Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good.

Hi. Good. How are you? police out forgot. I'm happy to move over.

What's his last name?

Ready? Sure. All right, we'll call to order the meeting of the planning commission for February 18th. Um, Chairperson Bennett is trying to get back here from Colombia and is going to be late, so I will chair the meeting and hopefully he will arrive before the end. Um, we have six people, so we have a quorum. Um, and I know one Mr. Barry is not going to be here. Mr. Ferrar may be a little late. We'll see. we can move forward. So, first thing is to approve the agenda. We need a motion and a second.

Okay. Great. All in favor? I. Thanks. Okay. Um, approving the minutes of last month's meeting. Again, we need a motion for that. Or are there any changes or comments? Okay. Mr. Davis, I need your microphone on. I make the motion. I make the We approve the minutes. Great. All in favor of that? I thanks. Um, Mr. Stone, any update on what the recommendations were?

Let's go through. So, we'll work through as quickly as we can, but these are last month items that we reviewed and they were all for first reading. The uh 1651 highway 41 planning commission recommended denial. It was in the Philips community. Ultimately, council deferred um 3759 highway 17. The CRO zoning for what they're proposing as a campground was approved. First reading. Also had the Lane reszoning from AB1 to R2 that was approved and the seven parcels on Old Georgetown and Children's Road. Those were approved for annexation and CC zoning. Then we had the property on the corner of White Flat and Bowman Road. The request for R3 that was deferred by the applicant. also had an ordinance for R1 to R2 reszoning on 1520 range road that was denied and even though that was first reading that denial will terminate the application and then we had the Dooms West plan development amendment for 43 multiplex units that was deferred back to planning committee and March 2nd planning committee will be reviewing that. So, now we've got final readings. Uh, these these are items we reviewed a couple months ago. And we have the 3305 North Highway 17. The bank that was zoned R1 was approved to be reszoned to AB1. The ordinance for AB1 to R2 for a single family home at 1306 Bman Drive. That was approved. We had 1490 Boston Grill Road that was approved for annexation and CC zoning. And then the 1602 wrap range road that was a request

for R3 zoning that was denied and it was annexed in as R1. And finally we have the text amendment for V and accessory use and structures and that was approved with modifications and I've listed some of those modifications here for your reference. So if you have any questions staff is glad to enterain those. Anybody have any questions or Okay, if not, thank you very much. Um, I didn't see any correspondence as of today, so I'm assuming that none came in within the time frame. Uh, okay. So, the next is general public comment. Um, if you're here for a specific item that's on the agenda, um, items 7 A through D, um, have public hearings, so you could choose during the general comment now or you can wait until the item that you're interested in comes up. Um, and whenever you do come up for either uh situation, uh, please give your name and address and you'd have two and a half minutes to speak. So, is there anybody that wants to make general public comment? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the general public comment period and we'll move on to business which is public hearing and the first issue is Indigo Square PB amendment request. Mr. Stone.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is our 1.1 acre parcel that we'll be reviewing tonight. It's in the Indigo Square PD and it's currently owned by Olive Branch Amy Church. You can see here that it's um fronting on nearly fronting on Highway 17 and abuts the Wando East town homes. A lot of y'all may remember this from 2023. This was a resoning and PD amendment request that came before you. Olive Branch owns this entire property and still owns this entire property. The goal was to essentially reszone their church property TI1 which is appropriate for the comp plan and future land use and enter this property into the Indigo Square PD. And in that process, commission and ultimately council provided three conditions to go along with this PD amendment. The first was a 15t buffer abuing the Wanda East town homes. The second condition was for 4,000 square foot max size on building. And third was to limit the uses to OP and NC office professional neighborhood commercial. And within these uses, it's a diverse mixture of uses that provides for general commercial. But what is not entailed in those uses would be drive-thru. And that is something that they are currently requesting. And that really is the summation of of this current PD amendment request before you to add drive-thru use to just this property, not universally throughout the PD, but just on this property. And I have more information, but would like to get your initial feedback and if you have questions, we can dive into deeper on certain topics.

Okay. Does anybody have questions for Mr. Stone before we move? I Anybody? Okay. Um, I have one question. Would this automatically require a traffic study to have a drive-thru? Correct. Our transportation department's adopted some new guidelines that certain uses will trigger a traffic study. And this this will. Okay. So, it wouldn't require a condition added if we approved it. It would just be an automatic

automatic. Okay. Thanks. Is the applicant here? Does does the applicant want to speak? Good evening. My name is Walter Smalls. I live at 1248 Gracie Court, my pleasant 29466. And I am the trustee pro Tim at our plant church. almost forever. But uh uh we have requesting your support to uh we've been trying to lease this for two and a half years and we're looking for another revenue source to help support the church and this is definitely in our strategic financial plan to do that and we requesting your support to approve that and please vote.

Thank you. Okay. So, I'm just kind of curious when you talk about one question for you. When you talk about a drive-thru, I mean, what what type of restaurant are you thinking about? Oh, we have it uh being advertised to uh Abson and maybe a coffee shop. We receive uh interest from coffee shop. Matter of fact, I had it listed brew coffee shop. restaurant and so but you're not talking about McDonald's or Chick-fil-A or something like that. Who are you?

Once the uh requirements come in is out advertising and then we'll look at the church body. So nothing is firmed up yet. It's just advertising out right now. Okay. Thank you.

I'm sorry. I don't think so, but we call you back up if we need to. Um, okay. This is a public hearing, so anyone that's here for public comment on this issue and feel free to come up name and address in two and a half minutes. My name is John McQueen, a member of the board of trustees. And your address? I'm a member of the board of trustees. My name is John McQueen. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. We we're interested in uh enhancing our opportunities to lease the property and most of what needs to be done. Most of the business now incorporate driveins. uh as this just to change the way people live and shop and whatnot. It it will give us a chance to maybe get moving on on the uh moving the property forward to get it leased. Right now it's kind of stagnated based on that. Most of the younger people they prefer both ways walking in and and the drive is something that they use and sometime they don't even want to wait for the drive in. So I think that would our capabilities to move forward.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Okay. Hearing we'll close the public comment period. Um so discussion, thoughts, questions. There's nobody here. There's nobody here. There's nobody here from the adjacent property. So apparently nobody has much of an objection to it. That's all I can say about that.

Anybody else? I mean, my own feeling is that as long as there's a traffic study that would be triggered by this and done, that's the important part, I think, just so that there's because this is a very busy entrance that goes in not only to the apartment complex, but also the rest of the commercial. So, um, we just want to make sure that it doesn't back up into the street or anything. But if that's covered by a traffic study, I I think that's perfectly reasonable and and again it would be limited just to this one parcel. It would not be the rest of the PD. It seems like a reasonable request. Anybody want to make a motion to approve then any other questions?

I'll make that motion. We have a second. Okay. All those in favor of approval say I. Any nay? N it's approved. Thank you. Okay. Item B is Sweetgrass Homeowners Association request to amend its PD. Uh Mr. Stone, if you could tee this one up.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is another PD amendment that the commission saw back in 2022, but I still want to give some context just at the community level. This is Sweetgrass neighborhood on the corner of IP connector and rifle range. You can see toward the very rear of the property there's a 6acre site. That is our subject parcel we'll be talking about. Taking it down to the neighborhood level. This does abut the hidden lakes HOA space and also the town homes to the rear and the hotel. And this is our subject parcel. Um here I guess the reason this in 2022 was for the the parcel outlined in red and the PD that was defined in 1989 specifically said you are permitted to have a boat storage area of 87 by 150 and it was oddly specific but that was what it required and that was the only thing it could be. So commission and ultimately council voted to just create a boat storage area not giving it defined parameters other than the flat that was submitted with it. So now our request for us is to look more comprehensively at this entire 6acre site and the HOA would like to add amenity facility uses. So swimming pool, tennis courts, clubhouse, picnic areas, boat storage, all rather than just seeing as a a singular amenity opening up to what other amenity uses would the HOA like to see on the site. I guess the question that that could be asked is where would this go? Because this did not come with a this is a request for these uses to be added PD. It's not a conceptual plan. But as we kind of look at the site, I mean, we call it a sixacre site, but there's two and a half acres of

retention area, high ground is three and a half acres, but a lot of those are more isolated and access is questionable. So really, you could see, you know, this is a 1.65 acre area here where you would probably see a lot of these uses being developed. So the one thing that I would want to mention is that the future land use for this this property is not uniform throughout. You can see along this larger portion that's conservation open space and this area that has the boat storage that was designated as conservation recreation open space. So a little bit of of a differing feature of land use almost the same shade of the same category but there is some slight differentiation there that I wanted to bring to your attention. So that is the request that's before you and staff's glad to answer any question I have.

Okay. Um does anybody have any questions for Mr. stone for me. What about all the trees? I guess a tree survey that was done old trees or trees are It's a mix. A tree survey was provided on this parcel. I do not have a tree survey for the the remainder of the site. Um so that will be incumbent on on them to provide that. Okay. Okay. Is the applicant here? wanting to speak. Come right up. Name, address.

Hey, good evening. I'm Elliot Hood, 1934 Oak Tree Lane, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, J464. Um, I'm the HOA president for the neighborhood. Um, so that just a little history here. As as Peter mentioned, we brought this forward in 2022. The original intent was to just expand our boatyard, just move the fence a little bit, put some gravel down, get some spots for our neighbors. Uh we discovered that with that there was some we didn't have any setback from some of the adjacent properties that are in our neighborhood. So we saw that we would have to provide a 25 foot setback at a minimum to those properties if we even touched or modified that space. Um that opened up the door for us as the board of directors um to look at well now we've got access to the rest of the property if we are going to go ahead and move that boatyard. So, we thought um we would like to investigate what it would take to potentially use that space. We have no other amenities um in the neighborhood other than the boatyard, which only has 30 spots. So, it really provides a minimum amenity for just some boat owners. And we really want to provide something more for the neighborhood. Uh we've got a lot of young families, a lot of kids running around in the street. So, we just want to get them off the street and we want to give them somewhere to play potentially. Again, this is really all all in the early stage of discovery. So, we really just want to understand the feasibility of this space. Um, we've come with this as being really what we've determined as the first step is can we can we change or can we amend this PD to be more than a boatyard. Otherwise, then we would be wasting effort and time and resources looking into this further. Um, any kind of amenity takes effort. It takes utilities. It takes um all sorts of work from from our time. We're all volunteers. So, we just um wanted to make sure that we could amend this PD. Um now, we've been talking about this for many years in our neighborhood. We um have discussed it amongst our

Facebook and our annual meetings. We conducted a survey of our neighbors. Uh we got about 130 responses out of 253 homes. We have 80 88% of our neighborhood of our neighbors. So 114 of those respondents were in favor of an amenity. Uh we had 16 that just didn't want to see any kind of amenity. We factored in some costs that could potentially come along with it. So there was some there was some research done on the survey to make sure that when people were voting in favor of something that you what the cost was associated with it and what was coming with that amenity. So, we've just we've done a lot of due diligence and this is kind of we've come to the point where we don't want to move along any further with with spending money on feasibility and resources before we can amend this PD to reflect I think what the zoning already enables us to do for is it R3? Okay. I I just think I I think we just want to make sure that we we're following the right process and the right steps before we proceed. So, I have one question. How long ago was the Facebook survey? And are all of your homeowners on Facebook?

