Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

morning everyone like to call through order of the Montgomery County Planning Commission board monthly board meeting for March 12 2025 record show that we have a quarum of six board members and I believe Jonathan is excused and we are waiting on bed but we will continue on with our agenda at this point um are there any board comments before we get started um I just wanted to thank you Karo was I um not did I didn't I recognize earlier that we have the um contact information on all our speakers now on each yes yes on the events list I think that's really nice that we have that so it's easy now that people are getting well this Century people are getting really used to using their computers more and if you find something that's interesting you can click or you can go back to it so it's all that kind of more seamless connection but thank you yeah com there a motion to approve the montgom County Planning Commission monthly meeting minute February 12 2025 second second second or any comments or questions from board members comments answer questions from anybody audience staff anybody online see none are there any negative for the approval of the meeting minutes move on to our next agenda item which public comment is there any public comment on there any public comment for those in the room or online before we get started with our agenda anybody there Kina yeah

okay and we'll move on to our first first uh first agenda item which is food food policy Council and he's not okay that's fine then we will skip uh he text me say he would be here right around now um got a little kid that needed to go to daycare first thing came up with me in the steps but he thought he was coming a little later so he's here yeah yeah if you got him I'm Mak sure people know what it means wow people in this room got that land the same I don't know oh we have Matt smiling at us hi Matt hi I I used that phrase last night so sure see sorry oh it's fine how do you think the Phillies are going to do this year guys spring training badly because I bought the little partial season ticket well on the if you want to get R of your fourth of May there's going to be a do tourism ising a giveway a jacket for women with the

Phillies birthday let's go go therapeutic to go out now wood plus I have a I still have ch the agenda on yeah change the agenda so if anybody needs firewood you know come to we'll see ladies first I me you bring one piece at a time to the meetings bring my back gifts you know post this gifts for everyone so food policy counsel policy counil and Steve got a little more time now we just want to see if you're on the ball you are you are I guess joining us Don could not make it today um sorry but uh Mark the record of John did not make it it would be really clear and we welcome Sam applefield yeah um so Sam Sam has been on board as the Count's food policy Council coordinator for the last year or so year and year and a half gosh um and um really is a very interdisciplinary role here at the county he works a lot with um a leadership team of individuals that that helps I guess get the food policy Council up and running but we'll tell you more about that John and I are both on that leadership team and um yeah thanks uh thanks Sam for joining us

today that's your clicker go to the podium okay uh all right thanks Ann uh thanks everyone for having me this morning um excited to be here and to share a little bit more about the work of the County food policy Council so as Ann mentioned my name is Sam applefield and um did you change your name when you got your position or did you have it prior to you know it's funny I was at um ribbon cutting yesterday with the the Commissioners were all there and commissioner mcka was like uh you know Sam's really well qualified for this role and not just because of his name say he beat out Lily lemon Meadow for the role his delivery was better than mine but um I love that political humor yeah yeah exactly exactly um all right so I'll start just with some background on kind of how we got here to uh getting this food policy Council set up um uh talk about some of the the ongoing County programming ecal monco report and then uh arpa um which are kind of the main stages that uh that that helped get the council established so um there has been for many years a variety of kind of programming through you know across different County departments and uh and offices that impacts the the local food system here um so you know within the Planning Commission here there's the Farmland preservation program obviously um Commerce department has a variety of Workforce Development um Business Development programs you know where they work with farmers and um and business owners um and then you know across a variety of uh health and Human Services offices there's more of the um uh food security food Access Nutrition education a lot of that type of programming um and that's my role is a house within the the Office of Public Health um in uh in HHS there so um you

know for for many years these programs have all kind of been been ongoing and there hasn't been kind of a natural way for them to be able to come together um to kind of coordinate and and establish more of a vision right for what we want to see happening in um in the local food system so uh I think you know the pandemic helped kind of shine a light on that um but that's that's part of the goal of the council is helping to uh to bring all those roles together um so that's kind of the the the background then in um I think it was 2016 2017 um I think it was actually the Planning Commission that that uh worked with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission um to establish this eat local Co report um and you know it's focused on promoting local food really kind of more of a Economic Development kind of focus um but one of the recommendations that that came out of this report which you know was published says there March 2018 um was establishing a County food policy Council um so you know I think that at at that time after this report came out an and and a few others um you know put some time and effort into trying to establish this Council um but you know it's like difficult to do in addition to everything else that uh that was uh that was going on um and yeah really you know just kind of didn't there wasn't the bandwidth and the capacity to um to get it up and and running off the ground um then when the county received um arpa funds you know pandemic kind of recovery funds um there was that created an opportunity to invest resources to you know to to create the council so there were you know throughout the County's um uh kind of requests for proposals for uh those arpa funds 21 projects um were submitted that related to kind of the local food system um totaling just about

$75 million eight of those were approved and one of them was um just over a million dollars for for creating the food policy Council so that's um that's kind of the background again of kind of how we got to um well I'll say that's that's how we got to where we were about one year ago um and then I have uh the last kind of background uh slide here um so in March of of 24 uh the Commissioners you know by resolution formally created the food policy Council uh immediately after that we opened uh a process uh for members of the public to join our our leadership team um so it took you know a few months to receive uh review those applic ations conduct interviews um have a slate of candidates to recommend and then um you know those were then approved by the Commissioners in July um so we had our first our first leadership team meeting in August of of last year um so for the last six months or so we've been meeting and um and I'll talk more in a little bit about what we've been we've been doing for the last six months um yeah so so that's kind of again that's that that's the background uh how we out to where we are um I want to give just a brief overview of um you know I mentioned this term kind of food system a couple of times so just to some clarity about um about what that encompasses and and some brief kind of background data on that um so you know when we talk about the food system it's really everything from food production distribution processing retail um managing any food waste things um you know about uh food ACCESS food security um you know really anyone who's touching kind of food in any way um that's how kind of trying to set up the council to be inclusive of of all those different

perspectives so um you know in the county we have about 565 Farms on on just over 30,000 Acres um over 4,000 different food facilities whether that's as it says restaurants uh things like grocery stores food trucks um these numbers on the bottom are actually a little bit outdated there's um closer to 100 pantries U more like 15 or so farmers markets um and the um amount I guess there's a it's covered up a little bit there but that's people experiencing food insecurity um that has increased um it's closer to 8% or about 75,000 people now so um just some data that I that's helpful um to to share um and I think at this point I'm going to talk a little bit about kind of the uh the overall goals and and objectives for for the council um I'll I'll talk a little bit about kind of How It's structured and how it's set up um and then uh like I mentioned you know kind of an update on on on what we've been doing for for the last six months um so the overall kind of objective or or mission of the council is really to create a more Equitable and sustainable food system within Montgomery County um so the three ways that the council can can help to achieve that the first is the increasing of County service and resources so that's that slide with all the different kind of County departments that are involved here um the second is improving communication among food system stakeholders so that's um a lot of what I've been doing in my role so far is just talking to people and figuring out kind of what they need and then being like Oh yeah this farmer you're looking for kind of outlets to donate some extra produce you have here's a pantry that's right down the road um or this you know School District that uh just had a um a partner unable to continue to provide this uh School backpack program like here are a few places you might be able to connect with

that that could fill that gap for you so improving those those kind of connections and then working to um you know identify what some of our Collective goals are and and then figure out plans to uh for how we can achieve them so um so yeah that's kind of the big picture um in terms of how the council is structured uh I mentioned the the leadership team um so we have uh five different uh County Employees on that leadership team Ann and and as she mentioned John are are both part of that there's also someone from the Commerce department and then two other people from from HHS um and then like I mentioned we had an application process for we have seven other seats uh on the leadership team so a total of 12 um a few of them are are kind of sector specific so we had one seat for a farmer uh one for food security and one Comm representative uh and then the other four are just kind of at large open seats so um uh yeah we have a really great group um you know with those kind of diverse backgrounds and perspectives and uh it's been a really good group to work with uh the kind of role for the leadership team is um is providing the Strategic guidance and direction for kind of the development of the council really just kind of setting our agenda setting our priorities determining what the council's going to focus on um the working groups we don't uh have in place yet um but the idea for the working groups here is that um uh you know if we when we decide we what the particular issues we want to focus on are let's say we want to figure out you know how we can really support farmers in Montgomery County um then we want to be able to bring more Farmers Penn State Extension pasta sustainable agriculture you know those other kind of relevant stakeholders to the table uh and really

um uh I'll stick with this P get into the weeds of you know like how to um how to support Farmers right or whatever our our issue area our goal area is um and then we also have General membership meetings so that um the idea here is if you're you know if you're uh not on the leadership team and maybe the working group topic isn't something that is relevant to you but you still want to stay connected and involved and maybe you have information you want to share with others in the council or you just want to learn more about what's going on that's General membership is kind of a place where you can um as it says uh for information and and resource sharing so um how often does the leadership team meet leadership team meets monthly and how and how many have you had General me General member meetings yeah so we've had um let's see is this the next slide yeah perfect um uh this is a picture from our first general membership meeting which we had uh in mid January um we are planning on those being quarterly at this point so right now we're just starting to think through our our spring one um you know probably sometime in late April or or may um yeah our first general membership meeting we had about uh 30 people in person and and 35 online so it was a pretty pretty good turnout and um people just seemed really excited to be kind of uh have a place to come together and and again kind of just a lot of that kind of netwk working and and um uh relationship building that was happening there so um so yeah yeah we got good feedback from from that meeting as well um so a couple of the other kind of accomplishments uh accomplishments today or or what we've been up to so far basically um with the leadership team through those monthly meetings you know we really started with trying to build kind of a foundation so establishing our

our bylaws our community agreements uh setting up executive committee just kind of figuring out how we're how we're working together um we started a newsletter that's part of you know for General members that kind of information and resource sharing um also been getting a lot of good feedback on on that newsletter um uh like I said hosted the first general membership meeting and published a report on uh on food and security so um those are some of the bigger items a few other projects that are kind of um underway um uh one is coordination of farmers market managers as I mentioned there's about 15 or or 16 markets in the county they all kind of just like operate independently um so we're having next week actually week from today uh a meeting um with all the different Market managers just to you know kind of again share information kind of troubleshoot together um also um there's a program that the SE the Farmers Market nutrition program where um uh it's either seniors or people on Wick are able to get coupons to spend at the market so um like making sure all Market managers know about that program and how you can sign up and trying to you know increase Redemption of that um so excited for that meeting coming up um recently held a meeting similar kind of thing for Community Gardens throughout the county you know this is from going out and kind of meeting with them individually was just hearing a lot of them say like we really great to meet other gardeners and just learn like how are you guys doing this or how does this you know kind of show up in your garden so um we had a great call last week or two weeks ago uh everyone was excited to then go and tour each other's Garden so we're we're setting up some of those visits uh for for later this spring um and uh yeah two two other things to mention here been

