Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, good morning everyone. Welcome to the June 18th, 2026 regular meeting of the Sunset Beach Planning Order. Seeing that we barely have a quorum, I'll call the meeting to order and we can stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, as always, the first order of business is conflict of interest. Does any member have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest with regard to any item on the agenda? If so, please state so. Michael? No. I do not.

I do not.

Okay, so none. The agenda... Troublesome today. So I'll just, well, a couple issues. The agenda appears to have been changed from the one that was published. Yeah. And I believe the staff back in Administrative Economist has a request for a permanent change. So at this point, I'm just going to move that we approve the agenda as whatever the legal agenda was as published. Originally?

Originally.

I don't know. Whatever the legal agenda is, I'm moving that we approve that. Anybody want to second that?

But what's on the agenda?

Well, I have one with nine and one with 10. Yeah.

Can we make a motion to do one with the 10?

Which one?

Do we know which version was published to the public?

The first one.

Ten.

Ten. Okay.

That was online. I don't know where the second one came from.

There's only one difference, I believe. So, yes. So, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the June 18, 2026 Planning Board Agenda with ten items as published to the public.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, no nays, that agenda moves on. Okay, the first items we got to work on here is our minutes. The first one being from the April 16th planning board minute. And I guess the two comments I have, and it's really just kind of an explanatory thing. That was the meeting that we recessed. On the 16th and then reconvened on the 23rd. And it's sort of in the body, but I wish we could have maybe explained it maybe at the top there. Because if you kind of look at it, it appears it all happened on the 16th.

Right. Unless you read into it.

Unless you read into it. I don't know how you – I mean, maybe it's a – putting just a note on the top or something. Because even when you get to adjournment, it says adjournment, but actually we adjourned on April 23rd, not on the 16th. So it's just a, I don't know if it can be just a note at the top where it says the date and it just says planning board, you know, 9 a.m. recessed at 11 a.m. and then April 23rd at 9 a.m. to whatever. I don't know if something can be added to that. So when the public looks at it, they realize it was split in two days. And the other thing I couldn't remember for sure, Mike, that's the one you left at 11?

Yes. Did we recess before you left?

Did you leave? Yeah, you recessed. Okay, so you were here for the whole thing? Yes.

Okay.

I couldn't remember if you left and then we recessed after you left, but you were here for the full, both full halves.

Well, I was here from 9 to 11, yeah.

And then we recessed when you left.

So you didn't miss anything?

No. Okay, that's fine. So the only comment I have is some... clearing up of the dates and times. Yes, we started the meeting on the 16th at nine, but we actually adjourned the meeting at whatever time it was, probably around 11 on the 23rd. I don't know if we can, just so it's clear that it was a split meeting between two days. I'm sure it's not a huge issue, but I don't know how we can.

Does that make sense, Ron?

Sorry, I was trying to follow exactly. It's just making it clear that when someone looks at this, that it's in the body. It's not a huge issue. Just to me that it clears up that it was a meeting that was recessed and then reconvened a week later. On page seven.

Yeah, when you were mentioning that, I was trying to find out where it was on page seven. So that's where it talks about it.

Right. But you have to read through the whole text.

And I don't know. I don't remember. Is the YouTube all one or is the YouTube two? Two. So someone who wants to see everything from this has to watch two different YouTubes, correct? That's all I'm saying. In some way, a note on the top or something that says, You know, the meeting went on April 16th from 9 to 11, recessed, reconvened April 23rd from 9 to 11, adjourned 11 and 23rd. That's all.

It's just a- We'll figure that out.

Other than that, I thought it covered what we said pretty well. I don't have any major adjustments. Stuart or Michael? No, no. So I guess I'll make a motion to approve the minutes- from the April 16th slash 23rd meeting with the one modification that we add clarification that it was a meeting between multiple days for a recess and a readjournment.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye.

Today's okay, we'll do that. Next, it's the minutes of the May 21 regular planning board meeting. And this one, of course, did address the agenda, which we talked about a little earlier, reordering the agenda, which didn't happen.

We'll take that up in administrative.

But other than that, I don't see anything that doesn't.

The only thing that I had on here was in the planning board comments where Richard talked about being summoned by Riptide, and it says alleging dishonesty. I don't really remember. I think it was defamation, not dishonesty.

He said it was libel or slander.

And I'm wondering if, since Richard's not here, can we just take out alleging dishonesty?

Yeah.

He got a summons.

