Good afternoon.

It is September 14th, and we are here as a planning housing and parks committee.

I did want to note that due to health uh circumstances, our colleague, Councilmember Jawando is not joining us as he gets back to full health, and we wish him well and offer uh our continued thoughts and prayers to him and know that he is uh on the mend and uh doing better, which we're glad to hear back at home, recovering.

Uh also want to note at the request of the sponsor, we had two items on today's agenda that we have uh removed from today's agenda and will be taking up uh at a future date to be scheduled uh Bill 926, which is the rental housing maintenance standards and essential services air conditioning legislation uh as well as the subdivision regulation amendment SRA 2601 subdivision of land continuation of roads.

Those both uh were sponsored by the same council member who had requested uh that we remove uh those uh from the agenda and postpone our uh work session and votes uh on those items.

Uh with that, we are going to start with our first uh and only item that we are going to be taking up today, which is zoning text amendment 2609 rural village center overlay zone vehicle repair limited use.

Before I turn it over to council staff, I wanted to acknowledge that council member and vice president Balcom uh is here with us uh today and turn it over to her if she had any uh opening comments.

Uh yes, thank you.

Just briefly, uh so CTA 2609 is fairly simple and focuses on the rural village center overlay zone in regards to vehicle repair.

And the primary issue is changing uh changing it from a conditional use to a limit, which was done in 2021.

We made it a conditional use, but it still proved to be burdensome to some uh business owners.

And so this CTA would change it to a limited use with a few other changes that uh council staff can go through.

Great.

We also have representatives from the planning department.

We can call them up as needed and requested by colleagues or by council staff.

But uh we'll begin by uh turning it over to Ms.

Nadu to walk us through the packet.

Okay.

So ZTA 2609, as noted, um, would change both repair major and repair minor, which are separate uses in the zoning ordinance to limited uses in this RVC overlay zone.

Uh the public hearing was July 21st.

We had four speakers in support.

Um we also received written testimony, um, testimony testimony spoke about the needs of auto businesses in these areas, um, and also testimony in support of community serving local businesses.

Uh the council did receive a letter from the county executive, which is in your staff report, um, expressing concerns about the reduced setback and allowing alternative structures in lieu of tree planting.

Um those are actually consistent with some of the comments from the planning board, so we will get to those amendments uh later.

Um so going through the ZTA itself.

So the way it works is it takes repair major and repair minor and makes them limited uses.

And then those use standards are where they normally sit in the zoning ordinance in sections 3513E and 3513F.

So the way it works is it would become a limited use and you jump to those sections, and it'll follow the same standards for limited use that repair major and repair minor have in other zones with a few tweaks just in this overlay.

Um so those are enumerated on page two, so I'll go through them slowly.

Um first for repair major, normally the setback is a hundred feet from unabutting residential lot line.

The ZTA will reduce that setback from 100 to 50 feet in the R VC overlay zone.

Um also the setbacks will not apply to new buildings.

Uh new buildings, the way it works in the zoning ordinance, DPS would say was that a building that was there before or after the ZTA is adopted.

So that's how you would define new and existing.

And similarly, the ZTA setback standards would not apply to new parking facilities, only existing ones.

Um the benefit here is you prevent creating non-conforming uses and standards.

Um, and also you have the benefit of not having to tear down and dig up existing businesses, which is good for the environment, of course.

Um also under the current zoning ordinance, um, a lot abutting in agricultural rural, residential or residential zone has minimum setbacks to the abutting zone.

Um so there's some clarifying language that says that's only if that lot is vacant or improved with an agricultural or residential use.

And similarly, the ZTA will not apply these provisions to properties or will apply the provision to properties that are not split zoned.

We don't have a lot of split zone properties left in the county.

Generally, we don't allow split zone properties, but in these rural areas, there are a few of them left.

And so there's an exemption here for if that property is split zoned, because you don't need that additional compatibility against a commercial residential zone, as you would with a residential zone.

So a clarification of how to treat split zone properties in these areas.

Moving on to page three, this is the discussion about shading.

So also under the current zoning ordinance, tree in the RBC overlay, trees must be planted and maintained throughout the parking facility to ensure that at least 30% of the area is shaded.

The ZTA will allow alternative structures.

The way it's written is it's alternative structures or designs that meet the intent of this section.

So canopies, structural shade, and cool pavements.

The feedback that had been received and development of the CTA is that trees can cause damage to parked cars at auto repair shops as well as increase insurance costs.

So going through the impact statements, and I will do the planning one last because there's a few amendments there.

RSJ impact was minimal.

A lot of pros and cons here in the RSJ statement.

First, that business owners are disproportionately white or of Asian descent for auto businesses, but there's also a disproportionate benefit for an increase in employees who tend to be white and Latinx in auto businesses.

But the RSJ statement did note that especially in these rural areas, there's a benefit for having increased access to auto repair shops, but did then on the other hand note that in the RVC overlay zone, which is mostly Darnstown and Damascus, these are majority white areas.

And then the overarching theme of the RSJ impact statement is that truthfully ZTA 2609 probably applies to 20 or fewer properties in the county, hence the minimal impact.

The climate assessment, which is reviewed by the planning board, found both negative and positive impacts.

The negative impacts are the reduction in the tree planting requirement, but the positive impact is the availability and accessibility of vehicle repair shops.

So I will jump to top of page four where we begin some of the amendments.

The first is an amendment about the setback provisions.