Planning Board - Regular Meeting

[clears throat] I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] See if anybody's in thebody. Not even Neil. Oh yeah, there's somebody signed in as guest. He is muted though. He might be on an airport. We can still do. Let's make a motion to allow Neil to attend it via Zoom.

I'll make a motion. All in favor? Hi.

Is it Adam zooming in or I don't know if Adam was zooming in or not. He said he was he was the whole reason this zoom started. Okay. [laughter] We could modify the permission to allow Adam to do whatever he comes on to. That's good. No, I move. Second. I All right. Um, everyone has reviewed the minutes from last meeting. Yes. Did you just make a correction? Yeah, that's all I was going to say. When I looked down, the correction I saw was um page. [laughter] And actually, I don't know if you actually put it in there. I think it's just in the middle.

Let's not worry about the correction. [clears throat] Um, can I have a motion to approve the minutes from last week? Make a motion to approve our minutes from our last meeting. Second. I'll second. All in favor? I

It passes. Moving forward to agenda item A. Robert evening chair, members of the planning board. Um continuing our discussion on u this is a commercial exterior lighting. Yep. Uh, so I have attempted to make the adjustments from the notes from our last presentation. Um, and then I guess I got confused on revisiting holiday lights cuz we talked so much about like when to start it, when not to start it, and it spanned over probably at this point 4 months, just that one point. So I will move it back to where it was. Uh, but I did um did add a section to create a marina dry stack dry slip lighting subsection that allows for taller fixtures in 18 ft of parking lot tied to operating hours. Um, I put instead of repeating a recommended 3,000 Kelvin in every section. Um, I simply put that in the first section under general. So, it just says it's recommended in all sections, 30,000 Kelvin. Um, Neil probably wanted me to play a funny uh Instagram clip I found for him, and as soon as I saw it, I immediately sent it to him as an HOA discussion. He was like, he was like, "Wmates means casserole is almost done. Cold lights mean pan." So, so that was that was sort of the idea behind the 3000 thing, but I thought it was a great that was a great clip. Um, he appreciated it over Thanksgiving. Um, require any future outdoor sports field lighting um proposals to come through the planning board uh with a phototric plan and make

this apply townwide, not just for town facilities. that essentially puts the height of sports field lights in the hands of the board of alderman essentially. Um you said come through the planning board. Oh go to the planning board. Sorry for permission for that. Um not 100% sure how that would work legally. Yeah. [laughter] It means you have the board of alder the board of alderman can assign it to the board.

Yeah. Exactly. So, I think that um I would I would look at that and before I added that part because we only talked about the planning board, but I think that we would require future outdoor sporting field lighting proposals to go through the planning board with a phototric plan and make this townwide not just for facilities, but also that would so the planning board would make a favorable or not favorable recommendation to the board of alderman uh with the phototric plan. Is there anything that I guess text amendments would I'm just trying to think is there anything that comes directly to us without the board of alderman directing it to us?

Well, so in the in the UDO the planning board is allowed to do um analysis or study things like that. So So that Yeah. And then you know we would the staff would [clears throat] relay that uh the results of that and I guess if it's approved by the board of alderman there you want us to change go through the planning board.

Well the so if if a lighting plan exceeds the height of a sports field they would need to come with a phototric plan to the planning board and then on to the board of alderman for permission. It basically addresses the concern about the height of the sports fields on the government campus because it was approved by the board of all. I mean it went to the um the committee uh recreation committee. Is that what it called?

Um parks and recre uh [clears throat] uh committee and then it went to the board of alderman and was approved in that way. So that would address that also. Uh just a quick question if I may. Uh where where do we stand? Is is Hayne still working on changing them or lowering them or I haven't heard Jim. You had heard we did talk about that at parks and recying them which apparently uh creates more light trespass. It's counterintuitive. [clears throat] More to reflect off of more light just pass out.

It makes like the closer to the ground it gets the brighter it actually gets. So well yeah but they would have to change the light fixtures also cuz the uh pickle ball court lights are lower and they don't they don't do light that they somebody just brought that up at the [snorts] talked about probably what they're saying is a light fixture that's up there now wasn't designed to be lower probably. So it probably is going to cause trespass. So

um anyway, briefly on the point where says we're talking about that um section F1 we were talking about we thought 65 ft were too high which is about they figure that out. But if we are now saying that all sports um fields and lightings are going to go back to either Alderman or us and we have a problem with that 65 ft height. Do we want to put it in here that says shall not exceed 65 ft or should we make that more um ambiguous to so someone doesn't come in here and say well the statute says or so your ordinance says 65 ft so we we're showing you

well um you see what I'm saying because someone now if you see the 65 ft in here you're going to think to yourself okay well I'm just going to metric fan showing 65 ft and when they say no well you have lights that are 65 and you already said the ordinance already says 65 ft comply with the ordinance. What page is that on? On page 14.

