Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Call the North Topsail Beach Planning Board meeting of August 13th to order. Welcome everybody here and online. Can I get a motion to adopt the agenda?

Make a motion to adopt the agenda.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, now we need to have the approval of the minutes from our July 9th meeting. Does anybody have any comments or make a motion to approve those minutes?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the July 9th, 2026 meeting.

I'll second it.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, public comment. Do we have anybody from the public that would like to speak?

We do.

All right, thank you for, excuse me, Mark Barefoot, 246 Sandpiper. Thank you guys for spending your time and volunteering for this board. Congratulations to Fred for being appointed to the Board of Aldermen. He'll be sworn in later. With that being said, there will be a vacancy, so alternates and anyone that's interested in being on the planning board, we would love to have you that's viewing from the camera or on any other boards or resident. The more, the merrier. The main reason I wanted to come in and speak tonight was the JUMPO meeting, which is the Jacksonville Urban Metropolitan something else, something else. Anyway, transportation. Long story short, Kip and I were there today. We've been going to the meetings regularly here. It was brought up that the crosswalk at Beach Access 2... They have money in what is called a TAP program, which is a transportation alternative program. That crosswalk is on their radar, hopefully to be approved in November of this year. Again, working with the state, everybody knows it hasn't happened until it's happened. But it is a positive. The other good part of this is there's no local match. So the DOT or the county or whoever above and beyond North Topsail Beach will be covering it. At the end of that meeting, I did not want to look a horse in the mouth, so to speak. Very thankful and appreciative of what they've done. And they've found a way to try and make this happen. But I did bring up the fact that all our other beach accesses, this access, by the way, they are planning on doing the flashing lights. It's going to be just one crosswalk just north of the driveway there. But I brought up that beach access one. which is down close to Shipwatch, Topsail Dunes, and the Regis in the 35 zone, was really in need of a crosswalk as well. They said that that was their number two location and that if they can get more money out of this transportation alternative program, that that was next on their list for approval and that, again, that would be no local match. So I know we have in – we'll talk with Stephanie when she comes in and thank Larry for his time as interim. And we'll talk with Stephanie and Chris and see where they're at in moving forward with what has been approved for crosswalks. And we may slow them down on those two accesses because if we can get – someone else to pay for it that saves the residents money saves the town money and we put that money towards another project somewhere so i just wanted to keep everybody informed and get the information out sooner than later than hearsay and with this public forum being tonight i figured that was the best way to do it again thank you for your time mark just again the crosswalk number two that they approved where exactly is that crosswalk two is the one furthest to the south

Beach access. Of course, from the county.

Yes, sir. Okay. And, again, that will be with the flashing lights, just like the one at Villa Capriani, Splash by the Sea. And it will be just north of that driveway. And there will only be one crosswalk, not one at each end of the parking lot. At least that's the picture they showed us.

Nezak County funding or state funding?

I'm not sure. I just wanted to know whether it was North Topsail Beach funding. When they said no local match, I pretty much turned off the radar. Like I said, I did not want to look the gift horse in the mouth, and I felt bad to even bring up Beach Access 1, but I know that is a huge concern of all the residents. all the way up through the town not just like that would be dot funding if there's no local match no local match means no county match either we'll we'll let them figure it out and thank god to them that's all i got to say thank you guys they didn't have money for sidewalk for a bicycle pass um kip and i are pushing as hard as we can without breaking we we Slow and steady. Thank you mark.

Mr. Chair. Could I ask mark a question also? So at them at the aldermen's meeting Chris the public works director gave a report on the crosswalks and he had the the top three as the two County Accesses and the other one was surf city campground so I Question why we the town would be paying for the county and then the Surf City Campground is a private entity. There's no public, you can't go park there in the public and walk across the road, I don't think. So I questioned why those were the top. So I didn't really get an answer. I talked to Chris after the meeting and he said, well, those were by need, not by, you know, the ones that got the town. So I went and looked up on what that whole TAP program is from the state. And it's the state DOT that gives money to each of these jumbos. I guess there's jumbos in every county.

Probably every county, every big town.

They used to be MPO. Well, in Florida, they were MPOs, and then they became TPOs. They just changed the acronym.

It's JUMPO because it's the Jacksonville United Metropolitan Planning Organization.

So the TAP money is not only for crosswalks. It's for bike paths and everything, and they get millions of dollars a year. I couldn't see the last allocation to the Jacksonville one, but we ought to monitor that and...

That's why we're pushing these meetings. That's why we're attending these meetings. That's why we're trying to take what they'll give us. And we're not going to go up there and try and elbow everybody out and put a target on our back. So we're slow and steady moving forward. I know it's an advancement from where we were 11 years ago when I first set foot in this town. But we can get whatever answers you guys want to find out. I just want to make sure we share it with everybody as soon as we can before we spend too much money on those two locations and possibly not get reimbursed.

Thank you, Mark. Do we have anybody else signed up?

That was it for tonight.

Okay. Moving on to old business. Deb, are you old business? Brady is doing old business. Okay.

we on yeah there we go so from the last meeting july 9th of 2026 uh us as the staff introduced discussion about potential higher environmental and flood resilience standards of these topics have included wetland protection stormwater management water quality improvements erosion and sedimentation control tree preservation and wetland buffer requirements The board members discussed the concepts and established wetland setbacks or buffers. And some of the issues that were raised up during that time was potential for a 75-foot buffer requirement, potential impacts on private property rights, creation of non-conforming lots and structures, the economic effects on the future development, and enforcement limitations for the local government. So provide y'all some handouts that kind of go further into depth with some of these topics, kind of highlighting wetlands and going from there. Wetlands are significant for the environmental and economic benefits of North Topsail Beach. They protect against a number of things such as flooding, helping to maintain water quality, providing habitat to the wildlife, and serving as a part of the estuarine system. Approximately 38% of the town's planning jurisdiction, or 2,687.3 acres, are coastal wetlands. North Topsail Beach Board of Aldermen plays a crucial role in wetland protection because they control land use, develop approvals, stormwater management, and local conservation programs. The Planning Board may review and following activities and develop recommendations to strengthen wetland protection policies, ordinances, and development regulations. So just to go down the list and highlight some of these things. One is strengthening land use and zoning regulations. We can accomplish these things by establishing a wetland protection overlay district, limit or prohibit development in or around wetlands, requiring setbacks and buffer zones between development and wetlands, which we're going to touch base on here in a little bit, and also direct growth towards already developed areas through smart growth policies. Two is preserve the natural buffers. You gotta protect vegetative buffers around wetlands to filter pollutants and reduce erosion. Require native vegetation instead of lawns or hardscapes near these wetland boundaries. Also maintain wildlife corridors that connect the wetlands to other natural habitats. Number three, improvement on stormwater management. You can accomplish this by adopting low-impact development practices such as rain gardens, bioswells, permeable pavement, and I'm sure y'all have seen that around town. That's becoming a very regular thing other than standard gravel for pervious pavement, and also green roofs. Some other ways are reducing runoff that carries sediment, nutrients, and pollutants into the wetlands, and upgrade aging stormwater infrastructure. Number four is acquire and protect high-value wetlands. This can be accomplished by purchasing sensitive wetland areas through conservation programs, establishing conservation easements with private landowners, and creating parks and natural preserves that include wetland ecosystems. Number five is restore degraded wetlands by removing invasive species, replanting native vegetation, restoring the natural hydrology by removing barriers to water flow, and convert former agricultural or industrial land back to functioning wetlands where feasible. Moving to number six, enforcing the environmental regulations, because without the enforcement, how can we carry out what we were trying to get through and pass with ordinances? We've got to monitor development activities near the wetlands, require permits for activities that affect the wetland areas, investigate and penalizing illegal filling, draining, or pollution. and coordinating with enforcement efforts with state and federal agencies. Number seven, reducing pollution sources by improving the wastewater treatment systems, regulating fertilizer and pesticides use, and implement erosion and sedimentation control requirements on construction sites. One way we do that, silt fencing, you'll see that on newer construction. And reducing nutrient runoff that can cause harmful algae blooms. Number eight, build climate resilience by protecting coastal and inland wetlands that reduce flooding, incorporating wetlands into flood mitigation plans, and using wetland conservation as a natural infrastructure strategy instead of relying solely on engineered solutions. Number nine, engaging the community. Educating the residents about the ecological and economic benefits of the wetlands. Supporting volunteer monitoring and restoration programs. Partnering with schools, nonprofits, and watershed organizations, and also encouraging citizens to report of pollution or illegal wetland impacts. And then finally number 10 integrating wetlands into long-range planning Including wetland protection goals and comprehensive plans using watershed based planning approaches map and regularly update wetland inventories and consider wetland impacts and transportation utility and economic development decisions One of the, some of the key points here for the benefits of wetland protection while we're taking this, while we're spearheading this initiative, it's by protecting wetlands, local governments can reduce flood damage and infrastructure cost, improving the water quality, recharging groundwater supplies, support fish and habitat wildlife, increase the climate resilience, and enhancing recreational and educational opportunities. Uh, and then it points out down here further, uh, regarding strong zoning protections, effective stormwater management, wetland restoration, public education. Um, let's see here. So touching base from the last meeting on the concern for, for property rights of the second one pager, or let's stop there and have some questions about what all those 10 things we went over.

