Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is the Town of Mount Airy Planning Commission meeting. The date is November 24th, 2025. It is 7:30. The first order of business, if I could ask you to join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all [clears throat] this evening. I want to thank the good turnout here in town hall for the business of the planning commission this evening and also to those who are attending via the live streaming provided by Carol Media Center and thank you to them for that uh capability within our county. Um the next order of business is the review and approval of our minutes from the October 27th meeting. So, I will pause while my fellow commissioners look over the minutes that have been prepared. [clears throat] [sighs] And at this time, I'll entertain a motion to either approve the minutes or disapprove the minutes. Do I hear a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve as written. Uh, Commissioner Omali makes the motion. Do I hear a second? I'll second. It's seconded by Commissioner Hatley. Any discussion, edits, or amendments on the current minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion to approve the minutes of October 27th, say I. I. I. Sorry. [laughter] No, I like that. Uh, those opposed and those abstaining. abstain

and one abstension. Thank you so much. The motion uh has passed and I will sign the minutes um Miss Clinton at the end of the meeting. Um the next agenda item is citizen comments. I am going to do as I have done uh I believe a couple months ago and I'm going to modify the caveat that you may have on your agenda which says for items not on the agenda I am going to open the comments to any topic you so desire to speak to and so if I could just ask for a quick show of hands of those interested to come forward to the microphone in your left front just a show of hands of those interested I have One, maybe two, maybe maybe three. Okay.

One, two, three, four.

Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I'm I'm open to you uh you know, just getting in line um within reason. Uh we we do have a full agenda tonight, and I'll describe what that is a after um after we go through the public comments and the and the county reports. Um, my limitation because of the number of hands is 3 minutes. And as you, as the veterans of my meetings are, part of your entertainment is me working this thing. Um, but you'll have three minutes on the timer here. As we get down toward about 2 and 1/2 minutes, I may uh make a motion just to warn you that you're approaching the end of your aotted time. Uh, and the last thing I'll say, um, and just so nobody feels it's disrespect if your commissioners have their eyes down and aren't eye contact with you. It's simply because we're trying to vigorously capture your um your points. So, there's no disrespect if we're not looking at you. Believe me, we're we're very attentive. Um, and oftentimes, I know I speak for the other commissioners, a lot of times after a day or so, we go back and we review the tape from the CMC just to make sure we got those comments spot on. So, with all that, um, three minutes and can I go ahead and ask for the first person to come forward? There was a young lady right here in front, I think, that um, Oh, no. I I kind of put you on the spot, so I'm sorry. Anyone want to be first, please? You're welcome to come up here. Um, come on up. There you go. And if I could just ask you, give us your name. And I only care and the town staff at this meeting only cares if you're a county resident or uh if you're um I'm sorry, if you're a town resident or not. Thank you.

Great. All right. Thank you, Amanda Everett. I am a town resident. I live in Nottingham. Um I do want to thank the council for polling our community. I think as we other residents have discussed in other meetings, this proposed structure, not only will it impact our town, but it's really going to impact Nottingham. Um, for many people, it's going to be the first thing they see when they open their curtains, if not hearing bits of it before and the last thing they see when they go to bed. So, I appreciate um looking into that as a as a community. Um, over half of our community responded, which that is a very big thing. Hundreds of people responded and 96% of us said no. So I mean the community is is asking for this not to change the feeling of our not only our town but again our home. Um you know if you look and Google Mount Ary Maryland actually the first thing AI says is it is known for small town charm and a blend of rural and suburban. And that does not mesh to me with a structure of this facility. The comparators that we've talked about in Colombia and Fairfax, they are not the same. They those are towns. They're not 10,000 people like Mount Airy. They are 25. They are 100 in Colombia and they're not backing up to residential homes. So, I would just ask that to be taken into consideration. Um, not we have so much wildlife and beauty in that space. bald eagles. [clears throat] It It is a very unique, special place to live. That is not the norm. And I would I would imagine many of us moved here for that exact reason. I certainly did. And it's going to change. Um it's going to impact school buses, getting out. We've talked about infrastructure, but it is going to change the natural rural part of this community. Um and I I think that's something that really should be should

be noted. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Everett. Another uh another comment, please. An invitation, a second person. Again, name and whether you are or are not a town resident. Good evening, Chairman Gant, Mount Air Planning Commissioners, and citizens of Town Mount Air. I am Dwayne Cordri. I'm a 22-year resident of the town of Mount area and own a home in the Noddingham community across from the proposed annex property the petitioners have indicated they plan to develop into a privatelyowned synthetic turf multisport complex. I am also a sports enthusiast, former baseball player and coach and current sports official. I will again my statement for public record that I and my family are vehemently opposed to the annex the annexation of the petition property. Thank you, Chairman Gant, for accepting my invitation to visit and put boots on ground and eyes on target of a similar sports complex to that which is being proposed by the petitioner. We visited Patriot Park North, located at 5425 Willow Springs School Road in Fairfax, Virginia on Friday, November 7th. Upon our arrival, we met with Mr. Tim Lander, tournaments and special events manager of Patriot Point, who took the time out of his day to provide chairman Gant and I a detailed tour of the sports complex. The planning of Patriots Park North started in 2002 and wasn't opened until 2023 for for operations. Patri Park North is a 67 acre complex with 477 parking spaces, six synthetic turf baseball fields, three open synthetic turf warm-up areas, three synthetic turf batting cages, two concession buildings containing restrooms, one of which is a two-story building surrounded by the four larger baseball fields which serves as a press box, game observation, and game operations management tower. There's a picnic pavilion, a small playground, spectator bleachers, and small maintenance shed, and a short walking path through the facility. Access to the facility is off I 66, which is a

multi-lane multi-lane highway. Off of I66, you get onto Fairfax County Parkway, which is a multi-lane highway similar to I7. Then you exit onto Bradock Road, which is a multi-lane boulevard style similar to I7. And then you turn right onto the Willow Springs School Road at a traffic light which is a dedicated right turn lane, a dedicated left turn lane, and two lanes to accommodate traffic continuing onto Bradic Road. Immediately after making the right, you turn into the 477 space parking lot. When exiting the facility to get back on Bradock Road, there are dedicated right and left turn lanes in the center lane for passing through at the traffic light intersection. The positioners indicate they'll have between 600,000 space parking lots in this facility. This is over nearly twice the number of parking spaces at Patriots Park North. And additionally, the petition has indicated the plan to include a soccer field, basketball, tennis, pickleball courts that Patriots Park does not have in its 67 acre complex. The economic benefit to our local businesses will be minimal and temporary. The excitement from out of town teams to participate in sporting events at new sports complex will be short-lived after they have less than a favorable experience participating events at this facility due to lack of traffic infrastructure and nearby family entertainment and lodging non-existent.

20 seconds, Dwayne.

Okay, there's a lot here. Um, but I can tell you the economic benefit to Monary, it's not there. It's going to be in Frederick. And anybody that thinks Mount A is gonna have a long-term economic benefit here, uh, will be fooling themselves. So, I'll just wrap up with four points. We have an issue with infrastructure that's noted. Um, and the economic boon for the mount area is false. We don't have the road infrastructure. Having synthetic turf sports fields over an aquifer supporting Mount Air's water system, private wells is asking for probable contamination amid a current expensive PAS mitigation effort. Finally, this multisport complex would sit too close to a large residential neighborhood and neighboring property owners and would cause significant inconveniences to important quality of life concerns. Again, my family and I strongly oppose the annexation of this property. Thank you.

Thank you. And normally I make a comment about that Navy sweatshirt, but um I'll take a bet on that. No, I'm not [laughter] I'm not going to go there. December 13th, though. I probably stop the hang of army flying in the house like I did last. Is that how that got there? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Um and and I do ask that we try to adhere to the three minute. Anyone else wish to come and make a public comment? Yes, ma'am. Please name and town resident or not.

My name is Marshall Payne Gasway. Thank you for allowing me to say something real brief. What we actually know thus far is that the development of a major sports complex is off of a major artery as per what we've been told. However, we do not have a major artery. This is in congruent with the 2020 town survey where the number one desire was 61.6% of the respondents was for nature trails. In addition, we were looking at walking and biking paths whereas 45.3% were interested in wooded areas and open space. We were also interested in picnic facilities and being desired by 55.2% of the respondents. Growing the town's economy, it was stated that it's hard to grow an economy without adding residents and it's proposed that the park would put an excellent opportunity for small local businesses to flourish. According to the Fairfax County Local News, Patriot Park has six synthetic fields, has 30 different multi-day tournaments, and it also nets about 160 to$1 million per event. So if we think that this is actually here to benefit us, it is not. According to the times, the park has 26 different events and that was back in 20 uh 23 I believe. Um it hosts 20 to 70 teams booked between now and that was actually in uh early in the year to November. And each event has as I mentioned a a significant amount of individuals. Based on the county sports tourism calculator, each team has an average of 15 athletes, three coaches, two family members per athlete, one umpire, and staff members on the field as well. Again, the comparison that's done between development of Patriot Park and what's expected to happen on Mortville, which is not prepared to deal with that traffic, is very concerning. Sports sports tourism is a growing industry. However, the town of Mount area is neither has the infrastructure nor the capacity to handle all of that. If you were to look at how it's manifested its

place thus far, Patriot Place boasts that it has budget friendly hotels, restaurants, and easy access. This is not what Mount Nar has. There has been conversations about uh posting individuals on the on the road to actually help direct traffic. This is not reasonable, nor is it acceptable as a as a resident in Nottingham. One of the things I'd also like to share is that we're talking about there's going to be significant storm water runoff. There's also going to be pollutant off um running off as well. So again, there's a lot to be considered, but I would ask that as a town as a resident of Mount Ary that we do consider all those factors. While it may be proponent that this is actually an economic upt up uprise for Mount Ary, the folks that are coming in and it may be proclaimed that only x number of individuals are coming in, but when you're coming in for actually a basket of for a baseball game, it's not one team, it's multiple teams because you do show up early. And so we actually have to consider that we're multiplying times two who's going to be traveling in and off of Watersville. It is not set up for that. And Town of Mount area is not set up for that either. Thank you.

Thank you. [clears throat] Any other public comment, please?

Going twice. Public comment. Okay. Seeing no further interest in public comments. I'm closing the public comment section of tonight's agenda and now moving on to the Frederick County and Carroll County planners reports. Um, our Carol County report, if I'm correct, John, has been provided to each of the commissioners in writing. And so I again will pause and let the commissioners uh look over those points in that two-page update from Westminster. And while we're doing that, is there any highlight, John, in looking them over that you would see as a major item for our interest?

Now, I guess the biggest thing the biggest thing for the planning commission is that um the we did forward to uh Carol County with their recommendation. I was going to mention it towards the end of the meeting and it's not denoted in here, but that that quorum meeting that we need to hold possibly February the 4th up in Westminster at 6 p.m. trying to see if we have availability of at least four members. Uh if not, we'll have to potentially plan on trying to have a special meeting uh possibly uh with their planning commission to come here and hold a public hearing as well again about notification etc. So, it's not in their staff report. Uh, I'm just mentioning it. Um, so we sort of think about that if if we can get four members available. Unless you think it unwise, John, let's just tackle that right now.

Yeah, that's why I thought I'd bring it up instead of waiting towards the end.

Yeah. No. Excellent. Excellent. And so, um, if if I heard correctly and and I'm going to recap, but you jump in if I go sideways. Um the water resource element for Carol County of course is a document that's been working through us and along with the water and sewer commission for I guess the past two to three months and it's it's it's familiar to most of us as as the water resource element. It's a required document within the county. they're updating it and because we have our own water system, Mount Ary has a has a specific part of the along with all the other county water systems similar to us. Um, and so what has to happen by county code is they have to have a public hearing that allows the public to look at that in toto including our piece in a public hearing setting. And what Westminster is offering as an option is a date. The date again

is February 4th. I do have it. It's I think it's your last item in your packet. I got you. Okay. So, February 4th, they're willing to host at Westminster Town Hall. It's actually Carol County government. Yes. And and uh what the time? 6 p.m. about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 4th. So, Wednesday, February 4th, 6 pm at their location in the county town hall, they're willing to provide that setting so that they can comply with the code. And the other stipulation is for us to represent our part of that, we have to have a quorum arrive. Is that correct?

That's correct. So, a quorum is four people out of this seven volunteer commission. So the first question is we have we have some choices here. The first choice and the choice that they prefer is that we agree amongst ourselves four folks that will be at that meeting on February 4th at 6 p.m. to participate in that public hearing and be poised to answer any questions from the public regarding it. The other option is if we can't do that then we have to have our own public hearing on the WRE as a part of January's meeting.

Right. We would have it as our January meeting and it does that does fall within their window of between January 15th and February 15th to hold our own public hearing and they would have to have a quorum that would have to come down from their representatives to hear. So the that planning commission court would be here. Okay. So um John, what's your recommendation? That we try to saddle up four people and commit to February 4th. That's the way I'd like to go and I'm willing to also uh transport everybody from here to uh Westminster. Okay. Back. They're saying it's only going to be about a half an hour. Uh I do know that we have a large number of uh modifications to bring our map up to current with their map. So, okay,

out of all the municipalities in Carol County, we have the most revisions. So, I feel like we should it's really up to the commission. We can do whatever. If uh if we're unable to get four people to uh facilitate that and and and agree to going up there on February 4th, then we'll just have to hold it in our a public hearing before our meeting uh with the planning commission of Carroll County in January. Correct.

In January. Okay. So, um, so with that, does anybody have any questions? Any any further questions about that option? Um, is is there a sense among the, um, well, we're absent one tonight. Is there a sense among the sense of six of us that that there are four interested? I I'd be interested in in heading up on February 4th. I can go. So, that's two. I can go, Steve. That's three. One more. Bill volunteered. [laughter] Bill potentially would be available, I would think, but I I'd have to reach out to him and see. Yeah. So, um an alternate possibly. So, if somebody were to get sick or something.

Yeah. So, um Yeah. So, that's a that's a good idea. Is there somebody that could be in the batters box in case uh something goes sideways on February 4th? Anybody? Okay. So, let's remain optimistic. But the problem is is if we can't do the fourth, we've already missed the window for so we really have to if if it feels like it's un you know unattainable to do that then we should just plan for January make a public hearing here and just let them know that now right so so let's do this let's both you and I pulse uh commissioner buts and see if in fact he can roger up to joining the other three on February ruary 4th.

Okay. Um and then if that's a no-go, we'll shift to January. Okay, that works. And make the best of it. And I'm sorry to I mean I I don't see a third option here because we have a time constraint. So fair enough. Okay. So, you'll take the lead on entertaining Bill to I'll reach out to Bill and then um convey to you what the outcome of that was and and probably let all the other three people know. Right. It might just I feel like my gut's telling me we're going to have it here in house in January. So, which is fine. Gotcha. And the other three again were Steve, Martina, and myself. Correct. With a bill and a question.

We got it. Okay. Um All right. Uh and that's it for me. Okay. Uh, any questions on the Carol County report before we leave that report? Um, and of course, as I always do, because we don't have a Bill Brian, go ahead. Why are they um pausing development in the Freedom Area? I mean, I I know it says here that they're um [clears throat] the I guess they're are they overburdened with applications for this particular type of uh retirement villages, cluster subdivisions, planning, commercial centers, and self storage is the question. I don't know how to answer that question.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, um, so for the public, the point, um, Commissioner Bean is bringing up, there's an item on the report that says that one of the commissioners at the county level is asking to defer some county council decisions with regard to a particular area, the freedom area. Um, and um, and certainly I defer to Mr. McCarron or to John, but a deferral usually means we just simply want to delay a decision until we get some more information. It's it's pretty much that. And so there's some circumstance. That's the best answer I can give you, Brian, is that um it says here they want to study some more uh study the zoning code some more and suggest possible modifications. So, there must be something involved in that freedom area issue that they're saying we're going to set the decision aside. We need some more information. Is that fair enough? Um, Mr. McCarron,

I was unable to look up the code that they they to see what's okay. It says they they've noted chap um what's it chapter 158 of the count county code in relation to the freedom community comprehensive plan. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm just curious is you know did they greenlight all these projects and been like whoa I think if there was something that's already been approved they haven't it wouldn't stop that production of that item but if they were trying anybody was coming for additional uh would be in a holding pattern would it be fair John as you go back and give her um your our contact miss um

bring Claire's Claire, thank you. Um, as you uh circle back to her with regard to the could you also ask her if there's a a little more information with regard to that bullet that Commissioner Be's curious about? Sure. Yeah. And we just include that in the next I guess January y update. So, okay. Chapter 158. Hey Dave, can you come up to the mic just so we can hear what you're saying? Uh I believe I believe he said chapter 158 is the county zoning zoning code for that

zoning code. Yep. That's what so um apparently they're studying that portion of the code with respect to retirement villages and retirement homes, cluster subdivisions, planned commercial centers and self- storage units. And that's all we have. So

essentially okay. So more than a deferral a moratorum. Okay. Yeah, but again, thank you. Um, but again, if you could just pulse, Claire, um, I'm I'm I'm certain that's accurate, but just get something in the next report and that would be that would be great. Um, okay, I'm closing out the Carol County Planner liaison report and moving to Frederick County, and we're blessed with having a real uh, liaison. Uh, Miss Vanessa Moreno comes from Frederick City every one of our meetings and and keeps us up to date. And for those that are new, we always try to ask if Vaness uh Vanessa can kind of kind of hone in on the area that's just adjacent to the to the town, which is your your new market area um and so forth for logical reasons. So, Vanessa, thank you for coming tonight.

