Good afternoon and welcome to the February second meeting of the Government Operations Committee.

We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

We will begin with our sort of continuation from last week.

Last week, if you recall, Council members, we sort of began to answer some policy questions with respect to the land management code commission for lack of a better word.

Again, that's just what we've been sort of calling it so we can proceed with our work.

So as a reminder, just for from a process perspective, we're not going to make any decisions.

To that end, I did include, although I don't see it in the backup.

Is it the resolution just one document, Clara?

Did we just append them?

I don't think it made it just in the future.

I don't think it made it to the backup.

So let me is on your backup.

Maybe I need to refresh.

Oh, let me refresh too.

So it's not on the I always use the online just because I like to see what the public this happens.

I like to make sure the public sees what.

So just online it's not connected.

So let me.

Okay.

And for the public that's watching, we'll make sure this uh is added to the online backup on.

Sorry for the programming delay.

Joe, is your email the same if it was before?

That would be really convenient.

Okay.

So essentially what we have is we have a, and I'm just gonna be very honest, a chat GPT edited version with respect to we took what I did was I took the notes from what uh what our discussion was last week, and we began with a draft and then I edit it accordingly.

So there's a couple of things I would like to go through with the committee, and certainly, council members, you can send any additional feedback to my email and we can include that in the backup.

Um we are all thrown off.

I just did.

So just check and okay, and we'll make sure that this gets my apologies that that wasn't posted.

Okay.

Okay, so just as a reminder, the whereas clauses sort of frame the discussion.

So when you have a moment, we'll take a look.

Um I expect that when we get to full council, we're gonna wordsmith these.

So um I think if there's anything that you see that's glaringly omitted, uh that would be that would be good feedback to include for full council.

It's always easier to edit down than it is to add on the fly.

And I'm but imagine our fellow council members will have their own feedback as well.

So of course the name is been something that we've been running with.

Um does anybody have any sort of strong feeling about the name City of Frederick Land Management Code Review Commission.

Looks looks good to me.

Yep, I think it's good.

So the purpose and scope has been edited.

Um there was just making sure I'm gonna flag anything that I added that wasn't included in the original conversation.

No.

So this is the and just jump in, absolutely, Peter.

Like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

No, I appreciate your taking pieces of thread and weaving it in the whole cloth.

So I think 11 as a discussion point, 11 commission members is a great start.

Thanks.

I just picked that from it was more than nine and less than there's no uh there's no uh brilliance here.

It's just uh absolutely and and I imagine even the scope um one of the things that was heavily debated when the Charter Review Commission did their work was the scope and ensuring that the scope was tightly defined.

And so I would imagine we'll have conversation about that as well.

Um I'm not sure if this is needed, but should we put anything about evaluate other land management codes for applicability to Frederick?

So perhaps consider best practices from comparable jurisdictions.

No, no, you're fine.

So to include, but we're doing this.

And and just for the again, adoring public many people that are watching this sake.

Um the reason we're sort of wordsmithing this and doing this on the fly is because we're we're sort of moving this forward as as quickly and as rapidly as we can in the midst of all the other work that we're doing, but we're prioritizing this to get it before full council.

So that's why it's um so considering best practices to include the land man it.

Okay.

And maybe this shouldn't be in here, but I see um mention of housing diversity, and uh we talked a lot about updating the land management code to address affordable housing.

So I know housing diversity um diversifying housing could help with that.

But do we want to explicitly call that out?

So I think when we talk about housing diversity, maybe we want to be more specific about what that means.

Um Affordability is called out below, but to your no to your point.

Um, I I know there could be many different interpretations in that word.

So let's see, um including housing diversity to include um affordability or price um, price appropriate housing.

Housing.

We're just gonna include size and density for lack of a better.

Well, that's great because now we're including not only the economic side, but also the form-based side.

Right, right.

Um for C under Section 2, where it says approval process for effectiveness and equity, would we want um I had it in my head?

Predictability, or is that effectiveness?

So developers know what to expect, the time frame, like some other cities when it come to a can come to affordable housing, they had like a toolkit.

Maybe that could kind of go in there.

Okay.

And I do speak to that toolkit in a in a lower as part of the documents, yeah.

So when we talk about composition, we picked 11.

There's no magic to that number.

Uh if a member feels very I I sort of feel like what will probably happen in practicality is we'll have a conversation about who we want represented, and then we'll have to sort of figure out.

I mean, we could even do a threshold, you know, 11 to 11 to 15, or and I'm just picking random numbers, but um just acknowledging that that number wasn't we didn't really discuss that explicit number.

We did ex we did discuss wanting a balance of um ensuring that we didn't have too much development or real estate interest.

So you'll see I took us I took an effort to write that language out, and that's that um there's a highlighted section that says no more than insert number here.

Um I had mixed, I I sort of I started to do go down this road, and then I had mixed feelings about this because we have we have a pretty robust our own housing policy advisor came from the nonprofit community that deals with housing, and so I think if we're too prescriptive, we could take some really expert, you know, some some experts out that I think sometimes I know I'm guilty of this.

Like we hear the this sort of this pendulum of oh there the development community has too many interests.

Well, we forget that the development community includes those that are doing um below market rate housing, right?

So um I'm just sort of supposing that as a challenge.

Okay.

I did get an email from a constituent who recommends um 12 to 13 members.

So I like your idea of having a range instead of the a prescriptive eleven.

So maybe eleven to fifteen.

And then regarding the membership, this constituent suggested one to two representatives from each of the groups.

So no more than two from the development representatives was the suggestion.

