Planning Board - Regular Meeting

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I'd like to call the July 10th, 2025 meeting um for the SURF CD Planning Board to order. I need a motion to approve the agenda. Motion Second. I have a first and a second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. The agenda is approved. Next on our agenda is the minutes from the July 12th. I'm sorry, not July, June 12th, 2025 planning board meeting. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion to approve and a second the minutes of the June 2025 minutes. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Minutes are approved. Okay, we have no public comment. All right, Jeremy. Next. Um, is there items for consideration? Yes, ma'am. Members of the planning board, thank you. Give me one second to get going here. Yeah. Next slide, Chris. All right. Thank you, members of the planning board. This is a preliminary plan approval for Applewood

Trace phase 2. This is a proposed subdivision located on NC210. I believe most of you should be familiar with the project. Um it has been through both planning board and council many times. Um most recently at the November planning board in December 2024 city council for a conditional master plan revision. This phase of the project is proposing 147 single family town home lots. Again the property is located just directly adjacent to Turtle Creek on NC210. The property is zoned plan unit development CZ4. That's the conditional zoning designation. Before you on the screen right now is the approved conditional zoning plan. Again, this was approved by the city the town council at their December 24th meeting. This map is the phase two of the project in your agenda and before you on the screen. It matches the master plan overall in terms of traffic improvements to the site. Those will all come with phase one. Uh the connections are to Turtle Creek and through Edgecomb Drive and then out manhollow road out to 17 are the two primary connections. and the recently approved Colonial Heights next door to it will also be a future connection. I could dive into some more information in regards to the transportation improvements, uh, but they are in your

agenda and they relate to improvements to the US 17 intersection. Um, signalization at their intersection with NC210 deceleration access lanes and those will all come in with phase one. So before this is if this is approved, those improvements will happen before this phase even develops. Part of this project too is a connection to the surf city elementary middle school. It's identified on this on the master plan as well as this phase two. In regards to environmental impacts, uh they are providing buffers and landscaping around all the wetlands that are in there at 25 ft buffering around them. Uh in addition to landscaping required by the town that is our street trees, all streets will meet the town and NC DOT standards. And with all that said, staff is recommending approval of this phase two. Mr. True Hatcher is in attendance from Mckim and Creed and he along with staff would be happy to answer any questions that the board may have. Mr. Hatcher, do you have any comments? Uh, no, ma'am. You did a great job. Thank you. Uh, everything is as it was, uh, approved on the council for the master plan. There's no additional changes being requested for this, so it should be pretty straightforward. I'm happy to answer whatever you guys have. For the record, would you state your full name, please? Yeah. My name is Drew Hatcher. I'm a project engineer for McKimman Creek. Anyone have any questions for Jeremy or Mr. Hatcher?

Looks pretty cut and dry to me. I feel like we all know it by heart. So I will make a motion to approve phase two. Mr. Ward seconds. So we have a first and a second. All in favor? Any opposed? Project is approved. Thank you. That will go to the August town council meeting. Okay. Um, next on our agenda is chairperson and vice chairperson election. Um as directed in our um handbook committee guidelines, it is stated that each July chair and vice chair um elections are made. I am not made aware of anyone that has reached out to Jeremy or myself to seek one of these physicians. Is that correct? Correct. So at this time you would entertain any motion any nominations if there is none at least a motion to maintain the current officers. I'll make that motion.

I'll second. We have a first and a second to um keep our current chair and vice chair. Current chair is myself and vice chair is Steve Pasquantonio. Everybody in favor. Any opposed? Motion is carried. It's what happens when you're not here, Steve. Okay. So, uh, for updates and reports, um, at your place, uh, just real quick, there was a development update status just justformational. So, you if anyone as a board member, folks are going to always ask you, hey, what's going on? What's being built over here? I gave you a list and status of the most recent and biggest projects that we've been working on. Not I wouldn't say me. I've only been here two months, but projects that are in the works that we see being constructed or are still going through a review or some type of permitting. Um at last month's meeting, I discussed uh job growth corridors. Um it is my last slide tonight and I'll skip over to it. It was the new um presentation, Chris. Um let's see. It is that it is at your place. It is the job growth corridor map. And as I discussed last month um in the town's strategic plan uh passed by city council, one of the goals identified then there was identifying growth corridors. It doesn't necessarily have to be like a overlay district like zoning. Um what I'm looking at and working with this board is proposing an overlay that is built into the

