Planning Board - Regular Meeting

We're good. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the June 16th Planning Board meeting. Nice to have everybody here, minus Basil and Beverly. But we do have a quorum, so I will call the meeting to order. And first thing I'd like to do would be have the approval of the agenda this morning.

Can I make a motion to approve the agenda?

We have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Second. We have a second. Thank you. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All right. Thank you. Next, public comment audience response. Do we have anybody here that would like to make a comment? Having none, we will pass on then to the approval of the minutes.

Can I make a motion to approve the minutes?

We have a...

Motion. Do we have a second? Second.

We have a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

No opposition. We'll move on to the action item, Section E, the consideration of a text amendment application submitted by Suzanne Baer. I hope I'm saying that correctly. on behalf of BIPA LLC to amend section 7.32 of the Unified Development Ordinance to allow water-dependent recreational uses within the commercial mixed-use developments including shopping centers. So with that, Kelly, thank you.

Thank you so much and good morning everyone. It was a long staff report with a lot of good historical information in it. Hopefully everybody had a chance to at least thumb through it, glance at it, and get some ideas. I was telling Ms. Baer when I came in this morning I was aware that we had a carrying capacity study done like in the 80s. And I had always heard about this recreational carrying capacity, but I hadn't actually seen the document until we started doing this research. So it was really interesting to go through and review everything. But it's a lot. tried to summarize it for everybody in the staff report. So I will just go ahead and go through the staff report, kind of hit the high spots, and then the actual proposed ordinance language is on the screen. So as you mentioned, this is a text amendment request. It was submitted by Suzanne Bayer on behalf of BIPALLC to amend section 7.32 of the UDO to allow water-dependent recreational uses within the commercial mixed-use development category, which includes shopping centers located within the commercial outdoor recreation overlay district. As discussed in the report, this request originated from conversations regarding Caribbean Corners. Ms. Bayer is the property manager for Caribbean Corners. I will say, however, because this is a text amendment, it's legislative in nature, and the actual site specific should not be considered by the town at this point, only the amendment request itself. If adopted, the amendment would apply to any property meeting the ordinance criteria, which is commercial mixed-use developments, which includes things like shopping centers and group developments, and they would have to be located within the commercial outdoor recreation overlay district. So hopefully you're familiar with that, but if you're not, as of today, the only commercial mixed-use developments that we have within the court are Caribbean Corners on the causeway and outlets at Naxahad or former Tanger Outlets. Those are the two shopping centers that this would apply to. Obviously, development or redevelopment can occur at any time. So just to keep that in the back of your head. Like I said, before diving into this, it is important to provide context regarding how the existing water recreation regulations came to be Back in the late 1990s, the town undertook a extensive study of recreational water use on the Roanoke Sound. At the time, concerns had been raised regarding personal watercraft rentals, PWCs they're referred to. More often than not, we're thinking about jet skis when we say that. User conflicts, congestion, safety, and the overall recreational experience. At the time, the Board of Commissioners imposed a moratorium and commissioned a carrying capacity study to better understand how much activity the Roanoke Sound could reasonably accommodate without having some level of degradation or negative impact to the users. The study ultimately resulted in many of the regulations that we have today that was included as an excerpt in your packet. The consultant who did this study concluded that the sound at that time was not experiencing significant congestion or environmental degradation. and recommended maintaining the existing number of operators within the town, which is seven, and maintaining the limit of eight personal watercraft per business. And again, that's what we had in place at the time. It was shown that At that point, there was no, based upon the study, there did not seem to be any user conflicts noted congestion, so just keeping that as is. One of the interesting findings was that as much as this was originally thought to be about environmental degradation, the potential for conflicts among all of the users sharing this finite recreational resource, jet skis, anglers, swimmers, kayakers, sailboats, tour operators, really everything that we have out there, kite boarders, everything using the same waterways at what point did their experience begin to decline because there was too much out there as a result the town adopted the regulations that we have today which were intended to manage recreational activity while maintaining safety and recreational quality i wanted to spend time on that because it's important to understand how that affects our next discussion which is related to the text amendment but also there is a bigger conversation that we continue to have about the commercial outdoor recreation overlay district the cord as it relates to our strategic plan so Not related today, but in future meetings when we pick that back up and start discussing it, this carrying capacity study might be beneficial there as well. So the amendment that you have before you today would not increase the number of commercial operators allowed within the town. That would remain at seven. It would not increase the number of personal watercraft that each business could have. running, which is eight. The ordinance, I think, there's some terminology in there that essentially says they can have 10, and two of those jet skis are meant to be on the periphery for staff to maintain the boundaries and keep an eye. But only eight can be rented to the general public. This would not expand the boundaries of the commercial outdoor recreation overlay district, and it would not alter the carrying capacity limitations that resulted from the town's prior studies that we've discussed. This amendment would simply allow an already permitted use which is water dependent recreational uses to be considered within an additional development type, which is commercial mixed use development. In your packet, you had section 7.32. And that section, perhaps I can pull it up relatively easy here. Here we go. So this section of the UDO, this lists all of the uses that can be located within a commercial mixed-use development. So you have residential uses, retail uses, service uses, office uses, institutional, medical, and accessory. So we didn't, when we created this section of the code, we hadn't contemplated whether outdoor recreational uses should be included, and more specifically, whether water dependent recreational uses should be listed in here. So that is what this amendment does. It creates the amendment where we're going in and we're adding Section 7.32.8, Recreation, and specifically listing watercraft rental powered and non-powered. So the question before the planning board today is different from what the carrying capacity addressed. The carrying capacity study focused on how much activity the sound could accommodate. This amendment focuses more on whether a water-dependent recreational use can function appropriately within a mixed-use commercial development. There's several legitimate considerations that staff had when thinking about this, how it would apply. And I've talked with Suzanne about it as well. Parking availability and parking demand, when you think about our shopping centers, the parking that they have, the tenants that are there, and how that flows with parking demand. Internal traffic circulation, when you've got a water-dependent recreational use, you might have trailers there available. You may have seen some on the causeway for Fishing Unlimited. So if you're gonna rent one of their pontoon boats or something like that, you have to have the trailer to pull it. So you might have that on site. So how does that affect traffic circulation when you have these other things? Equipment storage and staging, your jet skis, your kayaks, your paddle boards, SUPs, where are those going to be stored? Docking facilities, fueling operations are a really big consideration, especially when we're talking about being right there by the water. pedestrian safety compatibility with adjacent tenants shopping centers have multiple tenants you have people coming for these recreational activities they're queuing up where are they standing where are they milling around while they're waiting for the equipment to be ready and just overall site functionality All of those are valid concerns and while I spent a lot of time thinking about them, they're site specific and they're not related to the text amendment itself. Whether a particular shopping center has adequate parking, whether equipment can be stored appropriately, whether internal traffic circulation works, or whether adjacent tenants are impacted cannot really be considered or evaluated simply through this text amendment. All of those questions are going to be better suited and better addressed through the special use permit and site plan review process where the planning board and the board of commissioners will have the actual site plan before then. They'll have the parking calculations spelled out, the operational details, and all the supporting information that you need for your review. Staff would note that there are potential benefits associated with the text amendment, including greater flexibility in land use arrangements, the ability to utilize existing infrastructure and concentrating activity within existing commercial developments, rather than encouraging a new standalone use. For those reasons, staff ultimately found that this request to be compliant with the comprehensive plan. I put those policy considerations in your staff report. I won't go through all of them at this time, but based upon that, the amendment itself, staff doesn't feel like there is a compelling reason not to consider allowing water dependent recreational uses within shopping centers or commercial mixed use developments within the court. All of the questions or potential concerns that I am thinking of in my head would be addressed when that property owner or applicant came back to you for that site-specific approval. Watercraft rental, powered, non-powered. it is a special use within all of the districts that it's allowed in already. So you're going to see that site plan should someone be interested in pursuing this. And I would just reiterate that if the planning board is inclined to recommend adoption of this text amendment, Adoption of the text amendment in no way infers approval of the special use site plan review down the road when that comes before you. That being said, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. And as I noted, Suzanne Baer with BIPA LLC or BIPA, I'm not sure how they, BIPA, is available for any questions that you may have for her.