I'm sorry. I have a question. Um, And this may be a dumb one. When you say for number three, improving the stormwater management and upgrading the aging stormwater infrastructure, what's considered aging? Like if it's been 10 years? I mean, are we looking at that we would also have to have replacement plans for these on a rolling basis so it's not all at once? Or how does that work?

I see a hand in the crowd. Yes.

I would like to respond to that, please. There are only about four stormwater drains that we have in the entire town. And some of those drains have been filled with silt over the years. And so they're basically non-functional. And one of the credits, not that everything goes back to CRS, but one of... You might have heard me mention before that we can't achieve that... we can't go to the next level and improve our score because we don't meet the stormwater requirements of the ISO 4 rating. And so part of that is having scheduled routine maintenance and being able to document that for those particular storm drains that we do have. We also in addition have two new stormwater projects that were just recently funded. One is the parking lot at Richard Peters Park. And then the second one is intersection of Gray and Island Drive, where they're proposing a parking lot basically a retention section. So as we progress, as funds become available, and as things progress, that we become more aware of the stormwater that we do have, activities that we do have and how we can place more priority in funds and grants etc on improving that and a couple of reasons one you know that stormwater on the roadway if we would have to give you an example If 20 years ago, if we would have said, instead of just having an engineered stormwater plan on just your concrete driveway, if we would have said you need an engineered stormwater plan for your entire rooftop and all of development, And the requirement is that you maintain that rainfall on your site. Then if it's maintained on your site, then it's not running into the roadway. And there has gotten to be this mentality of, I don't want the water on my property. So I'm gonna grade my land like this. So everybody's land tilts towards the roadway. And now we have all these ponding issues. And so you know one is to have a public awareness of identifying the problem and then also what activities that we can have to address these so it's not so much the when we talk about the aging stormwater system those four stormwater drains were done probably before the town was even incorporated There doesn't seem to be, whether it was NCDOT ownership or town ownership, you know, probably now it would be a struggle to go find those four stormwater drains.

So we're definitely, with all the growth that we've had in this town, going to need more stormwater drains.

I think that we need to certainly be more aware, and particularly as we incur the effects of stormwater runoff, we need to be more aware of the activities that we can do to address the stormwater runoff that we're having to deal with. So that's that's why that's on that list and we are going to be discussing This is going to be done in phases. We're kind of giving you like a little snack and a little snack and a little snack There I don't want to I don't want to give everything away and But in the next phase, like we're talking about wetlands this evening. So when we get wetlands addressed, then the next issue on our agenda will be to bring forth, to discuss stormwater with you. And a lot of these items that we're bringing to you, we're having discussions first where that we're talking about, we're identifying the problem, discussing the problem. Is it even a problem? You know, is it just the planners upstairs that think these things are a problem? And, you know, in the... When you have a budget, and it's just like, you know, your household, if you've got a household budget, there's some things that take priority. And then, you know, you... have to figure out what things you want to spend your money on and so uh i don't want to get too too ahead of myself so i'm going to stop there but i'm going to but please keep the questions coming because that lets us know that you're that you're interested in what we're presenting to you i have a question for either one of you or both of you okay

The wetlands section, especially on the intercoastal waterways, which is, I guess, most of the wetlands. Yep. How involved, I'm sure you would expect the BISEC committee to get involved somewhat, or is this just going to be planning? It seems like BISEC, part of their duties, my understanding was to not only the ocean side, but also the intercoastal waterway side to look after issues on that side as well.

Our goal is to focus on bringing this use to the planning board and then working with the planning board to develop responses, whether it's amendments or policy recommendations, and whether it's amendments to both the UDO and to the Camelan use plan, comprehensive plan. We're staying focused in the planning arena in working with the planning board to help you develop policies or recommendations to the Board of Aldermen, which is what you're tasked by North Carolina state legislation to do.

Fred, I sit on the BISAC committee, and you're right, it's supposed to look at the intercoastal waterways as well. But right now, the plan that I am recalling has been right now the beaches. and maintaining the ocean side first.

I'm thinking if an issue came up on the sound side, I don't think that would be... Well, I just seem to remember Larry Strother mentioning the intercoastal waterway numerous times, reminding everybody that it's not just the ocean side that they're...

And you're right, Larry was very good about saying that. But when I think about the 30-year plan that they're working on and the five-year plan, to my recollection, there's nothing, at least in the five-year plan, that I recall for the intercoastal or the sound side.

As we're moving into considering anything that we may want to change related to the wetland protection, I would anticipate it coming up as far as how do we compare to some of the other towns or areas, whether it's county or town regulations. Looking across, Snead's Ferry would be county, but other towns on the island. Do we know if we are already

more difficult on the sound side and related to the wetlands or are we when you when you say more definitely i don't mean more difficult i mean do we do we already have higher standards on the wetlands than any other other towns i will say that right now no it's all equal and that the other towns probably depend on division of coastal management and camera permits and the 30 foot buffer from the mean high water line A lot of people think there's a buffer from wetlands. There's not a buffer from wetlands. There's a buffer from that mean high water line. There's a difference there. You can build your house right up to that delineation. There is no buffer from that. And so for federal wetlands, Army Corps of Engineers has no field policy, no field without permit policy. And so if whether you're in Topsail Beach, Surf City or North Topsail Beach, you're dealing with the same division of coastal management regulations and you're dealing with the same Army Corps of Engineers regulations.

But none of the other towns have implemented anything beyond.

To the best of my knowledge, no. Not that I'm aware of. And what they have experienced there may or may not be what we have experienced here.

That was more out of curiosity than I need to know who did what. as we move into perhaps suggesting changes.

Right. And so as we're suggesting changes in the benefits, that's the first statement on that sheet about the wetland protection of why, you know, why are we doing this? Why are we concerned about this?

You know, I have one more question. I'm sorry. the benefits of the wetland protection when you talk about the recharge the groundwater supplies what would you mean by recharge the groundwater supplies i'm going to take a stab at that and see if brady see if brady is

Let me see what Deb's got to say first before I make my statement. Sorry.

Yeah, I'm going to take a stab at it and then see what Brady says. So that groundwater level is constantly changing depending on the rainfall and the seasons. And so sometimes you... To me, there's two places that are the most apparent. One is right outside this building. And then the second one that I notice even more so is... The first tee, I had to swing because I had to remember if it was a hole or a tee. So if I swung, it was a tee, right? The first tee at North Shore Golf Course. When that water table is up, you can see the water. Right. And when that water table is low, when we haven't had very much rain, it is dry as bone. So that, I mean, it is like right there. So recharging, when we talk about wetlands, the wetlands act as like a storage. And so they help to hold and store and maintain that, that water in that water level. Does that make sense at all?

So you're not talking recharging like electrical recharging? No, ma'am. I couldn't figure out how you were using that word and what you meant. I knew that wasn't right.

No, ma'am. It's kind of like this, like a vessel or a container. Refreshing.

Yeah. But other than rain, how do you do that? I mean, it just... I mean, it's just the rain's going to make it go up or down.

If it rains, then it gets recharged. It's held and it's recharged.

But I mean, other than what can policy or what can we do to recharge the water other than natural rainfall?

By protecting those wetlands to where that water, what water there is, is held.

And you run off, controlling your runoff so that the ground will pick it back up instead of just letting it shoot across the road. That's kind of like you won't get anybody to admit to it, but the construction of I-40 coming down through Duplin County That area, the northeast area of Dupin County didn't used to flood. Right. And they've had devastating floods over the last 30, 40 years, and that can all be traced back to what happened to the drainage, the natural drainage when I-40 was put in.

