Planning Board - Regular Meeting

call the meeting of the North Topsel Beach Planning Board meeting of uh December 11th. It's 601. And um I'd like to thank everybody for attending and uh I ask for a motion to adopt the agenda. Make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second. Okay. Any any discussion? All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Okay. Now, I need a motion to approve the minutes of our And I'm a little confused. I thought we've met since August 14th. We have not. Okay. A minute. A motion to adopt the minutes from August 14th. I'll make a motion adopt the minutes from August 14th. Do we get it? I'll say. Okay. We got a mo motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I.

Any opposed. Okay. Have we got anybody from the audience that would like to make a public comment? Okay. Uh, new business. Deb,

before we go on to new business, I'm gonna pop up to the podium so I can uh be more comfortable being able to uh direct my conversation to you. Uh on the minutes, uh Ricky has the ability to email those minutes for your signature to route them. And so in the future, uh that might be the last piece of paper that you have to sign. So Ricky, if he doesn't mind, could route you the minutes for your signature. Like once the board approves them uh like the following day, he could send you an email uh for your signature. And then is it like a docu sign? 100%. Yeah.

Okay.

And uh so then it would get routed to the clerk to the board, which is Donna Ser. Unfortunately, she's not with us here tonight for to be able to introduce her. she is out sick and um uh so you won't get a chance to meet her unless you've seen her before or you see her between now and our next planning board meeting. Um and so I'll take so that might be a little more convenient and uh save a little paper back and forth and we'll have a electronic copy and then once that's uh that's approved then we'll go ahead and post it as the minutes uh on the town's website for meetings. Okay. So, uh before I get and then also before I get started in the presentation for the mitigation action plans, uh I want to introduce Brady Golden. He's uh our new planner and comes to us by way of uh Oak Island and he's originally from Bowurt and went to school and got his planning degree at ECU. So, uh, when he was at Oak Island, he did planning, zoning, camel. Um, did I leave anything out?

Flood plane.

Flood plane. Very important, near and dear to my heart as you all know. Uh, so, uh, it is really been a blast the past few months working with them. And uh I really envision us being able to get a lot of work done uh some of these projects done that uh because we were short staffed before u kind of prevented us from either doing the job or doing the job as well as all of us would have liked to have done. So um I'm really looking forward to that. And so I'd like for all of you to uh welcome Brady to our to our team. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. He gets embarrassed and his face turns red whenever I brag about him too much. So, I'll try to keep that down to Yeah, I said I said keep it at a minimum today. And Dave, can I just be real picky on something on your agenda and probably should have asked it earlier before we got You mentioned this mitigation plan previously. Should this be continued be listed as new business? I I saw that yesterday and yeah, it certainly could be if you want to change it to old business or if you want to make a motion to change it to old business and amend the agenda, I guess we can certainly do that.

Just for clarification, I know as acting chair, I'm not supposed to be making any motions. Does anybody want to make a motion? Just to I'm the acting chair, I cannot make any motions. So, I mean, it's just it's a real picky point, but I think just for clarification, I'll make a motion to amend the agenda for uh the mitigation action plan going to old business. I'll second. Okay. I'm sorry about that, Fred. I I noticed that after I sent it out. Okay. All in favor? Thank you.

Okay. Is there anyone that had not had a chance to re to glance through the staff report and the mitigation actions for for tonight? Okay. Uh I don't you may not recall the last one that we did was probably I think four pages. Um and that was back in the hazard mitigation plan that we submitted and was accepted by FEMA in 2021. And I'll back up a little bit for uh just a little bit more for the folks of you that are new. So when I first got here, the town had a hazard mitigation plan, which is a requirement by FEMA for any type of funding. And we joined with Enzo County and we had the Enzo County multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. And then in 2021, Enzo County and the town of North Thompson Beach as well as the other jurisdictions, municipalities in Enzo County joined with um New Hover, Brunswick, Pender County, and so now now we have the Southeast North Carolina Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. And the benefit to FEMA is that they that there's fewer plans that they have to review. And as you can imagine, if every local government is required to have a hazard mitigation plan, that is quite an arduous task. So, and one of the benefits for the town uh to to join both the county and now to join the regional uh southeast North Carolina regional plan is that they've hired a firm ESP and they do the bulk the bulk of the

plan that meets FEMA's requirements with an eye and a concern for CRS and and our part of it is that mitigate the mitigation ation action strategies. So in that mitigation action strategies when I was looking back through how all the other localities uh did their strategies in 2021, they kind of had a list. They didn't really have a breakdown. And if could you go to that first first page?

