All right. Good evening. I'm going to call to order our Tuesday, February 13th, Ashland Planning Commission, Meaton. Thank you all so much for coming. Before we do the roll call, I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank Miss Wright. I don't know if I did it properly at our last meeting. So if I did, she deserves to thank yous anyway. But thank you so much to Miss Wright, who was our previous chair and just did a tremendous job and who's done a tremendous job serving on planning commission. So thank you so much to you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. And we'll do roll call. Miss Amy, Hay. Here. Please make sure your microphones are on and towards your voice. Mr. Brent Chambers. Here. Ms. Linda Wright. Here. Mr. Tim Merrill. Here. Ms. Stephanie Hare. Here. We do have quorum. All right. We have a hefty agenda tonight. I'm just going to quickly read through it. We have made a small change, so it is an amended agenda. We have just made a change to one of our public hearings. But for our agenda tonight, we will have a citizen input where anyone can come up and speak of anything that's not on tonight's agenda, because you will have a chance to speak at our public hearings. We have our presentation of our minutes from our last meeting from January 10th. Ms. Cornelius does a wonderful job and will either make changes or approve those. We do have one presentation tonight. Ms. Raglan, it's introduction of our March case coming before planning commission and Ms. Raglan is going to present our FEMA map with tax amendment amendment for floodplain and we have five public hearings tonight. We are starting off with the conditional use permit for Berkeley Town Heritage Park. We have a rezoning for Patriot Glen, rezoning in ordnance for Patriot Glen, rezoning in ordnance for Callie Commons, rezoning in ordnance, and I will call these out later later, you guys, excuse me, for Yaman Jake's place, and did I do the, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I got out of or apologize, and rezoning inoning and ordinance for YSJ LLC. So I didn't read those. I don't know if I read those in order. I apologize, you guys. We have one action item, which I'm really excited about, which is the 2023 Plan Commission Annual Report. And then we'll have our report of committees. So if anybody has changes or anything like that, or we can approve the, Matt, clarify the order of public hearings for the minutes. Thank you. OK, so you have, we have the cup for Berkeley Heritage Park first, the rezoning in ordinance for Patriot Glen Second. Yes, ma'am. The rezoning in ordinance for YSJ third and the rezoning and ordinance for Cali comments and then followed by the rezoning in ordinance for the omens Jakes place. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that perfect. Thank you I'll make a motion that we approve the agenda as amended February 13th, 2024. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Haye? Aye. Mr. Chambers? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye. Mr. Merrill? Aye. Ms. Hare. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. So now is the time for citizen input, where we hope if anybody has anything they'd like to talk to us about, or bring anything to commission that's not on tonight's agenda. See you in no one, we'll close citizen input. Thank y'all. And so now we'll go through our presentation. Well, we have been presented. Commission members have been presented with our presentation of our last meetings minutes from January 10th. We can make any changes, any comments. I know Ms. Cornie always does an excellent job, but she does. I just have one thing on the call to order. I think the meeting began. It was called to order at 6 o'clock. It says 6.30. That's all. Close to me. Otherwise it looks again it was called to order at 6 o'clock. It says 6.30. That's all. Close to green. Otherwise it looks good to make. Thanks a lot. Thank you. If nobody else we can make a motion to approve it. I move we approve the minutes with that change. Thank you. Miss Haye, aye. Mr. Chambers. Aye. Miss Wright, aye. Mr. Merrill. Aye. Missbers. Hi. Ms. Wright. Hi. Mr. Merrill. Hi. Ms. Hare. Hi. Motion carries. Thank you. And so our first presentation, Ms. Raglan, is going to introduce the FEMA map with Texan amendment for floodplain for next year. Thank you, Ms. Hare. This is just an explanation of what will come before you for consideration next month. So you might be aware that FEMA has been working on updating their floodplain maps for the past couple of years. The ones that were last adopted are from 2008. So it's been an initiative, initiative from FEMA, the federal government. And this is something that the town more or less needs to adopt to stay and good with the flood insurance program. And this is something that we need to provide to the citizens so we will be initiating a text amendment with a couple of changes as recommended by the Department of Conservation and Recreation along with those updated FEMA maps. So we'll have that hopefully for you next month. Awesome. Thank you all. All right. So our first public hearing is our CUP 24-0103 for Berkeley Town Heritage Park. And I got it. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Ms. Ragwin. So I'll do a quick disclaimer here of we do have a long night of public hearings. I have a lot of speaking to do between the five. So I may be taking some pauses in between. This is not for dramatic effect. This is just to catch my breath. I'm usually not not allowed spoken person, but trying to make sure everyone can hear. So thank you for your patience and may take a bit longer to go through some of these. Thank you, Tom. The first public hearing we have is Cup 24-0103, Berkeley Town Heritage Park. This is a conditionally used permit initiated by the town of Ashland. conditionally used permit initiated by the town of Ashland. Filing for a cup to develop a park across three properties which will be consolidated in the future. This is proposing a passive park inherited trail in collaboration with the recent designation of the Berkeley town historic district listing and the National Register of Historic Places. So we're very proud of that that occurred in 2022. This is again eight parcels measuring about 3.33 acres in total. At this point, the parcels are all undeveloped. And it does span across two different zoning districts, both the R2 and R3. And within those district regulations, it requires that any parks over one acre in size are permitted within a proof conditional use permit. So on your screen is an aerial map of the approximate location of the eight parcels. This is just east of this ESX railroad tracks and between West Bon Road and Berkeley Street. Just to go over some basics of the application, we've received it on January 3rd. Again there's two zoning districts. There's no change that proposed zoning. This is just for conditional use permit. We just looked at the location and the land use, which we will look in the future. It's a bit difficult to put the whole layout on your screen. This is a cut of the proposed layout to try to fit into PowerPoint for a general conception plan. What you can see is a meandering trail outlined in the dark gray color. the area. The area is a mandering trail outlined in the dark gray color. The application states that there will be interpretive kiosks throughout the trail. This is to help interpret the Berkeley town community. There will also be benches, trash cans. Most of the park will be left mostly in its natural state. They're not doing a lot of intense landscaping. There's no parking that is recommended, no new lighting, no permanent structures. There is some fencing that's noted on the plan mostly on this other and half, and this is used to keep visitors within the designated limits. And a vegetative buffer will remain between the park and all the adjacent residences. This is just a visual to show you what's going on right now with that parcel with those several parcels. The town has been working on some initial bush hogging. This gives you a general idea of what it's looking at, looking like right now. So this initiative did start several years ago. There was community engagement started in 2022 with the community meeting held in February of that year. In response to the comments that staff received from the community, they did add that fencing that you see on the plan right now, as well as determining that a vegetative buffer would be needed. They also shared research about how parks lessened crime and assure the neighbors that the park would be regularly patrolled. Staff removed any designated parking that was initially thought to be needed in the area. And hopes that would encourage users to actually just pass the Lee engage in the park and not loiter past engaging with the interactive material. And this is again to keep it more of a very localized park. Through these conversations, staff was able to build community support. to build community support. In addition to the community engagement staff have been working with Carolyn Hempill from the Hane River Black Heritage Society and are continuing to work with the community as well as professors at RMC to develop those educational kiosks. So on your screen right now are two different maps. To the left is the Berkeley Town historic district in purple. So you can see the proposed parcel, the parcels are mostly just outside the district except for some of the northern areas. But it is adjacent to the historic district. On the right hand side is the zoning map, and this indicates that most of the parcels are currently R2, but this other portion of R3, mostly surrounded by other R2 districts. Looking at what the two residential districts entail, they're very similar with just different densities. Decating they need to be suitable environments for families and quiet home sites. And districts provide suitable environment for persons who desire a single family area. Looking at the future land use map, this is the map that was Recently before the commission for the comprehensive plan update So the map that we have in the 2016 plan almost exactly follows this but the 2022 I mean the 2024 map, which is what's on your screen just brings that over a little bit more to incorporate these These specific parcels for the park. They are designated as open space which is intended to be reserved for a variety of uses such as formal recreation parks, passive parks, and green lights. This is also a language that was incorporated in their recent comprehensive plant update, which this commission did recommend approval of, specifically calling out the Berkeley Town Heritage Park in that chapter 9, Parks and Recreation. In addition to the specific Parks and rec chapter, this application, is in conformance with principal two, protect Ashland's unique features, well as policy PR1, Ashland's role, has to do with investing in new parks and recreation facilities, as well as PR3 level of service, providing complete circuits of greenways, and there are several other policies, but these are just the ones we're highlighting for the presentation. Looking at the transportation map, these are excerpts from the 2040 Transportation Plan that was adopted in 2020. So on the left portion, the map with the blue lines that shows proposed trails. So you can see number eight and part of this park would satisfy that section number eight, which would lead from center street up north of town and eventually connect over to the east of town. The map on the right indicated an orange with the number three is a proposed sidewalk. So this indicates that the town does intend to bring that sidewalk over further west, along Berkeley Street. Just some considerations with this application. The park is not expected to draw large crowds and is intended to serve the immediate neighborhood as well as some visitors who may be interested in learning about the educational kiosks. There is a creek on the on the property. Staff will work to create a safe and non-advasive crossing. Staff will continue to develop educational signage and research through community engagement for those interpretive signage. There are two cemeteries adjacent to the park and those are identified on the concept plan and staff will be hiring an archaeologist to ensure that there are no burials on town property and if any are found appropriate actions will be taken. the . These are the proposed conditions for the cup. The first one has to do with the design. That's saying that it will be constructed in general conformity with that plan that I showed you earlier on in the slides. Number two, the park shall be constructed and compliance with ADA regulations and standards. Number three, this has to do with pollution, seeing that the town will provide at least two trash cans and doggy bag areas within the park and that those will be attended to on a weekly basis. Number four, states that wetlands and the stream on the property shall be adequately protected. Number five, states the hours generally between dawn and dusk, not similar to all the other parks in the town. Number six, the comprehensive plan. This is stating that as a condition of approval for the cup, the 2024 comprehensive plan update needs to be finalized by town council, because there is language in there that states making the park approval. And the number seven and eight are general conditions that we include in all the cut applications for compliance with the laws. We did send out the application for referral to all required county and town staff for their review. There are minimal comments from public utilities that really just apply to site plan and construction base and no concerns. As of February 7th, staff only received one public comment regarding a specific application. And that comment was from an adjacent property owner requesting that the fencing shown in the concept plan be extended further north to also about his property and provide a physical separation from the park. And some notes from the 2022 meeting were also included in the agenda packet. This is just the concept plan again for your reference in case we need to scoot back to this for any reason. And staff's recommendation is, the proposal is appropriate for the future land use of the property and the conditions will help emphasize the compatibility of the development with the immediate surroundings and the neighborhood. Staff recommends approval of the cup with the eight proposed conditions. Then we have the motions on the screen. So Ms. Hayda, that concludes staff presentation. I know that Ms. Hawk is available for questions if needed, she can answer anything when we come to that time. Some thank you. And so now I can open up citizen input for it or okay. All right, thank you. I just want to make sure I'm going in the right order. Ms. Hawk, did you have a separate presentation or just answering questions? Okay. Thank you. And thanks for helping with that. I was like, staff, applicant, get the order straight. So now we're going to open up the public hearing for anyone who has any questions or comments on this conditional use permit for Berkeley Town Heritage Park. Yes, please. Come on up. And if you could just state your name and address for the record, please come on up and if you could just state your name and address for the record please. Oh, at the at the my thing for the few people at home listening. It's important. I own the piece of property at 804 Henry Street right there on the corner. And the only concern that I have I'm made known that the fencing that divides the park would divide that piece of property as well because people coming in and it's that top and up there that says Anderson Phyllis that piece of property. If you look at it it's like right in the backyard. The park where it's laid off it's almost like right there in the backyard and if I was even on rent and it out I wouldn't want somebody in my backyard me ending around, you know, that kind of thing. So I don't know how far the recommendation or request goes to put that fencing up, but seems to me if you're going to put fencing there, you should put it all in the park. Just a suggestion. