Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

back service. Okay, we're all set.

And already listen. Morning everyone. I'd like to call into order the Montgomery County Planning Commission's monthly board meeting for December 10th, 2025. Let the record show that the planning commission currently has a quorum of eight members, six in the conference room and two online. The only member currently active is Kim and we expect to log in for the absent. Just keep an eye on national.

With that, before we get started uh on our agenda and any approval of minutes, is there any board comments from those board members in the room? I hope everyone uh joins me in saying what um a nice visit was to the zoo last last meeting. Every time we come there's something new and exciting and it was fun to be there at Christmas and see all the lights. So once again let's commend them and thank them for Christmas. The director is really superb. He's got a lot of energy and a good story and I can see why they can raise lots of money for that zoom. Great.

Yeah. Any other board comments? Sandra Cole, anything? No comment. And we'll move on with the approval of our minutes. Um, is there a motion to approve the Montgomery County Planning Commission's regular monthly board meeting minutes for um

for November 18th, 2025? Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes? Move. Is there a second? Move and second. Are there any comments or corrections on the meeting minutes? It's wonderful. We never have corrections. I don't know who's writing them up. Thank you, Karina. And who's editing them? If anybody does. Thank you. With that, all those in favor to approve the minutes say I. I. I.

Any oppose? Motion passes. Uh, next is our public comment. Um, is there any public comment on Is there any public comment from anybody in the room? Public or staff comment before we get started? Any public or staff comment on for people online? Anybody? Karina? No. Okay. So, we'll move on to our first uh formal agenda, which is the community planning assistant contracts. and we have three in front of us and call on Eric to go through them with us. How you doing, Eric? Good morning. Good morning. I'm all right. How are you? Good.

All right. So, we have three uh planning assistance contracts for your consideration today for Douglas, West Norton, and Cheltonham Townships. Um you have the presentation summary and then I'll let um the chair go over the actual resolution and numbers at the end. Uh Douglas Township is the first one. Um we're updating their revitalization plan uh starting in the new contract um focusing on walkability. They have some new supervisors who really want to try and make Philadelphia a much more walkable uh and pedestrian friendly. We'll provide some grant writing and and support uh for that plan once it's completed. And then we'll work on their subdivision land development ordinance as an update. Naomi Crim is the planner for Douglas Township for West Norton Township. Again, we're updating their zoning ordinance and zoning update adopted a comprehensive plan update earlier this year. Uh and so they're implementing that through the zoning changes. Um, we also participate in monthly staff meetings there to go over land developments and uh, planning and zoning policy with them. Uh, and then we're also going to move into a subdivision and land development update uh, with them following the zoning. Naomi Crim is also the planner for West Norton Township. Lastly, Cheltonham, we're wrapping up their comprehensive plan that should be adapted hopefully the first part of 2026. Uh, and then we'll be moving into an update of their open space plan, assisting with ongoing zoning and soo updates as part of their comp plan implementation. Uh and then they have an active transportation uh committee and we'll be helping uh them with their active transportation initiatives and supporting some of their planning efforts. Uh and that's uh Chloe Moore and Adam Shots uh kind of team up on the the Cheltonham Township contract. Again, the numbers are there for each of those. Any questions?

Resolution.

Yeah. So before us of MCPC resolution 25-12.1 community planning assistance contract resolution of December 10, 2025 contains 10 contracts. The first one is contract 697 Douglas Township length contract is January 1st 2026 to uh 1231 2028. Total cost is $86,70 is split 50/50 between the municipality and the county. The next one is contract 699. Chutney Township. It is the same length of time as the first one. Uh the total cost on this is 137,136. Again, split 50/50 between the municipality and the county. The third contract is number 703 West American Township. Same length of contract. Total cost is $120,498. Again, split 5050 between the municipality and county. Is there a motion to approve the resolution? So move.

So moved. Is there a second? Any comments or questions for Eric on these the contracts? Eric, in in the time that I've been here, I've never seen $137,000 contract. Is it just the economy or it's just the the amount of work you're going to be doing, the open space, zoning, and subdivision, etc., etc.?

Uh, we've probably had a couple that have been larger than that in the past. Um, but it is it is up there. It's a three planner day contract. They also have 24 night meetings a year. So, we go to two meetings a month there. Um, so the combination of those two things kind of kind of push it up. Then, of course, our our new rates have pushed everything up a little bit. Um, but it's not out of the ordinary. Three planner days is is fairly standard. Um, the 24 night meetings add to it a little bit. Um, but we've definitely had contracts probably over 150 160 in the past. Um, but this this is definitely a top five. I can verify that Chloe is on on those meetings twice a month. Yes. And not shy about talking.

And I think they're back to back, aren't they? Or have been

any other comments or questions for saying none? All those in favor? I And then just as a preview, too, we have Collegeville is is signed and we did just get that earlier this week. Uh we expect Hapoer, North Wales and Southford to be signed by the end of the year. So hopefully those will be on our January agenda for updill Abington Hatboro North Wales and South. Do you have any new ones coming in?

Uh so we added um White March and Upper Frederick earlier this year. We're in conversations right now with Plymouth Township. Um, so we're hoping, um, they have a lot of issues, planning issues going on between the mall and their office park and their industrial area along Kahaken Road. Um, so we're excited to to hopefully start working with them in 2026. Good job.

Okay, next up is our Narstown Trail Connections and Hansen project. And I call on Bill and Ellen to get us going through the Trail Junction Center, Lafayette Street Trail Get Gateway Master Plan and Balls Avenue and Chain Street trail head improvements. Good morning. How you guys doing? Great. How are you doing? Good. You're bumping. You're bumping Bill. We're gonna um tag you. Gotcha. Yeah, let's do it. Look forward to hearing about these.

Yeah, um just Okay, great.

Thank you, Rob. All right. Um so, I'm Ellen Marramantes, um trails and open space planner here at the planning commission. Good morning, board members, colleagues, any members of the public? I'm not sure if we have any. Um, so I'm going to provide just a little bit of a brief introduction to these three projects that you'll hear about from Bill and I this morning. Um, just a little bit of context geographically, project history, just so you have that behind you as you then hear about each individual project. Um, so we're going to talk about the trail junction center, the Lafayette Street Trail Gateway, and then improvements at the Haw and Chain trail heads. Um, see these these projects are all um distinct projects and they're moving along on separate timelines. Um, but they're connected obviously and they will work in concert with one another um to provide better connections to the existing trails here in Nortown. You can see the yellow line showing the Skookul River Trail. You'll hear us refer to it a lot as the SRT and then also the orange dotted line, the Chester Valley Trail, the CVT. Um and so of course they're connected by those those trails and you can see where we are in relation. So then to give you the geographic context um here at a regional level you can see the red star denoting where these trails are happening. So really one of the most important intersections within the circuit trail network the CVT and the SRT. Um, you've probably heard the network right now is

over 400 miles, is envisioned to be more than 800 miles. And then our network approximately a 100 miles sits within and connected to that larger regional trails network. Um, and you see the red star there. And then to give you a little bit of project history. So, some of you were here when this study came out, but some of you might not have heard of it. The Montgomery County Trail Access, Diversity, and Awareness Study. It was completed in 2020. It was led by our colleague Donna Fabri. And it was looking at how people access our trails, how do they know about them, are the users diverse, and there were three study areas, Pottstown, Penny Peek, and then also Penny Pack Trail Area and then also Norristown. So Norristown being one of those focused study areas got a closer look and even a closer look than some of the other two, it received um some conceptual plans in the study. Um this map down here shows the overall um study area. And what we heard during that study process is here in Nortown, a lot of folks were either maybe didn't know about the trail or felt didn't feel welcome going onto the trails, felt like it was just for those fast crazy bikers and it wasn't comfortable for them to to go there and walk. And so these a couple of these projects were grew out of that study effort. So two of the projects you'll hear about today, the Hos chain trail head improvements and then the

Lafayette Street trail gateway um through were envisioned in this project and now we're implementing them. Um, so we are jumping off from from this and now we're going to jump into the Trail Junction Center. It's been around for a much longer period of time, more than 20 years. Um, dates back to the early 2000s, our predecessors here, looking for a way to connect the SRT and the CVT. Um, and now you'll hear about that project from from Bill Uh,

I'm great. Good morning. Thank you. We took a field trip there, didn't we? We did. Yeah.

Okay. So, before I jump into more detail, this is a great slide to show where these two trails come together. This is obviously the Trail Junction Center. This is the Chester Valley trail that comes out of Bridgeport and it comes along the side of the building and then the Skooka River trail. So that's that nexus of the two regional trails that Ellen has been talking about. This project has really gained traction within the last five years. Even though the county has owned it since 2007 and of the three projects that we're going to talk about today, this one is the closest to becoming a reality, which I'll get into the details in just comes underneath the bridge. It's right down. It does. Yeah. It kind of kind of comes up along this wall and then goes like that.

So, just to reiterate what Ellen's already talked about, here's that junction. This is on our primary trail network map. The Chester Valley Trail here and connects in with the school river trail that starts where the trail junction center is. And then looking at this map, here's the CVT coming up. It wraps around the building and ties into the school river trail right there. Again, another photograph looking uh this is from the north. So, here's Chester Valley Trail coming up like this, coming into the Skook River trail like that. It's also at the intersection of Decal and Lafayette streets in Norristown. So, it really is at two junctions, those two streets as well as the two trails. So, it's a really prominent location visually and functionally uh as well. So, a little bit more background. Ellen went into this just a little bit, but we did purchase the building in 2007. We've done a couple of feasibility studies. We've done an environmental assessment, but design, engineering, architecture, and landscape architecture really started in 2022, and it finished up last year. We have received grant funding for this project. We had a $100,000 regional trail program grant from the William Penn Foundation that paid uh for design, and we've also received a $500,000 statewide local share account grant uh that will go toward construction. The current status is that we broke ground for this project back in October. The contractors are going to mobilize later this month or early next year. We think it'll take about 15 months to build this project. And the total construction cost is about $5.6 million. Again, $500,000 of which will be funded with the state grant. So in terms of importance and vision,

where does the rest of the money come from?

It's coming from the county capital budget. Um, again, this is at this nexus of these two really important trails. And we really look at this building as having two faces. There's the face that looks at the trail and invites people from the trail to the building and to the site, but we have an equal emphasis on the face that looks and connects with the community of Nortown. So, we want people from both sides of the building to come and to use it. And that's always been the vision when we've talked about how to design this building. So, just a few historic photos here. Um, these are, if nothing else, just fun to look at. But this is a picture of uh the bridge that goes Ellen, correct me here because you're more familiar with these. This is the bridge that goes over to Cal and this is looking up to Cal that way. Um, Trail Junction Center in this photo would be about right here. This building, this is the Trail Junction Center right there. And this is kind of a before and after of uh Lafayette Street looking east. And you can see that building. I don't know when it was taken, but you can see where it is today. And the Trail Junction Center is located right over here. And this is a picture of the Trail Junction Center. Um, the important thing to note here is you might be wondering what the function of this building was historically. It was a place for goods and merchandise to come. There were two train tracks on either side of it. trains would come up either offload or upload uh merchandise. If it was being brought to Nortown, it would then be distributed across Norristown, but it would also pick up materials and merchandise that had been produced in Norristown. So, it had functions of bringing and receiving uh goods and merchandise over the years. And you can see one of those train tracks here. So, it's got a really interesting history and um it's been around for a long time. It was built in 1937ish. 34, I think.

