County Commission - Regular Meeting

told some of you earlier that we had to kind of hurry this morning and we're not in a hurry, but I was making a joke because Dan's put in for retirement and and this is pushing him into he wants to move it up a few weeks. He's he's getting a lot of pressure on this. But uh uh but Dan, I appreciate you hanging in here with us on this difficult question. I did I did talk to the chairman over in Blunt County earlier this week, too, about some things. He said, "Good luck. I won't ever you will never answer all the questions you're going to have. It's a it's a lifetime commitment, which is a good thing.

Appreciate everybody being here today. I've recognized a lot of faces. Some of you been here uh already the main meeting that we had here here a while back. And uh we've had time to u go through the subdivision regulations as presented by Dan. um really uh in a I've read over it three or four times and every time I read it I think I didn't read that that I don't think I read that before. So it's definitely definitely a complicated document and something that uh is going to take a lot of u a lot of heartfelt feelings about who who we're affecting here at whatever direction we go. Uh anytime that we do something that has government restrictions on it is going to come come with that problem though and it is a problem. uh when government steps in uh and just starts doing regulations, next thing you know and you never things that you didn't think about uh uh got hurt and and that's one of the goals here is to not hurt anybody first of all and and it's going to it's it's going to take some thinking and Kirk, I appreciate you. You've gone through this. You probably know a lot more about subdivision regulations than this time last year you ever even even thought about.

I didn't even know I was going to know about subdivision regulations this time last year. Uh, and and we're setting up I think we're going to set up a a meeting between me and a couple of the attorneys and an attorney that's a specialist in this in land use regulation so we get more of an idea of what the legal ramifications are as we go go into this. But once again, I thank all of you for being here and this is a a called meeting of the county commission specifically to address uh our move towards having some kind of subdivision regulations. And uh and we're going we're going to make this happen. We're going to have some subdivision regulations. Lyman, in spite of everything, Lyman's served on a committee and he'd be up one day and he'd be down the next meeting. U and that's that's the way this will all go. Most of y'all have a lot more experience in what we're talking about than we do. And uh and bringing that into the room here whenever a lot of y'all came before added a lot of our thought. It really did. that probably did more than our committee meetings we've had in the last three years was y'all being here and bringing out some things that we need to to discuss and and uh cuss and discuss is what I'm going to say. And and before I start cussing um uh we are live online. We're being live streamed as we try to put our meetings out as as u uh as as often as we can. We definitely put out our regular meetings and our work sessions. And this being a work session, we we're live streaming it and it'll also be videoed and uh it'll be put on our u it'll be archived where you can pull it up later and look and see uh what we said. Uh and with that u we'll we'll jump right in here. This is just going to take uh a direction. Oh, let me mention one other thing. We have Alen Alen Campbell here is our 911 director. Uh, this county commission is different. There's only three county

commissions in Alabama that also serve as the 911 board. You you go to nearly every other county and a 911 board is a board appointed by the county commission or a city. Some cities have their own communications district. And and the legislation that set up all of these is different. One of them say you must have a sheriff, you must have a police chief, you must have a banker. The next one say you can't have any of those. You got to have these. So they're all different. And having seen all the differences back several years ago. Uh in fact, I think that's probably been 30 years we've been the board or something. It's been a long time. We said, "Wait a minute. If all of these are different, what about the little part in the law that says the county commission can be the communications director? We know a couple of people are that. So, for some reason, we were crazy enough to take that on also. So, we are the 911 uh board of directors uh over this communications district and Alen Campbell is is our uh specialist in our 911 program. And so, she's here and uh we'll get into some things that she's brought out. I know she's probably talked to some of you on the phone and uh if you I tell you what, Alen, you start talking to her and and that all makes sense. But if you talk to her very long, you'll say, "Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute here, cuz she's going to come up with the fine print in these things." And uh and 911 addressing creates a huge issue when you talking about subsidy regulations. So, that's just another thing. We'll get into those as we go. Uh on the agenda, we start off with Dan Daly. Uh anything that's uh right with these things that you agree with, the county commission came up with them. Anything that's wrong with them, Dan came up with them. So, uh Dan, we'll go ahead and start with you first and get the get the the the wrong stuff out of the way so we can start

agreeing with people. Okay. Um, I feel like I need to turn this thing around somewhat. If you do that, although you'll The back of your head will be now filmed on our live stream. No, you'll be okay. Your mic there. Yes. All right. We're just getting used to having microphones. We Yeah, I'm not used to a microphone. I don't believe it's on, Dan. Yeah, it is. No, it's not. Hold on me. Sing a couple of bars. Couple of There you go. You got it.

Okay. Everybody hear me? Yeah.

Okay. All right. U appreciate everybody coming, everything. Uh like I said, we're been working on this. Um I'm not here today to tell you. They're perfect. This is the next uh version of it here. Um there's a few things here that u you know there's several things in here. I guess it's worded just a little bit different than what we had before. Um I'm not going to point every one of those out. I don't really think we changed anything. and just trying to be more consistent. Uh but if y'all have questions or whatever, I mean obviously go ahead. Um just a few things that we still have I guess semi questions about. I I'll go over those first. Uh the first one's on page 25. Um subdivision names. Uh, I got looking over this and it was supposed to be all under the county engineers. Um, basically having the final authority to reject the names. Um, and as I put this back off on you since you're the one that deals with the uh with the uh street names and everything. I felt like it'd be better addressed by your department. probably done.

Yeah, street names have to be reviewed. And we had street names in there already for you to review. So, it just made more sense to to go with that. And I I don't want to u Yeah, I buddy in way too often. I know that. But, uh if you hadn't thought this out, some of you hadn't thought that portion of it. Do you know how many war eagle lanes we have? You know how many you know how many hummingbird streets we have? You know how many pine? No more pine. No trees. So, so we u we came up I think in in 911 portion of it if you're in a separate zip code you can have the same name. Is that it's not that anymore?

Try to keep it out of this out of the same PA same PA. Yeah for two. So one War Eagle Lane that's Wolf Creek Road South. Now there are options. War Eagle Boulevard, War Eagle Lane. So that there are there are options. But anyway, when we mention names of streets, that's how crazy that even got. That sounded simple to begin with, but uh oh, it went real simple. So, okay, Dan, I'm sorry.

Oh, no problem. Okay. Like I said, I felt like that was better off u going that direction. All right. The next thing that uh I guess we've had the lot the most discussion on, it seems like, is the the lot size. Page 35. Page 35 on that.

I've already I got this late yesterday, too. So, I've had I've been scanned a little bit. So I will be of course my opinion on um like I said for um we got still lots that have just the uh basically septic tank still going along with the health department regulations uh for lots major subdivision are served by access to a municipal sewer or an engineered private sewer. Um, of course you have to go through approval of the u proper authorities and everything. We came up with a lot size uh basically of an average uh came up with an average of 11,500 square feet uh for each basically sector of a subdivision. Uh and the lots would not be less any one lot cannot be less than 8,000 square foot.

That's what I'm voice my at level five. I'm going to say it goes back to 15. The 8 goes to 11:5. And this will be a time for us to as we get some interaction and discussion so we can get some reasons why it might not need to be this way. Some of them are obvious, but uh if you want to voice your opinion on that, just address us up here and I'll recognize you so you can make some comments. And I think the best way unless y'all disagree is to do this as they come up as a subject instead of us trying to go back and remember them. So, right now we're talking about lot size. So, do we have anybody wants to make comments on lot size to give us a some input on the lot size?

Yes, sir.

I have one. And and my concern is uh if you take a 8,000 square foot lot, uh that's going to get 1.5 kids per lot. So, when you pop put all that together, like in Omal, we got a subdivision there. I don't think the developers here, but it's Tucker Farms. And they put 500 houses in there. And what that did for the city of Odin and Slair County schools is we had a close to 30% increase. To take that into another effect in New York City, that would be 3 million new people just carried in New York City and dumped out. So my thing moving forward is trying to see how we can regulate with the police, the fire, the schools and and moving forward and and don't create the financial mess because we're upside down and we can't give their services without raising a lot of taxes and things. So I think there's a balance that should be shown and lot size is a good way to do it. if you the bigger you make it. I know that uh I got one of best friends. I love lime and love joy, but he he wants a 2,000 square foot lot so he can stack them up. But I'd like to have a 20 acre one so I can spread them out. But that ought to be a happy medium there that we can satisfy uh the burdens that these people bring because they're rooftops.

We don't have industry, especially in Odville, Alabama. We don't have anything. We don't have Honda. And so these towns that's a part that one of their jobs is especially honorous and it's especially honorous in my little village of Oal. So I just think lot size has a lot to do with controlling uh how fast we can put burdens up on some that's got no funding. Thank you. Yes sir. And let's keep in mind that anything in Odinville wouldn't be subject to these regulations county. I'm using that as a thing. You can go and can we have someone from the school board come in and tell us what the

is this is this true? Is there a you know we don't have anybody from the school board here so that I've had some communications with with them and I know most of the commissioners have one way or the other and uh they basically up to this point uh the the decision for what these are comes onto this body and they know we know that if you put uh high density housing in unincorporated or corporated area it affects the density in the school, but under the rules they have for educating kids, that's not even if they end up doubling next year, they got to accommodate it

and the money follows the kids and the state gives them more money. So part of the money, a big part of the money for school comes in just because the numbers went up. So they're not really getting into this discussion uh on the density for children. Same thing with police. Police said, "Well, if it if it grows, it grows. We're required by law to furnish public safety. Sheriff's department, the unincorporated area and incorporated area and then in the incorporated area, the police department. So, they're they're all taking it. Well, you know what? If it comes, it comes and we will accommodate it. And that that what any that's what we're getting back pretty much. That's why they're not in the room. This is not this is our battle, right?