I kind of want to go over to the structure just a little bit. Uh second one. There you go. Yeah, the second hypertext. There you go. So, it starts out with these little uh gray lines. That's kind of there's six categories that FEMA has. Coincidentally, there's also six categories that CRS has. And um coincidentally, they dovetail. They're very the categories are very synonymous. And so just to make sure that there was no disconnect and there shouldn't be between getting scored or getting graded on the hazard mitigation plan and then getting graded or scored on the CRS plan. I went ahead and included both of those categories in that topic line. Okay? So that way it's clear to the hazard mitigation plan reviewer and it will be clear to the CRS reviewer whenever we go through that uh through that audit. So uh in 2021 we had taken out all the CRS thinking that for some reason that we would just focus on hazard mitigation. And then in the directives that I read in preparation for this update, it was talking about consolidating your CRS, the benefit of consolidating your CRS program in with your hazard mitigation plan, specifically your uh and uh your mitigation action plans. So then I went back and I want to really thank Ricky and I really appreciate all the work that he's done and in doing this he's

really kept that website up to date and in particular all the projects that the town has worked on through the years. So when I went to that pro when I went to that projects when I went to the website I was able to take those projects as actions action strategies and then plug them into each one of these categories whichever seemed the most reasonable or um uh appropriate to where that we can make sure that we get credit for what we already do. And so if it's if it's something that's in progress, then then it's reflected in the plan that that action is in prog progress. And then when we go to update this plan again in another five years, or I should say whenever uh Mr. Golden goes through and up updates this plan in another five years, it'll be a little bit easier for him. And uh and hopefully Ricky will still be here and he'll keep that updated. Okay, you guys on board with this? All right. if they just do what I think what I hope that they do, it'll be easy peasy. Um, but then again, you know, FEMA could change, the requirements could change, and then, you know, whatever. But for right now, this is how we've got it worked out. So, in that hazard mitigation plan, there's other hazards besides flood. And so, I think it mentions like tsunamis, fires, sinkholes, like a a number of items. And I think the requirement actually on the CRS side was that you had to have at least two flood items. Well, we want to make sure that as we're going through and we're doing this, uh I don't know how many of you saw the article from Onso County about the uh average property values going up 36 or 37% since the the last uh evaluation. So

property values are anticipated to be much higher when they do their uh reval in 2026. Okay. So most of the time local governments do like a zerobased tax thing where your property value may go up but the tax rate goes down to where that you're still paying on or about the same amount of taxes. uh we don't have any control over how things are done in the future, but just planning and thinking that there's a potential for property taxes to go up, right? What you and I pay for property taxes. You and I also live on the coast. And as if you've watched the news um or you've lived here for any amount of time, unless you've been living up under a rock, you must be very acutely aware of what um insurance rates have done for properties along the coast from Maine all the way down to Florida, New Orleans, everywhere, right? So flood insurance goes up, property insurance goes up, your property value goes up. It's almost a perfect storm. So it get so we so in our job as planners is to be able to recognize things hopefully and to say, okay, what can we do to mitigate this? And so if you talk to your neighbors, they may not realize that they get a 25% um discount on their flood insurance premiums, right? If they're in Cobra, we don't have any control over what a private insurance company charges in Cobra, but we can do the best that we can to um keep those keep that maintain

that discount for non-COBRA areas, right? So, currently we have an ISO of a five and I think we've had that since either 2010 or 2015, I forget. Um and we do our absolute best to maintain that each year when we go through an audit or we go through a reertification. So one of the things that they did in September, they ca they came out and they redid um they updated the CRS manual from 2017 to 2021. Theoretically put both those manuals together. We we when we go through in preparation for the next audit or reertification, we'll be using that brand spanking new 2025 um manual as we prepare our reports. So, as we prepare our reports, we want to make sure that we're that we're starting early enough and that we're doing section by section. We're looking at what what we reported before to where that we can maintain the points that we had, but also take the time to look and see what activities that we can do uh to be able to increase those points and possibly even improve our ISO rating from a five to a four or even possibly a three. Um several years ago, we scored enough points to have a three, but we couldn't meet the U stormwater requirements for a class four or an ISO of four. And um so that's kind of the challenge that uh Brady and I will have on this, but that's also the importance of this program for both you as property owners as well as your neighbors u to to try to keep a handle on flood insurance.

