Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

You're welcome. The

April 21st meeting of the Manchester Zoning Planning Planning and Zoning Commission will now come to order. First item on the agenda is a review and approval of the February 17th minutes. Michelle has provided everybody with a copy of those minutes. Could you take a moment to look at them and see if there need to be any changes or if they're satisfactory and ready for approval? I make a motion we accept the February 17th minutes. We have a motion to accept. Do we have a second? Second.

Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. That That's fine. Thank you, Ry. Next item on the agenda, zoning administrators report. Michelle, how are you this evening? Good. How is everyone? Well, thank you.

Um, I want to tell you the chapter 250 zoning changes that we did were approved by the council in March and they met out their time. So, they are in effect right now. All of our new zoning changes. Um, you have before you the final submitt from Ecoin Meadows. Um, we're waiting on final storm water comments, which I gave you a copy, I thought I did, of your latest of the latest ones and because there's not that many anymore. But, um, the off-site storm drain work is supposed to start this summer. We're in the process of writing the PWA and taking the letter credit for that job. Maverick one, the solar field is still not complete. I'm not sure what what is their hold up back there, but we're waiting on that to be done because as soon as that's finished, they are going to repave Grafton Street. Um, and one of the other items I had is I got a call from Jonathan Bowman um about the landscaping shown on the Ecoin Meadows plant. So, when you take a look at that, I'd like you to take a look at the landscaping. Um, there's a 20 foot wide strip between the storm water management pond and Park Avenue. And I know that in our minutes when I went back, we had discussed that we wanted it screened in some way along with the fence. Um, but he left me a message and we're playing phone tag, but his message was he had concern with the slope of that area for plantings. So, if you could take a look at that on the plan so we have an answer for for him, I'd appreciate it. Um, I also note on the plan there was absolutely no landscaping done between the existing Burwagger House and the development. Um, I guess that would be up to their sidewalk and their mailboxes. I couldn't find any reference to it, but I thought that we had or would have said something there because that house has been there forever and it's sat there wide open now. So, he um I did mention that to Robert Hullwick and he said he

was going to look at the plans because he also thought We had something there. I think that's all I got for you tonight. Okay. Any questions for Michelle? Thank you. Town administrators report. Matt, how are you this evening? I'm good. Uh good evening, commission. So, have a little bit to report on town administrator council report. So, we are continuing to work through our

uh had feedback there. I'm not sure where it's coming from. Uh we are continuing to work through our wastewater treatment plant design. Uh we've had a bunch of meetings with the state engineers and our engineers to help uh basically scale some things back to cut some costs. Uh the state engineers had some concerns over the physical sizing of tanks, pipes, and pumping. So they are re-evaluating their numbers. They've scaled some of it back and we have another meeting this week with the state. So hopefully we get these answered, they can they can work on getting the design complete and then we can work on bidding and construction, which will be very beneficial for the town. uh because our wastewater treatment plant is struggling currently. On the water side, uh design work continues to develop a new wa a new water treatment plant that will placed at the Manchester Valley pump station there at Maple Grove and 30. That project encompasses eight wells. We're going to centrally locate there and treat for POS. uh on the north side of town. We've done our next testing of POS and we've had elevated numbers on the north side. So, we are going to start a project for POS remediation uh basically route 27 north. Uh we're hoping to get a PR done, a preliminary engineer engineering report done with uh a preliminary plan and a cost estimate so we can submit for MDE funding at the end of this year when the program opens. So outside of the water and wastewater, uh May 2nd we are doing the ribbon cutting up here at Hay's Wish

Playground. We're going to dedicate that to Haley Miller. Uh that is at noon. Should be a good time. Hopefully the weather cooperates. So I'd like to invite everybody out for that. And I believe that is all I have for town council town administrator report this evening. Any questions? I do have one question. Um on the wastewater treatment, the sizing, were they questioning it being under or oversized? They were questioning it being oversized. Okay. uh based on pipe size, pumping capacity. Uh they were worried about the flow conditions and the velocity for for sediment dropout and scouring. Okay.

Uh they were also concerned about clarifier sizes being too big uh which would negative could negatively negatively affect the treatment process. So they are working through that currently. So, doing what's right and planning for the future is getting us in trouble. Okay. Some of that. Yes. Okay. Just just checking. Any other questions for Matt?

Thank you. Okay. Next item on the agenda is a uh county planning department report. And I see we have a new representative for our uh town, Scott Graph. Welcome. Yeah, come up to the microphone, please. It's on.