Yeah, that's that's one. Um, one of the problems we have with communication is we have Facebook. Um, we have not all of our homeowners on Facebook and we have generally struggled to get response and communication with all of our neighbors, even via mail. um collecting emails, Facebook. Um we kind of have a um we've been working towards being better about making sure we have everyone accounted for. Um this was a more of a a sample size for us and a significant sample size of all homeowners to say that this indicated that there was very much interest and that we want to investigate it further. And that's all we're doing. So we're not saying we're going to do this. There's a lot of things we obviously have to get the financial approval from all of our homeowners to pay for this. That'll be a huge huge help for us. Um, but even if it's something we we've got a lot of interest in a walking trail or a playground, um, just just a way to use this space and enable the kids to go play somewhere, you know, what we're looking for.

Does anybody have any questions? Um, who owns this space? owned by a private private corporation or owned by HOA. It's owned by the HOA. Okay. Well, call back. That's okay. For now. Um Sure. Okay. We have a public hearing. So, there's public comment period. So, um anybody that wants to come up and speak, please do. Name name, address, and two and a half minutes. And if there are multiple people, um if you could just kind of, you know, towards the aisle just if if there's time just to save time.

Hi, I'm Pam Leonard, 1838 Fallen Creek, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29464. My home is this area that the HOA wants to develop into amenities is right behind my house. And I my house my backyard already floods because when built the homes they built into a BM. So all the property behind our homes is raised without those trees. absorb the water. I will have much more flooding. I have to replace my fence more because of the flooding more often. Um the neighborhood has an 8 foot around the front that the streets but we don't have um I think that we will have increased problems because And so I am against this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Hi to 1887 Creek Circle. Um my concerns are this is a wildlife habitat as it is right now. I walk my dog back there every day. You have hawks, ducks, geese, birds all nesting in this area. And I'm sure there's other wildlife that I don't see, but I just happen to notice the birds. Um, IOP chain put a sign up, I don't know, about a year ago that now makes Hungry Neck. They had you want to

go to 526, you go down Hungry Neck Boulevard. The noise level has increased greatly. Um, again, I'm not in the same area as right against this fence. I am back on the other side of Long Creek Circle. We have a car wash down there right now. That is very very loud noise. By 7 a.m. that car wash goes, you hear it. I'm an outdoor person. I'm not a person that sits in my house. And you can hear this every day just going and going and going. So, I think the noise is an issue. The buffer zone area is an issue. Flooding mitigation. If you're coming in and putting in a building, you are now putting hardcape there is less drainage for hardcape these nutrients and things will not be absorbed into the environment and again it is a raised area so there is flooding that does come into the neighborhood thank you

hi Holly Giles 1842 falling circle I'm also against this change um our community did not vote to bring this before As you heard before, um this is still exploratory from what we've been told, but this piece of land does have some history. That big pond that's there now was not there before. It was all wooded and a previous HOA board years ago uh gave it up to become a pond so that that town home development there could be built. They needed a drainage solution and the person on the board in the little corner here that's not part of this PD had a little pond that they wanted widened and they made that deal without consulting us at all. So, we lost a lot of trees already. Um, so I'm concerned a lot about the trees. And as you notice that, um, Linda said, there's a lot of noise now. We can hear hungry neck. We can hear, we can hear the car wash, which runs constantly in the summer. And these trees that remain are the only buffer we have between us and those areas. Um, lastly, there is a lot of wildlife back there. We've had deer, we have raccoons, we have possums. My kids like to fish in the pond, which which is great. They can go back there and just walk around. So, you know, being passive and enjoying the wildlife is really what we would like to use the space for. Thank you.

My name is Jessica Majinsky. I live at 1834 Circle. I'm a neighbor of Holl and I'm just here to my opposition to this motion for Hi, I'm Stan Sutton, 1886 Creek Circle, Mount Pleasant 294. I'm just want to come up to support the board's efforts to try to get this changed so that they can expand the boatyard and in the future if anything comes along, put an amenity back there. I'm Claudia McN. I'm at 1307 Horseshoe Bin, which is a little bit removed from that area. Um, I understand the need to expand boatyard, but I think if you're going to do that, because that's the original stuff that's been presented, um, then you need to also follow the buffer zone that's required. Um I don't see how taking the pond away in a recreational area benefits anybody. I do understand that um reszoning may be necessary in order to put a walking trail back there, but I don't think you can put the amenities back there without destroying what we already have there as far as the wildlife area and the buffer that we need. Um in between Hungry Neck with all the businesses that are there, there are times when there are groups that play at some of the on the other side of home neck that we

in the neighborhood get to hear it whether we want to or not. So if you take that buffer zone away, then we're going to be hearing everything that happens over in town center and anything coming off of hungry without a you know so I know we need we need to do some things to increase the recreation but you know I'm not a bono boat owner but I still have to pay to maintain that boatyard And for me, that's what this originally started out was as an expansion of the boatyard. Um, not putting in a bunch of amenities that we're going to take away from what we have back there as a wildlife area. Thank you. Thank you. Amy Ratner 1307 event 29464. I'm here to support that. Um and also just mention that there would be more people here had the sign not gone up at back of the yard back of the neighborhood last night. So note if you want to talk about people getting involved then let everybody know. Put it in the front of the neighborhood. put it um in both spots. Give us some time. I mean, I walked the neighborhood multiple multiple times a day. So, I know what's going on. And that sign was not there at 4:00 yesterday afternoon. So, just to bring that up, there would be more people here on both sides had everybody in the neighborhood had an opportunity to um I know.

Hi, my name is Jana Nelson and I live at 1850 Falling Creek Circle. And so my house is like kind of in the middle. My backyard is beautiful. It's like has all these beautiful trees. I see ducks swimming in the pond. There's kids fishing. Um, and there's so many birds. like my backyard, my husband and I have become like bird watchers. Um like there's owls, there's hawks, like you can see in the trees and nests and you know my backyard now we have a pesky little mocking bird that's scaring everything else away, but we have cardinals and finches and doves and I don't know. Um, and so it I don't want to look out my backyard and now see kids that I don't know swimming in a pool or um, you know, besides the noise. I don't want the um, you know, unpleasant view of it. Not to say that that's an unpleasant view, but um, you know, I love just looking out there in the nature. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's why we purchased the house. Um we moved out of from out of state um three years ago and um you know we've worked on our backyard. We I don't have kids anymore. I you know choose to do things you know for my husband and I who are now retired. So that's it. So yeah besides this being beautiful and I worry about where all the wildlife will be. I also don't want the commotion right in my backyard. Hi, my name is Ashley 1312 Old Mount Pleasant 29464. Um, I'm here to support the PD amendment. If you look at the PD that was written 1990, it is only

in 1990. There are only 30,000 people in Mount Pleasant. It is now 2026. Well over 90,000 people live here. This allows us to change with the times. I hear the concerns about the wildlife. This PD as written doesn't even allow us to have a trail to walk those lands to look at the wild. Children play in the neighborhood. Yes, they are allowed. We could have children play in this area without a trail without an amendment to the PD. It would The amendment to the PD does not take that. What it does is it allows us an opportunity to expand and grow. Not everything is going to fit in those. What we're asking is for the opportunity to explore what could be there. But we need the PD amended to even do that. It would be hard to get consensus on anything that requires an actual change to this land. However, amending the PD is not a commitment to amending the land. It is just saying we have an opportunity to see what we could put back here. Not that we are doing anything right, but if we don't amend it, we have no idea what's possible. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. um discussion questions. I uh actually went back there on Saturday and parked and looked at the uh path, I would call it, to get back to the boatyard. Uh would you say it's 8 feet wide? I'm not sure if it's wider than that. I don't know.

how a car could get back there very easily. Although cars are towing the boats. I'm just thinking if there were a swimming pool back there, I don't know how anyone could get up that road very easily in park. Um that little I'll call it a path is quite close to the house immediately to the right. The house well sorry to the left. The house to the right is a little bit further removed, but is it an 8 foot path? And would the path have to be widened? There's a 20 foot. This is the dimensions right here. That's 20. Yeah, it's a paved park.

8 ft. It would be It seems very narrow to me. To get a boat back there, it would have to be widened. It would have to be widened. Okay. I move to I'll just make a motion to to deny. We can continue to discuss after the motion.

Okay, we have a second. So, let's continue the discussion. I I do want to say before we have other people discuss um that I did get several phone calls from people who could not attend the meeting because they didn't know about the sign until um yes last night and one of the calls was from the house immediately to the left of the access and she was vehemently opposed to it. So my concern is that you know without the buying of people who would be most directly affected that's one concern that I have. trees

the retention storm water course I've been on the tree task force so I've been doing a lot of research and that's it retention pond is substantial and it's holding water at least two neighborhoods I agree with that was their concern their backyard already having issues. If you remove those trees in that, you're creating a a bigger issue than there already is.

And the other like some of the people are saying, there's a lot of opposition to it, but it's it's the neighborhood. It's land. If they want to do something to it, they're going to have a hard time even getting approved to do that. Like I just don't know if giving them no options that

I don't know talking to the mics so that right now they don't really have any option except the boat area and is this maybe us getting too involved in what they can and cannot do because right now it's just the option. Well, I would think that some of the rule other rules that we've had put in place with tree protection and setbacks and everything would help kind of mitigate some of the concerns over the trees, but who knows what they'll even put back there. Could just be a walking path and very few trees get

and to play devil's advocate. We do not know what their covenants say because they could have their covenants could have further restrictions on what they can do. They need a super majority to even do anything with that, right?