And u they're they're part of that battle is going to be accommodated. It will affect though in the unincorporated area especially the density of the traffic going out of a subdivision and unincorporated area onto public streets, public roads, county roads, state highways. And there's where Dan comes in. If there's such and such amount of traffic, then he's going to start requiring turn lanes. If you if you see turn lanes on state highway, you start seeing our growth offic. Guess what? you're seeing a lot of now. You can't build a Dollar General on the main road. You got to find you a side road to build it or you have to put internal lane. So when you start seeing those and we started seeing those start to happen about 15 years ago when you start seeing I work with Lyman on one down at Odinville. I think that was Freds when they first built. It was one of the early ones that we ran into. Wait a minute. You can't you can't build that here. L says yeah can I own this property? Well you can build it here but go ahead and put in turn lanes. Well, today those required turn lanes are how much? Any built any

$250,000 for they're 250 to $300,000 for the required turn. So we would then be required to do that now, but we usually do that. So like for example, the one you know on 231 that we did at Lakemont and there's checks and balances. So Dan said, you know, you got to go get a traffic study. So we had to go get a traffic study that we paid for and then the traffic study said a turn lane's warranted at this point. So, we had to put the turn lane in at our expense and then, you know, it's turned over to Aldot for the state for professional maintenance.

When you enter a state highway, uh uh they're going to set the stand being the state. And how do they enforce it? We get a lot of our funding to do county road work through the state. I mean, considerable amount. And if we're not complying with their rules on turn lanes and other places, we stop getting funding. that's what they hold over us. So, we have got to have we have got to require those same standards. And now Dan's running into some of that here. If we got two county roads, we may not get that 8020 federal funding to help us with that if it doesn't comply with traffic uh ingress curves, all that kind of stuff. So, we're all being drawn into this more and more regulations as we go. Yes, sir.

Yes. Mr. chair. So, it sounds like then you were saying that the fire department, police, and the school system say that, you know, they can keep up with capacity and so, uh, and then I take it too with, you know, developments. If you take rural land, undeveloped land, and then you build a house on it, the Avalorum taxes go up and that that's that's probably a mis you're exactly right, but it's the amount advalorum taxes are a little bitty part of our of our budget. Most avalord taxes goes to the school system, right?

Or the state, right? Those two entities get the biggest part. Uh our revenue commissioners back there don't cities most cities get unless there's a special tax for a school, they get five meals. That that's that's out of 34 now, 33 36 meals is the maximum under the under the state lid law, which is a constitutional amendment. So the cities get five meals. right? You'd say that that's that's not going to pay for police and fire. But other things that does that cities are interested in the growth that what will happen is the rooftops that will create the Dollar Generals and the Walmarts and those kind of things

the sales tax piece of it, right? And that's what I'm glad you that was very helpful because I wasn't sure how much the schools would get but the schools do get a significant portion of the avenue when you when the density if the density comes and so that's where I'm just I if if we've got the basic services to be able to to cover you know fire and police and the school system you know we can accommodate that with growth. I'm just trying to figure out what's the basis for why are we trying to limit density? What do we accomplish by doing that? Can I can I add something really quick? Yes, sir. So, we'll get

when we're talking about things in the county not really affecting the cities, y' y'all need to think that there's only two cities in our county that only cover with police and fire in their jurisdiction, and that's Pill City and Spring. everywhere else is is covering outside the city limits because they have a jurisdiction, but they're not collecting that avalorum tax to be able to pay for more firefighters and more police. So, I think you're going to start seeing annexations um so that they can get their extra advalorum tax because it's it's not covered. So, it does affect the cities.

Yeah. In the long run. And another thing that I think it does and then Jason, I'll come to you. Another thing I that I I know it does is we're always a step behind. Yes, it will. It will help us, but not this year. The year we open up a subdivision, we haven't got the money yet. And and and we had got the growth that the shop for sales tax or any of it. So, we're always behind a little bit as we grow fast. That's why growth is good, but it's also bad. Jason, what what affects the most is Pale City. Pale City. the kids that go to Pale City. 55% of the kids that go to Pale City live out in the county. So they're having to suck up the difference because they not getting any money off them kids outside that district tax, none of that. So that's their that's the issue they've got too is they having to pay cost them money for all these.

There's one one of the blocks money they get. You'll hear the ones thrown out there most from the education is the money follows the child. So they will get that money if that population grows city system. Even if they live outside city limits, they'll get some money, but they don't get equal money for the ones that live in the city. That's for sure. My only comments, I don't I don't want to disagree with you, chairman, but I I do think that it's that there is a it creates a huge issue with the school systems. We went through this few years ago in Bell City, and if it affects us, I know it affects the smaller towns. If you have high density housing and you try to place them in a school where you go and build one community and fill it up immediately, you then you talk about busing to other schools and moving people around. So I I don't want I'm not

I agree there's some truth to that in the as it works itself out. I agree with you short term it is a problem definitely short term and how long is that short term? One year, three years, five years how long does it take to catch up? P city and I made this comment a few years ago that you know Pel City school system is 25 years and hundred million dollars behind on facilities and so you you know that's you want to take that that's that's kind of why the push was to stop the high density housing in P City P city just put a mortorium on what did they two years inensity high density which is what certain size lots or even even if they're on sewer even if they're on sewer

and you also can't build metal buildings so that sort of put a restriction on people building of of barnaminium type things for instance. So that's within a seat. But all that's about to change because when you put a moratorum on something two years down the road, three years down the road, four years down the road, all of a sudden you wake up one day and you can't pay the payroll and you can't pay the firemen and the add police and do all that because you cut the density down now, which you grew it, but now you've stopped it automatically, which is like trying to stop the train in the track. And then you turn around and now we realize, oh well, we better try to reach some kind of happy meeting here to get the development coming back in and the houses coming back in and people coming back in cuz everybody seems to be so shortsighted on like, well, this fixes the problem now. But it's just like we talked last time. It's just like uh the fella said earlier. I mean at the last meeting, where's Pale City now? Well, where was Pale City in 1999? I know where it was cuz I was developing there. We We didn't have Outback. We didn't have Freddy's and we didn't have Walmart. We didn't have, you know, to the degree it is now. We didn't have any of that. Okay. what we have now and I understand it's 25 years and I may not be here in 25 years and you may not be you may but it's what are we leaving for the future where we've choked it down and yeah we accomplished it today but you got to look out what's it going to be like in five years from now and everybody's going to be scrambling and perfect examples caller did the same thing I forget how many years ago choked it down stopped now they're sitting there trying to figure out well how can we get people to come back to career So, is the lot I'm sorry, excuse me.

The right hand there. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can speak to this. Um, you know, I've been involved with the homebuilders for 28 years. So, I guess I'm telling you how old I am now. Uh, but the one thing I know is is talked about economic development because I can I can speak to that. And I had a developer. I said, "Hey, why don't you come? I want you to come look at Owenville Margaret area." I said, he said, "Well, you know, we don't have enough people because you go talk to Fers." They're drawing the circles, you know. They said, "Well, we got to have this circle, this circle, this circle." I said, "Well, you don't understand your circle." So, I said, "Well, here, let's do this. Do me a favor. Meet me up there at uh Mark Sunny Road there at the little mark there, and we're going to sit on that other side of the hill and get there about 2:30." And he says, "Why 2:30?" I said, "Come about 2:30." So he drives up there and I said, "Okay, sit here." We got there at 2:30. From about 3:30 till 6:30, maybe even longer. Constant cars.

You got constant movement of cars. Well, he say, "Well, we don't really want all those people. We don't want you. It's causing a burden on the system." Well, it's kind of a deal is that if you want to have true e, you want to see somebody come here, you want to put a supermarket in Margaret or you want to put a something there on the corner there across from the little mark or you want to or like the like today when I run up here, you got the McDonald's going McDonald's going to because they think they're going to sell something in Odville. But we have in our county, we think we have three Walmarts. We have one in Leeds, Springville, and Pale City. Well, those are I mean, y'all look at the numbers. You know what their economic drivers, how much they're going to put in, but we have to figure out how are we going to get that to Moody? Are you going to get that to the Odinable Springville exit? You got the Argo exit. I mean, they're going to look to the interstates first and then they're going to go in and say, "Well, what can I make in this inner part?" Well, you know, we know that you can put up a Dollar General and it's going to bring in so much money, but the thing that y'all have to do is be visionaries for the future and say, "How are we going to pay for ourselves 10 years from now? How are we going to pay for ourselves 20 years from now?" It's like, and you know, this is thing is that I hope in my heart because I live in Moody that they're able to develop that huge track there, you know, on the right side of the road that they're trying to develop. Hopefully, it'll work out for them because we'll need the money to go forward and take everything forward and some, you know, we can divide up the money on the schools. Only thing I can tell you about the schools is that Bill Morris, who isn't here somewhere, but I'd hunt Bill down and I'm saying anything negative toward Bill, but Bill helped pass the referendum to where we paid more taxes for our schools. Well, I know how it affected me and I imagine how it affected Lyman. I mean it it and but it's going to but all that is going

to go to also in each home that's built they're gonna have to pay more tax also. So I mean I can argue this point all the way around but in the density to have density you know if you go to these development I've been to a bunch of the development things where they talked about developments with the national homebuilders there like they're talking about you have density and then you have a green area and then you have I mean it's planned out density. It's not just saying, "Well, we're just going to throw up something out here and hope we do well with it." You have to have a plan and to put in a private sewer system cost a whole lot of money.

So, there's very other limited sewer, but I know Odin has sewer, but anyway, that's I think y'all look at the economic point of it, and I understand y'all's position is very hard because you got two sides. You say, "Well, but the one thing St. county has is we have a lot of undeveloped land but the people are going to come whether because there's nowhere else for them to go now also like I'm the city attorney for city of Gravesville Alabama and you say well why would anybody want to go to Gravesville Alabama and the reason they wait they're trying to build there is the cost of the lots it's all lot cost or you go to Brookside or those areas but that's why I think if you really want to have true economic development there's no reason that the And I know that I've worked with uh Brian M. Lovejoy on the the land that they have there next to the Ford dealership. There's no reason that hadn't developed. You got plenty of people there, but we have to sell the county and getting that done. That's just for why what I got.