Yeah, leave it at builders, period. You could take the word alleging dishonesty out, and you could say he said he's worked with the town to understand legal. Right. So we take out the word alleging. this honesty, and, and said, and we recapitalize the H in he, and go, he is working with the town.

Okay?

Okay.

Because I believe, yeah, it might be a slander or libel or defamation. I don't remember what it is.

I don't remember what he said.

What did he say? I think it's libel. And it could not be the correct legal term.

I think it was libel. Correct. I'm not sure that's even needed in the minute. It's not even needed because it may not even be a correct legal term. Yeah.

Okay. So we'll make that one change. Anything else, Michael? No, no. Okay, so I'll make a motion. We approve the minutes of the May 21 Planning Board meeting with one modification in Section 7, removing the words alleging dishonesty and said. Any seconds? I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. No nays. It's approved. Okay, next is public comments on agenda items. Seeing no public comments, we can move on for that. New business. Go to, oops, I'm out of order here somehow. Move on to the planning director here, Ron. New business is consider amending various sections of the UDO to comply with 2025 legislation adopted by the North Carolina State General Assembly.

Ron, it's yours. Sure, and I'll just try to go through these pretty quickly. Last month, we talked about potential changes as a result of the legislation that occurred in 2025. I further analyzed some of those changes and I've narrowed it down. I think it was like six or eight that we talked about potentially last week. I've narrowed it down to three. There's one other one that I may bring at a later date regarding flags. I wanted to look into that a little bit more, but at this point I chose not to move anything forward on the flags.

We have two items, right, the flags and the family child that we need more legal thought on.

The daycare. The flags definitely I wanted. I'm not sure we need to do anything with the daycare, family child, and home daycare, if you will. So that's why you don't have those before you at this time. These are things we need to do to be in compliance with state law.

So if something should come up on that that we get an opinion saying we have to do something, we'll handle that separately? We'll handle it separately, yes.

Okay. So the first one we've talked about many times is the downzoning. So there, what's before you is just to say that take all the downzoning language out and what is downzoning and just reference the... or just reference the statute where down zoning is defined. That reason that I'm proposing that is as that definition changes, our definition and criteria changes. I know we had some discussion previously about what was put in, let's potentially put it in the code so people know what it is, but trying to just keep the code simple.

Right, so if they change it, If they change their definition, we'll be immediately compliant because we're just using their current definition.

Correct. So if they walk back some of the definition and example and allow a town to initiate a down zoning, our code is automatically up there. We'll just have to keep up the data on it ourselves on what the definition is. Yes. Because if we don't change it, but they change it, we still can't do it until we change our code. Right. So that was A2. The next one was regarding the waiting periods. And one of the changes is we cannot put a waiting period from a denied application for rezoning or map amendment, even a site plan, but our code did not do that anyway. And so that's changed the state law so someone can immediately reapply for the same request that was just denied. Now, they would have to go back through the process. They would have to pay another fee, be advertised, et cetera. What you have before you is just to take out the language regarding that and just say consistent with the general statutes, there should be no waiting period. We're denied or withdrawn maps or text amendment applications, but giving that even a little bit more thought, we could just take that whole reapplication for amendment language out, period, and not have it in our code. If it's not in our code, it's not there. Either way is consistent.

Is it still item 7, even though it's crossed out? Yeah, yes. I'm not sure why that happened. I'm okay just leaving it in that way to show consistently with the state law. That's fine.

It's only once. I've seen communities do both. Right. Modify it slightly or just take it out.

Okay. Yeah, I'm good with the way it is. Just the one thing he said. There's no waiting. If you withdraw, the next day you could put back. Or if you get denial, the next day you could reapply.

I think it's better to have it in there just so people know. Know what the rules are. Instead of them flipping through saying, what is that?

And again, if they change their law, ours automatically changes.

So is there any issue with, you know, we're very specific where the The general statute is, so if they re-number or re-letter their- We'd have to. We'd have to update the code.

But usually when they do it, it tells you, if you go through that section, it tells you you've been replaced by a new section. Repealed and replaced by. Right.

They put a trail in. Is that right?

Yes. Right. They usually do put an audit trail in on what section replaces what.

So I think, yeah, if we ever did, if they did that and we had to clean it up, we probably couldn't incorporate the new number, but.

Okay. I think we're good on those two.

And the thought process about including the statutes is if the public is interested and wants to know why aren't we, why can't we down zone, we have a reference to provide.

Right. If you look it up, that's why it's there. Same thing with the waiting period as an example.

