Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Um, so I think we just have to figure that out. Hey there. How are you? Okay. Yeah. So I mean I think should work. I mean I think and as long as we have

Oh yeah. I think he's on the next group. So Peter probably is in the search for someone. Yes. So, one of the things that will happen at the November council meeting is they'll go into exact session and they'll see if they can appoint somebody to take the spot here. So, that person No, you know, actually Peter's crowd should have a pipeline. Well, they do have applications. They do that kind of they do the minute something opens up. Well, it's hard because it has to go by council. So, it's the whatever the next council meeting is. And

well, here's what happens. Sometimes you get a whole bunch of people that apply over time, but they apply and this one application for all the councils and boards and they ask you like what's your first what's your first choice? What's your second choice? What's your third choice? So if if the only applications they have that are active because some people or appointed somewhere you know if the only ones that are active have planning as like their third choice then you know sometimes they'll say like is that really the right person so they may try to find other people because they want people that are really interested. So

Oh, yeah. So did I. I said because you were asking about your He just wanted to know

how many hypothetically if I weren't here I'd be in troublead we've laughed so much already been here for 10 minutes I swear it's hysterical [Laughter] oh my god God, I'm going to be punchy by the time we start. So, I did give these guys just these three before everybody else came.

Oh, thank you. problem Yeah, Yes.

Just so you can I can my hands are free. a tough stretch.

How are you?

You know, I did because Oh, fire. East is your pilots. already. They've already I was surprised that I was a little surprised.

Spicy. Pretty spicy. Is that Peter? Are you going?

Like I don't get paid enough for that. Got it. Absolutely. Yep, I'm on.

We'll call the October meeting of the planning commission to order. Um, we've got a few absences, Lynette. Um I know that at least I was told a little bit earlier that Mr. Lacy um has resigned and maybe one or two other PE Emily I don't see here. We did hear from Mr. Barry. He said he would not be here. Okay, good. Thanks for thanks for letting us know. But I think we do have a quorum so we're we're ready to go. Okay. Um I'll ask for approval of the agenda or a motion to pass the the agenda.

I thank there's a second. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion carries. And the same need a motion to approve the minutes of our last meeting. Thanks, Bill. Is there a second? Second from uh Mr. Davis. All those in favor say I.

Any opposed? Great. All right, we'll turn it over to staff for the planning commission recommendations update. Good afternoon, planning commission. We have three items that have been ruled on by council since we've last met. 1124 Vining Road that was proposing AB2 zoning that was denied at first reading. So that will terminate that application. Final reading for 1096 and 1076 Beehive Road to be zoned and annexed and zoned CC. That was approved. And final reading on the 11.85 85 acres off of Highway 17. The zoning was denied for CC, but the annexation was approved. So, that will come in as RR, Rural Residential.

Okay, great. That's all the staff has. Thanks for that update. Uh, and I just want to confirm that all the correspondence that came in within the time limits was was properly distributed. Correct. I I will say there there are some indirect uh correspondents uh that that I would like to refer you to. Uh the town has been receiving um fraudulent emails from people impersonating town staff. So wanted to make you aware of that. You can see here this is uh from the planning commission

usa.com. So wanted to make people aware we're we're going to take action on our part to better protect the applicants. Um but there there has been requests for wire transfers. So wanted to make you aware of that. Also uh wanted to make you aware of the statemandated uh education requirements. If either you'll be doing the if your first year six-hour orientation or if you're continuing then you'll do your three-hour and as you receive those certificates of completion please pass those along to planning department. So great. Thank you. That's all the staff.

Before I forget Mr. understand were there are there any recommendations from the IT function here with the town about our uh commission um email addresses or anything or really there there they have been releasing these um training soft uh software training and um Pam I see you've been doing those those are those are helpful um it'll come into your email as a no before um that's the name of the the company that produces those so those training opportunities are are great But uh staff's going to be taking uh action on our part to better um kind of screen the applicants from public view. Got it. Okay.

I have Don. So I have a suggestion. Um I was in the Lynchburg, Virginia City Council meeting uh not too long ago and their suffixes.gov. You know, I mean this isn't for our committee, but you know, it may be something you might want to bring up to the IT people. You know, I wonder if it'd be worthwhile changing, you know, um, town of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.gov instead of do because there'd be a whole lot more security if the suffix was.gov instead of.com. I certainly ask the IT department about it. Okay.

Okay. Um, now will be the time for general public comment. So, there will be opportunities. We have uh two public hearings tonight. Yeah, two public hearings tonight. So, if you're here to speak about one of the um proposals specifically, you're welcome to speak then. Or if you have um things to to comment on of a more general nature, you're welcome to do that now. Okay, seeing none, we will move ahead um to um agenda item 7A, which again is a public hearing, Chamber Road.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a request to annex and zone RC2 at 6 and a half acres off of Chandler Road. This is a pretty straightforward request. The most difficult part was trying to find an aerial where I could pan out far enough and give you some kind of mile markers and understanding and orient you where this exactly is. Um, you can see here it's it's north of Carolina Park and Pepper Plantation. And it's right here on Chandler Road. And this is outside the urban growth boundary. We zoom into this site. We can see that it's even further off of Highway 17. It's about 1.1 miles off of Highway 17. And here's our 6 and 12 vacant acres that is currently in the county. And again, this is another instance where uh this property is within the 10mi historic district within the county. It's outside the urban growth boundary. And currently the county assesses the density for this property as.33 units per acre.

They are trending toward uh currently proposing one unit per acre for this area. But with RC2 and the town zoning, that would would remain.33 units per acre. So the 6 1/2 acres, we're looking at two units if it were to be subdivided. And it is a rural neighborhood as far as the future land use. So RC2 is the most appropriate request for for this uh zoning uh designation in property. So that's all that staff has. glad to answer any questions you have. And um I don't know if the applicant's here or not, but

I do have a question about the urban growth boundary. We talk about it periodically, but how is that defined or established? And do you have a map indicating exactly where um that boundary is and you know a little more relevant to uh to this particular application? I'm just curious more than anything else. Sure. Sure. So, I know the county established theirs 20 years ago and and we probably were mirroring that. But it's funny this even as far panned out as this Areriel is, I still can't even show you how far north it is of the urban growth boundary, but Daryl Creek Trail

is is on the one side of 17. Theodore Road is on the other side. Yep. So, anything beyond that, it's important to place a an envelope around your city limits and so you just don't have sprawl. Sure, I understand that part. Yeah. I just didn't know how it was where it was defined and what I should be using as sort of um mental touch points or guideposts when we talk about the urban growth boundary. Okay. All right. Are are there questions for uh Mr. stone here while we have him on this particular topic. No. Okay. Any discussion? Okay.

Yeah. I'll ask um this is a public hearing. Are there comments from the public on this particular application? Any public comments? And is the applicant here to speak to the application? Yes, sir. We'll close the public hearing. There's no Yes, sir. Thank you. Tim Cook avail themselves. If you would introduce yourself and your uh give your address for the record.

Sure. Tim Cook, 412 Station 14. I'm the property owner and um so we we're requesting to annex this portion. There's actually two portions so we can add it to the adjacent parcel which is already in in the town. And we're requesting it the same zoning. Um, so it could be one parcel all zone consistently.

So we we have gone in front of the historical commission for two parcels that we did previously subdivide out of the out of this parcel and they're 1.5 acres each on Chandler Road. And it was an interesting meeting because out of the 10 applications, mine was the only one that got approved. So they they were in favor of what we're doing. It's uh you know very consistent with the vernacular and and the adjacent parcel sizes so it fits in. Okay. And actually own all those properties so they're all that's why I wanted to keep it very consistent. Happy to answer any questions. Okay. Questions for the cap?