talking with uh with an and Stephen A Lot recently about kind of how to activate uh some of the Preserve Farmland you know as as you all know there are about 10,000 over 10,000 acres uh in preserved Farmland in the county um you know some of which is is actively utilized and farmed but um but not all of it is and um access to Farmland is uh routinely cited as um kind of the biggest barrier that new and beginning farmers face so we've been trying to figure out if there's a way to kind of um identify build a pool of of farmers who are looking for land would be interested in farming in Montgomery County uh and if we can connect them with some of these uh land owners who have land that um you know has to be used for farming um as you know is preserved in that way and again building this relationship so um we're we're just kind of getting that started soon too um the last thing I wanted to mention is this Montco agventure project um which a number of uh other kind of um neighboring Counties have have different versions of this but um uh was kind of inspired by some of those models and by the the montgom County Trail challenge um you know which if you're not familiar is kind of a a a challenge an activity to get people to go out and use the parks and use the trail system so similar idea here but getting people to go out and and visit local farms um set up this kind of bingo card to make it like a fun fun way to uh try and check off a bunch of the boxes so um Steph will talk a little bit more about that I think in his presentation and how we're kind of tying that into the uh the farm to families map that um uh that that he had created recently um let's see I think then uh just to give you a sense of um where we're going next what other things we have uh coming up uh with the council um as I mentioned earlier there about a

million dollars that were allocated to uh of ARA funds allocated to food policy Council um one of the main things we're planning to do with those funds is um is issue an RFP or start a grant program um kind of set up widely to you know support any projects that would Advance a a more Equitable and more sustainable food system in the county um so we are kind of working through the details of that now but um planning to to put that out this summer um we are working would be the purpose of the grand program what's the initial thoughts on that yeah yeah so again broadly kind of advancing a more Equitable more sustainable uh food system in the county um I think you know in a little bit more more detail thinking about because there are one-time funds um you know probably prioritizing like infrastructure things like that as opposed to like programming um but also focusing on kind of like collaborative projects you know again that's I think probably the theme right of the the role of the council helping to to make those kind of connections um um so you know wanting to set it up to be open for um food banks and food pantries or Farmers or composting businesses or um schools that want to do school Gardens right like there's um that that kind of range of of um uh entities that that could be applying um uh yeah so then identifying some uh like a priority project you know as I mentioned that's kind of what one of our our uh our our third goal our third third objective there is like one of these types of projects that really um you know can can benefit uh a wide range of of folks or it's difficult for kind of one entity to to lead on their own um

so that's you know through our leadership team we're actually uh we have a retreat coming up in in early April to um to try and identify you know like what is that project that we want to um to leave with uh this year um and then as I mentioned establishing working groups is something we're uh we're figuring out as well we are going to have one that um based on feedback from our from our first general membership meeting uh that we're uh calling Network development so you know kind of doing some stakeholder analysis right identifying who do we already have kind of in in our Network or that's that's starting to participate where are their gaps how could we do Outreach to um to to bring some of those other folks in um and there was also a suggestion to create kind of like an online database right um so that all the information of who's participating can be can be shared publicly um so that that's kind of where we're going what we're what we're looking to do kind of throughout this spring and and summer um I think that might be all that I have other you know just kind of how to get involved um can certainly sign up for our newsletter I can share that around afterwards if uh if you're interested just in it's a good way to just kind of see what's what's happening um uh in the in the food system our quarterly General membership meetings and then this is my contact information and happy to um uh talk about any ideas or or answer any questions so um yeah yeah that's all that I have thanks for uh for your time any questions for um Sam you said that you were um allotted a million dollars to start this it is all the arpa money do we have it is it do we have it or is it still someplace where it's hasn't been brought down from the federal government right yeah yeah we have it okay yeah that's

thank um but the other question um and but I know that um in my former life um I think in 2008 or so as Montgomery County lands trust we did a booklet which is probably someplace in the in the uh library of of this organization but we went to all the farmers markets we found out where all the farmers any direct sales anything and then we put it in a paper map because we were still doing paper but my my goal was to allow people when they're deciding what where they're buying produce whether it's a week ahead or it's on their way home from work they could see which farmers markets were close what is your plan or do you have an online presence where people can start to do that yeah I mean Stephen just walked in and I feel like that's the part of the yeah yeah the next okay I would say the I think we decided internally to transition to an online resource because the booklets get out of dates no that's what I'm saying I I would see no reason to use I mean you hold that and you're you have a booklet right we would we would put all this time and energy into creating a beautiful booklet no I'm not asking to do that the it needs to be on your watch yeah you need to be able to have it on your watch because I think one of the things that I I saw at that point but I think it's still true people like fresh food people especially well all people like to be connected to those who produce food or those who bring them food so all of that is good for health it's good for promoting agriculture in the community it's good for security people talk about food security and

they're talking about people being able to buy food to make to provide for their own families but I like the idea of having food close to montgomer County residents just for security reasons if we have pests someplace or we have a shutdown someplace that we do produce some food close to where we live but all those things are possible um and and Advance your program when people know about it right yeah yeah certainly like you can be growing lots of great food but um but you have to be able to reach people to buy it to make it kind of viable easy it has to be easy today yeah yeah yeah Sam are food banks included in your program yeah um we have so in Montgomery County there two main food banks that um that service the county share food program and INF abundance and um so someone from share um is on the leadership team of the council and we you know collaborate uh talk to them frequently the reason why I ask is it amazes me with these um either restaurants or bakeries or like maaf or something like that that they throw the food out on a daily basis like the bread Stuffs the baglers cupcakes whatever it may be and I you know I asked the manager said well why don't you go to a food bank well it's the um the liability we don't want the liability huh I mean how can we how can we overcome that so more people would you know like Steve may have a a peanut allergy and he doesn't know it when he gets a a free Bagel or something like that so my question is has there been any thought given by the county and

or the solicitors office uh for something to you know let people know that they wouldn't be liable I mean I don't I don't know what decrease the exposure so they can do the right thing so they can do the right thing thank you very much yeah um I mean there there is a lot of that you call it food rescue um that happens of food banks food pantries um or other AR St going to uh grocery stores restaurants things like that and and taking that food that would be thrown out and and you know moving it through that that charitable food system so it can be donated um so you know that there there is a lot of that work that happens but clearly there are still some um misconceptions I guess about about liability and and that kind of exposure so um it's a good question I I know I've seen in other places um kind of like handouts or you know like one pagers of that can be given to those businesses uh to explain like this is legally what's permissible this is you know why it's kind of okay for you to do this you know um I I would assume that share and Phil abundance have those kind of resources um I I haven't asked or or seen them directly but if you know of um uh you know again restaurants or businesses that um you have to be the linking agent right that that's what they need is that getting that information back and forth from the student right right yes that's what I was about to say if you know if you have um those those businesses that you talk to that said um you know they were concerned about the the liability then you know I'd love to to get that information from you or we could talk about it and I can try and get you those resources or we can you know figure out how to how to try and make that connection because um certainly there's no there's no reason why you know that food should be getting thrown out I mean you know like silly pretzels I mean they

throw out couple dozen you know some of that stuff is time sensitive where right but some of it is not so it's determining what is usable what your time frame for getting it to people who can use it it's all that kind of stuff and it's probably a lot more tanking go than we think but there is there is ability to do that there's not ability there's not capacity is that is that within the perview of what you're think the food council's the food policy council's for yeah yeah yeah definitely I mean that one to me that one seems pretty easy like get these re reach out to to Sharon Phil abundance get these resources send them over to you and then um you know either if send them over to well in this in this case if you know whoever has the relationship with a business right if it's trying to read your name tag from here think point is it's you know County or food policy Council have resources to send out information to restaurants or to Bakery who's kiding you know you know even if you don't blanket and hit everybody you could hit most of them and send out the information if there's that misconception to send out information that counters have misconception I mean I think food waste is a really big topic food waste I think in general is a really big I could easily see it being one of the committee Focus areas going forward um because it's it's you know the Market's throwing produce so my thing was next my next question and I'll stop before student stops me um is composting I mean because that's I mean there was was it four little Acres what was the the one that did the composting oh um remember that FY to particular whatever something like that now upscale uh hous I'm sorry he sold his farm to TOS

oh so you have there's you have the million dollars that you have for Mar what's the timeline like how long is that money going to last and you know is there a legacy of the food policy Council past the funding that's beened for Mara is there a commitment to you know program this out further than the million dollars is St right right yeah so the um the timeline for those funds is end of 2026 um and and uh the short answer is I'm not sure beyond beyond that that's not a plan yeah yeah I I've like asked a little bit but um um but but I'm not sure yet what happens um post those those Artic F andum that 2026 is the end ofing and you know possibly the end of program or the end of policy what what are you looking what is the group looking to aish what would be what would be a satisfactory outcome yeah I mean I would say certainly my goal is that the council continues Beyond 2026 it's just a matter of you know like obviously finding funding um I'd say two things one is you know um like just building more of the the networks right the the relationship so I think a lot of the things that we're doing doing now you know the Community Gardens the farmers market networks those kind of things um you know those can um the council can can initiate those but those are things that then could could live on past the the council and then the other thing I'd say is kind of to an's point that you know we're still trying to identify um like a particular project that we want to focus

on right now so it might be composting for example um and then there would be something you know more concrete that we could say like this is this is a thing that we did um but um you know with our leadership team as I said we meet monthly for an hour and a half we usually have a handful of other things to talk about um and so like because there are so many different options um that's why we're having this retreat in a couple weeks to really kind of drill down to like this is the project that that we're going to um that we're going to lead with I'm I'm a little unclear so not sure I'm trying to get my hands around what is what is the goal I mean I you know you talked about networking is the goal to reduce food insecurity is the goal to create a better Network so that people have options to get fresh food or you know I'm not sure what the goal is here is for this yeah that's what what I'm trying yeah yeah yeah um yeah I mean I'd say overall the goal right is to to create a more Equitable and more sustainable food system and so there's a lot of ways that we can approach that um to me I think the networking is a really critical part of it and that's part partially informed by the conversations I've been having with you know all the various stakeholders within the food system who have been giving me that feedback right that like we want to connect more we want to learn more we want to um uh be collaborating more we just need a space and a way to uh have that facilitated um but then you know like what that other goals like you said reducing food security increasing food production as as uh as you were talking about right like the uh the number of of farms and their their viability and the access to local consumers reducing food waste right there are lots of of goals I

would say that that um uh that again those are all things we've been talking about in the leadership team um that you know we'd like to see all of these things happening um we can you know take there are like little bites that we can take um but then figuring out kind of uh what what the the um a larger kind of concentrated effort on one of those uh is still what we're trying figure out what sten might be getting at is at the end of your um defined funding your Opa funding there would either be this is a report these are the things that we think we need in Montgomery County these things can be done by uh an ongoing organization which could be funded by X Y and Z these things can be spun off and go to form and preservation nonprofit you know food pantries whatever but that more concrete of what we we would want to know because either you need to say we're here to Define what we need and this these are the things we need to do going forward funding wise and support wise or we're here just to do a report and spin stuff out to other places or again say this is what we accomplished and that's it right so just a report saying we've you know reduced food insecurity by X or we created a network where you know what Bob was saying we've been able to we've been able to accumulate amount of tons of leftover food because we've created a network you know that's kind of where I mean that's what I'm trying to understand is where it's headed yeah yeah I mean I think that's you know that's certainly what will'll be um uh we be creating that kind of impact report you know like at the end of this year showing those types of connections as I mentioned