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. I'm going to bring it back up to the commission. So to clarify that I think that's a fair comment on this image that we're looking at Kerry is the darker line indicating that's not indicating where the fence is only at the bottom part of this diagram. Right. The fencing is indicated through a lighter dark line with the sort of exes on it. So there is no fencing proposed to the property we were just talking about that Phyllis Anderson one and what is being asked is considering additional fencing on that on that border on that square. Yes sir. Okay. Then is it fair to consider fencing the entire outline or is that did staff already consider that fencing around that entire Park border and determine that it's not feasible or too expensive What was the reason that the fencing stops about halfway through is it just because of the logistics of the property? I believe there was a reason I'll let Miss Hawke speak to that if she can come forward with here. Thank you. Yes Hi I'll let Ms. Hawke speak to that if she can come forward. Ms. Here. Thank you. Yes. Hi. I'm Amy Halk. I'm the Parks and Recreation Manager and been very involved with this project. So we did go out there and kind of in survey for fencing. The reason for only fencing this portion of the park is the topography of the park and also the location of the dwellings and how close they are to the property line. So in the northern section of the park there's considerable vegetation and wetlands that will be avoiding with the meandering trail that provide a, as that vegetative buffer, a large buffer between the trail and the property borders for those adjacent properties. The reason for the fencing in the southern section is because the properties, like the actual physical dwelling structures, are very close to the park boundary lines. And then we also wanted to fence off those, the cemetery areas so that we are protecting that space. With this park we're going to leave it mostly in its natural state which means brambles and a lot of brush. If you're not on the trail like you need good boots to get back there, think of like the Jarnett Park and kind of that area. So we don't foresee people really moving off of that trail just due to the Vegetative state and there should be plenty of buffer in that northern section to protect the property owners from unwanted visitors Thank you answer in that Yeah, why you're why you're doing so It's gonna be a 10 foot asphalt trail throughout. Yes. Okay. Similar to the rail side trail. Yes. Okay. That meets the ADA requirements. So I have a different question. On the northern part of this, I would imagine with all the pedestrian who like to walk around Ashland, some folks may want to walk through and when they get to the Von side, cross the tracks and come back down on the other side. Have we done any inspecting of what pedestrian crossing the tracks in that area looks like? That is something we need to. Yeah. That consideration has come up as part of our Parks and Recreation Committee, our 2045 bike and pedestrian plan, and making and putting that into that plan, which will be hopefully going through the approval process like the comp plan this year, so that we can make that a project and look into that. But I agree that would be a natural pedestrian flow. So that is being considered. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, I just had another question. I was just thinking about the community concerns and the only one, you know, the community of his concern about crime or the safety in the after hours. So I know it'll be a closing dusk like the other parks. But how would that, well, since it is going to be sort of a brambly, more rustic will people, well, police or somebody be monitoring it or have- Yes, the action, much like our other parks, the Ashland Police Department does frequent and rustic will people avail police or somebody be monitoring it? Or how will- Yes, Ashlyn, much like our other parks, the Ashlyn Police Department does frequent drive-byes in the evenings and they check the parks. I mean, they'll be able to access and walk the trail if needed, but you should be able to see down that corridor from either end once we clear that pathway. But much like our other parks, they'll just patrol regularly and then our public work staff is back there frequently or we'll be back there frequently and myself too and so we'll be able to see if there's signs of use in the evenings and then address that and we will have signage posted at both north and south entrances that the park closes at dusk and it opens at dawn like our other parks Any more questions from us. Thank you so much. Thank you While we have you and again, I'm such a fan of the parks system and I'm glad to see this is in development I'm really excited about this possibility The decision to put asphalt in is that sort of now the expected, I know ADA compliance and being able to get wheelchairs and other vehicles onto there that need something more solid versus crushed gravel or other pathways. The asphalt trail is the recommended approach, I suppose, for park development? That's the standard for ADA. It's a 10-foot wide asphalt trail, and there's two inches of stone underneath and a one foot shoulder, or two foot shoulder on either side. So that's what the ADA recommends, and then the Virginia Department of Transportation. That doesn't mean that every trail that we build from now on will be that, but we're trying to be context sensitive, and if we have the interpretive kiosks, we want everybody, especially that community, there's some older individuals who lived through the Berkeley town, the time of Berkeley town, and so we want them to be able to continue to access that. But the decision to put in that type of surface will be dependent on the trail, you know, the nature of the trail. Like the jarnits a very different experience than this one. Versus Stoney, yeah. So I agree. Yeah, but that's kind of the standard now for the ADA acceptable. That's great. And thanks. And the only other I noticed in Linda referencing the comments, somebody mentioned a gate as another security precaution, but that's just too challenging to manage or too expensive. What were the considerations? Or do you think the neighbors' concerns were addressed with security and patrol and that sort of thing? I think the neighbors' concerns were addressed with security and patrol and that sort of thing. I think the neighbors concerns were addressed. We had multiple one-on-one meetings with some of the neighbors who, and we did a lot of research on crime in adjacent two parts or crime in parks. And a lot of that research shows that crime actually decreases when you build parks because there are now open spaces that are traversed frequently and so people are less interested in going back and you know doing the various things. But the idea for gates we currently don't have functional gates at any of our other parks. However if we did find a need for them we could install them down the road. But the community seemed to be okay with just the other conditions that we had. Sure, thank you. I will just say thank you all so much for being conscientious of really involving the neighbors and RMC with the signage and everything and not just taking it upon yourself to put a park there and really getting them involved so that the history is really shown through like it's been such a fun project. Yeah, so yeah, thank y'all for doing it. Yeah, looks great. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? I did just I did have the question I was concerned as well about about the fencing and I think I still a little M. Yeah just and and with the upkeep with that just be. I should The upkeep, that would be public works and with signage and keeping up with the brush. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So the trail itself and everything will be maintained by public works after its construction. Same thing with all of the fencing, the signage, the way stations, all of that, the kiosks and everything. Awesome. Thank you. And yeah, I was a little concerned with so many of the comments about the safety and everything, but I did, right? I have all the faith in the world in APD, and so as long as you know, Miss Wright asked, and you answered that, that they've been informed, and they patrol, and they just know that this would possibly be another patrol area to look out for. Awesome. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. if issues arrive, or if there's something that evolves or devolves in terms of traffic, or encroachment on properties that revisiting the design, or at considering adding fencing could be addressed based on experiences, or based on what's happening. I don't know if you feel that that's sort of a reasonable. That sounds like a good approach. I think the topography and growth that's there and the way the path is designed sounds like it's gonna, that's not gonna be an issue, but should it become one, I think we need to just be aware that that's a possibility and it's a concern that's been raised. And if something comes up, then we, further fencing would be an option. Your way to address that concern. that's what we want to do. So, I think we're going to have a little bit of a discussion on the next slide. So, I think we're going to have a little discussion on the next slide. So, I think we're going to have a little discussion on the next slide. So, I think we're going to have a little discussion on the next slide. So, I think we're going to have a little discussion on the next slide. what the following changes if you wanted to direct staff to add something. I'm not sure if we need to add something if APD and public works are going to be maintaining and monitoring and I'm sure our community is very good about telling us when there are issues. So I think we sort of want on the record as part of the discussion that we, you know, share the concern that was raised around fencing and that we want to watch it closely. But I think being in the minutes should be sufficient. Thank you. Great. So with that discussion, I will make the motion that we move to approve COP 24-0103 Berkeley Town Heritage Park, to the town council with the eight conditions as presented by the staff. Mr. Merrill, I do need to ask Ms. Hare if she is ready to close the public hearing. Oh, sorry, I got about that. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. And I will close the public hearing for this application now. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Burr. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. So should I remove that we approve? We recommend approval of COP 24103, Berkeley Town Heritage Park to the Town Council with the conditions that's presented by the staff. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Right? Aye. Mr. Chambers? Aye. Mr. H. aye. Mr. Chambers. Aye. Ms. Hay, aye. Mr. Merrill. Aye. Ms. Hayer, aye. Motion carries. Thank you all. All right, so we are going to move on to our second public hearing tonight. Thank you. That little side of you, I was going to move on to our second public hearing tonight. Thank you. That little tiny, and I was going to read them. Thank you. And that's going to be our rezoning 23-1031 with ordinance 2023-14 for Patriot Glen. And this is Raglan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hare. This is a request by C. Ferris of Wiltonock Resitions to change zoning districts from residential rural RR1 to highway commercial B2 and a planned unit development, which we call a PUD. This is to develop a residential community and commercial pad sites, and this is across two properties, which would be further subdivided if this application was approved. The affected acres together measure just over 60 acres in total at this time they're mostly vacant except for a telecommunications tower. This is the approximate aerial locations. This is the far east side of town. You can see woodside lane in the aerial. And that is really where the town boundary ends and Hanover County begins. And then you can see out 54 East Patrick Henry Highway on the bottom end. You can also notice the large dominion easement on the left hand portion. So this notice the large dominion easement on the left-hand portion. So this application, it does span across that dominion easement as well. Some basics on the application. We did receive it in October, but it was amended in late January. see it in October but it was amended in late January. The existing zoning are R1. They're proposing a small area of R1 to be retained and that's where the telecommunications tower is as well as the B2 highway commercial towards the front of the partials, the PUD towards the back for the residential units. All these surrounding areas are mostly RR1 or residential at this time. So we just want to read the proposal roughly 1 acre parcel of the Telecommunications Tower. The two large parcels are separated by a pipe stem lot owned by Hanover County and that's part of Washington, Lacey Park. Within the PUD zoning, they're proposing a single family detached, single family attached as well as cottage homes and town homes. That maximum density would be 2.39 acres on their concept plan, but their properties state no more than 2.5. concept plan, but their profits state no more than 2.5. Dwelling units per acre. The proper conditions do allow us to potentially approve increased density. But within the B2, at the southern portion of the properties, the applicant is proposing just over seven acres. And this is for unspecified commercial use. So it would be a speculative zoning for the commercial use. There's no profers or end user identified for those. And again, this is one of those. It's really difficult to put on a PowerPoint. So this is a bit scrunched in, but I'll zoom in later for your reference. This is an overall of the plan shows the two parcels separated by the pipe stem and the center. Again, that goes up to Washington, Lacey Park. It borders Hanover County to the east. Those commercial pad sites are towards the front on Route 54. And you can see throughout single family and town homes in the western lot, and then single family attached, detached, and cottage homes in the east. For the pud zoning, we do require 50% open space areas. So you can see that throughout the darker green. There are lots of wetlands on this parcel, which I'll show you a separate wetlands map. And again, we have that dominion easement in the western parcel, and that shows you more of that open space that's not otherwise identified. This is zooming in a bit more. You can see the commercial pad sites on the front that one little parcel just over in acre with the telecommunications tower off of proposed road A, single family homes to the far west, as well as town homes and the other single family homes in the eastern side. This is a closer look at the northern half, again with those town homes, and the western portion, more the single family homes on the eastern portion. And you can notice where it says B and P area, those are stormwater management areas. Regarding some of the proffers, the put area of this property is where we have most of the, where we have all of the proffers. And this state that they will be developed consistent with the concept plan as you just reviewed, as well as the exhibit A, which shows some general design ideas for the dwellings. That also states that there be a maximum of 131 single family homes, which is no more than 2.5 dwelling in its per acre. And again, as required with the PUD zoning, they're offering 50% areas are for open space and not less than 10% of that would be for recreational facilities. Again, this is required with the PUD zoning. and not less than 10% of that would be for recreational facilities. Again, this is required with the PUD zoning. There are other preferred conditions and that proper statement, which staff would like some more time to review end up that they are included in your staff report. These are examples. This is not the entirety of exhibit A. This is just staff pulling some I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go And entirely what would get approved, for example, we have a limit on how many front facing garages, what that percentage can look like throughout the plan, as well as for some of them, we would require them to be a setback of five feet for the garages as well. Sit back from the front door. Yes, thank you. Do I need to repeat what I just said? I'm sorry. So even though we have these design com sets on the screen right now, this is not necessarily what would be approved. Staff would like to continue working with the applicant to present some examples in exhibit A that would be more appropriate. Look at the zoning map on your screen. Again, Jason to Hannaver County, Washington Lacey to the park, Washington L the south of the north. The southern portion we have planned shopping center B2 and PUD and this is the leftover from the east Ashland zoning. We don't have an application right now but we are expecting some time this year to get a rezoning for that area so we're keeping that in mind. There are residential homes to the west. Again, we talked about lots of wetlands, the Dominion Power easement. And there are two conditional use permits already on the property for the telecommunications tower. Staff has reviewed those. They're included in the staff report, but we don't expect those to be to affect the application. This is one of the Virginia wetlands maps. These are the potential wetlands. So these are not confirmed by the Army Corps of Engineers. That would be something that would have the applicant do when we get to that point in the site plan phase. But this shows you the amount of wetlands that are on that property and gives you an idea of why the concept plan is laid out the way it is trying