But again, do we want to be that prescriptive in the resolution?

I don't think we need to be a question.

Do we consider development and real estate interest to be the same group?

So what I mean is if we limit it to two people who have interest or experience in or affiliation.

And I feel in I have recent experience with this.

I feel like sometimes it could be misinterpreted.

So I just want to that's what I was sort of working through.

I feel like they could be separate.

And I'm saying this because the land management code and zoning and in particular, a lot of people don't know very much about.

So we're asking like some everyday individuals to do this.

And I think it's gonna be a huge lift and really difficult.

So to have more people that understand it, I think could be a benefit.

Just so that we're not locked into any strictures.

So remove that clause altogether, but when we talk about this and we we have our interest or our meetings to talk about moving forward, we want to make sure we include that the committee was concerned with this, but ultimately determined that it might be too unwieldy.

Is that kind of what you're going to?

Right.

I mean, I uh in my heart, I definitely want perspectives from the development and the real estate community, but I'm just worried that if we put any number on it that we're locking ourselves in, that's all.

I would almost think that you would want somebody from the development community that's a developer, a lawyer, an architect.

Because I imagine all three of these things are going to come into play.

Um so you're already more than the insert number.

Um I think Peter's right that Libby's right that the LMC is not an everyday document.

And whoever the citizens are, the residents are that agree to join, there's going to be a huge learning curve for them to get up to speed.

Um probably be almost worthwhile to have them have an introductory course by somebody from planning staff to um help them understand what's going on.

Councilmember, you said architect lawyer and div what was the third one?

Developer?

Developer.

Yeah.

Could I add urban planner to that list?

Okay.

And so what I'm going to do, Councilmembers, is I'm going to I'm going with your with your agreement.

I'm going to remove the free the the clause.

I'm going to move that down to things that we discussed and why we ultimately decided so that the the sort of the original intent is captured, but that we, as a committee, discussed it and ultimately found that we wanted to this is where we landed, basically.

And these were some of the other considerations that we felt were important.

If you agree with that approach.

Yes.

Okay.

Sounds good.

All right.

Okay.

Um we find ourselves so the the makeup of the the composition that is outlined does include um the goal of achieving one member for every council district.

We didn't talk about that.

We sort of talked, we briefly sort of we kind of mentioned that it would be great.

I think maybe that was in my head, but um I wanted to highlight that because I I don't think that we from my recollection, we didn't we didn't all say that had to happen.

I think that was like an aspirational sort of thing.

I think we talked about geographic diversity as the as the thing that we wanted to achieve, but um so that was a little bit of my own editorializing that I put into the document.

Just wanted to flag that because that wasn't something we agreed to I I think that's a good upgrade.

Aspirational goal.

Where is that in here?

It just helps me to be.

Yeah, you're fine.

So um section three in the composition, it's the first city residents from diverse neighborhoods with the goal.

Uh okay.

Yeah.

Um I'm going to add the word urban in front of planning, Pete uh Councilmember Bram.

Yep, perfect.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh representatives of business nonprofit and civic organizations as a broad encapsulation of some of the groups that we talked about in our last meeting.

Uh we could be prescriptive and request specific organizations to be represented.

I wanted to throw that back to this group to say how you felt about that and what you would prefer to do there.

I don't think it should be prescriptive about the organization.

I agree.

Okay.

All right.

Um Councilmember Taylor, this is something I wanted to run by you.

I this language, members of the public with a demonstrated interest.

I think you could argue on the flip side that many residents don't even know what land use is, and so therefore we don't want to exclude them.

So I went back and forth on this too, and I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

If you have if you when you read this language, do you have a do you feel like it's exclusionary, or do you feel that maybe we could add something to it to make it more inclusive, or do we want to strike it all together?

I like that it's in there.

I wonder if we could add one more thing.

I'm not sure what that is yet, but we can put a note in here too.

Because those are still kind of intimidating terms, land use and community planning.

Maybe neighborhood well-being or something to that.

Yeah.

I think we have to think about what is it that we're trying to achieve with with this sentence.

It's almost like neighborhood engagement, maybe.

I mean, it's almost like do you because one of the concerns that you brought up rightly, so the last meeting was you gotta know what you're getting into.

It's gonna be a lengthy, so you know, we want to be clear about.

So I'll just put a note in that we want to possibly add a phrase here.

Those will be the shower thoughts that come up.

Right, right, right.

To be inclusive.

For me, it's 4 30 in the morning.

So sorry in advance for emails that you receive.

It got awful early times.

Okay.

Okay, then we go to section four, which is terms and organization.

Um so we had already thought about that the fact that um council members should serve for the duration of the commission.

Can I stop you there?

So um did get feedback and suggestions from a constituent who suggested breaking this up.

So for example, if someone from the public who didn't have very much expertise in something, um instead of making them hang on for the two years, this can be broken up into sections, possibly by Gabrielle, and that kind of goes into staff support.

And if you have expertise or knowledge in a certain section, then you would only need to be a part of it for that duration.

That would just a suggestion.

Almost like a subcommittee sort of structure.

Yeah, exactly.

My my anxiety with that is that since the land management code is holistic, that if somebody wasn't there from the start to the end, they they may not grasp the moving pieces.

But to your point, if the person said, I can't, I'm not interested in all that, or I can't make that amount of time, then I hope the group would call in experts on a specific topic, and that's where that person could fit in.

Yeah.

But you're hearing my anxiety, not don't do it.

I think that I I agree with that.