already made a lot of those kind of connections showing the value that the council has added to to the food system um uh as well as you know like any of those benchmarks that we have about impact for Farmers for reducing food insecurity things like that talked about is there a of your budget of a million in change has that been earmarked in any particular order or is I mean with all due respect or you know third quarter of uh 2026 all of a sudden we're looking for buying farm equipment or things that really doesn't have anything to do with it but it you know as a piece of form I mean yeah you know where's the money going to go yeah yeah so that's I mentioned the the grant program that we're going to be um starting this summer that's um a little more than half uh of the funds are going to go to that um and um I mean you know the other the other little less than half has mostly been for kind of operational stuff for for basically for my salary and benefits for um you know travel for um Material supplies uh for for all that kind of stuff I was going to say the the million dollars will never meant just for food policy Council the recovery office when it was reviewing applications for the ARA funds couldn't figure out how to best allocate money to the $75 million of requests from food related organization so their solution was to just HT it to to the figure out later well that's what you said figure out how to spend that but also in the future I want want you to know we are not affic serial at all I mean it's really an exciting wonderful thing and there's no one on this board

that is not interested in food I promise you so um I'm sorry it's one of my favorite things I know me too me too but but the reality is since we're representing planners we need to plan so that's what our questions are about oh this is all really good but we're also very nervous because we see wonderful projects get started and then putt putt putt you know and farming in Montgomery County needs a lot of support because there's a huge amount of pressure so yeah I mean we're we're we're supportive of what but we want to also kind of help guide a long-term um kind of strategy for keeping it viable I would I would separate from that a little bit I mean I'm less less excuse me I'm less concerned about the farming aspect no respect to the farm program in the county because I think you does a great job the county and organizing that but I think one of the one of the issues and certainly came out of came to light in the in the pandemic as you said in the beginning was the um this we of food insecurity and how and we've seen it grow and you've even brought up slide said 6% but it's really 8% and how that has become such a you know such the light has been shined upon that and to me it seems like that's the thing that needs to be reduced I don't know that it's going to solve but we we know that we have food deserts we know that narst toown is one of them um that we have food deserts where we can't we can't connect certain populations to quality food or to Quality you know farmers markets or anything anything like that so to me it's like that's highest priority to me that's the highest priority you know right and how to connect the work that Steve does with

the food C which I think you're already you know clearly you're already integrated but I think why are people why do people have food um food insecurity because they don't know it's there how do we get that out I don't know the answer because I mean I'm assuming a lot of it's because they just they don't have the income for to purchase food or do they not have the means to get to the food that they that is better than going to the corner you know store that just sells like Wawa stuff you know what is it that that creates this food insecurity and how is that and how can we start to fill some of those or solve some of those gaps um and what resources can be pulled together from other from other other efforts throughout the county including the farm program yeah yeah I mean those are definitely questions we've been talking about as well the report on food insecurity that I mentioned before um you know really looked at uh mostly at kind of like government programs snap Wix school lunch program things like that from the county um you know and there's there there are significant gaps in like likely eligible um versus you know number of people enrolled so that's you know one of the um examples of a type of project that we've been talking about with the leadership team of like okay how do we how do we reduce this Gap right like how do we as you're saying understand what are barriers to getting enrolled in snap what strategies would be helpful in um and then get you based on that in in getting people signed up and and utilizing the program that's that's money that's on the table that can help um uh address those I mean for Wick and this Trends nationally too it's about 50% uh 50% of people who are likely eligible are are in in the program so using these programs right right yeah right so it's complicated you know in ter it's not just like oh we need to make some flyers and uh and put

them out in the community right but it's understanding what are the the stigmas or the barriers um that that are involved um but certainly we're you know working closely with the the monco anti-hunger network um uh which is a network of kind of all the pantries within the county um uh to try and best understand like what uh um what are the challenges that that the pantries and their clients are seeing they're talking about doing a survey um Now with uh with some of their Pantry Partners you know to survey their clients to just like you were saying understand like what are the root causes that are um uh that um that are driving food insecurity um and so then being able to use that information to inform kind of some of our our decision making I mean there's there's two facts here there's a there there's plenty of food being produced whether it's restaurants food banks Farmers whatever it is it's plenty of food right and the other is that there's people that have food insecurity and the link has something we have to figure out the link yes and that's why I I keep beating a dead horse here but that's to me is is objective number one is to try to reduce that food insecurity canect to so I mean maybe as part of that million dollars you buy a small bus and say on Monday you know come here and we're going to drive to the fleet bank and you know and Tuesday it's going to be up in L Wednesday will be in wor so that the people that don't have the vehle or don't know that there's [Music] F become aware of it and that'll probably like wild I mean that's you know a good right all good suggest questions is just how how best to do it I think the stigma issue is definitely problem you know

people are we've talked about that before um that people that are that are food and secure are feel the stigma of going on some of those programs avoid it yeah to their to their own detriment in one sense but they they see it as you know um any I mean that you know those thoughts so is there anybody else that has um and and John will certainly I'm sure will be supportive in any ways but just as an office I just wanted to say I you know I've seen programs get started or kickstarted you know with the initial funding and then you get to the point how we're going to continue and sometimes they do sometimes they don't so I and I'm not telling you anything you don't know I'm sure but you know the ability to create some some wins or or the impacts uh you know in the next year and a half to to make that case demonstrate and it's a case hopefully know we can be supportive of uh making with you or or again supporting um results in a longer term committing it definitely will pay it'd be a shame to to see the energy and and and the effort put in and then it you know kind get where you House Office of Public Health okay sorry yeah go were the lockers that were um placed at Family Promise and Roslin were they funded by the council or monies received through the council no that was before so was also ARA funding um so because that's a huge one so at the Family Promise location in Rosland so they have certain hours of operation but what if you can't make those hours of operation they have like refrigerated lockers Locker exactly where you can go pick up things at your

convenience you place your order and it's there possible making it possible yeah just there's food banks all over the place my my wife Volunteers in Jen Town food bank I don't forget the name of it but she goes in she goes every Saturday and delivers food the people that are food insecure so yeah I mean that's like there's there's a lot of work that's happening like trying to to solve these issues and just so you know I go with her every so often when she can tolerate me not every week you're usually not invited can't imagine it is and the lot of fault deal with some of that stigma right because you go you can go in the evening you can go whenever it's be a solo activity interesting the ribbon cutting that I mentioned where commissioner in that joke yesterday was at at Family Promise for those lockers and I was talking with um Marsha the Ed there at Family Promise who was you know we're like all right so what does it look like to expand this to to grow this to bring it to other places so all right right Chloe has something to say well I was going to ask about Community fridges because I know there's an issue with the one people don't know this is a trend of just putting a refrigerator outside and anyone can come and put something in or take something out at any time you make too much dinner and you don't want to eat the leftovers you can put that in the community fridge it could be a restaurant or um someone who has two extra C Pumpers from the garden put there people can walk up and take whatever they want as far as I know there was only one in MCO outside of the um Amor we way location but they had to shut it down for a while think it might be back up but prob see the mold doesn't mean it's not there go ahead go ahead Sam the the issue is that because it was attached to like a retail store which is inspected

by you know the the health department um just as as we're talking about there right like there's no kind of regulation of what goes in and goes out and whatever so they tried to move it just like across the street to a church where you know the inspectors don't know it's there then they you know they're they can kind of turn a blind eye kind of thing um but the church didn't want it and so it's been like a whole process over a year or so but I think to your point that they just uh found someone else to to host it um there may be other community fridges in the county but there's no like you know they're just kind of they're very DIY right like said someone like plugs in a fridge and says put a sign and says Community fridge and then there's they're they're they're really not regulated so there's no kind of way of knowing what that network of them looks like that's something youil talked about this you think it's like a good idea support because you see there's they're popping up in Philly all over the places and I think most the key is that someone has to take ownership of it like just the neighbor or whoever put it out there goes by there like every day and tags things that are in there throws things out that are gross something that's been in there for a few days they toss or whatever and and also publicize with it but it can be a good uh option that literally feeding neighbors I don't about all yeah it isn't something we've talked about too much um uh yeah we could could bring it up and see I think you know partially um because it is more like decentralized and and that again like DIY solution you know it's harder to to figure out like what creating a program to create Community fridges and especially like because we're like within the county um you know like the public health piece of like it would get a little complicated yeah no my luck I put a refrigerator out figure out a

way well thanks Sam appreciate it hopefully we've not been don't come across too critical but helpful so you no no not all I appreciate ISS so we're glad somebody's working on yeah yeah no thank you all for for the time and uh feedback keep an buy she's got yeah a nothing to do yeah all right thanks our farm preservation annual summary and initi and before you leave you're not leave aftering also thinking about what we're working on for our comprehensive plan one of the one of the issues I think that that everyone has to recognize is in Montgomery County all citizens need to have a safe and stable place to live and a safe and stable food source and when we see the numbers of our neighbors and um and the people the citizens in the county who are have concerns about housing and food for a very afine Community like Montgomery County a lot of people don't know and um I don't know that knowing makes uh for more support but I think it also does help in Rec recognizing how important these issues [Music] are the shair of that committee I want people to understand where we are and how many people need some help absolutely

than okay morning good morning everyone how are you sorry about the fall oh no problem thanks for being online for us of course I'm always here for that yeah get M out of there hi Steve my presentation could transplant his face on the basement you go all right everyone uh hopefully this works because this text shouldn't be like that but this is the 2024 annual summary for Farmland preservation uh so let's get started um and just a quick look at what we'll be talking about today uh we'll be looking at all the preserved Farms preserved Farms um just in 2024 and also taking a deeper dive into each one of those farms uh some updates and goals about the program certain Farmland trends that we've seen within the program uh and then two agat tourism initiatives that I'll talk on so let's start with um all the preserved Farms and on this map is showing all the preserved Farms inside of the County uh as of the end of 2024 we have 10,582 Acres preserved on 191 farms uh and then also in Pennsylvania there are over 646 th000 Acres preserved on over

six uh 6,400 farms uh this continues to prove that Pennsylvania is the leader in the nation when it comes to actual uh preserved and preserved Farms a lot of people might not think of that because of all the farms in open space out west but Pennsylvania does lead the nation when it comes to the preservation efforts of Farmland all right so taking a closer look at the preserved farms in 2024 the actual the ones that we preserved uh this map is going to show the location of oh my goodness of all of these farms and as you can see we preserved six Farms these six Farms total 126 Acres they're spread throughout six different townships in the county not only in six different townships but the townships are actually pretty spread throughout the county itself which is always a welcoming thing to see they're not really clustered in the upper portion of the county where most of our Farmland uh is in the Douglas Area the new han area and I'll kind of touch on that a little bit later in the presentation and then just take taking a closer look at these six farms and we'll start with the frankenfield farm in Franconia uh the outline for each of these Farms is the the yellow outline going around the property uh the frankenfield farm is 11.75 Acres along Allentown Road this does exclude all of their buildings that front along Allentown Road uh this Farm has been in their family since the 1800s and he is a sixth generation farmer this is their home Farm uh and on on their Farm they have pasture where they raise cattle for beef and they grow a bunch of vegetables and then also on their property they have a little farm store where they sell all the produce that they grow and then you know also bring in from outside Farmers as well what's the total now because they're they're

