Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

conference will now be recorded.

Call to order the February 3rd regular meeting of the planning council commission rather. And um we'll turn to um Mary Ellen for an invocation. If everybody can stand. Loving God, as we begin this meeting, we ask for your guidance and wisdom. Help us to work together in harmony and purpose. Grant us clarity of thought and unity of mind so that our decisions may reflect your will and contribute to the greater good of all involved. Bless our discussions and efforts with your grace. Good evening. The pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for All right. Angie, can we administer the um votes to uh

Mr. John? Could you uh do that? And John, could you please stand? I the younger son I should we do it at the same time. center. I Janette Dubinowski do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I am duly qualified according to the constitution of the state of South Carolina that I am duly qualified according to the constitution of the state of South Carolina to exercise the duties of planning and zoning commission member

to exercise the duties of planning and zoning town of Surfside Beach, South Carolina Beach, South Carolina. The positions in which I have been appointed the position. I will the to the best of my knowledge and ability. I will to the best of my knowledge and ability discharge the duties thereof. discharge the duties thereof and preserve, protect, and defend. preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the State of South Carolina. The Constitution and the Constitution of the United States

in the Constitution of the United States. So help me up. So help me out. Further, I solemnly swear Further I solemnly swear during this term as appointed official during this appointed official for the town of Surfside Beach that I will equally for the town of Surfside Beach that I will equally fairly and impartially fairly and impartially to the best of my ability and skill exercise

to the best of my ability and skill exercise. The trust reposed in for me. trust repose unifor which I will use my best endeavors and I will use my to preserve the peace and to preserve the peace and carry the effect according to the laws and purposes and carry into effect according to the laws and purposes for which I've been appointed for which I've been appointed. So help me God.

So help me God. We'll ask you when you're ready. Before we go any further, um I would uh ask Janette and John. Uh well we could start with John since Janette is signing Janette. Yeah Janette since John will be signing to introduce themselves and tell us how you came to be in Surfside Beach and what drew you to the

Sure. Uh good evening. My name is Janette Duvenowski. I have been a homeowner here for almost six years now and um permanently moved here for the last two and a half years. I came here over COVID one one time for a vacation and met with a realtor the same day and so I want to move here. This is the greatest place and I have a background in uh educationally in business and economics. Um 30 plus years in business in finance uh regulatory contractual um risk management efficiency and effectiveness that kind of work at um at a major bank. And I just I want to give back to the community and especially have a passion around the uh business 17 and would like to see that to continue to uh grow and and bloom and look good for our city.

Welcome. Thank you, John.

All right. Good evening, everyone. My name is John Mson. Um, I am blessed to be married to my wife Susan who is from Myrtle Beach and her maternal grandmother owned a home at the corner of Cedar and 14th North. She passed away 25 years ago. So for 25 years, we have had a family vacation home here in Surfside. So, I've been coming here for 25 years. And uh last sometime last year, my son said he wanted to buy my house in Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta. And since my wife and I both work remotely, we said, "Well, what the heck? We knew we were going to retire here. We'll go ahead and move down." So, we did on a snowy day last January 24th. And um in uh my prior city where I lived, I was an elected official and um very engaged in the politics of uh my town and the state of Georgia, moved down here. My wife knew I was missing something. She said, "John, you need to get engaged." So I did. And um don't know if it's a blessing or a curse yet, but that's why I'm sitting here in front of you today. appreciate the opportunity to to serve my community best abilities.

Thank you, John. And I'll pass to you. Yep. Um we have no public hearing uh tonight. So, we'll just skip over that and we move on our agenda to agenda approval. Uh can I get a motion for approval of the agenda? Second. Do we need any discussion? No. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Okay, our agenda is approved. Uh, now moving on to minutes approval. Uh, the minutes from our January 6th meeting, I think, were circulated. I hope everybody was able to um uh get to those. Um and I get a motion for approval of the minutes. I'll move to the minutes of January 6, 206. and a second wasn't here. So,

can you any discussion? Who second? Uh, there's no discussion. Uh, can we advert please? All those in favor of approving the minutes of January 6, 2026 say I. I. Any opposed? I'm being recused myself since I wasn't here. I'm neither forward nor against, but I shouldn't be voting on it since I wasn't here. Same with me.

Yeah. Sorry. open the floor to um public comments on agenda items. Uh do we have anyone to address agenda items? Please give us your full name and address.

Uh my name is Wayne Williams. I stay on 16th Avenue, Surfside South. My question is uh I wanted I wanted to attend this meeting tonight because I had a couple of questions about the new town hall and how it's going to be funed and I know that's going to be addressed probably later on in the next town council meeting but the mention at the last town hall count council meeting the American Rescue Plan was to help out fund the need to build the town hall. Upon this upon reading about those funds were designated for corona virus state and local recovery activities these funds should could be designated for variety of things improved to the community. I think the town should move I mean should be more widely informed of all possibility using of these funds other than just a new town. Even if the funds are legally available for this building it is the best way to benefit the citizens of Suride Beach. I wouldn't want a building that isn't directly needed to become a tax burden to this community in the future. I don't exactly understand the benefit to the building. Is it going to be a smaller town hall than what we previously existing building is now? And it's going to eat up eat up potentially valuable real estate opportunities to improve the town. And that means we could expand the town

in the attempt of of town cers. the beach. The comprehensive plan is to provide to provide a framework for future growth and development of town. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. else wishing to offer public comment on agenda items.

We'll move to the director's report. Director Berg,

thank you, Madam Chairman, members of the commission. Uh only got a couple items for you here this evening. Uh first of all is uh to remind you and of course you all know about the February 9th workshop on the design overlay district. That's going to be a workshop um with the town council and business committee. Uh we thought it was advantageous to get all three boards in the same room together. They hear one another on how we intend to move forward with the design overlay. How we intend to modify the town overlay. Um, and perhaps as important, how we intend to look at Highway 17 as a as a visual visual basically the front door to our community. Uh whenever anybody drives into a community um studies have shown that within three minutes the member of the public who has never visited that community makes up its mind in three minutes on whether it's a good community, whether it's something they want to do they stop and stay or is it something they just want to drive through as quickly as possible. Um I don't know where we fit on that meter. Uh but I I can tell you I think we we could improve greatly upon the visual appearance of the highway itself. Um so I don't want anybody to get the impression that um that conversation is going to be wholly uh directed at uh what the private sector can do. It's also a an open communication to what the community feels the town should be doing uh to improve that rightway. Now you all know it's a SC DOT right ofway and there are numerous restrictions involved with that. Uh but the SC DOT has a manual um which is specifically built for communities wanting to add identity to

their their portion of the highway. So there's they've created this new manual um that directs communities on how to do that. And um I plan on bringing some examples of other highways and other communities that have imparted some of those um practices that the SCBO manual has in place. Uh this evening um later on in the agenda I'm going to be talking about sign regulations and it's sign regulations primarily directed at a creating a new section of the sign code which exempts the town from having to if you will get its own permits to erect signs and things like that. everything from parking signs to directional signs to u celebrating a a hoola dance on the beach or whatever it is. Um I'm moving moving a opportunity forward so that it's clear to members of the community um that the town does have maintain some sense of of its own you know being able to do things that it wants to do to advertise um you know events uh events at fire department events or police department those sorts of things. So it it clarifies that. Currently, the ordinance does not do that. And I've had members of the public query uh the department about, well, did the town get a permit to put that up? Answer is always, well, no, no. Um, you know, most communities exempt themselves from their own, you know, if you will, restrictive commercial signage regulations to do what I'd call public signage. And that again scans the gamut from everything from regulatory control, parking signs, speed limit signs, which are are uh dictated by state law, how big the

numbers and everything have to be on all those all the way down to uh I've seen posters placed on major corners that announce an event that we're having, things like that. There are members of the community who kind of get a little riled up when they say, "Well, I can't put a poster that big on my property. How come?" And I'm, "Well, you're a private you're a private entity. You're a private business. The town is just simply exempting itself to do that." So, we'll talk a little bit more about that later. And lastly, um, today I made what I would call the first serious steps toward, uh, retaining a firm, uh, to do three things for us online. zoning permits, building permits, and enforcement actions. And it will be on a uh it'll be online. It'll allow people to completely and totally um submit applications for building permits and zoning permits. And it will also provide uh what I'd call a public window, a public windshield for members of the public who um I call our our silent code enforcement officers out there who take it upon themselves every Monday morning to rattle my email chain pretty hard about things that they've seen going over the weekends. We're actually going to have an online portal where people are actually going to be able to make uh anonymous u complaints uh to us directly. Um and they will then see uh in real time our followup on each and every one of those like when do we first go out there, when do we photograph it, when do we site them, how many days do they have to react and those sorts of things. So, it's going to be a I think I most of you know when I first came here, I I I said I wanted this department to change in two ways. I wanted my department to be much more

transparent than it's been in the past. And I also wanted to offer a level of service uh that uh we haven't been able to offer because right now uh we are still stuck in 1979 doing everything on paper and that's just not the way to that's just not the way to file. correctly. That's not the way to expedite things and it's certainly not what I would call a user friendly process for most people. So the we made the first step today toward receiving a proposal refer to do that. We've also received a proposal today uh which will which you'll all learn to refer to as right and rightspot will allow you to go online type in your address and the site will tell you exactly what zoning district you're in and what flood plane district you're in. Um, nine times out of 10, I can tell you that when we receive a zoning application for any kind of building in the town, those two spots on the application are always left blank because no one knows what their zoning is and no one really knows what their flood plane is because the flood plane, as you know, meanders all around the town in sort of ways and in ways in which there's actually some lots that are in one flood plane and the the neighboring flood plane. So, u it's really important for us to do that. So, um looking forward to that. Um hopefully, uh I'm looking to launch both of those at by July 1st. Um so, I've got my fingers crossed. Hopefully, I get everybody at town hall pulling the uh tug rope in the same direction as I'm trying to take it and uh we can then enter the 20th century. That concludes my director's report. I'd be glad to answer any questions any of you might have.

Um, just a quick comment. Uh, anonymous complaints. I just can't imagine what that what you're going to see. Yeah. We're going to see. The problem I have with anonymous complaints is we get the town gets a lot of um public media and complaints from people who talk like they're from Surfside, but they're from out of town. I think there should be a way to limit these complaints to people who either live or own property. I would agree. Uh if you can figure out how to do it, but still remain anonymous

and still remain anonymous. And the reason we want an animity is uh we don't want anybody out there, you know, we don't want any like I'd call it retribution happening out there. Like I don't want neighbors getting into, you know, you know, piston cuffs out in front yard. over a tree location or something crazy like that. Uh, but if there's a way perhaps that we can verify through a driver's license number or something like that where we can run it through the DMV to find out what their actual address is on their driver's license. That might be one way that I'm trying. But if you think of anything in the meantime, please let me know. Glad try that. TMS number or PIN number. TMS or PIN number. Property owner number.

Yeah. That'll tell us who the property owner is and hopefully. Yeah, that that would probably be probably enough. That would serve as probably TMS number. That means you own property in town. Well, you'd have to match that up. I'd have to match that up with what that data is that they're telling me. Yeah.