34. Yeah. So, it's been around for almost a hundred years. And here it is today. You can see a couple of things in this photograph. This is looking east. Here's Lafayette Street. Here's MAL. Um, they did do some improvements around the building. When the Lafayette Street extension project was done and completed two or three years ago, some improvements were made to the the site around the building. The building was not touched, but these planting areas were added. these retaining walls and this sitting area was added um a few years ago. So this these improvements were made but honestly they weren't really utilized because the building didn't have any purpose. And you know the question is like why would anybody go to the site if they weren't being drawn there by anything. So I would argue that it really hasn't been used except for unsheltered people. And some of you may be aware that there was a pretty enlarged encampment here as of several months ago. And that was um dealt with by the county um in a humane way where people were uh uh coordinated with to make sure that they didn't just get kicked out of the site, but that they were humanely treated um and uh and helped. But uh after that, a fence was put up to protect the site from any further uh people coming and living there. And that's the current status of it of it right now. So public outreach was a really important part of this project. It it involved a number of events. Um and it was uh multigenerational and it involved a lot of different people with different interests. Um Ellen really spearheaded a lot of public outreach for this project, but you can see Ken Lawrence in the upper right photo there. Um kids came, we had helmet give giveaways. Um, we were handing out surveys to people riding down the trail. Um, it was very interactive and it was pretty popular. Um, we had a um, like a

smoothie maker that was on a bike that you had to pedal to mix up the smoothie. Um, a lot of people came, a lot of people were interested in it and we were trying to do two things. One, find out who the people were and groups around the area who might be interested in this site and and for using it in different ways. But we also wanted to get an understanding of what the issues were for people about this site. Was it safety? What did they want? What would they need? What would they desire for what would happen here? And we gathered a lot of data and that's what drove the design for the building as well as the site. So I'm not going to go into the detail of this data, but we we did, as I said, we had a survey and we collected a lot of information. Uh not surprisingly, the biggest thing that people were looking for, and this is obviously going to come from the trail user community, people wanted bathrooms that were accessible from the outside. Um the trails have very few public bathrooms that you can use. And so people really said, "We need bathrooms that are accessible if we're using the trail." Um we also uh learned that uh if the building were to become functional that people would want restrooms uh indoors, but people also had other things that they were interested in. They wanted to learn more about the trail system through signage and information that was posted there. They wanted places to sit and to have respit. Um that and also people uh another thing that people brought up is that they were looking for a place for uh food and drink not in a restaurant but a place where you could come by grab a cup of coffee or drink pastry whatever it might be a sandwich and that would uh include people from the community of Norristown as well as people using the trail. So you can see there are a number of different things on here that people were looking for and when we received all this information we worked really hard to integrate it into the design and our architects did a really good job and landscape architects did a really good job of doing that. So in terms of

overall goals um you can see here that we had um seven what we call like primary goals for this this building and this site. And I'm not going to go into all the details down here or how that would be done and what that would look like, but I would really direct your attention to this top line. We wanted the site and the building to provide trail services. We wanted it to serve as a gateway for people coming into Nortown, coming out of Nortown, coming off the trail. We wanted to be a destination. We wanted to be a place where people want to come and visit and use. As I said before, we wanted it to have community benefit. We didn't just want this to serve trail users. We wanted it to be a place that was serving the community at large. Flexibility was really important. We didn't want to overdesign and overprescript how this building would be designed because we wanted to maximize its ability to be flexible space to be used in any number of different ways. Some that we've already thought of, but things that we also hadn't thought of. So, we didn't want to presume that it would be used in certain ways. So, we kept it as flexible as possible. We also integrated uh distinct design principle principles into this sustainability accessibility was really important. The site right now the building is not fully accessible. So the design incorporates design elements that make it so. And then of course place management and governance one that once this project is completed how is it going to be governed? Who's going to management manage it? And how's it going to be used going into the future. So this is a shot of the interior of the warehouse portion of the building. Um you can see that um it's just a wide open space with rollout doors. Right now we have an RFP on the street for what we're calling activation partnerships. What organizations and people can we serve in the community who might want to use this building for different things? Farmers markets, craft shows. Is there a small bakery or restaurant that would like to use it to do the provide those that food and drink that I was talking

about earlier? How would uh different county departments might want to use this building? parks and trails, health and human services. We're trying to solicit prop well, we are we're soliciting proposals from all those different types of groups for how they would like to envision using this building once we receive those responses back. We'll assess them, figure out how they might work together, and then we'll put contracts together to make sure that they work uh uh in sync with one another and that the building is used to its maximum extent possible. Couple of slides for the design. I'm not going to go into tons of detail on this, but couple of key things about the interior of of the building or the building as a whole. Here's that open warehouse space that's going to remain open. All the doors, rollup doors are being replaced. All the utilities are being uh built out. It's going to be heated and cooled. But this is the space where we see throwing up the doors and having a market in there, having a bike repair workshop. All different things could happen in there. So that's being maintained pretty much as is.

Hey Bill. Yeah. Orient us which which way is the Here's the cal SRT and which way is the CVT? Here's the calf here. Okay. CBT is running along here and the SRT is running down here and the CBT is running along like this and coming around and going like that. Thank you. Is that good?

Um here's what I would call the restroom complex. Um, it's got two exteriorly accessible restrooms right here and two interior restrooms. And then the third area is really meant to be flexible um office or administrative space. Is there a business that wants to uh go in there? Uh, it's got a small kitchenet. You can throw the windows open, have a bakery come in, serve food through the windows to people coming there on the weekend. Um, but it could be used in any number of different ways. It could be an office or some other use as well. There's a primary lobby and then there's a um an area out front here that makes all the entrances to the front of the building fully accessible.

How are you envisioning the outside bathrooms being accessible? When I let me clarify that I'm talking about more along the lines of when they're opened when they're actually left them open all the time. I can see you can envision issues with that. So just trying to understand what the operation of the outdoor bathrooms would be. So right now it's envisioned that public property is going to take care of the building. Okay.

And the restrooms would be open uh during the day during during normal operating hours and then they probably would be locked at night because you're right, they would be used for all different types of various things that we don't want there. But it will it will also depend really upon who those activation partnerships who those are with and perhaps there is a tenant in that annually a cafe that could have then full oversight and perhaps that task goes to them. So some way you know controlled access not when it's open but you know at some point it'll be locked up.

Yeah. What about Saturdays and Sundays? Is property Saturdays and Sundays will property maintain it during that time period? Well, it's the best answer to that is to be determined. Um uh what what we do know is that they're not going to be open all day long. The restrooms, they'll be open when people will use them or they'll be closed. And like Ellen said, whether that's one of the CL uh clients that um or tenants that we have there that locks that up at the end of the day or whether it's our public property department, we haven't figured that out yet, but it'll be one of the other.

And there'll be a mechanism to lock it um and unlock it um like automatically and remotely too, right? So you don't need to be on site to do that. Your Saturdays and Sundays are probably the biggest fuel sources,

correct? Yeah. I will say too, those exterior restrooms were designed um as maximum uh public use facilities. They're stainless steel. They're going to be they're they're built in a way where they can literally be hosed out with a drain. So, we we took all that into consideration on the exterior. Um it's a relatively simple design for the site. We wanted this site to be um a place where people can go even when the building's not being used. Whether you call that a park or not is up to you. But we enhanced the landscape. We rearranged some of the circulation out front. We moved the entrance, which is currently right here over to here. So, it's away from that intersection. Um, we also created a landscaping uh buffer along the street. It's very noisy there. Not that that will stop the noise, but at least visually it will help. We have bike racks. Uh, bike chargers have been built in there. We have an area here for where food trucks could go. That was another desired use that the community had where food trucks could come for an event setup. There are there's water, electricity, all the things that a food truck would need to park right here in the back of the building. We're going to be putting a set of steps that bring you off the trail directly down because right now the only way to get down is to jump over those walls or to come down the trail and come in. So there'll be a new set of steps here. There'll be an accessible ramp that can bring you down right here down to the food truck area to the back of the building. The retaining walls are going to remain. We're adding some landscaping. There's a small seating area out here along the trail. Um, and I think that's pretty much all the major improvements on the outside, but it's going to look radically different when it's finished and it'll look clean and new. Bill, is the um is the roof bed building strong enough to take uh solar panels if we would think about doing that?

We did think about doing that. I think that was more of a cost uh element douly, but we never did like a full analysis of whether it could support solar. Somebody could get in there and have solar panels. So, the electricity was covered, you know, and the lights were covered for the outside and inside might be an investment that it may make. Yeah. D question. Is there is there parking nearby? I mean, if I wanted to drive my bike there. Yeah. And then bike from there, come back, do whatever, and go.

Yeah. So, parking is obviously like a major constraint here and we've known that from day one. There's no on-site parking, but immediately across the Cal to the west is the SEPTA parking garage and SEPTA does not charge to park there. So anyone and uh SEPTA has been open to the that garage being used for Trail Junction Center purposes. We've already spoken with them. Um so people can park over there. And the good thing about that is that you can literally walk out of that garage and go right up to the Snoop River Trail and get on it and then you can ride east and access the building very easily where you don't have to go on any streets or cross any any roads. Yeah. This is literally like a tenth of a mile from that garage.

Yeah. Yeah. And and that garage is very infrequently almost Yeah. I've never seen it full. So the way Ellen and I want to do this is that um because we're talking about three projects, I'm happy to answer any more questions about this one. We thought we would ask for questions after each one. So if you have any others about the Trail Junction Center, I'm happy to feel those now. If not, um I can throw it back to Ellen to go to the Lafayette Street. Who's who's managing the construction project? Is that planning or

so? This is a little bit unique in that um normally when we do a trail project, construction project, we manage it here. Um because this is a building and this is a little bit out of our uh area of expertise. Um assets and infrastructure is actually managing the construction of this project. So they bid it um and uh they're going to manage the construction process because they deal as you know like right across the street they manage a lot of building projects with our input. I mean they've been very good about keeping us in the loop because obviously we have a lot of knowledge and uh passion about this project. So it's a good partnership.

Has a has a firm been selected yet or no?

Yeah. Um we selected PJ Dick as the primary contractor. Um because of state bidding laws, we had to have the primary contractor can't have subcontractors. So we had to hire four primes. The general contractor, electrical contractor, um mechanical contractor, and plumbing contractor. So we have four primes. Um I can't remember the names of all the the like non-general contractors, but we do have four primes. Bidding this and getting uh bids was a challenge, but we got there. Yeah. talk about the the the budget 5.6 talking wondering what what that's being spent on. I mean initially it just I think Rob and I agree it seems like a lot of money but I don't know the full scale. So I I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's roughly

Yeah, I mean roughly I think probably it's maybe 6040 building to site I think for for budget. Um it's pretty close to being even like half going for the building for the building and half going for the landscape. The building even though it's a simple design is pretty involved because it really doesn't have any existing infrastructure in it that is usable. So, that all has to be redone. All the doors are being replaced. We're adding heating and cooling. We're adding lighting. All the windows are being replaced. Um, that office space, we're putting a stairway in that goes down to the basement. That basement's being built out as a storage area. Um, the restrooms are being installed. All the plumbing involved with that, which is not simple. Um on the exterior of the building, there are a lot of cracks and other uh things that need to be addressed on the exterior to make it tight. So that's all being done as well. Um and then of course um all the mechanicals that go into making the building function. Um on the exterior, it might not seem like it's a complex project, but you know, we're there lot we're pulling up all the pavers, they're being reused. Um all this all that needs to be put back in, putting in stairways. um putting in this ramp system, all of the infrastructure out here electrically. We're putting in water lines, electrical lines, um comm lines, um we're putting in gas to the building, um which is another thing that currently doesn't exist there. Um obviously the the planting areas as well, um I think what else

building has is there any structural issues with the building other than the the stuff you talked about on the exterior facades? No, they did a structural analysis and that's it's good. Is it historically designated anyway? No, it's outside of the historic district, but but we've had a focus on trying to maintain that integrity and respect it. So, and the firm's really knowledgeful silo jury and restoration work. Bill, how many how many generals built bid on this project? 56 for the vote. What was the second?

I think we might have had three primes bid on this. I I'll be honest with you, the first round that we bid it, that homeless encampment was there and um I think that uh uh intimidated some prospective biders because they didn't know what that would look like once they got into the project. We made a real effort to work with Health and Human Services and assets and infrastructure to to address that issue, but also to reassure prospective biders that the county was going to handle that and that they wouldn't have to because they were asking us like what are we going to do with, you know, if these people So, um, we worked very hard to, um, after we didn't get the bids that we needed on the first round of advertising, we worked really hard to get the word out that this issue would be addressed and that they wouldn't have to worry about it. And then when we went into the second round of bidding, we got a more robust response. I can't remember what all the other bids were, um, they weren't radically higher. I mean, you know, they didn't come in at twice the amount. They might have been slightly higher, but it wasn't it wasn't a wild range, I would say.

Something you can get to the next meeting. Sure, I could. Yeah, I could we could share that um before the next meeting. Yeah. Bill, I see that uh there's a couple of rain gardens there. Is that the only storm water management? There's two rain gardens. No, there's other there are other drains. Yeah, there's an existing there's some pipes below that are going to carry the water and they're adding pipes as well, but that was something that hadn't been dealt with with firework, the storm water management, and so we worked with the municipality to figure out that approach. Yeah, that and that's another good point to when we talk about cost that having to put in that infrastructure is not cheap.

Any other questions for Bill on the trail center? Anybody online? We do have people online who might want to make a comment. I know Ken does if you want to unmute yourself. Is that okay? Um or you want to wait till the end? Yeah, let's I just want to open it up to board members as we go through each one at the end at the end of their total presentation. Then we'll ask for public comment. Any Sandra or Nicole have anything on on the trail center? And no comment. Thanks for the presentation. Thank you. Public comment on everything. This guys is like birthing an elephant. Okay.