Thank you, Kelly. Appreciate that. That was very good. Do any board members have questions for Kelly?

I have one. So the shopping center is located within the commercial outdoor recreation overlay district?

It is, yes.

Yeah, so it does seem like that is a recreation that should be included. I mean, it seems like it does make sense to allow it, since it is the recreational overlay district.

Right, and we have talked about, when Joe was doing his presentation about the bigger commercial outdoor rec overlay district, we talked about how we make that more consistent with the character area within the comprehensive plan, and we talked about how Maybe there's some uses that we want to remove because perhaps they're not consistent with the vision for the court. But there are, we can't do that because of existing legislation, we can't down zone. But we are in a position where we can add uses in and provide more flexibility. if the board were inclined to recommend adoption, this would be a good example of how we could add a use to provide more flexibility within the cord that is consistent with the character area and the vision laid out in the comprehensive plan.

Thank you. Kelly, just to reiterate and clarify, Approval of this does not increase the number of watercraft that are out on the water It doesn't increase the number of businesses.

It doesn't do any of that It does not know and in your staff report, so we allow seven Water dependent recreational uses within the cord and there are currently five active and then there's another one that does have approval it did get approval for water dependent recreational uses it's just not being used for that at this time so and it does not increase the number of jet skis that could potentially be on the water so absolutely mr thompson good question i have a question also that study that was done back in 1998

Did that include both the north and the south side of the causeway?

It did. Let's see here how easily I can pull this up. So here are the locations where the survey was administered. They came up here. to Jockey's Ridge and to Danube beach access, but it was really concentrated down here where we have the cord currently. And so it did take into account the causeway, both the north and the south. And here you can see the site, the number of interviews. And in your packet I did note that one thing that has changed from this 1998 study until now is there's there's just more recreation generally like there's more types of fun things to be out in the water that perhaps wasn't when they did this study and We do have, several years back, we had a text amendment request that restaurants that have sound access be able to provide a limited number of docking spaces for patrons who want to come into the restaurant. And we had a couple of takers on that, Miller's Restaurant, as well as Hail the Whale. They have four docking spaces. To be honest, I'm not sure how often those get used with people coming to visit the restaurant. So there's been a little bit of added activity. And I did mention that in the staff report. it still seems to be within what this recreational study contemplated.