Nice meeting you this evening. We'll get more acclimated as time goes on. Um, finishing up my second week back with the planning department. I spent the last decade with Department of Public Works with the county and prior to that had a stent with the planning department as well. Um, just going to go through a list of some stuff that I received as far as updates. uh deferrals. Uh data processing centers are currently not specifically addressed in the Carol County zoning ordinance. U there is a temporary deferral uh for the acceptance and review of applications for data processing centers that will be for 12 months. So it'll go into early 2027 and that that'll be to to be continued. And there are also numerous other deferrals and text amendments currently being worked on. But as I get up to speed, I will give you reports in the coming months on those. The master plan update continues. Staff is presenting u data to the county planning commission that's been compiled for various master plan workg groups. We have a housing work group, an economic work group, and an agricultural work group. Uh along with input that is gathered through public outreach. We're also doing youth outreach this time around. We met with Boys and Girls Club. Westminster High School was a stop along the way and we also went to Carroll Community College and was pleasantly surprised by the uh the energy from the students. I kind of expected some apathy with them, but they've all gotten involved in in the activities. It's been great to see. Uh the water and sewer master plan. Uh an extension has been granted by the state for the trienal update and that's the uh the year update of the entire document that will commence now in 2027. In the meantime, the spring and fall amendment cycles are still on track. The

last thing I'll report on is the uh annual report for this year. Has the town adopted that? Yeah, that um a draft of the completed document which will have all the county data and the eight municipality included that'll be back to you guys for review in May. And that concludes my report. You have any questions? So, with data centers, um, will the county be looking at the size of the data center and the type of data center differently or is the intention just to throw them all in one pot and see what sticks? I I could find out for you. the state is driving because

a lot of this as far as you know with with solar and with everything else. The megawatts associated with them do vary greatly and with the large models being finished uh we're going to be looking at um small local data center sets coming to communities probably in the near future. So thank you. If I get some additional information on it, I'll I'll get it to you. Miss Denny, did you have something to add to that? Oh, okay. That's fine. I I saw you jump out of your seat there. I thought I thought you got the answer. Real quick and um Michelle, do we need to address data centers?

Um I hadn't even thought about it till they brought it up, but um I don't know where we would really have. But the soon as you think you don't have I mean, if somebody walked in tomorrow, what would happen? Yeah, we have nothing. So, I'm going to see what they do. Yeah. Okay. Probably fall. I assume the state's probably industrial. Yeah. Um but I I would assume like is a server room a data center a big one they have not been classified that in other locations. Yeah. Um center here

they're typically on uh multiple megawatt configurations. But with the large learning model getting refined, what's going to happen is you're going to start seeing satellite data centers out that can push out to your car, your home, and other things on a much more rapid basis. So that footprint is going to shrink dramatically in order to complete the network, so to speak. So I mean, you could see one coming that bigger than the sheets but smaller than the high school. So yeah,

very good. Okay, the next item on the agenda is uh final review and approval of the water resources element of the uh Carol County comprehensive plan. We have Brenda Denny from the county here to talk and answer any other questions we might have. This issue has been before the board before and uh there were some issues raised by the council and thank you. Now we're back. Yeah.

Thank you. I just was going to add a quick note about the data centers. I'm the one who's working on the research for that. Um,

see, you learn something new every day. So, as Scott said, the commissioners uh put a deferral in place for the acceptance and processing of plans related development plans related to data centers. That was February 19th and it's is for one year. So, in the meantime, we're doing research on this and I anticipate we'll probably go to the board somewhere around May 21st, I think, is our tenative date to introduce it to them. uh they've asked us to do something. So, we're obviously because they put the deferral in place, we're uh trying to get some information on like major concerns. Um just, you know, be able to provide them what are data centers and and um so for example, Mr. Graham was talking about the smaller centers that might be closer to town, generally classified as edge data centers and and they are kind of like the go-between between your house and the big huge um hypers scale med um data centers and like he said kind of completes the network makes that connection quick in the rural areas or in areas where um you know you're not close to the data centers. Uh so anyway, when we go to the commissioners, we're going to be asking for their direction on what if anything they want to consider because we don't have anything in our zoning code either. So what what would what do they want to consider? Um like I said if anything in terms of uh allowing data centers and um it might be that it's only edge data centers or you know maybe they'll allow hypers scale in industrial area you know like so how big and where and that kind of thing. We'll bringing up all of the major concerns that are associated with them like water consumption, energy consumption,

um even noise and um then if they direct us to do so then we will be going to our planning commission and working with them to develop a recommended uh zoning code requirements for data centers for whatever it is that the commissioners want us to look into. And then uh we've discussed this at the water resource coordination council and um I know a number of the municipalities are also looking um into putting something in place for data centers. I think Tony Town has had an inquiry already about data centers. So, um, we've already talked about, um, whatever we're putting together, we'll be sharing with the municipalities through the water resource coordination council and, um, you know, sort of coordinating with the municipalities to help each other out on getting something in place for anybody who wants to do so.