This is like birthing an elephant. You've been pregnant with this project for how many years? I mean, well, Ellen more than me, but um yeah, it's been a bit it's been a bit of a process. Yeah. Um anyway, so Ellen's going to now talk about the Lafayette Street Trail Gateway project, which is immediately to the east of Hello. Hello. Yes. Hello. Hi, Ken Chris here. Yeah, Ken, we're gonna take we're going to take public comment after the total presentation. Oh, okay. I I wanted to speak specifically to this trail head project. You'll have you'll have an opportunity to do that. Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Three projects that are related to the trails all at one time and then we'll get a public comment at that time after we're done. Okay. Okay. And questions at the same time. Questions at the same time. Yeah. I mean, we'll we'll take public comment. We'll be not guarantee that we'll have answers for you. So, we'll we'll note your questions, but we'll take public comment.

Okay. So, we'll we'll jump right into the Lafayette Street Trail Gateway project and try to move through this pretty quickly. Um going to provide just a project overview and I'll let you know that the work what we've accomplished to date essentially on this project. Um so, a bit of context here. You can see the Skookula River Trail here in purple and the Chester Valley Trail. Um, and then the project site that we're going to be talking about right now is noted here in pink. It is um approximately a half mile long. It runs between Decal Street and Ford Street. It's the linear space um along the side of the SRT in that area. Um it's ranges in width but it's a pro a average of a 100 feet wide and it comprises approximately four acres and the vision that came out of the access diversity and awareness study that I showed you earlier was for this space to really function as a linear park and gateway for it to be more usable um for there to be more activity there. Um here we're zooming in. You can see the cow at this end board at the green space in the area with a red dashed line as the project area. Um some photos. Um you have the trail junction center at this end. Um main street is right here. Septa tracks here. Lafayette Street here. So, it's this long linear space sandwiched in between. Um, and then just to get you down on the

ground, um, this is this photo is looking west. Um, towards the Oops. Um, towards the SEPTA garage there. This is Lafayette Street here and the SEPTA tracks over here. Um, and then another shot looking to the east. um one of the large tower bases here for the Pico lines. Um and looking down east along Lafayette and the SRT over here. Um so I I should explain it's countyowned property. Kiko has an easement. Um and their easement there's two aspects to it. Um, around each of these towers, there's a 25- foot square where that is off limits to us around each of those bases. And then there's an aerial easement that starts at 10 ft above grade and goes up. So, we are limited to whatever we want to do within 10 ft. We're hoping to work with PICO to get some flexibility on that. At one point it was 20 25 ft. You might be able to get some small trees in there. Um right now we're limited to 10. So fairly restrictive in terms of height, but otherwise we can do whatever we want in relation to the trail. Um

and Pico breeds flexibility. What's that? Pico breeds flexibility.

Yeah. Um, and the project goals are to really increase awareness and visibility of the trails, to invite and welcome residents onto the trails to improve safety for trail users. Um, it's it's an old railroad corridor, the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads along here. Lot of history. Um, smack dab in the middle of the site, there's an old crane. You may have seen that um driving or riding along there. So, a lot of a lot of fun um history here. So, let's jump in. So, um we received a regional trails program grant for 80,000 to hire a consultant to develop this master plan. Salt Design Group was um chosen right here. Um they started in August and jumped right in with community engagement. Um, I said, "Are you guys uh willing to start?" I think it was next week. They had like one week to get ready for this Nortown National Night Out. It's just a perfect event um to get folks attention and engagement. So, we jumped in, got some early ideas. What were people looking for here? Um shade came up. um safety, crossing the street, exercise equipment, seating, arts, um things like that. Um keep going. Um so after that, salt jumped into doing conducting quite a bit of analysis. Um so here you can see the hydraology, the hundredyear was darker blue hundredyear flood zone. Um looking water is a big deal. storm water basins that were developed as part of the Lafayette

Street extension. Um, looking at topography, it may look fairly fat, but there's some steep areas out there. Um, and sun huge deal. It's just there is no shade to speak of there. It is very hot. So, that will be an important aspect that we look at is how to make it more comfortable for for humans um in the summertime. extremely scorching hot. Um smells something to take into consideration. The um storm stu the storm water treatment plant is right there. Now the wind treatment h sewer treatment plant

sewer treatment. Yeah. Sorry, I know I was saying that wrong. The winds mostly come from the west. You can see here. So that works in our favor a bit. But depending on kind of the temperatures and conditions, you you can smell it. And sometimes you don't um noise. There is some noise and when the trains are passing by and with and with the traffic site access and circulation, these pink um triangles here places where you can access a site. And interestingly in the survey that we've had out that's come up as the most important thing for people is safely getting to the site. not even what's going to happen on the site, but safely getting to the site, at least right now, is the number one um thing that has been selected on the survey. So, that will be a part of the project and we'll work with Norristown to take a look at those crossings, how to make those safer. um the easement that I talked about, these red squares are the 25 foot square on the ground and then over that salmon area is the aerial easement. There's a little little parts that are outside of it, but not not a lot. Um and then looking at the regulatory the zoning, we're in the downtown riverfront district. This project fits perfectly with that birds and outdoor recreation. And I won't go through this, but just to show you, we've really taken a close look at the history. A lot of fascinating history, a lot of industrial transportation history. This has always been a place of crossroads from the Native Americans to the colonials um on wagon roads to then the canals along the

river to the railroads now to the trails. Um so it's it's always been a place of of movement and exchange. Um so then a little uh further along in the process in late October we held what you're seeing here is an openhouse lunch at um the Holy Savior Club which is right across the street LA from Lafayette. You might have seen the Boni courts on the back. So, we had a a lunch there and we invited representatives from the business community, schools, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, and and arts groups. Um, and got some really good input and exchange there. Um these are showing focused interviews that we did both internally with our park trails historic sites, our health promotion folks and and even our colleagues here at MCPC. Um and then of course also with the municipality both with their staff a focused interview and then we also made a presentation to their council to get early feedback. Um so we have completed phase one the site um discovery and visioning that's all complete and we're moving into phase two now um look and the consultants are working on design alternatives what might actually happen here and working towards developing the master plan. Um, so here's some photos that they have put together just showing examples of art, um, signage, shade, um, history. Um, and then one aspect that has been really important and talked about is um, slowing down. Usually we talk about

slowing vehicular traffic down, but in this setting we're focusing on how to slow bicycle traffic down. It's become a little bit of a bicycle highway and which makes some people not feel welcome and I can attest that many times I've had bikers yell at me, get off the trail. So there's a real um conflict here and so we'd like to address that at least for this stretch in this project whether you separate pedestrian whether you have a meandering pedestrian that's separate from the bicycles and you leave that where it is or maybe you put them side by side maybe you introduce some more curves to slow the bicycles down where that's one thing we're looking at the consultants came um shared these wonderful diagrams showing all these different kind of configurations whether it's just as simple as this side by side whether you create a separate meandering path and experience um so I I think this is will be a um a great thing that we can do to improve it um the project benefits we know are better physical mental health social health active transportation economic health tying back to the return on environment study free recreation benefit drawing users into Nortown and nearby Main Street. Um next steps will be a design chet at Salt Studio on um Monday. Um so several folks from MCPC will will go we'll um have a a working session together. Um, in January we'll do an more community engagement, showing a couple alternatives to folks, getting feedback, hoping to pair that with

perhaps MLK Day of Service, moving around town to some different events and getting feedback. Um, and one thing that's come up is maybe a new name. Lafayette Street Trail Gateway is a bit of a mouthful. something fun, recognizable, um something that you know where you're talking about and it's just one word, two words. Um so we're looking for ideas if you have any. Um the master plan should be complete in the spring um around April. So I'll stop there.

My only question my only comment about that you talked about slowing slowing traffic down with section. I would from experience of riding the SR295, it's one of the few locations where a biker can get some momentum because it is a consistent downhill towards you get till you get to that roundabout that comes up through the other sewer treatment plant. the actual PS three sewer treatment plants along the way and in the summer you know you can anyhow but the point I'm making is I would having it separated with pedestrians or having a separate pedestrian pathway would be great but slowing down the the bike traffic it's it's just one of those few locations coming off coming down through Valley Forge is another location but this is one of those few locations where you can actually pick up some momentum coming off and I've been thinking that slowing that down, especially with the length of how many how many miles most people ride on the SRT, it's nice to have that break of of not being on a flat ground.

We we Yeah, we've heard that definitely. Um, but we're it sort of we're trying to address it because having a bicycle highway runs counter to what we're trying to do with the trail junction center and activity here and inviting other uses. So, there's a conflict and maybe we can accommodate it remaining a highway. But you got to recognize that the SRT is a bike highway. I mean it is it is used for you know long distance riding and I mean and also for community to some to some extent.

Yes. For sure. So I mean it is used as a bike as as a as a mode of transportation and long long distance riding. So I think that has to be recognized. It's just the one section.

You want to be careful about changing the fabric of that trail. Well, as with any trail, there's always conflicts between users. And so, we're trying to address that. Um, and actually the next project, and you're reminding me, um, the house trail at one of our community engagements, a guy on a bike stopped by and I said, "Oh, here's what we're doing here. We're looking at trail heads." And, and I said, "Love to get your input." He said, um, just tell these people to get off the trail.

I said, well, that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to welcome people on the trail. So, it's it's it's a tricky one. So, anyways, any other question? I was just going to make one more point that I just want to be clear. Um, this one is not the same space as the trail center in terms of like there's no funding commitment or whatnot. Like we we this is kind of a proactive what people need to do and then see how we're going to pursue that.

Nicole, Sandra, anything. Alan. So now I'll move on to the third and final project that we're going to talk about today, which we've alluded to, the Haw Avenue and Chain Street trail head improvement projects. These are also located in Norristown. And as Ellen mentioned earlier, these evolved out of the trail diversity uh trail access diversity and awareness study as places where uh providing safer, more accessible, more inviting opportunities for people in the community to uh get on the Scooper River Trail uh would be explored and also how do we draw people off the trail into Nortown? is again kind of like the Trail Junction Center and it works both ways and we want it to work both ways.

And to orient you here are the two locations. Here's Haw Avenue and Chain Street. Here's Barkley Street right here. Um the river SRT running across right here. So these two locations are really right in the middle of very residential areas within Northtown. So, they were great opportunities to explore how can we help the community get more comfortable with uh using these spaces and getting on the Skooko River Trail. Let me also mention at this point that in uh late 2023, we hired NB5, which is an engineering and design firm, to do the construction documents for both of these trail head locations. And they've been great to work with. If you're familiar with MP5, they do really high quality work. and uh they've been great to work with. So these are some photographs of the Haw Avenue existing conditions. Here's uh Washington Street. The Skooko River Trails right up here in the distance. And here's that ex there's an existing asphalt path that leads you out to the Skooka River Trail. Here's a shot looking a little bit further down that asphalt path. Here's where it connects with the Skooker River Trail. There's an existing kiosk there. The is it accessible to the community right now? Yes, it is. Is it inviting? No. Is it welcoming? No. Do people s feel safe using that path to get to the Scooper River Trail? No. Would people fe are people who are using the trail feeling that's a safe and inviting location to get off the trail and go into Nortown? No. And all of our public outreach emphasized all the nos that I just said. And so we realized there's an issue here and that's why we wanted to address it during design process.

Is this was all reconfigured? Excuse me. Is this the area that was all reconfigured not too long ago? No. Like where the the uh the drains pulver is? Are you thinking of Barbados Street with the S-curve? Same area. Can you go back to the existing map, please? You thinking about this? This was all redone. Yes. Yeah, I think that's where that's where the apartment building is. Well, the MCIU is right here. That but that was redone like three years ago. I don't I think where I am. Okay. If you think of it. Yeah, I'll think of it. Let me know.