So um and subsection interior lighting shall be reviewed by the zoning [snorts] outdoor sport. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Um outdoor sporting fields mount luminire shall not exceed 65 ft and mounting height fixtures that you Yeah. What is it? Yeah. So, um I think that it would probably be best to limit that to the commercial lighting height and then anything beyond that go to the board of alderman without specifying a height and then it would be on the applicants to prove why you need to prove why you needed that high.

I agree with that. So, what's that fee? [clears throat] That was a commercial 18 18 too. Yeah, [snorts] maybe [clears throat] it is 15. It was 18. We may have reduced. I think it's 15. Oh, okay. 18. Am I wrong? Which would kind of dictate that most any application would have to come through the system. Yeah, absolutely. I thought, Pardon me. You thought it was 15? You trying to find it? Oh, yeah. Uh light fixtures above 15.

Well, see mounting height shall be the type that you shall not exceed. Oh, it's on the front though. It says 18. We reduced it from 30 to 18. Yeah. From 30 to 18 limit. Yeah, that's on that's subsection C on page 12. Okay, so back to 18 just so if their plan would exceed 18 ft that they would need to get permission and then we just leave out the 65 all together and leave that to the yes to the board to discuss as a a reasonably very tall height.

Yeah obligation widely. [clears throat] So what did we agree upon the pathway for these applicants to get there? They have to do they apply to Well, they would submit a zoning application to you and you if it exceeds 18 ft then I'll be like I'll say well since your lights exceed 18 ft you have to go to the planning board then the board of alderman. Okay. [clears throat] And so that is that encourages them to keep it below 18 ft. So you don't have to go through that process, but if they're insistent on it, then they'll they'll want to go to that path. And an example, I guess, would be like the tennis courts at um um Grass Bay has don't support Grass Bay have tennis court.

Yeah, there's station one. Station one has tennis. That's that's a good example. They come to the board and they say they want them or the planning board their lights. Where are they? That's all. Right. And then and then [clears throat] the end result of that from the board of alderman is they it would just basically be basically just be me issuing a zoning permit. Yeah. You know, approval by the board of alderman to exceed, you know, to a maximum of like say 24 ft for example. Right. So yeah, that makes sense. So I hate to confuse the issue, but so now in [clears throat] that process, will you review that light fixture to know to see that?

Yeah, we we don't allow the light trespass or the I mean that's what the photoometric plan is for. Okay. So I mean even if they're 18 ft, if they're going to go below 18 ft, they still have to conform to what we're passing today. Light sources, right? Exactly. No light sources. Has to be constrained to your property. avoid light trespass which is 01 foot candles and um even if it were to be above the 18 feet it would still need to meet those requirements.

So yeah it it still doesn't it doesn't take away from the focus there. [clears throat] Um then you talked about texture that he is on [clears throat] can't be heard he hears us I think. Okay. Yeah. So I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Then we talked about removing the town's uplighting exemption. That has been a point from pretty much day one. Uh there's no issue there that I'm aware of. Maybe public works will have issue with it, but we'll see what public works. Whenever I sent this out, though, the department heads, nobody had any issue with any of it. So, nobody had any comments about it. Um they don't have them on the ground now, do they? There's there's still a few out there. Yeah, there's still a few. It's most likely you see up here once.

Yeah. But again, you know, instead of up lighting, you could actually mount solar panel like lights up in the tree shining down. I mean, that is a thing. Well, we have those around the loop. Uh only half of the loop because they haven't fixed the other half yet, but we have on Salsbury Street. Um in fact, I guess we've got a thing going about loop improvements.

Mhm. And who was it told me they're going to include that? Maybe Katie told me. We have down lighting on the loop sidewalk on Salsbury Street and it's it's great. But then you get over to um Causeway and they haven't worked in years [cough and clears throat] up when somebody got assaulted out there, right? Yeah. So make sure those get put up. Parker. [laughter] Hey. Um, one one. What about those uh I haven't walked around the loop, so I can't I mean, in a while since the summer, so I can't remember. But they don't have those emergency boxes like you see on schools, do they?

No, I haven't seen a one on the loop. There is one over by the uh tennis courts, though. Oh, okay. [clears throat] You talk about emergency for injury or emergency for like um assault. like all that stuff. Basically, you hit the button and the blue light starts going. That's a good thing to have. Yeah. I when I was at UNCW [laughter] a lot of shopping malls money how much they are Robert [clears throat] one thing that we this morning but

talk about the marinas [clears throat] the the light or the height of the lights you said were basically within the safety maxim what what do we what that is. Oh, um, that I'm going to need to talk to Marina about. Okay. Yeah, that's going to require a little bit more research on that one. And that that's fine. I just didn't know if you kind of left that frog just so we can get it. Marina dry docks and dry slope.

What page is that? It's on 14. It's the very last section. and lighting marine and dry stack dry slip structures must Yeah, that's pretty broad. I mean, it must be um no taller than I think it's a typo. Yeah, it is a typo. What is that? [laughter] What is that word? Oh, it's an extra word that uh then what that I don't know why that's in there. what is minimally required to work safely. So I think we would just we would and what is to take out that minimal

yeah no taller than what is minimally required to work safely and the only reason they use that language instead of an actual number is because pretty much our entire current ordinance is written like that. So I just I was interested. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I mean we can come up with a better number or we can come up with an actual number. I mean what I would say is whatever we have right now let's cap that. Yeah that's a good that's a good point. That's how a lot of them are are written also. It's like what do we have? All right let's stop there.

