Town Council - Regular Meeting

is May 14th. I will now call this joint work session to order. If you would please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. I want to thank everybody for coming out. Uh, real quick, I'm going to turn it over to our mayor for a quick statement. Hello everyone. Thanks for uh, coming out this evening. Want to start by uh, saying this is not uncharted ground that we're in right now. And uh when I say that I'll you know some of you who been around for a very long time remember that we came out with a 2013 master plan. Part of the reasonzoning in that included the uh the carnival grounds which at the time were uh low density residential and they got reszoned over to community commercial. That was that was a big deal at the time and it's something that we had to handle separately and it's something that u you know the council really had to mle over uh had to think about and so being here tonight is is not it's not the first time that we've had to go uh through a process that included public comment. The good news is that we've had public comment going through this whole process uh for a master plan and uh and we've had workshops and uh the council's had opportunities to bring things up and in fact they've been very effective at it. I'll bring for example uh the Harrison Lashier property which was initially looked at as a potential MXD property and then thanks to uh the council sitting down at a meeting we

turned that into low density residential. So, everyone's had a bite at the apple, so to speak, with this. Um, holistically, our new master plan, I would say, is a very good plan. Unfortunately, what happens is you can't make everyone happy. And and I'm speaking first because I'm going to be the first one who's not going to make everyone happy, unfortunately, although I tried to. Uh, the bottom line is, you know, these are tough decisions. uh made by your elected officials up here. And at the end of the day, some some of you will walk out of here uh not totally uh satisfied with the job we've done. And then others of you will walk out of here uh extremely happy with what's gone on. There are properties in here that there's not a lot of question about. They're going to get reszoned. Uh there there's nobody's really arguing against it. it makes sense and uh and and those those I consider those the lowhanging fruit and those are things that the council can act on you know without uh with without a lot of concern and then there are other properties where the property owners are not ready to have that property reszoneed and in that case I would say there is no there there is nothing preventing this council from saying you know what we're going We're going to put that one off to the side and and talk about that one at another time. It's a 10-year master plan. Uh we have time to look at those things that are questionable and uh and deal with those in the future. Okay, there you go. All right. The important thing is

the council needs to vote on what is best for the town overall. And again, you know, the regrettable side of being on the town council is you're not going to make everyone happy. U nobody runs for election. I ran unopposed. Now, I still had people who voted against me wrote in somebody else. Okay? and and I can live with that because I'm going to do what's best for the town. I would even tell you uh something that's near and dear to my heart is Rails of Trails and and 99% of the feedback I get on that on our new section of trail is really really good. But there were some residences that were not happy with that and uh you know and I I took the arrows for it. But uh but at the end of the day, that trail is it's being used and it's, you know, it's a great amenity to the town. So, I'll take the arrows. Okay. Uh again, uh council had input on this. The planning commission listened to the council. Uh changes were made to the master plan. I think everybody did a really good job uh at the workshops. I think the public came out made good comments at the public hearings and I think it's a uh you know I think it's a solid plan. We need to figure out a way to implement it with as minimal uh impact negative impact to the uh residents that are that are involved in it. My only request tonight is uh no finger pointing across the tables. Uh everybody did a great job. we're where we are and we just need to uh get through this. Okay. So, thank you everyone for participating in this. Thanks. All right. Thank you, mayor. So, um I'll I was the one that made the motion for to actually bring this meeting uh during our our council

meeting. So, um I I'll let you know the purpose of my thinking of why. Um, I know the mayor says we had a a chance to really go after some of these zonings and I know that we did hit the Harrison Lasher, the very big one. Um, but uh I don't believe that the council necessarily had a full shot to look at every single parcel of land uh during these workshops. Um, I personally was not comfortable voting on them uh without having an opportunity in an open forum to ask the planning commission questions and give the council an opportunity to ask the planning commission questions. But also, I wanted to hear now from the owners of the properties if they wish to speak. Um, not two years ago, there have been some properties that have been sold within the last two years. Um, so I wanted to give fair opportunity for everybody. that was the reason for my tableabling of the vote has nothing to do with the master plan, the planning commission or any thing of that nature. We have the burden of actually enacting this ordinance and I didn't feel comfortable doing that without having this meeting. So that is my purpose as to why we're here. I appreciate the council support. I appreciate the planning commission for yet again coming out for one more night. I promise you we're not going to drag this on. And um I really really do think we have a good product in this master plan. Maybe after tonight nothing changes, but we're going to look at it and we'll give it an opportunity and because of the open meetings act, we're going to do it in front of everybody with uh the citizens having a chance to have their input heard as well. Uh now, so like the mayor said, we're not in uncharted territories. It has happened before. There should absolutely be no fingerpointing. um you know it's just trying to come up with the best possible solution for the town which I think everybody in this room wants. So if we have to have another two hours just to hammer it out then that's what we're

going to do. So that's the purpose of the meeting. Um you know I what I will do if you look at the agenda um I'm going to kind of move one thing up. I'd actually like to get public comment first. Um, I want to know from and hear from the public before the commission and the and the council start going back and forth. There might be some things that we're unaware of. Um, but I want to give the public the opportunity to speak first. Uh, how many people in the audience audience wish to speak? Chance, two, three, four. All right, we have about eight. Um, is about three minutesish. Is that amanable for everybody? just so it gives us enough time. All right. If so, um, if you'd like, we can get a line over here by Barney and, uh, we'll take public comment now. So, anyone that wishes that wants to speak, if we could just get a line over here and I would just need you to state your name and your address as well, please, when you Holly, do you need me to take notes? You You got it. And I will say too, uh, if you agree with something that somebody already said, you don't need to repeat the same thing. Just say that you agree. Um, but please state your name, your address, and then the partial parcel of property that you're wishing to speak about. Good evening, mayor and council. Uh, my name is Paul Burkett. Uh, I live at 8101 Bennett Branch Road, which is outside the town limits. However, the property in question is 301 Watersville Road, uh, which is directly across from parcel 1485. Uh, I felt that this is an ongoing process. We should be, uh, zoning that

property, which is in the northwest corner of that intersection of Route 27 and Watersville Road. Again, again, as I say, it's across from parcel 1485. We cannot find a record of what that zone is and uh it's surrounded by high density but we're looking it's been used as medical professional medical dental optometry uh physical therapy dermatology for the last 47 years. Uh and I would really simply like to request it be zone neighborhood professional just as the one across the street is. That's really uh I would just like you to put that on record and that's all I have. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Lee Haywood, 1808 South Main Street, um which is one of the parcels on South Main Street for limited commercial side of the street. Um, so I've been to several of these other meetings and heard some of my neighbors talk about um, their opinions on it and kind of done a little bit of my own research on it too because um, you know, I've tried to read up on what is limited commercial, what's commercial, like actually go through and like it's boring and dry and you know a lot of little details but um, you know tried to pay attention to like what you can actually do with limited commercial, what you can actually do with commercial, what the sizes are, what, you know, a size lot can handle and stuff. So, I've I've done a little bit of research on, you know, what it is actually reszoning wise and what that I feel like what that would mean for the neighborhood. Um, I'm in favor of it. Um some of the reasons behind that are

um well one of the first ones is I've seen how long it takes to reszone stuff like well once it's reszoned for people to actually get their plans in place and for actually things to change. So, I mean, it's not going to happen overnight if somebody, you know, wants to do something next door, but if they do, there's restrictions on it and there's like a whole process and procedure to go through of setbacks and of obstructions and of like being able to, you know, not have something that's an eyesight. There's like, you know, times of day that you can't have public into your limited commercial. There's, you know, a lot of different parameters that won't change that neighborhood drastically. Um, as far as I see it, um, it will help, you know, our property values in 50 years with it being that if, you know, some of the houses want to like change it up and and develop it into a living commercial or the commercial side into something else. But um yeah, I think a lot of people were against it because it's well I shouldn't speak for them. I'll just let them speak about it. But I feel very confident in, you know, reszoning it into what it is. And um I don't take that lightly. I have two daughters and really like the town, like the neighbors, the place I'm in. Um and so, you know, there's been a lot of thought and a lot of um focus on that. So, you know, that's my votes for. Not that we're taking a vote for it, but you know, that's I'm I'm all for it. So, thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Emily Benase. My husband Kevin and I own 1904

South Main Street. Uh I first want to thank uh Councilman Washwa Demoter and Evans for the opportunity at this meeting today. Uh really appreciate your support on this matter. Uh Councilman Demoter opened his remarks on the subject of South Main Street at the last meeting by asking what is our vision for South Main Street. After listening to Miss Hatley's response, it would seem that the planning commission's v vision for South Main Street, the gateway to Mount Ary, is cold, faceless office buildings that lack any character. Nothing says quaint historic town quite like those in the suffocating congestion that such commercial buildings would produce. Some members of the planning commission have repeatedly told both the council and my husband and I that a majority of the residents of South Main Street supported this resoning which seems to involve demolition of our homes for things like medical complexes. I would therefore like to point out that some on the planning commission have been plainly dishonest and acted in bad faith in making this recommendation. This is not man one man's word against anothers. There is actual verifiable evidence that the claim that a majority of residents supported it is untrue. According to Mr. Breeding, 80% of the residents of our street supported resoning in 2021. I took the time to look up when every house was last sold on that street. Even ex 12 of the 18 homes, fully twothirds were sold in 2020 or prior. Even when excluding 2020 sales, the number is still one half of the families on our street who were already living there when the planning commission supposedly spoke to all of them. I am therefore confused as to why when Mr. Kelly and Mr. Evans actually went door todo a few weeks ago, all but one of the residents who uh all but one home was opposed. Excuse me. One of two things is true. either all but one of the residents who previously supported it now do not or the planning commission

lied to you. Which do you feel is more plausible? He als Mr. Breeding also told us that the town does not require the revenue from commercial space to your point, Mr. Mayor, about what is best for Mount Airy. Additionally, Miss Hatley repeatedly told you that just you just hadn't heard the people speak who were fine with it. If I am not mistaken, our mayor was the president of this council from 2019 to 2021 prior to his election to mayor and should therefore been present for any meetings where such testimony was heard. But I did not hear the mayor corroborate anything that she said. I would also like to remind Miss Hatley that if she supposedly recused herself from this decision, ethical considerations dictate that she should not be lobbying on this issue. She did us a favor and said the quiet part out loud, though. Medical facilities would take a lot of investment and construction. I don't currently see anywhere to undertake construction on South Main. I see single family homes. For these reasons alone, the council should decline to reszone, but I will continue. Commercial zoning does not increase property. I'm sorry, we're just at three minutes, so I just want to let you know. Yes, sir. Thank you. I just have a few more points, sir. Yep, that's fine. All right. Commercial zoning does not increase the property value for a single family home. It destroys it. I offer the example of one such property property currently listed in Lisbon. The h home is in a highly sought-after school district. It's a four-bedroom, three bath. Comparable homes sell well into the 600s. This home is surrounded by commercial properties, though. It was listed at 625 in January of last year. They dropped the price by $100,000 over six months and it still didn't sell. It was listed at the $100,000 cut a few weeks ago and has yet to accept an offer in a very low inventory market. This is the reality that those of us face who might choose to stay in our homes after resoning. When we moved there, we liked the quiet deadend street

being surrounded by historic homes on large lots. The street is kids for great for the kids. We want the child our neighbor is expecting and the children who regularly play in front of our house. We want to live next to people, not businesses. And my husband and I have worked very hard to make our property the beautiful home it is today. Councilman Mund said he can't stomach the idea of revisiting this aspect of the master plan at the last meeting. And while I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you, sir, it's difficult for me to stomach the thought that we might be the last family to enjoy our home. We therefore ask that the council amend its ordinance to exclude South Main Street from resoning considerations, and I thank you for your time. Thank you. Um uh my name is Olivia Lewis. Um I and my husband will uh are the new owners of what's referred to as the Keith property in your uh agenda there, which is parcels 8 1383 and 1382 on 1906 South Main. Um and as my neighbor pointed out, uh we bought this house pretty recently with the intention of making it a much more than 10-year home. Um buying the house, we weren't aware of this process. I we kind of have a theory that the previous owners may have moved seeing the writing on the wall. Um we are concerned about the changing of the environment in which we want to raise our child. Um we purposely picked a dead end street with a number of families there. um and having commercial properties wasn't part of the vision that we had seen for our family and our home. Um, you know, in the broader plan beyond this ordinance, they're looking at, you

