Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, all. I will call the Wednesday, September 16th Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. Chris, will you do roll call, please? CHRIS RODGERS, ROLL CALL COMMISSIONER HOLZ, COMMISSIONER BURROWS, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER BURROWS, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER BURROWS, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSIONER CHILPOT, COMMISSION Thank you all. Public comment. For those participating via Granicus, you may call 406-375-6513 in order to provide your public comment. And we have on our agenda this morning a public hearing for road naming and mandatory sequencing for developing lots adjoining a county road.

Commissioners for the record the legal ad for this public hearing was published in the newspaper record on Wednesday September 2nd and Wednesday September 9th Thank You Chris Okay, mr. Miller You may

Under the advice of legal counsel.

I wish to remain silent and take a fifth.

Good morning, commissioners. As our community continues to develop, the GIS department has recognized the need to formalize our policy for road naming and addressing within the county. A policy will help prevent confusion within the community and assist with continuity in road naming and addressing. We've made that policy available to the public for review and we'd like your consideration and approval of said policy. We're open to questions or concerns.

Which is up on the screen as well as in meeting documents.

Do we want to go over it page by page? Mr. Chairman?

Yes, please. We'll go through this so that everybody's clear.

So we have our table of contents after the title page. Page one starts with section one. We have titling. We have the authority in the MCA. We have a brief introduction about the purpose of the policy. If I'm moving too fast, let me know.

Is that on the introduction page? I always thought, what I thought I had heard before was three was the number that required, is that always been that, at least the unwritten policy was two or more?

Bless you.

Thank you. What are you talking about, Joe?

For road naming.

For road naming? Oh, okay.

Oh, you mean three structures or possibility structures?

I mean, that's what I've been told, I thought, is when we were having Nate, is as soon as they hit three, that's when we required the road name, and in here it says two or more?

Yes, it's always been two or more. Oh. But there have been times that we kind of deviated from that, just for a logical situation.

Okay.

A 30-foot driveway that accesses two... That's where we deviated to try to get away from having to name a 30-foot driveway.

Okay. It was when they added a third. Because I've seen that before where we had that 30-foot split. Then they add another parcel or a family transfer. And when they add that third one, that's when we said, no, now you have to name it. So I've told people three or more. That's what I've been telling people because I've seen that.

Yeah. the unfortunate part of that was when you let two residences get away with not naming a 30-foot driveway when they add the third one then it gets named and the poor people who we let get away with it end up having to change their address yeah and that's why it's been so controversial is they've had those for 10 years and then they add the third

in this case, family transfer, they had to rename the road, and that's when they were raising hell about how hard it was gonna be to rename, but I guess I didn't know that. I thought it was our policy of three or more, but it is two or more, and you need to name a road. Okay.

Okay, thanks for the clarification on that.

Um... Any questions on the introduction outside of number of structures?

Just continuing on in the policy, the last sentence, it will be the discretion of GIS whether an approach requires a name or not. So you're going to tell somebody you have to or you don't have to based on what? I mean, it just seems like that is kind of ripe for... It seems like maybe if you had a criteria in there, do you have criteria you'd use for making that determination of whether you're going to make two or more? Is it 30 feet or less?

Is this the Amy Lane scenario?

In the situation where there are two parcels that simply have a common approach, And so the driveway will lie rather than have a length to it. And behind those two parcels is not the possibility of further development. So let's see.

So behind or the, because those parcels could be. Split through a subdivision or family transfer process.

Right. If they're large enough, in other words, if they could be split, that's something where we probably wouldn't deviate from that.

But a one-acre parcel could be family transfer.

Well, let's say you have two one-acre parcels accessing three-mile creek road. And they're given a common approach as opposed to an access easement that goes, let's say, the length of the parcels. They're both one-acre parcels. So that common approach, I think it would be logical to not force them to name the common approach.

When you say common approach, you mean... right off of three-mile splits versus having any sort of length to it. And that's any sort of length.

Well, let's just say I have seen on plats where instead of a common approach, they do an access easement that's 10, 20, 30 feet long for each other's use. dividing any farther beyond these existing parcels, then why name that road simply Y2?