I have one. What about all the trees? I mean it looks like this area is like pretty heavily forested. I mean, you know, unfortunately, it was it was logged about 10 years ago. It was logged, so it's clearcut. So, it has reestablished. Um, there are some some hardwoods, but um not a tremendous number. Are there any large caliber trees on our property? Uh, very few, but um they'll obviously be be protected. It's going to be used for residential, so should be easy with on a acre and a half lot to to work around the trees.

How, Peter? How old is this the top that we're looking at? How old is that? This is a 2025. Oh, it's current. Okay. This is basically think of as scrub pines, Gary. I see. Yeah. It's predominantly lai lai pines with very few hardwoods.

Okay. um thoughts either from the applicant or um staff regarding the um historic uh uh community designation with the county. Is there a way to tag the property the same or similar with the town? I don't know what the what the process for doing that might be. So the town would be more restrictive in this case if the county ends up going to a one one

density. So um 20,000 square foot um lots for um 30,000 square foot lots for RC2 and if it rural residential that's 20,000. So, so there's not a historic struct structure on the property, but I was just more thinking about the surrounding community and the degree to which there um might be restrictions or limitations associated with the historic character of the community like the overlay. Like like an overlay, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. We we've been um looking into that. It's it's really at this time it's the development standards preserve the cultural uh resources that are there and kind of not creating lots and structures that are that stick out and and don't fit in with that area. That's that's mainly it. But okay, beyond that um we would have to develop our own design district like the county has. Got it. Okay. All right, that's all I have. You have anything? No, I'm ready to move to approve, but I don't discuss why.

Any other questions or comments, thoughts, discussion? No, I I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. Okay. Second or whatever, whoever's first. Um, I think that since the county is now planning on changing its RR designation to one unit per acre and this application is to ask for RC2, which is one unit per three acres, we're far better off with this. So, I'm in favor of reszoning. We don't have anything to do with annexation on this commission. So,

that's up. I'm assuming if there's one that's already in the city or in the town, then access for fire and that would be fine. But that's really up to council, not for us. But um so I I think it's makes perfect sense and it preserves more of the rural nature than the than the county would be likely to after this. Okay. Good. All right. So we'll take a vote. The motion is made and second it. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Um 7B, a public hearing for a zoning code text amendment um on um accessory structures.

Good evening, Mr. Chair and planning commission members. Um so this should all be familiar to you. It um started as a discussion at the committee level, kind of bounced back and forth. Uh went to committee and council with recommendations from you all and they have actually um wanted to move council wants to move forward with those recommendations. And so what's before you tonight is a more um it's in more ordinance form. And so I'm going to go through that as a reminder. And I also will need we'll need some input on a couple of things as well, particularly with the BAR, but again, this is a public hearing and um and and so we're looking to amend this uh this area of the text or of the zoning code. So, I'm going to start with the detached accessory structures and how that ended up coming out and what that's going to look like. So, as you'll recall, um there was the recommendation to go in the old village to go back to 20 ft with a 10-ft setback side and rear the rest of the town. So, the old Mount Pleasant and the entirety of the town, um the proposal was to stay at 25 ft, but any portion of a detached accessory structure that was over 18 feet needed to have a 10-ft side and rear setback. And then there was also uh it could not exceed 40% of the maximum um of the building footprint of the primary structure. And so what that looks like is it affects we started with the old village historic district section. So the maximum accessory structure height would be it'd be a maximum of 20 ft or the height of the principal structure whichever is less. So that that portion would stay in there. And then we added the accessory structure setback. So the minimum side and rear

for all major residential accessory uses and structures shall be 10 feet. So remember that was regardless of height 10 foot setback in the in the old village historic district. Um and then here we have uh we're in the setbacks height and size of accessory uses and structures. And so what we did was propose to amend this table uh six foot10 foot and then we added footnotes and then under the height we put 1825 and then you can see the footnotes. So there would be a 10-ft setback for all portions of a structure exceeding 18 feet. Proposed structures 18 or less may utilize the six foot.

And then the ma and then uh a couple of council members were adamant that they wanted that maximum height uh shall not exceed the principal structure. They wanted that to apply to the rest of town and not just the old village. And so that's been added in as footnote number two. Mhm.

Um here where we have the table on the maximum foot footprint for accessory buildings. It it's already 850 square ft, but we added in the footnote of accessory structure maximum building footprint should not exceed 40% of the primary structure building footprint. Remember we did a couple of comparisons to other municipalities. One of them had 50%, one 40% and you all recommended 40% and council agreed with that. So that would be a footnote under the maximum footprint of a detached accessory structure. Um that's all I have for the height and the setbacks. The next part of this would be the bar section. So are there any questions or concerns or thoughts on this part? feels like it it they really recommend they they wanted to move forward with everything you all recommended. So I think it was it was pretty straightforward.

Okay. So for the neighborhood preservation overlay district, remember we talked about ways to control the size, mass, and scale of structures. You all recommended and they agreed is that you would apply B. It already applies to the old village, but it should apply to this section of the neighborhood preservation overlay district. Um, so again, that blue area there, and I'm going to come back to that um map in a minute because I want to I want to talk to you about um a few things. But I did want to explain because I I went through it pretty quickly the last few times. So, I did want to make sure everybody's clear on BAR because I'm going to want some input on some other zoning districts. So BAR does apply to new construction of residential dwellings including accessory buildings. So this does not apply to any commercial properties within that area. Just exactly the same as in the old village. Now exclusive of UN you know what I meant to take that out. Exclusive of uncovered porches, decks, and terraces. That's correct. The BA should not compro comprise more than 50% of the lot size. However, you're guaranteed a minimum 2500 square ft. But again, you still have to meet your lot coverage, your 40% impervious surface, all those other development standards have to be met. And then your maximum D regardless of your lot size is 5,500 square feet. Um, I had some examples. I can go through them. I did this for council and committee. Um, but just kind of showing what that can look like with different sizes of lots. Thank you, Peter. He put these he put these visuals together for me. So different scenarios where this could play out depending on the what your structure looks like. Do you have one primary structure? Do you have a smaller primary structure and a detach accessory structure? So we did an example with an 8,000 square foot lot and then we did an example with a um

there it is a 4,000 foot lot and what that looks like. um what counts in the BAR and again this came straight from the Old Village Historic District. So these are the the the portions of the structures that count towards the BAR. Um deck uncovered, no crawl space, no accessory building under 144 square feet does not count. And so you can see here, so we just are proposing to bring all of those same things over. So how that would look in the text amendment. So, we went into the neighborhood preservation overlay district ordinance and you go to height and then you go to accessory buildings and then what we added is BAR and we said that it applies to old Mount Pleasant neighborhood only um because we're not applying it to those other areas within the neighborhood preservation overlay district. And what we literally did was take the BAR requirements from Old Village and I just moved them over. And the only thing that I that I didn't keep was there's a requirement in the old village and I know that you're familiar with it, Mr. Chair, is you have to have a minimum 10% has to be porches I think is what it is. Okay. That didn't make sense in this area because this area is also SR2 overlay district and it has extra special provisions for front porches and decks. So that is the only thing that I took out. The other thing that I did add was right here. Uh building area in a crawl space is not counted. Um that sentence is all that exists in the old village. We don't actually define crawl space. So I added this for the purposes of this section and I went and asked how our building and inspections division from the building code, how do they define crawl space? And so I brought that over and I see now that I I misspelled meat. And then I also wanted to point out that it it does not meet

the requirements of a story as we define it either. So we define crawl space and it's consistent with how um the building code describes it. And the minimum bar

um you can't it can't comprise more than 50% of the lot size. You have a minimum of 2500 and it can't exceed the the 5500. And I'm going to come back to that in just a minute. And here's the here's the next part of it. So again, everything else is exactly as it is in the old village. And then it just impervious surface coverage. The next uh section just became E instead of D. So something that the committee talked about and council talked about and was it should we have the same numbers and percentages that we have in the old village? So, we went and looked and the old and I know this isn't really big, but you can see the shade of brown in the old village. Most of old Mount Pleasant, thanks Peter, is that same shade. It's all our two. You have similar lot sizes.