Great. Thank you, Kelly.

Is the only reason that they're not already allowed is because they're a shopping center?

Correct. So when we... At one point, when I first started working for the town, anything that was allowed in the C2... could be allowed in a shopping center. We didn't have a specific code that said what can be allowed in a shopping center and what cannot. If it were allowed in the C2, it was allowed in a shopping center. And when we went through the UDO process, we realized that there really are some uses that may not be ideal for a shopping center, not all C2 uses. So we created that 7.32. where we tried to be proactive and think about all the uses that would function well within a shopping center. And we just simply didn't contemplate water dependent uses. But I will also say at that time we weren't specifically focused on the cord. We were thinking about shopping centers, commercial mixed use developments town wide. This amendment would specifically be for the cord.

Kelly, I was a little confused because I thought there was a watercraft business operating out of that shopping plaza. This is the same as Fresh Fit, Benny Tesoro's. It's that plaza that we're talking about. It is. Okay. So there was a watercraft.

There was a business that was doing booking. They were not operating out of Caribbean Corners.

Well, I observe them all the time going out for kayaking tours and Recently? No, that business is no longer there. But they launched from that shopping plaza.

So I do think in the 90s, are we talking about perhaps in the 90s?

I'm talking probably it was like four or five years ago. I know it was when Nags Head Pizza Company was in that plaza.

Okay.

And they were operating and they were launching from that business. Okay.

Well, that was not permitted and perhaps they did and we just didn't see that. I was aware that there was a booking office where you could... go to book tours, eco tours, kayak tours, things like that, but you were essentially meeting somewhere else. If it occurred there, then that was not consistent. But I will also say on behalf of Suzanne who is here today, she is the property manager under new owners. So that was not the property owner.

Right, because I was thinking, hmm, we're trying to get this approved, but there was an operating watercraft business out of there.

Thank you for clarifying that. It was operating without permits, and I apologize that we didn't catch it at the time.

No harm to me. I was just curious, that's all.

Thank you.

I actually have one other question. Technologies in watercraft are changing. When this was originally drafted, nearly everything that was available was either a two cycle or now two cycle motors and four cycles were just becoming on board. Presently the technology from fueled to electric is kind of becoming a thing and the prices are becoming much more moderated and It's gonna change a lot of how they operate. They're gonna be quicker, they're gonna be quieter, and sometimes loud. Harley-Davidson, as an example, sells that their motorcycles are safer because they're louder and you can hear them coming. I'm not sure that maybe there should be some accommodation as new sources of as technologies change and make changes in the marketplace that something like there might need to be some more accommodation because as we can all understand, gasoline in the water is a problem. Electricity in the water is a different problem. So refueling these is going to become a different brand of problem with technology migration and maybe that is something that existing technology, existing watercrafts, existing models might be written into it so that when new models come on board, there is a reassessment of practices, et cetera, with an idea towards safety, generally speaking.

That's, yeah, that's really,

Almost a little bit of a sunsetting kind of thing. Yeah.

I think in doing this amendment, we did acknowledge that whether it's as part of this amendment, other things get recognized or whether it's part of the core discussion, the larger discussion, these are older regulations and they probably do need a revisit, not necessarily as part of this amendment. But outside of that, it probably could use some refresh.

Because it's not necessarily in here. I do know that... The Coast Guard regulations will flop all over the top of this, where safe operation, et cetera, et cetera, but also refueling, can the vehicles be in the water, how will fuel be portaged out to and from them, where that can be done, also does create other equipment issues and issues of accommodation, and that's gonna bleed into planning department and how that all was laid out. And then with fuel change, if that does keep coming to pass, that's gonna be another layer. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dave. Anybody else have comment, questions? Okay. Ms. Baird, would you like to come up?

You're welcome to say something.

We've got that covered to your satisfaction? Yes, sir. Very good, thank you. Okay, so we have before us an opportunity to talk a little bit about this text amendment and I would certainly appreciate your thoughts.

I'll start. I just think one thing that wasn't mentioned before when we have something before us and the next step is obviously to have a Well, there's a special use where we have to come back and talk about each specific use. Well, we have to be careful what we do when we have those special use permits because I do think that we set a precedence in our decisions that we make when it is a special use. And if we allow one thing, for one business, then we have to be careful that we are fair to the next business and allow the same thing. But for this, it does seem like, in my mind, because it is in the cord and it is basically these two shopping centers that we're talking about, that it does seem like it kind of flows with what we're trying to accomplish in this area.

So thank you. Anybody else have comments?

