Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the next head planning board meeting on September the 15th, 2026. And getting myself organized here. The first thing that I would like to ask is if we get approval of the agenda.

I'll make a motion to approve the agenda.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Next on the agenda is public comment. And I'm looking out to a room full of empty chairs. So we're going to move on to approval of minutes.

Can I make a motion to approve the minutes?

And do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Thank you. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Thank you okay. Next on the agenda is action items of which we have none. So we will then move on to.

report on board of commission actions and we have kelly at the podium thank you kelly thank you so much good morning everyone good morning um and we don't actually have a lot to report out on board of commissioners actions from their september 2nd meeting let's see there were a lot of recognitions we'll say that there was a lot of public comment but when we got down to our consent agenda we had consideration of a resolution supporting outer banks health recreational trails program application for a walking path at the hospital I highlighted this because this is something that you may see come back in the upcoming year, probably sometime early 2027. Outer Banks would like to construct a, I think it was 42 inch, 42 to 48 inch, they haven't settled, path pretty much along their entire campus, branching off from the sidewalk that is currently there going up around the physical therapy building, around the parking lot, around the back where the storm water basin is, and around. So pretty lengthy, but they did apply for a grant to be able to do that. They needed this resolution supporting the grant as part of their packet. but if they do get the grant and they do proceed it's a significant amount of lot coverage so they would have to amend their site plan which this board would look at so i just wanted to put that on your radar but it is really exciting and it would be a great extension to the paths Request for public hearing. That was what this board heard at your last meeting with Eddie Goodrich looking to revise or at least add additional language for cottage courts to allow for smaller units with a loft or mezzanine. And... Deputy Planning Director Joe Costello gave an update on a technical assistance funding policy for the estuarine shoreline management plan. During the budget process, the board agreed to allocate $10,000 for property owners along the sound side who would like up to $1,000 in assistance in trying to determine what, if any, green measure would work best to help mediate erosion along their property. So, for instance, I don't know if you recall, and Joe can talk more about this, but in the beginning of the Estuarine Shoreline Management Plan, there were several islands proposed to be set off of Old Nags Head Woods Road and Villa Dunes Trail. Well, as we proceeded through the permit process and navigating public input, those islands just were not feasible. But with this technical assistance, those individual property owners can now see up to $1,000 to work on some shoreline measure immediately adjacent to their property. So instead of doing something holistically and big as the town, individual property owners now have access to up to $1,000. And they would essentially be consulting with George Wood of environmental professionals about, he would come out, look at the property, look at characteristics and kind of give you an idea of what type of erosion measure might work best for you. And if you decide to move forward, he can help you with the application process. So it's a start, but it's a big step towards implementing the Estuarine Shoreline Management Plan as a whole. I have a question.

About how many individual properties would be involved in that effort?

Well, so that's entirely, I do not know the number of private properties adjacent to the sound. But so this year we allocated 10,000. So up to 10 property owners would be able to apply. And likely if this is successful and helpful, it's something that we would continue to request in the budget in years ahead. So I don't know if Joe ran any numbers on the number of, private property owners that might be able to take advantage of it but so for this cycle it would be open to 10 people and then every year following hopefully the same for as long as it's beneficial thank you yeah absolutely and i think that's it yep that's it in terms of voc actions

Thank you, Kelly. Appreciate that. Town updates?

I do not have any town updates for the board. Just several discussion items coming up next. So unless there's anything from planning board members, I can jump right into this first discussion item if you would like.

I think we could just dive right in.

All right. So I'm going to leave this up as I talk through this. Your item summary was just a very brief summary sheet, kind of talking about reiterating where we are currently with accessory dwelling units. what occurred in 2019, what occurred in 2024, and then this next link, oops, not sure why it was highlighted, was all the attachments that we could pull from the 2019 and the 2024 effort that we thought would be beneficial so staff reports several of those staff reports had strike through and new language so you could see as it went through the planning board and voc process what was striked through, what was added. And I'm sorry, it was a super large attachment, so it's obviously taking forever.

I'm just going to tell you this. I started with a nice glass of iced tea. And then I thought, I've got to have something stronger, so I got a nice cup of coffee. I ended up drinking three Bloody Marys and decided that I'm done.

It's only 109 pages.

Easy peasy. Easy peasy. Easy reading. That's funny. That's perfect.

Well, should we start drinking now?

I think so.

I was about to say, I was going to make some comment, but I thought, hmm.

Virgin lighteners, obviously.

There we go. No, that's not going to cut it.

You have some nice water and coffee in the back. Fortunately, I'm not going to go through page by page. Hopefully everybody had a chance to browse through it. But again, 2019 staff reports, draft ordinances, minutes, and then jumped into same thing for the 2024 effort. And...

Let's see.

We have to be getting. Yeah, there we go. So then we had the 2024 effort. With this, there was a little bit more information. So we had a PowerPoint presentation. We also had two public engagement meetings. And all of that information was included in there for everyone's review. So going through all of this, I did put together a quick PowerPoint presentation. It's a lot of slides. I'll roll through it pretty quickly, hopefully, but please feel free to stop me on any slide if you have any questions or anything that you would like to add.

So this is a distillation of what we saw before. Okay, great.

Yeah, it is a little bit more detail. So 2019 and 2024 kind of bled into 2025. So we'll just go through those efforts. So purpose of today, still looking at just historical orientation, understand what the town considered and proposed in 2019, outline how the 2024 effort process sort of changed the framework of what we were looking at, distinguish between proposed language, talk about what we had consensus on, what we didn't, and identify the questions that are still out there. And again, this is just a starting point. I guess I would say that I've given you so much information on the history. Take it into consideration, see what, um you identify with and what resonates with you but as a board with a lot of fresh new members and new eyes also kind of look at it from a fresh perspective don't feel as if you have to align with any of the efforts don't feel as if you need to align with any decision made in 2019 or 2024 This is a new planning board, it's fresh eyes, so use it as information, but don't feel as if you have to fall under any option or idea that was presented, so keep an open mind as well. Three uses that shape the 2024 discussion and that will shape what we do as we move forward, and we touched on this a little bit. What we're talking about is accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. It's a secondary dwelling unit that is clearly subordinate to the principal and it may be attached or detached and we currently don't allow these. What we do allow are partial home short-term rentals and that's supposed to be a resident occupied single family dwelling renting up to two guest rooms for fewer than 30 days. And we do have quite a few of these within the town. And then we have two family dwelling or what we also know as duplex. which is a dwelling containing two dwelling units, each designed for a separate family or housekeeping unit with direct exterior access. And these are allowed in specific zoning districts with lots that have greater than 22,500 square feet. And my note at the bottom, the physical layout of these things are nearly identical, even though they're categorized differently in the zoning ordinance, which is probably one of the biggest obstacles that we're going to have to dive into here in the next month or two. I think everybody's familiar with this. I won't spend a lot of time. April 2019 was the first discussions. June, Planning Board recommended adoption. In September of 2019, the Board of Commissioners did not vote to adopt that ordinance with a vote of two to three. 2024 comes along. November 2024, staff in the Planning Board have a lot of Discussion, educational opportunities, outreach, discussion of all the options. Planning board gets to a general consensus around December, January, February timeline. We get to a point at the planning board where we feel like there's enough consensus that we should probably have a joint workshop with the board of commissioners before we solidify too much more. And that did not occur because right about that time is when there was some ADU legislation as well as Senate Bill 382 that spoke to down zoning. So it never really... gained momentum after that. But we're here now following our most recent retreat to kind of start another ADU conversation. Yes.

Can you give us the Reader's Digest version of SB 382 and how, why?

put us in this position absolutely so it's down zoning but that's all i know yes so sb 382 everybody calls that the down zoning legislation and essentially the town um a town or municipality or county could not initiate any zoning action which would essentially down zone or reduce a property owner's rights that they currently have available to them. So if you are in a certain zoning district and you have all of your permitted uses and your special uses, so that person has conceivably banked on the fact that all of these options are available to me, we could not remove one of those uses because that would affect, that would essentially be downzoning, it would be taking a right away from them that they previously had. So anything that would reduce or lessen property rights or land use rights that someone had available to them at that time.

And how does ADU fall into that?

So, because the ADU ordinance would essentially be considered upzoning. which SB 382 certainly allows. You can certainly add a use into a category, a zoning designation. However, in my time here, I've seen it happen a handful of times where we allow a new use and we've thought it through as best we can. It's gone through the process and we've tried to understand all the impacts but we don't know what's going to happen until it happens, and we realize, oof. Yeah, I got it now. We didn't foresee that.

And you want to take it away, and that's downside. Correct.

All right. So in this particular scenario, one thing that kept coming to my mind was parking. once we if we were to adopt this with a parking standard and then we found that that parking standard was not adequate we couldn't go back and say we want to increase the parking standard for adus now um so once it's out there we couldn't rein it back in all right that helps a lot thank you absolutely thank you for asking that as well kelly yes does that down zoning bill

If I owned the property and I had all of these rights and I sold that property to Basel, would that impact at all the changing of ownership in terms of rights?

It would not.

wouldn't just grandfather to me he would get all those rights as well with that property correct okay so the zoning district the designation and the uses allowed would just right so the change of ownership has no impact at all okay good question

So diving into the 2019 effort, 2019 policy basis, a comprehensive plan. Actually there was a land use policy in our comprehensive plan that suggests accessory dwelling units should be explored for diversifying types of housing and accommodations. connected ADUs to potential affordable and workforce housing options, recognized ADUs as housing for family members, caregivers, seasonal workers, year-round residents, and for an aging population, and required consistency with large residential dwelling limits. So I'll touch on that really quickly. I think it's in another slide. But our large residential category have to be on a lot greater than 16,000 square feet to have a large residential dwelling. And your habitable area, your habitable space can't exceed 5,000 square feet. So in contemplating an ADU, detached likely more so than attached, that 5,000 square feet cap would include both the principal and the accessory. You don't get 5,000 for your principal and then an additional something for your accessory. It's all included as habitable space. The proposal was broader than just workforce housing. Supporters described ADUs as flexible housing for employees, caregivers, relatives, and owners who need supplemental income. We did hear that as part of our public engagement in 2024. People who were concerned about ADUs questioned whether ADUs would meaningfully address affordable housing and whether the added density belonged in our established neighborhoods. Questions during the 2019 effort. What policy objective should ADU serve? How could the town enforce the use and the length of stay?

Yes, sir. Sorry to interrupt. Can you go back one?

Yes.

The very bottom on the right, Portability and Weather Added Density Belonged in Established Neighborhoods. Could you define density for me?

So we touched on that a little bit. There is not one single definition of density. Everybody's going to view it a little bit differently.

And that was one of the kind of bugaboos that keeps raising its head is density. But this is all, additional background, this all predates short-term rentals. This is all really before short-term rentals were in the game. This is also before something like granny pods, which is now permitted use in the state, existed. So there's been some kind of mission creep separate of the town that has included some of these things where the hand of the town has been forced to At this point, short-term rentals would have never been allowed. But it just happened. And neither would granny pods have been allowed. But that happened at two different levels.

Right. And I'm so glad you mentioned granny pod because we should probably include that in our slides.