So, we really felt like those same requirements apply to all of those lots. However, you do have some R4 here in the pink and then you have R3 which is duplexes. And we don't think that those should be excluded from the BAR, but perhaps in that R3 and R4 district, we need a lesser minimum than 2500. Um because those are smaller lots. They're smaller lot sizes. And so that's really kind of one of I and then we we do have a planned development there, but it had generally the same size of lots. So I think something, you know, I think we got a pretty good handle on B. Those R2 lots that are similar in the old village are going to carry over into Old Mount Pleasant, but I do think we need to consider perhaps a different minimum square footage for those R3 and R4 lots.

And Michelle, do you have a recommendation on square footage made? You knew that was coming. I yeah, I knew that was coming and I really I really don't I I wanted to kind of get your input, but what I did do was put in kind of what the minimum lot areas are for all of those. So, you can see R1, R2, it's 10,000 and 8,000. So, most of this area we're dealing with mostly 8,000 square foot lots minimum. their R2, but when you get to the R3 and R4 districts, obviously it drops down. So, you know, perhaps instead of the minimum 2500, it's, you know, a minimum 1500. I don't know. Yeah,

I I wanted to see if you all had any thoughts about that. And then we also do have an area in there that is a townhouse district. So again, I don't know that we want to make up a bunch of different regulations for different zoning districts, but I but I I want to to make a point that there are these other zoning districts that aren't necessarily in the old village

that we probably need to consider. Um, and perhaps the townhouse district should be handled differently and should not be included. But but we kind of I know staff-wise we kind of feel like the R3 and the R4 should be included in that B but perhaps have a different minimum um than the 2500. Well, I was just trying to think in terms if you look at it strictly mathematically, you know, what portion of the bar would be um the average of the lot area square footage and apply those or very similar ratios to those smaller parcels. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So like if you looked at the R2 which has 8,000 square foot lot 500 would be a little more than a quarter. Right. Right. So to the other square footage um that's that's logic in my head. There may I'm sure there are counter arguments. I just don't know. I think rarely though are you going to get into a situation where somebody's going to improve a one side of a duplex or another. Yeah. Good point. I've seen situations where a town home burned down and it was getting rebuilt. I would be a little leerary of putting percentages on it because the likelihood of the percentage matching what it was before wouldn't probably create a conflict in a potential taking,

right, that may not be wise. And I agree with you on the duplex side, Adam, but look at the detached house, 6,000 foot house, maybe I don't know, 1,800 square feet or something. 1,800 or 1500, something like that. 1500. On your example, Adam, on your example of burning down, they'd be grandfathered so they would be able to rebuild as they existed before. Yeah. You have if if it's man, if it's a disaster or something like that, right? you have a certain I forget three years, four years where you you're able to pull a building permit and build exactly what you had before rebuilding under the old code. Yeah, that would be Yeah. As long as there was some protective languages in there.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, maybe we do I do think a similar percentage. Okay. You know, like maybe even it out so that it's rounded out. Yeah. Okay. I think that's a good idea. Um, other than that, that's that's all we have for these text amendments. And so, um, with that, I'm happy to answer questions or it is a public hearing, so we can any questions for Michelle. At least we can call her back, but then immediate questions. I just have one technical question. I trying to wrap my head around what some of these things mean. So, in the chart, um, crawl spaces are do not apply to bar.

Correct. And then if you go fur the next slide that you just had up there with the text. Yeah. Under 2B D2B it says spaces under decks and porches that do not contain mechanical equipment are not considered crawl spaces. So does that mean if they do contain mechanical equipment they are considered because um crawl spaces aren't included. So why those things wouldn't count be included? If if it's not considered under the definition of a crawl space, it would be counted. Correct. Okay. Interesting. Right. I'm fine with that.

Okay. Again, this is a public hearing, so are there anyone here this evening would care to speak on this particular topic? I know this was um as topic of concern in parts of the old uh old Mount Pleasant for the last several months and eager to hear input from um residents and other members of the community.

Yes, sir. If you would state your name and your address for the uh for the record. Thank you. Um Ryan Castle, the CEO of the Charleston Trident Association Realtors, our office address, 506 Wetland Crossing, North Charleston. Um thank you for having us here me tonight. Um here on behalf of our 1500 or so members that live in Mount Pleasant. Um really you guys have done a great job I think as some level of striking balance like we're not here to really just throw throw this all out because y'all have from what initially were the conversations this is more balanced than what we were expecting from the start of the conversations as planning committee commission planning committee and everyone has worked through all these text amendments right um but we just wanted to point out a couple issues I think working through those different zoning districts as Michelle talked about is really important. Um because I've done a lot of spot checking of houses that have been built recently to see where they would end up kind of with the data we actually have around building area ratios in a lot of the regular zoning districts outside the special one she was talking about. You don't really see that a lot of building ratios. So, um, but I did want to just keep top of mind some other issues that some of our members have raised to us as we've looked at this, um, that may be an impact down the line that you may not be thinking of, um, with some of these proposals. So, on the accessory structures for the height restrictions, you have to look at this in comparison to the second issue you're working on, right? Um, so by limiting accessory structures to the same story as the main

house, you may actually be encouraging more tear downs, which you're trying to avoid from the start of this outset in the second, right? So, if you're not allowing a a garage with a living space or more space above, you may actually be encouraging them to say, "Hey, I'm just going to go rebuild the whole house if I can't add the extra space I need on the accessory structure." So, we just wanted to point that out that it may actually be contrary to your second objective on on the zoning districts as you look at that. Um, also, you can't look at these proposals just by this. You have to look at in comparison with everything on the other on the building side. So while you're this will limit let's be clear right this the purpose of this is to limit more accessory structures which li by by scaling back the height in some areas setting further setbacks that won't allow all property owners to take it. you're going to have less accessory structures built, which means less accessory dwelling units, which means less attainable housing being put in that works within the concert of the community um that y'all have that everyone says in towns needed. So, as you look at that, but also as you scale that back down, add those setbacks now, you pair the tree ordinance on the newer tree ordinance on top of it, you're going to see a lot less pro projects built, right? Because there's just not going to be enough room. So, I just think when you do all of this, you need to be thinking of impact, not just what this does, but how it works with concert with all your other regulations you put in. Um, and then quite honestly, you've this is going to be what the second time in a year you've changed this height restrictions. There's a lot of people that may have seen the new zoning code bought. Not a lot, but some with plans to do this over the next couple years and add an accessory structure and you're changing the rules of the game on them and limiting their property rights when you go through that. So, that's

just on the accessory height things. Just things to think about um as you go through it on the building area ratio expansion like l you're and I think several council members have brought this up. You are basically choosing winners and losers. You're winning. What you're choosing to win with is the people that have already moved here, bought a house, and renovated the house. Who's losing is the longtime Mount Pleasant property owners who have not sold. That is without a doubt the winner and the loser. That may be what people want. That's fine. But you have to be clear on what what's happening here, right? Is you're putting more restrictions on the people that have not renovated their house and not on the people that did already. Um and so at at that point, you're hurting those longtime residents.

