Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

All right, folks. So, um, call to order the town of Sykesville, Maryland Planning Commission meeting of Monday, December the 1st. And the first order of business is, um, approval of minutes of October the 6th, which I assume everyone has read. Any comments, changes, issues with those? Um, then I move that we approve those minutes. Do I have a seconder? I'll second. Seconded by Brandon. All in favor? I. Good to [clears throat] go with that. And so we move on to our business agenda. The first sorry business agenda. Um do we want to do the county updates first? Let's do the county updates first. Yeah. So Carl, do you want to walk us through these? Yes. Wonderful. Thank you.

Sorry, I'm just pulling it up. I just realized I don't have internet here. I have a hardc [snorts] then then it gets recorded properly and all that good stuff and the people online can hear right. Thank you.

Good evening. Um starting off with just some general updates. Um, we've made some updates to Carol Connect, um, which is the, uh, the newsletter that is emailed or texted to citizens if they sign up for it. Um, so, um, just to make things run a little more smoothly. Um, and now you can um subscribe to different specific uh updates like the Carol County planning updates, Carol County master plan 2035 updates, and then down to earth, which is a quarterly newsletter. Um, a couple of changes have been made to the trailblazer roots, the purple and black roots. Um just combining a few different stops. Um [clears throat] Purple Route has combined Stone Avenue and Carol Hospital. So now the official stop is Stone Avenue Medical Complex. Um and if you need to stop at the hospital, you can inform the driver and then they'll do um that is like a deviation because they're fairly close by. So but no extra charge for those two. Uh same with the black route has eliminated the city of Westminster city hall stop. Um but it can be requested.

Um these will all be advertised in the buses and will go into effect on January 1st. [snorts] Um so deferrals um Commissioner Krebs uh has expressed concern that the county code doesn't address the welfare of the citizens and freedom area. Um yeah, with respect to provisions governing retirement villages, retirement homes, cluster subdivisions, planned commercial centers, qualified projects, and self storage. Um so the deferrals will allow us to uh study the zoning code and uh offer modifications. Um so there's been a series of deferrals um proposed um so the these are specifically for retirement villages and retirement homes um up to 6 months of a deferral. Uh cluster subdivisions 6 months deferral planned commercial centers 8 months deferral and self storage for 3 months deferral. Um, so on November 13th, uh, board of county commissioners voted to send those to a public hearing. The public hearing date has not yet been scheduled.

Okay. Um, the board of county commissioners sent a zoning text amendment for use off the premises signs to the planning and zoning commission for their re review and recommendation. [clears throat] Um, the text amendment was was introduced to the planning and zoning commission on October 1st, tenatively set for continued discussion on uh December 18th. Um during that discussion on December 18th, that's when um this text amendment will be public. [sighs] [clears throat] Um board of county commissioners approved changes regarding energy storage devices and solar energy generating systems in all zoning districts and added definitions. Changes reflect the state requirements. um energy storage. Yeah. FE five megawatt five megawatts or less are now permitted uses in the districts and um greater than 5 megawatts are now a permitted use in agg industrial one and industrial 2 districts. The master plan workg group reports on housing, economy, and agriculture were shared with the planning and zoning commission on November 5th. Um, in a series of upcoming meetings, the planning and zoning commission will consider them as part of the broader effort to review, update, and recommend changes to the county master plan. [clears throat] Um and we're expected to receive uh feedback from the public throughout the process which is going to continue into 2026. Um yeah, there was a joint work session between the board of county commissioners and the planning and zoning commission on November 18th um

where we gave an overview of the master plan progress to date and there was a there was a discussion between board of county commissioners and planning zoning commission. [snorts] Um, oh yeah. Um, there have been a series of work sessions uh on planning related matters. Um, these have all been livereamed and recorded and they can be accessed on the YouTube uh channel or the county's meeting portal. There was a meeting on clustering on October 23rd. um DRAS on October 30th and age restricted housing on November 20th. The water resources element was sent to the state on November 12th for the review. Um planning and land management will accept public comment on behalf of all nine uh planning commission concurrent to the state review plan period. Planning and land management staff will collect state and public comments, host a public information meeting, and facilitate a joint public hearing of all nine planning commissions. So, [snorts] open review period began uh November 15th. tentatively. January 14th is the public information meeting. Um, and the 60-day review period will close on January 15th. Um, tenatively, there's a public hearing date set for February 4th for the planning commissions. Um, I'm not sure if Sykesville is part of that.