Jason,

I'll speak to that because I've tried to put a grocery store over that area for five or six or 10 years. There's no study that shows that a grocery store will work in any of those areas without it being subsidized. Period. No. No grocery stores. There's nobody. So, we've tried to sort this out to any to try to get somebody over there. There's not a study anywhere that'll that'll support a grocery store in that area because of the heat map situation to travel in, travel out without it being subsidized by a town or somebody. It's just really hard to do that. Houses don't mean you get to sell sales tax. Houses mean you have people. It doesn't mean they're going to buy there. And that's a real problem is the transit. So the new stories that you're getting with these heat maps, you see where they're coming from Margaret or wherever to somewhere where they're shopping and moving. Uh it's just a really uphill battle to sell that because I've worked on Lyman's lot. I've worked on the lots over in Margaret Argo and all. It's it's very difficult to try somebody to go into those areas. It just doesn't work.

But you have to sell them. You understand? You got to sell them on going and give them a reason to come. You can't make any study show you cannot make it work. Mayor, thank you. Uh yes. So there's a lot to sprinkle. There's a lot to unpack. There's a lot to unpack with this uh the lot sizes. Okay.

And I can I can understand all of the different sides of this because economic development for Springville is something that we we need, right? But when you look at cities like Spring, Spring has uh probably the smallest footprint in of all the municipalities in Slair County, but we also have a lot of large tracks of land directly on the outskirts. And so one thing that we've seen happen recently is properties that are on the outskirts that offer the opportunity for 600 homes to be built. Uh and then a developer comes in and says, "Well, we're going to build these. We can build them in the county uh or we can build them in the city and the city can get the permitting fees and the inspection opportunities. But if you don't let us, we'll build the same homes or at lesser uh you know lesser quality uninspected right across the city limits line in the county and it puts a strain on Springville. Uh obviously, yeah, those people do they go shop in Springville and they buy things in Springville and that's great. It it brings some additional sales tax to us. But the problem is it also brings infrastructural strains that aren't covered by that development. It brings our four-way project that we had to do, which was a traffic light, which was a a significant burden for the city. It's it's great. We needed it and it's there now, but there was a lot of added expense overages associated with that project that we've not even seen yet. We also have our highway 11 ditch project where they're filling the going to fill the ditch in. and Aldot's going to put a turn lane in the middle. We're going to be on the hook for $800,000 worth of expense associated with that. A lot of these homes aren't in our sub aren't in our municipalities. They are on the outskirts. They do come to our schools. So, it increases that traffic, right? Um

it's just it's hard to watch the trends associated with sales tax revenue in a community like Springville. Three years ago, our sales tax revenue increased by 5%. Two years ago, our sales tax revenue increased by 2%. Last year, our sales tax revenue increased by 1%. So, if that trend continues, we are at the point where we will plateau or begin to decline. So that tells me that bringing in, you know, 600 new homes has not increased our sales tax revenue enough to justify all of the infrastructural strain that it's put on the community. I'm not saying we stick our head in the sand and and hope growth goes away. That's not a valid way of doing this either, but we do have to find some ways to manage it. And as a municipality, we have subdivision regulations and we have zoning opportunities, but we need some assistance from the county to make sure that this doesn't continue to be something that the city has to absorb um with the schools. Yes, we Springville School District voted on a millage increase for the uh the property taxes and we are getting a new school, but I I firmly believe that there are roughly 300 homes that are left to be built in one of the largest neighborhoods that's being developed in Springville. As quickly as that school's built, it's going to be filled. It's it's

it's small. It's it's it's a great opportunity. We're glad to see it there. But it it fills up. You can build homes faster than you can build build schools faster than we can hire teachers faster than

it. I'm sorry. It's frustrating to me because in a city like Spring, we don't have industry. We don't have um we don't have much of an economic driver other than our school. Property values in Springville are determined by the quality of our school. People move to the Springville area because they want to put their kids in Springville schools. We have great We have good facilities, great faculty and staff, great administration, and just a history of quality and it's safe. If our property values are driven by the quality of our schools and we continue to overcrowd them and we can't hire teachers fast enough and that quality begins to deteriorate, what happens to our property values as well? I think things like that are what we've got to consider. You know, you can amend uh subdivision regulations in the future to make them less stringent as opportunities arise, but I'm afraid that if we just Katy bar the door, just anything goes, I think we're setting ourselves up for some problems. Yes, sir.

Um, since we're still on this minimum lot, and I certainly appreciate where you're coming from, and I'm not a mayor, so I can't I know you've got issues that you're dealing with that I I can't imagine, but I mean, you just highlighted that over three years, you've gotten 8% increases in in revenue. No, no, no, no. That that increase each year. Three years ago, it was a 5% increase. Last uh two years ago, it was a 2% increase. Last year, it was a 1% increase% over three years that you wouldn't have had otherwise. But the trend clearly shows that even though you've got more people coming in, our sales tax revenues are not increasing like they would watch watch online and have no

No, I'm not saying that. But I'm not saying that. But people buy the new school, too. Because I mean, you get the money follows the school, right? I mean, you said that the money follows the student follows the student

and you get a new school and you don't want to build a school that's going to be vacant that doesn't have students in it. I mean, I don't understand that part. We're always back to the situation where we're always behind. But another thing that's a factor with the sales tax, municipalities have depended on sales tax for a big portion of their of their revenue stream for years. The the big factor that came out of almost nowhere and affected all of us that depend on some sales tax. County gets a 1 cent sales tax that goes just our general fund. And we share some of that with the municipalities because we know that they've struggled with their brick and mortar stores. We are still getting some of that money, but it's coming in in internet sales. One of the biggest factors of the drop in our everyday brickandmortar sales tax has been the proliferation of people like me sitting at home in my recliner and ordering a case of cat food last night on Amazon. Y'all ready? Didn't have to go to Publix. Uh really, you'd be amazed at the effect that that has had on everybody. Our growth over here looks like this and our growth in our sales tax looks like this. We say something's wrong. No, it's that's what's going on. We get 8% 8 8 and a half% tax. No, 8% tax on internet sales. Most municipalities, St. Clanic, there's a total of 10 collected. The municipality gets three or four depending on the municipality. School system gets a portion of it. But that internet sales now is divided uh through a a formula set up by uh the state of Alabama that just went through a huge process in Montgomery to to affect the SSU. As you've heard it, how did we handle ours? We put twothirds of hours in furnishing something we didn't even have 10 years ago. We didn't. We had school safety officers in some schools, just a few. Now we've got SRO's. The

sheriff's department has an entire division he didn't have uh 10 or 12 years ago called school resource officers. And we we've basically put money into every school resource officer including the ones furnished by the city out of our portion of the internet sales tax. One million. Yeah. Two two points a little more than that. Well, does that count the money we give this to the we give some, Sprinkle some, and Pel City some because they have their own students. Uh, so that's a it is a it is a huge that's why we're here though is we're going to continue to be here. This is probably a moving target document.

Well, and I just will I'll bring it back to the lot size. I know we've gone down some different rabbit holes, but if if you do implement, you know, lot sizes that are that don't allow for development, then you are going to miss the development. I mean, it's just as simple as that. Because as developers, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. We take a lot of risk and we put a lot of money into the community by you know doing turn lanes and you know putting in sewer systems and obviously extending water manes and everything like that and at some point it just doesn't become feasible when you can't get a reasonable density and there's gentlemen here who are experts in the private sewer system. I think they may want to talk to that but you know at some point the growth will just go to another county because you can't afford to do it. But there's a segment of our population and generally this is true in any in any county uh you've got the uh unincorporated areas that there's a segment of that population that is not against that growth being really severely slowed down. Uh and and we represent them too. Uh so part of the push to not have highdensity housing in the unincorporated area are for people who do not want highdensity housing. And that's who that's who hires us.

They don't want it for what reason? They don't want it because they're protecting their way of life. They think yet when well we're going to speculate on what they want. But I know once they the ones that want it today dies and the children comes along, they might sell it. I don't know. So we've got to balance the protection of the rights and that's where we're meeting with some professionals that deal with this all the time because there are some federal rights involved in this too. I think we had one Mart. Yeah, Mark. That's that's me.

Yeah. Yes. I'm just uh I'm focused in on the minimum lot size too on that topic and I'm I'm trying to figure out so we're trying to control density because of potential strains on infrastructure and on the school system those seem like logical things. And so have we actually ran the numbers to to determine like you know when is a critical point to where there will be a strain where the you know utility companies can't handle it or fire and safety can't handle it or the school systems can't handle it. Have we actually ran those numbers and is that how we came up with the 11,500 or is that just more of an arbitrary number that we just kind of came up with? Dan can probably

I don't know how they that attorneys and y'all think I stay with so well they came up with this 115 and eight that's first time I've seen it. Well to answer your question on I have not gone with the utility companies to see what growth they can support in every area. I know uh some areas of the county the utility companies are struggling you know for any growth basically but uh we was looking at it from a transportation standpoint thinking that uh you know the traffic coming in out onto our main roads we we could support something like that easier

but that's going to be different like the traffic capacities is going to be different in different areas right I mean you're going to have some roads that have excess capacity you may have some that don't have any and That's one of the concerns I've got is you're you're having you're placing an across the board countywide limitation on lot sizes and there may be some areas where they can handle growth. I think in this document it allows the engineer to require traffic study for instance. So we we do that on an individual basis. Uh didn't you say you required somebody to have traffic study?