The other one that we have is we cannot require street standards any more strict than the Department of Transportation. And so we're proposing, or staff is proposing, under street construction standards under 4.9 streets and roadway network to say all streets, not including sidewalks and multi-use paths, shall be constructed, of course, with the following minimum standards. And that would be that all materials and street cross-sections meet the requirements set forth in the latest edition of North Carolina Department of Transportation's standard specifications for roads and structures. And then the others are just the recent reorganizations.

So the only thing I had... I thought this was about asphalt thickness, but you've added street cross-sections in there. But that's the thickness. Well, cross-section is... Like the width of the road. No.

Well, the intent is the cross-section of the road. I'm not looking at this.

I'm looking at this. Okay.

The vertical.

You want to add vertical cross-section? Well, I think it should be pavement cross-section, not street cross-section.

That's fair. Okay. Where do we need to put the word we want?

My engineering brain immediately went to street cross-section.

When you go to their book, they call it cross-section. Well, cross-section's fine. But we can take the word street on and make it pavement, right?

Yes. I'm actually going to try to pull up the statute real quickly.

If we feel more, if we want to make sure, we could say vertical cross-section.

I think it's better to say pavement. Just pavement, yeah.

Replace the word street with pavement.

Because standard in engineering, if you say street cross-section, it's the whole street. And we would put the pavement thicknesses on there and all that stuff too, but it also gives the width of the road, the width of the right-of-way, so we don't need to get into all that. It's really just about the pavement.

section four just give me a second i'll look at this exactly what the wording okay i don't know if i corrected that out for myself i've looked at this several times and i apologize i hate to be picky but i don't have anything else to talk about

It says establish or require pavement design standards for public roads and private roads that are more stringent than the minimum pavement design standards adopted by the Department of Transportation.

Yeah, so let's replace the word street with pavement.

Why don't we say pavement design standards? Since that's what the statute says.

Let me reread it, I think. All materials and pavement design standards shall, right?

Correct.

Okay, we'll go with that change, Michael?

Yep.

Okay. We'll check the feedback.

That's the last of it. Like I said, the other two items that we previously discussed, the U.S., the official U.S. and North Carolina flag regulations and the family child care home standards use will be put off the later when we get a proper legal decision as made. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion. Hang on.

Okay, hold on. If, I mean, is this important that these two go right away? I mean, I'm just wondering about having another public hearing.

In general, no, because we know what the definition of down zoning is. And what I'm going to answer is yes, our code needs to be compliant.

Right.

But in practice, we know what the... We know what the down zoning definition is and we're not, we have conversations about down zoning quite often. We know what the pavement standard has to be. So we can't tell someone they have to do town standards if it's not consistent with state standards. The same thing with the waiting period. If something's denied, I'm not gonna say, hold off, we can't accept your application for another year because I know what the statutes say. So in practice, we already know what the statute is. So that's not needed there. The issue with, maybe I think I know where you're going with the other couple of items. One of them, I use the child in-home childcare. That's what I'm calling it. It's not exactly what the state's definition is. To me, that's how I'm distinguishing them. That's not a use that's explicitly listed in our ordinance. We would treat it likely as a home occupation. If we wanted to pull it out and create its own use, then that's going to require more research and figure out what is best for Sunset Beach. And to me, it was getting outside the scope of this particular intent for the amendment.

Plus, when I read it, I thought it would entail more things than us. Fire code.

And it is fire code, and those things have to be done regardless. It's not really something we put in the UDO.

Possibly council needs to take that up.

Well, it's not a yes, but the fire code things are not a UDO-related item. What first piqued my interest was, does our definition of this facility differ than what the state says? And we don't really define it. So we would look at it as a... home occupation most likely. So that's why I said if we're gonna define it and create another use, that's a project a little bit bigger than what the intent of this particular scope was. The more I looked into it, I was coming to those real, and the chair and I talked about that when we met last week.

I guess I'd rather get these done that we're clear on now One, if you kick somebody's hands down the road, the road may come to an end and it never gets done. So I think we're all, these seem pretty clear, we're all in agreement and it is the law. Just make it so, so to speak. Because waiting for another time, we may not even remember what we did.

And I didn't want to go to a lot of conversation on the flags, but... When I first read the flag change, I felt like initially my first blush was we could not regulate size. But if you go to that statute, right above it, it clearly says that you can regulate size. And there's other concerns with treating the United States flag and the North Carolina state flag differently from other government flags, protected, you know, protected speech and so forth. So that's why I want to get further conversations. I don't see it as a major need to do here in Sunset Beach at this time. Doesn't mean we want to address it later, of course, but I don't know that it was something that we have to do at this time. If something comes up, I'll add it.

