Planning Commission Meeting
Minutes
September 24, 2007

Present:  Chairman - Larry Little, Tim O’Donnell, Glenn Blanchard, Patrick Boyle, Patrick Joy. Also present Sarah Franklin of Jakubiak & Associates and Frank Henry of the Planning Department.

Call to order, Pledge of Allegiance: Chairman - Larry Little called the September 24, 2007 Planning Commission Meeting to order at 7:30 PM.

Approval of Minutes:  The minutes of August 27, 2007 Planning Commission Meeting were approved as presented.

Commissioner Comments:

Patrick Boyle: Made an announcement that he is part owner of the Silver Fancy Farm. Mr. Joy was not on the board when I made the first announcement. He also stated that the commission needs to revisit the transportation area of the comprehensive plan.

Larry Little:  Told Mr. Boyle that statement may have to be made at each meeting.

Tim O’Donnell: Made an announcement about the Frederick County Division of Planning public hearing to be held October 1, 2007.

Glenn Blanchard:  Noted Wednesday at 7:00pm a Green Forum will be held that several County Commissioners will be attending.

Patrick Joy:  He wasn’t sure if this would be the place for it or not but tonight we have on the agenda the water resource plan but after the last workshop meeting and after listening to the two gentlemen from the state roads, I think we should go back and check transportation again. Whether its this meeting or in the agenda for another meeting.

Larry Little:  I agree, we definitely do need another workshop.

Tim O’Donnell:  I agree also.  The water plan presented some concerns. What I’d like to do is follow up with Jakubiak and Associates to make sure I understand their position concerning the distribution of taps. Mr. Jakubiak used some very strong language sort of an admonition about how to and how not to distribute taps and that was of concern.

I definitely concur about the transportation plan.  Tonight we do have a priority about getting the schedule for the final document and I think its important that we try to set that as close as we can but the reality is we really do need to look harder at the water plan and transportation plan. There have been some things that I feel we haven’t addressed yet like public transit and park and ride lots.

Patrick Joy:  When we get to agenda item three, the plan for final adoption, if before we get into that part, if I can ask some questions to figure out how we got here.

Larry Little:  Sure, I have some concerns about how our commission listened and worked on several different properties that were on our maps and we had discussion had votes and it was brought back up again and we rehashed it again and voted and we rehashed it again and voted and now our planner is suggesting there is some fault or something is wrong. Like or dislike we are going to vote and review it again. I have a little problem with that. That’s going to be on our agenda. I had the feeling that we were well on our way to some pretty good documents and going in a good direction.

Also Commissioner Joy brought this up at the last meeting and I wanted to address this for the Commissioner. His comment was we gave instructions to Jakubiak and Associates to produce a document and get it sent up to us right away so we could put it on the web site.  The time before this had been asked was months and months before.  Once we give that items to our attorney or Mr. Jakubiak for review its already in progress, it’s a public document.  It is not a private matter, it is a public document.

Patrick Joy: My concern is just, we expect people to come here and talk about something. If we want the public’s input its unfair not to give them something to input on.

Larry Little: The fact that Jakubiak and Associates work for the town and that is a fact that Jakubiak and Associates and the town signed a contract and that contract is to help this board do our job and anything that we need or want we should be going to Sarah or Chris.  Anything within reason we should be able to get without question.

Tim O’Donnell:  I really agree with you about your commentary.  We had given direction to Jakubiak and Associates and in the last meeting what was put in front of us was the consultants recommendations and as the night progressed, I did get a lot of feedback regarding that.  I was trying to do two things, I was trying to let the consultant be heard and at the same time, I was trying to represent the best interest of the town.  I don’t feel I did the second part terribly well.  If one were to look at this in a private sector fashion it would have been dismissed out of hand it would have been said "look, that’s old business we’ve addressed that, let’s move on".  I regret not having done that. I hope that we can encourage Jakubiak and Associates to really stick to the direction we have provided.  I do respect the recommendation that he doesn’t concur with what we are asking them to do entirely, but at the same time they are working for us "the town". I really felt kind of blind sided as the night progressed.