I kind of was thinking about that because a granny pod is a situation where Per state government, correct me if I'm wrong, please, but per state government, if you have someone in your family who requires care, the town can do nothing to stop you from building a permittable property on your property for their care, for them to stay in. with you separate building, as I understood.

It can be.

It can be a separate building. But the problem is, after they no longer need that use, or you no longer need that use, you've got to wreck it?

You do.

You've got to get rid of it. This is something we looked at in the secondary effort. Go ahead.

yep no you're exactly right so if there's a medical need there does have to be a doctor's note and supporting documents to say that this person either is caregiver needs caregiving and once it's no longer needed it does have to be removed so we can add that to our conversation because it is relevant i do want to move on but before we do i would just ask like you've done so well with the

defining ADUs and all of that stuff. Is there a way that you could come up with a definition of density so that we're all going forward discussing the same thing and measuring it the same way?

That's a good idea.

Because that is going to be the linchpin, in my opinion, of whether or not we can get any sort of consensus is that we all have to understand what we're specifically talking about. So whether it's more people, more cars, more buildings, more lot coverage, whatever. I would just like to have a uniform so we can agree on that and then go forward.

We will absolutely do that. maybe the next thing that i do with that is provide there's going we're probably going to find a definition. We're probably going to find a black and white definition, but how people interpret that and how people perceive that are always going to be different. So I don't know that, but I'm happy to provide all of that so that we can have that conversation.

Exactly. So the, so that if I think density is a, and you think density is B, We both think we're talking density, but maybe we're talking density plus ancillary impact of what that additional unit brings.

I think, and add in if it's possible, and this is a big ask, with the different zoning, with the different areas we have, density will mean slightly different things. So I can kind of almost see a complex table where it starts to split down into more columns because in the special environmental areas as compared to oceanfront are very very different commercial versus commercial use as residential is very different than you know other right and so with the the r1 is low density r2 is medium r3 is high density and i believe in just one more thing this iteration the 2019 really came down to, as I remember it, a situation where it would have been less reprehensible to the BOC and all of the members of the BOC if they could strictly keep it in some areas of the town. Let's call it east of the bypass was one of the things that kept coming up.

I know geography was a topic that garnered a lot of discussion.

But this also, I think, is the last thing. Super prescient to talk about. We were talking about workforce housing well before workforce housing became an issue.

Yes.

Thank you.

OK, Kelly.

All right. So moving through, and we've touched on some of this already. What objective would an ADU serve? How would the town enforce it? How large should an ADU be? In which districts or locations? Going back to the geography conversation. Could ownership be divided or converted into condominium? That was obviously a concern. Should HOA approval or private covenants affect town permitting? Would ADUs become short-term rentals? and should the town study type other types of housing first so just a reminder we did do our multifamily work and that is now in place so and then just to note these questions remained in 2024 maybe not all of them but some of them still remained in 2024 and today so At a glance, the 2019 ordinance, you were allowed one ADU per single family dwelling. Note, you could not have an ADU if you had a duplex. So single family dwelling only. Attached or detached was permitted and intended for actual occupancy of 30 days or greater. So we had stated, we didn't say long term, but we stated 30 days or greater. was what the rental period should be. And the area was 50% of the principal dwelling or 600 square feet, whichever is less. They thought about a height for any detached structures, which was going to be one and a half stories. So didn't want to see two-story detached ADUs. Utilities, much like we look at Cottage Courts now, there had to be shared utility, electrical and water. And then for septic, you would just need Dare County Septic Health approval and your occupancy was going to be limited by that permit. One thing that was not discussed in 2019, I don't believe it was expressly stated in 2024. So one thing to keep on everybody's radar is It's becoming more and more common for places to have multiple septic systems on site where they can accommodate them. Historically, the town of Naxahed has allowed one principal dwelling and one septic system to serve that principal dwelling. If you have capacity to have a detached ADU without changing your septic or adding a new septic rather, then you can do that. We've had a handful of cases where people have had accessory structures where they've had to, we would not let them do a separate septic system, so they had to install a grinder and a pump to get it over. So to date, the town has not desired multiple septic systems to accommodate multiple structures.

Down that road as well, there's been significant creep from the state side in septic engineering allowed use, repairing areas no longer in the playing field. Right. So there's been a lot of change since this was done to, I'm going to say, allow more density from the state side because repairing areas off the board is just one box.

We've lost some of those protections for sure.

Right, exactly. I'm sorry, better said.

Thank you. So just note, put in the back of your mind, that's one thing that we need to talk about. Um, locations in 2019, they pared it down to where were these ADUs going to be allowed by right versus by conditional use. We now call it special use, but it was conditional use at that time. And where do we not want them at all? So by right in the R3, which is our high density in the C2, which is our general commercial. And in the C4, which is, at that point, it was called Village Commercial, and it's got a different designation now. I think it's called the Art and Cultural District. It's up there between the highways for all the galleries. Used to be, we were trying to keep that atmosphere there. And allowed by conditional use in the R1, low density. R2 medium density, CR, commercial residential, C1, SPD 20, and SED 80. So your SPD 20 and SED 80 are your more environmental districts, especially the SED 80. So with that, they wanted that to be in conditional use. that was going to not just be approved by staff administratively, that was going to have to have a prepared site plan, all the documents coming before the planning board and the board of commissioners with certain findings of fact to make sure that it was compatible with the area. And then in the C3, that's our commercial services district, that's our sort of light industrial up on the north end. And we were not proposing ADUs in that district at all at that time. 2019 site considerations. So for the final proposed standard for lots that were under 16,000 square feet, you would be capped, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, to 3,500 square feet of habitable area, and if your lot was greater, than 16,000 square feet, you could go up to 5,000 square feet of habitable area. So making sure that there was no increase or gain in habitable area beyond what you could have based upon your lot size. As far as placement, there was a proposal that maybe 10 feet, a 10 foot setback from the side and rear property lines, and you had to meet the principal setback in the front. um and that changed that's one of the areas that we changed in 2024 construction type has to meet north carolina building code you can't use a mobile home rv trailer or camper to function as an adu Parking bedrooms count toward dwelling requirement plus one ADU space. So what that means is currently we look at the number of bedrooms minus two for your parking now. So that would be the same. Then you add one for your ADU. For a non-conforming lot of record, if you had the lot area, the lot coverage, the storm water management, the parking, if you had everything else to do it, you could have an ADU even if your lot was non-conforming. Occupancy and enforcement, like I said, longer stays, occupancy greater, 30 days or greater was built in. That was included after some attorney review in 2019. And the planning board discussed incentives to increase kind of draw people more towards that long-term rental. Ownership controls, the town attorney advised against regulating ownership through zoning. Did state that the accessory dwelling unit should be subordinate to the principal dwelling and did note that the town would not be capable of enforcing private covenants except as it's written into the village at Nags Head District. And that is no different than what we do now. So that would not change. Enforcement remained a central concern because short-term rentals were already allowed across most of the town. Concerns in 2019, neighborhood impacts, density, the word that keeps coming up, neighborhood character, traffic, parking, more pedestrians, noise, also sanitation was in there, storm water management. Septic capacity, we've touched on that. Privacy and property values, because with a detached unit, you're gonna have another habitable space, at this point, 10 feet from the property line. Policy and administration. Conversion to short-term rental. So even though we say that if we allowed ADUs in 2019, it had to be for 30 days or greater, how are we going to make sure that that's what people were doing. West side suitability, David Elder mentioned that as well. And again, other housing strategies, which I will say we did address multifamily. 2019 outcome, we've discussed it. The ordinance failed two to three, so we did not adopt any ordinance at the time. So the second cycle, 2024 into 2025, we started with education, public engagement, and then went through a variety of options. here at the planning board level.

Yes. So at this point, we kind of realized that we need to regroup, that maybe our extension into policy and this proposal for the ADUs need a little bit more communication with the residents of Nags Head, with the population that lived there, with the property owners. And one of the things that we also realized was that there was... a really strong either on-side or off-side of a minority, but those minorities really became weaponized. And at one point there was, at one of these meetings there was a group from one community within the area, within the town, and this was Northridge, and they were just dead set against it. And so we realized that we needed to have more hearings, have more interaction. So that was hoping that maybe we could do this good work.

Yep, absolutely, and I will say the public engagement piece was very, very beneficial. I know some of you were here for that, but Joe Costello prepared a survey that when you walked in the door, you could scan it, take the survey on your phone, and then we also did some work and conversation among folks here in this room on two different occasions.

and the results of that information was actually included in your packet but me going back you showed a slide that said it was defeated at the BOC two to three was there specific reasons for that I think

like david said concern that the community engagement they wanted more input from the community there was concern about density in the west side neighborhoods okay that did come up thank you absolutely So 2024, this is a strategic plan action item, develop and present an ADU ordinance with optional provisions and standards that could improve community acceptance. So again, community acceptance was a big piece. This was different than before. So like David said, we kicked it off with recognizing we need to involve the community. issues from the outset, what zoning districts would ADUs potentially be allowed in, what geographic areas, like we were talking about west side neighborhoods, should there be a minimum lot size, maximum unit area and height, deed restrictions became a conversation, and parking and community acceptance. So that parking piece speaks to my comment earlier about SB 382, like you don't know what it's gonna look like until it's here. And we wanted to be able to address it appropriately. So this is from a presentation that was presented probably several times, but most recently back in 2024. This is a good example of we allowed accessory structures as long as they did not serve a secondary housekeeping unit. So if it were a rec room or a fitness room or just a separate room maybe for a parent or child, but it lacked a kitchen, essentially. And they were coming over to engage with the principal building for that aspect. We, the town code allowed that for a very long time. And so you got something that looks like this. Let's see, there we go. Your principal structure here and an accessory structure here. met lot coverage, met setbacks, zoning permit was conditioned to the hilt that accessory structure cannot be secondary dwelling unit, cannot be ADU, can't have all four living elements, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and sanitation, so. Um, I do not know. This was just an example. Um, so I do not want to assume anything about this particular structure, but this isn't, this generally is an example of what was permitted. This is the type of thing that morphed over the years, um, into what we would now call a short term rental. Or, dare I say, an ADU, even though we don't allow ADUs. But this made, sorry.

An ADU with a microwave, a hot plate, and a wet bar.

Correct.

a kitchen with a 220 line or a dedicated service line of gas into the cooking area to serve as something like that.

Exactly.

Future creep as well, if you have all of those things exterior around a swimming pool, that is a permitted use. However, it doesn't... So we're getting all around ADUs? Yes. We haven't gone there yet. We still haven't gotten to the kernel.

Are you talking about this specifically?

No, not this specifically, but if they wanted to put a jacuzzi in there with an outdoor cooking area, they could do everything I just described and it'd be an ADU, but you couldn't live there for more than X number of days.

