Planning Commission Meeting   1/12/2021

Mr. Bailey.

Present.

Firehock.

Here.

Moore.

Present.

Go ahead, Rick.

And I would like to second.

Mr. Keller?

Aye.

Firehock?

Aye.

Moore?

Aye.

And Mr. Bivins?

I guess I abstain.

I'll hand it over to you.

Can we move to a nomination for vice chair please?

I'd like to nominate Karen Firehock.

Are there any other nominations?

So if anyone else wants to do this, it's good training for the future, especially if you aspire to chair-ship.

Mr. Claybourn.

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Rapp, is there anything that you'd like to tell us about changes or potential changes that have been made there?

But the only item that we did discuss with legal counsel is if we should remove the year to it so that these do remain.

And just adopt them on an annual basis.

That way they are not year specific.

Karen, is that a move?

That's fine too.

Sir, would you?

Mr. Bailey?

Aye.

Mr. Bivins?

Aye.

We'll make that minor change.

So do you want to talk to us about our committee membership, realizing that we need to have a fifth and Avon ACA added to the list, of which I'm going to be presumptuous that Karen and Rick will be the ones who are the liaisons to that.

So they have been at the top of the list now.

There we are.

So I'm not sure if anyone has a burning desire.

That's the most amazing thing.

So this is an important role.

And so that would be a nice nexus for me if somebody would like to take the MPO tech.

Is everyone else?

I mean, clearly.

And basically, we get the same information at both of those two meetings.

Or are you talking about you want to go to the school board?

MPO Tech.

OK.

So basically it's a two to three hour commitment four times.

educate me on what is necessary to be the liaison of something like C-Tech.

I know that look.

but you're not showing up on the list, at least my list.

Yeah, so we need to get him on there too.

Okay, we need to add you to that.

And Tim, there's a meeting next week, but I'll send you the information on that, okay?

Daniel, I will send you the information on CTAC when I get an announcement of the next meeting.

Is there a motion to do so?

Is that what it says?

Correct.

And I think it's for, Andy might know, but I think it's for three years.

So you're saying it's through 2023 now?

Yeah.

Okay.

my reappointment.

Okay, I'll get that updated.

That's all I had to add.

So is there is there is someone will move or acceptance but those modifications as modified for our Planning Commission membership as of 1-6-20-21.

Tim has his hand up.

Is there a second?

Second.

Please, sir.

I will update this list and I'll send it out to everybody so you have it for your records.

Or did you scratch?

Is this just for February?

It was the two-pager.

All right.

It looked like this.

It's got all the tentative dates for 2021.

You OK?

Ignore me.

So is somebody willing to move this?

I'll be happy to move it.

Sir.

Aye I will send out that for your records as well

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chair, should we note for any members of the public who may be looking at that, that there will be no Planning Commission meetings the next two weeks?

How old, Daniel?

I'm not very happy about me being here instead of there.

May we hear from Mr. Fritz on this, please?

I know everybody's happy about that.

Mm.

I'd like to just get your feedback and try to answer any questions that I can.

Does someone have?

I had two super minor questions.

Go for it, please.

So who judges that or is there a definition somewhere?

And then the applicant, an applicant would have to pursue an appeal if they, if they felt that was inappropriate or wrong.

Okay.

There's been no change to that.

Or is it some, why is there a need to specify that just to be clear or?

We can say no and we're proceeding to public hearing.

Okay, thank you.

When the applicant decides to ask for a deferral in the midst of this process, where P is specifically saying that we're either going to approve or disapprove, might there be a way that that could be that how the deferral fits into that, even if it's an asterisk or footnote and it's explained so that when new commissioners are seeing this, they would get an understanding of what they can and can't do.

You want to comment, Andy?

This subsection P that you've referred to really is just sets out the duty of the commission to make a recommendation one way or another, be it for approval or denial before an application is passed along to the board of supervisors.

I understand that, but do you see what I'm trying to get at that we have had a number of cases when the applicant is going back and forth, the staff trying to guess where the vote is going to be and if there's going to be disapproval, they want to pull in a deferral there at that point.

If there's a sense that there's some sort of gamesmanship going on or strategic advantage that's trying to be had through a deferral request, the commission and the board always have the ability to say no.

Maybe Julian could.

And I think it would be the clarity piece for all parties would be to have a have a sentence or have have something in there that said this is this is always an option for for both parties.

So the suggestion would be to add the option of a deferral upon request of the applicant, subsection P?

So clarification, I would appreciate it.