Right. And if you think about it, I just had this picture come to mind. Mind? Mind? come to mind, sorry. It's like the wetlands, it's like a sponge on your kitchen sink and how that sponge, when it's full of water, like it's holding that, it's literally holding that water, right? Otherwise, it's like me taking that same amount of water and dipping it out on the pavement.

I guess maybe the issue I'm having is the word recharge is a little misleading. You're really trying to prevent the ward level from dissipating by doing things to keep people

Water there if the wetlands go it's gonna be a desert, right? Okay, and like it's in Dubai Hoover Dam and all that, Colorado We'll make a note to come up with a better visual or a better definition like a diagram Mr. Mr.

Chair, I think it's in simplicity and again, this is my Florida experience of the recharge area so if you Let the wetlands get filled in the that surface area that the water rainwater was going in and going into the wetlands No longer happens and then you have to use artificial methods instead of so in Florida when developers went and filled a lot of the wetlands they had to put wells in and to keep the water in the wet part of the wetlands before they became a desert. And that becomes very expensive. And it also pulls out the groundwater. So it's a vicious cycle. So my question on your two comments From the last meeting, I went on Google Earth and went all the way up and down the Sound, the whole town limits. And so it's hard to figure out where the wetland line is without looking at a piece of property and looking at the property lines in relation to where that wetland line is. So I think it would be helpful if we could have just some examples of even some of the newer builds. They're building some stuff on New River right now where they're bringing fill in and They put up their little protection silt fence, but is that the wetland line? I mean, where's their property line? Is it further in? So when we start talking about numbers like 75 feet or 25 feet, not knowing how the parcels lay out and how much of them or above that mean water and how many are below that mean water, it's gonna be impossible.

We have the high timeline, we know where you're gonna go.

Yes, it's much. We had kind of discussed this before where, you know, that's, CON-D used to be just an overlay and then you would have like arc 10 along the roadway and then CON-D was like this floating overlay and then when people were getting ready to develop their lot and they had their lot surveyed and had the normal high water line mark and wetland delineation done and all this other stuff, that's when, for that period of time that you would see that on a plant, they would go out there and flag it. The issue with wanting to know where the wetlands are from one end of town to the other Is there is an answer for that, but it is a very expensive one. And so that's why I'm saying until you go to develop until you say you have two acres, boom, boom, or like on the other side of here. Right. And it's high ground along the roadway. And then there are wetlands in the back until you go to develop. Why am I concerned where that line is? Why is anybody concerned where that line is?

Well, you're only concerned so that people know they can develop it or not or they'll try to fill it in behind your back so then they can build on it.

Well, we know that when they submit an application and when Brady goes out there and he's doing his inspection and making sure that they put their... silt fence up, we're looking at where those pink flags are or where those flags are.

Yeah, it's a standard procedure requirement for when they submit their surveys, which most, especially new development pools, any substantial structure, they have to show.

Didn't we address this when those sets of condos on New River Inlet, that they had the eight and where they were going to put that pool in the back?

Right, right.

And the access to the intercultural, we had questions about setbacks and all that good stuff.

Yes.

So I guess what I'm just asking, though, is if we could just take one of the examples of one of the lots that's being developed now, just to see in relationship to what people are building. Because there's... There's a lot, a lot. So then the other part is, you know, people putting grass all the way up to the wetland. I have a friend that lives closer to Town Hall on New River. And of course, the wetland, which has been down because it hadn't rained that much, is just getting all evasive growth in it because of the fertilizer she's putting on her lawn that washes in there. We don't have any regulations for that right now.

So these are all the things that we're discussing. You know, by... for bite or bite by bite, step by step is probably a better way to phrase it. Step by step as we bring these up. When we try to eat that whole elephant by unlocking our jaw and swallowing it, we're not ever going to get anywhere. And so by taking this piece by piece, and the way that I explain it to Brady is, It's kind of like inviting you to this Chinese buffet. Hopefully all of you have had that wonderful experience of going to a Chinese buffet where you see all the different things that are out there as you go by. There's shrimp and You know anyway you get the point and so we're showing you everything that's out there right the good the bad You know is do you think this is a problem? This is a problem. Let's put you know, let's put a put a pin in it and come back to it and and then we'll have The goal at the end of this and I'll tell you this part is The goal, we wanted to go through to discuss the next thing I don't know as we've done that is to discuss potential impacts on private property rights. That was something that we discussed at the last meeting. So we're putting this back up here. And so that's the handout that was put out. And then to... and then brady's going to present the page that was part of that staff report um and then it's going to be up to you this this fourth like we're setting the table for you right so then on this fourth part to consider if you want a text amendment or if you want to if you want to propose a text amendment to 503 setbacks for accessory buildings for the purposes of establishing a wetland buffer for certain accessories. So I don't expect you to do that tonight and we're not gonna sit down here and craft it because you don't have to do that. What you simply do is say, hey Brady, number four, the buffet looks great, we would like for you to polish this up and we're gonna give you a number We're going to give you a number of what we want that buffer to be from that wetland delineation, and that's going to establish the wetland buffer on that parcel when they go in to develop it. Does that make sense? Okay.

All right. So one more question for you. All right. So you talked about runoff, and so I've been working with Chris at Public Works, and because our two main roads are state roads and because of sand the edge of the roads are higher than the surface of the road so when it rains we we got a road full of water and so that probably needs to be graded, but to do that, that would be DOT because it's not town property and we don't wanna take that on, but there's a lot of encroachments into that. And then the last part of that, what I'm leaning into, there are some new builds that are building because of the flood elevation raising up and all the houses are being raised up. The driveways, some people are putting solid concrete, and basically all that runoff from the roof is ending up in the street. We've got one at, I can never remember the name of the road up there where the beach access is, where they took the sand trucks out on it. What's the name of that street?

Yeah, I know it's built there by Marinaway.

Yeah, that end. That's where they were taking the trucks out. But they just built the house right there next to the public access. And it is really, it's three feet higher than. And they put a concrete driveway in. And the other day, there was a puddle in front. Almost the whole street was underwater until it ran. And most of it ran off into the beach access area. because there is no surface area for that recharge to go. Right. And they're not holding the water on their site. And I, and, uh, right.

So again, this is a stormwater issue. And you remember that I said, we're going to take what was first and then not to play any cards, but when it, play the next card to let you know that our intent is to bring the issue of stormwater up. And when it comes to, when you say it's on, this is on the state road or whatever else, probably three or four years ago, I worked with Topsail Beach Surf City to develop the first grant application for stormwater runoff. And on the town side, I identified 18 hotspots. from the Surf City boundary all the way to the north end, okay? If the board wants to write me a check tonight to address all 18 hotspots, then let's go, we're on our way. I don't think they're going to give it to me. Okay. And this is what I said. We have two. Okay. We did phase one, phase two, phase three. And most recently there was a grant that was awarded for the fire station and Peter's park. Okay. I'm not, we are not going to be able to fix everything that is wrong with this town. By the end of this week, I've been here 20 years. I doubt if I've made a dent.

So next week then, not this week.

Let's do next. Yeah. Our next meeting, I'll be celebrating my 20th anniversary with you. And I've barely made a dent. We're not going to progress if we keep going backwards and sideways. So I implore you and I invite you to follow us down this yellow brick road. And if we can make... even just a little bit of progress for each one of the items that we're bringing for you, then we can build on that. But we can't if we keep going backwards and sideways, okay?

Deb, question. Then for considering a text amendment to 5.03 setbacks for accessory buildings, There isn't one currently, so this would be whatever.

There are setbacks for accessory structures, generic zoning. They typically are the same as the building envelope. But this is specifically, you're going to amend that and build that to where in addition to the generics, the non-wetland.

Right.

Right? that we're going to dovetail in there specific setbacks.

Similar then to what we did on the ocean side. 100%. The five extra feet. 100%. So that's, I guess, what I was looking for. You're looking for a number then to say like, okay, it's going to be five feet using that same example.