Yeah, nice to see you all. So, just a couple of updates on our end. Um a couple well a few months ago I previously mentioned that the Cherry Run development was um had applied for a water and sewage amendment uh to reclassify from S4W4 to S3W3. Um the county I'm sorry the planning commission um recommended approval for this reclassification and it recently went to the county council on November 18th and the county council also um approved recommended approval for these for this reclassification of uh W3S3 and for those who may not know uh W3S3 is for developments oh that classification is assigned for developments that are planned to be complete completed and operational within three years. So that plan is moving forward. Um let's see. And in regards to the critical data infrastructure infrastructure overlay, um the county council will be reviewing this item next month at their public meeting. A number of property owners have requested to be included in the overlay. And so, um, at the upcoming county council meeting, uh, the council will determine which properties will be included in the overlay and allow the public to give public comment as well. Uh, signs have been posted around the Quantum Frederick campus and letters have gone out to adjoining um, property owners and so we have two meetings coming up. Uh, one is a workshop on December 2nd and then we have the public hearing on December 16th at 5:30 p.m. for both dates and the public is allowed six minutes to comment at this meeting. And yep, that those are my two updates.

Okay. And we often revisit the number of dwelling units in the pipeline for uh for Cherry Run and still I believe it's recorded as 1,03 homes are expected for the Cherry Run development specifically. Um it was recently approved for earlier this year in May approved for 800 dwelling units. Okay. And along with a new school elementary along with a dedicated school site. New elementary school. Okay. Yeah. So, it again, we say it every month, but just to our uh west, it's uh it's busting loose. Yes. So, getting getting a bit of an explosion. Any questions for Miss Moreno from any commissioners?

Yeah. So, you were saying that Cherry Run is supposed to be completed in the next three years or started in the next three years. It should be completed and operational within the next three years. um that reclassification of their water and sewage amendment plan is to kind of just like set the groundwork to start construction. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? The data center overlay. Yes. Um can you explain to everyone what a what an what an overlay is on top of a Sure.

So an overlay is pretty much the footprint to where data centers can be constructed. Um um our staff along with the county executive's office proposed a map that was reviewed by the planning commission and they have narrowed down the site to where the Adamstown community growth area is. And so that growth area is where the planning commission recommended that data centers can only be constructed. But at the county council meeting, again, as I mentioned, there are property owners who would like to be included in that overlay. And so the county council will be officially reviewing that footprint of where data centers can be constructed. Um, and yeah, that's just like a little bit of an overview of what it is. But

is is the land currently agricultural in Adamstown? A lot of the pro um the land right now that is currently being constructed is zoned industrial for data center construction, but a lot of the property owners that are requesting to be included are zoned agriculture or light industrial. So they will have to go through the reszoning process to even begin building uh data center. Is there a um I know that data centers and I think everyone else in this room knows how much power they use, right? And water resources as well. Um what kind of impact will that have on the Adamstown community and the surrounding community?

Yes. To have those things humming along. Um there is a of course a lot of um there has been a lot of public input by the residents who obviously do not want to live near a data center given qual quality of life and the noise and all those other other reasons. Um I know statewide there hasn't been extensive studies on the environmental impacts unfortunately of what data centers do bring. But um yeah, I unfortunately can't really answer that. Just I'm not so aware at this moment. That's true. Yeah. Okay.

But hopefully Yeah. Um our staff has been working with the planning commission to make sure like we are able to answer as many questions as we can that we're able to ask staff and hopefully assist the planning commission and county council in making their decision on who should be included in the overlay. Was there any um discussion based on the power the power needed to prov to be provided to the to the data center if they're going to be using alternative energy sources like turbines or solar anything like that?

That is a great question. So there is currently a data set a couple of data data centers under construction right now and these projects were approved couple a few years ago and so I do not have that um information on me right now but I'd be happy to dig around find some staff reports if or any other information I can provide to you all. I'd love to know that. Yeah absolutely digging that out Vanessa that'd be great. Thank you. Of course. Any other questions? If not thank you so much Vanessa. And please have a safe journey back to Frederick tonight. Thank you. And happy Thanksgiving and happy you also. Thank you. Thanksgiving. Very nice. Thank you. Your sweatshirt. Thank you. [laughter]

Okay. Um no further questions with our Carol and Frederick County planners. I'm going to close this agenda item. I'm now opening the agenda item for the annexation resolution 2025-47 and the task that's before this commission since it's July meeting for us to provide a recommendation to the town council per the town code. And so I won't recap as I did in the previous because uh time is I I think going to be full tonight with the uh agenda that I have um underneath this particular item. Uh I will preface by saying the business tonight will be to refine a addendum a compilation of all of bless you of all of our efforts since July. Um the commissioners um decided that we would set criteria by which we could evaluate and assess the petition request the resolution and then we would make judgments with regard to each of those criteria. that judgment would be informed by a variety of data including the petitioners information um and and and other avenues um uh visit to comparable parks um surveys as was mentioned by the public comments. And so this document which I think is probably on the order of 60 to 70 pages simply is is to be understood as not the recommendation but simply um the compilation of all of the questions and answers that we believe we've gathered to form a recommendation. Um, I I'm going to be optimistic in that once we complete the refinement of that draft addendum, that draft compilation tonight, and I have a structure for that I'll I'll share in just a moment. But the way ahead, if we do achieve the complete adjustments and refinements, then I'm hopeful that we can update it,

deliver it to the commissioners and the public during the month of December for their awareness and of course for the petitioners awareness. And then since we do not meet as a commission in December, we will have that time to digest that compilation of information and then return back here in town hall on January 26 for our first 2026 commission meeting with the hope that at that time we can entertain a motion toward that recommendation and then we can close our task that the that the council has given us and deliver it to the council for them to pick up the resolution and deliberate on on it. Um, our job here is just a recommendation. We are not the decision maker on the resolution on the petition itself. We're simply in an advisory role, call a recommendation, an advisory role. And um, and I'm hopeful again that we can do the job tonight so that we can provide that u recommendation in January. We have until March 25th as our suspense. Um, so there is a little wiggle room if January doesn't get that recommendation, but um, I'm hopeful that we can stay on target for a January completion. So with that, um, let's get about the areas of the addendum that I want us to focus on tonight to make sure again that they are accurate as the commissioners wish the responses and the answers to the criteria should be. um they have all had time to look over the draft and form their own amendments and refinements. Um we will do annexe which is the criteria and the commission's responses to that criteria. We will then move to the pros and cons section in the front end of the addendum which is a summary of what we see as the upside of the petition and

then conversely the downside pros and cons in short terms. Okay. And then the last area [clears throat] is an area that in consultation with the town attorney and the town staff, we are going to go a bit beyond our task for recommendation and also offer considerations to the town council. If in the case of their approval of the resolution, if it's conditioned on that, if they wish, then we also would like to offer them some conditions, provisions um that they may may wish to consider informing the final annexation agreement with the petitioners. Okay. And so so we have three sections, annexe, criteria, and response. Second section is pros and cons. Last section is um offered or suggested conditions and provisions if an annexation agreement unfolds by the town council's decision. For the first two areas, annexe and the pros and cons, I invite the petitioner to come to the table. Um, I will set the rules such that I will look to the commissioners for any refinements first and then because I believe you have offered a rebuttal to the draft, I would be willing, of course, my interest is making them as accurate as possible. So, my interest would be to then turn to your participation once we've exhausted the commissioner's input if that's fair and then we entertain your ideas. Okay. I think that's above board. I think that's evenhanded. I will however ask that after we complete the annexe and the pros and cons that I ask that you step from the table as we go into that third area which is more contractual if I can use that term between the town staff the town and the council and I I

personally don't believe it's it's necessary nor I dare say appropriate you know for the petitioner now to be negotiating conditions if an annexation agreement were to occur. Am I Am I making myself logical? I hope. Okay, I'm getting a head nod. It's late at night. The wife had me hanging Christmas decorations. So, um I'm hoping I'm making sense. So, with that, if you gentlemen and whoever you wish to bring with you could journey to the table. We only have one mic, so I do ask that you share it with whoever is going to offer input. And I ask the commissioners to turn to annexe page E1. I'm going to do this very quickly and because I am going to move fast, I do want to state you're not going to hurt my feelings if you say slow down, Ralph. Okay. Um, and so let's pick it up on E1. And I'm going to ask for the commissioners to tell me, do you have any suggested refinements to the current draft answers on those criteria on page E1?

R, I just want to clarify. Is this is this E1 here? Because it's just one at the bottom. No, go uh scroll further. Keep going. Okay. Sorry. It's um it's at the bottom right. E1. You're going to need to keep going. There's uh enclosure A, B, C, D, E. There we are. The commissioners really overachieved. Uh oh. My god. Enclosure. Pass that. You're coming up on it. There you go. Just back down to E1. Excellent. Hey, thanks John for uh because this allows the public to Should have had it queued up. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, ma'am.

No,

no, you're fine. Okay. So, uh, without going down each one, I'm just going to ask for big muscle movements here on this page. Does any commissioner wish to offer an amendment to the answers present on that on that page? Not hearing none, we're going to move to E2. Again, muscle movements on E2. Are there any edits, amendments that would make any of our answers better? Okay, with two pages done, I now turn to the petitioner and ask for the petitioners. Do you have any uh objections or input to those two pages? Brian, is it

that's I'm I keep flipping. I'm sorry. Okay, Tim. All right. Thank you. We're going to move to E3. I do have an amendment. Um, but again, I want to turn to the commissioners first. Do you have any refinements on that page? None. Okay. I do have a refinement and it does require an interaction uh with a petitioner. Um, it may involve Linhard Traffic Consulting. Do we have a phone number? We do. Okay. Is he in the batter box? Yes. Okay. This phone or the

driver here. Okay. So, for the public, while we're doing this, um I've asked the town staff to be a bit agile here and we are going to call the Linhardt with permission from the petitioner. I should have said that initially. With petitioners's permission, we are going to contact the gentleman. Is his name John? Nick. Nick. John Nick. My Nick. John. Nick. Don was a lighting guy. Okay.

Okay. Let's try it again here. So, while he's doing that, my first question is I make a response here that says it is understood the likely hours of operation of the proposed sports complex would be from 400 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays. I'm going to stop there. Is that still accurate? Roughly. Roughly during the school year. Yeah. So, summer hours would be different. Okay. I will caveat during the school year. I will add that suffix on to that for clarity. It's busy. It's busy.

Okay. Um, and then I go further to say, "And from the morning approximately 9:00 a.m. until 1000 p.m. on weekdays." So, the 900 a.m. was a guess because I don't believe I went over and and viewed four months of of interaction. Um, I don't believe I ever heard a start time on the weekends. Is 9:00 a.m. appropriate or I guess uh it's approximate at this early stage. Uh approximate there any depending on the day maybe 8 to 10 a.m. somewhere in that window. Okay.

Um so 9:00 a.m.'s a good average for that. Okay. So you're it's a good that's comfortable. Okay. Okay. And again we're not we're not at the stage where any of this is binding. I'm I'm sure you know that. Um we're just trying to get a sense of if this operation were to occur, what would be the hours and all the ensuing traffic, etc., etc. Gotcha. Okay. Nick, John. Okay. Open, please. Nick, can we hear you? Can you hear us, Nick? Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. Very well. Yeah. Nick. So, Nick, can you hear me when I um when I'm So, you can hear

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me okay or not? Yeah, we can hear you. A little bit of um you know, a little bit of an echo, but I think we can get past it. Um let me let me try without my headphones and see if that's better. Did you hear what he said? Oh, can you hear me now? Much better. Much better.

Okay, great. Gotcha. Um, I'm not I'm not sure um you fully understand what we're doing here tonight, but I did ask uh the petitioners uh for the ability for us to be able to pulse you with any traffic related questions, Nick. Um because our overall effort is making sure we have a full understanding of the traffic uh impact study that I believe Linhard performed. Okay. [clears throat] Yes. Okay. Okay. And I was watching the the hearing online prior to you calling, so I'm I'm briefed on what you're what you're doing at this time.

Okay. So, you you got the you're you're teed up then. Excellent. Um, and so I'm at uh E3 and I make a statement that I understood from all of the four months interaction that while we while we agree that the morning traffic period will not be impacted. This statement does not address the afternoon hours when three nearby schools will let out. Does the traffic study address the weekday school in session traffic loading? And if it does, can you direct us to the page in the traffic study?

So the traffic study is um it does address weekday peak periods um but those periods are typically 4 to 7. So it's possible that uh you know it's possible likely that that the school the schools letting out are not captured directly in the study at this point. Um what what I understand from folks at SHA who I've talked to um subsequent to our original meeting and trying to get a better grip on you know the the subject intersection is that the schools letting out are you know an issue at that signal. Um, and so I think, you know, if and when this site moves forward, uh, you know, that's something we would need to make sure that our counts probably start. Typically, you know, we go by the county, which is which is 4 to 7. But I think for this case, we would want to get something like 2 to 7 to make sure that we're capturing that school peak. Um, maybe even one just to make sure, you know, we're not missing anything. But um for what it's worth in in terms of the trip generation for the site um you know the the overlap of traffic during that school peak is going to be minimal compared to the volume of traffic that the site would be placing during the the the hours between 4 and 7. So, in other words, traffic on the roads, you know, because of the schools is probably worse prior to four, um, at least at that intersection, but traffic from the sites impact is going to be greatest between five and six. So, it's there's kind of a a non-overlap. Okay. Um, and that's and that's because the hours of operation of the of the proposed hours of operation of the sports complex coming after the real peak of school bus traffic, which you say I believe you're saying is more toward the 3 to 4 um 3 to 4:00 p.m. period. Is that is that another

I'm not I'm not certain what time the school peak is. I know generally they're they're around the 3 to four period whereas you know or even earlier than that whereas the the peak of um of the site is going to be between five and six. So the worst part of school traffic is certainly not going to overlap with you know the worst the worst traffic from this site. Okay. If I were to use the phrase there's minimal overlap of the school traffic with the hours of operation during the weekdays during the school year, would that be accurate? I I would need to confirm what time those schools let out. Okay. But I believe I believe it would be accurate. I I can't say for sure because I haven't looked at the dismissal times. Okay.

But but I believe that would be accurate based on my general experience with with school departures and um the hours of operation for this site. I know specifically the peak for this site is is between five and six generally. Yes, I think it's an accurate statement, but without having reviewed the school uh the school dismissal times, I can't say 100%. Okay. But I'm recapping a statement you made earlier, it would be accurate to make the statement that the study does not it's not captured in the study the traffic related to the school letting out. Is that accurate? Assuming the school lets out before 4:00, that's correct. We we did not capture that.

Okay. Okay. just because it's outside of when we typically evaluate. Gotcha. Thank you, Nick. Um, and on that. Yeah, go ahead. While I'm I'm forming my next question. Go ahead. Uh, Commissioner um Heather Wallace [laughter] Wallace, if we have if the schools are getting out in the, you know, between three and four time frame, then they're not like the children who would be using the fields wouldn't be, you know, creating traffic to use the fields during that time. They'd be sitting on buses and in their parents' cars going home, right?

I I think that's kind of what Nick was saying. No, I think what what but in here we're saying the commission response is that, you know, the statement doesn't address the afternoon hours and it it seems like it's almost moot because the kids that would be going to the fields would not be going, you know, they're riding home from school. I Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And and and I think what if I'm not mistaken, I think Nick was trying to make the same thing that they're two distinct events. uh because the peak school bus travel period should be tapering off by 4 pm which is when the activity associated with going to the sports complex would be picking up. Okay. If I captured Nick, did you overhear that? Yes, I agree with that statement. That's what I was that's what I was trying to say. Okay. Excellent.

Um no no ma'am. No, ma'am. Um but but what you can do is you can send those questions in to John um John Breeden and um we we can certainly get that question in that manner if that's fair to you. Okay. Um the um so I'm going to close uh let me ask one more time uh Brian or Tim any other elements of this school traffic with starting the operation during the weekdays while school's in session. I just just want to echo what um Commissioner Wallace said. We absolutely agree with that statement.

Okay. They're distinctly different peak periods is kind of how I'm also phrasing it. Okay. All right. All right. Um, so I'm going to make those edits on E3. Uh, and let's turn to E4. Do we have any commissioner edits or amendments on the draft responses on E4? [clears throat] I do.

Commissioner Wallace again. Um well, some of these are going to reflect, I think, what the petitioner has said in previous briefings, but um on the first one about the staggered schedule, it says, you know, we expect an average of 300 cars per hour. Um and that's only for the weekends. That's not for the weekday. So, I think we just need to clarify that.

Um Okay. You have any follow-ups? Yeah. So, um, so let me turn to Nick with that question. I don't know if you heard that question with regard to the, uh, entering and exit average. Yep. Um, and that may be data within the study that you could point us to the right page that depicts that.

