The Frederick City Planning Commission held a special public hearing on June 16, 2025, at 6:00 PM at City Hall. The meeting covered several development applications, a zoning text amendment, and regular business items. All votes on agenda items were unanimous except where noted.
Public comment was limited to the Zoning Text Amendment (PC25-55ZTA). Multiple residents of the Ren Quarter community expressed opposition to the proposed changes, arguing that the developer (Matan) made binding promises to provide commercial/retail space as part of the mixed-use development. Speakers stated that residents purchased homes based on those promises the developer has not made sufficient efforts to attract retail tenants. Specific concerns included:
Okay. That's not a good sign. So anyway, we are continuing with the special meeting for the June 16th, 2025, Frederick City Planning Commission. And before we go into the meeting, tonight's proceedings, I'm going to give everybody a little bit of background about the Planning Commission and the procedures that will follow. Members of the Planning Commission are all residents of the city and volunteers appointed by the mayor and city council. The commission is made up of five regular members and one alternate. Its powers and duties are assigned by the Charter of the City of Frederick and described in section 202 of the land management code. All of tonight's cases have been appropriately advertised pursuant to Section 301 of the land management code. And we will be using the following format to hear cases tonight. We will begin with an introduction of the case, then we will be have the presentation of the case and an initial recommendation by staff. Following that, we will give the commission a chance to ask questions of staff. Then the um applicant and or authorized agent will come up and present, give their presentation of the case. There we go. Following that, we will have commission questioning of the applicant. We will then have public comment. If appropriate, we will have commission questioning of the public of the public comment. Following that, we will allow the applicant to respond to any public comment. Then we will bring it up front here for um commission discussion and questions, and then finally the commission will take an action. In support of the Planning Commission, staff members from the City of Frederick's engineering engineering department here. No, no engineering department tonight. Planning department and legal departments are here. And I need to let everybody know that anybody who wishes to speak tonight regarding any of the applications, um, including members of the public, must be sworn in. Um regarding public comment, you have the opportunity to sign in over there on the sign-in sheet on the table to the side. And um if you don't sign in by the time the sheet is picked up, don't worry, after everybody who has signed in gives gets the opportunity to speak, we will give anybody else who wants to speak the opportunity. Um we will limit public comment to three minutes per person. If you're representing a group, then that person gets 10 minutes. The group gets 10 minutes, the person representing the group gets 10 minutes. Um we don't have anybody manning the actual timing clock, but um Gabrielle will be running the timer and we'll give you a heads up notice when you've got 30 seconds left and then when your time is up. And um, so we need to kind of stick to those times to keep the meeting moving. And um given that everybody who wishes to make comments before the planning commission tonight at this point needs to stand and raise your right hand, and I will swear everybody in you might as well stand if you think you want to make comments because then we won't have to do this again. Um do you solemnly swear or affirm that the responses given and the statements made in this hearing before the planning commission will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth? If so, answer I do. Thank you very much. All right, so we are gonna start the evening by giving um Gabrielle a chance to make some announcements. Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I just have one announcement this evening because we've already held our regularly scheduled workshop. Actually, I have two announcements. I'll make two. Uh the first one is that we have our citywide planning department community outreach meeting next Monday, the 23rd. That's a week later than we normally have it in our schedule due to the need to schedule this special meeting. Um that meeting is held, it's information only. Um staff lead that meeting, and it's an opportunity to let the public know about the the latest projects that have been submitted to the department for review. Uh, these are often items that many months out will be coming through a process like this, so it's a great opportunity just to learn about the newest things uh that uh the commission will be discussing. So that is next Monday, the 23rd at 6 p.m. held in this room, uh, and it's streamed online on channel 99 as well. So you can watch from home. The second announcement I have is just to wish a very bittersweet um fond farewell to Monica Robbins, one of our case planners. Um she is working um, she is taking a career change, uh well, not really, still facilities planning. Um, she'll be going to work for Frederick County Public Schools, which is an amazing organization and one we partner very closely with.