It just seems to me this is putting the cart before the horse. Um, if you have a full, you could call a meeting like we have my HOA just had our annual meeting. People would have the opportunity, you get adequate notice, you'd have an opportunity to come and be heard and then they could have a true vote. Having a Facebook survey with people that might not be on Facebook, having a at the last minute which I think might have not been in compliance with our sign requirements.

Um, in terms of the amount of notice given, I really do feel as if giving getting opposition from so many people on Falling Creek Circle indicates that there would be opposition and the PD amendment may I mean the PD may not allow walking trails. I don't know that for sure. But what they're being asked to amend is to allow and everything that's in type of an amenity. Tennis courts, pool, um they could, you know, do the entire thing. Whether they get a vote to, you know, or whether they impose a special assessment on people is up to the HOA. And I don't know what their rules are,

but it seems to me that they're asking for a lot before they've got full buy in from um enough. And also the PE this PD never allowed for those things. So the people who bought the homes all along Fallen Creek that bought that, you know, that wildlife area did so, I would imagine, with the expectation that that was going to be there, not they were going to be 20 feet away from a neighborhood pool or tennis courts. And as somebody who lives in an HOA, my house is directly in front of our neighborhood pool.

Um, I do have some buffer, but my my side of my yard is the access way, just like that house would have the access way there. And it is a very big change. Now, I bought the house knowing that was there, but when you buy a house and then something changes, it's a very different story. So, that's why my vote would be to deny.

Any other comments or I mean, should it be deferred so that it can be posted properly? It sounds like it wasn't. I do want to clarify for the record that all minimum notice requirements were met that so for state code it's 24 hours before the meeting and that is if if the commission has any concern about whether the public was not notified enough for other reasons you may defer it and public comment or public hearing has been closed so it would have to be reverted That would be up to y'all and it would come back next month. Did you?

And if it's denied, does it I'm sorry. If it's denied, what is the opportunity to come back? Is it? It would have to be a substantially new plan. Okay. And that could be a new plan. I mean, there's no plan right now. Yeah. I'm sorry. So, there's basically no plan right now. I kind of conceptually a substantially new request, right? And they did say that they had 180 something neighbors pulled out of two something.

I mean my impression I'm we've had a number of residents come forth with comments and frankly I'm very sensitive to those comments. Um I think we had one resident in favor of it but the majority of the residents that are here are opposed to it and so I think much know where I stand. So, I don't have anything else to say except for we have a vote. I'm ready. Well, let's at least vote on the motion that's on the floor with a second.

Sorry. No, I was just asking if Mr. Barber was going to say something. another before we have a vote. I didn't know if you wanted to amend or we have one comment about the deferment. I'm sorry. Brainstorming about the deferment like um would that 30 days be enough time for the HOA to have their own meeting prior to coming back for us? Well, and I think if if they come back, they can come back with a substantial change. The substantial change would be to modify what they're asking for and maybe have something specific as opposed to just completely open.

Can they resend their application on their own at any point? Like if they don't want us to make a decision this application now they they they are able to if if the applicant so choose they may remove their application that would um prevent them from submitting this request for a year. But again, it's if it's a substantially new request, maybe if they came back saying, "We're going to limit these uses to this select square footage or this acreage." That would that would change the nature of the request and be enough for them to come back

because right now it's for the whole six acres, correct? It's not just for the 65 these uses would be conferred on the whole propert. Well, and I think you mentioned that not to put the cart before the horse of they wanted to explore what they can even do, but before they can use resources to go down that path, they want to know if it's even approved to do that. But perhaps if they did a little bit more due diligence within the neighborhood and came to consensus and got fewer items approved and more parameters around it, that might be the best path forward for that.

Okay, let's take a vote. Um, we might need a roll call, but let's try first. All those in favor of denying the application for the PD amendment, say I. I. I. And those against the denial. No. Okay. So, it's four to two. So, the denial passes. Sorry. Who's opposed? I was She was for the denial. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, it's a vote of four to two. Thank you. Next item will be presented by our town engineer Kevin Mitchell.

Good evening madam chair, members of the commission. Um we have before you a public hearing. It is a public hearing for the amendment and changing of a uh a zoning requirement that currently exempts the density being applied to subdivisions that are or less than one acre. So this is a uh this result of a number of months and I think most of y'all were in attendance I believe Mr. tail end of this, but we were discussing last year the requests that have been coming before the board and the requests of subdivisions that will continue for the foreseeable future in Mount Pleasant being smaller requests instead of the larger subdivision request. and I and uh some options were presented at at couple of meetings and by uh by vote planning commission. This was one of the things that was decided upon that a ordinance be created to eliminate that money pressure. So very simply uh it is struck through that's 156025 B is struck through in its entirety and is proposed to be replaced with for the purposes of lot subdivision and development density is applicable to all parcels of land regardless of the parcel size calculation maximum density is specified in 15616. So just as simple as that. Um and then here's a here's a just a quick example of what we're talking about when

it comes to calculating density. So that will also be added to chapter 156 and that is the public hearing. Now the next item just for clarity is a LDR change which will go to town council for a public hearing there but it's also included as the next item access which we'll get into after the public hearing is closed. So, I'm here to answer any questions. Any questions before we just call the public hearing?

Yeah, I just have a quick question on the like because these are smaller parcels like you're going to get decimal points like this. Is it always rounded down to the whole number or if you're like 299, you don't round up three? That's correct. hard threshold. So if you don't meet the density, then you don't have the qualifications for the extra one. So I guess we can just have the public hearing for this one and then do a public hearing for the next one or do you want to combine them?

Uh going the next one is one chapter 155 which would go to town council. So I guess the next one would be more of like a public notice and this would be the actual Public hearing for 156. Okay. So, let's do this one. Public hearing. If there's anybody to speak

one way or the other about this, my name is Robert Adams. I live at 35 East Lake Road in Mount Pleasant. And what I have is a question says for the purp of land regardless of parcel size. Um, I live in a community that actually is subject to a HUD and the developer has built 761 homes and he has an allowance limit of 762 homes and there's approximately 3 and 12 acres left over. My question is would this where there is plug gives the developer the opportunity to put in an unlimited amount of homes. And bearing in mind that our community has two ways to drive in and out, you'd be putting a lot more homes with no additional ways to get in. So, thank you.

Okay. And I'll ask the question of our Mr. Stone since we can't talk with the public. But just before that, um, is there anybody else for a public hearing? Okay, we'll close the public hearing. Um, Mr. Stone, when there's a PD, that's what governs the number of units, not the density otherwise. So in a PD such as ion, that would cover you. Okay. Um, any discussion. Good job, Mr. Chairman. Um, is there

with all the different zonings and minimum lot sizes like we're not messing up like a minimum lot size can't support any lot. It's only this is only for subdivisions, right? So, it's pretty straightforward. We talked I mean we basically were in favor of having you move forward with this. So, I mean I'm comfortable with it unless we have other questions. We just need a motion to approve and second.

Motion to approve. Okay. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, great. It'll go to town council for two reasons.

Okay, moving on. U now this is the land development regulations proposal which is running the same uh kind of the same point of discussion that we had with the with the density. Uh this is new standards for access by way of easement. Uh on December 10th, this was uh this slide was presented to planning commission. They uh they settled on items one and three uh to be drafted for an ordinance to a a potential change to the land development regulations. Item one was u prohibiting the easement area to be included in the lot minimum lot calculation for that lot is burdened with easement. And also number three which was to change the building setback measurement from the actual property line to the easement line which restores and protects that yard uh that yard standard for that site. So we move forward with the ordinance here and then this is what's proposed uh just striking through currently what's already in place and replacing it with flag uh flag lots and lots proposed to be created with access from the public rightway via adjacent property must be granted a waiver by the planning commission. The following conditions shall be applicable to meet zoning requirements as a minimum lot area standards as per the zoning standards are are not intended to be for the portion of the lot used accessing the proposed lot yard standards are to be upheld to protect the character intent of the zoning designation. Therefore, areas of the access ement on the burden lot, not not sharing the benefit of the ement shall be excluded from the minimum lot area zone zoning standards if a waiver is granted. And the second part of that is B, minimum yard standards for single flush shall not be adversely

impacted by the ement benefiting others. Uh yard areas are for the enjoyment of the homeowner and should be preserved for the use of the homeowner. Therefore, vehicular access must be separated from the yard area. Building setbacks shall be measured from the easement boundary line when the easement width exceeds minimum zoning setbacks for all subdivision requests granted a waiver. So, we're not removing the waiver from this. We're just saying if you do have a waiver and you're granted the waiver, these are the conditions that have to be applied to the subdivision. I also uh added this exhibit we used in the past too to kind of demonstrate a previous request that came through. As you can see, the setbacks of the building are right up against the easements. Um and uh and so that would be actually measured from the hatch area is where the building set back would be. And then lots one and two would actually have to have the square foot area outside of the ement be met to be in compiance with the zone. So hopefully that created fairly clear. But

just can you go back to the text for a second? Yes ma'am. It's kind of petty so make sure I'm understanding it. So what if We have a situation in which we have an already existing flag lot and then they want to separate and subdivide into another so that they would both be using that access but then they'd have to go from one lot to the next like a back lot. Is that covered in this or is that what would be the conditions?

Well, uh the new the way that I would read this and um I didn't have that in my mind when I was crafting this but I think The way I would interpret this is they would have to still be requesting a waiver for the creation of a subdivision of a flag lot because you got an existing flatlock and you're creating essentially another another using the same access. That is correct.

So I would I would interpret that new uh lot the pole of the flag not being included in the new lot that's being created. That's how I would interpret this. Would you would you have to calculate both of the new lots without um this is about easements and um oh gosh that's a really good question. Uh so the fl the pole of the flag is actually part of the one of the lots. So when you subdivide it, you would actually have to create an access easement to the new lot. Um, so that access easement would not be included in the calculation for the square foot area of the lot. That's how I would interpret that. Uh but the lot but the lot that actually had the pole of part of it would actually still remain as a square foot area of the lot because it doesn't specifically say that. So that's how I interpret that.

Yeah. I also was like since you're striking through the flag shall not be permitted. Are you kind of leaving it up to the like applicant on whether they want an easement versus a flag? Well, I am saying that flag lots and lots proposed to be created with access. So, I am including flag lots uh from a public rideway must be granted a waiver by planning commission. So, I'm not really changing I'm not really changing the process uh in in requesting a waiver. the same process before.