Yeah. Um like I said, if any of you think of any brilliant ideas on how we do that, I'm all ears. So, think about that. uh we'll follow up on all complaints and uh you know I can tell you from experience having only been here seven months that not every complaint is an actual violation. Uh a lot of people just like I call it ringing their neighbor's doorbell and running off and setting the bag on fire and running. Um so uh you know we'll check them all out. It will create a a bit of a a bit of a backlog for the enforcement officer, but I want people in this community to feel like they have the right to um make a complaint and we'll follow up with them. And if we follow up on the complaint, we'll let that person know we're following up. And it's also going to be available to all of you. You're going to be able to see which complaints we're receiving, which complaints we're following up on, and which ones are ultimately going the way of fines in court. We'll take it, you know, we're going to take it that far. So, you'll be able to see in real time how we're handling each and each one of those.

So, um to Larry's or to the point about the tax map number that is readily available on the county site. And so if I were I to be a deviant person and want to make it look like Larry is filing a complaint about someone would be very easy for me to pull up his tax number. So yeah, like I said,

yeah, I've been doing I can't think of a foolproof way right off the top of my head. I really can't. Um hopefully uh we have honorable people in the town who won't take advantage of that and just be blowing us up every Monday morning. But uh you know no people that quick if the whoever is providing the technology. So it it's very simple for the person who's inputting the data to have the fields set up such that the complaint itself registers as visible to the public. But the TMS number and other publicly available information that somebody could track down who it is that does not have to be

available to the public. So the technology platform, whoever you're talking to can easily just say, "Okay, when you're putting it in for the purposes of verification, give us your driver's license, a picture, whatever you want." But that's not available to the public. All they see is whatever the complaint is. whatever the conflict. So, you should you should be able to to get the information that's publicly available without that being publicly available and and nail down if they are a property owner or not. Yeah. And I was just thinking about the ones we've received currently. Most people will tell you their name on the complaint and I'll tell you.

Yeah. But they don't think that that name is going to be broadcast like this. You know, a lot of people do put their name in that that field. Oh yeah. I would also suggest that you might want to put a limit over a period of time like okay you get you know four complaints a year up your basket. Yeah you know use them wisely anyway that's probably a really good idea just because there are people who uh anything better to do.

Yeah just have having fun with us. Yeah. Um just one thing I would say is um we may not want to use any personal identifying information like driver's license because then it kind of ups the cost of the project and you have to do encryption and whatever else to protect that data. So you know I think like the public data would be better

better next item which is the first business item is the election of the vice chair. Um, have I got um a nomination? Madam, I move to nominate Larry McKeen as vice chair.

Second. We don't need a second. Yeah. Um, then we just move on to vote. Any other nomination? Any other nomination? No other nomination. Okay. um wins by acclamation. By acclamation, can we just uh approve Larry as our new vice chair? I welcome Larry. Thank you. Good.

Okay, now we need to move on to um uh preach and associate as being our next presentation. One second. Would you like the lights lower?

Thank you for trying to keep you away. Thank you for having us tonight. Um, my name is Michael Spino region associates. I'm the project manager for this job. Here with me today is Peter Waspner, who is the lead designer for this project. And tonight we will be giving the same presentation that we gave a week week ago to your town council. Excuse me. Can you speak a little louder? The people in the back can't hear you.

Yes. Tonight we'll give the same presentation uh that we gave a week ago to your town council. So, we're going to review uh the exterior of the building, the different building components, and then we'll look at the interior pieces of it, and then kind of what our what our costs are at this point. Right now we've completed the schematic design and design development stage. And so um we would look for the town to approve us to go into construction documents which is another phase slotted for about three and a half months. Um and then from there the project would get bit out and couple months for bidding and then we would go into construction. So uh the first slide here shows our conceptual site plan. Um if there's additional questions on this, we do have a more um kind of defined engineering site plan, but as you can see here, we're occupying the space that the old chamber building was set on.

Keep that on. Can I ask a quick question? Where is that? Just so I understand. Yeah. So, right out uh we're getting confused. Right out this way. It's right across the street. That bacon grass block. Yep. The big empty vacant lot. Right here. Okay. Cool. Because to this gentleman's point that he was making earlier about the use of land. I was like, you know, I don't had seen. It's okay. Where's we're in the building that's just on the kind of plan south here. Yeah. Like that shadow where the shadow is at the bottom. Got it.

So the there was a previous building here that's been uh taken down. I guess the building had some issues with it. I don't know the full story behind it. Um so they've asked us to to come up with a new design. So this is the site plan here. Uh we're utilizing all of the existing parking. Um just reworking, restriping that area a little bit again just to try to save some some money and make this project as uh cost effective as possible. Um move on to floor plans. So we have two sets of floor plans. One is the chamber setup. So when we have um when you have your council, the next and I'll walk you through I don't know. Have you guys seen this previous?

Yeah. No, I mean we got the document, but we can talk. I'm going have to step over here for a second.

So, the the main uh the building is really kind of anchored around this main kind of uh meeting space here. Um you have executive conference over here. And again, this is for a chamber setup. So, town council, some furniture, storage, AV, um some public restrooms, some uh utility spaces. Um, we'll have our mechanical yard that's screened in with light materials to the building. Um, we have an entryway lobby coming in. We have a pay window, uh, cleric storage, and then a few offices for judge, associate judge, um, and a side entry point here. So, pretty straightforward building. Uh, very similar to

question. You want us to hold our hand? Go ahead. You can Yeah, you can ask them. I I was just curious why the lobby was so big. Is there other uses of that being in the vision?

Um, so the lobby sizing is really so you have a little bit of big function space uh coming into the chamber courtroom. Um, if you notice here, if you've been on a busy night, everyone kind of squeezing into this main entry piece can get a little bit chaotic. So, you want to have enough pre-unction space so that we don't have kind of a a bottleneck at that front door. And if you think about things that that are needed too, security of the staff. So that's an area where we can have scanners and and make sure that everyone that's entering the building um it's doing so in a safe safe way. So that's why it's a slightly larger.

It just seems really wide too, like couldn't the lobby be more, you know, cut off at the ends a little bit if you're going to do screening and gathering of people? It looks like the lobby's pretty big and the the square part at the bottom. The long hallways just seem a little bit ineffective. Um, we can certainly look at that. Yeah, those could be rooms. I mean, you could even have two additional conference rooms there, maybe. I don't know how big that is.

Um, the right So, the right side is almost like a sub lobby. It's the the pay window for court. So that sort of you kind of have to have that. Then the left side is just symmetry and restrooms service. Um that when we size these square footage wise, we we usually do enough for the entire group to break out.

So that's why it feels a little bit large. And due to the site and the sliminess of the site, we can't come back any further forward. have it all in front. So, we're kind of responding to a lot of things, function, sight, symmetry. Um, so do you foresee like, and maybe somebody who understands this more than I do, but where the pay window is, do we think we'll have chairs there or something for people waiting to pay? Yes,

we put a couple in there, but I think we need to as we get further into the design, we'll specify. It would help the visual to kind of see what the purpose of the space is. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you.

But our role here is not really the design per se of the building. It is the um building and its relationship to the apprehensive plan. Uh so I be with not as um uh functioning as should this space be reconfigured or that space be reconfigured as long as um it's uh meeting the elements of the comprehensive plan. That's where we need to be um focusing our attention. Thank you. the comprehensive plan is this week.

Yeah, that's our Bible.

I do think there is some living to what Peter said because you have uh the space will serve as your council chambers but also as port there is similarities between the two functions but there's also some differences. people sit outside and then have to go into the ch into the courtroom. So, we kind of have to blur the line between between the two things. Um here's that setup in a court function. So, you can see that that death center piece changes a little bit. Um we have a jury jury box, detainee, attorneys, um then the judge and witness and clerk configuration. Otherwise, it remains the same. As we look at the exterior, um we can see this is the main facade that's coming in from the parking area. And so very um kind of uh sight specific design. We picked up some from some of the characteristics of the fire department. You know, we have a lot of the same materials in mind. uh maybe you know slightly different colors but uh you have brackets you have traditional columns uh kind of you know really distinct kind of entry sequence with these double set doors with transoms and side lights so it clearly identifies this is our main entry as we move to this is the elevation facing the highway um so very similar to the front elevation uh but because all of our access is from the parking lot in this kind of campus uh scenario that you have here. We've made everything the same, but we've added uh Bahama reviewer shutters uh in lie of entry doors. Um but other than that, this this facade is identical to the art.

I have a quick question. Yes. Has it been this may sound frivolous, but I think it's important to have 17 will look. Has it been determined yet? Is it going to be a white building or is it going to be a purple building? Um I think we haven't finalized that yet, but I think if um it'll be creams and whites off the off the standard whatever's on here that's white or cream. So you do have our design overlay color schemes. Yeah, we have all this might this might be more that helps. Yeah. So, I just jumped ahead uh so that you could get an idea of some of those color patterns. So, white trim uh slightly off-white for the siding.

Yeah. Um gray uh s metal roof to add specific identity to the building. Um I just wondered about all the windows if there's any security concerns about that since this is a court that the security uh is really in the courtroom. So that's right. Right. Um that the judges have their own access um and their own borders. Um that's pretty secure. So the security is really in the back. And so the the Bahama shutters that I mentioned back here, they're just faux shutters on the wall. No windows there. Oh, okay. That's smart.

Yes. Just to give it a look like it's Appreciate that. I'm an imposter. So I Same for the the jury. They work. Yeah, windows there, but yeah. So, it's hard to read because the the walls pushed, but you know, these are your windows here kind of in the the main lobby space. Um, like Peter said, you have a separate entry for judge. Um, potentially for entertaining, too, if that comes into play. You have some windows here, but nothing in the courtroom itself. We tried to make that as secure as possible. I have one quick question. Yes, mate.

Um, I'm a safety-minded guy. I'm looking at fire exits out of the courtroom. Uh I only see two. I see the front door and the u down by the judges area. Yes. Um is that really enough? Yes. Yes. Okay. That's all. That's all.

Yeah. Yeah. We did study that um for your egress width based on your ox. Um, and again, it's it's these rooms are a little bit difficult because you have kind of a fixed seating, not really fixed seating, but you have the deis area. Um, which is not you're never going to have a bunch of people. It's not a standing room, right? So, you don't pack that full of people. Um, so really there's kind of a line in the middle if you minus that circulation space and everything else. That's what you need to get out. And then there each of them are separated. They're uh further than uh 2/3 from each other. So, I think or two/3s are diagonal. So yes, I think we got that. It's a sprinkle building as well. More safety.

When we were talking about um the windows that are on the parking lot um side, those are the only um u windows in which light would come into the building. Is that

No, it was um Let me jump back to I'll just go elevation by elevation here. So, this is your parking lot side. So, you have glazing here. So, you'll have Bahama shutters down low, but then you also have transom up above. Um, you have windows here, here, here, and here. And then as you move around the building, you have a similar um Bahama shutter with transom windows above. Some windows over here. Same thing on that side. As you move to this side, you have some more windows. I think what we were saying is that the the council chamber and the courtroom itself don't have windows in it. It's more of a security thing. Um you don't want to have that glazing in there. So, but all the other rooms are served by or most other rooms aside from kind of like storage rooms and mechanical spaces are served by some sort of window and natural light.

