All right, it is six o'clock, and I'm calling the meeting to order.

And I'd like to welcome everybody to the what is this August 11th, 2025 Planning Commission hearing.

Before we proceed with tonight's um meeting, I'm gonna give a little bit of background on the planning commission and the procedures that we're gonna be following tonight.

Members of the planning commission are all residents of the city and volunteers appointed by the mayor and the city council.

The commission is made up of five regular members and one alternate.

Its powers and duties are assigned in the by the charter of the city of Frederick and described in section two oh two of the land management code.

All of tonight's cases have been appropriately advertised pursuant to section 301 of the land management code.

Cases tonight will be presented to the planning commission in the following format.

We will start by having an introduction of the case and then a presentation of the case with by staff with their initial recommendation.

We'll then have opportunity for the commission to question the staff, followed by the applicant or authorized agent giving their remarks regarding the case.

And then finally in action.

And those three items are starting in the order of number one, PC 25-186 ZMA zoning map amendment 300 Scotty Bus Lane.

So that would be the first one.

The second one would be PC 25-187 ZMA zoning map amendment 27 Franklin Street.

And then the third one would be PC 25-55 ZTA text amendment section 417 MU districts phasing.

Do I have a second?

So that is a motion by Commissioner Manellus.

A second by Commissioner Lewellan.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

And um just to let you know, we we had some comment the last time we had the text amendment on the agenda that that the public didn't like sitting through the whole the whole meeting.

So that's why we're moving it forward.

If you guys know of anybody who was counting on it starting a little later, send them a text message and um have them get here.

So thank you.

So the next item on the agenda is the minutes, and we have several sets of minutes.

Um from May meetings that we now have a quorum to address.

And um, so we will start with approval of the May 19th, 2025 Planning Commission workshop minutes.

I move to approve the May 19th, 2025 planning commission workshop minutes.

Second.

So that is a motion by Commissioner Lewell and a second by Commissioner Um Valencia, all in favor.

Aye, aye.

So that is uh three commissioners in favor, and Commissioner Manellus is not eligible to vote.

Um next is the May 21st Planning Commission meeting minutes.

I move for the approval of the May 21st, 2025 Planning Commission meeting minutes.

Second.

So that is a motion by Commissioner Valencia, a second by Commissioner Manellus, all in favor.

Aye, aye.

That's three commissioners, and Commissioner Strawson is not eligible to vote.

Um next is the approval of the July 14th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes.

I move to approve minutes from July 14th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes.

The second that is a motion by Commissioner Lewell and a second by Commissioner Manellus, all in favor.

Aye.

That's three commissioners for Commissioner Valencia is not eligible to vote.

Um approval of the July 21st, 2025 Planning Commission workshop minutes.

I move for the approval of the July 21st, 2025 Planning Commission workshop minutes.

Second.

That is a motion by Commissioner Manellas, a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

Aye.

That is unanimous with four members.

And finally, the approval of August 8th, 2025 pre-planning commission meeting minutes.

I move for the approval of the August 8th, 2025 pre-planning commission meeting minutes.

Second that.

That is a motion by Commissioner Valencia, a second by Commissioner Lewellan.

All in favor, aye.

Aye.

Four.

That is all unanimous with four members voting.

All right.

Our next issue on the um agenda is continuances, and we have continuances for three cases tonight.

Um, Christina, you want to give us an update on the first two?

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh the Warman's Mill Court Apartments, both the site plan and the forest conservation plan are requesting a continuance to the September 8th meeting.

This is because they must go in front of the flood review board, which it meets as needed.

They don't have a regularly scheduled meeting.

Um, so we do not have the date of that meeting yet.

It will need to be completed before being heard by planning commission, and so if they need another continuance later on, we will ask for that as well.

All right, and then do you want to make a statement about the um SAGE annexation?

So the Sageway annexation is also requesting continuance.

Uh, this is due to the applicant needing a little bit more time to gather information to respond to the staff recommendations.

All right, thank you very much.

So I'll take a motion.

Um so I uh motion to approve continuances.

I think we need to do each case at a time.

PC 24-1008 FS1, the final site plan for warmen's mill court apartments backward property till September 8th, 2025 planning commission hearing.

I second but FSI instead of one.

So that is a motion by Commissioner Lewell and a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

Aye.

I move in the continuance of PC 24-1009 PC P.

Preliminary Forest Conservation Plan, Warren Mills Court appointments to September 8, 2025 Planning Commission hearing.

Second.

That is the motion by Commissioner Manellas, the second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

That's unanimous.

And then finally, I move for the continuance of PC 241010 ANX annexation Sageway to the September 8th, 2025 Planning Commission hearing.

I second that.

I aye.

That's unanimous.

All right.

Which brings us to our first case under discussion today.

And for our motion, um that's gonna be PC 25-186 ZMA zoning map amendment for 300 Scotty's bus lane.

Bruce, you're up.

Oh, what?

Oh God, right.

I'm sorry.

Where is my brain?

You have some time.

I've only been doing this for six years.

So uh this is, of course, at 300 Scotty's bus lane.

This is a rezoning request from the general commercial to the institutional floating zone.

It is adjacent to the Boys and Girls Club and is also across the street from McCurdy Field, which is to the north.

The building was owned and used by Frederick County for warehouse space, but it was deemed a property surplus, which is when the city accepted it as a donation.

The city entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Osherman Family Foundation, who was tasked with designing and improving the building as a use center, which is classified as recreation social services center on our use table.

While this use is allowed in the existing GC district, the building setbacks and other aspects of the existing development no longer comply with the general commercial zone.

Rezoning to institutional is the best option to reduce existing noncompliant aspects of the site, reflect the city's ownership, and encourage the public to congregate there.

Staff finds that the rezoning is for non-residential and therefore will not generate additional population.

The property has access to public facilities, which will be evaluated at time of site plan.

The proposed development will not have a significant impact on the existing and future transportation patterns in the vicinity.

It is compatible with the existing area and supports land use policy one and municipal growth policy one of the 2020 comprehensive plan.

This project also complies with section 409 specific to the institutional floating zone.

There is one action and staff recommends approval of the rezoning.

Thank you.

We will do a roll call for questions of staff, um, starting with Commissioner Valencia.

No, thank you.

Commissioner Llewellyn.

No, thank you.

Commissioner Manellas.

None, thank you.

I don't have any questions either.

That was fast.

Come on up.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Um Jeremy Holder with Osherman Properties.

I'm also a trustee for the Osherman Family Foundation.

Um we are in concurrence with the staff report, and um certainly would appreciate your recommendation in a positive manner this evening for the ICT floating zone.

I'm gonna take just a couple of minutes, run really quick through the slideshow so that um folks who aren't as familiar with the project as we are understand a little bit more about it.

Um located adjacent to McCurdy Field and also next to the Boys and Girls Club.

Um, great opportunity for a campus style um approach to serving the youth.

Um the process started out of a report that said the city should develop a youth center.

Um family foundation staff did a fabulous job of reaching out into the community.

Over 60 nonprofits came together to provide their insight and support for the effort.

Um, out of that, a smaller group was formed to really inform the programming for the space.

Um but they also um wanted to make sure that the youth voice was first and foremost.

Um so the Frederick Youth Council was formed in their inaugural year of 2024, um, and they've been amazing.

Um, the input that they've given certainly insightful in ways that we as adults wouldn't necessarily consider.

Um, you know, the chocolate swimming pool didn't make the cut.

Um but but lots of great great feedback.

Um the facility is a hub and spoke model.

Um it's a location for the youth to congregate.

But it's also a place for them to interact and for the city staff and the nonprofits that will spend some time in the building to make sure those kids are directed to the services they need.

Of the 60 some providers, not all of them can be there, not all of them will be there, but all of them will be known.

And when someone is in need of that specific support, this facility and the staff within the facility will make sure that they find the services they they need.

The types of services, behavioral health, physical wellness, workforce development is a very large portion of that.

The city has been involved in the workforce development side.

And since you know, a lot of the younger youth will only be there in the evenings, there are a lot of opportunities for that space to be used during the day for older youth.

You know, something I learned.

I never considered myself youthful when I was 22.

Okay, but I was.

That if they wanted to have performances of some type, they could have room to do that.

So that's the um what's going on there.

Um they also thought that it was important that that space have access to the outdoors and kind of communicate to the ability to go out and enjoy the park, enjoy outside for reading.

Um security, obviously a big issue.

Um so kind of mid-page to the left is the primary entrance.

Um that will be a secure entrance location that provides us, provides visibility into that outdoor space.

Um will kind of translate down into the right, um, some lounge space at the bottom of the page, um, makerspace.

We call it classrooms, they don't like that term.

They're in school all day, so they want to call it something different, but really that's the location where they might have you know art where they might perform artwork, they might have digital 3D printing, um, you know, all types of lab opportunities or or um recreational activities.

Um center, uh, you have a lounge and a game area.

Um, and then on your right hand side, you have offices that are available for the nonprofits, and then top right corner, which is accessed from Jefferson Street.

If you remember the map, there's a panhandle that comes in from Jefferson Street.

Um, that will actually kind of be the back entrance for the administrative staff and the staff that's not there routinely working.

So those are the highlights of the plan.

We're excited about it from a funding perspective.

Um we are about 95% of the way to where we need to be for funding of the building.

Um we're currently seeking grant funding for the FFE for the interior, so it can get fit out and feel really great, as well as some of the parkland improvements.

We again we appreciate your support, and uh, we look forward to making the project a reality.

Great.

Thank you.

So we'll do a roll call for commissioner questions.

We'll start with the Commissioner Blencia again.

No questions on this, thank you.

Commissioner Lowellan?

I have no questions, thank you.

Commissioner Manellis.

Um, just a question and a comment.

Um, so in hearing you speak about the layout, so um seems like you guys have had input from the youth themselves in regards to the layout, and I think that is really a nice touch.

So make it more personal.

So I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Yeah, they've been deeply engaged and and like I said, very informative.

So that's great, thank you.

Um, so my only question was um you mentioned how important security was.

Will there be like the parking lot park area and the connection over to the boys and girls club?

Will that all be fenced and secure as well?

It will not.

Okay.

The the f the park land will be open.

Um what is secure is actually the the outdoor space that you'll see immediately adjacent to the building, and you can actually it what's what's in green is not secure.

Um, but there's a patio that is that will be fenced, and it's actually visible from the guard desk.

So that it one of the other things really interesting, and I don't want to take too long this evening, but kids want to ride their bikes there.

Right.

That's a great thing.

But they wanted indoor bike storage because they were concerned about the security of their bikes.

Um so they needed to make sure that there was monitored access.

Um the patio fence created a little bit of a complication, but the they'll basically were setting up the security so that they'll be able to buzz the gate open, they'll be able to bring their bikes in, put them top left purple room.

Um and they'll be secure.

Nice.

So is there an age limit?

When you talked about older youth, is I mean, is there an age limit in which you have to be under 25 or so 12 to 20?

12 to 24.

The 24 is the upper end.

The 12 is is a little bit marginal.

Um, you know, I would say that the boys and girls club, you know, ranges right around that 12.

So there's been some discussion about is it 11 or 13, but um that is ultimately the the general range that it will serve.

Okay, so not younger kids.

This is gonna be like a after-school daycare or anything like that.

That's correct.

They're not intending to serve that age group.

Gotcha.

All right.

Any other questions?

No, all right.

Do we have any public comment on this case?

Thank you.

Nope, seeing none.

Come back up here.

Do we have any discussion?

All right.

Then we need a motion.

Okay, I move um for the recommendation to the city council to rezone 300 Scotty's bus lane containing 1.35 acres from general commercial to the institutional floating zone to establish a recreation social service center.

Finding all that staff had already read it into numbers.

Wait, is this one through five?

Or would it see how hard?

Um I might want to specify it a little bit, at least separate out because we have to find findings under two sections.

Yes, on the code.

So findings and according to section uh three zero six E7, one through five with parts A through B, and in accordance with section three zero six E8 with uh one three one through three.

All right, thank you.

Second, so there is well let me just clarify.

I didn't hear you say a positive recommendation to the city council.

Oh, a positive is that in your yes, all right.

Thank you.

And um, we have a motion by Commissioner Balencia, a second by Commissioner Manellas, all in favor.

That's unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next we're going to move on to um PC 25-187 ZMA zoning map amendment for 27 Franklin Street.

Oh, we didn't know good evening.

Uh Christina Martin Kosky with the city's planning department.

Um I am uh one want to appreciate uh your time and efforts tonight and reviewing our application from the historic preservation commission.

I want to enter in the entire staff report in the record.

Also acknowledging that we received public comment today from Adam.

I'll speak into the speaker a little into the mic a little bit closer.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um I also want to acknowledge that we did receive public comment from Adam Apostoli uh from Knock 12.

Um that communication was emailed to the commission and also a hard copy provided.

I also want to acknowledge our future meetings coming up.

One, the council work session on August 28th and the public hearing uh with the council on September 18th.

Um so this is the historic preservations commission's application to uh request a historic preservation overlay at the property at 27 Franklin Street.

The property is comprised of point uh 845 acres of land situated on the east side of Franklin Street and is adjacent to Grove Park.

The property is zoned downtown residential with an institutional floating zone in an airport overlay.

The stone building that's on the site was built by Lloyd C.

Collier, which was constructed in 1924, and it serves as a really great example of ecclesiastical English Gothic architecture.

The property historically served as St.

Timothy's Episcopal Church, which administered to the spiritual needs of the working class suburban community.

A demolition review application was submitted on May 1st, 2025, resulting in this zoning map amendment application.

Now remember that the Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning Commission are recommending bodies.

It is City Council that makes the ultimate decision.

Now each commission has their charge of what they're reviewing.

The Historic Preservation Commission has to make sure that it meets the designation criteria.

And this slide outlines those criteria in the most simplest terms.

That the building has to be at least 50 years of age.

We know when this building was built, 1924.

So it meets that basic criteria.

The planning commission is also charged with reviewing that, but weighing heavily on that evaluation from the Historic Preservation Commission.

But this commission is also charged with evaluating potential designation for consistency with the comprehensive plan.

And they may consider other planning issues.

Now, in deciding whether to designate a site or structure or district, the planning rather the city council will take in other considerations that are outside of what this body is really charged with.

Alright, I'm going to try to be to the point with the very detailed review that the Historic Preservation Commission completed.

On their June 17th, 2025 meeting, the Historic Preservation Commission found that this property met that 50-year age requirement and that it possessed a bit significant sufficient historic integrity and met the following areas of criteria.

The first one is that the site is associated with important events that have made significant contributions to the broad patterns over history.

Now, this building is really neat because St.

Timothy is a really significant example of a mission chapel of the All Saints Parish, which administered to the spiritual needs of the working class community that grew alongside the industries on east side of Frederick beginning the 19th century and accelerating through the first half of the 20th century.

Before that time, there was no such thing as a suburban church in Frederick.

You were either a country church or you were a city church.

So this building is really a result of the evolving city landscape of Frederick.

Secondly, the site exhibits significance in design or construction by embodying the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, including characteristics particularly associated with the city.

Bless you.

Also, this site is associated with the lives of significant persons associated with the city.

He served as mayor for 22 years, and he's responsible for Baker Park, the Frederick Municipal Airport, and of course Collier Lake.

As a builder, he led several leading positions, but ultimately is responsible for many buildings in the Frederick area, including the Tolly Recenter, Barbara Frenchie House, and the Carolyn and Baker Park.

So this building has significance.

It meets the age requirement.

And then the third thing that the commit the historic preservation commission and now you are considering is its historic integrity.

Now we know the front part of the building, the vestibule was removed.

So that certainly impacts historic integrity and definitely part of my evaluation in the commission, the HVC's charge in your charge.

But looking at the building in its totality, I do find that it still has its historic integrity.

Historic integrity is the ability of a property to convey its significance through its physical features.

The quality of integrity includes location, which it has.

It's design, which it has setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.

And if we look at the building piece by piece, we can look at the rectangular form with this gabled roof intact.

The gabled entrance pavilion lost, the setting intact, the bell tower intact, the limestone masonry with raised square mortar joints intact.

Rectangular arch finestration intact but with replacement sashes, the water table intact, and the buttresses intact.

When reviewing this historic preservation overlay zone map amendment, this body is also charged with reviewing its consistency with the 2020 comprehensive plan.

The city uses this inventory maintained by the Maryland Historic Trust as the local inventory for potentially eligible historic resources.

And this property is not mentioned just once, but actually three times, but mainly as an individual resource under F3-267 and as a contributing resource in the Schleisdale Historic District.

It does also need it in the Eastville Historic, the East Frederick Historic Historic Survey Area.

And so these are all compelling reasons to consider this to be a strong candidate for designation.

There's other also other factors.

Now, this property is zoned downtown residential with that institutional uh floating zone, the airport overlay.

The historic preservation overlay, if applied, would not impact any aspect of its use.

Now applying the historic preservation overlay to um protects the existing historical nature of the structure and lends itself further to the goals of future land use map and the comprehensive plan, including HPC policy one, support the preservation of sites, structures, districts of historical, archaeological, cultural, and architectural significance, HP policy two to ensure uh that impacts to historic resources are considered in planning and development decision making and HP policy seven to maintain a balance between economic growth and historic preservation in order to achieve shared objectives.

Staff does not foresee any other related planning issues specific to the historic preservation overlay that's being proposed, since it does not impact the property use under its institutional zone, which is consistent with how the property owner intends to use the property.

The proposed HPO will not result in a population change, affect public facilities, or impact a number of vehicle chips that are generated.

So in conclusion, uh my recommendation is uh that uh that the commission uh provide a positive recommendation uh to city council for the for the zoning map amendment um in accordance to section 423D of the land management code, the historic preservation commission has determined that the structure exhibits significance for its association with events that have made significant contributions to the broad pattern of our history, um, that it's associated with the lives of uh persons significant to the history of the city, and because it exhibits significance and design or construction by embodying the distinctive characteristics of type period or method of construction and is over the age of 50, and that the placement of the HPO is consistent with the 2020 comprehensive plan and does not conflict with the intended use of the property by its owner.

And with that, I'll take any questions.

Right, thank you.

We'll do a roll call for this round of questions, starting with Commissioner Llewellyn.

I have no questions at this time.

Commissioner Manilis.

None from me, thank you.

Commissioner Valencia?

No questions, but thanks for being super transparent when we had the workshop to explain how all this went through the process for us because I feel like that was really helpful.