It's been completely cleared at the federal level yet, hasn't it? The Camper World flag is still before you?

That was a state level. That state level is kind of where that came from.

But it still could go up one notch.

could but i think the state so i don't see at this moment in time being critical for sunset beach and i'd rather get it right than just do it correct and so it may be i don't know it could be months it could be months yeah okay all right just want to make sure before we initiate a public hearing and the town has to spend money and all that stuff and and If we have to bring those back at some point, maybe there's other amendments that are necessary that we put them in with that are talked about at some other point. All right. Anything else?

No. That's it. Michael? No. Okay. Sorry to jump ahead there. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion on a planning board summary that we adopt action A, The planning board hereby recommends approval of the proposed amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance with one modification as noted to pavement section one, changing street cross section to pavement design standard and finds that as in neither one consistent nor inconsistent with the town's comprehensive plan 2017 Town of Sunset Beach land use plan. But the proposed amendments are needed to bring the town's UDO in compliance with the North Carolina general statutes and two, that it is in the public interest. Michael, you vote, you can go down. Yes or no? Yes. Yes. I vote yes.

Yes.

Okay. So it is approved three, Thanks, staff, for their help on that.

Yes, thank you. Okay. So now the hot topic of the planning board comments.

And let me tell everybody publicly what I know. is that I believe if you look at the minutes we just approved, the May 16th minute, we discussed adjusting the order such that planning board comments be added and done after the second public period of comments. And I believe maybe I even suggested it. And unfortunately, Richard's not here. But when Richard and myself met with two members of the council, Christy and Mike, Mike specifically asked us, even when we have nothing else to do, we should have a period of public comments for us to hear from the public. And then maybe, even though we can't engage with them, we can have our own discussion to see if something is warranted for us to look at later. My request, and it's just too bad Richard's not here. I don't want to speak for him. That's how I remember that meeting, and my notes indicate Christy was not, I don't believe she was kind of okay with it, but Mike was kind of like, yeah, even if you guys have nothing on your agenda, you should still meet so the public can comment. You can hear from the public, and you can discuss, and maybe you take something up later. So that's why that got proposed and put in. And we agreed, I thought we all agreed at the last meeting, that we would make that adjustment. I believe administration, and I don't know if Ron's going to do it from there, is going to come up with a request in the next section to remove public comments, period. Or, excuse me, planning board comments. Let me stand corrected. The planning board comments permanently from our agenda because and I don't want to put words in administration mouth, but that we might not stay in our lane, and they become chat sessions. So as far as I'm concerned as chairman, the way I will manage the planning board comment, in my understanding of our law right now, our lane is limited to only things that are in the UDO. We have nothing else to do except look at the text of the UDO, and decide if it requires a change or doesn't require a change. So my management of comments will be such that I'm open to any comments and discussion. I don't think it's a waste of time, as long as I see a path towards something that's in the UDO. If it's something for the council, it should go to them. If it's something for Congress, it could go to them. So that's my thinking of the management of this line. If we need to be more explanatory, it could say planning board comments relative to UDO text or something. It's not an idle discussion on, I don't know. Hockey. Hockey or what Congress is doing with flags or something. My point is it should be, I will manage it. This has to be something related to planning board, but specifically related to a path that's in the UDO, not in general ordinances, not in the budget. That's the way I feel. So I know Stuart has been proposing some discussions on crosswalks, which I agree with his concern, but I didn't sort of allow it today because I couldn't see a direct path to changes in the UDO, possibly in 3.33 and pedestrian facilities. So if someone wants to propose a discussion item, I'm open to it, as long as they sort of give me the dots of getting to something like this, or even staff can suggest, here's something we should discuss because here's the dots that take us to section number this, section number this, that we can make an improvement or enhancement to the UDO to get there. So that's my point in it. We'll probably hear from administration next on changes they want to this agenda item, but that's where I'm at. My preference is we leave it in. In my mind, we're going to stay focused, at least as while I'm the chair, which will probably end in January, but that's how I plan to manage it. And I guess if someone's conducting the meeting, they can manage it different if I'm not around. But thoughts, Michael, and then we'll go to Stuart.

No, I agree with your logic, and I'm all for handling it that way as long as you're chairman.