That's the certain area you're talking about.

Right.

So what about that scenario then in the future? you would say this scenario, no naming, but as soon as they do that, they have to name that or what? This is where this potentially happens right here is we allow them to have a three mile address right here for 10 years. then they, family, and these are just one acre lots, but they say family transfer this, build a little house back here, and you have this sort of weird scenario. Are you going to make them name this road or just for this parcel and they keep their three mile addresses or what happens in this scenario?

The road gets named and all three addresses need to be changed to that new name.

That's going to piss them off.

Very much.

Okay. Especially the one that does the family transfer, they did it to themselves. But the other neighbor is even a bigger problem.

This neighbor is really frustrated right here because they're like, I didn't do this. I'm not going to divide mine. But now you're telling me I have to change everything.

Okay, I'll say this now. If we don't feel that – Okay, I'll say this happened before today. If we did not feel that that possibility was there, we wouldn't make them name the road. In other words, it is so unlikely that those two one-acre parcels are going to have, you know, have to implement an access easement through their property line to property behind them. That's very unlikely. Now, if dad owned 50 acres behind them, and those were two family transferred one acre pieces, And then, yes, in 10 years, he could come back and say, I'm going to split this off and put an easement through your parcels. Yes, they will have to change their address.

I'm just saying, if you take this scenario here, and let's just say each one of these are 50-acre parcels here and here, does that change the situation?

Say those two are 50 acres?

Let's say those, instead of doing one acres, you call them 50 acres, but their houses are right next to the road. They have big hay fields back here that each one's farming. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, I have two kids back here or whatever. Name the road. You're going to make that person name the road as well that has that kind of common approach off there?

No, if that was a common approach with the possibility of further subdivision behind those two houses, name the road.

I guess that's what I'm asking is what is the future development potential? Is the size of this parcel part of that equation, whether this is one acre or five acres or 10 acres? It has been in the past, yes.

That still doesn't mean we got ourselves in a pickle. And so if I understand how this conversation is going, I'm OK with scratching that last sentence.

OK. All I'm saying is during my time here, it hasn't happened a lot, but I'll bet it's happened three times at least where I've seen not that exact situation, but something somewhat similar where all of a sudden we come back on them and say, now you need to name the road. And they are really not very happy, especially like Greg said. And it's been this person right here who said, I've lived on this road. I've got an address established. My social security's coming to this address. It's gonna take me six months to get changed through social security, all these things. This is not my, these people are burdening me now. You said we could keep this address. I had nothing to do with this family transfer. What are you or they gonna do for me now that I have to cost me 300 bucks to change my address and get my social security changed and yada yada? Should we strike it?

I'm okay with striking it. Okay.

So now...

Commissioners, would you feel comfortable if we struck the provision from the policy, meaning we're going to name the common approach? um which would allow for future if there is the potential for future division of land that road will be named and the two structures wouldn't have to change their address

And is this, are we going back and applying this retroactively? Or is this only if there's a change? So if this situation exists today, we're not going to go out and say you need to name this. It's only if they apply for an alteration permit on a septic or go through some sort of change that would trigger naming that road?

This policy would...

move it would not apply retroactively retroactively it would moving forward so we're not going to go on accesses to make them change something would have to trigger the change to make a name correct okay

So I'm going to strike the last sentence of Section 3. There's also reference to this in Appendix B, the first bullet point, which we can get to. But I'm just going to strike it there as well. It discusses the naming of a common approach. Any other questions regarding the introduction?

Just to clarify a little bit more, what would trigger naming? Septic permitting, alteration, family transfer, or is there anything else that would trigger an approach to be named if there were two houses on a common drive?

The most common trigger is a person coming in to get an address. that puts a second address on a property, I mean off of a common driveway.

So if I have a common driveway, I know where this exists. Main house, so it's a driveway off of a road, let's just say three mile. House sits here and they put a little mother-in-law shop or an apartment or whatever business that's got a separate address, they would then have to name that driveway?