But I just wanted to say that again to you because that made this a lot better to understand, especially with that additional structure that's on it and how that fell through the cracks.

But we won't talk about that today, but thanks for explaining it.

Absolutely, thank you.

And I don't have any questions either.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll stand by.

All right, so I understand that we have a representative of the people who are currently using the building who would like to make some comments.

Come on up.

Good evening, and thank you.

Uh Sean Hughes from Miller Miller and Camby on behalf of the property owner, which is Christina, uh Red Christina Inc.

uh Chris uh Christiana Ministry, and I'm here, they're led by Pastor Louis Serrano is here with me.

So thank you for the opportunity, um, members of the commission.

Um we we do recognize uh the application that's before and the charge that is before the planning commission.

Um and we we do recognize and suspect that they're um with the staff uh report recommendations and HPC recommendations there there could be enough here for the commission to also recommend this uh approval further on to the uh city council.

Um we we do also we uh pastor and his leadership team do have uh as as staff said they do desire to um maintain this building and keep it in uh historic uh as much as they can.

They uh they are looking to bring the building back to life and they've done a lot on the interior and actually on the exterior also.

Um so they have as I said, they've they've put a lot of um uh effort, blood, sweat, and tears, and funds into this already, and they are hoping obviously the goal is to get it open so they can serve really serve their their uh parish and also the community.

And so they think they're getting close, and as the pastor tells me with God's God's help, it we think it's getting closer every day.

Um they do want to make a difference in uh short term and a long term for this community, and um and they're hopeful that um that if we do have any um challenges getting everything open that we can reach out to to the city for assistance because obviously um uh it's a great property, it's a great building, and they really want to do some great work.

Um I will just note obviously I know you guys are gonna consider it, and staff noted HP policy 7, which looks at balancing economic growth and historic preservation in order to achieve shared objectives, and so we're you know, again, they want to keep this historic, they they believe they can do so.

Um, but we know there is a balance there, so making sure this can be a living breathing property um that is modernized and reaching out to the community.

So um in I guess in closing, um I just wanted to say uh a word or two and then uh add a uh put a potential question for the commission or for it it's council, and then we would welcome any questions.

But uh we appreciate the opportunity tonight.

Um Pastor and his congregation are very excited about uh opportunity to get serving the community and get this property live again.

Um I guess my my question, I don't know if it's it may not be answered tonight, may not be one for you guys, but um I've been trying to get to an answer and haven't exactly got there yet.

So I'm just so curious from a city's perspective if this process, where I guess at the end of the day, I think it's gonna be a zoning map amendment.

Is that one that's um legislative in nature or quasi-judicial?

So I'll throw that out there.

May not be for you guys, maybe for an offline.

And then um again, thank you for the time and and we welcome any questions.

Okay, thank you.

Um I think to answer your question, and Scott as the lawyer can tell me if I'm wrong, but we're just a recommending body, so it will be a legislative decision, correct?

Okay.

Yes, quasi judicial.

We are we are recommending body when it gets to mayor and board, that is the way that'll be handled.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Yeah, you guys are recommending, but the end decision, we're not um we're not sure about that, or the mayor and board.

The end the decision will be the mayor and the city council.

It's quasi-judicial or legislative, or we're not sure.

I believe it's quasi judicial, yes.

Okay, zone new map amendment.

I thought and I thought you had a conversation with Ms.

Gray about that already.

Well, uh, I I just I continue the conversation.

I I didn't think it was over yet.

Okay.

I'll pick it back up with one of you.

I'm sorry, appreciate the time though.

We'll we'll be around if you have a question or not.

We please contact one of us.

We'll have to happily help you.

So we'll just give the commission a chance to ask you some questions.

We'll start with Commissioner Llewellyn.

I don't have any questions for you at this time.

Commissioner.

And for me, thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lindsay?

No, thank you.

So I was just curious.

You said the the um owners are not using the building yet.

Are they not holding services?

The owners are the church.

They're gonna use it themselves.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

I mean, there's there's a legal entities, but essentially the pastor and his his um uh Red Christian Inc.

is essentially the church, and they're gonna use it.

But they're not they're not using it.

I mean, they're not holding services, regular services in there yet.

Or no.

We're we're uh they're they're getting we think we're getting close to having a use in occupancy, which they need.

They've done it.

Which you need before I mean a fair amount on the on the inside of the building to make it more modern inside and functional.

And is there other additional work that they feel like they need to do?

On on well, uh uh the inside is is close.

There is also some yard work being done and some um um retaining wall to allow the the yard to be worked um to be played in and used, and I think a decks being planned in the back.

Um there's some longer term plans on the front, but those are not right now, and um we obviously uh need to um continue to work with um um planning staff on any future.

What did you say is going on the back?

The back, there's a lot, there's a well, there's a goal to um have the yard be functional and perhaps have a fence and also have some type of uh deck on the back or patio.

Okay.

All right, any additional questions?

And there's a beautiful park next to it, so they're hoping to have you know plain outside and such.

Okay, so with the with the HP policy one where it's um like the it's supposed to preserve like the design and everything of it being architectural, right?

And like this time with all this work being done, we have the proper permits in place like right now.

Okay, but is it's gonna look are you are you trying to keep that same design because now you're talking about like a patio and a deck, and we've seen that modernized deck already.

Well, yeah, that was my same question, but yeah, like are we keeping with the with the same aesthetic as the historical aesthetic?

Yeah, so are the renovations that you just talked about approved or gonna be approved or in line with what the HPC would require, I guess is what we're asking.

Well, I I g um the that would be behind it, and what once this is designated, certainly we're gonna comply with every rule whatever regulations we need to.

Yes.

Okay.

And the longer term goal is to have the exterior.

Um is it okay for the pastor to come up?

Yes, of course.

Introduce yourself first.

Yes.

Um Reverend Louis Serrano.

I'm the president of the Christian network.

I'm also a catalytic church plant for Southern Baptist Convention on Maryland Delaware, and I'm a member of the Southern Baptist conversion.

And um and the International Mission Board.

Um the idea was move the hub from Montgomery County to Frederick County.

Um we get the building.

I didn't want to get this building, but we ended getting the building.

Um if I know it's gonna take us seven years, and after we purchase the building, um we found uh when we sign in the paperwork, the the investor tell me, Oh, Pastor, you want to know what's going on with the building?

What do we did?

I say yes, because nobody tell me.

Uh and I say here is this is the gentleman.

You didn't know that that roof was uh um have a hole and it was raining and the whole Santuary name, a cave in.

I said I beg your pardon.

Then I said, Yes, but we fix it, everything is okay.

Then when we sign and finish the the transaction, I have to leave overseas.

And I told one of my members, hey, you need to call uh our friend Rick from a structure engineer as a consult nationwide consultant friend, and I say something is fishy here.

I need to you treated these like we do it in our own company that we own a construction company for restoration and abatement and all that.

Then we found lead, we've hiding under the ceiling tiles on the bathrooms.

Uh we have an asbestos on the vestival.

We found uh all the wires there were uh um an electric hazard.

We also have proof from 2018, which is the minute that we purchase all the way until now that she did a uh Miss Martin Koske did an excellent presentation.

Everything that she said that justified that is approved and well preserved.

We expense close to a million dollars to re-tack point the entire building, all the mortars, because that have a serious water damage problems, and we have all the proofs.

If you want to see it, that tower was about to fall down.

You can see through no mortar over the years.

That triggered a meeting with the city.

Then what I call the ugly front.

Besides that in 2020, we have in July and June two huge storms on city on Frederick County that create that vestible create stronger water damage inside and start to collapse.

That makes remove the inside of the plaster and see what's going on.

We did an abatement also there for the asbestos and we found out it was thermite damage.

We have all the structure engineers report to back that.

And the reason was we already have a permit from 2018 when I meet with the code officials, and I have a meeting on the city of Frederick, and they told me how we're going to fix this.

After we found the structure engineer said, hey, you guys need to intervene.

If it was the investor or somebody else, they literally chop the arms of the wood structure of the entire platform and the name, and they say, hey, the altar, uh, and all the structural and the front is about to collapse if you don't do something.

Then we end in replacing, reinforce it with I-bean and a bunch of stuff.

Um and expense close to a million dollars to restore that.

How the ugly deck that is not built, that I prefer and a stone patio on the back coming to the permit of 2018 revision 2024.

It's because the new official inherits what the old code officials uh lay down to us.

Step one, restore the main building.

Step two, uh process the addition.

The addition will provide um uh real access to handicapped people that the property never had.

Um it will ask uh allow us to remove every single stairs that we even did it because I didn't want anything that is not code and unsafe for the people.

Um we enclose the stairs on the side because we have uh people neighbors uh that are coming and crying and say, I used to go here when I was a child, and I see a like almost 90 years old lady, she told me his brother owned the quarry and donate all the stone for that, and she was heartbreaking when they have to close down because they have no money and no members, no anything, and they foreclose that property as a matter of fact.

Across the street, Franklin Street 26 is a tiny little building that it used to be the Sunday school.

And I said, look, I want to restore everything.

At the time I wanted even to buy the property next door that is a million dollar body with my own money, my own firm, we couldn't do it at the time, and share that to the to the organization to partner with the city and the Maryland Food Bank to create their have a warehouse to have uh a food pantry, a humongous food pantry.

Um story short, the addition, it will make it provide bathroom from upstairs that the property don't have.

Uh we have beautiful ADA compliant bathroom in the basement, that no handicap can ever go down.

Uh and it will be a headache for a member.

Then, because of the addition, and the permit, the city authorized us to break through 18 inches thick wall all the way to the basement foundation with no process at all other than the approved plants.

That's when we get to 2020 and we have all these water damage where we'll focus on the building, that c that uh it was uh it was turned on because it was collapsing.

The vestibule.

Then when we demo the entrance to create the stairs that exist now that is part of the original permit.

The revision number zero is four revisions there.

Can I I I guess could you just speak to what is it gonna look like on the exterior?

Like we we definitely understand this has been a long time.

I I wanted to use the same design of the vestibule.

Okay, so you're gonna keep with that design, like the architectural design of the historic.

Don't you the stone, yes?

Don't use the wood that it will, it's not gonna last 100 years.

It will have to be a little bit more than the same.

But there's like the wood deck now, that's why we're asking that.

Come again?

There's the wooden deck now that does not match this architecture.

That's why we're asking.

It's because the city told me and is in all the revision that we need to do these deck to connect what I call the tiny little house that is the stairs, they want enclosure, that is stairs coming out.

And then the vestibule that at the time it was there, the they don't want that stairs because it was unsafe.

They we're supposed to build the deck on top of that.

If you I don't have a point to show where the stairs and the concrete are, uh, we're supposed to have a deck there.

Then when that collapsed and when we was excavating, and we saw that also those walls were structurally unsafe.

And say, okay, if we're going through the process and we're gonna have all that addition rebuilt, what's the point to invest money?

Everybody said this is not cost-effective.

Pastor Commissioner Valencia wants to know, but the longer term plan is to build it out further and build it back in the historic.

Oh, yes.

That's the idea.

Yes, that was my question.

Thank you.

And also the deck on the deck on the back, I just want a patio on a stage to do weddings, to do activities and everything.

And also it will serve for water proving.

But they told me, hey, you want to have the occupancy, you have to have everything or nothing.

Then I say, okay, everything.

And we have that deck, but I can go and work with the city and change that.

I prefer to have stone, one feet, it's an estate that is not gonna be more than a foot and a half, and make it looks like that, because we expend a ton of money to make it looks historic.

I want that.

What we want to do is know it was gonna look historic.

That was it.

Okay, great, thank you, Leo.

Are there any other questions for no?

All right.

Um, before we bring the application back up, are there any other public comments on this?

Come on up.

Hello, my name is James Gibbs, and I'm a neighbor of the building and I've an Act 12 coordinator.

Speak into the microphone a little better.

I'm sorry.

There you go.

Is that better?

Right, and can you give your address?

Uh 158 Neonel Avenue, which is just a couple blocks from the property, and I'm an AC12 coordinator, and we've been talking with Christina about this project going on for some time, and it looks like uh we just want to see the building protected.

Um, we we understand the intentions that they're explaining here.

We have no obstruction to their business or they're having their congregation.

I would just like to make sure that this this unique Frederick property is protected.

And I think Christina's done an amazing job, so I'm not gonna go over her work because if you've seen it, then you know all the reasons why um it should be protected.

Uh thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

No, would you like to come up and make some do a response?

I mean, if not, I I mean I do have a specific question, and I have a question too.

Excellent.

Uh you know, I I I I know vague ideas of what's being proposed, but all I can say is that we have guidelines, they have been forwarded uh to the property owner, and we're always open to to meet and talk and give guidance as we do with every applicant who goes through the process and try to make it as smooth as possible by maintaining the building's historic integrity and keep this building around for many more years.

So um whether or not the historic preservation overlay is applied, would any further exterior work have to still go through the historic preservation commission to be approved?

Yes, as a general statement, yes.

What's that historic preservation overlay zone is applied?

Yes, that historic preservation review commission will definitely take place.

Would the historic preservation commission review it if the historic preservation overlay is not approved?

No.

There would be no preview.

Okay.

What would happen to just to follow up is that we would um issue a certificate to demolish.

And at that point the building can disappear concludely within five years.

Oh, I have that approval.

So it is Ah, okay.

Oh, that was interesting.

I'm glad you said that.

I'm a gangster there.

Yeah.

Um go ahead.

Commissioner Manellus.

Yes, so um, and I think you've already answered the question.

So basically, if you were doing any renovations in the back of the building, you know, um, that would require following the guidelines for the historic preservation commission, correct?

Any renovations, exterior, backyards, patio, decks, whatever would still need to go through the process.

Absolutely, yes.

Anyone else?

No more commissioner questions?

No.

No more public.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

All right, so let's bring it back up here.

Do we have any um discussion that we need to do?

No.

No.

So in what I heard, just is that if we if we don't recommend to have the historic historic preservation overlay, then essentially the city has to issue a permission, I mean a certificate to demolish the building.

Correct.

Okay.

In that case, I'm someone saying something.

I no, I think it goes if if the planning commission, go ahead, Christina.

Okay.

Okay.

Point of clarification.

No matter what how this body votes, this is going to the council.

Oh, absolutely.

Right.

Yes, no, no, we didn't mean to.

But if a historic preservation overlay is not applied, so if this goes to council and they said no, we don't want to apply historic preservation overlay.

I will automatically issue a certificate to demolish without delay.

That certificate will allow the building, the property owner to demolish a portion of the building, the entire building for up to five years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, my mistake.

I thought you were suggesting that this body didn't recommend that.

No, no, not by the way.

I want to make that clear.

No, not at all.

Just if it's if it's not applied by the city.

Yes.

And so given that, I mean, I'm I'm in favor of a positive recommendation.

I move for a positive recommendation to the city council for the placement of a historic preservation overlay on approximately 0.845 acres of land at 27 Franklin Street, with the staff findings that were already read.

Uh one through two.

I second that.

So is the motion by Commissioner Balencia second by Commissioner Llewellyn?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

Thank you.

All right.

So our next case that's we've since we've rearranged the agenda.

The next case that we're going to be discussing is PC 25-55 ZTA text amendment for section 417 of the M regarding MU district phasing.

Yeah, this is a request to amend Section 417 mixed use district regarding the rate at which residential and non-residential portions are developed.

As this was presented once before, I'm going to be addressing the August update shown in the staff report only.

This is for the benefit of the public if you have not had a chance to read the staff report.

Firstly, the current code was last amended in 2012 for the opposite reason.

Residential portions were lagging behind non-residential development at that time.

This request applies specifically to changes to the LMC and is not to change the phasing of the applicant's project.

The change to Section 417 would apply to all properties currently zoned MU1 and land that may be rezoned MU2 in the future and only to the sequencing of how the project is constructed.

It does not affect Section 417B, which establishes how much of each land use is required in a mixed use development.

To explain how the proposed change would be implemented, we need to look at section 310 of the land management code, which sets precedent for how administrative revisions are done and the authority therein.

Under a subsection F1, staff can currently approve one revision to the master plan so long as A overall density is not increased, B, land use does not change, and C, no one section can increase the number of dwelling units by more than 10%.

Additionally, under subsection F2, staff can transfer density of individual sections of the master plan, but must be justified by planning, market, or other legitimate concerns from the applicant.

But again, only one revision can be done by staff, and it must comply with the aforementioned three items.

The staff level review process includes submission in accordance with the deadline calendar, being routed to various internal and external departments and agencies, and public notice being sent out to adjoining property owners and coordinators of the neighborhood advisory council the project is in, as well as any within 500 feet.

They're required to do postings on the property, a news ad runs in the local paper, and the applicants attend the citywide community outreach meeting.

The commission must consider if this process is sufficient for the changes to the phasing schedule and are allowed to recommend alternative language.

Any further revisions must go back to the original reviewing authority.

Similarly, any revisions that exceed the thresholds laid out in section 310 must also go back to the reviewing authority.

In addition to the administrative set steps, that also includes two public hearings by the planning commission, and in the case of MU2 zone properties, they have to be reviewed by city council.

MU2s would have to go back to city council for any revisions of that type.

Well, this process aptly applies to substitute changes.

It may be unnecessary when the request is to change the phasing alone.

The abbreviated administrative process still balances the intent of the public process with the scope of the change while recognizing that a request of this nature may be made to a project that is actively under construction.

The more lengthy process may create other issues which affect the overall success of the development.

The commission could consider in their recommendation that the authority to change phasing schedules specifically be referred solely to the planning commission, eliminating the need for the council to reconsider an MU2 development.

And after considering the quest at one public hearing, the commission always reserves the right to continue the application.

Lastly, the actual text has been changed to remove the word general so that the proposed phasing plan isn't fluid, and duplicated language in the exec in the existing section 310, which states a phasing modification shall be justified by planning market or other legitimate concerns.

The commission should consider whether these are appropriate standards for evaluation to the phasing schedule.

The commission has one action and staff maintains their recommendation for approval.

Thank you.

We'll do a roll call for the first round of questions.

Commissioner Menelis.

Yes, thank you, Christina.

Um I think the first question is with the admin process that you just outlined.

Curious about um, so when you talk about public notice, which you mentioned, um, does it then allow for public comment?

Um, in other words, can the city residents either write in or make in-person comments?

Is there a meeting that's held?