comprehensive lane use plan and with it policies. So when we have lane use decisions to look at there'll be policies that we'll have that will make it we'll give reasons to support the type of businesses that have high employment. um working on those policies and I'll bring them back before the board next month and it would this corridor map is just one iteration. Um I give it to you now so you can look over the next month and say you don't agree going from 50 to the Ho County line and then from Capefir Community College up 210 to 17 and then of course the entire 17 corridor. If we were to get projects in there that had high employment, we would develop policies that would support those decisions in favor of and maybe even recommend conditions or requirements that we would put on those developers uh for who they're employing, where they're pulling that pool base, um size or impact on traffic. Um, but I wanted to put something in front of you ill that gave you some illustration what I was talking about when we discussed job growth corridors. So that's what the map is there for you to look at and um over the next month via email or call and discuss any thoughts that you have on it. Um, but I think it'll be a good tool to look to update and propose to the town council to make a new addition to the comprehensive lane use plan. And before I move on to the next one, anyone have any questions on that? Again, like I said, I have I'll develop I'll draft policies. They're not I don't want to be the the one that says these are the what we need to do, but working

with this board. Uh the recommendation to council will come from you. Um, so I may try to get those out to you earlier uh before way well well before our August meeting before you on the screen now in a large handout I gave you is pulled from our comprehensive land use plan. Um, our comprehensive land use plan identifies five areas for policies and goals that the town is to continually look to achieve or ongoing ongoing efforts. And as I said last month, one of the duties of this board is to do a status update to town council on how Laney's decisions and how the town is making strides in achieving these goals. And so this is the first section and it deals with natural hazards. Um there are several goals and I've outlined in the status of what the town has done, currently doing or would do in the case that one of these come up. Um one of the goals talks about shoreline resiliency, shoreline um protection, and we that's an active thing. We've doing we've done it and we'll do it more uh when the uh USS the Army Corps engineer project kicks off. Um there is a number of other items that this board does in its routine lane use decisions. Um there are items that our current zoning ordinance already addressed and do in relation to natural hazards. And one of the bigger things that impacts this section of the comprehensive lane use plan is last month um the southeastern hazard mitigation plan update was kicked off and that involves Enslow Pender

Brunswick New Handover and Columbus County. It's a large regional hazard mitigation plan that defines and sets us sets up our goals regionally and then specifically to each municipality as to what we need to do to prepare ourselves not only for hurricanes but for other disasters that could arise. And this these goals from the comprehensive comprehensive lane use plan already they they address how the town should be doing that and participating in that hazard mitigation plan update is one of them. Um and I'll be happy to as you've looked this over happy to answer any questions that you might have that I can hopefully answer for you. And I'll be back next month with another section that updates this. And um the idea is probably October this year, we'll have all five sections updated, package it up to as a presentation to town council come December or January. Can you briefly describe what the community rating system is? Which goal is that? It's the first one. So the community rating system that deals with floodplane development. Um the CRS is a it's a program ran by the national flood plane in flood insurance program um depend it is a manual of guidelines and criteria that communities participating have to maintain and achieve and then you are graded every five years audited are you doing this and then they grade you on a scale from one to 10 one being the best um and then That number as for a community is used in as a kind of like a ISO rating for fire. Whatever your fire department's rated, it benefits your fire insurance or your insurance.

This would benefit flood plane insurance for coastal towns is a very large undertaking because it does take a lot of record management and staff time. And so what we are doing right now is, and don't take this as a negative thing, but what would it take for at minima minimum for us to come in at a 10? 10's better than nothing. And it gets you a reduction in your um insurance rates. And we are looking right now, we we probably already do enough to come in to the CRS system and get a 10 rating right off the bat. Uh we maintain our elevation certificates. We do notifications um in terms of flood hazard areas. We review that. We have standards. We have a flood plan development ordinance. So we do the minimum probably to come in at a 10. And then there's just it's a scaling items of the stuff the town could do. I mean to get a one, you basically have to not allow development in the flood plan at all. There's not I don't believe North Carolina has any ranked one CRS areas. Um that's right. That's what the CRS is. We are actively looking at it and it is one when I came on to the town that is one thing that the manager and I discussed um trying to get the town identified in there. Um not sure if North Topsole Beach or Topsole Beach are, but I know that a lot of our South Beaches are CRS members or participants holding Sunset, Ocean Isle, um Shalot, all those southern where they still face the same things we do, but they were able to do it. Um I believe Baldhead Island itself is a six or five. And I mean that's a very environmentally sensitive area.

Like to see the criterion for what they're doing. What um we'll be happy to share it. Um it's publicly available. They've got different sections that that deal with uh mapping. That's one area we benefit a lot. Town does it own mapping. We've recently updated flood maps based on the state mapping system. Um, and we have brochures, we provide information, and we routinely talk to people about flood insurance or flood flood plane management when they come in for permits. The mapping system we don't have any control over. No, but we maintain it online. Some communities don't have it readily available. They have to use the the um NC frizz mapping, but we have it where you can easily get to it locally. Thank you, Jeremy. That is all I have for updates. You have anything else? No, ma'am. Make a motion to adjurnn. I have a first and a second to adjurnn the meeting. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Anybody ever [Music]