Thank you.

You're welcome. All right, the water resources element. So, I'll just give a quick recap. You know, um as you as um as you mentioned, we've already um gone through part of the process. So, I'll recap that. But, I'm here tonight so that we can look at the staff recommendations and potentially request approval of the document that can then be sent to the council. So, um, November 12th to to 15th, we had the draft plan document was sent out to the state agencies for review for the required 60-day review period and also sent to all the neighboring counties. Uh, that ended January 15th and on January 20th, we got comments from the state and we also got comments from Frederick County in December. In November 12th, we also released it for a general public review and comment and it was available online and um that was open for public comment through February 23rd which was when the last of the public hearings records were closed. So, um, it was almost three months. That was a

little over three months. Yeah. Because you because Mount Airy got delayed on their hearing because of the weather and you had to push them back a month. Right. I think um there were two on the 23rd. I can't remember. I know one of them was Tony Town. I can't remember what I think the other one was Mount Airy.

Right. So, they had their public hearings and then the hearing that you all participated in was February 4th and the record for that closed on February 23rd. So all the planning commission hearings were done by the fe by February 23rd and the comment record um closed. So what was sent to you and what I gave you a hard copy of tonight is the actual comment packet resulting from that review period.

It includes um the actual state comments re and Frederick County comments received which is the back part of this packet. It includes a um staff recommendations for the comments from the state and the and Frederick County. And then um also assuming you if you accepted those staff recommendations that includes redline pages that reflects what those staff recommendations would look like if the changes are made. These were these were the ones that came in the email earlier in March. I think March 11th, we received a package of six or seven emails and these recommendations were included in there.

Yeah. For some reason, um, this redline document was the files were so huge it took me like six emails to get them sent. Yeah,

that's insane. Um, so you have all that and I will note that there were no public comments received at any of the public hearings and no public comments received as a result of the open public comment period either. So that's why all you have in here is state comments and Frederick County comments. None of the other neighboring counties sent comments. So, um I'll remind you that nothing in this plan commits us to doing anything, which is great. Um but what it does do is demonstrates to the state that we've considered water and we can find water for growth if we need to. Everything costs money unfortunately, but it can be done. It is there. um and that we've considered limitations um for water resources and how we could possibly address them. So that's what the action items do is how we could possibly address these things. Again, we're not committed to doing any of it, but it shows the state that it can be done if we want to pursue additional development. So just to give you some highlights on the state comments, none of them were substantive. uh most of them were clarifications or you know suggesting um you know we add a recommendation for this or that. So in the background and supporting information sections that would be drinking water, wastewater, storm water and the background they um suggested adding relevant planning principles. So I think it was two legislative sessions ago the general assembly changed the 12 visions to eight planning principles that are supposed to be addressed with the comprehensive plan. So um we the recommendations include adding the relevant princip planning principles not all of them because I think some of them don't really apply to water resources. So that should be done with your comprehensive

plan. Um, two of the things that when the state put out guidance on updating the from the 2010 that we did included we needed to add climate change considerations and also equity. So they suggested that we add more information on equity. So, we put in some more background information and use the state's map to put in uh the state's um online mapping tool for like where we might have underserved or overburdened communities. Union Bridge was part of that and Tony Town had an area out. There's not a lot.

No, it wasn't a lot. Wasn't a lot. Um so, we added that. There were a bunch of places where they asked us to clarify some numbers and so information was added to clarify those and um we added some references to climate to more more climate change information like including a reference to uh the state's climate vulnerability tool. So again this is really justformational things and then there were um several action items they suggested that we add and again none of them were substantive. nothing changes any direction and we're not committed to do anything. So, we did recommend that we just go ahead and add what they suggested on their recommendation.

Yeah, I know there was some emphasis on protection of tier 2 watersheds, tier 2 waters and, you know, looking for planting opportunities in those areas. Yeah. Most of what the state included in their tier 2 comments was more programmatic. Yeah. as opposed to, in fact, you probably noticed with MDOT and and the Maryland Department of Transportation and Maryland Department of Housing, Community Development, they kind of just listed their programs. A lot of them weren't even relevant to water resources, but and so it was it was good information, but not really relevant to include in here. I think they just felt they needed to comment,

right? and and then the tier 2 stuff wasn't as much an information dump on programs, but what they put in was more applicable to individual development, right, projects. So, um so basically we're just suggesting we're recommending that we go ahead and add um a good bit of what that they suggested. Um now, I wasn't going to go ever over every single I don't think there was anything specific to Manchester. There wasn't. And um yeah,

I went over every specific thing in that read it to make sure there wasn't anything for Manchester and I was actually like I said in the water in in the sewer section Manchester was reflected very positively as one of the only jurisdictions with capacity and in the water if you take out the possible future serve area we were we were fine on the water side too. We were only I think us and Freedom, right? We're the only two. So, yes. So, they have a reservoir. So far, it hasn't been approved to be a drinking water reservoir, right? I know, but it can be. It can be.