And um the windows are they ones that are hurricane resistant resistant? Yes. So there's in yes and no. Um so what we've learned with our work in coastal communities um these that are protected by a Bahama shutter, those are going to be the Bahama shutters themselves will be impact resistant. So you can go and simply close it and latch them and they're secure. So the glazing behind it does not need to be impact resistant because there's no reason to spend the money if the Bahama shutters are doing it. But all of the ones that are regular windows without without any Bahama shutters, those are all impact free.

And are they also um I think we said the word glazed. I guess I would refer to that way that way. Are they glazed in a way that um makes them uh good for controlling the temperature inside the building? Yes. They'll all be low low windows. Yeah. So insulated, low E. Yes. We'll try to protect as much as possible. And we do have some good overhangs too that that helps with some of the solar radiation. I think what you're what you're mentioning.

Yes. Yes. I'm um the whole HVAC system and what have you as part of the at least I view it as being part of the resiliency idea that we're supposed to be examining.

Yes. Absolutely. And we are still working through this right now, but we are looking to uh incorporate the existing generator that's here on site and put this building back up to that. Um, and so there's a number of things with the current generator, but we're we're working through that with town staff to make sure that uh that we have that ability to hook that up and have backup power over not only emergency, but some key functions, functional spaces. One quick I guess architectural question is uh is the building design any level of lead certified

uh lead certification was not part of our contract but the principles that are behind lead have been incorporated as we talk about natural light a lot of the a lot of the transom windows that you see so they can bring light deep space. Yeah. You know, Bahama shutters are great, but they cast shadows and they obstruct views. And so, um, we've we've tried to put as many overhangs on some of those transom windows. Solar radiation is probably one of your biggest issues climate like this. Well, there I mean, there's a lot of things that go into lead certification. I was just thinking about, well, is that something we can check a box and say, hey, we built a, you know, lead level. It wouldn't be platinum, but, you know, lead level silver or lead. If that's something that the town wants to do, we we absolutely can.

And that's not my call to make. I was asking you Yeah. to figure out if that was part of Yeah. What the objective? It is not currently, but we are designing with those principles in mind. So, we're looking at energy efficiency with uh the lighting systems, right? So, a lot of times lighting, you know, LED lighting, that same things you see in your home.

Um looking at at a really good envelope, something that's going to have a high R value throughout. Um, and uh, having a silver roof obviously reflects a lot of uh, your solar gain. Um, so even even the Koopa that you see here is a true Koopa. So it's framed all the way down. So we're going to bring natural light down into the center and try to lock some natural light in a space that typically doesn't have it because of the security reasons we spent. So a lot of the principles are being followed. Um but but I don't know that we as of right now we would not have our lean back. Uh but but all those principles have been considered in the design of the Thank you Madam Chair.

Yes. Um so I don't know if are you finished with your presentation or are we in the middle of it? Are we just asking questions about I think we're just Yeah, I think we're just going with it. So we're just going with I think we've covered the the exterior components. The rest of it is really interior stuff. uh finishes and interior elevations. I don't know if that's anything that you guys are wanting wanting to see, but well, I have I have a question about the outside and that go on the inside and then final then the final comments. I don't know how but I'll just talk about the outside. So, um standing seam roofing, I did a lot of research about that. Um and you have it's a metal roof that you're planning to install. Yes, sir.

Uh high wind rated. I assume it's going to be, you know, where it's been in held on tight. Um, and type of metal you happen to know. I mean, there's aluminum, there's steel, there's, you know, we're in a coastal area. There's salty air. We're not necessarily that close to the ocean. You're still within proximity to deal with corrosion issues. Um, so no, it's it's a a luminum sanding seam roof. Wow. Gavlin. Yeah, it's okay.

So, it has a special kind of self-healing coating. We've uh had talks with a couple different events. Um we always thought that the mechanically fastened uh system would provide the highest um kind of win rating. We were kind of shocked to hear that that actually the the non- mechanical fastened system actually provided a higher win rate which was glued. Shocking. Um quite honestly, is that glue? Is that glue? It's not gluten. Um it is trying to think of a specific uh product line. They use a piece of equipment. See what you guys? Yeah, I think is it like a snap and click type?

It is. And that's why we were actually surprised. So we we the initial meeting that we had with them was a mechanically fastened system would be the best. Then they came back and said, "We we've gone over our testing reports and this actually has a higher win rate." Um the good news is it was less money as well. Um the scene just pops. We will fact check that as we move into the next phase because I I still I'm not 100% sold on it, but uh that's the initial discussions with the product rep. Uh, not right now, but towards the end I I have a comment on the outside. Before we go to the inside,

do we want to talk about more materiality on the exterior? Talk about um the plan is for shiplap siding with a cementitious product. Excuse me, if you will speak into the mic, please.

Sorry. plan is for u cementitious products for the exterior of the building like the hardy plank. I think you have that mentioned in your overlay. Um there are some wood trim pieces but there are also some synthetic trim pieces where you see the brackets and you see some of the timbers. Um there are columns um on the front. I think those are gypson reinforced concrete. Um this will be um flared in u aluminum and they'll be the color they need to be. They'll be wood inside, metal roof. Um there is a brick base which is very similar to the base. It's the same brick for the fire station. Um I think that's all the materials. And then if you look to the far right, that would be the fence that encloses the mechanical yard. I think we left off here previously with some of the exterior renders. So, here's another view. This would be your uh view from the highway. Um, and then just another kind of perspective view from the the corner parking lot. So, so there is a a lot next door to it or there is space to develop a property. I can't remember how much square footage that was per floor. The potential on that. I think it's on the side. That's where the mechanical yard exists between this building and whatever you choose to expand on. It's like around 5,000 square feet per floor.

Um, let's go through the interiors really quickly. Just these were some of the presents that we looked at uh that we worked with the team worked with Surfside on some of the look and what came out of that is a lot of wood and some beams and it's kind of late 1800s look. um colors were all pretty natural, warm, um turns that are familiar with the environment here. This just shows the materials, carpet, uh the wood in the lobbies, and I think some just some regular vinyl tile and little seated concrete and some of the less upfront rooms and then tile in the bathrooms. These are just the elevation. This is an elevation of the front lobby if you come in the front doors. Um, straight ahead of you are the doors into the chamber. And then off to your left are the restrooms. And then off to your right is the pay window for the clerk. So we have very long long lobby. Turn around and look back. Have the window the other side. This is um what you'll see the main doors coming in. And then of course these raised areas with these clear story windows to rewind. This is a cut through the chamber and we're looking at uh the changer chamber judges bench where you can see the seal up there. Below that is the gas similar to what you're sitting to now probably TVs on the left and the right and then there is a open well which is um a coupa that opens all the way into the space. So you can see that running up through the room. This is looking the other direction. Um

you can see the doors for the judges for the jury. Um, and you can see again this Koopa that will bring quite a bit of light and interest into the space. Bathrooms, tile, tile and wings top that goes up pretty high. Tile floors very simple. There are a lot of bathrooms you'll find slash jury room. And then uh we've put together we've put together some costs uh based on this early schematic design development package. Um right now we've got it broken down into a couple categories. Your site work being around 362,000. The building itself is 2.8 million post 2.9. And so your subtotal building direct cost is around 3.2 million. And then we tried to give kind of some ideas on some of the other costs that would be associated with this. So because we are doing a cost estimate um this early in the game and we don't have a full package worked out, there's always a contingency that we like to carry. So we've carried about 5% for 160,000. Um we have escalation at six months, right? Because as we continue the construction documents going to bidding and everything else, um escalation will happen naturally over those six months. So, this gets us to a point where the project would be bid and hopefully a GMP or guaranteed maximum price would be established. Um, then we have we we took our best guess at anticipated GC fees and bonds uh for another 413. So, right now we're sitting at right around 3.9 about $4 million uh for the information that we have now. Um, one thing to keep in mind, this does not include soft costs which are typically your fixtures,

furnishings, and equipment. Um, so like uh audio, video, uh, security, um, furniture for the building, those sorts of things. So, not really knowing what the town is going to do with that, um, that is not included right now. We did go through a value engineering process and we were able to carve out about $250,000. Uh, finding some different ways to approach things. Uh, not necessarily sacrificing quality, but just finding a more efficient way to do things. For example, the original ceiling tile that we used in the in the chamber. Um, we found a manufacturer uh that really was about half of the cost and provides a a very nice uh product uh very similar to what we originally specking and it's a proven thing. We've we've done it on another project um and it's turned out wonderful and you would never know the difference. And so we're really targeting kind of the lowhanging fruit to make sure that we're making the best use of them. Um, and then there is another kind of footnote that says that we're still working on the generator. Um, we know you have a generator, but uh the lines that were that were previously serving the building are not adequate for the new building. So, we're looking at ways how we can how we can run new lines. Um, put some new disconnects and some other things. We've got to do a little cleanup to the existing disconnects that are out there. You have seven by code. You're only allow six. So, we're working with the town to combine some of those to get get it back in to virtue.

Ask anybody else if they have a question. I have a question. So, the the reason or one of the reasons the former building was torn down was because of mold and water issues on that site. what is being done uh with regard to this plan so that um avoid those situations down the road.

Yeah. Uh excellent question. Um so first it will start with the envelope. Um you know we're making sure that we're detailing this the right way. you have a a pretty um a pretty good um or or really good uh envelope system where we will have a fluid applied air barrier on it, which I can guarantee you your old building probably did not. Was probably similar to what you would see on a house with kind of a a a paper fabric, which is okay. I mean, in a residential application, I think that's that's okay. But when we come into the commercial realm, um I think a a fluid applied air barrier is your first line of defense. making sure that the detailing is done well. Um making sure that we have head flashing at doors and windows. We have adequate overhangs. You guys get a pretty good amount of rain um in the summertime. So making sure that we're we're collecting all that, getting it off site, not allowing it to pond around the building um is is one of the main things, but also making sure that we have an adequate uh HVAC system. Right? So our mechanical system is going to not only heat and cool the building, but it's going to dehumidify, right? the the more humidity you have on the interior space, the the more likely you are to get some of that gold in the in the wall cabinets. So, making sure that we have a a really robust kind of building envelope is is really the the big a major strategy and then following up with an appropriate uh HVAC system

foundation. We have waterproofing and all of that. Um, when you say waterproof, you ask what you what you need only because I'm going to use my personal experience. I have a my house is built on a slab and the flooring in the interior flooring has all buckled because of the water that has come up through the cement slab and uh so is is that an issue or does your whole plan deal with something like that? because this area is wet and the water does uh wick up. Yes.

Yeah. So, so concrete is a force material so it will go up. So, what we've what we've done uh to make sure that that isn't a problem is we do have perimeter drainage that's all tied into storm water. So, the only work we're really doing in the parking lot aside from restriping is we're trenching down to the nearest manhole to bring our storm water. So, having a perimeter drain around the building will capture any of that ground water that could creep its way in. anything that makes it past that, there is a vapor barrier um underneath the concrete. So, that should allow you There's maybe potentially two causes. Was your Was it a new house or renovation? Brand new house. Brand new house. Luckily, the floor is under warranty.