know, turning our house and everything behind it into an office park, which, you know, I know that's probably many years down the road, but when you invest into a home, you're making the investment for many years down the road. And I I'm just very concerned about what turning this very residential street into a very commercial space will do for the quality of life for the people who are living there. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Kelly Miller, 73 East Main Street, Westminster, Maryland 21157. I'm here tonight on behalf of potential purchasers of what's known as the Voslo property. The physical address is 1801 South Main. And I am not speaking for Mr. Voslo. He is here to speak for himself, but I am speaking for my clients. And I I won't go into too much detail because you heard me speak at the public hearing on this. And so I I'm not going to repeat all of those comments, but I will say that this property is in the priority water and service area. It's in the designated growth area and it's in the priority funding area. And because of its location at the 27 and 70 kind of interchange right there, it is an opportune location for the town to consider commercial growth. uh specifically and and I I do think it's appropriate for this council to consider all of these requests individually and even in terms of their location because I understand that the full breadth of requests request before you are scattered across the town. But I am speaking about the properties on that side of South Ma Maine when I say those things. And this comes as no news to anyone here because you're all quite involved in the process. But as the

first gentleman to speak here, maybe the second pointed out, a site development plan process would absolutely need to be undertaken before any any property proposed could go through redevelopment. And that may or may not be successful. It would have to meet adequate public facilities. It would have to meet traffic standards. And so the the process that a plan has to go through to ever actually be developed is one that has to meet certain standards and go through certain review processes. It's not something that's going to happen tomorrow, even if this were voted on tonight. It's quite a drawn out process and there are many standards that it's subject to. So I I think that it's important to keep that in perspective because I know that some of the concerns that have been expressed to you have been those of traffic or congestion and things of those nature. And as you're all well aware, that is all studied and reviewed and goes through a planning commission approval process at the end of the day before any development can occur. And the same would be true of this property. So, thank you tonight for your consideration. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jim Archer. I live at 1710 South Main Street on the limited commercial side of the street as it were or proposed. And uh I had a prepared speech last time, but I'll just speak a little bit more extemporaneously today that I really feel that the character of the neighborhood is such that changing it is deletarious. We have a wonderful quiet community and introducing commercial aspects that introduce noise and light pollution and such will you know, change that. And all in all, it's uh we're something you you once you you kick the can and you know, down the road and say, "Oh, well, we can

redevelop it and talk about it more later and later, it's always another uh step down. It does affect property values in very uncertain ways. Uh it increases traffic risks and safety hazard and the overall um nature of Mount Airy already has a fair amount of commercial space available that you know I would propose to get people in empty buildings first before you start just adding more. So thank you. Thank you sir. Hi I'm Joe Consul 1708 South Main Street. Um, when I bought my property, I checked the zoning around it and it was halfacre residential all over the place and um, so that was an important consideration and it still is. And um, but but if you are going to reszone it, I would ask that you um, give us the most valuable zoning um, instead of limiting it. Um, somebody said something about the town houses that we needed a buffer area and garbage like that, but I heard that there's a plan to put in a big medical complex down the street where the the brick house and the old um chicken house or whatever that is is, which is right next to the the expensive um duplex So, um, so if you are going to reszone, um, try to give us the most valuable zoning so that we can afford to to move somewhere else. Thank you.

Name's Kurt Voslo, 14187 Day Avenue. In case anybody doesn't know where that is. I live on the dead end of South Main Street. I'm living here too. I'm also the one that's trying to apply for the reasonzoning on the big piece. That being said, I want to give a little history here. I'm probably the oldest person in this room almost other than Don. Um, but anyway, that being said, pass this around. This is a aerial map from the Baltimore Sun, May 5th, 1968 of the town of Mount Eric. People don't realize, and I'm going to entertain some of you guys, this street here is 27. When you went from Westminster to Damascus, you drove right in front of this building all the way through town. The bypass where it's at now was not there. People don't realize it. That cut my mom and dad's farm more than in half. It was 30 40 acres, something like that. If you see the red drawing, it goes all the way down to where the Sanderly Motel is and over to the railroad tunnel. And it took the farm. They did not want the road to come through. They fought it. They lost. Here we are. We got five acres left. Prior to that, it was a dairy farm. And when did they put Route 40 through? Back in the 40s or 50s, I'm not sure. It cut it again in the first time. So now we have a piece of property that was a workable farm is down to nothing.

So people have heard me say this before. In the name of progress, it's been cut down and cut down and cut down and there's nothing left. It's at a major intersection of an interstate and a state highway. It belongs to be re something done with it. It's not a place people want to build a house down on that corner. And I understand these people's views and I respect them. I don't have a problem with people against it. That's their right. But I'm sorry you you most of these people on that street without the leaves on the trees you can see 27 you can see 70 you can throw rocks to them you smell the hamburgers cooking from McDonald's I'm sorry this is a nice town but it's not Mayberry you didn't move to the boonies it's a city it's a town it has to grow all that development that you see out 27 was never there when I grew up ever. You came through Rididgeville. We moved there to Ridgeville. It wasn't Mount Ary. We got annexed. I'm not sure when it was. When you get annexed, you have to abandon your well and your septic. We had cattle. They took our well, so we had to use town water. Back 20 years ago when we had a drought, the town came to my mom and says, "We were using too much water for the cattle." All right. You don't want the cattle. What are you going to do with it? I'm sorry. It has to have something done with it. And I don't think, you know, even it is a it's not a workable farm anymore. And I have the farm for you who are worried. I live behind all you people on South Main Street. I have the farm back there. It's in the master plan to possibly be reszoned. I have no intentions of doing it. Don't worry about you having a medical facility or town houses behind your houses because

I'm not doing when my kids take over when they carry me out of there. It's something else but not me. So that puts your mind at ease about more development. I hope so. So thank you sir. Thank you. Hi everybody. I'm Bill Hoffman. My wife and own the property at uh 302 Waterville Road. Um, I just want to give you a quick overview of the property and give you a little bit of history and and where we stand. Um, we bought the property in 2004 pretty much at a premium. At the time, it was marked on the the master plan for community commercial. Um, at some point during that process, it got removed. We don't know when or how it did, but it it just was it we weren't given an explanation about that, but anyway, that was removed. Um, we've been running our our building company out of that property since 2000. Um, we've continued doing that and in the meantime, we've presented a few plans, you know, development ideas to the town. Um, one was for a small townhouse project and there were water water issues at the time. So that that kind of fell through. Um recently we presented a plan for mixeduse development. Um had a large pavilion overlooking the park and and you know everybody loved that plan. Um mixeduse hadn't been really fully adopted yet and it just kind of wasn't considered. Um, I have that if you want to see it again. But, um, so a few months ago, we got a notice uh went in went up in front of the yard. Um, we were unaware uh that this NP zoning was coming up on the property. We were never notified. So, um, you

know, currently our properties are two. Um, that allows four residential lots. Um, you know, it's not a great spot for four residential lots. We all agree that it's a main intersection. Um, but if we go with NP zoning, the the way the zoning reads as far as I see is we would have to basically remodel the house that's there. Um, you know, it's a big 2.42 acre lot. it. Uh, this is an old stone foundation house with timber framing. It leaks. It's I run my construction company out of there. I fix it up. It looks pretty good, but it's not feasible to to rehab. Um, the amount of money invested in that lot and to rehab that house is just it would be it wouldn't work. um NP zoning would just be a big downgrade to our existing zoning. It it'd be a huge loss to the value of that property. Um you know, we all as property owners hope that our home or or investment property, you know, appreciates over the years and helps us in our futures. you know, this zoning would take away pretty much take away 20 years of appreciation and all the hard work and effort we put into this place. Um, you know, it'd be pretty devastating loss for us. Um, you know, although we along with most people think this should be considered CC or LC zoning, it's on a major intersection. It's it's a perfect property for it and most people believe that. Um, you know, we just don't think neighborhood professional is works for a single neighborhood professional lot.

It's 2.42 acres on a major intersection that with a little house, it's it's just it doesn't work well. Um, you know, under the current zoning, and I've given this a thought and and there's a way this would work, and I don't know if it would be possible. We discuss it a little bit, but uh we're allowed four lots in the R2 zoning. If if those four lots were designated as the neighborhood professional, it could make sense. It could be a nice small little neighborhood professional park in a great transitional zone. But you I don't know if that zoning you can actually do that without going through subdivision and so forth. So, but I think that could be an idea, but it'd have to be designated that way before, you know, it just wouldn't work otherwise. Um, so we're about four and a half minutes now. All right, one one more one more point and this is pretty much for the town attorney. Um, this property is shown on all my surveys and and it shows in meets some bound survey from Vanmar that the town line runs directly through the center of the property. The after conversation with John Breeding, the county is now showing that the property is fully in the town. I don't I haven't seen that survey, but John can can let you know that that's what they're showing. Uh we've never gone through an annexation process, never legally were annexed. Um it's baffling to me and quite honestly if you know if this is the issue with this property, you guys probably should consider backing off of it and get things straight before we

consider, you know, let this go and and let's look at it in the future. Um thank you, sir. Thanks. I appreciate it. Hello. I've spoken about this before, but I and I sent an email today, but I just wanted to make sure. I'm from the the portion of South Main Street, that's the Carter Q, Vet, Medpa, Walmart, Verizon area. So, I just wanted to um speak about that. Ma'am, what's your address? Oh, I'm sorry. Laura Ransahov, 1208 South Main Street. Thank you. So, we're longtime residents of South Main Street and we've been engaging with the town on this issue for many years and watched the development. So, we wanted to address zoning changes on Main Street between the intersection at Ridgeville Road and Grimes Court where properties are being transitioned from NP to commercial. In 2000, there were 14 residences in this area and over time some were replaced by commercial developments like the Dunkin Donuts and the Caltor malls and other have others became NP businesses like the vet and the Medispa and six have remained residences over those 25 years. Three of those have been zoned NP but have remained residences like across the street from us and down the road. Um those were reszoned NP when Walmart went in and have remained residences. Um but until this master plan there are only three houses which is 1302, 1208 and 1206 remaining zoned residential. They're located across from the commercial properties of Verizon and Walmart and the NPZ zoned homes 1201 and 1205. Um, past council and town planner discussions were had about reszoning

these to NP to allow to align with surrounding development and match the other side of the street, but it's never been changed. And I want to speak about the NP zone. I'm grateful for the town's past efforts to mitigate commercial impacts, including the mall setbacks, the signage, the lighting, the landscape of those two malls. Those could have been far worse. and the NP zoning rules on lighting and hours and trash collection and maintaining the building footprint limiting it. Those really have reduced the impact of development and we have not had any issues living near the NP businesses but the current plan is a significant departure from the previous development. The current plan seeks to eliminate the existing NP buffer zone, which is now three properties wide, which is the vet, the Baker, and the Medispa. And they're going to reszone it. Well, I guess you guys are going to reszone it commercial and um change one of the three remaining residential properties on the block to NP. So, this will alter the area and only two properties then will remain zoned residential. and you know where those are. Um, so the summary is you're going to reszone three main street properties from NP to commercial, reszone one property from residential to NP and leave two zoned residential. So we oppose this plan. We feel that it disrupts the effective NP buffer zone to Main Street by reszoning the vet acres and Medispa to commercial and negatively impacts the two remaining. So, I proposed some solutions in my email. Option one, and we're at about 3:30 now. Okay. Please do not make We did all receive your email, though. Okay. Please do not make changes. I've sent emails before, though. I want to make sure you heard this. Please do not make changes. Maintain the current NP