they preserved for that specific family yes yeah the total that they've actually preserved I'm not sure but it's probably close to 200 Acres or one Farm is rather large yes so that's a found really really dedicated toing definitely yeah yeah and they already have transition plans with the the children taken over and I'm sure grandchildren at some point yeah frankfield and Frank I don't know and then next we have the renger farm this is in Douglas this was a 20 acre uh preservation effort this does exclude their little Homestead right here uh this is just a simple High operation been the family for a little over 30 years uh and they are adjacent to two already preserved Farms it's good to see for the next time you do this when you put these up I want to know what they're next next to because if they're that small of course most people don't realize if they're that small they come in into our program they're touching something that's preserved but it's it makes me feel better when I see the Big Blocks coming together yeah typically I do actually have that but this presentation was put together somewhat last minute and the liers w't working properly um but yeah so all this Farm surrounding that's all preserved and it's comprised of two different Farms yeah me tells the story yeah sure matter of very small thing you don't have to worry about the AR money do okay and next we have the greater farm this is in lower Frederick um that he preserved 40 of the 48 Acres he didn't need to exclude eight Acres of the preservation just to meet our minimum criteria uh so outlined is the 40 acres these are the 8 Acres along Smith Road that he had to exclude uh the hay that is harvested off this farm he does donate right to the farmer no

charge at all a lot of our land owners do charge some type of fee uh to have the farmers come in and harvest the the crops uh but he decides not to he just strictly donates it right to them uh this Farm we actually saw a lot of support from L Frederick and schwanksville officials at our uh Farm board meeting uh several years ago because of the location of it off the screen a little bit to the right is uh Main Street running through schwanksville um we did also kind of save this farm from development because I believe this property right here is going to be developed at some point and then this one to the South off the screen that's also being developed that's in three different townships um so those two developments alone are really increasing the pressure um to the community uh he had several offers from developers sitting on his desk but luckily we were able to offer him just enough to get him to preserve the property um but the reason there was so much support from the two townships is just because of the INF infiltration that goes on in this Farm uh there was a lot of concerns with all the runoff being directed to Main Street down to schwanksville because they're already seeing it the fire chief actually from shranks will was um you know he he attended our F board meeting and spoke on that have there been any ipal contributions to these three that we just saw uh to these three there was a contribution on the frankenfield farm from Franconia from Franconia and uh reninger there was no contribution greater Farm I don't believe there was okay and then next up we have the Marriott farm this is a very small farm it's only six acres this is in new Handover it's simple hay operation it adjoins the rest of their property which is already preserved here to the South uh and then another Farm up here which is already preserved this was just recently purchased back into the family um the father sold it back in the 80s to

the neighboring property uh the neighbor obviously didn't want it anymore so the son Rob has now purchased this back he wanted to preserve it it's completely landlocked uh you know it made sense to preserve it this was a county only effort uh when it came to purchase uh there's a lot of Woodlands next to it yes yeah that is um the Girl Scouts property that's why I I figured you know I'm ready to go to dcnr about that already paid so the second time all right and then the last two uh this one is the bearinger form this is an upper Handover 18 Acres uh he he raises sheep down here along the creek which is also the pasture in the Hayfield and then up here their property Cuts right through an existing preserved farm field uh that's just a simple Fe crop operation uh and they are adjacent to two already preserved Farms surrounding this property yes yes you're really good at this never against tell me you don't enjoy Farmland preservation and last but not least uh we have college settlement of Philadelphia this was a 30 acre preservation effort uh this is the home of the penny Pac farm and education center it's a CSA operation um off the screen here all all of these uh these Woods over here in this property uh that is CS um sorry CSP col in Philadelphia that is their property they host uh camps for kids throughout the summer and as part of those camps they actually use this Farm every now and then for classes for the kids for educational purposes uh but they all have also expanded that in recent years to include a adults so they open it up to the public uh and the reason for these classes is to uh really just teach uh the basics of organic

farming uh sustainability when it comes to the Food Systems and uh they describe how to really incorporate all healthy food into any diet that you might have be gluten-free or a normal diet or my favorite story about this is the kids used to come to the camp and lot lot of kids from Philadelphia come and they come and they show them how you grow things and one of the kids that came went out and got to pick vegetables and one of the things they would picking the season they were there were potatoes and he came back and he asked the counselor but who buries the potatoes before we get them the next day so it just shows that these kind of situations show folks where the food really comes from where kids understand what they're eating and what it takes to produce it so this kind of preservation for us is just imperative because look at the breath of populations that come can come to these places you have Philadelphia you have rural Montgomery County these are really important places to protect exactly and it is especially this one you know being in horam there's not many farms in horam this is the first preserved Farm in horam uh so yeah it it was a a Monumental uh preservation for us and so much so that we held an event last year uh at CSP the one building on their property um where all three County Commissioners attended we have representatives from the state uh also from horam Township uh and then just other attendees from CSP uh and you know the penny Pac organization there um so yeah Penny Pac they do a great job when it comes to the educational programs and you know teaching kids and adults both the best practices and Del you were asking for some Township did contribute financially

to this yes I mean not all communities not not all townships can but when we encourage them and they recognize the importance and they have their resources it's nice to be some support yeah yeah hor they were very very supportive of this um and you know they couldn't wait to contribute to the funds yeah all right uh we'll move on here to uh just some updates and goals about the program itself uh in 2024 here's a list of updates and accomplishments for the program uh we worked extensively with our it Department upstairs to build us a new Farm database um you know our old one was 30 plus years old outdated clunky um so we were able to update that and obviously it's a lot more useful for us already discuss we preserved 126 Acres on six different farms uh also in 2024 we had 11 total applicants come into the program in 10 different townships seven of those Farms accepted our offers which will total 147 Acres uh we held our third annual Farmers Gathering uh this one was a little bit different from previous years the past two years uh we held them at local parks this one was held at the 4 Center in creary and each year I've been trying to uh expand these events and make it more educational towards the farmers or the attendees trying to figure out certain ways uh to just make it beneficial to just show up U rather than just showing up and networking which is a great thing don't get me wrong but at some point it needs to advance so uh last year we held it at the 4 Center and we had a handful of vendors attend uh we had representatives from Passa show up USDA County Conservation District Penn State Extension um and several others just to give information on the resources and grants they might provide um so you know that was a really successful event again had over 70 attendees and more positive feedback so we'll be looking to hold another one this year give a shout out St did a really nice job with that this

past year and commissioner and had remarks and representative Mary J as well so it was really I thought well well done event and then the field to family map and the Egg Venture those are the two egat tourism initiatives that I'll be speaking on in just a few minutes um Sam uh already spoke on the agventure challenge and then always of course we produce new letters every year and do the annual inspections on certain farms uh and then just a quick list of any 2025 goals uh that we have we'll be I'll be looking to um work for and create a new inspection database much like the farm database uh our inspection database is outdated and clunky um so just you know creating a new one for that to be more efficient uh also be uh designing a new annual summary booklet with the design team uh in our office Patty's team um again just outdated time to revamp it and just make it a little bit more appealing uh every seven years we are um we have to recertify our program guide book this is seventh year so I'm working through that now to recertify the guide book and then on top of that we'll be meeting with the farm board to discuss any type of changes to the guidelines uh that we might want to make um hopefully potentially we could preserve our 200 200th farm this year um we might cut it close and might not make it uh but it is a goal for us this year and a possibility um a much larger event that I am getting excited about uh I'm going to begin coordinating a career in job fair for high school students college students and interested adults um this was spurred just a few weeks ago I was kind of going through some of Brooks County's plans that they've been doing and I noticed a flyer for a career Affair that they just held this past November um so I reached out to them and sat down with their director of their um Farmland program to talk about this and figure out the logistics for it uh but

essentially it's just open to any High school students and college students and again interested adults um the eventors that could be there would be local private companies um government agencies and other colleges just connecting students to AG related fields because we have such a diverse um you know um aggregated fields in the county uh so just to connect the high school students with any type of job offers or anything like that again just no Tech doesn't do anything with agriculture do they I mean I guess it's not consider yeah not really their their expertise but yeah I'll be um working through the mciu to do Outreach to all these schools what would be great if we could get um some kind of grant program maybe privately funded to pay stiping for um kids to have internships or work study with some of the a businesses you know because the issue of finding the next generation of farmers as you know is really an important component of the work that you do it's great when you take ha off but there are other things that our Farmland could be producing definely if we found the right people and we might need to be nurturing them a little earlier and through some kind of support get yeah yeah and that's a great idea D and and definitely noted um and you know hopefully that's you know you know what the career job fair could accomplish you've done great job with this program it's just wonderful to see it's metamorphosis and um thank you yeah yeah well I appreciate that do I mean I I take a lot of Pride um you know in the program and in my work and uh you know the the more and more I I do the work I realize how important farmers are and I always know it but you know making the connection these relationships with the farmers you know it's important so

yeah um and then the last goal would just be to have a successful Adventure challenge with the kickoff event at a local preserved Farm uh you know Sam and I and we're just coordinating on on that yesterday which Farms would make sense um so we'll be doing that this year as well uh and then just a couple quick Trends uh on the Farmland program itself uh last year a couple board members asked if I was noticing any type of Trends in the program uh so I just wanted to highlight a couple that I have noticed over the past several years uh beginning on the are the number of new applicants by year uh so as you can see the past five years is where we've really seen the uptick in applicants uh especially in 2022 with 17 Again new applicants these aren't re applicants these are all new applicants first time in the program uh so really the the last five years we've seen the uptick uh we've been really busy in the program the past few years um you know as you can see this is why and then on the right that image um is actually uh a breakdown of applicants in the past three years it's kind of tough to see on on this screen but the pink polygons represent the 2022 applicants the blue are the 2023 and the red are the 2024 um and then the grade the grade out section is what we deem as the significant Farmland area in the county this is where really just a lot of our Farms are they're all within that gray area but within that significant Farmland area I also believe there's a core within that significant Farmland area and that's this area up in the upper Handover Douglas New Hanover area where a lot of our uh preserved Farms are or just existing farms and throughout the program's history that's typically where we've seen the applicants come in at uh again it's hard to see on this screen but 2022 that's

where the majority of our applicants have come in and then in 2023 and 2024 you start to see the spur not only to the outskirts of the significant Farmland area but just out of it you know we have a a cluster of them down here there's one all the way down here in uh Lower Providence or Upper Providence excuse me um and then a cluster out here and then horam the CSP Farm all the way out here so we're starting to see the sprawl of applicants coming out of that significant sure although it could be a farm sprawl you know um so we're starting to see that uh you know come out a little bit outside of that Farmland area which is great to see um you know because it's what's your backlog um it I mean we don't really have well we do have a backlog because we have obviously applicant that we have made offers to um but it's it's not like it used to be I mean the backlog used to be 20 30 Farms now um I think we only had one technically one reapplicant this year so do you I'm sure you do have a wish list priority list of you know Farms that you really really want yeah oh definitely yeah no there there's I'm not asking you to put that up here you know we have too many you know yeah no there there's definitely uh certain Farms or in certain locations uh that are high priority a lot of farms seeing development pressure again just like the greater farm he had offers sitting on his desk and really you know being somebody these work in conservation for decades now it's not every farm that we should preserve sometimes they're in places that we need to develop it's the right Farm in the right location I mean although everything you know for a lot of us is important to keep in reality we want the ones that really have momentum not