So, in that instance, it could have been water that if there wasn't a vapor barrier or the vapor barrier laps weren't sealed correctly, moisture can get in. The other time that you'll see that is if they didn't allow the slab to get to a certain uh to cure properly and get to a certain percentage of humidity. Any flooring, there's very few flooring materials that you can put down that water high moisture content in the slab will radiation. So, there's a few out there, but most of them you have to get to a certain percentage. And so just making sure we're doing uh the checks during construction, making sure we have a third party uh team that's looking at concrete, testing the slab, making sure it's ready uh to receive flooring is is one major way to avoid any of those problems.

Okay. One thing I have been told is that when new thoring is applied that they will be putting down a I can't remember what the how many mills it is but like a plastic sheeting. I view it as being like a hazardous waste cap. Um, and would you be using something like that to create a barrier between the concrete and the the flooring so we don't have a flooring problem going forward? Ours will be underneath the slab so that we never have moisture coming in from the ground to the slab. Um, it should have if your house is new construction, you should

Okay, so this was described to me as from the concrete itself, not from the soils coming up through the concrete, but that the concrete itself um had a certain moisture content and so didn't let it cure long enough. The cake wasn't baked. Okay. So, so we you don't need a uh layer on top a layer on top to typically we do not have it sit. Yeah, you need to you need to get a testing agency to test the concrete and make sure your your uh humidity percentage in there is where it should.

Um but with with that um we are looking at you know the wood flooring is an engineered product. It does well in environments like this. Uh so instead of like a true woodf flooror plank uh but sometimes can swell quite a bit with uh just normal humidity changes in the environment an engineered one engineered wood will look just as good has certain wear layers so that you can sand it refinish it but it's more dimensionally safe and so we want to utilize that in the main corridor spaces

because you're going to have a lot of traffic the doors that main door is going to open hot humid air it's going to rush in and so if you if you don't have the right product in place you can see some of that especially at your door entrance. So, we were very careful to make sure that the products that we chose will work well in the environment. Yeah. Tile flooring, all of that. Was it wood floors in your house that were buckling?

We'll talk we'll talk another time about it. just makes me think of are we planning sufficiently well so that we don't encounter these kinds of issues. Again, it's all part of the resiliency idea for this space so that we are not faced with um more cost, more headaches um too soon after we open this uh we open this up. this. We like for these to be 30 to 50 buildings. So, we it's pretty well built in if you take care of it.

Okay. And you're building in all of the um appropriate uh internal wiring so that as audio visual I know your costs don't include the audio visual but audiovisisual stuff over time. The empty conduit is in there so you can sit the wire through.

Yes. And I I think that that was one of the main drivers for locating the AV room. Locating the AV room where it is. So we have some accessible ceiling within the court and chamber room. And so if technology changes to a point where you have to run new cable like that six isn't isn't working anymore, it's immediately adjacent to the space. It makes routing of those new systems much easier. It's above the furniture storage right there. Says 8.

And you do have an a pretty decent attic in this, which is, you know, a lot of commercial buildings will have a flat roof system. Because we have a pitch roof, we can utilize that attic space for running our duct work. Um, keeping it up high, too, just for any potential flooding. Um, but it it does give you a really easy pathway to update your building systems, both low voltage and other ones. Anyone else?

I am assuming that so that the town is going to hold everything that is done to the design overlay. With that being the case, Mark, it's being held to the same elements of the design overlay that everybody else is.

Yes. Okay. Um, just piggybacking a little bit on what Carolyn was saying, you know, I I own a few properties and I'm always trying to come up with ideas and I was advised I originally come from the north, but I'm 15 years or so here. So, I'm a southerner almost.

I probably Well, anyway, we won't go up that rabbit trail. Um, but I was advised that hardwood and engineered hardwood can be a pretty serious issue with the humidity, the flooding, the mold, the mildew. I understand that it expands and contracts, which is wonderful, and I love the idea of sanding, and I love the look. It's an amazing look. Uh I'm just curious to know um you know in your expertise will a building like this a commercial uh LVP luxury vinyl like plank or tile um does that not expand and contract as well? If you had flooding, it might be a little bit of less of an issue, but also it seals in the water underneath. So if you did have flooding, it could create the mold and mildew issue. And sometimes there's nothing you can do if there's a catastrophe. We have hurricanes almost every year. So, um, but what's your opinion on say the luxury vinyl tile or the laminate and the laminate coming apart in the humidity?

Yeah, so a great question. Um, I think that you are you are spot on. LVP is a great product. It has its strengths and weaknesses uh as well. Um, trapping in moisture can also be problematic. Um, you know what we found is the engineered uh engineered wood flooring seems to hold up the best uh in these types of environments. Are any of you familiar with uh Sullivan's Island? No. If you have do some digging, we did that one as well and we used an engineered wood product, very very similar coastal environment, um, high humidity and that has held up really well. Um, we were actually down there just visiting uh with some of the the staff uh looking at the building and it and it's done very well. Another thing that that we're looking at with this building is trying to raise the building finished floor elevation just a little bit. Um we are not in uh a really bad flood zone area uh where this thing would be placed but just knowing how bad it can get. We've tried to elevate the building up. Where did we end up with? We're trying to avoid having stairs and ramps because that gets really expensive. So, we're trying to work with the kind of minimal slope that we can have, but getting that building slightly elevated so that even though you're not in a in a really bad flood zone area in this in this particular location, I think elevating the building for all of the reasons that we talked about with water intrusion and everything else that gets it up a little bit higher.

It's a slab as well off the Yeah. Great. Can I'll just finish my comments. Is that or should I hold off a little? Well, we need to get a motion, I guess.

Okay, before we have the motion, I still Okay, so um the comment about the hallway I think is an interesting comment and it's always been frustrating. It feels like wasted space for a big long hallway. However, you have to get to the bathroom. You can't go through a bedroom or a conference room to get to a bathroom. Um, and if people are waiting out, especially if it's a courthouse, it it it does make sense. Unfortunately, it does feel like wasted space, but I think having access to bathrooms from outside is probably better than, you know, walking in here and having to use the bathroom. Um, and I think this is a little bit deceptive. I'm thinking that that hallway might not as be as big as we see it because that that plot of land is not that huge. And that thing looks like it's a huge monroity.

Um, yeah. So, I mean with lies of the pinch points. So, not not where we have the corridor 104 and 103 labels or the lobby 101, but the main corridor itself. So, the double set of doors is to give you a scale reference is six feet. So, you're you're just over just over six feet in the in the tightest pinch points in that corridor, which is not excessive. Three or four of these ties lay down. Yeah. Yeah. It looked a lot better on some of the other pictures. It didn't look quite so Yeah,

that's wonderful. Um, so here's kind of and this this has nothing to do with your presentation. It really has to do with our, you know, with us and council. You know, we don't we're planning commission. Um, I don't believe our purview is really the finances or boarded costs, unfortunately. Um but it is it is a factor you know like everything is a factor in what we you know how we vote. Um I was in Las Vegas and I think for the first time and I'm like wow my father said he said you know beautiful place right said yes it's amazing the architecture it's I I love architecture and the moldings and he says you know that place is not built by the winners that place is built up because you go to Las Vegas and you're losing a lot of money and I think it just his way of telling me not to gamble. Just do it for fine. Um which I took his advice and I only well I won't go into that. Um but uh but I I am concerned as a public commenter mentioned you know here we we had a peer that I mean it went way pretty far over public budget and um you know where are we getting the money for this wonderful

God hate to interrupt you but I think that's something you need to bring to town council not well it's something to keep in the back of our mind and so that's just that's that's my final comment. Um, but I was just piggybacking on the public comments. So, and I think that's all I have. But I wonderful presentation. I think it looks beautiful and I'd love to take ideas of your colors. I like those very nice natural uh earth tones. It's wonderful.

Any more questions for you gentlemen? I got a motion because the town council will Madam Chair, can I make a quick suggestion so that we so that we nail this um based on the 2024 comprehensive plan? Town council um added significant numbers of um goals and policies for this type of infrastructure. So if if somebody would just take a couple of notes in their motion is that under the community facilities element of the comprehensive plan, this project meets goal one, goal two, and goal three. And in the town council action items also included in the comprehensive plan, it meets priority six and priority seven.

And I can read those if you want me to bore you to death. But what was the second category? The town council town council identified specific action items that directly one of them was community facilities that's goals one two and three and then the second one was the what it's called the town council identified specific action items that directly reference the civic center project and they had three priorities actually priority six which is address public safety priority seven implement recommendations for the ongoing space needs analysis Priority 10 update ordinances to address priorities identified to the land use element to accommodate these types of new developments.

So six, seven, 10. Yes. So if somebody could All right. You know, you want I assume you want to make a finding that's consistent with the comp plan. I'm giving you the specific correct. You need a document that does that and send it to um town council. Yes, that will be part of your motion. That's why I'm asking you to specifically reference.

So when I send the recommendation to town council on a staff report, it will reference your your motion um as to how it specifically addresses elements of the the comprehensive plan. Okay.

How they've done it in the past, Madam Chairman, but generally speaking in the motion should be basically the findings that you're making that it's consistent with, you know, basically just sitting here and just saying it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. You know, I'm on the council. I'm going, well, which ones which ones are you specifically talking about? I want you to specifically reference these so that the town council in their deliberation looks at your recommendation and says, "Oh, look, planning commission already identified six policies and goals in the comprehensive plan." So, I know I missed the October meeting that we had, but um I understood from um looking over the um the recording the minutes of that meeting that we were going to be um uh producing a written document that we would then approve and then send on to town council. It's

called a It's called a town council resolution. Um, and is that what you're talking about? I will prepare the town council resolution for your for the signature

based on what? based on whatever you're you're based on whatever your recruit notes to motion. M chair, I move that we direct staff to prepare a resolution to town council stating that we find the preach and associates presentation is consistent with the comp plan specifically community facilities items one, two, and three. And also specifically town council action six, seven, and I get it.

You got it. You did have it. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? We'll pass it on. We'll get a document and take it from there. You will sign it. You will be the signer of the document. Thank you very much.

Thanks, guys. Yes. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it.