I do know that as a practice, and this actually just happened recently in Mania, there was a fuel spill in a dockage area. they're difficult to deal with because it's a liquid situation happening on liquid where liquid is the problem. And so from a safety angle, as far as emergency services go and dealing with that, it just, it has a compounding effect. And because of the lay of the land, depending on, as everything is, atmospherically driven in this area, it is either a bigger problem or a smaller problem depending on the direction of the wind. So while I agree, I like the idea of it, I think that we do need to keep an eye on compounding uses commercially, all while there is still a volunteer kind of walk-up use where the lay public can still use access points to get in there and do their thing. And so we have overlapping uses, commercial with the lay public. Kayaks are becoming much more common. stand-up paddle boards, inflatable, non-inflatable, that is brand new. It didn't even exist when this study was approached. Kayaks such as they were then were barely beginning to be understood. The whole fishing kayak industry wasn't existing. Then kite surfing. really wasn't around in 98 at all to speak of. Wind surfing was the thing, the biggest gear sport I've ever seen in my life. But kite surfing has really minimized things. And the overlapping uses in an area do kind of create for areas of conflict that weren't accommodated in this study because they didn't exist. So I think there needs to be some appreciation when we get past the nose of the camel in the tent, which is kind of where you were going, and we get into the actual permit being addressed that we need to kind of understand. And I believe, and I'm looking at Kelly on this, I believe we have spoken to this at different times for jet ski use with outlined and boundaried areas in the past. I probably should have asked you about that when you were up there.

Yes. So there's a map. It was sort of a gentleman's handshake done back in the day as to the boundaries of each business location and where they would buoy off to, you know, this is your parameters if you're operating out of this business. So that would be part of the conversation with the special use permit of this as well. And I guess while I'm here, I will say I understand camel's nose under the tent. However, again, this is not increasing. We've already said we allow seven. We're not increasing that beyond the seven. This might be the seven.

No, I'm thinking more the private uses being... That is actually pushing in there. I'm not saying that this is all understandable, but a lot has changed in the past, what, 20-something, nearly 30 years since this was clearly understood. I will even say so far as personal watercraft usage went down quite a bit. in let's call it the early aughts and teens, personal watercraft were not really, not nearly as much something we saw, and now there is a resurgence in them. So, I'm not concerned, but what I'm looking at is, it's not what we ask for, it's how it's deployed and brought in. And that is where the gentleman's handshake is, that's kind of exactly one of the things that I had wanted to bring to this group. It's how everybody gets along, but not only that, how we ask the general public that are going to have clear use of this area, even within the commercially agreed areas of operation, how that all comes to pass. In Nags Head, I know of more than a couple injuries where it's volunteer versus private watercraft. And some of them have been rather great. So it's gonna be one of those things where everything is possible if everybody behaves. And the question is how are we going to allow for and that to become part of that next thing.

I think part of that can be done via the special use permit process that is more site specific to the shopping center. Bigger question though, and again, I don't think it's relevant to this request, but a bigger question for this board and the board of commissioners is, Do you feel as though this carrying capacity study needs a revisit? Are you comfortable with what's in it or do we need to step back? And I'm not saying that as part of this. It is an older study and there has been a lot of changes.

I'm gonna throw something out right as part of that as well. One of the things is the water sports, if you go on the map, there is a water sports center that would have been at the end of Gray Eagle. And that would have had with it an associated jet ski launching area. And I remember using that when I worked in Nags Head. Kind of just below where the cursor is now. Let me zoom in. It's north of Sugar Creek. It's the condos right now.

Right there. Yeah, right there. That is no longer there.

So where I'm kind of going with this is if this is going to be something that comes to pass as it exists from the emergency services angle, what are their access egress points? What are their launching areas? And maybe that's something that should be allowed for as... a kind of an insertion point if they want to put their equipment in the water as it is presently, I don't know where their launching points are any longer in the area. Because that water sports area, there used to be a place where we could launch our gear.

The Harvey site, who did you launch there?

Well, but it's kind of one of those things where maybe I guess what I'm saying is if you're going to have a problem at each location, maybe there might be an agreement for use of equipment to get to them they're going to have jet skis maybe we can use your jet skis instead of always us bringing hours maybe you know like some other things like that um and what it really comes to is one a gentleman's agreement two they're launching their equipment in a fashion maybe there could be some access it it comes to how they will operate normally and how emergency services can operate adjacent to, without conflict with that normal operation. That's where I'm getting to. So it, I, it, yeah. Management and also preparedness for the foreseeable. You know, as I can remember running a call at the water sports location And getting the person out of the water was a problem because of the practices, everything was kind of in the way.

And I think that those are all extremely valuable remarks and concerns. And I'm trying to extrapolate all of that from what we're here today to decide. We basically have two shopping centers that we could allow a special use permit for watercraft. So what I'm trying to do in my head is think, okay, we've got two shopping centers. Kelly's made it clear that we have not, we are not gonna go over capacity. And I'm thinking in my head of all the changes that have taken place in that area, in this zone. We have more opportunities for personal, watercraft to go out. We've got that new center which is just, I think, to the east of this. There's a new access point where people can put their own kayaks in and whatever. But I think what we're here today to decide is we've got these two shopping centers. Are we going to allow recreational water use? And then at a later point when someone comes and says, okay, I want to add a water recreation business from the shopping centers that's probably the time that we need to then discuss whether or not it's going to be appropriate for population, water population, people population, the changes that have taken place since this report was done. Maybe then we would want to have further study on that.

Well, where I was kind of going was where Kelly just popped up at, which is, maybe the survey that we're looking at is not necessarily as apt at representing the area as it might be today. And so that's kind of.

Valid. Yeah. Good point. Valid. Good point. Valid.

You know, and this is, I'm just, I'm not saying I'm against anything. I'm just saying I'm for more information and more understanding of how this is all going to flop out.

Okay. Okay. So to that, can I just clarify?

Bring it.