Yeah. Makes sense. Um so in the illustrations uh per request I added a a uh compatible a compliant Edison bulb/ Easter lighting on page 16 to accompany our uh Edison bulbs that are not compliant on page 17 cuz I do uh I do great graphic No, that's great. That's perfect. Yeah, the bulb hangs out over. Yeah.

Um, so then moving in, I didn't change any of the definitions. I think the definitions were pretty pretty solid. Um, and that was it. So with the exception of the holiday thing which is gets confusing. So we're going to do November 15th to January. What is it 10th or 7th or something? I think we had 15th, didn't we? January. Commercial. People like to start before November 15th. Were they happy with November 15th? The commercial for holidays

like Yeah. For holidays. Cool. Um we were We're just not going to see it. Yeah. Okay. November 15th to January 15th. January 15th. What is it now? What was it for this year? I think we were kind of loosey goosey. Were we changing much? I think it was shorter than we're making. We're making it bigger than it was. Yeah. [clears throat] It is a little bit longer with this version. I will say that I was pretty sure

they start putting up this stuff today. Yeah, because Thanksgiving being a moving target is one of [laughter] Well, that and I know because a lot of people put a lot of stuff up early like the garden club [snorts] and the city start early. My next door neighbor said Thanksgiving through January 15th. I'm sorry. What what I think the old one was Thanksgiving. So we back we back it out 10 days 15th. So now is the 15th and the January 15th January 15th and we are not allowing um lights on docks. No.

Wait a minute. [clears throat] What? No docks. No Christmas lights anytime. Anytime. We've never allowed them. They just appear. Oh my god. No Christmas lights on docks. Wait on the 4th of July channel. [laughter] Oh, how did I how did I miss that?

Yeah, but that was because of the safe. That was when we first did appear back in August and we talked about it through safety instead of an actual like quality of life quality of life which is what we're talking about now. We looked at peers docks as a safety issue. All that light with the glare on the water was the same issue. Especially this time of year when you have all those sailboats that are broken out here because they're all moving down south and you know you have your little boats that are coming in town. It is a safety issue. Yes. So we're not there not supposed to be any lights on docks even for the holidays.

I remember that the town used to have the decorate the dock contest. We had that during co I remember [clears throat] what's that guy going to do all this stuff decorating he lost a lot of money he can't decorate all those beers oh I have no idea what was his name Patri people or something and pay him big money back years ago you can't do it anymore [clears throat] um we already passed that right yeah I think yeah approved by the [clears throat and cough]

Well, it still has to go to the board of alderman, but it has been voted on by the full planning board. Is that not gone? Not yet. Yeah, [clears throat] we're trying to we're trying to work through this section by section and then give it to the board of be like this is what we we've come up with. Okay. So, we are giving it to them all at one time. Yeah, we're going through commercial and then we're doing residential next. Yes, I'd like we can let's talk about that before for new business. [clears throat]

Um, so that's all I had. So, now that the holiday is straightened out, I think the only note from this meeting is to address the last dry. Yeah, the dry stack lighting. Go take a measure of that and slap a number on it. Good. So, does anyone have any questions about about that? It's 14

at the bottom just my questions are pretty much [clears throat] answered during the discussion. So, I I guess the only question I have, and we can't determine it, is I don't know how [clears throat] what the town attorney is going to say about how much you can legally enforce uh holiday lighting um at any time. [clears throat] It's kind of like in my mind, it kind of borders on, you know, that's my right to put up Valentine's Day decorations or something, but that's up to that's up to the town attorney. We just make recommendations for that.

I don't know. I don't think we have a a right to put lights up. No, I mean, it would just be like our sign ordinance like we we regulate um size and number. It's not a freedom of speech or anything like that. [clears throat] I wouldn't think it would be a freedom of speech or freedom of expression argument. Some of it gets into religion, you know, but like I just raised a question in my head, but that's that would be for holiday. That's not for us. Yeah. Christmas trees. Yeah. [clears throat and cough] Fourth of July. We still have a we still have a prayer at the B of alderman meetings. True. [clears throat]

No, I'm glad we do. But I I am too. So So, [snorts] can you guys hear me? Uh, yeah. Oh, hey. Let me turn you up. Maybe some don't acknowledge we hear him. It's too late. Let's see. Speaker is going to be That was nice. [snorts] He's just stupid. He can't say anything. Oh, yeah. I am sure there'll be questions. Somebody turned us down a lot. All right, here we go. All right, Neil, what about now?

Yeah, I can hear you fine. Line. Okay, we can hear you now. [clears throat] All right. Um I do you have any questions?