Yeah, I've already done that through the years. So, but not everybody has to do one. If you've got a somebody that's putting in a a six lot uh trailer park, that's a subdivision. And uh you may not have to have a traffic study that gets those people in and out of there as far as traffic. So, then we shift over what's our main concern with any development from my standpoints more environmental. I'm not a I'm not a protectionist, but I am an environmentalist. And we do a lot of work that is restricted or allowed through the huge environmental industry in the US and that EPA, the US Forest Service, uh the FRC regulatory commission, the state department of conservation. It's big. We we have to jump through a lot of hoops there. I know that I've been on this commission for several years and the main thing we dealt with on subdivision up till a few years ago was developers building a subdivision that we didn't require to put a bond or anything and they left a sorry road and so the biggest problem we had for a commission was to answer that question that has now leaped forward. Now we're having to answer the question well we we we can require bond. We we about decided we're going to look for cash bond because if you do the bond that's basically an insurance policy is much much harder to collect from an attorney standpoint. The other side that's gone out of business or or died. They they don't want that to happen. So anyway, that that creates a problem too. So we're looking at going to what a lot of a lot of municipalities have done. We would go to a cash bond which means you got a line of credit somewhere that covers the tech the finishing the road to the the subdivision's finished. So then you got a definition. Well, when's the subdivision finished? Well, when 75% of the lots are developed or when there's only two lots left, it's all over the board on when a subdivision is finished also. But the next part of that on the environmental part of it is what effect will that have if we're already

adopting substandard roads because of the problem with that. When are we going to start adopting substandard sewage disposal systems? And that's that's a scare that I've got that's much I think it's much bigger and harder to fix once that happens than the road. Uh these systems that inject into the soil may be great. The health department may say great. The state the state controls those things not the county says county health department but it's a state health department. And uh I think some of the rules that they've had used to be 15,000 square feet. Y'all developers, y'all know from what I've read now that the health department determines by using information from a soil scientist on whether or not your lot would per I don't care what the size of the lot is. Where are you going to put it at? Is that right, Jason? Something to that effect.

I I had another comment. I'm not sure about that. Kevin there with the health department. Yeah. Yeah, I know they're back here. I just wanted to get the answer to my question. I'm sorry. I just other than traffic then Dan, what else what other considerations and factors has the county taken into account to arrive at an 11,500 foot minimum? Like I said, the primary thing, like I said, is traffic. What are we looking at? Anything I mean I primary, but what else other than traffic has the county considered when because they obviously I mean this this number wasn't picked out of thin air. I mean y'all I don't think unless it was compared to other places for one thing. We've looked at a few other places also. Where?

Well, Blunt County is one of them. Of course, Blunt County just changed theirs. Edwalk County. What Blunt County changed theirs to? Uh, I think they they they decreased theirs. And I apologize. I can't remember the number. You can see the 7500,000,000. So, this is different than Blunt Counties, though,

which it should be. I mean, we're a different county. But that's what I'm I'm trying to figure out the rationale behind the 11,500. So traffic was considered and you said that was primarily the consideration, but what were the less you worthy considerations? Like anything else that the county considered in coming up with this $1,500? Well, like I said, I think when you look at the county as a whole, I mean, we're uh I'm not going to say somebody couldn't utility wise could not support that or whatever, but uh talking at all about I I've not got the total group of utilities together and talked about that.

Yes, sir. So, I'm sorry. And that and so that's where I'm just wondering how we we're we're getting this figure. I mean just from a development standpoint, you can't go put in homes and get a final plat unless you have will serve letters from your water, sewer, and uh power. Those are the three things you have to have. So from a capacity standpoint, as a developer, I can't go do a final plat unless I have those things already secured up front. So I don't think the capacity issues really a releant argument here because if I go and try to do a final plat, I don't have those three things, I'm I'm dead to water. And so that's something I have to do on my and the third letter also includes uh ingress and egress on whether you traffic study out on the road and whether you got to but Dan already has that authority as a county.

I'm just saying that that's also part of that. But but what I'm trying to hone in on is that okay if traffic is the primary concern the lot size doesn't necessarily dictate traffic. Okay. How many lots within a particular subdivision tying into a particular road that creates traffic conflicts is the issue. So, it's more of how many lots are together in one subdivision that creates the issue, not the size of the lot necessarily. And and this is a very slippery slope to across the board say nowhere in the county are we going to allow a less than 8,000 foot lot. But do we have the authority to do that?

Do you have the authority to what? to to say no, we're in the county lesson eight. Can we set that by law? And I'm I'm asking kind of a a question that I already know the answer to. I'll I'll say this that it that the

the subdivision regulations uh enabling legislation says something about that the county has the ability to control like I guess the is it the size of lots? I don't have that in front of me. It may say size of lots or the or the there's some squirly language, but typically when you regulate the sizes of lots, that's usually within a zoning ordinance and you'll say within R2 you can have this density, within R1 you have this density and so it's really more appropriate to regulate the sizes of lots through zoning because when you do it across the

We don't have that. We don't have that too. I recognize you don't. I know. I know you don't, but but that's the that's the tool you use primarily when you're trying to regulate lot sizes. And it's and it's just a slippery slope when you say, "All right, across the board, we're not going to allow 8,000 anything more than 8,000 or anything less than 8,000." I would I would first of all argue as as the chairman of the commission, I would argue that we didn't do this arbitrarily. There's been more It's not an arbitrary decision. It's got more study in it than what we could discuss all of that here. Okay.

And but if we were having a a case in court where somebody challenged that they wanted to put in uh houses on 7500 ft, what gave us the authority? It wasn't an arbitrary decision. I think we have some authority to do it uh under the code and I think we have some authority to do it under under other information that we have that would have to be revealed. So we're not but we're not there yet. We're still that's why we're what's the purpose of this? Going back to what he said, you're controlling density by I because your average in each phase is 11,500 square feet per lot. It's 43,500 square feet per acre. You're you're controlling density right there. So that that is creating zoning. There's no way around that.

Well, it's creating zoning other than we don't have we don't technically have zoning. And that's the direction we're trying to have an intervening spot between uh not having hardly anything like we have now which we got a little more than nothing. Dan's been doing a good job regulate what little we have now. We're going through subdivision regulation before we go through zoning and planning. We're

we don't have we don't have the votes on this commission today or anywhere else. I think if you put it on the ballot to do zoning and planning in Slair County. So if if that were to say two first and then an average across the whole development of of some some number, it might be a little different. By putting each phase in there, you limit that. And you being a conservationist, like you said, you're forcing large lots in with small lots together instead of allowing a piece of property to tell you what fits on it, which is another purpose behind zoning. So that's what he's getting at and and I tend to agree with it.

Hey, Mr. Chair, I mean I I I agree with you on law that the commission has the authority to do things, but you know, I'm also just principally, you know, government ought not regulate just because they got the authority. The government ought to regulate because they because there's a need because there is a a rational basis for doing it. I mean, we just don't go around regulating because we Yeah, forward.

That's why we have all the way from one end of the spectrum to the other on on conservative all the way to liberal, whoever. I don't think we'll have any regulation until we have a requirement for it. None. We don't need any regulation till there's a proven requirement for the regulation. That's that's where I stand. So, it starts affecting property. I think we had Jason, do you have another comment?

Just on the other side of this argument, I'm been around here a long time and I'm not here as a contractor. I'm here as a former a you know I have a bunch of cows. I we have a bunch of land that we do cows on and all. I don't see how in the world anybody would think 11,500 square foot lot would hurt anything that you're going to do in St. Clair County. First off, just a little bit of knowledge if if you don't have some kind of sewer, you got to have a separate tank. You got to have two sets of fill lines in your plan for your lot. Period. And I sent pictures of what I have going on behind my farm, which we're not what they're doing. But when you talk about where people are just splitting up and sticking things on lots with maybe one separate tank running two or three uh residents or this that and the other, that's the stuff that's a problem. We need a fix for that immediately because it's it's it's really unrestricted development of multiple lots on single property that nobody's controlling. And that's where I really want to make sure I have as much right as anybody. I've worked on my farm for a long time to keep it the way I want it. I have as much right of controlling anything around it and and I've taken some heat about buying stuff to stop development around me. I don't I think that it's easy to say there's no between between development of wash and storm sewer and and sewer on me is something that you should consider. And I don't think that 11,500 foot lot hurts, you know, would not hurt with the wash off and how you would damage my property around you.

I tell you what the problem is is this the infrastructure cost by running the sewer mains. I mean, you've got to run the same length of main through the streets developer than a commercial developer. We have to endure every dollar, upgrade the roads, upgrade the utilities, put fire uh put uh caution lights up, put red lights up. I don't understand why it's a different for a h for a residential community than it is for us. Anything I develop anywhere, I have to bring everything up around me. I don't know why y'all can't do that. We're not saying we don't. Yeah, they do. But I just paid for a turn lane. I paid for the sewer system. I paid for the roads, the curb and gutter, everything.

600 houses. How about a shelter? How about the things around you that you got to have for those people in that community? Just like with us, if we do that, if we go into a building, we got to have a storm area inside of the space. So it gets so big we got to continue on. We have to do that. That's industrial rules. Industrial rules have OSHA and other things that are different than residential. Is your house up to OSHA codes? No. Because it's different. Yes. I want to tell you thank you to y'all for taking the time. I know y'all put a lot of effort in this and for listen to us and for having this work session to work with us, Dan working with us, your city attorney and you know and what y'all doing. You're doing a great job leading the county. and you look where we were 20 years ago and where we are today, somebody's done a lot of good work.

Well, thank you. And we know how serious we know how serious this this is. We mentioned that last time, too. Dan, I I'll tell you, too, from the private sewer portion of it, you know, what we talked about last time. This this solves that because it also addresses I think somebody said that health department's in here. This also addresses the fact of what the health department rules are. health department says and what this gentleman's talking about where they're two or three trailers, whatever they're putting, they have rules that stop that. That happens when they don't know that that's happening.

You know, there are there are rules and guidelines. We as a private company have have had to build a system next to these places to fix them where people have been done that through the years. So from the aspects of that, I understand where he's coming from, but I I applaud you at how you've corrected that and looked into that to to not try to change what has been in effect and working for years from what the health department has said. We have the health department here to let them come in. I think we do have rules, but a lot of people do it without our knowledge and we can't go out there and just start digging up lines.

So it's done. And a lot of that is done without our knowledge and it's out there. Um, and those systems are failing. I mean, we we get calls about them. Uh, you know, in areas where they've done it, nobody knows. What are we going to do? Well, you can't you can't put anything in. And it's and it's going to it's going to get worse as we go years down the road.