Sir, we actually have a two and a half minute. Yeah. So that that that's all I have. Just things for y'all to think about. Like I said, we really appreciate the time you're taking and the e expertise you're putting into this and the thoughtfulness of it, but those are just things to think about as you go forward. Great. Thank you, sir. Anyone else to speak on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the uh public comment period. Um, further questions for Michelle or discussion? Um, I mean, I have some thoughts. I don't know if we'll move first or

I think these are all good changes and most of them are things that we suggested as well

before it went to committee and and council. Um, just to address some of, you know, I appreciate everything that you say. It always depends on whose shoes you're in, you know, when you're looking at changes. But, um, we have to look at public policy and zoning changes always are meant to address, you know, changes and problems that have existed over time. So, our, you know, our duty is to try to correct problems that we see happening in the town. One of them is higher density, higher population growth. So, it seems to me that avoiding uh avoiding denser population, especially in these very dense areas where it changes the character, um outweighs a lot of those concerns. Um expanding a principal structure instead of adding an an accessory structure to me is preferable because you have one dwelling instead of two. So, it means maybe one family instead of two or more fewer cars, let's say. you know, it's hard to say, but um so and you know, to to avoid fixing something just because some people haven't taken advantage of what was allowed before isn't really a reason not to make the changes to fix some zoning issues that we see happening. So, you know, while I appreciate the the sentiments, um I do think that what has been done here is a really good balance. it it tries to, you know, allow a certain amount without um a detrimental effect on these areas.

And I would just add to that the it's not completely limiting the opportunity for people to add square footage. It's just reducing it to the point where it it gives I don't know just better taste to the community. Um the scaling, the massing is is really critical when you're doing these things. Mhm. Um, so I think that uh architect's creativity and the ability to be able to to still flow and function is still there. It's just not going to be quite as robust because they think their home is worth $500 a square foot. So let's add 100 more square feet. Um, that really shouldn't be the ultimate driver of how a community gets gets uh designed.

Yeah, I agree. Michelle, you've had comments or concerns about a lot of these issues in the past. Any any thoughts this evening? You're good, Gary. Bill. Okay. Make a motion. Sure. I'll move to recommend all of these changes with the suggestion that we made to the um R3 and R4 to committee and council. Great. Is there a second? A second. Great. Mr. Davis seconded. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. And motion carries. Thank you. Um agenda item 7 C. This is a sketch plan for 1328 Irkman Drive.

Uh good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of planning commission. I have the honor to introduce one of our newest environmental managers, Miss uh May Kimbert. She is actually taking John Frell's place. Uh John's moved on, but uh she was our DRT coordinator and is now filling back filling the uh the uh environmental manager position. So she'll be doing some sketch plans. You'll be seeing more of her in future. Good. Thanks, J. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, uh, planning commission. So, this application is a subdivision for 1328 Urban Drive. Sorry, I'm a little short.

Um, so the current lot is 46 acre property and currently zoned R2. Um, so action to be taken tonight is approval. Approval with staff comments or denial. So this is an aerial image of 1328 Irkman Drive. It is off Coleman Boulevard down the street from Red Drum Restaurant if you're familiar with that location.

This is a bird's eye view of the property and you're able to see the structures currently on the property. It is currently zoned R2 and surrounded by R2 and they're not looking to change the zoning. And the future land use is conventional residential neighborhood. So, a little bit of history for this site. Um, prior to 1996, it was two longer linear lots and then in 1996, they abandoned the red line, the red property line. aggregating the back lot to create this larger L-shaped lot that you see in the shaded blue and the green line is the added property line. So this is the sketch plan in front of you tonight. The front lot 2A is approximately one or sorry.19 acres and the lot 2B.28 acres. The red line is the proposed property line and there is a private ingress egress to access the back lot. So this is R2 minimum the minimum lot dimensional requirements for R2 are 60 foot width by 90 foot depth and a minimum of 8,000 square ft. Um there are no trees being requested for removal and the applicant is applying with a land development regulations waiver to subdivide off a private ingress egress. So the applicant is required to meet the tree requirement of 160 in per acre and in order to meet this they are committing to plant 49 in. They will need to relocate the water line and sewer line within the 10- foot utility easement or expand the easement to include those lines. The water and wastewater impact fees

will be due prior to the lots subdivision. Staff recommends accounting for next door storm water runoff by either capturing runoff in storage or providing a convey conveyance swale to root runoff towards the road down the property line. So, they have provided a preliminary drainage plan and have been working with Marissa Noble, our town engineer, um, and are addressing her comments. They're also within the old village builder guide, which has some stricter storm water uh, regulations. And the new property line is proposed through an existing garage. So, that will need to be moved prior to um, final approval. And just to be clear, it's the garage that needs to be moved, not the property line. So, the applicant is here to answer any of your questions, and I'm also happy to answer any questions within the presentation.

Any questions? Uh, we can call her back up, of course. But there immediate questions for No. Is the applicant present? Yes, sir. If you would introduce yourself with your name and your address for the record. My name is Louisis Crook. I'm a civil engineer and land surveyor representing the owner of the property. Um, as you could tell by what she showed you, this is an L-shaped lot with the vast majority of improvements on the back half of it. Uh the owner of the property is um interested in getting rid of the part in front of him and um he is contracted with a uh another engineering firm to provide storm motor design which I believe was uh submitted recently. Um that is correct and it They they submitted the uh revise to you

plan. Yeah. Yes, it's under review. Yeah. And it's as Kevin says, it's under review. Um I can answer any questions that you might have hopefully. So intended access for the rear of the property to the the rear lot is intended to be in that gray area that we're seeing on the screen now. Yes, sir. Okay. and the uh property owner is intending to uh remove the garage entirely. Okay. Any other any other comments or thoughts regarding the proposal? No.

Questions for the Not unless you have a question. Okay. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. All right. Thoughts, discussion? This creates a flag.

This creates a flag lot which we generally do not approve and do not want. Um, and in terms of the size of the lots, it just seems to me as I'm looking at the at the map of the various lots, they're they're quite a variety actually of sizes. It seems like the one right next to it, lot one of the Margaret Thorn Thront Revocable Trust is small. Um, but you know, the ones to the left of it are large. So, it doesn't seem like it's, you know, it's in congruous in terms of the size of the lots in the neighborhood.

Um, and it would just end up creating, you know, more residential more residential houses.

Right. Yeah. I my views are mostly consistent with Pam's. I'm not a not a big advocate of flag lots for a variety of reasons. I I live near flag lot right now and and there's been restoration of that home ongoing for almost three years and it's inconvenienced every homeowner around that property because of uh poor access to what they needed to do to restore their home. And u I know of other situations that are somewhat similar to that. I I just I'm uncomfortable creating even a modest precedent for approving flag lots around the uh the the town. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I think that u access to the rear home I guess is while that may be fine, there's likely going to be another driveway, right? Not that that completely matters, but it it begins to create some circulation issues, I think, to your about traffic. Yeah. Any other thoughts or concerns? May May I make an additional comment? I think we're Yes. No. Go ahead. Yes, sir. um would point out that both of the lots are as proposed or larger than the minimum requirement for for the zoning.