Is it just goes through the administ process and that's it?

And then the second part to that question is um when a final decision is made, um, how is that communicated to interested parties, aka general public?

Yeah, so um they do have to go to the citywide community outreach meeting.

So that is where we would receive any sort of public comment, concerns, things like that.

Um if they were to submit something that made staff uncomfortable and we had a large amount of community outreach, we would probably take it to planning commission anyway.

Um staff revisions are supposed to be innocuous, um, they're not supposed to be substantive.

It's not we don't do that.

Um, so they would have the community outreach, and then if it was a problem, we would want to bring it back to planning commission.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and my second question is um in regards to the table that was provided, and that's the mixed-use project summary um exhibit that was for June 16, 2025, which outlines I think um several pages of um I think it's mixed use um um projects that had similar, I guess, issues.

Um but these other projects still move forward, correct?

No variance was provided by the city, in other words, they didn't have an administrative process that to make changes in order to fulfill the project is what I'm trying to find out.

So this table here of three pages worth of projects that had similarly possibly issues.

It seems like, as it says here, MET requirements, met requirements, met requirements.

So what I'm trying to understand is were those requirements eventually met because the city provided a variance, do they have to go to administrative process or because there is none, they just figured it out.

I'm just trying to make sure I understand that piece.

No, I understand.

I can't speak to those individual projects because I I just don't know.

Generally, each individual project has their own issues.

Sometimes there's some overlap on the reasons why.

We do hear like the same thing over and over.

But generally speaking, I mean, I don't know if those projects died.

I don't know if they had to get extra loans.

I don't know, you know, what each individual won, because a lot of times it's staff running around trying to find a solution to make these developments move forward so that we have we have housing and retail.

And so I guess the concern is that by having the applicants go back to the reviewing board, it may stall the project because it takes from the time of submittal six months to actually be in front of planning commission.

Um that's why staff has the ability to do one revision.

So I guess you guys don't have a mechanism in place to, you know what, I'm gonna leave that one alone.

Um, because you're trying to do this mechanism now, which um so okay, my third question is um how did the city staff, you know, I read the staff report, which was well done, thank you for the information.

How did the city staff come about its conclusion to support this text amendment?

And when I say that I mean like I'm trying to understand the logical progression, like how did it come to be that you guys decided that this was good for the city?

And I understand that you guys referred to the text to the to the comprehensive plan and the text amendment and so forth, and I get all that.

I read that in the staff report.

What I'm trying to understand is what exactly, what logical progressive steps would you guys take to understand this project or this request and say, yes, this is good for the city.

This is this is good for the city citywide.

Yeah, so when we look at any sort of proposed text amendment, we look at the past, and then we also kind of have to judge the future.

Um so with the past, with it already being amended in 2012 for the opposing reason.

Um, this coming forward wasn't necessarily outside of the norm for a lot of planning.

Um a lot of municipalities do not even have this type of code.

Um so that's another thing, and not saying it's good or bad, but that's something that we look at to see you know what everybody else is doing, try to find something if there's something more modern that can solve this problem, we're up for it.

Um but in reviewing this, I think the approach was that staff already has certain abilities after a master plan to revise certain aspects, including you know, moving densities around.

And so we felt that this was not something that would be you know a major major issue.

If somebody comes in and asks for you know five percent of commercial and they want to build 95% of residential, I don't have to grant that request, and it's gonna be a no.

Um, you know, that's that's just how it goes.

We already have this ability, so this one didn't seem like it was outside the realm of what we normally would do or consider.

Okay.

Do we know what the um and I can't remember now that you would know, um, and I wasn't probably even here in 2012 in in regards to this, but I'm just curious when that 2012 a text amendment was made, do we know what the conditions were at the time?

We probably don't know now on 21.

The only thing I've been able to gather is that that was coming out of that 2008 recession, and so a lot of commercial was sort of exploding and residential was not because nobody wanted to hop back in the bubble.

Um so that's probably why it was lagging behind, and now we're having an unprecedented housing shortage, and so we've got to find a way to get the houses on the ground.

Now, if they market to sell those products with this commercial aspect, that's gonna be an agreement between those private sellers and the developer.

Um, you know, we try not to make these situations happen, but we can't control everything.

Thank you.

Commissioner Valencia.

Not right now, thank you.

Commissioner Llewellyn.

Um yeah, I just want to understand.

So I get that it takes six months to get back in front of the commission, but um are things being stalled so much that we need to change the process at this time.

I don't have a good answer for that.

Um I mean, you know, we've got a couple of projects that are having an issue, and so what we want to do is make sure that it keeps moving forward and the the issue doesn't become a big stop sign.

You know, there is a sort of hard point where they're gonna hit, and you know, they may not be able to do the rest of the development.

I don't know their situation.

All I know is that there is a problem.

There's been a problem with more than just the applicant's project with the same reasoning, and so we're just trying to to find a way to keep development moving forward for the city.

Thank you.

And so just to clarify, the um the phasing schedule is considered part of the master plan.

Yes.

Okay, so so and currently the way that land management code is written now, there's no other way to amend the phasing schedule within the master.

Not to my knowledge, no.

So, okay.

And with this proposal, the planning commission, you guys would be setting that phasing schedule so the applicant might come in and say, you know, they want to do 2080 or 1580, I don't know.

But you would have the first bite at that apple to then tell staff, you know, what your intentions are.

So we'll take that into consideration with any revision that comes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any additional questions for staff?

No.

All right, I think we're ready to hear from the applicant.

Good evening.

Uh Brian Morris with the Matthew.

Sorry.

Brian Morris with the Matten Companies.

Thank you.

And uh Vince Burke with the Matten Companies as well, and then Philip Hummel with uh Shulman Rogers.

So we do have a brief presentation that we wanted to just go through to try to answer some of the questions that were brought up last time.

And so we just want to thank staff for um working with us through this process and uh thank the commission as well as the community uh just with your input as well.

So we um obviously we continued the last meeting uh from last month because we did hold a um public meeting with the residents um at Ren Quarter.

So we sent out um invitations, uh postcards, uh and held that at the Dela Plain Center on July 23rd.

So we know there was a lot of community input, and so what we wanted to do, this isn't the best venue to really have that open discussion.

So we held held that meeting uh with the community, we're able to have that open discussion.

Uh, I think we were honest on both sides, and we just again wanted to try to address some of the concerns.

I don't think you know we address everybody's concern, but again, we just wanted to be open and honest and tried to uh again just have that open line of communication uh with the community.

So I think it went well, but uh again, um it was just something that this wasn't the right form to really just have that that conversation.

So do I hit the next with this?

Thank you.

So what we wanted to do is just kind of briefly, since a lot of this was just focused around the REN quarter and that development itself, and the reason why we're bringing this text amendment is we just wanted to go briefly through the project timeline of kind of where the kind of vision started and kind of where we're at today.

And so Ren Quarter was originally obviously it was a farm, uh, it was zone M1, it was industrial, and so when we put the property under contract originally, we uh held a community charret to get a lot of input as far as what the community wanted to see as far as residential units, commercial, retail, uh, and just we held a three-day planning event with a lot of the community members, um, planning commission members, council to really just kind of go through that process.

Um we had a lot of market input, and so we did our best in the very beginning to try to just kind of plan this community out.

And so we took it through the rezoning the master plan process, and then we started the site plan process as well with the apartments, uh, the fee simple lots of the 595 residential units, as well as uh we took about 32,000 square feet of retail through that process as well.

And so um at that point we started to market the property to residential builders, obviously the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so that kind of put a little pause on things.

Um but at that point in time in February 2022, um, we did sell the 595 units to four-star DR Horton, who is the the residential developer uh for the community.

And so we held interest in the apartments and the retail.

So Matin still holds interest in that portion of the of the development.

And so as we went through, again, there was another kind of you know, market hit with the interest rate heights, um, but through that process, um, we um as the community started to get built out and really started to become a place, uh we were marketing the retail all along, but we were able to put up retail signs, we hired K and L B who is a national retail broker to kind of help us with that process just because the retail, once the construction started, the retail just wasn't coming at that point in time.

So we wanted to just kind of kind of fool court press, so to speak, with the just getting K L B on board.

So when you look at this, you know, in about three and a half years, Ren Quarter has really taken shape.

A lot has happened there with the with the development.

So a lot of the residential units are there.

And so again, we just really believe in the vision still of this property, and we are still invested and want to, you know, just see this through.

And so a lot of these slides we went over at the community meeting as well.

But I'll turn it over to Vince to give a couple words as well.

Thanks, Brian.

And uh thanks for the opportunity to present.

Um I'm up here with the retail information because uh well, I joined Matton about three years ago, but my previous job was with Saul Centers.

Um you know shops at Minoxy, Westview Village.

Uh I spent 20 years building and buying retail shopping centers and uh planning and building mixed-use communities.

So I know retail very well.

Um so when I joined, um we were you know, I took first thing I did was look at the plan.

I thought this is a great plan, great vision.

Um, you know, it's a growing corridor.

Um I could I could really see the pieces coming together, how to sell it, you know, how how it's gonna look in the end, and you know, you you see this retail map and kind of what I would pitch to the retailers and how I informed KLMB as kind of a beltway of Frederick, and you know, we're just off 70, and again it's it's maturing, it's getting there.

Um, and so but we as Brian said, we weren't getting the looks yet in terms of you know, we had this site plan approved for the retail, and the we weren't getting the right at bats.

So, how do we fix this?

How do we solve this?

What do we do differently?

You know, Matten had successfully retail uh lease a number of other retail projects in the area and in Montgomery County as well.

So, but you know, if it's if we're not getting the phone calls, maybe we'll hire this national broker.

They have a uh deeper connectivity, um, you know, it's uh again, you know, more tentacles into the retail community.

There's specialists, this is what they do every day, they're having those conversations.

So we'll step out, even though it means less money coming towards the mountain company, we'll hire this retail broker.

The the next thing I did was work with uh somebody that I used a lot, uh retail architecture and planning special specialists group Big No Watkins and create you know a number of different schemes looks to say you know, as pitch tools for the broker for KMB, KLMB to have kind of the see yourself here conversations with this this tenant roster and and how the pieces of it there's multiple retail parcels, how they function together, and you know what's gonna be the draw to get people since it's a maturing quarter to get people to rent.

And so uh it worked.

We started the the conversations picked up, we were getting in front of the right audiences.

Um I had a for example, one uh another public shopping center and mixed-use retail uh REIT interested in buying the the whole all of the retail parcels, and they had a grocery store in tow that was new to market that everybody would have been excited about, and it really would have uh made the thing pop.

And uh they studied it for a while and came back and had conversations with that grocery and their response was we can see it, we like it, but it's not there yet, and so we're gonna look to other corridors because for them, I guess.

So, this is where you know, there was there were some different perceptions within the community about how much traffic there is, the number of houses.

So, what what I wanted to do is like unpack that like as a okay, we're if it they think it's not there yet, how do we get it there?

And what what are they seeing?

So that's when we dove farther in the analysis, and you know, rather than focusing it's just off 70 and it's growing and all the positives, like what what how do we fare?

How do we stack up?

So, one is you look at the map, and you guys all know this very well.

You all have your favorite uh stores where you shop.

Um it's structured around you know the major arterial roads, um, and then a lot of the shop tenants follow the anchor, so you know, those grocery anchors, wagmans, giant, weiss, um, etc.

etc.

So we didn't have that yet.

We didn't have the traffic yet that these roads have, and we didn't have an anchor.

So it's the the neighborhood at Ren alone from a walkable pedestrian retail experience wasn't going to drive this into a successful place.

In our mind, it actually created some uh risk there because you if you build it, they will come, is not really a successful you know investment strategy there because we're gonna need to attract people from outside the neighborhood as well.

So, how do we how do we crack that nut?

So that's what we'll be working on.

I think we're getting closer, and the ZTA aims at you know taking additional steps to get us there.

But anyway, to back up, so what we wanted to share with the community is this is how we look at the at this, this is how retailers look at it.

Um, and this is this is um you know I guess the reality of it versus the perception that it's heavily trafficked.

And so uh if you go to the next slide.

Oh am I missing one?

Oh, this.

So this, thank you.

I'm uh I would have screwed that up.

Uh so what we're trying to look at here is you know, when when a you're advertising to a retailer or one of those anchor tenants, a grocery store that would really make this place go, what they they start with the raw numbers.

So it's usually uh a one, three, five mile trade area, and then what how many cars are driving by.

Um, and so when you look at Frederick and all those commercial nodes, you see that the I didn't even put the five mile up here because those really overlap and makes a mess out of it.

So it's the one and three mile demographics, and then uh you can see there are overlapping trade areas.

So the the other sites benefit from those same uh population density, but they also have more traffic being on those major arterial arterial arterial roads, excuse me.

Again, it's not we're not being defeated here, we wouldn't be here.

We're spending money on the architects and with the engineers to try and get to get it across the line.

It does us no benefit for this thing to take longer.

Um, as Brian said, it's been going since 2014.

We bought that dirt, we want it productive, it adds value.

Good retail adds value to our the you know, to the apartments, to everything that's else is there.

Um, it helps us uh with occupancy and and driving the rents there.

So we want it in place, we just don't want to miss step and force it.

I mean, there is a shopping center a half mile down the road that's walkable, it's a 10 minute walk.

It doesn't have an anchor, it benefits from the same demographics and traffic that we do, and I hate to pick on anybody, but it's got uh a liquor store, a gun store, and a pool hall.

I that's not what I want from the for the front of our neighborhood.

I don't want lowest common denominator tents.

I want to do it right, and that's what we're trying to do.

And so with the ZTA, you know, if we can take a fresh look at it because it's not working, we're here trying to problem solve, and we can build the apartments.

Not only do we get those 2757 new homes and all its occupants and their purchasing power, and you know, that you can advertise to those retailers.

Uh, it's also visually, it's just you know, that verticality of those buildings, it's like a giant monument sign for the neighborhood neighborhood without putting you know having to have the same kind of pylon signs you see on the highways.

It's like that you're here.

This is rent, it's a real place.

Um, it's it's completed.

The the retailers could see themselves there better.

So we're we're we have not abandoned current efforts to we're we're having active conversations on the retail front now that I could land in absence of this, but we don't want to rely on that.

We want to put our best foot forward, finish the place, and do our best to attract high quality retail that will add value to the neighborhood.

So that's really where this was coming from.

I understand the frustration from the neighborhood because it's gone out of you know, sequence in their mind again dealing in the lifespan of the project with uh two kind of once-in-a-lifetime macro events in in the COVID uh crisis, which shut things down for a couple years, and then interest rates going up five percent during the life of real estate project throws all the mass sideways, and it really froze the markets, people didn't expand for a while.

So it slowed us down, but we're not done.

We're we're doing our best to deliver, and we wouldn't be here and uh trying to accomplish that if we were had kind of decided it was you know a loser.

So we believe in it, we're trying to get it done, and we think we can, and the ZTA will be helpful.

Brian's gonna continue, and then of course we can add some questions.

So be brief.

Um, so we wanted to kind of get that pipeline data, regional data uh that was asked for last time.

And so we tried doing our due diligence on this, and um, I just want to note too that like there's a lot of factors that play into this.

I think staff brought this up as well, just with that other graphic.

Um, you know, depending on the size, demographics, economic condition at any given time.

So when we look at this, and you look at Montgomery County in the city of Gaithersburg, as far as residential units of what's built and unbuilt, you know, it's a pretty even mix.

You know, 30% of the total uh residential units are built and occupied.

As far as the unbuilt, those are approved units, but just have not you know moved forward yet as far as uh through construction.

And then you look at the non-residential, and unfortunately they don't break their data out too well as far as like retail commercial, industrial, whatever it may be.

So it's a big number.

Um, but when you look at it again, it's it's pretty even between the two.

You know, you're almost at a 50-50 split as far as the non-residential uh component as far as what's built and unbuilt.

And so I'd say, you know, kind of when you're looking at this as a whole, there really isn't kind of a rhyme or reason behind why a project is built or unbuilt.

Again, there's a lot of factors that go into each community, each development.

Um you look at the Frederick County, they do kind of a priority development area that they look at for all for the numbers that they pull together, and so for the residential units that are built, it's pretty even 50-50 split.

And then for the non-residential, they do kind of a less better job of tracking that information, and so it's just kind of like a trailing uh 12 months, and so of that 5 million square feet, again, it includes industrial, commercial, retail, uh, all the different non-residential units uh just in 2024 of that 5.5 million square feet, about 300,000 uh square feet of that actually got built again.

Um I think what we're we're trying to pull from this is that there's a lot of factors that go into it, and Montgomery County uh planning staff uh actually kind of pulled a lot of these developments that you see up here as far as those totals, and one of their kind of reasons for it is that you know approved projects don't move forward for a variety of reasons, including financing issues, changing marketing conditions, so that there's just a lot of factors that that do play into it.

And then wanted to provide this co-star report as well as far as just retail absorption within Frederick County, and so this was kind of at the start of COVID.

Um so you can see there was a negative absorption of just kind of a vacation of retailers uh from existing space, which you see in the orange there.

Um that was just again due to the COVID pandemic, but then as things started to bounce back, um, which was interesting is you saw a lot of new construction happening, and I think a lot of that had to do because retailers were shifting, and then exactly how they were kind of modeling uh their buildings and their services, and so we saw a lot of new construction coming out of that, and then the existing space started to absorb and lease again.

But since you know the end of 22, early 23, um, you know, that you really haven't seen a whole lot of new construction as far as absorption rates that are occurring.

And so this is you know, ironically, kind of the same time frame of where rent quarter is getting built out as well.

And so I think this graph really just kind of shows that it really is a lot, it's just market-driven.

And so to Vince's point, you know, Ren Quarter isn't, it's not dead, it's not done.

Like we want to see it through.

Like we're we're make we're trying to make this happen.

Um, it's just unfortunately it's the market realities at this point, and so we're doing what we can to try to make that shift and try to kind of help, you know, just spur um different things to make that happen.

And so, again, this is just the red line change when we go back to why we're here tonight, as far as the uh changes to uh section 417.

And so in point one, um, again, what was mentioned earlier, the only change there was the removal of the word general.

Uh and then in point two is what we did is we made it identical to the existing uh LMC standard for amending master plans and density transfers.

So we just that was something that was familiar with the city, uh, and it makes sense, and that's exactly you know what we're going through.

So uh that's what we wanted to, I think just amend uh the text to that as well.