Yeah, and like I say, the most common trigger is a second or third person coming in for an address.

What if it's the same person? Same person. I mean, the family, the lease or rent,

is gonna be a major contributor to this because you have three acres, you put five homes on it, get septic for them all. You put them all there, the same person comes and gets the address, right? And they're all separate structures. I struggle with the whole and we've had this conversation a number of times, but the single structure duplex versus the separate structures on a parcel.

So you're saying if somebody were to have a 10-, 12,000-square-foot house and lease the downstairs of it, And that what would happen in that case somebody had a huge house So back to the relevant discussion here And

I can't remember. You showed me something that said that, you know, I know in other jurisdictions in Montana they have A and B. But we don't allow that for some reason. It's proscribed by who?

We do have A's and B's in the county. The post office, for some reason, is I guess essentially outlawing that for some reason with their software or whatever. Not outlawing it, discouraging it. So what we evolved toward was residential addresses, if there are separate units, such as apartments or duplex, no, not duplexes, apartments, those units will be numbered, not lettered. If they're commercial, they would be lettered.

You do know what sense that makes, right?

There's a lot of sense.

Why would there be the distinguishment between whether they're residential or commercial for lettering?

Because the way the next generation 911 system is headed.

But they can do number or.

If they're an apartment, apartment building, they can have a single address with units, with unit numbers.

So the distinguishment is whether they're separate buildings or one combined unit. with different apartments. So a fourplex could have 113 A Street with A, B, C, and D, but if it was separate buildings, then they'd each need a number.

Is that what you're saying? Separate address numbers. But the buildings would be, in a residential, the units are not lettered, they're numbered.

So you could have Unit one, unit two, unit three in residential, in commercial, you can go A, B, C. So like you have a duplex on 4th Street and the address is 203 4th Street for the duplex. And then it would be 204, what, unit two?

a typical duplex, a wall down the middle, garage here, garage here, dwelling attached to these two garages. The only thing that separates them is one wall. Those would be two separate addresses. If it turns into an apartment where let's say you have a, you know, they're stacked, let's say, and you don't have garages separating them, Most of those apartment owners want to have units for it.

Units for it.

I mean, unit designation. So they want one address.

203 South 4th, unit 1234.

Right.

But in the duplex case with two garages, you're saying that would mean 203 and 205 South 4th. Yes.

solely because there's garages on each end?

I wouldn't say solely because there's garages, but mainly because there's a clear separation between those dwellings. A responder can go to that building and immediately realize we have two separate places to live here. And plus, those two domiciles are separated enough in space that you can calculate, you have room to calculate different address numbers. If they're piled up, you can't calculate different address numbers. They might use a common approach to this building. So in that case, you have to go with one address.

That makes sense.

No. No. Are you trying to squirm this?

I'm trying to understand the distinction. It makes no sense. You have a garage separating...

Okay. Picture a building sitting alongside a road. I can picture that. Now, they build a duplex. There's a And the only thing that makes it a duplex is a common wall, right?

Or it could be a common floor or ceiling, right?

Yes, it could be.

Okay.

We could treat a two-level duplex as an apartment.

That makes sense because the way you explained it was you look at a block. You have 201, a house, 203, a house, 205, and 207. a duplex side by side. I mean, that makes sense when you're looking at it, but the logic of, Well, if there's three or more stacked up or four, then you would use units. But in the case of a duplex stacked up, you would say, well, we're going to go 201, 203, 205, 207, 209. Like that doesn't really make sense. But a linear look at it.

My answer to John was I had the impression he was trying to set up Commissioner Chilcott for a fall. I was just trying to play along.

Okay.

But yes, if they're stacked, okay, so you weren't, okay. All right, my mistake. If they're stacked, yes, they can have a common street number with units. I understand now.

But you were saying that, for some reason, the next gen wants residential designated with unit 1, 2, 3, 4. And if that's a commercial building, then A, B, C, D. Yeah.

It helps distinguish between residential and commercial.

And so if you have commercial at the bottom and residential on top, then you would have.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, to me, a.