Yeah, I do. But religious thing, you know, clearly that's something that's been litigated many times uh either for the Christmas crash or for the minora. Very specific religious symbols. Uh I'm I'm not so sure Christmas Tease fits under that. And I don't think we should be daunted by a concern that this goes this becomes a trial case because we start to tighten up simply the duration of lighting. It it it kind of goes against the whole objective of trying to manage the lighting and there are many lighting ordinances uh out there in in the rest of the world uh that we can pull from. So I I don't think anything should dissuade us here in that regard. The other question I had was the question I had relates to the lighting in trees. I was trying to reconnect and so I didn't hear how that concluded. But the concern I would have is that if you can put a light higher in a tree than we allow on a pole [clears throat and snorts] and the purpose of that light. If we're doing it in the trees on a loop, I understand the purpose and I understand that the height, you know, plus or minus a foot or two relative to 18, uh, if that's the number you decided on or that you landed on. So, I I would just be cautious. Don't allow down lighting anywhere from anybody's tree. Uh, it it really because it starts to light foliage. It strokes to like the fronds of palm trees and we don't really get out of the the issue that we have now with uplift trees. It's just coming from the other direction.

That I think that's outside the scope of what we're talking about right now because that deals more with residential. Correct. Correct. Neil, we didn't we didn't address we didn't really address residential uplighting or down lighting. Okay. I was just playing off that there was a point of conversation that you had about 10 minutes ago. Five more to go. You talking about the town? You talking about the town trees? Yeah, the solar solar light town. I couldn't foresee us. Well, maybe they could do it. Well, [clears throat] can you get up to 80 ft tall? Yeah. Pardon me. Could get up to 40 to 80 ft tall. What' you say, Neil?

When you all when you all get to residential trees, I won't be on the board. Please, there's a placeholder for you. Please just consider that uh you know maintaining a certain height downward is also important. Makes sense. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. And the only other thing because I didn't hear it completely was that there was uh if if I do recall I think somebody mentioned about the lighting on docks came around from CO. It's not clear to me how how directly involved the town was in explicitly saying, "Hey, yeah, let's do this." I I thought that was driven more by the flotilla. It was

I don't know. Maybe not. It's not something. Okay. We banned lights and dots. No, we we passed that. We We banned We're prohibiting lights on dots. That year it was only floatil. It was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it still lingers. So, putting, you know, putting the cat in the bag is tough. What? I didn't understand that. [clears throat] What decision? In other words, getting the public to not decorate their docks becomes the challenge because some do decorate their docks. Some do decorate the docks.

Okay. Did I get Did we understand that? Are you saying you want lights on docks or no lights on docks? No. Okay. No lights on that. Recommendation. That's what we did, too. That's what we want. But that you was just rolling. Um, getting back to the down lights and the trees. I want to go back to the ones that are are in existence now on the loop on Salsbury.

They're very pleasant. They're very safe. I mean, when you walk along, you've got lighting. Then you turn the horseshoe I call it at the point up here and you come down causeway and they they're up in the trees but they don't work. And I've been working with Katie and Evan for ever and they just [clears throat] I think there's a problem with having to trench the electric back to it again because apparently electric's all broken up [clears throat] since since Florence, I think. But anyway, like Kenny said, they provide a very safe walking environment and there aren't any. Now, an easier way, and this is beyond our scope, but an easier way to fix that is put a couple more street lights up and you're done. But, uh, anyway,

what about a solar option? Pardon me. What about a solar option if it's electrical issue? See if you can get that through. I think that's that's great. I think that's great. But I guess what I'm saying is [clears throat] it's it is very dark on that side of the loop. Morning now cuz it's dark and of course night it's dark. So, um, we should allow them even if if they're solar, but I think we need to allow them. Now, I don't know how high up there they are. Um, but [clears throat] they're very pleasant lighting. They don't disturb anybody. So, I guess we need to address that. Pardon me. Well, where would we fit that in? or if do we need to put it in or

uh I guess the wording in my mind would be allow them [clears throat] allow down lighting in trees where it provides safety not to light some stupid palm excuse me not you light some palm tree but where it's ne necessary for safety I mean that's what a street light does it's down lighting for safety Okay. [snorts] Um, so our street lights are 18 ft. Mhm. When you say when you when you allow them to part of you safety, it it becomes a very everything in my car to walk to my front door. So, right.

It's just it's it's potential for abuse. Yeah. to that. So if you could wor I mean where where do you want the lights on the loop on the point there? I mean we could we could very easily say allow town down lighting in the trees along the wood. Just say causeway north luminina between whatever the street is where the stop light is. Ding for walking paths. You can make it specific to that to the loop. Yeah. To the loop. So people So it's not as That works for me.

North Luna between whatever that street is and and Salsbury. Salsbury to which is already done to stone [clears throat] and causeway from whatever that street, you know, just between street and street. Yeah. All you have to do like the stuff on Salsbury ends at what is that street in front of the old fire station where [clears throat] the trees end? Right there. And they and that's all you have to do on the other side too cuz now there's street lights and you don't I guess it's easier because there are so many trees along there. There's not as many streets trees along sidewalk or crossway side bushes [clears throat] but not much.

But where the trees stop we then we have street lights so we don't need them in the trees. Okay, that works for me. [clears throat and cough]

Anyone else?