So a couple examples of phasing plans that other jurisdictions do.

So this is a phasing plan within Frederick County, so it's uh Westview South off of Route 85 and executive way.

And so this plan actually originally was approved in 2006.

So where you see the yellow there, which is uh residential, that actually was purple, which was employment.

So this area originally in 2006 was viewed as an employment and kind of commercial retail sector.

Um so that occurred in 2006, and then obviously 2008 hit, so there needed to be an adjustment because employment, which a lot of this at that given at that time was planned as office.

I mean, that market just completely went away.

So we actually bought this property in 2012, took it through an amendment to the master plan to introduce the residential piece to remove some of the employment because again there wasn't a whole lot of movement um in the office sector at that given time.

And so here's uh kind of an area of like where that stands today.

And so that residential piece is roughly 600 units, that is completely built out.

The shaded red area uh to the north there is actually owned by Sol.

They did a lot of um retail there as we know.

Um that's where the silver diner is and everything, and so we built 14,000 square feet of retail here as well.

But what I kind of like to say is where the movie theater is and all that, that's kind of like oceanfront property, so to speak, right?

Like that's where everybody wants to be.

Once you get south of executive way, it's a little further out.

And so we had a little harder time of getting that retail kind of up and going.

Once the residential kicked off, and that was I'd say almost like 90% done, we were able to get two tenants, kind of anchored tenants for that um strip retail center where we were able to then kick it off.

So we're not fully built out there yet.

Um we still have two vacant retail pads, we have some employment pads that are still empty, but I guess my point is that from 2006 all the way to now, but even when we bought it in 2012, um, you know, there's a lot of things that have happened, but we've stuck with it.

We want to see it through.

Uh we believe in this this property as well and this area, and it's something that we're committed to and we want to see through as well.

And this is just another example of a uh of a phasing diagram in um Montgomery County.

And so what I should say too previously in the Frederick County example, there is not a prescriptive phasing or timing of when certain um parts of that development need to occur.

They just have a mix of residential employment and retail.

Um there was no prescriptive timeline of when that would happen.

Really, at the end of the day, once your APFO approvals expire, that's kind of your I would say limiting factor at that point.

And so Montgomery County really does kind of the same thing.

So they put together a sketch plan early on, it's more of just kind of a bubble plan to talk about different uses and densities of what they are proposing here.

And Parkland actually was a uh retail center, uh strip retail center that just kind of lost its life, and so they wanted to repurpose this, and so they did a mix between residential and retail here as well.

And so they broke it up into three three different phases.

Uh again, there was there is no prescriptive time frame of when certain units or certain um non-residential needs to occur.

They just break it up into three different phases, and um you know, as the market conditions change and everything, they're able to build out uh that property uh that way.

So I think um really at the end of the day, we just again want to thank um you know you planning commission members for just the all the feedback that you've provided as well as the community.

So we again we had that community meeting, I think it uh it went well, it was open communication, and so really again I think this amendment it's not about avoiding the retail.

Um we really it's it's a matter of kind of when it's gonna happen, not if.

So I think this ZTA does really help us kind of propel that, and we don't want kind of like an artificial pause out there for a while until the retail does catch up.

So happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you.

We'll do a roll call for the first round of questions.

Commissioner Manellas.

Yeah, so I'm gonna go back to a couple of your slides.

So I have a lot of questions and comments.

So can we go back to the last two or three slides?

Um that had the graphics.

That's on me, sorry.

Oh, yeah.

Just the data is what I want to get to.

This is one of them with that before that.

Okay.

I'm just um, so it has Frederick County residential.

So I'm assuming that includes this data includes city.

Yes.

Oh no, it doesn't.

Oh no, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Sorry.

It's unincorporated.

That's okay, yeah.

That's why it doesn't match the numbers that I have, because I have city.

Okay.

So that was one of the things I wanted to clarify was I see the county, but I don't see city city data here.

And I'm looking at the City of Frederick Development Pipeline website.

Um, so the second slide, if we can go to that one, um, is so I don't really understand this slide.

I don't see any, I don't, and you know, forgive me, I left my glasses, so I really my reading glasses at home, so it's hard to see.

Is there years on this?

I'm trying to understand.

You you mentioned the pandemic.

What I'm trying to figure out is a retail net absorption rate.

Is that for 20?

Like, what are you showing me?

Is this 2025?

Is this 2020?

Is this 2021?

What is this?

Sorry, yeah.

So if I don't know if it's do you have a um pointer?

I don't know, is that it?

I think I said, yep.

I think that's a pointer.

Yeah, thank you.

So the years are there on the bottom.

Okay, it starts at 2020 and it goes through 2025.

Okay, so 2025 shows um existing inventory is down.

Is that what is showing?

And new construction, what is this showing?

Yeah, so that it's the absorption, so of retailers, leasing space.

Okay.

And so the orange is um existing space that retailers have actually left the space, they vacated it.

Okay, and this is for the county, but not the city, or is this incorporating or encompassing the city as well?

This incorporates the city as well.

Okay.

And the only reason why I'm trying to understand this is because I also have a coast door report for 2025, June 2025, and this just doesn't look the same to me.

Um, so that's what's throwing me off and what's confusing me.

Um, because when I looked at the coastal the the June 2025 coastal report, um, and I understand with the Frederick County, there are some anomalies.

One of the is the mall, I believe, that has issues.

Um, and I think another um um establishment that has issues, but it seemed to me that um that um the inventory was low, like so I'm just a little confused with that piece of it.

And then I'll go on to say that you know, for June 2025, the Frederick County um five-year livable Frederick plan shows the city residential growth outpacing the county that's on their page 12 when we're talking about density, and to bring this home further about the city outpacing the county, according to the Frederick City media and the Census Bureau, it says that the Frederick County received the biggest population surge in Maryland between July 2020 and July 2023.

The county's population grew from 272,786 to 293 um thousand, three hundred and ninety-one.

Um it was saying that you know, basically Frederick County's population um outpaced the state and the national trends.

So it's saying here that Frederick County experienced a 7.55% population growth from July 2020 to July 2023, and it's saying that Maryland, the state of Maryland, their growth was 0.26, and the US average was 0.29, and Frederick County was 7.55.

So if Frederick County, you know, has the biggest population surge, and the livable five-year Frederick plan says the city residential growth outpaces the county, that's a lot of population dense population density.

And so when I see these things, you know, I'm like, I don't understand what the problem is.

So when I'm sorry when I'm looking at this whole thing, I'm not thinking about you guys.

I'm thinking about the city and what's good for the city and what I'm seeing, what the total landscape is.

Now, when I look at the city's pipeline that I have here, you know, we had the golden mile, we have the northeast area, we have downtown East Frederick area, Jefferson Corridor, Northwest area, and Rosemont Avenue.

And the reason why I asked you if that had city data on it is because on the pipeline, it seems like the east side of the city is greater development activity, the east side than any of the other sides of the city.

And it has here on the pipeline has 3,141 homes and unconditional approved units 4,543, and then 2,000 for permits issued.

Now I do know that well, this says it was last updated August 6, 2025.

So I'm just saying that I understand the explanation of why this text amendment was put forth.

And I understand that it's not really just about men, it's really about the city.

So what we're talking about is a broader context.

And so when I look at all this, you know, looking at the coastal report that was pulled for me, and then I'm looking at the Livable Frederick, the five-year plan that shows the city outpacing the county, and at the county has a 7.55 population growth, and then the city pipeline has um, especially the east side has um more activity.

I'm just trying to understand what you guys are talking about.

Um excuse me, can I just pop in real quick?

So we've got some new information that's been presented, and just so you're aware the population increase does not correlate um in any way to the request, because that there's no causation in that.

There's no causation correlation.

What I'm trying to get at is critical mass, and I'm trying to get at population density.

I understand what you're saying.

But when we're talking about critical mass and density, we're trying to achieve a critical population density is a key factor in attracting both anchor tenants and smaller retailers.

So the higher the density of the residents of the population, the more people you're likely to attract.

So all I'm saying is I am referring to population density.

I'm not talking about causality.

So the zoning text amendment does not deal with density at all.

I I understand.

Okay, but we're still talking about what they last mentioned when they talked about critical mass and so forth.

All I'm saying is what I'm saying about that.

The density would not change though, just to be clear.

Understand.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Sure.

Um, can you go back to the slide with the blue circles on it?

Oh, sorry.

Okay, I'm I'm a little bit older than them, so I uh um so those things are all true.

That's why we continue to invest in Frederick on in probably one of the most uh active developers in Frederick.

We're believers with that is definitely true.

And I would say I guess I haven't studied the numbers that you're looking at, but the growth rate in the east uh probably higher because it was the least dense, so therefore had more opportunity to grow, and it's on its way.

That's what we're believers, it's coming that way.

But so those are the macro factors.

If uh if a retailer, Trader Joe's, for example, was be like, I should be in Frederick, Frederick's growing a lot.

It's reading those stats.

That's the macros.

So they're like, make that decision.

I want to be in that market, it's a great market.

Then they drill in, and men do they drill in.

Like those are all very uh very kind of site-specific considerations.

So these are so again, these are you know uh circumference rings around the sites, and if you look at how they stack up in all categories, run quarter is is well below it's it's the lowest of those retail quarters.

The other ones are established, they have more traffic, more vehicles per day going by, which is kind of the number one thing for that um retail that fronts the roadside there.

How many how many eyeballs am I getting a day?

And then the anchor tenants might be more confident that they're they're a big draw.

So a Wegmans or a Costco or whoever, I want to tap into that population, I'll go wherever, and they're gonna come to me.

And but the shop tenants, they're kind of like sheep.

They're they they want to go next to where's everybody else going, where do I know that there's a draw?

They don't want to be pioneers that we're a growing area, they don't want to be first in and say, you know, I'm going at risk, it's just they don't get paid for that risk, they'd rather go to the ocean front property next to the theater, next to Wegmans, next to these roads that have all of this traffic.

So when you look at those, you know, the sorry, the demographics here, you can see from broken from Frederick on a whole what you're looking at to the more micro locations.

I mean, we didn't include the slide, but what they have something now, it's called AI placer data that is that came into the uh to the analysis to the retail kind of uh expansion analysis over the past five years, and they these retailers uh pay for it and it tracks everybody's cell phones.

Where are the trips?

And it's like a heat map, and we have that.

I we could send it to you, but rent quarters had it's all on color intensity, so rent order just has no color.

It's gonna get there again.

It's off 70.

We we've got the good path of growth coming our way, but if the they're making a decision on today's numbers, and so they once they decide on the market, then they're drilling into those specific locations, and what are the what are the um you know the quantities or the you know the the drivers for that specific location?

And we believe the story, that's why we're investing it, that's why we're here, but they're telling us you're not there yet.

So we're just trying to get there, and natural growth around us will help, and we believe the ZTA and the apartment will help as well.

As an example, who's there?

Who's there?

Who's like so?

When I read like in the news of the Frederick News post one time, and I remember which year it was, they talked about uh Trader Joe's and then talk about Trader Joe's saying that they're critical, their critical mass.

But they looked at the site, I know their broker and uh also they're going to the county.

I'm I'm already aware.

But but the bottom line was the article was talked about their critical mass was 10 minutes drive.

So I'm just curious when you talk about like people who you've reached out to.

And you know what?

To be honest, I don't want to drill too, I don't want to get away too far away from this because it's really not about you guys, it's really about the city and the phasing.

So I kind of want to, you know, step away from this and go back to the upper where we're trying the broader perspective.

This information really was to dispel the notion that we didn't analyze it properly and that we were operating in bad faith and we didn't want to deliver the retail.

That's not the case.

We're working hard to get it there.

And so who's a national shopping center REIT mixed use REIT that's one of the biggest, that's who had TJ's in hand, and they came and they looked at it, and they we had a price to sell it all to them.

They studied it for a couple months, they came back, they're like, not there, we want to go somewhere else.

And they still haven't landed.

Uh I have two other uh national grocers looking at it now.

I can't say who they are because I don't want them to go anywhere else, but they're not in market.

So you're hitting a pavement.

Oh, I mean, yeah.

Uh so again, like we took our guys off of it.

We had to tell somebody you're going to the bench, because I need a different retail guy that's got more tentacles than you do, and they have national relationships.

And they're at ICSC in in uh Las Vegas, which is the biggest retailers convention.

There's 50,000 people attend, and they're all there, and they're waving the flag around for Ren Quarter.

Um, yeah, we're doing all the diligence that is is necessary, and we're gonna get there.

We're just not there yet.

Can I jump in here with a question real quick?

Kind of with the goal of bringing us back to the text amendment question.

So your presentation tonight seems to me that this is a perfect presentation for assuming that we're a year in the future, some kind of text amendment allowing a uh change of phasing has been passed, and you're making a presentation supporting that change.

So, based on the data that you clearly have collected, what kind of a phasing schedule would you propose?

Well, all we have left is the uh apartment building.

So really it's gonna be a um, I mean, in I have a couple active deals, like I said, so they could start running in parallel tracks, but it's gonna be all the residential before the retail so basically 100%.

Yeah, that's where we are.

I mean, so um and then part two of my question were either of you on this project back in 2014, 2015?

Back in 2015, would you have proposed a different phasing schedule based on what you knew?

I think at the time we did the best we could, and but looking back, yes, I would have proposed a different, we would have proposed a different phasing schedule.

So I think if you would have to do it.

It was right into the code of just like how prescriptive it was, and so I think the guidance there was that we we couldn't really propose something different.

Okay.

Are you can we move on?

Yes, I just want to make one clarifying statement before we move on, just to be clear, I understand the population growth density has nothing to do with the text amendment.

But when we're talking about a citywide text amendment that has implications, you're obviously gonna be looking at the uh um commercial market, you're gonna be looking at the population density, all that is gonna matter when it comes to phasing, and that's why I had to bring it up.

All that is gonna matter when it comes to phasing, and that's why I had to bring it up.

Yeah, because I just want to make sure you're curious.

I mean I'll get to the phone.

We thought it would go next before this also.

So it's like why is it with the things you said?

Why is it not going yet?

But I guess you know, then each case has to be made on the merits of each application.

So you have that ability to come back and review it with you know, really drilled in effect.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Commissioner Plansia.

I just kind of wanted to piggyback off what Commissioner Maniles is saying.

I I think if you present this to us, then we should be able to speak on it.

So I that's how I feel we should do with all the presentations.

I know we're talking about the text amendment, but this is what's in front of us.

And I won't take too much time on it because she said a lot of the things that I had written down, which just seemed really inconsistent, especially we're talking city, and then this is showing county, and then it's not both, so it kind of just doesn't even apply really.

And then um, just on this one that we're looking at in particular.

I still don't understand why not, because if we're looking at the Frederick shopping center, and that's saying 66,000 and a three-mile radius, and then Ren quarter would have been 66,000 and a three-mile radius.

It's a difference of a hundred and sixteen.

Like, why not?

So that's why again, so normally if you go to look at there's a space, you can find the flyer for Clemson Corner.

They have a small shop there, it's 1200 square feet, and there's one at Shops of Anoxie, 1400 square feet.

They would those stores are there, those spaces are gonna compete for tenants.

That if we had that 32,000 foot building, it would be do we want to go here or there?

And so one, that was that it's it highlights that the three mile doesn't matter as much in this case.

Again, we were one three five was when I go to buy a shopping center or build one, what are those?

Because if you have the right anchor, they'll drive to you.

But the trade areas in Freder, all those three miles are overlapping, as you can see.

So it shares a lot of demos, the demographics, but then which what's the travel path?

Which road are you on?

Which way are you getting home?

And those cars are 16,000 versus much higher numbers.

So that the traffic's not there, and then when you look at the one mile, though the one miles are lower too.

So again, it's not a death now, like it's getting there.

It's just that that today those markets are preferred, and the place isn't done.

We think this will help it get done, and then ultimately we'll be successful.

But that's that's really why I guess.

For time's sake, because the rest of all my comments I had were based off this presentation that actually has nothing to do with the text amendment proposed.

Um, I'm gonna save it for you guys because I'm not gonna.

I can discuss it offline.

And also that we can't brought this up was we can't do that.

Oh, well, but as well.

The reason we brought these up is because that was the critique from the um the citizens, the the neighborhood that these were they didn't buy into what we were as they should, because they were promised this and it's not there, and you just said that it was three years looking for retail and then couldn't find it, went to an international company, still don't have anybody like all these experts.

I tell you guys this already, it's a team of experts all the time, but it's still like just for not the trying.

I mean, we're we're working on getting it done.

There's it's competitive landscape.

There's a lot of places to go.

We're we're not the only ones waving our arms around trying to get a tenant, but we're gonna get there.

All the other places have have it, and that's in your presentation.

Like we're going even by what you presented.

They have it, why not rank order?

That's I'll leave it.

I'll leave it there.

Thanks.

Commissioner Wellum.

Um, so a lot of the things that I had written down were already stated, but I you know, if you are trying to communicate with citizens, I think providing data sets that make sense and don't differ between slides and not know what you're presenting when someone says is this include city or not include city.

I think that's confusing and just not right for the citizens and not fair to them when they were promised this.

Um, but I don't see any data being presented to sway me one way or another with what what you're asking this evening.

That's all.

All right.

Um at this point, let's open it up for public comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um can you give me the sign and cheat, Jennifer?

Let's start there.

Just quickly a raise of hand.

How many people are interested in commenting on this?

Just I want to see how many, like hold them up and wave them so I can see.

Five or so, okay, just as long as it's not 23.

Um, we're gonna start with um Mark Burroughs.

Reminder, you've got three minutes.

That's fine.

So, Mark Burroughs 492 ensemble way uh in Ren Quarter.

Um, I'm fine with them getting an extension or whatever if that's what they need.

The economy is different.

You know, if I want to open a coffee shop and coffee costs 50% more than it did a couple months ago because of the whims of whoever, then I understand the need for an extension.

What I'm what I'm concerned about and ask for both from Matt and DR and frankly from the city, is accountability that you know we that what was promised is there, but also transparency, you know, that we understand what's going on.

I didn't buy by any of those other shopping centers because they're ugly strip malls, right?

That's not what was promised to us, and so you know the look and feel and everything else is important.

Um, but you know, again, the transparency, just there's other things, again, that that it's very hard to track what's going on with the different amenities and stuff that were a prom, you know, the the extension of Bond Street and the walkway to the to downtown and things of that.