zoning by keeping the vet, Bakers, and Medispa NP. Don't make changes to the buffer zone, please, and keep 1302 residential. Thank you very much. I can't do my second option, ma'am. The time time's up. We have we have to get going. All right. I asked for three. We went to four. So, I appreciate But we did all receive your email and we actually have a copy of it sitting right here. Well, I know I spoke last time and then people asked me. They weren't clear on what my position was. That's my position. Please leave it as is. Thank you so much. Is that it? Yes. Okay. All right. I want to thank everyone for speaking. Um, you know, this is kind of what the purpose of this meeting was, was to hear everybody. And now I feel like we're at the portion where, um, the council and the planning commission can basically speak openly. Um, what I would ask is, uh, you know, very direct questions, not opinions. I don't want to go back and forth uh, on certain things. But before we get to that point, I would like to go through the ordinance, make sure and alleviate any properties that we don't have any imposition on or any concern with and then we can not even uh bring those up. So, what I would ask is if we have a consensus of the council when I bring up each property, if we have three, we're moving on. Um, and that's, you know, kind of how we'll do it. So, if we want, we'll uh look at the document here and we'll just go down, you know, each one and make sure that if we have a consensus, we're good. Um, and if we don't, then we'll mark it to to discuss. Sound good? Uh, question of clarification. Yeah. So, when you say we'll go through each property individually and then if I hear a consensus of three, we'll move on. But

that's not a vote, correct? We don't we don't vote on this until it comes before the council in order. But I but if we have if we have the majority vote and we know we do, there's no point in wasting time on Okay. Yeah. Can I offer another quick comment or I want to get moving, but yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, the issue for me, I mean, I'm fine with going through this process, but your process takes these one by one by one individually. And I believe, which I've expressed at previous public meetings, that we really need to take a holistic look at the whole South Main Street end of town and other parts of Main Street. And actually, the whole Main Street corridor needs to be looked at to see if it meets are we taking Main Street in the direction that we have a vision for it. So, I'll work through this process, but I believe I'm going to end up at the end of the day perhaps not favoring reszoning any of the South Main Street properties. Well, we don't have to give based on what I've heard from the public and and my own views on how this should be done. Now, when I say one by one, I I want to be clear. I'm not going to go through 1806, 1808, 1902. Extended South Main is one for me that if we have an issue with that, so you were going to look at that collection. Yes. Correct. All right. Thank you. Yes. Should have made that more clear. So, first we'll look at uh lot 73 back circle. Um partial 0339. Uh existing zone R2 residential. Recommended zoning is industrial. Um does anyone have an issue with that? It's just a simple yes or no. We do not need an explanation. I do not see an issue with this one. I'm good. Okay. Moving on. All right, we're looking at, let's see, let's talk about the uh Main Street, not the extended South Main, but

just the main street partials. So, we're looking at 1308, 1306, 1304, 1302. So, that's the veterinarian Baker property. Basically, that little corridor there. Does the council have a consensus with those properties or do you feel like we need to discuss? We need to know which Yeah, we need to know. I'm sorry. Stop document. You're going through. Wait a minute. You You're skipping around here. It looks like Nope. On page It's page four of the ordinance for you. There was a reprint. I'm looking at the map. I think it's going to be easier to look at the map. Yeah, I was trying to figure out my mistake. Well, I was actually looking on this the whole time. So, back at here was one. So, let's look at the land, you know, the map here. So, you're looking at South Main Street, which is number two on page two. Hold on. Hold on. It's the Hatley property. Gotcha. Gotcha. This document right here, guys. Okay. Everyone with me? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I'm good. No, I'm just with me. So, we're on South Main Street. Yeah. Looking at the South Main Street properties. So, you have the 1308. Yeah. You have uh 1304, 1306, and 1302. Do we have a consensus of the council regarding the suggested reszoning from neighborhood professional to LC for 1308, 1306, 1304 and NP for 1302? Do we have a consensus of the council? Yes or no? So I have a comment. My my view would be no. I do not support reszoning

any of those properties based on what I heard from citizens who live on that street based on commercial creep into Main Street which is going to change the character of our main street. I don't want I don't want to just we're just going to go through these right now and we'll get to our reasoning if we have to. So the answer is no. No for me. So yeah. Do you All right. You have no issue. I agree with uh council member de motor. Okay. Carl, I'm good with it. All right. So, right now I just I want to ask some questions on that one. So, we will go back to the South Main Street. All right. Now, we're looking at the South Main Street extended properties. The first one is 1801 South Main. It's right below what we just discussed and it covers all of extended South Main. Oh, that one. Um, I have a feeling the general consensus is going to be we're going to have to be talking about this side anyway. So, at this moment, we should just say no. I don't agree with it since there's probably going to be discussion on it. And I got some questions. Yes or no? I don't agree with it. Okay. Okay. We'll go back and discuss the South Main extended properties. Tim, do you want to break the Vos property out from all of those and just get a consensus strictly on Voslo, which I think we'll probably match that. But yeah, I think when we get when we go back and discuss and then if you go through and we look at partial 1485, which is 302 Watersville Road, uh I believe it's a Hopman property. We just heard from him. Uh, do we have a consensus on the recommended zoning right now from R2 to NP? Uh, I'll start out uh with a no. Just we I want to discuss. No, I'm a no. Okay. All right. So, that's what we're

going to do. So, Ralph, I'll turn to you. Um, so right now, backre circle completely good. We're done with that. The back. Oh, sorry. The very last. I didn't see. So, now we're looking at 11 or I'm sorry, 1011 East Ridgville Boulevard from low density residential to neighborhood professional. I do we have a consensus, Jason? I don't have a problem with that. Okay, Carl. No, no problem. I know which one they're talking about now. So, yeah, I'm good. All right, I'm good as well. So, we can move on from that one. All right. So, as I kind of thought, we were going to have to discuss the extended South Main, the Main Street, and then uh obviously the Hotman property. So looking at what we need to do, are you guys comfortable starting with the Hob property? It's just one. It'll probably be a quick I just want to make sure. Did we cover what's considered the full property parcel 0339? The first one. Did we do Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. Cool. Thank you. So Ralph and Planning Commission, are you comfortable if we just discuss that one property right now? 302 Watersville Road. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. I'll open up the floor for um questions. Can Can I make a comment? Sure. Real quick. Uh Tom, based on the um on the fact that the maps may be incorrect at this point, uh do do you have an opinion on on clarifying the map before we do anything or if uh or if we can zone prior to knowing exactly where the property line is or the uh county line is? So on this property on on the Hotman

propert so yes I would I would seek to clarify where the town line runs. The town can only control the zoning that portion of that property that um is within the town limits. Um I so you know until that's clarified I I I probably would not proceed to reszone or or do anything with it till that's clarified. Okay. So it sounds to me like we shouldn't address that until later um sometime later. Okay. The only question that I have on it is um and I'll open up to any planning commission member or obviously the the chairman. Um do you know the reasoning for the NP recommendation? Uh why you know based on the pro the the building that's sitting on that property now it wouldn't really coincide with it without a major investment. Um just kind of what the reasoning for the MP was. Sure. Sure. Council President. Um, and I invite any other commissioners to jump in. Um, so our understanding was the the house that's on that property currently zoned residential is actually conducting business in it and that um to suit the land use to the zoning districts that are available within the town code. We felt that the current land use of a business within a residential structure is appropriately designated as NP, neighborhood professional. Uh to go to a higher intensity zoning option. Uh when I when I mention higher intensity, we're going residential, neighborhood professional, limited commercial, community commercial, industrial, and in

there. I won't even get into downtown zone but that's a specific geographic area. So in short answer is uh it is indeed a residential current zoned parcel but there is a business being conducted within the residential structure and that fits the description of neighborhood professional. Last comment. If we go to a higher intensity limited commercial or community commercial, now we have challenges with regard to it being adjacent to what's across the street and what goes up Watersville Road. And also diagonally from that, we have a residence in the county. Um, but it's a residence over on that other diagonal corner. So, we felt neighborhood professional was an accurate update of what's occurring as far as land use on that parcel. Um, and so that's why it was recommended. Okay. Um, if if I can, and I apologize if I'm kind of taking us backwards and I'll defer to John. Um, with regard to the boundary question that was raised by uh I think Mr. Hoffman. Um I think and correct me if I'm wrong, John, but in our map updates, the the county did admit that there was a line error on the maps u more so down and and not necessarily on this property, but if you go south along Maryland 27 toward Watkins Park, if you're following me, uh there was a county admission when we were doing the draft master plan and getting the maps updated, the discovery that that sign uh captured the ride ofway on Maryland 27 too far west into Watkins Park. Am I correct, John? That's correct. Yeah. And so the county realized at that point they had to make a an adjustment on all their records to

move that line. basically move that line means expand the town real estate with a smaller ride of way going toward the hard stand toward the road. Um and so I'm not sure if that also follows right up to the Hoffman property. I'm kind of waving my hand here, but if you're staying with me, that error I I believe may be the reasons that we have this question on the the Hoffman property, if that makes sense. Okay. And and I know John is in process of getting that all updated with the county records for that correction. Okay. Great. Thank you so much, Rob. So, it makes sense. I mean, if it's already operating under basically an NP as it stands, then that makes sense. I would just be concerned about the applicant actually came in initially requesting MXD, right? Um and when it was presented in the public hearings the two years ago or more um you know that's when the discussions happened. Um the MXD of course was not um right for this parcel just because uh the way the winds were blowing I guess at that point in time. Um but again the the the line adjustment is something we can look into closer. Again ultimately Carol County did look into it with the state highway right ofways etc. and then they move the the corporate limits over. Again, if uh that could be subject to a change or mistake potentially, it would have to go through a different process possibly. Okay. But I I'm not sure if the applicant really wants to be reszoned to NP, right? And so if that's just the rightway line, then it looks like probably that property in full is in the town limits. I mean, we all have rightaway lines on our property right up front. Well, it's a state highway right away, but yes. Right. But then it looks like that possibly could. So like council

president said and the lawyer said, we have to wait to find out if he's fully in our town limits to even know what we could reszone. And and if I may and and I would I would just add personally that's logical. Before we talk about changing a districtricting or a land use designation for a parcel, we ought to have firm ground as to what are the boundaries of that parcel. And and so I you know I tend to say let's let's do the right you know step A B C and defining the parcel boundaries and concurrently the town boundaries because it's involved with that right away going on down to Watkins Park sounds reasonable to me as the first thing we would want to do before we address resoning. Well, then what I would suggest is uh when we do come up with the new ordinance, if we do come up with a new ordinance that this just wouldn't be on that one, we have 10 years to within this master plan process. So, okay, perfect. Yeah. Just be I'll just be concerned if we Oh, sorry, Council President. May I No, you're okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I I didn't mean to interrupt you. If I did, I apologize. I'll raise my hand or pen next time. I apologize again. uh because with the applicant coming in and saying, you know, there's some concerns with it if it goes to NP because there's, you know, improvements that he would need to do it and things of that nature, but he's using it currently as a business. So, neighborhood professional fits the current use of the property. It's been for 20 years. So that is he also said well we could if the whole thing is in the town boundaries he would like it like like us to consider upzoning it to a more intensive use. But unfortunately with that concern comes along if we're going to start following