momentum but um that are that that have access to Services access to additional acreage that's where we need to do it yeah yep yeah spot on doy um do want the farm grow play into decision um soils do sort of uh you know I I think we would prioritize um a farm growing produce or you know food for the community over just a simple hay operation but there's so many other factors that go into it as it contiguous to already preserved Farms the location of it uh how how large the property might be but yes if you're looking at the farm isolated producing food would be would be would be prioritized over producing P personally yes but they are they're niched the land preserving the land not reg yeah but yeah I understand that but it's Farm preservation so they're farm so they're producing something is there a priority in the in the analysis of of that thing right yeah I would definitely say so um I have a question so hypothetically I have 100 Acre form in town and I want to preserve it it say what would the what would be the monetary benefit to me to preserve it and then if for some reason two generations later they want to develop it what do they have to do to get that remov uh well to answer your second question first there is nothing that they can do uh there there no way to withdraw from the program you can't you know buy you know give us the money back and withdraw your property from the program once you are preserved it it is

intility uh is it is the county is the county um County named in the if it's if they're F if funded partially by the county yes or Township or something yeah yeah whoever contributes to the funds or named in the East and that's the reason why it's permanent because you would need them to release that if if you wanted it to be released yeah but I I'm Mr part what what would be the monitory benefits yeah so what what we offer you through the program is uh we get each property appraised and in that appraised little report you'll see three different values you'll see the market value of the land which is what a developer could offer you and you'll see the agricultural value of the land which is what your land is worth as if you were preserved and then the difference of that is the easement value that's what we can offer so we can't offer you what a developer can and that's the reason why we get turned down a l for offers um but depending on what your zone or your location all the other different factors of your farm um you know it can increase your value and give you a significant amount of money you know the Farms that I just highlighted those six Farms a couple of those they received some nice offers so it there's different factors on you know what you are appraised at but that's our formula that's what we can offer you and it's an actual casis T oh no it's funny yeah we we go to settlement and and and the applicants they receive a check or a wire right then there and if and you retain ownership of the land so one day when when you know two generations later you won't be able to develop it but you can sell it so basically a trans a transaction done in two parts yeah and then of course when you sell it it's sold as a preserved farm so a little bit you know not as expensive to whoever's purchasing it but you still get we found that the appraise value on these Reserve forms has gone up over the years and I don't know what it's recently but I know people who have bought a you know bought um sold their development rights and then go to sell a 15 years

later and they're surprised what the additional value is if you also set sell if you sell your development rights below appraise value you can also have a tax benefit is that right which you know for someone who has substantial resources you get the money and then you have the tax benefit which you can thec the agency that might have a map that shows the five surrounding counties in similar preserved Farms to kind see that whole Southeastern PA snapshot where have you do you know what like what we are compared to like Buck County and B and in terms of total preserved Farms kind of to me to see that of like all the preserved farm land in I'd have to reach I don't know if dvrpc would have it but I'll have to reach out to some of my contacts to see if I can oh no you can but because the other thing where we're preserving Farms right now we had a lot of challenges back in the odds because Burks County was not focusing there so although there was a lot of Farmland right across the county line they weren't targeting that for preservation and they also didn't pay as much so when when you look at regionally what's that what's that County Line me it doesn't mean anything for farmers who are buying um machinery and the support uh infrastructure but we want to preserve Farms over there so there was a tension we want to preserve those farms and maybe across the county line they have it it's high density so the the question you're asking is really important now some of that has changed and there's more there are more

preserved um acreage along that line but but that's that's the issue when you have townships doing things and counties doing as opposed to Regional work thanks so moving along um this is Deco agventure um this is what Sam just discussed in in his presentation so we can kind of just uh SK over this and we will get to uh the AG tourism appap uh called field to family and I showed a draft version of this last year uh during the board meeting uh and then since then John Sinker has come into our GIS section and was able to really take my idea and run with it and kind of revamp my whole design on it and then of course Anastasia comes at the end and puts all her amazing design touches on it uh but this map was essentially designed to really connect the community with the farms uh and it's an interactive map uh that showcases the local farms that engage in Agri tourism or sell fresh product produce uh and it does promote that Community engagement and enhances awareness of the diverse experiences that the county has to offer when it comes to the Farms so what you'll see here on this map and this is something that I've been working on probably too long if you ask an I put a lot of work into this I mean this is going back over a year um right we're not going to ask him going through uh all the different templates and everything trying to figure out what works best and we came to this and on this map you'll see all the dots that represent some type of farm that offers products or produce or some type of AG tourism uh this is the master list of on the left of all the Farms that you'll see on the map and then on the right we have a list of activities and products that's that's

what I was talking about yeah exactly and then also uh business types so if you just wake up one day and decide I want to go to farmers markets well you can come in here you can click the farmers markets and then it automatically populates the the farm or the map and then for each of these if you click on the actual uh uh Farm you'll bring up all the information what they have to offer um contact information so um you know this is really I do have flowers would you like to would you like to look for some flowers I know I know some but that's really fun to do um so you can come in here and and these are all the Farms that offer either pre-cut flowers or pick your own your flowers we we have a business type uh for for pick your own right here um so you know these are the Farms that offer pick your own flowers so really it's just Endless Possibilities that this highlights all farms in the county it's not just preserved Farms so again any type of farm in the county that offers food and AG tourism whatever it might be uh it'll be on this map and this is going to be already is available to the public uh but hoping to kind of republish it again now that it's completely finalized and Pharm seon start do you find out where you can get hay sure you just take a trip to just about any farm and then you get it there uh but with that said there is one Farm uh on here that does routinely sell feed products which P being included and if somebody was was to have an excess of Mount of firewood you know if there's something specifically you want to want to hear Steve I'm sure we can so yeah that is the the overall concept of the map uh and all of its [Music] functions that is it any question

question so that that that website so can you block certain emails from looking at that website depends what you're planning on doing asking for a friend can yes will want make sure my wife never has an option she to do a lot more shopping huh I'll be traveling all over the county well you can send me an email after this meeting we'll fix thank you any other questions for Steve thanks Steve appreciate itk good job all right Dave characteristics of from one while we're changing I will connect that to the comp plan which is that we had a focal that was attended by someone who works at colge settlement and she said that her ISS that she wanted us to solve with M 2050 was public transportation to college S farm because they're not just a farm like Steve said they're an education center Farm education center they have summer camps and she was thinking particularly for her staff like summer camp counselors some of them don't drive and they can't get there she can't has trouble hiring people anyway so connect back it's nice to know everyone not but some of us are so enthusiastic about our projects okay hey Dave good good how's everyone doing this morning hopefully well while I'm about to have some either great or potentially also sobering news but uh but our imian housing's report for 2024 you look at it that's right that's right yes

absolutely um so yes we've completed our annual uh analysis of the media house prices for a new existing housing of of our primary house types so just a quick overview and some comparisons to last year so our overall median price for Housing in Montgomery County in 2024 was $457,000 uh and that was a slight increase from last year of about 7% $32,000 we also had a total of 9,730 uh home sales this past year that's slightly up from 2023 like couple almost a couple hundred more sales um so getting into just a little bit of the specifics and specifically new homes had a median price of $661,000 so all housing types saw increases in their median house prices which is pretty much the the pattern that we're seeing broadly and we're going to get a little more into it I know this is going to be a lot of numbers here but I promise it'll be interesting um breaking it down by housing type this year in the last couple of years so 457,000 overall single family detached 540,000 attached homes had uh 385,000 multif family it's 260,000 so overall increases across the board but uh as you can see from the last few years housing sales have uh declin which for not surprising reasons that I I'll get

into the number of units like the number of the number of units sold has um declined slightly since like kind of yeah the height of 2020 and then slight increase and I'm going to show a broader timeline showing that here is the housing sale price by type just over the last 10 years so you can see um starting off 2014 getting out of the recession uh steady increases and then it starts to accelerate getting into in the covid Years this is the number of homes sold by type what that pattern looks like over the past decade so um you know pretty it was pretty stable through 2019 2020 uh then it it really shot up um once the first year of Co people were moving a house moving away especially with remote work becoming more prominent they were moving out of the city some to less denser areas um and just making sure do I have a pointer on this right now it's bright I was going to say I can't see it must not be working oh well um and then as interest rates really take effect uh you start to see a drop in the number of home sales so not as many people buying homes which has its own effects but slight recovery this past year but you can still see it's pretty well below what the 10e average has been in terms of the number of hes sold breaking out specifically with new units uh new units tend to be a little more variable kind of subject to to I think you know costs and general Trends and well I still don't have nearly as many of them as compared to existing sales

but yeah 661 th000 uh total for new homes median price 850,000 almost 84,000 for new detached homes and just under 555,000 for attached homes um multif family we we haven't really had as you can see we haven't had a new multif family sale in a few years and we've had them in several years generally you see your Condominiums uh and but we haven't had those since uh one of those builts since or sold since 2021 would you say sold you're talking about the comp being sold indivual individual units have to be a condo right rentals on yeah overwhelming majority you know multif family is of course rental we don't have any record of condos being transferred yeah so these are and then anybody build a today we have one I forget where it is one just came through this year R rates are why would you um so you've got the median housing sale price over the next 10 years for new units um slight drop in the the sale price from 21 into 22 uh for for the uh single detach and then a slight and then a recovery multif family so we've this little dot on 2014 that's multif family then we had them um we've had had about 143 new multif family units sold in um in uh 2017 through 2021 so variable years uh quite a few years where we didn't have any

sold and then existing units uh here's where obviously the majority of our sales are going to take place obviously steadier numbers of 400 and less as well 432,000 uh total median price and then for detached homes a little over half half a million single family attached 351,000 and then multifamilies 260,000 increases across the board um sometimes it it varies you know we the rate of increase declin slightly in 22 to 23 and then and then picked up again in 2024 here's just a timeline or line graph showing the decade pattern of those so pretty steady here's a map showing all the municipalities uh or the median housing price by municipality so the top three this year was and it's typically been somewhat of the the same municipalities in each category the top three is lower Marian ham and War sister and then rounding out the bottom was p Town Northtown in schwanksville and as we all know and is an issue in the county throughout the and throughout the country um you know there's affordability issues that have been propping up the last several years and what this is is a ratio of a comparison of the median housing price relative to the median household income and this ratio is basically saying you what those comparisons are so for I know it's a small numbers but in 2024 the ratio is 4.1 so the median price was over four times the amount of the median household income you can see

that's only gone up over the years it was started off low and then it you know took a dive after the recession slowly recovered and then it's you know only increased since then and now we're really at the highest uh the highest differential there for 2024 and this has created issues you know like I said it's beyond the county um so just for some some comparable metrics here uh and this is from the National Association of Realtors just for the sake of consistency I've compared all these so obviously our our median price as I've told you is a little different than theirs but quarter three of last year we had the third highest median how um home price sale in uh in the Delaware at least in the Pennsylania side of the Philly area behind Chester County and Bucks County but ahead of Delaware and Philadelphia um and you know we're still above the the national average of the national median uh as you can see the existing home sales uh the sale price of existing homes Nationwide was a little over 47,000 so we're about you know close to 30,000 above that so you know we're as much as the Nations of generally showing this we're we're even you know showing an even tighter Market um and then just some that that a see this creates you know the supply issu is always at play here um the Philadelphia area had was in the bottom 50 of the 200 largest hous housing markets the Philadelphia area was in the the bottom 50 in terms of uh their their current inventory level relative to their their uh pre- pandemic levels so we're 52% below what our 2019 inventory levels were so we got less Supply to work with