Yes, sir. Uh, I believe the question was related to Saturday, uh, the the 300 vehicles entering and exiting during the peak on the weekend versus the the weekday. Um and that data is on exhibit five uh which is page 12 of the of the traffic study. [snorts] Uh it's you correctly stated 300 Saturday uh peak period trips 144 in and 156 out. During the PM peak the numbers are 86 in and 45 out for a total of 131 vehicles. Okay. Okay. So,

and that's during, as we discussed during the the first hearing, that's during the the peak hour. So, the busiest the busiest 1-hour period uh during the evening. Okay. So, so exhibit five on page 12 is strictly Saturday is strictly a Saturday projection. Is that accurate to begin with? Exhibit five includes the table uh on exhibit five that's that shows soccer complex fields uh eight fields and again obviously this is not soccer but as discussed in the original no I understand I understand why it says soccer

yeah yeah yeah so so going across that it's it's AM peak is the first three columns being in out total for AM second three are in out total for PM peak and then third last three columns are inout total for Saturday peak So, so am peak is what days? Let me go back to that. AM peak.

Sorry. So, so when a typical traffic study, and when I say AM and PM peak, I'm referring to a typical uh weekday, which the state, county uh define as Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday while schools are in session. So, so you know, it can't be like we wouldn't do any traffic counts or collect data this week because of Thanksgiving. But, uh, you know, last week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, any of those would have been considered a typical weekday. And AM peak is typically between 7 to 9:00 a.m. and then PM is is 4 to 6 generally. Bingo. That's what I was looking for. I was looking for an hourly time frame. So, 7 to 9 for AM peak and 4 to 7

uh, let me look at 4 to 6 p.m. with what we did. Yes, we did four to seven in the study. So, it's it's it's the highest hour within that four to seven period. Okay. And then when you say on the very last section, Saturday midday peak, can you give me an hourly time frame for what midday means? Yes. In this case, uh it's generally and and in general it's between 10 and 2 typically. Okay. 10 a.m.

Don't traffic isn't, you know, people aren't up and about as early generally on a Saturday or at least as many people are not. there's no school drop off. Uh more the highest volumes of traffic on a weekday, excuse me, on a weekend typically occur in that 10 to two period. Okay. And I'm turning to the petitioner now, but you're not only looking at Saturday tournament play, but also Sunday tournament play, correct?

So the Saturday midday peak would be data. It's a kind of a question, Nick. Would it also be appropriate for Sunday? So we we evaluated Saturday because generally Saturday volumes are higher than Sunday. Um I would suggest that if we were to if that's a concern and um if we were to move forward beyond this stage that we that we should include a Sunday analysis as well and collect that data. I believe I believe the Saturday is going to give you your your most conservative analysis because of volumes being higher, but I think it's worth collecting that data uh you know as as we go forward and seek to understand all the potential impacts.

Okay, I'm going to circle now on the soccer fields. I totally understand because of the Maryland Department of Transportation categories for traffic studies why you were forced to pick soccer fields. So, we don't need to refresh ourselves on that. But in addition to the eight fields, I believe there is a training facility building of roughly 12,000 square feet. Is that still accurate? Yes. And I believe we're saying there's no traffic study projected for those participating in that large indoor facility. Is that accurate?

So the the land use category considers um everything that's happening on the site. Um if we were to look at a different land use uh like a hotel for instance, the hotel trip generation is based on the number of rooms. Obviously there's things happening within the hotel other than simply people staying in rooms. There could be conferences, there could be restaurants, but trip generation for that type of use is simply based on the number of rooms. Uh similarly for this use, the soccer field category considers other things that could be occurring in the area where there are soccer fields. So they specifically mention things like a fitness trail, activities center, aquatic center, picnic ground, and I'm reading from the definition of of this use. Activity center, aquatic center, picnic grounds, basketball, tennis courts, uh vendors selling food or merchandise, and a playground. Um all of that is par part and parcel of the trips generated. the the variable is simply the number of fields that's used to calculate that.

So what you're telling me is everything beyond the eight soccer fields is ancillary to your data. It's it's not that it's ancillary, it's that the trips for that, the trips to the facility are are based primarily on the number of fields uh and other trips that might be generated by those other facil facilities. It's not that they're, you know, there's no it's not that we're saying there's no traffic to and from them. It's just that the traffic that that is using them is determined based on the variable fields and that's you know as with the hotel example that I gave that's each use within that trip generation manual is is conducted based on some variable.

Um and so in this case it's fields but but again I if you if it's helpful I can read the definition verbatim just so you understand what those fields are accounting for within the soccer complex. If not I I don't need to.

No not necessary right now. What I'm trying to put my head around, and maybe I'm the only commissioner doing this, is I know there's going to be other activities on that parcel. One of them being a large training facility, others being, of course, a walking [snorts] trail, um, basketball courts, playground, etc. How how do we in a traffic study account for the projected traffic associated with those other areas beyond the soccer fields? and and I'm trying to wrap my head about how much extra would that be reasonably projected and um and and I'm struggling with an answer as to that's an additional 5% to these numbers or it's embedded

it's it's included within these numbers. So when they go out and they conduct the studies that these numbers are based on, okay? They'll go to a soccer complex somewhere and they'll count they'll count the number of fields and then they count the number of cars in and out, you know, throughout the day to determine the the average trip generation, you know, peak hour, the rate that that's occurring at. Um, and they'll note when they do those types of studies, you know, this facility also had an activity center, an aquatic center, basketball, tennis courts. Okay?

You know, those those uses are drawing people, but those but the way they quantify for the overall use. So even though there's a there's a center here, the numbers the trip generation, those 300 people, those 300 cars in and out on Saturday are accounted for within the way the the methodology works. It's calculated based on fields, but it incorporates the people that are doing things other than playing soccer, baseball, or what have you on the fields. People that are at the playground, people that are on the fitness trail, people that are in the training center. Okay. Okay. Um, another question. Go ahead. Mhm.

Nick, the uh the details that you put in here for exhibit 5, is that a total car count of Saturday midday peak of 300 cars in and out? That's that's the fi the busiest hour that we call the peak hour. So during one the busiest one hour on Saturday you'd have 144 and 156 out

and that's on top of your weekend peak hours of 10 to 2 of 1817 current residents driving in and out of their communities. So it would be 1817 cars between the hours of 10 and two on page 21 of your survey plus 300 cars on on your random on your random it's on top of whatever traffic is out there already. So if you go to page um seven of the uh excuse me exhibit seven on page 14 of the study. Mhm.

Those are the total volumes uh in parentheses on that exhibit are the Saturday peak hours. So again that one busiest hour on Saturday. So, for instance, at if you're looking at that exhibit at intersection 4, which is Watersville and RLS Road, uh there are 13 left turning vehicles on Saturday traveling eastbound, 118 through vehicles traveling eastbound, 100 westbound throughs, four westbound rights, etc., etc. I'm just trying to kind of explain but you know so so the volumes out there today uh will increase will increase you know based on excuse me exhibit for exhibit 7 on page 14 includes uh the total includes the traffic from the site. So that's existing plus the traffic from the site. Um but but those volumes for a two-lane road 100 vehicles per direction or 150 vehicles per direction are are relatively low. in fact very low volumes uh you know for that type of roadway. So there is capacity to to handle the traffic that's out there.

Do you do you have a um a crystal ball that determines what the this actual capacity can be? Uh I there's a lot of science moving traffic engineering and it's I don't need a crystal ball because we're using we're using the science of traffic engineering that's been developed over the last 70 plus years which includes this trip generation methodology. I mean those are numbers I'm pulling from my hat. Those are those are numbers that are accepted by the state, county, town. Uh you know these these are and the way these studies are done are based on a specific methodology that that determines how this how this is conducted and you know what volumes of traffic are likely to be there. So no I don't have a crystal ball but I do have I do have science backing how these studies are done. I see your science on exhibit nine uh where it says evening peak hour number one Maryland 27 Ridge Road and W West Watersville signalized light. The existing delay is a C at 27.3 seconds. The background delay is also a C at 27.6 seconds and the total delay is a C at 30.3 seconds which is pretty much uh two or three cycles of that light. If anyone else in this room is sitting at that light that wants to turn a left. Yeah. So consider that C not being a C anymore after this sports complex comes in.

Yeah.

That this the total the total delay on that table is with the sports complex. So to clarify what those three scenarios are existing is the volume that's out there today without you know just we went out we counted the the the number of cars on the roads. Today background is kind of an intermediate term that's today's volumes plus uh any background any growth in the area uh based on projected bas based on projected growth over time. So we look at the you know 10 years of data and uh you know how [clears throat] what the average growth along the area roadways has been and then total condition is those two conditions together plus those site traffic volumes that we're talking about from exhibit 5 added to that. So that so that total condition is is is is the impact you would see from the site. And Nick uh commissioner again uh let's my question I'm going to walk us through it. So, let's go back to exhibit five where you show the Saturday midday peak data that shows 144 in and 156 out. Are are are you are you with me?

Yes, sir. Okay. 144 in and 156 out. We turn the page to exhibit seven to to that diagram and I'm seeing at the site access point three the 144 and 156 should somehow add up within those parentheses numbers. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes.

Okay. So, I'm seeing 51 go in from the Noddingham direction. I'm seeing 93 go in from the Maryland 27 direction. Are you tracking with me? I am. Yes. Okay. I add those two, I get 144. That's correct. And that aligns with exhibit five, which says at peak on Saturday, 144 cars are expected to be turning into the proposed access point. Right. Yes, sir.

And I can do the same drill with regard to the outbound 156. Same. Same. Right. Right. That's correct. Yes. Okay. and and I went through that not only for my education but to kind of understand where all these groups of numbers are within that Watersville Road line. Um are there any other questions with regard to the peak projected traffic in and out of the site on Saturdays or weekdays? Commissioner Wallace. Um can we agree that that's at this point in time just for the record? Oh, sure. That's at this point in time. Correct.

And so by the time you know a concept plan would come in or something like that, all of this would be very different. Correct. Okay.

Correct. And and and if I may elaborate on Commissioner Wallace's great observation is for the for the public here is that it this traffic study is not the traffic study that would be allowed to come before us if we go into the site planning process. So, let me make that clear. This is a traffic study that the petitioner was asked to provide as a part of our cost benefit requirements, and they've provided us this information. An approved traffic study means that it has to be approved by both Maryland Department of Transportation and the State Highway Administration, two two entities which don't have eyes on this data currently that we're looking at. So, we're looking at preliminary projected traffic. Nick, anything wrong in what I just described with your study?

Um, no, that's 100% correct. The only thing I was I would add is that this study is conducted to the standards that you know would we would undertake a study for for those agencies. But certainly the um the detail of review and uh the expertise that those agencies as well as town staff bring to the to the equation um you know is is extremely valuable and right um you know all this would be would be thoroughly reviewed. Yes, you're you're spot on.

Okay, good. And and I left out a key person in this and I never like to leave out our town engineer but we would also have Barney Quinn our town engineer looking over that formal approved M.SHA SHA traffic study. Uh Barney, that was the shout out to you. So, okay. All right. So, we would have our local town staff eyes on this also, of course, Nick, as you as you well know, I'm sure. Okay. Um, so we have an understanding of the data that's in the tables and how the data now migrates into the diagrams that has been provided by Linhard Traffic Consulting. Um, I'm going to turn back to E4. Are there any further questions, amendments, or refinements of the answers? Um that page also goes into um the movements of expected patrons as far as leaving the park and using concessions and entering into the town for their needs which may include dining needs, refreshments, beverages, meals, etc. Um do any of the commissioners have any suggested refinement of that? I'm about mid- page on E4.

I do. Commissioner Walls. [snorts] So, on the one about the economic benefit to the town, I think I mean, where are we getting this information from? I mean, we're we're speculating about whether patrons are going to prefer uh concessions over using town businesses. Correct. I don't I don't know that that's an assumption we can make. So you're referring to the last sentence that begins with when players and families. Is that specifically the sentencing? Well, and it appears to diminish the thrust of the position elsewhere in the brief that the complex will strengthen the local economy. Okay, let me go up. That's midway on that, right?

Right. Okay. So, you're you're advocating to strike on that? Yeah. I don't agree with it and I don't Okay. Yeah. Okay. Any other comment on that? Any disagreement with striking? Uh I'm just wondering we can strike this totally or do you want to you want to strike it totally from the document or you want to have it in another section that has Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I have no objection to that. Any other one more time any other comment? I am striking from the word additionally all the way to the end underlined within the town. Yep.

Okay. And preface to that, I want to make sure I have a full understanding from my research, and this is to the petitioners. My understanding of major sports complexes such as that, is that it's typical for the concessions to be run by the teams themselves. These are volunteer adults that come into the physical plant provided by the sports complex, a counter, uh, refrigeration, all those things that make a solid concession. But it's the it's the parents that or the adults associated with that team that now run a concession to raise money. Um or are you looking at a different model for that? I'm just curious.

It would be different. Like we would be looking at maybe bringing in food trucks from the town or having restaurants from the town bring out their equipment to the park and running it there. we might have an in-house concession that's more just like Gatorade and not necessarily a full service, but that's how we were looking at it there. Because it's not uncommon, again, I'm I'm kind of scratching this issue another way. It's not uncommon that feebased field reservations also take a percentage cut from the concessions which are then managed and sold by team adults. That's [clears throat] that's quite common. Yeah. But in but in your model, you don't see that. You don't see that kind of business plan for concession sales. No, I got you. Can I

add two things from the the last point? Just certainly. Go ahead. So, um the the facility operations for the for the facility itself would very little overlap with when they actually complex with the fields are in session. So, the indoor complex wouldn't really be operating at any high of a volume, okay, while the while the fields are in use with doing that. And the Sunday schedule is typically 25 to 40% less because of the way the tournament schedule works. So teams usually, for instance, teams will play two games on Saturday each and then it's a single elimination on Sunday. So you end up playing a lot less games on Sunday. Fewer teams on Sunday.

That's why Saturday would have [clears throat] would have more trips than Sunday would. So just I just want to throw that out there. Well, this is really helpful with regard to the concessions because I had I had no idea that you had a model that was going to bring in town vendors. Let me just put it in that broad category. But that's your that's your plan. Okay. Any other question then? Um, then with that information, I'm going to recast the beginning of that commission response because again, what I'm portraying there is something that you just said is not going to happen.

Is that is that is that I mean I don't I'm portraying I'm telling the picture of how I see other spart sports parks running their concessions and you just told me that's not your case. Okay. Then with the commissioner's permission, I'm going to capture the words I just um understood that, you know, it's not going to be teamrun concessions. It's going to be concessions that are essentially um pulled in by the petitioners and contracted, I guess, is the right word. But it would be utilizing local dining, restaurants, etc. Trucks. I heard trucks.

The food trucks. Okay. All right. Um, give me a moment while I uh make a quick change. [sighs] Any other questions regarding concessions or economic benefit? Thanks for that, Commissioner Wallace and and others. Okay. Um, I'm moving at the bottom of E4. And basically all I'm saying there is I agree with kind of what you presented in your slideshow. And that is you obviously are understanding that if there's a poor experience with gaining access off of 27 or coming from Watersville Road or whatever, um, nobody's going to enjoy coming to the sports complex. And so I'm just echoing that

which is in a way of me trying to say we got to have high confidence that the traffic is not going to become a nightmare for not only getting to the park but for the people that are already living there. Fair. [snorts] Fair. Okay. Ralph, can we add to that that um that would be something that would be dealt with in an APFO? Yeah. Yeah.

And and again the APFO is where that formally improved M.A. SHA traffic study has to come from the APFO is acronym for adequate public facilities ordinance within our town code. Paragraph 25-5 requires that this commission certify that there's adequacy in seven key areas of what's deemed public facilities. Traffic and signaling devices is one of those sevens. The other naturally or obvious ones are like, are the schools adequate? Is the water adequate? Is the sewer adequate? So on and so is law enforcement, is fire, EMS, and I've just about done all seven. Um, but traffic is one of those, and that's what Commissioner Wallace is alluding to. We we're not at brass tax with this data. Nick, are you following me?

I am following you, yes.

Okay. So, we're not at brass tax. brass tax comes if and when we get to a concept of operation plan and we're forced to apply the APFO certification per the code against the plan at that time. And by the way, we don't become the experts in any of those seven areas. The town staff sends those different seven areas out to the people who are in charge of those seven areas. for law enforcement, which is one of the seven. The Mount Area Police Department fire chief makes his determination as to whether he has sufficient law enforcement, i.e. patrol officers, equipment, cars, etc. to handle this complex if it were ever to need law enforcement services from the public. So on for the fire department, it goes to the fire chief and he's the expert on apparatus, response time, and so forth. So the point is again just foot stomped here. This is not the final traffic impact study. This is giving us a sense of how bad or tolerable the traffic can become to try to be even on on this issue. Okay. Sorry if I'm getting wordy here, but I think it's important everybody understands. Okay. Any other input? Um, on page E4, I didn't hear any push back about me acknowledging that we don't want a bad experience, so I'm not going to make any edits on that. We're on E5. Um, and again, all I do on E5 is basically echo what is in this traffic study from the presentation from from the petitioner. I also add in there the information provided from the M.SHA SHA engineer which is in district 7 located in Frederick City. District 7 encompasses Mount Ary for all Maryland

state roads. That is exactly what I've been trying to say about the traffic impact study. Uh so you have it in writing there. Um if there's no input from the commissioners, I have Commissioner Walls. Um, can you help me understand where it says uh in the first paragraph, although the commission understands that thrust of this statement, which is to say local players and parents will have more convenient facilities, it is also stating that local vehicles will be adding to the away team travelers resulting in a higher traffic volume.