I used to do it. I don't care if it's a commercial building or a commercial business or a residence. I get directed to an address as a responder. It makes no difference to me whether it's a Napa store or

Okay, so I am not saying that it absolutely has to be that way. I'm not saying that we can't issue A, B, C, and D to residential. What I'm saying is it helps keep things more orderly if we can reserve unit numbers for residential and letters for commercial.

And is this in compliance with NextGen as well?

Yes, yes.

You can just get into a whole bunch of what-ifs, and I don't want to beat it, but that exists as well, not only in the city, but also out in the county where you have a shop, say an upholstery shop. I've got a shop, a business address, my sign out on the street that says upholstery shop. Upstairs is an apartment, and we rent that, or you live there and work down underneath of it. I mean, that happens as well.

Yeah.

And then you start getting to potentially adds confusion if that's what you think is that letters represent commercial and numbers residential, and then that gets flipped around. So if that's next gen, that's fine. I'm just saying.

Well, like I say, the next generation can't – the system can accommodate units of letters or units of numbers. Again, we had gotten to the point years ago, and I also noticed in reading the other counties policies that they also chose numbers for residential letters for commercial. And I think it's just a good idea to do it that way. And that's not saying that you can't drive down the road and see a commercial building with seven units in it and all those seven units are numbered. All I'm saying is our policy should be separate residential and commercial with numbers and letters.

I'm not arguing that. I mean, long term, you're right. There's some order to it. But I really liked Jeff's scenario where you have you know, an upholstery shop and pick another business next door and this thing, and then they have apartments underneath. Who gets the numbers? Who gets the letters or the numbers? And when you respond to 201 4th Street and it's a U, wait a minute, no, it's a A, or it's a number one. I don't, you know, I just, I can see that also not being that orderly.

And it's going to be impossible. Even with this policy, it's going to be impossible to put all this addressing into a nice, neat little package. There's going to be an exception. I mean, you won't be able to nail it down. It doesn't matter where you're at. Maybe in Utopia you can nail it down, but not Rebellion County. And let me just throw out the notion of the pot farm or the pot facility. Somebody wants to start growing pot, and the first thing the state tells them is you can't have it as part of your residence. It has to be a separate address. And so that little goat shed out back becomes a little pot growing thing. they had to have a separate address for that building. And that's one of those things, if you ask me, that's an addressing nightmare when those things keep popping up everywhere. Are we gonna have to make them name that road between their goat shed and their house because they needed a separate address?

Do you guys require to see the state approval for that business, that specific example you just used?

No. At least I don't think we are, and I don't see how we would be, because all we're simply doing is issuing an address.

It helps with responders if that Go Shed Road's named, because... you say it's on X lane and you go flying down there, you're looking for the pot shop business that it's at, you don't know that it's tucked in back behind the house sitting back here and you go flying up and down the road looking for it because it's on fire or somebody had a heart attack.

And odds are there won't be numbers posted. So as a responder, you definitely want that last sentence of the introduction struck.

I would think so. I mean, especially in your case where you're talking about a primary residence with a secondary business tucked in back in a little shed back behind there. And when they say go to 3473 mile and 347 is actually right behind 345, you're going to go flying past 345 to the next address and you're going to see 351 and you're like, Where the hell is the address? So you turn around and you look for the driveway between those two and you drive back past it. And so you've driven past a couple times looking for 347, not knowing it's down this little driveway back behind the main residence.

But if it was 347, go Shed Road.

You'd find it because you'd see the sign, go Shed Road, and it'd be on Cadastral or whatever it is. I don't know about the other departments, but we're actually using that software that will map you to where you're going. And sometimes it is screwy on those situations where it kind of picks a point somewhere in space and says it's about here. Whereas if it's a named road that's in the database, you know, it tells you go down, turn here off three mile, and it's back in there.

Okay.

Okay, moving on.