But I guess with the way this is written, someone could come in and call it an ement and someone else could come in and call it flag. But the same parameters apply to either of them can't be counted, right? I kind of have the same question like what's the difference between the definition of a flag or a lot that's created with an access from the public which which creates the pole right it does isn't that

well if you're putting the easement on the property that doesn't benefit by the easement then that property has to it does have to meet the minimum requirements if it's part of the subdivision Now, let's just say hypothetically it's not part of the subdivision. You've got an existing lot with a lot in the back and then they want to subdivide that and then create an easement through the existing lot. Then that existing lot would not be part of the subdivision. So, it wouldn't it wouldn't be subjected to this land development regulation that we're proposing here. But the lots in the back, if they were to be subjected to this language because they're the ones that's requesting the subdivision.

So you could have a situation where like the lot that's agreeing to the easement, if you excluded the easement, it might not meet minimum lot requirements because it's an existing lot. It might be might be right. Right. It could put the easement through it. So now it doesn'tform. Yeah. Then it wouldn't I feel like there needs to be some language. Yeah. I kind of thought we were starting with the whole premise that we wanted to kind of seems like we're getting easier to get w we're allowing waivers for flags and I sort of thought we

matters whether it's a flag or an ement. I think what we want is like a certain way for the lots to be measured. I was thinking of flag lots is the same with lots that only have access to them by way of it looks like a flag with a pole by way of an ement from a me that's why I don't understand the difference. Well, a flag lot, the pole of the flag is actually part of one of the lots. The easement uh that that provides the access to the the flag

is actually part of the lot that's between that ride. So, that's the easements on somebody else's property. I see what you mean. But I mean, what's the benefit of one versus the other?

I think there's like like the simple situation of just like being split into two. I could see it being like clear in terms of responsibility and all that like someone owns like the person in back owns the pole and maintains it and pays the taxes on it and the person in front of it rather than if they have an easement through their property. It kind of creates weird, you know, your property shows up on paper as bigger than it actually is. If you have the situation with like you don't want like 10 poles going back because you have a huge piece of land locked

there you would want an access like if it's multiple lots I feel like I wouldn't want but if you have if you have a lot and you want to subdivide and make lot if you own both you could just lot giving them the benefit of not using the ement. Exactly. Which is why I think we want to discourage them because they've been a problem I guess is one example.

We had that um one come across us that we our hands were kind of tied and we couldn't deny where they did have to get the neighbors permission. street um to have that easement come in and so I think we were trying to avoid future situations like that happening. I'm not sure this language necessarily

I think we need to address that issue without taking away the prohibition of flags. In other words, we're loosening one thing while we're trying to We're saying now instead of flag shall not be permitted now they are permitted if you get a waiver right they're still permitted if you get a w like today that's the way the regulations are written in the other part of the LDR I think it might have been a the very beginning it says that a planning commission has to grant the waiver with those four criteria with those four criteria

okay I wasn't sure whether I don't think all things are eligible for waivers. Um, but this is one of the things that

this is one that's eligible for a waiver. Yes, ma'am. Um, so I I mean, y'all y'all got an interesting perspective on this. So, um, but I see what you're saying. If you have a long lot and then somebody wants to use part of the property as the flag hole that is creating as part of the lot in the back, they actually have enough area of the lot in front to meet the minimum requirements. I mean, that's essentially, you know, I mean, that's meeting what this intent is trying to meet is to make sure that that home that is granting the flag pole actually meets the zoning standards for that particular subdivision request. So, I was I was approaching this with Let's just make sure that these requests and these subdivisions meet the zoning requirements, not necessarily approaching it as in preventing it. You know,

I was trying to raise the standard and be more specific with what it has to mean. Yeah. I think it's important that so I'm trying to understand the purpose and the reasoning behind easing the restrictions on flags which all the time comes up at our meetings you know we've been opposed to flag so you know what's the rationale for you know for easing the restrictions on there's not because I'm not easing the restrictions on flag it says flag lots you know crossing out flag lots shall not be permitted that was pretty black and white but I'm justating it in the proposed language.

I'm just restating that the waiver is required just like the waiver is required here. Another way of saying yes. So I'm not the intent was not to uh allow the flags. It the intent is to create the new standards for subdivisions to occur with access evenness and or flags. So, it wasn't to use the language flag.

Should there I'm just wondering if there should be something in here about like because I feel like the scenario is a lot different if it's just one turning into two versus like one big turning into like five, six, multiple. Like I feel like there are different scenarios. That's why we have Wait. Yeah,

I mean that's that's why the board is here. That's why y'all have to uh make decisions based upon the application because every single one of them is going to be a little different. Everybody's going to have a little different lot size, a little different location, a little different configuration. So, I won't be able to create a perfect ordinance. I can tell you that. Uh but uh but you make some very good points and I'll be happy to, you know, go back and and create a Cu uh if I can just get some direction from you guys. Uh, and you know, and I'll be happy to come back with.

Well, one thing I think that you've you've clarified for me, but maybe just needs to be more clarified because I'm not looking at the prior sections, you know, we're just looking at this is ma'am. It sounded like um if you meet the following conditions to meet the zoning requirements, then you can get the waiver. The waiver still has four other criteria that have to be met. So, you know, in other words, we still need to apply. We still need to go through those four conditions. Um, so it says must be granted a waiver. I, you know, I guess it it was stated so succinctly before and

and now it's less. So, yeah. Have to be able to I overdid it. Is that what you're saying? or we're losing this. Uh I you know I I really tried to put the purpose and intent with this too. So it does explain um the reason for areas not being part of the easement and then also the measurement from the easement not the property line just because this is the zoning uh is trying to create standards for subdivisions. So I think yard areas are important and making sure that the easement somebody else's driveway is actually not right

used to meet the minimum of lot sizes.

So this this not really saying anything different than what you're saying but just to make it feel better for me. If we said something like this, what you said, flag locks and locks proposed to be created with access from public right away via adjacent property shall not be permitted without a waiver by the planning commission because that basically says the same thing, but it's clarifying you have to tie into the waiver and then and adhere to the following conditions which are applicable to meet zoning requirements because A and B are in addition to getting, you know, to meeting the waiver criteria.

I will go with the majority vote here if that's if that's the direction that the planning commission would like to. I like what you said. It says the same thing just in a more like

so be more mean with your I get it. Okay.

Yeah. lots are basically lots that don't meet the minimum width of of the property. I can't well off the top of my head. I can't skim through the definitions, but um I'm just wondering like I just want to make sure that whatever however flags defined goes along with this. It's not the definition's not in the LDRs themselves. in another section or something, but it's not among the I'll be happy to bring it back to the definition. We can kind of tease us out a little bit. One more shot at this. Yeah.

I mean, the one thing I like about this is like it kind of leaves it up to the people involved whether they want an easement or a lot with a pole. They have to meet the same requirements. It's just a matter of like it seems like it's coming up with an ement and all the legal stuff that seems like a hassle, but it might be like simpler for some people if we just literally have two, you know, clear line of ownership done. I like that part about this.

I can agree more, Mr. Barber. in in scenarios where there's smaller lots less than one acre, typically those uh those poles have to be easements for that particular lot to meet the minimum zoning requirements. So that's why and a lot of times that's why those easements are easements and they're not part of the flag the pole of the flag. That's why that's why that chairman has arrived and this is an issue that he is interested in which is the whole flag thing

to continue. So I just I don't think any of us are particularly comfortable with this yet. I don't I mean I don't tell me if you feel otherwise. I feel the same as you. I mean I think it's like 95% there. Yeah, it's close. That's very close. It's just a matter of really sort of sending the message a little more like we don't like them but you know there are ways of getting around it. We could just modify the language. I think has some really good points. Majority Well, we do have you on video, so I'll go back video and see what changes that you're proposing if everybody's comfortable with

what you suggested. I think it was just some refiguring change must be granted to shall not be permitted. Yeah. shall not be permitted without a waiver and shall comply with the following conditions, you know, um applicable to zoning. Or maybe maybe that just replies to the ones about the easement access, right? Yeah. But sort of tie that in. It's more the sort of the negative as opposed to the positive approach. No, that's psychological. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Sure. That's that's real easy. I can bring this back for you um next next month. But uh the zoning the zoning the density thing is going to move forward.

Yes. Yes. This is a public hearing. So we'll have to hold one even though it's okay. Not required for planning commission to hold one, but this was part of the process to Okay. So even though it's more of a public notice and it's going to have a hearing council, this is a public hearing. Does anybody want to speak to this issue? Okay. If not, we close the public hearing. So, do we we don't need to vote on this? We just basically gave him some or do we need to vote? I think Kevin would would like um just some kind of direction forward from the good practice.

Okay. So, I move that we direct staff to re reconfigure the language at the lead as just discussed. Second. Okay. All those in favor thank you very much. Thanks.

Okay. The next item is a sketch plan for Range Road. Good evening planning commission for you tonight is a subdivision off of Rifle Range Road. It is um a roughly an acre lot on Rifle Range Road into two single family residential lots and a new utility easement further identified by the TMS member. Action to be taken approval approval with modifications or denial. Um this is just an aerial image um down the street from Seaside Farms um and across the street and down a little bit from Hidden Lakes. That gives you kind of enough idea of where we're at here. Zoning is CC and future land use is settlement community. So here is the sketch plan for you tonight. In green is the original parcel. Red is the proposed subdivision. Um the lot 2A in front that is not part of the sketch plan. So it is just the two back lots. Um each is around a half acre and the lot 2B is able to access through the existing ingress egress right here. And then the top lot there's also an existing 20 foot ingress egress right here. So just as a point of clarification. So the the outlined in green doesn't outline the access ement that's at the bottom below that. Right.

Correct. And whose property is that on? That I believe is part of lot 4. Um the applicants can speak further to this. They provided a plat or sorry a deed restriction providing legal access to both of those for these additional for the additional lot and the existing lot. Um any do you want to go through what the thoughts are or the comments or do you want to have the applicant come up first? I have a few more slides I can go through. Okay.