I know you're, we're not happy that I didn't let you bring up crosswalks today or didn't encourage you to bring, but that's what I was trying to everybody, and would staffs help, and maybe they'll be told not to help, but we don't control that, is your point was, your safety issue was good as long as the next step you would say, let's look at these sections to see, you know, maybe it's in the block length thing. Right. Or the road thing. This is where we should look at text to enhance safety. And I'm more holistic. I think we should be looking at overall walkability, crosswalks being one part, multi-use paths or whatever. So if I had to request something of staff, and they can either do it or not do it, is there anywhere in this UDO that we could improve pedestrian safety, walkability, and then we could study those issues and decide if there's an amendment or not. That's what I was trying to get to.

Right.

Not just cut you off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. No, and I agree with you. I guess part of what got me thinking about some of this stuff is the 904 study. And because they came out with some specific text amendments kind of things at the end of that. And so I guess I want to try and pull some of that stuff out of the 904 study that they wanted us to look at, which relate to the UDO.

But I guess, where do you stand on the agenda item of planning board comments, either more specific to UDO leaving it in? I think we have a request to take it out.

I've requested to put it in, so I would like to leave it in.

As far as order, I asked for the order change because I thought that's what Mike wanted. I thought so, too. Here to public and then have a discussion, maybe, if something was interesting.

Correct. Correct. Okay. I had two things under planning board comments.

Okay, go ahead. I have something else too, but go ahead.

One was in administrative comments, can we, now that we've been axed out of site plans and, you know, that kind of stuff, can we get like a planning board direct, planning director, you know, commentary on things that have been submitted just so we, No, and so it goes into kind of the public record so the public knows about it. I mean, it's just dispersing information is all it really is. And it would just be, you know, this one was submitted, this one was submitted, not a discussion about it.

I'm not against that, but I don't know how to do it without probably a text amendment saying that the that there should be notification, I just don't know about it.

I'll bring up an idea or two that I have shared with Mr. Claymore since the council has made, if I can do that under the administrative items. Okay. Because I think it's what you've requested anyway, under the administrative items through that.

Okay. And the second thing I had was, this is directly UDO related, our public hearing process, is not defined in the UDF. So we recently, what brought this to light recently is we did two different text amendments, one for the planning board issue and one for the fence issue. And they followed two different paths. And so I went back to look because it feels like one was rushed and one followed the normal process. And so I went back through the code. I cannot find what the process actually is. It's not defined.

If I recall, and Ron, too, may have to correct me, is that when we redid the UDO, we changed it from a shell to a maze. for planning board public hearings. Correct.

But I'm talking about council, really. Right. But it also relates to planning board because there's no definition of who gets to decide if the planning board wants a public hearing. Who's making that decision? Shouldn't we vote? Just like council, I think council should vote to have a public hearing. I think we should vote to have a public hearing.

Or not. Or not. I don't remember where that code is exactly, but I see what you're talking about. I think we just changed the word from shell to may. But you're correct. I don't recall talking about language saying how we decide.

Correct.

So I'm open to changing that code or looking at, one, just change it back to shell and just do it.

Yeah.

The town didn't like it because of the advertising and all that other stuff. Well, yeah, that's part of this. Less than that, yes, when we decide not to, we should have a motion on that a second, either for speed or because of simplicity, we could say public hearings not required at the planning board level. Here's why someone makes a motion a second and we vote.

Yeah. And the same thing at council. So what started me down this path was that the change to the planning board never got voted on at the council level to actually hold a public hearing. They voted to have a public hearing on the fences, but they never voted to actually hold a public hearing. They just sent an ad to the paper. And so I was thinking, well, is that the correct procedure or whatever? But in the code, it's never defined. It actually basically says that, yeah, they can just call the paper and put an ad in, which doesn't seem right because they're spending money. They should vote on it as a council. But why did the council vote to have a public hearing on the fences and they didn't vote? They never voted to hold a public hearing on them. planning board issue. So I just think in the code, I think in the UDO, we ought to have it defined as what that process is and why, you know, that kind of thing. It's just It's not, I can't.

Ron, too, you can answer this now, or you want to wait until your time to say where that exists.

I can't find it in the code anywhere.

And I went through general statutes also, and I couldn't find it in there. General statutes clearly does not require a public hearing for the planning board on items. Right. The public hearing is required at the council level. All right. But. The planning board has to make a recommendation on an item and do the consistency statement before council holds their public hearing.

Which they didn't do that either.