Yeah, we we are. And I was going to touch on this in the stat by town update, so I'll just mention it now. Um, so we we are a part of that and as Carlo mentioned, they're doing the the joint public hearing on February 4th um for all planning commissions, but I was also informed that if we wanted to just hold our own public hearing at our regular planning commission meeting either January or February, we can do that. Um, that way it'll avoid us have to have a quorum of planning commissioners in Westminster on February 4th. Um, and our section [clears throat] of the water resource element, as we know, is very short because all our water and sewer infrastructure is owned and maintained by the county. Um, which is different than the other municipalities, but but fortunate for us. So, yeah.

Um, so I I was anticipating having us just hold our own um public hearing here for the I talked to Brenda already and she said that's that's totally fine. Um, so that'll either be January or February for us. Good. Um, [clears throat] last one, uh, water and sewer. Uh, spring 2025 amendment included Hamstead Tony Town Union Bridge in New Windsor. The letter of Maryland Department environment approval was sent to the board of county commissioners on October 21st. Fall 2025 amendment included Mount Erie, Tony Town, and Freedom. Um, it was scheduled for certification by the Planning and Zoning Commission on November 18th, and that went through and that was approved. Mhm.

Do you have [clears throat] any questions about any of these updates? Any issues? No. Thank you very much for that. It was great. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, moving on to our business agenda. Um the first one is the meeting schedule um which we have a copy of here starting on January the 5th. Has anybody got any problems with those dates? I'll just point out the one thing. So, and it was noted in the SA report, but on September 8th is the only non regular uh date because uh that Monday would be the Labor Day holiday. So, we move that to Tuesday, September 8th, but every other date just the normal first Monday. Yep. Like I'm not the August one, but other than that.

Yep. Well, good. So, I guess we should vote on that. Yeah. So, um I I I move that we approve the 2026 meeting schedule as presented. Um seconded. Second. Seconded by Ken. All in favor? I. Good. So, that one's out the way. So, we have a meeting schedule. And the second thing on the planning commission agenda is, and I've just clicked out of it, which was not smart to do, but anyway, just open and edit again, is the um rules of procedure staff report. So, do you want to start with that? Do you want me to start with that?

Um, I'll just jump in real quick before I any want to mention. Um but yeah, so right now I think it was just wanted to get it on everyone's radar that at the beginning of the year, so be uh probably next month's meeting, we'll elect a new uh chair and vice chair person um as we go. So I I put a little snippet from the rules of procedure just reminding everyone what the role is and essentially it's just the presiding officer. So that's the chair or in their absence the vice chair [clears throat] or in both their absence the most senior member of the commission. um basically just decide all points of order and procedure subject to these rules unless otherwise directed by the majority of the commission in which uh the process outlined in the most recent version of Robert's rules of order shall prevail. Uh I also want to note um too that whoever the chairperson is doesn't necessarily have to be the one driving conversation um in case someone is nervous to maybe volunteer u because of that. Uh same with the vice chair. Um essentially, you know, the the main role is you open the meeting, introduce the agenda items, close the meeting, and whenever we have a formal document, the chairperson um or vice chair in their absence would sign it. So again, it doesn't necessarily have to be the chairperson driving the the conversations um during during the meetings themselves. It certainly can be, but it doesn't have to be. Um but again, we don't necessarily need volunteers right this second. Um, [clears throat and snorts] but just wanted people to start thinking about whether or not it's it's something that they might be interested in volunteering before uh next month's meeting. Not that Phil doesn't do an amazing job, but you know, everyone has the

Okay, so opportunity to uh

Can I can I jump in just to sort of give background to where all this is really coming from? Um, I turned 70 in two weeks. Okay. Um, and I I'm aware that nationally there is a real problem with gerontocracy. Uh I this is a very small micro element of that but I'm keen not to be part of that gerontocracy and I think this is a leadership position. It's always been a leadership position and it should be a leadership position in the town and I think it should be done by someone who is younger and who has shall we say greater longevity in terms of [laughter] of of not necessarily life but poss probably involvement in in the future of the town. Okay. I've raised my kids here. it's it's all of that's done for me. Um, and I would like to continue as a as a planning commission member, but I'm not sure that I would like to continue as chair of the planning commission. So, if anybody else would like to do that um or feels that they can step in, I would prefer someone younger to do it. Having said that, I'm not going to leave the town in the lurch. Okay? I'm not going to leave this chair vacant if there's no one else to do it. But I would like someone who's younger to step into that role if that's a possibility. Okay? That's where we're coming from.