Yeah. So, so let me explain that. So, um that that draft response is trying to say that because now we are providing more fields for local players, instead of those local players going away to another field, those local players now are a part of the traffic loading here in town. So convenience means they are now staying here and traveling here versus traveling to Howard County or that's that's all that statement is trying to say that the the availability of additional fields also has to acknowledge those local players are now traveling inside the town as a part of that traffic loading. That's all.

Isn't the capacity the capacity? I mean whether they're coming from out of town or local the the capacity is is what it is. Well, um I'm I'm I'm kind of focused on the Watersville Road Corridor as far as capacity. Right. Right. And so since there are no fields there now, the local teams wouldn't be going there, right? So there's no field to play on there. So whether they're from away or local, it's still traffic. I don't I just I don't understand the distinction. Oh, I'm I'm only saying that now local traffic because the fields are available, local traffic and local teams will now be adding to those coming from out of town and going to the fields, wouldn't they? Sure.

I mean, it doesn't make sense to me because capacity of that facility is the capacity. So, if they're going to be teams, whether they're local teams or away teams, they're still the same number of teams. No, I'm I'm I'm not I'm not I'm not arguing. I'm I'm trying to say that because we're now adding to the inventory of local fields instead of those local teams traveling elsewhere. Yeah. They're now they're now adding to the volume on Watersville Road. But you're saying that we're adding to away team travelers and you you're talking about local away team travelers. No, no, no. Okay, it's fine. Just let it go.

Well, no. Let me let me let me make sure. So, away teams, I'm kind let's let's recast them as non-local. They're away teams. They're they're coming in from outside the area. Those outside the area teams traveling here are now going to be joined because now we have more fields. They're going to be joined by the local team traffic that would have gone somewhere else to go to that field. So now they're coming into that area of Watersville Road. I mean I don't it just doesn't Okay. Yeah. Well, so so Commissioner Wallace,

if [snorts] you have 1817 cars on a Saturday at midday without a field being there, I get I get what you're saying, right? don't there's going to be away teams that come into the sports complex. There's going to be people from the town that go into the sports complex adding to the traffic volume on that road. I think what he's trying to say is it's going to be the 300 cars an hour whether or not right whether they're local. Whether they're local or not. It's just he's just adding to the volume. So what you should say with that

chairman Gant is just say uh stating that local vehicles will be or stating that the the volume of travelers will be increased volume the travelers remove the away team and just say there'll be an increase with traffic. I think that's what Commissioner Wallace is trying to get to. Yeah. Okay. So on top of the 1,800 cars on a Saturday is going to be 300 cars an hour or every two hours or every two and a half hours or whatever entering and exiting a a multiffield. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Um so trying to keep us moving here. Um and I'll turn to before I leave E5. Um, petitioners, do you have any suggestions on changes or anything incorrect? Now that you've received the traffic study, do you want to strike the the response about no study information provided? Correct. Yep. Yep.

Yep. That's um that's about mid page. The comment there was no study information provided. That will be struck and will be updated to reflect we do have a study now or we have a study. And that also applies to additionally there was no sharing of data used projected vehicle traffic that'll be struck also. Okay, we want to be accurate. All right, then I'm going to move us to E6 so we can keep going. Um, a little bit of the verbiage in the very top of that um is what we've already been saying. It's it's premature to say that everything is adequate. Um I would say that there's a need for us to insert some words here. Um it's premature to unilaterally state that the local road structures are adequate. And then there's a missing phrase. Local structures are adequate in the absence of a formal M.SHA approved traffic study. So I would be inserting in the absence of to to go after adequate adequate in the absence of. Um, I then add some accident information that was provided by the Mount Air Police Department. Basically saying that for this year to date, from January 25 to date, there have been three accidents at the intersection of 27 and Westville Road. Again, this is just providing a sense of how serious, you know, that intersection is to our interest. Um, I don't want to even entertain whether three accidents is a not a big deal or not. I'm sure for the people that were

in those accidents, it's an immense event. Um, but it's just fact of, gentlemen. Um, I wanted to portray in case someone says, well, how how big a problem is that intersection? Well, now we have some data direct from the police department, including injuries and including losses and including the vehicle types. School buses were one of the accidents involved. So anyway, do I I'm going to stop there before Bo Legs 2. Any adjustment to what is up to Bo Legs 2? I I don't I have a question um for Nick. Sure. Um when I was reading this section, I went back to the his report and I was reading because we're talking about being, you know, it's premature to to do this,

right? Right. Or to assess this. And so I was wondering what um on page nine where it says background conditions, what does it mean on 3.2 where it says background developments, can you explain what that means? No background developments were identified that will impact the study area.

Yeah. Yeah. So so basically um when we do the study, I was explaining the three conditions earlier. Existing is what's out there today. background is anything that's planned to be planned to be constructed, not just planned, but approved to be constructed by you and and the town council uh prior to this site coming in. And then total is with the site. So when we look at background, there's typically two two aspects we look at. The first is general growth in traffic in the area over the previous 10 years. And we apply a general growth rate which accounts for uh vehicular volumes. Um you know just growth maybe that's not happening right on Watersville Road or right in downtown Mount Airy but sort of like in the region. Uh you know traffic tends to grow over time. So um that's what section 3.1 the annual growth is accounting for. 3.2 too is if there are specific approved uh but unbuilt developments in the area um you know we add that traffic in as well. Generally those background developments come from scoping the final traffic study with uh town and county staff. Um in this case that you know because because of where we are in the process that scoping background development information wasn't provided and so we didn't have anything to to include in 3.2. too.

So, you didn't look at the master plan to see what could be coming in in the next decade. It It's not It's wouldn't be master plan development. It has to be specific approved. Okay.

Like something that you guys have reviewed and and has all the permits and has gone through the site um the site the site approval process. And you know, for instance, if if across the street you had approved 150 homes, just making up an example, we would need to include that, right? because that's that's a specific development that's going to happen before the site comes online and we need to make sure we account for that traffic. Um the something like the master planned growth is more accounted for by the background rate the the section 3.1 growth that we apply um to account for sort of like regional and general growth in the area.

Okay. So again um kind of reiterating what I said earlier is that you know this section on background developments should this go forward would look very different potentially right in a in a different traffic study closer to the time that they're proposing to build the consider there could be more approved developments which would totally change the conclusion in this study. That that that that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. So, in other words, if let's say a development were approved by the county as another 50 homes on the back side of the paddics. Mhm.

You know, that's in that area that's kind of off Watersville Road. That would have to be taken into consideration with a formal traffic impact study. I think that's right where we're going, right? So, things could change on background. Right now, I believe Nick has said there's minimal background additional traffic because there's no evidence of permitted development work in that general area. So, got right. So, you kind of have to take the current study with a kind of a grain of salt because it's very very early in the process.

Totally totally fair, right? And it is not the official. It is not by any means the brass tax for traffic information. We'll get that later if we go to concept plan. So, okay. Um, I'm going to, uh, Nick, I'm going to ask if you could just stay in the batters box because we're moving into water and sewer and some other areas, but stand by in case someone circles back to the traffic impact study, please, sir. Um, I'm in the middle of E6 and I'm into the water areas of our criteria. Um, any commission nur uh amendments to the current draft response?

Um, I I'm sorry, but I have another comment. Um, water, sewer, all of these things. When we're saying the information provided doesn't address our question specific to this sports complex's projected water usage, is that because we're not in the APFO process yet? Uh, essentially it says yes. It says and and I don't believe you gave us a projected gallons per day usage for your proposed concessions, proposed restrooms. Did you give us any gallons per day projected usage, Brian or Tim? We did not specifically, we gave the range of comparable size complexes be like this would just be the range we would be in. Okay.

Because I I'm not sure how we'd be able to be specific in that case. No. No. It's it's so I'm inclined to say the petitioner projects the water usage to be comparable to the four parks they presented in their annex delta presentation. Yes. Is that Yes. Is that accurate? I think we should add a caveat that that is something that is supposed to be addressed in an APFO. Also an APFO issue should be addressed in the APFO and it's not necessarily required to be addressed here. Okay. Yeah. it. So, let me just re it has to be addressed in the APFO. Yes.

And the data here doesn't approach the certainty of the APFO certification. Okay. Everybody understand? I'm I'm I'm sure you guys are APFO. You're savvy enough to know where we're talking here. It's been part of the struggle. I think a lot of this a lot of the things is site plan specific. Okay.

No, that's that's fair. Um, and so I have got those amendments down to make that clear for APFO and water usage is at this early stage only comparable to other parks per the petitioner. Okay. [sighs and gasps] And let's move to sewer. And I'm kind of feeling like that may be the same thing. Correct. APFO again comparable to parks is the best guess from the petitioners. I turn to Barney. Barney, um, don't let me lead the jury here, but far too early in your estimation to make any kind of calculation whether the wastewater treatment plant has capacity to absorb this additional business. Way too early.

I would wait till we have numbers through the APFO.

Bingo. Okay. So, we're in we're in the same kind of sentiment for sewer. Okay. Uh, petitioner, any disagreement with that? I think it's all fact. Okay. All right. We're going to move to E7. E7, we're in that same area of APFO, firing EMS. Um, and uh, [sighs] in my commission response, I acknowledge that you did do some diligence with gaining injury frequency from other parks data. I don't question the source or the origin of that. Um, but it's in your presentation because we asked we need to understand how many times is it likely apparatus will be rolling from our fire department down Watersville Road to address an injured player or whatever. Okay. Any commissioner suggested amendments to that response? You're good. We're good. Let's move to law enforcement. Same thing. APFO. Let me let me caution. Should I also add the APFO caveat for

all of the APFO categories? For all of these. Okay. All right. I was kind of looking in your eyes and you were having that kind of like Vulcan mind. Ralph, do the APFO in there, too. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm picking up some speed here, so bear with me. So, same thing for law enforcement. Unless there's a real I basically acknowledge that a minimum security measure would be what you have portrayed as a security system.

Um as a very very small detail both of you I don't understand that there's a fence or access gate from Watersville into the parking lot at this point. That's not necessarily a design feature at this stage. Is that accurate? Uh, that's something we would be considering depending on the design and how it would make sense because the last thing we'd want is the gate to somehow not be open and people then stack up on Watersville Road in and I I totally understand that. So, the access control would be from the parking lot into the grounds of the fields themselves. Is that kind of a general accurate statement?

Yes. Yes. and and that outside that fence we would only have such amenities as the public would want to have access to at any time they want which would be like a walking trail. Yes. Am I on Yes, I'm on Mark. Okay. All right. But the playgrounds or basketball courts would be within the fence line depending on how we would design the site. As of now, yes, it's in it's in the fence. [clears throat] And again, we're way early on. We're we're kind of waving hands and doing a kind of preliminary site plan. I Yeah, we we were doing that because the concerns were the neighbors to not have that outside outside the gate. So then you wouldn't attract people maybe later at night to go hang out there. So keep in there.

Bingo. And that kind of circles me back to the question about the gate. I see the I see the whole good and bad of the gate. Without a gate, there is, and I'm not saying [snorts] we're that kind of town, but without a gate, there is the chance that you could have uh impromptu gatherings outside your operating hours. That would be um undesirable, you know, 20 cars showing up in the parking lot and doing

Yeah. stuff, you know, and and again, I I um I'm not saying it will, but I'm just saying a gate would pre prohibit that. So again, I think the access gate at the parking lot would be something if you did get approval and if you did go to site plan review, I think it would be something this commission would want to visit with you as to how maybe there's some middle ground in limiting the parking lot from becoming a haven

for other activity at night with being respectful of the neighbors that are in that area. Okay, fair enough. All right. Um Okay. any any comments with regard to the comment I have about the minimum requirements security system with cameras full perimeter fence gated entrance into the fields area Ralph um did the petitioners didn't they eventually provide the data on the police responses um at the four comparable parks um did I say they did not

it says there was no offered data on average police responses at the four comparable parks. I think we did get that, didn't we? Um I'd have to go back to Annex Delta. Uh yes. Uh last meeting that's when we got the information from Montgomery and Howard counties. Okay. And you gave it to us in Okay. And in the last meeting very general, it's basically the same rate that the fire EMS about.25% to

I do recall you saying it's comparable to the fire and EMS. I am going to strike beginning however all the way to the end of that which ends in and sewer analysis. Thank you. Okay, I'm on E8 and E8 is yet another APFO area. If I'm not mistaken, one of our seven is open space. So, I will add the uh Commissioner Wallace APFO caveat uh to that. Um but again, what I'm trying to do is um is address the open space issue. Now, notice commissioners in my response, I hearken first and foremost to the question that was raised, I believe it was by Commissioner Wallace. you raised the question about an R1 zoning requirement for um open space or not. And so I'm gonna kind of turn to Tom McCarron on this. Um Tom, I apologize. I'm I'm going to ask if you could come out of the batters box on this one. Um and so this was the issue raised last time by one of the commissioners as to we bring in all annex property under R1. That's that's by code

unless otherwise specified in the resolution. Gotcha. And in the context of this petition, is there let's just let me just keep it simple. Um is there an obligation for them to provide open space deed to the town under R1 as a new annexation? That's what uh Councilman Kelly Oh, so ask a council member Kelly was a step ahead of you on that. I was trying to pull up the the uh code on that, but yes. Uh so I think the section is 9823, correct? 9823B. Internet has gone down, but okay. Um

well, let me read that. Open space development shall be required in the town of Mount area and shall apply along with the provisions of this section to all residential zones. R1 is a residential zone. Sure, it's very low density, but nonetheless, it's a residential zone.

That's correct. residential zones, the mixeduse districts, MXD, or special exception residential uses and commercial zones and any development with a residential component located in the downtown zone. So all those are the other areas of the town code in accordance with the requirements set forth in the code applicable there too, except that plats recorded before the adoption are etc etc etc. So 90 9823b [clears throat] alludes to answering that question as yes they do have to provide even though the activity or the land use is not residential. Nonetheless the lititness test is they are in our residential zone. That's how the code is drafted. That's exactly right.

Okay. So then the answer of that is they do have to provide open space. Yes. and we would have to go through the required open space waiver possibly in the APFO process. Yes. Okay. Um so the answer is yes, Commissioner Wallace. So I think Tim spoke to that last time that they were saying that the outer perimeter was about 12 plus acres, right, which would have satisfied that. Correct. Right. So, so I'm not I'm so I'm not at the point of saying they they they're giving us enough or they intend to give us some. I think we're at the very front end is do they have to by code? Okay.

And so I think that we have just resolved in reading 9823b. Yes, they do. Regardless of land use, they are in a residential use zone R1. [clears throat] And then during APFO review, there would have to be discussion about that open space. Correct. And whether it's adequate and sufficient. Correct. I'm I'm with you. Other commissioners Roger up to that. Yeah. I mean at APFO, it's kind of stated the obvious. We have that process for reasons. We go through that for a reason during APFO. Okay. Okay. Um,

Ralph, I had one more question and it was regarding the it was kind of like the last sentence with the MAPD at the top of page E8 where it says the MAPD may experience a greater demand for traffic enforcement. Are you talking about like traffic direction? Are you talking about um, you know, catching speeders? Like what are we referring to? Um what I what I was alluding to there was we had talked about um I think it was Commissioner Bea who had said would it be feasible if we find ourselves with a crowded access intersection into the park would we have security or dedicated people to help direct traffic. So that's what I was alluding to by saying may experience may have a need to become involved at certain peak periods. It was trying to say that and I believe you said you were amanable to that.

Yes. But we don't foresee that that what we're doing because it's not a mass event where everyone comes in at the same time and leaves. It's all trickle. So it's a steady flow instead of just everyone all at once. We don't see that being an issue. Which is which is which is why I chose the word may. I mean it instead of will. You know, it's not a conclusion. It's just perhaps it could be a requirement for the Mount Air Police Department to provide some traffic control at that point. It could happen, but perhaps if we are doing an APFO review about traffic, then that would be avoided to begin with. And so I don't know if I don't I think that that part of the statement should be struck.

Okay. So it's too it's too hypothetical. I think it is. And then is I mean I don't know. I I just think it's speculative. Okay. Any other comment on that strike? There's also a difference between enforcement and control. You have traffic enforcement in here. Okay. So, what you're saying is strike. Okay. [clears throat] All right. Agreed. We will remove that last sentence then that goes actually originates on E7. Okay. Chairman G. Sure. So, I just want to in case we're about to move on that the the paragraph on E8 that said uh regarding open space that starts with however.

Yeah, I'm going to strike that. Gotcha. Yeah, you read my mind. So, it doesn't apply. Yep. But it is appropriate to say the petitioner shows intent to provide. Yeah. or at the end we've confirmed that yes it is required. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. [snorts] Okay.