Right. um from these original setback from the from the wetland delineation so is it and brady's going to get into that you know is it five is it 10 is it 50 is it 75 so he's going to present that part um and then then you can then somebody can make a motion you can discuss it uh there can be a consensus and say hey uh put that cake in the oven and bring it back with this number on it and let's see what you got. And then that gives you something to work with, something to push against, right? You may not like the exact wording. You can say, hey, can you change this and this? And then it's good. Or you can say, we don't want to deal with that at all. I do want to emphasize, because it was brought up at the last meeting and it is very important, that we did that property rights thing It was numerical, but we turned it. There's little check boxes there. So as you propose anything, you guys live here. You have your house here. You can say, let's get rid of that bridge. We don't want anybody else coming in here building anything. Zero. We want to put a moratorium on building. Now, you can do that. And then we'll be tied up in court because it's a takings because people got land out there that they've been paying for. And now you're telling them they can't build a house.

And there's a slew of Supreme court cases that will back them up.

That's right. And when a young Brady, young master Brady goes to take his AICP exam in a few weeks and he's checking off that box, then there you go. So, um, it's in, in, in you have property and you don't want me coming in, in there, uh, being a pointy headed bureaucrat and saying, you can't do this. You can't do that. Right. So, but you also have an expectation of the town protecting its natural resources. This is this beautiful, beautiful circle if you think about it. So we talked about the benefits of the wetlands, right? How they retain the water and that they recharge the groundwater and stuff. And they also help to dampen storm surges whenever they come in. I don't know if we mentioned that or not, but it helps with flood. It also provides habitat. for all the flora and fauna that we've got out here, right? And so how many of you, I know one right off the bat, one, two, maybe three. How many of you have property that either has wetlands on it or wetlands are close by? One, two, three, four. Okay. So when you bought your property and you looked over those wetlands and you saw those herons and the great blue herons and the egrets, those beautiful, beautiful birds, and you saw the ripples in the water and thought, like me, that you wanted to go grab your fishing pole and try to catch one of those famous red drum. And of course, you know, we have coyotes. They're not the best, but they are nature's scavengers. Beautiful red foxes. Bobcats. Bobcats. Deer. We've seen deer out there. Right. Owls. Eagles. Osprey. Think of the diversity of all the animals. You know, that's not even getting to the endangered species, which I think we have 11 or 13, something like that. That is so cool. Okay? Yeah, and so I'm sure that whether you knew it at that instant or not, there was something about that property that sank to you. that attracted you, okay? And so if we don't protect it, and we lose the oysters, and you've heard me preach this, and I'll go ahead and play this card. When those oysters die, and they're the greatest filter on the planet, and they die, and that turns into sludge, and you walk outside your door, and it doesn't smell like Anwasa water, it smells like Anwasa sewer, what does that do to your property value? So all these things of protecting the wetlands, when we talk about protecting property rights, it is protecting your property, right? It's protecting your property value. It's protecting the quality of air, the quality of life, right? So there's this balance between me coming in like a zoning Nazi, us working together and finding this balance of protecting those oyster beds protecting those wetlands getting people to understand how important that is because there's people that move down here every single day we know them we know them by name i got their i got their emails and their phone numbers i can tell you what they are i might even i think i think what we're going to start doing is when people go into the wetlands i'm going to start naming them I'm going to give their phone number and their email address. When we have a planning board meeting, I'm going to say, this is what this person did, and we're going to put their Facebook picture up there.

Because they're building in the swamp, I mean, behind the bridges.

Right, right.

And you know why? They don't do that because they're as smart as they think they are. Because if they were smart, they would be doing everything to protect it. They're doing it because they don't know any better, and they think they can do anything they want to do. And that's whenever we have to hit pause and say, no, you don't want to do that because you don't want a sewer smell right next to your house. You don't want to lose the property value that you've spent all your life working just to buy that piece of land. You're not as smart as you think you are. So I apologize to you. I apologize to you. But if you don't care about something, and you don't make something a priority, it's never going to get done. In 10 years from now, you're going to be talking about the same thing. If it's not Sam Fiera, it's going to be somebody else, right? And so when the time that you have, that's why you come down here, is to make a contribution to this town and to this community. This is it.

So now, thank you, Deb. That's well said. So now we're talking about floodplain management, is that?

Nope, not yet. We're still in the middle of old business number one. We've got to start looking at property right issues. So the second sheet, front and back, one page. Planning board needs to consider the unified development ordinance and comp plan recommendations. We should ensure ordinance respect constitutional due process, avoid arbitrary or discriminatory land use rules, and balancing public welfare goals with individual property rights. So here I'm gonna go through a list of six key points for ensuring key property rights issues are addressed. Number one is compliance with due process requirements. The 5th and the 14th Amendment, under those two amendments, local governments must provide clear notice, a meaningful hearing, and an impartial decision maker when regulating land use. Regulations must be tied to a legitimate public purpose and not be arbitrary or capricious. This means ordinances should be adopted through transparent procedures and allow affected property owners to participate. Number two, avoiding unreasonable or discriminatory restrictions. Ordinance should not impose substantive due process violations by restricting property use in ways unrelated to public health, safety, and welfare. They must also avoid discriminatory zoning and disproportionately impact protected classes, which could violate equal protection principles. Number three is balancing public welfare and private rights. Local governments have the police power to regulate land use for community welfare, but the power is limited. Ordinances should be reasonably related to the public interest and not impose excessive burdens on property owners. This includes ensuring that zoning, building code, and environmental regulations are proportionate to the risk or benefits they address. Number four, protecting economic development and investment. Ordinance should not create uncertainty or unpredictability that could deter investment. Clear consistent rules help property owners plan for the future and maintain confidence in local development policies. Number five, environmental and historic preservation considerations. When regulating land use, government should consider environmental protections and historic preservation as legitimate public interest, but ensure these do not unduly restrict property rights without a clear public benefit. You got a reoccurring statement, public benefit, public serving the public. Number six, enforcement and dispute resolution. Effective enforcement mechanisms and fair dispute resolution processes are essential to maintain trust. Ordinances should provide clear, compliant requirements and fair appeal processes for property ownership. Here are some practical steps for local governments. Conducting public hearings before adopting or amending ordinances. Consult legal counsel to ensure compliance with state and federal constitutional requirements. Review past ordinances for potential due process or equal protection issues. Engaging the stakeholder owners, property owners, developers, community groups to help identify unintended consequences and document the public purpose behind each regulation to defend it in court. with the bottom line being the planning board's objective should be to develop and recommend ordinances that are clear, fair, and narrowly tailored to achieve legitimate public goals while respecting constitutional protections and avoiding arbitrary or discriminatory restrictions on private properties.

Questions?

And I am not an attorney, don't claim to be, so I know planning law to a certain degree. That's about it, other than getting into our own local regulations.

This sounds very similar to some of the stuff you sent us a couple years ago about from the council of governments as far as zoning, rezoning, and things along those lines.

To what you can and cannot do. Because you don't... you don't want to waste your energy if you're going to be tied up in court as well meaning as you as we may be that you wind up you know making the attorneys rich because we did a misstep so this is done as kind of like a checklist that you can put in your binders and uh i might run upstairs real quick and get those and bring those down to you that way you can keep them i wanted to do a real pretty cover for you i'll do that later but um I think doing the balance, it's very important to keep that balance. Like, what is the balance? My idea of the balance might be different from yours, and especially if you're a property owner. You know, my idea of a balance might be a thousand foot buffer from the wetlands. I think that's entirely reasonable, right? But I don't have, you know, I'm not vested, right? And so there's gotta be that balance. And so by doing the public hearings and checking with the attorneys, you know for the language going through each one of those steps that he read through puts you i think on solid ground as you fine tune like you've got this target you want to protect the wetlands and as you go through that that checklist and you're developing and and using that as kind of your guide making sure that you're staying within that buffer then i think that's the most effective and long term that can be and if you are challenged and you've met all those requirements then the town should prevail Does that make sense? Okay.

So, so Mr. Chair, going back to, let's just say we were, we were talking about a number for the wetland buffer. To me, to be fair, there's going to be nonconformities no matter what we do, because some people, there is no, they're built right. They've got something right to the, to the wetland line now. So I think part of it is to have a reasonable number of Nonconformities that everybody's not conforming like using Deb's example of a thousand feet. We there's properties aren't even a thousand feet deep So everybody would be nonconforming that would not hold up in court so I think going back to what I was saying before we had a couple of examples of what what's really being built and what is a is it five feet is it ten feet and if if let's just say we pick ten feet and look at how many non-conformities are we creating? And then if there are non-conformities, is there a timeframe to be able to come into compliance? Maybe if you have a shed in your backyard, it's 10 years because the life of the shed is 10 years. And when you replace it, you've got to move it out of the wetland. Well, having...