I do I would really like this to be broken up by an expert into sections like staff for for them to tackle instead of going to this commission in the first several months, you're like, okay, how do we tackle this?

So for us to to give them uh a roadmap.

I I don't know, Councilmember Atkins, you've been involved in this world.

What are your thoughts about Councilmember Taylor's idea?

I excluded or agree with you, um, Peter, that it's I think you need to be involved because it's so intertwined with everything that you change one section, it's going to change a snowball effect and change other things.

Um I think if there's people with demonstrated interest in specific areas, I mean that's when they would show up to the meetings and give their input advice.

And what about asking planning to divide up the elephant into pieces?

I think you might want to talk to Gabrielle about that one.

Okay.

So I'm okay with keeping it two years.

Just was throwing out that that idea.

Can we come back to this when we talk about report outs?

Like can we like in terms of it like the because I don't want to lose this thought about how do we how do we not spend six months talking about how we're going to move forward, right?

So I don't want to lose that, but I also think it might be helpful when we come to the that section as we're thinking about it.

Okay.

Um right.

So then we go to the So I included this was new.

I think we had talked about it, but I wanted to also, because I I couldn't recall if we had prescribed this or not if we wanted to prescribe this.

So council assigning appropriate council liaisons.

I kept it very vague, like if if it's if it's the same, and and this could be this is a policy decision for us, or this is for full council, like do we want to say that the same council member is the same council member for the two years?

Uh do we want to say that you know at some points in the process it might be we rotate?

Um and let me let me just put a plug-in for why I think that could be.

So with the and sorry to keep going back to the charter review, but it's sort of our most updated sort of example, right?

So with charter review, I felt it was good to have one of us assigned.

That was it was good to have that continuity.

Uh and we just to be clear, we fought for that.

Um that was not a given uh so to have somebody assigned was not a just it wasn't originally contemplated.

At the at the end of it though, um when we came to the reporting and action phase, it sort of was like it was on me to communicate what the charter review committee, what their intent was.

So we had like the report, and then you had the intent, because I had sat through the meetings, and if I wasn't in the room, I had watched them online.

It was like my responsibility.

So on one hand it was good to have it be my somebody's responsibility.

On the other hand, it was sort of as if I think sometimes my council members would be like, well, is that your opinion?

Or and it and I would make it clear that no, this is fact, but even just like if it was something that I agreed with or didn't agree with, it would sort of be like, well, well Katie said.

And that I think was a little bit of a distraction from the work.

Um I don't know that the land management code review will have the same sort of controversy that the Charter Review Commission provisions had, but I just wanted to make sure I like reflected kind of what happened in process.

Um it was almost like I was using what the Charter Review Committee said to argue my position, which being totally transparent, I probably did more often than not, because I was like, of course, this is what they said, and I sort of deferred to what they did, so I don't want to not be transparent about that either.

But um to sort of like it sort of can become a little bit of a political situation if only one person is sort of owning it.

Um if there's something that the others disagree with or so just wanted to kind of give that context, but other than that, um, you know, we could assign two, we could assign none none.

That that all is up for us to um chat about.

So any any strong feelings about council representation?

As with the members being committed for two years, I like the idea of a designated council liaison.

I like the idea of two designated liaisons even better, but um now I'm spending other people's time.

So I I just I think that's laudatory.

I recall from the conversations that I heard about the charter that the chair of that group was also in the room and could offer either reinforcement or not of any comment that you made at the time.

And I wonder if we just had one liaison from council if the chair from the this commission or another member, the vice chair, just somebody could be there to audit and say, yes, that's that's true.

As a way of getting around the well, that's just we're hearing an opinion.

But I offer that up.

So it was also helpful to have they were all recorded.

So but there were plenty of meetings where I would communicate what had been said at a recorded meeting and but I have a question.

So what would the role of the council liaison be?

To be like a silent observer, or would they give their opinion?

Um what would that look like?

And I think that that could make a difference in what I think here.

So in the Charter Review Commission example, personally, I interpreted that as I only participated when asked direct questions, and I observed.

Um I think it's worth saying, though, that that never was really spelled out to me.

So I could have probably taken a more active role if I wanted to, unless we want to be more prescriptive in that.

I think it would be helpful if we were more prescriptive, because I've been a part and seen some of these where the role wasn't clear.

Um that complicated things.

And we were often looking, you know, for at the liaison, maybe for guidance, and it wasn't always given consistently, and just with us not knowing, it made it much more difficult.

So council member, you're suggesting that that whoever the liaison or liaisons are would be part of the discussing and voting people if if votes took place.

I don't think voting.

Okay.

But part of the discussion on aspects of the line.

Okay, great.

I think it would be hard to sit there for two hours and not say anything.

Yeah.

And then that person would also assumingly know what questions are going to come from council.

Like, have you thought about this?

How are you going to address this?

So the idea there is to include.

I'm sorry, I want to make sure I get this right.

So I'll say one or two council liaisons.

One or two.

Do we want this to be the council president or do we want it to be full counsel that appoints this person?

Who's assigning the council liaisons?

Do we want to name Libby Taylor specifically?

Um, I'm okay either way.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Or or you and uh the president and vice president, whatever flavor you all think is.

You're gonna want to, you're gonna have to whoever does it is gonna want to have to do it.

So we'll just I'll just put a note in the backup that we were agnostic about who appointed.

Okay.

And then we said one or two, and then we said the what ideas did you have around being more prescriptive, Councilmember Taylor about the role.

I think what we already talked about that they wouldn't be a voting member, but they would share their opinion or they would ask questions.