Well, it could be a short-term rental. It could not be an ADU. And one of the things that I included was a presentation from, it was given to the Board of Commissioners July 3rd, 2024, and then to the planning board later in July. And actually, the planner, Chris Trimbley, put a lot of that information together. He's here today. But there were a lot of images from, I think, Airbnb of how you could see people getting very creative in small spaces with hot plates, air fryers, things of that nature, and whether or not that was actually safe or not. But so, detached habitable accessory spaces, we acknowledge that those did later tend to become independent rentals. Ground floor, partial home, short-term rentals, functioning like separate dwelling unit. What's a separate dwelling unit? Then it actually is a duplex, which you have to have 22,500 square feet lot area to have. Two floors rented to different housekeeping units. Parking and trash overflow is a common complaint when you see these things happen. That's actually how we are made aware a lot of times when something like this is happening. And the last bullet there, permitted recreation or office space that we later find advertised online. So they're coming in wanting to do a rec room, a fitness room, a little office downstairs, which you can have. But then we later find it on a short-term rental site where it's been converted.

And another thing down that road, the old mother-in-law's house. is now a short-term rental, likely.

Yep. The process in 2024, so July 3rd, staff gave an informational presentation regarding the overlaps that we're gonna have to deal with with ADU, partial home, short-term rental, and duplex. That was just for information, there was no action. We then gave that same presentation to the planning board on July 16th. No formal action, but it did generate a lot of conversation that has led to what we're talking about today and will be talking about for the future months ahead. August 20th, planning board discusses community education and engagement. There was consensus to go ahead and set up some public engagement meetings. Those were held on September 17th and September 18th. The 17th was the planning board's regular meeting, so we had that in the morning just like this, but we opened it up to the public first. And then the 18th was an evening workshop where we had the majority of our participation. And you did have some notes in there about the speakers who attended and what they were saying in that meeting. And from that, I think there's a slide in here that speaks to this, but generally people were supportive if there were proper restrictions and regulations in place and the comfort that we had the ability to enforce them. if they were in place. But also as noted, density was a big concern, location was a big concern. And that came out as well.

Attached versus detached was a little bit of polarity.

There was. Generally, people are more comfortable with the attached ADU concept as opposed to detached. Attached, it's kind of already out there with your short-term rental scenario. Detached, right or wrong, does give the perception to some of having more density because you're building another structure, you're adding impervious coverages for the structure for the driveway, you're increasing storm water. The... The other side of that is if site specific conditions of your property says you can accommodate a five bedroom dwelling and you can encumber lot coverage, storm water management, everything else, Does it matter if three of those bedrooms are in one building and two are in another? That's where we get into that density and the perception of density. And then Mead, as you said, the other impacts. And that's going to be, I think, a lot of what our conversation here centers around. Next, October 15th, staff just went over everything that we heard from public engagement. November 19th staff had put together some options which was in your staff report and then the board identified initial areas of general agreement or consensus and said okay we're we're getting to a point now where we want to start pulling some of this together so let's have a joint workshop with the Board of Commissioners and as I said that's where it ended so that's

Is that still a possibility?

So I think yes, but the board wants us to basically start from zero again and work our way up through planning board and planning staff. We can certainly use the information that we've gotten from previous, but we really want it to be an effort generated from these seven members and not the work of previous, so bringing it up from the ground up here until we get to that same level of consensus, and then I do think the BOC would be open to a joint workshop before we start solidifying anything.

Another thing that did come up in that last iteration was there was in the hearing there was a degree of fatigue from the residents that had short-term rentals interested in possibly looking at workforce housing as an option but realizing it was off the plate. And there was also a large amount of misunderstanding of the existing code that by putting a short-term rental into a long-term rental that they were indeed crossing a policy line that and so and that was something where you could hear a lot of crosstalk in the room where people were saying well i'm breaking the law then and so that that still exists and yes yeah no i'm i'm really happy that you mentioned that because you're

Absolutely right. One of the things, we've kind of touched on it, but so like I said, a duplex, two households, two families, two housekeeping units, independent, that's considered a two-family dwelling or a duplex. Right now, the code says you have to have a really large lot to have that. You have to have 22,500 square feet of lot area And when you go to pull your building permit, there's more involvement because you have two independent units, so you have fire separation, you have certain things taken under consideration, whether it's like this or like this.

There's also some degree of stairway connectivity issues in that kind of a setup, what you can and cannot have.

Yeah, so typically in a duplex, you're just going to have exterior... Probably no internal. But as Dave Elder was saying, we did hear from people who had established a compliant short-term rental And like you said, the fatigue, the constant cleaning, laundry, et cetera, and it was getting to be a lot. And so they had decided that may not make as much money, but I would much rather have a consistent long-term rental down here than technically. That's two independent housekeeping units. You're no longer looking at short term stage you're looking at two long terms so that is an inconsistency that I don't believe is intended and I do think there is a desire to address that and make sure that moving forward that inconsistency at least does not continue partial home rental can you define that I can, there should have been some definitions in there. I can pull up the UDO if need be, but a partial home short-term rental is where you're renting out a space in your principal dwelling, so it's attached, it's within your principal dwelling, and you cannot rent more than two rooms. so perhaps there's an internal connection perhaps there's not um there's varying things but it's contained entirely within the principal unit it's still a short term right and it's it's short term right yeah however like i said some people have moved away from short term to long term right so if i was renting for years a room in my house to somebody else they have access to my kitchen have access to the washing machine and laundry 30 days or less okay that's that's okay so in addition to granny pods i realize i need to add one more thing in here that's what you talked about is kind of none of this is intended to take into account just your your roommate scenario right i'm i'm literally renting the bedroom that I sleep in and I am sharing the rest of the house with others. We're not trying to regulate roommates. We're trying to regulate individual housekeeping.

We all kick in and rent the house. But if I own the house and I'm renting to somebody who's a non-relative, has nothing to do with me, but just needed a place to live, You've been in that situation. So that's a partial home rental, generally for less than 30 days. I'm good, right? I can do that. But if I decide to extend the rental to Dave, who's working as a lifeguard in the summers or has just come down, has a full-time job and no place to live, and he says, hey, can I stay here for a year or two? And I said, sure. I've got a duplex.

If it is a separate space.

Housekeeping unit was something that came up as a defined term. And that, I think, fits this. The situation, we have two separate housekeeping units. Correct. And illustrate that by, do we share the same refrigerator? If we don't share the same refrigerator, maybe we have separate housekeeping units.

Right. But that's, I just want to, Point that out as something that came up during the public meeting.

Yep.

Okay.

Correct. So, you know, internal, everybody's sharing everything except you go to this bedroom and they go to that bedroom. That's just a roommate scenario. That's really not what we're talking about. but where you've got a ground floor set up and they're coming in this door and they're eating, sleeping, cooking, bathing, you're eating, sleeping, cooking, bathing, and there's no relation there. That's the concern. And as a short-term rental, that's permitted. But when that becomes a long-term rental, it's more consistent with a duplex. Areas of concern from our public engagement, like we've talked about, majority supported allowing ADUs, long-term rentals received more support, attached units received more support than the detached, which we talked about, and participants cited workforce housing opportunities, family flexibility, and help with providing owner income. concerns, just the same in 2019, neighborhood character, added density, septic, stormwater, parking, traffic, sanitation, public safety. Enforcement, absentee operation, in that scenario, how are we ensuring that at least one of the people in there are full-time residents or the property owner? And then possible conflicts with private covenants and neighborhood impacts. so in 2024 we had several options option a was to not allow detached adus to continue to allow partial home short-term rentals as well as attached adus and i think we called these backyard cottages and apartments so there was some terminology in the paperwork from 2024 the focus on preventing continued creation of similar short-term rental arrangements so that kind of took into account that we know we have a little bit of this already happening so perhaps we allow both Option B, detached ADUs would be permitted. Attached ADUs would be permitted. They would be allowed town-wide, and we would need to give consideration to lot size, area, and the rental term. Option C, again, both allowed, but detached ADUs would only be allowed east of US 158, and attached ADUs would be allowed town-wide. And option D, Both were allowed. Detached allowed east of 158 and for long-term rental only. Attached allowed townwide for either short-term or long-term. Again, kind of giving a nod to we already have short-term and people want to do long-term. Option E, detached ADUs would be prohibited, attached ADUs would be allowed, and we would allow attached ADUs town wide for both short and long term. And option F, detached ADUs would be prohibited, attached ADUs would have some limitations on them, would be permitted, but would have limitations on them, Attached ADUs would only be allowed east of US 158. And any existing partial home short-term rentals would then become non-conforming. I will say that's not an option that people really...

Especially if you have a short-term rental.

That did not get a lot of support or input.

What was the thinking about town-wide versus east of 158?

So a couple things. I think we acknowledge that we already have short-term rentals townwide. So if we don't want to do anything to create a non-conforming status for those that are existing, then allowing attached townwide is probably the best approach there. Now, depending on the regulations that we associate with ADUs, let's say if... if we get to a point where we're allowing an attached ADU but only 600 square feet. You may already have an existing short-term rental out there that's 900 that's something that we would just have to deal with as part of the process there was also a little bit of this is a way to slice away density correct so west side is deemed as being more of our um permanent long-term residential yeah neighborhoods so keeping that transient um atmosphere out of our west side neighborhoods and keeping it more on the east side where it somewhat already exists with all of the rental homes.

I live in the middle of that.

So planning board direction kind of narrowed down in November. There was really no distinction between short and long-term rental, preference for attached units, a willingness to consider detached on lots greater than 16,000 square feet. And again, I will say the planning board, my recollection, and for those of you who were here, there was a recognition that we already have short-term rentals. And they're already town-wide. So... prohibiting them geographically somehow may create nonconformities, and that was generally not desirable. In January 2025, consensus was allowing attached ADUs townwide, detached on lots larger than 16,000 square feet, applying 50% area threshold. However, they could be no greater than 800 square feet in area. And the parking standard at that time was the same number of bedrooms minus two plus one, but recognizing that if a home had an attached and a detached, we might then need an additional parking standard. And February 2025 honed in that one of the units had to be resident occupied and that the structure, if it's attached, it would of course have to meet the principal structure setback, but if we're going to allow a detached, it would also have to meet principal structure setbacks. And that's when staff was directed to put an ordinance together to go to this joint workshop.

And Kelly, no matter what, lot coverage requirements are always going to apply, right?

Yes. Very important. Lot coverage would be unchanged.

And that was something that was very much misunderstood by residents that were attending and were commenting that they somehow thought that this was going to surmount existing and that would be new densities.

Thank you. The 2025 draft, when we came to a pause, attached ADUs to be permitted town-wide. That was general consensus. Detached on lots larger than 16,000 square feet. The rental term, short or long, not to penalize existing short-term rentals. The BOC, just in conversation, had a preference for long, but they did not exclude short term and understood the concept of not wanting to make your short-term rentals non-conforming. Occupancy, long-term resident must reside on the property, whether it's in the main structure or the ADU. One of them has to contain long-term resident. Maximum size, 800 square feet, or 50% of the principal structure, whichever is less. Parking was going to be one space per ADU, plus one for each bedroom beyond one. And then our setbacks we talked about, that was going to be principal structure setbacks. Yes.

Kelly, the requirement for the long-term resident to be on site, whether they live in the principal or the ADU, Are we making a distinction between a long-term resident and an owner?