the new guidance in the zoning of what the adjoining use is. is kind of stuck at neighbor neighborhood professional right now unless something changes in the corner or across the street. But I do agree that the um importance of finding out the exact lines should be the first thing. Yeah. So I would think that we'll have a consensus of the council to table this property. I'm sure it's not on the ordinance until uh until we know where these boundary lines are and we can revisit that within the next couple years. But I think right now it should stay as is uh before we really know what we're dealing with. All right. Um if you guys wouldn't mind, I guess let's go ahead and look at um the South Main Street, uh which is page 74 or page two in your packet. It'll be 1308 South Main, 1306 South Main, 1304 South Main, 1302. Okay. South Main. This will be the veterinarian, the Baker property, the Capay LLC property, and the Hatley property. All right. So, um I will open up. Ralph, do you have any comments or anything to lead us off? Excuse me. Sure. Sure do. And to help everybody here, I went ahead and um anticipated this question. And so if I could ask John if you could take me to about I'm going to guess slide five because we're going to start off with this. Um yeah, just click advance. Yeah, I'm trying to make sure it's should be No, just click advance. I got a block. Yeah, I know. But for some reason it's not presenting itself as it should. Before we get going, I just want to I don't know if you should recuse while we're discussing. Yes. the Hatley Pri we're talking about Seth

mean there's no there's no vote or motion. Yeah, we're not voting tonight. It's just a discussion. There's no vote. If you want, you can certainly recuse and step out if you'd like. Um but since there's no motion, yeah, this is no vote. Is it Is it coming up? For some reason, it's not coming up. Try Martina. I'm comfortable with you here. It's nothing more than a conversation. So I but I just wanted to ask so that we were on the up and up. That's apologize. I said shut down. Should be right. It's not coming up for some reason. It was up earlier. It was working fine earlier. Can you Can you just go to PowerPoint and close it and reopen it? There you go. There you go. Is that the point or is that to keep us in line? It's one or the other. Feel like I'm in Catholic school. We're going to do this later. So, I think that is what I'm trying to do. Excellent. Same page. Now, let's go there. See, it's still not it's it's coming up on this one, but it's not coming up on the monitor for whatever reason. I'm trying, Ralph. He's on page five. I'm on page five here. Thank you. Let me uh let me

just don't see. Let me try again. Oh my gosh. Hold on a second. All my crap on my Okay. Let's go here. Right. Yes, sir. That's what I'm trying to get to. I'm going to get hit by the a minute af. Okay. I guess six or five. Keep going. There. Number 12. We're there finally. Thank you, Rob. So these are the questions that I've done here for reference Walmarts extends This is commonly referred to as the horizon building. I believe neighbors in that

area and it's a subcel of the overall commercial parcel that is the reference states. We do have a housing area that planning commission in question as it was stated earlier. ress. There is a slight flag here that goes back to this is Dr. This is the property. So just for where are we right now? That's where we are right now. Next slide. And so the commission looked at that because of this business to expand his business. to add amenities as parking parking for that business took him out of those things. So that began the analysis by commissioners as to

why we have to And so at that point then we looked at we jumped from that and we looked at what is down here existing states and societ to go also these three driven by the desire of this business. So at that point now we looked at commercial buting up against this property and the other properties that extended up to this street. And so what we've tried to do, not always from a very high zoning industrial res. So what we try to We try to look at we walk through those particular properties and say well we have commercial resum we try to look at being consistent with what's across the street LC LC

trying to do a lower gradual zoning commercial and still All right. Um, one quick question I have, uh, and then I'll open up the floor, uh, council to discuss these properties only and again we don't need opinions we don't need how you're going to vote just questions um to me do you as a commission feel like NP is almost a beginning stepping stone because to me that's kind of what it looks like you're going from residential to NP because that's an easy transition but any business owner is always going to want to expand expand always under under no circumstance. I'm I own a business myself. If you let me expand, I'm going to expand. But if I buy a property under NP, I'm going to operate under those guidelines. To me, it looks like NP is almost a stepping stone to an LC. And then LC could be a stepping stone to excuse me to a CC if that makes sense. So, it's very easy to get into that NP when you own a home. you can just request it. But now my business is thriving. I want more space, right? So I'm stepping from NP to now an LC strictly because I just want more parking and I want to add on to my business. So my concern is those aren't I mean they're still look like homes. I mean they they they did very very well in updating the properties. They look great.

But at what point does LC then turn into well we need more now it goes to CC and it to me it just looks like NP is being used as a stepping stone to not have to buy a commercial property and invest in that initial property. So I'm going to buy a home under NP and then operate for a couple years and then ask for an upgrade in my zoning. Um if I may. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so I I kind of understand the the concern um on that. Um I I feel confident in saying that the um MP that's prescribed here for that residence, there is not an existing business in there. Um so there's to to kind of address your concern specifically to that property. To my knowledge, there's not a a business there that is going to thrive and eventually um request LC. Um, well, I'm talking about the the NP now that's requesting LC. Oh, so that's that's the the doctor's office, correct? You know, correct. He bought into an NP, right? Which restricts what he can do, which as a business owner, that's, you know, your prerogative to know what you can do based on your zoning, right? It's like the MP is being used as a stepping stone to an LC. And I have no issue with Dr. Cappuccino. He does great things. My concern is 25 years down the road, 30 years down the road, it's not going to be Dr. Guy Cappuccino anymore. What then? Does somebody come in under LC that's not a doctor and they put something else in that property, whatever it may be, do they request another upzone because they want this or that? And these are the questions I'm not on the planning commission, but these are the questions that I wanted to ask um before voting on it. Yeah. So kind of um kind of crystal balling the likelihood. So just setting it up. I believe what you said is if we go with

this but that particular property c Dr. Cappuccino's wants to grow even more intense on that particular lot. I don't know if I would be on the planning commission and I don't want to speak for my other commissioners but that would be the next intensity would be CC community commercial. And in my opinion, if that were to come forward to the planning commission or the council down the road, that would be absolutely a no-go from my perspective because now you have community commercial up against MP. And you have community commercial that could encroach upon the residences that are in the rear on that culde-sac. And that's not a good recipe for that proximity. a higher intensity community commercial that close to residential would be something at least I'm speaking for Ralph Gant. That would not seem uh favorable to me at all. I mean, I'd invite the other commissioners if they have an opinion on that. Um I understand your concern that it looks like I'm going to crawl, walk, run to a higher intensity uh by going from neighborhood professional to LC. Um, and all I would say is to support that small business which desires to provide more services and can only do that by expanding parking to the rear. The only expansion that could be allowed is if it's reszoned to that slightly higher intensity of LC. Yeah, those are, like I said, I'm not saying yes or no. I'm just asking Mr. Question. I'll get the now with the since my all my time as liaison on the complaint commission stuff and these older properties what I would call as legacy what's there the CC next to neighbor professional and nowadays I think in 2013 I could be incorrect someone can correct me is that when the

master plan was redone they updated some of the requirements of what can go next to one another uh so it's like further down the road CC would never be allowed as chairman Gant was saying just due to the restrictions now CC would never be allowed next to neighbor professional res residential or anything of that. I understand. I have the same concerns with the upzoning later, but if the zoning codes stay the same going down the in into the future, there's not going to be much heavier creep in my view down Main Street. Also, if you look currently at the map here, this is uh current you have CC and then three properties that are neighborhood professional now directly across from residential. So, it's already transitioning. The zoning code is doing what it's intended to do is transition into residential and as Ralph as comm chairman Gent said the crystal ball any residential you know we could come down in 10 five years could request neighbor neighborhood professional. It's not going to go from say residential to limited commercial or to CC. It just can't further down. So I'm that's my take on this. It's a good transition. Also some of the neighbor professional the I want to say the not the bad side of neighbor professional is like say the Baker house next to the vet down there. It would take a lot of money for someone to use as a neighbor professional if the condition is ripe for it or if the house is in good condition. and neighbor professional is to use the existing structure. So if we don't do anything for that, we're kind of

hamstringing a current owner of a property and I believe he's come in and requested LC for that property. So that's that's my take on it, sir. Yeah. And if we're good with the the zonings as they sit, I'm good with the We're good with that. But but I want to use this time to ask questions. Oh, yeah. Not not to Yeah. No, I didn't mean to. If I went overboard, I'm sorry. No, no, no. You're fine. Just so um good. Anyone else have any questions real quick for me? I do. I'll I'll try and frame this as a question rather than a observation. So if uh if an NP property were changed to limited commercial under the code section 112-37C it says no building or structure may be erected used or occupied except in substantial conformity with the below examples. So part of the part of the uh permitted types of uses for LLC is it not things like hardware stores, paint stores, uh other types of stores, and is it or is it not true that if someone has a property zone limited commercial, they could they could someone could buy that property, tear down the existing building, which perhaps perhaps was like an old NP building. It was like a nice old-fashioned oldtimey Main Street looking building that had a business in it. They could take that down like if it was reszoned LC, they could take that building down and put up a new building and open up a hardware store or whatever. And and the type of the building is going to look different than a typical building

on Main Street. Is that correct? Somebody could come in and take a building down and erect something new and it would it could look modern, right? Well, across the street is a very modern brick, not old downtown name. I understand. But I'm I'm saying if somebody if if we change something to LLC and then that person sold the property, a new property owner came in said, "I want a little Ace Hardware store as long as it fits the space for LC, they could put up a Ace Hardware store and it would look like an Ace Hardware store." Ace Hardware store is already up. I I didn't ask that. Oh, okay. Okay. to be just to be clear, I think he's just asking of the possibilities, not stating that something's actually going to happen. So, somebody could, but they'd have to go through a pretty strict planning process. Okay. Thank you. So, that's my comment. I want to ask the chair, anybody else on planning. Theoretically, under LC, somebody could say, "I want to put a hardware store." And that doesn't mean a hardware store is going in. Oh my gosh. That means they got to come before this body and go through your process. Am I correct? Yes. It's not like you're going to allow another hardware store, for example, to go in that spot just because it could. Correct. Correct. It's a pretty strict process process chair that you have to follow. Am I correct, Ralph? That's absolutely correct. And and conversely, if you want to do something within your residential structure that speaks to NP land use, that's that's easy. That's registering your business within your town. You want to do people's taxes, you right, you you understand. However, if you go to LC and you now want to put together something along the

lines of raising a current structure, building a whole new business, that's a very rigorous journey, right? They're not just going to drive up with a backhoe, tear down the house, and start building the building up. They're that's why we entrust it to the very capable planning commission, but it is rigorous and there's a lot involved if someone wants to put that up. Right. And that's what the doctor went through with his Right. I remember that. Thank you, Rob. And and I would add to add maybe perhaps another level of assurance. I I would say to to the council and and also to the public, these commissioner these volunteer commissioners are very much tuned to the words harmony. And I and I put that in the same context as integrated. And and what I'm implying there is as we look at every applicant come forward to do anything in the town, there's an overriding consistent view on whatever that proposal is. Does it harmonize with its surroundings and the town strategically? May I uh just a quick question for Tom. So correct me if I'm wrong, but the planning commission does not have a say over what a property owner decides to do with the property from a business standpoint. We can talk about setbacks and building heights and design and things like that, but we don't get to control what type of store or whatever they want to put on that property. Agreed. If a hardware store were a use of right, the planning commission would not have a lawful right to say you can't build a hardware store. The planning commission will have a site plan review that will include perhaps some architectural review and things like that, but the planning commission doesn't have the authority to say you can't use it in a way that the code says as of right an owner has the right to use the property. I make a comment and that that's part of what I was getting to

is you know this is an opinion. Zoning is, I always say, 90% of the ball game. Maybe it's not, but the point is how you zone that property. Okay? Once you zone a property the way you zone it, that property can have whatever on it that's that's allowed as described in the in the codes zoning district. So if you look at the suite of all the kinds of businesses that could be an LLC, those things could be in the L on that property if it's LLC. Go ahead. I I would only offer um and and I'm not arguing with you. I would only offer a slight nuance to that. Whatever is proposed in the preliminary, whatever is proposed in the preliminary site plan, then the concept plan, then the rigor of APFO certification for adequate public facilities, and depending upon the zoning district when it now has to go to what's called the pattern book in that whole process, I would just simply caveat, it's not always what the developer wants because all of Those hoops energize these commissioners to say that's not in harmony with the surrounding neighborhood. Those are not colors that are amenable to the small town feel that we want to maintain. I'm just giving examples. The architecture is too drastically modern and doesn't fit the adjacent businesses. Um and just by way of example, we're heavily involved with such a deliberation on the Southside Plaza medical buildings that um one of the residents actually mentioned that's going to go up by the