I who will participate in the meeting.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

We give the committee, excuse me, the commission power to establish subcommittees.

We go ahead.

Okay.

I thought we'd have to.

Um can we include and invite experts on that topic?

Some of the below things that are uh review are new.

So I want to so we talked about the comprehensive plan, we talked about the climate action plan, the active mobility plan.

I included um the housing accelerator, which is that tool, the toolkit that is most frequently referenced when we're talking about um construction.

So the sort of the tools in the toolbox when it comes to the ways to accelerate in this case affordable housing, but it's it's really just to be clear, the housing accelerator is what it's been adopted by the American Planning Association.

It's also been adopted by the National League of City, so it's kind of we we sort of use it interchangeably.

Um includes all levels of housing, just like the housing study that we did, the county in the city did that it's all housing.

Um I added the Alice report.

I added we had sort of I think we had mentioned relevant housing studies.

So we have the City of Frederick County housing study coming out, I believe at the end of the month.

I also just included the State of Maryland because I'm sure they have their own parks master plan, existing small area plans and form-based code.

Are there any other guidance documents that we would like to be included in this work that you can think of?

Just so that the group has flexibility if we just had and other pertinent plans and studies, because I I cannot think of one.

But do we have a uh shared use trail plan?

I think that's the active mobility plan.

I think.

But just as an example of another one that might be lurking out there, and they go, Whoa, we need to see that.

So let's move Frederick is going to be coming to council for in probably March, I imagine.

Let's move Frederick.

Okay.

All right.

We moved down to staff support and resources.

So this is where it gets a little fun.

Um we prescribe in this resolution, we we did not, we sort of talked about requesting, and I think what we landed on in our last last week's meeting was that following the work that we were going to do at this meeting, we were going to send a note to the mayor that this is moving forward, and you know, we wanted him to be aware so that he could plan appropriately and know about the things that we think we're going to need, which included at the time when we talked a week ago, legal support planning and historic preservation, CBA, et cetera.

Um this is up for discussion.

This is new language.

We included um shell language.

We have not, the council has not done this before, to my knowledge.

We don't typically prescribe um support.

This is new.

It's also new that a commission would be formed at council level, typically, as um our attorney said last time, typically the mayor creates a commission or or a ad hoc committee and then moves accordingly.

And then he, of course, because he is the mayor, can direct staff to support or not.

So this is new.

Um the reason I included it is because I don't know how this commission would move forward without having support from the planning department specifically.

I think it could move forward, but I think it would not have a very good result.

So and then I reflected the discussion that we had a week ago, what other city departments had come up in terms of things that we wanted to see supported from this commission.

So this is new, and I wanted to make sure that you knew that it was new.

So any thoughts or reflections on this section five.

Can we put as an alternate that we would hire a consulting firm?

I would prefer that the city planning department be the engaged party, but I realize they're busy.

It does the consultants budgetary constraints.

This gives them the authority to request and let's see, and Councilmember Brem, your idea is to, in the event that staff is not, or in the event that the commission requests exceed staff constraints, consultants may be permitted something to that effect.

Right.

So it's more than presentations, Councilmember Atkins.

It would be they would say the consultant would be the staff for the activity.

And that brings up a good point.

Who's writing this?

I mean, do we picture staff going line by line reviewing and writing this or are we hiring a consultant when the LMC was first developed, it took 30 months and we hired a consultant and basically had this similar format.

Um with a sub with a committee of, I think it was 15 people, but it did take every bit of two and a half years to do, and hopefully with the with a working document, two years might be doable.

Um but if you if you're meeting once a week for two hours, or just put it another way, if you're spending eight hours a month, you're taking up five percent of the staff's time of whatever staff is involved with this.

And five percent I will say in planning, probably engineering would be the two most affected departments.

Um finding five percent will be tough.

Part of the reason why we've been trying to get this conversation started so early is to be able to be honest about those the resources that we need and then have them be part of the budget discussion.

Like if it's something that we want to if the full council wants to invest in that, then they need to say we need to either hire additional consultants or legal or or planning staff.

So um I think this is, and I'll add this as the backup, but this is gonna be the question of this is a very ambitious commission.

And so um how does what resources does it need to function?

Um we really haven't we've we sort of talked around it, but we haven't really challenges we have to get input from the mayor's team in order to be able to have an informed session about the I didn't want to believe legal out too because they're gonna be neck deep in this as well.

I believe a previous discussion we had on this, we talked about how great it would be to have someone like redline it as it was going through, but yeah, that would be a lot of resources also.

Okay.

Um also do we want to ensure that there's a dedicated like note taker.

Or is that implied already?

Yeah, just uh the Charter Review Commission really benefited.

I think like it almost gave a false like sort of like Tom Lynch basically volunteered to do a lot of that sort of narrative work.

Um we had full support from legal to to draft all of the resolutions that had to happen, but from a report perspective, basically the volunteers, and if I have that wrong, Rachel, please correct me, but it was sort of like people, and I don't think that's reasonable here, right?

I don't think that's a I just I think to the point, like it's too technical to not have someone professional who does this for a living do the work, in my opinion.

So I think this question of resources will need to be part of the presentation that we do to full council, just that we discussed it, we acknowledge that we're going to need a full complement of legal and planning support, and the goal would be to have a redlining, a living document.

Um because I think to Councilmember Atkins' point, it is all interchangeable, so not interchangeable, but interrelated is the word I was looking for.

So we are down to section six, which is public engagement.

This is also new, council members.