At that point, we had talked about maybe owner-occupied, but we realized that in some scenarios, if we're talking about workforce housing, that long-term resident might be... more acceptable because you could have two units available for workforce housing or one for workforce housing and one for short term however you chose to do that but we didn't want to say that it had to be an owner occupied so that was intended it was intentional okay

And there was also, I believe there was some commentary in reaction to the short-term rental market where whole house ADUs, or I'm sorry, whole house Airbnbs were becoming more of a thing. And the problems that were occurring due to that.

Yep, absolutely. So... Before we took the pause, we had our public engagement, we had developed some definitions and regulatory options, we had consensus on a lot of things, and we were looking forward to a joint workshop. We did not get to that joint workshop, so we did not get any final direction on several things, but including the rental term, long term, short term. Planning Board recommendation on a completed ordinance. So again, we were never able to get to that final draft. It never got to public hearing at the Board of Commissioners stage or vote. And I have a note here, April 2025, BOC consensus was to defer scheduling the joint workshop until the legislative outlook became clearer. Although Senate bill was enacted, 382 was enacted, December 2024 amendments, or repeal remained possible. I don't know if everyone remembers, but right after 382, there was a lot of conversation about how various legislators were really worried about it, and proposing amendments, and we felt like we were going to see this change quickly, but it never did. So no legislative changes were ever made, and SB 382 is still in effect. How the two efforts compared, attached and detached, 2019, both were allowed. In 24 and 25, same consideration. A secondary unit in 2019, it was one ADU per residential lot. In 2024, You could have one attached or one detached ADU per single family dwelling, but you could not have both. Subordinate in scale, 2019, 600 square feet. 2024, we had bumped that up to 800 square feet. Resident or owner connection in 2019, it was discussed but not included. 2024, long-term resident occupancy included in the draft ordinance. Parking, one additional parking space. 2024 also had one additional parking space but included some language that if there was an additional bedroom, we could add an additional parking space as well. Septic, county approval expressly required, both years. But again, that's something that I wanna touch base on as we move forward, whether we're going to expressly say one septic system or we're going to allow multiple septic systems. Neighborhood protection, setbacks, height, and requirement that it be a conditional use in some districts. Those things were all still on the table. I'm going to go ahead and shift to this, where they differed in 2019. The proposal was allowed by right in three districts and conditional in six. 2024, there was a general administrative allowance contemplated for attached and potentially considering if we were going to allow detached to have it be special use permit process. In 2019, we were very specific about districts. In 2024, we were looking at attached townwide 2019 detached, again, also in very specific districts. 2024, town-wide, but on lots greater than 16,000 square feet. We've already talked about our rental period. Detached height. This is something that did not get discussed in 2024. So along with septic, let's keep this as a discussion as well. In 2019, maximum height, one and a half stories. In 2024, 2025, we didn't get there. And I think it's because there was still some confusion about whether we even wanted detached or not.

Yeah.

Had we selected detached, I have a feeling we would have discussed a height. We just never got there. Setbacks, again, principal structure setbacks. And then we've already talked about how 2024, 2025 gave us a little additional bump on parking, just in case. Talked about that already. This is just what some other communities have done. Dare County, 50% or 1,200 square feet. Two parking spaces, long-term only. Hill-level Hills, 800 square feet. Parking similar to what we were looking at. Long-term in some districts. Required Kitty Hawk, 800 square feet. One parking space per ADU. I did like this, something to think about. An ADU would have to share the same driveway as the principal. Duck also has the same driveway requirement. Separate driveway is prohibited. No additional parking just meets the standard for your principal dwelling. And detached units could not be greater than 800 square feet. Manteo, 600 square feet. And Manteo said the owner has to occupy either the primary or the ADU. So we said long-term. Dare County says long-term. KDH says long-term. Manteo says, no, it's got to be owner.

And other than Duck, all of the rest of those are detached or attached?

Correct.

Okay.

And this was... I have not had this conversation with these municipalities since 2024. But at that time, my recollection is nobody had been inundated with detached ADUs. Like there was a concern that people were gonna come out of the woodwork and they would be everywhere. That is not what had occurred at that time. And before our next meeting, if you'd like, I can reach out and kind of assess that again.

I remember there was a fair bit of talking about whether deed restrictions created a problem or were something that would be useful. That was something that was knocked around quite a bit. And I thought that there was going to be, and I don't recall a clear directive from the town attorney on whether deed restrictions or even something that could be done, a bridge that could be crossed.

So that would be a conversation if we decide deed restriction. It also came up as part of our multifamily conversations. And I think along those lines it was a little bit easier because in a multifamily you're going to have a unified management. And we kind of put that requirement on them. In this case it would not be that easy.

But it also was a real look at density and what the use was. So giving voice to people who are concerned about those types.

Kelly? So in 2024, you talked to these localities and they had not been inundated with detached, is that right?

Correct.

It might be good at some point during this process to talk to them again and ask them what kind of issues they've had. You know, a little experience that we can consider.

I do that. Thank you. Yes.

I know I brought this up last time, but is there an idea of how many properties they could actually take advantage of an ADU?

any property as it's proposed, detached. It was in our packet. It was in the packet that you received. There was a GIS analysis of lots that were greater than 16,000 square feet. I don't remember that number. I can pull that.

I'll see if I can find it. It was a large number.

I think a new bit of information as well is rental rates for residential have gone up significantly from where we were at even in 2024 and before after 19 before 24 with the finger was really on the scale for short-term rentals and this item now if you one of the things that was brought up was if you were a property owner and you had a short-term rental and we're looking at something that was less restrictive to your time and required more input from you, maybe a long-term rental might be an option. And now with rents having gone up because of housing, that has created a little bit more equitability, and maybe the balance isn't exactly even. but it meant that if they were more concerned about long-term housing for workforce or for people as compared to daily rentals or weekly rentals, something like that.

We've already talked about 382. Questions carried into the current review. purpose, prior direction, housing flexibility, workforce needs, currently, maybe we talk about defining the outcomes the town wants from an ADU ordinance, what it would address, including workforce housing and the relationship to partial home short-term rentals. Attached had strong support in 24 and 25. Moving forward, confirm where attached ADUs should be allowed. Townwide, certain districts. E-158, how they should relate to partial home STRs. Detached, prior direction, more controversial, larger lots were favored. Treat them the same as large single family dwelling, requiring a larger lot size of 16,000 square feet or greater. Moving forward, we need to talk about, determine whether detached ADUs should be allowed, where they should be permitted, and under what standards. Rental term 2019, required 30 days or more. 2024, planning board supported either, knowing that short-term rentals already existed. Moving forward, determine whether ADUs should allow long-term rental, short-term rental, or both. Prior direction in 2019, we wanted to see these detached units or attached units no greater than 600 square feet. In 2025, that increased to 800. We need to talk about that moving forward. Previous direction, long-term resident shall occupy either the principal or the accessory. We just want to confirm what this planning board sees appropriate. Is it the same, is it different? And administration, a lot of the same things. Permits, parking, septic, setbacks, enforcement. Current board, same thing. Address permitting, administrative, special use. septic capacity considerations, one septic, multiple septic, enforcement, deed restriction would be a conversation, height limitation would be a conversation as well. And then this is very draft, we don't have to follow it, but I just thought it would give a little bit of guidance. Kind of ton of information thrown at you over the past couple of weeks and today with this presentation. Moving in the months ahead, what are we trying to solve? What do we think an ADU ordinance can address? And then we can talk about what it looks like, where they may be best suited, length of stay, resident occupancy, how we're going to align these partial home short-term rentals. We can talk about area 600, 800. Maybe this board thinks something different bedrooms, setbacks, parking, et cetera. And then once we have a draft ordinance, I do think, again, like Beverly mentioned, we probably do want to look at a joint workshop and we probably do want more community engagement if this board is open to it. So. Kelly?

Yes. Can you just send us the last two slides?

Yes.

Because I think that kind of encapsulates, it gives us a timeline and it kind of gives us a task

Yep.

Objectives. Thank you.

And that's all I have.

We have questions.

My question is, can we get a legal opinion from the town attorney if we don't already have it regarding the deed restrictions?

Like I said, he had chimed in on our multifamily, but this would be different. Because there's going to be a different enforcement mechanism.

And for the last thing, sorry, Bill. The definitions of ADU include detached and attached. Attached can be an add-on to the house attached to the house.

Yes.

or it can just be simply a modification internally within the house that you don't even see outside, other than perhaps maybe an exit door going out that would be separate from the main entrance for the separate unit. All of that is attached, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Is there any other...

scenario or configuration that would also be considered attached um i don't believe so but that's something that we'll confirm we'll try to think through all the we'll try to devil's advocate figure out what everybody's going to think of um i i would also be i'm sorry

The other localities that allow ADUs, have they been allowed since before the Senate Bill 382? Yes. Do you know if there's been any talk of like, daggone it, we should have done that. Now we want to pull something back and we can't.

I have not heard that.

Okay.

I can confirm when I reach out.

Yeah, just curious. And then the other thing, with 382 still in place, just like it was in 24-25, right, are we just going to,

see what happens i mean that that barrier is still there at the end of this effort right it is still there um i can from us from a staff perspective and obviously Everyone's welcome to disagree with me from a staff perspective. I think I would always err on the side of caution and maybe propose things a little bit more conservative, like belts and suspenders. Maybe we put a parking standard on there that, if anything, is too much, just so that we're not...

so concerned with reeling it back okay so what our goal would be to would be to come up with something if that's the way we want to go that we can live with and not have to think about rescinding because of down zoning because we're right now really talking about up zoning yeah correct i got it

But we don't want to then say, oh my, we made a serious mistake here and we can't go back. Right, got it.

Right, so if you know that in advance, maybe you, my brain says you, you know.

You work within it. Yeah, and start small.

And other than parking, you know, I'm thinking about areas, you know, things like, engineered septic has really changed septic. Are there other areas where we might be in a situation where we, you know, we would be opening a door with policy change at a state level so that would change the underpinnings, the foundations of what we thought we were doing and really kind of kick it wide open. So parking, setbacks. Setbacks are clear. I'm thinking parking square footage, bedrooms is something that was mentioned a lot, septic health standards, which is outside our purview because they're county as well.

We can look at that. You're right.

It's more of an imagined piece where you think, What could go, how could it... How could it go wrong, or how could it go right for more density?

Bloom into something that we did not intend. That's where my negative Nancy might actually be.

Yeah, and I really do feel like that was... Why the restriction on one side of the highway and not the other side of the highway? What camels are looking at that tent and thinking about that? That's a great place to park my nose.

All right, so again, just information. You've given us not a lot of work, but it will be stuff that we'll need to go ahead and jump on pretty quickly because it's complex to have back to you by next month. All right.

Thanks. Thank you, Kelly. That was very, very good, very helpful on both sides. Appreciate it. Great questions, everybody. Okay, we're moving from ADUs to CORD. I think this is Joe.

Don't know why it's doing that.