Yeah. And the creation of the easement does not create a flag lot because it still remains part of the first lot that I don't get that what is it's just an access way. It does it is not part of the back lot but the effect of it is that's right. I understand that, but it's I just want to make sure that everybody understood that it was right not being attached to the back lot. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, I I just don't think that that all of the requirements for the waiver are convincing, especially C A3, which it says the granting of the waiver would only affect the subject lot and have no impact on surrounding properties. Yeah, to your point, uh, Mr. Chair, I think that that's not necessarily the case. Um, so I'd be inclined not to approve it. Okay. Any other comments or thoughts? If you care to, Pam, you may want to make your Yeah, I can move to deny. Yeah, I'll second. Michelle's seconded the motion to deny the proposal. Um, all those in favor of denial, say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Okay. Uh, agenda item 7D. This is engineering and development staff presentation.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission. This is uh what I would call the informal part of the agenda. Uh, so we're going to keep this casual and as I kind of go through this, this really is a continuation of what we talked uh discussed uh two months ago. So we didn't have a planning commission last month. So any uh any questions or anything as we kind of go through this, feel free to ask or even if you need to leave, step out, this is perfectly fine, too. So um this is just for y'all's benefit really. So last month we discussed or we kind of put on the table a number of different comment or number of different topics. We also went through the storm water planning examples for single family residents. Um and what I heard at the very end was hey take me through uh the commercial process. Miss Ireland you asked that. So we'll touch on that a little bit. Also some density some more discussion on subdivisions and densities and things like that. we could wrap up uh the quick disc discussion on those particular items and then circle back to this and maybe next month if y'all are interested in something else we can also explore some more topics if you want but for tonight it's just a real quick presentation is uh commercial review and approval processes and then how we go about the density calculation so uh I felt like a little flowchart might be the best way of explaining the relationship between planning Commission, design review board, town council staff. They're somewhat separate but kind of equal. Uh we, you know, town council obviously is the ultimate authority. They adopt all the regulations. They also appoint planning commission members as you know and they also appoint design review board members. However, planning commission

has more of a legislative type of role where they create standards, policies. uh and even last year y'all came through with brand new uh zoning regulations. So there's more of a collaboration between staff and planning commission and then that gets recommended to town council as y'all know design review board they see commercial development but they're more of a decision makingaking body where they don't really do the legislation part of this. Um, however, interesting enough, planning commission reviews zoning code and approves the subsection H, which is building and site design review board has a 1561466 that allows them flexibility to modify and adjust the section that has been approved. So, there's some flexibility that goes along with the review of the design review board as they review projects. um and they come through for uh you know their their review and staff. Of course, we have two a landscape and an architect oriented staff folks in our planning department that are uh staffing the design review board. Um and um and yeah just as a a very simple easy relationship there's no obvious cross relationship between design review board and planning commission and design review board uh don't they don't are not charged with creating policies and standards is the planning commission. So hopefully that made that clear. Um very simply the steps involved with getting a commercial development approved. Our design review team which is staff high level feasibility meeting in the very beginning a number of members are a part of that. Uh we have Mount Pleasant waterworks also participating in that

planning engineering. Uh they then next step is more of a hard design conceptual design. And this is them getting queued up for a if they're residential, they go to planning commission. If they commercial, they go to take the DRB route. They have to go twice to design review board. One preliminary and then again at the final. Uh sometimes if there are and it's up to the applicant, they can go ahead and submit for technical review ahead of the uh final approval. It all depends on the staff and the comments that were associated with the preliminary review, but they can go ahead and start start that technical review process and then once they have their MS4, which is part of the DRT and that is our water quality, storm water regulations, then they are allowed to be released for construction. So hopefully I did not oversimplify this, but um I did want to provide Miss Ireland with a little oversight and a little indepth. And of course we do have planning members that can go a little bit farther in in depth with with everything that they do um on that end. But um that is you know their the process of that. So I'mma I had this slide here. Y'all probably saw this two two months ago but just to nail this hammer this home. Planning commission does have the authority matters of building bulk height density you name it. a lot of purview that planning commission does have in relationship to commercial projects um moving forward. So before I get into density, is there any questions on the commercial review process? I don't have a question about that. And this is a really random question, but it it comes to mind, it's it's kind of a weird question, but right

when I go by Carolina Park and see the commercial thing on the corner between Costco and the library, that's a huge open space now. That is Okay. So, it's on whatever that road is that Park Avenue Boulevard and clear. Yes, ma'am. So, I constantly hear from people in the public that we shouldn't allow clear cutting of trees for commercial properties or anything but commercial. And then I also hear people say that we shouldn't protect any pine trees. And I know this isn't your specific, you know, it's okay,

lane here, but um so there's not a single tree that's been left on that lot. And I'm assuming that a lot of them could have been oak trees. They weren't all pine trees, for instance. They weren't all I I don't know but I don't know. So when somebody asks me that I like to be able to tell them what really happened and I don't really know what happened. Can you or anybody else shed any light on that? I will be happy to provide whatever detailed and show you the plans and all that. I was not prepared to speak on that specifically. I just figured I'd ask that. I'm happy to answer. Okay, good. Um we get that a lot, Miss Ireland. Um, Carolina Park is

it's got its own it's got a development agreement. So even though we now DRB does have purview over tree removal um but they have to go by the same standards that we have in our zoning code but not Carolina Park. Carolina Park is locked into their development agreement and so they're locked into a tree ordinance from um 2011. So they and all commercial projects in Carolina Park do not go to DRB. Okay. Because that's what I knew it was a PD. I knew, you know, but I thought, does some of the tree things in our code still apply to them or not? It's not the PD. It's the development agreement. It's the development.

It's the development agreement. So they they don't go to DRB. They have their own separate ARB. So staff level, we look at it for commercial, but it does not go to our design review board and we do not govern their trees. Yeah. Basically, we basically we have no control over what happens over there. Yeah. It just it it sort of amazes me that, you know, and again, this is past history, so there's nothing anybody can do about it, but it just, you know, it it is amazing that that um and maybe they've got a great landscape plan that's going to be, you know,

enacted once they've got the buildings up. I don't really know, but that is a vast area right there. And it it does make a big impact on people. So, I've said a million times, they're part of a PD. And again, the development agreement, I kind of forget the difference between the two sometimes, but um but I was just curious as to whether our zoning code has any, you know, how sometimes in a PD we still have certain parts of our zoning code that apply to a commercial, like right the base zoning would still apply, that sort of thing, um for like town center, which is a recent one we talked about.

So, just curious about that. So, I just figured I'd ask it. Isn't it Isn't it true that you know when this plan was developed Billy Swells you know the mayor of the times signed signed off on it they basically gave cart my understanding is they gave basically cart blanch to the Marinos to do whatever they wanted to do with that huge piece of property and so they built Carolina Park and now they can do whatever they want to do and turn you know take tearing down trees building warehouses doing whatever they want to do and it's my understanding that you know because of that agreement that they have with the town that was what 15 or 20 years ago There's just simply nothing we can do about it. I mean, it is a development agreement which is a contract. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not as others in town that are not subject to the current tree ordinance. They're to the 2011. It's like it's it's like they're not found it's like they're not part of Mount Pleasant. I mean, they can just basically do what they want. It's like their own little city. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Okay. It's unfortunate. Good question. But sorry, I wasn't prepared to talk specifics on a particular project. Absolutely. Understand. I wanted to take everybody kind of through the commercial process that you know it is formalized and there are you know it is there and see if there's anything else that y'all would like to know before I get into density stuff.

A question again this might not all be for you but a question just about DRB and some of the flexibility they have. Yeah. you know, it's a large section of the zoning code that has the design, you know, uh, guidelines. And how much leeway do they really have? Like, do they can they basically approve anything they want and say, "Well, we've got flexibility or because it does seem a little inongruous to have guidelines with specific, you know, um, roof line. Are you talking about commercial or resial?" All commercial. You're referring to commercial. All commercial.