So section four talks about general provisions and how the county works with NextGen. We're trying to facilitate emergency services to residents. It assists with law enforcement, fire, EMS, other rescue services. We also have had a discussion with dispatch, and Jeff, you were Kind of touching on this, an address is helpful for service agencies. Dispatch has also advised that it's not necessary as you can use GPS to locate without an address. So we don't think it's going to be a barrier to EMS, although an address would be helpful. Section 5 talks about the administration, that the policy is going to be administered by GIS, and that the BCC is authorizing and mandating them to assign road names and addresses in accordance with next-gen rules. Any questions? No? Section 6 talks about the road naming sector. system and it refers to rules as outlined in Appendix B, which we will go through. It's important to note that just because GIS assigns a road name that we're not asserting or implying legal or physical access. We're simply naming a road.

So at the top of Section 6, all roads that serve or potentially serve two or more, when it says separate structures, that means uniquely addressed structures? Or when it says separate, does that mean physically separated? Or what is that saying?

I would read a separate structure as a standalone structure different than...

So a structure is defined in section three, the introduction as residences, businesses, and other occupied buildings.

So when it says separate structures, what does that mean? To occupy, like separate mean separated by physical distance or separate like two different addresses?

I would say two separate, two buildings separated by a distance.

By a distance. So a duplex at the end of a driveway with two numbers on it does not need its name, its road name?

I'm going to say correct. What? I'm going to say correct.

How about the house in .

Two separate structures.

Separated by distance.

So we can get back to the stacked duplex on a single driveway. We can have unit one, unit two, if they're separated buildings.

What is the definition of distance?

Any airspace? Where x is greater than 0.

Airspace.

A common breezeway. Connected by a breezeway roof.

I just was looking for your idea of 10 feet, 20 feet, 100 feet.

Well, you know what popped in my head was buildings in, let's say, Chicago and New York where those things are smack pad together and people buy these things. They're not separated, but they're definitely worthy of being a second.

Main Street and Hamilton.

Well, yes, yes.

All those buildings touch each other.

Yes.

Any questions on Section 6, road naming system? I'll also... give nod to our county, our road and bridge department. We've stated that if a physical address is requested for a structure that is accessed from a county maintained road, we need a receipt number from the road and bridge department for an approach permit. So we wanna make sure that we're connected to a county road and that John's issued that approach permit before you get an address. Then we go into our address numbering system. It's refers to Appendix A, which is a. Set is will be our policy for how we're going to assign numbering. Section 8 is. Your address and you essentially the. Owner occupant or person in charge of you know the property or structure of their responsibility. as it pertains to the address, placement, where it's going to go, costs, installation, etc. And then there's the effective date of the policy, if and when it's passed or when it needs to be revised. Then we go into Appendix A, which would be the policy for addressing. And it's a bunch of rules. Would you like me to read the rules? I'm happy to do so. Or if there's any questions about the rules.

I didn't see a revision in this one. On the third bullet point, it says each wastewater system shall require separate physical address. There are certain buildings out there that have multiple separate systems. So I wasn't sure how that's going to go.

Buildings or properties?

Buildings.

Really?

There's one that I know about.

It's got two septic systems on one building.

But each one of those systems handle the waste water from that single building? Are there multiple domiciles or multiple businesses? And that should be an apartment building, treated like an apartment building.

It is complicated in this case.

So we're back to the impossibility of putting this all in a nice, neat little package. It's absolutely not going to happen. So we will do our best to make the right decision on this

system that you're talking about because in this case it wouldn't make sense to address each septic system i think each wastewater system shall require an address say that again each wastewater system shall require an address so you could have in that scenario you could have multiple wastewater systems on at the same address For example, a, we'll go to that one, the duplex, one unit on top of each other might have to have separate septic systems. It could be unit A and unit B.

No, that would be 102 and 103.

Sorry, and if there's an apartment.

Yes, the separation of an address can be equal to the addition of unit numbers.

Here's an example of where it would be. Let's say you've got an old folks home. They've got 10 units for the folks. They've got a wastewater system that handles their residential waste, water, then they've got a commercial kitchen on one end and they need like a grease trap and a separate septic system. It's all one building, just one side's like their commercial kitchen that's a different activity and they get permitted for grease trap and septic system to handle the kitchen. It's not really a separate, it's all the same business, it's all the old folks home, but it's one side's the residential side, one side's their commercial kitchen.