So we're going to dive back in the cord today. Um, I'm going to start just kind of going over what we've done, where we've been, where we are and sort of our plan moving forward on how to address a lot of the recommendations that was in that plan that we refined over time at the planning board level. But I thought it might be helpful given we have some new members on the board to just kind of refresh ourselves, you know, what is the cord? It was established in 1995. My understanding of why it was established was we had sort of these outdoor rec uses starting to proliferate around town. We wanted to basically concentrate them in this area. What the actually, what actually the ordinance says is to provide a set of comprehensive land use regulations for the operation of commercial outdoor recreational uses while protecting the residentially zoned areas of the town. This shall be the only area within the town where these uses are allowed. So we started having conflicts between commercial outdoor rec areas and then residential development. And the ordinance also says all commercial outdoor recreational uses proposed within this overlay district shall be subject to the procedure standards and guidelines specified in the following sections. So within this overlay district, all permitted and conditional uses in the C2 zoning district, which are on a separate lot and not in combination with any of the below listed commercial outdoor rec uses shall be allowed. So the C2 district is underlying in any do anything that you want to do that's permissible in our C2 zoning, which is our most permissible commercial zoning here. You just can't do it with an outdoor rec use.

Can't do with what?

An outdoor recreational use. Okay. So here's a map, sort of shows the north end and then kind of in the little map at the bottom, the causeway. You can see that the western boundary of our hotel overlay district and commercial outdoor rec district are the same. The hotel overlay district goes across US 158 and is that red line and includes more of that area whereas the cord area stays basically tight to US 158 on the west side of the highway but they overlap for the most part the cord in our most recent strategic plan update comes up twice action item 2.1 examine the allowable uses within the commercial outdoor rec district And then action item 2.8, determine if the board wants to pursue a boardwalk or board development. So that's sort of our license to keep moving this discussion forward from the board's perspective. So where have we been? We produced a report, staff did, to describe the Corps' existing conditions, kind of touched on the development character that's existing and what's being planned and proposed in the area. Staff in the planning board spent basically from April to September of 2025 really refining the recommendations in the report, kind of becoming more concise in what we wanted to see and coming up with really good ideas to sort of build out that initial vision of Really, it's a recognition that what our comp plan calls for and our UDO allows, there's discrepancies. And so how do we align those two things so that what we're allowing and encouraging is in line with the planning work and the vision of the board and the community when our master plan was created and adopted? Staff created a 3D model and an animation to illustrate elements discussed. I'll show that briefly and just kind of click through parts a bit. I'm not going to show the whole thing. So we took shape files for this area and we just built up a hypothetical boardwalk connection. We added some public art, street trees. We added a mix of uses. You can see that little brick building here I added just to show sort of... Do you have a pointer? Yeah, see the little maybe it's not very clear. I guess it's not very clear. See that little brick building there in the front that doesn't exactly, you know, exist, but was just trying to sort of blank slate. Look at a lot of what we had talked about as far as the placemaking things, the connected pedestrian ways and orientation of buildings that face the sound. I'll kind of click ahead here. And so here is that conceptually. You have this nice boardwalk. And in speaking to the outlets, they basically said, we're interested in considering these kind of redevelopment opportunities. They had a new owner. We fielded different sort of inquiries from different property owners in the court. about potential redevelopment and ideas but you know we didn't we had um i'll get to later a public meeting with many of the property owners around and um basically said you know this looks cool let us know as as you move forward how we can um basically work with the town to get this kind of development again i've sort of just showed what if there was a event space up here on top of the outlets. There was a wedding venue. I wonder if you had some sort of cultural museum that just to get everyone to think about from a blank slate what it could be maybe at the Adventure Park. You have the pickleball courts that are coming in. You have that little stuff out on the boardwalk that's been constructed almost like just asking for that connection. Anyway, trying to show an active space, concert venue, put some public art over here. So back to the presentation.

Is that where the boardwalk is today?

Mm-hmm. That's where that boardwalk ends.

And I know Brad asked a question about boardwalk. how far it was gonna go, was it gonna go to the outlet malls? Is that correct?

I think the original plan was to go to Sugar Creek if possible.

So I'll show, um, I guess trigger Creek all the way to the causeway.

Okay.

Yeah. There was a previous effort, um, parks and rec plan in 2012.

I want to say it was, um, reviewed.

I think it was adopted in 2014, but catfish farm that originally had it going down to the residential and up much further. I'll show you what's in our CIP now. Um, and kind of our, our. plan to plan for the boardwalk and get y'all's reaction now is this a joint venture town and and um tourism board so the tourism board has constructed what's on their site and um i'll get to okay thank you i'll get to the boardwalk and then maybe get the questions there but So again, we produced this report. We helped refine what we wanted to see. We created a visual to try to illustrate some of the elements that we had discussed up to that point. And the staff and the planning board hosted a public forum. We sent letters to every single property owner in the core Only a couple people came. People who did come, the property manager of the outlets, Brian Wilson, who owns Miller's and the adjacent property. I want to say there was one other property owner who came. All spoke in favor and sort of with interest to a future boardwalk connection and sort of the placemaking and branding stuff that had been discussed at planning board. So what's happened the last year? Since that time, the boardwalk at the Soundside event site has been constructed. The town has included a boardwalk extension and RCIP for the years of fiscal year 27-28 to fiscal year 30-31 to design and then construct two future segments of boardwalk. The town also just recently released a RFQ for an updated parks and rec plan. here's a map that basically shows some of the development that's either occurring or has occurred and then what's being planned so I'll start sort of on the north end you know we've recently seen a hotel constructed in that very northern most lot there at Lakeside I've sort of labeled all of the kind of existing outdoor rec uses to sort of highlight the continuity of the district. I guess I should have named former Pamlico Jacks future pickleball courts because they're sort of tucked in behind there behind that parking lot. Then you have in blue what's been constructed at the south side of N-side from sidewalks and boardwalks. And yeah, you can see that sort of blue, see if I zoom in, that blue leg that sticks out, that's actually constructed there. And so then in our CIP, we... added just for planning purposes and to get kind of a square footage to budget you have the yellow would be you know a boardwalk phase one maybe kind of wraps around um miller's and comes down there by the outlets and then sort of a phase two that comes out here again disclaimer this hasn't been This isn't our CIP for planning purposes, but we're looking to basically ask the community through the parks and rec planning process what they think about it, what they think about Soundside access in general, up and down the Sound. We kind of touched on that, I feel like, with the carrying capacity discussion and sort of that adding water sports used to the shopping center there on Caribbean Corners. So those kind of issues will come up through the Parks and Rec plan update, I think. It was certainly a feature of the first Parks and Rec plan, town-side access, where, how much do you want to see, and also this boardwalk concept. We'll have an opportunity to... vet that more. And then, you know, up here at Tar Heel, you see another hotel that we recently issued site plan approval. So this is a hotel, that middle, of course, you can't see my pointer. I keep thinking that you can see my pointer. But yeah, first colonial hotel, I think. So you're starting to see the build out of a hotel commercial outdoor rec district in this area. So where are we going? Three of the big things that really came out of all of that work were, I guess I've put them all in one basket here. Number one, the boardwalk, pedestrian paths, walkability, placemaking, branding, wayfinding.

Can you tell me what peacemaking is?

It should be placemaking. I'm going to send you a definition for peacemaking, and I think we should make that a town definition. Didn't mean to include peacemaking.

I guess we could include it. I was just wondering what included.

Thank you for that.

Sort of means the same thing, I guess, in a way. But all of those things we had talked about, you know, the branding, the wayfinding, the, you know, it's the boardwalk and the connections between all these uses, but it's also We want to feel like it's a place. It's sort of highway commercial. The comp plan really views this as a connected, walkable activity node for town and suggests that it would be highly planned, highly connected, and have this sort of mixed-use boutique hotel, outdoor rec use. kind of interesting corridor. And right now, I'd say it functions more sort of by individual lots. You know, it's not really a destination people are walking to often. Or if they are, they're probably biking or electrical scootering, unless there's a sound side event there. And then people are parking at the outlets and kind of walking over there. But otherwise, it's not functioning like one continuous... corridor maybe as much as what sort of the comp plan lays out so i put all that stuff in one basket because i think that we can handle through this parks and rec plan update we can help get the community's input stakeholder input property owner input the board input and then we sort of have these uh text amendment type zoning allowance things that we'll be addressing here at the planning board level over the next couple months So, sort of number two, where we're going is potentially a series of text amendments that I'll get to in a minute that would really add flexibility and promote the development that aligns with what the comp plan suggests and envisions. And then number three, We have test amendments maybe that would update supplemental standards that how do we deal with these sort of incompatible c2 uses that c2 zone still? What you can do there so someone today could build anything that could build in c2 at any one of them of those lots I Don't want to go through all of the uses that could be in c2, but it's you know You can build an auto mechanic repair shop there. You know it could be any sort of thing that has the potential to really change sort of the character in what we have. Yeah, sorry, any questions?

On number one on the previous slide, you were talking about input like from Parks and Recreation and others. Is the Art Council in there?

I think that they would certainly be, as part of the Parks and Rec update, a stakeholder that the consultants will hear from and engage with. Okay. so i think yeah i think that is certainly one part of the um i just wanted to be sure that was included yes sir okay thank you i think we'll mention that to them as a as a stakeholder to discuss So our parks and rec plan, as part of that effort, like I mentioned, we put out an RFQ. It was the number one strategic plan goal item for the board. So we'll establish a subcommittee. I would expect one member at least from the planning board to be on that. So the community will have an opportunity to provide feedback on SoundSide access, like I mentioned in the SoundSide boardwalk extension in particular. I think the consultant will really help us hone in on the demand and interest, just the feasibility, preferred alignment, do better pretty designs than I have, hopefully build consensus one way or the other on what we want to do, what we want to see, where it should be, what kind of uses should it allow, what it shouldn't allow, those kinds of things. I think they'll also help us just develop that concept generally from a placemaking, branding, wayfinding idea and have it as a part of an adopted plan that we're able to reference. So that's kind of how we're handling that whole part of the core report, like the connectivity, the walking, the infrastructure, the branding, what it should be, I think belongs as a part of this parks and rec claim update. And then as far as EDO text amendments, you're going to see, I don't get to like the list in a second here, Sort of a series of text amendment. I'm gonna go ahead and point out to our eight point four point two eight point five point two point four uses allowed section Because it's really gonna hinge on that. That's what's that's controlling Sort of the development in the district right now and so I just crossed those lines out because you can see how that really limits what you can do and i'm happy to read the whole thing the underlying zoning district to the commercial outdoor recreational uses overlay district is the c2 general commercial zoning district the outdoor recreational uses allowed in this district may be allowed as standalone uses or in combination with other outdoor recreational uses Outdoor recreational uses may also be combined with certain uses allowed in the underlying C2 zoning district. However, when any non-recreational related use is combined with the recreational use, the non-recreation use must be accessory and subordinate to an outdoor rec use. In this instance, only the following uses shall be allowed as accessory to an outdoor rec use and shall be contained within the principal building. The comp plan basically says we want mixed use. We want group development. We want boutique hotels here. We want all this interconnected. And then the ordinance basically says they better be in the same building and they better be accessory. Or you can do C2 stuff.

That makes sense.