That is real clear in the statutes. So on the two amendments that you used as an example, they came here, you allowed public comments, went through the process on both items, the fence and the other one. they move forward to council so you've made it you've had a you call it a hearing call it comment period you accepted comments on both items made a recommendation and they move forward to council so from from your role you were consistent with what state statute showed suppliers on our role so so that i'm addressing that so council or statute It says they have to have a public hearing on a map amendment and zoning text amendment, or PDO text amendment, whatever, and then insert those. They had public hearings. They considered your recommendation on both. They saw your consistency statement because they were part of the package. It was advertised properly. It went through the process, and ultimately, both of them got a public hearing, and both of them were rendered, a decision was rendered on those applications. So the public hearings were held.

I want to move on from water under bridge to moving forward.

Right.

So what should we be doing? Because we're only going to be dealing with text amendments from here on. Or map amendments. Or map amendments or zone. I mean, should we go back to we always call a public hearing because our focus is so limited now? Or should we, as Stuart suggests, if we're not going to have a public hearing, we need to do a, a motion and a vote on it if we're going to move it without it. What is best practice?

Let me put it that way. So for rezonings, map amendments, I'm looking at your code now, planning board, public hearing requirement, advertised mail, and posted notice. In the case where the planning board will consider a change in the zoning classification of a parcel, notice of the parcel proposed petition application shall be mailed by first class mail The landowner's sign is posted and we run it in the paper 10 days and not more than 25 days. So for rezonings, it is clear you hold a public hearing, and we advertise it just like we do a council meeting.

So for all rezoning, it's a shell, do it, and we do it.

The way I interpret it, it's a shell. So what about just text amendments? For text amendments, it says in any case where the planning board will consider an amendment, notice of the amendment to be considered may be published once in the newspaper having general circulation. The notice may be published not less than 10 days before the date of the public hearing.

Right. That used to be Shell, I think.

And then Town Council, public hearing for both rezonings and text amendments, they have to hold public hearings.

The question is, if we leave it as a may in that section, should we also add some language on when the planning board chooses not to have a public hearing that we actually have a motion and a vote on it?

Because typically we have a discussion about a text amendment in advance, and I guess we could vote at that point, or if Ron brings it to our attention that we're going to talk about a text amendment the next month, then we could say, hey, that's going to be controversial. Maybe we need a public hearing on that.

Or is the... Best practice, our public comment period of anything on the agenda, which would be that, is sufficient for the public hearing.

That's sufficient for a text amendment, not for a math amendment.

We're advertising the public hearing, excuse me, we're advertising planning board meetings anyway, correct? Can we just nod yes or no? We are posting them on social media, posting them on the town's website. So anyone who's following those, they get notice of those. Should they, I know there's some, they have to be proactive sometimes and actually click on something. But we do post in the Brunswick Beacon at least the week before the meeting. Is that right? For a text amendment. For a text amendment, yes. So they get basically an agenda.

And this is, again, this is not IELTS chatter because... It's related. Yes, but it's important because, and I think I made this statement in a meeting or two ago, people generally get all upset and come out when there's a development and a traffic and all this other stuff. But in some cases, that's too late because the important part is writing the code.

Yep.

So my concern here is that making sure that people can participate and make their comments when we're writing the text, because as we talked about and council has talked about, because this is administrative, if whatever the applicant is applying for satisfies the code, it is a must approve. Right? So these sometimes little text amendments we do, or even though we're limited by just no down zoning, affects what complies later. And it's very important that the public is, even on these things we did today, understand what the state law is on pavement and down zoning because we're writing in the code. So I just want to make sure that we are doing best practice, because once the code is the code, applicants must be approved if they comply. So that the public is aware, they see the text. I see it's more of a pull than a push. The zoning one is more of a push, right? You push stuff to the affected people through letters and posting. This is more of a pull. We do post it online in the newspaper, but you kind of got to look it up to see the detail. But it's probably sufficient, I guess. Best practice is we can all have a different idea of what best practice is.

But I will say that the other communities that I've worked with here recently with anchor point planning and when I was with the COG, most of your smaller communities are not holding a public hearing per se at their planning board level. It doesn't mean they don't hear public comment similar to what you do, but they're not advertising, you know, two weeks before like we would a council meeting for a public hearing on a night. Most of them are having public comment item, you know, it's advertised. Very similar to your current process for for text amendments and so forth. Now, that said, in Wilmington, we had public hearings of the planning, we called them planning commission, they had public hearings on any text amendment or map amendment. So I've seen it, and I had to get used to not advertising for public hearings, because that was ingrained in my mind for 30 years, really, because even in San Bernardino.