Oh, I see where Okay, got it. Okay. Um All right. So, that's Chain Street. same situation in terms of uh it being an an inviting, welcoming, safe space. I would say that Chain Street is actually almost worse than Haw Avenue because there's not even a path that takes people down uh to the trail. So, here's uh the trail right here. People use this space for parking. Um here's the trail right here. Um people who live up in here park their cars down here. Uh the sidewalk doesn't continue down to the trail. Storm water is an issue. It's just kind of a horrendous space, but it's also a space that has tremendous potential to be a place where people, if you design it correctly, people will want to come and where people using the trail can stop, use it as a place of respit and perhaps go into Norristown from there. So the project goals were basically to um improve both of these areas providing amenities like I talked about wayfinding landscaping and so on and creating a safe link to the Skooka River Trail and more broadly the circuit trail network at large as well as at in the case of Haw Avenue down to riverfront park which is right down the street and we wanted to create welcoming inviting barrierfree access to the SRT for everybody and we want as I said people using the trail to feel comfortable leaving the trail and going into Norristown for any number of reasons. So, we had a lot of public outreach for this this project. Um, Ellen really organized that uh with MV5. We also had a Clomo, which most of you are probably familiar with, which is a nonprofit uh community that u really serves the um Hispanic and Latino community in Norristown. They did door-to-door uh outreach uh and got some really amazing uh input as to why people um don't use these

spaces or what they would want to see to make them use these spaces. Uh we had uh community design events. They like the Trail Junction Center. They were attended by multigenerations of people, young kids to older people to middle-aged people. It was a pretty robust effort. And I would say that the uh input that we received was also robust. It really helped designers and us figure out what we needed to do here to make these spaces better. These are just a few of the pictures of some of those outreach events. So you can see people of all ages. It was right on site, so people got to go there and actually see it. And some of the uh input that we received, I'm not going to go into the details of these, but if you look at them, you're going to see two primary things. Safety and cleanliness were the two biggest issues that people identified for both of these spaces. And people don't want to use spaces that aren't clean and people aren't going to use spaces that are unsafe. So, we knew that that needed to be our directive from the get-go. And then in terms of um some of the things that people would want to see here, this pie chart shows that it's very evenly distributed and you can see some of the activities that people identified. children's activities, lighting, there's not a lot of lighting out there. People want green areas and green space. They want bilingual wayfinding signage, seating, and public art as well. And in terms of public art, more specifically, we asked them, would you like to have professionally generated art in this area? Public art in this area. And what came out is that people really wanted to see community art, art that was generated by the people who live in these areas. So that is more reflective of the people who live there as opposed to an outsider coming in and saying, "Hey, this is what I think should be from a public art standpoint." So the designs that have evolved from all of that analysis and public engagement, I'm going to show you two slides that show both areas. This is Haw Street just to orient you. Here's the

Skooko River Trail. Here's Washington Street. This is where that existing asphalt path comes down to the Skooko River Trail. And so we've improved access off of the intersection up here, providing crosswalks and ADA accessib accessible uh curb ramps um to make this a safer place to navigate on foot or by bike and to access the trail pit area. We uh provided a mountable curve. We uh coordinated with Nortown uh public safety officials to make sure that they could use this for public safety purposes. It's wide enough to accommodate emergency vehicles and they can get onto it by uh using the accessible curve of the Washington Street. Um we're providing pavement art down here at the intersection with the trail. This is all art that was generated by as you can see primarily kids. Um which uh is really nice and that will be done in thermoplastic that will be applied to the trail. We're providing shade trees along the way. We're going to have a protective fence that runs along this existing retaining wall over here. And um let's see. We're also going to be providing a couple of benches. Nortown uh boalked a little bit at providing a a lot of benches because they were afraid that they would attract people who would just hang out there on the benches and in a a not positive way. And so we uh compromised and said we'll put a bench or two in and see how it goes and if they uh are being used in a way that everybody is content with and possibly we could add more in the future. So that's what's going on at PA. It'll be green. It will be inviting. It will be welcoming. Um it'll be attractive for the community and we hope that will serve to bring people onto the trail and to pull people off of the trail. brid the bridge abundance is also a location for uh

bridge partitions that go on the trail are also a location for some artwork too right here yeah that's where you have the split the trail is split with the ab button in the center those that's also an opportunity for dressing those up okay that's a good point this is an old rail bridge

any lighting built I mean is that a consideration Yeah, there's some existing lighting out here. Um, there's a light fixture up here and there's a light fixture down here, but we're not providing any lighting down here. The trails are technically closed at dusk, so there's this tension between uh if you put lighting in, is that going to invite people onto the trail to use it when they're technically not supposed to use it? Um, so it's a it's an issue, I would say, more broadly, you know, just Okay. So, at Chain Street again to orient you, um here is the Scopa River Trail. Here's Chain Street that comes down that area that um we were looking at with the cars is is right here. That's about right here, kind of right up against the trail. This is a shot looking up Chain Street like this. So, the photograph was taken kind of like right here. So, what's happening down here is a number of things. Right now, there's a fence that basically runs right along the trail. So, um, it's not very inviting and it's

Who owns that property? What does the ownership? Great question. Pico owns it and we the county has an easement with Pico that basically covers a 15 foot swath that accommodates the trail, but no more. And where the cars were parked. Yeah, the Pico property. I'll show you a map in a second. Well, let me just show you now. Pico owns all of this area in orange as well as all the way up to here. Pico owns all of this. And the dark orange is

the dark orange is owned by Norristown. It's public right of way on Shane Street. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. So let me let me important that's okay. Important questions. But let me just run through the design and then we can talk about um the site control. So, what we're doing here is we're going to extend the sidewalk down Shane Street down to the trail. There'll be a small retaining wall right here to deal with grade. We're going to address storm water. We're adding um some ballards along here that are classable so that again emergency access is able and pico can access the trail. But it's defining an area where people can go and congregate, sit, rest, etc. There'll be pavement art here as well. um in the area the sort of communal space as well as on the trail. Um we're doing uh asphalt paving and regrading um at the roadway right down in here. And uh let's see. We're adding a few trees and a retaining wall up in this area here because we don't have a picture. Well, you sort of do like right here. It's pretty awful there. So, we felt that a wall with some trees would make the space more inviting. And like I said before, for haw, we're adding a couple of benches, maybe just one, and we're going to see how that goes and then add another. But we also have some boulders here where people could plug down if they wanted to rest for a minute on the trail. Um Ellen just showed you some slides that um for the Lafayette Street gateway plan that were inspirational in nature. Same thing here. These aren't specific to the project, but they're just some of the things that MV5 helped uh put together so that we can start generating some ideas about design. You know, art panels, uh benches, trail art. Um and this is a look at some of the ways that you can deal with the paving, whether it's asphalt or concrete,

gravel, fencing, and so on. So, it needs to be extremely utilitarian, but that doesn't mean it can't be attractive. And then lastly, uh just a little bit about um site control. It's extremely complex because there are a number of uh entities involved here. There's the county, there's the municipality of Norristown, and there's Pico. And so what we're looking at here, so for example, at Haw this green is the existing county easement on the trail. We're gonna we're in the process of working with PA to amend our existing rail easement to add this area that you see here in orange. We're going to be working with the municipality. We had a meeting yesterday to put together an agreement so that uh we have the right to not just build the elements within the trail head area, but then also to um own them and maintain them going forward. And then we're going to need some temporary construction easements from the municipality as well to build the project elements up at the intersection, namely the crosswalks uh accessibility like the curb rails and things like that. Same with with chain. Um this is nor this is Norristown rightway. So we're going to need a temporary construction easement from them in order to improve the sidewalk, add a retaining wall, put in a crosswalk. Um, this orange area here is an expansion of our existing Pico, our existing easement with Pico because we need this space to build this little pathway to put boulders in, some benches and so on. And so, we're working with Pico to amend the ement to add in this orange area as well. And of course, there'll be maintenance agreements to make sure everybody's clear on who needs to maintain what going forward. So, I would say we were in a tremendous period of delay over the last several months

because Pico was being uh uh slow in their responses to us. We finally re-engaged and we're in a really good place right now. Um, and so we're uh optimistic that we'll be able to move into construction documentation at the beginning of next year while we're going through all these legal agreements that we need to put together to uh uh address all the maintenance and construction at chance.

I I just wanted to add just so you can understand, Dulce, you were asking about that whole kind of ad hoc parking lot. It essentially acts like public rightway in a parking lot right now. um that will move along on a separate track between the municipality and Pico. Um this issue has kind of been brought to their attention to Pico's attention that this is how their property is functioning issues.

Yeah. And so the their desire they don't want the property Pico. So, their desire would be for Norristown to take that on as public rightway so they could construct a a proper uh roadway or parking or or whatever, you know. So, the desire is that Nortown gets that property, but that thankfully is a separate track. That's all I have. Um, happy to answer any questions from you or whomever. Okay. Any comments or questions from board? I have two other comments at the field art. No comment. I'm sorry.

Okay. Uh when they were doing the courthouse there, I noticed a lot of pictures drawn by neighborhood kids and younger younger even older kids. It brought us and I don't smile that often, but it brought a real real smile to my face because the neighborhood and the schools were engaged in it. A lot of the art was really good. So I I would encourage it to anytime we can do that, we want to try to get people to be involved. Okay. Yeah. And and Bob, that's what we did try to do that. I mean, a lot of that art was

we worked with Expressive Path as a local nonprofit and they um did a whole focus with the bee as a symbol in Nortown here. They focused and so a lot of what you saw in those drawings came from kids in that summer um program. So, we're hoping to use that actual art. So the artwork that is um at the uh justice center is through an organization, a nonprofit called Fresh Artists. And that same group will be installing the inside the new justice center. And if you ever have an opportunity to take a tour of the eighth floor, now that it's artwork from fresh artist students, um you'll find on the walls and middle school kids.

They're they're elementary, middle, and high school students from the area from Nars Town and P. You take a tour of the eighth floor. Well, why don't you schedule a meeting?

Any other comments from board members in the room?

Going to whiz by the Trail Junction Center. now worried about Steve, you know, on the highway and the bike just whizzing by the Trail Junction Center and you know and there be people there gathering, slowing down, taking a look, sitting down and they've got Steve and his cohorts. Well, we so along that stretch of path, we do envision um putting down um also thermoplastic that um a series of railroad tracks. It was so long ago we were working on this, I'm trying to remember, but so we have like railroad tracks and then we have a where the Chester Valley Trail and the Skook River Trail meet. We have some artwork and vision for there

and the trail junction center is kind of the pinch point on that portion of the scooper road truck but you come off of Ntown where the train where the train station is and where the and where the parking garage is and then it kind of terminate you go over the bridge there and then it terminates at the trail junction and once you get past the trail junction is when it actually starts to open up in the Lafayette Street area. So it's it's still a pinch point right there. It's not Yeah,

we we have signage in addition. This that thermoplastic that was talking about is actually going to go all the way along here like a railroad track. We have some right at the intersection of the two trails. I mean, honestly, there's going to need to be um a shift in uh behavior and recognition that this space is going to be used. Um and so uh that's going to need to be a little bit of like see and adjust accordingly. Um because it is going to be part of the thermop like bumps is what we

So you can you like when you see markings on pavement it can be two things. It can either just be painted or you can use thermoplastic which is actually laid down then melted onto the street. Use the thermoplastic because you'll be painting it every I know. Yeah, it's true. Wow. The extra cost is well worth it in the longevity. Any other any other comments from board members? You guys had mentioned first two phases some grant funding. Was was there grant funding available for the bless phase, the changing street and the whole?

Yes, we received a $100,000 um also regional trails program grant for that project. And we have a we have a $500,000 um local share account grant application pending right now that we should hear about the next month or two. Good for construction. Any other comments from board members before we move on? No comment. Public comment. You want to jump in here?

Am I here? Yep, we can hear you.

Hey, thanks very much. Very thoughtful presentation. Thank Thanks for that. Um, people often ask me what this planning function is and I said, well, I I always think back to the uh train set that I had in the basement on on two 8x4 sheets of plywood. And we got to play with that all all the time. And what didn't work, we just redid. And what did work then we kept. And uh it's a lot of moving parts in in the presentation today. So um on the trail center uh in the last discussion that you just entertained, I wondered why we couldn't have deceleration acceleration ramps uh with signage that would uh that would relieve that problem about the through traffic and Steve on his uh on his speedster win there. Uh just a thought. Um, specific to the concept, I'm wondering if there's any similar trail head centers uh that are in existence and and how how they would compare to this concept. And in that light, uh I I know this is going to be expensive. I think I saw numbers said like $4.3 million just for the real real warehouse. And then I see a lot of other things and and the grants seem really small. So this is general funding from a county that is raising taxes uh to further burden uh folks that live across the the county. Uh so what's the expectation for return on investment in real dollars here? Uh, I mean, you're talking about finding a vendor that's that's going to work a concession type operation for

refreshments and uh, bathrooms open and closed and so forth. Um, so the only revenue stream I see here is is what they're going to pay in rent. Uh so how does this my question would be how how does this all get paid off uh to to to the taxpayers who contributed to the development but might not be able to ride a bike anymore or or uh that's not their cup of tea or uh they prefer to use a trail in the in the western part of the county or whatever. Um

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Any any other comments?

Um, in terms of the mixed use here, uh, this is kind of like it reminds me of Butter Valley. If if Butter Valley said, "Well, in addition to an active runway and a golf course, we we want to have a water park and and uh and skiing, seasonal skiing, and and so forth. And we're going to do all this in the same space at the same time." and and pretend that uh weather doesn't affect us and and that uh everybody's everybody's going to get along in in using the same space for for different reasons. And I have concerns around around that is is is overusing a single space that was always intended to be a bike path. So, thanks for your time. Interesting interesting presentation today. Any other public comment?