Um at seven at the bottom of E8 we start talking about revenue. Um revenue in this circumstance is is highly speculative as as Councilman Kelly and I can both confirm along with the town staff, right? Um very difficult. Jared and your good folks, I'm sure, could attest to that. It's really, really hard right now to get a firm handle on any kind of fees or property taxes or any of that ilk with regard to additional revenue for the town. Okay. Um I'm almost inclined because it is so speculative. I know we agreed that that would be a criteria we would evaluate. just simply saying our response is this criteria is too difficult to evaluate and just leave it at that. Is there any opposition?

I I'd second that. Okay. I think we could strike that narrow that whole paragraph down. Okay. Gotcha. Um any comment from the petitioner? We're talking revenue revenue projections. Um just in in regards to just in regards to the tax fees and things of that nature. or in regards to everything every um I think it was just writ large revenue to the town. Again, when we formed that criteria, we were trying to look at every aspect of where the complex could have a benefit or a detriment to the town.

Yeah. I just uh one just one quick comment for that because I know that the the Patriot Park North will use the uh the task force findings and the reason we did that is is because every other park that's developed I mean Henry S. Parker and Salsbury claims 30 million. Abbert Ripken and Aberdine claims 47 million in economic impact. Patriot Park North is the only park that claims less than $10 million. Patriot Park North has no restaurant and no gas station within two and a half miles of their park. The reason why they don't have as big of an economic impact is because they go four local teams go there, then they hop right on 66 and then they're out of there.

So, right here, it's two and a half miles from our complex, our proposed complex to get to 70. You have to pass 30 some odd restaurants to get there. So Patriot Park North takes in the local team aspect from their economic driver where they come up with the four and a half to 59 million. They actually have nothing that's of convenience and anything with restaurants and gas stations are all about convenience. But again in the context of what you're saying and I'm not trying to diminish what you're saying but you're you're you're leveraging comparable. Yes. And I think where I'd like to be on this particular question is focused on Mount Ary with what we know. Okay.

Um um and I understand it's quite logical to try to do an apples to apples, but the but the reality of it is these apples ain't exactly the same as those apples, right? And the economic climate around Fairfax, Patriot Park North, isn't exactly the economic climate around Mount Ary. And so,

and that's why I was saying why how little impact they have relative to other parks is completely different than this setup, which is why I think just using Patriot Park North, once again, we used it just as a low range number, not actually comparing to what people spended on there. So, that's that's what that was for. Well, again, uh I think I'm content with just saying it's it's it's too hard for us and we we we risk being highly speculative. Yeah. So, from what I understand, Patriot Park is a countyowned, not privately owned. It is. It is. Apples to oranges to me. Right. It's not the same apples.

Yeah. Very, very good comment. Okay. Um, I'm on E9 now, so I'm going to make that change with regard to the revenue analysis. Too hard for us to do. Leave it at that. Um, [sighs] and I guess some of my uh draft response kind of echoes that it's just it's too hard for us to agree to a direct comparison with Patriot Park North. Um, I am going to strike or at least I'm going to advocate that I strike the two check marks with regard to how visiting teams will behave with their own preferences for dining. Um, that may be just far too much a generalization for my comfort zone. Every team's going to have their own scheme with feeding their kids, uh, with their players, I'm sorry. Um, and so I don't want my two check mark paragraphs to say this is how 99% or above behave. I I I don't want that risk of misunderstanding. So unless there's a commission um commissioner objection, I'm going to strike those two descriptions of how teams dine within the park. Ralph, are you also going to strike the the thing about the park manager making repeated reference to this? Okay.

Yes. Um I am going to steer away um don't get me wrong, there was a lot of good education, you know, in the research. Um it was a park that was offered by the petitioner. So it was a park that just said go down and learn how they do it. Um, Commissioner Back made a very good statement a moment ago. It's not like going to another similar apple. It is widely different, different ownership, different type of management, different kind of e, but nonetheless, it was some research to gain some better understanding of how how these parks set up and how these parks operate. Okay. Uh, so I will Yeah, I'll I'll scratch that. paper park manager um [snorts] comment. All right, I'm down at B at the bottom of E9. This is safety and security. Um safety and security was trying to give respect to a lot of the public comments with regard to concerns about balls entering properties adjacent to the parks. Um and so um so whatever would come about in the site plan with regard to the details for netting if I can use that term u you know to stop these errant balls. I think you made the comment that your first and foremost design feature of eliminating errant balls was just the simple layout of the fields. Is that accurate?

Yes. Yeah. And so by that you hope to mitigate most of where the balls may go foul into adjacent properties. Uh they will not be able to reach adjacent properties from how the design is right now. They will not be able to reach.

Okay. Um okay. Um I'm also willing to strike where I give instruction as to where the netting should go because I think that's maybe an overreach. Um, I was kind of echoing my own knowledge of where I see netting to protect spec spectators, u warm-up, pitching areas, batting boxes, and it's just natural you put netting on those kind of first and third. But, you know, that's too it it kind of comes to me in a second reading as far too instructive as to how to, you know, do that. But, I think you get the gist of it. We're going to have to have some netting. Yes. Oh, yes.

We're going to have to stop errant balls. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Any objection to me striking the netting along all the way to the end? No. Okay. Um um going on down to site security after hours. Uh this was again another public concern about what could happen after the place closes at night and how do we keep trespassers um coming into the business area. Uh, I think I just pretty much capture that we reiterate the perimeter fence, the controlled access, the security system that you purport to place there, including cameras. Um, I did some research with other parks and I did find that a lot of their automated security systems, and I think you probably already know this, if it depends on internet access, then you have a challenge perhaps over in that area. You follow what I'm saying? because you can promise it makes sense that it's an automated and monitored security system, but if you don't have you you know where I'm going. So again, that would be kind of a detail in the site plan.

Uh if we ever got to that point, but you recognize that that could be a challenge for you to do that. Yes. There's one one thing to clarify because I think we were talking about last time about doing the the fencing along just where the fields are and then a fencing along the property line east, north, and west. So for the not necessarily fully enclosed, but so people who are using the walking trail won't wander onto neighbors adjacent properties because I keep seeing one fence being mentioned, but I think we were talking about two fences. Um that was yeah I'll cor I'll correct that. Um so verbally I'll tell you I understand one fence. Okay.

It's one fence that is only around the fields. Um it's not including the parking lot. Mhm. I'm I'm on mark so far. Okay. And again I'm kind of looking at this general scheme where I see a black line that shows a fence. And so in keeping with this, if this is again conceptually accurate with regard to fencing, I'm I'm following this. Okay. So this is this is okay in that in that regard, right? Okay. All right.

And one one quick question just if we did a perimeter fencing just say near the property line so the walking trail so people are using the walking trail wouldn't happen to go on to neighbors properties. If it's three, so if a fence is on this side here, does that take it away from open space then? Because open space you can't have it enclosed, but if it's open on one end, open on one end. So I'm just I I just want to clarify. Yeah, I you know, I won't I I won't get down. Um I I understand your question. Um, that would be a I think that would be a detail the commissioners would drill down to if we ever got to the preliminary site plan.

Okay. And it would be included in one of your annexes as to security perhaps. Okay. Is that fair? Yeah. Um, and and uh unless the commissioner has a different concept on that. I mean, right now I I don't think I want to spend too much time on saying I understand what you're saying and what you're depicting here is that the walking trail would actually weave its way through a corridor of fences. Yes. And one fence to the right if I'm going, you know, if I'm going clockwise, the fence to the right is the one that leads me into the parks. Yeah. Or to the fields. And the fence to my left shoulder is now that adjoining the neighboring properties.

And is that, you know, is that what we want? I I don't we we can save that for later if if we get to a site plan. Um but I would think at a minimum you would want to secure the fields access for Joe bag of donuts or I'm sorry for John Doe that may wander in at midnight and decide they feel like they have to walk the dog. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I was just as concerned with the neighbors as our property as well. That's that was my concern there. So, so, so, so you've teed up a very good point for the public to kind of maybe think about, especially those on the adjoining properties when the council calls the public hearing.

And do you understand where I'm going? Let the adjacent property owners perhaps emphasize that or not as to their sense of comfort with having a fence on the property line itself, which is what you've just raised, right? that that their their sense of becoming your new neighbor would require that the old adage fences make good neighbors, you know, kind of thing, right? Or are they content with them having the ability to walk out of their rear of their parcel and onto the walkie trail unencumbered, the other side of that coin? You follow me? Yes.

Okay. But um but let's save that for if and when we get to that stage. But right now we understand in the concept at this early stage there will be at least a fence around the fields. [clears throat] It will have access control. It will be closed if it's not open for operation. And if someone tries to abridge that fence, you will find out. You will know. Yes.

Okay. Fair enough. All right. Um I think we've got security well understood at this point. Um, I'm at Blex 3 measures to ensure safe vehicle entry and exit onto West Fargersville Road. Um, and I go into basically our discussion where you're going to make every measure to try to make that a safe entry and exit.

Yes. in particular on the exit side of that discussion, you are going to um try as best you can to uh design an acceleration lane and that would be primarily for the folks that are turning west toward Maryland 27. Is that accurate? Okay. And of course, you're limited to that design by the property that you're able to control. Any kind of sight access improvements like a left turn lane would again be all determined by the traffic impact study as to whether it's even feasible to add an additional lane that's for left turn into the complex because you've only got so much road width there

to to work with. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah. Should we add in something because that also they may have to do something the state comes in and says you have to do this this and this. So we should add just I mean maybe stating the obvious again but you know in compliance with state highway. Gotcha. Again um direction will definitely come from the APFO right and traffic study. Okay. All right. But this if they do a site plan the state may look at the site plan and say oops can't do that.

Right. Okay. All right. If we can go from E10 to E11. Um and we are getting close folks to uh the end [clears throat] here. Uh possible impacts to adjacent properties. Um and we start off with asking about the field lighting impact occurring on the adjacent residents. This is a popular item from the public standpoint, especially, you know, for not only the people across Watersville Road um in Nottingham, but also of course those that are in the county. Um I reference your presentation SL slide 10. Um again, a lot of this information was presented by the Musco lighting representative. Um, and my comment is basically in my research, they are a solid lighting company. They seem to know what they're doing. Um, LED light cut off control is much much better than incandescent, the old style uh, light off control. Uh we did state to that gentleman from Musco that if and when we were to go to a site plan, we would require a phototric plan. And I even I impose the constraint zero lumens of light on the ground outside your property and he said it was absolutely doable. Am I correct?

Yes. Okay. Um, so that still holds in our understanding of light control and light pollution. Any commission adjustments to the response at the bottom of E11. Should we commission? Yeah. Mhm. Should we make a note about the international dark sky? It's already It isn't. Did we? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I the last bullet point. Oh, that's right. Here it is. Dark skies. I see.

Yeah. And and if we flip to E12, I want to correct myself because I believe you through the town staff made a correction. In my research at other parks, there's occasionally given the time shift early weekend teams arrival to do warm-ups because of the darkness at those early hours 7 8:00. Uh, other parks provide a courtesy illumination of the fields for an hour or two and I believe you have stated you're not interested in turning on any lights early in the morning. Okay. So, I am going to strike that um because you're telling me on the weekend mornings those adjacent residents at 7 a.m. aren't going to have these lights turning on.

That won't be on. Okay. All right. I'll strike. [clears throat and cough] Commissioner G, before we go forward on um for E1 at the top where it says furthermore, as mentioned by members of the public, such a queue of vehicles will hamper any emergency apparatus. Um will is subjective. Uh you're advocating strike at Furthermore on down to the end. Yes.

Any commissioner objection to that strike? It's speculative. Okay. Thank you for that, Commissioner Back. Okay. Um, anything else on that page? No. Okay. Thank you.

Um, sure. Uh, E12 again. Um and if I can move down to Bolegs 2 where now uh again the other impacts is in is asking questions about the noise levels. Um [sighs and gasps] I believe you stated that you don't intend to have a central PA system. You don't intend to have a central PA system. Um, I would say we probably would for like lightning delays or things like that for warning systems from that standpoint. Would it be active during the games that kind of thing as a part of public announcement? I I will

hard to say right. I would I would like to say it would be very minimal and if it was it would maybe be for like one championship game. Okay. It wouldn't be for it would not be common whatsoever. Okay. Right. And we would make sure that would be towards the center of the property.

And so with regard to noise generation, in my research, and I'm turning to you now for you to validate it or not, I understand that a lot of the teams bring their own PA systems. They activate them to announce next at bat is John. And you know, and in between batters, music can be played. Um, and you got both teams in both dugouts doing the same thing. And that's just just the spirit of a great ball game, right? You know, it's it's all that, but it is noise. Yes.

And so, um, so do you expect that kind of scenario to to be present at your ball field where teams bring in their own PA systems and so forth? We we would not we would probably I wouldn't want to say I we'd ban it most because there's banan we know it's mostly it's for the younger players like the eight nine 10 year olds that do that there having them with all that sound that's distracting from other fields wouldn't be beneficial to the other teams that are there with doing that. So we probably wouldn't have

wouldn't have that be a part you see that a lot at complexes like Kowanas Wallace. You'll see younger teams for HCYP do that but the fields are so spread out. They're not I want to say so spread out but the way they're configured [clears throat] they're not dug out next to another dugout where you might be distracting the team with that. Okay. So in your field reservation contract or policy you would make it clear leave the PA systems at home the music systems the boom boxes um as are often referred to um and that would be a condition of the reservations. Yes. Okay. Interesting. Ralph, I have something on um

it's actually in the section one above this one. So, it's not about the noise, it's about the light. So, the last sentence um lastly, the commission and petitioner have focused upon the field lighting and we haven't addressed the parking lot lighting. Okay. And then it says which is undoubtedly different and that's probably true um and doesn't have cutoff technology etc. But there is town code about um lighting and dark sky and spillage and you know we look for that in regular developments right as well. So I would um advocate to just strike after the semicolon there. Um so that we have an address parking lot lighting period. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and again before I uh I tend to agree with you. Um, but let me ask none of your presentation gave us any insight as to the type of lighting or illumination for the parking lot. So we we haven't got Yeah, we would follow whatever the town code ask. It would be town code. Okay. But but again I'm just being comprehensive here. You do understand that the parking lot lighting is the lighting nearest the residents of Nottingham,

right? And so there would be great attention placed on adhering to the code and and minimizing or as much as we can within the code legally confine that illumination so it's not it's not pollution into the backs kitchen windows of those residents. Is that fair? Correct. And our goal would be to have that cut off the same time as like if we were to close the gate for the park. Gate is closed, lights are off at the same time.

Okay. Again, we go back to we don't want this to be a bad experience. And you know, once parking lots go in and lighting goes in, I'm I'm kind of making a Captain Obvious statement. It's kind of hard to say take out half of those light poles because my kids go to bed at 8:30 at night and if your games are going till 10:00, I've got to now go buy blackout curtains. You follow what I'm saying? You know, we got to we got to put on the shoes of the people that are seeing this unfold. So good. So you're you're thinking like I'm thinking, I hope.

Yeah. And we've we've also been out tampering a little bit with the design to try to push the parking lot away from Nottingham, away from that section houses with doing that there, too. But that's we've been sort of going back and forth on how best to make that work. Okay. And maybe putting the lighting, maybe putting those soccer fields that are on the top, maybe putting them down towards the bottom there. So those would be not illuminated. So those fields wouldn't be. So then you'd have a buffer. So when it gets dark, you then have 200 300 ft of buffer before you get to the parking lot from where Noddingham would be. But the bottom line, Tim and Brian, is that you're as keen as we are on the noise and light pollution coming out of the sports complex.

Yes. Period. Full stop. Okay. All right. Any other um amendments to this? I will make the adjustments. given the fact that they have stated there will be a policy that will not allow PA systems. I will say there could be a Central Park PA system. I do address that in here. Um but it's undetermined at this time. Okay. And maybe if it does, it's for tournament play exclusively. Some is or warning system too for inclement weather.

That's that's fair. Okay. I'm on the very last page, E13. And uh [sighs] again with noise, I we did ask that you go out and get comparable park noise complaint incidents. You had said there were none um that you could collect. So I I will acknowledge that um uh and that in the discussion I think we've had about you know the apples and apples with regard to the proximity and density of residential housing to your park. So, I'm going into the I don't believe um the Noddingham and the adjacent county properties are a good apples to apples with what we see at Patriot Park North. I believe your comeback is Oh, but there is a high density of residential dwellings to the if I'm not mistaken to the east.

The the the east side would be the closest. Correct. Correct. I would come back to you in this gentleman's discussion that we're having to say that yes, I acknowledge there is a street with homes on it that have backyards that go toward a couple of the fields in Patriot Park North, but they're blessed with a very wide swath of wooded area. Is is that accurate? Right. Which is not the case that we have, which goes back to what we've said all along. It's difficult to do apples to apples. So when you talk about a wooded area that's substantial between their fields and that density of residential dwellings, they're enjoying buffering by those trees of both light and sound. Is that fair?

Yes. Okay. All right. And my last comment is, and as I've warned you earlier, if and when we go to a site development plan, these commissioners are have a great reputation for screening landscaping design. so that if we can bring in some buffering by way of native plants, native trees, those sorts of things, um these these folks have good solid opinions about how to do that with developments. And so um that's kind of like we'll probably go there. Yeah, absolutely.