I can't figure out where that is, where it sits.

I send emails once a week, you know.

Sometimes I get a response, sometimes I don't.

So, you know, it's just across the board transparency and accountability.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um James Gibbs has left, is that correct?

Yes.

Rob Thompson.

Thanks for allowing me to speak this evening.

If I have like three extra seconds at the end, I'd love to make a couple of comments to the gentleman.

I I was there at that meeting, but instead, I'd like to go directly at what you're looking for this evening, which is to talk about the um the changes to the code.

Uh my name is Rob Thompson.

I live at 806 Bond Street, and um I really am wanting to acknowledge what I think is really a fantastic and positive step.

Moving the phase specifications onto the master plan, that's exactly the right move.

Um, it's very smart planning.

It allows the phasing plan to be considered within the full context of the project's design, its infrastructure needs, and also the neighborhood impact, which is exactly where that conversation should be.

This is a much better option than a 2575 one-size-fits-all operation, so it's perfect.

But I do have deep concerns about the second part of the proposal, allowing the planning department staff to approve future phasing modifications without direct commission oversight.

That change, while it's intended to streamline the process, it would reduce our transparency.

It would weaken public engagement, and it would shift a discretionary decision from a public body to an internal administrative process.

Why does it matter?

First, phasing matters just as much after the approval as it does during the initial review, as we all know.

If the construction sequence changes significantly, delaying non-residential uses for several years, it can fundamentally alter how a neighborhood evolves, what infrastructure is built and when, and whether residents get the amenities that they were promised.

I'm very concerned that this has already happened at Rank Quarter.

This is not just a technical tweak.

It's a substantive issue, deserves public notice, the opportunity for neighbors to be heard, and for your careful deliberation as a commission.

Secondly, staff level approvals, while they are efficient, they remove the benefit of your broader policy perspectives and the public's trust in a transparent process.

We've seen in the past, including the 2012 phasing amendment that was mentioned, that changes in market conditions and can have long-term consequences.

And as the staff report notes, phasing can directly intersect with adequate public facilities findings and mitigation agreements.

That's not something the community should see changed without the safeguard of a public hearing before your commission.

I'm not against flexibility.

Developers do need to be able to respond to real world conditions, but flexibility and oversight are not opposites.

We can have both.

Keep the initial phasing plan with the master plan stage, require the subsequent phasing changes come back to the planning commission for a single public hearing without the full council's need for review for MU2.

And ensure public notice so that affected residents like myself can weigh in.

That approach give gives applicants a path to adjust quickly while preserving commission oversight and community confidence.

We all share the goal of seeing our mixed use project succeed, but success isn't measured in completed units, measured in trust.

It's measured in trust, amenities delivered when promised and neighborhoods that grow as they're planned.

I respectfully urge you to recommend to the city council that staff approval of phasing modifications be removed from the draft language and that this authority remain with you, the planning commission where I think it belongs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all the names on the list.

If anybody else wants to make public comments, I would ask that you just kind of like form a line so that I don't have to keep asking.

So the first person up and then anybody else who's interested, just kind of form a line behind, and we'll just move quickly that way.

Good evening, my name is Heather Goddard.

Thank you, God.

Oh, it's not me.

Oh, um, I didn't get sworn in this evening.

Oh, thank you.

Um, does anybody else who's not been sworn in today?

Tonight.

All right.

If you want to make comments, then um please anybody else who needs to be sworn in, stand and um raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the statements made and the where the statements made and the responses given in this hearing before the planning commission will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

So answer I do.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Yeah.

Uh my name is Heather Goddard, I'm from Frederick.

So mixed use projects can vary widely and based on many factors.

So some parts of the mixed use formula will probably be less profitable than others.

So what's the mechanism for accountability?

Should a developer go bankrupt or abandon the project after constructing the more profitable parts of the mixed use product project, how does the city get those left less profitable parts built?

People aren't as interested in building those, and the ones that make the money are already done and the developer is gone.

So what's our mechanism to ensure that the mixed use vision gets completed?

Um the retail or whatever the less profitable portion is, as you we've discussed in 2012, sometimes it's the other way around.

Um, it might not be maximally profitable, but neither is the community pool or the community center, the dog park, or the totlots.

Those things don't generate the revenue, but they're considered amenities that bring value to a mixed-use project.

And so if somebody was promised that amenity, it should be constructed even if it's at a subsidy or a less profitable rate than a market rate would be.

Um we believe the goals that we have for the mixed-use developments should be protected by the city through its laws.

The reality is that when building a mixed-use development, those mixed uses should be considered necessary amenities, and one part may need to be built at a slight subsidy for the benefit of the profitable area area in order to fulfill the vision, the vision, the promise of a mixed use development.

We also wanted to note the burden to the public to go to the meetings for so many modifications to the master plans that are already approved.

So they we attend multiple meetings at the master plan stage, and then after the fact, if developers have the opportunity to make such a large change, uh it is a burden to the community.

Many who purchase their homes with the understanding that there will be retail or parkland, etc.

Uh, built soon around them as part of a new mixed-use development to have to relitigate that those original stipulations of the master plan um development that they bought into.

So that's that goes more towards this is a zoning tax amendment to be dealt with as an entire city mixed-use developers.

It's just um not necessarily this uh specific development, but for consideration for any mixed use development that's gonna undergo this change.

Um, there is litigation right now, or uh, we believe, I'm not quite sure, over who, but there's uncertainty over who has the responsibility to construct the shared use path from the terminus of Bond Street to Highland Street.

It was a condition of rezoning.

Um the parcels were changed hands, so uh DR Horton or four-star purchase the rights to build the um the townhomes, but now who has the responsibility to comply with the rezone the conditions of rezoning, it's unclear, and so that this further clouds the waters of who is responsible to do the parts that are not quite as profitable for mixed use development.

Um I do we did I did want to offer a counter perspective to the uh statement that was made that rent quarter has taken shape.

Mixed use uh has three parts, right?

It's got your your residential, your your non-residential, and your open space.

If you look at the rent quarter development, can I take 10 minutes from with East Fred Rising?

With East Fredericksing, yes.

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, for another thank you so much.

So we would like to offer a counter perspective.

Mixed use is those three parts.

Um, East Frederic Rising would add a fourth critical component connectivity.

Since most developments don't usually have ideal conditions for all three parts, connections to adjacent properties like parks and retail are critical to enhance the livability of an urban development.

So, how does Ren Corridor Metasure up after 10 years pass post-rezoning approval?

Well, we do have the residential, we don't have a developed parkland, we don't have the retail, and we don't have connections to those things.

Uh that resid the walkability.

Um if the resident, if the um development is not on a major arterial road, well, it never was, and it's not going to attract the kind of car central, car-centric national retail um tenants that they might be courting.

Um the shopping center in Patrick Street suggests that it has many more tenants, including fractured prune, central dogma, pet groomer, bells, two stores plus Martin Brown's, which compete for the best deli sandwich in Frederick.

That shopping center is thriving full of small businesses.

Um I'm not being defensive, I'm just saying small businesses, um, those dollars stay in Frederick more than any national chain.

It's what downtown is known for, it's what the residents vision the residents were sold.

So I would actually put that shopping center up against something that might be desirable tenants.

There's no turnover, those businesses are long established for decades.

So and we could also examine the shopping center directly across the street with the garage, it's a restaurant, not a garage, Puerto Rico distillery, dragon distillery, the dog groomer, they're all thriving businesses, they're all long standing.

There's no turnover in these places, it's walkable, and people go there.

Those businesses are doing well.

So I do suggest my point is should we question whether or not the the effort, the good faith effort, is been directed to building the type of retail that that area would support well, the type of retail that is already thriving all around that area.

Um the fact that they analyze it properly.

I do think they're analyzing it through a car-centric lens.

They're looking at arterial roads, and that's you know, the the it was marketed as a walkable mixed use development.

So the they're struggling, um, and I think they're going to continue unless they shift the focus to what we've seen is um got a track record of success of retail in that area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Hannah Nickerson.

I live at 415 Sherman Avenue.

I do not claim to be a commercial real estate developer or agent or anything of the sort, or even land management code expert.

Um, but my understanding as a general citizen is the impetus for this code request amendment uh uh the amendment request is stemming from a failure to secure commercial retailers who want to be in that space.

And ah, the backbone of American culture, big box chain stores.

Um as was said earlier, that's not the vision of what Frederick is being sold to when we get in these national magazines as best place to live, top 10 this.

You're not seeing Dunkin' Donuts and you know, Lowe's.

You're seeing um high quality, high quality ocean front um retail properties being downtown Frederick, where business and residents are very closely intermingled.

Um my interpretation of this request is just a developer trying to make their own rules.

What I think is good about the current code wording is that it sets a line in the sand for how we think the phasing of the city uh development should happen.

I don't understand why they couldn't just make an amend propose an amendment to that rather than setting their own rules from the beginning, and I agree that there's also uh concerns around transparency.

Were we to change when that phasing is decided?

Um again, it really just seems like there is an inherent failure in the mixed use design plan to begin with, uh, focusing on the wrong type of retail space.

Uh you know, whoever wants to lease, it's the wrong people to focus on.

We should be building more small businesses directly in with residents.

Um, and I encourage this developer in the future to continue to pursue more creative solutions to their problem than amending the whole city code uh for for these reasons.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Oh, one more.

Hi.

Speaking hi, my name is Neilima.

Uh I live on uh in quarter four nine-nine Hanson Street, and I hope it's okay today.

I'm going to share a small emotion because my neighbors and my friends, they all spoke about the technicalities.

So I moved to Frederick City in 2023 after living in New York, suburban, upstate New York for about 18 years.

And the whole reason we moved is for good weather and four seasons and affordability, and of course um the um the um urban and city combination.

That's where I found this place to be wonderful, beautiful, and all the amenities, all the things that they advertised and shared with us while we bought the house really impressed me, and I got the house.

So today I'm here to request you after living in the house for about one and a half to up of course uh coming up two years.

I would like to, I feel I'm disappointed.

Uh I feel um, you know, um I'm unheard.

Um with whatever the quality of construction or the amenities or whatever it is, I feel I'm unheard.

Um, with so much uh price paying to the house, I feel unheard.

So I'm here uh to humbly request you to make sure that whoever, I I don't want to say uh, but whoever it is, please make them accountable, make sure we are protected, and you know, that's that's my request here today.

I I feel with all the ammunities and all the facilities or whatever they promised when I was buying, I feel deceived.

I I hope that's going to change uh with your intervention.

Um, and I really appreciate for this time for me to share my emotion with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I was here last time, and um please make sure I'm gonna be able to do that.

My name is Valerie Bromer.

I live at 498 Hanson Street.

I've been there for almost two years.

Basically, what I wanted to ask was already stated.

However, I want to address Matt and Transparency is key.

Many of us spent over half a million dollars and upwards on our homes.

We understand market conditions, like the stock market.

It's up and down, up and down.

You have here, I I didn't sit on a NAT meeting.

I sat in on the first commission meeting here.

Not all of us, all the homeowners receive that disclosure.

I don't know if you all were just doing a sampling, a subset or what, but we as a whole will really appreciate communication.

We actually live there.

We understand you need flexibility.

I'm distraught when personally when I don't hear a time frame.

I still didn't hear that today.

I thought I, you know, like six months, a year, if anything, I'm hearing.

Come back to the planning commission for the required six-month review.

I stand with the homeowners and warned to get what we paid for and not having to wait three, four, five years.

We understand you're not God, but put yourself in our shoes.

We're not really okay.

I'm speaking for myself.

I'm not necessarily looking for an anchor tenant.

I really would appreciate the small businesses, and we'll definitely patronize, as I stated before.

Anyway, just put yourself in our shoes.

I'm glad that you all are sitting and taking a bench and allowing another.

Well, you allowed one root that was disclosed so far.

Continue.

Spend that extra money because we sure did with our properties.

That's it.

Good night, folks.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right.

Do you have any responses to public comments?

Sure.

First, apologize that you didn't get the please speak into the microphone.

Sorry, sorry.

I apologize that you didn't get the notice.

It was we use the uh our engineers' address database should have gone to every house.

Um your neighbors have our card, uh, our information on the website.

Happy to have a personal conversation about it to follow up.

Um I understand we're not going to change everybody's mind.

I do thank you for the opportunity to speak and appreciate everybody's commentary, understand the emotions around it.

Um, we're a local freighter company, been here for 50 years doing business, it doesn't do us any good to have negative sentiment around our name.

Uh there are multiple cooks in the kitchen here, so there's some grievances that may be out there for different parties that um are being aimed at us, but I I understand it.

This is your biggest investment.

You want it to come to fruition.

We're doing our best to get it there.

We believe that we can get it there.

We believe the ZTA will be helpful.

Um we don't want to miss step and deliver something that ends up having a vacancy problem or uh ends up detracting from the value of the neighborhood.

But again, that's that's our best assessment of it.

We think we can get there, we're doing our best to do it and uh appreciate the time.

Thanks.

Right, thank you.

All right, so now it comes up here for discussion.

Um I just want to kind of set the stage by saying we're being asked to make one recommendation to the city council on both parts of their text amendment request.

But I I personally see this and thought about this in two steps.

And the first step was the first part, which was the request to change the text from requiring some kind of 75-25 split to a phasing split that's proposed by the um developer at the time of master plan.

Um personally, I don't see a problem with having the allowing the developer to propose a scheme that makes sense to them, but let's discuss aim part of our discussion around that issue.

To me, the second issue is oh changing the text amendment to allow for an amendment to the master plan to amend the phasing schedule, whatever it is, if it appears not to be working.

Um that's where I personally have some problems with this.

Um we had a public speaker that succinctly summarized all of my thoughts as I was reading this.

It needs to come to the my opinion.

Again, this will be discussion.

It needs to come to the the planning commission for the opportunity for public comment.

It doesn't need to go through more than one, it doesn't need to go back to the city council for a recommendation, it doesn't need multiple meetings.

Um there needs to be some kind of criteria that shows that the applicant has gathered data, has tried to make good on their original phasing.

Um, there might be other conditions that you guys come up with too.

Um thing to realize is we're discussing this.

We can't change the text of this.

We can make recommendations to the city council, um, but but we don't we can't necessarily nitpick text because that's up to the city council.

Um so think about our discussion in terms of recommendations that if we're gonna make a recommendation to the city council things that they include.

So can we question?

Yeah, uh, so we can't, yeah.

So they have the proposed text, but I know before we've like said, you know, when we've read a motion, we can put proposed wording or change it at the time of the motion, right?

So because this is a recommendation to the city council, they can ultimately use the exact language.

Now we can discuss conditions that we like.

Um we can discuss some language.

Would that registration be added in?

It could either be added in or you can ask the applicant if they wanted to revise their text to meet our recommendations before it went to the city council.

So that's fair.

All right, okay.

So can we do the first discussion about the first part of it?

And I'll just open this up as a I'm I'm a little confused because um I could have sworn when I spoke to Gabrielle that we could have made some um modifications to the text.

I mean, I'm so am I wrong about that?

Like when I say modifications, I'm not talking about a significant modification to like an A as opposed to a the and uh in as opposed to an out.

Um like what what exactly so do we not are we not allowed to do that at all?

So I'm I'm just a little confused.

I need clarification.

Uh if you wish to make a recommendation on modifications, you may do so.

Okay, by all means but my understanding from Gabrielle when we've had past amendments where we wanted to change the text of the text amendment, and her response has been the text amendment was written by the applicant, this is what they want submitted.

If you know you can either you can we can suggest changes, but we can't require changes of the text without them.

That's that's what I was trying to suggest.

If you if you would recommend recommend approval with the mod with these modifications or recommend approval with these changes to the text, you don't get to put forth the actual text of the amendment going to the council, but you could make your recommendations that we would approve this if these changes were incorporated or if these changes were taken out, however, you chose to do it that way.

If that's maybe I was I apologize if I was being confusing about that.

But yes, you can make recommendations on changes to the text, but it's going to the council as presented.

Right.

So so if we make a recommendation to send this to the council, even if we make our recommendations, they're going to see this text.

That is my understanding.

So we can't we can't make changes to the text that the council sees.

So without but you could make recommendations of changes that you would like to see.

Correct.

Okay.

So they will have the language of the current text that is proposed as well as our um suggestions.

Correct.

Sure.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you want to go ahead?

Yeah, I'll start.

So um, so I don't agree with the first part.

So I have a problem with both.

Um the first and the second.

I feel like the language should remain as it is.

Um that um it should be when we talk about the phasing piece of it, it should be a case by case.

Um I feel like the flexibility would be.

Wait a minute.

The phasing part of this needs flexibility.

Which part of it are you talking about?

Part two?

Paragraph two?

Or are we talking about paragraph one still?

I'm still talking about paragraph one.

Okay.

I think the language needs to remain the same, okay, related to the percentages, okay, while still offering um some type of general phasing that would be for a case by case basis.

So basically you're suggesting that the language of the LMC would keep the 7525, but add a condition that under certain circumstances the applicant would be a case by case as presented with compensating factors, that that would because obviously, you know, um markets change things happen, so we want to provide flexibility, and I don't have a problem with that.

I'm just saying that we should still keep the language as is, and then provide that language or at least suggestion that speaks to in light of you know, you know, um executive circumstances, unique challenges, whatever that there be allowed a general phasing of some sort that would be proposed by so if you can see the need for opportunities for flexibility.

Why do you think it's important to keep the 7525 language in the case?

Because it seems to be where we don't, it seems to be working for other people.

I mean, like accountability, right?

Yeah, and and it should just say that, and if if there is one, because I mean, when we look at that table that had all these other projects, yeah, they had some concerns, but they were able to meet the requirements.

And so I'm just saying that you know we should be able to have something that allows flexibility for people who have unique challenges and be able to provide a general phasing plan in the light of certain conditions, you know.

I think that that's fine.

Like the a case by case basis would be okay.

It's just my thoughts on that.

And then the second piece, of course, is a transparency.

As I spoke to Christina earlier, I think the admin process does not allow for a general meeting.

Correct.

They still have to attend the citywide community outreach meeting.

Okay, but that's it.

That's about it.

Okay.

Along with the the mailings to let them know when it's being held.

Okay.

So just wanting to make sure that there's some transparency for the general public and that they are able to be part of the process, though I understand Christina is better to have more meetings than none.

But um, so that's where I am in my head for those two things.

I do believe flexibility um should be allowed.

Okay.