This text amendment is not site specific. And there's a lot of things that we can hash out as part of the special use permit, which is site specific. Having, redoing this study, I mean this study took years. So I don't think that's going to be able to be accomplished. We can certainly try to evaluate better evaluate what's out there and capture that, but pausing the special use to update the study would be something... That's not my...

I just want to make sure that's not... My thought isn't to stand in the way of any of this. My thought is to just keep eyes open to all of this.

Okay, understood.

And I think with the special use permit, a lot of your concerns... will be the same concerns that the town has for how that's going to be managed efficiently, safely, and without any negative environmental impact.

Yeah, I was going to say, even if you go back to the 1998 study, I think the same two questions that were prominent at the time are relevant today. I even wrote them down. At what point does recreational use become so intense that it begins to affect the quality of experience for other users? But I think that can be done through a site, a special use permit, and the same thing. At what point could recreational activity begin to cause measurable impacts to the natural resource itself? I don't think those two questions, I think they're still relevant today, 28 years later. So I think to me, personally, this is just my personal, I feel that the amendment should be evaluated through the special use permit and the site plan review, which I think would make specific implementations. That's just my thought.

Thank you.

Thank you. Dave? Comments? Nope.

Okay. Well, I have one more. Would it make sense to break apart the non-powered and the powered? for this or does that not really?

This was just how it's been listed. I didn't create this. That's how it's been in the code. It's how the definition equates as well. So we actually, when you go to our parking standard, it does break out powered and non-powered. And each thing has its own parking standard. So there's a parking standard for kayaks and a parking standard for jet skis. I don't want to convolute the conversation, but at the end of the day, not site-specific, but in context of Caribbean corners, their excess parking is going to really play a role in what of the list of uses, jet skis, kayaks, paddle boards, tour boats, dolphin tours, parasailing, what they can actually accommodate on site. They're going to have to... to really do that, as would the outlets, if they wanted to take advantage of it. I see what you're saying, breaking it out, rental-powered, non-powered. It is broken out when we talk about parking standards for each, recognizing that they have different intensities and demand. I don't know if that helps.

Yeah, I was just curious as to if they had to be grouped together, if it made any difference.

So we are now at the point where does anybody want to make a motion on this amendment to approve it?

I mean, I didn't hear all the discussion, but I did, knowing that I was going to be late, I did do a lot of reading and rereading and looking at things and stuff. I'd like to make a motion to approve it.

Second. We have a motion to approve and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you. And we'll capture these comments in the planning board minutes so that they're documented and we know moving forward for site plan review.

Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Okay. That concludes the action item. And thank you, Ms. Bear, for coming. Thank you very much. Okay. Report on Board of Commissioners actions for June the 3rd.

thank you we don't have too much to go through today i did highlight that there were several awards given out at the board of commissioners meeting they gave out the 2026 nags header award and that is going to be for someone who is no longer with us but made contributions to the town and really made a mark on where we are today. And that was awarded to Carrie Oaksmith-Sanders. And then the Light Keeper Award is similar, but to someone who's still here. And that was awarded to former Mayor and Commissioner Renee Gahoon. And so I don't know if y'all had a chance to go back and watch the YouTube video, but both of those presentations were really special and really nice to watch. So if you get a chance, you may want to do that. Gave the planning director's report, and that was it as far as Board of Commissioners' actions.

Thank you.

Something about you being reappointed for three years?

Oh, goodness, it happened, yes. Andy, I have to comment, that is a convoluted oath. It seems to have been more complicated since the last time I did it. I lost my way twice, but yes, it's all-encompassing.

Thank you, Kelly. That's the idea. Okay, town updates.

I can just go through the planning director's report very quickly, if you're okay with that. Sure. Obviously, you're aware of what the planning board has been doing, so we can skip through that. The septic health advisory committee, we did not have a meeting, but just wanted to note again, I think we talked about it last time, the flyer that we redid for septic health and dark skies has gotten a lot of really great attention. And we're still gearing up to start the Division of Water Infrastructure, DWI, 0% septic loan. We're just waiting for the funding letter We've been told that everything is good and good to go and we can start, but we just wanna make sure we have that letter in hand before we start advertising too much. The Dowdy Park activities have started up, farmers markets, et cetera. So as part of that, we do have our environmental planner, Connor Twitty there. giving out information about the septic health program and kind of garnering support for that and educating folks as well. The estuarine shoreline management plan, Harvey Soundside Event Site, staff has been working through some language with regard to the conservation easement for that one. Villa dunes and catfish farm there really haven't been a lot of significant updates there But they are moving forward Soundside Road project area draft easement language has been prepared and staff and alongside environmental consultant George would They're going to start outreach and engagement with all of the affected property owners where that living shoreline has been proposed And like I said, Dowdy Park. I think everything's just in full swing. It's the easiest thing to say. Farmer's markets, summer concerts, fitness, the works. It's all happening now.

This, the heart, the events, the Living Shorelines is something that I was very much in the back of my mind when I was looking at with the other item that we brought up today. How, you know, what is in Joe's mind for the design and what comes out of the engineer's head for the design could really really make that work easier or make all of those operations less easy added with the overlay of the public's general use of the same space. It's never what we do, always how it's being done. I'm not saying that I'm on board with anything or not on board with anything. It's all foreseeable at this point.