And uh we'll move on to our uh next item. uh the f kids of the coalition um in total um back to

good evening madam chair commission members director and all those viewing and online and in person here um come before you today I want to give a little history on what this was in 2025 plan commission and the council had approved uh the installation of a personal flotation life jacket motorboard located down at S Beach Fishing Pier. This was the first step in what we hope would be a much more expansive project all the way up and down our coastline um for our community. This was the first of its kind through Safe Kids. There have been some others that have been done through DNR, Coast Guard, things like that, but this was the first done through uh Safe Kids, the Coastal PD region. Um it has been picked up in some other areas of the state as well as neighboring communities have looked at it. They're hoping to move forward as well. This was again an initial. If anyone's seen the board, it is to be replaced shortly. We wanted to get it up. However, it was not what we anticipated. So, it is being it's been rebuilt and hopefully in the next couple weeks if the weather can hold. We're going to be replacing with a PVC vinyl, much more professional looking one. Um, again, that was the first rendition of it. This was the first reality of it. So, with that, the plan was to be able to reach more families. This board, even though it was installed at the end of the summer season, the busy season has already had interest. She's already had hits on educational material, and the life jackets themselves have been utilized by some means or another. I don't know if it's brave enough souls to get into the water where they were just trying it on, but they did have life jackets that have been removed and put back. So, they've been unbuckled, rebuckled, all that. So, we do have already on the offseason, it's produced its worth for what we've intended it for to improve public safety and knowledge

of water safety. Um, what we come what I come before you, unfortunately, Angel Dylan can't be here. What I come before you today is we want to expand this and this is the from here on out hopefully if everything gets approved we won't have to keep coming before you. The ultimate goal is that we will have a at every beach access in the town of Surfside Beach a lifeguard loaner jacket board loaner station. It will not be a full board. Um if you receive the packet um there is a AI created so it's not going to look identical. the signage will be more in line with what we have signage, our new signage coming. Um, but it will be just a condensed smaller version. It won't be that big board that holds one of the life jackets. This is intended to hold four to six life jackets. Our our goal is two of every size, two adult, two youth, and two child. Um, and it will also on the front after conversations with council. Um, it will also have a throw ring so that at the times that a life guard is not on duty, where there's not someone there, they can perform the rescue and we'll have throw, don't go, call 911 on the life ring and they'll be able to hopefully throw it out if someone's having an emergency. Um, so we we can integrate that the council recommended to help improve that safety along with the life jackets. And again, this entire program is free of cost to the town. This is all provided through a grant through Honda and Safe Kids. And the more of these we have, the more likely we are to get the grant. Again, she's already working on the next round of it to be able to get more grant money for it. Um, we do have all the capabilities to install these all the way up and down the beach. Uh, financially with the grant, um, supplement them. We have boxes of life jackets at our station right now in the event of growth. And we don't know in the summer how many will not be returned. So, we want to be able to have those. She also has many more in the warehouse. So again, this is just

the start. The initial board was the first steps. We're seeking your permission to move forward with continuing the growth in the program uh with these smaller stations that will be located at beach accesses on the beach side close to I hate to say it this way, but the trash cans right where about where the trash cans are. our spoken do director Adair and July would be our ear June would be our earliest we can put them out once they're done with beach reourishment and we're going to put them close to the dunes but in a way that they're easily accessible and recognizable for people accessing the beach and they are going to be out of the way of beach sweeper so they keep the beach clean and not interfere with that. So again it won't be in the dunes where it would be in dune line but it would be close enough it's readily available. Uh the initial plan for the first roll out would be 15th Avenue North, 10th Avenue North, 6th Avenue North, Fifth Avenue South, 9inth Avenue South, and then 16th Avenue South. Again, that would be round one of these new ones. And then working with director, our goal is over the next year, possibly two, is every week access and each sign will say where you can find more of these Mike jacket stations at. So um this whole program uh just like the initial board will help with the different goals on the comprehensive plan. Goal 1 a.2 which is investment in infrastructure uh improvements that support durability and quality of life. Goal 1 a.3 which is support town investment in street improvements public space furnishing signage that distinguishes the town from surrounding communities. Strategy 1C, which is provide recreational amenities and programming for all ages and under community facilities toll one, ensures a high level of public safety for residents and visitors. Again, these aren't intended not just for the beach, but they are intended for anywhere in town. People can take them and use them

at a pool at a rental property. You know, we ask that they return them. They can return to the fire station or where they loan them from, but they're not meant just for the beach. That's just the easiest way to capture the most amount of people. Um, and I we believe it meets all of those as it get formed with comprehensive tech plan as we come before you today for your approval and any questions you may have.

Just a couple. Um, this is really cool though. I like it. Um, how often are these jackets checked for repairs needed or for cleaning purposes? And will there be like a tag on it? So if someone takes it two streets over to their pool and the pool cleaner sees it and maybe bring it back. They are labeled with Safe Kids. Um the next ones will have Safe Kid and the fire department logo on them, but right now these will just say Safe Kids. Okay. Um as for inspections, weekly they get looked at.

On my way into work, I stopped in and checked on all of them. And then as it becomes more, you know, we'll have different some of the community ambassadors are going to we're working at trying to get something with drippies that if someone's seen wearing a life jacket, they can get a free coat. So different kind of initiatives that we're looking at. But for the actual inspections, it'll be once a week the eyes will be laid on them to make sure they're okay. They get more often for cleaning because I can imagine they're going to be filthy and they won't look as pretty as this picture after the first week as needed. Pretty much as needed. So again, that's that when we put eyes on them, if they need clean, then we'll clean them.

Okay. There's an additional benefit here that I see having a lot of these put up along the beach. One thing that happens is during the summer, you can't put anybody within what is it 10 ft of the of the dune line. Yes. As police

to keep the access way. And so you end up putting your canopies and stuff. That's kind of hard to like define, but by having these things in a uniform place along the dunes, they can use those as an anchor point of going 10 ft from this parallel to the beach. You should keep this access way open for emergency. That's another I Oh, yeah. I And I can discuss that with director. ultimately he's the one that knows the most about all the rules regulations of FEMA and beach nourishment and everything else by all means.

Yeah. And not that I want to see any more signs always, you know, say don't put your stuff within 10 feet. So stay great. I like it. Anyone else? Yeah, great question. Who found the brand? Uh Angela Dylan from Safe Kids Worldwide. She it's it's a all she came to us. We have we have a partnership we deal all the time. She's um our car seat program is through Safe Kids. Okay.

So, I've been working with her for two and a half years now. And she thought of us because of our partnership and work with car seats and other programs we do. She said, "Hey, I I want to get this started. I want you all to be my first." Um, there was one small tree that was put up at a lake, but wasn't necessarily full of public. It was more for people at the lake that run the lake shop and all that. We were the first coastal community and the first that she wanted to push through the state. So, she found the grant. She went up to Washington DC, spent weeks in front of national councils for Honda. It was a very large grant.

Yeah. And this is all the more data we get, the more we can push back, the more use we have that we can verify. And even just, hey, we have 80 life jackets in circulation out there. It just helps us be able to recover every year. Awesome. Very nice you did. Um, I'd also recommend putting a label on the uh on the uh BFBs that says, you know, GPS track. Not that it is.

It was it was written in the grant and and the whole viewpoint is if someone needs that for because it's labeled Save Kids very big. Like I said, the next round she orders will have because of our involvement, it'll have um at least the fire department, possibly town and fire department logo as well. But our whole viewpoint is we built in we're going to lose some and if they need it that bad it's protecting someone and that was the point of it. Yeah. So

some of it can just be laziness. I mean you see when people check out it's just everything's thrown all over. It might be good to let the pool cleaning companies and the management companies know that if you get one of these jackets just drop it off at the fire department or something. Yes, ma'am. U we got to follow protocol here u and ask for opportunity to speak. Um anyone else had her hand on them.

I just have one question before we get around to the motion and Kelly the agenda item says there's six additional vis locations. Should we you really want us to go farther than that rather than have you coming back to six? Yes, ma'am. That that was the goal. Um, and it was to put on the agenda. It was the paper. Again, I'm not sure if everyone's able to receive this, but it was a whole packet. And I listed specifically the six on there, but in in discussions was instead of having to come back to you folks and the council every time, if you're able to just approve the expansion project as a whole,

we'll start with the six and carry on from there because we want to put six in and see how that goes. And the motion will say to include all all beach access. Got it. Thank you again. So I do have a question on the um beach access variety. How are you going to keep the life jackets um stationary during a storm or what have you? Are they going to be collected? Because the one under the pier is pretty well protected from the elements in terms of not blowing the jack jackets around, but these ones are going to be right out there.

Yes, ma'am. U much like with the pier, if we're expecting high high winds or a severe storm, we'll go down and take all of them up. Okay. I know it's a bit of an undertaking, but you know, between us, PB, and everybody else, we can pick them up real quick and just kind of stage them between the storms of it. Okay. So Mark, we previously said uh this was a sign, not a structure,

but we have uh a provision that allows the um enforcement officer to take down things that are in the um beach or access areas. Do we need to do something to modify that to um allow for um the uh installation of these what do we call it? Trees. Uh just life jacket. Life jacket laner station.

I would say no because it's this is a safety element. That's the way we look at it. I mean everybody else looks at it as something else, but for us it's truly as a safety element. Um and those are the the staff looked at this and those are why we came up with the you know the the goals of the comprehensive plan. This means it means I mean captain named off a few I have like five more we could have this is truly a comprehensive plan project that flies you know flies you know high above the the fray here. Um, but no, I I I can't imagine what you're thinking is that our enforcement officer would go out and chainsaw these down

provision uh 17 uh 621 that says the code enforcement officer can remove signs that are on the beach or in the public access. And we referred to these before as signs. And so I just want to make sure that we don't need to make some sort of modification there. You're going to make the modification this evening where we're going to exempt public signs. Okay. And this constitutes a public sign because the fire department is involved. Correct. And the town is involved. Correct. Yeah.

That's right. I checked the shore protection section of the ordinance 17803 that talks about what is permitted and not permitted. you know, see word of the the June lines and uh even as a structure, it's permitted because when you get to the exemptions part says other permitted uses and it's talking about uh east of the duno, other municipal structures and services including but not limited to light poles, garbage receptacles, lifeguard stands, etc. necessary to provide for the public health, safety and welfare work welfare shall be permitted when such improvement or use will not reduce the effectiveness or nor alter sand dunes and vegetation and when such improvement or use does not violate the intent of the article. So that tells me that I I think these these structures or signs or whatever fit right in with lifeguard stands and certainly above trash cans.

I I certainly certainly think they'll fit. I think maybe we have some disconnect here. Sounds like there's someplace else in the ordinance that says they're going to be picked up. Short protection under chapter 17 says it's okay. Chair, um just one minute. Oh, sure. Scott, I would also say that it meets our population goal number two of fostering our family oriented beach

and that um with regard to the um community uh facilities and the public safety that it's got to reduce I would think or have the intent of reducing the u uh cost and need for fire and police. if we had these uh vests available and you all were not having to rescue our kids. I would just add that and Scott.

Okay. Um so I have not seen the current post right now unfortunately. Um I'm curious to know we're talking about signage. This particular AI photo says please wear a life jacket. Um, what exactly would would the would these say? And because I'll walk up to this and and say, you know, I'm a good upstanding citizen. I'm like, nothing's free. I can't just take one of these. And especially, can I take this and take it to the pool? How do I know that?

So, there will be signage that discusses the program. And it also has a QR code. We scan the QR code. It provides proper fitment. It does a quick little survey to collect data for side of things and it's very simple your zip code. I believe it was age of the child and or the age of the person that will be using it and how many are using. It's very minimal on what they're collecting because they just want to be able to show who they've reached through the program. Um but it it has some the biggest thing is using technology and the QR code and people scanning it. There is some information and it's actually going to be labeled as loader board. Um, I could show you the new signage. The new board that's going to be there will have a all-in-one sign. This had like three piece parts. It has a much bigger sign. Well, not bigger. It's more of a cohesive sign and it has that in there and it'll just be a consolidated version of that.

Okay. So, so this is it is complimentary. However, you have to sign up or sign in. You don't have to to use it. It's just if you do the QR code, it will provide you better fitment instructions, videos, some information for water safety in general. And then again, that survey is just to help collect data. They know it's not really going to collect all the data we need. Um, as I said, we had no idea how many people tried it on. That was for me going down, buckling all of them, come back three days later when I come to work and three of them being unbuckled again. Somebody had to try them on. I mean that's just the the plausible cost. So that's kind of we're doing a little bit of mix of new school and old school. So

like I said in last presentation, I think it's a wonderful great thing that you're doing and that was able to be done with funds that are outside of search. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have questions for Captain K? Um I just want I don't really have a question. I just want to say thank you. you you have been fully invested in this and we and I for one appreciate your heart in it and um I think you you've just done a real great job with us. I thank you for that.