to avoid some of those existing wetlands. So the current zoning at this time is RR1 and that's generally to allow for large lot residential units. The proposed zoning for one of them has B2 highway commercial. And this is intended to provide a wide variety of commercial and miscellaneous services that exists along existing major thoroughfares. And the location is important as a gateway to the community, improving its function through elements such as lighting, landscaping, signage, building design and layout is an important economic goal for the town. Something to keep in mind. So again, the applicant is not proposing any end user for the B2 district. So this is just staff pulling a couple of potential permitted uses that maybe could go there for B2. Again, the applicant is not said what would go there. He hasn't profit out any uses. This is just staff giving you an example of what could go there in B2 and I can revert back to this later if needed. These would be by right. Then on your screen right now or uses that could go there in the B2 but we would require a conditional use permit so instead of by right it would incorporate an additional public hearing. So in addition to the B2, and the public hearing. So in addition to the B2, they're also proposing planned unit development. And that district is intended as a master plan of cluster type communities under one ownership, incorporating a variety of housing and a great amount of open space area with the least disturbance to the natural features. The applicant has proffered conditions for the put for the put zoning. I'm not going to read all this to you. This is just on the screen for reference in case we need to revert back. So you can see on the future land use map, the beige colors, the property is actually two different land use designations, traditional neighborhood as well as interstate commercial for traditional neighborhood, generally defined by one to four dwelling units per acre, but you can take advantage of density bonuses for more. So by right, it would be one unit per acre, but you can do up to four. And the intent is also for houses that are close enough to each other in the street for a sense of neighborhood, for open space and green quality, safe quiet streets, and a variety of housing options. the area of the city. The area of the city is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large area of the city. It is a very large retail restaurants, hotels that can serve the offices and retail developments are encouraged to attract pedestrian activity and interconnectivity. Something else to consider beyond Ashland is that this does border Hanover County. So I pulled some of the definitions for their neighborhood residential and neighborhood commercial for consideration. Their neighborhood residential, which is the yellow, is really similar to our traditional neighborhood. Their densities are 1.5 to 3. Again, they want the walkable environments, variable density, high quality open space and recreational amenities. And then we have the definition for neighborhood commercial, which on their map is that red, red blob. And this is more limited range of commercial uses and businesses that are smaller and lower intensity. What we don't have on the screen is also the employment center, which is nearby. To the south. In Hanover County. In Hanover County. Yes, thank you. Which staff is not yet analyzed. not yet analyzed. So staff request additional time to research the existing design guidelines and how they apply to the HUD zoning, the density bonuses and the proffers. Regarding the mixed business zoning, that's that pink land use. We don't have any architectural design guidelines for that district. When the applicant hasn't offered anything specifically regarding architecture or the Ashland field this time, so we'd like to take a closer look at that. Again, with transportation, the applicant did provide a TIA, which was recently revised last month. The staff hasn't had time to thoroughly re-review that TIA or any of the implications of the transportation plan. This is again just an overview of their requests with the different types of housing. There would be public water and sewer, storm water is identified on the plan in several different open space lots. and there's a lot of other things that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's a lot of that we can do. There's identified as a potential connection, but the applicant doesn't own that property, and we really can't say whether that connection would occur at this time. The applicant has preferred standard and guidelines for the PUD district. We have a speculative zoning for the B2 with no proffers. Just to keep in mind, the layout is a bit different than what we would normally require in Ashland, but that's because of the wetlands on the site. This is again just for your reference in case we need to revert back to this concept plan. Other staff considerations, we know that the iron horse rezoning to the south will be coming in the future and we are considering how that could affect the community. Also looking at the interstate 95 diverging diamond and how that could affect traffic with this proposed development. There are significant amount of wetlands on the property and some of those will be affected. The transportation access is still being reviewed and there's a couple of other agency comments we'd like to receive such as from Hanover County Schools. So again the applicant resubmitted and revised the plan in late January. Staffers requesting additional time to review. Those interagency comments are not due back until February 20th. As of February 12th, staff has not received any public comment regarding the application. So staff is requesting additional time to review the proposed layout, offers and transportation implications. Staff's recommending a deferral until I think this says March 19th, but I think it's actually the 13th when we meet again for the planning commission. So Ms. Hare, that concludes the staff presentation. I believe we have a representative from the applicant who is also available to speak. Thank you. But the applicant like to come forward. Good evening. Hi, thank you. Kerry, I thought I was last on the agenda now. Mr. Good is you up. We're just good. I like that. I'll be home early. As Carrie mentioned. Please state your names as all commissioners. For the record names, Henry Wilton and I represent Wilton Acquisition tonight. We've basically been involved with this project for about two years now working with the county. We came in for a comp plan amendment which we kind of have kind enough to give me back in 2022. As it's been said basically we're requesting two types of zoning. The plan unit development with 50% open space and then the B2 highway commercial. The plan was developed by a land planner Keith Whipple who's here tonight on another project right here. So if you have any questions on the plan, we can ask him. And Air Engineer Dan Kasky, the Proffer's were developed from Lordell, which basically was approved by this committee a number of years ago, and has been constructed at this point. So we used a lot of those Proffers as our framework for this one. Since y'all like that project, we figured we'd go with that one. Basically, we do have four types. We've got single-family, categories, duplexes, townhouses. The price point's going to be $350 to $5, $25, something like that. As you saw in the paper today, the mean pricing for housing right now is like $382 in the rich fan area. So, it's right in there. Again, I have something for everybody, I think, with at least three different price points in there too. The, the PUD, like we said, is heavily proffered with the same Lord Del Proffers. To give it the small town character, a grid system, shady streets, the village concept, walkable sidewalks and that type of thing. The BMPs also doubles water features, as you can see on the plan up there, the larger one up where it has the cottages in the single family of Jason to it. That's all creates a sense of neighborhood. In regard to the B2 request, we will probably have to come back to you for a cop, for a specialized use when we get it. What we envision for this area though is a center to basically bring these people together here in this community, but also the adjacent communities, where we can basically envision some retail sales, a restaurant with some outdoor zoning, or outdoor seating, where you could have coffee in the morning, and you might want to have a beer with your friends outside in the late afternoon. Again, this plan will come back to you. Any of these, all these users will probably need a cup. We do go ahead and follow the statement of intent because we give a variety of housing. Does any classifications conform to the comprehensive plan and the future land use plan? We are waiting for the comments to come back from the read, the redo on the traffic study. We'll be back next month for that. Because I imagine that the staff is requested to for hold. We're certainly going to continue working on the case with them. And they'd be back here next month if that's your wishes. If you have any questions, I'm here for the answer. Thank you. I don't have any. Yeah, I haven't seen anything that would make me change my mind from a deferral. I do have a lot of questions, but I think based on our agenda tonight, I think you know, I don't want a short change our conversation, but I think just based on the volume that we want to get through, if he's fine with the deferral, unless anybody else would recommend something else. No, I'm glad to see some progress on this project. Congratulations for moving the ball forward, but it does look like there's a number of things to still be addressed. And I agree that we should give the town and you time to work through that. I totally agree that we've got a full agenda, and we'll probably vote to defer. I did have one thing just to consider as you do, go through the next month. I was just wondering if you had considered a B4 neighborhood commercial rather than B2 since it's primarily, so there's right in this. Well, this is high way, but they go on what, highway business. So you've got to live in the means of the industry. It's mixed business, just different than highway commercial. The B2, you know, we'll give, you know, the retail use is again, any intensuse, the couple have to come back and come before y'all. We want to go ahead and work on that to make it ashen like as far as the architectural design. And we'll work with the county on that to add a couple of profits between now and when we present next month. So we'll work on that to add a couple of profits between now and when we present next month. So we'll work on that. I just noticed that on the county side it is neighborhood commercial and then our side is mixed, mixed business. I just would throw that out as a possible consideration if you're considering. We had talked to the county about that before and we came together in regards to B2 is the best one. We did discuss that at length as far as the different sections of business, you know, what we could go ahead and draw from. And between all the discussion, we came up with the B2 use. Okay. Thanks. Ms. Hair, I know you still have to technically open the public hearing, but I did want to say we've been working with Mr. Wilton for several months, and this application has shifted quite a bit, and we've really worked with them. They've been really responsive to our comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, thank you. If you can just state your name and your address with the rest of the... Are you formally opening the public hearing? Yes. I'm opening the public hearing for this. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Mark Brewerner. I don't know who you are now. Well, you say that one over time, I evening. I'm Mark Bruner. I don't know. We say that before time I apologize. I'm sorry. We say your name and address. Mark Bruner. B.R.U. and E.R. I live on Winter Crest, which is actually in the county, just east of this area. Thank you. I wasn't actually going to speak tonight until I really saw the plan. Two things. one, I commend you on the Berkeley Park, appears that you're trying to preserve wooded areas and so forth. Doesn't seem to be the same philosophy on the east side of town. The 252 acre iron horse project is wiping out agricultural wetlands and timbered area. agricultural wetlands and timbered area, preserved for deer, all kinds of animals and so forth. 252 acres. Now we're considering 60 more acres directly across from iron horse. We don't know what the traffic pattern at iron horse is going to be. I don't personally know and I don't think anybody does. Does all of the proffers haven't been presented to the people where the excess and the entrances are going to be at iron horse, whether there's going to be stoplights, how many hotels, how many restaurants, how many offices, how many 310,000 barefoot buildings there's going to be. We now know tonight for the first time in the How many 310,000 barefoot buildings there's going to be? We now know tonight, for the first time I believe, that there's going to be entrances on woodside. I think that the people would have known that before. The providence and woodside people would be here in force. Okay? No one knew that ahead of time. Because I tried to research this and find out what it looked like. Couldn't find it before tonight. This is wooded, wet lands, natural preserve right now and it's going to be disrupted just like iron horse this. Two more entrances and exits on the same highway in the same congested area that there's going to be because of iron and worse. And I can't see this happening at all. I don't even know why it's being considered be quite honest. It is a developer that evidently has presented a plan. It's ugly, it is not practical on this wetlands area. And if you go another mile down the road into the county, there was a nice plan put together by another developer, a tree-stricted work very, very well with the county. It is not going to affect the iron horse traffic and so forth. This is going to be a major obstacle. I don't see it happening. I appreciate the time to tell you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak about this? Would anybody else like to speak about this? I'll bring it back to commission and not close the public hearing for right now. Excuse me. Anybody has any more questions or comments? I know we, I'll say we might have a consensus to. For. Yeah, I don't have any questions for tonight. I have a lot of discussion in front of us. Yeah, when we come back. Anybody like to make a emotion to defend? Do you need to make a motion? I know or need the language. Oh, I'm sorry. Should I sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Should I not close the public hearing now since we're deferring? I'm sorry. Okay. It's standard practice has been, and this is totally up to you. By not closing the public hearing, we're just continuing, and you're deferring it. I'm to whatever month you state, it gives a staff time to do what they need to. We do not have to read ad for ties. Yes. Now we will still put information out for the public. Okay. Yeah, I wasn't going to close it. Okay. I just wanted to be sure. And so, no, sorry. Keep me. Right. I need help this my first night. All right. I'm so okay. Can I actually clarify if you are going to defer until next month, I believe the date is 13 March 13th. March 13th. March 13th, 2024 is our next scheduled meeting. Thank you. Well, I move that we defer a rezoning 23-1031 and ordinance 20-23-14 Patriot Glen until the March 13th Planning Commission meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Miss. Right? Mr. Merrill? I. Mr. Chambers? I. Ms. Haye. Aye. Ms. Wright. Aye. Ms. Hayer. Aye. Motion to defer passes. Thank you all. Thank you. Sorry. It will be March 13th Wednesday at 6 p.m. We'll have. Thank you. I'm just going to quickly stop you guys. Thank you. And I'm just going to quickly stop you guys. I apologize. I should have said this at the beginning of our meeting. But I do just want to quickly introduce Mr. Talley-Guene. He is our alternate town attorney for tonight. So thank you so much. Thank you. Sorry I didn't introduce you earlier. Thank you. All right. So we're just going to move right on to our next public hearing. Make sure I got this right. No, we're 15. And this will be for thank y'all for rezoning 23-1130 with ordinance 2023-15 YSJ LLC. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hare. This is a request by Yancey Jones of YSJ LLC to request a change in the zoning districts from Central Business B1 to residential multi-family, which is R5, and this is to develop townhouses on two properties which will be consolidated. The affected parcels measure 1.85 acres in total and at this time the primary parcel has existing apartments of eight units on it. This is the approximate aerial location. You'll see when we get to the plat, while there's two circles, we're sort of connecting two parcels, which again, the proposal is that they would be consolidated. But this is at the intersection of Mertle and Randolph Street. You can see in the larger circle, the existing apartments, and the circle to the left, it would be another access point where they proposed addition of townhouses. This is most of the same information we just went over. So again the application would leave the current eight residential apartment units intact. We talked with the applicant and he feels strongly about not disrupting the folks who are living there right now. But instead would add to additional buildings and this would provide two new housing units in total, fronting on Randolph Street. I'm sorry, 10 new housing units, thank you. But the application, the request would utilize the adjacent parcel, which is to the North Ashland Town Center for parking and access. On its own, this process would create a split zone property, which is mostly against our policy. We really don't like split zone properties, so this would need to be corrected through a boundary line adjustment. This is a better aerial view of the request. This is the layout as presented by the applicant. You can see in the center of the screen the existing apartments and then the two proposed structures, fronting on Randolph Street. Sort of with the white background you can see where most of the existing primary parcel is. And by incorporating that sort of L shape to the left would be another access point for those existing apart for the proposed development. At this point that sort of left L-shaped outline as part of Ashland Town Center. For those who need a better visualization, this is a Google Maps view of that intersection between Mertle and Randolph. So looking in the center of the screen is the eight existing apartment units. To the left is one of the adjacent church buildings, and the two proposed units would be sort of in the background and the foreground. The proper state that the property will be developed in accordance with architectural standards and guidelines, specifically, proffers that no more than 18 dwelling units would be allowed on the property. So that includes the eight existing plus the 10 more. And also, it offers the boundary line adjustment as required by staff. In addition, our standards and guidelines intended to provide guidance for the new development. So again, the existing building would not be affected or renovated. This would just be for the two additional new buildings. So following these standards and guidelines that are offered as a list of over 30 architectural and design conditions that address items such as lot coverage, plantings, materials, windows, lighting while not putting all this on the PowerPoint, it is included in the staff report. These are examples that staff pulled from Exhibit A, which has been profored by the applicant, some ideas of what the townhouses could look like. Looking at the zoning map, you can see that the parcel is zoned B1. Most of the surrounding area is B1 as well. Through that dashed line, you can see where the proposed cutoff would be from the Ashland Town Center to the north and how that would be incorporated with this new development. There are existing apartments on the property. Pufferbelly Park is located to the east. The density request is approximately 9.8. Once we reconfigure that with the boundary line adjustment, that's pretty much as high as we go in Aschland. But they have preferred conditions to address that higher density. Again, this is the current zoning for the central business district, which I've just got on the screen to refer to if needed. And the proposed zoning is residential R5. This is pulled from the code. This is actually really short. It just says that it encompasses high density residential areas. The district should provide a suitable environment for persons desiring the amenities of apartment living, noting that apartments are already on place on the property. Looking at the zoning history, noting while there's no zoning or cup conditions on that primary parcel where the existing apartments are, there are numerous cups and variances on the larger parcel. That's where Ashland Town Center is. So as part of our staff review, we have to look at both parcels. We did look at all the conditions for Ashland Town Center. And they appear to address the specific businesses in place in relation to the hours, alcohol consumption, et cetera. Staff does not believe that the request will have any effect on those existing permits. Looking at the feature land use, the brown color is mixed neighborhood. And this is defined by the one-to-ten dwelling units per acre. This is again where we have that maximum density is up to 10, which can be acquired through density bonuses. The goal of this classification is to create communities that include a diversity of housing types, such as single-family townhouse apartments, with a range of incomes. and apartments with a range of incomes. Looking at the transportation plan, it doesn't show any proposed improvements in regards to road sidewalks or trails in that immediate area. There already are sidewalks in place on the east side of Randolph Street adjacent to Puffer Belly Park and on the south side of Randolph Street, adjacent to Puffer Belly Park, and on the south side of Murdle Street. Right now, there doesn't appear to be space on either one of those streets for parallel parking, or street parking, but the request does include parking of 38 spaces for the development. And this is not proper, but it's on their concept plan, which would equate to about 2.11 spaces per dwelling unit. The plan development would include public water and sewer. There's no storm water on the proposed plan that will be addressed at site plan and may need to go underground. No plan, transportation improvements. The applicant has preferred conditions to include a maximum of the 18 dwelling units, as well as the boundary line adjustment, standards and guidelines for new buildings, and stated that the existing apartments will remain unchanged. The preferred architectural standards are in alignment with the town's residential development checklist, which the applicant did submit, and that does allow density for up to the 10 units per acre. Some additional considerations. The proposal is within an intersection of existing units. A park, a church, a national and town center, in general, this creates an ideal location for walkability, convenience and recreation on an existing street. There's no proposed additional ingress or egress into the public rights of way. The probably will be some additional traffic within the new units. Nothing substantial enough to trigger traffic impact analysis. We're going to be able to do that. Regarding agency comments, all the comments we received were mostly for site plan. And then Ashlyn planning did submit two comments. And that was again with the boundary line adjustment and requesting the residential checklist which the applicant did submit to us. So those comments are satisfied. As of the 12th staff has not received any public comment on the application. In conclusion, staff concurse to propose rezoning is appropriate for the future land use of the property and the proffers will help emphasize compatibility with the immediate surroundings. Staff recommends approval of this rezoning request. Thank you, Ms. Ragwin. We do have a representative for the applicant available to speak as well. Thank you. Would you like to come on out? Please, thank you. Looking up the definition. Good evening. My name is Keith Whipple. I'm with Waterstreet Studio and here tonight representing YSJ LLC and Ashland Town Center LLC. Excited to be here and bring this project forward. I think it's a great example of how the comprehensive plan can be leveraged to provide additional housing units downtown and to show it in field development, and really do for a growing housing need. As was discussed previously, the proposal there is for 10 additional townhouse apartment units to front on Randolph Street and look over Puffer Belly Park. Parking would be provided on site on the western side with the egress through the alley that was mentioned to the north, and a bit of open space on Murdle Street as well to provide additional amenity for the future residents. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have and appreciate your time. Thank you. I have sort of an interesting technical question maybe and the only because we're going to see this with the Cali Commons coming up, they have a residential incentive request and I was curious if that was considered or thought about in place of or in lieu of the R5 if you weighed positives and negatives to that or. We did not look at residential incentive zoning here based on the comprehensive plan and that up to 10 units per acre designation. We felt that R5 was more appropriate. There is R5 land about a block away. And other apartments, both on site and on adjacent parcels. So we felt like that was the best use of this property and most in keeping with the surrounding character. And we've talked a lot as a group about the hope for affordable housing and I was surprised to hear the 350 to 520 comment for the other property consideration. Have there been thoughts about, I know this isn't, you know, for the benefit of the community necessarily development, but I was wondering if there were considerations or discussions about affordability or if these town homes are going to be on the higher end of townhouse pricing, especially with ones already there with apartments there right primarily so there are no economic Prophors or Rents Profford into this application But I hope that I can speak freely for the owner here. The genesis of this project was really to provide additional housing for residents of Ashland. I was told of a story of some members of the owner owners congregation that have had trouble staying in Ashland due to rental increases and so he thought that he could do something beneficial here and so I do think that the hope for this property is to keep folks in the existing aid apartments or to build additional units in town where folks can afford to stay in style. Sure. But there are no economic proffers. Sure. Thank you. My question might be for town staff. It says a new sidewalks may be required during the site plan phase. So what is that mean? Well, that's again, they're in the site plan phase. That's where we get detailed comments from the engineering department. So we would look more at the right of way, the specific wits. And I'm not sure that they would require any more in the public streets, but they would require internally. So it's just more of an engineering question. or internally, so it's just more of an engineering question. And the parking is 38 spots for 18 apartments, that's like two poor apartment, basically, is that pretty standard? Yes. The two poor townhouse. So guest would park across the street in on the street or? There is available parking on Randolph and Murdle Street. There's also parking in that alleyway. It's hard to make out in the aerial image but that L-shape that wraps around the church property is all striped parking currently. So there is plenty of parking. I see there's a big one. On site. And what has been sort of striped in the proposed plan is subject to change based on site plan comments. But that's sort of the general approach is the double load and single drive aisle there. I see. Yeah, I think it's encouraging because there are not sidewalks on that corner. So it would be nice to see them included, but I'm sure that's part of the development of the property. I'm just going to say this is somewhat of a unique property. It has an existing set of apartments on it. So what it takes to kind of come up with a good way to develop it, provide some more affordable housing, and the appropriate parking is not obvious. But I think this looks like a pretty good plan. I like the open space, and I'm sure this, I think this comes in the later part of the process. But having this be sort of neighborhood feel or walkable for the folks that are going to be parking and coming through or using the park and coming back to the front of the townhome apartment I think it's you know nicely nicely laid out. Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me just a comment. Just, this is, of course, speaking in, you know, maybe site plan and all that. This is just a, if being someone who lives close by, I see, we said something about no storm order. I should have that in front of me. But just to be very mindful that, and I know we live in Ashland where it's, it can be very swampy, but that area can tend to flood a little bit right through there. When we get heavy rains, so I'm just hoping that that would definitely be taken into consideration. Yeah, so it'll have to be during site class. Awesome, thank you. And with limited space, there was a staff mentioned earlier that it may be an underground storm water system, and that would be used for detention of storm water so just to store it temporarily and that's fairly typical of urban sites like that. Certainly be addressed at site point. Thank you. Questions for the app? I want to speak to two questions. If you don't mind, I'm here. Yes. Okay. I'm thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to open up the public hearing at this time for any citizens who would like to come forth and speak. Okay. We're just going to bring it back to the commission, please. Ms. Ratten. All right, thank you. No, thank you. Regarding the affordability question, this wasn't something in the staff report, but I did want to note that the owner did come to planning staff a few months ago with the intention of wanting to provide affordable homes in Ashland. So that's sort of how that pre-application meeting began and then a few months later we got this application. So I do know that is the intention of the owner. And the question regarding the residential incentive zoning, this is my thoughts on this, this is intended to be more rental units and the residential incentive really the incentive there is to provide smaller Lots for for ownership which is in this case the the R5 density would be more architectural Proffers but allowing more rental units Thank you for answering that This may not have a impact at all that That building that's remaining is a church building? Was that right? I believe it's owned by the church. Across the street. Yes. And do we have any sense whether the church has a strong opinion one way or the other on this? I mean, I'm all for this, but again, I'm trying to be sensitive to, like, Stephanie's point about proximity. I think that's a use center. That's what the sign on it says. Is it a use center? There's a building. So just the possibility of adding more parking or traffic they may love or they may have an issue with and I don't know if that's been part of the process or part of the community discussion. The applicant, excuse me, the owner has been in touch with the church and had many conversations with them about parking on site. Currently it's being used as a youth center. There's not a lot of traffic in and out of there at the moment. Of course that could change down the road but there have been several conversations with the church there. Right. Thank you for clarifying that. Are we good? Yes sir. Please. Good evening. I'm Hensy Jones. I guess of these two properties that we're talking about. I've talked to the church and I'm trying to get this approved to change from the B1 to the H5 for these apartments. The church is right now these apartments. The church is right now lending that space to the after-school program here in Ashland. And of course, they park. If you see what's green, it's theirs. And what's in that red is what I own now from the Ashland Town Center. And they park on that nail. So that would be, right now it's not lined up for parking just park, you know what I'm saying. So I will, this project is done, I will have a line in park that would be paved and would look nice for them. But they're also talking to me about maybe putting the same type of thing on that piece of property But we got to find a home with after school program first. Yeah, so that's why I'm doing one step at a time Sure, but we've been talking for over a year. I figured yeah, I just wanted to thank for thank you. Thank you. Thank you I don't know if any other questions or comments. Any anything from you? You're good. No, I'm good. Yeah, like Mr. Chamber said, I thought the proposal looks great and I am very happy to hear about, you know, hopefully that this is going to be affordable. And rent will perhaps. Yeah, yeah. That's great. All right. If you think we're ready. So I was trying to find the right language for the motion. Or if this diagram doesn't mind, she's always prepared. It wouldn't be the motion. Or if the next program doesn't mind. She's always prepared. So I will move to record. Pardon me. I'll