forthcoming roundabout. Um and so we have put an extreme wire brush to that applicant's uh submission um on materials on the outside elevations, on the colors of the outside elevations, the roof line, the windows. Um I I just want to try to give you some assurance even though they say it can be an allowed use in the code. um they go through this commission's gauntlet to make sure it's the right thing for the town. I would um and I agree. I think this planning commission is probably one of the best that I've seen in my 20 years of living in the town. Um what I would offer is I've seen some planning commissions that I wouldn't say that about as well. And that's where you can't look at just this one current and you can't at just this one council because it's going to be different. Sorry, Lynn. Uh the next time we meet, you know, so so you know, it's it's if if I knew that this particular commission was was here for the next 50 years, I I agree with you 100%. Um, but I but I don't know if whoever's put in that chair next is going to be as rigorous, is going to have the same ideals and the same uh research capabilities and stuff that this current commission has. I'll have one more question for this and then if we can we can just kind of move on. So, um, when you're talking about it can't be CC, it can't, you know, and this is just my personal question. At one point they were all residential, right? the Iliano property. I believe when I met with Martine and we walked there, you said there was just a couple houses over there at one point. Five when I moved in, right? And I was not on the commission when all of that went down. I have no idea the history. I just know that they did repurpose

one of the homes that's now the Mount Area. So, like again, reminder, you guys were also updating our design guidelines as well to, you know, so they took the house that was there and repurposed it. Okay, because that's the other thing. It's like if you look at that lot size, the likelihood that anything other than Dr. Cappuccino sized building would be there because of that lots, you know, it's like one of the things that we go through. There's, you know, there's Well, here's I guess that's kind of my question is when you when you look at before I plaza was there and where the Mount Aren is, you had a couple homes and I'm sure 75 years ago, nobody thought I plaza would be there and Arian would be there, etc. um you go from CC at Carter Q Food Lion uh that you had an an NP buffer that went into then strictly residential going down Main Street. So we go from NP to LC. Now 1423 1422 did not approach until uh I don't know the partial number for Guy Cappuccino but until he did. So when he did those two partials I said okay we'll do it. Here's my question. Let's say again somebody comes in and it'll never you know he comes in and says I want to go CC 1423 1422 say yeah we're good with that we can do CC2 right now what I'm saying is now you have that big parcel of land right there that could all be CC and it butts right up against food line so now Martina or whoever owns 1429 says I'll go LC and then residential next to them says I'll go NP Now you have your buffer. You're the same thing. You just moved down three plots of land. Okay. So what I'm saying is if you set a precedent, you set a precedent, right? And that's my concern is that at what point do we this is your community

commercial, this is your neighborhood professional, and then this is your residential. You understand? I mean, then that's just my question. And I would and I would ask honestly and I don't mean disrespect but you do have a stake in this. So I'm going to ask Ralph or or anybody on the planning commission. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Uh I think part of the thing is we have to remember that properties and towns aren't static. Everyone has the right as a property owner to request a change. Correct. So and that's what they're doing. And as the planning commission then we're looking at what does the code say? What do we have to work with? people are bringing in, hey, I want this change. This is the code we have. We're not in charge of what goes on that property. That's up to the code. So, we look at it and just we're looking at this. All right. Well, we have LC here, we have LC here. We have to look holistically above from the town. Does it make sense for what they're asking or would this make sense? So that at the end of the day, we sit down. We not static. You have every right to ask for the change. We can't what if 10, 20 years down the line, what if they want this or what? We just can't do it at the time. We have to look at what we have. So they come forward, they say, "This is what we want at the time. We look at it. Does it make sense?" Okay. Then we send it to you guys. I mean, that's at the end of the day all we can do. We can't Okay. always what if it forever? No. No. And I'm not what ifing, but I guess what I'll ask you is you say that you're not stacking as far as meaning you're not going to clump a group of properties. No, no. The town's not static. You can't like you're saying, "Well, if they're residential at one time, correct? They can request NP. In the future, they can request LC. We don't have any right to judge that or tell those people that because a town isn't static just like there's people who lived here 50 years ago and says well those houses weren't there but the town's always changing and healthy neighborhoods and towns do change eventually course in different ways. So we can't always just go down that path but we have to and we can't but it so we now when you buy a residential home when you buy a residential home I mean we absolutely have the right to say that home's going to stay residential even just because

you requested unless you want to request a change. Well which But we don't have to we don't have the grand said. Correct. Correct. But if we look at it as a town when we look at what our our guidance is and we look at it and we say hey this makes sense or we take an our opinion on it then it's good for the town and we think it is. So that's what we can say. Okay that makes sense. I agree. I think that we need to make sure that we understand where the stop the stop I mean any property owner can ask for a change. Does that mean again do we have to grant it? No, we don't. If it's not good for the town, our town has consistently said we want to keep our small town charm, right? We want to limit growth, but we still need to grow a little bit. And that's where I think we need to either keep it the same or make a decision to it's going to stop at this portion and then take case by case. I don't I don't think we should be looking ahead. Um, just one more thing and and again, it's already been stated, we really really try to follow the code. Absolutely. And so that's that's our Bible. And so when we made the LC prescriptions for those three, um, we also reflected on the code and what it says about the use of limited commercial. And so I'm just going to read it. The limited commercial district is intended to provide a less intensive commercial zone than the CC district and must only be assigned where adjacent to a more intensive commercial zone such as CC or any other more intense commercial zone. And so my point being that paragraph says when you apply or prescribe LC, you really need to have it positioned as that less intensive zone

adjacent to a higher commercial intensive zone. And that's our case with the food line southern states auto zone proximity. U we weren't satisfying that by leaving it MP is kind of my point. So, so if the question is are we doing this in compliance with the code, we're we're actually following the code by recommending LC on that on that border with the existing commercial. So, okay. Yeah. And again, not challenging any, you know, just just trying for clarification. Mr. President, I just have one clarification. So, I I do want to say that parcel 1423 uh requested LC when the request for reszonings went out to the public via Facebook or the town website. Um and also um the uh Cappuccino the numbers covered but 1428 also requested the LC because he was trying to do his expansion. uh 1422 did not request it, but instead of doing spot zoning, it was holistically looked at that that was as Ralph was stating, you know, across the street we have LC. It makes sense to make it LC and that's why the recommendation came to you guys for your adoption. Okay, great. All right. Um, one more comment. I have a very specific question. We'll move on to the Okay. the other parts. So, under the NP professional district, it's uh I had on under a purpose item number four. And I just want to read this and just help me understand how this statement applies or does not apply to what we're talking about here. Establishment of any of the specific uses under this district shall not be considered a basis for change in any subsequent zoning petition to a more intensive zoning

classification. So, so could you explain what that means to someone that has has has zoned NP? This is under 112-38. This is in the code NP neighborhood professional district under a purpose. And then you go to item number four. Tom may be better. Yeah, I think what this is getting at is qualified Yeah. So, what I think this is getting at is that um so this set of reasonzoning would be what's called a legislative resoning uh pursuant to a master plan or a comprehensive resoning. In between master plans, you can also receive petitions for reszoning specific properties, but in those instances, the reasoning can only be justified through uh um a change substantial change uh in the character of the neighborhood or a mistake. I think what this is trying to get at, this was probably enacted well before me, but I'm my guess is the intent here is look, if if if there's going to be this kind of zoning up, it can't serve as a basis later to then say, well, now I've got a change in the neighborhood and I want to upzone it again. Uh, so I I think that's what this is getting at as I read it. So basically, if you need to upzone it and there's no mistake done or anything, it would be a good guess to say you got to come back through the master plan process to upzone it to something higher. I think that's the intent of this and that's how I read it. I just have I just wanted to point out one thing on this CC and residential are right next to each

other on here. So I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that that has happened. Okay. And so when we're talking about things, you know, we like to have a buffer. They they don't always happen that way as evidenced right there. So just want to point that out. Actually, these are improving the conditions down that way instead of I mean it's more like what you pointed out was what I would classify as legacy. It was done way before anyone anyone's here's time. And it was done the way it was done back then. So yeah, but it was done and and I'm just making that point. Yeah. But things can things can change and uh you know to council member and and if I could if I could trail on that. Sure. Because Commissioner Wallace brings up a very good point with regard to past mistakes. It kind of goes to you never know who's going to be on the commission that applies the rigor and the discipline for keeping something like that to happen. I I would say that is something we ought to avoid. the the circumstance that she points out uh with that neighborhood and the CC which is the west side of the parking lot for southern states. Um but I would add I think whoever did it at that time they added in a burm because there's a large earthn burm that tries to do some separation from that higher intensity commercial to that residential. Um, I call it a burm, John. But, um, and then there's other things that we could applique on later when we look at that and go, "God, that was stupid." And what we can applique on later, aside from like BMS is landscaping, screening, those sorts of things that if the residents in that community that said, "Hey, we're tired of the noise, the light pollution, the sounds, the dumpsters being emptied at 2:00 a.m. in the morning." those sorts of things can come to the council and to the planning commission and the town staff. Uh

probably I should have said town staff first um to address those unfavorable realities of having residents near a highintensity district. Yeah. So I think um I'll finish with this one uh properties and and my only concern is we're looking at Main Street. I mean, that's the the center of of our entire community. And and I'm worried that at what point can anybody once we zone these come back in in 10 years and say, "Well, there was a change in my neighborhood. All these were reszoned. Now I want to be reszoned because my neighbor was." And it just flows its way down. If we keep changing, there's always an argument for a change in the neighborhood, which then grants, as Steve said, the opportunity to reszone. At what point does it stop? And if it doesn't, our main street's not going to be our main street. And that's my concern. We are at CC to NP, from NP to LC. You get a couple parcels of land that are all LC that want to go CC and they all group their land together and sell it. And now you have one big parcel of the land that's zone CC, but now that CC's got to be next to more LC and then NP and it just keeps moving its way down. Is it going to happen? I don't know. But the problem is it's a precedent that it could. Did we think that Iliana building was going to be up there 25 years ago? Martina probably didn't think so when she bought our house, you know. So my concern is when does the change, you know, not change, I guess. When if you want to own a business, do you buy in a industrial type zone to run your business? Um And as much as I do appreciate Dr. Cav Guy Cavuccino, it is not in my purview to make your business

more functional. When you bought in that property under that zone, you know what you got, you know. So, I'm not saying that I don't agree with this. What I'm saying is I'm concerned that even when I'm dead and gone, this main, you know, it's just going to keep kind of moving its way down because of a change in the neighborhood. Every time something changes, it opens up something for the next neighbor to say that changed. Can I give one real quick insight? The think the catalyst was blight in my my area. The house before Dr. Cappuccino bought it. Yeah. Waslighted. Yeah. No. And it's great. It's great as NP. I agree with you. That's that's a cautionary tale. Um, I don't know where else on Main Street blight would be occurring so that somebody could see an opport I mean, he had a good deal on it. It's great for his I guess it it worked, but if it had not been blighted, if it had just been a house, there would But if it was light. Okay. Well, thank you guys very much for this. Do you have a comment? Yeah, just a quick comment. um planning commission really is guided by the land use article and you guys operate in in black and white judgments are made up here by the council and you guys make votes that uh change legislation um or through legislation change the town code and everything. So uh and change these zoning. So, uh, the only thing I want to point out is that, u, uh, in regard to a concern about what could end up in these LC areas, I mean, there have been, uh, not that long ago a an example where where a council made a judgment call and and zoned a property as as commercial.