Um so this is a tree preservation plan. Um they are not proposing to remove any significant or historic trees. The yellow are all the trees that are in fair condition. The green is in good condition. The red line is where the sewer ement and where the sewer line are going to be installed. And then the blue in the back is air spading for root exploration. Um so that the trees remain in good health during construction. Um an arborist provided a tree preservation plan for both pre and post construction. So I have provided the minimum lot dimensions for CC zoning 80 foot width by 110 foot depth minimum square footage of 12,500 um around half acre for each lot. They are currently meeting the 160 inch per acre DBH tree requirement. Um and they're applying with an LDR waiver for subdividing off of a private private ingress egress. So they went through internal DRT staff review on 210. Um planning had some corrections that they had noted of the setback orientation. They have since fixed that. Um staff required or requested clarification for two notes that was made on this middle regarding a tree survey and the tree production plan. And sewer easement is needed um to serve 2B1. And the applicant was to provide legal access um proving that they had access to both of those through both of those easements which they have done. Um so we can go through the LDR responses. The first there are topographical constraints. Uh there are no wetlands or critical area on the property. There are a total of six historic trees on the

property. All the historic trees will be protected in accordance to code. The 42inch oak tree will have a 21 5 foot radius buffer that will help prevent the new utility easement from damaging the tree. Staff comment this is not a normal uniform development pattern. The lot shape and configuration of an existing flag lot make the situation unusual unusual. Applicants only option to subdivide the existing lot is by way of accessment. Next, compliance with one or more provisions of this section is unreasonable, in conflict with public interest, or a practical impossibility. There are no conflicts with public interest or a practical impossibility on the property. Staff's comment, it would be impossible to meet the minimum lot with at the road right of way per LDR standards. Three, the modification will not adversely affect the reasonable development of adjacent property. Um, the applicant said the new lots will not affect reasonable development of adjacent properties. Staff comment, no indication the subdivision will impact surrounding neighboring properties from developing. Describe how the public welfare and interest of the town shall be protected. The parcel is 1.02 acres. The lot will be subdivided into two new lots. These two new lots will not interfere with the general intent and spirit of the regulations for the town of Mount Pleasant staff comment. This development does not present a hardship to the existing infrastructure or compromise the existing development patterns of the surrounding area. And going into 155.048 um the applicant said there are no topographical constraints. Compliance with one or more provision of the section is unreasonable. There are no conflicts with public interest on the property. Staff comment. it would be impossible to meet minimum lot with at the right the road right ofway as per

LDR standards and three describe how the public welfare and interest of the town shall be protected and staff comment was the properties will be accessed by existing access points so the applicant is here and can speak to this I am here for any additional questions and I will leave the site plan up for reference if you can turn to the um the map the previous map just very quickly. Yeah, that one. Thank you.

Okay, so looking at that and then flipping it around the next slide which has the the actual um showing the houses. So the ement would be coming on I just want to see where that easement on lot four is to the other proposed lot. If you flip back again to the Yeah, sorry. The orientation flips around. Yeah, just around a bit. So, I just want to make sure. So, is it it's all it's it's an ement on an already flag lot which is 1821.

Correct. Um, any questions before we ask the applicant to come up?

Hi, I'm Eric Bakey. I'm the director of development for Grants and Homes. I live in West Ashley, 742 West Forest Drive. So, our office is also on Savannah Highway. Um, we've been through the the technical review process of this MPW we've already paid tap and impact fees been working through this process at great length for several months and also the sellers of the property are here so I'm here to answer any kind of technical question but also just here to see the project through completion

is there any existing house now on the property one of these or is it just bare space There's an existing house in the existing garage. Okay. So, which one? When I'm looking at the at this, there's a lot to I can't see if it's 2 D or B. There's B, but then there's one above it. So, where are the existing structures? These are both existing structures. These are proposed locations. Okay. And what's existing right now? Closer on on the 2B side. Specifically, the garage that's kind of crosshatched. Okay. the cross-hatched this area this garage

that crosshatch place which is the garage and and sir would you confirm ingress and egress because I guess we have two that have been mapped as Miss Ireland pointed out a few moments ago but the intent is for access to the the rear parcel to be through the uh green that area there. Okay. This is for the service 2B and this is on its own access. Okay.

And the bottom green that the access that wasn't part of the green outline before that is part that's part of lot five which is a flag lot now. Is that right? It is a adjacent property that's not but I mean it it leads to the property that's shown here as lot four. That's correct. Okay.

Trying to make some sense out of the waiver responses.

Yeah. I mean, you've got the owner here. Sure. That's fine. I just had a quick question about the is the existing garage that's outside of the setbacks and stay or I wasn't sure we can demo it if you would like. It was just it's already there and seems to be useful. It's already all this is already existing. Well, I thought you said I saw you circle the lot 2B area. That house is already existing or not?

Just it's just the garage that's hatched is the only existing structure. And does that structure meet existing setback requirements? Do we know? Yeah, I'm Jane Nicholas. My husband and I are the owners of this property for 25 years. Okay. Um and when we uh and we bought it 25 years ago, we um had a little tree service. And so we just parked some trucks back there and we actually operated it for 30 years. Okay.

Here. Um, and so what I what I know is that the hardship for us is that there when we bought it, it is the one entrance. Um, we had never heard of a flag lot and and we really hadn't uh until more recently. So, um, we feel that if you can see that the lot, there's a line of houses there, Seaside Farms, and they're all quarter acre lots. And then they've developed on Rifle Range, three houses there. And a full one acre lot doesn't really fit if to build a house in a it's not HOA governed at all. So, somebody could pretty much come in there and uh if you didn't have some a builder who was going to build two houses that would fit on halfacre lots fit in that community better than somebody who may come in and I don't know raise chickens or you know something else that they could do stop store their RVs and boats and what have you. So we knowing that we could sell it as an acre lot, we feel in our community it would fit better because we are one of those houses that border. This was our backyard um there and so we're really concerned about and all of these are our neighbors that live next to us. So to answer the four hardships that we do feel like we had that the town that that you feel like the that this is an exceptional um Yes, it does. It is a flag lot with a whole acre there. Um and

that is what limits us is that it did have just one entrance, but the but the access um is a legal forever access to the other lot. So to have two halfacre lots here really each with their own um accesses makes more sense in this in this particular um neighborhood. So the constraint and of course we followed the other flag lot case here. Um but to build two separate houses by I really we have looked at again because we're there the houses that Grantham builds and we know these would just fit in very well in our neighborhood. Um the drive that we own that is part of the the uh property is very wellmaintained. It's already hard gravel, got a beautiful fence going to it. It's quite unique piece of property because nobody knows it's even there. It's just um there's a sweet little uh cottage on this lot in front along Rifle Range and you would just not even know that this is very private uh back there. So, the two houses are not going to have an impact on rifle range. The look everyone behind us, our neighbors will love that it's then not um and I'll go back just when we bought this. the neighbor on that lot, I think y'all named it lot five, um he had a dump there, literally like a hoarder's dump and we bought it and

cleaned it up and he as well kept a hoarder's dump until this past year when the county he's a sliver of county land and they came and made him move all the dilapidated trailers and all that. So, we've worked to kind of make that area back there um clean. We we know that they're on septic and we've brought in Mount Pleasant sewer um to the back of the lot. So, to answer that, yes, I do think we have physical conditions that are extraordinary. Um that I think case by case it is something that uh that y'all I appreciate that y'all will consider case by case. Um, and the reasonable use of this property is for residential. It's zone CC, but it's bordered all by houses and um, and do you have any questions?

I'm not sure if this is a question for you or a question for staff, but I'm looking at the staff comments um, their And one of them is legal access to the ingress egress easement must be verified. The owner provided the deed restriction from 1999 and 1990 ensuring the future property owners would have legal access, but I'm not quite sure. Is that is that future property owners of your property or of lot I'm assuming it's talking about the easement that's owned by the lot five owner. It's to our lot, too. And there has always been a big gate. Okay. There. Yes,

ma'am. I am reviewing that. If there's an approval, I would just suggest you put the condition on that it satisfies subject to legal review. Of course, it would have to be on the final plan as well. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

So, um yeah, the staff comments as I'm reading them are, you know, planning staff request setback orientation for lot 2B one. It's really hard to tell which ones are which here on this so small. Um the treat standards are met. Uh there's a sewer easement needed for lot 2A and then we have to verify the legal access that exists. Comments.

Yeah, I have a question. One question regarding um just ingress egress access in general. What are the requirements in terms of width or or space on that uh per our ordinance? Does anybody Kevin during our during our DRT process fire marshall is part of that requires a foot. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Okay.

Right. We do have it. And and actually when we this property. Um, we did not use um our drive that we own. We actually always used uh the other one for 25 years. Although I'm definitely not in favor of flag lots, I do know as part of the settlement community, the CC CC allows three units per acre and this would be two two

in an acre. So that's actually less dense, which is good. Um, so you know, I I do think this is kind of an unusual conception to the general idea that we don't like. I I appreciate that. I appreciate the circumstances are a little different here. Thank you. Yeah, I agree with you, Miss Ireland. I don't think it strays from the development pattern of the other parcels in this uh in this particular community. So, I'd be willing to make a motion if if others are prepared. Yeah. I mean to include include the conditions.

Yeah. So, I'll make a motion to approve um as as presented with the understanding that there would still be review of um of appropriate ingress egress access per per council. And and the sewer ement and the sewer too. Yes. As um I think already proposed. Yeah. Okay. Any other discussion before we vote? Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. I. Any names? No. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you.

Update on wetlands or um this is I guess another kind of public notice here. This is our land development regulations. And if you recall, this came before you a couple months ago and it has gone through the flood resilience uh planning and planning committees. Um, we've received some direction from from the flood resilience on the exceptions and and they also concurred with y'all's recommendation to include the single family activity that was previously not proposed, but is now since been inserted into the language here. So, uh, we felt like it was appropriate to come back to you just as a public update and you know, receive whatever commentary that y'all may have because it will travel through the flood resilience and planning committee in March and then move through town council uh either at the March town council or either beginning in the April meetings. Um, one of the things that uh was included were the exceptions that was took a lot of discussion there and our our council legal council recommendation including very similar language actually verbatim pretty much from the city of Bluton which is currently moving through their permanent wetland ordinance as well. What it pertains to is we're including the single family activity but it is an exemption for less than five acres with the following conditions that are met. So all three ABC have to be met for them to be exempt

from uh from the wetland delineation. So one is the owner has to certify he has no knowledge of a wetland being on their property. Uh the second one is there's no indication or history that there is wetlands using the uh the information we have that's readily available on the internet. And uh and lastly is the land service activity proposed is accessory to the existing use does not increase the density of the site. So that means like one lot in the two that you would not be exempt from that service. So we moved forward with that. the flood reserves committee voted was in favor of doing this with that exception added as I mentioned uh and I'm adding this just the outline I'm not going through the ordinance again just for discussion if y'all would like to discuss but under specific requirements applicability the residential and non-residential permited activity has now been included I think that was y'all's recommend And um and also the residential and non-residential subdivision requests are all still remain in there too. So that captures you know the the single family activity as well as the subdivision activity. Uh all the rest were the same the except with the D there being number three being added with a condition for five acres and less also exempt two was added as well. So if okay so very quickly the key highlights of this this is only just to make sure everybody understand this is

only for nonjurisdictional weapons. Jurisdictional weapons are uh under the authority of the Army Corps of Engineers. So this regulation is just for nonjurisdictional isolated wetlands. Another one is one of the key components is if we do indicate that their suspected wetlands on property, we would require them to provide certification from a wetland professional has at least five years of experience dealing with wetlands. So it wouldn't be somebody that like an engineer or a landscape architect. It would be somebody with some credentials of being able to determine you know whether or not this is or is not a we also included also um we talked about subdivision single family activity. The buffer that that did have some discussion when it came before you uh still kept the 10 foot no more than 20 but no less than five. And also it was y'all's recommendation and it made it through the ordinance is that uh outside environment protection area or larger as deemed by the planning commission. So when we come across larger isolated wetlands on larger tracks of land then that actual buffer could be increased as deemed by the planning commission. Uh the rest of the exceptions we which we just discussed part of this. And um if there's not any questions on this, I'm gonna turn this over to M. She's really been uh working pretty hard on our mapping tool, which is very is going to be very cool and I think she's off to a very good start. She's been working very hard with our GIS department um on this. But before we get into that, any questions or discussions on the direction we're headed in?