I I think there's somewhere that and and and I've I've uh put this idea in front of the Association of County Commissions. That's there's there's counties that have handled these things before. There's counties that are looking at them to have to handle later. There's counties that don't even want to talk about them yet. But but you put all 67 counties in there and the discussion needs to be closer with the state department of public health than it has been with the counties in the unincorporated areas. Cities seem to have more of a connection to the health department because they have zoning in planning and they can make those arrangements. But one of my biggest fears on this whatever we're going to do here is has been manifested in the substandard roads. I'm comparing exactly the same thing. Substandard road in a development. Those citizens are our citizens. They have bought a house in an area that has substandard road and we the government failed to put restrictions on there to warn them of that. That's the way I feel. We we didn't warn you that. Yes. They're going to put the final code on there, but they don't have to do it until they're until all the lots are finished. We didn't warn you. Yeah. The the old legal term of of let the buyer wear is just not going to work. That's like Maria Antinette said, "Let them eat cake and they cut off her head." We can't sit here and do that part of it. We have got to be more proactive, which is what we're trying to do. We want to be sure that we don't have a group of people. We've had groups just like size of this group to come in on a subdivision that has substandard roads built under our present roads. The developer LLC, owner of the LLC or the person on it died. Uh, and it's more than one. use an example as one. Uh now then those people live in a beautiful homes probably half million dollar homes if they were in a lot of y'all's developments. Uh they have a failing

road system. Commissioner the different commission all of us probably driven out there. It's a mess. We definitely don't want that again. But here's what I don't want even worse than that. I don't want that to be their septic system. Now who fixes a septic system if they put one in and it fails? the homeowner. Homeowner who? The homeowner if it's their private system. There you go. Some people said some people said HOA. Some some developers like Tom they don't have a HOA. I'll give you a I'll give you an example. We built a subdivision a sewer system in a subdivision in the northern part of Jefferson County that has a failing sewer system. I mean individual lot sewer system. Where is this? This in Jefferson County.

Jefferson County. Okay. known failures. Health department advised us of this. So when we put the private system in, we created enough capacity that when their systems fail that if the HOA gets involved that not this health department, but their health department gets involved, we have the capacity to fix their problem. If it's out in the middle of the county and this happens on a larger scale, there's not a municipality that's going to be able to go do it. There'll be a private sewer system that'll have to go in there to do it. That was the whole case of what we were talking about in the last meeting. The whole time that we're saying, which is why I respect what you guys have done,

the whole the whole time we're saying it, who's going to really do it? Those citizens are going to demand that we do it because we didn't protect them on the front end. That's kind of what we're running into. It's it's your responsibility, government, to protect me from that. Whether that's true or not, that's the that's that's uh whether it's true or not, the government should do it. What really is true is if their septic system failed, the rest of the citizens of this county shouldn't be the ones having to fix. It can be really expensive. So, we're trying to be sure, not just within the the scope of the roads, which we know has been a problem in the past. We they're they're pretty easy to fix. Once we started looking at these engineered systems, that became a bigger issue. Uh we've got to figure out a way that 20 years from now if the injection nozzles on the systems that people put in that injected into the ground fail, somebody other than the citizens of this county pay for it.

Yes, sir. And one thing you talk about protecting a lot of a lot of the people that get hurt by bad septic systems are the second owner.

That's right. and the third owner and they find out that that system was just put in by the home by the original homeowner or the builder and then they find out later that the system is is no good and then they have to pay the price. So you've you know as far as that you have to put a protection on the front to make sure you're protecting that person 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road. something that ensures that builder is going to come get a permit from the health department that they have to notify. And I know that's we're talking about subdivisions, but this may be a single block.

Well, what simple way to fix this is make each house have its own separate tank fill lines and you ain't got to worry about that problem. If it per they can have one. If it won't work, can't build a house there. That's it. We talked about that. That's a simple way for us to go. But we know that there's more development with that. Yes, sir. Dan, I got a much more basic question on what all you guys have been addressing. What is the definition of a subdivision in in these regulations? Me as a as a land owner in the county wants to know, am I subject to this if I decide to build one or two or three houses for me or my kids on my own property?

If you read this, it says no. I read it, read it, read it, read it, read it, and and it's in here. it. If if you develop a parcel land into two parcels, I'll answer for Dan, then let Dan give us the real answer. If you if you develop it into two parcels, it's subdivision. Unless you flip over to page says unless and you flip over that page and it says you're excluded if you're giving this parcel to your child and you're not doing it for commercial development. It's written in here. Yeah. Written in here. You can't sell it to them and they can't sell it. That's

so you're there's a lot of restrictions going on every land owner in the county that's not going to allow them to do what we've always been able to done. And I don't know that I'm against this. You know, a lot of this I'm thinking I can see the beauty in it. Uh but if I build a house for the purpose of settlement, that's a subdivision as I read this, which means I've got to put in, if I read this correctly, I haven't seen the new version yet till today. That means I've got to put in a 60 foot rideway when 231 is 30 foot wide in my area. 231's 30. The asphalt part of 231 is like 30 ft going 60 foot is just the right road. I mean

still that's 60 foot I've got to put for one house if I decide to do it is the way I'm reading this. My question is if you're if you're above and I don't know what size you're talking about, but if you're above five acres, you don't have to figure that's in here also. Yeah, I saw that. So, I've got to sell five acres. And again, I I have no plans to do this. I'm just trying to figure out how it would affect me as a land owner or any other land owner in the county if and when me or my kids decide that we want to do that. So 60 foot rideway to the to these standards asphalt mentioned curbs and gutters and

well now there again you can go by traffic volume and the size of the uh basically the lot the frontage it has. I mean then can't remember exactly I think it's 150 foot frontage which sounds like what you would do would have that. You can still do torn and gravel type pavement on those. But uh it would have to be paid though.

We we probably could put a a a copy of our I've seen a drawing. I didn't like 60 ft years ago because we have people come in here and say, "Can you not bring my road in?" It used to just have me and my grandmother on it, but now then there's eight people live on that road. And is there a way what can we do to get it bring in as county road? Well, we give them our standards. Well, we want 60 foot of rideway and we want da da da compacted shirt and da da and they can't do all that. So, we we do allowances on that. We do variances just like you. You can get a variance for about anything in here if it makes sense. Oh, yeah. So, first question we ask why is it even 60 ft? Well, he's got a drawing that says how wide the driving surface should be, how wide it should be there to a ditch, how wide a ditch drainage area should be, and then how far beyond that should it be to put in public utilities. So there's where the 60 came from. You can really, we brought in some at 40.

That's about as small a rideway as you can actually accommodate and still give some kind of rights for the water company and the fiber optic people to plow line in is 40 is about the minimum. So but we have done variances here through some allowances we have with individual commissioners to take a road in dead end roads not going anywhere. Okay, you got 40 ft. You can guarantee us. We definitely want a document that gives the county the 40 ft. Now, that's not the driving service. It's the driving surface shoulder. If you if you're a county road and you drive off our driving surface and you fall in a hole, we lose the lawsuit if there's a lawsuit. We have to have a transition area to get back on the

question I had. How does that affect me? Because I'm on 231, not a county road. Well, it it requires a minimum of 60 and a lot of theirs now have gone to 100 on state highways. But there again, for what we would require, a 60 foot rideway, basically, but that's got to be a county road. County road. Right away. No, it does not have to be. It does not have to be a count. If you don't want it to be a county road, you don't have to. But you still have to go by the He's talking about I don't have a dollar general option. You He's talking about bordering a 231. It's going to be off of off of 231. Not understanding each other.

Mr. Chair, can I just add to that bill? just something to put a pin in that that's something we got to be very careful about. Like I completely understand that if there's a development that causes an impact to the roads and that the rightway needs to be acquired to you know basically compensate for the adverse impact that's caused. That is a totally totally legitimate use of government authority. But to in every scenario require property owners to dedicate right of way even if their subdivision doesn't have an adverse impact on the road goes across constitutional bounds. It's it's goes a foul of constitutional protections and we just need to put a pin in that because because you're there I could go on for a long time about this but any conditions that government places on a subdivision's got to be roughly proportionate to the adverse impact and there's got to be a nexus between them and you've got to use it's got to be a tailored analysis for every scenario and if you just across the board require everybody to dedicate right of way that you need for other reasons and you would have had to pay to condemn, you know, it for a road widening project and you just when somebody comes to the county for an administrative subdivision approval and you say, "Well, since you're here, I'm going to get you now and make you give me right away for me to give you this little permit." That's where it's unconstitutional. And so, we just need to put a pen in it. There's a there's a

deal with the individual there until you talk about dealing with the individual down the street that says 27 of us are about to get our road taken in by the county, but number 28 will not give right away. You know what? That's not going to be a county road. And we'll let them deal with number 28. Uh and why is it even important to them then? Because you can't have water line put in there if you don't have the rideway. You can't have fiber optics. Well, y'all y'all talk to your neighbor because until we get the rightway that gives this whole system the same rights, then that's our rule. So, I understand that individual has a problem, but the rest, the 27 have a problem, too. The one is holding up the 27 from having a government entity take over the the maintenance of a road. And so, we we fought those battles before. Generally speaking, that one does have some rides, but not any greater than the 27. And we'll take those one at a time. And we've turned down some roads more than one time because a person would not give right away on on a road.

We we we continue to do that all the time. We're not going to take it in this kind of road because we don't have to. Now, we will if you'll jump through these hoops. And one of those hoops is we got to have the right way to protect everybody. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Uh just one thing and I know we're we're bouncing back and forth so I do apologize for that. Are we we we're going to probably add some of these in and out of this this document again.

Um just addressing back the concerns over the sewer systems and private sewer system that you talked about uh for a single family dwelling uh that has a septic tank with filled lines. I can totally see that and could possibly be a county issue if that was to fail and the homeowner died or moved or didn't take responsibility. I could totally see that. for subdivisions that have a direct injection system that is regulated by the public service commission. Now, and this goes back to what I talked about how there's other regulatory agencies that are over the much higher density areas for direct injection, public service commission regulates those. They have to before a permit can be issued or for them to be able to accept it and give a permit, they have to prove the person who owns that has to prove that there's money in place to be able to completely repair the system. So we we deal with that all the time.

I totally agree with you. Yeah. There's and there's also redundant zones. So if this zone was to fail, this totally agree with you. Let me give you an example that all of you saw it on TV and saw me on my Facebook page and everything else. Public service commission will regulate those. Mhm. In today's world and we're aware of that part. ADM also regulates whether or not you illegally light a dump over around Margaret.