less uh fewer homes that are actively listed so you got more people you know fighting to own homes and then but over less Supply fewer Supply hey do you have an average of days of market for existing uh I can certainly get that I don't have um um the exact number but no see comparison the last couple years definitely seems like it's longer you know I keep an eye on it and just you know prices are are dropping in some areas and it's indicative of days on Market a couple years ago G Market was like negative even not that long ago but if anything's Chang it's fairly recent year and I I still think it's location specific not necessarily at the county level um but add that to this this each year is to see that on market trends sure um yeah I mean we can definitely get [Music] that I don't know if you talk to him and then um just as a recapping everything so build build build that's kind of the some of the theme that we've seen related to housing affordability and um with median prices increasing uh lesser Supply fewer Supply um you know it's a tight Market still and mortgage preserving preser yeah of course well that's why Chester County's so high they have more oberved land than we

do um so and you know it's not just about the people who want to own homes in the county can't afford them it's also about combinating the folks who are going to be moving here inevitably the dvrpc has projected the County's population to increase uh to 965 th000 by 2050 so that's going to be almost 109,000 more people are going to be coming here to live um and we've been averaging about 2400 units built over a 10year period but that also that also includes multif family though so rentals so you know it becomes an issue of not just taking care of the people now but we need more Supply even just to house the people who are going to be coming here uh and if we don't keep up with that then that's going to exacerbate the issue even more um so you know we're always the County's always um or mcpc is always analyzing different numbers to see what kind of uh what kind of effects supply has and potentially what what effect zoning has on affordability so some promises but you know our former Community planner Tim St did a lot of work studying rental data relative to supply um units built in some of our Burrows uh there's some promise there show you decreases or stabilization in rent as you build more units but you know that's still that's still ongoing and that's just for rent um we've been doing some extensive work with analyzing units built and how that might affect existing sales across the Burrows and and the townships um but that's been ongoing and so far has kind of been inconclusive inconclusive in terms of what we've seen as a pattern so we'll be still researching that and looking at you know land values uh housing assessment values as well which we typically don't

associate with just market rate sales but looking at any kind of numbers in the weeds that we can that we can um might give us a clue as to how to address this I'm going to give you one more cost per square effect yeah is a big number to look at hug number yeah yeah um you know and the reason I said that is because you look at these Medan houses you don't know what they're getting all right cost per square foot and I don't know whether how it could get if it get can get worken out the same way like by by Township or certain areas of the county but it would be interesting to see what the cost square foot for each of those different types of housing Stu types so I got tell the numbers are crazy like I'm doing I'm working on a project in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia and and you know we're projecting a thousand square foot for I mean it's crazy and those were yeah we um in our community planning session that was definitely analyzed for the um some of the rental studies but yeah we definitely we'll look at that yeah we'll incorporate those I've got one from DOA how's that you know the other thing is this is not for our planning commit well it is in reality if you get up to the 40,000 foot a view of this a lot of states are losing population because of the cost of housing and where is it going know where it's going the impact politically you know socially is really important because if we don't

have um housing that is a aable livable for young people and even middle-aged people they leave and who do we want to attract so these issues are really profound not and and we can look at Montgomery County with what are we 878 close to that5 whatever but we sit in this you know megalopolis and people are moving other places because living here has become challenging yeah so not that we can solve it at monning commission but I think should be aware we can at least you know you know get into more of the data to help understand it more yeah most of those the overwhelming majority of those 50 those bottom 50 markets were Northern markets you know and we're all we're getting when you look at the demographics how old we're getting you know we're just getting I couldn't believe that we were three years older in the last 10 years is that oh it was [Music] two yeah 41 currently that's part of my next not young I tell I feel 10 years younger you look at dat before you can't rely on people like me I did a reverse migration I move from the Georgia back up here which is you don't that's an exception yeah to the role um and then I'm just going to go right into our next which is a little bit more you know a little different in in it's really interesting yeah it's been it's a fascinating research and and read and outcom so this is our I had to print it out so I could kind of yell highlight it because um so we have our major report update is called who are our neighbors a demographic profile of the occupants of

Montgomery County Housing Development and it is an update to the 2012 report that we did the characteristics of the population and new an existing housing units and the primary goal of these reports were to determine average household size students per household and then an age breakdown of uh housing new and existing attached detached and multif family housing so basically gives us a full kind of broad view of but also a very specific view of who lives in the housing uh throughout the county and it's been it has provided data for our what we call demographic multipliers which have been critical in our school enrollment projections and comprehensive plans so it's um it's been a f it's a fascinating read and sort of concept uh just real quick the methodology it's we used a different methodology than last edition of the report it's kind of been one that's I don't say pioneered but it's been used by other states New Jersey Delaware throughout the midatlantic using what's called public use micro dat samples which is essentially a piece of the American Community survey uh it's not tabulated data that you'll see in the census you know public uh the surveys that are available for the public to use um just that are already formulated and curated this is basically like a library of other data that you can that users are free to cross reference and kind of customize and get some really interesting metrics so we used uh age cohort household size students enrolled in public schools we were focusing on public schools uh students for developments housing number of housing type by number of units single family attached detached and multi family and then the year build to determine uh to get our new and existing housing

numbers uh and then the the pums data is divided up into different regions on this map here so uh obviously to get a county total would add up all of the all the measurements you got from each of these regions for our community planners and for just municipalities in general this is valuable because you can actually drill down not right to your municipality but you can at least get a regional specific uh number for household size or public schools enrolled students um that are a little more specific than just the county level so this maps in the Rapport and it'll be available uh to our planners as well and just a basic snapshot of the reports here of the report findings here so um starting off with children enrolled in public school not surprisingly single new single family detached units are producing the highest number of students per household so um you know 100 new detached homes for instance are going to produce by our numbers about 61 public school students um there's been some changes over the years you know M single family attached existing homes or kind of catching up to um existing detached uh and your existing homes are generally going to have a little bit less variation that we've found um could also be you know people who are just for whatever reason moving reflecting the increased demand for attached housing possibly um so that could explain the uh the fact that attached is higher than detached and then multif family of course as typically is the case produces the fewest students per unit age makeup as you said Dy yes we are getting older our median age is 41 which is up a few years from from uh the last decade and you can see this uh it's not in on this slide because I thought

it would be a little bit much too much data to show all at once but um you know SE 177% of uh the folks living in existing housing are 60 and over 11% of of that same group are living in new housing for both new and existing though um 65 and up makes up um nearly a quarter of the people living in those and that's reflected in is seniors downsizing could also be a reflection of the rise we've seen in age restricted housing uh which the census does generally include in multif family housing um um or just you know for whatever reason seniors are maybe Aging in place on restricted income a lot of different reasons but that's the the metric we found then household size again not surprisingly new s the single family detached is uh containing the largest household size especially new detached units uh these houses have you know young families with young children um but you attached isn't too far behind the single family detached hes have you know as you'll see in the chart as well it's a little bit more in depth could include uh householders who have raised children but and then have since moved out of the house but they remain in the existing house um so you know empty nesters are certainly a factor in there um you know attach attached units and multi family they generally going to have a higher share not a crazy higher share but the larger share of single single householders and then single parent households um multif family in particular has a about new and existing has over 50% are comprised of single

householders um and so they're also producing the generally the fewest students and obviously because of that they're generally the fewest the smallest household numbers so what's the value of this data well it essentially allows us to quantify the impact of to the best of our ability um of development projects so like I said it's crucial for our school enrollment projections um and it does provide a more of a deep dive or sort of a almost a little more of a magnifying GL in terms of analyzing um population and household projections and then helps us kind of further determine okay are we building enough units per year based on what we think the numbers are and are we creating the right mix of housing so when we look at you tying back to the previous report um dvpc says we're getting 109,000 more people uh are we we don't have to just look at and you know I don't remember what the exact rejected household sizes that they that they stated but um we can actually break that down and do our own more specific calculations to determine if we're on the right track in terms of housing Supply and just you who's going to be living there um within those so it's been it's very valuable across different missions and that's it any questions comments question I there's a lot of data and narratives question for Dave how do you how do you judge um the need for housing oneless I mean families that need different housing than they have already or when you're saying what do we need to build I mean well well look it allows us to look at some you know we can take this and look at what kind of previous specific

Trends have been and then I mean everything is more expensive all the time sure and people's you know and it's costing people more and more of their um their income um to buy houses but what is it that people want that we're not giving them or need and we're not giving them how do you determine that um well that's yeah that's still ongoing but this is it gives us a little bit of a clear picture of what has been happening and then what you know um if there's not an answer that's fine but I mean that's I'm question are we are we a deficiency of how many units for people who need X Y or Z do we have do we know that is there any way to gauge that maybe there is I have been doing some preliminary calculations what our future housing demands would be how many un how many units do we need for the for the month of 2050 plans how many units are we going to need in the future to house a population we anticipate having but I think what what David was trying to say in the presentation is that if we stick to the trend of what we're building today approximately 50% of our units each year are multifam and the rest this evening was split between detach and if that if that Trend holds not going to have enough capacity to house those 110 mul are small don't house as many people so so something something has to change I don't know I don't know if it means that we need to start building more of the missing middle housing types that we we occasionally talk about you know not not a 10 score apartment building but maybe a garden apartment comp that has bedom what Z that we need to be able to do that that's I'm not

asking question right zoning or the you know they're just different design templets that need to be explored that that have to fit back into the landscape of housing here I think Steve Steve's G to go home and fix it when you're done going to the farmers market with wife getting and selling fir okay and selling firewood you know wh up some new amazing lar housing units that are more densely con of yes firl and all you don't have to build thanks appreciate it all right Mike take us the pot down okay how you doing Mike good how are you guys doing good morning figure okay next good morning I'm Mike narit and I'm gonna um share with you an update on pastan bur Community planning assistance contract which was is that your flag uh it is yes and at first I thought I had pulled the Cuba flag slightly different I always think of triangle correct yeah um so this is for years 2025 to 2027 and um I'm sure you know that Ptown is located in the western corner of the county and it comprises the regional core of the potown Metropolitan region uh future land use area in the most recent comprehens Regional comprehensive plant some of our previous contract work included zoning ordinance amendments for

a variety of topics um several of these were uh nuisance or complaint driven uh some were just things that the buau identified um that we need to grade definitions and more use regulations to better uh regulate and we worked on a variety of topics uh everything from uh Sober Living homes to hookah bars neighborhood convenience stores um and some of these were adopted and we also worked on um some design standards and regulations for window signs to try to create more appealing look in the downtown area so we had our design section do some renderings and some uh exercises to demonstrate uh what the at the time draft regulations would look like uh so in the upper right I I don't know about you but I have a hard time recognizing that that's actually um visualization it's not asley stenciled on the window they did a great job yes those are actual signs that so that uh amendment was also adopted previous contract work also included a lot of consultation and involvement in uh ongoing planning initiatives uh someone of the offices of dvrpc like the High Street quarter study safe uh safe Roots the school study which was for not just pathcom but some of the communities around it as well enhancing part bus stops um the stationary and access study which is related to the extension of Passenger Rail potown and meetings with the school River passenger rail Authority and also meetings and work related to the thriving communities program the buau got a grant from us do uh the consultant that leads the meetings is called RI B and we worked on