And so we're going to have to look at that. And I'll provide in a future meeting suggestions. Maybe it's a tight list of those. What's listed now is subordinate would be something to explore as second principle uses, for instance. So here's sort of the list. To me, this might as well be a work plan, if you will, of future amendments that we're gonna have to break out here and tackle, sort of similar to like the ADU thing Kelly just proposed. But some other amendments we need to consider. Do we allow specific multiple principal uses with any unified development in the court instead of just accessory to will probably need to think about standards for shared parking access pedestrian circulation signage utilities common areas. We want to expand the list of uses that can accompany outdoor wreck.

Give a quick example of which in your mind multiple principal uses

Yeah, it might be something like a, you know, for the cord, if you have an outdoor use where it's like the mini golf, maybe you are also... Go card? Right. Those would be two cord uses, but you have an outdoor use and maybe you have a retail and putt-putt, two multiple principal uses, or you have a... a restaurant and a jet ski rental. But the commercial right now what we have is That non-outdoor rec used has to be subordinate. Maybe have some t-shirts that are for sale there at your jet ski rental place, or you have a vending machine, or something that's subordinate. This would allow two principal uses to really function at the same time in the same building.

So you could have a park park and a restaurant?

Pretty much.

OK.

In one building.

This just kind of opens up possibilities.

Correct. OK. Yes, and I'm gonna hit some terms with you on the next, hit some terms, some bigger terms, and understanding those terms, because I still have to reference it constantly.

What is a mixed use? What is a group development? What is two principle uses? What is a...

And so really understanding those differences and sort of Honing in on how much and what we want. I think it is going to be crucial But again some of the other amendments will consider is expand the list of those uses that may accompany outdoor rec what fits what builds this the character that we want, but isn't over, you know, totally changing it in a way that we don't wanna see. And then, you know, this is a big piece, considering like residential lodging, how does that, fit you know the comp plan suggests mixed use i'll define that in a second but you know we've had this new multi-family ordinance where we put small multi-family and multi-family on the books that can happen as a c2 use theoretically now without a court use So just how we want to factor residential in as we move forward. Same as for group development and mixed use. How do we address incompatible C2 uses within the court in light of SB 382? If we don't want to see something, we can't remove that as an allowable use. Some housekeeping changes probably need to happen. How do we address outdoor stands? Do we want to address outdoor stands or activate the space, sort of put more people on the street, people see that when they're driving or walking by, or does that, not something we want to do, we want to continue to, so that's sort of a separate issue that this touches on. And then finally, maybe specific site and building design standards may come later. And I just wanted to end with this because I think this is gonna be really key, and I'll send you the slide deck, but just really understanding the differences in these four things are gonna be crucial as we go forward. So multiple principal uses means multiple unrelated primary or predominant uses located within one building. A mixed use development means a single building containing more than one type of land use or single development of more than one building in use under common ownership, where the different types of land uses are in close proximity, planned as a unified complementary whole and functionally integrated to the use of shared vehicular and pedestrian access and parking areas. Mixed use is defined by a combination of professional offices, personal services, indoor recreational facilities, retail, and or restaurant uses in combination with residential development. Notice it says indoor recreational uses. Our mixed use currently does not allow for outdoor recreational uses as a part of a mixed use development. That definition might need to be looked at to accommodate what we're talking about. Group development means a group of buildings on a single site which are occupied and used for professional offices, retail, personal services, indoor recreational facilities, and or restaurant uses. And finally, shopping center means a single commercial structure which includes or is designed to include two or more establishments with a combined floor area of at least 10,000 square feet planned for a single or continuous. So that's all I have. Looking forward to breaking this all down, but I thought it might be important for the board to just kind of remember and for the new members here what we discussed sort of where it comes from and how we sort of plan to tackle the um sort of infrastructure planning elements which we think that was originally in the parks and rec plan and could maybe best be vetted as a community whole through this planning update and then we have sort of the text amendment side which will sort of be breaking out and coming to you more individually. But again, I think it helps, you know, as we dive into these little, each one of these little break things, it's going to get more technical, but it's this sort of vision for the core that's in the comp plan that we're, we're trying to accomplish and we're doing that through this parks and rec plan update as we look at sort of the walkable connected improvements and what people want to see and we're also doing that through all of these more specific text amendments that will come to you so i'm happy to answer any questions thank you joe any questions

Are they working on the parks and rec plan right now?

We've put out an RFQ. We've interviewed a couple of basically firms, and we're working through that consideration and negotiation now.

And that RFQ is for?

For a parks and rec master plan update.

Master plan update. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Joe. That was very, very helpful. Very well done. Okay. The next item that we have on our agenda is the discussion of potential UDO amendments related to tree preservations.

going to give a super brief introduction here and Chris Tremblay is actually going to take the lead on this one. Let me get everything cued up. Some of you may remember back i believe it was probably 2023 um the deputy planning director at the time kate jones had done some lead work with trying to pull together some remediation for tree removal situations that were occurring and as part of that um we talked about so Live oak is just a no-go. You should not remove the live oak within the town at all unless it's within the footprint of a proposed structure, it's diseased, or it's gonna cause harm. And you should always get town approval before you do it. In the environmental districts, in the SED 80, SED 20, SPD 20, There's more review that has to go into place before any type of tree removal, no matter what the tree is. We want you to flag the perimeter of your development, show us the trees that you think need to be removed. Outside of the environmental districts, just say your general C2, we ask that you not remove any tree that is six inches in caliber at breast height without first having an approved site plan. That's in conjunction with what we were seeing people just clear cutting lots only to stick a for sale sign on it. And then it just sets their clear cut, you know. So we thought, okay, we're not gonna let you clear cut unless you have an approved site plan. Kate Jones did a lot of really wonderful work coming to bringing forward some mitigation efforts that said if you remove a certain tree of a certain caliber, you have to pay a specific fine and you then have to plant more trees in its place. So let's say you take down a large cedar tree you're going to be paying $500 and planting four trees in its place. So recently we became aware of a clearing violation on 158, which Chris will talk about. And I think Chris and I both thought, okay, so we need to talk about fines and replanting. as we looked at it, what got adopted with that was only for the environmental districts, it was not town-wide. So for the scenario that we currently have, the issue was they disturbed more than 5,000 square feet, so we were able to approach it from a violation of our soil and sedimentation erosion plan, But short of that, there really wasn't a lot of teeth. We could go at them. Chris has photos. He and our code enforcement officer put a scale on the stumps, but none of them, they were gone. They were clear cut. So we couldn't tell you if it was six inches at breast height because it's gone. Right. So that highlighted a concern where really great intentions. I think we do have good code, but it highlighted some areas where we might need to add some more clarity and a little bit more teeth. Obviously, as we've done all day, I want to start at this level, explain where we're at, let Chris go through this presentation, explain to you where he sees our shortcomings, and then we can talk about future amendments after that.

You good?

All right.

Whenever you want me to advance the slide, just, yes.

Welcome, Chris. Hey, welcome. Thank you.

For everybody who doesn't know me, I'm one of the town planners. I reviewed a lot of the development in town. This specific site was recent and it previously had a land disturbance permit to remove vegetation, brush hogging, removing, not removing any trees, six inches of caliper, just basic mowing and underbrush. They closed out the permit. They came back in and said, hey, do I need a permit for mowing? Oh, where is this located? This is...

So for context, if you look in the background, the red structure, that is Gallup Funeral Home.

Oh, that's Gallup. Okay.

I think the address is 6960. I'm not sure. I don't know the address, but that is Gallup Funeral Home. Okay.

The old gas station lot? Yes. In between the Gallup Funeral Home and the gas station lot. Thank you. So they came back in. They're like, hey, we finished our permit. Do we need a pool permit for mowing? And I was like, no, you can mow all you want. And they're like, well, we want a brush hog. Do we need a permit for brush hog? And I was like, well, what are you brush hogging? Oh, we just want a brush hog and take down the undergrowth. that wouldn't trigger really a permit. And then about a month later, this is what the result was. As we started looking into this, when it happened, you know, I noticed stumps that were 22 inches in caliber, you know, but it's not breast height. We talked to the contractor and He's like, I just mowed the lot. I just used the brush hog. And I'm like, this is clearing. We do have clearing as land disturbance in our 4.9 for what requires a permit, but we do not have a definition of clearing. So then it becomes ambiguous with arguing over this. As Kelly mentioned, fortunately, this was over 5,000 square feet, so I was able to apply Erosion and Sediment Cotation Control Pollution Act and use their definitions for clearing, but the town doesn't have a definition. So maybe if this was 3,000 square feet, I might not have had that teeth to mediate this. So, go ahead.

As well, there was one of the situations that happened before this. the town policy on trees, what exists, isn't really in one place. It's kind of here and there through the town code. And some time ago, more than four years ago, we tried to pull it all in something for clarification and some developers and contractors took the agenda that was written as this is new law, this is new code that will be added to Nags Head not existing, and they were rather upset. So it was really clear there was a lot of misunderstanding.

So one thing that would have been helpful is some clear definitions that we don't seem to have currently. We talked about mowing, we talked about brush hogging, grubbing, clearing. So the three main development definitions we're looking at is mowing, bush hogging, or rotary cutting, and also clearing. Mowing is more like mowing your grass, herbaceous vegetation, light vegetation. The real crutch of the matter is bush hogging and rotary cutting. This is where things kind of get astray. Because you're stepping up in severity of development, but what constitute is brush hogging or rotary cutting? Um, this is one where they were saying, you know, they wanted to just brush hog or Bush hog, and they're just using the stand behind brush hog, but they found a way to cut down a 16, 20 inch tree with their brush hog. It might be rated for four inches, but they're able to articulate it. And they said they weren't cutting trees down. They ground the trees down. So having a more, defined what's going to trigger it in a review process. I threw in two inches for the threshold for that. Speaking to live oaks, you can cut a live oak, but it has to be less than two inches in diameter at breast height, and then it can be reviewed for removal. having a big open lot, this would get us out there to help mark trees and identify trees, whether it's live oak or not live oak. It takes a while that ambiguity of like, well, I didn't know it was live oak. And once it's cut to the ground, you don't know what it is.

What height is breast height?

Four and a half feet.

Okay. So we do have a definition of that.

We do. We measure at breast height, but there is a further definition in other...

So four and a half feet above ground.

Yeah, that's... And then clearing, obviously the picture that you showed you is what I would consider clearing. We have the word clearing in our UDO many times, but we don't have a locked-in definition. So when we're reviewing... This one didn't come in as permit the second time around, but as we're reviewing these questions regarding what's actually going on or what the outcomes are going to be for land disturbance or mowing, is this grass material or is it wooded stems and trees or saplings? Then you go into, are the roots going to be left in place or are they going to be removed? If roots are left in place, it's not considered land disturbance yet. But if you pull it out of the ground, it's grubbing and that disturbs the soils, that would trigger a permit for land disturbance. We look at the soil and the grade. Is the soil and the grade going to stay intact? Is it going to be exposed? Is it going to be raked or is it going to be regraded? In this situation, I feel the grade was exposed. Their point was we didn't pull any roots out of the ground. It wasn't grubbing. We didn't disturb it. On the erosion sediment side, we're like, this increases erosion or may increase erosion. And then what we're looking at is for the intended results. Are they maintaining the lot? Are they managing the bush and the vegetation? Or are they converting the use? So without the clear definitions, it makes it really hard to be uniform and prevent unwanted outcomes. Like we said.