If we end up proposing something to the Board of Aldermen that would end up creating a non-conforming situation, there's two ways to go about it. You could just allow it to be a non-conforming use. Grandfather it in. Right, right. Just grandfather it in is one option, or you could do an amortization.

You could do an amortization. There's a number of things, but most importantly, how you address that from a property rights standpoint is, is that if that's affected your property or even if you don't have it yet, but say you have land and you're getting ready to build and you can't do anything, it's really causing you a problem. Whether we think so or not, if you think it is, then your pathway, and that mentions, that's one of the steps in the property rights, is that you apply for a variance or an appeal through the Board of Adjustment. And so if you can show, it's up to you, the onus is on you, the burden's on you, that you show the Board of Alderman, your fellow property owners in North Hobson Beach, and say, look what's happening to me. And then the Board of Adjustment will have the authority to... bring that down some either bring it down or wave it all together or whatever they decide to do that's that's the common sense factor that's built in here and that can that can also be included in should you desire should you decide that you want to see a draft text amendment that appeal variance pathway for the Board of Adjustment language can be included in that section. But we're just talking about accessories. So we're not talking about your house. We're not talking about a 75 or 50 foot, whatever it is, setback from the wetlands that makes your house unbuildable.

Go ahead. Let me just finish that. So I understand that because you wouldn't permit anything now, but there are some houses that Looks like the wetland line's 10 feet from the back of the house.

But you're saying it looks like. Where is it? We don't know.

That's why I'm saying bring some examples of some plot plans so we can at least get some example. And you could take 10 of them across the town in different areas of the town. They're not all going to be the same, but they're going to be close so that you get some feeling to what it is.

My question is this. Does it have to be one thing? In other words, can it be graduated? So like if you're five feet, there's no structure. And then if it's the next five or whatever feet, it can be something else that maybe would be beneficial where the homeowner could use their property, but it wouldn't that would fit in this area that wouldn't impinge.

It could be elevated and you don't dig it, you don't fill it in.

Yeah, you don't impinge on the wetlands. That way you're taking into consideration the property's owner's right to use their full property, but yet... looking out for the wetlands. Is that something that's possible to do or is it like a hard and fast number and that's it?

There needs to be something more consistent and definitive because when you leave it that wide open, then that makes our job more challenging and it makes it impossible to be consistent. If you give it a number like we did with the five foot buffer, I don't see anybody having a problem with putting a silt fence five feet from the toe of the dune. Right. Right. And there's a camera set back there. Right. So when, when you talk about somebody making their application, they turn in their application for the house. Right. So they get the house on there and, you know, maybe they want to pull in there. Maybe it's, you know, and one of the things, you know, this addresses accessory uses that are not water dependent. We're not talking about, uh, docks and boardwalks, things like that, boat launches and stuff. We're talking about these swimming pools that go right up to the wetland delineation, and then they hang a 10-foot deck into the wetlands. Take a look. When you're taking a look and you're saying, yeah, I see this close, I see this close, and I see this close, I challenge you to go by and look at what you think are wetlands, and most of it is okay, probably. But I would invite you to go through and see what disturbs you and say, when you hear yourself, that doesn't look right, write down the address and let us know. Say, hey, I saw this. I don't know why it doesn't look right, or I do know why it doesn't look right, but this isn't right. If every single one was perfect, we wouldn't be talking about this. Why we're talking about this specifically is because we have... cases where people have gone into the wetlands we have not been able to issue a ten thousand dollar citation which the board expected us to do they adopted that in the enforcement we're like okay do we issue this ten thousand dollar citation for going in the wetlands without a permit well what's your definition of damage is the response and it's like

Well, my biggest fear is not so much that, but I'm very familiar with Sandy in New Jersey. You could, in this town that my grandparents and parents had a house in, you could have fallen asleep in 1955, woken up in 2011, and not missed a thing. you had a little small single level, one floor bungalows on these lots and after sanding, everybody took their lot and built these humongous houses right up to the setbacks. Five foot on one side and 10 foot on the other side and whatever the front and back. And that house is in compliance But they're all like that. And then you had a strain on the electric system, on the water and sewer system, on everything else. But each one is in compliance. And I fear that we could be setting ourselves up for that, God forbid, if there's another hurricane, that people start rebuilding. And the land was the only thing that had any value. So they put the biggest house that they could put. on the property and that's that's an issue and I don't know how we address that but that's to me that's more it seems to be just as big an issue as the setback from the wetlands and you're talking about the size the size of the house the size of the house okay they were then they were then the zoning each house is compliance right it's just that when there's a 500 of them.

Everybody followed the rules. Everybody followed the rules. When there's 500 of them, it's a problem. And there were 500 lots, and they came in there and they built 500 very large houses. And that's what the town ordinance allowed, and that's what building code allowed.

Well, the tax base, they're getting tons of money tax-wise, but there's a strain on all the infrastructure, and it's horrible. It's horrible.

It is. So the way... And it could happen without a hurricane or another storm. I mean, we got houses here that are 40, 50 years old. The land's going to be more valuable than the house. Somebody's going to tear it down, and they're going to want to build a bigger house. So we need to look at the setbacks. Also, the house, the volume of the house. As you get taller, you need to have more setback because sunlight. You know, somebody comes and builds, you know, a four- or five-story house, whatever our – I don't know what our limit is. 48 feet. 48. So if somebody comes and builds a 48-foot box, the house next door, if it's on the shade side, is not going to ever see the light of day.

So when you talk about property values and stuff, what are you doing in property rights If you say, okay, I'm fine. I'm okay. Pull up the ladder, Jack. You know, I've got my 45, 48 foot tall house. Let's reduce the house to, let's reduce the building envelope, the house envelope, however you want to reduce it, whether it's to setbacks or height or increased freeboard, you know, whatever.

Or impervious.

Yeah. What does that do to property value?

Well, that's what you've got to balance. You've got to look at all of that.

Okay, so where's the balance in that? That height has been reviewed and approved by the board. The setbacks have been reviewed and approved by the board. Zoning districts since before 1980, when the county had it, there was zoning in North Thompson Beach before there was zoning anywhere else in the county. So this gets back to When you go through that checklist, if you want to propose shrinking those building envelopes, go through that checklist on property rights and see if you can justify each one of them.

That's what you need to do.

Well, that's not what I'm going to do.

No, no, but I mean that's what we need to do to study it. So I'll give you an example, and I hate to keep using Florida as an example, but that's where I came from. So my old neighborhood... Part of it was on these fingers off the intercoastal. All the houses were built in the 50s. They were all one-story houses, similar. There was a hurricane that damaged some of them, but then people started figuring out the land is more valuable then the house. So they'd tear the house down and they'd come back and build these, they were limited to three stories there, but they would build, they had the five foot setbacks. Well, a one story house with a five foot setback is much different than a three story house with a five foot setback to the neighbor that's next door. So what they did is they changed the zoning. You're still allowed to build the same area but you have to step the house. As it gets taller, it's like a wedding cake. It goes up. They look at sunlight.

What I hear you saying is that there's more important things that you would like to address than a protection buffer that we discussed.

I think we start with that, but we could use that as part of it.

I don't think it's more important. I think it's something that needs to be included or added to.

You have to look at it in the same vein.

What Deb is saying is that we're going to get there and we've chosen this to start with. Right.

Which is a great place to start. Part of that buffer setback should be looking at the same thing. In context.

The impact could be taken out.

Right. And then accessories, of course.

My recommendation is that you take one piece at a time. Okay.

Well, I understand that, but I'm just saying you have to think out.

If we go through and we throw in wetlands and setbacks and sunlight and all this other stuff.

But I think we need to have. No, no.

I'm just saying when you're thinking about wetlands and we're doing wetlands, we've got to think of the other stuff. Not necessarily do it, but think of how that's going to impact the wetland.

Like some kind of strategic plan that this is the strategy that we're going to follow. We're going to address wetlands first. We're going to do this next. We're going to do this next. And we have a five-year time frame or a three-year time frame to accomplish those goals.

I wouldn't put a time restriction on you because I want you to be able to... It may take longer to do it.

But I'm saying you need some kind of strategic plan that outlines we set our priorities, which one do we think is the most important thing that we need to address first, tackle that, and then go on down the list.

Okay, so you want us to stop here and develop a strategic plan and come back? No, no, no. We're just starting here.

Just look at what's next. I think the town has already said that the wetlands are an important next step. We've had that direction from the alderman before. There are people on this board who have raised it before, and I think that is where we are.