I wonder if there are by example if if you need to get into it down the road when you start to deal with residential if there are are ordinances out there specifically about down lighting and uplighting that you might get some guidance from. I don't recall that we found any uh sorry that we used any in the ad hoc group. Um, we just based it off the fact that we did not allow it currently in the ordinance and we stuck with that and uh, and that was that because my gut feeling is that if you tangle with allowing some kind of treebased lighting, you open up a can of worms and you'll have to draft a very explicit treebased lighting uh, that gets you through that strange path of well, this is my sidewalk or this is my pathway to my house or this is a palm tree or this is whatever. Um, so just be be aware that what you put in here right now, you're talking about really public property. That's what it sounded like to me. You were just focused on public property in your conversation there.

Yeah. And maybe that's what that's correct. And more specifically the limited public property called the loop. Yeah. So, like I said, or like you said, I added um um specific to the loop. So, I I'll craft something like that to to go in there about to deal with the lighting, the up lighting that's at the front of the So, all other down lighting comes off street lights, so to speak, relative to public uh right of way and and and public pathways.

Street lights. Yeah. Um, can you repeat that? Just make sure I got it. That all other gun lighting in the town would come from street lights on public lights of way. You're just singling you're just singling out the loop and that stretch of the loop. Everything else would be covered. And so it's basically saying the only place where we allow down lighting from the trees is for this stretch in the town. and nowhere else. Not even for the town and not and certainly not for commercial or or private uh property.

No, no, [clears throat] we we didn't when you say private property, you talking about private commercial property. And then I didn't mean commercial. Commercial No, I did not mean commercial. Okay. Commercial lighting otherwise as well as parking lots. Okay. So, we're not talking about residential right now. Not right now. Yeah, [clears throat and cough] that's good. And now I recall the reason they're up in the trees is we used to have pathway lighting and the vandals broke every one of them. That's why they're up in the trees.

And they got to be high enough that nobody's going to mess with them or steal them. 18 ft. Exactly. Um,

all right. Any more questions on the um the recommendation for commercial lighting? One one thing I would like to um maybe suggest is when we make a recommendation for commercial lighting, we've talked um a couple meetings about enforcement um asking the board of alderman to consider uh allowing um some staff limited hours to actually um be on the island past, you know, when it's dark out. [snorts] um you know maybe once a month so they can have the ability to look and make sure that the lighting [clears throat] that we've been talking about is appropriate for commercial uses

like adjust the hours coming instead. Yeah. So maybe once once a month one person has an adjustable hour from as you said noon to 8 or something like that because I think that's we talked about we talked about doing it but we can't we can only ask the alderman to make that. Yeah, in the summer time it's not dark enough. Right. So when when we forward the recommendation also have have an ask for [snorts] cons consideration for enforcement. [clears throat and cough]

I second that highly. That's one of my biggest issues is if we don't send a strong recommendation to the alderman that we need to give this staff, this department some ability to enforce this, otherwise we're just all wasting our time. No reason for ordinances if you can't, right? And one of the things that we I used to do uh I was an apartment developer for years is we used to hire an offduty policeman. I'm thinking we could use our own police force during offse walk around at night and f it's a recommendation. [clears throat] Why not? There's enough of them.

There's not there's not enough that they're not they have no I can tell you I don't think they would have any interest in doing that. Well, if they're told to do it, they will. It puts what it does. Leanne, let me finish my my suggestion. It's only suggestion. It puts an officer in a uniform walking through your neighborhood. They don't drive. Maybe they ride their bike or something, but they walk through the neighborhood at night and people see these policemen walking [clears throat] through our neighborhood, walking through our park, you're going to feel safer or they're going to see something that they would. Pardon me. I wish they would.

But anyway, it's just a recommendation. And they may say, "No, we don't want the police department to do that." And then they can report to Robert. Why are they walking through the neighborhoods and the just to check the lights? Oh, in the apartments. No. Why Why do you suggest that you want them walking through the So they can report to Robert, we've got we see I mean you can, you know, to the naked eye. You and I can walk down the street or drive through the neighborhood and see this is definitely a lighting violation. It's it's and I think what you're getting towards is once you start seeing [clears throat] the enforcement, people start thinking to themselves, I can't do that. And once you start that mentality, then

we solve a lot of the problems without having to solve the problems. They're going to solve themselves. I hope. Yep. The staff going out once a month. Yeah, that's a good idea, too. But maybe there's two ways to do it. I don't know. Police went off the street and work off duty when they were off. Oh, off duty. [clears throat] Oh, they're off duty hours or on duty hours. There's no such thing.

In the original report from in the original report from the ad hoc committee, there was a section about those such recommendations on enforcement. Um I don't think it was as explicit as what Jim just pointed out but there was a range of activities and they all together would certainly build awareness and responsibility uh in the public regarding lighting but it also included actual enforcement. Without enforcement it's just kind of a a mystery novel. So anyway that's a reference point for you. Um, I we haven't really talked about that since the very beginning.