To complicate this as well is when something like this happens, so the land disturbance permit, as I remember, was in reaction to something not too dissimilar to this smaller scale where something happened rather quickly and they clearly overstepped what should have been done. but it was a little muddled and not clear. There's another situation that has come up where people have, their property owners have cleared away vegetation and it's happened on a weekend. So in both of these situations, it's hard to, we don't have a way back machine where we can look at what was there before because we don't have continual pictures and we're relying on Memory or information from neighbors or perhaps video pictures of something going down where you have utility access clearance at Satterfield landing in 158 there is a property that had Trees that were removed they were live oaks. They were very clearly beyond all of this it happened on a weekend the property owner said it was a to clear utility right of way for power. That clearly wasn't the situation because I don't think Dominion Power works on Saturdays and Sundays. But it was done and it's kind of a little bit difficult so I'm wondering maybe that might be included in this if it is in an effort to make utilities clear, that's something that would be more clearly understood between the utility and the property owner or the town so that they have a permit executable and understood so that we know not only what is gonna be done but when it's gonna be done so that when a multi-machine shows up, that throws a hand up in the air.

yeah and i think that's the importance of defining this stuff so is it permittable is it not permittable does it require permit or is it exempt and with the loose definition without having a definition things get muddled and they get a little bit loose So going back to this with talking about the equipment, it's about the disturbance and not the actual equipment. In the first picture there, you'll see where they're mowing herbaceous grasses with a rotary type of mower. In the next one, you see what I would consider brush hogging, cutting and removal of trees less than two inches, small saplings. That's more of a big bladed type of brush hog And then clearing is, you know, that's a zoomed in picture of one of the stumps from that site. And as you can see, it has like a 35 degree angle on it. And that's where they took the mower that's more like the one in the first picture and just ground it down until it fell over and then it's mulched it in place. So it doesn't really matter the equipment. You can figure out a way to do the work with what you got. So this is a definition I'm proposing or something adjacent to it for a definition of mowing. The cutting of grasses and other primarily herbaceous vegetation to reduce the height and maintain existing lawns, fields, right-of-ways, and landscaping areas without removing trees or shrubs, uprooting vegetation, disturbing soils, altering grades, or preparing land for a different use. And this is what I think of when I think of mowing. It's routine lawn maintenance, it's cutting grass, it's repeat maintenance. It does not include tree removal or shrub removal or pulling up roots or grubbing. So this is the one that's kind of in between the two, between lawn maintenance and clearing. And this is the one that gets us kind of into trouble where we want to curb and put guardrails around. This is bush hogging, brush hogging, rotary cutting. I'm not sure which one is the trademark name, bush hog or brush hog, but it's a general term. So what makes it a little bit more confusing is you're using a piece of equipment name and also an action. But for rotary cutting of tall grasses, brushes, and small woody stems with a rotary cutter or similar equipment to maintain or restore an existing field, undeveloped lot, right-of-way, open area where roots and stumps remain in place, and the activity does not include grubbing, root raking, evacuation, grading, and removal of established canopy. That's one sentence in there, removing of established canopy. That's what happened on this site. That's where the state's ENS really has most of its teeth, is you're removing canopy, which increases rain protection, which increases erosion and sedimentation. Can you go back one more? Yeah, I'll go back that one. So there on the side, you know, Brush hogging or rotary cutting becomes clearing when roots or stumps are removed, when soil is exposed, tree canopy is removed, or the site is prepared for a different use.

As well with that, there's a certain amount of fill that is permitted on, I think it's below, if it's under 11 inches, you can go ahead and dump some fill. So it's very common when they're doing something like this, if there's a degree of improvement, to smear a little sand over it. It's very, very difficult to start to establish how much fill was established post-development.

So a vacant lot, if they brought in fill, because you can fill in, but that requires a permit.

Yeah, but it starts to creep.

Right. Excuse me, Chris. Yeah.

Does the land that we're talking about, does that have an intended use?

It does not. It does not.

Okay. There is no permits. There's no indication of any upcoming use.

So there's no timeline for a permit to build a structure or.

OK, that's no for sale.

That's really important. Yeah.

Yeah.

To just clear a lot.

Yes, it was just cleared. You know, sometimes they'll need to cut paths for survey work, which are or you do allows for that. But this is obviously not for surveying. This is this is a lot prep. So for clearing, clearing changes the land. Once this is done, there's really no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The removal, destruction, or physical alteration of trees, shrubs, stumps, roots, natural ground cover, soil or rock by mechanical or chemical means, including grubbing, root raking when activity exposes disturbs the soil alters the grade or drainage removes established tree canopy or repairs land for development or a different use so again tree canopy being part of this because our you know our permitting has that six inch tree threshold we have a clearing threshold which we don't have a definition But this is all, if we address tree canopy in multiple definitions, it's clear that that's an important part of it. There's another lot down from this one. It's the same contractor. And they're like, well, every tree is less than six inches, so can I just mow it all over? And it's like, let's not mow it. bush hogging and you're you're clearing a lot and they're like well you said it i'm not disturbing a tree at six inches and they're just leaving the roots well this this isn't land disturbance so then we go back to the 5 000 square feet so that's where these definitions will help define for review of what's permittable and what's not permittable so we're looking at the result and not the attachment on the tractor So this is just kinda like a workflow that you think of in your head when you're talking to people about what their development's gonna be. Is the established tree canopy removed? If yes, that's clearing. Are roots and stumps removed? If yes, you're distorting the soil, so that would be clearing. Is the soil exposed, raked, or excavated? If yes, then you're clearing. Are woody stems intentionally cut? Maybe. Depends on what size it is. And that's where we need to get in to get that review. Are we talking about two inch, four inch, six inch, 16 inch? It takes a little bit more time, one site visit to figure out what's going on. And then you look at what the purpose is. Is this maintenance to the property or are you converting the use of the property? And then, of course, any clearing indicator routes, we'd be looking for the path of review for seeing what the future development, what's going in here? What's the plan to be developed?

Chris? Yes? Can we go back to that previous slide where you defined clearing? Mm-hmm. Is anything about the canopy in there? If not, oh, it is. Never mind, I see it. Thank you.

All right. So the definitions for clarifying the safeguards, You know, naming the activity. Are we mowing? Are we brush hogging? Are we clearing? That's the beginning of everything and that's where the definitions start to process. Then you go and you check the locations. You check and see if there's buffers, vegetation buffers, wetlands, certain places in the protected areas. There's slope conditions. If there's easements or other protected areas. There might be some camo protected areas for cutting of grasses. Then you apply the thresholds. What's the area disturbed? The town's disturbance area is 5,000 square feet, requires an E&S plan. If it goes over one acre, then that falls into the state's realm for an NCG01 for land disturbance. And then you also look at erosion control triggers. And then determine the review. It's either an exempt project, you know, an administrative permit, or is this something reaching a development plan? As in the pre, what we've been talking about, that would be more of a development plan should have already happened before that type of disturbance. As Kelly mentioned before, we were talking about the Appendix C, the Table A down there at the bottom. This is in the vegetation, for like remediation, but it's only listed in the SBD 20 and the SED 80. for remediation. So if you cut down a 16 inch tree, you can near plant one live oak or another native, or two native species of trees. If you get towards the 19 plus, you're looking at two live oaks, and I think that still says two trees over there. So this is the guideline of like, something happened, this is a remediation, this is the table, but it's only addressed in those two districts. Outside of that, it really doesn't have any teeth. If you look there in the green, that is the specific language that refers it to the SED 80. And that's the any authorized disturbance and removal of trees, shrubs, grasses, or other naturally occurring vegetation as well as sand, soil, dirt, earth, which has been removed, relocated, graded, excavated, added to, filled, or disturbed in violation of the UDO or any applicable town ordinance and any natural occurring trees, shrubbery, grass, or other naturally occurring vegetation which has been killed, damaged, destroyed, or removed in violation of this UDO shall be restored or replaced as part of Table A. So that is only in that 20 and that 80 language, which really should be a general guide for land disturbance without authorization. So looking at this, this is actually the second lot I was talking about with the four inch trees. They said they just wanted to mow. This is their mower. It's a brush hog. And this is rated for four inches is what they said. And this is what they did 90% of the work on that other lot that was completely, they took out. This one didn't take out the 16 to 20 inch trees, but they could probably take out the six inch trees with this mower. It's hydraulic in the front, so they can put it up at an angle and grind down. If you can go to the next picture. So this is that lot with that mower, is that brush hogging even if it's four inch trees? So you can imagine a 10,000 square foot lot with all less than six inch trees, it could just get mowed straight to the ground. And then once it's cut, that's four inches at the ground, how high was it at breast height? It was probably smaller. So would you consider this mowing or brush hogging? Um, for me, I consider this brush hogging, this is vines, this is small saplings. Um, you're just maintaining underbrush, um, same piece of equipment. Um, it looks fake, but, uh, they can take that same piece of equipment, raising the air, put an angle on it and just grind the tree down. Um, This, it's probably a six inch tree. This might be considered brush home. But if you do a bunch of them, you're removing the canopy and now you're back into clearing territory because of that removing the canopy. Um, so this is the rotary style, um, brush hog, and this is one where they can just grind a tree in the middle and you're pretty unlimited on the size of the tree that you can grind. And speaking with the contractor, this is the type of equipment they removed some of the 16 and 20 inch trees. They weren't tall like this. They were more lower lying, but they still had big stumps.

It certainly looks like cutting to me.

They said they weren't cutting, that's mowing.

That's mowing.

That's what they were trying to tell me. They mowed the tree down.

I see. So mowing does not... In this situation, mowing does not have any contingency defined that would be proximity or contact with the ground.

It's herbaceous, so it would be non-wooded. I think in the definition I put, I put herbaceous, which would be non-wooded stem. So mowing is just grasses. But of course, we're just talking about difference of verbiage and trying to really twist things, saying like, oh, you said I couldn't cut a tree down with a chainsaw. I mowed it down or I grinded it down. It's tree removal at the end of the day. I don't think I have any more pictures past that, do I, Kelly?

You got any more?

Any questions with?

This brings up two differences, the ground clearing policy, the permit that was created and then some other issues. When something like that happens, if there is a plan At what point does the plan need to be accepted in order for it to proceed? Situation that the property owner had said that they were either going to subdivide or recombine lots, but there was no document that was registered that was accepted as a plan. That plan was not accepted. Those documents had not been processed. The work was allowed to proceed and could not be undone. So it's one of those things where at what point or at what tipping point is a plan really a plan or is it a way for them to get the work they want completed? That's going to be...

Right. And that's where conditioning comes in. I mean, once we get past like... Once we can demonstrate you're not mowing grass, you're not mowing whatever you're saying, it's wooded. All right, how big are you cutting down? Go out and mark this, that, or the other. let us go out and look at this and we might get out there and go, you can proceed. This is going to be an exempt project or this is what's permittable. You're allowed to do this. You're allowed to do this. You can't do this. You can't do that. And then that's, you know, the plan. And then if it, all right, what you're doing here is triggering more development and this needs more review, more questions answered more.