Anything? Nothing. Okay, Ellen, Bill, appreciate your uh appreciate the presentation. I look forward to seeing especially the trail junction getting getting built and and in place. So, but um and I would just did want to say one thing. I think the u idea of me speeding on this SRT is highly exaggerated speeding. Is it over 15 miles an hour? Okay. Is it over 15 miles an hour? Um, no.

If I'm going uphill from from the sewer treatment plant and into the wind, no. If I'm going downhill, I'm probably going about 40. The the uh with the, you know, the whole thing of gravity and mass and stuff. There's no way that would stop us from going through. Okay. So, but thanks. You're welcome. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Okay. Let's get on. Let's move on to our next topic, which is a data center discussion. And I got Scott, John, and Mike. That's a musketeers.

Yeah, that's eos. And I'll I'll plan to introduce her later. But we also have Davey, our chief sustainability officer. Um there's a I'll explain there's a cross county team uh team working on these issues. We'll try to separate from we'll try to separate her from the Yeah, we're we're we're it elevates our um prestige certainly being part of that group. It's a great answer. Okay. And right now will I generally be on view to the audience?

On view to the audience. Okay, I might just um thank you. Uh so we have this item. Um I I want to explain up front. If you can go to the top uh slide. This is a few slide. All right. Yeah. Sorry. Um we want to put this on the agenda. Um much to my uh hesitation at the time, but also the feeling we need we need to propel on this issue. It is one of the faster moving and and I think more impactful and important issues to come in some time and it's and like I said moving very quickly. Um so we know there's a lot of questions out there. There's a lot of uh positions and thoughts being formed and and opinions being expressed and it's coming from all sides uh both the industry that need need data centers to the uh residents and concerned citizens um that may live around uh potential future uses. So, and then there's the municipal officials who have to deal with all of that um as we do. So um today's purpose is I just again want to preface uh we're here to have a kind of a discussion present some of the things we know explain to our board um uh some of the the issues uh that we're looking at and we'll finish with next steps and there are some more uh structured efforts uh in the in the next couple months uh that hopefully will be of of help to to both our municipalities. I know we have a few people online that are joining us maybe more than usual who uh were aware of this discussion. So we welcome uh that audience um and hopefully this will be useful to them as well. So um we're going to start off with some background knowledge on the system. Some of this gets very technical. Some of you may already know uh a lot of detail about this. Others may have no no clue. Hopefully both sides will learn something or or and or even contribute

um to the discussion on that side. We're going to be a little careful. We we don't have, you know, a full-fledged position. We're talking to people, researching, looking at things, seeing what's happening elsewhere, and you know, developing what we need to know and how we can help advise both our county administration as well as again the municipal side and and and residents. Um it's a balance of interests for sure. Uh you have environmental impacts that are that are very front and center and u and many are very concerning and the residents I think uh really are are looking at that representing and asking questions. Um there's the energ whole energy issue which goes um beyond data centers but we all use energy. Uh and that's both in terms of just living but also economic development, how our businesses, how our industries function. Um these are all hugely important uh and impactful and uh like anything where there's lots of money and uh involved as well as interest. Um you're going to get different sides of information and some of that may be uh accurate, some may not. And that's what that's what makes this even more complicated. Um, and then what it really comes down to, what I think we're going to focus to once we get through some of that is the zoning aspects. And as a planning commission, uh, this is not 100% comprehensive on all sides of the issue. Uh, in the end, that's kind of where we make our mark, where we want to help people be informed, want to make recommendations. Um, so that's, you know, where our energy, uh, probably gets channeled more so, uh, than if this were, say, you know, a regular public meeting or or a development proposal that was already, uh, coming through, uh, to a municipality. Um, and okay, I said so, we have next steps.

So, uh, I'm going to just jump into a quick background. Wait a second. I'll try. uh you know what is a data center um that that what you see in the middle of the slide here is one example of a model ordinance the pen future which we'll refer to a few times um you can read it but you know I a server farm I think registers the most with me so if you've been in any kind of uh enterprise or business and seen the stacks of humming machines uh kept somewhere in the room think of that on a larger scale uh and a very large scale in some cases. Uh so where that's happening you need you need space. Obviously it's not as much people or manpower although there is some um but you just need the space and the activity and the machines for all of the very accelerated uses starting with AI but some of this has been around even longer than that um just to function um as computers have become part of our lives. Uh important to note though within a site where we're talking about a data center that may include other things more so than other uh types of commercial development or industrial development uh accessory uses are a big part of that and that those come into play with with the zoning as well. Uh and this is just a short list. Uh there there are many more that would uh when fit even fit on one slide but things like security power generation. Uh so the big one of the big topics with this issue is how how is it being powered and how much power does it take and we're going to hear a little more about that. Um but it's it's it's mind-blowing when you look at the numbers and you've probably heard it expressed elsewhere. You know a large hypers scale data center could be the same amount of energy used by a small city. um you know and we talked you know Amazon, Microsoft these big uh corporate uh clients using

and Google you know using these that's the kind of level we're talking about and that is a huge shift and a huge impact sometimes that power can be generated is not available on the grid uh we have challenges certainly in the developed northeast uh so companies look to how can they how could they generate on site or nearby to either supplement or fulfill their their power needs uh function data center and that can bring in all other issues aside from the large building in the server farm within utility lines serving that water facilities, pump stations, water is another issue we're going to get into. Um, so there's all those things that kind of come with utilities and the way to make make an operation like this run that can enter into the land development side. Uh, just a few notes on the the next three kind of groupings there. Um I said data centers uh you know many have been around for for a long time. So it's it in some ways it feels like this is you know brand new but um it's it's more of a scaling up u and that at a super fast pace. So corporate or enterprise where it's serving a large company like you know American Express or Vanguard they might have a data center already or have been getting one recently to up their their uh their needs. Uh the colllocation or wholesale is more of kind of like the uh commercial enterp you know renting out server space to companies multiple companies. Um that model uh has been in existence for a while and also is is elevating quite a bit with the needs of all levels of uh companies. But in the end, what we're probably talking about when this comes to a a major controversial discussion or or what you know these you know huge developments we're talking hypers scale um and that can be uh you know in our area we're hearing as big as 2 million square feet um which is a lot uh I think there's even bigger uh some other uh more open places parts of the country as well. um they don't have to be that big.

Uh there are there are small as well. Again, what the needs are and what the uh investors are are put trying to put forward. Um and this is just I stole this from the ULI. They have a a guide online uh Urban Lane Institute and it's you know they kind of take the development side. I think that they make a positive case for how you know how to effectively do data centers and recognize the need for them. Um, this is how they show, you know, just a concept. Um, and it's very basic. Um, what's I'll call out here is, you know, the equipment yard. This is where you might have backup generators lined up. If you look see these on aerials, you'll just see rows and rows of these. You know, maybe they look more like HVAC systems um that we're more familiar with, but they're uh they might be um again, they're backup or uh needed power generation. Uh there could be a substation included on the site as well. and then transmission lines to to house it. Security of course is is always an issue. Um and then water uh in this case it's showing a storm water detention pond which which in any big development is is uh could be needed and and like likely a part. Um location is often brought up and you know we're seeing a lot of these where they're proposed near water sources near rivers. Um whether that is 100% an absolute must in the future going forward as technology uh changes um I think that's opens up you know places that aren't near a major waterway still might be cited or still might be viewed um by prospective data center developers. I don't think this issue is exclusively toward those who are along, you know, like the Scootill River. Um, but even the Percy Creek could have. Um,

for what reason do they need to be near the port? Uh, the water is used to cool.

Yeah. And then, and John's going to get into this a little, but in a nutshell, um, when start out, it used huge amounts of water to run through and keep cool. What's big now are closed loop systems. And not everyone is sold that that is the ultimate answer because there is still a lot of water used, but it's much slower than what if you're just bringing in and pushing out all or evaporating all the time. Um, we'll cover that in a minute. Uh, so I just want to touch on what we do know, where we are, and I don't want to get too specific. Some of these are, you know, in play, are active, are behind the scenes, are, you know, and have a lot of uh, uh, emotion discussion attached to them. So, I just kind of want to give you just a broad overview without stepping too too much into what what we um you don't need to yet. Um in Monco, this this shows a big view. I would Virginia, if you've looked into this issue at all, is very well known is where the the state and several counties took a a very u I you know, think of like first adopters trying as an economic development tool trying to get as many data centers as they could. And that's where you're also hearing uh you know a lot of controversies. There's a lot of rural area there that that where they've put them but you can see just the map shows how many not all of these are are hypers scale 2 million square foot facilities. The ones that are in Monco are not um the largest one that I'm aware of is about 200,000 square feet that does exist. It's in Ottabon um and and very near the Glasso Smith client campus or kind of would be might be considered part of that campus but that's operated by someone we don't know a you know a lot. We're we're hoping to get a tour through there very soon. Uh the company is called Flex Central. Um

that's up.

Yes, it's actually was built in 2009. So, it's been around a while and you know all the things that you you know that that you hear about now that are of of major concern and rightfully so. Um not all of that really has been an evidence in that at that scale and in that uh development which does have some residential not too far off but not um immediately next door. Um, but I've heard and and again I've heard that, you know, you don't hear the sounds that that you hear, you know, YouTube videos of of some of these in Virginia, the noise. Um, we'll talk about that as an impact. Um, but again, we're we're this is some of this is a new new territory. Um, there's a couple others mentioned. I'm not familiar with them. They might be part of a major business. I know there's one on City Avenue that's a big uh the Susuana uh forget the full name of it, but um Mark, right? um they've got a data source somewhere within their large uh office built what looks like an office building uh on City Avenue. So that kind of thing. And as far as zoning goes, um, Limrich is probably most known for having adopted a data center ordinance uh, this summer, I think, is when it, maybe a little longer ago, uh, actually actually probably a year ago. And near the public site is known, there's another site there, too, um, where there has been interest and, uh, we're probably going to hear more about that. Um, we we reviewed a development plan. It was not specifically called out for data center use. It was more distribution and logistics and we were when we reviewed it, we were looking at the truck traffic and thinking in those terms and that was in 20 2023 and I think it was approved but it hasn't I think they've only done demo work at this point. Anyway, that's pretty much all I've had to say on that front. Um but you can see there is interest and you know just looking at this map um there's probably people who see that say

oh what what can we looks like we could do some stuff there or you know while the other clusters might be filling out. All right I'm going to pass it to John.

Thank you very much. Uh for those of you who do not know me, my name is John Leer. I'm the environmental planning manager. Uh what I would like to do today is do a little bit of kind of level setting. um to talk about some of the energy and water consumption issues that we are seeing around data centers. Um this is um to use a water pun, you know, this is a very deep pool of nuance and knowledge. Um we're going to swim more in the shallow end. Um and then this conversation is going to lead us to you know more and more conversations in the issues that we are going to have to face. So what kind of energy are we talking about? And a lot of it is size dependent as Scott said. We have very small data centers which their energy consumption is you know nothing that you would be concerned about all the way up to the hypers scale which is Scott said I mean we're talking about literally the energy consumption of small cities. So we have to think about the size that we are seeing and the type of energy.

So so in Lansdale we've had uh developers approach us because we are an electric provider. Uh they've asked us if we'd be able to provide something like this. So Lansdale Burough uses power about 30 megawatts is what our standard is and the one data center was looking for 450 megawatts and which is there's just no way we could do it. The infrastructure is just not even there. But it's it's amazing the amount of power that they're looking to generate this.