Patrick Boyle:  I have a question for this board.  If we put a zoning down for a piece of land around town be it R1, R2 etcetera and the county comes up with a different zoning. Whose rules do they accept, us or do we have to accept the counties zoning?

Larry Little: Well, we don’t know but there’s an excellent place to ask that question that’s the October 1, 2007 meeting.

Agenda Items:

David Thayler:  I represent the province of the Daughters of Charity together with Dr. Janet Buchanan whose the chief of provincial operations.

The daughters own a number of parcels in and around the town.  Right across the street is the central campus which for our purpose I will divide into two pieces.  The piece with the Provincial House on it right now is annexed into the town and the piece with the cemeteries between the Provincial House and the fire academy is outside the town.  In additional they own roughly forty acres where the thrift shop and the daycare center is and they also own a piece of property of about fourteen acres off of Creamery Road that is currently a cornfield.

We would request and recommend to the Planning Commission that this all would be designated institutional.  We would like to see this area evolving into a retreat center. Institutional designation would include religious uses, conference uses, retreat uses and educational uses.  The use of the property off Creamery Road would be a retreat also.  I would suggest that in the future for somewhat lighter in use for the surrounding parcels such as offices or research and development or that sort of thing.  The daughters also own two pieces on both sides of Route 15 on South Seton Avenue.  We request that for the moment these be designated on the plan as highway services.  My personal opinion is that the town should consider South Seton Avenue as the main entrance to the town and in the future you should think of designing a proper gateway so this becomes a dramatic and welcoming entrance to the town.

Finally there are two other pieces of property of approximately ten acres each on the East side of Route 15.  This could have substantial value in the future and we would suggest you plan for some light uses such as office or very light industry.

Patrick Boyle:  You want to put institutional zoning on all the blue area, where are you going to put your senior housing, assisted living, hotels and commercial areas?

Mr. Thayler:  On the blue area.

Patrick Boyle:  If this is institutional and your going to have a hotel etcetera will this be taxable land and a taxable business?

Mr. Thayler:  Probably, I’m not 100% sure of the answer.  It’s highly likely to be taxable if another entity comes in to build it.

Patrick Joy: You made the statement about annexing the property right now.  Is that you opinion or is it the daughters?

Mr. Thayler:  That was purely my opinion.

Dr. Buchanan:  I can’t speak personally for the sisters but the annexation is certainly worth considering.  They are asking for changes in land use.

Patrick Joy: Just so I understand, the institutional designation, what does that add that none of the other zoning types currently have?  Is there a county institutional zoning or something equivalent currently?  Right now that land is not in town so if the county doesn’t have something equivalent to institutional and we don’t have an institutional it’s no going to merge properly.

Mr. Thayler:  This piece, the piece outside the town is zoned agricultural.  It is designated municipal but it is zoned agricultural.  This is the wrong zoning.  I do not believe anything exists as institutional in the county.  Am I right Sarah?

Sarah Franklin: There is no institutional at the county level.

Glenn Blanchard:  Just a couple of questions about ecological impact.  Some pieces of land go along Tom’s Creek and part of the land goes along Willow Rill.  In you planning I just want to emphasize that we are part of the Monocacy watershed.  As you move along with this please make sure that you know what ‘s going to occur with these streams as far as building is concerned.

Mr. Thayler: We know they are environmentally sensitive areas.  We entirely agree with you.

Sarah Franklin:  I just want to say in general this plan is consistent with what we have presented.  I think Mr. Thayler’s personal opinion of a gateway at the Southern intersection is a great one.  The only thing about this plan that might not be consistent with this vision might be the high commercial use at the intersection.

Sarah Franklin: On the water resources element we are not prepared to present the additional information requested. I t was requested last Wednesday.  We finally pulled it all together today and sent it to the town for review right before I left to come here so you should get that shortly.