Agreed. Having to go out and check them all in. Anyone else? One more question. Procedural question. Do we have approval authority on this? You're recommending again to the council. We are. Okay. Thank you. Do I get a motion for approval to um Well, I guess we need to do the same thing where we need to make a recommendation to council.

I'm going to ask you to make three specific findings. Um the commission finds that goal one of the community facilities element is consistent. Goal two of the population element and goal number four of the community facilities element.

Sure. Okay. I move the planning commission staff to prepare resolution for council that we have reviewed the proposal to add smaller personal flotation device loader stations to the extent that they cover all beach accesses in the future. And specifically that our recommendation acknowledges that they this meets goal one of the community facilities, goal two of population and goal four of community facilities.

Community facilities I can't remember that calendar. Second whatever she just said which was impressive I thought. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you all very much. I'll be presenting at council next week.

Thank you so much. I think we'll get into the discussion portion of our meeting and the first step is the uh tree protection ordinance. Um, and I read this as not being the specifics of the ordinance, but what next steps we should take after the workshop and how we advance the ball. Uh, director Gers, do you have thoughts?

Um, first of all, I want to tell you that I've tried not to think about the tree since the last meeting all the different moving parts in my head. Um I believe that uh the comments that we received were were excellent comments. Uh did hear from a number of you know we heard from a number of individuals from the community who are obviously um very interested in in tree protection in the town. And I remember saying at the meeting that, you know, I could probably do something like this in four pages. I think you all saw my email. If you didn't, I'll remind you. And when the chat I I have a subscribed copy to chat GBT. It's the advanced version. It's not the one that you just can use for free.

And I said, in the state of South Carolina, give me the best tree ordinance in the state. that's confined to less than three pages. And the next thing that popped up was an ordinance that I wrote for the town of Allen, which is a onepage tree protection ordinance,

and it does a lot to protect trees. I mean, it's it's one page, but it's I want to say it's fairly draconian. It basically it's it's an inchfor. You take down 16 inches, you're replacing 16 inches. If you can't replace the 16 in, it's going to cost you $250 per per DBH inch. I'm not proposing that I come back to you with a onepage ordinance. I think there are parts of the ordinance that I think are baked in to our understanding of how tree protection should be conducted in this town versus which literally sits in a national forest. They their tree canopy is probably the best on the coast. I mean that if you've ever driven through Holland or if you've ever gone through 17 and you're traveling along and you don't see any houses or anything and obviously it's forest on both sides you're in. So they don't have the same kind of issues that we have. The biggest issue that they have is what I would call mass grading of large subdivisions where they're taking out every tree and uh and just starting from scratch where they basically clear cut the site following the uh the meeting and following that little tip I got from chat GBT. Um, like I said, I believe there are certain parts of the ordinance that that need to remain. Um, I believe that while we're going to protect oaks, pines, and palms, my feeling is is that the number should move on what's considered a protected tree in those three categories. For example, just follow this train of thought. If it's an oak tree and it's 6 in or more, it's a protected tree. If it's a pine tree,

correct me if I'm wrong. If it's 10 in or 12 in, it's a protected tree. If it's a palm tree, then maybe it's 13 or 14 inches before it's a protected tree. What I'm getting at here, folks, and I think committee wouldn't disagree with me. We're trying to increase the number of broadleaf hardwoods in the community. I don't want to penalize people, however, for pines and palms. I want them to be able to use those as numbers that count toward them meeting their basic requirements. But at the end of the day, I really believe that the committee, the storm water committee staff really feel that what we ought to be doing is doing all we can to promote and protect hardwood trees. And at the same time protecting pines and palms, which right now are generally not protected at all. Current ordinance doesn't protect those at all. And you don't get a lot and you only get credit for pines if they're standing on your side already. So you can count the wood. So um I would be interested in hearing from members of the planning commission what your direction is to the director given what I've just told you. I I I don't think I can do it in three or four pages. I maybe you can do it in seven or eight pages. Uh I really want to protect more hardwood trees. Um I want to make it easy. Oh, this is the other thing I've thought of. You know, I told you I haven't thought about this, but I've got to be honest with you all. I go home and I sleep awake. I stay awake at night thinking about this stuff. I think based on some of the comments that I received from you that evening, perhaps we need to handle the existing property owner on a single family lot who wants to remove a tree from somebody who's developing a brand new lot with a brand new building with with those sorts of things. And we tr and we and and I

don't know how I do this yet, believe me. How we treat the existing property owner with more of kid gloves because I'm I'm I'm I was moved by the woman that got up here and started crying. And the reason I was moved by that is that we went up to her after the meeting and said, "There's no problem. You can remove that tree tomorrow." And I think there's this there's this wall of regulation that people are just freaking intimidated by. in our ordinance and I don't want it to be that way for individual property owners and and I think one of you said how about if I'm just a single property I'm a property owner and I have five trees on my property and the code says I'm supposed to have seven well unless you're planning on removing a tree you don't you're not on my radar screen you just move on but I think

understand that and clearly and I clearly they or else didn't. No. And I want I want make sure that people I want the regulation to work for people, not to beat people up. And I got to tell you, when that woman got up and and literally, you know, she was crying before she even got to the elector. You saw it, right?

Yeah. And I and as I listened to her, I thought, "Oh my god, she really thinks that our ordinance really is telling her that she's going to have to go through 17 steps and put 17 trees on her property to take down a diseased safety issue tree in her front yard." That's just not the case. So, I think I've got to come up with a whole section at the beginning of the ordinance that says if you do this, you don't do this. If you don't doing this, you don't have to do this. I want to sort of sort of clear the the air, so to speak, on what we're really talking about here. We're only talking about two things. Tree removals on individual properties. You know, somebody wants to take a tree down. And that's the thing that Nick is out in the field doing the most of is that people call and want to take a tree down.

The second one is where we get a brand new site plan with the giant house on it with minimum setbacks and oh, by the way, we want a pool. I think that needs to be handled a little firmer. I'll just put it that way. We need to get those individuals on board with either planting trees on their property or getting used to the fact that they're going to be charged on a DVH inch per inch basis so that we can fund our tree fund so that like we have an Arbor Day thing coming up here in a month so that we can you know give out trees or I don't know how we do it. We sell trees. I imagine we probably give them away. I don't know. Um, but I want to fund that that program so that we can plant more. We have more money than we need to plant the trees we want to plant in rice, parks, you know, those sorts of things. So, I'm going to stop talking because I could go on and and staff will tell you I could go on and on about this, but I've got some basic ideas that that are starting to gel on how I want this ordinance to come across to the public. I don't want it to be seen as a draconian. We're here to hurt you kind of thing. We're here more like, oh, you want to replace a tree? Let us help you figure out how to replace that tree. That type of approach.

Yes. Historical in the past times when planning commission has struggled with exactly what you were talking about. The desire was even on the part of council was to go after the developers and leave the residents alone. The problem was we ran smack into the lawyers who said you cannot have one set of rules or one set of penalties for different folks. So I I wish you luck if you can do that. That's what's what's always been wanted and not been possible.

Yeah. Everybody's got to be treated equally. I mean that's the equal equal rights and then the constitution and you all just took a an oath to the constitution. So yes we can't treat them differently but we can make the the

we had uh previously had some discussion about uh work process and how we might uh advance things along. Would it be helpful to you if uh we got less than a quorum together for you and we just worked it all out? Uh and then

I thought about that. Yes, it it would be. And the reason is is because I'm an echo chamber over in in town hall. I really don't have anybody to really bounce the ideas off except my enforcement officer who tells me the enforcement issues. So, I feel I've got that end of it handled, but I see like seven jigsaw pieces, and I'm trying to figure out how to do this to the jigsaw pieces in the ordinance. And it's going to be it's going to be almost a rewrite of the ordinance.

I'm going to be basically starting from scratch and taking I think what's good about the ordinance and what's bad about the ordinance I'm jettisoning out of the port window. So, um yeah, it would be helpful to have meet with three of you. I mean, that's got to be under the uh for for qu um and to meet for, you know, a couple hours on an afternoon in the coming weeks. Um you know, my I don't feel the bridge is burning here on rushing this to council. Um I want to get it right the first time. I really do. and uh to the point where council looks at it and kind of kind of nods and goes, "Well, yeah, yeah, we can see how this works and not get into a get into a position where we're defending ourselves against another committee who had a totally different scope of work. impact, you know, theirs was to develop a storm water resiliency kind of thing for for trees where I'm being asked cutting trees down, removing trees and yards and small developers, you know, clearing sites, trees, that's really that's really what I'm up against. Uh, so please

do we need a motion to form a subcommittee to assist you or do we just ask for volunteer? I think a a motion is in order. um just simply so we don't run a foul of any uh of any requirements to do that but um I would prefer that formed in the face of a motion

officially if I could make a motion I think it'll okay I'd like to make a motion that we

do. Madam Chair, I'm just wondering if we should technically call it an advisory group instead of a subcommittee. Does that matter? I I don't think there's a preference on my part. Certainly has the motion maker approved the amendment.

Second for the amended motion and second. Uh all those in favor of the amended motion to have a uh advisory committee appointed by me. Um all manag uh can we have a little bit of discussion before we make before we Sure.

Okay. And it's just it's just brief and I think it's just to clarify um and you know I had I've been working through some things because I've received some push back about the tree ordinance. Um, and I just want to clarify with everybody and help me understand and help the public understand. Um, and I don't want to add fuel to any fire, but correct me if I'm wrong. Currently, this particular, um, it's been established currently that this particular tree or that we're working under is under the statutory purview of the planning commission under chapter 17, not any other committee. Correct. Sure.

So, um we can receive input from various residents and individuals. Um but referencing another committee saying that they're part of this decision making. I um I think there's some I don't it's a little strong, but I think there's some ethical questions to that. Um so, just to be really careful. I was error on the side of caution. Um but right now uh this tree uh tree protection ordinance is under our purview. Is that correct?

That's correct. Any ordinance that um is adopted u by town council has to receive a recommendation by the planning commission before moving on such ordinance. Um, and at this point, um, it's it's not in another committee's hands any longer. It's in your hands, and it's this commission's responsibility to make the recommendation to council on what the final forum is saying. So, do we agree to that? No, it's not a motion. I don't say it's a fact. Yeah,

that that was so remember um uh it came to us from town council saying look at this that they've done under chapter 18. Correct.

We went back to town council and said hey we've already got an ordinance under 17 exactly what what gives here and whose authority are we operating under? town council came back and said we're operating under planning commission uh authority. So I have always um uh thought that what they were saying is if any changes happen they would be changes that would happen to the current tree ordinance in chapter 17. Now, we could if we wanted to propose it that uh a new chapter be created to deal with trees, but um I think we've sort of moved beyond that in terms of our discussions since it came to us from town council.