Yes. I mean, the larger ones are it is it's it's mind-blowing the amount of energy that they will use. Then there's other ones that are already in existence that we wouldn't even know they were there. You know what I mean? They are they're small. So, we have to as we think about this, we have to understand the size and concept. Um on average though even the smaller ones they're using 10 to 50 times energy per square foot than a regular uh commercial office building. So no matter what whether it's small or hypers scale we are talking about large energy consumption per square foot. They are projecting that by um is projected to double or even triple by 2030. These are proliferating um potentially accounting for up to 12% of the total US electricity usage up from 4%. So these are this is a huge huge issue um based on the amount of energy that's being used nationwide. This is being driven mostly by the use of AI. um you know 70 in 2024 109 billion was invested in using AI tools about 75% of organizations in the country use AI so this is something that they are investing in companies are using it they're predicted to spend 364 billion this year powering AI and just to think about it in the context of what you do every time you use chat GBT or one of the AI tools It takes five times the energy as if you ask Jeieves to show my age. You know what I mean? Like your normal Google search, five times that energy to run the computing necessary when you use an AI

tool. So just something to think about the next time you want to go and uh and Google something that way. So energy profile how we are looking at this you know to think about it holistically across the country 56% of the electricity used by data centers comes from fossil fuels and those are the emissions that we are talking about that are coming from those many being natural gas plants or we are seeing coal plants their life being extended so they can power continue to power these uh data centers uh Our energy comes from many sources. I grabbed a screenshot from PJM. So, we'll get into a little bit about what PJM is. They are a regional grid operator. Think of them as almost in some ways kind of the air traffic controller of energy. They control where the energy goes. Pico is responsible for transmission. They're the ones that will bring it to your house, to your business. PJM is the one that manages the whole grid, not only in Pennsylvania, but you'll see a map of a much larger area in our region. Um, this is in PJM. This is where our energy comes from. Most of it is natural gas. We do have nuclear. So, we are one of the ones where our emissions from our source is a little bit lower because we are we have a large nuclear mix into that. um followed by nuclear and then coal and then others. Um we are going to talk about backup generation when we talk about these data centers because they're you know if the power goes off everything shuts down. This is a very energy dependent. So all these data centers have backup generation. that backup generation is usually, you know, fuel, diesel, something along those lines that are there to ensure that they run.

John, does that mean they there's like double the amount of energy available to them? Like, you know what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, primary source goes after they have exactly the same amount in backup capacity. That is my understanding and I could be wrong is that the backup generation would not be 100% but pretty close you and it would be one of those they could shut down like non-essential functions but at the end of the day they have to keep those servers running and they have to keep them cool. So yeah, the backup generation is a huge huge issue and concern. Not only the primary energy draw, but having that generation and how is that going to be powered and we'll get into a little bit of the uh an interesting tidbit around that backup generation in a minute. Thank you for foreshadowing setting up setting up some tension.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

So we have heard and we've seen that energy cost go up. It's one of the major headlines that we see. And why does that happen? And there's some local reasons and a lot of that refers to the transmission system. You know, in our area that would be Pico. You need, you know, if you're putting in if you have bigger need, you need bigger transmission to get to it. You need bigger wires and transformers and all of that infrastructure to make sure that that power can get to this system and run smoothly. Um, now this isn't all just about data centers. You've heard me speak before about electrification as we were talking about the transition to renewable energy. That is through electricity. So we want things to be electrified because therefore we can run them with renewable energy sources. So that is also putting a a strain on the transmission system and data centers are a part of now becoming as they come in a bigger part of that equation. Um the cost can be localized. You know, you can say, okay, I need a bigger wire coming into my data center, but at the end of the day, a lot of these would be dispersed across PICO because it is such an interconnected system. So, you may have a data center in one municipality, but those costs for the upgrades that are necessary to get electrons from point A to your data center could be spread out throughout the whole Pico region because it is such an interconnected grid. um and system that needs to be upgraded. And then this is the bigger one and this is the one that gets a little bit more complicated. They're talking about the regional context for why data why people are seeing energy costs go up. So this is PJM. This is our territory. Um throughout the country there are nine

other um regional grid operators. So what happens is in PJM at least our demand has been flat for years. You know we haven't really seen a spike in the need for electricity but that's changed recently through electrification and the rise of data centers. So PJM forecasts and one of the things that they do as a grid operator is they have to look ahead and see how much energy we're going to need. They forecast that we're going to need 40,000 megawatts of new generation coming up um within the next 15 years to be able to power the things that we need to power between data centers and electrification. But they also expect to lose 40,000 megawatts of generation by 2030 due to the retirement of existing facilities. So we are seeing a need for 40,000 and at the same time we're losing 40,000 megawws because of the the systems the current generation systems are old and are reaching retirement age. New generation is needed but that takes a long time. It takes years to site design finance all those things. So what we're seeing is we have this big PJM market. We have data centers which need energy with less supply. My wife who went to Georgetown and got a finance degree would yell at me. But even I can understand supply and demand. A lot more demand, a lot less supply. costs are rising not just in our neighborhood, not just in Pico, but throughout the whole PJM region and that's what we are seeing. So, a lot of this is outside of our control and there are regulatory

agencies that are responsible for it. On a federal level, we have FK, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They are the ones that have set the policies that are mandating the retirement of energy generation facilities. It's just the natural lifpan of these facilities. They are um starting to retire. They have switched to what they call a first ready first serve approach to help move these projects through. But there is still a moratorum on any new energy generation project until the spring of 2026. Yeah, that is so they can work through their existing queue of projects to to review, inspect, permit, license, all of those things. So, we are we're in a backlog of projects, which does not help the whole we need to get more generation going. On the state level, we have the PUC, the Pennsylvania Utility Commission. There is a draft order of out right now, which people can comment on until December 22nd. And what that is, that tariff that is being proposed talks about transparency of costs so that people understand what data centers are paying, making sure that they're not getting a discount on their energy consumption, things of that nature. Um there's things in there about um faster interconnections. There are things in there about ensuring equity um throughout the process. Um Scott mentioned the idea of possibly generating their own power on site. It's called BYOG, bring your own generation. Uh but the problem with BYOG is once you do that, you become a utility yourself and you have to go through the PU and FIK requirements as if you were creating your own little power plant to then power your data center. and it is another layer of regulatory um hurdles.

So what are the environmental impacts? And I'm not going to you can read this. I don't want to spend a ton of time on it because you can imagine we're talking when we talk about energy generation, we're talking about greenhouse gas emissions and the emissions that are coming especially from natural gas, coal, um diesel fuels. And we are looking at a 300% increase in emissions um rising from data centers. Um there is locally we are talking about air pollution. We talked about the backup generation which are usually diesel or gas fueled. We have been we heard from pen future in our conversation with them that one just as backup generation they have to be run almost daily to ensure that they are working. So they get run on a daily basis and there are some that use the backup generation as their primary source of power when it is financially pro um beneficial. So in the PJM market, you pay at, you know, you can pay rates go up and down depending on the hour. And if it's cheaper to run your diesel generation than it is to pay for energy off the grid, they will run the diesel generation to save money. And that runs, you know, then we run into a whole bunch of air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions from the backup generation along with some of the other issues around those that we'll talk about. Um, aside from that, you're just talking about 300% increase because of backup generation or just

total the total energy consumption. The fact that you were talking about 40,000 megawatts being needed, but at the same time 40,000 megawatt being that's just in the PJM region.

I'm saying just keep it into the PGM territory. the amount of energy being needed for what they project for future data centers and what would be decommissioned as an offset. So is it really is that 300 300% increase still valid or is that primarily just for back generation? This is uh I mean this is nationwide. So yeah, where we are seeing is we are seeing the hypers scales a lot of them are out we are seeing them out west and that like the Googles the Amazons are um those are tremendous energy consumers and therefore greenhouse gas emitters from the source.

I got that. I'm just trying to I mean I'm assuming that if PGM is seeing that offset of what they need to generate for data centers and what would come offline and some you know obviously there would be a time shift there um that other areas of the country are seeing similar things because I would imagine some of the same same uh uh conditions are going to be met where the things that are being decommissioned are obsolete.

Yeah. I mean I have not it's interesting and as we do more research I'll look into that but that is an interesting yes you know there should be some reduction based off of sources coming offline as opposed to you know what is generated so um yeah no that's it's it's interesting I see what you're saying true that's that offset is is there is are we anticipating that 300% increase to be a realistic number. Is that is the offset being taken into consideration in those numbers? I will not answer that.

I will look into it. Yeah, that is an interesting question whether whether that that number is accurate based on that balancing of generation versus I noticed on your PJM map that the southeast portion of the states didn't seem to have any data centers there's a big Florida Georgia maybe not this this is not showing controls yeah they are they do not have a a regional grid operator down there. Okay. It's all done locally.

And I'll just I just meant to stress more so up front like these major nationwide even global issues with energy like we're we're not going to have the answers. We're not we're not funding for that. But um there are some elements to this that just make you know just a basic mind say how do we do this? Like this is beyond the pale of of what it goes. But you know there are that's people smarter than us and systems in place working on that. How it comes out is what we're interested in.

Well you talk about that. So I mean you know you brought up the whole idea of the Virginia area and it's yeah it's been in the news a lot lately more so in the last 12 months about the the uh um the concentration of data centers being built in that area. I mean the utility they must be solving some of those problems. the utilities must be solving those problems. The the uh the the water needs must be those problems must be being solved. So there has to be some information or some

yeah I mean rates are going up some of those problems aren't necessarily solved to the extent and that's what we you know if some of that comes our way and you know I don't think we're looking at that same magnitude um by any means but this you know even just one brings some of those concerns um so uh I I think we're it's so fast moving and young there's like anything um there's complexity good and bad. Um,

but but I I I I don't want I want to separate two things. I want to separate the the the energy need and then the cost of that energy need. So, and and I'm not diminishing the cost because it, you know, the the the um cascading effect of the increased need is going to cost not just the data center money,

but maybe so let's let's I want to separate that for a second. Is is there an issue? Do you have a sense? Is there an issue with the supplying of of the energy to these data centers or anticipated data centers in the area or is there a need to upgrade the systems much like the discussions that happened that were happening about EV charging infrastructure? I mean on a greater scale

I think there's absolutely a need and I don't think like if you talk to Pico and I you I went to a I don't know an afterwork lunch and learn type thing uh in in the summer guy was there he was like the cute get in line if you're interested in a data center it's about a 10year wait before they can promise uh energy and so obviously that's longer than people are willing to wait so there's all these things moving parts what other options do we have uh you know we're not going to get into we can spend a whole day, you know, if we start getting into, you know, nuclear or different things like that, which are could be on the horizon in five years.

But if but but if if if all of a sudden the Montgomery County, Bucks County, you know, 5count area in southeastern Pennsylvania turned into the Virginia model. I don't we don't we don't have we don't have the energy produc that that is a constraint and a barrier from the industry side for sure but it's not one that I mean but there are that doesn't mean they're going to walk away and just you know give up there's you know they look at what they can do locally

so that the question that I originally asked is how did they solve the problem in Virginia forgetting about the cost factor or they kept the um they kept the the um uh the putting the cost off to all the all of the uh power users. I want to separate that because it's an important aspect that I'm saying. How did they solve the how did they solve it? And that's a rhetorical question. I mean the big difference is state and county leadership is much is much stronger or has more authority than than the the Commonwealth system. So that's how it happened. Those forces wanted it to happen. um how they got the energy and the particulars of exactly what that is. I I I don't have the details.

John, is the Virginia area in the PGM area? Looks like it is on that map. It is. Jim, so were they the first ones in they got the excess and now they have it and now nobody else not available to anybody else. Is that really what happened? I I don't want to say what I don't know, but that seems possible.

Okay, John, I have a question. Um 10 years ago when I was on the uh the limmer generating uh community panel there was the discussion whether they were going to upgrade a limmer and there was a there was a schedule to do that and at the end of that period of time we were told as a community that that was scrapped was I don't remember if it was $4 billion or whatever that they were not going to do it. Has that been revisited to upgrade that plan to generate more capacity? I am not aware of that. Do you know what I'm talking about, Scott? Don't you? Yeah. I And I don't I I I can't say exactly answer that, but I could say

constellation. They are Exelon. They are um Oh, yes. Constellation, right? Um there the the interest in MCO is centered around that trying to to because that is an energy source that is of the level that could certainly help some of this. Um I'm not in the rooms for that. Okay. Could I comment on that?

I think a lot of DoD might well a lot of the protective um elements into that data that infrastructure. So kind of like one of the things military um security efforts to basically protect that data or bring these data centers in and provide construction they need basically in the Virginia area.

Just back to the question about constellation in Lick. We met with them actually uh out in Lick and they told us that their upgrades to their plant and as well as the uh you know upgrade to the three-mile island uh those are upgrades are not planned to power up data centers and they don't have the capacity to do that right now. Even though in three mile island the generating system is increasing they're bringing back online another gener but that's sub not subcontract that is specifically for a user that work with them on that

right that's not they they haven't been in any discussion to my knowledge when we spoke with their government relations team and the folks that were uh the leadership in Lmer they indicated that they were not in discussions with any data centers to power to use their power to power by the centur.