To to protect all of that. It's very difficult to envision that kind of mitigation with regard to the Nottingham folks if you follow what I'm saying because of the geography and especially if you're going to put a parking lot at the entrance. But you know what I'm saying?

But nonetheless, we would want to kind of talk about how could we do that? Some tall trees at the parking lot so they don't look out of their kitchen windows into parking lot. You you follow what I'm Yeah. Anyway, I'm going way down the road to maybe a year from now. So, okay, last question. And this is this is important, Tim and Brian, because I thought I had it right, but apparently in your rebuttal I had it wrong. I went back and looked at the videotape, and this is the question with regard to why don't you just do this plan within the county

and not ask for annexation? And so on October 27th, I asked the question, so coming to the town for annexation is quote primarily being driven by the ground percolation for septic and that's driving you toward sewer connections with the town and and I hear on that tape one of you say that's correct,

but I'm understanding now that's not correct. So, it was the location of the septic and where it is that it limits the ability to design the property and how everything would then be about it because the the septic where it perks is on the far west end of the property. So, you can't touch any of the grading around that area which then limits everything there. So, it can be done just not as efficient as it would be done through annexation with I got Okay. So, it's not ju it's not just the percolation, but it's where it does percolate and where that now constrains a good complex layout. Is that more accurate?

I'm with you. Okay. Thank you. I'll make those amendments, commissioners, unless you have other comments. I just had a quick question. Building on that. Say we say no, the town council says no. Are you saying you would still put something there or you would just walk away from the project and not We We would definitely explore our other options with that. So you wouldn't just You're You're saying that there's a possibility there could be fields there. It just wouldn't be within the town. Correct. Yeah. We've spent about three years with this and hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we're going to explore every option. Okay. I just like for everyone listening here it just you know if one possibility we say no council they can say yes or no but it doesn't mean that necessarily that ballfield won't be there someday.

Okay. Okay. Any alibis with regard to enclosure E? We're at the last criteria we resolved and made it better or more accurate which was the whole intent. Hearing no alibis we're closing enclosure E. I'm now moving to page four. This is the second portion of our journey tonight. This is where I try to summarize the upside and downside or as I call it the pros and cons. I start on page four with Bolegs [clears throat] ones conclusions which would support a for the annexation. I talk about the town control. I'm so sorry. Do do we still need the traffic?

You know, I don't think Very good point. I think we can release Nick. Yeah, I would think so. [laughter] Nick, Nick, John, you're good. Nick, Nick, are you there? I am. Yes. Okay. [laughter] All right. Um, I'm going to let uh the town staff disconnect you, but I I I thank you for um the information you provided. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good night. You, too. Thank you. totally forgot about him. So, so, so he's probably racking up billable hours, right?

That's what I said. He had no idea. He had no idea he was coming on tonight.

I saw Mr. Bowerhawks Bower. [laughter] He goes, "You're spot on." Yeah. Wait till they get that bill. Okay. Um, so let's go to uh page four, gentlemen. Um, you know, I'm not going to go over these. It begins on page four. I'm just going to ask the commissioners first and then I'll turn to the petitioners next. But the commissioners first, do you see anything that needs to be edited in that upside um emitted or whatever or things added? There's things I missed in trying to be balanced in what this could do for the town. I am going to make an edit. Um in paragraph D on the next page five at the very last line it says or the maintenance of it. I will say or the maintenance of them because we're talking about plural amenities. It's a very small change but it's just proper grammar. So small change. Do we Sorry. We would just want to add in something about since we talked about it. APFO

um as a benefit to the town or Well, we're talking about Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking when we had fire, law enforcement, any prop at the top of page five, if we just need to say it'll just be compliant with APFO. Yeah. Yeah. So that that mention of fire and EMS's in the context of tax revenue at at this early stage, we can't say whether it would be sufficient to offset Yeah. the required public services provided by the municipality. Yeah. I was thinking as required by but Okay.

Gotcha. Okay. Um Okay. If if there's no adjustments to that, then let's move on to those elements which I captured from a variety of sources, public comment, etc. I start off with basically a general statement about there's a concern with disharmony and I mentioned disharmony in the sense of lighting noise um and um for those for those commissioners that kind of understand the months of prior deliberations on other projects of the word harmony me was a very um offused um descriptor of things such as noise and illumination in the context of a sports field. Um I I recall harmony was a key element particularly by one council member in in his discussions of whether a development was appropriate to go in whether the building elevations and the building styles uh you you understand where I'm going. And so what I was trying to do was kind of rift off of what the council regards as a key component of yay or nay on a development. and and often times I'm struck by their focus on just kind of the highlevel strategic is it in harmony with what's there already and so that's how I tried to capture that so that's the backstory to using the word disharmony okay um I also go into the increased traffic concern um along there um the fact of with our intersection with Maryland 27. I described that at the very bottom of page five. Um that

that description also um tries to capture my personal involvement with the district 7 engineers as to trying to get a left turn signal, trying to lengthen the left turn lane, the stacking issues, the stacking issues now blocking the straight ahead lane, trying to get up to the school, um all of that. So I I regard a lot of that as just fact of. Um I do have a question for the petitioners. Um I believe we amended the early 1100 space parking lot to something if I recall was in the context of more like 600. 5 to 600. Okay. So I'll adjust that to 5 to 600.

500 for eight fields is the engineered like basically accepted one. So, we would assume we'd probably have a little bit more just so we wouldn't stress out and have And again, we're not nailing you down. So, 500 to 600 is is is fine. It gives us it gives us a sense, but it's certainly not 1100. Correct. Correct. And I will tell you at Patriot Park North, I believe the manager there told me he had 446 spaces, 77, I believe. I think it's 477. I think it's 477. And and I got to tell you, that's a lot of asphalt.

I mean, that at 477 and you're roughly at about 40% possibly above that, that's that's a that's a lot of territory for cars. I mean, I'm just being honest here. Um, again, my research, my education. Um, so even a 5 to 600 can be a a big parking lot. So, okay. Commissioner Gant. Yeah. Um, on number three, are I have a question. Are are you expecting to have [snorts] competitions on weekdays, like on weekday nights, or is that mostly going to be practices?

Mostly mostly going to be practices, but there are going to be some competition. Friday usually is typically when tournaments would start, right, during the during the school year, but you wouldn't expect maybe like Monday through Thursday to have not during the school year. Okay. And then are we going to adjust this? Okay.

Yeah. So I'm going to eliminate the team provided public address systems and I'm also going to eliminate it's speculative but I was trying to understand the public comments of the adjacent neighbors with farm animals. Um but I'm inclined to take out that sentence about the the very last sentence there. The one that begins the noise level unless you have an objection. I mean I don't know. Okay. Okay. You could definitely say on the weekends it could be but I don't know about weeks. So

understood. Um is it fair to say and again I'm turning to you too to be you know I know it's a kind of a capn be frank with us. I mean we can't abate all the noise. I mean I mean that's I would be highly suspicious if such a claim were made right. I mean, you're going to have events during each of the games where the home run hit creates this, you know, crescendo of noise, right? I mean, fact of, right? Um, and you got eight fields worth of that or six ball fields, two soccer fields worth of that, right? Um, so it's a fair statement that we can't totally abate that, but we can mitigate it to the best that we can. And again, as I mentioned before, you you know the public sentiment toward that and you're keen on it,

right? Yeah. And I think you mentioned too about the burment of the property that the site has about [laughter] the site has about 20 feet of top soil that's able to be moved. We've already done studies on the property. So there's enough there's enough dirt to move out there to bowl the property where you're able to then mitigate the sound. Kind of getting into possible kind of getting into part three, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. And and so we'll talk a little bit about that that BM, but I'm encouraged that you kind of see that as a um that's a possibility. Yes. Because you have the geography or the topography to do that. Okay. All right. And again, we won't have this interaction when I get to the conditions.

Um because I'm going to be checking with just the commissioners on that. But that I appreciate that. Okay. Um All right. So, I have some edits in here. Spacewise, we're down to 500 to 600, etc. Um, fact of with regard to the current conditions at the intersection with Maryland 27, I'm on six. Now, I then quote the accident rate from the police department. I just basically reiterate that. Um, I also, um, research the corridor study to basically say what's in the corridor study. Now, the quarter study is dated. You know, my footnote says when? 2016. But even in May of 2016, the corridor study for Maryland 27 said traffic coming up to the Watersville intersection is is a problem 2016. So, you can kind of appreciate why I put it in here because again, it's a prelude to that formal approved impact study that will tell us the brass tax as to we got to change the signal. We got to we got to do

XYZ to that intersection given the additional cars heading down Watersville Road. So So foot stomping that probably for the fourth time. Okay. Chairman. Yes. Can we go back? I had a question about um on page five. All right. The 2A. Okay.

The Nottingham survey. Where did that come from? Um, okay. So, the origin of the Ningham survey came about after the September meeting when I kept hearing a consistent um public comment in opposition to to the thing. So, the genesis of the survey came about after I kept hearing that repeated theme come from not only the county residents but also a sprinkling of people out of Noddingham. And so I said, "You know something? The the the dense neighborhood within the town is Nottingham. It's the adjacent town neighborhood."

So what I did then was I crafted an email that went to the town leaders, including the mayor, including the president of the council, including council member Kelly, uh including the town attorney. And I said, would it be appropriate if we were to now insert at this stage of our analysis a focused survey on just the 420 homes that make up the the Ningham for the following reasons. Predominant was they're right there where this is being proposed.

And so the feedback I got, I won't go over each individual answer, but the feedback I got was it's legally okay to do that and it's it's um it's appropriate. you know that is the dense dwellings that are adjacent to this. So um so knock yourself out. So then I coordinated and collaborated with our liaison um because all of this has to go to the council and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get off the rails or sideways as a volunteer with our elected officials. So in collaboration um we we drafted the survey answers um not answers u questions um um and and we built a framework of it um a draft got changed and so we refined it and so once it got greenlighted through our editing I then coordinated with the HOA administrator and in conjunction with the um neighborhood HOA president I believe she is called and uh made sure that I wasn't going to get sideways with them because they're the management of the neighborhood. I didn't want to run in there and do something that's kind of, you know, you know, off the rails. Uh so once they said that that was an approved thing to do to pulse the neighborhood, uh I then got the go-ahhead to use the HOA administrator's onrecord email list for every home that's registered in the EOA. And that way I was allowed to pinpoint just those homes because my fear was if I created a link to a survey and it got out to the neighborhood then I couldn't say it was Nottingham only. It would dilute and it would you know compromise the survey. Um and am I going too far in the weeds?

No, I was just curious because once we got this packet it was the first I heard of it. So I was just curious like Gotcha. who was responsible for the survey, you know, why didn't we get a look at all the questions on the survey? Yeah. And why didn't we get any feedback on the questions? So, yeah. No, no, that usually have a representative present something before it's entered into a packet for repres.

No, no, I I understand. Um, I think because of the time and um and you know, I was trying to get to where we could could come to. Again, all of this information, including the survey, is is to support hopefully we get coming together in January on January 26th, and one of you saying based upon everything we've done and everything we've captured, I make a motion that we do fill in the blank. You follow me?

Yep. And so I thought that to um I don't know what the right word is enrich that decisionmaking that I'm asking each of you to do between now and January 26 over the holidays basically. Um that a survey that was focused on just that neighborhood sentiment toward this would be helpful in informing that. Is that is that fair? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Answers the question about the survey. Um, if we can go back to now, um, increased traffic. Um, I'm going to go on to page six. Um, I have some concern about the draft that has to do with, um, the doubtful economic benefit. And that is because it's just too hard to understand. We've made the point. Um it's just really difficult at this stage to say whether there is going to be a lot, none, little. Um I'll strike it.

So I'm I'm kind of leaning towards striking that paragraph. Charlie is is there any sense about do we need to portray that? It's we can't say we talked about it already. That's right. We brought it up. There's no way to measure it. Yeah. Do you have any feelings on this? Okay.

Strike. Okay. No, no [snorts] objection. Um then the paragraph delta will become Charlie and so on. And this is PAS concerns. So one of the commissioners up here raised the question with the petitioners about PAS concerns because it's a dust statement. We have a water system that is dealing with PAS contamination currently. Um, and so that commissioner asked questions with regard to field materials and any kind of design or materials use that could possibly leech into and exacerbate or increase the P the PAS levels that we're already dealing with. Okay. Um, and as a and as a correlary to that, obviously the county residents that are adjacent to this, they have a direct straw into that aquifer because they are on wells, right? whereas our water system well that may be in that aquifer is perhaps some distance away. You know, I'm not going to get into Barney's well layout, but I think it's fair to say that the adjacent properties have a well right there. And so, um, so there is a concern. Now I believe you have said that you will make every effort to provide materials such as artificial turf that will not have an effect on PAS levels. Is that accurate?

Correct. Yeah, there's many available. Okay. From basically from the whole in installation of a turf field that can make sure it's all PAS, nothing, no PAS in there. Okay. So So just one step down from that. Um I I hear what you're saying. Is there some kind of certification or some kind of for instance like underwriters laboratories proof that the material that makes up sports complex fields is PAS-free? Is there such a certification? I am not 100% sure on that but there are companies that I think stake their entire reputation on being PASF free.

Is there a is there a standard lab that attests and verifies that? I'm not a 100% sure on that. Yeah, there aren't a lot of regulations on that on artificial turf in general. So, correct. Um, is is the PAS contamination a concern? Well, I I think that there I I think that if you can trust that the people who are advertising that they don't put, you know, they don't use materials that have PAS, then it's not a concern. But if you don't trust that, then I guess it would be a concern. Which is which is why I'm kind of like, you know, stating the obvious a third some third party certification is I don't think you're going to get a third party certification.

No, I don't I don't believe there's evidence of that yet. I don't think there's any regulation. I mean, like Heather was saying this, there's no regulations on it right now, right? So, I don't think it's fair to necessarily call it I mean, you could go either way. You could say, "Oh, it's a benefit because they're not going to use anything, you know, with PAS." Or you could say, "Oh, we think that they they're going to use something and it could have PAS in it." I mean, I don't know. I think you should take it out. Take out the whole PAS. Yeah. Yes. Okay. That just there there are there are multiple companies that do have third-party certified PAS products. Okay.

Just I was just looking at that they do use independent labs and they test the raw materials and finished goods from that there. So there's multiple companies that list that and claim that that that's what they use in their materials. And also we have a company in town who recycles artificial turf that has pe that probably has pe in it. Yeah, they said they don't. Yeah, [laughter] they said they don't. Well, the the turf itself shake it and recycle it outside. So that you know the point is that it's already we're re we are already doing that in town. There's already artificial turf in town being either way. It's going to come down to site plan whatever materials are being used, right? whether it's environmentally sound or something we have concern about. Okay. That we need to look into.

Okay. So, so um it's it's been u put forth that we strike Delta also PAS. Is that any opposition? Okay. So, so be it. Um page seven and last item is I make mention of limited availability of promise public amenities. Now, this kind of goes into where the fences are and the access out of the parking lot. Um, I make a statement, amenities will not be available year round, nor will they be available until approximately 400 p.m. on weekdays. I don't think that is accurate.

Yeah. So, our our our intention is when we would arrive to the park or whoever would arrive to the park, they would open it up. We wouldn't expect people to come use it at 10:00 a.m., but it would be open if some if a mom wanted to take their toddler and walk around the park and use the playground and things like if it was designed the way we presented it. We would envision it being open. And I would just want you to kind of look at the park like the fields are almost separate. So, they wouldn't necessarily be open at 10:00 a.m., but all the ancillary stuff could be accessible, right? It's almost like two separate things. We wouldn't say, "Yeah, necessarily everything's open up, but okay. We would want the, you know, the playground and stuff to be usable once basically, you know, certain time in the morning when daylight's broke. And

so in all that consideration, there's really not a a describable downside with regard to access to public amenities is what you're telling me. You're going to have at a minimum access to a walking trail. Yes. At at a minimum. It may be, and I'm using the word may because again we're far ahead of sight plan. It may be uh restricted to only the walking trail because the other amenities such as a playground, uh pickle ball court, basketball court are going to be within that fence secure area. Is that accurate? Yes.

Okay. All right. So, um so I'm kind of getting the vibe there is really not a downside because at least the deed property is going to include a walking trail. I I would say, and once again, not to make our point less strong, that if there is a larger tournament going on on Saturday, right, the amenities would probably not benefit the the local residents when they're coming in. Oh, it's too busy. It'd be too busy to be completely upfront with with everything. No, I I Okay. Um, you you could you could take uh E and just put availability of public amenities and just leave it at that and and and let it be something that we don't speculate on until later.

But this is in the context of a downside. There's not enough availability. Is that what you're saying? You could just leave it as limited availability of public amenities. Okay. Okay. Just leave it at that. and and at this current stage just say it sounds like it might be available when there's not a tournament. Okay. We don't know how many tournaments are going to be there every weekend.

So what I'll do is I'll describe the limited to mean right now it looks like it's only going to be the walking trail and that to be determined later as to access to the other public amenities. Leave it at that. Okay. So I'll leave it in there, but I'll but I'll specify that right now it's only going to be the walking trail. Okay, we are done with the pros and cons. I'm going to ask for another round of Does anybody have any last thoughts either way? Pluses or minuses in our analysis? Anything we left out? Petitioner, is there anything that you object with regard to how we're describing pluses and minuses in this three pages? These three pages

[clears throat]

I think you're good. No.