and that that concern didn't seem to be as high at that time, as relevant at that time. So, so in in that regard, I would just, you know, remind the council that uh that some of this, you know, there's you got to deal with what you have today and and do what is what is best at this point. uh while trying to look in that crystal ball, it's it's a tough tough thing for you. But the planning commission generally is black and white. So, and that's kind of my my point is I'm more asking like, do you think that this could happen? You know, you guys are kind of the the ones that are in charge of planning. I I don't know what I don't know. So, that's why we're asking. That's all. Um can we move on to the South Main Street extended properties? A chance. Did we decide on this? We're not deciding anything tonight. No, no. I mean, did we deciding anything on this? We'll need a consensus. We'll come to Yeah, we'll come to Oh, okay. Gotcha. Never mind. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So, South Main Street Extended Properties. Um, and I do agree with the mayor. We probably should separate out the Boslo the rest. Is that correct? Council agree. Yeah. Just All right. So, we'll start with the the Vos property. I have one question. I think what Carl was trying to get at is do we want this as part of the up and cominging ordinance? Is that what you were asking, Carl? Or Yeah. Yeah. Because weren't we trying to decide what%? Yeah, that's what I was saying. Not decided yay nay on everything, but did we want this to be included in something coming down or are we happy as as Yeah, I'll take a poll on the council. Council member Evans. Uh yeah. Yes. Lyn, hold on. What was the It was

to see if it was coming from You want these properties on the ordinance as they're stated right now. Oh, as is stated right now. Yes, Jason. All right, we have three. All right, we'll move on to South Main. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, John. Thanks for the clarification. Oh, yeah. One, please. Yes, sir. How about two? President of the reason that we are prescribing these. Let's just start there. Hey Ralph, do you mind holding the mic because CMC sent me something? They can't hear somebody staying by themselves. I'm with you. Thank you. And I just viewing public. Gotcha. Me now. Okay. So, we anticipated this question. So, we tried to lean forward into kind of giving everybody the basis for how we got there. And so, how did we get to CCNLC on those 20 parcels that are located on South Main Street Extended? So, I offer these three reasons. And again, I always invite my fellow commissioners to to to uh chip in on any of this discussion. I am hopefully going to shred each of these reasons a little further detail to try to give you some better insight as to the thinking that went behind that prescription for those 20 parcels. So to begin with when we looked at this we began this process in chapter 4 of the land use code uh I'm sorry the land use portion of the master plan uh in November of 2023. So, we've been at this for quite some time to deliver a master plan for the town. And at that time, uh, we had asurances that most, if not all of the property owners at that time, and I'm I'm kind of foottoing that context because I know there's been disagreement with what currently the feelings are,

but at that time, there was a prepundonderance of desire to go to those higher intensity commercial codes and LC. The second reason is is because in our master plan as we devised the vision for the town in the next 10 years to 2033, we broke that vision down into goals. And one of the goals was goal D, which was the commercial growth that would be necessary for the town. And I captured uh basically the soundbite of what that goal says. pursue our economic development along Center Street and the South Main Street corridors while exploring suitable sites for specific things. For instance, the new police station, um, medical services and small businesses. So we were trying to prescribe a short succinct goal that would say we want to aim toward that with regard to economic growth within the town within a favorable atmosphere for uh small business uh etc. And then lastly, um before we wanted to prescribe additional LC and CC um neighbors, uh we wanted to make sure we had a good inventory and a good assessment of the inventory of currently available commercial and LC property. So don't go adding on something if you don't have a firm fix with what you got right now. And I think one of the residents kind of alluded to that. Could we now just build out what is known as vacant commercial, which we refer to as infill, or commercial or LC property that is stagnant? And so I I I will address that in in the shredding out. So if I can get to the next slide. So again, going back to the November time frame when we first looked at this, this was chapter 4 of the land use. That's where you'll find all of these resonings in the master plan. We had um a rigor set up within the planning commission to look at every

draft text within the new master plan twice. We wanted to have a first look and a second look. And the first look occurred in that time frame where we had the asurances that it was a positive thing to reszone those 20 parcels. And then we had our second look down here for chapter 4 in February 8th of 2024. And this second look was contingent upon the county updating our proposed maps for the reszonings. And yes, that did take quite of a while to go from November to February, but it was strictly um the counties the county's process to update the maps. They update our maps for the for the municipal maps. Next slide. And then as we worked through chapter 4 to finalize it and including these prescribed resonings, we then made sure that whatever chapter we wrote, we culminated with a state required Maryland Department of Planning public hearing. And on se September 12th here, we had and this is uh 2024 uh we had a public hearing to address any and all ingredients within chapter 4 resonings, annexations, rehabilitation of stagnant properties, etc., etc. And so at that public hearing to my recollection and again I lean on the commissioners uh there was no push back on the specific 20 resonings that is is the focus topic right now. So then next slide. If we take a look at goal D, uh goal D is included right here within and this is a a screenshot of that page which outlines succinctly what we want the town to become and the goals that are going to make that happen. And again, I've already stated we wanted to have a goal that was commercially developmentoriented and I've already

read u what essentially that goal says. And so why goal D? And I just captured some bullets over here. We wanted to provide in the master plan a sense of a vector for us to have business growth and possible revenue from that increased business growth for the good of the town. We wanted to also provide because we had heard that everybody has to go out of the town to work and that as my kids leave college and come here because it's such highly desirable they also have to continue the bedroom community sense and leave town to go to Baltimore to find a job to go to DC maybe go west to Frederick etc. So what we also saw in providing commercial growth was that we would also add on local employment growth for kids for college graduates that sort of business opportunity. We also, as I stated before, specifically through a variety of interactions with our aging community and our senior citizens, that there was a no kidding genuine need for us to start thinking about growing our own medical services campuses or medical services at large within the borders of the town. And what's driving that? Well, I already mentioned that a lot of us are getting older and our demographics show that we are aging and there's a prepoundonderance of the population that's going into that aging category based upon the 2020 census and just interacting with the citizens in Wildwood up at the community center and so forth. So, we felt like it was a right vector within the planning commission to kind of think in terms of commercial growth oriented specifically toward medical services for that reality that we're all getting old. Um, I'm 38. I got a long way to go before that. I'm just I'm just kidding. Um, 37. Um but and then as the council has been discussing rightfully so the need for us to think in terms of getting out of a

lease facility for our enforcement law enforcement services and into what a municipality really needs and that is a stable adequate police station. And so all of this we're we're underpinning the the logic behind us providing Goldie as an aiming point for the future of the town. Next slide. And so to the question of well what do we got now and is it necessary to look at those 20 parcels u with the help of the town staff and Tom Breeding we did a full inventory of what it was out there right now. And so this first slide of the inventory story is oriented on just community commercial. If so all of this is just currently community commercial. The top half of this matrix is infill. This is community commercial parcels that have nothing on them, but they're zoned community commercial. They have the potential or the opportunity for a business and of course a business that comports to or complies with what the code requires for uh CC land use. The lower portion of this are three properties that you all may be familiar with where it's zon commercial, but they're stagnant. And I don't mean that to be um critical. I'm just saying state the facts of. Okay. So, bottom line is within just looking at the community commercial zone district, we have five vacant parcels that go to roughly 5 acres and we have three parcels that are non-active. Let me use that term um that comprise roughly 1.9 acres. And as you'll notice, all of these parcels aren't adjoining, they're scattered. So think in terms of a community commercial infill opportunity but the largest one is 1.9 acres. Okay. So next slide along

the same lines this is LC now a focus on LC. Again this one is one that is uh available for infill for development. Nothing on it nothing happening but it's in that district. And then these two here which are um have a they have a structure on them um but they're they're non-active. Um non-active is commercial entities. These are the two homes that are up by the um planned roundabout. Correct. Right. Um so and the one vacant above that is actually has a pending site plan. So that's that's correct. And and this is the one that I just referenced a moment ago in my Yes. trying to convince everybody that we don't wink wink nod nod at any development. We we really put a wire brush on it. And so that's that's at Southside Plaza Medical plan. Um and again we got one vacant here that's about a third of the acre that is infill and then the other one is a little over one acre with regard to doing something on it after you raise the current structures. So the conclusions we have here are that if we look at vacant community commercial and limited commercial parcels we have 5.25 25 acres of that that are all disconnected as new build and the largest one among them to do any commercial development CC is roughly 2 acres. When we look at the developed but stagnant or non-active parcels in both of those categories we have about three acres of that offered and the largest one about in that category is is less than an acre. So the conclusion is is this adequate this slide and the one before it and these conclusion is this adequate to provide opportunity for

achieving goal D all those things that I had mentioned earlier that we want to try to do for the future of the town and the conclusion was no it's not enough that was the conclusion of the commission and so we said where then could we provide kind of adjacent commercial or LC opportunity for the town to meet those things that that underpin goal D. So, next slide. So, we looked at the South Street Extension for a lot of reasons. It was already mentioned by the owner of property number one, Voslo, as to its adjacency to this busy intersection, its um proximity to 70 um those sorts of aspects said of all the places that we could find suitable land use for LC and CC opportunity, perhaps this is the best the commission could prescribe. And so when we looked at that and we knew that the owner of property number one, the Voslo property, very much wanted to go CC, just as I mentioned before for the upper four parcels up on the other part of South Main Street, we began with that and we looked at then how could we now do a transitional zoning because we're also very sensitive to Rising Ridge and the residents that are up there in that residential zoned um area. So we didn't want to get commercial intents because of the proximity for that. So we thought in terms of let's go with community commercial on this side which is the east side of South Main Extended and then offer the LC transitional buffering that now would give us that as I read out of the code would give us that transitional buffer where LC has to be

placed adjacent to a more intensive commercial zone such as CC. Um, we think that this prescription also uh is compatible with what exists over at the former Pizza Hut Chick-fil-A commercial area on Riverside Boulevard. Um, it also is a good prescription for offering commercial opportunity that doesn't take a lot of traffic through the town or other neighborhoods which would now invoke streets and roads issues and traffic issues again because of its proximity to the interchange and that it it looked less likely to be opposed by the council as maintaining residential and give us that opportunity for goal Next slide. So that's it in a nutshell. Um as to what's in the master plan. Um John, I don't think um number seven is town property by the way. Um just just to make that point. Um what's the next slide, John? So bottom line, that's how we got to the prescription. Um, I don't know if it's premature, council president, to talk about alternatives or I I should avoid that and leave that to the council. Yeah, let's um Well, first we'll see if we have any questions or if Okay, then bounce me back to the picture that everybody understands. There you go. Thank you. So now I mean I understand why the commission got where they got as far as how things are zoned uh from CC and then on the west end then over to LC. Um to be perfectly blunt, my major

concern is that when this recommendation and and I will say it when this recommendation came through, um I heard that and I believe the council and the planning commission heard that the majority if not all of the owners wanted this and we sat in this open hearing and I think Ralph, you and I discussed, we were both very surprised to hear opposition and I think Martino was too. We were very surprised to hear opposition. So, you know, that's one of the main reasons why we're here tonight. Um because it's it's it's very hard to to reszone someone's property that they invested in, that they live in, that they own when they don't want it. And I don't know if there's a precedent in this town for doing it. I would challenge that if there is. and we weren't aware at the time that that's why we're here, right? Yeah. Right. So, and that's kind of a question that I'm not even going to ask the commission because it's not fair, but I I would like to know if you guys still agree and would still put forth the same recommendation or not, but it's I'm do not answer that. It's not fair. So, and I'm not going to put you on the spot, but this entire piece of property needs to be looked at and we need to figure out, you know, in an open session what the right thing to do is. So, that's why we're here. Um, Steve. Okay. Questions, please. I know that's We're not voting tonight, so we don't need I'm really I'm trying to reframe everything. So, I'll ask some very specific questions. So, Commission Chair Gent, you said that um this was based on the [Music] recommendations that came to you like like and it says you you inherited so to speak. Well, let let me ask my question. Does the town have a