Uh we we talked about we talked about different items within sort of city documents that have been that would be need to be considered in addition to the work to sort of as the lens of land management code review.

Um some of these are a lot more clear.

You know, for example, sustainability and equity, we have resolutions that have been passed.

Others, you know, are a little bit more nebulous, but nevertheless are part of our um goals or values as a city.

And then we have, of course, like we specifically call it out mixed use development because there's been a lot of conversation about mixed use development, and what is what does that mean?

Um so this list is not necessarily all inclusive.

Um I do think we have to ultimately define what these terms mean and specifically what we'd like the commission, how we would like when we talk about accessibility, you know, what does that mean?

I think we have to be a little bit more prescriptive there.

Um I I started to I started to write this down, and then I thought maybe this is something that we should just take to full council because ultimately a lot of thoughts are gonna be, we're gonna have a lot of thoughts about this anyway.

So um not to sort of punt the work, but I feel like I feel like we'd just be duplicating work anyway.

Um I'm happy to take a take a first effort at it, but I didn't want to, I felt like I felt like that would be overstepping because we really hadn't talked about the definition of you know, for example, walkability.

Like when we talk about walkability is are we looking at the um distance?

Are we looking at um the the barriers to walking, right?

Are we talking about so some of those things um I didn't those were all policy discussion items?

And I apologize for not having memorized it, but are some or all of these covered in the comprehensive plan since they're aspirational as a definition?

I I don't I don't I don't remember I'm looking at Joe because for the complaints, I believe in uh the old state laws, so it's probably in nine sections, but they don't match up if that's what you're asking.

Okay.

So yes, I just didn't want to have to redo something that already exists.

I can give it a college try.

I just I didn't this was like some this was like all new territory.

We hadn't we hadn't gone into any of this when we talked a week ago, so I didn't just it just felt like that would have been a little much.

Okay, and I just want to um understand the purpose.

So this will be the commission's already set up, so that means the people are already identified.

Right?

Yes, but this is all new.

So if you disagree with it, oh yeah, just talking it out.

Um then the idea is to hold get public input so hold sessions and do do maybe online surveys about all of these areas and the information gathered, so maybe the recommendations from the public would then go to the commission to consider.

Um if I could take one step back, the reason this is this section is here is because we talked about creating a lens for which we wanted all LMC review work to consider.

So like we didn't want to, right?

And then also on the back end when we get to the section of deliverables, that comes back at the at the council review stage of like, did this happen?

Yeah, I think that yeah, that's great.

And I think this is a really good idea.

The only, and this doesn't need to go in here at all, but I want us to think about um how to get the most public input as possible.

So we've seen NAC attendance, we've seen budget town hall attendance, that kind of stuff.

I think overall doesn't work.

So let's I want us to be creative on how we can get public input and would this all be in one day with like a fun activity going on at the same time?

That would be great.

And if so, or regardless if it happens over multiple sessions or one, um we should have a really good facilitator to get this information.

So I think in s in addition to having people, okay, sign your name here and come up and make uh make a statement, really someone to draw that information out of the people that show up.

So how does how does the committee feel about leaving this as is for now with in a narrative that explains why it's here, sort of what I talked about with the lens of you know, we're looking we're looking to establish a public engagement threshold, but also thresholds for the commission to consider their work as well as the council to then sort of check the work that was done.

Um what what specific and and like I don't know that mixed use belongs there, right?

Mixed use was something that we wanted to make sure got included, but we could probably take that out because it really doesn't fit, but I didn't want to I didn't want to like do that without checking with everybody first in terms of think because it was among the list of things that we had talked about.

Is this LMC review?

Is it solely focused?

I don't want to say solely, is the focus, the majority of the focus on residential and developing new units, because it I mean, you know, we we have you know the text amendment for data centers, we have redevelopment of the golden mile, and it seems like it's really this is seems to be focused on residential.

And I mean when you get down to what was it, the moratorium down at the bottom someplace.

It talks about residential or um uh moratorium on permitting new units.

Um it it does have a very heavy emphasis on residential, and if that's the case, that's fine.

I think we need to broaden to make sure everyone is aware.

I think that's a really good point.

So for me, I I don't see it as being limited to residential, but I do see it through the lens of people living here or going to be living here, like the livability of Frederick.

But with say with mixed use that's in here, people do want that, and it's tied to walkability, but it's also tied to business.

So I think it's a good idea to expand it with the with also to include the lens of um businesses and and other things outside of residential.

Well, it's something the office or the Department of Sustainability has emphasized to me is that if people work where they can walk, if they can walk from home to work or take a bike, that that helps big time with the environment and sustainability.

So I think manufacturing and commercial and residents are to your point, Councilmember Atkins, all part of the consideration.

Then I would want to include economic development, right?

Because when we start talking about the LMC, I think about it in terms of the incentive zoning that we could do.

Like that begins to so I think it's almost so maybe instead of mixed use development there, it would be types of development that support economic opportunity types of development that supports.

And that way.

Okay.

All right.

So we are getting to we're almost to the end.

I appreciate the committee's indulgence on this, but the deliverables and timeline, we have this wasn't this wasn't edit, this was a change, this highlighted section.

Um one of the things that we ran into, uh thank you, member, uh Councilmember Kazimczek for pointing this out.

So one of the things we ran into last time is that there was a lot of confusion and weird debate about the Charter Review Committee ending their work and then not being able to come in and give feedback.

So I just added um I'm sorry, this is not the section.

I'm talking about a section that isn't hold that, hold that thought.