I didn't see anything in there. Maybe I just missed it. But whether you are mowing, bush hogging, or clearing, is there something that requires a permit if something is going to be cut that's taller than a certain height? So I don't see shrubs much more than say 10 feet. and of course grass may be a foot high, doesn't matter, but is there a way to restrict what you cut if what you're cutting is of a certain height or more?

That would be a text amendment. I don't think we have anything that talks about height.

But that would then...

Would that not then address? I don't care if that pine tree is being cut. You can say it's being grounded. It's being cut. But the fact that you're cutting something of a certain height, whether it has a canopy or not, doesn't really matter because it could be dead and the canopy gone. But the point being is if you're cutting something of a certain height, you should get a permit for that.

Yeah. We don't have any triggers for that.

But we're talking about it.

That's part of what we're talking about with this. We're going to have to come back and, you know, some of you may remember, we did this several years ago, but we're going to have to come back and show you what we what a lot of you may remember is all throughout the code, sometimes we said diameter, sometimes we said caliber, and they were interchangeable. And so we at least now have everything hopefully geared to diameter at rest height. But the six inches is the trigger. So the conversation is going to be, you know, is that adequate? Do we need to look at something else? Do we need to, And then the diameter, do we need to address height? Do we need to look at this more holistically? Yes. Anyway, so this is what brought our attention to some deficiencies. So next step will be to put together what we have, where it's loose or open-ended, and then talk about amendments needed to tighten it up.

Thank you. And expand on that real quick. Something I've seen in the field is, you know, live oaks are a protected tree. How do live oaks grow? Some are four and a half feet. They'll have an eight-inch base, but they grow three feet off the ground for 30 feet.

Yeah, right.

Another thing, and this is kind of the creep issue, if... If you have a tree that is dead, a snag, that's something you can get a permit to.

It's in our code for that's permittable to remove a tree for that.

But if I have a tree that I want, that I know that I'm not going to be able to get a permit for, and I can figure out how to kill it, that's something that can be done. Ring barking, there's a bunch of processes where you can poison the tree, and that is something that has also come up in the past, but it's difficult. It's kind of achieving the same end goal as what you're talking about here, but it would be easy to opt into this if that's something that is desired.

And I've actually seen attempts of that.

I have as well. I've brought some of them in. But it's one of those things where it's not... clearly they didn't top it it's it's there and the language you use is something i'm wondering if another word you might use is and intent and if they're if their intent is if they are boring circularly boring with the drill around the circumference of the street aren't they indeed killing the tree that's it seems that their intent is clear something like that

And there may be some definitions for that in some of the arborist handbooks and stuff. Yes.

Ring barking is something that is also done.

Oh, yeah. Chris, thank you. Thank you very much. That was very, very informative and very helpful. All right, so Planning and Development Director's Report. Kelly?

Last stop, and I will not take very long. Let's see. You obviously don't need to know what's going on in your realm with the planning board, ADUs, cord, vegetation removal. That will all be ongoing over the next couple of months. In August, we did have a appeal through our Board of Adjustment. They were appealing an administrative decision that was issued from the Planning and Development Department to deny a request to demolish a beach walkway. That beach walkway has historically been considered part of a HOA shared property, so we did not feel like one individual had the authority to unilaterally make that request. It was appealed, and the Board of Adjustment did uphold staff's decision to deny it. At this point, I think they're considering moving that up to superior court, so I can keep you up to date on that. As far as the septic health advisory committee, Basil is aware, and I've talked about it here, but the DWI zero interest loan, we're getting closer and closer on that. We did send out targeted letters to 280 property owners whose properties are low lying, adjacent to a water body, and do not have recent septic maintenance history with Dare County Health. We sent them letters just telling them that their property had been identified as a property that may want to take advantage of this zero interest loan. And these numbers are from a while back, but I can say talking with Connor, those letters have gotten quite a bit of attention when people have received them. He's had well over, here we're saying 15, I would think at this point we're closer to 25 probably, inquiries, people wanting him to come do inspections, and talk about what the process may look like if they were interested in the loan. So that's exciting. Our groundwater loggers, I don't think it's any surprise, we've mentioned it on and off, Them working accurately has been very intermittent with HydraMet as the people who we purchased those from. They are working with us, but it's taking a lot of time. So we're aware that ECU, East Carolina University, over here at CSI, they're doing some work with groundwater as well and water quality management. grant funded. It may not be perpetual and forever and always, but they're doing it right now. And so we had them come in, Connor, Joe, Andy and myself, spoke with them about their program, what they're doing, and trying to see if there's a way to maybe honor what we've started with HydraMet, but collaborate with them as well. Because their dashboard and their process of obtaining information is pretty impressive. And so at our next septic health advisory committee in October, we want to have these researchers from ECU come give that same information to them and see if it's something that we can explore to help get a better grasp on our groundwater loggers. Estuarine shoreline management plan, that's moving forward. Joe can give a more detailed update, but I think everything's moving ahead. And then we did talk about our technical guidance program. Parks and Recreation, Joe already touched on this. Our request for qualifications went out. We have done our interviews and now in the process of trying to select the firm and negotiate scope. And... Not so much the planning board, but sometimes the board of commissioners are interested in how things are moving in the planning department and what our timelines are. So I just wanted to put this in here. Third and fourth quarter, we have an average permit turnaround time of three to four days, which I think is exceptional. And obviously we have a great staff right now that help facilitates this. And since they're here right in front of me, Chris and Lily are two of those. So thank you very much. Kim Thompson, Greg Daisy, some others up there really work hard to get permit turnaround quickly on these things. Farmer's Market, Dowdy Park, Art and Culture, obviously summer's wrapping up, moving into fall. We do have, yoga is still continuing. We have a couple movies scheduled in fall. And what else? Really leaning into getting your holiday markets and everything going, holiday events. And then I will say our Committee for Art and Culture has been, there was a request from the community to do something to recognize the 150th anniversary of the Huron Shipwreck. And so that's going to be next November. It's when that is. So starting early. Our Art and Culture Committee was happy to kind of look into that and work with the requests that came from the community to see what we can do, what we can host. Paige Griffin is on it. Anybody who knows her knows that she's great at this. So that's something to look forward to.

Is there going to be any reaching out to Sandy Sanderson?

He was part... Sandy Sanderson and Ralph Buxton were the two that made the request for some type of ceremony to occur. They made their request with Roberta, understanding that it's really part of our history and culture. I think the Art and Culture Committee, along with Roberta's guidance, we're going to try to pull something together. Yeah. Exciting. That's really all I have.

Thank you, Kelly. I do appreciate it. That was very, very good. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Joe. At this point in time, we are going to planning board members agenda, agenda, sorry. You don't have to limit your concerns to specifically what we discussed today, but anything going forward that you might want staff to be looking at or to consider. So I'm going to start with you, Brad, and see if there's anything you want to bring up.

I can't think of anything.

Okay. Thank you. Val?

That's a lot to digest today. I need to think about what happened today and taking it all in, doing a little more. background you know going back and looking at some of the details it's a lot of preparation today thank you so much Kelly and Chris and Joe you guys do an exceptional job of providing us with information to as a board communicate and move forward so thank you all very very much I've got a lot of things going on in my head. I'm trying to hold in. I don't want to just right away until I think a little bit better.

We do have a lot to think about, don't we? A lot, yeah.

David? I've got two things in my head, kind of the same thing. When we're talking about the future of the possibility of ADUs, I feel that some comparison to existing accepted use or use with short-term rentals, how they kind of split off and the surrounding of that. One, and then two, one of the things that's come up a lot in the past is how it would look, what it would mean in light coverage, if there would be a change in light coverage so that a visual could be established when we do have outreach into the community for these hearings so that they could see how an ADU would compare with the existing development. And as we were stuck in the room, we didn't have something, but there was some concern and we said it doesn't change a lot of coverage. And there wasn't necessarily an acquiescence from the population that they thought that was real. So maybe this is what could be done, height, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Is that something that you would like?

Yeah. Especially, you know, had to have something like a, not necessarily like a resource to reference. This is what could be developed on a property. This is what could be developed with this proposed extension. If what we propose for an ADU, how they would compare to each other. How it could be done with the short term rental same same where there would would there be any differences, so that you could see one family is with a short term rental and then this proposed as yet. On activated at you would be any differences.

Are you suggesting maybe like a graphic if we had a public hearing and so people could see and understand like lot coverage and things like that?

Lot coverage, height, just all of it because it would really lend to understanding the density piece because it's very, very clearly visual as compared to just accessing the words and creating clear understanding. If you just get part of the plot, you can still see the picture.

Okay. Thank you. We'll try to bring something back. What we've said, lot of coverage is lot of coverage. So 33%, whether it's over the course of one building or two buildings, is all the same. As I'm sitting here thinking about it, I guess one thing that could change with a detached ADU... is stormwater management. If you have your principal and then you have your stormwater management basin over here, because your roof pitch has directed all your water here, if you put your ADU over here, you might have to provide additional stormwater measures to capture that.

And I'm also looking at exterior living space, like a swimming pool, other things, how that could work and how that it would have to work with existing policy if they were to exercise that. External cooking areas, patios, swimming pools, a jacuzzi, et cetera. Whether it's a residential with a short-term rental, and then this possible other thing. That would really help me to... kind of make sure that I'm completely understanding all of that, but yeah.

Thank you, David.

Okay. Yeah, I want to make a quick public service announcement for everybody. We're all property owners in Nags Head. If you haven't taken advantage of the town's free septic inspection, you need to. Because I just had that done a couple of weeks ago, and Kelly, I want to give some kudos to Connor, because it is hard, hot, sweaty, possibly nasty work, and he comes up there and is so professional, and a smile on his face. He's very conscientious about putting the sod back where it belongs. It's just a wonderful program that the town provides for, so thank you.

I agree, Basil. I've had, when we bought our property, we took advantage of that, and Connor was exceptional.

Yeah, and he'll do it every year. Very professional. That's good to hear. That's very good to hear.

Very professional.

That's all.

Thanks. And Beverly.

Well, I have to concur. You guys do a great job. I'm going to go back and read the novelette again with a little bit more and just do a picture.

Decaf coffee this time.

No, I'm going for a pitcher of Bloody Marys. I think we have a lot on our plate, and I think we just take it step by step. That's all we can do.

Let me just wrap up. First of all, I'm very, very thankful that we have the board members that we do have and take the time to read all of this information, which has been so appropriately put together in small bites that feel like you're eating an elephant, and we've just taken two bites, and we're making progress. But we're all beginning to really understand the significance and the importance of what we're doing, and you all are taking it very seriously. So I want to thank the board, first and foremost of all, and the staff for putting this together in such a good way, in an understandable way, that makes it easier going forward. So I want to thank you all. So with that.

Can I make a motion? No, you can make a motion. To dismiss, sorry.

You would like to?

Yeah, to dismiss, adjourn the meeting.

You would like to adjourn? Yeah. Okay. We're adjourned.