Welcome to a work session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners for deferral code amendments on age-restricted housing and other related deferral items.

As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silent require reflection.

I pledge allegiance 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.

Thank you very much.

So as you mentioned, we're here to talk about age-restricted housing, um, potential code amendments.

We also have two other sets of code amendments that we've been talking about, one related to accessory dwelling units, the other related to cluster subdivisions.

Certainly, we have some materials related to the other two code amendments.

If you ever want to bring those up, discuss those today, or at our next work session next week, we can do that.

So is everybody good with diving into age restricted?

Okay.

Some of them are familiar to um to you from what we presented, I believe, a couple of weeks ago when we requested permission to schedule a public hearing on these.

The second point is that age-restricted villages provide a solution where housing for seniors can be provided without also having them need to worry about the property maintenance and some of those sorts of things that you know a standard subdivision homeowner would need to worry about.

So this is a particular type of housing that meets a particular type of need.

But if we look at where non-age restricted housing is allowed, that helps to contextualize it.

So first of all, we want to point out that townhouses, which is the predominant type of housing that we see coming forward in the proposals for age-restricted housing, are not allowed in any of our residential zoning districts.

In our R20,000 zoning district, which equates to about two dwelling units per acre, the housing type that is allowed is single family detached.

In our R 10,000 zoning district, which is four dwelling units per acre, the principal permitted use of housing type is single family detached.

We do have the ability for people to do two family dwellings as conditional uses.

Also single family detached as the principal permitted use and two family dwellings as conditional uses.

In our commercial zoning districts, no single family housing is allowed.

So this gives you kind of an overview of if you are not doing an age-restricted housing project or a what's known as a planned unit development, which is sort of a master planned community.

These are the types of housing that are allowed in our residential zoning districts.

So again, our age-restricted housing allows for some varieties of housing.

It allows for single family detached, it allows for two family, it also allows for town homes.

So right now our density is three and a half dwelling units per acre for age-restricted housing.

That's allowed in our R20,000 zoning district.

Devnie was three and a half, I'm sorry, three and a half.

Three and a half in R20,000, yeah.

Thank you.

And per how many per acre?

Per acre.

Yep.

Thank you.

In R 10,000 and R7500, there is no specific density that's set.

That's at the discretion of the Planning Zoning Commission.

But you can already see that allowing for an age-restricted community in the R20,000 zoning district gives them essentially a density bonus.

It gives them the ability to develop housing for seniors at a greater density than what would be allowed in that zoning district otherwise.

And because of the definition of what an age-restricted community is, and our use table in our zoning ordinance, it also allows other types of dwelling units to be allowed if it's part of an age-restricted community.

So we can infer from our zoning ordinance and the text in our plans that there at some point in time was a an understanding that there was a need for senior housing, that that senior housing could be developed at more dense more densely than what was allowed in the zoning district, and it could allow for other types of housing use or other types of housing.

So I think before we go into a discussion about all the um the details contained in the proposed code, that it would be good to get uh your take on these sort of fundamental questions.

Is it good to allow for uh a density bonus when we're talking about age restricted housing?

And um when we do allow age restricted housing, what types of uh housing should be allowed?

And is there a difference in terms of what types of housing should be allowed from one zoning district to another?

So that's how I'd like to start out the discussion.

Um and I'll just pause there for the before you started.

Yeah, one of the things that I spent a lot of time on this, and one of the things you ask yourself for this and clustering is why are we doing it?

What's the purpose?

And so to me, in I've become an expert now after the times I've been looking online and reading all this stuff, but it explains why it's so important to have a purpose paragraph.

Why are we doing it?

And in it it says here the purpose paragraph, why do we do it is establishes the legal intent and framework for the regulation.

It justifies the creation of the district, it protects the ordinance from legal challenges, and it guides planning boards when making future development decisions.

And I know um there was one I couldn't find it, but I just wrote some stuff down, and I and I I think if you know what your purpose of why we're having this housing, then you can say, okay, what do we do to get how do we well, how do we get what we what we're looking for for our seniors?

And I just I I'm just gonna write what I I sort of put a bunch of stuff together and just see if you agree or don't agree with some of it, and then we have some a lot of it's in bullets and what Troy wrote.

But you know, retirement village and homes, whatever we want to call age restricted active adult, the purpose of allowing a retirement village and or retirement home designation on certain land use designations is to establish comprehensive development criteria and regulations that allow for and promote the development of well-planned, high-quality, safe and accessible age-restricted housing options for residents in communities tailored specifically to the unique needs of residents age 55 and older within Carroll County.

Recognizing the demographic shift toward an aging population, these designations will collectively allow for diverse housing types ranging from single-family detached dwellings to multifamily options, respecting the underlying land use, which we required by law to do for the from the mass room.

We're required by state law and by our own law to respect the underlying land use of a parcel within a cohesive development which supports a choice of models and floor plans suited for the different needs of our senior citizens and aims to facilitate aging in place, and then to ensure the health safety and general welfare of the community.

Developments within this district are intended to incorporate best practice, universal design principles, explicitly prioritizing and incentivizing single-level living floor plans to facilitate aging in place safely, adequate barrier-free accessibility, and walkable connections to communal amenities, recreational facilities and spaces, and supporting services to balance community compatibility with specific modern housing demands, this framework allows for a variety of low to medium impact housing types, including detached single-story cottages and villages and multifamily apartments, while implementing a strict density cap and clear open space conservation thresholds.

The health and safety and welfare of seniors will be the priority in designing these age-appropriate homes and communities with options available to suit differing needs and budgets, but defining specific parameters for site layout and open space acreage, these rules ensure that new retirement developments protect the rural suburban character of Carroll County while optimizing emergency service accessibility and resident amenities.

Further, this district seeks to integrate senior housing harmoniously with surrounding neighborhoods, manage traffic impacts, preserve open space to provide for an active and social lifestyle and visual appearance and promote low maintenance living, therefore fostering a supportive, safe and socially engaged environment for the 55 plus population.

And can I can you repeat where that's from?