keep stuff on this. No, no, no. It's going to take me some time. And so now I am going to close the public hearing for this one you guys. Thank you. Then I will move to recommend approval of REZ 23-1130 and ORD 2023-15 YSJLLC to the town council. Thank you for that wording. Miss right? I? Mr. Chambers? I? Mr. Merrill? I? Miss Hay? I? Miss Hare? I. Motion carried. Thank you for keeping me on track. Ms. Hayer, yes. I'll stay. Thank you all. Okay. Kelly comments. Thank you very much. Yes. All right, and so our next applicant, public hearing will be the rezoning 23-1130D and ordinance 2023-16 for Cali Commons. Miss Rackland, excuse me, thank you. Thank you, Miss Hare. This is a request by Keith Whipple of Water Street Studio. Filing request to change the zoning district from RR1 residential rural to residential incentive to develop single- family homes in a cottage court across two properties, which will be consolidated. The parcels together measure 3.596 acres in total and at this time include a single family home. I think the address is 530 North James Street with several outbuildings. The rest of the land is mostly vacant. This is an aerial of the general location so you can see it's just north of the terminus of Cally Street and it's sort of north, northwest of that Amber and subdivision which is currently under development. We received the application November 30th and we've gone through the zoning. The proposal is a gaining access by extension of Callie Street from North Macon Terrace, neighborhood, and through the dedication of right of way at Amber and Subdivision. So there's a proposed new street here that Calle Street extension would connect with the proposed West Vaughan Road Extension alignment. I promise you'll get visuals on all these shortly. Proposal includes single family detached and attached homes west of the Cali Street extension. In east of Cali Street they're proposing a cottage court development in accordance with residential and center zoning regulations. The cottage court would include nine detached cottages, a fronting on a common green space, and include gathering spaces, walkways, park-like landscaping, stormwater management facilities, and the applicant plans to have a homeowner's association to help manage those. This is a cut of the proposed layout. So as we discussed, sort of coming up from the south would be Calle Street Extension. Cutting across the top of the proposal would be the West Vaughan Road Extension. The applicant is just profaring right of way at this time, not to actually build the West Vaughan Extension. That would be sometime in the future when there's enough connectivity. To the west of Calle Street, are the single family homes and to the east are the proposed cottage court design. The proffer state, the property will be developed in accordance with architectural standards and guidelines. And again, they're offering that 60 foot right of way extension for West Bonn road would West Monroe would be included. This is a look at the proffers for the standards and guidelines. In this specifically states that the cottage court development shall be considered to have primary frontage on Cali Street. So most of these proffers are in relation to the cottage court development following the standards and guidelines are again a list of over 30 architectural design conditions that address lot coverage, plant material, building materials, windows, lighting. We're not putting this up on the screen but they are included in the staff report. This is exhibit A which has been preferred. This is again, just staff selecting some of those images for this presentation. This is not all of them. This gives you a general idea specifically of the cottage court proposal on the right-hand side, both that top and bottom of what that could look like and then on the left part of the screen, this is an example of what could be built with attached homes, but again, we do have limitations on garage-fronting structures. So the existing home at 530 North James Street would be demolished for this development. It is adjacent to the Amber and Subdivision. There's also an open space lot to the north between the proposed developments and the adjacent neighborhood to the north located near the terminus of Cali Street, which would be extended north The density request is approximately 3.6 once reconfigured with the boundary line adjustment So this application Outlined in red is most of the parcel. There's a small I think it's 0.272 acres of a sliver of a parcel That does extend all the way to North James Street as well. And the proper conditions do address the higher density and smaller, like a lot sizes and accordance with the residential incentive zoning. The current zoning, as we just saw, is RR1. This is on the screen for your review. There's no neighboring parcels that are zoned RR1. So if you go back to the zoning map, this is really an isolation. Everyone around has more residential density. So this is the first time that we have received an application for residential and sensitive zoning. This would be the first time that anyone's really thoroughly reviewed it. And it's been in the zoning code for a while, but this is the first time we've had a developer take advantage of it. So this was a fun opportunity for staff to look at that and try to work with the applicant in that way. The intent is to provide a variety of housing types, suitable environment for family life and recreation, providing certain features or amenities, including site design, incorporating principles of new urbanism, traditional neighborhood, environmental sustainability, energy efficient building design, affordable housing creation and preservation and historic preservation per the code. Looking at the future land use, we've looked at this a couple times tonight so this is just on the screen for reference. The traditional neighborhood defined by one to four dwelling units per acre. Again, you can use those density bonuses. The neighborhood should be close enough to each other in the street to create a sense of neighborhood with some open space. In addition, the comprehensive plan staff noted that this particular application is a court with guiding principle one, preserve Ashland's small town character, and four encourage continued variety within Ashland. We also identified several policies. I don't have the full policies on the screen that this residential and center zoning does satisfy within the comprehensive plan as to do with quality and design and construction, compact form, residential infill, and residential street design. Looking at the transportation plan, there's several improvements in this area regarding roadways. So we talked about the Vaughan Road Extension. This would dedicate some right of way for that potential extension in the future, but not enough to actually make that connection at this time. The applicant is not proposing to build that really just the right of way. Dedication. It would satisfy the Cali Street extension, identified as RR-21a. And we should note that the RR-20, the Staling Street, is no longer plans and that was due to the Amber and subdivision extending past that. Then all the proposed roads with this application would include public sidewalks. Again the plan of development includes single family homes and the cottage court would be public water and sewer. The plan does address storm water management on the plan through the open space lots. There's a common area proposed with trails connecting to other residential communities, extension of Cali Street, west von right away extension. They've offered the boundary line adjustment, which would include that sliver from the other parcel and profit standards and guidelines for the new buildings. The architectural standards are in alignment with the town's residential and center of zoning zoning elements which allow for a minimal lot sizes. So in this case in particular looking at the residential and center of zoning you have to satisfy at least 80% of those elements to get the smallest lot sizes and the applicant has done that by the proffers. Again, this is the layout just to refer back to if needed. There is one consideration to look at for the specific application and that's that the subdivision code states that no private roads are permitted in the town and that all lots must have public street frontage. And that is not what is shown here with the Codge Court development. You can see the frontage would be more of a private alley for those bottom cottage units. There's no immediate public road access. But the zoning code does provide a definition for cottage courts and does explicitly allow them within the residential and synod district. Therefore, there's a contradiction in the code. And it was obviously the intention of the code to allow for the cottage court design. Therefore, staff will need to submit a subdivision text and zoning text amendment for council approval before the provided concept plan can be approved. However, the applicant hasn't specifically offered the concept plan. It's really just the rezoning and the architectural proffers. So staff feels comfortable recommending approval of the application due to that. And then for those who just wanted to see what the definition of cottage court is to compare what we have in the zoning and subdivision code, it specifically says single family detached dwellings arranged around and fronting on a common green a common green space rather than a public road. So you see we have that contradiction there. We did receive some agency comments, but they were all site plan specific. As of the 12th, we did not receive any public comments on the application. Staff concur is that the rezoning is appropriate for the future land use and the proffers will emphasize the compatibility development. Staff recommends approval of the application. Thank you, Ms. Raglan. You're welcome. And with the applicant, I want to come speak. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Raglan. You're welcome. And with that, I can like to come speak. Yeah. Thank you. I'll just state your name again. Sure. Again, my name is Keith Whipple with Water Street Studio. I'm sorry to bog down the agenda. I am very excited to be here again, though. And Miss Raglan, if you could just put it back on the plan would be great. I just want to start by thanking staff for their help in this application. We've met a number of times because this residential and synod zone is relatively new. We've been back and forth quite a bit, and it's been a huge help. This idea of a cottage court, I just wanted to speak to. It's growing in popularity around the country. Ashlyn actually put this in their code. A few years back, I believe, I had the pleasure of working at the Lara Del Project and there were cottage courts proposed in that. That was under a PUD, however, so everything was addressed in that PUD statement and proffers. But Ashland was really sort of on the cutting edge in the state to implement something like this. We're seeing it a lot across the southeast. It started up in the Pacific Northwest. And the idea here is that we can help address affordability by looking at smaller lot sizes. And today's zoning ordinances are conventional zoning ordinances often push builders You know to 60, 80 hundred feet of road frontage. That's a very costly lot to to create and so we wind up with bigger and bigger homes trying to subsidize that land cost the cottage court allows for smaller homes to front on a green space or park like environment rather than on an improved public right of way. So that's what you're looking at here. We have single family detached and attached homes to the west of a proposed Cali Street extension and east of that road is the cottage court. So those homes would all front on a common green, small gathering space where residents could sit by the fire pit or go out to grill. They would have plenty of room out there to sort of live outdoors, so to speak, but it wouldn't be in their backyard behind a six foot privacy fence. We felt like this was a great opportunity on this parcel because it is currently a landlocked parcel. We've been working with Miss St. John, who owns the three parcels to the east here, fronting on James Street. It felt like this was a great opportunity to demonstrate how the cottage court could work. I should back up at Laradale. There's something similar that was implemented. It's not actually, it's a bit of a different scale, but there are homes there that front on a park space at Laradale. The park is just now being implemented, I believe. No? It's on its way, I would say. But there are lots of running on green space over there. It's just at a broader scale. So we felt like this was a great opportunity in Ashland and started working on the plan about a year ago after proposing at Amber and subdivision We've found a lot of success with with staff on this and are excited to bring it before you Happy to answer any questions that you might have Thank you I have a couple of questions on this view on the west side, the three larger dwellings and one's got a lawn down the middle so that's a duplex where I've semi detached I guess. The others as well, they just want a lawn throw so I was just going to say. Only the middle two there are suggested to be an attached side by side unit. So that would be a two family. And the others who just larger. The other single family detached. But those are larger than the cottage. Okay. And what kind of square footage? Because the picture was charming. You put up just an example of the type of thing, but it could tell they were quite small. To give you a sense of scale on that plan, those cottage units that are shown in plan are, it would scale at about 24 by 40 feet. So a little over 900 square feet. And this is a pretty good look at what's being built in other parts of the country around the same concept Typically they're a story and a half and and the ideas that folks Increasingly we're seeing single-member households in the area and We're just not building for it. I think I look today and less than three percent of the homes in I think I look today and less than 3% of the homes in Ashland and Hanover are below 1400 square feet. So we're just building bigger and bigger homes. It's harder and harder for folks to stay and say the idea behind these cottage courts is to build smaller homes on smaller lots closer to centers of business and existing amenities. And the attached kind of looks very much like Seminlard Dell. That looks like it. And it amber as well. Right. And I'd like to go ahead and open up. Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll probably have some more questions. If any citizens would like to speak now about this application, please. Thank you. Thank you. And if you can just state your name and address for the record, please. Thank you. My name is David Ross and I live at 316 Cali Street, which I'll be right next to the new development. And I've met Mr. Wepple before and he's been very helpful to us. And really my biggest concern with all this is the increase in traffic flow, especially if this has opened up to the extension of all. I mean, it's a quiet community now. And if that bond ever gets built through there, people are going to be racing through there. And a general comment for the town in general is that the only doing all these new developments but you're not addressing the current road situation. North James Street now is so narrow that when people put their trash cans out. Two cars can't pass at the same time. There's quite often pedestrians walking in the road of night with no lights on their clothes or anything like that. It's a very dangerous situation. I'm one of the few people that obeys the traffic, speed limit down north of James. So I just asked that in all of y'all's future planning that you think about this because these roads are built for horse and buggies. I have just slapped pavement on top of them with two foot deep ditches on each side for people running to. So that's all I think. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak? All right. We're going to bring it back up to commission. So the disguise. So I just want to revisit one thing since this is the first time we've done the residential incentive. It sounds like there was a lot of back and forth and working through it, but are we confident that all the expectations of that category have been met in through this process. So I just, given that we haven't done something like this before, I want to make sure we feel really good that we're doing it exactly as intended and under all the, you know, all the sort of caveats that go with it. I appreciate you asking that because I did personally spend time going through what was in the zoning code. So included in your staff report or all those incentive elements. And I went one by one through the proffers to make sure that it did add up to at least 80% of the applicable elements that are listed in the residential incentive zoning. At this time we don't have a checklist the way we do for the basic density bonuses. So with us being the first time that staff reviewed it, I went one by one and did clarify that they were accounted for. And then I can't remember if this, you probably covered this already, but from a sort of architectural principles, is there anything different for sort of cottage style that we would be looking at? Because some of the things that we typically work with the developer of homes on may or may not fit in the smaller footprint arranged around each other. So I'm just curious if there's any concern about the sort of architectural elements. Most of the architectural elements didn't have so much to do with size as much as materials. The percentage of window openings and making sure that all four of the walls had the same materials were treated the same way. The sizes of the porches, different types of materials that were permitted on the sighting versus the foundation. Those are the things that are looked at when it comes to the designs. Okay. Okay. And we don't think there will be an issue with sort of the spirit of the cottage style homes and the broader architectural rules like be reviewed by staff as well. So there's another opportunity to make sure that we're meeting what is preferred as those individual. The site plan and both the building permits are received by staff to look at. Yeah, you're right. My question or concern is probably a little early for what we're talking about right now. No, it's still a good valid question. There's a series of checks and balances to make sure that the final product has what should be there. Yeah, and I would encourage, I'm proud of the towns sticking to rules around materials and windows and front-facing garages, because I think it helps overall with the housing stock in the town. Because this is a very different and new kind of development, I just want to make sure we're sort of living with the spirit of the cottage design that it's going for. So as we get to that stage, please consider that we make it work really well. I have a few very brief technical questions perhaps, and then maybe my real brief ownership of how I intend to move on this. But do we know who owns the house that's going to be demolished? Was that Lawrence property? Anishions the first three. I'm sure nobody's living in there anymore, but curious about that. The home on the property right now is a, I think it was built in 1984. It's a modular home there that is Lewis used to live in. It is now owned by Amber and partners, but we'll be developing the property. But it is vacant at the moment. I was curious to see in the notes maybe that Kerry presented that this small property would have their own HOA, which would be separate from the Amber HOA, which would be separate from the Amburn HOA, which may be further separate from the North, so there may be three HOAs operating independently of each other within a couple of acres. Unfortunately, yes. That's the way that most of these properties are being developed. It is really important that there's an HOA in this type of project because everybody's really borrowing that landscape. It's unique, sure. If for nothing else for the landscape maintenance, we wanna make sure that it's under single management. I understand, I get that. And then do you have a sense of price point? I know you mentioned square footage. We don't at this time. Again, the square footage on the cottage court just for scale, those are a little under a thousand square feet per floor. We're thinking that those are a story and a half usually on that side. I don't have price points right now. That's fine. I didn't want to put you on the record, but it was just curious. Thanks. And then I will just briefly say that I am excited about this type of development. I do think this is exciting. And I am hopeful that this finds place. I am in general opposed to the through the Vaughan extension. I am nervous about that development and being a bypass from Route 1 to Route 54. And we've spoken about that a lot as a group. And I've been part of that before. and being a bypass from Route 1 to Route 54. And we've spoken about that a lot as a group, and I've been part of that before. So my hesitation is not really about this property, but about the proposed enhancement of making that occur more quickly. So while I personally think this development is exciting and I would like to happen where it's happening. I'm hesitant to support. So I wanted to share that with my commissioners so I don't surprise you the way I intend to vote on this. But other than that, it looks like a really exciting and I hope that we can find opportunities to do this within the town in other locations. And I know this one happened to work for the size and the intention. But I'm watching Amber and get developed. And yes, have concerns about traffic. And certainly, Callie Street may be connecting down to Sneed. And what that will do in terms of enhanced traffic and that sort of thing. But that's what I wanted to offer to my fellow commissioners anyway. So thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I just will. Second Mr. Meadows comment and Mr. Chambers too that we're excited to see this new zoning and sent you know the incentive residential incentive when I first was reading the packet. Oh my gosh I've never even heard of this one I felt terrible like we just went through the comprehensive. I'm glad to hear this is the first time this has been used and really come forward. So, sounds good. We feel like we're not ready for a consensus. I suggest it's fine to move forward. I don't think we all have to, I don't think it has to be unanimous necessarily when we vote on things. I think it's OK to express, I know we tend as a group to like to agree with each other. But I'm going to vote. And your concern is really more about Von Road and this development. The development specifically, right. A long time. Right. Okay. You may. Am I still able to address? Yes, I have included. Yep. Just to speak to the Westbourne extension. I know that's been on the transportation plan for 20 years or so. I've been part of many conversations about that road extension. I know that it is not widely popular in the town, but important for transportation reasons, of course. We've wrestled with this quite a bit and worked with Miss St. John quite a bit, we know that it's a major change that road extension. I just wanted to point out on this particular property what's being proposed is a Cali Road extension to a temporary turnaround and the right of a dedication as Miss Ragiland had mentioned. Under the current zoning, are one virtually any new development on this property would be before you and would show that dedication, as part of a resign or no matter the residential incentive or any sort of density, because when you bring Cali Street through, you would have, you would really only have one lot to create based on all the right of what. So that extension through this parcel is sort of precondition to any development there just to point that out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am going to go ahead and close the public hearing. I'm bringing it back up to commission. Yeah, I just expressed the same sentiments as you did, Mr. Merrill. While I am super excited about the zoning, I guess Ashlyn is concerned with the Vaughn. And then yeah, the model question was the hot topic of the night was price range. And so, yeah. That's all I have right now. I would be inclined to vote in favor of this where we have a motion in that regard. Just put that on the record. I move to recommend approval of REZ 23-1130B and ORD202-316, Cally Commons to the town council. Ms. Hay, aye. Mr. Merrill? Nay. Ms. Wright, aye. Mr. Chambers? Aye. Ms. Hare, aye. We have four eyes. One nay. Motion does carry. Thank you all sobers. Aye. Ms. Hare. Aye. We have four eyes. One name. Motion does carry. Thank you all so much. Yep. Thank you. And I do just want to take a quick second. I apologize. I know y'all have been super, super patient with us. But I know this has been a little bit of a long one for us. I just wanted to make sure nobody needs to take a quick five minute and use the restroom or anything like that. Yep, yep, let's do it. So just going to take a quick five minute recess you guys, thank you. Well, yeah, I came ID club, no. So Miss Hare, when you're ready, you can convene us back in. Thank you. All right. Thank you all so much. We'll call our meeting back to order from a quick five-minute break. Thank you all. And so our last public hearing for the evening is, let me make sure, sorry, is our rezoning 23-1228 and ordinance 2024-02 for Yaman Jake's place. Thank you, Ms. Ragley. Thank you, Ms. Hare. This is a request by Johnny Ray and Wendy Yomine of Jake's place, filing a request to amend the proffers on their property, which is zoned B1C Central Business. And this is to change the existing proffers to allow for additional parking spaces on the parcel. The request is for an addition of 10 spaces, and this is a change from the original 13, I believe in your packets. The request was for 13 that's been amended to 10 additional spaces. The parcel measures 1.37 acres currently used as a restaurant and stakes place. This is an aerial view of the business, mostly surrounded by the flood plain area along Thompson Street. You receive the application January 3rd. The existing zoning is B1 with Proffers. They're proposing B1 with updated Proffers. So again, their quest is for the same zoning district. The current Proffers allow for 28 parking spaces. And they're requesting also a new layout plan for the parcel with the reconfigured parking. As a result of the reconfiguration, several existing parking spaces will be lost. I think it's about six that are lost due to the new configuration, and their request again has been amended for a 10 additional spaces rather than 13, and that's due to site constraints once they amended their layout plan. Requesting a total of 38 spaces rather than the 28 that are currently profored. This is one of those that's that layout plans a little bit difficult to interpret what you're looking at if you don't look at these all the time. This is a zoomed in version of the submittal. And I don't think that my pointer can work. I'll try to explain as best I can. And the center of the parcel is the existing building. And then you can see there's two ingress, egress points that are existing. Parking goes around the existing building to the southern portion of the concept plan and sort of that hatched area, where it says paved parking area, that is what the change, of the changed area that they're requesting. So you can see that they're proposing to extend the parking further south. In doing that while meeting landscape requirements and parking requirements they're losing a couple of spaces. This parcel is within wetlands and flood plains. They're not proposing any additional ingress egress points to be the existing ones and they're including a pedestrian trail at the frontage and that is because there was supposed to be the existing ones. And they're including a pedestrian trail at the frontage. And that is because there was supposed to be one with the original concept plan. So again, they're offering the exact same conditions as were existed in 2013. So when you look at their sign-proferred conditions, it's an extensive list more than just one proffer. That's because just to make things easy, they're profaring the exact same language with the only change to proper number six. And staff has reviewed that to concur with the exact same language. The current proffer six reads, no more than 28 parking spaces shall be permitted on the site. The amended proposed proffer reads, no more than 38 parking spaces shall be permitted on the site. The amended proposed proper reads no more than 38 parking spaces shall be permitted on the site as reflected in the rezoning plot slash parking concept plan submitted on February 7th. So this was edited as an additional document recently. recently. This parcel is unique as it is an isolated B1 zoning when you look at the zoning map. Everything around it is R2 but we have the one B1 Central Business District zoning right there on Thompson Street. The lot to the west, even though it's zone R2 is actually open space held by the town of Ashland, do the flood plains, to the east is the Ashland Church of Christ, north and south are vacant residential parcels that are also owned by the same owners as Jake's place. The current zoning and the proposed are the same for the B1 Central Business District with goals to protect the town's unique historical and architectural character, small town character of Ashland. Again, usually we see this downtown along England Street area and this is an isolated B1 to the west of town. Looking at the B1 zoning requirements, B1 is actually exempt from off-street parking. As you'll notice, well, in any, excuse me, businesses under 10,000 square feet of gross floor area are exempt from meeting the off-street parking requirements in Jake's place is under 10,000 square feet of gross floor area are exempt from meeting the off-street parking requirements in Jake's places under 10,000 square feet. The intent with this being that in the normal B1 downtown district there is adequate parking to be shared among downtown uses. Looking at the zoning history, the parcel was re-zoned in 2013 from R2 to B1 with Proffers. As part of the research staff looked, the 2013 staff report noted that the applicant at that time submitted Proffers with the request that would limit the uses permitted on the property to more residential-scaled uses such as those listed in the B4 zoning district. The staff report from 2013 also noted that the parcel would most appropriately have been zoned before neighborhood commercial, but due to the setback of the existing building which is historic and did not fit the zoning parameters for B4. You enter at that time requested to be one zoning instead and profit many of the associations with the B4 neighborhood commercial district. The staff in 2013 and with this request, the specific application reviewed it as if it was a B4 type of request in alignment with the comprehensive plan, which also shows neighborhood commercial. So we talked about how B4 is exempt from parking if this were a B4 property. This is what staff would be looking at. This is pulled from the parking section of the zoning code, stating that restaurants, the requirement is one parking space, each for 100 square feet of dining area. So we looked at Jake's place, assuming it was about 2000 square feet. He come up with 20 parking spaces. We have another section of the zoning code that says the number of spaces shall not exceed 140% of the number required in the table provided. That gives you 28 spaces. That's probably what happened back in 2013 of how they came up with the 28 spaces. That's probably what happened back in 2013 of how they came up with the 28 spaces. You could also look at it with the number of seats. However, the zoning code says whichever is less. If we did go that route, Jake's place said they had about 98 seats. It gives you about 24 parking spaces. Adding 40% to that would give you about 34. So if this were any other restaurant in town, not in the B1, we would limit the parking spaces to 28. There's some further zoning history on the property regarding zoning violations. In 2022, gravel was deposited on the property regarding zoning violations in 2022. Gravel was deposited on the property by the owners, probably in attempts to alleviate the limited parking constraints. They talked with the owner and the co-inners have explained that they have had to turn away some businesses due to the restricted parking, so this was probably part of the reason why they did that. This did, however trigger a zoning violation as the gravel was deposited in a floodplain and it was greater than 2,500 square feet and that is our threshold for needing a site plan. Therefore, a floodplain permit and a site plan should have been submitted for the town approval. This went on for a few months. It wasn't remedied and the town issued a notice of violation. The applicant did submit a floodplain permit in the fall of 23, which upon review staff realized that a proper amendment would also be required looking at the proffers on the property. So at this point in order to bring the property into compliance, the owners would need amended proffers, a floodplain permit and approved site plan, or would need to remove the excess gravel. It staffed review the floodplain permit and determined that it would be approval. Looking at the future land use of the property. There's two land use designations both neighborhood commercial and open space. Looking at neighborhood commercial, it's intended to provide services to the surrounding residents and neighborhood. Businesses meant to be small in scale. Specifically, says parking areas should be discouraged adjacent to rights of ways. Most