Um I'll go ahead.

Um so I I think the biggest problem here was just that it wasn't a modifiable, it wasn't modifiable to begin with.

And I feel like that's what's always come up and why this is a big problem.

But I also agree that I still don't think the wording should be changed at all in the first or the second part.

I still like the idea of having the parameters because that's the accountability, that's why it's kind of at this point, and you know, people are feeling disappointed, they're feeling like you know, they put their money in and still didn't get it delivered or things like that, and that could be a bigger problem citywide by changing those parameters in particular from the 7525.

So I actually wrote wording and brought it with me of just my thoughts of what I think it should be, which would be to keep the beginning the same.

Um it would be building permits for no more than 75% of the residential dwelling units may be issued until at least 25% of the non-residential floor area is constructed, and building permits for no more than 75% of the non-residential floor area may be issued until record plats for at least 25% of the dwelling units have been recorded for the residential units on the multifamily lot to be counted toward the 25% minimum, a site plan for those units must be unconditionally approved, which is the original wording.

But then I would like to add a section three of the planning commission may approve adjustments to the phasing parameters on a case by case basis when an applicant demonstrates that when the proposed change will not compromise the intent of the MU district or the comprehensive plan, adequate public facilities and infrastructure will still be provided in a timely manner.

The modification is supported by detailed evidence such as updated market feasibility studies, infrastructure capacity analysis, construction phasing logistics, or other documented planning considerations that clearly demonstrate a public benefit and alignment with long-term development goals, and lastly, public notification will also include advanced notice of all upcoming planning commission city council workshops and hearings related to the project, ensuring residents have the opportunity to participate, provide feedback, and stay informed on project progress and proposed changes.

Notifications may include mailed letters, posted signage, website updates, or community meetings as determined appropriate by the planning commission.

Is that language referring to the first part or the whole thing?

It's I don't agree with either one of those.

I think we should stick with the original wording and add the third section that I just read.

But does that third where does that third section apply?

Does that apply to the original application in the master plan, or does that apply to proposed modifications in the future?

It would be proposed.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it will be on a case-by-case basis.

Okay.

Um are you so that way it is modifiable if they run into an issue with the original wording, this would give that.

So you're not necessarily open to Commissioner Manellus's concept of keeping the original language at the master plan development stage and also opening it up to flexibility.

I still no, I am with the original wording as it's written in the LMC, because the parameters are there, it's outlined, it's what's still been building Frederick, and then adding in the case-by-case basis so that it could be modifiable for them if there was a unique situation, but actually providing still the infrastructure like those walkable paths that were promised and amenities and things like that, still in a timely manner, but just you know, a little more flexible, and then also for the modification to happen to actually bring detailed supports and feasibility analysis and things like that, so we can determine if it is in fact versus just fictitious, like I just don't want to build.

So um, and then also I thought it was important to put in the public transparency.

Like add that in so it's written.

Commissioner Wellan?

Um so I agree with keeping the 2575.

I think we have to have something written there, but I think we need a little bit more flexibility.

But I also like Commissioner Valencia's public notification paragraph.

I think this is critical.

The fact that people are telling us they don't know what's going on.

Um that Pete that you know we're we're focused on what we're mailing out.

There's no reason why these can't be posted around the neighborhood.

I know I when I walk down my street, I look for things that are posted just in case I don't know something.

Um so that's kind of where I'm where I'm like.

So you're open to an amendment to the original master plan that allows for a modification of the phasing schedule with c with criteria.

Correct.

Okay.

I'm curious if I'm curious once you have your say I'd like to hear from the applicant about what they think about that, or are we not allowed to ask them what they think about that?

Yeah, I thought that's the one.

I mean, I'm just curious, I just would like to get a pulse check.

Okay.

So um, if you guys are gonna have your own stuff going on, the applicant's opinion really isn't gonna come into this because it's all you guys, right?

I would say though, staff has not had the ability to look at Commissioner Ven Valencia's uh wording, which is why I made the statement that specific wording.

I mean we can't we can't do specific words.

Yeah, we yeah, because we also we have to vet it for any contradictions or if there are other things that we have to include.

Right.

Um so you guys can make a recommendation and make it you know, a general recommendation that this is what you're looking for and they can hash out the wording later.

Right.

So let me make sure I think I hear you.

So we need to hash out the wording first.

No, no, no.

No.

Okay.

So then what are we recommending?

Yeah.

Right.

But what I'm trying to understand is so we're not going to ask the applicant anything about you can ask them about they what they're proposing, but your proposal, your wording, that that's yours.

And is it the applicant does not have any say in what you decide?

So you can ask them whatever you want, but ultimately it's it's your recommendation.

You're gonna make you would make a recommendation to keep it as is, and then additionally you want to make you want to add flexibility to it.

Right.

I'm not talking about the recommendation per se.

What I'm trying to understand is I thought I heard Commissioner Um Strosson say that um if we if they're a meanimal to some of the you know stuff that we want to include, would they be willing to do that?

So I guess we're not you want them to go back and revise it and then represent it?

So I'm thinking if we get to the point where we're not ready to craft this and we want a continuance, they are certainly welcome to listen to our thoughts and rewrite it and come back.

I don't know if that's where we are.

And can I give them a copy of this?

So that no, that we can't.

Okay.

No.

But that's fine.

Um that's why we're gonna do that.

To me, it just it's a matter of do we think that we're ready to do something to send it to the council.

No.

Um I would like the option of them going hearing our conversation and maybe coming back and giving us something updated drafts if they so choose.

Right.

That's just it.

So it sounds it sounds like three of us would support a revision to D1 that kept the original language but included language of flexibility.

Correct, case by case.

One would not, but that's okay.

Um of us are interested in providing some form of opportunity for modification with specific criteria that without doing exact language, we could lay out now, or we could think about for a month and come back to.

But in my in my perspective, specific criteria would include coming back to the planning commission with all of the public notice that that entails, providing criteria such as a market assessment, correct, um, a documentation of the work that has been done, a reason why the phasing cannot be met, what else?

Um the public notification and that's sort of inherent in coming back to the planning commission.

Well, I think it needs to be very clear the way they do the public notices that they're receiving it because they're saying that they haven't even received and there should be other there's plenty of methods you can do.

We can't change public notice requirements and lend management code here.

Okay, so well even if they're not working.

Correct.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

You can make a recommendation to your city council representative to change that.

Um I have that is that I mean, is that does that sum it up?

Oh well.

I have here uh one of the criteria is a proposed phasing plan responsive to the current market conditions.

Okay.

So I don't know.

And that the adequate public facilities and infrastructure still be provided in a timely manner, even if they're going through this process, some of like that green space amendment like that should still be happening.

Like there's no reason it shouldn't.

If it was promised.

I mean, is that does that form the basis of a motion that you guys could vote on?

No.

No, not really, because I I would like to know that all it's gonna be like I don't feel like there's still a system in place from the city just from changing this wording of what would be accepted and supported by a modification because even the wording that was submitted was still very vague.

So let me recognize that we don't have control over that.

Well, yeah, but it's still very vague where it just says that the applicant, where's the word in uh a phasing modification shall be justified by planning market or other legitimate concerns of the applicant?

Well, that's what we're discussing.

Yeah, so I think criteria that I just think it should be.

Yeah, it should just be specific.

Like I had market feasibility studies, things like that, infrastructure, like you get a um, so like we said, like you can't recommend you know exact wording, right?

Right.

And we normally, you know, have the very specific things that we need for modifications or for requests, you know, variances, all that stuff.

Um, we have to make sure that it's legal to ask for as well.

Um but if you are going to recommend such a change to the proposed text amendment, I do think we need to reopen it up to public comment.

Well, let me add that.

I'm sorry.

My suggestion was if you're gonna go back and type something new and create a new presentation for what you want to add for changes, then it would probably be appropriate to hear from everyone.

If you're gonna go again punt this for another month to do that, you're probably should open it up.

If you just want to create based upon what you've heard tonight, create the basis for these recommendations.

If you don't have exact language, but you have concepts that you want to have incorporated, then I don't think you need to do that because you've heard from everyone and you've made some decisions.

But if you're gonna send this back for exacting language that you want to have represented that you're gonna deliberate on, then I would think that you're gonna want to hear back from everybody based upon what these changes are that you're really trying to put forth if you want to go down that road.

Aren't we back to the situation where this isn't our text amendment?

Right.

So we really can't propose exact language.

You're you're pre well.

I know I I understand that, and that's what I said before.

You you want to say recommend approval with these modifications, right?

Or with these changes.

As opposed to I recommend an approval with you know, address these things that we think are deficient or these insufficiencies within the statute itself.

And conceptually, certainly we have we have the planning department who can draft those up and say these are the concerns that the planning commission had, or or say recommend non-approval unless these things are addressed, if that's the way you wanted to go about it.

Okay.

I mean you have you have options here, but if you're gonna go back and craft new language, very specific language that you want to have added, then you're probably you know going going another step backwards.

Which you could do, but that's not what we generally do, as we said.

Guys, tell me what you want to do.

It it almost sounds like rejecting it and adding conditions makes more sense and sends a stronger message to council than approving with conditions.

And that's all just semantics in the way this works.

Yeah, making a motion to deny this language unless the following conditions are unless they want another chance to rewrite it.

Do you want to do that now or do you want to continue it?

Continue with that.

I think continue.

I think they want to re-then let's have a motion.

Okay.

All right.

I move for a motion.

How do I know where you're yet?

I move for a motion to continue PC two five five five ZTA, the Article 4, Section 417, mixed use districts, and one, I mean MU1 and MU2 phasing zoning text amendment two to the September 8th 2025 hearing.

I second that.

So it's a motion to continue by Commissioner Valencia, second by Commissioner Llewellyn.

All in favor.

Aye.

And let me just say that all of us who have made our individual notes and things, send it all to staff.

They can coordinate it.

And then we'll go from there.

Something along those lines.

Okay, yeah.

If you could, if you could send me all any of your anything that you guys want added in there, and we can we can analyze it.

Yeah, all right.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We're going to take a quick five-minute break.

Hold on, let me left.

All right.

Are you guys all ready?

Let's go ahead and get started again.

Our next next case, we're gonna go back to the rest of the agenda in order.

So our next case is PC one six four three four zero one MU architectural review for Summervale Summers Farm.

Um good evening.

I'd like to enter the staff report into the record.

The applicant is requesting um approval for architectural renderings for new single family detached and townhouse models in the Summervale mixed use development.

Um they are also requesting a modification of section six oh four B3H2A, which states that windows um shall have a vertical to horizontal ratio of at least one and a half to one, um, but not more than four to one.

Um, the application is for the um introduction of additional single family homes for DR Horton.

They did have some that were previously approved with their combined preliminary platinum site plan.

So these are just some additional models that they would like to um have for the development.

Um there are um with regard to the modification, um, they're requesting to have uh windows with a one-to-one ratio, um and that is to allow these windows in bedroom um bathrooms and powder rooms to provide natural light while also providing privacy.

Um the applicant states that the windows don't re uh degrade the character of the community and is consistent with other architectural that were approved within the city.

Um staff does concur with the assessment.

Um the the windows do um keep within the um character of the community and the overall design of the project and is consistent with um other communities that have also received this modification for the single family detached units.

For the single family detached units, there are six design elements that they must include.

The ones that the applicant has chosen are front elevation, main entrance, vehicle and pedestrian areas, roofs, and exterior finished materials, windows and entryways, and other elements.

The other elements will be high visibility elements for side elevations, and those will include shutters and trim boards.

For the townhouse units, they must have five of the elements that are listed in the land management code.

And the five that the applicant is selected for that is main entrance, vehicle and pedestrian areas, roofs, exterior finished materials, windows and entryways, and also other elements which include those high visibility elements that are the same as the single family detached.

The architecturals that they have provided do meet all of these elements.

And that is it for the report.

Staff recommendation is for the first action is approval of the modification of section 604 B3H2A to allow windows with a one-to-one ratio.

Staff finds that the request is in keeping with the character of the overall design of the project and is consistent with the previous architecturals that are approved for single family dwellings and townhouses and other communities.

Therefore, staff recommends approval of the modification of section 604 B3H2A.

Secondly, the second action is approval of the single family detached and townhouse architectural elevations for DR Horton homes.

Staff finds that the architectural elevations meet the criteria of section 604 of the land management code and the approved master plan for the Summervale mixed use development.

Therefore, staff recommends unconditional approval of the DR Horton architectural elevations, PC 22.

I'm sorry, PC 16-40.

Sorry, I've got the wrong number, 434-01 MU.

And I'll be happy to answer any questions.

No, perfect.

Applicant good evening, Planet Commission members for the record, Eric Soder with Rogers Consulting Land Planner and principal.

And with me is Kevin Staley with D.R.

Horton, Kelsey Stewart with DO Hurton and Tim Crawford with Rogers Consultant as our engineer.

For everybody just to understand where Summervale was and is what's on the screen is the illustrative from our preliminary plan.

And this got annexed in the city back in you know 2009, so it was you know almost 16, 17 years ago.

And then we went through an annexation amendment in 2015, and then had our master plan and all the APFO approvals in 2022, and then our preliminary plan in 2023.

And as part of your master plan process, we even at that time have to address some of the architectural elements, at least in a conceptual phase, and talk about what we're going to do and how we're going to achieve it.

And some of the things that we do with an architectural elements is we actually achieve it through the land plan.

So we're very proud of how this plan has developed between the organizing feature of Butterfly Lane Extended and that very large city park that's going to be added to the city on that west side.

And as part of that, you can see the kind of the coloring on that illustrate shows the different housing types.

So a lot of diversity in the housing stock in terms of some neo-traditional or alley loaded product as well as some front loaded product, both townhomes and single family detached.

Then we went through the preliminary plan.

We had a good idea of what some of those architectural themes that we were going to include, what as you can imagine over time you know, as Ms.

Dear Horton is in the community, learn about the products that are selling.

You don't want to necessarily mimic everything that's happening in other communities, but you want to pull from the best.

So I'm not going to belabor it any more.

We do have, I have Kevin here if you do want us to go through an example of the townhouse or singles, but I think we both we've addressed your workshop and um just here to answer any questions, and we're happy to go through uh an example if you'd like or take some questions.

Great, thank you.

Does anybody have questions?

No, I think we're good.

Okay, you good?

All right.

Um, do I have any public comment on this?

Nope.

Seeing none, it comes back up here.

We have two actions.

One is an approval of the modification, and the second one is the approval or of the single of the elevations.

I'd like to make a motion for approval of a modification of section 604 B3H2A to allow windows with the one to one ratio, finding that the request is keeping with the character of the overall design of the project and is consistent with previous architecturals that were approved for single-family dwellings in other communities.

Second.

So there's a motion by Commissioner Lewell and a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

That's unanimous.

And then action two.

I move for the approval of the single family detached and townhouse architectural elevations from DR Horton Homes.

Finding the architectural elevations meet the criteria of section 604 of the land management code and the approved master plan for the Summervale mixed use development.

I second that.

That is a motion by Commissioner Balencia.

Second by Commissioner Llewellyn, all in favor.

I aye.

Very good.

That concludes that item.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next item is PC 22-514-05 PND architectural review for Sycamore Springs.

The applicant is requesting approval of architecturals for new single-family detached and townhouse models in the Sycamore Ridge Plan Neighborhood Development.

And they are also requesting approval of a modification to section 604B3H2A, which states that window shovel vertical to horizontal ratio of at least one and one-half to one, but not more than four to one.

This is the first set of architecturals that have been submitted for Sycamore Springs.

And the um for the criteria in this for a PND, they are for single family detached, they are to meet at least five of the criteria or the elements that are that are listed in the land management code.

The ones that the applicant has selected is main entrance, exterior finished materials, windows and entryways, and other elements that can be approved by the commission.

And as part of those other elements, there are two elements that they are providing, which is high visibility elements such as masonry water tables to cover exposed foundation areas as well as side window treatments and also comprehensive online on lot landscaping.

So with this with the details single family detached, they do meet the requirements for each of those criteria listed.

And with regard to the modification, they also, like I said, want to utilize the square windows that will be located on the first floor powder rooms on the right side elevations of the models, and which will provide natural light in the powder rooms while providing privacy.

For the single family attached or townhouse units, they must meet at least four of the elements in the LMC.

And so those are listed in the staff report.

And they do meet all of those criteria in addition to the other other elements that they're proposing, which will have for garage doors, front loaded garage facades will have decorated decorative embossed panel garage doors with glass.

And there will be the installation of additional adequately spaced landscape material along the length of each driveway.

And that's shown in the packet as well.

So with that, I will go through the recommendations.

Staff finds that the request is in keeping with the character of the overall design of the project and is consistent with previous architecturals that were approved for single-family detached and townhouse dwelling units and other communities.

Therefore, staff recommends approval of the modification.

And action two is approval of the architectural elevations for Ryan Homes, single family detached and townhouse models for Sycamore Springs.

Staff finds that the architectural elevations meet the criteria of section 604 of the land management code as well as the approved master plan for the Sycamore Springs Plan Neighborhood Development.

Therefore, staff recommends unconditional approval of the architectural elevations for the Ryan Holmes single family detached and townhouse models for Sycamore Springs.

All right, thank you.

Do we have any questions for staff?

No.

Seeing none.

Good evening.

My name's Nick Wade with Ryan Holmes.

We're really excited about Sycamore Springs for a variety of reasons, but I think the most exciting piece is to continue to be able to uh carry on the linear park of Christopher's Crossing.

Um and this is a key component of tying that in.

Um what we've um tried to do with the architecture is make it very complimentary of the surrounding communities of of Sycamore Rich, which is across the street from this, and carry on the similar style of architecture that we've presented there.

Um I know we've discussed the architecture in detail at the workshop.

I'm happy to review that this evening, or if we're good, um I'm open for any questions.

And by the way, I really do appreciate your guys' compliments commission to this evening.

They've been enjoyable to listen to.

Well good.

I truly mean that too.

So I am going to slow things down by asking one question.

Please.

I'm sorry.

Can you show us an example of a horizontal window that it's the one five one ratio?

Yeah.

Just show us what that looks like.

Give me one second to get there.

Okay, so there's there's two examples.

Um the first one is on the Ballinger.

And what what you're noticing here is um two.

Can you use the pointer?

Can you use a pointer?

Excuse me.

Pointer.

Uh, where the air where the two arrows are.

Okay.