I mean, is there familiar with it? Yeah. Well, f first element is just because of the nature of the I don't want to use the word pecking order, but the way these plans unfold, a lot of times DRB building plans are being reviewed still for completeness to be able to construct them for safety even after DRT. And so that sort of feels like DRB. But

to your point, um, I would say dozens of clients I work with have a desire to make their buildings attractive, financable, leasable. Um they want to work with the DRB to make uh make these projects uh successful in in keeping with what we're doing here in in the town. But I also know that you've got a lot of successful um qualified folks that are reviewing these drawings in such a way that pro, you know, more uh thorough than I could. Uh and and I've been in the industry for 25 years now. So I I feel like I feel good about RDB. Good.

Good to hear that. I feel good about I was just curious if we have pitch, you know, pitch RS and no flat RS, could they just say we want this to be a flat roof anyway? Well, uh, per ordinance, they do have straight black and white the ability to modify and adjust anything in there. It does not say one particular thing or the other. So, by ordinance, strict definition, they do have the ability to make those kind of changes where they see fit. um to his point that he did make um about the quality of or the talent that we have. We have two seats that one is for an architect and the other ones is for civil engineer. The rest of the seats are are large. So there is we want to make sure that there is people of the industry

expertise in that there is some yeah there's some depth to talent level or expertise in that particular area for the DRB board staffing unlike planning commission where we just get very smart professional like we have Kevin so that's okay we can kind of move on here to uh thank you

to the the good part all All right. Uh zoning code and talking about density calculation. Okay. Spend a little time on this and I got a couple of examples. I think it's a very interesting situation because it's a very easy equation. Of course, you've got number of units divided by the gross area of land. Nothing's magical about that. But when we start getting into what the gross area of land and the nuances and everything, it does get a little interesting. Um, and one little tidbit is, uh, it does not apply to lots that are less than one acre. So, we'll come we'll touch on that. Just it allows for the minimum lot sizes to govern the ability to subdivide the property, which is very key to what we're going to be discussing tonight. So, again, that's uh that's in 156.025. You read it yourself. uh equal to or greater than one acre in size does not apply. Density calculation is just governed by the minimum lot size. So getting a little deeper, what is included in the calculation? Well, some people do not know this, but freshwater wetlands is actually part of the gross area. Um and that you know that is you know you have both sides of the coins on this. Um, so I' I've got a little hypothetical calculation in the next slide. But also in there is accessory dwelling units. Just pointing this out is not included also in the calculation for density even though the density calculation is dwelling units per acre. This of course for reasons of attainability like you heard earlier um that was specifically called out as not being in the calculations. So just touching a little bit on the wetlands, what that really does when you

start looking at developing larger tracks of land. This just randomly took 100 acres, 20 acres of jurisdictional wetlands. Let's say the zoning allows three dwelling units per acre. Do the math. 300 dwelling units are allowed. That's with the 20 acres of wetland. So if you take the wetlands out, uh you're left with 80 acres of actual developable property. And the density really is 240 dwelling units. Now, the smaller the acreage, of course, the smaller the gap between uh what you're allowed, what you're not allowed, but I wanted to make sure that everybody kind of understood that you're counting undevelopable land within your gross area to for the amount of units that you're allowing your property. So hopefully that, you know, registers a little bit and some people may not understand that that is actual part of the density calculation. So looking ahead at some of the quote unquote threats uh for Mount Pleasant when it comes to subdivisions and densities alike. So u we are going to be seeing more peace mill subdivision requests within the settlement areas. There's no doubt about it. Uh there are going to be potential for numerous points of access which are going to be unmanaged. Um, you know, uh, we've got a lot of the county property that will be annexed and then therefore because they're being annexed in the town, reszoned, and then therefore sold, subdivided, uh, large trikes of land historically have been subdivided through family members, but not quite to the degree where it really marries well with our density requirement. So also what we're going to be seeing is a lot smaller less than one acre subdivisions where the densities will not be applicable. Number three is in the increase of um access through a

neighbor's yard via access easements.

Uh consuming lot sizes and in my opinion not really meeting the spirit of an actual lot size because you have a driveway. Now that's part of what is intended to be somebody's property or yard also. Uh another consideration is the transformation of established development patterns backyards kind of becoming lots you know. So so just touching on a couple of these things uh when it comes to subdividing which does increase density. Um, so as I mentioned, some unincorporated areas that have recently been annexed into the town of Mount Pleasant. We have a long rectangular shaped piece of property. Uh, y'all have seen this sort of scenario before. Uh, one lot applicant potentially would come into to us and say, "Hey, I'd like three lots." He has a minimum or CC zoning allows for 125 but there is a maximum on the CC zoning of three units per acre. However, this particular lot is86 acres which is not applicable to the density requirements. Therefore, three lots could be allowed on this property. And if you did the math, 3.5 units per acre is actually higher than what the actual zoning is intended to uh manage in this particular area. So um and also the access points now you have lot one, lot two, they're actually um having a somebody else's driveway on their property. So, you're reducing the essentially the usable lot area because of somebody's driveway that's on somebody else's property. So, um again, this may look

familiar. Um well, I don't think I need to go too far into this, but this is what potentially could happen to density. If you have two uh one lot, that does become two. Um this is zoned R2. Three units per acre is the maximum allowed density. However, less than one acre. This is actually seven acres. So, if this were to get subdivided, you would have two lots potentially with ADUs located on this, you could potentially have 8.5 dwelling units per acre within that small little area. But with just one lot, I mean, with just two lots in that small of area, you your density for those two particular for that one large 47 acre, you actually have a 4.25 lot per acre density requirement, which is well higher than the units, three units per acre. That's the zoning is intended to only allow. And again, you do have this driveway that goes through someone's property that uh you know, their actual setback is measured from the red line through the easement. So, you can actually have a house that's positioned right next to somebody's driveway if there's not really enough room on there. So, I use this as an example because we had this kind of teed up and ready for tonight's meeting. But uh again, two more examples and then I'll summarize. Here on Pocahontas Street, you can really see the difference between the two brick ranches on the right, new development on the left. Um this is kind of right for that type of cookie cutter or that type of of uh subdivisions that we were talking about. These lots on the right of Pocahontas is 215 ft. It is R2 zoned. There's three uh the minimum lot size is 8,000 square

feet. You can actually subdivide these particular properties without being in sort of u without having ownership of two or more lots to be able to subdivide. So there's enough room and enough width and depth for that to occur. So there's 18,000 square feet for this one. But let's say a scenario came in where you have incrementally someone very much like man purchased the backyard of the adjacent property owner and then come in later at a later date you could essentially have somebody's lot in in the backyards of of property there with a shared ingress egress easement down the side that can happen all the way down Pocahontas. So, last example, King Street. Uh, as you can see in this photograph here, there are traditional homes, uh, singlestory, large yards, um, and, um, potential subdivision that could occur here in a wellestablished uh, block neighborhood. There have been no subdivisions on this particular block, but you see how deep these lots are. Um, actually both of them together are 37,000 square feet, whereas R1 is only 10,000 minimum square foot. Um, the depth is there for this to occur. You could actually have a lot split in between the two lots created a third lot in that kind of row scenario and meet all lot dimensional requirements with ingress egress ement coming down the side. So, um, this area shaded in blue is actually 11,000 square ft, which they can actually make this a little bit smaller, work a little bit more with that, and meet all lot dimensional requirements, meet all minimum square foot area, and legally meet the letter of the law for a