That's correct. But but they did it and it took us two years and the threat of all kinds of lawsuits to the county. We would have probably won them, but we still going to have to go through them. And here you got you got an area that it wasn't just the poisonous smoke that people were measuring the toxicity in that area. It was all the way to Trustful and Mountain Brook. I mean that it grew into a regional thing because somehow another another government agency failed to keep that landfill from catching on fire. Another government agency is the one we're afraid of. We're just as afraid of our other government agencies as as you are. It's their responsibility. It's not It's their responsibility. It's no different than if you go and light 300 acres on fire.

But we've been failed. We've been failed by ADM and those other entities so many times as a as trying to handle the because we know where the people going to be. They're not going to go to the next public service commission meeting. they go into the next county commission meeting and they go to keep coming here until political pressure causes you to elect somebody that's just afraid of handling the problem. I mean, that's the way it works. It bounces back and forth. So, to to have the the politics side, that's the politics side and I believe county government's right in the mix of that. We're probably the most politically affected by I mean, Uniontown, Alabama's a great example on the municipal side.

They have it's a very low medium income area. They have a failing sewer system that is municipal. Very similar like to what Springfield is. Every time it rains half a million gallons of sailing, notion, trust me, I know I know in the county, but they have over a half million gallons of sewer hit the streets every time it rains, which is creating a major health hazard. A lot more of an impact than a failing septic system at someone's home. Yeah. Right.

Um but the attorney general for the state is involved in all that. And actually there's an EPA permit that allows the release of those treated water back to the environment. So the federal government's involved and have found money to help Uniontown than they could never afford three or four million project to be able to rebuild their system to be able to have good treated sewer release back to the environment. So all I'm trying to tell you is there's a major difference between a highdensity type sewer system like a sprinkle has an MPDS permit versus the underground injection system for 400 homes or whatever which I think is too many in my opinion. But there are certain provisions in place where if it was to fail or the person who owned it was to pass away, there's steps after that point for the liability to be passed to them. That's correct.

Gosh, it takes so long to go through talking about that. That's all. It's all documented and it has to be turned in yearly. So, the simplest thing for us to do within our authority to pass subdivision division regulations to say you can't have a subdivision unless your lots are all uh a turned into the county engineer with a per test allowing them to have an individual septic tank. That's it. That's the simplest. That's the simplest thing we could do. Yeah. For a septic septic tank. for septic tank. We don't allow those. We only allow

an approved septic tank personal system in a subdivision in St. Clair County. Now, we probably have some battles there, but uh you know, a lot of litigation. Well, there's a lot of places that doesn't I promise you inside. So, anyway, that's something they want to do. I don't think it perk it. Oh, well, you can build a mount system, but I've seen I've seen people do that just so they can get a perk, too.

I I tried to dig into the health department rules and uh uh I was going back to the three the 15,000 square feet and I couldn't find it in there because I found out it's really not there anymore. Is that correct, Mr. Health Department? Now, 15,000 is the minimum minimum. But if the 15,000 uh perks uh will you approve one on 12 uh with engineer approval? With engineer approval. So yes, the answer the simple answer is yes. They will they'll do two. The difference is they'll do two holes in the EDF and then there's a one in the R. There you go. So there and everything's got to be plotted out. So

So even then it's not black and white is what I'm saying. If you hire a soil scientist to come in and he says, "Look, it'll perk over here." And your little old house is a tiny house. It's only going to have one one bathroom in it. And uh u you can perk it over. You got plenty of room outside of that for your primary field line. And I will say, yep. And all that's got to be certified by an engineer. In 28 or 30 years of doing this, this is the first time I've ever heard anybody argue for septic tanks ever. Because you're talking about let's we apply we applying new ground here.

If you look at what you're talking about about making sure something's built correctly and that there's one person to go to what you're saying about roads and every this on the other side, you're you're leaning toward one person toward the developer. Yeah. Well, the reason why most people push towards septic systems, whether it's municipal or private, is because they have one person to go to if there's a problem. And so you're saying you want the roads taken care of, which 90% of road failures is caused below the asphalt, below the subgrade or below 100. So you're you want one person to go to there. Yet you're wanting to create if there's 600 lot subdivisions, 600 individual people that you have to deal with if they're separate.

But if one of those septic tanks fails, that's one septic tank. If an entire system fails, that's an entire system. But so there is a drastic difference to an extent, but it's regulated. It's regulated by ADM. We're about by the state health department. How many systems y'all doing in a subdivision? How many houses y'all putting on one system? It just depends on the size. Like if it's a 200 home subdivision, then we build a treatment system to be able to handle 50,000 gallons per day, which is the the maximum water you could use without a leak being in your home. Who maintained? Who pays to maintain that? Wow. To maintain the system. Yeah. Well, if if we own it, then we build we build the customers just like a municipality would build the customers and we maintain and we maintain it. That's right.

We're That's the question I'm getting. Do you own get income on it? Do you own They bought everything, but y'all now own You're a a private entity that can charge. We have to We have to maintain the lines, the plant, the discharge, the fence, the everything that the We own the permit. We own the plant. We own everything. Question regarding that. If I go build a brand new school that has a thousand students and I don't have sewer, do I get one septic tank? No. Do I have to put a system in? I know. Ask the guy behind. There are lots maintains that system. Yeah, you can get one set, right?

But it'll have to be cast in place. Bradfield Gorey come in there and do it. 8 million books. Exactly. Baffles all weird. to answer your question how there are a few in Tallad County that do that.

We kind of got we kind of got away from Dan's expertise. He did open the door though. But but I hope we understand that this is not just about the size of the lots, the width of the roads. It's about all of that. It's about the size of the lots and the width of the roads and the system septic systems because that we know where those people are going to. They already come here. If uh we get we get quite a few people come in here and want us to fix the drainage on their lot that the the on our three owners back messed up or their neighbor actually dug a ditch. We've got we got one now over towards uh between Moody and Odal that u we thought was in a flood plane. It's not in the flood plane. uh somebody's uh made a a damned up an area that's backed up water into another person's property that uh it definitely does. You go over there and look at it. It get a good rain next week. You go over there and look and it's a swamp. Uh because these people probably because I don't know but that's what the neighbors are saying. Well, we try to keep that fight between neighbors because we're not in charge of flood claim management. uh other entities of government are but but they come to us for the solution. We have to be the intermediary and somewhere in there we want some rules to where we can address that if we possibly can uh in that section. Now let's move to variances. Uh if you went to uh uh 8,000 square foot lots uh you probably wouldn't have a lot of request for variances. If you go to 15, you're probably going to have more requests per varied. Is that fair to say?

Uh, I would think so. Okay. So, u, but you still have the authority to do that. You come before who do you come before? The governing body, right? The commission would have to approve the variance.

So, we would have to have a meeting based on approving or disapproving a variance. We're getting off close now to whether we approve changing your zoning in planning. We would have to approve your variance. Uh uh even though I've had a few close elections, I've even lost a few. Uh if id had a few votes out of ed county, I'd have probably won. But they're not going to vote for me. Only people here are going to vote for me. So you think if you ask for a variance and you're from St. Clair County, you might get a little more attention than if you ask for a variance and you're a developer from Atlanta? That's just a rhetorical question. But the but the gift of this variance comes from this body. So somewhere if we don't have regulations on you, you're going to have to understand that your first level of government, the county, is is the one you got to come to to ask for any changes, any variance in it. And uh I gosh, I hate to say it, but somewhere out there developers going to have to trust their local government to answer some of these questions because there's not going to be a finite rule. uh come to us and say it's not fair for you to tell me I can't put 200 houses on my 200 acres. That's an acre a piece. Well, the why can't you? Because uh twothirds of it is in the flood plane. You can't build houses but on 32 acres of it. So now you build it 200 houses on 32 acres, not 200. You see where I'm going with this? The variance comes to here based on access out of whatever that density is to hit to our road that he controls and then the septic system. That's about the only hammers we have. That's

Mr. Chair. The problem with the variance process though, if you're heavily dependent on it to do to make adjustments, the problem with the variance process is that y'all are not the final say on a variance, right? You know, and and y'all, which is good for us. Well, that's right. Politically it is. We like that. But it's real bad for a developer. And it's real bad for somebody who's getting financing for a deal. And it's real bad for somebody that doesn't have all the time in the world. Y you get entitlements and and and

and so the variance process, if y'all grant or deny a variance, someone can appeal it to circuit court. So a disgruntled neighbor can appeal it to circuit court. Those don't get any priority over any other lawsuit that's been filed. And so you basically get thrown into the hopper with the pools of personal injury cases and everything else. and you sit there and wait for six months to a year to get your trial. If someone appeals a variance, they can also ask for a jury trial which puts you further back on the docket. And so this process in and of itself can be a very long drawn out process. And even somebody that you're trying to help that Slair County resident who you know needs help and they ought to get a variance just because the fact they've got a latigious neighbor next to them could totally torpedo their development. Whereas, if you specifically entitled them to it thoughtfully in your ordinances, they would be able to avoid the risk of the variance process and the time involved with that. So, that's where I just want to highlight that, yeah, at first blush, this seems like a good thing. Okay, let's have a mechanism to where we can look at individual cases and see if they need relief. But that's not the end of the story. there is a whole process that people can drag people out and timing kills deals. And so I I just want to caution you on that that this this is not fix all the problems,

right? I'm not I'm not sure we're going to be able to fix all of them anyway, but we definitely want to fix as many as possible. Are we are we gathering in enough information for you to keep plugging into this thing as we tweak things? That's that's the goal. The goal here is our our county attorney working with Dan basically are tweaking this thing to where we hopefully end up with the best document we can. Uh we we we know we had problems right off the bat on what is a subdivision. We've had that asked today. We want it to be plain that nobody has to ask that question somewhere. We want it to be plain on the front page. What is a subdivision? And you go to page five and it'll tell you. And uh we we got to answer that question first. And by the way, is it is it a subdivision that you fall under these rules if you give an acre of your property to to one daddy gave a acre to my brother Danny and daddy gave an acre to my brother Daryl and they both built houses in Blunt County and they didn't have to get subdivision regulation requirements and they and we live on a private road that's got uh six houses on uh in Blunt County today in Blunt Countyy's rules. I don't know where we'd be, but I'd hope they're not any more complicated than uh when my brother Daryl sold his house that my daddy gave him an acre on. It just gets crazy out there. Trying to protect the individual citizen that we represent and it's it's it's difficult. So, that's what we're trying to do now is to at least protect as many of them as possible. Does everybody feel good about where we are on the roads? I know I know there's a question on the 60oot rideway. You can get a variance. Let's just say you're going to put in a 10 house subdivision and the back side of the road falls off the cliff. Look, you know, in that case, we might not tell you you got a house six feet of right away. It's all it's ever going to be. But if it's going to go to the property out beyond it that uh Mr. So and so owns property out there and that's later on going to be a major development, we probably going to stick to that. even though you own it today,

what what possibility is there some other day because that's going to affect us. Uh