Well, in that situation, I would like to have the latitude to deviate from that rule.

That makes sense. Because that wouldn't make any sense to make them have an address for the commercial kitchen.

But if each septic system must have an address, an address could have multiple septic systems.

Yeah, it could be a shared system.

Sure.

So...

And take out unique.

A duplex. A duplex could have a shared system.

A duplex? Sure.

Like you could have a common system. It's very normal.

Which this meets that. That just means that the wastewater permit has to have a physical dread. Right.

If you take out the word separate and unique, I think it just doesn't require a physical.

I think you just take out that separate and unique, and you've got it. It has to have an address.

Yeah. Because you could have the permit, the wastewater system permit, in the case we were talking about, could have the same address. It just doesn't have a unique physical address. You could have two permits at two of them.

We want to avoid a scenario, like, for example, I know a property where there's a house at the top, And same address, house at the bottom. It needs a separate address. Two separate residences, two separate septic systems. So we want to cover for that provision and at the same time account for what you guys are talking about.

And very often folks will have an existing... The most common question with people when they come in if they have an existing... septic system is like, why can't I just add another couple of lines to make this work? So they do have a separate address, but it's common septic system. So you just need to write it in such a way that they can potentially share a system.

So they don't have to have a alteration permit for the original system so that they can add another structure to it. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. I mean, they still need a new address. Absolutely, they need a new address, but it's going to be with a common system.

Okay, so what we're trying to target is the situation that you just described, where all somebody's doing is getting an alteration permit so they can stick a separate structure out there, and we can't hit them off in the past, the past being the septic permit process. And so the verbiage that's here on this bullet item, I would like to keep that in there.

I think it's fine. The situations we're talking about are one in a thousand where you may have that situation, like I said, where it's just absolutely not necessary to have a separate, unique physical address for a wastewater system. One building, all one operation, but they have two septic systems because, like I said, commercial kitchen, grease trap, residential living units, but it's all...

It's all one address.

XYZ home.

So in your scenario, yes, one address, that's fine. One building, two systems, one address is fine. John's scenario, no, that's got to be...

Yeah, if you're servicing two separate structures. But if they're combined two septic systems servicing one structure.

Right, as long as it's not multiple domiciles. Am I saying that word right?

Do you want a provision added that accounts for that scenario?

I think it's so minor that adding it may just cause confusion, but I don't really care. Penny?

The one thing everybody's forgotten is that the septic permits have drawings with them. So if you really want to identify who's hooked up to what.

Not all septic permits.

Well, the newer ones do. All the old ones, you're right. But that's like a plan B for finding out who's actually on the system.

I think a lot of what the focus here is and the intent is to get help, emergency help, emergency responders, to an address as quickly and efficiently as possible. The septic system is only a trigger for us to identify when something new is happening there. But at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that the ambulance shows up as timely as possible, or the fire department wants to get dressed and find the ad. And law enforcement, of course, to get there as quickly as possible. So I don't think that the septic side of it is really in this discussion is more than a trigger for us identifying something unique or new that's happening on a parcel.

It wasn't until the Great Invasion that this really became an issue.

Turn this microphone off.

Nothing. As the community develops.

As the community develops.

I think you said it right the first time.

You know, prior to 2021, we didn't really see many of these things happening. And the few times that they did, we were able to deal with it. But we have this flood of people. coming in, buying their 5 to 10 acres, and then wanting their son and family, daughter and family, nieces and nephews, all to move out here. Oh, let's just all build on this one place. And many of them will pitch a bitch when they have to name the road because.

This is public meeting. Appropriate language, please.