record of the request for resoning? an analysis of those resoning requests and a determination from a from a town standpoint as to whether they would be recommended for reasonzoning or not. And and I don't know if this is required, but I know for annexations a staff report and recommendation is generated. I know for site development plans a staff report is generated. Is there a staff report generated for a proposed reasonzoning or set of reasonzonings? Certainly a set of 20 properties like this. You would think there would be a staff report that says, you know, requests came in, they're approved, they're not approved, and here's the rationale for their approval. I'm just simply asking, does the town have a record of that previous process? I would have to answer that. Um, again, if we look at this holistically, the east side, the majority of the people there did request it. I can look back to see, I don't think I remember writing a specific staff report for this, but I can look back to 2022 or so to see if that there is a staff report related to this. Um, individual property owners came to me without, you know, verbally asking for it. There was no formal application like a permit or anything like that that was submitted for these resonings. Um, some people submitted emails, some people called, some people stopped in. Um, so to have a quantifiable record, I don't know if I can produce that. I can search

for it um to see if that's something I can. Thank you. I have another very specific question. So, a a question for the planning commission, town staff. Um, the LC zone is described as a transitional zone providing limited number of retail and service establishments. Um, what do you consider a limited number of establishments to be? What would your opinion of that be? What does limited number mean? So, so the limited number is then shredded out within the code as to the allowable businesses that are allowed within an LC zone. And the limited number is written in the code comparative to the higher intensity commercial district which is CC. So when you read the allowed uses for LC within the code, it's in the context of a step down intensity of allowed businesses and land use compared to the next higher commercial district which is CC. So my best answer is when you stress the word limited, I interpret that to mean look at the list of allowable businesses under LC and you'll see that they're much abbreviated, much less than what is allowed under the higher community commercial intensity. Does that answer your question? No. Can I ask a followup? Here is my followup. So on the south main street portion here the one the whole right hand side if you will that's that chunk of property constitutes 7.5 acres that you're

proposing zoning LC that's 13 properties over 7.5 acres that doesn't sound to me like limited number or limited use that sounds like that could essentially be a strip shopping center over the course of 7 and a half acres and 13 properties. Were you saying if somebody combined the lots? Is that what you mean? Well, even even if they're not combined, if there are 13 individual properties and they're all zoned LC, my opinion is 13 properties zoned LC side by side is more than just limited to me. And it could essentially look like a strip shopping center. That is my So one one business, one property. That's that's not clear in the code then. So we'd have to fix the code. Yeah, that's like that. Oh, sorry. That's all my questions there. Do you want me to talk about the initial Well, I um yeah, just just a quick moment in that is again um I was trying to stress that we we try to look to use your term use earlier holistically. Okay. We tried to be a bit strategic beyond just these 20 parcels to look at the surrounding area. And what was notable from our discussions on this particular prescription of resoning was that just to the northwest we have rising ridge homes. We have residents up there. And so if we start with community commercial to the east on that very and I'm going to say a personal comment here a a corner of Ridge Road and the on-ramp to 70 not being amanable to a residence. We thought that in trying to give some um growth opportunity toward goal D, commercial growth for the town, that

this was probably the best place that we could start for that. And that if we started with community commercial, that would allow medical services. Again going back to a more specific business need if and I know it's already been decided but you know perhaps that could have also been considered with regard to a police station as the other example we gave and then in general I gave the example in the go that says and just more good small businesses allowed under the code. We didn't want to go CC all the way across with respect to that residence up in the northwest. So again, I read the code a moment ago that LC is an appropriate transitional zone that is always intended to border and be adjacent to a higher commercial intensity zone in our case CC. So we were trying to do that gradual zoning and land use scheme uh in this prescription. Makes sense. Mayor. Yeah. Yeah. If I could just jump in. Uh first of all, thank you Ralph for uh going the extra mile on that. Uh the bottom line is the planning commission got the information that they needed from the staff to make a decision and a a recommendation and that recommendation made it into the master plan. If this council needs to see more of what the staff put together at any time, then that's something that should be done, you know, when you're voting on this on this ordinance whenever that comes up. As far as I'm concerned, you guys have done your job and you're done. But, uh, but if you need to see more prior to a vote, uh, anyone on the council, then, you know, work work with me and the staff. Oh, yeah. John, I have and I would I would hope that the planning commission does not feel like we're we're not trying to

put you on trial. We're not grilling you. It's just a matter of trying to get clarity as to why things are recommended the way they are and then how we got to that conclusion. Um just want to be sure. We did have people who were quite insistent about commercial um especially well so one particular property that's going to be near the roundabout um because of the impact of the roundabout which in my mind I don't know, maybe Tom could help. Was enough of a change in that area to justify in their minds commercial. Um, we didn't go in this saying, you know, so I think where I'm struggling and I'll I'll go back to any uh is that we are and and Ralph I agree with you. We are talking about respecting the residents on Rising Ridge, you know, and kind of how they are. Um to be very blunt, I'm looking at respecting the residents that are on that road currently, you know, like and I that's not saying that you're not that's not saying that you're not right. you the recommendation that you did I mean it could make sense that that parcel number one is a great spot for something that's not a house that absolutely but somewhere within this town years and years ago before we were all here somebody decided to build 20 homes there you know so and then people decided to make those homes their house and invest in it and live there. Um, so that's what my struggle is with this particular set of properties is that, you know, uh, that's not just a a plot of land, it's it's their homes. So that that's where my struggle is with this parcel of land. Yes, that is a great

spot for commercial, but whenever those homes were built, somebody built them there, somebody else bought them. Now to me, that's no longer a great spot for commercial. That's somebody's house. And that's where I that's where I struggle. That's their neighborhood. I have a some specific questions, but I I I glanced down the the table and it looked like council member Mund had a question. So, I wanted to defer to him first. Question. Oh, I got some. Michael, not necessarily question. I just wanted all question comment combination a little bit of everything. Council President, first off, I kind of agree with what you and the mayor said. I believe the planning commission on what I call south street extended followed the code to where they applied to what they did and they followed the code to the purpose of the code for backing up. So I don't I have no concerns with that as other people have indicated too as council president say number one they you know it's it is a good let's just say the whole east side that corner we would have to look at that say the triangle of one two three four five and six as a chunk of property because none of that there on that corner would be know residentially it's more of a commercial due to what's around 70 and everything else. The west side is residential, limited commercial, makes sense via the code. Is it correct right now? I'm still trying to figure that out because I've been over this code left and right and some things make sense, some things don't. So, I think they've done a good enough job that we need to start discussing what we want to do with these properties. is, but I'm concerned that if we start breaking them out, that's brings us into something

called spot zoning. And that might not be the proper way to do it. I'm not sure if we can or even allowed to do that by state code. And if we started doing that, then we could get what I call Texas type zoning or construction. You could have commercial, heavy commercial next to residential. No one can control it. You get your creep as you do it. So, it's got to be it can't be spot. That's the thing. And if people are concerned of what if anyone talk to anyone on town staff council and previous I'm great at thinking of the whatifs. It drives me crazy. And at one point I got to just stop. And what if what could go on it? That's problematic for me. If if that's what's judging your thought process on it. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying anything could be a what if. Looking Yeah. And I agree with you. Yeah. And 15. And a lot of these properties on South Main are halfacre or less. And as Councilman Demod indicated for something large, one of the more I want to say not in like the more concerning uses under limited commercial or community commercial, someone would have to buy up a good chunk of the properties to make anything like a larger thing. It's a half an acre. There are so sight constraints to them. So I'm still thinking on it and I'll discuss it more at that. But one I'm leaning towards it needs to be commercial. Is it community or limited? I'm still trying to decide. Same thing with 2, three, four, five, and six. Should it be community or limited? And I'll try and decide that by the time we take take a vote vote on that, the planning commission right now. So yeah. And I just can I make a comment too since you guys have all had a

turning, you guys will have a lot of turn when it comes to voting. I won't be at that meeting. So, I just want to leave you guys with something since I won't be voting at that meeting and I but I've been involved in this and thank you to the planning commission because when I was a volunteer on streets and roads, we came to you and I've been a council member for four years. So, we're talking five years ago, you started on this master plan. So, thank you for doing what you do. But, I want to point out something that council president said that I think a lot of people don't think about when you look at that picture when it came a couple years ago. And I'm I'm holding up an example of that picture. It was Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I myself found out at the last public hearing that the Keith property because I called John and said, "Why is that person saying they're representing that property? Some of these properties have changed hands. It might not be what they wanted back then. I know the Keith property because my 31year-old went and played there with her son. It's not that property anymore. So we have to look at what they what is wanted on the west side. The east side that is a different story because you do have exactly what you guys worked with on what you have. So I just want to make sure you guys when you're discussing this when you go to make the vote. Council president said something that I want you to remember. This is their neighborhood. And the reason I say that is I live in a neighborhood where a lot of people in the other neighborhoods that weren't here when I moved here in 1990 use my neighborhood to cut through and they forget. When we yell at them to slow down and they yell at us, okay, the last four years I haven't really gone out and said what I think. But, you know, after next week, thank you. I'll be able to say what I think. That's our neighborhood. as you're riding around the town and you're speeding through streets and this is a big passion of Councilman Demoters is you're going through people's neighborhoods and I want people to forget not to not forget you're looking at that going well yeah

we've got the farm and that's going to be zoned in the county and things are going to happen with that if it's not in the town that we can't control but in the left hand side I see a lot of people now that don't want it that did want it a couple years ago and it or the houses that property wanted it so you You guys really need to take a hard look at what's happening now and and thank you for what you did because you did go with what you had at the time. Look at that and remember as you're driving down that street that that is their neighborhood. So just please remember that when you're making your decision and you're deciding what you want to do and you're deciding and and thank you so much again, Council Chair Gent and your commission for doing what you've done so much the last five years to really put this together. But as we know, things have changed. Council President. Yeah. And and so um I try to be kind of a keep it simple guy. Yeah. And so um let me just reiterate this prescription in the master plan was generated by the agreement on goal D that we wanted to provide some underpinning opportunity parcels for commercial growth. And again, we looked across the landscape of the town and found this patchwork quilt that could underpin commercial and economic growth for the town, but we deemed it insufficient when we look at the size of parcels needed for medical services and those kinds of uh businesses if you if you follow me. No. And that that makes sense. And and so again, we didn't want to give you a gold D, but not give you the where's the beef if you let me where can you actually make goal D attainable. We're old enough to know that, right? And so I would say to you perhaps the and and again I'm just offering perhaps the debate is how much do we look at that as being the

viable option to fulfill goal D for the future of the town. And I would say the alternatives to that would be look to commercial growth on possible annexations. Right. Yeah. Because we've already proven that the infill and the rehab properties aren't going to cut it if someone wants to come in in here and put up a sizable medical services building. So if not this and and again I don't have a personal dog in the fight. We were trying to comply with the code and provide you a prescription for where it could possibly be fulfilled. Do you follow me? Um, we didn't want to give you goal D and then you look at us and say it's not feasible goal. There's nowhere we can do that and we actually removed items in the master plan that have been there for 50 years that weren't attainable. So, I I understand what you're saying. Exactly. So, I'm I'm just trying to put a balance here. Um, there's no personal dog in the fight on on this. It was definitely an intention so that for every goal that we offered you as the vision of the town, there was a way to achieve it. Yeah. I guess and my question would be um when this was being done, a lot of these things weren't achieved yet, but now we're looking at a new police station that already has a location. That's item number one under Gold D. True. We're looking at medical services, which is item number two on Gold D, which we now have a site map for, and a site plan that's going in for Alzheimer's and dementia rehabilitation. Correct. Right. So, we have medical facilities, we have police station. Small businesses do not require maybe that big of a plot of land in all of that. That's fair. There could be infill for small businesses in those properties that you had mentioned before in the current. No, I would say that the the two biggest that we actually outlined in specifics have been attained, okay, already. The biggest being the police station, I would I would think. Um, and we're looking at even reszoning or