I think it certainly plays a role in the design of the Harvey Soundside event site. You do have existing water-dependent recreational uses right there. I know they considered that as part of the consultants considered that. But yeah, that's, again, if and when that is constructed, we'll need to think about that in context of the recreational uses that are out there and if it's impacted.

Yeah.

very good that's all i have any questions any comments thank you kelly thank you okay um discussion items you just finished that so planning board members agenda uh does anybody have any comments things that they would like to add um i i

e-bikes are becoming spookier and spookier. I don't know if anybody else is experiencing it. Just the... Can I insert real quick?

We do have Andy available to talk about our legislative tracker. Yeah, let's do that. If we can do that before we jump into...

I have the old one. Sorry.

So the next thing that we have on there was actually update on legislation.

Later tracking. Andy.

Andy's ready. Maybe he can talk to us about that.

This will be good. I apologize to you.

Oh, no need. It's always good to come to the planning board. I miss it. Anyway, thanks for having me and good morning. So I'm not quite sure exactly what information you've already received versus where we are now. I think Kelly has forwarded some things to you. So you're aware of certain things. I mean, we have a legislative agenda. I believe you've gotten that. You know what's on it. And we had a visit to Raleigh back in May. I believe it was the 13th. So Mayor Cahoon, Mayor Pro Tem Megan Lambert, Commissioner Megan Vaughn and myself all went to Raleigh. with our lobbyist and we had a productive day. We scheduled six meetings, sort of surprised me that we had so many meetings all before one o'clock. So it was really like a speed dating at the legislature. So yeah, we strategically scheduled meetings with some of the representatives that sponsored the bills we were concerned about. You know, it turns out that our legislative agenda somewhat took a back seat to the things we were trying to oppose that just sort of pop up every spring. And, you know, a lot of those are planning related items. You know, the parking bill, which you're very familiar with, H-369 was a big topic of conversation, probably the biggest topic of conversation and a lot's happened with that. Several attempts to negotiate changes to it, and it hasn't crossed the finish line, and I think they keep adding additional committee stops to it, and every time they do that, it sort of delays things, and then the hope is that they end the session before it crosses the finish line, and so it just sort of dies. And that's where it sits right now. They did manage to get an exemption put into it for the coastal counties. A lot of that had to do with our efforts, I believe. We did write a letter sort of on behalf of all the Dare County municipalities to the legislature opposing that bill. And so I think that had an influence. So it's good that they exempted the coastal counties. It's probably still not good policy that the state's gonna consider that for the rest of the state. But nonetheless, it did help us maintain the ability to regulate parking. So that's good news and we're still hopeful that that either dies or if it does get passed, that it's got that exemption in it. So we feel like that was a success. There was another bill, it was I think S-445, it was a regulatory reform bill. and we also included that in our letter to the legislature from the Dare County Municipalities and that spoke to basically a mandate that we allow ADUs and it would remove our authority to create specific regulations for ADUs you know when we've drafted regulations in the past that haven't gotten adopted, you're always looking at the size of the ADU relative to the main dwelling unit or the percentage with respect to the dwelling unit. You have additional parking requirements for the ADU, height setbacks, things of that nature. And it would really take away the ability to regulate any of that. and then it would require that you allow it in any residential district. So that was one thing in the 445 bill. There was another thing that basically said in any district, we would have to allow residential uses up to 60 feet high. And it was a very odd rule. And they negotiated exemptions for the ADUs and for the residential rights of use. And so basically for communities, I believe for the ADUs, cities with a population of 50,000 or greater, it only applies to those communities. So obviously that would exempt us and all the other Deer County towns. And then I think it was the same thing for the residential rights of use. So they were able to negotiate exemptions for small towns, essentially, and counties.

What was the prior maximum height before that? Not that it applies, I'm just wondering.

Right now, the height is dictated by our zoning ordinance. Right now, we've been living with the 35 and 42 feet for years, and there's certain uses that can go higher than that, like the hotels and the hotel overlay. but it's very limited in Nags Head. And this would be a statutory mandate that would dictate that we had to allow certain heights. And so obviously something we're very concerned about. Height I think is probably, zoning wise, one of the number one issues the town has in most towns down here, I believe. Those are the two biggest updates I wanted to share. When I left the room, the lobbyist called me back. I wanted to have some fresh information for you. That's really all she shared. There's nothing really new right now. The committees will continue to meet for probably two more weeks. So anything that's gonna make it through and get ratified in this session's gotta happen within the next two weeks. And then they're working on a budget. That was the biggest thing I'm sure you've read about it in the newspaper. They couldn't agree on a budget last year, so they started talking about this year. The biggest thing was the tax rates, income tax, and they couldn't agree on a series of tax rate cuts that would occur over the next few years. There's certain folks that didn't want it to occur and other folks that did want it to occur. I think some of the people in positions of power wanted it to occur. But it was a lot of folks within the same party that couldn't agree. But I think they did come to an agreement on that. And that's all been published in the newspaper. So that has allowed the budget to move forward through negotiations. And so they are drafting the budget now. And she told me that we might see a draft budget. There's a chance this week, more likely next week. And some of our appropriations requests hopefully got into it, but we don't know yet because nobody's seen it. And we won't know that until people can actually lay eyes on it. The bill drafting and the budget drafting doesn't happen in an open forum like this.