Hey, state, we have one. It could be made into one. It could. Well, actually, they do have the Liberty Reservoir, but we don't own that one. Right. Right. doesn't mean we couldn't get more water out of it. They've got we've got more water available to us through Liberty than we are actually using right now. So So um if you don't have any other specific questions on any of the recommendations any questions for uh for Miss Denny on the uh water resource element? Okay. I will say that it was very thorough because I did actually read it. took some time. This

No, not this one. But I read I read the Well, I read the email. I I read the seven the seven emails that came through. So, well, I want to say I appreciate that because it takes me a lot of time to put this together. So, I do appreciate that somebody actually looks at it. Well, I mean, it's it it's what we're supposed to do. So, you know, it's an important part of, you know, Carol County water's always been an issue. So, it is kind of one of those staples. Yeah. Um, so Union Bridge, New Windsor, Tony Town, Sykesville, Mount Ary have already their planning commissions have approved it and sent it to their councils. Um, oh, and the county planning commission did today. Okay. Um, who am I missing? Hamstead.

Hamstead's tomorrow night. Um, and I Jim Ror, the town manager, anticipated they would approve it. Yeah. Um, so it's moving along that way. Okay. Um so for as far as the request then for you is that um if we make a

or amendable accept staff recommendations approve the plan reflecting the staff recommendations um and then the com what it would actually be is you're adopting the entire document exclusive of the other municipal systems in the overview of municipal systems because the the other part of the document is all your background information for like your plan that the state would want to see, but you don't want to adopt the ones for the other municipalities because if they want to change something in their section that's just specific to them, you don't want everybody to have to open up their plan and hold a hearing just so they can make an amendment. So that's why I'm suggesting everybody adopts it in that way.

So we adopt the stuff relevant to Manchester only and the overall plan, but not the stuff specific to the other municipalities. Correct. Okay. And then so if you approve it, you would the chair would sign the resolution approving the plan and then it would get forwarded to the council for an adoption. Yeah. Y and then the council would also have to hold a public hearing either before adopting or modifying the plan. That's a state requirement now. Okay. Um, and then they could also adopt the plan and they would also have to sign an adoption resolution.

If you're so inclined, I did you can word it whatever you want, but I know for our planning commission they like to have a suggested motion. So I included that. Brenda, I have a question. The planning commission has never done a resolution for anything and like in the past we've just done a recommendations to the council and then the council would be the one signing the resolution. So the resolution um for the planning commission is just approving it and forwarding it to the council which is what we do by just recommendation and we sign a letter and we it it's one of the required documents. Yeah, I think it's required. It's required. Yeah. To do a resolution

because the only one that the attorney sent over to me was for the council and had their signatures on it. I mean their signature blocks. So, um I'll check with him tomorrow and if so, then I'll just have them sign something then. But in the meantime, I do have a copy of the recommendation for you to take that we did approve it. Okay. Well, when they do approve it.

Okay. Ch. Any other discussion? Okay. Being no other discussion, do I have a motion to approve the water resources element with the staff and outside recommendations that were made to it, keeping in mind that that recommendation would be limited specifically to the Manchester elements in the specific town areas, but then also the general information that applies to the entire county. I make motion to recommend to town council to approve our sections in the county section.

We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? I'll second a motion. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. No. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you, Miss Denny. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Okay, next item is I see we have some of our local we we love having you here. It's nice to you're you're you're getting to learn a lot about Manchester coming here. How are you this evening?

Do you have any uh thing you need to bring up before the board at this point or No, we were just following up on the last Okay. Well, you can always in in the future, you can always check with Michelle, you know, and ask her if there's going to be something on the on the docket or the agenda relative to the Yeah. Okay, that's fine. We'd love to have you. Okay. Any other uh items that the board needs to bring up at this time? If not, I'll take a motion to adjurnn the meeting. Make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second it.

Okay. All those in favor to adjurnn the meeting signify by saying I. I. Opposed. That's it. Meetings adjourned. Good night, everyone.