And we're coming back to you and telling you that... we are finding it challenging if not impossible to enforce that language and we're still having difficulty, which is why we're coming back and saying, how about doing a buffer? Because if we did a buffer, maybe that wouldn't have happened. We're looking at the experience of the problems, the issues that we've had dealing with these wetland violations. If there were no wetland violations, there's no, I wouldn't even, what are we even talking about? Who cares, right?

It sounds like an enforcement issue. It sounds like you've got the wetlands, the regulations, what you want is just not being enforced. We can't enforce it the way that it's written.

Oh, okay.

When I say that the wetlands were damaged and we were discussing if we were going to be able to issue a $10,000 citation, And the question back to us was what is the definition of damage? Because the word damage was used in the ordinance that was adopted. We do not define damage. I'm not an attorney. Okay. I'm telling you, I could not issue. We could not issue that $10,000 citation to someone who willfully and intentionally went into the 404 wetlands and to this day refuses to remove it. Unless you want to give me a gun.

Ricky, we don't want to say that Dev Hill is bringing guns.

No, but I think it's important that you understand what perspective that we're coming from. If we weren't trying to propose strengthening of the language of the ordinance to give us something and to help people. I gave an example, and please forgive me for this, because I gave Brady an example on the importance of this buffer. When people are in an abusive relationship or not, but they file a restraining order, there is a distance attached to that restraining order. And that's like, how far away do I have to keep you from whatever the object of your determination is? How far away do I have to keep you for that to be safe? You know, if it's a relationship, is it 500 feet? Is it a mile? Is it five miles? If it's the wetlands, I don't think five feet is going to do it.

We're going to go over some stuff about what the distance is and what's effective, what's not effective, what's the intention of the different lengths.

Can I just say one thing, though, real quick? To both of your points, I get what you're saying, and that might be something we have to address, but to what I think, when Deb used the analogy of a Chinese buffet, there's all these things. We have to pick one thing and start. And I think picking the doing, because there's also some need here, the wetlands makes sense to me because it's almost like you gotta figure out the border of where someone could put their house to begin with before you even talk about changing anything to that effect. So I think we need to just determine what our setbacks are and figure out do we want to do anything along that line and get that finished and then we can work inside that footprint. It's just a thought.

We already talked about that we don't really know what the border is. So how are you going to say 50 feet from the edge of the wetland when we don't have it defined.

It exists, we just don't.

We have the delineations. If there are 404, which are Army Corps, or 401, which are coastal wetland, if they're present on a piece of property that's being developed, it is a requirement for us to review the survey and have... the surveyor put those those lines on there whether he goes out and does them or a camera representative does them or a private consultant does them we see them and then as of now we don't have any setbacks from either one of those wetlands camera has some setbacks from the coastal wetlands but we just ensure that development is not encroaching into them so you could make it a requirement and it is a requirement that they identify the wetland

Boundary.

It already is a requirement.

Okay. And that's been enforced. Okay. And any time that we used to have, it used to be the requirement that if it was 404, that 404 had to confirm those.

So it's no different than what we talked about on the dune side, having distance from the setback from the dunes.

From the camera.

Yeah, the five feet. Correct. Because it was a requirement on that plat for them to show the elevations, which gives us an idea of where the topography, the profile of that dune. And then that five-foot buffer, then we go out there. We know what the total of the dune is, and we expect to see that silt fence up there where the guys that are out there working, they don't inadvertently go into that dune.

So I think the difference is on the dune side, you can physically see the dune. The wetland, sometimes you don't know where the wetland starts on a piece of property or not.

The wetland is all about the hydrology of the soils underneath. It's about the different types of growth. So it's like an invisible line until they put it on a survey.

Well, it's not an invisible line to somebody like Brady where those wetlands are whenever he goes out there. and he's gonna be the one that's responsible for it.

Right, but the homeowner needs to be able to know, he needs to have it either on his survey when he's buying a house or before he buys it. Let's say I'm looking at a house I'm gonna buy and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna put a pool in the backyard. And without that survey, I don't know if I can put the pool in or not because I don't know where the wetland is.

It's the same thing with the beachfront currently since we've adopted the canvas set back for pools.

Right, but you can go out there and say, oh, it's like five feet. I think I can get a pool in there.

You'd be surprised how many people think that they have more vegetation than what's actually out there because going out there and your first line of natural and stable vegetation, you can plant 50 feet into that dune. of vegetation of sea oats and that's not going to become true stable vegetation until three to five years and that's if it's perfect growing seasons that's if you don't have any storms but a layman goes out there and says oh look at all this vegetation perfect i've got so much room but they're lacking barely any room to put anything else on the property So that's why it's to come to the technical experts and engage. But we can't confirm anything until we have an application in front of us with all of the information that we have to have for a completed application.

So it goes back to what I said before. We had some examples of some surveys on houses that are built. So we can kind of say, oh, there's only a few feet back there.

There will be some that come in, but there's only going to be a few feet back there. that they can put any accessory structure in. But is the point, here's the dividing line right here. You wanna see claps because you need to see like 10 of them to see what it's gonna be. We can pull the last 100 and show you every one that we've done on the sound front. The question is, if it is your intent for the ones that they would not have been otherwise able to pull there, then why are we having this conversation on protecting Is your intent to make sure that everybody that moves into North Thompson Beach can build the biggest pool that they want to, or is your intent to do whatever we can to do something to protect the wetlands?

No, I think it's to protect the wetlands, but I'm just, what I'm saying, and again, if we're gonna say what it is, and the town is three quarters built out, we're gonna create nonconformities for people that have pools that are in that area. So we're gonna have to have an amortization schedule that says- We don't have to.

We didn't even do that. When they did that for pool, no. When we did that for camera, for the camera set back on the oceanfront, the language was that if your pool was damaged or destroyed, you had up to one year to put that pool back where it was. And you can do the same thing for the wetland buffers as we did for- But do you want to do that?

Or do you want to protect the wetlands even more and say- But then that also fulfills the ability to protect the property rights because people's homes that already had the pools, at least this was the issue on the ocean side, their value of their home The pool was part of that, and then they lose some value in your home, and you couldn't do that to property rights. And so this was that balance. Yes, yes, and that's a good question.

But again, you still have the Board of Appeals to go to. That's another option.

That's your buffer.

Right.

That's your buffer. But you're not going to be able to build the Board of Adjustments.

You wouldn't want to set up people in the Board of Adjustments.

That's going to catch at least 90%. I mean, there's going to be a few that it doesn't matter what you do. They've built so far out there that they got away with it.

You've got to pick a side here, Sam. You've got to pick a side.

Oh, I understand that. I think the side is the wet one, but it's just like you've got to also be reasonable.

The reasonableness is because you have to apply that same standard to everybody, right? So the reasonableness is if it's in such a way, creates whatever type of hardship, whatever, That's the more of an adjustment. And if somebody appeals or if they request a variance, I think I've tried to help people get a variance. And the appeals, I had to do what I did because that's what the ordinance says. Now, did I want to help them? Yeah, I want to help them, but I don't have that luxury, right? So in a variance, whenever somebody says, okay, I can't, I've got skin cancer, And all I want to do in my last days is sit on my cover of the board. And, you know, okay, well, I have to say no to the permit, but you can request a variance, you know. You do everything that you can help me, but at the end of the day, the Board of Adjustment said we grant that variance. Now, at that time, that was even before ADA, but the Board of Adjustment, even though at that point in time, it was not an ADA, plus for them to hate their hound, they did what was in their heart and what they wanted to do. Which is their problem? Whether I agree or not, it doesn't matter. I'm glad that they did what they did. I couldn't fix it.

I'm just saying to pick the right number.