Um, well, [clears throat] I think we can start that that conversation now via recommendation to the board alderman. Sure. I wrote it down. I've got it in the minutes. [clears throat] Um, does anyone else have questions about the commercial? just the the actual way that we're gonna recommend good. I just wonder if in coming to the commercial uh folks that they have some sense that and there's more to come regarding residential as well. They're not being singled out.

I think we've made it clear that we're going to divide it into safety, commercial, residential, sea turtles. We've talked about that I think every every meeting. that as long as they're if if they're interested in knowing about it, I think we've been pretty um transparent about and every every meeting is on YouTube. Yeah. So to our website if anybody needs to catch up, there's plenty of plenty of you can binge all the planning board meetings over a weekend. [clears throat] [laughter]

All right. Well, I guess if we're uh good with that, does anyone have a motion to uh recommend the current commercial lighting ordinance with the changes that we've spoken about? Um including Marina Height, the addition of Marina Heights, which Robert is going to do, and the there was one more, what was the other one we were talking about? Holiday lighting. um holiday lighting dates and [clears throat] um down lighting in trees for safety on the loop. Yeah. And the 65 ft and outdoor sporting fields are going to remove that four four additions or four changes and occur. Okay. Is there a second?

All in favor? I a question. Did that include the casserole lighting? The what? [snorts] Did that include the casserole lighting? No, we've talked about the casserole lighting that um this casserole the clip that you gave to Oh, yeah. We we talked about it. I didn't have I couldn't pull it up, but we did talk about it. It was it was brought up and quoted. That too will be in the minutes. And then I also could also make a motion um for recommendations for enforcement um to allow um adjustable hours um for staff [snorts] um maybe once a month

of their choosing of their choosing to allow them to at least once a month. Yeah. At least at least once a month to allow them to um enforce our current ordinances. Could I add to that just by saying and any other avenues the board of alderman may see fit and just make it a really strong statement that we would [clears throat] we encourage we would encourage the board of alderman to adopt a um an enforcement policy to I mean a policy to enforce our current ordinances and the ordinances um that we are recommending [clears throat] that and they they probably realize that Yeah. But

now listen, it's going to cost some money, but the bottom line is Robert and and Tony can't do it. They don't have enough time. But I mean, my my the intent of that is not to have a lot of tickets that are written. It's to the enforcibility is more of an education process, right? Um which will which will deter have hopefully some sort of deterrence. So just just to point a question, how many times have we fined somebody for lighting or like actual fines? Like almost never. So you basically warn worn warn you don't

Yeah. I mean I'll give them a call, send them an email eventually. I mail them a letter and once they get the I mean if they don't change after the call then it's usually after they get the letter and then then they change it. But realistically

that's good. Going back to this the staff what we're saying about the staff taking some time and you know coming in later and I'm just going to use an example Robert if you say you did it one night just say it was you and you said you're like we're going to go to dinner out at the beach how long would it take you how how what do y'all think how long do you think it would take to just ride the beach commercially for example and see and write down the violations. It's what I would say is it's not it's not I don't think the intent would be to write every single violation. No, not just make notes. I think the [clears throat] look into that

if we have blinking red lights on a porch over bank that's probably one that Hey, let's figure out where that is. I'm saying I'm just saying make notes. Let me These are the clear violations. How long do you think that would take? I mean it would it would not take very long hour. Yeah, that's what I say. So we're not looking at saying to anybody's were forced to go out and spend six hours riding around the beach. You know, let's go have to go up and down the side streets and around on the south end island and then all the streets between, you know, that branch off the causeway all the way to the north end.

It'll be a considerable amount of time if nothing else just because of all the stop signs, you know. So I mean like it's not just driving up and down North Lima. I mean the idea that I had initially when you brought it up was it would have to be divided up. It would do one section this month. You do another section the next month and it would just be it would [clears throat] just be like just let us know when you're coming to our house. Yeah. Just text Kitty to put the switches off the [laughter] It wouldn't necessarily be the entire island in a day. I mean it would be a section and then you know then but something like Greensboro Street or Henderson Street or Atlanta or whatever you could kind of pull down there and just look.

Yeah. That's just a few minutes. I mean if you see like an obvious violation roll up, you know, write the write the address down and then go back during the day to take a picture of the fixture and be like this is a violation. And once you do that a couple times, the deterrence Yeah. will clean it up. Yeah. Okay. Of course, we always got to achieve

a comment. [laughter] I would advocate that there's metrics that you are really trying to achieve here and it's not just miles driven or letters sent, but it's actually violations corrected. And that's really the the number that has to be tracked. The other thing is new new construction is under control. And what does that mean? We've talked about a process that that you know that Robert outlined really the steps of uh the planning phase and then getting your certification at the end and [clears throat] those along the way that education process for that that that homeowner not the builder but the homeowner the builder should they should know it but the homeowner needs to understand what their responsibilities are going forward relative to what they've now got certified as okay as their lighting package and uh in the future they need to be cognizant that they need to adhere to that. So that's a process and and that's when I say new construction under control when people sign off or when people get that certificate they signed off that they are aware of those responsibilities uh the codes so to speak which may change over time but nonetheless it seems you can buy a house today and there's no responsibilities and whatever you want to install or your builder can tell you after you close on the house. Yeah, we'll come back and we'll put in you know all the stuff you wanted. uh the town's out of out of the picture now. So there's that transactional aspect I think is an important metric on new construction and on the existing on the existing violations that they are corrected and there is a heck of a of a of an education process that happens with that homeowner as well is here's why you have a violation. Here's the full range of obligations you have as a homeowner.