This highlighted section, this deliverable here, is the moratorium idea with respect to um whether or not we wanted, we wanted from planning, we wanted the feedback discussion about what would a moratorium while this is in place do or not do uh for the residents.

So that's this language.

Can I offer it?

So one is full or partial moratorium on permitting new development, not just units, but development.

Okay.

Okay.

And then with the term impact to the residents, do we want to remove residents?

Yep.

I mean, just say as well as the impact to the city of Frederick?

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

Are you looking for planning and legal to develop moratorium?

And is it only for residential?

Um again, uh there's going to be a lot of nuances and there's going to be a lot of public outcry.

But what I see affecting most is as soon as you stop permitting residential units, you're going against what the governor has prescribed that we each have a uh set number of units to produce in the state.

And I would imagine if you stop producing units, it's going to have a ripple pass down to not only renters but home buyers as well.

Yeah, I think that's a good point.

And I would like I think that that's what this report would say is uh cost benefit analysis isn't the right term, but you know, with that lens of if we do moratorium, what could that look like?

And would that be for only if it's res if it's only residential, is there only a certain type of residential, like single family homes?

And that could still we could still get those units um because we want to address affordability too, so I don't know if we'd want to shut it down completely, but I would like their expertise to say like what the potential impacts would be.

And then even on the business community too, if the moratorium would be across the board, which I don't really see that it would be, but just to to lay out all the options for us.

And then even the time span of it, would it be over the two years?

Would it be for six months?

Would it be for a year?

Yeah, I would like them to lay out all of the possible outcomes.

There is not currently language in the commission resolution that specifies, and I want to be clear about this because this was the there is no call or specification for a moratorium.

So you'd have to, we'd have to do another another action.

Um that is a policy, that is how I wrote it.

That is not necessarily what we could ultimately decide as a body.

But just wanted to make sure I made that clear.

Um I would expect that to be heavily debated, but that's good.

Um that would be fun.

I would enjoy that.

But um other than that, just want to be clear with the committee that that's how it was written, and I don't want to if you if we wanted to add additional language regarding a moratorium, we'll need to add that in.

It's not there now.

And philosophically, Councilmember Atkins, I guess the question is as we redo the land management code, how do we prevent how do we prevent or minimize development that uses the old rules that we're going to replace with new rules so that we're not stuck with a legacy of stuff that we really didn't want to do?

And if there's another way, then that I'm I'm open for that.

But that's the question.

Yeah, and I mean you have the grand Yeah, it's gonna bring up a whole host of issues, but with grandfathering and whatnot, but and at the same time the state is proceeding with like I think it's Senate Bill 36 where it permits townhouses on single family lots, which the state is I'm gonna say forcing upon us.

But they're yeah, I think uh uh they're gonna require municipalities to take that up.

Um so that's that's gonna have a a direct impact on this as well.

So yeah, yeah, it's if by doing this, we're opening a can of worms.

I'm not saying it's a bad can of worms, but it's a big can of worms.

And just a programming note about that, we did request um I I told Alan Etzler that it would be fine if he got it from the lobby team, but uh sort of an explanation about that um what the housing policy is prescribed to do.

MML did reverse their position and they are supporting it.

But I think it's important for us to understand frankly, I don't really care what MML says or does, but I'm just making sure that's a point of record because some people do.

Um but uh understanding that legislation, it's you know likely going to be amended as it moves through, but just so that we have visibility since we do have a presence in Annapolis on behalf of the on behalf of the um taxpayers.

So that comes back to I think how you want to how this group wants to have that conversation about a moratorium or not.

Or even bringing it up, do you want it to be brought up in the context?

And I'm I I'm not saying this be argumentative, I'm saying because I think it's important that we decide.

I I'm aware that some residents would like us to have that conversation sooner rather than later.

Um we added this language in to get this feedback.

I would argue that I think that's a compromise because I'll just say, like personally, um I think even mentioning a moratorium has some consequences, and it makes me a little nervous just because I am very concerned about the supply of housing below market rate.

That's my own personal editorial.

So but I think a compromise was to add this language in, recognize that some folks want us to debate full moratorium while this is happening.

So I don't want to I don't want to be too heavy-handed here.

I want to make sure that we're we're sending up the appropriate policy touch points.

And so interested in the committee's feedback about that.

Um where you'd like us to what conversation would you like us to send forward to the full council.

Well, I'm wondering and thinking that with our request for this memo, we should put when.

So would this be after the commission has already completed it and while city council is debating it?

Or would this be while the commission is going on?

It's it says upon approval of the resolution.

So sorry.

Okay.

That's right.

It's in early days while the commission is starting its work.

Okay.

So that could be for a very long time.

Well, I guess it depends on it'll be two years for the commission to be two years, but then also if they're giving us different options if they're weighing if they're weighing different factors of if it's for the whole two years or if it's until we pass an ordinance to, you know, to redo the LMC.

I don't know.

I would want them to give us different different options.

The planning department?

Yeah.

So the planning department, um, I'm going to go in a limb and say we'll we'll likely never recommend a moratorium.

Oh, I was hoping.

I was hoping that they could tell us the impacts with different options.

What would the impact be if it was two years?

What would the impact be if it was um you know six months after the commission was done?

I want them to give us options.

Or yeah, yeah.

So I know Councilmember Atkins, you're probably um I think one of the things to think about though is do you want that conversation to come before how do we want it to flow within the context of setting up the land management commission?

Because I I think that if we are suggesting a moratorium, like we need to have that conversation at some point in this debate because it's gonna overtake the whole conversation.