There is one thing on the water resources that I just want to clarify because it was misunderstood at the last meeting.  The numbers aren’t meant to indicate a tap allocation, in fact when the water resources element goes into its final form and becomes a public document it would not even break down how many EDU’s each area would generate because that would lead people to say "you said I could have 595 taps.  We are just estimating what the possible use could be so that we can plan responsibly.

Patrick Joy:  So all the EDU’s was the maximum that would realistically fit into what we are discussing and if you add all those up it exceeds what we have or will have.

Sarah Franklin:  The 595 is probably high.

Catherine Forrence: Mr. Chair you mentioned your frustration of the land use changing after multiple votes that the band had taken and that is the consequence of putting future land use before the water and sewer elements.  The water and sewer element is required by the state to match what your future land use is going to be.  On top of that is the sewer resource and I’m disappointed that it has not been presented to you.  You’re only getting half the picture at this point.  These documents need to come to the public so it can be compared to the Thurmont Regional Plan.  This should all be presented to the residents because this is all paid by taxpayer dollars.

Kim Ries:  I am opposed to using Mountainview Road and Annandale Road as a connector bypass.

Richard Floyd:  I am here speaking on behalf of Mr, Stockman.  One quick note the meeting on October 1, 2007 is not nearly as important as the meeting on October 24, 2007.  October 24, 2007 is a public hearing where you’ll have an opportunity to voice your pleasure or displeasure of what your county is planning.

I understand the last meeting there were some properties brought back for discussion. This board votes on Mr. Stockmans property and the vote was unanimous to leave it as it is.  In order for that to be coming back to the board as a discussion there has to be a motion from one of you guys.  It can’t just be arbitrarily brought back.

On water and sewer, I don’t know about here but everywhere else its first come and first serve, you don’t reserve water and sewer.

Mr. Thayer:  When will you vote on the water and sewer.

Larry Little: The October 29, 2007 meeting.

Libby Briggs:  I would like to bring to the attention of the board that the board should direct the consultants in an appropriate manner so we do not waste time energy and money.  It is not the boards fault that the planners came last week with a 1 and one half hour presentation that was totally inappropriate.  The board had already voted, already directed the planners to do a specific item and that was completely ignored.  As a taxpayer I am a little insulted about this and I would like to see a fiduciary responsibility on behalf of the town and the planners.

Eric Wivell:  To use terms like some homeowners may be long term inconvenienced, I think the translation is "We’re going to run the road through your house and you’ll have to leave".  My concern is that all homeowners that are going to be affected completely understand where the proposed roads are going to go and they know what their options are as you go through this process.

Larry Little:  In order to get the final document available we need to set a regular meeting date for that. I suggested the final document needs to come to us and each have our own copy and work in groups or on your own. I think we need to sit down and look at it in its entirety.

Patrick Boyle:  I agree with Mr. Chairman that we need a workshop for water and transportation but if we have a workshop we can’t vote on anything.

Sarah Franklin: We cannot provide a revised draft two weeks prior to the October 29^th meeting.  The earliest we could give you the revised draft with the tract changes and everything would be October 22.

Tim O’Donnell:  I think a week in advance would be okay, to give us a working document.  We need to move toward that end. We understand that the transportation and water piece will not be fully available.

Larry Little:  I’m not looking for the perfect document.  I’m looking for a document that doesn’t have anything missed.

Larry Little: The next meeting is October 29^th 2007 at 7:30 pm. The agenda is a follows:

• The Water and Sewer Resources Plan
• The Daughters of Charity Land Use Plan
• Vote for Vice - Chairman
• Transportation Plan
• Schedule for Final Document Adoption

Patrick Joy:  Did we ever get a response from Mr. Clapp concerning the sign ordinance.

Frank Henry: My fax wasn’t working so I did not get a response from him so I will find out and let you know tomorrow.  I will give you a call.

Tim O’Donnell: Mr. Chairman could we instruct the town staff to include the dates for the open house and the public hearing on the web site and channel 99?

Larry Little:  Yes

Frank Henry:  I will take care of it.

Meeting was adjourned.