and they put one in at Jackson Boulevard. Yeah, I know that. So, that was that's something new. And so, if there was another desire to I I do understand that's one of the reasons why we provided off-site parking was because it would be nice to get a a crosswalk there. And I've looked to see where you could do one. And I don't think somebody's driveway at the end of their driveway, they want to see a huge crosswalk. But, I mean, that would be nice. Well, and yeah, we're I I would be reluctant to put a crosswalk midb block just because cars do go so fast and then putting a crosswalk in people think, "Oh, well, they're going to stop and uh I'm not sure that happens." But I think there's also other ways to slow down traffic. Uh especially on that road, people do go super fast. So, I would if you'd like, the town can

make a request to the county and see what they say. I would appreciate it. crosswalk. It has the sign, but they don't it's not there. Y laying the guy on the left was like crazy. The fellow was I thought there there was a study under safe streets for all. There's a under we did a study that was federally funded about a year and a half ago under safe streets for all that that was one of the locations that was studied. Um and it it involved some pretty major uh adjustments to Bond Street. Um one of the things was is that Bond Street's three lanes and doesn't need to be three lanes. Its capacity is not altered if it goes down to two. But I think that's a lot of people would look at that and say, are you kidding me? That can't happen. Because if you look at it, it's one lane going south, then it passes by um it passes by um the gas station there. Yeah. And then that becomes two lanes and then it becomes three lanes down by um Lee Street. So how do you know that doesn't make sense to me? So, um, but they did offer up some some revisions. So, I would suggest you may want to go online and take a look at it.

One of the things that we were planning to do is to make some is to apply for some grants associated with that. But the new administration has basically cut off a lot of money to uh anything to do with safe streets for all. So, um, Well, at least federally, yeah, there's still there's actually a nice opportunity right now through the state to apply for some grants and that's one of the things we're looking into. Such a benefit to the town. I would I think the best and Lois I remember that case where the woman was killed. She lived right over in the sewing factory apartments and I knew her. But the that's one really bad thing. And then but just routinely if anybody's crossing there at Courtland Street, cars coming up Thomas and turning right, they don't even look over there. They look back to their left to make sure it's okay for them to go. They don't see pedestrians in that at all. The to me the best solution is just find a way to have that just not be a pedestrian crossing at all. It's unsafe. Let them go up to the light up to Off Street. get the light right. But one of the things to know is that the light at off the street actually regulates the the traffic that would be that a someone crossing at Courtland would experience. You just have to wait for that light to for Bond. But not for Thomas. Not for Thomas. Correct. The worst routine is the right turns from Thomas Street on to Bond. People are they're looking to their left to make sure they can go and they're not about a pedestrian on the right and it's pretty tight there. I mean, you'd have to be pretty agile to not get hit, right? And I think that was one of the reasons why the the crosswalk was put down by Courtland rather than at Thomas because

of that very thing. If you look at Lee Street at Maine, that same situation exists that's bad flying down the hill. So, one of the things I wanted to point out to you guys is having been um the victim twice of being hit in that area. I was hit at the crosswalk you're talking about at Thomas Street and then I was hit by another car like tapped you. It was it was enough to the one in the middle of the street knocked me over. The other one I dented the guy's hood because I was walking and he bumped me and he was doing exactly what you described. look left and usually I don't walk in front of the car unless we make eye contact and I banged it and that's the only thing that made him stop was I looked down at his car. We all said because we we used the Thomas Bond for our employees. We have no on-site parking at 30 office street. If they just moved we even told the state guy this before. If you just move the the the crosswalk down where the entrance is to Thomas Bond on Bond Street side and then have it cross where Cassa is at Courtland. So the other side of Courtland, correct? Because also when they first put that in there, you could access the circuit court from either Courtland or office. Now you can't you can only access the courthouse, the circuit court from Courtland. So everybody's got to go that way. So, no one is going to go down the street anymore and up off the street only to turn around and go right around. So, and everybody uses that parking lot, Thomas and Bond. So, yeah. I When you said that, I'm like, "Oh my god, I remember getting hit by that car." At least you cut out the middleman. Cut out the middleman. Yeah, you do. Oh, yeah. Luckily, it wouldn't hurt for sure. So, but yeah, it's it's it's we call it the triangle of death in that area. Yeah, that was another you know that was one that was studied. We had nine

intersections studied and only one of them has been has had any work done to it which was Gordon and uh Maine and Bond and that we're talking the state highway about getting some work done to that. Uh so that was actually a very successful effort. We can take those speed cushions put them in couple places that really made people happy. We could use the paving strategy now being employed in Howard Park where nobody can drive anywhere. Yeah. Whatever that paving strategy is, you can't you can't go anywhere. I've tried to I have to admit that I feel sorry for the contractor because the contractor, they've had two breaks of the water lines and which has stopped them cold from completing their job. Plus, they had about three weeks where it rained almost every day. So, that's they've got every street you have to strategize. How do I get to the town hall today? We've actually delayed. We had a study that was scheduled for Howard Park to study the traffic. Um, but it was supposed to happen in June. We couldn't do it because the work wasn't finished. And then when school let out, it wouldn't be accurate. So, we're it's going to have to be September, October. I would definitely wait until Thomas Street if it ever gets done that it is done and because even aside from this paving that is now going on so routinely over there. Aside from that, traffic patterns have changed because of what we're doing on Thomas Street. People are avoiding Thomas Street now. And they may go back to it after it's all paved, but it may not, which is a good thing. So although I don't know whether it's going to help or hurt the other streets.

Well, and that's what we're going to be hoping to get comments from a traffic consultant to tell us what to do. So, a related subject, Thomas Street. What a nightmare. There was no traffic control by the contractor at all today. It was awful. It was bus went up the street. I even tried to stop the bus from going up the street to try to make a detour. It was disastrous. But you cannot see the stop sign. You can't see hardly any of the signs because they put all those trees up. First, they put the trees over on the wrong side. They had them in people's yards and had take them back out, put them over by the sidewalk. They've replaced some of the sidewalks three times now. But you cannot see the stop sign coming up Thomas Street from Kelly. My neighbor told me I went and took a picture of it. Which which one? The one at Reed. The one right at Thomas and Atwood. Atwood. You cannot. And you're coming up from Kelly. You do not see that stop sign. They got it all the way in on the inside of the grass by the It needs to be moved out. All right. Plus the trees are blocking the speed limit sign. All the signs they got through there. All the trees are blocking them. You're not going to see them soon. So, they might have to take the one tree out by the stop sign. It's pretty I got a picture of it if you want to see it. But, and that curb that you said they were probably going to take out is still there at Archer, but I think your plow truck in the town will take that out this winter. Well, they've been hit several times. Huh? It's been hit several times. No, the curve sticks out. Juts out. You got to go make a wide turn to turn on Archer. So, you go right into the incoming traffic. If

you're making a turn there, it's it's not good. This is coming from Thomas going towards that wood coming up that curb that turns into Archer right on the corner. So, you're taking a right on Archer. Yes. And from Thomas. Yes. Okay. Like I said, you're going to have some accidents there. And you can see people already hit the curve. All the neighbors are complaining to me about it. Like I thought, I ain't got nothing to do with it. Call the town. Call DPW. Yeah. Glad he doesn't live in Howard Park anymore. I mean, you anything else? Okay. Happy Independence Day. There was no motion or anything, but we'll just pretend there was.