It's a great opportunity to move to the next section here. Um, so down at the bottom of, uh, page three, um, Talks about attachments number one is gonna be the planners guide to and that's what I'm about to dive in here in a second planners guide to wetland buffers Which comes to us from the Environmental Law Institute. I'm gonna read a few Phrases out of there and then we're also going to cover the the kind of draft per se Establishing a wetland protection buffer idea, but we can start talking about Specific actions requested, we've already covered one and two, discussing the merit of establishing a wetland protection buffer for certain accessory structures. Number two, discuss potential impacts on private property rights, creation of nonconforming structures, economic effects on future development and enforcement. Number three is what we're gonna move into, determining appropriate distance. And then four, considering the proposal, considering a text amendment to 5.03 setbacks for accessory structures. for the proposed establishment of the wetland buffer for certain accessories. All right, so Ricky, if you can, thank you, sir. All right, so just a template, just somewhere to start, okay? No accessory structures as defined in 4.02 permitted and special uses and that's what this list is underneath is all of the accessory uses that are classified in our table of permitted uses. But no accessory structure as defined in that section shall be permitted within 50 feet, I'm gonna get to why I have that number up there, as a placeholder or for the number to use, of the landward side of the wetland delineation line incorporating in 404s from the U.S. Army Corps and or coastal 401 wetlands. And then also wetland protection buffer is what we're going to call it. And then put at the end, except something. as permitted the exception idea is that as deb alluded to earlier some of those highlighted options are water dependent structures that are going to have to go into the wetlands you know you wouldn't be able to have a dock that didn't go into the wetlands a boat lift you know um Fences, historically, have been placed in the wetlands. That can be added, that can be taken away. Gazebos, retaining walls, and bulkheads, they are usually delineating or stopping further encroachment of wetlands onto people's private property. So that's going to be within that buffer area. walkways, boardwalks, and then again water-dependent structures. All those other unhighlighted sections that are classified as accessory uses have potential to not be in, or yeah, they would not be allowed as an exception. So swimming pools and accessory structures are the first things that pop into your head like a shed, but there are other things, elevators, evcs that's a good question hey deb what is evcs electric vehicle charging station one and two Fair enough. There you go.

That's what you were looking for earlier. No.

So before we hop in, I do want to bring up that pamphlet from the Environmental Law Institute for wetland buffers. On page seven, y'all don't, is it, it's not in, I don't think y'all, Lisa, do you have it? Yes, that one, yes.

It is in the handout.

So, yeah, thank you, Ricky. On page seven of that handout, it does go into the science for buffers and wetlands.

I think that's actually the actual page number of the document?

Yes, the actual page number of the document.

Okay, that's three.

Nope, it's this one right here, yes. Perfect, yes. So it goes down into water quality and buffers. It talks about different case studies. On the right-hand side of the page, starting on depending on site conditions, Yep, there you go. Much of the sediment and nutrient removal may occur within the first 15 to 20 feet of the buffer, but buffers of 30 to 100 feet or more will remove pollutants more consistently. Buffer distances should be greater in area for steeper slopes, higher intensive land uses. Large buffers will be more effective over the long run, common sense there, because buffers can become saturated with sediment and nutrients, gradually reducing their effectiveness, and because it is much harder to maintain the long-term integrity of small buffers. In an assessment of 21 established buffers in Washington County, this was Washington County, Georgia, I think it might have been Georgia,

Washington County. Yeah, there we go.

Right, so... In this study, it found that 76% of buffers were negatively altered over time. This is where that number comes into. Buffers of less than 50 feet were more susceptible to degradation by human disturbance. In fact, no buffers of 25 feet or less were functioning to reduce disturbance to the adjacent wetlands. But buffers greater than 50 feet showed fewer signs of human disturbance. uh so with that being said 50 less than 50 feet was not so good greater than 50 feet was pretty good so 50 feet right there in the middle allows to have that sufficient buffer area while also maintaining potentially enough state enough space for the property owner to utilize their property and not negatively affect the wetland areas around them So that's how we came to that number. Don't have to stay there. We can move it however the temperament of the board is. But that's where we are. And anybody has any discussion or questions about the draft here?

I'm good with the 50 feet. I mean, that makes sense to me.

They didn't list specifics on each of the... What was I doing? They did an assessment of 21 properties. And so they found that 50 feet seemed to be the sweet spot. Because the thing less did not seem to have any lasting effect. And so more than that, yeah, it did a better job. But then you're also .

Defense of 50 feet. I looked at this that we had from our meeting last month, which was recommendations or things that you can do with wetland protection. And the recommendation in that is a protected buffer of at least 75 feet for any dredging or filling and a no-build setback of 15. That 75 stood out to me by saying, wait a minute, somebody picked 75 on purpose. So I think 50 is more than reasonable in light of that number that Water Keepers Carolina put in their document.

Yeah, I think if we went much more than 50, there'd be questions why, if 50 doesn't seem to... impact negatively the wetlands, why go more? So it seems like 50 would be a palatable number.

And see, this goes back to that checklist on, you know, is 50 arbitrary and precious? It's not. Based on the study, based on two articles that you've read, it was the least restrictive, and it was the sweet spot of effectiveness

So I think 50 is a good number, but I don't know how that relates to, I don't know, what's the normal depth of our lots on the sound side?

There is no normal. I mean, if we can go through and do an average of the 4,000, 4,600 properties in the north top of the beach, we can do an average of lot width and depth, but that's not going to get you to where you want to be. If I can do that average, You know, there's going to be ones that are bigger and ones that are smaller.

So they're getting ready to, they're building a house. I mean, they've just cleared the land on New River, three-quarters of the way up there. And, again, I don't know how deep the lot is, so I don't know how far the wetland goes out.

If they're building a house, I guarantee you we do.

That's what I'm saying. That's why I asked before if we could get some examples because 50 feet may be good there, but looking at where their filter fabric down the silt fence, couldn't get the term out, sorry, where that is in relation to, they haven't staked the house yet, but just how shallow that lot looks, is 50 feet in the setback of the house. I don't know.

But if we know now, based on everything that Brady just presented and what we just discussed, that there's an appropriate distance, then it doesn't matter on that house or on what the average in the town is. Well, it could if it made every one of our houses nonconform.

But this is on houses. This is just accessory structures. Right, but if the 50 feet gets up to the house, is what I'm saying, they can't have any accessory structure.

I don't know what that is. They're still allowed the primary use of whatever they're doing.

Even if it's within that 50 feet?

Correct. For the house, yeah, it doesn't apply to the house.

Okay. That means they can't have any accessory structures. Not in the backyard, if it comes always in the back of the house.

Okay. With your water-dependent structures, you can still have your boardwalk and your foot lift or whatever else. It's just not going to... to build a pool that's gonna impact that property. And I'll tell you that once the town adopted, and it was a hard pill to swallow, it was painful, but once the board adopted that no pools within the Camden setback, the people that wanted a pool prior to, now it's like, okay, there's not a place for the pool. or they moved the house up further towards the road because all the houses were right on the canvas setback. So they moved the house backwards to where they could have the roof over.

Or they even slid it up to the side and put the pole on the other side of the house.

No, no, I understand that.

I'm just, again, I... Just wanted to see how many non-conformities this might create. Again, it'll come down.

Again, if it's a non-conformity, you could put the blank within the ordinance. If it's stainless steel destroyed, you have a year to replace it. That takes care of it. If you're gonna wait past a year to take action on it, then it reverts back to what it was and we won't be able to issue a permit and we protect that wetland bumper. That gets...

Okay.

Does anybody have any thoughts or objections to the list that Brady put out there that would be allowed within that 50 foot? Because I think that's the next thing we need to address. I just have a question.

What's a private bridge?

There's one on 23rd Street off of Island Drive.

It goes to Island Mendoza.

that's the only private bridge that I... That we have right now. But there... When we looked at the zoning map before, Deb, there are uplands that are behind the wetlands in some cases. And some smart guy, if a bridge wasn't part of this, they could go and build a bridge to that. If everybody's okay with that.

They could be destroying the wetlands. The question is, we that have residential zonings because it's no longer a floating overlay like it was. The Camel Lane use plan prohibits rezoning property from Condi. So if you have 20 acres of property that's Condi and out of that 20 acres you have 19 acres that's uplands, that's Condi and we won't be able to issue any permits on it. you may appeal that, and then when the Board of Adjustments says, nope, staff was right when they turned you down, that's what the Cam Laney Supreme says, then you may take the town to court and sue the town for a take case. Get your attorney, let's go. There's a process.

Well, back to the private bridge, I just didn't understand why that was not...

It's a part of the list of the accessory uses that's in our table of uses. So I didn't highlight that, but we could discuss if that wants to be a part of the exception or not.

I don't think we want it part of the exception, so you probably have it right. I'm just saying I didn't know what the term was.

issue the permit for that one.

There may be some other roadblocks that other agencies have with a proposed private bridge.

It would be presumed that the reason why you need to create a bridge is that you're going over water, you know, cart over wetlands or whatever to get to your lot. So the question becomes would you technically consider that bridge a water dependent structure. I can't think of like what else would you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a bridge in to get to your property? Because if you're not going over wetlands, then why do we care? I mean, if you're going over your 20 acres of high ground, So this might be unrelated, but doing my little aerial search, I discovered a neighborhood called Hunter's Heath. Mm-hmm.