Well you're noticing here, these are purely um decorative windows that will um that will be black behind them.

Okay, so that they're they're not even operational windows in the home.

They're an attic spaces.

So that's the first example.

So, which is the one that's the one five one horizontal ratio.

Sure, that's gonna be on the Seneca.

Oh, okay.

And what you're seeing in the top right-hand corner on elevation C.

Okay.

Um what we're doing here is just trying to um give some architecture, architectural detail of having different style windows um compared to the three that are in the center of that given section of the home.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

No other questions?

No.

All right, any public comment?

Nope.

All right, bring it back up here again.

We have two actions.

One regarding the modification to um to the windows, and the second one regarding the um architectural elevations.

Okay, I motion to approve a modification of section 604 B3H2A to allow windows with a one-to-one ratio and a horizontal ratio of less than one to five to one.

Finding that the request is in keeping with the character of the overall design of the project and is consistent with previous architecturals that were approved for single-family detached dwelling units in other communities.

Second.

So it is a motion by Commissioner Llewellyn a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

And then action two, move for the approval of architectural elevations for the Ryan Homes single family detached and townhouse models for Sycamore Springs.

Finding the architectural elevations meet the criteria of section 604 of the land management code and the approved master plan for the neighbor for the planned neighborhood development.

Second.

That is a motion by Commissioner Blencia, second by Commissioner Manellas.

All in favor.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, moving right along.

Our next case is PC 25-160 FSI.

Final site plan for Blumen Fiber Hut.

Um, I'd like to enter the staff report um into the record.

The applicant is requesting a re approval of a site plan to expand its existing telecommunications use by adding three pre manufactured fiber hut buildings, um, two which will be uh 24 feet by 36 feet, and one uh 12 foot by 36 foot, and also one generator.

Um the property is part of the Ballinger Creek Planned Neighborhood Development, and it's uh approximately 2.3 acres in size.

It's many its zone manufacturing office and is also in the highway noise impact overlay.

There is an existing water treatment facility that's the cities and another telecommunications facility on the lot.

Let's see.

The proposed improvements again include those three fiber huts, which are pre-manufactured.

They will house telecommunications equipment and they will be unoccupied.

The generator will also be added, and the buildings will be 9.79 feet approximately in height.

There is a 15-foot private sign easement that runs along the southwest corner of the property.

However, it is a private easement, so we really don't have any purview or jurisdiction over that easement.

I just asked that it be added to the final site plan when it comes back in for unconditional approval.

So in the MO district, predominant exterior building materials cannot include smooth face concrete block, smooth face tilt-up concrete panels, or prefabricated steel panels.

And the applicant did provide elevations or photos of the existing buildings, and the new fiber huts will be similar in nature to that, and they do not include any of those prohibited exterior materials.

Let's see.

On the plan, the access back to the back portion of the property is labeled Ballinger Center Court.

However, that's just a private easement.

So that Ballinger Center Court doesn't actually exist, but it does form part of the access that goes to the back of the property.

For forest conservation, there was a preliminary forest conservation plan that was approved back in 96 for the entire Ballinger Creek PD.

Therefore, no further forest conservation requirements are needed for this.

For landscaping, a lot of the landscaping has already been met with previous site plans on the site.

The applicant is removing eight trees and three shrubs that are proposed within the equipment area, and they will be replacing them with eight cedar trees and three leatherly viburnum shrubs along the southern portion of the property.

And there's no parking lot landscaping required as there is no parking, and a level one buffer is required along the property lines were with other manufactured office zone properties, but those were also provided with previous site plans.

So those have all been issued.

For stormwater, the concept plan and the stormwater development plan have been approved.

And for the archaeological assessment, they did submit an initial assessment and a letter of no further action was issued on August 1st.

So with that, the action first action is approval of the final site plan PC 25-160 FSI for Lumen Fiber Hut.

Staff finds that the plan complies with Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the LMC.

It's consistent with the comprehensive plan, and the site will be adequately served by public facilities.

Approval of the combined final site plan PC 25-160 FSI with the following conditions.

One, add the case number, PC 25-160 FSI to the title blocks on all the pages.

Two, correct the purpose statement under the general notes and the site narrative on the cover sheet to list the fiber hut buildings and generator.

Three, show the sign easement on the plan and provide the library folio reference.

Four, update note D with the correct building coverage, height for the fiber huts and the impervisio, and add the limits of disturbance.

Five, update note J with the APFO exemption approval dates.

Six update note Q with the archaeological assessment, letter of no further action date of August 1st, 2025.

Seven, remove the text Ballinger Center Court from the plans.

And eight, remove the signature blocks for the following approval summary table, Frederick County Soral Conservation District and City of Frederick.

And number nine is remove the note on the cover sheet referencing county staff and purvious improvement plans.

And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Do we have questions for staff?

No.

We're welcome.

You're welcome to come up and give us your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sherry.

Good evening, City of Frederick.

I'm sorry that's so low.

Pardon me.

So I'm sorry the speaker, the microphone is so low.

But to the extent that you can that you can speak into it, the video recording will be able to hear you.

Thank you.

My name is Ryan Jolene.

I represent Lumen.

We're a utility company providing internet service and capabilities and connectivity across the country.

We're thankful for your support in our application process and your support and affirmation of us moving forward with our project.

This particular site is 315 Balancer Center Drive, as Sherry mentioned, located on a little over two acre parcel, just south of I 70.

There's residential area north of I-70, however, plenty of buffer there.

We're sit sitting next to a restaurant and then some office, some office buildings.

The objective of the national initiative and this initiative is to upgrade fiber services and capacity.

In some instances, in particular the site, we haven't done any upgrades in over 20 years.

Um at this location.

These locations are essentially junction points, which together may make up a national fiber network that houses servers and provides internet service to local residents as well as government entities and uh large internet companies.

I mentioned that.

So we're installing pre-manufactured fiber huts.

Uh Sherry mentioned they're nine point nine feet 9.5 inches high at their tallest point.

There's a slope roof from one end to the other.

We have a fence that surrounds the compound.

We'll be expanding that.

Uh the fence uh will have a padlock, a gate with a padlock, and then the doors have uh locks with codes on them as well into in the individual huts.

Sherry also mentioned, these sites are unmanned.

There's no water or sewer lines going in and out of the of these fiber huts.

There's no parking there.

Um occasionally techs will visit the site for routine maintenance.

As far as lighting is concerned, um, there's one light on each long-ended side of the fiber hut.

Um they're fully shielded, downward facing, 18 watts.

They're motion sensing lights.

They will be off all the time except whenever there's any type of motion.

Um as Sherry also mentioned, these new huts are the same color as the existing huts.

There won't be any change there.

Soft brown tan color.

Um we'll bring these sets, these huts in with uh and set them with a crane.

Well, there will be a concrete pad that will have been poured.

Um we'll have a pad for the generator as well.

This generator will be for temporary or emergency power only.

It will run once a week for 15 minutes for testing.

Other than that, we'll remain off.

Um there'll be a new meter mounted on H frame.

We'll run some conduit over to our fiber huts.

Around 45 to 60 days of construction should approximately be.

Um, but most of it's going to be inside the fiber huts themselves, setting up the servers and connecting all the all the fiber.

Um there'll just be a little pad pouring, and then there'll be a day where we set the fiber huts.

That's all I have.

All right, thank you.

Do we have questions for the applicant?

No, I don't either.

Do we have any com public comment?

No, all right.

We only have one action.

Sorry.

Um, so I move for approval of the final site plan PC 25160 FSI for Lumen Fiber Hut, finding that the plan complies with articles four, five, six, seven, and eight of the land management code, and is consistent with the comprehensive plan, and that the site will be adequately served by public facilities.

Um with the conditions as read into record by staff.

One through nine.

One through nine.

Second.

It is a motion by Commissioner Lewellan, a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Um that is unanimous, noting that um Commissioner Manellus has had to leave.

So it's a unanimous of three.

All right.

Well, the final two cases.

PC 24-837, preliminary plat and final site plan for Lucas Village.

Thank you.

So this is a redevelopment and infill project to create 222 multifamily units as low income housing.

92 existing units will be demolished and rebuilt with a net increase of 130 units.

A plat was submitted with the project to create three lots, the first containing all multifamily buildings, the second with the current community center, which will be demolished and redeveloped as a park.

And the last lot has been set aside for construction of the new transit bus stop.

The road network will be modified by extending Vermont Way through to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Maryland Avenue, which ends at Sagner Avenue currently, will be extended into the development connecting to Vermont Way.

This eliminates some of the cul-de-sacts and increases connectivity, providing more entry points and a better traffic flow.

For this design to work, portions of Vermont Court and Pennsylvania Avenue will need to be abandoned.

These areas are best depicted on sheet four of the plan.

The abandoned portions of Vermont Courts will eliminate the cul-de-sac and uh and narrow the existing right of way, which provides a better scale to the residential development.

The abandoned area will also be added to lot three.

The abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Avenue will allow for new access point to the development and private connection leading back to Sagner Avenue.

Based on the land management code, they require parking spaces between 333 and 555.

They are proposing to meet that with 342, 15 of which are shown on a city owned parcel on the west side of Maryland Avenue.

This will require an easement, which is noted in the conditions of approval.

As discussed previously, there are existing stormwater and drainage issues with the current development due to not having a properly designed stormwater facility.

An unofficial stormwater holding area owned by the city will be improved and maintained by the housing authority.

The stormwater concept and management plans have been approved by the engineering department.

This is a collaborative effort between the housing authority and the city of Frederick.

The maintenance and access for the city owned parcel that will hold the stormwater will also be required.

The adequate public facilities ordinance has been satisfied as all of them have been approved and the roads are going to be addressed with the downtown mobility fee.

An architect architectural or archaeological assessment was conducted.

No further investigation was required.

As this will be for affordable housing, the applicant will enter into a moderately priced dwelling unit agreement prior to building permit issuance.

The applicant is requesting a modification to Section 611 street improvement standards for Vermont Way and Maryland Avenue, specifically the street details.

The required right of way is 45 feet with 10 foot lanes, two foot grass strip, five foot sidewalk, and five feet for street trees.

The applicant is requesting a 24-foot right-of-way with 12-foot lanes, which are larger than required, no grass strip, but a six-foot sidewalk, which is also larger than required, and the street trees will be located outside of the right-of-way, but they are still providing them.

Maryland Avenue will also have 18-foot perpendicular parking between the right-of-way and the sidewalk.

The parking will be maintained by the housing authority.

Applicant has provided that the existing condition makes strict adherence to the code impractical, and staff has evaluated the proposal for safety, access, public services, utilities, and emergency vehicles.

Staff finds the modification request does not conflict with the general purpose and intent of the code and that it does not conflict with comprehensive plan policies.

Applicant is requesting an additional modification to Section 607 E2 for light spillage.

This was presented at the workshop, but since that point, the applicant has reduced the light spillage so that only 0.1 foot candles will spill over onto Lucas Village Park and no lights village will be on the residences.

For this project, 0.78 acres of parkland is required.

The applicant is requesting recommendation to the city council to waive the parkland dedication.

The parks and recreation commission heard and voted to recommend the waiver on May 17th, 2025.

As shown in the packet, the project has Lucas Village Park and Grove Park within 500 feet, and therefore additional parkland is not needed in the immediate vicinity.

There is also on-site passive recreation and green space, including Lucas Park Entry Plaza, the corner pocket park, and the art walk, which actually totals 0.78 acres.

Applicant has also met all landscaping standards.

So the commission has five actions.

The first approval of modifications to city to standard city details for local streets.

Staff finds that the existing built condition would be with strict adherence would be undesirable as they have all the all the adequate public facilities and they are consistent with land use policy one and transportation policy seven of the comprehensive plan.

So staff does recomm recommend approval of the modification.

Action two, approval of modification regarding lights village onto Lucas Village Park.

Staff finds it is not contrary to the purpose or intent of the code.

It is consistent with land use policy one of the comprehensive plan and enhancements to pedestrian connections, the creation of the entry plaza to Lucas Village Park, and proposed extensive landscaping serve as compensating features.

Staff again re recommends approval of this modification.

Number three, recommendation to city council to waive the parkland dedication.

With parks being within the immediate vicinity, having adequate recreation and open space on site, and as the comprehensive plan does not indicate a new public park needed in that area, staff supports a positive recommendation to the city council.

Number four, recommendation to city council to abandon portions of Vermont Court and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Staff finds this will eliminate cul-de-sacks, increase connectivity at access points, and create a better flow of traffic.

Again, staff supports a positive recommendation to City Council.

And finally, action five, approval of the combined preliminary plat and final site plan for Lucas Village.

Staff finds that the plat is compliant with all regulations and the site plan complies with all applicable criteria with adequate public facilities to serve the site.

Staff recommends approval with the conditions listed within the staff report.

Thank you.

Um any questions for staff.

Uh yes, I do have a question.

On page three, um under the in the NAC section, talks about where um they stated that their testing of the surrounding area may help the residents understand which areas are mo most affected by the sinkhalls.

Has that been completed?

Uh to my knowledge, I it hasn't been completed.

If the applicant wants to speak to that, they could.

So to your knowledge, I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said.

I I'm I haven't been informed that it has been completed, so the applicant would have to speak to that.

Okay.

Yep.

Thank you.

Um I'm not seeing in here, maybe if you could point it out to me where it says, did you say the the existing housing was being torn down for the 220?

The existing 92 units are gonna be demoed.

That's the the main bulk of the area.

Right.

Where's everyone going?

They're gone.

So they've gone.

Okay, I'm just making sure.

Like just this was brought up in workshop.

Okay, I was like, is this the same?

Okay.

Yeah, and this is brought up in work.

All right.

I just didn't see the 92 in here.

Cool.

Um, I'm good right now, thank you.

All right.

Um, two questions.

When we talk about abandoning the right of way, I mean or abandoning the streets.

Is it abandoning the city ownership of the streets, abandoning the right of way?

Um, I'm literally, I'm assuming that the parts that are gonna be abandoned are gonna be torn up and added to the development.

If you look at the um the image up here, the light blue portions, those are the portions to be abandoned.

Okay.

Um I believe, and we are still working on this um as part of the conditions, but I believe that the strip along Vermont Way will then um go into that into that lot there, which will have the stormwater facilities and that has to be maintained and done by the housing authority.

Um, and then and then the rest, like I said, we we have to get rid of a couple of spaces to make these connections.

Okay.

Okay.

So so basically we're asking the city to abandon their ownership of these very limited portions of it, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And then um question regarding the parkland dedication.

So you said the requirement for the site was 0.78 acres.

Yes.

And they are actually putting in 0.78 acres of open space, green space.

Correct.

R recreational space.

It's just not going to be dedicated to the city as a park.

No.

Which the city wouldn't take anyway because they don't take anything less than acres.

We had there's okay, because of the other parks, we don't want to take on any more maintenance.

Right.

Well, I mean, and even if there weren't other parks, the city still wouldn't take it, right?

Because they have a three-acre requirement.

Yes.

Okay.

Those are my questions.

Okay, thank you.

Um, all yours.

It doesn't sound on, does it?

No.

Is it lit up?

There's no button.

There we go.

There you go.

Good evening, madam chair, members of the commission.

Uh my name is David Ling with Ling Property Consulting.

Representing the applicant in this case with me this evening is Mike Font with New Harbor Development, who is one of the partners with the housing authority.

Dave Severn is a local land use attorney working with us on the project, and Mark Chrisman is the civil engineer and land surveyor on the project.

I don't need to go through all of that again unless you you'd care to see it.

We we do have the uh colored renderings and everything for the uh for the parkland if you'd like to see that.

I I did want to uh point out that we've been working uh uh at length with with Gabrielle and Christina and Gabrielle have done an excellent job with the staff report um picking up where uh the prior planner left off.

Um it's a very accurate and thorough staff report, and we agree with everything in the staff report um regarding the uh the parkland um waiver.

We are not asking for uh we're still planning to pay the parkland impact fee because the city won't take the the three acres.

What we are asking for is a waiver from that parkland dedication, which would then waive the fee in lieu of for that small amount, but the parkland impact fee we still excuse me intend to pay.

And we did get a recommendation from the parks and rec commission on that, and we're asking for your recommendation so we can take that to the mayor and council excuse me, regarding the uh question you had, uh, Commissioner Strawson about the right-of-way abandonment.

It's uh technically a partial right-of-way abandonment.

The Vermont way is a 40-foot right-of-way with 40 feet of paving, and there's really no striping, no parking out.

People park parallel, they park and so we're trying to actually uh do like a road die.

You've heard the exact um to go down to 24 foot travelway, 24 foot public right of way, then the parking, which would be perpendicular off of that, would then be in an easement that would be maintained and owned by the the housing authority.

Um perpendicular parking tends to slow down traffic, so that's part of the reason you know for the safety so people you know don't drive you know through, especially because we're creating a gridded system, so be through traffic at this point.

So that's the request for that modification up along Vermont Way, as you can see, the roads just get thinner.

The little piece down at the bottom is kind of an anomaly because the existing call de sac was never dedicated to the city, but that little stub street inn was, which is odd, and that happened back in the 80s.

So, you know, we just like to get rid of that and you know make it all private down there.

Other thing that Christina pointed out that I'd like to mention is that we do have, we've been working with Zach and City Engineering on the uh what I call the city triangle, the piece.

Does this have a pointer?

Does have a pointer somewhere to this piece here that's owned by the city.

Um, but that is currently a stormwater holding area, which was never developed nor designed as a stormwater pond.

And it's the cause of a lot of the sinkholes out here, which are occurring for the most part.

I think I heard the question from Commissioner Lou Allen, uh the sinkholes are occurring mostly in this area back here around Rotary Way.

There are some in some other areas, but all of that groundwater, that uh stormwater, surface water collecting there and being held there in that low area, with no type of engineering, with no type of liner, it it just seeps into the ground.

And as we know, Frederick City is full of limestone and it creates it creates fissures in between the limestone pinnacles, and that's how sinkholes are formed.

So, what we've done with the design of this development is we've taken everything.

We're we're designing extra storm drainage to take everything into inlets and closed storm drain systems and get them to that that triangle, which will then be redeveloped in cooperation with the City of Frederick into a uh modern stormwater facility that will be lined and won't have any uh potential for you know leaching into the ground.

We're creating uh sinkholes.

So, in those ways, we're looking to ask exacerbate prior sinkhole activity in the area.