Okay. All right. Thank you for your time. Um I'm going to ask if you could just step away because now we're going to move into the third part. And I'm encouraged about our speed here. uh because we're now going to go into the area where I want to talk to the commissioners and the town attorney and the town staff and the town engineer with regard to that area where we're going to offer a little above a recommendation in the area of conditions and provisions if in fact the comm uh the council were to decide to move with a annexation agreement. And in this instance, I've mentioned everybody except Council Member Kelly. Certainly, Council Member Kelly. Um, you would be on the receiving end of this along with your fellow council members. Um, whatever we craft here. And so I certainly without saying I value whether you think it is a reasonable um item or not uh from a council member standpoint. And certainly Tom uh we've gone through these already once um and so of course without saying um a legal view as to whether these are appropriate, proper, etc. So um I'm on page seven. Um I am first addressing the concern that has been expressed with the Maryland 27 uh intersection. Um, I used wording from similar other municipalities with regard to a similar troublesome intersection. I'll just let you read it. Um, and then ask for any refinements of that intersection work by the petitioner. It's written very generally to basically said if it's a problem, we're going to fix it. Is that is that okay?

All right. And that the petitioner and developer will keep skin in the game to whatever MDOT and SHA says has to be done. All right. Good enough. When we go down Westwatersville Road, [clears throat] I invoke the possibility that we will have to build a left turn lane so that we don't impede the eastbound traffic on toward Noddingham. [sighs] Um Tom, I use the words shall be designed and construction with accordance with Carol County Road Code, etc., etc. Um, again asking your sensibility on that. Is that a fair statement to ask as a condition?

It's certainly lawful to do it. I you have to decide what's fair, but uh Okay. Yes. All right. So, building a left turn lane to to prevent a backup for continuing traffic is a fair condition to consider. Again, I want to be very careful. Stay in my lane. It's lawful to do so. And what I would also say is in my experience with other municipalities, one in particular, one fairly recently, they had very similar issue with one of the um intersections and they uh place language of this sort. Very similar. Okay. To their into their annexation agreement.

Okay. Moving on to the intersection again. Um I have one question. Go ahead. And maybe this is for Tom. Um, if we were to say that we needed a left turn lane or it was suggested, they would end up having to work with Maryland Transportation or the State Highway SHA. [clears throat] Yeah. To do so.

Oh, yeah. So, in in the annexation agreement that I referred to, there was language in there that said um and it's kind of fluffy uh by by uh necessity at that at that early stage. Basically said a couple of things. It said first of all that the uh developer would work with the SHA to design whatever the road solution's going to be that the town would be uh in on essentially provide input relative to that would be invited to meetings that uh the SHA and the developer had over the design those kinds of things. So basically they're sort of u provisions that require cooperation require uh you know um or secure I guess uh town input into uh what those uh improvements are going to be. The end of the day though, it's SHA's road,

right? That's what I was getting at. Like they could say no, they could say yes, they would do it because essentially they would have to be in char SHA would have to be in charge of Absolutely. doing all the road work and everything or would that be the petitioner paying for the road work to be done? If SHA said, "Okay, we're approving this now. Do you have to make the alterations? Well, there are a number of ways to handle that and and the answer is it depends. Ultimately, uh those things, what I'll call off-site improvements

are handled through the PWA process. Uh many times those kinds of improvements only are only uh are only only partially benefit or conversely are occasioned by a particular development might well benefit other developments in the same corridor let's say and so typically what the town has has in fact done specifically relative to Chick-fil-A is to sort of aortion among uh developments or potential developments ments on the u the payment for those improvements. So, you know, it very much depends.

Essentially, it's the rightway the buffer. Okay. Thank you. No, but but but that's very good because the good kind of comparison is the off-site improvements for the South Main Street roundabout. as as offsite improvements as a consequence of the new restaurant on Riverside. The difference being of course that we're here at annexation, right? Whereas those properties are already within the town. Correct. And again, you have a a town is at its greatest power at a time of annexation to later after

relative to properties that seek to be developed.

Gotcha. that are within the deck. So, so the question is and the description of this condition is to try to prevent any trouble turning into the proposed site on Watersville Road. This condition says build a dedicated left turn lane is what this condition is basically saying. And if and if you disagree with that, then we can strike it. But I'm thinking in terms of trying to keep continued eastbound traffic from having to stop in case there's a slowdown getting into on tournament days on on busy days. Okay, that's that's what the

curious how that all works. No, I got you. I got you. Okay. Um and then um at the very bottom of seven uh there's some mitigation measures there. Um again this is all driven by whatever MDOT and SHA says with regard to um lengthening the left turn lane. Right now its capacity is roughly about eight vehicles um etc etc. Um but of course any of that improvement at the intersection would be determined by the conclusions from the traffic impact study and the determined level of service at that intersection. So all chairman.

Yeah. On that note, just a quick is now that that component is including Maryland 27 which is a [clears throat] state highway, Watersville is not right. Does that make your recent example Tom any more complicated or was it was it still similar? I think it's still similar. I mean obviously uh when you're dealing with town roads you have greater control right in terms of what you can demand uh it's it's not no holds bar but you get the idea the when you introduce the third party SHA uh it introduces

Isn't Watersville still an emergency road too technically I mean like you know how they have the emergency roots. It would still be classified as an emergency route. Correct. Watersville because it's a thoroughare with Nottingham and all of the other subdivisions or homes out there too. I'm tapped out. I don't know. [laughter] I don't know. It's labeled as a quote major connector. Yeah. Is it's a formal um M dot label. Mhm. Um, so my question was really adding in that state highway component, right, which 27 is now number five on the state's to-do list, right? Right.

Right. We finally made the top five, but that's still a long ways away from everything else that's above it. But I think Tom answered the question. It's okay. I think loosely it it does add another layer. Sure. Yeah, you bet.

Yeah. Okay. If we move to page eight, um the [clears throat] next two paragraphs there, um Roman numeral three and four are basically further elaboration on who bears the costs of any of what we just talked about. Okay? and that if um there is a determination that there would be intersection andor Watersville Road improvements that Roman numeral 4 um states that the petitioner will cooperate with the town in achieving those designs. And so it just it just foot stomps that you've got to be a partner if we're going to make the intersection as as safe as we can and make Watersville as as safe as we can. That's that's all those and those are extracted from those other communities that that I looked at. Tom u moving down to B um MDE issued water allocation. Uh I have to admit to you that in sitting in at the council meetings I think there has been a increasing entrance particularly through one council member as to how do we manage the MDE allocated water um or to put it differently MDE allocates an amount of water to every business that is permitted within the town and um it it and Barney I'm going to kind of look to you in this discussion. Um it certainly can be exceeded you know um they pay for that because the meter says they use so much right you know but um a business can exceed its MDE allocation correct I mean it's just day-to-day use they can exceed it right

or you can sit at the table if you want oh I can do that why don't why don't you join us is trying to find you in the studio you Sorry. Uh so um so the allocation to the property is from the town. Uh the the the appropriations to the wells well usees is from MDE to the town. Okay. So but to each property owner would be from from the town. Okay. Um

so to cut to the chase on this paragraph in the interest of time because we're we're coming up on 10:30. Um, is it an overreach to start imposing a fine on businesses which exceed their allocation because that's what this captures? It's a good question [laughter] because would it would it certainly be an interest to the council to debate that because of the recent discussions that I have been hearing? Is it is it gerine to some recent discussions about exceeding our precious water allocations?

Sure. And we haven't had a whole lot of you know to our knowledge you know things that exceed it you know our allocations by far um except recently and um but doesn't mean that there's not others out there. So you know whether you impose it on this property or we go back and look at all the other properties you know might need to do that as well. Yeah, this this particular paragraph, as succinct as it is, begins a rather interesting journey townwide for those businesses that get an allocation and then just drink as much as they want from the aquifer or the wells. Do you follow me? Yes,

chairman. Yeah. Um because this is a larger issue, maybe that's something that the town council should address in code so that it applies to everyone instead of singling one out. No, no, I understand that. And so um so that's that's a fair statement. So this this kind of puts the I'm going to use an army term here. It kind of rolls a grenade in the room. Okay. Um be because it it it is it is a big thing to now start advocating we're going to find you if you take more water than you're supposed to take. If I can put it in simple terms.

No, I agree with you. But I think that if it's going to be something that the town council is going to work to put in the code anyway, I don't know that it needs to be in here. Let me let me turn to council member Kelly. your thoughts on this being too dangerous, too much of that metaphorical grenade? Well, I think I think that that's a fair statement that you might be singling out one petitioner, right? One prop potential property owner, right? Okay. And I think that um ultimately you're an independent body, right? You can certainly put that in there. And I think that the count I mean the council could strike out any any or all sections of this. Right.

Indeed. Right. Um so I think it's to be completely fair um I have my own opinion but it's up to you I think if you want to put it in there and it's up to the council to keep it in or not to reject it or or or begin working on it or or revise it or all the above. Right. Okay. Um that's my initial gut reaction. Okay. Um, commissioners then, um, I have one, uh, suggestion to strike. How do you feel given Commissioner Kelly, I'm sorry, um, council members Kelly. Yeah, leave it. Leave it in and let it be food for thought at the council level. I'm not a fan of it being in where it is. You're not.

Okay. I'm just wondering if it's something that needs to be addressed at a higher level. Certainly, it's something, you know, again, AP or not AP, but Yeah. Yeah, APFO and site plan like we're digging, you know, it's crossing into that line. My kind of concern is that you're establishing a fine for one business that doesn't apply to any other businesses. And how are you going to get tricky later on? Oh, I I Yeah, I to I totally agree. For them to invoke this for this business, they would have to have a code amendment. Yeah, that would be a legislative action that would have to they couldn't they couldn't target this guy. But but again, this would start the ball rolling. But what I'm hearing is I'm hearing four to to take it out. Okay.

All right. All right. So, we strike the MD water allocation. Uh PAS concerns. This is uh rather extensive and given the fact that we have some assurance there is materials that can be certified as PAS free. I have I have some issues in here with regard to um baselining the PAS levels in the adjacent wells of the county residents. I have some periodic testing being considered as a part of the agreement. Um and so on and so forth. Um I even have a paragraph in here. If we find out the nearest well for the town, nearest well to this sports complex has higher levels of PAS, it would it would um this paragraph would allow the town now to go in and start soil testing etc etc. Um given our previous discussion, do do you believe any of this suggested condition is applicable? Y

I think we need to strike it to two overreaching. Yeah. One more time.

Yes. Three. Okay. All right. So, we strike the PAS concerns and considerations, hours of operation. Um, [sighs] in consideration of the residents around, I have drafted some hours of operation. Um, I know the petitioner has said roughly about 10 p.m. would when they would shut down. I have in this paragraph all activities in by 900 p.m. and the access gates closed by 9:30 p.m. [sighs] Um, and there is a similar kind of restriction on weekend Saturday, Sunday operations. Your thoughts on those? Because presently we're looking at an operation that goes to 10 p.m.

Doesn't differentiate for um summer hours or non-school hours either. No, it doesn't. Whenever whenever they operate either weekday or weekend, what I'm trying to do is curtail the activity so it doesn't go until 10 p.m. But I am also open to your thoughts. Okay. [clears throat] I don't I mean if if I lived by that, I certainly wouldn't disagree with that. But also, what does the town code say about like noise ordinances and things like that? Again, are you are you creating more restrictions on this person than other businesses that are also close to residences like on Main Street and things like that? I mean, I'm just throwing that out there.

Yep. So, again, these are conditions that can be entertained and rejected outright by the council. Yeah. But again, they're in consideration of trying to curtail the activities going all the way to 10 p.m. at night in respect to the adjoining neighbors and Right. I agree. I would want that if I lived there. But I'm just I'm trying to say that the, you know, you got to be mindful of treating different, you know, treating businesses differently throughout the town and what the count Yeah, exactly. the town code says. I'm going to say too because I know Noddingham has their pool parties and the music and I can hear that from my neighborhood which is directly [clears throat] behind. So I think that we're targeting them. Okay. And that needs to be stricken.

Okay. Yeah, I think so too. So I have four. So that means hours of operation strike lighting pollution. Um,

it's a dust statement. It's a dust statement. Pretty much a straightforward statement at the beginning that we will have to see separate lighting plans for both the fields and for the parking lot. I think the petitioners acknowledge it would be two different technologies. So, that's not an overreach. Um, we also impose that they have to meet the standards of dark skies association and the principles of responsible outdoor lighting. Um, we also state in there their phototric plan has to show zero lumens at the border. We've already got an agreement on that. It's not an overreach. Um, I do impose a time when the lighting has to be extinguished in con in being consistent with the previous discussion. Is that sentence on when the lights have to be extinguished um amanable to the commissioners or do you want it stroke?

Stroke I think it becomes inconsistent. Okay. So, I think what you're saying is the sentence the fields plan so forth extinguish by 9:30. Is that is that correct? Well, if the fields are open till 10, then you got to have Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Just suggest something real quick. Yep. Mr. chairman. So, um you could flex that wording a little bit by saying make every effort to schedule events so that lights are out by 10, right? So, getting in the weeds a little bit though with their business model, right? I mean, what do you do if the championship game's going into extra innings? You know, [laughter] you know, what um

you know, what do you I don't know. What do you do if there's an emergency and lights have to kept? I don't you know so I every effort to schedule activities dot dot dot okay just just a suggestion everybody agreement on that yeah okay all right so I'll add that in

um I'll add that in after the sentence which ends with the phototric plan going beyond the property borders um we've already discussed the early morning weekend team warm-ups they said they will never do that so that's no longer longer relevant and uh so I'll strike for the rest of that Roman numeral I put in the make every effort to schedule the activity so the lights are extinguished at 10 p.m. And that moves us to page 10, Roman numeral 2. Again, it's just particulars with regard to the parking lot lighting plan and the dark skies association, etc. [sighs] The phototric plan for the parking lot, again, imposing zero lumens beyond the parking lot so there's not light spill or pollution toward Noddingham, etc., etc. Um, I will eliminate the sentence that says the parking lot plan shall, etc. be extinguished by 9:30 p.m. all the way to the end of the paragraph to be consistent before I move on from that paragraph. Any other comments on that? You're good with those strikes or those amendments? Okay. Roman numeral three, and this is a dust statement. All lighting plans shall be designed and constructed in accordance with the town and Carol County code with all lighting plans with the town engineer. Um, and of course a dust statement or a an obvious statement that we'll need to see those lighting plans at least by the concept plan stage. Okay, if if not earlier, but but at least by then.

If no uh no other edits on that, I'll move to F, noise mitigation. Um we touched upon this with the petitioner a moment ago and he alluded to it being amanable to him. And what I'm describing in this is that we're imposing as a condition in their layout that they construct a 10-ft high burm on the perimeter of the property that will [clears throat] be natural gas covered, natural grass covered. and placed to top it will be native shrubbery planted no greater than 10 ft apart and has a mature height of that native shrubbery of at least 10 ft. So I'll stop right there. What I'm envisioning is something that if you go to southern states in food line when we built that shopping center we put an earth and berm between that shopping center and um village oaks.

Yeah. Yep. And and so it's exactly that same kind of model to mitigate the noise from that busy commercial area with the folks that are buying homes. An earth and burm was constructed. It's the same condition imposed here or described here. And again, the signal I got was it's not an overreach. They're prepared to do something like that. And what that affords us is not only noise mitigation, but to a degree light pollution also, I believe. Okay. But that's a that's a condition that we would want to see as I state here. We would want to see that burm and shrubbery design in the landscaping plan that would come before this body. Is that fair

guys? Is that reasonable? Okay. All right. Um G safety security. I'm imposing a height on that field perimeter fence of 10 ft. We've done that before. For example, in the commercial enterprise with the memory U clinic that's being built now up by um Southside

Southside Plaza. Thank you. Um we did similar kind of imposition. It had to be so high and that was to protect and and um respect the residents in um Twin Ridge, right? Um, bridge you know who I'm talking about. Duplexes on Ridge. The people

side. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's late. Um, so bless you. So, so this imposition of a minimal 10-ft high fence is not unusual is my point. Um, and then I just reiterate that as a condition of this. What they've already told us is they shall have a 24-hour monitor security system with video, etc., etc. So, it's just not them telling us they're going to do that. We're now going to impose possibly, if the council agrees, a condition on the annexation agreement that stipulates it. Any questions on that? I do for G. Do we want to have this last sentence in there? the parking lot gate will be over because we're not

let's let's strike that. Um, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I had a note here and I I should have caught it. So, that last sentence that begins this parking lot gate because um Oh, I'm sorry. I I actually started up in addition a parking lot gate to control access shall be installed. I'm striking there. Okay. Okay. Because from this interaction, we talked about there's there's upside to that. If we have a gate down and teams are now queued up to turn in and the gates not open, we got a mess on Watersville. Yes, you follow me. So, let's let's take in addition all the way to the end. Fair enough. Okay.