Does our advertisement note that the public comment period on an agenda item is available to the public to come and talk about this item. In other words, when we post something like this- I'm not sure. I'd have to- I mean, I look at them on the boxes, but I've seen them so many times, I don't read them anymore when they're in the paper. But in other words, saying that the public can comment at this in the public comment period on agenda items on this date.

I don't think we make that announcement. I think all we do in the beacon is public hearings. Isn't that right, Kimberly? We don't do an announcement that the planning board's going to have a text amendment on this date to discuss and public comments are allowed during that process or anything like that.

I've never seen that.

Well,

So again, back to my point though, is I think even on the council side, there needs to be a process of, you know, they need to vote for it and then it needs to be advertised. You know, there needs to be a sequence of steps in there and I don't see them in our code. So I would like to think about some kind of text amendment that lays out that public hearing establishment and if we need to clean up the planning board side of it, we clean that up too.

Okay.

I don't disagree that we have to make sure our process is clear, stepped out and we follow it. Yeah, it's not clear.

It's not clear in the code. So I guess

place to be here is we all need to read what our here's our process we think it is and then if staff is willing to come up with recommendations to either leave the same or if improvements can be made to clean up the procedure to make sure that public awareness is made and public participation is loud encouraged whatever the proper term is is available okay Anything else on that? No, that's it. Michael, anything? No. One of the things I had, and there were probably more questions than anything, is status of our ETJ member. That administration could... Oops, sorry. And then I guess the other question was the... land use plan survey distributing that information. I thought that was going to be done too. So barring anything else, we can move to the administration side. They can either answer our questions or not. And then if they have a request for changes to the agenda order and content, they can bring that up there and we can look at it. Staff? Staff of one today. Two, sorry. Staff of two today.

Kimberly, just nod your head yes or no, but as far as the ETJ member, I believe the town has sent out letters for people of interest. Maybe we've had one application, I believe, and when that person was called to schedule an interview, they decided they pulled their application. So we have no additional applications on the table for consideration at this time.

Is there a process to remove the ETJ requirement? Is there any?

That's the state law requirement. We're supposed to have equal representation per capita.

So unless we remove ETJ, which is impossible.

Correct. And we've lost two parcels in the ETJ.

So as long as we have ETJ, we must have an ETJ board member.

on the planning board yes just feel like we're limited and only having four of us the process would be to general assembly to change that okay well you asked was that a process i don't want to not answer that plan to move forward is just keep trying the same ways keep trying and i may actually contact i was thinking about this on the ride down today that um like the people who just went through the uh in haddington place area went through the text amendment for the gate over the street. I may reach out to her, not necessarily for her, see if she's interested, but see if she can get some word out that we're needing some applications and maybe that will generate some interest. So give them a voice.

And I think we asked before, and Kim concurred, that our letters going out are going out to the new addresses. That's my understanding. Right. That's my understanding. Like what's the big one over here?

Sanctuary. Sanctuary and stuff. That's my understanding. I could move to ETJ.

You're offering that?

You mentioned site plan process. Yeah. What I had thought about, even when this amendment was being kicked around for transparency's sake, was we can, when we get an application for a major site plan or a major, even a minor site plan, that's not a house being built. Right. We can do a better job at staff level of letting management know. council members when we get those applications in. And I think we have very capable people on staff to put email, not emails, excuse me, but social media posts uh we can make things available on the town's website you know here we got a site plan for las palmeras restaurant yeah um you know it's available here on town's website if you know those are kind of ideas that i've explored with mr claymore and i think he was receptive to doing things like that so we can do a we can do we can try to figure out how to make it more transparent at the staff level okay uh at least to make folks aware of early development you know we don't get a lot yeah well that's why i'm thinking it's not a real big deal because we only get one every yeah so since i've been here you've had what two major site plans made one major subdivision and then i've had two or three minor site plans yeah that's when i will and i say minor site plans those outside of the single family home being built yeah and the council does the monthly newsletter

And they could go in there too.

Right. We can work towards making the process or at least making the public aware of we got a plan for X. Yeah. And going through the process.

Because, you know, even though we did lost Palmaris here, I get all kinds of questions about, What's going on with the vacant building? What's going on next door to it?

I don't know. I have no idea.

I know, but a lot of people think that the Los Palmares is going in the vacant building.