subdivision. And it would only be up to a waiver that would prevent that from occurring on an ingress egress ement. Um, wrapping this up. Some opportunities. Uh, this is for y'all's discussion. Uh, this is for y'all to give us staff feedback uh to continue the discussion or we can just kind of move on and work it through waiverss if you like. But density area threshold, there's any consideration for uh for working with that one acre threshold. the JB uh the JD jurisdictional wetlands acreage is included in the gross area established neighborhood patterns access parts lot dimensional requirements summarizing all the points that were made that really does and is continuously starting to put pressure on on uh on us staff bringing things before y'all and essentially y'all are being pressured into uh subdividing things that are not harmonious I guess I should today. But

can I explain that to if you would sir jurisdictional wetlands acreage? Yeah, I I saw one situation where I was told about a situation in um well it was the old village uh where someone was trying to was proposing uh more bar by um uh arguing that u the marsh which was adjacent to the their property be included as part of the as part of the area and um

the building area ratio as part of the area of the lot and they were trying to include the march. They wanted to include at least some, but their point was, "Oh gosh, there's look at all this marsh. You know, it's going to be open because it's marsh. Why don't you let us have a little more square footage because there's all this space back here even though we don't necessarily own I can build a bigger house because there's the marsh that's not going to complain about it. Essentially fill up all the high ground. Yeah.

By counting marsh as I I didn't know whether that argument was at play in number two here. I'm not sure I understand. uh it does exclude marsh saltwater area. So that and when it comes to density calculations you do not include the marsh area. These are wetlands contained within the perimeter boundary the property. Okay. These are freshwater wetlands. Yeah, I see. So yeah, those are actually part of the gross area which yields higher

uh number of lots as a result of including what would really be undeveloped property. So, I mean, there's two ways to look at it, too. I mean, you don't want to incentivize the filling of these wetlands, but then you don't want to deincentivize the applicant from uh from protecting the wetlands. So, there's a balance there, and I get both sides. Um, a few pages ago, you also uh made a point about accessory structures or ADUs are not included in density calculations, correct? Yes, sir. But it's it's explicitly accessory structures, not dwelling units. Correct. No, it said ADUs. It did say ADUs.

Blew my mind that I was surprised. Okay. I'm glad you not because they're two different. I wasn't crazy. Thanks, Michelle. Yeah. Dwelling units. Yeah. Is there dwellings? Yes, sir. That's another That seems like a no to me. Another car, right? That's density to me. It is on the same lot. But when you consider dwelling units, not lots, then you're looking at like the example on you're looking at eight over eight dwelling units per acre. But if you calculated by lots, you're only looking at four dwelling four lots per acre.

Yeah. So that's what I mean when it does get a little bit into the weeds a little bit a little messy when you start looking at what variables are going into the equation itself. But um I mean I think going forward again to the last slide that you had about opportunities um down the line other Yeah. I think the last one which is what we just grappled with is a really good thing to discuss and figure out if we can close a loophole. I really do think I mean

I I never like having to look at the four requirements to get the waiver from the LDRs as the only basis for saying no. I would like to make that stricter so that you can't have, you know, the flag lot type of a situation or you have to have public access, in other words, directly to the lot and not through another person's lot because that could create so many when you see these roads and they have lots that back up to one another like the you know what you were showing us. Virtually everyone on the block could end up with that sort of thing. Well, and then you add two ADUs on that back lot. Now you've got two more. Yeah. The traffic coming in and out there. Yeah, I agree.

So that's one thing I'd really love to, you know, see if we could,

you know, one thought is on that particular thing is, you know, we have minimum dimensional requirements for public roads. But what we can consider and look at is an actual private road. a road that's cut out that is could be smaller in dimensions but part of like an HOA lot that is actually owned by the entities there that would more or less now you've got an actual lot that meets the development requirements and then you also has a private road that separates the two and does not overlap the easement with the lot itself. It actually designates a property makes things a lot more cleaner in the maintenance area of who does what and who benefits for what. The problem is like goes back to all the the non the county lots that will eventually be annexed. I'm assuming one day is that now you're going to have every single lot is going to have its own access point all the way down the road.

Right. So you're developing in kind of a silo where it's just okay, you let this guy over here do this. This guy here has to do it and then it'll just domino, right? And you're going to have and that's that much more pavement that you know is on every lot. You'd have a private road going back. You'd have to have enough turnaround space for a for a you know fire vehicle or emergency vehicle. And that doesn't make a lot of sense either if it starts you know the slippery slope idea. Yes, it does. So, so Kevin, I think in general, um, everybody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's sensitivity to all of this. Oh, yeah. Yes.

Um, and as is that you've at least implied and probably the reason you've presented this to us is because we are faced with this in increments almost every meeting in some form or another. And so, we'll take recommendations from you and what what do you need from us uh in terms of a request for us to start chipping away at? Yeah. Uh pulling that in does that Yeah. I was only going to add is I think this is all really crucial to development in general but and being acute

I guess in our approach for density sake in these established communities I think is ultra critical. You you seen kind of by way of of how I comment on this stuff. However, me being kind of a commercial mindset, I still think that density is your friend when it's planned properly. I I I agree with that. When it's planned, I feel like I feel like we have to be um this my opinion. I I feel like that uh sometimes the baby gets turned off the bath water. Have to be cautious of that as a group and really group thinking. Um but it's all still our individual opinions. Yeah, I'm in 100% agreement. I think, you know, density where where it's been deliberate and methodical

and understood, intentional, all of that. I'm I'm I'm I'm for it. It's when we're when we're we're pressed to essentially remake a neighborhood. That's the problem. That's the problem. Yeah. Well, and an example of what's existing now, which I think needs to get addressed longer term, is for commercial, for instance, adding mixed use, you know, adding residential to commercial properties. We currently have hubs that are supposed to be the denser areas because they're at major intersections. You know, 50 526 and 17 or Houston Northcut. Those areas are the hubs.

But then we also have the ability to put mixed use on every single commercial property in town. It's four per acre residential and an additional four if they want them to be attainable. And of course, nobody's going to do four and four, but let's just say they do four and they ask for two more. You know, they ask for exceptions so that they have six and two. Now, you've got the entire corridor of 17, the entire corridor of, you know, Coleman everywhere else where you have commercial properties could have these densities building up and we have the hubs. It's kind of a double whammy. So I think overall we need to I agree with you that density where it's properly planned

is a good idea but not just having the corridor was supposed to be replaced by the sort of hub cluster you know idea not in addition to so that's a concern I have kind of going down the line but the residential densities I agree with you and the residential densities I think do apply more to the traditional neighborhoods because there's so many HOAs that have their own rules. So, it it really always it's just like the ADUs and like short-term rentals. It all filters into those res those traditional neighborhoods because, you know, the others have rules. People just love Mount Pleasant.