Right. And and the reason I mentioned it is because um there was a statement that said we are working with to get this moved forward and yes we will take input from other committees but this is under our purview and I just wanted to make sure that we're clear on

okay and and while we're talking about input I I would note that there were a number of emails postworkshop that were um labeled as uh public comment and technically under our bylaws that public comment is not permissible. Um I it has to come in before the session. Now, I don't know whether we would interpret our bylaws to say that's only for a regular meeting and not for a workshop. But whichever way we come out, perhaps we need to be more clear in our bylaws exactly what we mean by the submission of written comments because it it it expressly says that it's got to be before the the session. um and doesn't mention emails to us, but we have kind of created a situation on the town website where um people could submit emails to all of us. I know we have still issues with the emails and we'll get those resolved, but um maybe we need to look at our bylaws to figure out whether or not we need to tweak that provision so that it's really more um conducive to the way people communicate these steps.

Um okay. Any further discussion on John's amended motion? Okay, let's see if I can do this. Uh, so we're um voting on the uh motion to create an advisory uh group. Um that would be um planning commission three planning commission members uh appointed by me based on their um interest in so

sounds like a good All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Um, this only works if we know who might be interested. Any interest? Okay, Melody and Janette, come on. Scott, you're passionate about this. I am passionate. I just There's no way. Just Larry. Okay. All right. A different question than I'll do it. Are you interested?

You don't get that. I already wrote it last time. Seven pages.

I'm glad to do it, but I'll step out of it as well. Yes, same here. There's somebody better than always. Well, there's only seven. I think we've exhausted. Okay. If you roll the dice, then unless Larry wants to back up. But you got four now. Yeah. Well, I'm being pressed into service. I'm good with that, Julian. I'll look at the the results. Okay. All right. So, we'll have our advisory group of Melody, myself, and Larry.

Okay. and we'll just have to figure out a date we're going to start down this route. Okay. Okay. But that's not really what this item is about. It wasn't for about forming an advisory. I want to hear from all of you

if you're if you if you'd like to do what I just did. I gave you my impressions of what happened the other night and I gave you my impressions that I think it's not going to be a two-page, but it's certainly not going to be a 33 page. Um, where are we where are we going with this, folks? my opinion. Yes, I'm perfectly happy with the length you came up with in that uh that draft. Oh, there were plenty of areas for some correction. We heard many of them, but I'm sure we would have figured those out along the way. um anything you can do to accomplish the goals you stated however many pages it takes but I don't believe it's going to be more than seven or eight pages I'm good I like what you did

but did you but based on what I did and based on the comments that you heard um factoring in all the people that we listened to do you think that effort it was is headed in the right direction. Yeah. And the way you started off the subject about being draconian fits in exactly with my position for the past since I've been on the council probably since years and years ago. I mean, okay. I do like I am a tree lover, but but yeah, we can love trees, but make it simple. Yeah, I guess and give property owners a fair shake of of what they can do.

Mary has raised the issue of whether or not we can do all of this under a discussion item instead of a business item on our agenda. My my understanding of a discussion item says that you take no you take no action. Correct. That's right. Can't have a motion. No motion. We have two more comments here. This is a conversation. That's the way I look at this item. It's a conversation item. Okay. But we did take a motion to create our We'll have to Yeah, we might want to add that to that next meeting. Okay.

You feel nervous. Yeah. We'll have to get a recording so we can remember exactly what we said. Agenda eyes. Okay. All right. There we go. Okay. All right.

I have a some discussion points. Okay. Um, so first of all, I really like the idea of establishing early like within the first five sentences that there's a distinction between and I understand the quandry of arbitrary and capriccious from the legal stuff, but you and I both know that can be done. Um, so I like I very much like the idea of making it known very early in whatever is published to the public that there is a a difference between the city's goal of enhancing the the the canopy um via development. very differently than anything that is proactively reaching out to an existing homeowner with you know

I just trees on their property right um so that part I like the other part I like that was brought up in the discussion in the workshop was that while inclusion of the pines and palms is is to be considered in whatever way and I think I made my position finds very clear. But with respect to the palms, I like the idea of, you know, have as many palms as you want on your lot,

but as far as the um regulations go, we're only going to count two of them. So, you can't use 12 palm trees on your lot and their BBH is to fill the the gap. Um, and then obviously having mentioned my feelings about pine trees, any any wording that would incentivize the broad leaf, you know, I think is appropriate for, you know, designing the canopy not only of today but for the next generations. Um, that's it. Okay,

good man. Okay, just to piggyback on what Larry and John had said, I I agree with both of what they're saying. I think it's really really important. Um, uh, last meeting I had thought we said we might try to limit it, you know, we want to keep it simple, right? And I thought last meeting we had all concluded that it would be nice to shoot for about four pages, not seven or eight. Um so you know that would be my vote. Thank you.

Um he when he was talking about limiting the number of palm trees that can count toward that was not in what you gave us last time that was in the original of the storm water. Yeah, it was a conversation that only two policies. I'm I'm fine with adding them so that they can be protected. I think that if they have a palm tree, it should count. I don't think we personally that my opinion is if they have a palm tree, it should count.

Here's my direct question. Okay. Should it count as much as a heartwood? think that unless you know I think part of your I think I understood that part of your thought process was to simplify things and not have things not have the rules different from you know R1 to R2 to R3. Yeah. Right.

I don't want to do that. So, it's my opinion that in many R3 lots, all they can handle is a palm tree. We're lucky if they have enough palm trees on their lot. So, unless we want to tie hands that way, I think that palm trees should count. So unless you come up with a different way to give them, you know, different I I just don't I mean I don't know how we can do it with

I I know how we can do it. I'm just I'm just I just want to ask you that basic question. Um, are you all of the opinion that if somebody is going to seek mitigation on a tree removal or trees removal that they should be able to use

that you that that the 12-in palm gets as much as a 12-in oak tree and I would s my personal opinion, my professional opinion is that palm should count but not at a 100% count of the oak of an oak tree. So if you've got an 8 in oak, you're going to have to have like a to equal it the palm would have to be like 16 inches like 50%. So, could you have could you have two? I I haven't I haven't fully I haven't fully fleshed this out yet, but I think

that we count palms, we count pines, we just place hardwoods at the top of that pyramid. And the top of the pyramid is if you provide me with 16 inches of oak, you're pretty much going to meet your mitigation without having to go to, you know,

do it because what we're going to get going to tell you right now, if we treat them the same, we're going to get pines and palms everywhere. Nobody in nobody in their right mind is going to pay for a hardwood tree to be planted because it's just more expensive. And I I'm not a an arborist, but I would tell you that a mixed canopy is good for the town. I grew up in a place where Dutch elder disease killed every tree on my street. And that was because back in the day, cities used to plant street trees were all the same tree. So the whole town literally like within two years was like completely devoid of any street trees. I think so a mixed what you're saying.

I believe I agree with what you're with your thought process. I think I do. I want, you know, obviously want to see it and feel I think that I agree with what you're saying. Yes, we don't want the whole town to just be some obviously and that is certainly what could happen. Yeah. But I but I just have to figure out how to because I do think in some areas it's difficult to There's no argument for me. Yeah. But

I see I see the site plans with, you know, the five foot side sideyard setbacks and I'm thinking to myself, if you're going to put a tree in that sideyard setback, say goodbye to your foundation because unless you put it in a root barrier box, it's probably won't do it as much as an oak will. An oak is really invasive. But, you know, we got to weigh all of I've got to weigh all of those things in deciding what somebody's mitigation is. If they're take, you know, and yeah, sometimes we're taking down a 14inch oak live oak tree in the backyard. Put a pool in. And as much as that hurts me, we're putting a pool is a live oak tree. Okay, we're going to let you do it, but here's what it's going to cost you. Or here's what you're going to have to plant. And if somebody's taking a live oak tree to put in a pool, I don't want you replacing that old tree with just pints and palms. You're going to have to come up with something. You're going to have to

versus if they were taken out of him or palm correct to I mean the antithesis.

Yes.

Yes. I I agree with all your vision of you know what you're trying to do. I do agree it's going to be difficult though and and like I said living in the rental district I see kind of a different component of we have oak trees growing in odd places where they packed off certain pieces for the power lines and and one growing in somebody's backyard kind of growing over our yard and man if any of those die they're huge and it's like there's no space on those lots to put more than a palm tree where those trees are. You wouldn't even they're like the one in the front at our neighbors is right by all the electrical

where you going to take out all the electrical and plant another oak tree there. It was already there before the electrical and they cut around it and there's chunks of it growing different ways, you know. So, I mean, I I think I'm more concerned about the replacement stuff than a new lot where you can kind of manage it and and monitor that they're not just wiping everything out and putting in 11 palm trees. But in in that beach area, it's really tough to put anything big in there.

Yeah, it is. I I'll disagree. It's tough. I think I think there'd be a difference though in the removal of the tree because it died or because it it had a bad invasive root problem or whatever versus just arbitrarily removing the live healthy tree for the purposes of you know redevelopment or right but again we're trying to make this a little simpler and not saying well Mark has to look at every single situation and come up with a new solution for every situation. We're hoping that it kind of defines it.

Yeah. The way the way I see it, my mind you brought brought that to the front of my mind here is that if somebody's taking out a tree because it's dead, died, diseased or or letter from an arborist. There's no mitigation. You can take them because it's it's it's a tree that is going to spread disease to another tree. It's going to fall in the house and kill somebody. it's going to do something bad. So, there's no mitigation for that. So, I think your residents that were crying here, I think they would be really happy to absolutely they want to be able just have the right to take a tree down because it's diseased or dead or dying.

Yeah, we'll have to make a call. We'll have to go out there and look at it, but it's a it's usually a fairly easy call see it. Um, but if you're just even if you're existing property owner, right, and you've got a nice backyard, you got a live oak in the middle of your yard and it's a big healthy it's a big healthy boy out in your backyard and you decide I want to put a pool in. Sorry. You're gonna have to mitigate the removal of that healthy oak tree, right? That makes sense. No, and I also agree that the shorter the better. Yeah, I agree that simple. I I had many members of the public who did come up and speed catch me on the way out and they literally said, "Please make it shorter."

And it's a challenge. It's going to be a challenge because I want to parse oak trees differently from pines and palms. And I want to go easy on tree removals and existing on existing properties. And I really want a good strong mitigation for the developers so they have a path forward because you're right, there are some lots who are just not going to be able to fit those trees. I want a get out of get out of jail card free and it's it's called you're going to pay for the DBH issues that you can't put on the lot. That simple.

Um and there are some people who aren't are going to literally sit in front of me and write a check for $12,000 and hand it to me and be gone. Um, and there's some that are going to like try as hard as they can to put those trees back under a lot, even if they have to put them in root barrier boxes so that they don't intrude into foundations and pool uh pools and things like that's it's uh one of the uh you know in in uh 45 years of doing this, I've always decided what the most contentious ordinances I've had. This now rates third on my list of the most contentious behind mansionization ordinances telling the people they can't build the big monster houses. Number two, short-term vacation rental ordinance was the second one which I almost lost all my hair over. And the third one now that is the tree ordinance in this town.

Thank you. It's part of the fun. Yeah, I have hopefully just one question. Okay. So, it came up over and over and over again in our workshop about uh the mansionization of the houses. Yep.

Uh should we be addressing that in conjunction with the trees or do we leave that for another day? Do we not touch it at all? because it does seem to be um uh a factor uh at the very least in in all of this. Um so do we address setbacks? Do you want to kill me in the first year that I'm here?