I cleared it up in a meeting. I asked a specific question. It's the site that's next to it. Right. And if you even look in the minutes, because I'm concerned about people driving through that site to get to the other one when you missed a turn, I think that's going to be an issue.

Yeah.

Yeah. they didn't seem open to building a barrier like the general store did or dollar general did that little fence they got that wood fence so that you can't go across country i think that's going to be a problem at their site people are going to miss that turn and go turn into the open site and go across and sure

So I'm thinking of ways to make it transparent. Okay. I don't know that we need to go as far as modifying the code to ordain certain steps, but we can just with our desire to be more transparent.

The only problem with not doing that, then if you're gone, you decide to do something else.

It doesn't follow through because it's not written down. I think we can implement some practices that will be followed through. Okay.

And could we get an update at the planning board meeting?

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I know that was where you were going with the question part of it.

Yeah, just a quick update just so we know, and then it gets out in the public also.

A couple other things. One is related to your question about the survey. I know the survey has been provided to the town. When Anchor Point Planning was asked to be put on pause, we did provide the survey, raw data to the town.

The town hasn't but hasn't published it.

Correct. But I will say that Anchor Point Planning's contract for the land use plan has been, there's been an addendum made, council has voted on it, and so the plan will be moving forward. Mr. McLeod is scheduled to be at the July 13th council meeting to talk about the land use plan and answer any questions that council may have. Hopefully roles will be defined and maybe have some ideas how they want to move forward at the July 13th meeting, we likely wouldn't have anything back in front of you if you are remaining in the process. So not another update or another chapter or anything like that before August, for your meeting in August. As a result of, but we're still, the contract has been, there's been an addendum approved by council. I believe they mentioned that at their last meeting or June 1st meeting, whatever it was. But there's still things to be worked out with that. So, and then also Anchor Point Planning's contract to provide planning services also was renewed. Yeah. So. We're stuck with you. We're stuck with you. You're stuck with me. Until you're not.

Drink that from the record, Ken.

Until you're not. So, right now I'm continuing to be, you know, your contract planner and we'll be attending these meetings and those things. I believe that addressed everything I needed. Ken, do you have anything else?

The agenda?

Does administration have a request on a change to the agenda? I've been copied on a letter or provided a letter that I thought was sent to the planning board members. Yes or no, Kimberly?

No. No.

No planning board members from them? Okay. But it does say planning board comments shall be removed from your agenda for all future meetings. It was addressed by the mayor.

Okay. Is there any reasoning?

About the amount of planning hours and costs for the contract planner. Planning board will not have general discussions of the regular meetings. So the concern is I'm sitting here with the meetings and my time could be spent better doing or more wisely doing other things for the down. But as a planner, I need to be at your planning board meetings.

So they're going to adjust the rules that we put through that haven't been approved yet?

Yeah, they never have. It's been my recommendation that council does review and should be approving the rules and procedures for the various boards that are having rules. I think I made that statement back in April.

Do we need a time limit on these client board meetings?

I'm not going to propose a down limit.

Because we're almost at 55 minutes now.

So it seems like it's a cost issue of time. OK.

But there has been a request to not have public comments. Excuse me, planning board comments. If I said public earlier, I meant planning board comments. Yeah, I know what you meant.

Okay. So if they want to strike that, then they can strike it for an agenda, and so be it.

Okay. Anything else going on that we should know?

Not that I'm aware of. Well, I will say we are going to take the color's text amendment will be on the July 13th council meeting. Oh, yes. They discussed public hearing for that, and council voted to approve your text amendment, the text amendment that you guys recommend approval on to allow that gated street, but it was a split vote, and the mayor had to make a deciding vote, so they did vote to approve that.

And, well, and so, and again, when they pass those, we'll get copies of rules. No, text amendment.

Yes, when they get the amendment. I've gotten them, yeah, this time.

Right, so as long as we all get copies to insert them into the books or whatever. Yes, you typically get them, yes.

I don't know that I've gotten this, Tom.

I wouldn't say typically.

It occurs.

We'll go back. When somebody remembers to do it, I guess. Well, one, we need the major one. We just changed a lot. So we need to copy. I'm assuming that was passed and there's an ordinance and signed and all that good stuff.

I haven't received it yet.

So we need that copy. I'm sure there is one. And then likewise, to keep our records up to date. Okay, next is public comments. Does anyone have any public comments on any item? Okay, hearing no public comments, we'll move on to adjournment. Does anyone like to make a motion to adjourn? I'll make that motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.