upzoning another medical facility right now with Dr. Guy Cappuccino to allow him to expand. Fair enough. So, we have, in my opinion, with before even adopting this master plan kind of already, you know, done a lot to meet goal D. um without uh these parcels of land, which I think is a great thing from the planning commission and from this council and the mayor and staff and everybody else. So, um I agree with you. It it it should be attainable. Um but I would look at the two specifics that we actually named, which were the higher goals in the community, which was a police station and medical services, and I would say that they are already vastly being attained now, if that makes sense. Um, but I understand your point and I understand when this was being done, we did not have those. Um, so I I I fully understand specific questions. May I ask? Yeah. Okay. So, specific question, and this may go to the town attorney or anyone in the room. Um, I believe there's a well on one of the properties that you're proposing to change to community commercial. I think it's well number 11. Is that correct? Just a yes or no? It's a number seven. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh, my question is um, chapter 109 water article 5 wellhead protection. In wellhead protection, it talks about conditional uses and it gives examples of conditional uses as dry cleaning stores, laundromats, and service stations. If you look at the CC zoning district, under CC, as a special exception, you're allowed to have gas stations. And I think not even as a special exception, you're allowed to

have laundry laundry facilities and dry cleaners. etc. My question is, does a special exception mean the same thing as a conditional use in the um wellhead protection section of the code? You're asking me. So, use special exception and conditional uses as a general matter are interchangeable. They are the same thing. Okay. However, I would say that chapter 109 further restricts what can and cannot be constructed within the wellhead protection area as defined therein. So, okay, but also what I saw in the uh I need to give an explanation what I saw in the wellhead protection section of the code again for conditional uses such as dry cleaning stores, laundromats and service stations. Um you need to you need to conduct a hydraologic assessment for the properties with greater than 50% planned impervious services building footprints sidewalks transportations to determine the ground groundwater recharge rate and site development after the site development is completed. The assessment will also estimate the groundwater recharge rate prior to development. My only point is thinking holistically, I'm not going to desone a set of properties, 20 property CC and another 13 properties LC over the span of 17 to 20 acres CC. If I don't first understand I got a well there, I got wellhead protection requirements. If somebody when you zone something, you have you have to zone it thinking about

any potential use as defined in the code. So if there's somebody wants to come in and put a gas station or these other conditional uses, I want to know before I zone something or change the zoning that my water is going to be protected. And there's a whole set of an analyses that has to be done under the wellhead protection ordinance. So that's that was a question and that was a comment. So thank you. I have a quick question about number seven. That's where the well is correct. That's town property and that is town property. So the town would actually have to sell that to a gas station for that to happen or you do you mean like next to it? Is that what you're more concerned about? Because we do have gas stations up the road. I think the town's done a good job of keeping the gas stations. We have what one in Mount Ary kind off south. Yeah. And so wellhead protection is definitely a concern. Um especially with what we've just been through with the phase. So I'm going to put a I just want to say we we're 22 minutes over. I'm going to put a hard stop on this at 8:30. Okay. I'm just going to say one thing. That's why one of the concerns I'm debating back and forth between is what councilman Demot brought up that some of the uses allowed under CC and what's allowed under LC particularly on say what I call the east there se separated easier east east west which is divided one one through seven I consider the east section is that the uses under LC are a lot less intense and some of the concerns that were brought up by councilman de computer uh can be alleviated or might not even be a not a concern but can be alleviated under changing that to LC. So were some of the uses I would say Ralph and Martin were

some of the uses considered when you chose these or what you thought? Yeah. Okay. So the use I mean given the research that we had to go through um when we were considering everything um medical was at the top of the list because and then I guess um we've gotten some feedback from Frederick County which is yeah the west side again we're in these other counties and the I just wanted to be clear the total we got a report recently from Frederick County and the total units approved True. Countywide, not not that countywide is 27,471 units. And we do 2.75 for our people calculations when we do, you know, so that number times 2.75 is 75,000 additional people already approved units just in Frederick County alone. And so the whole thought was we need more doctors. If they take a house and they convert it to their doctor office, great. We need surgery centers, you know, and all of the research that came with that. It was not to like change the entire look of the town. It was more thinking, hey, exactly what Dr. Cappuccino did, if that's possible, but then he ran into limitations. Um, and we want to keep medical services close. We've heard feedback from our older Cole, you know, their whole thing was the people do not like leaving the town to get their medical services. They can't get appointments with their doctors. So, it was really a health and welfare focus. So, under because I read limited commercial. So, basically what could be consumed under limited commercial on the whole property or just even on the west is say we don't say everybody keeps a

property half acre blah blah everything else sells it down the road. There are beneficial adaptive reuses that a new purchaser or even an existing owner could do it because I believe the code for LC allows for homebased businesses or residential. You you you can live and use a business there. If you have like a dress making shop or some other type or an accounting, you can live there. aritect lowkey key low im impact particularly for the west side which is the primary residential and on the east side I believe out of all this say six properties two to three of them have come for requested the resoning then the two other ones are um maybe they're that there's two existing rental units or owned by investment firms over there the Oslo's and then there's two other remaining houses that I don't believe might not be here tonight. I wish they kind of were, but that's what I was saying to kind of get at there. There are potential adaptive reuses that are available under limited commercial that would not be available or not even considered considerate or can be considered under community commercial for that area too. So it could remain a residential appearing area and it can be a residential area for as long as the people own it. Yeah, there's there's no I think there was one question that was proposed at one of the hearings, council president, that could it be a residential. I think maybe Tom can answer if if sorry u that under the limited commercial it says the uses can be related to or no more intense than re or R2. So, it can still be a a single family home if I'm not mistaken. I I believe that is true under the code, but it has to be through

a special exception process. Really? Okay. Um with the board of appeals, but um even Okay. I was reading maybe we need clarification. I don't think that's correct. I think it's a use of right. Okay. As spelled out in the code. Yeah. So, I'm I'm done. Thank you, Jason. You have Oh, sorry. Thank you. Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up. Um, so first I want to thank the planning commission as a whole. Um, I don't know zoning, so I appreciate you guys being here and going through these um, and helping and and explaining the rationale as to why and to how we got to these recommendations. Um, it it it helped. So, I really appreciate it. Um, I appreciate the town staff, John, everybody that that worked really hard on this master plan. Um, you know, it's just it's very difficult when you're looking at at properties with people that have invested their their hardearned money into. So, um, that was the purpose of being here. So, what I would uh ask, I mean, we've done it all night. Um, is a consensus of the council uh if we want or feel the comfortable, I'm I'm assuming we would have a consensus if this is going to be on the uh ordinance for the vote. So, as we've done, I'll just Yes, we're looking at the extended self. So I would uh look to council member Evans. Yeah. On the I'm sorry on the audience as presented. Yes. That's all we can do. We're not going to spot. No, I'm just trying to figure out is CCLC and it's or do we want it on the ordinance right now? And again, we have 10 years of the master plan to to look at it and specific ordinances. So can we separate

them from the east to west? Maybe. Can we look at it that way? Possibly we can and use the road as a gut dividing line between the zonings. Just a thought. I'd relinquish to Ralph and look for his recommendation on that. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you're the plan. You're the planning guy or he's packing up to leave. He's gone. Um u honestly um I'm I'm at a point where again as I've stated many times you know this broad offering was really to support bold meeting bold strategic needs for the economic growth of the town. And so I would tend to look at this as the one property that's a lowhanging fruit that wants to go CC and is that sufficient then to invite that support for economic growth and then leave the rest alone. Um I I'm speaking freely here just as just as Ralph can. Um and and then in the course of the next 10 years we can measure the economic growth for the town. Uh did it get better? Did we provide enough opportunity? Is there the medical services need being met? Police station is a done deal up on the north end. Uh so we can re-evaluate how do we continue to provide economic growth or the hard job of the council and the mayor is are we content with the level of economic opportunity and parcels to do that that that's really kind of down into the hard question. Yeah. What do we define as the opportunity for economic growth for this town? We've already stated that, you know, right now there's a big issue with the older community about getting to our 4ount medical services through a commuter bus, right? I mean, you know that personally with with the coal folks. Uh we know from our research as

volunteers in all four counties and in speaking with hospital CEOs, LifeBridge that run Carroll County Hospital personally um all of the four county areas are reaching their capacity for medical services. Frederick County, as um as illustrated by Commissioner Hatley, has a pipeline of growth that is over 9,000 homes. And in just New Market, just west of us, there's a plan for one community to have a,0 dwelling units in the next year. And and so you take that dwelling unit times 2.75 and you can now appreciate why we were motivated to try to see if we could grow some of it here because everywhere around where people rely on it now is going to rapidly diminish and and go away. So that's all that was to kind of look at this as being the place where enterprise and medical services could possibly come to us rather than we go to them and only find that it's not there. Um and we did check with the state as to the certificate that's required for the building of new hospitals and trauma centers and that sort of thing. And I will assure you that even at the state level, there's no optimism for growth in those areas for those facilities. It's it's not good for the aging community as far as medical services uh capacity and I'll get off my stuff. No, I agree. I mean, and the sad and the sad the sad realistic part is we can't guarantee the medical facilities will go here. So they can come in and buy it, right? So we can set it up to be perfect for it and then next thing you know there's a sheets. Yeah, I mean they did talk about medical the the one person representing somebody. So, but um it's on their radar, but it's not a guarantee as you said. Yeah. For uh something that

might be a little more pertinent. I don't I don't think uh tonight would the decision would be between the east and the west street or west side of uh South Main Street. I think the the question would be does the council want to look at specifically the Voslo property as opposed to everything else and include that in the ordinances coming up and if you don't that's fine you know but uh just a yes or no we're we're late. Yes or no? I know I'd be okay separating the bas Yeah. I mean, I want I want to separate out the east side and talk more on that, but Carl, yes or no, please? Yes. As if it's included as is, I would say yes. Okay. Thank you, Steve. Included in ordinance? No. None of it. No. Did say something? Um, included as it is as a whole. No, just say 1801. number one biggest I I'd say you guys really need to look at number one itself separately because when you get to the west side you've got when I look at what I have and unfortunately everybody didn't show up I see yes yes no yes no yes no you know I think you need to separate out number one I agree the whole east side somehow yeah well I will say real quick I apologize but one of the letters you did receive was parcel number six who was also wanting to be CCC CC. Yeah. In writing. I know number two also wanted CC, but but again, you know, I don't know which partials you want to take into consideration. I don't want to single out just Oslo when we have a an adjoining property to parcel one that it's requesting, right? Yeah. That's why I think I think we need to keep it as a as a unit. And the question is right

now, are we comfortable voting on this? Just because we if we are comfortable voting on it, then we do it. If we're not, then it doesn't mean that we're going against the master plan. It just means that it's got to be looked at in the future, which there is precedent for doing so, as the mayor stated in the meeting before. So, um, you know, I personally am not comfortable voting on it, so I'll go ahead and take the lead on that. I am not comfortable voting on this, uh, as it sits. Um, it does not mean that in the future it can't be reszoned, um, as it states in the master plan, but right now I I do not feel comfortable voting on it. I'm I'm not comfortable either. No, again I've I've been consistent holistic approach to the whole main street and we're not now we have a consensus. So we can we can for the ordinance that we're drawing up right now for the recommendations of resoning. We will not include these properties that the council did had a consensus for not. All right. Um again I want to thank everybody. Do you have any closing remarks? Uh just want to make sure John knows what to put in the ordinance. So yeah, I have the Twin Arch Business Park parcel. I have the East Ridgeville Boulevard parcel and then the ones on the South Main, the four parcels along South Main. Yep. Okay. Good. All right. Uh at this time, this meeting is journ. I want to thank everybody for coming and uh appreciate everyone's support. Thank you. Thank you.