Questions? I'm fine.

Good. Okay. The most interesting part, I think, is is going to be this this tool here. And I think she's she's done a great job putting it very preliminary. Um so just wanted to emphasize that. Um but Bluton had just released their study um with their mapping tool. So we were able to take um some of their methods and apply it to the data that we have available both the town and um federally. So the I'll kind of go through what each uh color means and then we'll get into some examples. So starting at the bottom that bright green color that is the national wetland inventory um provided by the US fish and wildlife. So that has not been updated since 2011. Um then the darker red color that is the hydric soils provided by the natural resource conservation service USDA through the USDA. So any soils in a hydrate condition that is going to show up with the dark red.

I just have a silly question. What does hydrate mean? So it's soils are found in a water. Yep. Perfect.

Um purple sinks or depressions. So wherever there is a depressional storage area in the town, that's going to be purple. Um, blue is both the hydra soil layer and the depression layer overlaid. So where both of those things are seen on the map, that's going to be blue. And then the bright red is going to be all three of those things. So it's going to be the hydric soil layer, the NWI inventory, and this depressions in the town where all three of those things overlap is going to be the bright red. So, we're going to get into some examples. Okay. So, our first example is going to be on Pocahontas Street in Old Village. So, the red rectangle that is the property that we're looking at. Um, so you can see it is this is the 2025 GIS imagery. And then when we apply our map, um, we can see that there is there are hydric soils and there's impression. So, if we think about how this would be applied, they want to come through, do something on their property, um someone on staff level, single family inspectors, whoever it may be, could use this tool, say, "Oh, you have hydro soils, there's a sink on your property, there could be a chance that there's a wetland, you need to go get a delineation."

So, heading into another one. This is off of Rifle Range Road. Um and that intersecting road is Bowman Road. So again, um any of those single family homes, we overlay this mapping tool. We can see there's two of those indicators um that there's a good chance of a hydrate condition. Um you would need to go get a delineation. And in this tool, you can search by address and TMS number and it'll bring you right there.

Great tool. Um, so just some spot checking. Um, we used two projects that we knew had delineations done. Um, so we wanted to see how this tool measured up to those. So this is a subdivision on Willow Pond Road. So on the top um, this is their plan set with their wetland delineation. So the wetland delination is all in here. And then we were able to overlay our map on that. So the green the NWI data that picked it up. You can also see there's hydric soils, there's sinks, and all our layer that showed all three of those intersecting also showed up. So if this project came through and um well this is a larger project, but say it was single family, um we could use our data and say, "Hey, these things are showing up in your property. You need to go get a delineation. What's the threshold on like when you would ask someone to do that? Like some of these peripherally there's like one little dot on the property. So like then they have to get

like it see it seems like this is going to require basically everyone to do it. Well, if we go back to Pocahontas Street, there's a few surroundings that don't have it, but it is, like I said, very preliminary. Um, when you work out the kinks, but this is kind of just a start. Okay. So, in this one here, okay, I guess I was a little confused that you were only looking at the red rectangle, but you're saying in this whole picture, that blue dot is the dot,

correct? Just to extend that thought, my concern is that um we may be opening ourselves up to evaluation for almost every parcel in in town, right? Um and and beyond that, the property owners in this situation are going to look at the town

and the commissions and staff um like we're crazy. Um just because they're going to say this is not wetland. I mean I'm standing right on top of it. Whatever the I've been in these situations before in a former life when um in some large projects where um some of the property had been designated wetland, but it was um it was hard to believe that it was designated a wetland. I'll just leave it at that. Right. And um maybe that was my my takeaway at that time, not not having a deep uh real estate development background at all,

um was that it was just an unusual case, but now I think I'm learning that may not have been that unusual. Yeah, some of those larger projects are going to have to go and do that delineation and that due diligence anyway. Um this kind of just gives staff that preliminary idea of whether there's something there and then ultimately um it's their environmental scientist that they hire to go out there and delineate that would say and you know they're just making the delineation and then if it wanted to go a step further right Army Corp of Engineers the only one who can actually say that is I see a wetland or not. So you know there's kind of steps to this um

and you mentioned only the Army Corps but wasn't there another um federal body that had jurisdictions as well. So, the Army Corps Okay. What was Oh, I was I don't know if I understand the question. What was the question again? Oh, it's I see. No. So, natural resources conservation. So, the USDA also plays a role. So, they have um a lot of natural resource data. So, that's where we got our soil data from. Oh, I see. So, they're not making the they don't have a team that makes a judgment. You're just using their data for this purpose. I see. I I understand better now. Thank you. Where's the red, blue, and purple data coming from?

The purple data are the depressions in the town. So that's going to be like a topographical depression that could hold water basically. Um the blue is both the hydric soil. So the the wet soil overlaid with those depressions because there's several indicators that say whether there's a higher probability of there being a wetland. Two of those strong indicators are hydric soil and a depression. So that's why we overlaid those two data points together. And so that would be the the blue color for but for any of these colors born alive

you would want the or is it okay to have a depression but not hydro soils?

We would most likely look at hydric soils and sinks the blue colors. Um, but again, we're still kind of figuring out how this is going to be applied. And we did look at Blu's methodology. Um, their methodology was more extensive. So, that's not to say that we can't take this data and go even further. Um, they used a statistical program um to run a probabilities test based off of the data in their town. So, um, you know, just kind of using internal staff time that we have, this is at least something that we can use instead of kind of shooting in the dark.

And Bluffton's seen a lot of of growth over the last decade or more, too. So, I guess there's parallels to our community. Do you have a sense for how frequently they're going to the next level in terms of analysis on a partial bypartial basis? I do not. in their study. Um they went over in their special town council um they just kind of went over the methodology that their consultants provided and showed an example of their maps um based off of their maps showed um it was based off probability. So it was high medium low probability. So I don't know you know how much of the town falls within what. Um but I do have one more example if you guys like to see.

Well again my my only real the takeaway for me is that um We could be adding a tremendous amount of burden on staff, on property owners to prove that their parcel isn't wetland when um that may not be what we really want, what we really intend, at least at some level. I don't know what the right threshold is. This isn't my field, but it just seems like a lot. So, um you're spot on. I think I think there's some little concerned with kind of overing this and being a burden on

the actual homeowner. Um, but we we are going to uh we are treating this as a work in progress here. Okay.

We do anticipate, you know, coming back in a few months and reporting back on the effectiveness of the of the program or the the ordinance and u you know, seeing how it's received and how successful we we can be at doing what council wants us to do and that is protect isolated weapons. So there is going to be cases where somebody wants to do something and this regulation is going to do what it's intended to do. You can't do it. Uh so there is going to be there is going to be that that sort of scenario that is going to come up. But um you know you know you can't you have to drive the car before it actually figure out if it's going to run. And I think Bluffton and the town and there's some other municipalities are moving somewhat in the same direction together. Um Bluton is kind of like taking the lead on on this, but um but I do imagine that we will run into some situations where there will have to be some revisions and maybe some tweaking and some honing in on certain things

once we kind of get going. And and again, last comment and I'll I'll be quiet, but um I can make arguments both ways. I applaud the sensitivity toward this as we continue to grow and um the water only has so many places to go and we got sea level rise and all those factors. So, um, but again, as I've said previously, um, there's there's so much blue out here that I think a lot of property owners are going to say, I don't know how in the world this could be defined as as wetland. And I do want to preface that this is would also pick up ponds. So like this area here, that's a pond. So,

you know, we can turn on and off this layer and Oh, there's blue. Let me turn it off. Let me see what's under there.

I see. So there is, you know, definitely work in progress and um by no means is this 100% accurate and I think all of these studies preface that uh the only way to determine this fully is to go out and delineate. Um but this was my last example of Rifle Range Road Park. So they did a delineation as well. Um, so I overlaid their delineation to the tool um of all the layers that came up. So it pretty accurately found some isolated wetlands. If we look here, it got all of these in here. Um, this in here is actually the only wetland that was on the NWI inventory. So if we were to solely go off of that, we would have lost a lot of data in here of of what wetlands were actually there. Regardless, this project would have had to delineate those wetlands anyway just because it's such a larger project and it has a larger impact. But um because they were able to go out and delineate this, this project is saving a lot of wetlands. But it was just interesting having this delineation and being able to compare it. Um

so have you overlaid the proposed plan of building on the rifle range park to make sure that you know it's in an area where it's not affected by any of these worse areas? I mean, it looks to me like most of it would be just below that pond area that you pointed out. Um, they had to work very closely with coastal zone consistency um through the Bureau of Coastal Management in order to to work this out. They had a whole wetland master plan. So, I know that they did a a lot of work in order to uh preserve as much many of the wetlands as they could.