Absolutely. And like I said, we don't want to put anyone on the spot tonight. So, it's more of a just just start thinking about it. Um, and something Phil, you just made me feel really old [laughter] because I'm 73. Y, but I'm guessing you don't want to shifle over this way then. Okay. [laughter] So, that's where I'm coming from. And obviously, we'll talk about that again next month, but I just wanted to put that seed out there.

Um, and we'll see where we'll see whether it flourishes or not. Sure. No, definitely appreciate that. If anyone has questions about, you know, what what the role of the chairperson is or what that entails or wants to discuss it with me between now and then, you know, my my door is always open. I'm always open to chat via phone or uh email if you have questions, concerns um before that. But it good. So, that being said, we don't need to vote on that at all. That's just really purelyformational and trying to move things forward. Talent updates.

All right. Yes. I got a few. So, I will start with uh board of zoning appeals. So, um first we actually we had one uh the other week for the wear the warehouse building on Springfield Avenue 7452 next to the um band shop there. The property owners wanted to reestablish that building or or open it up and use it as for a warehouse use. Um so that did is which is a conditional use in in the business local zoning district. So requires BA approval. Um it did get approved. So next steps are they will have to submit a site plan which uh planning official will have to review and we'll have to get historic district commission review and approval as well. It's in the historic district. Um it's my understanding and and obviously they're not obligated to do this. They just said that this is their plan is to have some some retail on the first floor front

um and then use maybe the back half of the first floor as well as the the second story is sort of warehouse storage space um is sort of the idea there. Uh we also have two new or two board of zoning appeals hearings coming up this Wednesday uh related to Warfield. And I don't know if we've met since we had the last one. No, we haven't.

Okay. So So I'll backtrack a little bit. So we had one um in October where that was a um zoning variance request. So they requested essentially uh for a reduction in several of the required percentages required language percentages in the PEC zone. Um that's available online to watch. There was no decision made yet uh for that. So when they requested that um a memorandum of law be submitted from the applicant's attorney kind of outlining their the argument that they made at the hearing as well as a response from the town attorney and then a corresponding response from their attorney again. [laughter] and then um we'll we'll use that information to help inform their decision. But uh that was the variance request. And then there are two appeals that are scheduled to be heard this Wednesday uh starting at 6 p.m. to 7 in case anyone wants to watch or or join us. Uh first being an appeal of the planning commission's decision, which was uh the decision that that the commission made when they submitted their updated concept plan for review that didn't meet the land use percentages in PC zone, so it got turned down. Uh so that decision is being appealed and then they are also appealing a decision from the town manager which is basically requiring um certain procedural steps to be followed when uh for development of partial B which is the parcel that the um the assisted living facility will potentially be on um or got approved to be on by by the board of zoning appeals. Uh, so both of those appeals will be heard on Wednesday. And we don't I don't anticipate a decision on on anything being made on Wednesday. Um, if I had to guess, we'll hear those two or those two cases on Wednesday. Um, they'll take it again under advisement from the attorney and then we'll schedule a new hearing to for them to make decisions on potentially all three um at a later date. Mhm.

Uh so if you have any questions on specifics, I'm happy to answer now or or um for as much as I can talk about and then or if you want to give me a call or shoot me an email if you have any questions about the hearings. But uh we I'll watch it at in on probably in chunks. Yeah. Yeah. We we are starting the Wednesday meeting an hour earlier because we anticipated to go probably till 10 p.m. again. Um, the last one was was 7 to 10 p.m. Um, so we wanted to make sure that there was enough time for for everything to be discussed that that needed to be discussed. Um, so again, if you want to watch it live, it's it's a 600 p.m. start instead of a 7:00 p.m. start on Wednesday. Um, should should be a marathon, but um, you know, we we'll get through them. Good. Well, good luck with that.