putting some grants together for the extension of Keystone Bard High Street uh we also um worked with the Keystone employment and economic plan steering committee there is an early proposal a concept for an outdoor entertainment venue um on keyston bouard located right next to Route 100 um un that did not um continue that they were unable to get financing um going to try not to get dizzy looking at this picture here uh so we did draft amendments to the key plan and to the memorandum of understanding that West pots Grove and Pottstown burough um completed for that plan significant Land Development reviews uh I picked out a few here that I thought you might be interested in one is Beacon of Hope homeless shelter on West High Street another mixed use Redevelopment on East High Street um called High Street Commons in the old lastic Furniture buildings North Hanover Street Redevelopment mixed use um and a multiple story self storage building on Shoemaker Road and an industrial use expansion on Queen Street is the the north Handover Street one the Old Mercury building no so that would be additional that's another one that's been talking been in the news right yeah and and uh have not reviewed that yet uh so in more detail uh this is Beacon of Hope This is the homeless shelter um we had substantial review of this um with many people participating here at mcpc because it's it's big deal of course we we invited um Kaylee silver from Housing and Community Development so she participated as well um and so we we did have numerous

comments about that um some of them related to the window area they only proposed a very small window area um so we pointed out that that does not comply with zoning um but also got into just the the holistic reasons that you might want to have larger window area especially in a place where people are in recovery um it promotes a lot of healing and just General Wellness and so I got a couple great resources that uh Bill and Marley found was able to include some of that in the review letter um but there are also comments related to needing more Landscaping in the parking lot zoning actually requires parking to be located behind the building so we made recommendations about that turns out the applicant is going to come back and pursue a variance for that um but we did make other recommendations to minimize the view of parking and reduce impervious area the the zoning does allow a small percentage of spaces to be reduced to a sort of of a compact size so we made that recommendation um the applicant took us up on it and they were able to relocate some of the spaces um that they had originally proposed for the front of the building is that much parking needed for this type of facility zoning aside right yeah and um they they say it is um so um they felt that they could not get by with any less than that number of spaces sometimes the people that move into these are living far now have yeah yeah and I always defer to you know the user they know they're their model best but it's always a good question to ask yeah absolutely the window issue is that a is that a programming issue from the homeless shelter um well smaller windows for security reasons or something so not no not not that I I'm aware of I think

they the way they explained it is that um they had ose no windows in the sleeping rooms and they have a very rigid schedule so that people were only going to be in those rooms when they're sleeping and then they get up they leave um you know there's windows in the other parts of the building uh but very minimal size in most areas uh including on the front facades so yes that sounds like a fire Cod sche so um so we definitely um you know we're definitely going to push them on that and they definitely need to respond because it is a zoning issue um in addition to all the the re the justifiable reason for warning larger window area the area to the rear um just a concrete area and so we made recommendations uh related to fighing amenities or programming um to make that a usable space for um occupants residents as well as employees uh turns out they did have some ideas for that they just simply didn't show it on the plan but they did have some real ideas for activities um and uh activities that that are are beneficial to the um to the resident's Health okay I'm going to move on to this Warehouse um there's an industrial use expansion on North Handover and this is pretty large site and includes two major buildings um there's some smaller buildings um one or two smaller buildings of one story that are going to be demolished um abandoned

warehouses um the building here is going to be reused for a small amount of retail space about well 576 ft and then they're going to develop 85 one-bedroom apartments um in the large buildings um there's going to be parking on the ground floor of the large building on the far right there's going to be a small foyer constructed between the two large buildings um so we had comments for this um related to adding amenities to a proposed pocket park um at adding parking lot Landscaping adding the required open space trees and um and addressing lighting because the lighting they were proposing was uh excessive and exceeded the limits um in zoning in some areas why only one better um that's I mean that's that's what the market is the market is indicating for them yeah um no that's the retail space commercial oh yeahor yes yeah but it is interesting because as we plan for the extension of Passenger rail to potown think you might need a second some families or some people might want a second bedroom for some other reason right and so because I don't know what the price point for these units is well it's an assisting building it ising building still 851 very specific clientele um they just they just they renovated the building J Town an office building one bedrooms and Studios only

okay now no okay yeah I mean that that I have been seeing a heck of a lot of one bedrooms and um Studios being the mixed buildings they're very heavily one B yeah we usually see like a 60 70% split you two one bedrooms to two bedrooms that's a couple and a lot of and a lot of two bedrooms are are rented by couples or I'm thinking kind of whatever yeah I guess sure makes sense um so this is also interesting because it could be considered a to project um the passenger rail station will be down Hanover Street uh it would be less than half mile walk um not to mention that you have Park bus service um so that's something um to keep in mind as we as we plan for the D passer rail it's not so this is the industrial expansion um it's a small project but I wanted to bring it up because I think think it's always interesting when industrial does expand in our older burough um so this is um Precision Polymer Products um and they manufacture um elastic meric products to flexible products like gaskets and valves which have applications in a variety of Industries um so it's a 14,700 foot expansion on Queen Street and our review comments address things um such as suggesting that open space adjacent uh be utilized for amenity area for the employees um we had some recommendations that help this blend in better with the surrounding residences because it is on a street with residences um such as by increasing the window

area um it does require a buffer so we we brought that up because they had not proposed one we had some comments about the sidewalk and ensuring Ada access and and recommendations to to have tree pits which um ensure that the trees are going to survive and we made some recommendations with bio infiltration in the parking areas so here is mix use project on East High Street and this is really interesting uh this goes into the old ltic furniture building they actually have two buildings on either side of Charlotte um route PA 663 torn down a lot of the old facade Ms that were added yeah one right here getting it back to the getting it back to the bones yeah so they've uncovered the old windows which is great so they're restoring that historic mide so this would be the way that it would look when it's done um so that's so that's on the right so this building here is also elastic uh showroom at one time it was pennies one time it was a Woolworth um so artillery Brewing is going into the ground floor they had originally proposed 11 residential units they pulled back on that and um from what I've read and I don't have um confirmation about this but um I was able to read a little bit about this and evidently they had some problems with the parking they had proposed underneath the building um just providing adequate area um I believe was the issue um so our review comments for this um some of the issues related to the fact that although it's on High Street in the main commercial um area area um it is a residential neighborhood to the rear so we want to make sure that it Blends it's compatible with the residential area and that they comply with zoning when it comes to how you

treat your dumpster and locate your dumpster and things like that um and also again with window area um on the side they were not complying with the required minimum window area for this building right here and that is Rockwell development do that so upcoming contract work um includes working with the design section on uh placemaking concept improvements for downtown uh preparing design guidelines for the central business district in the Gateway South zoning District uh continuing work with the ordinance Review Committee um and continuing participation with ongoing initiatives like scoop River passenger rail thriving communities um the station area an access study being led by dvpc and I think um some of our work will be related to a business improvement district that's proposed they proposed one last year for a much wider area in including um a greater area than you see shown here in Orange as well as um a separate area out by the airport um that was not approved um they could get could not get enough support to get that passed um but they're trying again with scale down uh version this year which would be on High King Charlotte and Hanover Streets between manaton and Warren Street uh any questions well for decades I've been calling potown the poster child for possibilities okay do you think we have momentum yet I I really think we're getting there yeah I mean someone the business businesses coming in on uh High Street in Handover

are are making me think that people getting excited um we'll see I mean if some of these residential projects go through from start to finish and they they get built and they store historic facades um then that's going to be really promising as well and then there's Keystone Boulevard um one thing that I didn't mention because it didn't come up um as planning work in the last contract but the uh Ptown sustainable energy Park uh now known as restream is the the large or the significant proposed uh Green Recycling plant for Keystone Boulevard they've received our cap funding um they would contribute hundred they're contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the extension of the boulevard um and that could really help Kickstart uh Redevelopment of that area and connection of the roadway the work being done on 422 the reroot there's I remember a long time ago seeing plans for re-rooting that was going to change a lot of stuff up there where do we stand with that well the 422 gross T interchange was redone and so they smoothed out the curve um to reduce that's yes right I know there there was an issue of some green space along the river how we going to access it what what was going to happen there yeah that's that's something that um I'm interested in I'm hoping that more will happen um at one time uh I know Mike had been working on that um years ago and created a presentation called stow landing um and it was related to the U mitigation of wetlands for that 422 uh Stow interchange project and so they have done a little bit of work I guess when they redid that interchange they left a stub road so you can cross the

inter change as I understand it to the south side of 422 near the river and go down short Dead End Road and get access to the river but that's the extent of the improvements as far as I in long time but I knew that there there was lot of churn up there and how we would use it how we get public benefit but also the economic development that they need yeah and and Beth ping was really interested in that area as well make to make it like a natural bird watching area um and uh putting in boardwalks and and things of that nature um but yeah Street there was ground Monday right yeah just just last week I guess it was Monday Monday okay yes yeah and then there you know um just is also goes in with the public contracts back so that wouldn't had a reason to talk about it today but we did a study for street that that industrial share right so again that's kind of been sitting on the shelf but as you know it's the north sou line so the S might be going through there and the P Bridge gets built in the next three years that could be a real a real Bo for that area of mon and and I think the bridge latest I heard was that it should be done in in two years right so so the commission are trying to push that it gets done faster um how can't we time stre less than that but anyway yeah they said it's supposed to be but they would like to get it done that nice don't work that way especially a bridge of that magnitude right the Kim Street Gateway plan yeah that that's a great plan and it's on the burrow website it's on the County website and um I took a look at that for how the uh industrial expansion um uh Lo is located in relation that's it's about two to three blocks away so it's not directly in the

Gateway area but yeah it's part of that wider area the the north Handover Street the bike lanes that are being added I've seen that in the new lately it's few blocks I can't remember how many blocks will that go as far as that apartment complexes um it would be in the business improvement district I think for sure I just don't know how many blocks um north of High Street it goes I I just read about that so I'm not sure yeah I mean this one yeah so similar to what they did on sections of High Street and a couple other roadways is they're going to you know restripe out um sections of new North Hanover Street close to High Street to provide those dedicated bike planes to make the street feel narrower and right now it's kind of a open C of hall with parking but they have space to designate bike planes yeah that'd be really interesting if if they build the apartments and then people can bike down to the passenger rail station you know leave their bikes there I think it's a good spot especially when you look at of the developments you know the Mercury building would be in there as wellward it it is yeah yeah P's got a great free canopy as I'm sure you know so be a nice bike ride questions for Mike than M thank you good job Mike all right oh always enjoy to do clean up after we run along here so well you spoke Micha and took up the time there you go I know I know um the only thing I think it will keep you in your seats this is about the Montgomery award so hopefully it's that it's uh you know it's the New Year Springs in the air and this Montgomery award season so I wanted just to do a kickoff especially for maybe the new members who might not know about the award program as much um and um let you know um just this is this time to start thinking about projects

and so as Rob's bringing that up I'll just it says uh monco Awards second one thank you thank you thanks yeah uh any remember it's uh we recognize the best in planning design um environmental sustainability and advocacy it promotes awareness of our outstanding design and Innovative planning in our communities and uh with successful land developments revitalization efforts open space enhancements environmental sustainability and transportation projects as well as um Community impact projects so there we go oh and um as you uh just as a reminder uh it kind of Falls in s a couple different categories we have Land Development revitalization open space we always are looking for new Transportation projects to award um more recent one was Community impact but we have one C from the last couple years and an environmental which is different than the environmental stewardship award we still like to recognize projects that still take um environmental sustainability into effect even if it doesn't meet the uh criteria of the environmental stewardship award that the Conservation District um Awards so just as a reminder this is Land Development these projects promote Excellence they Pro they include residential office commercial institutional they exemplify good site design building placement um context parking and circulation pedestrian amenities landscaping and other sustainable design practices and you all are probably familiar with Sor West and kwen again a great project project that um forer fayet Elm streets um took what was pretty much a almost a Brownfield site there did go through the Redevelopment Authority as part of the process and one of the biggest best things other than having a world headquarters of Sora there is um this great public space that was created

