The Frederick Planning Commission held a workshop on February 21, 2023, from 2:00 PM to approximately 5:46 PM. The agenda included the 2024–2029 Capital Improvements Program (CIP), five site plan and architectural review items, and a text amendment for the Carroll Creek Overlay. No votes were taken; all items were continued to future hearings for further discussion and public testimony.
Afternoon. It is two o'clock. We are going to get started with our workshop or February for the um City of Frederick Planning Commission. We do have quite a robust agenda. And our meeting is scheduled to be over at five. We know that there's something here in the same room at six. The applicants do not have to sign up. And anybody that does, we will call you first on that agenda item. And let's see, with us today, we have members of the city's planning commission, members of the city legal department, the engineering department, and Mark Ocampo. He can, when he talks, he can give you his title, but he is also with the city of Frederick. So we appreciate everyone from the city being with us today. So with that, all of you, including the people from the city who will be testifying today, if you would stand and raise your right hand. Okay. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the responses given in statements made in this hearing before the planning commission will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth if so say I do. Okay. So for any of you who are new to the process here, um, we um invite the applicants up at the beginning of the workshop, and we actually start with them. And we would appreciate if you could walk us through your application. Now, obviously, it doesn't have to be page by page by page, but more than just say, hey, I know you guys read it if you have any questions. So if you if you could give us the high points, that would be appreciated, and that would also be appreciated by the folks who are actually watching this. Um after that, we'll have questions and answers, uh answers. We'll have questions and comments from the commissioners. We'll do one round of a roll call, and from there, if there's more questions and comments, um, we'll take them as they come. Following that, we'll go to staff and we'll see what else that the staff would like to add to that. More questions and comments. We will take public comment and again we'll just make sure that we have exhausted the conversation and we feel like that the commissioners have a good handle on the item. So, with that, let's get right to the agenda. And the first one is the 2024 through 2029 capital improvements program. And actually, the applicant for this is the city. So thank you. Uh Gabrielle Collard with the planning department. Um, I'll kind of kick it off, um, but I do have to admit I'm not the uh expert in a lot of the subject matter we'll talk about today. Um, luckily we do have Zach Kirshner here, our director of public works, um, as well as Chiran to be able to weigh in on some of the items that are in the CIP. But this is something we do annually. Uh, the planning commission is charged both in our city charter as well as under the state regulations to review the CIP and to offer recommendations to the Board of Aldermen in for their consideration in adopting the budget every year. Uh keep in mind that while the CIP does um capture five years of time, uh improvements are only budgeted for the year, the upcoming year. So they're only budgeted one year at time, um not for the whole five-year period. We will have this scheduled for our hearing next month, um, presuming that we we have a good conversation and we have all the information we need, uh, and the planning commission at that point will make their recommendations. So this is just an introduction to the items that we've prepared for you today and oversight, and we'll have more time to talk about it next month. This year we did something a little different, and I would like to thank Commissioner Manales. Um, she provided a great format to help us organize our thoughts in terms of the matrix that we're looking at. We've included the projects that the planning commission included in past previous recommendations to the Board of Alderman as well as added some additional uh projects. Keep in mind we do have, I believe it's two items in the matrix that are actually not CIPs, they are recommendations that we made in the past years for projects that should become CIPs. So that is also something that the planning commission should consider in making the recommendation for this year, whether we want to continue to recommend those projects, or if there are additional areas where we see that CIPs should be created, that is a good way to start the conversation. So looking at our matrix, uh, we we do have, like I said, the the previous projects that you've recommended. In addition, we've added new projects related to several different of the funds. Um in your packet, we included the project descriptions for each individual CIP, not the entirety of all of last year's CIPs. If you pull the whole document off the city's website under the budget page, you will see that the different projects are broken up into different funds that they come out of. So that's what I'm referencing on. I guess it's page two when we start to talk about the stormwater fund, the sewer facilities fund, etc. They're they're lumped together under those uh areas.