So my my point being like, do you wanna, and it it's fine, that's a policy decision, but do you want to have that decision or discussion in advance of having the consideration of the commission and have that just be the conversation like just the just the benefits and maybe we can see if we can get this memo outside of the commission discussion?

Um option one.

Option two is we send it forward, we say we would like to consider the discussion of moratorium options within the context of this commission founding.

That's a that's a totally an option.

I just I think that's gonna over my personal opinion is I think it will overtake, I think we'll get it will be a much bigger conversation than but I'm I think that's I think that's gonna be a full council debate at some point.

And it's just I think it's up to you all.

Do you want it to happen next when we first consider the commission resolution, or do you want it to happen at some later point?

I would say you set up the commission and then have the debate.

I think the debate is gonna be long.

Also, I don't think the planning department or they should be involved, legal departments, but I don't think we have anybody on staff, and I could be wrong, that is a housing um policy person.

Um We just hired somebody.

HHS, yeah, they just got someone more.

Maybe that's but I don't think they have a planning background.

I think it's gonna be interdisciplinary.

Yeah, no, I'm saying it's more than just planning.

I mean.

Councilmember Atkins, just for your I I need a tutorial.

Um are there significant risks if we start to redo the land management code in terms of people putting in applications just because they don't know what that new code is gonna be.

They know what the current code is.

Yep.

So why not put the application in?

Yeah, no, there's gonna I mean I I would believe there would be a rush to get things in.

Well, not a rush, but they would get it in before the new LMC is adopted or whatever.

Okay.

And as as an example, I I would be open to the discussion of exempting affordable housing from any moratorium.

But and other things, depending upon what the group discussion was, but that that's what Councilmember Atkins just said is my concern.

And it may not be it may be impossible.

I'm I don't know.

Yeah, and I don't think we know.

So we wouldn't, you know, lean on experts that could help us figure it out and weigh these options.

Maybe I'm putting a lot of stock in what we can get from this report.

But I also agree with councilmember Atkins.

Start with the commission and then tackle this tackle this topic as a subsequent topic.

So if you're good with that, just want to make sure, because I don't want to so what would happen, let's assume that this resolution moves forward and planning department brings forward a report, like you said, someone will need to pick that back up.

Okay.

So I'm just it will not be me.

So I'm just we're gonna so I just want to just I want to honor the work, but pick that back up as an ordinance.

Yes.

Okay.

I will not.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um I just don't want to mislead.

So the we can probably get through the next so the next couple of points are in reference to um what the sort of uh accountability looks like.

We talked a lot about this in our first meeting in terms of ways that we wanted to see report do outs and reporting.

I added um some status updates here.

I felt like it was okay if when we say status updates, we can make it clear that an email would be sufficient for these three months.

Um about I say so the six the internal status update to the City Council Government Operations Committee within six months of its first meeting.

What if we do you want that to be maybe in person as a briefing and then subsequent status updates are I mean, we can always request an update.

Or we can always request a I'm trying to not make it be so burdensome that they are worrying about coming before us in the middle of their work, but also that we have some sort of touch point.

That's what I was trying to strike here, but open to suggestions.

If we said shall submit a written or verbal Sure.

That gives flexibility.

I don't know if we need a written report.

But I deferred to my it could even be that the liaison comes and just gives a quick, you know.

Um Councilmember Atkins, the concern was like not just setting it and forgetting it.

That was the if we get something written and we need further clarification, absolutely.

Right.

Okay.

And then F and that point in section seven is just that that evaluation and framework point that we come back to sort of as a punctuation of the lens.

Okay.

Um advisory role, just making sure that it's an advisory capacity.

We oh, this is the language I was talking about.

This sunset in section nine.

This is that we um they sunset but they sunset three months after the submission of the final report to give that um that time so that if they need to come when they're presenting the report, it's still there's still a body, if that makes sense.

Okay.

We have done a lot of work on this.

I would like to briefly get to the charter discussion if it's okay with this group, just because we we've had on our agenda now for two weeks.

And so one of the ways that our and if the before we move on, are the council members comfortable with me packaging this up and creating a presentation to present our work before full council just before we um about the LMC?

Yes.

Yes, sorry.

I meant I didn't think.

And again, just to go back to 7A.

That particular topic could be if council wanted to strike that.

That's correct.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

So I was gonna leave that section in.

Sure.

Spend a little bit of time representing the um the various viewpoints that were and I'll be as fair as I can, I promise.

So that is that's the draft resolution.

We'll get that ready to come before full council.

And again, that first action for full council will just be a briefing.

It will not be to take decision because we know this is a big topic.

Okay.

Because this hasn't um ultimately our work product hasn't had any legal review yet.

So just want to thank you, Attorney Gray, for your service to the city.

Um, so just really quickly, um one of the things that we're charged with.

We're sort of like the worker bees of uh, you know, so we kind of get things ready.

And one of those things as charter review.

So we knew last year that we had a couple of things that were left to on the to um to do items uh list with respect to um charter review.

Um the obvious being redistricting, of course.

So that has not yet been considered.

So we have a list of possible things that have been talked about.

Um they have not been vetted.

There has been no, but maybe with the exception of some of Rachel's notes that she included, but um we have not done the work on these yet, so I don't want to misrepresent where they are.

I don't want to misrepresent that they've been approved or even decided.

These are literally just things that have been mentioned as things that we need to consider.

And what I'm looking for, council members, is an agreement and kind of a reframing of the discussion on how we best send these forward to full council for discussion.

Um we're not gonna well, I shouldn't say that, but right now there's no proposal to set up another charter review commission.