There's some houses that are way out there, and I guess they go across the wetlands to get there or not?

That's a gated community. There's a paved road that goes out there, and then it goes all the way around. Those are about 10-acre lots, and out of those 10 acres, most of those lots and most of the 10 acres of those lots are unbuildable. They are wetland impact of alligators. I see alligators, I see big snakes, all kinds of stuff when I go out there. But for each one of them, there is a building envelope. And they're within the ORW, so they're limited to 25%. If they've got 10 acres, then that's not an issue.

Okay. It just looks like the road is so convoluted, so they either went around the wetland to get to it, or they filled some of it and got out there. But as it's gated, you don't notice those until you look at it.

Yeah, that was developed, I want to say, early 80s, late 70s, maybe.

Okay.

That was back during the Marlow Boston, Marnie Boston time. As a matter of fact, I think he has daughters that still own or did own two or three of them. We had planning board members that lived out there, board involvement members that lived out there.

Okay.

I think there's a doctor that lives out there.

But there's still lots out there, right? Or no? Because of the 10 acres?

Are there vacant lots that can be built upon? Yeah. I believe that there is, yeah.

Okay. Just something I discovered and looked at, and then I was like...

Yes. It's very nice.

So at this point... Are we supposed to take action, or what would you recommend at this point?

It is at the pleasure of the board. So I guess the first thing to do would be, if you wanted to do a consensus, see if there was a consensus for... proposing a wetland buffer, number one. So if you wanted to do that, and then if you wanted to settle on a number, number two, and then by consensus or by motion, if you wanted to direct staff to draft a proposal for you to bring back to the next meeting, we could certainly do that. Or if you said, hey, we just don't want to deal with this tonight, staff wore us out and we don't want to think about it anymore, you can do that too. It's completely the pleasure of the Lord.

What's the pleasure of everybody?

I mean, I would make a motion to propose the wetland protection at 50 feet with the exception of the highlighted list that was noted and also with the research into the bridge that you referred to and then direct staff to put it together and bring it back to us next meeting.

Second.

Any discussion on the motion? Okay. Let's call a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

All right.

Moving forward. Yeah, we already got it drafted. No problem. We just didn't want to scare you by throwing that in there. No, we don't. Yeah, just to hit on that just really quickly I Y'all remember us talking about the President's Council to assess FEMA and what can towns do? Terry actually did read that article and respond to me. I knew I had a reader in the group. I suspect that I have more. If you want to share that, I want to let you comment on what you thought about it.

Okay, I just read the article and the whole crux of it is restructuring FEMA and the Federal Disaster Assistance Program and the goal I believe after reading is to turn it over to the states to be locally managed and executed and that the federal government is really looking at taking a back seat or a supporting role if you will and whether that would replace FEMA or they would come up with a different group or an agency that was kind of the thing. I think the goal that they're going with. I had eight takeaways from it. The first one was that state and local governments would take much more responsibility than they currently do. And the second one being it may become harder for some disasters to qualify for federal assistance then, which brings it back around to our points and everything that we have going to keep us in the forefront for that three the individual fema assistance would change significantly and four flood insurance could undergo major changes again depending where we rank i think that'll help us um five was disaster recovery money for governments could arrive much faster because you're not dealing with the big government six the report wants to i thought dramatically reduced bureaucracy and administrative expenses, again, being a smaller entity. The seventh takeaway I had from it was mitigation funding would change. And then the last thing that I had is that FEMA itself could effectively cease to exist. It looks like they're just pushing themselves right out of the whole picture. At least that was my takeaway. It did stress that this was just recommendations and not changes that would automatically take effect. And I think that, I guess just from what I read in my maybe not so good understanding, but I think they would need some congressional legislation to really do this. I don't think that they can just do this. But I wouldn't be surprised. He did, so I don't know. But that was just what I took away from reading it.

That's an excellent synopsis. I appreciate you doing that. And so one of the things that we said is, what can we do? And so you know, we look at B becoming more resilient, um, and being able to recover from, uh, you know, disasters or storms, hurricanes and things like that. So, uh, one of the first tasks would be to be, looking at your ordinances and seeing what you can do to strengthen your ordinances, your land use plan, which is exactly, we took the first step tonight by going back and looking at our wetlands and do you want a wetland protection buffer. And so my real intent is that if and when there are policy changes, that you'll be, you know, you hear all of us watch the news, whether we want to or not, you know, we're going to hear about it. And so when there are policy changes or legislation that changes, um, with regards to FEMA and hazard mitigation grants and disaster recovery funds and all this stuff, you're going to be like, Hey, we talked about that during the planning board has something new come up that, you know, we can respond. know now that now it's now that it's reality and they're passing it you know uh what's the game plan what can we do so you know in the meantime one be aware that that's a possibility and two let's look at our ordinances and um in land use plan and see FEMA just recently adopted the Southeast North Carolina Hazard Mitigation Plan. So let's look at these plans and these documents that we have and see how we can use them as management tools to protect our property and to be more resilient. That's what they're for, right? So it's an awareness, but I really appreciate you doing so, you did a really good job on that, I appreciate that, thank you. I think you're, you're the only one who got this one. Yeah, yeah, it is, A lot. It is a lot. And there were a lot of people that were really grasping with that. And I watched a lot of videos. And I reached out to the NFIP Eastern Planner. And I was like, this is what I read. This is what I'm thinking. And she goes, yep, yep, yep. And I was like... I gotta go tell my planning board, red alert, red alert. But it's the communication. You're sharing this information, you're aware of it, so when things come up and we go, okay, this is how we're gonna pivot to protect the town and be more resilient, then you're already there. You're like, yep, knew it was coming. Let's go, let's get it done, right?

So I think part of what they didn't talk about, though, and we're dependent on it here, is our partners. So the electrical, on Wausau, water sewer. There are a lot of hardening things that they would probably need to do that are going to cost money that are going to come down to us because there's not going to be a... FEMA and And then you know the whole funding. I mean, how's that? How's it gonna? You know, there's it's just an idea It's you know from what I read they've been they've been talking about it for a long time I served on a FEMA task force for ten years and they were talking about this then and I So there are things that I didn't see in this when I read this that there's things that, you know, the advantage of having a national is some of the resources to bear when there is a disaster for each state to pick it up and then if the state sends it down further, you know, there's just either not enough money or not enough accommodations for that.

But the biggest issue with the FEMA, and you're familiar with it, obviously, is the length of time that it takes for FEMA to distribute the money. They're in there quickly with setting up shelters and so forth, with that part of it. But people waiting years and years to get reimbursed for... repairs that they made for the property and having to go over through hoops because FEMA was disputing that that was a legitimate claim and maybe justifiably so. But that whole process does need some kind of change, whether it's a reorganization of FEMA or just sending it down to the states to operate. I think the point is that some change is justifiable.

I don't disagree. I think the biggest issue is the funding because There are, and I don't know enough about North Carolina to overall statewide what kind of resources in terms of money resources they have, but there are other states, southern states that don't have two nickels to rub together and if they had a, they're totally dependent. Louisiana's for one, I responded to two hurricanes there. working for FEMA. And they just don't have the money for any of their systems. And so it was a total wipeout. So I think And there's more than just hurricanes. Now we've got floods, fires. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. And you're right, Fred. The money response, I think that's a game. They just don't pay until people stop trying to get the money. I think that's just a federal government activity.

Okay, anything else on floodplain management that we need to talk about? I think we're good. Okay, that comes down to new business. And I appreciate my time on the planning board, but I have been chosen, and I appreciate the confidence that the Board of Aldermen have in choosing me to, and I hate to say replacement, but filling in for the late Mr. Strother So I will step down as Planning Board Chair and be initiated or whatever the word is at the next Board of Aldermen meeting, sworn in, thank you, on September 2nd. So at that point, I am going to turn the gavel over to our vice chair, Ms. Lisa, and she is now in charge.

So, we are now in need of a vice chair for the planning board. Are there any nominations for vice chair?

well i'm going to nominate sam well go ahead i'll nominate sam i'll second that

Okay, well we can't, we can't now, okay. Okay, so we have a nomination and a second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Okay. Are there any further items for discussion? Okay, then we are now adjourned.

Oh, wait, let's make a motion. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting. All in favor?