I agree. I mean,

well, I mean, even in the ad hoc committee, we talked about there was going to be an outreach um component to this whole thing [clears throat] because the whole idea was that this ordinance does not change a whole heck of a lot. organization changes, nice illustrations so that it's easy to understand what's compliant, what's not compliant. But there's also a public outreach um aspect to it to say, "Hey, yeah, we did we did adopt a new lighting ordinance, but it was mainly to modernize the existing lighting ordinance and to reorganize it so that everything is easier to find. [clears throat] But, you know, this is also a heads up that you've always been out of compliance. Please fix it." you know, sort of situation,

you know, call the planning department. What's going to happen is I'll get 100 phone calls in a week and they'll ask me, "Why did that change?" And I'll just be like, "It didn't change." You've always been a violation, you know, unfortunately, but at the same time, then they'll know. And again, I think from my aspect, the intent of what we're doing now is to address the egregious violations that are on the beach and not the 75% of residents that are in non-compliant, but they have to change all of their

I mean, even then, you don't have to change your lighting fixtures. You can you can go to not even the bulb. You can go to Lowe's and there is a there's a can of adhesive, not adhesive, I'm sorry. There's a can of uh frosting, glass frosting that you can buy in a rattle can in the spray can in the spray paint department. You can spray the inside of your fixture. It frosts the glass and it diffuses the light. That solves the problem immediately. So $5 can of spray, whatever. So, I mean like there are very cheap solutions that don't involve replacing [clears throat] light fixtures.

Well, also as far as getting it out there too with social media and the Rightsful Beach community page and Friends of Rightsful Beach and all these and the loop, what's the loop newsletter? The newsletter. Once all this is done and you put it out there on these social media pages that everybody's going to read, you're going to get your criticism. you will get your people that are pissed off bad or whatever.

But they they'll at least they'll know and they help with some of it. They'll say and you put something like that in there. Did this maybe a matter check and see check with our planning department to see if I mean am I in compliance or not? If not, then go get your spray whatever. Put it on social media too. That will help get the word out there that this is happening. this is, you know, are you in compliance? Feel free to reach out to the planning department and find out. Listen to the solutions to make you complant.

Yeah, I think it was that spray can is not necessarily going to address all the issues. So, it's it's not the miracle. I was just but some people that would be

I just so when I made that comment I was specifically thinking of a situation where I was driving down the road and someone's one of someone's uh front door light was a bare light source and then I thought back to an a final zoning inspection for PVC builders and they had a similar violation and I said that light fixture needs to be fixed and then he told me about this breakin And in that situation, which is probably most of them, that is a very cheap solution and it works. I was giving you a specific example. Not everything comes down to having to rebuild your house because you're one house. I was [clears throat] all

I'm good with it. I have plenty to work on now. [clears throat] All right. Um, moving forward, um, new, let's see, there old business. Anyone? No. Um, anything from the board, Robert? Um, do we have any other business? I didn't have anything. Um, the only thing I would say is we talked about uh sea turtles and residential kind of next. Um, it seems to me, and I think I've talked to I thought I think I talked to Jim about sea turtles, um, that we may need to do that quicker quick sooner than later. Yeah. And I need to, uh,

y'all already I talked to Zeke about it cuz she was the alderman in charge of reorganizing it and I mentioned it to her that we wanted to get going, but um, the lighting lighting, but everything's going to go to the board at the same time. Well, it doesn't have to. We can because sea turtles is something that would Yeah. Uh, in our current ordinance, I believe sea turtles is a different section anyway because it kind of [snorts] applies across the board to waterfront. So,

so I don't know how quickly we can address sea turtles. Well, I mean it it would basically follow a similar process of researching other uh other municipalities that have a solid sea turtle lighting ordinance, which is a lot. I mean, we got we got a lot of our information from Sunbel um K. Let me ask you this then. I mean, if we don't do it in January, sea turtles um and then it won't really take effect till next year till 2027. So, what do you think?

Um, well, we definitely need to get the ad hoc committee together to talk about what we'll have what we'll present to the planning board. So, so it wouldn't be. So, basically, well, I mean, what we would have to do is get the ad hoc committee together sometime in January. Okay. Talk about it hopefully in a meeting. Yeah. Hopefully, wouldn't go too much further, but than one meeting. Well, um, Kitty, myself, Neil, John Wessel, and I did mention it to John. He said he'd be willing to do it again. Yeah. So, if our sole purpose were to address turtle lighting, [clears throat] I think that it could be done pretty quickly.