Was there any thought or discussion of the Jetty's issue in the outflows that we've got presently in the town or any other, the rest of that? My concern is, The conversations that I've seen thus far are for or against, but not, one of the things that I haven't seen brought up at all is safety in an area where water safety is my job. Jetties in a community like Galveston are the number one problem for water safety in swimmers. And it has not, I haven't seen it brought up once yet. you can imagine how near shore current is going to affect swimmers in and around a jetty and it's going to, that's going to change the, the way we would operate if they would come to pass. Is that, was that part of the mix?

I mean, there is a bill, um, that's on the table that would remove the longstanding hard structures ban in North Carolina. I mean, you're probably familiar with that. And, um, We had something in our legislative agenda going back a few years that would be supportive of certain structures appropriately placed. It was around the terminal groins discussion. We've since removed that from our legislative agenda as a town and we were relying on this study being conducted by the CRC. Their science panels prepared a report and I think they're gonna present that this Thursday. but they were supposed to prepare a report on what it would mean to remove the hardened structures ban. And then if they were asked, so if they remove the hardened structures ban, now the CRC has to go and write rules for all these different types of structures. And no one knows what that looks like. And the CRC science panel report, I think would try to shed some light on, you know, or influence what the rules might say. But that process, I just can't even imagine how that's gonna go.

And there's been so much influx with the CRC generally as well.

Yeah, and that's some politics and all that good stuff. So we just don't know in what position the town would end up taking on that. I mean, if the hardened structure span was removed, I think then maybe we would pay close attention to what the rules being written would say. You know, because obviously, It's slippery slope and you get communities, I mean everybody talks about other states and what they allow and not wanting to look like that and what the impacts on adjacent properties are and how would they be permitted? I mean would an individual private property owner be able to apply for something or is this something that would have to be done by a larger community? all those things would be in play.

But I guess my angle on it was, and none of it do we talk about, rip currents are a water safety hazard. That would just create another hazard. It would become a new issue.

Yeah, and I think that gets into, once you get into the rule writing piece,

Yeah.

But, you know, I know Bobby Handig was involved in this bill as a sponsor. And, you know, their county has been trying to get the growing repaired. I'm not sure if those things are all related, but they did issue, I believe, a contract to build that or repair that one thing yesterday. So anyway.

So, Andy, let me follow back up on the ADU's status as it impacts Naxahead. That is up in the air until after the budget and everything is passed?

Well, I guess in the next few weeks we'll know whether that bill actually goes anywhere. Yes. But as drafted right now, we're exempt from that. So even if it does get adopted, if it doesn't get changed, which it could, then we would still be in the same situation we're in now where we have the ability to regulate ADUs. And so I believe it is something that is in the work plan for the town to work on ADUs and come up with something. And the bill wouldn't change that if it got adopted the way it's been drafted now.

Thank you. Anything else on the legislature?

Yeah, no, I think, I mean, that's really all I had. I didn't know if there was anything specific folks wanted to know about. Questions? That I may or may not know about.

I'm just glad they found out it's got a draft budget.

2023 was the last time they had a budget?

It's been several years. There's a lot in the budget and I'm sure you've read about it. There's plenty of articles about it.

Part of the problem that's so concerning about that is if they don't have a budget, it really puts the status quo in a position of authority because they exist on the last budget that was approved. So it's incrementalism. Yeah. It's going to be interesting if they do get a budget how what rocks this kicks loose.

I think that there's hope that they will be able to have a budget. There's optimism there. I keep hearing July 1 is probably the target. If they do adopt a budget, then I think the session will be over. whatever's happened will take effect and whatever hasn't happened will die. And then the big thing that we keep talking about is the down zoning bill. We talked about that a lot in our visits and it does not seem like there is a... interest in repealing it or fixing it right now. That's what we're being told. There were some things drafted and they were stripped.

Is there any other area other than this area where there's concern from the constituents about the effects of that?

There's still a big concern about it. I'm sort of surprised there hadn't been more outcry about it. There was during the last session, but this session, it just doesn't seem like we've heard the same level of outcry, especially from the League and other communities. I just don't think we're being told that nothing's going to happen.

It's unfortunate.

I do think that we need to start looking at some things I think communities are starting to take a different view of it and looking for some opportunity. We've been maintaining a status quo on not doing a lot of zoning because of that, and I think we need to think about the things we want to do and then look closely at how they would be impacted by that. I think there are certain things we could consider moving forward on. I don't want to say too much about it, but I think communities are still doing things creatively.

Does everybody understand down zoning, the impact of that? The problem, as I see it, is this has been the loudest whisper that I

recall you know there's been it happened very quickly without much fanfare and it is huge but the majority of the population locally doesn't I don't think understand it at all it takes a while for the impacts of it to really start being felt but there was something that happened down towards I think I think the Cherry Point the Marine Corps Air Station where they were

The Navy wanted, it might have been, I think it was Cherry Point, but one of those air stations down in the central coastal section of North Carolina, the Navy was considering bringing a group of fighter jets down there and pulled back because they couldn't adopt the appropriate zoning around the air stations because it would have been down zoning. Because you need to protect the air station. And if you're familiar with Oceana, Virginia Beach, so what happens is the Navy goes in, they operate, and then the community starts building up around it, and then everybody starts complaining about the noise. And so you have to create that noise buffer around the air station. And so that's what they were trying to do. But they can't because of the down zoning bill. And so the Navy said, no, we're not going to deal with that. If you can't do that, then we'll think about it. Because we don't want to deal with the long term consequences of what the community is going to do, what we know they're going to do.