Let me tell you my opinion. This is an opinion because that idea would if that idea came from council that we need an answerization ordinance. I'm off to the races. Okay. The cat is far enough out of the bag here where doing it now seems punitive to the people who have kept their lots open, have not developed their lots and have sat on it and and we've enjoyed that open space for the last 45 years and now they're going to come in and we're now going to be punitive to them and they can't do what their neighbor does. No, ma'am. Okay.

No, ma'am. Um, I the first ordinance that I wrote was a mansionization ordinance. The town had only experienced three in a town of 25,000 people and we caught it before it was out of the bag. It's It's out of the bag here. I I would I would tell you I would fight tooth and nail not to have to create that to be punitive to people who have decided not to develop until today. Are your thoughts I I absolutely lied and violated the rule about how many questions you are your thoughts the same if instead of uh looking at it from a setback standpoint we were looking at things about subdivision because that's part of the of the issue too

part of the issue is that some of our larger lots in R1 one are being split into two lots that will accommodate a 2600 ft mansion on each one of the two parcels. That's a discussion for another day, I'm afraid. Um I think that looking at the u the allowance of subdivisions in R1 to minimal standards is something for a broader discussion at another time, but that would be my preference. If we wanted to attack the nationalization, it's they are now coming to us with a preconceived if you will sort of motion that they're going to put in place which is subdivide that lot to do the mansionization. That's a little different than mom and pop who own a ranch house on Surf Side want to take the house down and put up the house that everybody else on the street has. It's a little different. Um so yeah, maybe we look at let's not do it this year.

Okay. Looking at, you know, maybe um what our subdivision regulations permit in terms of lot splits and does it have to meet more than just the absolute minimum square footage of a lot size, but for another day, please. speaking about these mod, you know, the the the big whatever you call them big.

Um, you know, there are there are rules about hard surface and so I see a lot of these big houses going up, you know, almost covering from setback to setback. They do. That takes a lot of It's all hard surface underneath that roof line. And it's not the footprint, it's the roof line. It's the roof line.

There's also driveways, walkways. I sometimes wonder how in the heck could they have built that big house on the lot I'm looking at, but I don't have the survey, so I can't tell. Uh, when I had my property last surveyed, they told me how much hard space I had on my lot. % I happen to be 1% over when I put the pool in the town might have gone. Yeah, because uh you know I put the pool in look at that. We're still looking at impervious surface. Okay, very good.

So yeah, so yeah, that is another area that we could look at if we were looking to increase our permeability on these big ones. You know, we could start with I don't want to go down this path too too deeply tonight, but you know, gravel gravel driveways, gravel walkways, permeable pavers, those and that's how these big ones do meet those that you see out there and you go by and you go and Larry goes, "How the heck did that meet the permeable?" Well, I'll tell you how. All that paving around the house has got that type of I forget the name of the sand that allows water to drain through. And I have that around my pool, but I see people putting pavers in the driveways, but they're putting it over concrete.

So, it doesn't count. People might come and look, oh, they have pavers. Those are permeable. Well, they're not because there's concrete supporting them underneath. That's happening to a house. That's got to be crushed gravel base. You know that. We That doesn't get away from us. Okay. Very good. Yeah. I don't know how often you see what's going on, but I guess you inspect these things. You go out during during structure. Anyone else? Okay, we'll move along to our zoning code. So, this is a discussion, right? Yes.

And what I and I'm not asking for any actions on that. I just want to discuss with you what this is all about. What this is all about is um a former member of the planning commission suggested that we perhaps need an ordinance that exempts public signs from the opaces of the sign code private signs in the community. That seems like a darn good idea to me. We need to get public signs out of the private se out of the private sign realm and create a separate and distinct chapter uh that would go uh as part of the sign to be in the same chapter section as a sign code that simply does this simply exempts the town from the size height color requirements that all private signs have to abide by. Now there I'm sure there will be members of the public who will smear at that. Um but um every town I've ever worked for, the town has a an exemption um from the in fact towns have much broader exemptions than I'm even talking about tonight in terms of like well look the civic center for instance that civic center if we had that exemption wouldn't have to meet any of our setbacks but that civic center is meeting our setbacks. It is meeting the design overlay. So, we could, you know, we could take this exemption thing to crazy time if we wanted to. We don't want to do that. I simply do not want to have the next time the business committee wants to put up a or the I'm sure there's like a I don't know what else to call the party committee who plans all these fiestas and all the things that go on that they can't put up signs that attract visitors and residents to those facil to those events. I don't want that. I don't want a permit

coming to me that I have to sign off on for that stuff. It's just that's just the town's price of doing business. That's the way I look at it. If you have a different opinion, I'd appreciate a difference of opinion. Um, but there is a draft ordinance in the package tonight that I would like you to look at. Um, and just like we did with the tree ordinance, if you have some specific uh direction to me based on your reading of that ordinance, I would appreciate an email from you to me, not for the group um about how you would modify that um that exemption. That's it. That's all I wanted to say.

How how is that different than what you brought up earlier as far as the sign changes that you want? I know it's it it is the same. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Maybe I Maybe I So, we're having two discussions about the same topic. Yeah. All right. I just wanted to make sure we're having the same conversation. This sounds like it's basically a public It's a public sign exemption. Yeah. Um I don't want to have to uh process a permit for a speed limit sign on on 16th. You know, that's where the speed bumps are going to be. Somebody's gonna somebody's going to put up a sign saying speed bumps. I don't want that coming to me to approve public works. Go put out your sign, you know, protect protect and serve our community. Don't worry about the uh Yeah, they have wants and warrants.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We have any say at all about this, but I just want to go on the record as saying I have no problem with most of what's being proposed for towns, including the events big banner kind of thing. Personally, I have a big problem with events clutter in all the rightways. There's signs that look just like election signs. I don't like them any better, whether they're public or they're private. And if I had a chance, I I thrifted at those. I don't know what anybody else thinks.

There is a recent case, recent law case that protects the political sides. So, we I have to take those immediate out of the mix. I can't I can tell not to put them in the public right away. That's what I'm talking about. Count I can take those out. I can go pick those up tomorrow. They're called snipe signs. Those little cardboard ones with the forks. Those are called snipe signs. All we have to do is amend our code and just say no snipe signs. Um no snipe signs for public for the town either. I'm saying anywhere public or private. Snipe signs are just just cheapen. They just cheapen the entire appearance of the town. They don't.

They're basically you see them on corners. We'll buy your house cash. Um, new metal roof three $3.95 a square foot. Those are snipe signs. Yes, but I see them up.

I You do. You do. Okay. Snip size. Yeah. Because they're just cheap and they look they just trashy. Yes. Is there a better word for those other than just to just clip trashing? No less trashing on the candle. Yeah, I know. But that doesn't apply to campaigns. It does not apply to campaigns. Campaign is a free speech item that Okay. the the Supreme Court ruled on about six or seven years ago. I can't touch those. That's free speech issue. Um well, so maybe the ordinance has exempt signs except for stop signs.

Well, I I do have a question about it because we currently exempt from permitting certain government and public sides. We do. So, do we need to um uh delete those provisions from 17622? Yeah, we do. and amend it. And then these would be the the sub substitute. Admittedly, folks, I'm painting with a broad brush here.

All government signs exempt. Um, most communities that I've worked for have a broad brush exemption for public signs. Um, and you may not like some of the big banners that they put up. Um but um this community lives in I think lives and dies on a lot of our events. I mean I think a lot of why this community is so successful and why it's called the family beach and everybody knows people that I talk to down in the southern part of the state tell them site they go oh the family beach. I'm like oh my god how do you all know our logo or how do you know our bible?

Um I don't want to cretail that. I really think that this is a celebratory kind of a community where we celebrate those kind of things. It's not like we're uh trying to think of a place where this wouldn't lie.

Hilton Head Hilton Head maybe Hilton Head may not allow the public to put up signs all over the place, but we're not talking about private signs. This is clearly about public. So, please read the language because the language is important. and any issue that you have, please email me directly. Don't CC your your members of your of your commission because then we end up with a a you know we end up messing around with foyer requirements freedom of information act. So that's all I had. I just wanted to put this on your radar screen. You've got something in writing. I want you to react to it. We'll make it better. And believe me, the seven people and myself writing an ordinance is better than me writing an ordinance by myself.

So Mark, do you want to give us a deadline for when we uh submit our thoughts to you so that we can advance this and um maybe we have a uh a draft uh ordinance ready to go um at least to get the ball rolling. And I would like to have your comments by February 23rd. That gives me time to make modifications to the ordinance to bring something to you to look at at your next planning commission meeting, which I believe, don't quote me on, this is March 3rd. March 3rd. March Keep in mind that I purposely am painting with a broad brush. So if you want to shorten my brush a little bit, tell me where you want. I like I like prohibiting public snipes. So I love that because they're just so tragic. They really are.

Making a definition for sniper. That's the first time I've ever heard that term. Me too. Yeah, they're called snipe signs. There's another word for them to uh there's a picture at the end of our ordinance whenever we have a picture of a snipe sign added to prohibited signs. Yeah. Well, no, just the different varieties of signs. Oh. Oh, just what signs are. There's a a drawing and it gives you an idea of a sidewalk sign and this kind of sign canopy sign. The roof sign. Yes. A wall sign, roof sign, projecting sign, hanging sign. Yeah, these all of them are picture.

And I'm familiar with all this. So ultimately where this is going to lead is probably in the summer, we're probably going to look at sign code in its entirety and make some decisions about our sign code. tell you that I don't have people banging on my door telling me that our sign code isive or or you know anything like that but it's probably time to give it a refresh just to look at like for instance snipe signs I'll bet you there's no definition for snipe sign in the sign that's why we're seeing them everywhere because we haven't promoted them yet that's all I have

anything else before we move to public comment little tall for me. So, all good. Okay. I might be misunderstanding this sign thing, but it sounds to me like it's like, okay, we want to be able to do whatever we want, but not the citizens. Now, I could be all wrong on that, but that's just the way it was sounding back there, and I hope that's not the case. So, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Learn correct claws. Uh, South Hollywood. Um, I would just like to say first of all, it's kind of nice to be at a commission meeting where there's no council members because council members should let you guys do your work.

With that being said, you guys should let council do their work. You spent almost an hour talking grilling these poor guys from Chichin Associates about the floor. Uh the cost that's council's decisions. It I mean yes it's nice to know what it's going to cost and everything but it's all pretty much public information at this point what the console is doing on it. So, I'm just saying. And next thing was the signs. I also agree that they shouldn't be allowing the town to clutter our town with signs. And even during the last election, it wasn't enforced as far as the ones in the public right away. And it could have been, but it wasn't. And I believe next year I've got a lot of extra signs. I'll put them everywhere even though I won't probably run. And if somebody wants to write me in, fine because when you run, you have to follow all jump through all the hoops for the state on the ethics. Anyway, good night. I'm glad you guys are doing what you do.

Thank you. Any other public comments? Uh, okay. Opening it up to commission comments. Let's start with Scott. No comments. Thank you. No comments, Larry. I'm talk now. No comments. No comment. Okay. No comment here. So, um other than thank you to everybody and um can I get a motion to adjourn the session? Some moved.

A second. Um all in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Thank you all. hotels.