But if clarity is sought in terms of the opportunity to grant a deferral upon request of the applicant, I think that can be added in there without taking away, again, from the main message of here's what the duty of the commission is to act upon applications that are put before it.

I leave that to you all.

Okay.

That's my major.

For right now, or do you have others?

Or maybe we won't want to spend the time on it because of another... Another matter before us.

Rick, please.

Implicit that these are calendar days versus business days because the language is not explicit as to one or the other.

and so that's why these deadlines are included.

Yeah and I believe it's in section two, Mr. Randolph, I believe it's in section two that there's something that says every reference in this ordinance to days is to calendar days because there are sections that have section 32 has that, section four has that, there are other sections and I believe it's in section two, two or three that actually talks about the days.

Okay, thank you.

Jenny, please.

I just wanted to ask that question.

Thank you.

I think it's really well done.

Second word.

We've been looking for that.

And figure that if the owner of the property doesn't come forward, then the individual has been authorized.

If it's an LLC, do they have the authority to act for the LLC?

So I assume we internally verify that this piece of property doesn't have anything heavy liens under or anything like that.

We do what's allowed by the state code, yes.

that might be changed or be involved in a particular effort.

Because we just couldn't think of everything.

And so how does that narrative get in there?

That's part of what the staff's review is.

So that's our analysis.

The applicants are free to comment on those things, but the analysis really should be coming from staff.

That's something that staff would do too?

And it's covered by the things we should be looking at normally in a special use permit and rezoning.

Carolyn, do we have anybody lined up to speak on this from the public?

We do not have anybody from the public for this item.

Yes, Tim.

Instead of the point by point, it's almost like a goody paragraph.

I've been here since the late 80s and we have made a lot of changes in how we process rezonings and everything since then, some of them thrust upon us by the General Assembly and some of them of our own doing.

sort of in the public domain before your retirement about that big picture of the legacies and what we are trying to do in cleaning this up, both for the development community and for the citizens.

Happy to do it.

So thank you.

And I'll pass that along to our team.

So Bill, did you get what you needed from the commission?

I'll figure it out.

Have a good 2021 until we see you then.

Bye.

Jenny Moore.

talk about and then we can dive into the question one if that works for everyone.

Does that seem reasonable, everyone?

And then if you wanted to hear from a few of the public members that when we come back, if I could ask a question and just make a general statement and then Rachel could take us specifically through each question so we can stay on track.

I'm being an only child now and being selfish.

We're not adopting anything in particular this evening, although we are giving staff important direction.

So with that, would all of those preambles, Rachel, please?

Is that correct?

Thank you.

Okay, so Michaela is going to start us off with some slides about the background.

I'll transition the slides to Rachel to talk about the purpose of tonight's work session.

So I'm happy to pause here for public comment.

Not the commission.

So unless you have anything.

You have three minutes to speak and your time starts now.

Thank you.

You have three minutes.

And that's all I have to say.

Carolyn.

You have three minutes to speak and your time starts now.

So thank you very much.

Your time starts now.

Can you hear me OK?

Yes.

Thank you.

Your three minutes starts now.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

That is the last one.

And so moving back in, Jenny, would you like to sum that up or move what you'd like to say before we come back to Rachel and her colleagues?

So I wondered if you could speak to that and talk about specifically what happens at the work session and then how does everything get crafted into something to bring to the board or do you later come up with a draft based on the feedback you've heard?

We hope to package up all the feedback we've heard, summarize it, provide options for the board as well for them to weigh in on, and we'll take what the board says is kind of our ultimate direction as to which way we should go with the land use.

Thank you for that.

Can I just add one more thing?

So now, Jenny.

what happens with their engagement and why they took the time to go through all this if it's ultimately we may agree or disagree with the community as a group as a whole but ultimately it's just going to go to the board and they're going to decide these things I think that is potentially really frustrating for a lot of people and I can understand that seeing this process unfold so I will leave it at that.

Karen?

but these are very detailed questions and I'm not faulting staff for asking them but I just want to say at the get-go that as we go through this there's going to be areas where I cannot make a judgment call because I simply don't have enough information to render what I would call an informed decision.

and in your case a very well-formed opinion on a number of things and I think it's fair to say that on this one I'm limiting my comments because I don't know the full details on it but I would imagine there's a number of things that each of us there through here will say yes I have some sense on that and I think if we can figure out how to how to iron out some of the some of the issues here that that would be something that I would support or I would say that that's something to go forward with.

But I don't know that I can in many of the cases of what we're being asked to see.

But Rick, I see you wanted to perhaps comment here.