I don't think you're getting a lot of push back on right away on roads and things like that. I my me telling you about the constitutional stuff is just to put on y'all's radar that you you that could be subject to attack, but I think generally everybody's okay with the safest roads you can build. It's the the problem is the density and regulating land use like and for example on page 36 one of the highlighted items it says that you can have no more than one occupied single family dwelling per lot and I'm wondering is the intent there to exclude multif family from the entire county. If you read on through that though, I mean, we've got I guess some alternate language on here below that that feel like addresses it. If that one single family definition includes a lot that's going on nowadays with people build a pool house or a mother-in-law suite to because I'm having to think about that cuz damn me and you is the same age everybody and I've been talking to my son about hey can I just come live with you we'll build my little bey house call it a But I mean seriously is that

if you're in a u the major subdivision I mean basically it goes by the capacity of you know what there is for that for that development. Um but uh you know no additional dwelling shall be constructed or placed in one of the high densities. I mean, if you're got the u uh the lesser, I mean, you can put something else on there as long as there again, you're going to have a septic system that would meet health department's requirements.

Any other any other issues? Here's what we've got to do to end up with any document. Three out of five's got to say yes. Now, under the law, two commissioners can be for it, two against it, and I break the tie. So, aha, y'all got to make me happy to get my vote to either say yes or no. Well, I've already removed that from the table. I think this is an important enough subject that the chair does not break the tie either way. I I'm not going to vote yes until three commissioners are ready to vote yes. That's my prerogative because I think the I think it's serious enough to debate it until we get three commissioners in favor of it. And and I don't know where everybody stands. Everybody has different feelings about it and we but but we don't just not talk about it. We talk about it when we go to lunch. We talk we talk about it when we're out there in a hall after this meeting. We'll talk about it. That's what this is what we do. Y'all y'all elected us to do this and this what we do a lot. And we'll talk to each other. I couldn't tell you today which commissioner here is in favor of except I do know this commissioner been real. He is not going to vote yes if it doesn't include 15,000 square foot lot. Okay. I know where one is. Uh if there's one more of those and then there's two more. Say wait a minute. I'm all right with 8,000 ft. Then that's going to fail cuz we ain't got the two to two. I'm voting no till we got three.

Where we're at right now, we're at five. That's today and I can change my mind later on, but right now I'm going to hold that vote up. Our crossroad right now is we want three homes per acre or five and a half. That's kind of what Yeah, that's kind of what we talk about it. Yeah. But if I if I have a septic system, let's just say we got an acre and I've got a third of that acre and I have to have a septic so it won't per I do an engineered system and it's engineered through Montgomery. Is that right? Engineer has to stamp off on it.

When I and when that's completed, I put that in probate. I file that in probate. That goes with that property. And when I sell that, whoever buys that, that comes out at the closing. They said this is engineered system. You're aware of that. So that being said, that takes care of 15,000 if there has to be an engineered system. If we do five and a half per acre. Okay. That'll automatically be an engineered system. Correct. Have to be. Yeah. Okay. For houses. That's where we're at. For houses. Yeah. So, so if we're at 15,000, well, that's where I'm at with eight being the low number.

That's where I'm at right now until I decide differently right now. We can talk about it for dark. Okay. Uh the is that pretty close about the engineering? The the one thing we hadn't talked about that we've talked about individually between us is we had to talk about tiny homes, one-bedroom tiny home. And we've got we've got some developments around the county that have some one-bedroom tiny homes. Uh what size lot would they have to have under the under the rules of the health department? I don't know. But can they have uh can you can you have more than one mobile home on on uh one septic tank? That's what I'm worried used to. You

can you have one mobile home? Can you have two mobile homes? I mean as long as I mean a thousandgalon septic tank will take care of four bedrooms. It's the bedrooms now. It's not the mobile home. You can have two home. You can have daddy's mobile home and and the son's mobile home with his family if it's only got uh uh four bedrooms between the total. Then you can have one separate time. Yes. If it's on 8,000 square ft if it'll per Yeah. Lot of lot of things go into it.

Yeah. So So you see where I am? We haven't even addressed that yet because that multiplies into a bigger issue. What about a tiny home neighborhood? Bet you got two tiny homes and two tiny homes and two And by the way, we've got one of them. We got several. And that's why Alen's here. Now, how do we go about requiring the addressing of those before the engineer? This is all before the engineer will sign your plat. We've tried to say, "Wait a minute. We don't even want you to sign it till the subdivision plat comes in with the lots numbered for 911 purposes,

right? But we've got some subdivisions. I mean, we've got some developments that if the ambulance gets called, there's a mailbox out on the road and drive out the the private dirt road to 27 mobile homes. Which house has the heart attack in it? All right. So, historically, that's handled. That is handled. My issue uh with that little piece is um

if you look in this right here, this is what I this is my my portion. Um if you look in this forward right here and it gives us the definition of a subdivision, it says um dividing your property blah blah blah for the purpose of establishing or creating a subdivision through the sale, lease or building development of the lot or lots. We have um what we're talking about with a lot of developers here. Y'all are selling the land and y'all are jumping through hoops to do that. But we have mobile home parks who are they have five acres out there and there's no way to monitor those because they're not called subdivisions under our current regulations.

They're not asking for a public road. They're not asking for a public road, but they're putting in as many mobile homes on that piece of property as they can. It's not going to the health department first. Um, however, I give them an address because my my job is to make sure that they get help when they need help. That's my job. So, they do get addressed, but I brought this to the commission. If they're going to make y'all jump through hoops, everybody should have to jump through hoops. I would just like clear. You'll be after him, too. He's trying to get these

on that because we've run into this before. Chicken in the egg. Hey, we need 911 addresses in order to get subdivision signed off. Well, I'm not signing that. the subdivision plat till I have the addresses. So which which so it's in our regulations already that I sign it before Dan signs it. So I assign the address the addresses. Yes, I will give the addresses. They'll be on the flat also because I have to approve the road names. Um and then we'll go ahead and get them addressed. So all that's before that is before and that already exists. We know that gets complicated in some places. The local volunteer fire department pretty much tells you they're going to sign addresses in a municipality. The cities do them. Uh, who does them now? Uh, me.

Who does the city ones? The Springville um does theirs, but they have to notify me because I have to run the the names of the roads through the database. They have to meet standards. Okay. So, and and we'll have this um I was working on been working on this. It's the addressing policy for us. I've been updating it so it kind of goes along with some of this stuff, too. So, that'll be included. Um and it's just to meet the standards um the 911 standards. So they're not really stringent. It's it's but um I see a lot of this stuff that's going on as far as development and stuff that needs to be considered. So

anybody live at uh the RV park South Permanently down there at Lake pretty much every one of our RV parks question there's about a third about a third of them are permanent but you don't have to. So

what are their addresses? They get individual addresses and I address a lot y'all. We can address down to the seat number um in a stadium. So, it may have a main address, but then it also has um additional location information which is going to be your unit, your lot, but you know, I have to have road names for these. Um so, that's you know, all that stuff comes to me. And one really good thing I know addressing is the beginning of everything. If you want to have utilities, they want to say, "What's the address?" If you want, you know, uh, mail, what's the address? So, I see a lot of stuff before it ever makes it to Dan's office or it ever makes it here. Um, because they need that address and and we, our 911 emergency communications district is the addressing authority in this county. We allow Moody to assign addresses. They were trained. They know how to address properly. Um, I help P City. Um, I'm helping leads. Um, but mainly they come to me. I assign the address and then we disseminate that information to the utilities.

It's in a database. It is in it is in the database and we and and we had Beth Beth had some questions. Beth is is a family that owns a a campground for instance over there and that they fall in the same category probably as Lakeside. Y'all have any permanent residents that live there? So most of them have some permanent residents. So anyway, you have some questions or comments? Uh, all I wanted to say was I am a seventh generation citizen of of Slair County and I support you on your stand, Ricky Parker. Thank you very much. I'm for 15,000 square feet. Yes, sir.

Yeah, I would like to address something was brought up earlier. So, there's basically two sides here. There is a private community and then there's the professional. And I live in a world where I have worked on their side, built sea plants, water plants, built roads, divisions of I've listened to these guys. All that's familiar language to me. And I understand commerce because if somebody don't go back bacon, the kids don't get fed. But in in in America, we have law and order and mercy and justice for all. So to uh to counter uh saying why would I not want a high density subdivision. Okay, let me answer that. I was the poorest kid raised in Oville, Alabama. I'm going to tell him he's gone. Okay, he had to go take time before I got out of high school cuz my mom and I was just renting every hobble we could get to survive. I've come from poor. Okay, my heart's with the poor, but I am against building a high density subdivision adjacent to my property because of my property values. So, I now live in a 6,000 square foot house. There is a lot line 40 ft by there. It's another piece of property that theoretically somebody could come up there and do a high density next to me and sell $119,000 houses there and and my house will plummet. That's the only reason. It's money. But as far as us as a community, as a county, a state, as country providing spaces for everybody's got to have a place they're human beings and they need to have a thing they're not less a human being they are. Just right now, like you said, poor as we always. I was once poor. Now I'm just almost poor. So, so, but I've

worked hard to get what I got. And so, I don't apologize for living in a bigger house. I could go to give all my money to somebody else, but I'm a Republican. So, we're we're talking public, private, heart goes in moderation, all things. And yeah, I wouldn't have y'all's job for all of Lime and Love Joyy's money. I do I do see a 20 25 year difference. And and I when I first got started, I'm going to close. I can remember when road commissioners went around using county employees and building ponds and driveways. We have to do that now. We have to do that tonight.