And then, so we get together on that and in a meeting, we hammer it out between the the benchmark ordinances, write something for the next planning board meeting, which is February, and then we can recommend and we'll talk about it at the planning board and then send it to the board of aldermanch come up with a weren't you and Neil going to do some internal research for us? Yeah, Neil, are you still willing to do that?

Yeah, I I would suggest that Jim and I open up the uh the pile of uh information we do have. I I thought the where we left it off was that we kind of had a pretty good idea of what the landscape looked like as far as where the issues were and we just had not framed it into anything and pursued it, you know, through the larger group in the ad hoc. So I I think if Jim and I were to spend a [clears throat] half a day, we could get a platform to bring to the ad hoc committee or whatever that whatever other the group becomes and um and go from there. And that would that would certainly jump start it. So, do you you

do you anticipate, Jim, that there would be major changes for houses on the water? Because if that's going to be the case, then we need to have public comment and make sure that residents that live on water have ocean though. It doesn't even necessarily apply apply to the sounds.

Yeah, I'm ocean. There are well I and I have a photograph of it uh for starters, but I was out on um u the oceanic pier uh over 4th of July and there's a house a few doors down from it that [snorts] I mean you can't even look at it. It's so bright. Uh so there are a few homes that are going to be affected by it. I think majority is a commercial and the majority of is our street lights. And I think most of our street lights have already been changed over to the amber if I'm not mistaken. If they're not, that's up to the town. And I understand there's a cost involved. I think most of the I think most of the street end lights

the ends. Yeah. Yeah. Have been changed to amber. So the turtles aren't attracted to those at all anyway. Right. I can't tell. Most of them tell a house what they can do inside the house. So, when you say that it was really bright, are you saying that it was so bright I couldn't tell if those fixtures were inside or outside? It was like on the south end. Uh, it's just north of Crystal Pure, like three or four doors down north of it. I mean, the issue is turtle nest. So, it's side only. It's not on the sound side. Right. Right. That's right.

Just the turtles. Well, I guess let's um so January we can start reviewing residential, put it on pause for February, we'll address potentially address sea turtles and then pick residential back up in March. And if I may, Mr. Chair, uh will you contact Zeke about reconvening or call Zeke about it? Okay. And then cuz then the proper channel is Zeke would have to contact all of us and say she wants us on the committee again. [clears throat] Yeah, my notes say sea turtles. Call Z about it. Great. Thank you. [laughter] Thanks. And Neil, we'll get together about when to meet. That's fine, Jim. Sure.

Okay. It'll be after the uh after New Year's. Okay, that's fine. All right. January 2nd. [laughter] It's pretty much after it. What is that? Okay. So, um Okay. So, we have voted to uh wrap this section up. Correct. Okay. So, I I'll uh I'll wrap this up uh and add it to the pile and then um we'll work on turtles in January. Residential is January.

Oh, yeah. Residential. a pause in February to talk about turtles. Yes. And then depending on how far we can go with turtles in February, we go back to residential March. Residential should be pretty easy. There's literally there's like almost no changes to residential. So, it just needs to get on board. Yeah. It just needs to be put all together and sent to the board. Oh. Um, so you voted for the uh uh the actual commercial lighting. What about the illustrations and the the the definitions? I would include those. Okay. All right. I'll include those. I assume they were included.

Yeah. Cuz it was the one agenda item. So, I just wanted to clarify and make sure I'll still put them in there because I'm sure we'll be referencing the at least the definitions going forward. Also, illustrations are so much better than the other. Next one's going to be second, third, fourth, and sixth. January 6th. Yes. And that would be um we start with residential [clears throat] and then stop in February and do turtles cuz do the turtle January. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, they've already talked a lot about turtles, my understanding, right, Joe? Well,

yeah. I think with with Neil [clears throat] and I'm myself meeting that we can bring a pretty done deal to the ad hoc and maybe a couple probably take a couple couple of meetings but we do it like we're a week apart when we don't have a month right we appreciate that right anyone else I've already done

um I got one thing to say um we're tonight's meals last meeting and I just, you know, I I've been on the board now with you for six years and I wanted to thank you for everything because you um you're very important to this town, I think, in my personal opinion. And I hope to see you move forward to another some order, not just an ad hoc. And we're also losing Margaret, but not really losing. T's apartment's lasting short live with us, but not all as a friend. I appreciate Is he Is he off this time? Well, he'll be I mean, I'm sure he's 27.

He's 26. The only [clears throat] Yes. Thank you, Neil. 27. Yeah. Thanks, Neil. Done a lot. I'll still Don't they in January? Oh, he was thinking there was one more meeting in January. Yeah, he attends. Don't you think he attended? Yeah, I think we made in January. I don't think I thought that's when we both I think that the board appoints someone at their alderman meeting in January. Okay. And that's typically after January. Yeah. First one, okay,

see January now. Yeah, we say no. So, [laughter] he told me this was his last meeting. Tonight was his last meeting. Well, he just didn't. Okay. [laughter] Yeah. But I know it's Maybe it was the night. Okay. So, no, you can't attend January's meeting. Oh, because we can't send you nice comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. Yep. Second.