Yeah, it'll be it'll be good. It's it's you know, just it'll just be long. Nothing wrong with that. Y uh, for the the station building, the woods drill down the street. We finally got um MHT approval [snorts] on the plans for that. Um so we just got that uh last week I believe. So we actually expect construction to begin on that project around February. So awesome. It's happening. Um which is good. Uh sounds like they'll be able to accomplish most of what they were hoping to accomplish in terms of of alterations to make it more functional as a as a restaurant space. Good.

Um so hopefully within the next few months we actually see work being done down there. So we're telling everyone [snorts] it's you know it's happening. It's just slow, but it's it's moving. Uh we have a new phase of the streetscape uh project. So we had um Oklahoma redone and Baldwin. Uh so the next phase which we is going through county review right now. There's going to be some additional improvements to the south end of Main Street down kind of in between where um Baldwin Drive meets Main Street and the parking [snorts] lot for the Divine Divine the Distillery. And then we'll also do some improvements to that parking lot as well because it's utilized pretty heavily in the warmer months for um the sort of block party type type of events.

Um so that's going through some county reviews right now and and again hopefully we can squeeze that work in between uh the holidays and sort of the spring/summer event season next year. Um if everything goes perfectly, that's kind of the the plan. Cool.

Um so so keep an eye on that. Yes. Uh the Canary building down at South Branch Park. So we so council did approve um basically a contract with with the firm um to start working on deconstruction of that building. I do want to point out though that nothing is necessarily imminent. Um, you know, there's still a lot of steps before now and anything being removed or taken down, which is going to involve, um, some of those steps in the middle are going to involve public hearing or public outreach rather, um, to get some input from the public of what could be done there, what people would like to be seen done there. Um, and it could, you know, the and if depending on how things go, there is even a scenario that the building doesn't get taken down. If there is a way that we can save it, we certainly

want to do that. that that is priority number one, but it seems like right now it might be too far gone. Um, so the direction we're sort of heading in is deconstruction, but again, nothing's imminent, nothing set in stone, and we're going to have a lot of studies and public outreach done before we set anything. Is there a plan to deconstruct and reconstruct or is it The idea would be take that building down and then redevelop it with with something that's, you know, usable for the town. And again, hopefully whatever gets redeveloped there is something that was, you know, came from public input from the community and has has community support. We we didn't act though. That's still Howard County, isn't it?

That is Howard County. Um, you know, we leased [clears throat] that that park. So, Howard County is going to be heavily involved in this. Um, you know, if Howard County comes to us and says, "Hey, we don't want that building to come down and here's a bunch of money to [laughter] then we'll save the building. Absolutely. We we'll keep it. Um, you know, we're not tearing it down because we want to tear it down. just the the cost of renovation might be moreive more than we could could potentially bear. Um so keep an eye on that. We are we will have some surveyors out there later this week to kind of start that process of figuring out what's was going to go into that. Um and then yeah so and then we mentioned the the water resource element public hearing. So if you recall we

approved sending the the draft to the state for the for the 60-day um review process. Again, it's not something that has a ton of bearing on Sykesville in the sense that, you know, it offers action items for all the all the water systems throughout the county, but we don't have our own. Um, so our action items are basically just continue working with the county as they administer our our water and sewer. So, luckily for us, it's pretty straightforward. Um, but we are required to [music]

hold a note or a public hearing in case the public has any comments before we we approve that draft um formally. And the last thing I'll mention, I did get a call from uh Kirsten, one of the original development review at the county. Uh she mentioned that the schoolhouse road subdivision, those five lots, we approved the preliminary plan. I think it was back in June, they're working on creating a bio number and getting their final uh plan process started. So, I know that one's been in the works for a while. Does seem like it's moving into the into the final. Um do we have to look at that one more time? Yeah, we'll have to review that again. Um, [clears throat] you know, we'll have to look at the final plans to make sure, you know, it's it's still consistent with everything that we've seen and approved. Okay, cool.

Previously, but yeah, that's that's one that's been going on for a while. So, it would be nice to see that see that one continuing to go. Um, other than that, I think that's all I got for updates. Hope everyone had a had a nice happy Thanksgiving. Indeed. Yeah. Thank you, Kevin. Um, any questions or issues? Nope. And the next thing on the agenda says adjourn. I move that we adjourn. Second. Seconded by Brendon. All in favor? Thanks folks for coming and we'll see you next month. Cheers. All right. Sounds like a plan.