The Oceana thing, I grew up in a flight path of Oceana. And when I grew up, we barely had electricity, but there was certainly no central air conditioning in our house. So all the windows were open all summer long. I mean, it was all the time. It got to the point you didn't hear it anymore, like sirens down here.

And then it was...

I don't know, 20 or 25 years ago when they had probably the last base realignment and closing work done, and Oceana kept coming up and coming up and coming up, but it was the only master jet base on the East Coast. And they worked with the city of Virginia Beach to buy up a lot of developed land and then tear the buildings down that were on that land. Not as Not because of the noise. They were listed as potential crash zones. And that all happened because about 25, 30 years ago, in one of the flight paths, there was an apartment complex where a jet did crash one day. And not one person was injured. And this is a vibrant apartment community, and it was a miracle. Not one person was injured. Jet crash blew up the whole nine yards. The place is gone now. But since that time, and this kind of reminds me of creative solutions to down zoning, in some of these areas that the city of Virginia Beach had bought up, and the buildings, businesses, private homes, whatever, that were torn down, there are now things being built again. And where I think at Holmes, it wasn't safe to put Holmes at one time because it was a crash zone. I think they put a school. So there are creative ways around certain things.

Well, I mean, the down zoning was pretty far reaching. The most obvious thing was that if you re-zone property to a safe, you allowed commercial uses and residential uses and you just wanted to only allow residential uses and you re-zoned it, you can't do that. Or you can do it, but you have to notify all the property owners. district and you have to basically receive their approval. And so that, you know, obviously that's very restrictive on local government and what we can do. We had that authority previously. But then it also says that you can't make properties non-conforming. Almost any zoning that you do makes it non-conforming. And then if you start looking at the table of permitted uses and adjusting that, then you could potentially be running afoul of the down zoning bill. I think that we could talk to our attorney about that and possibly look at some things that we could do that may or may not be considered down zoning.

When it first came up, I remember a conversation amongst the planning board just trying to figure out where it came from. Like we couldn't figure out the where or why and there weren't really no names associated with that. Is that more clear now?

No, not really.

So the lack of transparency of the issues we're speaking of, all of them, the legislative issues, is scary.

Well, I mean, I think the thinking is that some of them came from the bill sponsors. And, you know, I don't want to say too much about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Andy. I appreciate your update. That's very helpful. Thank you. Let's just hope we get a budget.

I just remembered one of the conversations was maybe we'll find out in the future. And maybe not.

The future is ahead of us. The future is out there.

Yeah, well, but you've got to know where your feet are if you're going to have a future.

Okay. Let's move on to the planning board members agenda. So

E-bike safety is kind of an ongoing concern of mine. One of the things that I'm seeing more and more of is not just pedal bikes, but they call them pit bikes. Basically, they're electric motorcycles. They don't have pedals. And I know that the people riding around, the kids riding around on them, they're incredibly quick. They're whisper quiet. And they're cutting through neighborhoods is one of the complaints that I've had in my area. Making connection between roadways and just zipping through somebody's backyard. So this is something that's been brought to my attention back in my area. Not to mention everything that looks like a golf cart. whether it's a golf cart or a gas-powered cart or really a two-seater go-kart. There's just a lot of volunteerism now. MUVs are legal on the street as it is in the state. You can license them. And I think it's just kind of a little bit of creep happening. Safety-wise, I would not want to be a police officer or to deal with this because it's just kind of spreading. The point that I brought up at something else is the speed limit on the multi-use trail is a possible avenue for restriction, maybe for sidewalks as well. Because that's at least something, it's hard to say no It's harder to say no than how. And maybe the speed limit is how.

Does the town have anything yet on the multi-use paths as far as powered vehicles?

Yeah, we've had this discussion. I don't think we have a restriction per se on lights.

It's funny. I believe there is a restriction for rollerblades. on the multi-use trail. And that was all because a long time ago, a complaint, a set of complaints.

Yeah, I think there's something that's

I was just hoping that Valerie will make a presentation to the Board of Commissioners about the lifeguarding program. I just thought that was very, very important.

I will.

It's a matter of timing.

I missed the last meeting. I was working. And I do know I had a personal conversation with Chad, Chad Moods, Captain Moods, and I know that his budget wasn't approved for an extra, yeah, unfortunately, an extra position, which he would need in order to create this program. So, again, it all comes down to money. But I am very passionate about it, and I will make a presentation to the Board of Commissioners because maybe that would, in the future, maybe they would approve the budget and for this position so that we could create a junior lifeguard program. So I will, it's on my calendar. But thank you. You're welcome.

Anything else, Beth? No. You're good?

Dave? All good. All right.

We've covered what I was curious about. So I think at this point in time,

Can I make a motion? You can. Motion to dismiss.

To adjourn. Okay. Thank you, everyone.