Just to add to that, I knew you were going to go there, but yes, they saving 800 8 plus acres of isolated platform. So most of that stuff that you do see has been incorporated. Yeah. Because I was just thinking this tool, you know, this is an example. This tool is great when someone is proposing a subdivision. It's like we have to know, you know, is what they're proposing in the worst part or in the best part um as well as all the other things we worry about in subdivisions. It's very helpful to know. You wouldn't always you know, visibly like a font, you know. So, that was all I had for you guys for show

point Pam because maybe the applicability could be defined um in such a way too that I'm making something up. If if someone wants to build an extra bedroom on their home, that may or may not per some sort of square footage amount that may or may not trigger the need for some sort of wetland evaluation. I don't know. I'm just thinking about how to

aso as opposed to, you know, a new home, a full home or three homes or a new subdivision or whatever the case may be, you know, a store strip center. This I'm fascinated. This is really a cool cool tool. You had mentioned like comparing it to Bluff, but like does Charleston County or Charleston do all the same stuff?

Charleston County, I know is kind of on their way, I believe. Um, but they do not have full inventory of our wetlands of the county's wetlands.

Great. Thanks. This is good progress. Okay. So, the next item is discussion and possible recommendations to amend LDR chapter and um so Mr. Bennett and Miss Mansour and I talked about some possibilities. We were concerned in particular that there are it seems to be there there more robust tools in the LDRs for us to make decisions especially about things like settlement communities for things like streets and blocks but not just sort of overall or more in a more general area. So what I did and I don't know if I can make a motion as the chair but um I'd like to move that we add into the record because I made a sort of I put into one piece of paper or two pieces some options and I thought this would be something we could all work from

piece right here these on the slide um it's actually I just made it a little simpler okay so we can we can do that because that was kind of part of the email but I think that's part of the by way of background and what supports all this and then these are just sort of some options to think about and we would look to you for sort of to say this doesn't really work this way or we can do it but in a different way or something like that. So let's work on this but let me also just hand this out if you don't mind. So can I move and get a second to add this to the record? So you made the motion. I'll second. Yeah. So all those in favor of using what I'm about to give out

in terms of protocol. The reason she's doing that because she's introducing material that wasn't included in the in the agenda that was posted. Is that correct? That's correct. This will allow it to be added to the minutes of the meeting. Okay. So, motion made second. All in favor? Great. And here's one for you and for and for Mr. Stone as

All right. So yeah, this the beginning Kevin is helpful because we were trying to sort of say, you know, there are things that are in our comprehensive plan, action points, um, and comments in our in our comp plan. There's that sort of, um, I think support the need to do this. And do you want me to go through them? I mean, I love it. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thanks for doing this, by the way. Appreciate.

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. So, um, you know, we we're authorized the planning commission to prepare amendments or you know new LDRs to council for adoption. Um and we'd like to make sure because the sketch plans are the things that commission approves and they don't go beyond to council and we want to make sure that when we approve them they're in harmony with the comprehensive plan. Um some of the action items are uh about the sweetgrass basket overlay district. So, it's revisited to ensure the compatibility of future development within the existing community in terms of lot sizes, uses, roads, density, and and prevent developers from removing land from the district in order to protect the integrity of the settlement communities. Um, this is relevant to zoning and to the LDRs. One of them, next one is to evaluate town land development regulations and storm management standards to ensure the latest techniques, methods and best management practices. Um the next one is to require any subdivision and development with buildings and infrastructure to uh with agriculture or vacant land to connect with existing neighborhoods and match the quality and character of the existing development. And then with respect to There's a challenge that's noted in the comp plan that infill projects which are, you know, adding to a lot that has something on it already, let's say, are established uh are surrounded by established development. Larger scale buildings and an increased level of activity can be viewed as encroaching on an established lifestyle and character. And I think that not just with settlement communities, but with other neighborhoods. And then lastly, um there's one on page 536 that says, "Protect the integrity of four mile, six mile, seven mile, and Hamilton

neighborhoods by limiting resonings for subdivision development and improving support for the residents traditional businesses and ways of life. So to me, these all kind of go to character of neighborhoods and protecting quality of life and and historic traditions if we can." Um so in the LDRs as they exist right now we do have something under just but it's under streets that says the layout of the streets as to arrangement character width grade and location may be required to conform to the town's comp plan and official map to adjoining street systems or adjoining properties um and to topography natural features and drainage systems. So the word character appears there, but in what I thought we sort of needed to make to give ourselves a better tool to do what we're intending is to add character in a way to the prior section which is 155.047. And there's a there's a section in there C2 that says, and this is um in my first part of what I just handed out, it says the lot size, width, shape, and zoning orientation shall be in proper relation to applicable zoning requirements, street and block design, existing and proposed topographical conditions, and the type of development and use contemplated. So, I was thinking that at the very minimum we could add an e to that to say the historic look and character of the community or something of that nature. So, that's kind of the best I could come up with at the time. Um, At the beginning, the lead in we might want to add uh to lot size, width, shape, grade, etc. the proportion of street frontage to lot depth. And that

actually came up today when we I was sitting in on the 10 mile um meeting that um Mr. Pinkney was pointing out that in the settlement communities in particular, they're very concerned about maintaining the proportion of the lot sizes from street front to depth. So that could be covered under size and width and shape, but I just wasn't sure if that was too nebulous. So I wanted to add this just in case to discuss. So that's one suggestion because then if we saw a subdivision application, a sketch that we felt in looking at the community like let's say it's a settlement community or the surrounding community and if it really did not fit the character of it that would give us um a tool you know to to say no or to to require something different if you want me to go on the next ones I'll just go through them all and then we can talk about whether any or all of these are worth you know recommending the next one I was thinking um for proposed subdivisions in area designated settlement community future land use. Um we could require the applicant to show proof of coordination with the community association and existing residents living in close proximity to ensure there's no negative impact. What happens sometimes is we get these things in settlement communities and they haven't necessarily gone to speak with the settlement community leaders or association and you know so this is this would be something to um require you know in fact many times in the past I know we on commission have asked the applicant have you talked with the people who live there you know and they might you might find out they hadn't really talked with them or coordinated so I think that would be a good idea

do the um in relation to that like we have the issue of like the county has made these historic areas for the settlement communities but we don't have a coralary So, I don't know if those county regulations would like cover some of this if we had a

First of all, we wouldn't be looking at this at all unless we have annex property coming in. So, in other words, the county properties, they do have things that they're doing now with historic district overlays. That was one of the things this morning for 10 months. Um, but so if we're not looking at a subdivision for instance, unless it's a property that's in the town, I don't know if that answers your question.

Well, I'm just saying that like there might already be a mechanism that settlement if it weren't in wess. wouldn't have use that if they're in the town. It's a one or the other. I know, but I'm saying like can we I think what the town really needs is like a

they're doing that. So, the reason I mentioned and Mr. Stone mentioned to everyone when he sent the package that there was a meeting at 10 this morning was this was the first of them. It was and this is a little bit off subject but just it's relevant. Um the 10 mile community uh has worked for several years with the county and here has been involved in that because we're looking to mirror what the county is doing. The county just passed it. We now planning uh committee met in a special meeting at 10 this morning just with respect to 10 mile and um looked at the draft that mirrors the counties. There were a couple of places where we felt or they felt that it really wasn't applicable to us. There were things like additional densities, high densities for affordable housing that are countywide that aren't applying to us. So, they're they're moving that now to committee. It will eventually come to commission for public hearing. So, they're working on that, but it is a process and each one of the settlement communities that is looking to do that has a different time frame for this. So, Phillips and Hamlin are next in the I think are next, but they're behind. So they are definitely doing this and to the extent that this is ends up maybe being duplicative of something that comes in we can then possibly once we've got those you know in our protection um of our zone we might find that some of this necessary but I'm thinking it could be months or even years before we get some of those

has anyone like gone to the historic district reser committee and like do they even know about this issue because they're the ones that would make a new district

they know about it and they don't apply to anybody other than the village the reason that this is a long story but the historic district correct me if I'm wrong but so far I'm hoping I'm correct here the historic district preservation commission was changed from that old village so that it could apply other town. Previously, it was just specific to the old village. So, it can provide um oversight for other areas of town, but it doesn't yet. And so, part of the getting the 10 mile overlay, for instance, just to use that first one as an example, they're talking about the best way to have oversight who reviews those things. The easiest way to do that would be to have representatives from 10 miles be on the historic district preservation commission and then how we do that and who gets what votes and whether there's you know because again you have people from the old village making decisions about

yeah I don't know that that's the I'm just saying that like I don't know if there's another process but the process I know of is that like that commission can make a new district. It doesn't applies all the old requirements to that. Yeah, it can. And Mr. Bennett, you have a lot of knowledge about the district reservation, too. But they they can, but I think they have to be they're subject to town council and so town council has to sort of blend these things together if they're going to do that. It can't just be the historic district that decides it's now.

No, they would just propose that there be a new district. I don't think necessarily even want to be involved. That might be the mechanism to like start the process.

It would there's all those things I just mentioned are all part and parcel of that whole process. There lots of pieces moving pieces of this. But until those are all done and because we are looking at sketch plans that come up before us that give us problems I'm looking at ways that we can you know have some tools that we can rely on in the LDRs because I don't think we can just wait and those are the communities these things could apply to a subdivision in a different area of town in a different neighborhood. It's not just

is there any way to like temporarily use the county guidelines as like temporarily I mean there were even things mentioned today the planning committee um that you know couldn't we have their enforcement mechanism apply or various aspects of it and the answer as Mr. He said, "No, that would be a real problem." Right. You can speak to that. Exactly. I picked up on that today at that meeting. Yeah. So, it sounds like it could be logical, but it doesn't work.

