The Planning Commission held a workshop on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, at 2:00 PM at City Hall (101 North Court Street) to review the FY2026–2031 Capital Improvements Program and three development applications: The Corner at Willowdale (PC23-672PSU/FSI, PC23-673PFCP), and the Brickworks Lots 4 and 6 (PC24-932PFCP, PC24-930FSI, PC24-931FSI). No formal votes were taken; staff and applicants were directed to provide additional information for upcoming hearings.
All right, it's two o'clock. Call the meeting to order, and I would like to welcome every wrong thing. Welcome everybody to the February 18th, 2025 workshop for the City of Frederick Planning Commission. Before we get started today, I'm going to give us an overview of the process. Since the, as everybody knows, the workshop process is a little different and less formal than the hearing process. For each item on the agenda, we will start by having a conversation with the applicant, have them come up to the table and walk us through your project. After the applicant, we will have commission will ask questions and discussion with the applicant. At that point, we will ask the staff to give any additional thoughts that they have on the agenda item. Same thing, we'll have questions. We may go back and forth with the with the staff and the applicant. At that point, we will ask the public if there's any public comments and take time to address um to hear those. And then that will conclude the item. So at this point, I'm going to um everybody who speaks today before the commission must be sworn in. So Gabrielle, I'll let you take it away. Thank you. As you know from previous years' discussion, uh, the planning commission is not only authorized, but required to make recommendations on the CIP. Uh, that's both under state law as well as our local ordinance, uh, which is now chapter two of the city code. In the past that was in the charter, so those references have been updated to represent to reflect those changes. Last year we had provided a matrix of various projects that the commission had expressed support for in previous years, as well as projects that we thought related to the work of the planning commission, whether it be in public infrastructure, such as water and sewer improvements, bicycle pedestrian improvements, things of that nature. This year we've gone ahead and updated the matrix and provided some updates on the projects that you discussed last year. In addition, we've also included the recommendations from the Sustainability Committee and the Active Mobility Advisory Committee, which was formerly BPAC, but changed names to reflect kind of the broader scope of all the good things they discuss. So I was going to jump into updates on projects from your recommendation letter to the mayor and board and now city council from last year. One of the first we had was the conference center and hotel facility, and then the parking component of that being part of the city's CIP. As you are aware, the final site plan for construction was approved by the planning commission in August of 2024, and a groundbreaking was held in December of 2024, so that is well on its way. Next item we had were the East Street improvements. This is limited to the scope between Fifth and Market Streets, including both west and east sides of the street to include curb and gutter, stormwater, pedestrian scale street lighting, street trees, sidewalks, and protected bike lanes. This project currently does not have any funding. $750,000 is being requested for design. The downtown streetscape study was another item that the commission had weighed in. This is not a specific CIP, but instead it is the study that was presented to the board now City Council in November of 2021. This was in funded part by the city and in coordination with the downtown Frederick Partnership as of January. The City Council approved an agreement to piggyback on a Montgomery County contract for services regarding utility and parking analysis and design work for that streetscape project, so to create some of the foundation analysis that's going to be needed. The next item we had talked about were the East Street improvements between Minocase and South Street. This recommendation is also not associated with a specific CIP. However, one of the projects that we'll discuss today in our workshop, the Brickworks is making certain improvements to that stretch of roadway as depicted on their recently approved preliminary plot. Next project that we've talked about over the years has been the Rails with Trails Construction. As you know, that's four phases with phase one being complete. Phase two is extending that shared use path along the northbound side of East Street from 8th Street to just shy of 1526. This was a project that we discussed in relation to the Warman's Mill Court Apartments, which was a mixed use development that was recently approved for rezoning to mixed use and contributions that they will be able to make to that project as well as our own CIP money. The 100% design plans are underway. Phase three is that bridge that will go over 1526 and link phases two and four. We have been awarded funding grant funding for that, and advertising to put out the bid for the design work is awaiting approval from state highway administration. So also moving forward. And then phase four is that final segment from the bridge to Minoxy Boulevard and 30% design plans are underway for that. The next project is the interchange of Minoxy Boulevard and 26. This has been in our request letter, I think, since 2018. It is not there's not a specific CIP for it, and the proposal was that a CIP project be added because it is ultimately something that will need to be constructed. It is identified in the highway needs inventory with an estimated cost of 118 million dollars, which may even be higher now. I think that may have been information left over from our report last year. We also recommended that the city embark on a study of smart traffic systems to support future CIP projects.