Totally appropriate for the Planning Commission to be doing that.

So with that, Rachel.

And the first one we'll get into is the middle density residential category.

Oops.

So I think I'm gonna stop sharing my screen for your feedback, but your question, this is question one in the staff report that you had.

Yes, so Jenny.

I guess I would like to hear from others but I'm willing to you know make a couple comments I've written down trying to keep things pretty concise to start off the conversation or you know I mean I feel like maybe I should start first.

All of the residential or?

we have changed over to middle density.

And can you give us a sense of how much area that is?

20 acres, we can probably quickly get that calculation if that's helpful for you.

Okay, but it could it could other areas that are currently just urban density residential could be redeveloped under this new, you know, they could tear down what's there, whoever, you know, buys the property and then rezone it or reapply or redevelop it, I should say.

Okay.

I just, I was confused.

Should I start off with that?

On this, on question one.

If you're encouraging redevelopment, that's twice as dense as what's there.

It's to capture what's there, but also to show a vision for a future perhaps in areas that might redevelop or might be vacant now.

Is that correct?

We're actually getting into our transportation kind of network planning right now, so we can look at that and bring that information back to you if that's helpful.

And that's what other commissioners ask questions and make comments.

Tim, please.

So Rachel, could you answer that?

I forget the name of the apartments, but it's the apartments towards the center of Old Trail.

Rick wants to do a follow up, so why doesn't Rick do it and then I'll.

And then you'll continue, Rick then.

So I'm anxious to continue to move forward this evening.

And I strongly do.

OK.

I think Tim summarized it very well.

OK.

Jenny?

My comment on that, I'm having trouble listening to everyone and reading what people are writing and I know there's questions in the

with chat, the chat box.

And I will share that with Rachel, and then she can answer those questions tomorrow.

Daniel.

I want to make sure I was.

And so that's that intention, or that recommendation is intended to keep the multifamily buildings on the smaller scale.

As subsequent reviews of different plans come up, this would be a category in BIO or other districts that would be considered for doing things like this?

That's our intent to apply it to other areas as we update future plans.

That's all.

Your next question.

Are you ready for me to move on?

Your next question.

Okay, I am.

I'm looking at you, but you can't tell that I'm looking at you.

And again, I'll stop sharing screens, but happy to go back if there's anything you'd like to see.

Tim.

Jenny Petterhanda.

Jenny, are you ready?

I'm ready.

Go, Tim.

And I think there needs to be a different solution for how you accomplish the historic area, dealing with the historic area.

Okay, so Jenny and then Karen, and then Sal looking to see if other people have their hands up.

Thanks.

OK.

So that's just another example where I would refer to Commissioner Moore.

Rick.

under the state constitution, does the town have the authority to create its own historic district?

I would need to look into that to be sure, but I believe that a town can adopt that as part of its zoning ordinance.

So I would just recommend that be included here as well.

Rick.

So I think there would be a number of benefits in rounding out the criteria and specifying them for infill development in this downtown district.

so that we can stop at 820 and then come back at 825?

Thank you.

Tim, did you want to say something before we went on our break, which is getting shorter by the moment?

another reason for that historic district.

For the overlay.

You got five minutes.

Daniel, when you walk through your stream, are you walking through a background or are you walking through a green screen?

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, got it.

Rachel, are you getting, are we ready to move to your next question?

Yes, I think we're ready and Mikayla is going to present the next section.

Thank you.

I'm happy to answer any questions as needed.

Thank you.

So who, Jenny, do you feel called to speak to this?

Thanks.

Rick.

And this is very well explained as to the reason for the change in the staff report.

Next, Tim.

So those are my questions, but in support of what you're suggesting.

I'm going back to Rick for a second before I move on.

However, I think it's incumbent on the county, therefore, on every one of these projects coming down the line to ensure that there is more green space provided in that proposal.

Karen?

That's all I want to say on that topic for now.

Daniel.

So that's how I'll conclude those comments.

Corey?

And so we want to see a decrease in the green spaces with quality of life.

Rachel, Michaela, did you get what you needed?

And I believe, is it Fouri has our next question?

Thank you.

If this was an active proposal that's coming before the commission as a zoning, should we be engaging in this conversation right now without having, without seeing a plan?

And it's not inappropriate for the commission to be considering proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Comments.

May I?

Jenny.

Part of Wiccan Pond that's developed that you show on the map, on the new map, and you also expand the middle density residential color.

It might take us to pull it up if you want to move on to other questions.

So maybe I misheard that.