appropriate parking would be to the rear side of the building. It also incorporates open space land use. The goal of this is to designate as preserving wetlands and green infrastructure within the town. Looking at their proposed plan of development, it's generally the same as what's currently in place. There was a second submission we received last week, which addressed many of the initial comments submitted by staff. So they replaced the pedestrian path that was originally in the 2013 plan. They did move back the parking area from their original submittal to be flush with the building facade, and the parking lot landscaping was added. All the primary changes to the plan are within the parking area. Again, no additional ingress egress. Site plan would require parking area to be paved. Parking area does affect floodplain and some wetlands. All lighting and landscaping would be subject to site plan regulations. Parking meets, and the parking meets set back to residentialies and property, yes. So this is just zooming in a little bit more from that previous layout. So you got to zoom out a bit where you saw the building. This is, again, just hard to put on a PowerPoint so I tried to zoom in with the parking so you can see what's going on. The, not quite hash, but where it says, paid parking area, that is what's proposed the additional new spaces. You can see, again, towards the top of that, whether you're losing a couple of spaces that currently exist just south of the building. Cutting across the parking area, where there's a line that says HUD, that is the existing FEMA floodplain map. So you can see most of the parcel really is than the floodplain. And then just for your reference, although it really doesn't affect at this point, the 2022 floodplain numbers, you can see sort of the center to the screen to the top right. That line is what would be proposed with the FEMA changes coming later this year. So can you repeat that? There is a line that says flood zone AE 2020. coming later this year. Sorry, can you repeat that? There is a line that says flood zone AE 2022 and then below that flood zone X 2022. FEMA originally issued that data in 2022. It's just taken them this long to get to the finalization of the new FEMA floodplain maps. So at the beginning of the meeting, when we discussed that you would be seeing a text amendment for the new FEMA maps, this would be affected by that change and that's where that line would be. But again, we did talk to consultants about the floodplain changes and it would really have the same effect with existing and proposed with the floodplain permit. Okay. Thank you. about the floodplain changes and it would really have the same effect with existing and proposed with the floodplain permit. Okay. Thank you. So looking further at the considerations zoning history, the property has been in violation since 22. Original proffers on the property indicated an intention for B4 zoning use and regulations. So if this were B4 implied zoning would limit the parking to 28. However, it is actually zone B1. The legal zoning has no parking restrictions. Environmental impacts, there would be impacts to the wetlands and the floodplain. Compreh parking is not so much in compliance with the open space use or the neighborhood commercial. And compatibility with surroundings, there's no immediate options for shared parking the way there would be with other B1 properties, but we have talked with them about potentially working with the church across the street. So this is again just noting what you have in your packet and may say 41 spaces, which is what advertised, they've reduced that request to 38 spaces, agency comments, public work stated that any disturbance to the wetlands would be subject to state and federal regulations permits must be required such as floodplain permits, you know, refiring EMS gave some comments, so it's really more site plan related. Ashland Planning and Zoning did submit comments, but these were generally addressed by the February 8th recent middle regarding the site plan. As of the 12th staff has not received any public comments. However, there was extensive public comment input for the 2013 rezoning and some of those details are in the staff report. staff report. For staff's recommendation, the original number of parking spaces, 28, are appropriate for the land use designation and the intended zoning regulations of B4. The request is also not in accordance with the comprehensive plan regarding open-space land use nor the adjacent neighborhood commercial. To alleviate some parking concern, staff recommends working with nearby churches for street parking and developing pedestrian pass across their property. Therefore, staff is recommending to nile the application due to non-compliance with the comprehensive plan development within the flood plan in wetlands and the implied zoning regulations for B4 maximum parking restrictions Thank you miss Ragwin and would death I'd like to speak. Yeah, thank you Hi Can you hear me there you know, yes, thank you I'm Wendy human as you guys know and I do appreciate you being here tonight Thank you. Can you hear me? There you go. Yes, thank you. I'm Wendy Eum and as you guys know, and I do appreciate you being here tonight. And I know it's been a long agenda. So I do appreciate that. And in contrary to what Nora and Carrie might feel like, I have appreciated their time, energy, and effort in this. Yes, we had a 28 spot parking limitation or proper that we, you know, that was preferred with the zoning back in 2013. There was some difficulty, obviously, and I don't know if you folks remember that in 2013 when there was some zoning on this, but we were able to work through that. The original owner, some pretty was able to work through that with you all and with town council and getting this, getting Jake's place resurrected and rebuilt. Our need for additional parking is pretty simple. It stems from the simple fact that we have 10 to 12 employees on premises at any given time between lunch, dinner, the daily chores That leaves us 16 to 18 available parking spots for customers. On most evening dinnerships, and even sometimes lunch, we run out of parking. We lose business due to the lack of parking. We see folks pulling into the parking lot and then pulling out the parking lot because there's no place to park. People get a little crazy and they start parking at the back of the building. They start pulling up into the woods edge where the dumpster car is and start trying to navigate their cars up into that. Parking lot sometimes feel like it gets a little dangerous because sometimes folks will park at the back of the building not not thinkings on unmarked pavement. Other cars will come flying in to either coming in from the left of the right of the building, not expecting cars to be parked there. And it's like, oh, praise Jesus, you didn't crash into that parked car. The lack of parking is an issue. I mean, I don't know how to explain that to you guys in any better than that. The 10 parking places that we're requesting would greatly alleviate those problems. At that point we could ask our staff to park in that area, leaving the entire area, the paid dairy that we have currently right now, leaving that open for our customer parking, without having to worry about customer safety in the parking lot. As was depicted on an earlier graph, we do have the three lots that are there. Two of the lots adjacent to the B1's and property are residential, they're mostly wooded, and this parking, a amendment would not phase either one of those residential lots in any way, shape or form. The request is limited to the amendment of the parking proper attached to the 1.37 acres which is zoned B1 and as carries showed a few minutes ago there is no restriction. There's no high, there's no low, there there is no minimum, there's no maximum, there is no parking restriction to a B1. I mean I know that staff will and has gone back, has stated, yes, you're a B1, but we have looked at you as a B4. It still doesn't erase the fact that we were zoned a B1 with that capability of a non-restrictive parking limitation. I know that many of the businesses in Ashland and along the railway and in the downtown are zone B1 again with no minimum maximum high low parking restrictions but they unlike we have the ability to share parking. You park at the in a former Ashland coffee and tea, you walk around across brothers. You park down the municipal lot and you park, then you walk to wherever you want to walk to. Free and simple, we don't have that that ability. I wished we had another commercial entity that we could share parking with, without naming names, there's a wonderful business restaurant in town that has now clipped the fencing between his location and the bank next door. So that the folks that, you know, after hours, people can park in the bank parking and go over to that parking lot. Do I, you know, am I upset by that? No, they're just trying to make a living. They're just trying to provide their customers with adequate parking because if not, they would not have enough parking for their folks. So these folks are parking across the street at the, you know, at the shopping center. They're able to park along the residential spots up and down along beside the shopping center. When huddled up is crazy busy on Friday and Saturday nights, you see the Bank of America lot filling up. You see the thrill of a hunt in a filling up. You see Emily Mitchell's lot filling up. Nobody has asked permission that they can park in these private lots, but the folks are going to do it in order to gain access to the business and what they're going. I don't have that luxury. Jakes Place doesn't have that luxury of being able to share parking with another commercial entity. We're unique in a lot of ways and in a lot of ways I love the fact that we're unique. We've, I believe that air uniqueness has brought an awful lot to the town of Ashland. We've, Johnna have been very good stewards to the town we've given. We've provided support, money, food to wherever that's been needed over the years. And yes, we are unique. And I am proud of that uniqueness. But the one thing that we're very disadvantaged of is the fact that we just don't, we simply don't have the parking. Now there was a reference made a few minutes ago about a number of proffers that we made back in 2013 and they include, we're limited to the amount of storage, we're limited to the type of building that could be. So John, I got out of the restaurant business, we could only turn it into a museum or a doctor's office or a daycare center and certain other things. And those proffers are fine. And I am, we were more than glad to offer all of those same proffers without amending anything that was put into effect in 2013. I'm happy to do that. And if it wasn't for the fact that we are just not serving our customers properly with the limited parking, I wouldn't be before you today. But the bottom line is we do not have enough parking to provide safe parking for my customers. Carrie mentioned parking in the church. The church across the street, I don't believe once any trespassing and they've made it pretty clear and they've put up signs. We went over to them when we first opened up back in, when we were rebuilding back in 2014 and introduced myself and was hoping that I could form a relationship with them, thinking that if we ever needed overflow parking, that would be the way to go, but they're not very amenable to that. They're very not open-minded to that. And they quickly put out new trespassing signs all through their parking lot. So parking over there is not an option. That's they don't want anybody parking over there other than their parishioners. That's just a given. Now yes, can our folks park in the residential neighborhood across the street on John Street? Sure, absolutely. But have you crossed 54 at eight o'clock at night or 7.30 or 7 o'clock at night? It's not a safe thing to do. And especially when the winter comes and the time changes and at 5.30 it's pitch black dark. Nobody's going to cross John Street with no traffic lighting, no residential lighting out there, and I wouldn't want them to. The only other suggestion was to go up to First Baptist, which is, you know, about a quarter of a mile west of us, which they've got a huge parking lot. But to be perfectly honest with you, I don't have Valley Parking or a Shullibus built into my budget. I can't just run a shuttle service or a Valley Parking service between me and First Baptist Church. It's not viable for me to do something like that. The common sense approach to this is to construct a piece of pavement on the property that we already own without knocking on the door of a church or another commercial entity and laying a piece of pavement with 10 marked parking spaces that staff is taking a look at and we have complied with their comments and have provided the setback and the allowed easement and the landscaping and the lighting and so forth on the conceptual plans that have been submitted with this zoning. Again, at this point, it's not a matter of if we're a B1, a B4, a B2, an R2, it's a common sense question at this point. Honestly, we're zoned a B1 with no parking restrictions. And whether you look at me as a B1 or a B4, I'm a B1 with no parking restrictions. And whether you look at me as a B1 or a B4, I'm a B1 with no parking restrictions and I need additional parking on my property. And it's just that simple. Again, I believe that we've been good stewards of this community. I believe that we have been a great little restaurant to come to when we've done everything that we could possibly do for this community. I'm just asking you guys to consider this from a common sense approach and recommend this to town council to move forward. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Do you guys have any questions for me? I'm happy to answer questions of any sort. Yes, a question. Sure. I did see a listing that said, Jake's place was for sale and under contract. Are you allowed to verbalize if that's still the reason it like? No. Is that part of the sale? No. That it's not for sale or it's not part of the sale. I'm not going to discuss that. Oh, OK. Yeah, I'm not. That's because I'm not really sure as to where we stand on that. So I'm not going to discuss that at this point. No worries. OK. Does that have a bearing on your decision, Amy? I was just curious. OK, no, no, no, I just didn't know if that had some bearing on your decision. No, I was just kind of one off question. No, it's okay. It's okay. It's fine. It's fine. Does anyone else have a question? And I'd be happy to answer? Not at this time. I'm going to see if any citizens would like to comment. I know I don't really see it many, so. But I would like to at least open up citizen comment for this application. Seeing none. All right. I will bring it back to commission. For any questions, comments? Any questions, Brent? Tim? I know it isn't what's before us, but is there any opportunity to the north of the building to add spaces? To the north of the building? On this picture I see seven spaces to the north. Oh you mean like property line? No, because any further past that where there's seven spaces are showing now that goes into the residential lot that we own to the yeah there's there's in between the 1.37 acres that's designated the B1 acreage that there are two we have we own two adjacent lots one to the east one to the west and they're both residential so there there is no there's no opportunity to go any further to the west and they're both residential. So there is no opportunity to go any further to the west. I mean, I see exactly where you're looking. And you'll see that little box right there up in the left-hand corner. That's the dumpster corral where people fight for additional parking places on the left and to the right of the dumpster crowd. So those seven spaces would remain, and the spaces in the back on the back part of the building would remain, we would be losing some spaces, if you're looking at Jakes, to the right of the building on the east side of the building. We would be losing spots there for folks to, when they come into the parking lot, they were taking immediate left to go into the new parking spaces. And that would allow egress and ingress from that area over there, obviously without putting in another turning lane from 54. So there's no traffic concern, no DOT concern, as far as putting in another entrance into Jake's place. You would still come into that same East entrance. And then you would, like I said, we're going to need. There will be a need for lost spaces when you first pull in, because we will need that for egress and ingress into that new area of parking. So again, even though the parking over here shows an additional 14 spaces or so, the net ends up being a net additional spaces of 10 spaces. So. To your comment, Mr. Chambers, I did try to just hand draw to see if there