Quick question. Thanks, John. Yep. John, Southside, is that a is that a wall or a solid fence? If I remember correctly, it is a solid vinyl fence that's 8 feet tall, I think, is what that was. The plan was vinyl. I think it was 8 feet. It wasn't It was higher than six feet. Okay. And it also has um class A evergreen, right? Screening as well. So, Ralph, I just want to clarify. So, because you're not specifying solid or rail or Right. I mean, yeah, the the town, the residents, they might not want a solid fence. They might want something more harmonious because there's lots of green there,

right? So, you're not specifying down to that level, correct? No, I'm not going to the level of let's call it opakeness. Okay, you understand what I'm saying, right? And I'm not and I'm not saying, you know, chain link and I'm not saying a certain material. I'm I'm really focused on the height by which it addresses and it addresses the concerns security and safety of the residents who say we don't want to have unauthorized people getting into the field at night to play around because we're right there and we don't know where that will go as well as people wandering freely on and off at different

right places that sort of thing. So, so the height thing that I'm imposing here of 10 feet and again the council can say that's too high or we want it 20 feet. I can't imagine that. But, you know, it's basically to address the residents who say we really don't want to have to wake up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning to lights and sirens because another group of folks got inside the park. It's it's in consideration of of that. Okay. Um but but let me just make sure no change to that.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Um, we're moving on to the last page, folks. Um, H is field priority with our Maya local leagues. What I'm trying to do here is give some preference to our local teams because all I've heard is this is really to address our local teams needs. So, I'm drafting a consideration here that in the annexation agreement that prior to opening this business, they establish a written agreement with the Mount Area Youth Athletic Association in any other town affiliated team for a field reservation priority over other non-Town teams or leagues. Any any heartburn over that? Okay, Brian, I'm

While I while I appreciate the comments, it might be pigeon holing their business. Um, it is a private company, right? And to dictate to them that they have they've said that they would, you know, right? And I think a council member talked to them about that. Uh, but I think that um I think that's kind of putting putting them in a in a position where they they they have to do it. So what you're saying is Ralph, you're telling them how to suck eggs. You're telling them how to suck eggs. Yeah. I Okay. Um any any other [laughter] any other comments on on on that condition? Um dislike. No, I agree.

You like it? You want to strike it? I agree with what Brian said. Um, take it out. Take it out. How do you feel about make every effort? Make every effort to work with local teams. There you go. Okay. David, how's that sound, Brian? Okay, Brian. Number two. Okay, so um, call me. Let's see. So rather than shall which is a very strong word I will amend that to in to to reflect make every effort to [clears throat] provide a field priority toward local

town affiliated leagues and teams. Okay. Thank you. Council member Kelly and I is uh field fees again in the same vein of trying to make sure we can maximize the benefit to our local teams that basically um that basically says and and Brian it's probably going to invoke your comment again but basically what I'm saying is here. No, I bet I they the the contract between MAYAA and Elite Baseball is their contract.

Okay. I mean, obviously they they've they've said that they would they would play along with everybody in the sandbox, but uh Yeah. Okay. So, you're saying strike? No, I I think it's it's a contract between the the youth sports and Okay. and this baseball thing. But doesn't that But doesn't that go See, I thought I thought you were gonna go I thought we both thought I thought he was going the other way. I was going [clears throat] to say I agree with your last sentiment on I that it's a little bit too specific and restrictive. They'd have to work something out obviously.

Yeah. The So, so what's the spirit behind that? Let me just get into that. The spirit behind that is that the petitioner and our local folks will know for the full year what their fees are going to be. Now that may be a normal part of business that they do that you know they set an annual and then every year they adjust it. I don't know but all I'm trying to say is is it is it reasonable to say that as a condition of annexation for our local leagues you will give some high confidence to your fees being for the next calendar year for example will be this if you want to come and reserve our fields. That's all I'm saying. Um just be transparent. Yeah.

Yeah. guess. Is it unnecessary? You think I'll step out of it after I just after I say you because again the council can strike include revive, right? Okay. It I don't know. As a free market guy, I think this they're going to do whatever's competitive and so is mayo. Yeah. So, no, I I I respect that. Um Steve, you're silent over there and I could see you thinking um too much, not enough, not necessary. I'd say dial it back a little bit. Dial it back. Okay. as in take away. I I don't think it's necessary.

Okay. Because because there's a a I sense a doubt here. I'm just going to strike. Um and I will leave it to Maya's negotiation with the with the ball field as to how they want to set up their fee uh their fee list or fee prescriptions, that sort of thing. Partnership feedback. Um, [snorts] this goes in line with what I mentioned before about if we had problems with the adjacent neighbors, would they be amanable to, you know, having a routine interaction with some community-based group that's going to be able to tell them we have a problem with this, we have a problem with that, and would they entertain that? So, this condition basically says set that up. Be a good neighbor. Let there be a voice that you'll be, you know, subscribe to having a voice out there that you will listen to routinely. So that's what this condition is trying to impose. Any any questions on that? Any op any objections to that?

I'm I'm happy to leave it in there. And okay, you know, who's going to leave that up? And is the petitioner going to listen to the comments that come from it? Well, again, you know that put it in there and be like, "Yeah, we'll see what happens, right?" And you know, but but I guess Yeah. No, those are all valid kind of whatifs. And all I'm saying is here if for example, if if members of the HOA of Noddingham said, "We really need to give them some feedback because it's it's just not good that ABC is happening." Do you follow me? that I'm following you

that that group when they approach the ball field managers the ball field managers because of this condition cannot say take a hike I have to listen to you I have to understand your points and I have to work with you that's all I'm trying to say they don't have to do anything well I mean they can they can say you're on private property and uh thanks so much for the feedback there's There are other there's other ways for the community to give feedback, too. I mean, zero stars would not recommend. Uh they can go to town council meetings and complain there. They can complain to the property owners, you know, whatever they want to do.

I'm not going to deny that. All I'm trying to do is make sure that if such a body were trying to talk to them about things that are a problem with this new activity, they have to engage them. If you see it as unnecessary, I can I see it as I see it as something that could stay put inside of the inside of what you're saying here. I I think that there's a place for that. Okay. Um that's saying there there there's a place maybe um maybe think about recommending time bounding it so like this is not a perpetual thing because after a certain number of years of operating

that could probably be something that expired though for the first year of operation. Would that make you feel better? Check in. Check in with the neighborhood and see how it's going. I would say I would say up to the first year. Yeah, I'd give it a year cut off or something. Let's give it a year cut off.

Okay. So, for the first year of operation. All right. I'll caveat for the first year of operation. All right. All right. [snorts] And then the very last thing, the open space to the town. You will see that I have a minimum of 10 acres being deeded to the town to reduce our open space deficit. I believe the petitioner said roughly their layout will give us more than that in the surrounding walking trail. It's closer to 12. Are we allowed to do that? Um Tom,

yeah there's a case law that says that uh it's not a taking in the context of a development review. It was done at Britney Manor for those soccer. All right, then. Yes, I say keep it up. I go further not only to say a minimum amount that will be deeded to the town, but I also say that the public amenities on that deed land will be developed by them and will be maintained by them from there on so that the town doesn't incur the cost of cutting the grass, plowing the snow, etc., etc. Well, they wouldn't be able to because it's gated. It's private. It's again a private enterprise. Nope. Yeah, has to be deed to the town. But they maintain.

So they would so the town would have to be able to have access to the field. No, no, we're talking about the open the walking trail. Yeah, like the walking trail. Right. Right. Okay. So when it when it comes wintertime and the snow falls, it will be the people at the park, the developer at the park who will now plow the trail. All right. Not the not the town sending out a public works guy. Are you saying that they're I have a question. It it's it says in here that the on that deed land which shall include the walking trail, playground near the parking lot, pickle ball court near the parking lot and basketball court. It's saying that those things are going to be deed as well.

Correct. But they're inside the fenced in area. Correct. But they would be inside the fenced in area. That needs to be stried. So, we can't do that. Yeah, we we can't um Well Well, so they stated that the deed land would include the pickle ball court, the basketball. It would have to be outside the fence area. I'm I don't see that necessarily as a requirement. You can have deeded land to the town inside their fenced access. It's it's it's public amenity, but they're not going to want a fence. Yeah, I would talk to the town because that sounds you you could, but but you're not good.

So, if if the town's going to own the open space, do you really want somebody else's fence controlling who gets there when, right? If you're going to the town's going to own the open space, the going to want to have the ability to say when it's open. So, so constrain this paragraph to just the walking trail. I don't I don't think we should get that specific. Just Yeah, the public amenities. It would be it would be something if this were approved, it would be something that would be discussed further down the road, just like we just talked about the We just talked about that. Yeah. The open space on Buffalo Road, right? So, it's like Yeah.

I think it's too premature to start specifying like where where the open space is and you know what I mean? Because all that's TBD. Yeah. because the site plan could change. Correct. I would strike it from additionally down [snorts]

but leaving the minimum amount. Yes. That leaves it broad. I was going to suggest going way broad because you you know we may get two, three, f five years, however many long it's going to take down the road. And maybe there's a better use for open space, right? Maybe the residents want something different than a trail on certain parts or whatever. Okay. You know, everybody turns in their pickle ball rackets. They don't want to play anymore. Maybe they don't want to play pickle ball anymore. Barney, you were kind of leaning like you had some injection on this. Did you have a opinion about this discussion on open space? When you were talking about pickle, I saw some going in.

Okay. But you might I like that. Yeah. 10 acres or as required by code. Okay. Just take out the 10 acres. I mean, just a done. Gotcha. Take out the 10 acres and just say shall deed to the town as required by code. Got a question for Tom the open space. Okay. Chairman. Uh, go ahead, Steve. A question for Tom. When we're doing the open space requirement for residential areas, isn't it determined by the housing size as well?

No, it's well, it's determined by the zone. So, R1 is 25% of net has nothing to do with the amount of residents that only when you're looking at the the petition, the waiver and it would be zero. Yeah. Which is different. That's the waiver. Yeah, guys, it's um it's just shy of 11. And uh I think we did it. And so um I'm not going to reiterate the path, but we did it. We did all three parts. Um John, anything before I close this agenda item? Uh no, I'm good. You're good. Okay.

I have I have one thing. I was in the bathroom when you were talking about the traffic. So, I just wanted to uh let everybody know that's still here and is not falling asleep in their chairs that the uh when the subject of the the left turn lane on West Rogersville Road going southbound on Maryland 27 doesn't have a dedicated left turn signal and the lane only allows approximately eight cars to stack. During peak traffic periods, the left turn lane queue often exceeds that capacity and backs up into the adjacent lane for straight ahead or right turns.

And the petitioner's remarks were, "There is no direct support offered for assertions regarding Q lengths, only anecdotal comments provided by residents with mostly specifically referencing morning rush hour." When you were up here talking about the traffic, did you specifically mention the brush hour when you were talking about the traffic and that backing up at that light here? Here any of you? No. Okay. I just wanted to let you know that that's what they said. Okay. In regards to the traffic.

Okay. Um so yeah. Okay. Um, I believe I'm clos I I don't believe I know I'm closing this uh agenda item. Our next order of business is council leaison report. Council member Kelly. 30 seconds on the clock. You're encouraged to summarize.

Two quick notes from our uh meeting on November 3rd. First was uh we granted the the planning commission extension on the Warfield property annexation decision. And then um lastly uh the our [sighs and gasps] our ordinance for a water and sewer rate increase that was uh um introduced in September. We again postponed that based on the presentation since it's town engineer night here uh that the town engineer gave us regarding the whole system, the cost, the maintenance, the capital improvements schedules, what that would take, what the actual increases would need to be to get us back on track. and that was significantly different than what was proposed. So that's the vote has been uh was again uh postponed until December where I anticipate there's going to be some sort of short-term measure voted on.

Right. Um as we go forward. Gotcha. And we will meet again on December 1st. Any questions to Council Member Kelly? I do. Council member Kelly, is there any particular budgetary items that could be maybe allotted for that particular issue with the the sewer and everything else? Like maybe I don't know uh rails and trails. So something like that could be maybe that money could be pulled out to help benefit this particular problem that the town's facing.

Well, the so we know that water and sewer is in a deficit, right? And so, um, so I I I haven't been a part of a budget process yet. My first one's coming up, but the interesting to note that the it's um known that there's a deficit and that deficit is budgeted for today. So really, it's a matter, you know, are there is there money buckets that can move it around? Always probably, right? Uh but um

I think the decision for the council and the residents now is do we want that deficit to be specifically budgeted as deficit or do we want to get right on that side of the ledger, right? Um but I think to broadly answer your question and and and I think of of course there's always money and buckets that can be moved around and I think there will be an extensive turn hearing and debate period leading up to any changes. Do you mind if I just add on? Please Sean's correct. I just wanted to add because something that No, that you're hearing you're quiet all night long. Yeah. Well, listen, it's been a long day. Um, no. So, it it is important to remember that our our water and sewer budget is separate from our general fund.

Gotcha. Our our money that's brought in for things like rails to trails for the for the traffic circle, things like that that I hear, these are two separate pots of money. Gotcha. We can't move money from general fund to our to our water and sewer for these capital projects without a lengthy process of of doing that. And so we have to remember the money that we bring in for water and sewer goes towards water and sewer. Um so those are two separate two separate pots of money. Okay. Question. How much are we short? [laughter] I'm gonna go back to you. Well, that's a kind of a a loaded question because right now we have we are short about 275,000. Am I correct in that? Just in the operating

just in the operating side, not not including capital. Um and so that's getting um exponentially worse and we are uh pulling from our reserves at a pretty rapid rate right now. So, and that's the to get to probably to the crux of the issue, Brian, which is the reserves that over a decade plus we've been relying on to fund capital improvements, shortfalls, and operating expenses. That is getting depleted rapidly and we're sort of projected to get below a certain point that is acceptable and where the town wants it to be. Okay. So,

I appreciate that, John. I was just going to say maybe we can minimize the questions so we can get through the rest of the agenda because we still have to do nominations. We're losing people. So is that are you done Sean? I'm sorry to take I am I am done. Uh zoning administrator report John. Any highlights? Nope. Except for that's the wrong date on there. So we'll make that correction. Right. Um okay. New planning commission meeting in December. Right. Um again the next PL planning commission meeting will be January 26, 2026. Right. Uh again, uh wanted to give a quick update that uh there will be a police uh uh department presentation on December 1 at the town council, a preliminary sort of sketch of what they're doing, a layout.

Okay. Um and then um that'll be it. And of course, just going on to the elections next. Okay. And again, just to recap, um you'll contact Bill for our quorum. Yep. Um if that's a no-go, then we'll add it to the January uh agenda. Right. Correct. Gotcha. Okay. And the three that will go with Bill are Steve, Martina, and myself if if he does Roger up. Okay. Correct. Um we have to wait on Commissioner Wallace. Wallace as the alternate. She will still a B um 30 member tonight because Bill's not here.

Correct. Correct. Yeah. So, we we need to respect her and wait for her. Um but that's the final order of business. Correct. I think so. I think so, too. Kim, could you hand this down for Deborah? Save her. Thank you much.

Okay. So, uh, our last order of business before we call it an evening. Um, f first off, I want to thank everybody. Um, you know, it's difficult because we're only allowed in the opens meeting act to meet monthly, you know, and it and it's just hard on us to kind of have this kind of give and take. It it may look ugly and it may look like sausage you're making to the public, but it's it's just the reality that we can't have these discussions to refine these documents without sitting before the public. I mean, you you you know that's a fact. Um but but I appreciate the lively exchange and um so forth. So I I I will make the final addendum and then again the plan is we we kind of start developing our own thoughts and uh bring it to the table on January 26th. So last item is um every year we have to vote a new chair and uh and a new vice chair. Um uh [clears throat] my term expires after I adjourn the meeting um for the current term. It is for the year. So the next chairman and vice chair will pick up in January and then they will repeat the same process in November of 26. And so you all know that's the rules of the road. So I am currently um still remaining the chair and I am open for nominations for the next chair. And the way this will go is if a person is nominated we have to turn to the person to see if they will accept it. there's no need in voting on it if that person doesn't want to be that role. Uh once it's accepted, um then we will simply have a vote as to who who aligns with that uh nomination and then we will do the same thing for nomination of a vice chair. Um and so you all know you've been through this. So I'm open for nominations for chair for 2026.

I would like to nominate um Ralph Gent for chair for 2026. Um I'll accept the nomination. Um do we get a second? I don't think we do. No, I'll I'll second. Okay. Second. We just all vote after that. After you accept the nomination, we all just vote. Okay. All All those um in favor of that nomination say I. I. Any opposed? [laughter] Any abstain? Um, okay. Um, so now, uh, we have nominations open for vice chair. Do I hear any nominations for vice chair? I'd like to nominate Martina Hatley as vice chair.

Martina has been nominated to continue as vice chair, of course. Um, we'll do we'll do a second. I second. Was she accepted first? You have to accept, right? Yep. I'll accept. She accepts. And so, uh, I second that, uh, nomination. So, all those in favor of the vice chair Martina for 2026 say I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstain? Um, we've made the decision. Um, the pay is good. All the free we can get. Congratulations. There there there is no pay. Can you adjourn the meeting? Um,

it is it is uh 23 it is 11 p p.m. Uh, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.