How can we direct you what what um is there a way that we can sort of start incrementally uh chipping away at some of this or do we do it all in one fill? Well, uh this is really for planning commission discussion. I would like to, you know, point out the fact that that one acre threshold that to me is really the that would be at the top of the list if you really wanted to make a change because things are just Yes. Just I mean

uh using lot sizes like uh you know an R1 is 10,000 square feet. Well, that's, you know, three, you know, that's four lots you can put in one acre, you know. So, I don't know the reason for the one acre threshold is always been there and it's never been discussed. My recollection has never been really tested, but I think it's come to this point where that's all you're going to see over the next five plus years are these.8 eight acre lots that want to get three lots on it

that will go all the way down the road, then all of a sudden you've got a CC zoned area that has a density of almost five units per acre. So, if you want some lowhanging fruit, that would be my suggestion is consider that one acre threshold as being something that might needs to go away. So yeah, for subdivisions. And the other thing too, we we've seen I think enough of these proposals like we saw this evening where there's, you know, a proposed u

easement ingress or access point. And we just if there's a way for us to to prevent those from even coming our way, you know, that that would be my strong preference. you know, staff say, "Hey, this isn't gonna the ordinances, you know, restrict you from doing that or what whatever makes sense." Um, otherwise, we're just going to keep seeing them, you know, throughout throughout every year. And like you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, that's very sensitive. You have a lot of people that own property that do intend to have this opportunity, right? So, like the gentleman said earlier, you know, there's going to be, you know, there's going to be winners and losers in this sort of situation. And that is going to be a very sensitive situation.

Yeah. So that's why staff would appreciate planning commission making, you know, the recommendations and guiding us into providing you with information to move forward with. So well, I I mean I would like to see developed an ordinance that or you know part of the code that would prevent these from happening and not simply going through a waiver of the LDRs, you know. So is that possible? I mean, that's what I would love to see. If there's a problem with that, we need to know. But but I think that's right now the only the only power we have is to look at the four requirements for getting the waiver.

Right. Yes. I'd like to circumvent that and say there are a lot of reasons, public policy and planning reasons not to have those lots and so I'd like to prohibit them. I agree. talking about right sub you're talking about subdivisions off of access easements correct that's what you're correct yeah folks I still feel like we're talking about these wellestablished neighborhoods applied to them yeah applied to them yeah correct yeah so I think back yeah you're hearing from us zoning like the neighborhood preservation zoning or whatever just eliminating access from subdivisions.

Oh, yeah. No, in general as well. Yeah, that's right. Got some smart people on staff, I think, can do a good job with with working that into a zoning code. Straightforward. And I think that would make it easy. It would end up making our agendas a little shorter, too. Shorter. I don't know how it could actually get. That way, Mr. Stone becomes the enforcer, the arbiter. It It does. I think it I think it's I think it's we're at we're well beyond that point of addressing these sort of issues. Yeah. Because again I just I've seen it enough just in areas that I observe where it's a problem. It really is a problem. I can't remember one where I thought there was really a good reason.

Well, it's not just the aesthetics and it's not just because it's different. It it feels different. It just becomes a problem. Exactly. and imposes they impose themselves themselves meaning the property itself not the people necessarily but on the surrounding um property owners and you know it's just not good well if that's the consensus we will bring back a couple of suggestions and we can continue the discussion of access easements or subdivisions from access easements can we also consider the oneacre Oh absolutely yes I think yeah I think it's both both two things at those two items. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's very easy. You know exactly what I'm going to come back to, right? Eliminating that, just striking through it.

These other two, you know, like the wetlands acreage, it's a little different now that it I know it doesn't include the marsh. It's just inland wetlands. It's a little less. Yeah. Even if it's freshwater wetlands, my my bias is you guys know I'm conservative. Um let's let's be very cautious about those calculations. And yeah, it just opens up a Pandora's box, it seems to me. But it's good to think about. I mean, I want to give a little more thought to Yeah, it does. Great. Good. Excellent. I appreciate the direction. Thank you.

Uh last slide or this the other items. Happy to bring this uh to you guys for presentations. Uh you know, we talked about the densities of storm water, you know, character defining features, which density is part of that. This is of course is also and we kind of get a little bit of in the nitty-gritty with that. But there's also the sea level rise study the town just uh completed uh with the help of Senior Whites Associates just completed two target areas. We do have it on our website under under our the engineering development services website page is on the left side if you would like to take a look at it. It it looks at Hadel Street and also looks at a part of Daryl Creek up there. But it's very interesting um projecting out 25 years what what kind of what's the expectation of of some of the high high tides we have. We're also going to be moving forward with a couple other new u three other locations too that we're going to be studying for that. And lastly are the wetlands ordinance. This is something that was prompted by mayor and flood resilience committee. We've been uh uh discussing that with the green green commission and uh we have something very preliminary but we've g been given good direction yesterday actually. So we'll be drafting up a wetland ordinance. We'll be happy to share that too just as information only because it will ultimately be coming through you as well um for review too. So,

so are all those topics presentable uh next month or do we want to do them in increments or uh increments would be good because we can sit there and talk about Yeah, that'll be fine. Cramming all this stuff in. Okay. Is is there a preference on priority for the um the outstanding topics that Kevin um outlined? No, I mean they're all interesting. They are. I'm really curious about sea level rise. Um, it is a very interesting. It's very detailed and the guys we've hired are, you know, they're they're experts in this sort of stuff. So, I'll see if they're available. If they're not available, um, we could maybe use your judgment. Yeah. Convenient and makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, anything else for Kevin or Steph? No, I think we just need to No, not for Kevin. just to talk about dates for next for a possible special meeting for next month. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. That was really interesting. All right. I believe um the the date would be October se I'm sorry, November 17th. That'd be a Monday would be the only time that we have a room available and it would be up to y'all if we could establish a quorum. Yeah. Yeah. And did you want me to talk about I mean why

I think if you would you probably can summarize it better than I can.

So um we as you saw tonight with the resoning although tonight's resoning requested um RC2 we have there's a deficient there's something in the code that we need to fix um to make the density match what the county is going to be matching outside of the the urban growth boundary. So, the property the the one that got final reading that Peter talked about finally at town council where they denied the zoning, it they denied the CC zoning and so he automatically came in as RR. But right now, our RR is the same density as CC. So, it's three units an acre. In that area in the county, it's the opposite. It's one per three, but they're working on changing it to one per one. So I think what uh I've had a council member ask that we place it on planning committee that won't happen until November 3rd to discuss this. So it would be essentially changing our the density of our rural residential district changing it from three units to one per one acre to one unit per one acre and that would match what the county is headed to approve. And so I think that and a small fix in the code where if you're outside of the urban growth boundary, the de the zoning that's applied to you is either going to be that RC or that RR. And so you'd be either one per one or one per three instead of three per one.

So it's really kind of a fix, but I I think the intention was instead of because our next meeting is December 11th, right? I think December 11th. So, if uh if we had a special meeting, if we were able to get a quorum for a special meeting, we could go ahead and send the ad off that the thing is, and it's a it's a risk. So, so if we take it to planning committee, I I'm making it sound very simple, and I think it should be, but if council wants to add something or change something, we're going to have to put out the public hearing ad before that occurs. So, there's a chance that what we put out in the public hearing ad isn't right, and then we have to do it again. But but if we make it work, I think the intent was to have a special meeting, hear that, and then it gets approved at council. It gets to go to council a month earlier, right?

Just to kind of fix that density issue. So that that's kind of they they're really kind of simple, no-brainer fixes in my mind. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just like the whole notion of doing what whatever we can to not create incentives or right by contrast disincentives between the county versus the correct right you know that's what we where we've been for the last few years you know at least in in in some narrow areas at least eliminates one impediment because there there others but you know that helps exactly

so I think the only available and I think Peter was gonna do a doodle just to confirm we get a quorum, but I think the only availability for the council chambers and to have a recording secretary would be Monday, November 17th. Okay. Um, so be on the lookout. Check your calendars and if we can make it work, we'll do it. And 5:00 p.m. and it'll be just that one issue and be done. So, so yeah, look for that email and we'll we'll try to move forward with that. Okay. Great. Thanks. Appreciate Mr. Bennett. Are we adjourned?

Thank you. 28 years with Berkeley County government as a personally commercial real estate appraiser and the last six