So, anyway, that's why, yeah, I mean, if there were a simpler way to do this, believe me, I wouldn't have spent a lot of time doing all this. But, um, and these, you know, these may be things that you don't think are necessary even But we can at least talk them talk through them. Um so the third one is for areas that are conventional neighborhood not settlement community but conventional neighborhood. Um my thought there would be to have something and this doesn't have to be this particular language but that the subdivided lot size or dimensions would be similar to or maybe not less than the majority of the average lots that exist within a certain perimeter. So in other words, you know, you look at the surrounding um character of the community and you're not putting, you know, some largely dense subdivision in the middle of, you know, R1, let's say, something like that. Um then some other thoughts were um for properties that are have septic systems, some of the properties come in and they can only have septic because of where they're located. one right that we had to deal with not that long ago perhaps adding that the lot sizes have to be larger um because they have to accommodate fields that sort of thing. Um another another one which is something that it should be familiar to people from a recent issue we had is for dead end streets that exceed the acceptable length in the LDRs. you know, dead end can only be a certain length long, but if they say there's a potential connection to an uncon currently unconnected street, um it might be helpful to get a statement from the jurisdiction that holds the road, the road holder, as to the plans and timing for any future connectivity. This is so that someone can't just say, "Well, we're allowed

because we we will eventually be able to connect to this other road if there's no intention of the state connect the road then it really is a it's a tempor it's a permanent not a temporary so that could be something and then finally um so you know another thought is to lower the threshold that applies to the green space preservation plan it it currently only applies to more than five acres um so that if we applied it to something smaller in proposed subdivisions it would trigger a larger space required. So those are the thoughts. I went through them. The three of us thought they were worth discussing and it's up to the to the group here as to whether we think we should make any of these as recommendations to planning committee and council

for this last one. Like what would be a threshold that makes sense? Excuse me. For the last And what you said with respect to the lesson what it could what threshold oh sorry what are you thinking like four acres three acres or you know doing it to everything I don't know if someone has one lot and splits it into two now they got to put 20% space

yeah um I mean you know I don't have a particular answer but I think five acres is a big subdivision um so to me you Well, if you have a if you have a let's say a zoning designation of um like even community which is one of the lowest we have that's three lots per acre. So you start to think about two acres theoretically assuming they could fit you know otherwise access six lots. So it seems to me when you've got somebody who's a homeowner that owns a wants to subdivide it. That's one thing. But when you're starting to talk about a larger

maybe like having a number of houses, number of lots involved trigger threshold. So Kevin, any thought to you about whether what would work best in terms of lowering the threshold? Would it be by acres or by numbers of proposed lots in a subdivision? Is there any benefit doing one versus the other? I mean, I can tell you the five acre threshold has only been really applied to two maybe three developments over the past few years. They're pretty small generally. So, yeah, I know. All we're seeing is

Yeah. I mean, all we're seeing is the smaller county properties that have become annexed and then of course they're looking for the sewer because they want to subdivide the property. Um, So I it's a great idea. I mean I I mean if it all depends on you know the body here wants to recommend uh something for us to come back to you with so we could work on uh you know crafting an ordinance and try to get try to get it moving. Yeah, you could also like the other way you could do it is even though like in CC you're saying you're allowed you know three lots per acre if you choose to go to only you know a lesser amount then it wouldn't trigger this or something like you could have a low threshold but then a way out they wouldn't But the green space is like that's dedicated space that like no one owns or it can be like partially on people's property.

It's owned by the property. Yeah. So in other words, if there's a subdivision, what if there's a subdivision of one into three and there's no just private lots, the green space would not apply at all. It depends on if the parcel is greater than five acres. But if if we were to make it less than five acres um and there's no HOA, they're just going to subdivide and sell off the properties and you know, it's not part of um you mean like down where you got this large and then they're just trying to sell it to John and then the Dr. Horton and stuff like that.

We just had here subdivided one two let's say you know they're going to just build houses on those two it's not it's not an HOA I mean that's a great example the one we just had would open space be meaningful to be applied to that type of proposal that's the question but they elected to go to lower density just voluntarily makes it feel less consistent with that thought. I mean maybe instead what you do is you apply um lot coverage ratio so then you have de facto green space. Yeah.

So rather than green space so that's an idea. And I I think that's part of the conversation that planning committee and others are having right now is right. Well, and also for the 10 mile part of what's in their 10 mile overlay from this morning is um their lot coverage ratio building ratio is 25%. With impervious surface added that's 30%. So that's lower. What is ours normally? 35 or 40. Yeah. depending on the building area ratio is around 30 35 something like that. We don't have impervious surface limitations only in the old village.

Yeah. Right. Right. So maybe that's that's a good recommendation to go with the building area. Yeah. Especially given what Kevin described a few moments ago where you've only had a small number of these situations given the build out of. So we could go to 25 let's say and then that would be something lower than that's consistent with what the wants in their overlay which makes some sense um because some of these would be in some so

yeah I understand the objectives that um that you're you're trying to achieve I guess collectively we're trying to achieve in addressing this um the one that um gave me a little bit of pause is the second and I'd really ask that um staff including a take a good look at the language because I don't know that it reads as though you're anticipating consensus. Yeah. And and I think that's an unreasonable standard. Yeah, you're never gonna

you're never going to have consensus because then we know from the settlement communities at least the dynamics are very often you've got you know half a dozen families who live on the parcel but they've got cousins or extended family members that live elsewhere and the their economics involved and some want to sell and you know it's just or some of them are investors that are right and it's just messy. Yeah, it's messy. Not not to jump because just getting this and reviewing it's going to take a lot of effort. sure for us to go through. I will tell you initially, Mr. Bennett, that is my concern. There's no way to apply this. There's no standard

in which to do so. I think the commission already has the You can ask. I mean, I think it's more of an informal uncodified way of doing it. Yeah. Which is likely the better way, but I'll look at it. Okay. That's good advice. Thank you.

So, just a question related to that. We ask generally, you know, have you talked with the community and you know, like we were talking tonight about the about a different issue but about amendment. Um, is there something that gives us the right to say no if they haven't? In other words, could that go to character or in other words, it's one thing to ask, but what I always worry about is are we on legal footing to be able to deny something if it's not specifically which why I'm trying to get some and are they telling us the truth?

Yeah, I'll tell you I I look at every question staff heard me say this for years every commission. I envision myself explaining this to a judge and and a reasonable look there's there's no objective way to look at that. Yeah, I just can't imagine that we would be and again that's where I'm coming from. I'll look at it closer, but my answer to you right now is I don't think there's a judge in the world that would allow us to get away with that.

So that's why Yeah, this is one of those more nebulous things that I agree with you is kind of pretty loosey and hard. Some of these others I'm more specific, you know, measures that would give us some the settlement communities like I don't understand their mechanics like do they have a private organization that they that's another problem is go to leaders I mean some of these being kind are self-appointed leaders there's no mechanism I'm not saying to answers and beyond that sometimes they have a couple of leaders and they don't always agree.

There's just no authorization that they would have and again in looking at it that's just one more

right one more issue and one more problem with it. So if we look more at the first one, I think if are we on some decent footing if we talk about the look and character, the historic look that's one that's going to require a little more for us. We do have other parts of our code that stress those things. Again, it's going to be one of those at least from my stand and again, you know, if that's something that I probably tighten it up,

it depends on figure out a way to tighten that up to make, you know, further the intent which is this is and maybe we have to say it's by lot depth by proportion of you know street frontage to depth of lot or something we have to be much more specific. Yeah, I think you've got to use different words besides look and character. Well, that's what we were just saying.

That's like what I said to Miss Ireland last week when um I had um denied one of the at the last meeting. I was the only one to deny the subdivision. Um, and it was not on legal grounds because I was like, it's not in keeping with character of the neighborhood. Now, I didn't hear a word. You just

So, it passed. It didn't. Yeah, I was the only one. But but that but that was my thought was not only because there was no turn around at the end of the long driveway. It was also directly and the answer

is there something goes back to my test. So when we put language like this test is there any objective means we can measure that that's why we have minimal lots why we have all of these things already and that's why we need to be very careful when we're adding restrictions on top of that that aren't necessarily based on any science fact that's

and that's one of the David, that for everybody. I like some variation of the third recommendation because more specific. It's more specific. It's measurable. And I think it addresses some of the concerns that we've all had over the last few years with respect to the subdivision of, you know, slightly larger than than normal lots into two small lots. that is inconsistent with the streetscape, you know, during um in that immediate area, right? You know, and that that applies all over the community, not not not just in the settlement community.

Yeah. I mean, then that third one could um take out, you know, designated conventional neighborhood and just say period, you know, for proposed subdivisions because it could apply also instead of the more character It could apply to the communities as well. So maybe that's one of the more overall measurable. Yeah. Some variation of that. Yeah. I mean, streetscape is a term that's used in the historic district. I don't know what type of legal grounds it has, but it's a term that's been used a long time.

Well, I mean, when you look both for Mr. P and Mr. that if you look at the first one, street and block design, does that cover sort of the proportion of, you know, street frontage to depth of lot or some of these things are kind of nebulous. I don't even really know what they mean. Street is different. I want to go back also just looking at this what is the mission of the planning? It's not design. It's not to serve as architectural design. No.

And so we also and again this is all off the I'm not trying to ruin anyone's thoughts here. My thought process is always what are the counterpoints and I think that's very I mean the purpose of this whole Maybe if you could help us find a way to do that is to really give us some way when you know it may be that things look okay generally speaking but it just doesn't meet the surrounding area you know it just it looks like a fish out of water I understand and I know fish out of water is not going to become some consistency with neighborhood standards

right and what we have to do is square that lotes All of those things that go into that reason.

Well, I'm particularly worried about the sketch since they stop here and they don't go on to council and they don't get further vetting. So, you know, I just I want to make sure that it's like the last line of defense is here and I just want to have as many tools as we can so that you know council members aren't then saying how on earth could you have let this happen, you know?

Are those sketch plans like when we leave here or is it still massinary? I would take some exception to the fact that there's no review after that. after that in fact it used to be that allinary right but that was eliminated and that was done as now the staff level right so yeah that's the what I mean is the last

we don't know what it turns into the way this was all changed we stop plan after that so that's I just, you know, want to have as much flexibility and leeway in our, you know, we don't get another bite out of its

the conditions that are placed on subdivisions. Those are the conditions that we ensure that they're complete prior to being authorized by staff. So when they leave here, they don't they don't have two lots. They have to adhere to all the conditions that were placed on the subdivision and then they get the authorization but goes to staff which I signed and then they report but I want to make sure the condition's changing

if there was something drastic conceptual plan in commercial setting where they can move buildings around as long as they don't exceed the maximum number of units. Let's say sketch plan kind of look the same thing. If you're going to get approved by that

my recommendation just because there's a lot I'm sorry my mind all these right now we probably need to have a review session that we can bring back to you comments and speculation because it's great discussion but I think we can have a better discussion when we have bullet points for you that are digestible and you can take action on. We don't need any further action tonight. You can take all this and do what you need to do. And if something like the number two is just kind of a non-starter, don't even bother coming back to us to explain all that. You can just come back to us with things you think are feasible that are along the lines of the intention.

You let me keep depress I'm gonna say I'm gonna send all positive vibes at you Mr. to come up with some really creative things. The spirit exactly right measurable. Yes, sir. Understand? Good. And I I think the first one is what the author was trying to do is define that character, protect that character. So anything that

can be added to tighten that up good protecting neighborhood land development character. That's great. And then the other ones, you know, take a stab at them. Yeah. This is the beginning. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much. So, we are ajourned. Thanks.