Can I can I ask you a question? And I know we have those two resiliency grants that uh should help with the flood areas sort of low areas on the will that help ours our cause to get the uh better rating once those projects are complete.

It's all it's all cumulative. It's all cumulative. It's all the when you add up all the things that you do and you report them and you have the documentation for all of these activities by if you can improve your points then yes and the only way to do that is to um improve that ISO rating but there but there's also conditions and prerequisites that you have to meet but certainly um from a an immediate kind of immediate gratification. Uh the benefit of of those two storm water projects that are listed in the hazard mitigation plan that that we've identified. Um I would anticipate that they would certainly alleviate some of the flooding uh both off of where the new fire station is as well as the town park up on the north end. And you may remember that uh three or four years ago we worked with uh Surf City and the town of Topppsel and went in together and did a uh submitted a joint application for that resilience application to start. There was a phase one phase two phase three. So this is starting the phase four which is a the actual construction based on the documentation that we did previously identifying those places and also doing some of the um preliminary engineering that was paid for through that grant. Does that answer your question at all? You have to do my response is you have to do everything that you can uh within within the constraints of staff and time and finance or budget that you can to be able to uh address these issues.

Deb, I have a question for you. You said our rating was five. Yes. Is that um up with everybody else for a town our size on the coast or where do we do do they give you a ranking is of where we are with that? I had that at the last meeting that Jan and I were talking about and there are probably three or four four other towns. I kind of forgot. I get sometimes I get tired of bragging. Not really. Uh there's like three or four other uh local governments in North Carolina that also have a five. There is only one other municipality that beats our ranking of a five. So there's a ranking within the category. There's not a ranking. There is whenever you're bragging about it.

Oh, I gotcha. That's the best way. Okay. That's the best way I can explain it. So basically, we're with some other communities and there's only one other community that's ahead of our town and that's either that's either the city of Charlotte or Meckllinburgg County. I forget which that has a lot more staff than I'm sure that the town of North Tops Beach does. Yeah. But for a certainly for a town our size to have maintained that ISO rate rating of a five for as long as we've maintained it, I am of all the the work that I've done in North Topsel Beach, that is the work that I'm the most proud of.

Well, kudos to you. Thank you. And I and I really have every intention of working very closely with Brady and making sure that he's able to carry that on if not even approve it improve it. So

what are some of the examples of things that projects that that we would need to look at to improve that rating? uh with the ISO score and with with the concentration on flood. If you go through and you look at some of the topics, there's um uh projects and wetlands that you can do. some things that you might not think of, but like the living shoreline uh uh protecting from erosion, not just on the ocean side, but also on the um in the inter coastal. Um there's several I did not include the material to send to you. I wanted to kind of boil it down and give you the readers digest. Uh but Rusty, I'll be more than glad to send all of you. There's some little short things that if you wanted to leaf through them and look and see what other projects there are and once we do this there's there's nothing to say that you know on an annual basis that we don't go through or even six months from now don't go through and say hey Deb you know can we take a look at adding this and then put that in your recommend put that in your you know make it out make it a motion make a recommendation to the board of alderman that we do a living score line or that we pursue you know look at grants that are specifically targeted for uh CRS and being able to improve our score. Anything dealing with storm water u which is uh certainly a challenge but when we'll be identifying those as we go through prepping for the next audit and trying to find all the points that we have. Uh, we're going to do that also. And I wanted I wanted to make sure that I told you this and I almost forgot. Um,

in 20 I think it was like 2010 2015. I have to go back and check my notes. Um, North Toppsel Beach was one of the first lo uh municipalities uh or local governments that we adopted a PPI program for public information. There we go. I get I get on a roll. I start remembering stuff. So, one of the requirements for this PPI committee is that you can appoint your planning board as you know the PPI, which the board of alderman did. You probably didn't know that you were members of this PPI committee, but you are. Uh, I'm missing three critical components of it because they have since retired or moved on or or uh sold their business. But one is to have a realer. So, I was thinking maybe Joanne McDermott since, you know, she's not doing anything anymore could probably help us out once or twice a year. And then a, uh, mortgage broker and, uh, insurance broker. So, uh, SFI is a perfect one to target. Uh Scott Willer formerly did it and then he sold SFI I believe and uh uh is not as available I don't think as what he once was. But but when we have these PPI committees all these items that were mitigation action items on or strategies on identified in the hazard mitigation plan that's also a component of that PPI PL the plan and so part of the committee is working with staff to develop that plan that whole program we need to take it off dust it and do some corrections to it But and then make a recommendation to the board of alderman that you know they approve it. Then once they approve it all those little points all those little