So, I understand the transition and I do appreciate all you guys. I appreciate Hey, listen. these guys right here. Uh, I take advantage of these people because I get the contract and build those roads and they want to build this road for $50 a foot and and I want to build it for 75 and make I want to do what to them what they're trying to do to us. They're trying to make a buck. So,

I think I think when we finally have a vote I think when we finally have a vote, we're going to have a a good document for the first subdivision regulation attempt. I also know that that will change its its image as we go on through development of this county. It's just going to happen that way. We're going to have more and more pressure for different kinds of development. And uh but I'm here today and and today we're trying to come up with a document that matches what we've got going on today. And uh we know we know the future uh more than likely will include more growth. And we're trying to make sure that growth is a growth that enhances our quality of life, not not causes a problem with it. And all y'all have a place in that. These these new sewer systems are not bad. It helped a lot. There's some places that that would probably better have had those than they just forced their system in there and made a separate tank. They have been better off having one of your system. You know, I got a little old lot down at Bonscore, Alabama. And and the back part of my property is is about 2 ft 2 and 1/2 ft taller than everything else. My sector tank has got to stick out of the ground because it's a little engineered system. Yeah. And if I build a house next door to the to that my lot there, I I'm going to have to have probably that kind of system. So, there's a place for this. I know. And uh and we're going to I appreciate all the input from everybody in here. I appreciate Cous Valley uh a Cusa River protection system being here. They're not just protectionists. They're they're interested in the water value of the Cusa River. And

yeah, I'd like to say something as a as a citizen. You know, I do work for CUSA River. Mr. Rip, you did live over there off of uh uh uh uh Simmons Mountain Road. We used to. But

we have a tremendous attribute in St. Clair County. This is so unique. We have rural agricultural lifestyles. I really want the commission to consider the environmental impacts of high density housing. It's not just like we're stamping a plan on a piece of concrete. We have tributaries. We have groundwater. We have wetlands. We have two lakes that are our asset as citizens of Slair County. And I think we really need to consider what increased runoff from 6600 roof lines and paved driveways and paved streets will overall have impact on the environment.

Thank you. Hey, uh would you clarify or and I have a question. You said earlier kind of in your opening statement that you were getting the legal people together and from inside and outside. Uh can you give us an opportunity to have representation in that discussion with the legal people? I think the first the first meeting that that I want to have first of all we can't have a meeting uh with more than two of us that constitutes a core and we have to have a meeting for everybody uh but we can meet with our attorneys on legal cases and so uh one or two of us will meet with our attorney and the professional the attorneys he brings in to discuss land use rules so we can even more understand the federal rules, the Fair Housing Act, all those kind of things. If y'all got an attorney, if y'all want Mark for instance there, we want to look see what what else we want to add. And it'll probably be more than one meeting. Probably going to have, you know, more than one direction here.

That's all I was asking. Could we have some representation? I would think that'd be that'd be wise. Um question on who's going to enforce these rules because I do have a couple of areas and you know probably what I'm talking about asyn where they've done a subdivision plat. They have met they have deeded it off in meets and bounds, meets and bounds, meats and bounds and never recorded a subdivision flat. Who's going to enforce that situation? There is a provision in there for penalties, citations be written if somebody's not following these. How will how will anybody know who's going to look and see?

Well, if it comes to us, we'll know. I mean, unfortunately, sometimes you're probably going to be the first one that sees it and absolutely. So, I would have to be the one to say, "Hey, I've got this will be a regulation. The county government has very little authority to pass ordinances unless the unless the legislature tells us you can pass an ordinance that you can have your own dog catcher." Yeah. Because, you know, everything's going to come after it goes through them. To me, they don't do it right. if they don't do a subdivision or they've done a plat but they're deeding it off meets and bounds. If you got 50 acres and somebody's deeding three acres here and two acres there and one acre there,

do I have to throw the flag up and say, "Hey, I got somebody that's deing off these properties and not not in sub. They usually don't come to us until they want us to do something with the road that's not ours." So there's building permit thing if you don't mind.

After the last meeting we had when all the developers were here, I was present and I did ride down to Lake Mont that's being developed and one thing that concerned me there was when I drove in and drove around to look and hence then I've driven around several other high density subdivisions. The children were out playing on the street. uh there was no place for them to play and I've since then noticed that they're doing that the same in others. Um and there's no allotted area in some of them where they can go and play safely instead of being out in the street. And then I went to Kusa Valley school after that uh to deliver some pamphlets for the pioneer day. that school will be. If you add that many homes in that area, can you imagine how many children are going to go into Kusa Valley school and it's not prepared to hold um a hundred more kids.

I just say that there there's a playground at Lakemon. It's right in the front. When you walk when you drive in, you probably didn't notice it. There's also an additional facility that's being built. It will be a pool. There'll be another playground. There'll be other things. And there's sidewalks there. So, I think maybe you just overlooked it when you pulled in, but there's definitely there's definitely a playground there and and it's lit. But I'm referring to other subdivisions that I've been in now since around Slair County is in Springville. They have a pool, a small pool area in this subdivision off of Highway 11, but no play area. The children in the streets, those type things are usually required by zoning ordinances.

So, I'm we need a little bit more room. I think a yard or something. A little bit more play area. I mean, a little bit more room for these houses. That's all I'm coming from because there are a lot of young people coming to those subdivisions. Okay. The children as a teacher that concern.

We uh we promised each other we'd try to hold this till 11:00. We knew Dan would would be the main person to fire this up and cause it to be so confusing nobody understood what we said. But no, not really. We we we are believe it or not we are gathering different ideas. I got several thoughts that's come out of this one and uh uh they'll they'll be put into the document. Uh a key thing I see in the document is still the variances. You can come before your government and ask for a variance on just about anything in here. I also got more understanding on on these engineered systems and what they can mean. um the the health department is is something that as as as a as a government entity on the state level and government entity on the county level. That's not the only disconnect we have is the county government and state government on just the health department. We have it on juvenile justice. We have it on everything you can think of. It's hard to get the counties in discussion with the state because a lot of these things end up on their plate. So uh I I we're trying to learn more and more about what does the state requirement what is it as far as our health department's concerned uh because they do a great job and uh but there again this when we adopt this it will be a county regulation with the authority of the county government to enforce it and what way would we do that our county attorney have to tell us what the next steps be but it doesn't take much of a step to go from a a county government that's not a a judicial body as we're we're kind of all three bodies of government, believe it or not. Uh, but it doesn't take much of a step for it to go from here to the court system. So, the next step, if you don't get relief from decision made by the county on this regulation, it would be going to probably circuit court. Uh, and we're trying to, of course, try not to overload the circuit court with a whole bunch of lawsuits on our subdivision regulations. And so, hopefully we'll

cover a lot of those questions in here before we get to that point. And I, you know, There again, we're getting closer to having we're going to have subdivision regulations. We well we're going to have a more enhanced subdivision. We're getting closer and this has been 20 years. Okay. Yeah. Which is good. We didn't but we got seven generation farmers been and then we got people that's trying to make a living developing subdivision. That's a long ways apart, but we we're made progress. We're making progress.

And and Jason's a good example. He's uh he's one of the he's become one of the larger land owners. His family is in this county and his his intent on his land right now is is farm. They they growing cows and trees and stuff over there. They're doing a good job.

Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful place. We got several of those around and and and his family, they didn't have any land to speak of when I moved here. They ran a welding shop. So, they come from there wasn't so many generations. They're kind of new into this. But he also is very aware he's got some children and they're going to end up with that land, too. And then his family's children, what do they want to do? Do they want to sell the back 40 off or subdivision that has apartments on it? We've got to we got to try to address as many of those things as we can while we're while we're in this path. And I think I think we're pretty close. We're going we're going to adopt these pretty soon. And early on, we're going to have people say, "Well, y'all didn't talk about so and so." How in the world did we miss that? Uh uh that's where we are. We will we said we would put these out and I'm I'm ready to put this document but it's going to generate a whole lot of things cuz it generated it to me when I read it. Are we ready to put this on our website?

I think you put it out there for let people look at it. You look at it just like page 35.

Yeah. Uh but if we put this document on there, not a lot of people going to go through it like we have page after page, but but we we do need it out there in the public realm from I think from this point and then this is not the final subdivision regulation. This is a draft just like it says on here and it'll say that on our on our website. This is a draft and until one comes out that doesn't say draft on it, it'll say this has been officially adopted by St. Clair County Commission on such and such date. And uh this is how this is what the 27th draft. I was looking the other day. I've got a mountain of paper there different versions of the subject.

I'd rather be like this. I know of counties that have adopted them and I mean within weeks said oops they had to jump back and do something real serious because they left it out. I I will say this too. The other counties I've talked to, I hadn't talked to one that didn't say, "Well, we need to we still need to make a couple of changes." Yeah. Okay. All nine's clear. Thank you'all again for being and David, you need to ask question. Are y'all going to hold another meeting since she just introduced this draft? Are y'all going to hold another meeting in the future?

Oh, definitely. I think we'll hold another meeting and we might even hold another meeting to just get some citizens to come for a couple hours. As you can see, there's so many uh variances of our individual feelings about this. Um we might ought to have to have it at the arena at the event center and serve uh you know serve sandwiches or something, but we'll get that out there first so the people will be aware. We're getting we're now making this public. We're working on a subdivision regulation in moral forum. Basically, our regulation right now says you do whatever that man tells you to. And some of you did and some of you didn't. Okay.

All right. Uh we don't have to deal with it. It's the meeting is just a meeting. We don't have to adjourn. We just uh we just fade away, I guess, today. So y'all y'all come back and see us and stay in touch because I know y'all will. This is a good core group. Okay.