So, and then locally we do have to be aware that these data centers do contribute to the urban heat island effect. You know, these are they do run hot. Um so that is another local concern that's exacerbating some of the things that we are seeing um through climate change already. Uh there are opportunities for innovation. I mean the more renewable energy that we can get into the system the better helping uh with that supply end of it, the generation end of it um through cleaner energy. Um there is the I we are starting to see examples of geothermal cooling of data centers which do reduce cost. Um Swathmore College has a geo exchange plant where they are taking the heat from the data center and using it um to heat their buildings. So there are innovative things that can be done to conserve energy as these data centers grow, evolve and hopefully as we kind of push for that innovation um from the consumer end. Um very quickly because I know we we have a lot more to cover water consumption profile. So this is something that we are seeing the older data centers and the bigger data centers were massive massive water consumers. Um we are seeing the newer data centers um are using newer technology and are using less water. Um but it is an issue to be aware of as a community as consumers to make sure that we are seeing the best practices as we come in. that water is needed. Um these servers run hot. So the water can be used for cooling. Um but when we think about it, we also can think about the larger water footprint from these data centers being the tree hugger that I am thinking about the water that's necessary from the power generation from the source all the way

through the microchip processing like construction end which is very water intensive. So just in general throughout the whole you know cradle to grave these things are very water consumptionheavy. Um they can populate they can use 5 million gallons per day. You know they can use what's you know the equivalent of a small town. Um though we are seeing uh innovative data where we are using closed loop systems where they are being the the heated elements are being submersed in synthetic fluids to help keep them cool. We are seeing new data that allows this new technologies that keep them cooler without as much water consumption. But we do need to be aware the water impact. If it's in a private system, we need to make sure that there's capacity in that private system for the water needs of these data centers. Um, when it goes into a public system, we need to think about the back end of it. That water then needs to be treated. That takes energy, greenhouse gas emissions and even that treated water when put back into the natural hydrarology is not, you know, there are, you know, it changes the hydrarology of the water coming out of the wastewater treatment plants. if they are drawing from a river, from an aquafer, can that natural system support the water draw that may be necessary if it isn't a closed loop system and what is that effect going to be on their neighbors? Are they, you know, are they going to make wells run dry, things of that nature? Um and overall no matter what we are talking about whether it's coming out of a public plant or whether it's drawn from an aquifer and then released it is going to change the natural hydrarology of the bodies of water that come into it. The water is going to be warmer you know things of that nature. So we are going to have environmental impacts to our water bodies.

And I'm going to hand it over to Mike. Okay.

All right. Here you go. Okay. So, I'm Mike Norwitch. I'm community planning assistant manager. I'm going to talk about some of the other impacts that need to be considered when planning for data centers. Um, the development area is significant. These are large areas. The average size is 100,000 square feet. I know in Newcastle County there's one being proposed that is 6 million square feet. There's a trend to build higher in cities. Uh we heard about some of these um these centers in more developed areas and I know uh the data center map indicates there's one on North Broad that's in a 12story building.

Give us some uh context the um the warehouses that are being built for like Amazon or distribution centers you should say that are being built. What what's do you have an idea what those square footages are? I'm guessing 400 500,000 square feet. Go ahead. The two million is is not unusual in some of those big in those those comparable in some sense. Yeah. Not. Yeah. If and if you hear one proposed here, there's probably a big name that you might not they're not saying but is behind. I'm just talking about the size of size of the uh structures that are being built is somewhat comparable.

Yes. One thing I'd note is that the equipment um often takes up significant amount of ground area. Um so that's something that warehouses may not have. Um so of course these these have farmland, open space, um vegetation, storm water management is a concern. Um the size of the site does vary greatly. Um you heard about the data center um in in the in Upper Providence that Scott was talking about. Um and that is one of the smaller older ones. But then there's some that also need hundreds of acres. The hypers scale data centers some of those need something on that order. Um for noise impacts um these come the noise itself comes from cooling equipment, ventilation fans, exhaust vents and other equipment. Backup generators is one of the loudest uh components. And generally though in the course of normal operations um people describe a low frequency hum a drone uh that is constant and it's interesting because it's something that often does not violate standard noise ordinances in terms of pure decibb that are that are looked at there. Um but when you monitor the lower frequencies you can set a more appropriate standard um for that. Um, also with noise, uh, that's a little hard to predict and that's why many of these ordinances and model ordinances require, um, an acoustic engineering study, um, because it's hard to predict on a site how far noise is going to travel in any one direction. It's affected by temperature, wind, humidity, um, surfaces which reflect noise, surfaces which absorb noise, uh, the built environment. And uh so I was talking earlier about the standard method of regulating noise and that's often with aweed decibb that

gives higher weights uh to frequencies that are more audible to the human ear. Um but again for the for these um you might be talking about um non-weighted decibels which which give um the standard weight to lower frequencies. Um some ordinances require monitoring of noise um not only before construction but after construction and prior to releasing the escrow. Um emergency response is a consideration and so this could involve a data or security breach, fire suppression. data centers have unique challenges. And so uh some of the ordinances, some of the models require that the applicant train um emergency responders on how to address emergencies at the site and even require the ordinances may even require the applicant to pay for that. Um, some have um requirements for um reimbursing the local fire department uh for emergency response incidents, single incidents that cost $25,000 or more. Um then of course you have concerns with hazardous materials, batteries, refrigerants, um uh power outages, another concern. Um in East Whitland they have an improved land development for data center in Malvin and that includes um not not a monstrous area but a sizable area for parking for disaster response uh primarily for security or power emergencies and emergency response plans are often required by zoning for data centers. Uh e-waste is also an issue. Um servers are typically used for three to five years and then they're disposed of. Um so some companies have sustainability goals for electronic recycling and some municipalities have requirements um for having recycling uh systems.

Yeah. So uh what you've heard so far is probably if you had heard nothing else prior you'd be saying well why are we why would we want any of this? Um and there are there are obviously positives and uh and looking from an economic development standpoint um at the municipal level the tax revenue can be considerable. Just as an example, again, we'll point to the one we've referenced already that in in Upper Providence, that site with the 200,000 foot uh prior to being built was assessed at about $700,000 dollars and it currently is and once it was built, it's now at 16 million uh dollars. So the return to the local community if they are the the home to one of these uh is obviously the the biggest uh motivation um to pursue it. But I will say well and then the job side there are jobs associated with it. I think the point is often made incorrectly that it's a very low number of jobs relative to the size of the operation. Um that's just the nature of it. Um but there are some some of those are highpaying because you know in the tech field and there's also training needs uh with our local schools and actually that the county has already prioritize uh that with the with the community college and and other aspects. Um but I don't want to discount that the fact that yes there are jobs and of course the construction jobs are a a fleeting part but that's also goes into the overall economic picture. Um and I think you have uh friends on that side that that want to see more of these uh provide particular the representatives.

I go back to the economic development. Um it's not just the data center might be you know a golden goose but I think the case is often made that that data center might be partial or supply uh uses for adjacent uh tech companies where biomed um or otherwise uh and I think if we delve into hypo or theoretical possibilities in our county I think you could see that where it is moving forward on a hyper scale uh Bucks County is Falls Township is a well-known one the governor was out earlier this year um promoting and and enable helping to enable um that's a big technology campus not just the data this mega data center but also um uh uses and and offices and research R&D that go along with it. So I I don't want to ignore or I definitely want to recognize that there's a a large picture there as to the prospects. Not everyone will buy into it. Some people think, you know, we've seen promises before in these types of things where energy is needed, whether it's the natural gas explosion and fracking or whatnot. Doesn't always pan out to what the pro promises are. So, it's just and then legally we're going to start to get to the zoning side of this. Um, uh, you know, it's a use, uh, you know, you can if you, if the position is we don't want to be anywhere near this or support this at all, you know, you might be subject to challenge. And I think avoiding corridors is important. When this first, you know, even a few months ago when we realized we, you know, we need to get more on top of this. Um, you know, the question was, are you better off right now having a permitted use and a full uh in an ordinance with it or are you better off not having it and then leaving it open and maybe being able to u constrain uh some of those applicants? I think you at this point being proactive is the definite advice I would give and uh especially if you're in an

area that is is uh being looked at and what can be done with the zoning uh to help protect and also if you are going to get it and if that is a goal you know how can you do it in the best possible way to avoid some of the reduce these negative impacts. Harrisburg's certainly uh active right now and there's several uh bills that have been uh in play this year. Again, I'm not a legislative expert. I don't want to pretend to know exactly where these things stand, but I just wanted to point them out. And they do have will, you know, if any of them go through and lots of bills go through Harrisburg on lots of issues and not all of them uh result in actual adoption. Um but these are some of the important ones. 1834 is the most recent and that one is uh in the house. uh it's primarily uh Democrats sponsors but a large group of them in the energy committee and this is uh this is set out to uh uh the purpose is to look at how to are providing funding to allow funding to increase the infrastructure to allow the building of data centers. So for instance, you have the accelerated data center per se that I've seen that proposal. Um, you know, it's one thing to accelerate the permitting, but if there's no power for it or if there's not enough power to support it, then

Right. Yeah. It's it's it's it's a very complicated log jam essentially and uh and how what pieces break through are are going to be I I I can't even speculate to this point how that's going to play out. Do we know if any of these any of the any initiatives through the state legislature is providing funding to increase the infrastructure?

Uh I don't know how much is you know the governor has uh was out in front early. He's been more quiet lately. Um we're we're kind of on the outside seeing what happens there. Um the one I do want the most main one I do want to point out was 502 which was on a kind of a fast track of support early on. I think it it's getting a little more opposition called the reset bill. Um this would have more impact. It would create a board state level board that would actually be able to make decisions on citing uh data centers. So essentially it would uh remove local control uh to some degree and possibly a significant degree. Uh CCAT or I'm sorry MO has come out in opposition to this locally um for for that reason. Um and again how how these come about how they ultimately would happen you know there there's good and bad some some and um and some of them you know we may be you know working for the next you know five months on on zoning issues with these and then you know something happens in Harrisburg and some of that becomes moot because we no longer have the the power control but that's our our system. Um I'm going to keep going uh and continue with the zoning. I just want to say up front uh we're going to hit on some of the things that we're both seeing, hearing, kind of learning ourselves, gearing up to advise communities with um with with these uh zoning issues. And I already said I think the need to zone is important. I think the big question, one of the big questions up front is is this should this be treated as a buy, special exception or conditional use? Uh I feel pretty firm that special exception and conditional use is where this um should live right now given its uh complexity and some of the unknowns. Um and also the ability

special no you don't even special well but you can require there there it requires the public hearing you can set forth what's what needs to be provided like in the pen future model ordinance it requires certain studies to demonstrate you know where the how the noise will be suppressed where the water's coming from do they have the energy or not um that my understanding but special effects even in the in See is is a by right use I mean there's not but you have to meet the standards and if you don't they

well yes you have to meet the standards but still that would be the case in any in any type of by right use there would be standards and zoning arguments to allow for that to occur us by right use as well so conditional uses a by right use as well but I would I would suggest that a conditional use has more has more input by the municipality by the by the governing body than a special exception. Special exception is going to go within. It's not necessarily looking at the overall policy of the municipality and and it's the onus is on the township to save. It's not

well or contestants or anybody. I mean, I would think criteria set out in a zoning ordinance that that requires a conditional use and that and and the criteria for what can be considered as part of that conditional use should happen in that platform than a special exemption.

Well, like I said, I I think we should I I'd appreciate having that conversation for sure because um yeah, we want to have the best advice we can give. Uh I'm still I'm still right now I'm of the opinion either or I was thinking special exception. There might be political reasons why the conditional use like we saw you know Plymouth uh you know had a proposal that was public and that was in the that was because they don't have zoning for the use and the zoning hearing board was going to hear that and that was going to be a big deal then it and it got tabled but um uh I'm yeah I think that's I think we should have that conversation

conversation special may not give the municipalities the I don't want to say control but the ability to affect the outcome that they could get in a series. Yeah.

What I am seeing with the models that I like and and we don't we don't have our own model and we'll I'll talk about the end we're going to go that route but um you know they're setting forth these uh studies um requirements Mike's going to mention a few of them here the right and you know what's going to be the body to say yes you've done that or that's satisfactory or not. And that's to me that's the grounds for either making it more difficult to dissuade the development if it's not in the right right to be there or in the right place to be there. Um or or cover the basis of what we the local constituents want to be sure is uh addressed. Um so either of those bodies I was hoping my office they could accomplish that.