But they'll also want to come back on somebody when emergency services takes a bunch of extra time because dad was having a heart attack in the back little ADU and you drove past three times trying to find it. And so that's, to me, ultimately what it will, yes, it's an inconvenience to adequately name your property, but it saves your family member, the next people that buy the property, whatever it is. That might be something to keep track of, too, is if we have non-conforming roads, it should probably be a requirement at some point that if the property transfers or transitions or sells, that would be a great time to make somebody readdress. I hate driving out and being like, you know, you've had this address for 30 years, but you've got to change it now versus... if we know of a non-conforming road address and we can flag it somehow for like, if that sells, the new owners need to rename that road and start fresh with a new address would be a great time to kind of bring some of these things up. I don't know how you do that. Maybe it's educating the realtors, like talking to them and saying, hey, if you get these properties that sell, I mean, they probably, there's some good, I mean, there's some that'll work.

And the title companies would be another good,

title companies. I think if you inform the realtors like, hey, we've had some issues with public safety services to some addresses, something for your clients to consider, for you to consider telling your clients that if they buy a parcel and there's two buildings on there and it doesn't have the road name, they might want to think about renaming it because they've got nothing invested in that address at that point. It's a perfect time to name the road and

I mean, the biggest one out there that even happened before the influx of people was people getting the five bedroom permit, building their temporary residence, shop slash apartment, and then building their house. And now we've got essentially two single family units out there that are under one permit. And there's a lot of cleanup out there that's going to happen over time.

What permit? Approach permit or septic permit?

Could be, well, approach permit, but mostly the septic permit because they saw the five-bedroom as a license for one bedroom here and then four bedrooms over here, but essentially the flows are different. And so, I mean, and then when a neighbor might suggest that they have two dwellings out there because they start to rent one of them out, Then it's no longer a guest house. It's two single family dwellings. And then they go to the Board of Health and it takes on a life of its own.

They will stand there at our counter, look us in the eye, and swear up and down that this little apartment over the shop is strictly so they can live in it to build their house. And they have absolutely no plan.

doing anything with it when they move into the house and they find out that we've heard that too in the board of health and then they leave and then the neighbor who made the complaint sends them an anonymous text saying hey how much to rent your back shop back apartment back there and they say 750 a month then they come back to the board of health saying we got you and it's like oh i didn't mean to send that what i meant to say what you know That's actually happened before.

Okay.

So I'm dragging this out.

You're doing a great job.

Marginal. But in that scenario, that would still require two addresses for a single septic permit if they modify it.

Well, I think it's, and moving forward, you know, Penny has advised that we have septic drawings or there's drawings. They're supposed to be drawings. We now have a policy that we're defining what structures are, and we're telling them you need an address. So if you're going to violate what our policy is, EMS might not find you, although they have advice that they can find you with GPS. We're doing the best that we can to, in light of human nature, make things orderly and findable within the county.

It's a good policy.

Should we go through the... We stopped at wastewater. Do we need to go through each of the bullet points in Appendix A, or are there any questions on any of the bullet points in Appendix A?

If... Even numbers are being assigned to the right side of the road. What if I'm going the other way, the right side of the road is on this side? How do you determine right and left?

Direction of the road follows the ascending number of addresses. Okay.

North and east are even, south and west are odd.

No.

That's not true? No. Okay. I retract.

I just know that a lot of people come in here don't.

Yeah, the county did have the north and east as even, and the south and west as odd, which is fine if roads continue on in one direction, but that really went south in a hurry.

No pun intended.

Okay, any questions on any of those bullet points in Appendix A?

Okay, in Appendix B, we've struck in the first bullet point the, however, where two parcels share a common approach, it will be up to the discretion of GIS whether the approach requires a name. It appears Ken is okay with naming the common approach.

I'm not wholeheartedly. But we're going to do it.

Seems like the earlier it can be named, the better, because then it It's not gonna compound problems later with the scenarios Jeff was coming up with.

Yep.

This goes through the requirements for naming an unnamed road and the rules about naming a road. No offensive language, derogatory, prejudicial terms. Up to the discretion of the GIS director.

Who's your supervisor?

Also within the appendix on page, Appendix B, page six, is the policy for renaming a road with an existing name. 100% of the affected landowners would be required. If it's a county road, it's going to require BCC approval. Our policy for removing a road name and then road sign guidelines.