right along the street another example is a different scale course in college B burough which was the sh Hast Commons this is where they took an existing um historic structure added very contemporary Edition um it created a um space that was for cars and pedestrian and Verna so to speak um where they can have college Gatherings or they can have parking if you're going to the building um and again it's an example of a great Land Development we talk about revitalization again this is Penco Landing this is one in 2022 um between uh the highway and the bluff along the spookle river um it was an old indust industrial uh site as you can see which they left a lot of the elements there again adding to the charm of the place and then there's the Riverwalk there and you can get place you can get um meals or sandwich along there you can ride your bike along there you connect to um the um the trail system across the bridge there on the on the river and then another R vitalization project which was just from last year sld Station Square and uh the burough LED this this development of these um historic three historic um uh Railway build buildings um in the their railway station which is no longer used for pathenger rail still has some Freight rail going through there but again this is a restaurant there's also a brewery and a nail salon um we haven't done we haven't really recognized something almost for pretty much Pally open space recently but this still is a great example stonely in lower Maran 2019 award this is where um we this focuses on um open space preservation land conservation on community amenities and they sustain the natural envir um this is a great project natural lands um is the caretaker of this place and is still a really great example of um an open space um development that um should be recognized transportation we just talked

about Pottstown and they've added to that network but they won an award in 2019 for what for what they called W walk bike potown again creating um bike lanes and sidewalks um trying to get uh connectivity throughout the Bur especially connecting a lot of students to walking to school so this has been a really great project and they're still building on it and it's it's time to pick potown I think so anyway um Community impacts this one of the newer subjects not that we haven't done it and it's one where we recognize it more um because we certainly have had projects that have really emphasized Community impact um but we have kind of made sure is it's something in the Forefront of our mind as we're looking at projects this is from 2022 The Willows of East Greenville there was a lot of things this did it was a St preservation it's affordable housing um and it was the taking the this old CET Factory and making it into let me see 71 new units um that go that run the whole gamut between affordable and and market rate um just as a bit of a call out on this project um it just was um the the the um focus of an article in planning magazine um so it has gotten National recognition at this point the the articles online at this point and I can over you that link um when I get back to my desk um we're waiting to see if it ends up in the print copy as well I'm hoping it will um M Montgomery County is recognized as being critical in the process of this planning this project so it's really been the really that's kind of a nice feather in our cap right now um but also Community impact this is from last year Martha's Community Farm again this is not only when we think about Land Development this is still developing the land it's still a land use and it's still something that's important and so so this is um not only a community garden but it's also a food Forest repairing and buffer um and um again what we try to recognize is what um nonprofits um public and private sectors

well as well and um other members of the community trying to do something and doing something meaningful in Mony County this is the environment um this was Willows at Grove at Meadowwood um won in 2022 as well and we've been there the last two years for our Awards prr program they are great hosts one of the many reasons they won wasn't just this but was the environmental element of what they did that pond that was created was created with those zones that are meant to be part of a pond they weren't wasn't just haphazardly designed it was designed to really function well as a pond that has all the different zones a pond should have um and um so anyway and Meadow Wood is has been has um done many other things you can see on that bigger picture they have a community garden in the front but in the back back what you might see those white little uh flicks are um are um a repairing buffer and they planted again along the creek there as part of their um commitment to environmental sustainability so again when we think about the Montgomery Ward we think we as a team look at design we look at process and we look at the impact again I'm not going to read these but again those are the three things we think about you know is it a good design what is an impact in the community and what has been the process has it been something that's been collaborative that has made many partn involved now the other things we're going to be looking at is the new Charles Day tornado planning navigate award again it's about J citizen appointed elected official or board a community that has made significant contributions to um promoting planning in mcgury County um these are some of the past winners um I believe it started in 2014 I don't have that person up here but anyway these are some of the past winners sometimes it's an organization like the lower left hand sometimes it's a person like um Tom Hilton from potown um and then of course last year it was alone kind of bigger than life guy but he uh got the first of Charles J tornado award and was very pleased to be the first recipient of that as was

Charlie's Family to have given it to him so and then the environmental stewardship award again this is awarded by the Conservation District it is has to it has to be a project that imp improves Soil and Water Quality um and um this is a particularly great project in lower softare Township the Jacob rfe Park stream and F ation so again it's not something that this team that this group although if we know have a great project please recommend it because we've had in the past where I'm Jessica Buck has reached out and said I don't have any really good applicants do you know of anything so if you have an idea have a project in mind please let us know so next steps time to beat the bushes for nominations I will say the um call for entries is not just out yet um and that's the reason for that question mark at the bottom there so we have t decided that 20 um 25 is the year to maybe give mcgomery war is a slightly new look kind of freshen it up a little bit but the so we it's still kind of being cooked by our Design Group um but um I'm sure you're going to love it but that's uh what I wanted to mention here that's why I saw some gray slides here is that it was just time for the mcgomery awards to maybe have a slightly updated look for 19 for 2025 so um any questions good yes I know the tour is always fun we yeah we always do and we always have great lunch you know it's always over so thank you do direct report yes uh we'll start with staff news um I think I mentioned last month but uh Drew Shaw is still retiring I could not convince him otherwise um he that his last day will be April 18th um please mark your calendars if you'd like to join us while it's the arrangements are slightly still tentative but we're locking him down very soon we'll let you know but we're

planning to have a a uh a send off happy hour uh Suare uh likely at Von se's here in northst toown and of course you'll all be invited you like to come to that what's the DAT uh April 18th Friday oh that's it will be that Friday Good Friday it's hard to find dates Good Friday for all you eight exactly um and also I didn't mention last time though it was just found out at the time but I wanted to let it marinate a little but Anar Mian is also uh retiring on June 6 at the front desk seen Marie um and we're definitely going to miss her as well um and more on that later uh in the absence uh of Mr Edmond I we're happy to announce the promotion of Matt POC uh as the transportation section manager uh which was approved by last week at the Board of Commissioners salary board so we are are in the the pop era will call he will bring uh all the skill and dedication that he's uh brought the last 11 10 year how long almost 10 almost 10 um and look forward to continuing working with Matt uh we do have two openings on our staff uh they're both at the more entry level uh uh level Trail and open space planner and transportation planner to uh help Matt rebuild that section as well county has a opening for chief sustainability officer uh position we've long sought uh and is uh finally posted I'm on the team looking at those applications right now uh had over 50 and it's a I'll just say it's a pretty strong pool I think we we'll get a a great candidate out of that um that will working itself through the

system and we'll be working with that person obviously with all of our sustainability Focus efforts and overlap with environmental planning will be important uh County Commissioners uh just wanted to mention uh they they held their state of the county address at the community college back on February 18th uh shout out to Sandra I saw there uh thanks for for coming for that um anyway it was a high-profile event where they wanted to you know announce their you know both accompl Ms and uh priority items for the coming year uh and we certainly heard a good bit of uh our work program in that in those announcements especially from chair commissioner Mah who's excited about um some of the capital projects as well as the trails and and addressing affordable housing uh uh in more substantial manner going forward uh so anyway that was a a good event uh we as I think I mentioned last time and have have a larger seat at the table with the the commissioner's chair and the priorities meetings on a weekly basis and certainly all the staff that has been built up over the last year in that office uh in the hopes of uh providing more efficient services on that note it was announced at the Board of Commissioners that a new office is being created although it's being transformed from an existing office the recovery office which was installed and built up to administer the arpa funds among other things uh is being transitioned into the new office of innovation strategy and performance have to read those three oh no backgr doesn't quite work it doesn't work no comment there but uh no they made a big deal about it uh it's it's intended to you know look at both the internal provision of services um certainly departments uh uh will get a look over but also looking at how they

can be improved how how can uh both budgetary items assist departments in better achieving their their goals and Mission uh and how we can you know work work more together um across department so I think that's you know genu genuinely the the intent um uh and you know we'll be working with them over the next year to represent the Planning Commission I think I think again I I hope that we're an example of doing a lot of things efficiently and uh in other departments you know might received the attention or have a board uh to help Advance them so I think all in all it's a good thing and things that we've had on the table I thought about you know might actually have uh some some legs or motion to to implement um from a organizational standpoint that's my uh very positive out and let's see what's Su here uh MCO 2040 grant program applications closed on March 1 first we received 31 applications with 6.2 million which was just updated by is it growing it grew I don't see how it can't grow anymore right nope I hope not it needs to shrink so despite getting more money it's like building an extra land on the highway uh it's still it's g day one y it was fun while it lasted uh but uh no uh doie John Sandra and oped you'll enjoy with with staff uh the exercise of trying to find uh where that money is going to be allocated it's a big lift to read them all too a big when it when's the first meeting for that uh I believe it was just put on for April 29th or not April March 27th 27 yes what is it March 27

morning March 27th 9:00 a.m yeah she's being efficient um yes so anyway more on that for especially for those who will be involved on that committee uh I was a quick update on federal funding we're not what that um we don't have any like we have one project that is literally on pause because we don't know when it can be resumed um it's the Safe Streets for all Grant $400,000 um so which we just got at the end of the year so hopefully that will be lifted it's just it's under review but number of counties are kind of standing still on waiting to get get the green light moving that forward other projects you know our major transportation projects on the tip most of that is not really threatened to our understanding uh there may be further delays built into it with us do review you know being necessary some of these executive orders but uh right now there's not a sense of panic on existing Pro projects uh the trail projects that were the new Trail projects announced with the new tip which we're relying heavily on car the new carbon funding program out of the bipartisan infrastructure law as well as CAC congested mitigation uh that one has also not received a direct threat but we are keeping an eye out concern because that's a substantial source of funding to advance the county Cross County Trail uh to $40 million total in federal funds will be needed over the next 10 years so um monitoring that EV projects while we don't have funding dedicated from a federal Source at this moment that is the one of the big threats obviously the Administration has announced its

intentions or unintentional of supporting that that movement uh and the state's trying to you know navigate funding that it was getting federally into the nebby program and all of that is very much up in the air um I'll drop from that and if you have any direct questions or uh feel free to address or email me um next month uh just heads up at this time for our April board meeting uh you're on the agenda you should see uh presentation on the White Marsh flood flame restoration project which we're very excited and working on we have the consultant here for that and then coincidentally the check presentation uh event with the County Commissioners and representative um Hughes I believe uh will be at the site for what just got moved from 12:30 to 1:00 so I was worried about wrapping our meeting up in time but it looks like we'll have plenty of time and we'll certainly invite if anyone would like to come out to us for that ceremony uh it'll be 1:00 in White Marsh the the site if you're not with it is uh at skip back and Bethlehem Pike intersection right across from mcgerks if you're familiar with the area it's about 12 11 acre County site that was decimated from Hurricane Ida and then contractor further decimated it and it's going to be rebuilt a very exciting environmentally uh Progressive project demo project really to restore the flood plane and create new that from Consultants yep so um there a heads up if you're interested in in elongating your day next month at this time um that opportunity is there uh that is I think where I'm okay leaving you have the events list and this comments from

anybody return thank you thank you thank you