The Frederick Planning Commission met on August 14, 2023, at 6:00 p.m. in City Hall and via Channel 99. The meeting included a consent item, a letter to the Board of Aldermen on legislative priorities, old business (Westridge Shopping Center rezoning and master plan), and new business (final plat for 497 E. Church Street, U-Haul of East Frederick site plan and forest conservation plan, Hamilton Place final plat, Hamilton Avenue final site plan, and a zoning map amendment for 100 E. All Saints Street). The Brickworks master plan was continued to September. Several public comment periods were held.
Note: The meeting adjourned at approximately 10:35 p.m. The Brickworks item was not heard due to time constraints.
Frederick. I'm going to do a little preamble first, and then we're going to talk a little bit about the agenda and the sign-in sheets. But members of the Planning Commission are all residents of the city and are appointed by the mayor and board of Alderman. The commission is made up of five regular members and one alternate. And our power and duties are assigned by the charter of the City of Frederick. Also with the commissioners tonight are Gabrielle Collard and other members of the city's planning department. So at this time we will conduct a swearing in of staff, applicants, and anyone else who is here and intending to give public comment in front of the commission. So stand up or raise your right hand, and I will tell you as you're standing up. If you decide later to give public comment and you weren't sworn in, that's perfectly fine. You'll just have to let us know that you weren't sworn in. But everybody is standing. All right. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the responses given in the 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. Thank you. So as all of you are well aware, we have a very big agenda tonight. And by big meaning it's going to be a long night. And we've had a lot of conversations. And we've heard from a number of people in the community. They asked, how long do these hearings go? Well, we are not to take any new agenda topics past 11. We also know, having said that, that there are two particular now. Public comment is taken on every single item, but we are aware that there are two master plans. One is an old business, so that's going to happen early in the agenda. The second is new. So what's typical on a master plan when it shows up the first time on the agenda as new business, it's typically the last item on the agenda. I'm just going to talk a little bit more so that you understand. We if we moved it to the front, then right now, especially, what that would mean is all everyone who came, all of the applicants and people in the community thinking that their item was going to be further up in the agenda, would now have to wait through the whole night. So this is what we're going to tell you. Is in fact when we get to the brickworks, there is not adequate time for all the questions from the commission to be taken, all the public comment to be given, applicant rebuttal, more questions. If we've not finished the conversation on the brickworks, we will continue this to a second first hearing. So what's typically done is we would just say, well, let's take this up at the second hearing. But we we will do one of two things. Most likely we will continue this in September. And it will be old business then. It'll show up closer to the beginning of the agenda. There'll be another bite at the apple for public comment, etc. etc. But it will be a continuation of the first hearing. So by the time we get to the second hearing, everybody from the public has had a chance to speak. All of our we've had a chance to ask all of our questions and to feel comfortable with all the information that's on the table. So just wanted to give you all a heads up on that because I'm thinking there's a lot of folks here that may want to be giving public comment on this last item, and we don't want you to feel anxious about it, feel like you won't be able to. So you'll just have to think about that. I Scott, anything else you wanted to say? I think that about covers it. You um certainly we want to make sure that that everyone gets an opportunity to speak. We want to make sure that the planning commission has all the information that they need. And as you say, we can't or our goal is to not start any new uh application after 11. That doesn't mean that if a if a case starts prior to 11, then it won't go a little bit past.