I don't think they're overly concerned about that. I think any of these any any of these developers or companies that are going to propose data centers know that they're in for a process like it's not like they're building a single family house and they're going to right now it's going to be right and it'll get a building permit. These guys, these these these companies, these whatever entities that are coming in for these data centers know that they're going to be in for some some process of scrutiny input. Lawyer,

what whether it's lawyered up or not, I'm just talking about like they know that they're they're not walking into something that somebody's going to rubber stamp and say we give building permits. This is going to be a process. So putting a process in place and and and giving them guidelines and hurdles and conditions that they need to work through, they know they're going to be doing that. Well, and again, things things are changing monthto month here. And I think there was a period and maybe we're still in in it or at the end of it where there's a race. You can get in if if one of those big powerful developers can get somewhere where they don't have, you know, the zonings or protections that are obst might be obstacles otherwise,

why wouldn't they do that? Um, and I think we're we're see we've seen that. Um, so there the point I'm trying to make is I would be concerned about putting in the the scrutiny in the zoning ordinance um for them to have to abide by because what if then they just sue and they they're expecting it anyhow get get it approved even if if the municipality is not comfortable with what the plan is. Um that would be my concern. I'm not sure I understand that

if if there's not if those things aren't in there or in the code then what's you know even if they decide that you know we see it in other uses like people want to say no or deny it well on what grounds and if it's not strong enough those grounds aren't strong enough then they might get challenge sued and you go to the court order where you have to do it anyway uh and don't have the control

I think you're going to prevent that but I'm I think we're talking about I think we're on the same page I think what I'm trying to say is that I believe there you're right there is a race to get something some regulations, some zoning, land use regulations in play so that you can so that the municipalities the governing bodies do have an ability to affect the process and the out and potentially the outcome and where the outcome is headed. I agree with you there. What I was trying to say is that I don't think we should be shy about creating a model ordinance that puts in the pro puts in the scrutiny in the process and the potential for conditions because these these developers these entities know that they're going to have to do that anyhow.

Oh yeah. No. Okay. I totally agree. Okay. We're on the same page. I think we're on the same page. I'm agreeing with you. I just wouldn't be shy about writing in some of that regulation, some of that condition, some of that process because they're they're expecting it. And that that's the that's part of the guidance we want to give. And um whereas on the flip side, if you were to do all of that for a single family home, I mean, that's like excessive. Nobody would expect that. This they're expecting.

Interesting. One of those bills I skipped over um I don't know if it has any weight to it yet, but was was based specifically to uh ensure that data center uses weren't subject to more ownorous uh requirements than other industrial uses. And I that kind of worries me because there are these aren't you know there's some apples and oranges aspects to this. It's not I mean all heavy industrial has its has its major issues. Um, but I don't think they're all

I worry if uh if that's would be too industry friendly. Um, we're we're really short on time, so I'm gonna probably short shorten Mike's uh contribution. He's we're let me just jump. So, we're we're looking to do uh I think a white paper is the most achievable in a short term. Um, and I'm talking, you know, in the next month or two, um, to get out to have some of these concepts, have some of these, uh, guidance out to our municipalities. Uh, we're also talking a possibility of a future event, um, as early as maybe February. Chester County uh, brought it up. Davey's been talking to them. Um and so there might it might be a municipal officials focused opportunity to to educate and bring people in and uh uh have some experts and advice from that arena both for the concerns and also for for uh you know the economic development side as well. Um Davey did you want to share uh anything um from your uh Dave's been talking to EAC's and actually been doing a lot on this issue so I don't know if you wanted to just sum up anything that shared. Yeah, just in the interest of time I can uh keep my voice brief. Just to say that in the few months that I've been here, the data center issue has come up for me daily. It's something that I'm talking to EAC's and residents about constantly. I've also spoken with other sustainability officers in other uh uh states across the country that have more data centers than we do and uh other experts that work in this field as well. And the conclusion I've come to is that it's in the county's interest to issue a model ordinance as quickly as is possible. I know that the planning commission has a very thorough process which I uh respect and I think you know we shouldn't take any shortcuts but just to say you know my perspective is that the best thing that the county can do is support municipalities by issuing a model ordinance that they can have as a

resource. Um, we know that our governor is very pro data center and in light of that I think again trying to get ahead of this issue and be proactive. Uh, John talked about all of the um and uh EU and things that are out of our control having a model ordinance is something that we can control and this is one way that we can support municipalities. Um, so that's just, you know, my perspective, but I'm here to support the planning commission in um whatever way I can in helping to to uh pull it a model ordinance together as well.

Yeah, there's some local examples um not a lot um and like I mentioned Limick, but a couple outside East Coventry East Vincent that are of nature. Mike had put together some some of the provisions that stood out in those. Uh not necessarily judging what what is great and what is not. Um but that's something we're we're evaluating and I think I I don't disagree with with what Davey suggested. um whether or not it's a a full-fledged here's a model plug and play although no no model is ever just plugand play but or it's just calling out the ones that we think are the best that might already exist in order to to again have that a shorter turnaround um because there are there are issues that we haven't dealt with and they're difficult to put into cotification. Um, so if if we see someone else has already done it, we like it, then let's essentially copy paste and say this is a good way to go, we recommend it. And I think that achieves the same goal, I hope. But we can talk more.

Do you see it as a district ordinance or do you see it as a as a use regulation to be applied to districts?

Well, I think I think I think you're going to see it differently depending on the municipality and what they're what they really are are they are they really looking to facilitate this? Do they see it as an economic development goal or do they see it as you know we want to protect or guard against or don't want it at all. Um, and that may that may judge with the approach they take over whether it's an overlay, whether it's in the existing heavy industrial. Um, and and and then this is where it gets complicated too. You know, if you're what if you are talking about, you know, 100,000 square feet and it can be done, you know, it's you wouldn't otherwise know it's there and it's part of a R&D, you know, campus or center. Um, or we don't want to mess up those that needs that aren't as as critical or as significant in terms of their impact. So, um,

conversation coming up in our regional planning groups. Yeah, I think Eric hears from them as well. I think, uh, that that prompted some of our audience today, um, for this, uh, discussion. Um, but yeah,

yeah, they've all talked about it. They're all asking the question of, yeah, should we be adopting an ordinance to make sure the region's covered? Um, they are working through it actually a little bit in Pasta. Douglas has an ordinance, I believe, but also they uh looked at a model ordinance, a proposed ordinance from East Coventry Township potentially for for data centers that they reviewed just this last Monday night. So, yeah, they're all they're all coming up and and hopefully use our model ordinance to to approach um several of the communities in the regions. All right.

Yep. And this is the last thing that was on. Community benefits agreement is something we don't see as much of, but this is also a very popular recommendation and I think it is important too um in terms of laying out what are what what is the the company that's going to come in and and build or run this? Um what can we ask of them to do to help facilitate to mediate mitigate mediate? Um there's big money in this. So we the municipality should be getting everything it can to help um supplement what what what it might what what impacts might occur. So there we are. We're close to we're in 11:30.

Yep. I already covered our next steps. And I I do want to mention just I mentioned Pen Future and York County are the models that I've been looking at the most. Um, Pen Futures is shorter, but I I I do like its success and and they're certainly of the uh environmental stewardship side of things um and protection. So, I think it's good to start there. York County has a very complicated technical one and it involves a lot of like everything from tree plantings to, you know, things that might already be in a so that aren't as critical for a model that of just looking at this use, but um but it is probably has a lot of good things in it. So, that's fine. Other comments from board members in the room comments from anybody online?

Not anyone's chatted with me about it. There are a lot there's a big group. Anybody online that would like to make a comment on this comment on this uh topic? No comment. Public board member. Nobody. Anybody in the room staff? We may follow this kind of ad. We may follow up uh some updates next month. We do have somebody. We have someone who just raised their hand.

I hi I apologize. I was called away on another call. Um I really want to thank you for going over this and highlighting all the key issues. It was extremely helpful and although it was only an hour, I think you did a really good job of covering, you know, all the key issues. And I look forward to the um to the model ordinance. And I think, you know, for those of us out uh in my area, probably in other areas as well, I think we're really concerned about the potential impact of uh legislation from from Harrisburg, that even if we have what we think is a good ordinance that protects our local interests, that we could just be completely overcome by by Harrisburg. So that's I think one of our biggest concerns here. um and also a lot of us on wells uh issues about the about water use but I really want to thank you for doing this.

Anybody else reading

Scott take the work program briefly and then we'll discuss it more in January. Yeah. Uh 60 seconds on your table. You have a copy of the draft. Um similar procedure from last year if you were part of that. Uh we're going to present this in full or know or more full in January and and hopefully seek your approval. Um in that time we pro just if there may be some proofing uh that still needs to be done although we tried to do as much as we can. Uh but also the rush to get this out and and cover all the work we want to. So it's set up I won't those who are new to it um if you have any questions feel free to contact me uh our setup is similar as it's been in the past this might be the last year it's exactly this way as we have a new comp plan next year um maybe correlated to um but those focus topics are up front seven areas where projects are kind of arranged around and then we have our signature programs our comprehensive plan uh the community planning assist contract assistance work gets its own chapter in detail which is useful and our core functions we'll show that everyday so to speak type things that we do here. Uh and then finally just to clarify in the back the appendix identifies really the same work that's throughout the document but organizes it by uh you know our planning sections within the the department u it's more I think an inter interdep department uh mechanism or tool resource to see what everyone's doing but we put it out there as well most of every all the work kind of reiterates the work out uh if you do have comments ments um it is feel free to send them my way um prior to our January meeting. Um obviously we'll have a presentation and opportunity to discuss and take any comments then um but if there's something you see or question um we can

address it sooner than that we're happy. So I will any questions on that? So I think it's I think as in past as in years past with the work program, it's incumbent upon board members to go through the work program. This is why we changed it up a little bit instead of having it presented to us and then the piece of comment getting an advanced copy in December and then scheduling a uh a more extensive conversation in January. And the reason I say this to go through it and be prepared to discuss it with staff is because this will be an opportunity for us to um have some input or some discussion about what is going to take place in the year to come and um express priorities. um concerns about workload, concerns about what being in there at that time and be able to uh the board to interact with staff direct way about what's going to happen in the following year. So um leave with board members to go through a one quick question.

Yeah. Yeah. Um the as I was looking at the just new guy and trying to make sure I understand the layout of the document. Scott the the departments uh listed or enumerated in the appendix match the org chart with the exception I think of urban design doesn't appear to be listed but design planning does. Is that the same thing? Uh yes. So our our design department is like in the orchart encompasses graphic design as well. Uh so what you those two are separated in the appendix from urban design to graphical but is design planning the what's called design planning in the appendix supposed to equate to the larger group called urban design in the or chart.

Yes. So that that's a good point maybe an inconsistency we can resolve. Actually, those are some of the notes I was thinking about changing and didn't get when I discuss next time just changing be a little bit more but thank you for not. No, I'm sorry. I'm just I'm trying to learn what everybody is and exactly they are. So, all good. Thank you.

Uh oh, and lastly, again, just reiterate uh to Stephen's point, these as they have been previously, all these projects are noted in in the tables within with time frames. short is what we intend to accomplish in the next well year in 2026. If it's medium or long is expected to take longer. So many of these projects were in the last work program and some of them were that's because they were medium to long term but we adjust those each year seeing where we're at and uh designated for Okay. Good. Yeah. All right. And then I'll keep super brief director's report. Um uh we thanked Judy Judy Shia, our intern for the last couple months. Uh this is her last week. Uh she's not here, so we'll go forward with that. We thank her for all her work. Um we're fully staffed to the positions that we have open. It's always good. Uh quick shout out to Austin Mosby and Tim Ketchi who passed their AICP certification test. So they're bonafide. Um and we're always encourage our staff to to get that we have others studying for next year. Um, I talked about the budget at the last meeting that will be up for final adoption by the board of commissioners at their December 18th board meeting. Um, nothing to my knowledge has changed since the draft was u submitted that at least that affects us. Um, and then we have an MCO 2050 advisory committee meeting this afternoon uh on that's virtual. Uh and the other highlight uh next week at the board of commissioners they'll be entertaining the first proposals grant applications for the MONCO Forever Green open space program. Uh so we're very excited for that and uh the open space board already reviewed those and made made recommendations to fund the two projects that came in. So we'll give you a quick update on those once they're they're approved.

And finally, the holiday. Oh, two finals. The two we're celebrating the 200th farm being preserved on December 15th on Monday. Um, it's in your events list. Uh, contact D or Steve if you are interested in in joining us for that. It will be at a Christmas tree farm. Coincidentally, that is the 200th farm uh at this time of year. It's perfect.

Going to plan that better. Um, and then speaking of the holidays, we have a holiday party Dece. You are all welcome. Uh, it's from 2:00 to 4:30. There will be a meal uh for the day, but Mexican food truck uh that does very well providing food and uh entertainment in the form of our elephant gift, white elephant gift exchange as always. So again, hope hope to seeing you there. and the events sheet was provided yesterday. So that's all. Great. Thank you for staying. Um any other comments from board members and before we journ happy holidays to everybody?

Yeah. Have a good holiday, good new year. Um look forward to seeing everybody in January if not on Friday. So this place located it's over by the state hospital state uh on stere and yeah it's just warehouse is a beautiful space though we have drew car thing right there waste electricity All right, we're turned. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Happy holidays.