you know five 10 cent nickel dime quarters that we get now if we have a PPI committee there's a multiple for that. You get four times the points or you get seven times the points. It's kind of like a scratch off if you like doing scratchoffs, right? So, they have that multiplier and that is what really gives you a leg up going from either maintaining a five or going from a five to a four to a three improving your score. So, we will be taking a look at that and bringing that forward also. So when when I send this to you and you get this, if you want to have like a conversation, you know, on the agenda to where that some of the items that you think would be beneficial for the town or that that you want us to look into further, uh, we'll certainly include that on the agenda. Well, I was just kind of curious how much of it is was is recordeping and checking boxes and how much of it are is actually physical projects that that need need that need to be done, you know, physical work that needs to be done or are we just

like I say, checking boxes and keeping records of of what of things that are being done anyway? Yeah, the the strategy or my strategy for the checking of boxes in the documentation is to make sure we get credit for what we already do routinely. And so uh so that is a component. Now what percentage that is I I will say that that is a very large percentage having gone through an audit every single year trying to submit that documentation. Um, but there's also I think that there's also an encouragement for some of these storm water projects, uh, living shore projects. Um, beach when you do beach nourishment. We're doing beach nourishment anyway. We might as well take credit for that in some of the categories for beach erosion. beach erosion, uh, sea level rise, which I think they actually took sea level rise out of the manual.

So, some things they took out, um, we just recategorize it. So my question though is what you presented is our portion of this regional plan. Does this kind of the county puts theirs in, the other counties put theirs in, and they were all like stack on top or does it blend in together? So, um, each one of the counties have their section and then like after Brunswick, they would have their municipalities and then when you get down to Enzo, Anzo, I um the deputy director for Enzo County Emergency Services is the point of cotton. She's the one that's working on Enzo County's mitigation action strategies who does an absolutely fabulous academic FEMA standard um methodology and that's where we got that's where we inherited ours from. U she'll have Enzo counties and then below Enzo County will be North Topsel Beach, Swansboro, Richlands, Jacksonville, city of Jacksonville. Am I forgetting anybody? Hollywood.

Oh, how could I forget? Sorry. I don't know how I could forget Hollywood. Um, so yeah, they're separate, but they're organized with the county and they're certainly independent. I mean, the point of bringing it through the planning board, doing a draft, bring it through the planning board and then bring it through the board of alderman. uh we're kind of shortfused on this because of the time frame that we got from the consultant. Um but like I said, nothing stops us from being able to go and you know, six months from now or a year from now and review it. And so it hopefully those mitigation action items, those strategies are a reflection of what the town's policy is and what the board of all's policy are. And when you look at what the projects are, they're all projects that the board has approved, the two storm water projects, the beach nourishment project, uh the living shoreline project. So the higher standards that the town has adopted, those were those were all adopted and approved by the board of alderman. So, um, hopefully there'll be some continuity in those policies and in that program to where that we can maximize the credit that we receive. So I guess what you're saying is by recommending to the board of alderman that we that they approve this this mitigation plan does not obligate them to do anything that then in addition to what they're already doing.

I don't think I have any I would not have had a crystal ball and I thought that what we currently have um was certainly sufficient. We went from four pages to I think 12 pages something like that. Um and I think I've covered all the categories sufficiently. Um it I will say that it's consistent with the projects that they have already approved and that are ongoing and the policies that they have approved and are current. And uh for what it's worth, uh the deputy director for Enzo County has reviewed these and uh she was satisfied with them. So I also distribute them to the rest of the department heads uh you know for any input that they had. I didn't hear sadly I didn't hear back from anybody today but um this isn't just a pl this isn't just a planning thing. This is an all hands on deck thing. This is board of alderman, planning board, town manager, town clerk, fire chief, police chief, public works, Ricky, IT, our IT guy. Um, there's a a component, a very important component in the flood warning system and we just transitioned over to a new system with Anzo County. What's the name of it, Ricky? What's the name that replaced uh code red

regroup regroup? So if you haven't signed up for that, please sign up for that. Um so one of the items here is that we'll do a test and training on the new system. So uh that's in the mitigation action strategies. Oh, sorry. Yeah, it was um more out of curiosity. The things that we say are completed and not the, you know, truck hall or anything like that,