We've also done significant um geotechnical work and um uh ground radar and things of that nature to determine where those areas are so that they can be engineered properly and avoid sinkholes in the in the future.

With that said, um, oh, and the stormwater development plan, as Christina mentioned, has been approved by the city engineering department.

Um I think that was everything that the attorney sitting behind me ask me to get into the record.

Um yeah, so we have some steps to go past this point.

We need to get your recommendations, and then we need to go to the mayor and council on uh a couple of those things, and um we'd like to get into the improvement plans in more earnest um so we can keep things moving ahead because as uh commissioner Valencia stated, where did the people go?

There are some people that would like to come back, and we'd like to get this construction underway so that we can you know get some of those people back in in phase one.

Great.

Um so with that, I'll uh answer any questions you have and request your approval according to the uh staff recommendations.

Great, thank you.

Questions?

Uh yes.

So you mentioned the um stormwater development plan that that has been approved.

When would would that be built before the homes are built?

What's the plan there?

Because what I don't like is that you know you move the people out, you've boarded up the homes.

I went over there today to see what it was still looking like, and it that's what it looked like.

Um but you know, why are we going to start building if we don't have the answers about the sinkholes?

But what I want to understand is this stormwater development plan sounds great, but when will that be built first?

And when is that gonna happen?

What's the timeline that you have in the yes?

We we need to get into the improvement plan so we can file for the demo permit.

The demo permit will be the first thing.

We take down the existing houses, start doing the the mass grading of the site, and the stormwater facilities, the storm drainage and everything will be constructed with phase one initially with the first phase, so it will handle the stormwater management for the first phase and then phase two and three will come later.

Okay.

And then secondarily, um surrounding residents, you know, the impacts to them, that's another big concern.

I've I've seen this all around Frederick in the time that I've been here since the late 80s with St.

Cole's, you know, in in very various different parts.

So how would they be impact when this is flattened and you're doing regrading, what will happen?

No drainage is being directed onto any of those properties.

The drains are being directed from all of them into the stormwater facility, which should help if anything is going there now with any any private property that they have issue with.

And we've been very conscious of that as well if Commissioner Manellis in the workshop was concerned about the lighting spill over into Vermont Court and Hope Circle.

So we went back to the drawing board and we provided additional fixtures and fixture counts and everything.

So there's zero foot candle spillage onto any of the residential homes now.

We just have a very minor point one tenth of a foot candle in the area of Lucas Village Park down in these areas on the on the back side.

Okay.

Because I know that a dewatering influence is something that is a required disclosure now when people are buying in Frederick County.

And I'm just concerned, you know, they that that was put into place because of areas like this.

And so um it's it's still a concern of mine, but thank you for that exercise.

Then we'll make sure we abide by all those those local and state regulations.

Okay, thank you.

Um she spoke to the sinkhole, I'll skip over that.

But um with the I guess I'm just gonna do a comment right now, which is thanks for fixing the lighting, because you know I'm always gonna bring that up.

And so did you guys get new lamps with the covers now that will like direct it down so you don't have as much spillage.

What was your solution?

The lights were always directed down and we always had glare shields, but some of them were just too tall in some areas.

We shifted some of those around, redirected some of those.

And actually, in the one area, um, it's not shown on this plan, but in the one area on the uh back side right here where they went on to uh uh Vermont Court.

We have a retaining wall there, so we actually put a fence on top of that retaining one opaque fence so that that then uh shielded the rest of the light glare.

Okay, thanks.

Um so my question is regarding the community center, and it looks like that since the workshop you've proposed to demolish some of the community center.

Can you explain what that's going on and why?

And the structural reports came back that it was not safe, uh that it that it is subject to flooding, et cetera, et cetera.

So um the as you know, the gymnasium, the back part of it is newer construction that was built by the Rotary Club and used to be housed the PAL uh building.

Um we would like to and intend to save that um but remove the community building and turn the rest of it into a private park with a tot lot and some other amenities uh kind of in keeping with the gymnasium so that that would be a private park for the community.

And so is there any intention of of rebuilding the community center part of it at some point?

We've been instructed by planning staff that we can't because this is zone DR and the community building uh is not a permitted use in the DR zone.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Can we revisit that?

So can it not be grandfathered in or what is the reason that it can't just be fixed?

If if you tear it down and rebuild it, it's like a new board.

Right.

Yeah.

Uh but so you they're making you take the whole thing down like it's condemned.

It's not structurally sound, yes, unfortunately.

There is, I should mention there is an amenity, uh, an accessory amenity uh uh area in this part of the existing building, and that's an accessory because it's in the existing building on that lot.

So there are amenities, uh, you know, a meeting room and you know, clubhouse and things like of that nature in that building.

It just couldn't be in its standalone on its own separate lot because then it doesn't comply with the zoning.

So we're replacing it, we're just replacing it on the first floor of building six, and it will be available for the residents.

So feasible, I mean, technically feasibly you could at some point in the future ask for a IST zoning change and you know think about rebuilding it.

Is that I mean, is that not worth the effort?

Is does it not have the use that we talked about that and we talked about that with with Gabrielle and with Sharon for a while when she was here?

The problem becomes HUD and the financing and how you deal with that on a separate lot, and it it just basically became too convoluted to do as part of this project.

Now that lot will still be a standalone lot two of its own, a fee simple lot.

So could the housing authority come back later if there's enough demand for that?

Sure, but that would be a whole separate rezoning process that would require the the floating zone of IST to be overlaid.

Right.

Yeah.

All right.

We didn't want to again hold up everything getting some of the residents back in here by going through that process.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I think we're good.

I think we have um time for some public comment and maybe some people who are interested in making public comment.

Um just come on up one at a time and um just realize that I need your name and your address, and you have three minutes.

Good evening.

My name is Shelby Carmen, and um I'm here feeling very emotional this evening because before you go on, can you give us your uh your address?

I'm sorry, my address is 456 Vermont Court.

Thank you.

And the reason I purchased a home there was because the building my mother was there named after Claire D.

Harris, which I'm heard is being torn down.

I'm just very upset.

Because she did a lot for that community over there.

I'm sorry.

No.

Um can I I mean you're asking I'm sure there's something I should have said.

Okay.

We had committed to in the NAC meeting to honoring the legacy of Yes, speak.

To honor honoring the legacy of Claire Harris and of Mr.

Lucas, and we intend to do that.

I should have said that before.

It won't be in that building because it's unsafe, but there's no reason we can't name something else.

We can't do some kind of statues or plaques or something in the art walk or something to honor their legacy.

And uh Angie Lawler, who's the deputy director of the housing authority committed in the NAC meeting to doing that, and we fully intend to do that.

Right.

And can that be done with input from the people who are still living there?

I'm sorry.

Can that be done with the input from the the community that's still there?

Not only has been named, but yeah, we'll coordinate with the housing authority.

And I'm sure the housing authority will reach out for that input.

Great, thank you.

And then also at 456.

Um I wanted to bring my neighbor up.

Well, you he can adjust I'll let her address this.

458.

458 Vermont Court.

Speak into the microphone.

458 Vermont Court.

And your name?

Uh Mary Beth Angelo.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so we are looking forward to everything being built, but we do have a concern with our houses and our other neighbor, Mary and John Hammond, and a couple other people that don't know their names, but there's a parking lot as a smaller parking lot, but it's like right up against our property.

Is that the one that's off of Maryland Avenue?

No, we're on Vermont Court.

Okay.

Also, you guys are renaming us without telling us we're gonna be Vermont Way.

Uh-huh.

This is why we're last on the list of things to do today.

Um, talking to D.

H.

Horton, I believe.

He said they're gonna put a retaining wall and then a fence.

But it's going to be, if I understand, built up some.

So we're gonna be coming out to something that looks like this.

Am I right?

Or taller?

They'll have the opportunity to come and address comments once everybody's done, so they can just kind of take that and yeah.

So that's just the main concern.

I I like everything else we're doing, other than we're losing a community building that we were able to use because we all bought our houses, or the majority of us did through like the Hope Six program.

So it's now like we're kind of losing something because we're going to have an apartment complex now, and we're not gonna have access to some things.

Uh also you guys are gonna build so many parking spaces, but you also have so many apartments now.

You're almost doubling the people we had behind us.

I do have concerns regarding we already had a like fight for parking.

We fight for parking when the fair is in town, and we fight for parking when everybody was there, because people don't just own one car in this neighborhood.

And there's a lot of people who need support, so there's a lot of people in those apartments.

That's not just a family of two, it could be a family of eight.

And if you have teenagers, you're gonna have cars.

So I'm kind of concerned with how many parking spaces we already have that we're gonna be losing, because if I understand zoning rights, we can't put a driveway on our property because we're inside of the city.

So that's just my concern is the parking lot directly behind us.

Not I'm not a fan.

And uh worry about our street parking and losing some of that.

Okay.

Thank you.

And as well as someone pulling up at three o'clock in the morning with that in our um bedrooms and kitchen.

Oh, one more thing.

Um I do worry, but I'm not mechanical enough to understand it about the draining.

If they do build up higher than us, especially for like a parking lot, how is it going to drain in and not cause any sort of like flooding to us?

And like we already deal with some flooding.

We don't have basements.

If we did, we'd probably get a flood every time it rained.

But if there's gonna be like a downpour and it's gonna overflow their little sewer drainage line, is water just gonna like slide right off their parking lot into our backyards?

Something to consider.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, all right.

Name and address.

I'm Caden Scott Angelo.

I live in the same address as Mary Beth Angelo, because I'm her son.

Um my main thing, I also really like the idea of stopping the flooding from that part because when I walk home from school, that is such a pain because you have to like walk around it and your feet still get wet.

But another thing is I have a fear that the um fence won't be like too high from like the bottom, because people in this neighborhood and me have relatively small dogs.

So, and this has happened before with the like um temporary fences.

My dog has went under the fences, and I don't want that to happen with like the permanent fences.

So I just hope that the fences like get a little lower on the bottom.

So, you know, the small dogs can't just go under, and then you have to like kind of maneuver around the fence so you can get your dog back.

That's my main thing.

That's all I really want.

That's it.

Thank you very much.

Did a good job.

Any other public comment?

No.

Um, come on up.

No, wait, wait.

One more.

Hannah Nickerson, 415 Sherman Avenue, and also member of East Frederick Rising.

I just want to express my support for the current residents who are being displaced, uh, as well as losing their community center.

We understand the structural issues, but I think it would be great to absolutely honor the memory of people who have lived in and made an impact in those areas.

I was also just because I have to ask.

Um six-foot sidewalks are in a replacement for bike lanes.

Takes the bus, excuse me.

So it's great to hear that there's a transit stop going in, but also what about other bike lanes or other um alternative mobility improvements that the developer may be making.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, I'd like to thank the community for making those comments, and I'd like to try to address them all.

Regarding the um first of all, the uh legacy of Mr.

Lucas and of uh Claire Davis.

Claire D.

Harris, I'm sorry, will be honored.

Umgie already committed to that.

We don't we're still working with the architects and the designers and everything on those amenity areas, so we're not sure how yet, but she has committed to go to that, and I'll go on record uh you know, stating that that will be done in in some fashion.

Uh we we commit to that.

With regard to the um retaining wall, um Jen, can you go to I think it's sheet five, which is a little bit larger.

Um this is five.

I'm sorry.

No, it's not five, seven.

There you there you go.

Sorry.

There you go.

Um yeah, this this retaining wall here is about two to three feet high, and there is a fence on top of that retaining wall that is uh six feet high.

Um it'll be probably white vinyl clad, but um on the low side, um it's about three feet lower.

Uh the retaining wall is in that area.

However, the storm drainage is all pitched back away from it into this storm drain, which comes down and circumvents these eight units.

It goes this way into this larger storm drain into the holding facility.

I also wanted to mention that we are actually the housing authority is actually building these two very large storm drains that go all the way down to uh the Hamilton Hamilton Square project, I think that it is, which were recommended by a regional study by the Army Corps of Engineers, and they're gonna be empty when we build them.

But we're gonna build them so that the infrastructure doesn't need to be torn up and disrupt the residents later.

The reason they're gonna be empty when we build them is because there's a city CIP project at the three-way stop at for at Franklin that floods now, and the city at some point in time will undertake that project, and that drainage will then flow into these pipes and into this facility.

The facility is designed for it, the pipes will be built now, look looking towards the future.

So again, these are measures we've taken to make sure that flooding does not occur again in those areas.

Um that was the fence, that was the drainage, that was the retaining wall.

The height of the fence is six feet.

Um we needed to do that so that we could shield the the lighting from from the backs of those areas.

Um then uh bike lanes, there you go.

Uh I knew there was one more thing.

Um David Edmondson, who's the city transportation planner, gave us uh a bunch of comments on safety on the streets.

Streets, especially that are not wide enough to have bike lanes, because if you make the street wider, cars like to go faster, which is why we did the road diet thing.

But what we've done is we have proposed uh first of all in this area at the entrance into the Lucas Village Park, we're doing an elevated pedestrian table there, which you're familiar with, like down at La Paz or it's not La Paz anymore, but down at uh you know the creek where people can walk over.

That's the primary.

That slows traffic at every crosswalk.

The crosswalks are gonna be a different color.

They're gonna be uh some type of thermoplastic or some type of different color to slow things down as well.

Um, and then the roads are going to be um uh the dry travel ways, the travel outs are gonna be probably 11 feet in on site instead of 12 feet um to help also choke that traffic back and make everything go slower so they share the roads uh with with the the bicycle and the pedestrian traffic.

Um again, it's important to note that all the roads except for Vermont and Maryland, Vermont right here and Maryland right here, all these are private.

Um, so we'll be able to control that.

Um I think that just everything.

Uh parking, yeah, parking.

There you go.

Um thank you, Dave.

Um the parking required for uh multifamilies one and a half uh spaces per, and we meet the one and a half spaces per.

But another thing that I did fail to mention is that on Vermont Way, Vermont Court, which will be Vermont Way.

And the reason that has to change is because it's a through road and for fire safety.

Uh court is a call-de-sac, so it could confuse fire trucks and things of that nature.

So we were asked by the city to punch that road through, so we had to change the name.

And rather than just Vermont Drive or Vermont Road or something, I thought Vermont Way would be a little nicer.

Um but um right now there's just parallel parking along here for these eight duplex units.

Um what we're proposing to do is do the perpendicular parking, which actually picks up a significant amount more parking.

Each of those dupe duplex units um again by the code should have one and a half parking spaces per we've worked with the city, and we are going to record easements and dedicate two parking spaces per each of those uh duplex units always two spaces dedicated only to them, and that can be handled with signage or however we want to do that, so that each of those eight duplexes will have two spaces dedicated just for them, and then on top of that, there's other parking that's gonna be on the road, which will be controlled by the housing authority, but will be available for parking as well.

Cool, thank you.

Thank you.

You guys have any additional questions?

We ready for discussion or voting.

All right, we have to the right part of the report.

So we have a total of five actions.

One concerning the street detail, two is concerning the area lighting, three is concerning the parkland dedication.

That is a recommendation to city council, not a vote.

Um is regarding the um abandonment of Vermont Court and Pennsylvania Avenue, and that is also a recommendation to city council, not a vote.

Um five is the preliminary plat and final site plan.

No.

Okay.

Um so I move for approval of modifications to the standard city details for local streets in accordance with section 611, street improvement standards for the extension of Maryland Avenue and Vermont Way, finding that the existing built environment coupled with the need to move traffic slowly through the residential community and provide adequate parking are unique conditions that make it undesirable to require strict adherence with the standard details.

Two, the proposed streets are adequate for the provision of public services, accessing utilities, which is the purpose and intent of establishing standards for public infrastructure, and three, the proposed street design and networks facilitated development that is consistent with the following policies of the 2020 comprehensive plan.

A land use policy one, encourage development and redevelopment to be compatible with the character of existing or planned development, and B transportation policy, policy seven to preserve and enhance the historic street grid system.

Second.

That is a motion by Commissioner Lewell and a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor, aye.

That is unanimous.

Action two regarding parking area lighting.

Okay.

I request for the approval of a modification is section 607 E2, parking area lighting to allow the for light spillover onto Lucas Village Park.

Finding what was read into the staff report one through three.

I second that.

That is a motion by Commissioner Valencia, a second by Commissioner Lowell, and all in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

Action three, recommendation to city council on parkland dedication.

So I recommend I recommend approval for a recommendation, a positive one to the city council to waive the parkland dedication requirement under section 608, parks and open space of the land management code.

Um, with the three staff findings read into record previously.

Second.

That is a motion by Commissioner Willen, a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor.

Aye, aye.

That's unanimous.

Action four is a recommendation regarding abandonment of the roads.

I move for a positive recommendation to the city council to abandon portions of Vermont Court and Pennsylvania Avenue finding that the abandonment will eliminate cul-de-sacks, increase connectivity at access points and create a better flow of traffic.

I second that.

Second by Commissioner Llewellyn, all in favor.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

And finally, action five.

So I motion for approval of the combined preliminary plat and final site plan PC 24-837 PSU FSI for Lucas Village.

Um findings from staff as read into record with conditions of approval lists one through five.

And staff findings one and two.

Second.

All right.

That is a motion by Commissioner Llewellyn, a second by Commissioner Valencia.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

That is unanimous.

Thank you.

And then finally, we have the um oops, that is the wrong file.

The forest conservation plan, PC 24 838, FSCB, forest and delineation and preliminary forest conservation plan for Lucas Village.

Thank you so much.

So the there is no existing forest on the site.

Applicant will meet their forest requirements through street tree credits and fee and loo payment.

Applicant has provided a letter assessing the Aforestation and Reforestation priorities, and staff concurs with their findings.

The Commission has one action, and staff recommends approval of the combined forest stand delineation and preliminary forest conservation plan for Lucas Village.

Thank you.

Questions for staff?

I don't have any questions either.

Once again, Madam Chair, members of the Commission, David Ling, representing the applicant in this case.

Again, the staff report is perfect, and uh we request approval accordingly.

Thank you.

Questions for applicant?

No.

Any public comment?

Nope.

All right, comes back up here for one action.

All right.

I move for the approval of the combined forest stand delineation and preliminary forest conservation plan for Lucas Village, PC 24838 FSCB.

Finding the plan complies with all applicable criteria of the LMC section 721.

I second that.

That is a motion by Commissioner Valencia, a second by Commissioner Lewellan.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

That is unanimous.

And that concludes our evening.

Thank you very much.