Um but um one of the ideas I had was to simply provide um sort of policy papers that uh like let's let's talk about redistricting, some options for redistricting, some of the like basically how does the county do it, for example, what is their timeline, um, what is feedback we've gotten from any specific groups and include that in a backup and just say, okay, this is what we you know, this is what we have on this sort of almost like a little bit of a homework packet for each member to consider.

Um I'm open to suggestions on a cleaner, better way to do that, but that's that's kind of where I'm at so far.

Um and I know council member will have additional discussions about the elections process.

I don't want to misrepresent that this is in inclusive of everything we're gonna talk about this term because that elections conversation is gonna be ongoing.

Um and just to make sure I understand the proposal, uh I I like the idea of the the homework and the background.

Would would it would it begin or end with a recommendation for how the text would be changed or supplemented?

And then all of the information you just discussed would be the logic behind that.

So I'm happy to take a I I'm I'm cautious to right now.

There are eight proposals in front of us, and some of them are more vetted than others.

Um for example, attorney gray has some cleanup language that we could probably send forward and no one would have any discussion about.

Other things like taking putting a charter amendment in that defines sidewalks as property of the city is a whole nother, right?

And so um and corresponds to some of the work that your committee is doing.

So I think I I'm hesitant to send these off and say um attorney gray, please draft us the appropriate resolutions.

I feel like we should at least have a public discussion about direction first.

Okay.

Um that makes sense.

Yeah, and so we haven't, with the exception of um that cleanup number three being the cleanup uh language, everything else is brand new and has not been considered in any public forum.

Um I just want to be very like honest and clear about that.

So I also am in this, we're kind of in this weird spot where we haven't really done a data call for any other charter amendments like the charter review commission when they were doing their work, it was highly publicized and there was a lot of discussion for many years.

Not really, but that seemed like that.

Um but there was a lot of discussion.

And when we open this up, I want to make sure that the public knows that if they have other suggestions, they can bring them forward.

Um I also don't want this to get bought like this could get bogged down, like this could just take up our work for the next forever.

So um that's not helpful, but it's an honest assessment of where we are.

So would your thought be we would tackle these one at a time or all eight in one discussion?

Uh is it released to a vote?

I I'm open, I'm open to your thoughts about this because I think that I think that we we don't have a plan right now for any of these.

Um I think redistrict alone could take a while.

Um and I'm also mindful that the goal is to get it ready to be presented full before full council because full council really should consider any charter amendment that's in sort of production.

Um so maybe it's maybe it's going through and just saying yes, we want to prepare this for full council, and then I would have to essentially do the homework to pull the information together, I think with Clara's help, but um Clara will Clara will vouch I'm very self-sufficient.

But the point being that like is that what we want, is that what we want to do?

Do we want to start preparing some of these for full consideration of the full council?

I think we should go through here and decide which ones, if any, that we want to do.

Okay.

For me, I don't think, and I know that the order in here and all this stuff isn't um it doesn't mean anything.

But there are some that I think should be addressed right away.

Um and then also I did put some recommendations in an email, and I just realized that I didn't send it to Clara earlier, so I just sent it so there I had a couple other suggestions too.

Um but I think we should look through these and others that we may have and have a conversation if there's anything we'd like to do with them right now.

But that would be one at a time and not as a package.

And I'm also content to pause and say, like greater public, we have we are gonna be considering these if you'd like to send them in.

Um I'm happy to shoot an email to Jen Gerlock for the with the mayor's office, and just maybe say, hey, like if if there's any way that you can elevate this to make sure people know that any ideas they have would be welcomed.

And you know, this isn't something that's emergent.

It's something that was sort of left over from the last term.

Um and it's just been on my, it's like on my to-do list because it is charged in this committee to prepare this work product for the full council.

Um I am content to have this be and I'm um follow, but this could just stay open for a little bit, and then we can revisit this maybe one at a time as the agendas allow.

Um of these are mine, so like disposal property number seven is something that I thought of last year, and it just didn't really fit.

It was like kind of a policy discussion.

This is about for right of first refusal when we have surplus property, right?

And it's just the sort of a it's not a high, it's it's not an emergent thing.

Um so I didn't want it to get in the middle of last year's discussion, or excuse me, two years, well, twenty two twenty twenty-five's discussions about charter changes.

It just wasn't worth having another thing.

But at some point I should do the homework and bring that forward.

So if everybody's amenable to that sort of plan, um, then we can just sort of take them up casually and because if we're gonna have additional elections, there will be additional recommendations at some point, um specifically about open primaries, hopefully.

So just as a idea.

And if we had other items to add, should we email those to you or do we have a lot of different things?

Yeah, well, we'll just we'll keep a running list.

Um and what I'll do, Council members, is I'll I'll make this part of our work plan document that we just keep a document.

Um I'm hopeful that we had a brief conversation with the council president earlier about publishing work, you know, the idea of getting our work plans up and running and going.

Um and so this could easily be, you know, uh its own work plan in terms of charter changes and recommended, and it's just a running document of things that have been suggested and how they're being addressed that way it's on the website in public for people to see.

Does that sound like a good plan?

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else for our committee discussion today.

We will not have a meeting.

Um we do not meet the third Monday uh for we give our planning friends that time.

Um we have just like that, Clara.

I forget what we're doing on the 23rd, but it'll come to me.

Um just like that.

But we have we will have a meeting on the 23rd and the second and the ninth.

So just stay tuned.

Okay.

All right, thank you, everybody.

We're adjourned.

Oh, public comment.