right? Um, I think this depends on how I'm reading the item, but this is on the um where we talk about how we amended the UDO and adopted um the wetland protection. So, that was completed. Yes. Does that imply that we don't continue in that like is it we did this piece but we still think about it or that little it I read it twice and I read it two different ways. Okay. Couldn't decide if that was something that we still work on or it was really so what I thing that was done

right. So what I would do is and I and I certainly could have done this. You can take credit for that for that action that you completed, but you could also have a separate line item where um the town will continue to pursue environmental protective ordinances um that may be considered higher standards to uh better enhance the natural beauty of the town. I'm glad we're recording that. I might want to transcript and put that in there. So, but yeah, I would do those as two separate items. Just because it's in there, the same thing for beach nourishment. If you've completed a beach nourishment action, it doesn't mean that you're not going to do it again.

Just just like that living shoreline, you know, and it's kind of a good thing to see it in there when you go back and you go, "Oh, we did that two years ago. Can we do it again?" So, and I think that it also helps when you have these project when you've identified these projects in any of your plans and especially a FEMA required hazard mitigation plan and you say this is what the town is going to do um or is doing. Then when you apply for that grant, you can put in there as identified in our 2025 hazard mitigation grant. That's real solid rock planning. That's the path. You're setting the path on where you want to go with these with these policies and improving your programs.

So, in your opinion, is this the final document that needs to go to the board of alderman? I'm a little concerned if we adopt or recommend to the board of alderman as is that we're keeping you from making any minor changes to it before it goes to the board. I'd like to you to have that flexibility that if you want to reword something or you think of something that's missing Yeah. you still have that you still can do it and not be contra contradict what we've approved tonight.

I I I'm comfortable with with submit I'm comfortable and I would recommend that that the planning board recommends to the board of alderman that they adopt us that at their January 7th meeting. As I mentioned before, we had kind of a a short time period uh for completion by the consultant. Uh if there's something that I just happen to think of that was that significant, um it would be up to me to be able to persuade the the board of alderman to include that in with your recommendation. and and I can't imagine that it would be inconsistent with the plan that you're recommending. Um, you know, and then it would be up to the board whether or not that they they board might even have additional items that they want to put in there. You know, it I would have to have them meet again to be able to prove it to be able to to meet that deadline. But theoretically, you know, they're not forced, they're not obligated to approve this. It would make it challenging with FEMA and with the regional plan. We'd have to work through that. But, um, you know, if the board had some if the board had some, you know, strong concerns, uh, we we'd have to work through that. The bottom line is we have to do it in order to meet the bare minimum to get funding from FEMA. So,

and every other jurisdiction is on schedule to do it before the deadline. I think we're actually ahead of somebody and I won't say who, but I found out that we're actually ahead of somebody. So, not by much, but if you if you adopt this if you make a recommendation to adopt this plan tonight, uh I know solidly of one local lo locality that we are ahead of. I don't know about all the rest of them. Okay. Uh thank you, Deb. Okay.

Do we have any more discussion? Anybody want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to adopt the um North Tupso Beach mitigation um action plan of 2025. We get a second. Second. Any further discussion? Is that what we need Deb to adopt or to recommend? Make a recommend recommendation to the board. Recommendation just that the board of alderman adopt it. Right.

All right. I'll amend that. I'll make recommendation that they um to approve uh was the hazard mitigation 2025 for the B board of aldermen. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item six, discussion. Do we have anything we need to discuss?

I only have one little thing and I don't know how many of you have dogs. Not that the town is prejudice with cats. I just want to make that clear. The the town welcomes all. Uh but on the 18th from 1 to 4, there'll be photos with Santa for your pets if you would like to bring your pets. and anybody within our listening range. Uh it's open to the public, so you do not have to be a resident of North Topppsel Beach. Uh if you have if you have a dog and you want your picture made with Santa, then uh see the website for further details. I think there's something about a five a min $5 donation if you'd like to make it to

what is it? Pause for a purpose. Pause for a purpose. So, um, there was a really good turnout for the Christmas tree lighting and, uh, I anticipate we'll have a good turnout for, uh, dogs that are begging their owners to have their pictures made with Santa. A good turnout for the dog Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. Certainly. I've been in contact with the Santa that was at the Christmas lighting and uh I understand he may need some assistance since he was is allergic to dogs and

Yeah. Yeah. I I I I think that I think that Mrs. Claus has addressed that. It'll be this it'll it will still be Santa, right? It just it just won't be Santa that has an allergy.

Okay. Any other items anybody on the board wants to bring up? Okay. Do we need a motion to adjurnn or just Okay. Can we get a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? No.