And that's different than an abandonment request? Yes, it is.

Okay.

So 100% of the people on a county road would be required also? No executive privilege. Sorry, guys.

And once this thing gets adopted, cast in concrete, anybody... can start pointing fingers all over the county and find exceptions to this policy.

That's just the way it's gonna be.

And those exceptions cannot be used as arguments.

It's a policy moving forward.

It's a policy moving forward.

Not retroactive.

Are we approving this via resolution?

Yes. Resolution 4819. 4819.

I move to approve resolution 4819 for the road naming and mandatory sequencing policy.

As amended here today?

Road naming and addressing policy.

And I will send you the revised policy.

As amended, yes.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 4819, a resolution of the Board of County Commissioners adopting a Valley County policy for road naming and addressing. Is there any public comment on that motion? Further discussion? Question, Jeff? Aye. And Greg? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Motion carries. Okay. That would bring us to 11.30. It's noon. We need to adjourn that public hearing. Oh, that's right. Okay. With that, the public hearing on the road naming and mandatory sequencing is adjourned, and we will reopen with a public hearing on the approach permit policy.

Commissioners, for the record, this public hearing was noticed in the newspaper record and printed on Wednesday, September 2nd and Wednesday, September 9th.

Would you like me to present it?

We have a policy... Are we good?

There's two stuck together. You're going to help us a little bit more.

You're going to see this one through too.

I need to bring up LAS.

What's LAS? That's his mapping program. I don't think so. Okay.

Okay, good afternoon, commissioners. This is a policy for mandatory sequencing as it pertains to how we're developing lots or parcels that adjoin county roadways. It would require that anyone developing off of a county road obtain an approach permit from the road and bridge department prior to getting an address and then a septic permit. So Ken can't issue an address without a receipt from John that the owner or developer has obtained an approach permit and then thereafter Ken would give an address, and then from there they could get a septic permit or wastewater permit.

Approach permit, address, septic.

That is the order of operations, Chairman.

Thank you. Just wanted to clarify. As proposed. As proposed. Just wanted to clarify that.

Just as a point of clarification, we've been operating this way for a while. And it has limited a number of illegal approaches that would happen. So before, we would see a lot more approaches that would just pop up because people would go, oh, I had my septic permit. I didn't know I needed to do an approach permit. Now the people putting approaches onto county roads, the number has greatly diminished. from what was happening. So this has been a help as far as...

So environmental health, if somebody comes in, the first thing they'll ask is, do you have your approach permit?

Well, they are sending people over there, but the first thing the environmental health will say, do you have an address for the parcel? And if you don't have an address for the parcel, you should probably go visit the road department if you're off of County Road. Right. Sometimes those folks, because we're not located in this building, will go downstairs, and then GIS staff will refer them over to the road department. Then they come over to the road department. We talk. We issue an approach permit. And if there's issues at first looking at it, we try to talk to them as quick as possible if there's sight distance issues or other things.

But if there's road naming things and addressing, we defer to the GIS department because we've had people question the sequencing or order of this process and make it, it is a little confusing. So this just makes sense, having a standard policy that people follow and can expect. So, Mr. Chairman, I would move to adopt and approve resolution 4820, a resolution Revali County's established mandatory sequencing involving approach permits related to Revali County roadways prior to the issuance of an official address and or wastewater permit. That is about the longest one I ever read. All right.

Second. Do you want to include road players in this or not?

That was fun yesterday. They're in the existing policy. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, we have a motion that's been seconded to adopt resolution number 4820, a resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of Ravalli County establishing mandatory sequencing involving approach permits related to Ravalli County roadways prior to issuance of an official address or wastewater system permit. Is there any public comment on that motion? Is there any further discussion? Call for the question. Greg? Aye. And Chip? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Motion carries.

And the towns and cities defer to GIS for getting all their addresses?

For the most part.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

Well done. And with that, is there any public comment on items not otherwise on our agenda? Move to adjourn. Second. We are adjourned. Thank you, guys. Good work.