Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

It is Thursday, September 3rd, 2026, and welcome to a set of public hearings relating to proposed amendments to Chapter 155, cluster subdivisions, proposed amendments to chapters 155, 156, and 158 regarding changes related to accessory dwelling units, and proposed amendments to chapters 91, 155, and 158 regarding changes related to retirement villages and retirement homes.

As we always do, we'll begin with a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silent reflection.

We're also joined by Acting County Administrator Deb Ethingham, County Attorney Tim Burke, and Chris Hein and Daphne Daly from the Department of Planning and Land Management.

We'll be dealing with each of the previously mentioned proposed changes to code one by one.

If you're interested in commenting this evening, please fill out a card at the back of the room and get it up to Deb here at the front of the room.

As we come to each of the public hearing, each of the proposed amendments this evening, we'll go through them one by one.

And as we come to each, I'll go through the order of that particular hearing, pass things over to Tim Burr for further details, including public comment guidelines, and then we'll get moving.

We're all incredibly grateful that you joined us here tonight, and we're all incredibly looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

So without further ado, I'm going to open the proposed public hearing for proposed amendments regarding cluster subdivisions.

The order of the public hearing this evening will be the call to order, which just occurred.

I'll kick things over to Tim again for a brief introduction and comment guidelines.

Then I'll kick things over to Chris Hine and Daphne Daly for a brief summary of the proposed legislation.

And then we'll open the floor to comments from the public.

Tim?

Good evening, Commissioners and members of the public.

As stated early, that the purpose of tonight is to hear from you on some proposed amendments to Chapter 155 concerning cluster subdivisions.

We advertise this hearing in uh the Carroll County Times on Thursday, August 20th, 2020 2026, and Thursday, August 27, 2026.

In addition, it was advertised on the various Carol communication sites and sources and the website.

With us here tonight are Director Chris Hine from our and Daphne Daly from our Department of Planning.

They're going to give you a brief uh synopsis of what's being proposed to this amendment.

And in the public guidelines, Tim?

The public guidelines.

We ask you to uh if you we wish to speak on a particular topic, make sure you fill out your orange card and brought it up.

Uh we ask you to limit your comments to three minutes each, and we ask that you uh speak once on each on each topic.

So those are our guidelines for speaking.

Thank you very much, Tim.

Chris, Daphne?

All right, thank you very much.

Yes, good evening, everybody.

Again, my name is Chris Hine, the Director of Planning and Land Management.

Uh, the first hearing that we'll be discussing is for cluster subdivision.

So for those of you who are not familiar, cluster cluster subdivisions are a development type whereby dwellings are focused on the more buildable areas of a parcel in order to protect environmental resources and the like.

The way those are clustered is that smaller lot sizes are allowable, but that reduction in lot size must be used then for as open space for the benefit of the community.

So I'm going to quickly go through how we got here, um, how this correlates to our freedom plan, and then the proposed code amendment that uh has been recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission, and then what our next steps will be.

So uh the cluster subdivision codes are from Chapter 155, 036, and those codes have been in place in the county for several decades.

Uh back in December of last year, the Board of County Commissioners expressed some concern with how cluster subdivisions were being implemented in the county.

And uh eventually in December, issued a deferral for processing of new cluster subdivisions in the freedom area.

So with that deferral, we then uh talked with the commissioners as far as what their concerns were.

And um there were some concerns about the recent, relatively recent changes in 2022 to the cluster codes.

And so they directed us to uh discuss those recent changes with um the planning and zoning commission and come back with recommendations if any of those should be changed.

In parallel with that, uh the county hired a consultant, Michael Baker International, related to several different land uses, including cluster subdivisions, and they are in the process of doing more of a deep dive into our codes and uh and looking at how they conform with our the freedom plan and recommendations related to other jurisdictions and so on.

So that study is on is currently ongoing.

We took the we had those discussions with the planning and zoning commission uh July 8th and July 21st in uh in open meetings, and from that came back some recommendations from the planning commission, which we then presented to the board, and they directed us to have this public hearing.

So in our discussions with the Planning and Zoning Commission, uh we did reference back to the Freedom Plan and uh the Freedom Plan speaks in generalities about um the concepts of cluster subdivisions and touches on things such as having flexible lot size, bulk regulations, and so on to enable development and housing design desirable for residents at all stages of life.

It references clustering, but it also does point out that development should be uh consistent with the fabric of existing communities and not overburden adequate public facilities.

And uh it also touches on the uh the the benefits of cluster subdivisions related to protection of environmental resources.

So in our discussion with the planning and zoning commission, we reviewed those changes that occurred in 2022.

And the recommendation that came back from the planning commission was uh they recommended to leave those changes in place.

Uh they did actually add an additional condition uh that they're recommending for consideration.

And that text amendment would allow the Board of County Commissioners that if there is a project that has a significant community benefit, that it would give the Board of County Commissioners the ability to uh adjust uh requirements for open space density and minimum lot size.

But that would only be through the implementation of a development rights and responsibilities agreement, which uh the county is not obligated to enter into with developers.

It's something a developer can propose, and then it's purely at the discretion of the Board of County Commissioners if they would enter into such an agreement.

So that is the only text amendment that's being proposed for the cluster subdivision, and um and basically is the topic of of the public hearing for tonight.

So the next steps would be we have the public hearing tonight.

We anticipate that on September 17th we will be back before the Board of County Commissioners in open session to discuss and potentially uh they may choose to adopt uh this change.

If they do so, the code goes into effect within 10 days, which is uh in advance of October 1st, which is when new regulations from the state uh regarding early vesting of development uh projects goes into effect.

Um as I mentioned, this these are this is a very high-level uh change to the cluster subdivision, and in parallel, our consultant continues to work and we'll continue to work with them on more nuanced uh code uh potential code changes to cluster subdivisions, and we would of course bring those to the planning and zoning commission and the board of county commissioners uh for further consideration at a later date.

So regarding comment, um obviously here we're we're in we're here today to hear any uh comment in person.

If you would like to submit written comments, the easiest way is by email.