going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. I'm going to go to the community. and the landscape islands, I had the same issue of sort of netting, you only really gained maybe one or two spaces with trying to do that at any additional parking to the north. Yeah, I'm troubled. It's a uniquely narrow space. It was approved originally because of its sort of historical use. It just feels like there ought to be a way to figure this out. And what I'm hearing is, is we haven't found a way to figure this out. And that's just, that's a little, it's troubling. I'm trying to be a third on options. And the floodplain issues, the current law does not, or that section is currently not paved. And so it's really the paving that's going to be an issue. Gravel is still considered impervious space, so it is within the floodplain still. And I don't know if museum is can speak to this but I don't know what entailed when that parking was first installed. I don't know if that was a grandfather clause or where the line was at that time but with any new development we have to abide by the floodplain regulations that we have in place now. And within those regulations, it states that any impervious space, whether that's gravel or paved, you would need a permit for. So, to answer your question, it's not the pavement. That's the issue. And the gravel was also the issue. And one of your bullets on one of your slides, the permitting is possible, but it hasn't been done or? Yes. So they did submit a floodplain permit staff reviewed it and it would be per approval, but because of the zoning violations, we can't sign off on it because of the the proper amendment we need to take place. But again, we're trying to rectify this and then we'll cure that in order to get to the floodplain. So we're here on this issue before I can circle back around to that. And the permit, the floodplain permit was filed in October. The floodplain was filed in October. And again, staff's comments are that it would be approved based on the correction of the violation and or the institution of these parking spaces. So again, I'm here to move forward on this first before I can circle back around to that. I mean, there's already a garage that sits almost directly in front of where these parking spaces are going to be. So there's already been construction on that spot anyway back in 2014. So adding a piece of pavement over there with adequate safe parking seems to be the most reasonable use for that spot of land. Again, I'm just looking at this from a common sense approach. Mr. Rackling, can you go back to figure five, the 2013 concept plan showing pedestrian path in Crosswalk? And this is the issue we're grappling with right now. But this original site plan includes a pedestrian crosswalk across 54. The amended concept plan does as well, the one that they submitted. Which it's not gonna be in your packet, I'm sorry, we did it in time. I don't think that's gonna solve everything, but I was just wondering, I mean, I'm absolutely agree with you. Cross in 54. I live in that neighborhood. I live over off of Chapman Street. I live within walk and distance in Shakespeare's place, but I don't walk. But you don't want to cross 54. So, yes, so I don't know what that, you know, people in the neighborhood, if the use is like a B-board neighborhood commercial, I know it, the zoning is a little different, but if that's the intention, I just don't know how to rectify that. Would, would, across walk, they are similar to the one they have with the light splashing, you know, in the downtown area that gets your attention, I mean, would what you mean you're that's hard out that way I feel like people coming in Yeah, I agree. I don't know how much of that is on jakes right cuz that's the town I completely agree. I think it's legitimate to say hey if we care about Pedestrian access and I'd love to see people slowing down right on that part of 54 where it's supposed to be just right on the edge of 25 miles an hour and if a crosswalk would help. But again, so my comments or my thoughts are, I don't need to weigh into the weeds. To me, a gravel lot seems better than a paved lot in a flood zone. I can't quite wrap my head around why pavement is better than something that's impervious where it's going to flood. But again, that's for the experts in the engineers, not me, and I'm clearly missing something there. I also think it's odd to hold Jigs to the development of a path to nowhere. Yes, while I love the idea of walking, if Jigs can only build a path that's to the end of their property north and to the end of their property south. And the town has yet to actually connect that to anything who's going to be walking on that anyway. Well, I love the idea and you all know sidewalks and paths are a big thing for me. I think it's odd and maybe it was in the original and we're just trying to hold them to the account of what was originally done. And if that wasn't yet developed, I get that. It was there. It should have been built. The logic of it to me is still odd. But if it was there and they're expected to do it, then I think that's something that should or could be held accountable. I'm torn because as I was reading the staff report, I was seeing that there was, it seemed to be a history or a litany of request for change and then delay or not getting it done in this sort of requirement of the town to go back and check and double check, which again to me is a cause for a concern or a cause for pause if there's a, if there's a history of back and forth between the town and the property and the owners. To me, it is very logical. There's a spot there that seems to be suitable to parking. It makes sense in some ways, even though it's all, you know, or a lot of it is within this floodplain, that there is a process, and that's why I carry confirmed that we have to, or maybe you can confirm if we have to do this first and then come back to the flood plain issue I would think wouldn't we want to resolve the flood plain issue first before we approve a parking lot but So we we did review the flood plain permit let the applicant know it would be approvable We also can Consulted an outside firm to make sure we did it correctly because we don't get very many flood plain permits So and they're the ones that are saying paved makes more sense. Well, that's in the code. That's an R adopted code. That's in state code. That's floodplain regulation code that DCR requires. So, that's above my pick. That gravel is considered impervious. Sure. Sure. So, yeah, I'm torn on this. It is logical to me. It makes sense that if there's a spot and parking can be built there and it's off the street, and everything seems to be organized, that seems fine to me. And very logical, as was pointed out, I guess I still come back to struggles with getting compliance with other issues that the town saw over it seems like a history of things and I wonder if, again, there are more offers or more suggestions and if there's compliance to follow up on again, it just is a, it seems like a pattern and I don't really know whether that sways me one way or the other. But to me, it seems like a logical request to put a parking lot in a square spot. Despite, I get the concerns that were raised. So I don't know if I'm really landing on a decision as you all know me. I sort of talk these things out rather than... No, I appreciate it. I really do express your same sentiments. Yeah, I do as well because like the applicant said, I know exactly what Vint she's talking about that has been cut down because I park in that other parking lot at the bank. Right. Go to the other one. That's right. That's right. Because it's so busy and I don't want to fault a business for having business like and succeeding that's not what we should be doing. Right. But at the same time, I definitely understand the compliance issue and I see that that can be a for staff to have to deal with is makes it a little trickier. Right. So one of the things that I have learned in my time sitting up here is that past decisions always come back to Haunt, the next frown of commissioners. And I swear this is leading to a question. It sounds like, Carrie, a lot of this, although be one because of the setback, it was discussed as if it was neighborhood commercial and That and the math about seats, you know number of patrons times Something times 1.4 or the main reasons why staff feels like this is not an appropriate Change in proper is that Is that fair? What we put in the staff report was a couple of reasons that also go back to the future land use. So looking at the open space on the lot that should be preserved as it is wetlands. And then looking at the definition of neighborhood commercial. Which again, I think the applicant does satisfy some of those concerns. Just noting that it nods to more of that before intention. But legally yes, the B1 still exists. legally yes the B1 still exists. But Ms. Amos was here in 2013 when there was more discussion about the parcel so I think that was definitely part of staff's consideration. I'm sure she can speak to more of the concerns. Yeah and Ms. Wright were you here in 2013 when we? Not on the commission. It was one of the hottest topics. We had a ton of citizen input on this, and there was a lot of concern, and we buffered that concern by ensuring that it would be neighborhood commercial, not be one downtown business district, but serving a neighborhood where people could walk and that it wouldn't be a high traffic. And so I, you know, not speaking for past councils or planning commissions and not saying that you all don't have the authority to change that or make a recommendation to change that because you very much too. I think that at the time they were making the citizens happy by putting in the limitation on parking, realizing it couldn't grow. And at the time, the building was smaller, the building has grown and more seats have been added since that review, which is allowed. It's allowed to go up to 2,500 square feet. But at the time, it was very much looked at to match the comprehensive plan as before. And it was an accommodation to go to B1 just so that they could meet the setbacks. But just so much said I've got a little confused. So with the 2500 square feet, with the calculation, that is that what comes up to 28 or We are it says whichever is lower but one comes up to 28 one comes up to one comes up to I think it was 34 If you look at the number of seats that they have right you go the right way so Here we are but you're supposed to take the one that's let. The code says to go whichever is less. Right. And the 2000 square feet, that was just approximate for staff about the number of dining areas space that they had. So I guess, I don't know if this is just a few rambling thoughts, but if business sees people driving through and they can't park and they're circling around or parking in crazy places, I mean, I don't know. Maybe there'd be a long line to wait, but it seems like the business could accommodate more individuals inside at one time than they can because of the parking. I don't know, it could be, if we said yes, you can have 38 parking spaces, you could have a long line out the door and people waiting. But it seems like that with the addition in the back, that the business is able to accommodate. Whereas in typical B1, a business isn't just that isolated. They do have more walkability from other places that people can, they're just not this isolated island. Yeah, that's, it strikes me that way too, Linda, that this is, this is a unique property, right? It's not, it's not in the town. There are not plentiful street or other, I'm with you. And that's why I'm trying to do the big picture thing. But I also don't want to step on precedent or I don't want to get us in difficulty with, well you can't, you know, you have to follow the numbers that are proffered. I want to respect that. But I also want to think big picture like a business is growing or adding and we want to be encouraging of that to some extent, right? And yeah, I'm sorry. In discussing it with the applicant, yes, they could definitely serve more people. But I think you should also consider this on if there are other neighborhood commercial areas that have similar uses in the parking that would, you know, they could come back and ask for additional parking. But yes, I believe the applicant could definitely, and ask for additional parking. But yes, I believe the applicant could definitely, and they are currently turning people away, especially on the weekends. Right. Thank you. And Nora, I appreciate that. What keeps troubling me is a lot of times, you know, somebody will want to build four houses on a lot, and we say, no, you can only build three. Or they want to do something, and say, well, you can only do it if you take care of the floodplain first. It feels like this we're just saying no and there is no option given this property and how it's laid out there's no growth in because crossing 54 is a big concern and there's nothing else you can't park at the neighboring areas right so I'm maybe I'm maybe my imagination is limited and there is another path forward that I'm not thinking of but I'm struggling a little bit with I appreciate the logic of the history and the zoning and the floodplain but it feels like we're sort of keeping a box in place that doesn't really fit with no move forward option. And that just troubles me in general. And for business owner in the town who's trying to come up with a solution. So I'm not sure that that moves us forward, but I'm. So I'm not sure that that moves us forward, but I'm... Yeah, I definitely agree, because I think 98 spots, so to be honest, I haven't been in Jake's place in probably six years. Not a big barbecue person, but I would assume if it was four tops, you got 24 four tops. Maybe it's a family of four, but sometimes like my husband and I will meet my parents at a restaurant. So we have two cars coming in. So that calculation is really hard when you add employees. I just would hate to see and everyone has to drive. Yeah, you can't walk there. And as much as Ashen wants to be a super walkable town, we're just not there yet to be fair. Like I go to restaurants and I could walk there, but it's a mile, so I drive at night. So it's just hard to put such a restriction on parking when we they honestly are in I will just say for the record though that the B1 designation just because of the setback was kind of arbitrary, it's because it was the setback and we couldn't accommodate that in B4. So I don't think we should really, as the staff has done, really consider a B4 property. So we can't really say it's B1 with unlimited, but they did proper 28 spots if, I know it says whichever's less is at the town code and what is town code? Would you like to say that in that old print? I mean, so we can't really... You can't say, oh, or or or or 34. There is a provision to allow for an exception to the whichever is last part. So there is the only reason this is coming to you is because the code does allow for an exception to the maximum number of spaces. So this might not. You can pick it up. That is fine. Anybody, but a compromise could be that a calculus would be 140% of the max number of tables, blah, blah, would be 34 spaces, and that that would be something that we could point to, that we did that in this situation because of the unusual situation of having a B1 zone business in an island, not connected to other things. And so, well, I don't know what people are. I think that's a great thought, and I would like the attorney to weigh in on that. But my understanding is this is not a conditional use permit. We're putting the regulations on the property. This is a proffer from the applicant. So she would have to proffer a lower number, and then we would have to proper a lower number, and then we would have to approve it or deny it. But I'll let that turn. You just have what is that for on us? Okay. And I was going to ask related to that, Kerry, was there Rosh and Al given for why it went from 13 to 10? I just brought why it went from 41 to 38? There was. The original concept plan they submitted requested 41. Staff gave comments about specifically the setback of the parking. They had it really close to Route 54 and looking at the B4 land use, it stated that parking should be toward the rear or the side of the property. We provide that to them as a comment in the first round of submissions and they responded by moving the parking further back, but they had to lose a couple spaces in response. Did I legally get that right as far as if council would entertain the idea of a compromised number? Really the applicant needs to proper a different number. This isn't the, we can't pick the council imposing a different parking number on their own proffers. Yes, that is correct. Yeah, so for, we had a proffer, it's a proffer. It's kind of in the name of it. It's being proffered to the council. If it was conditional use permit, we could just change it, but proffers have to be Proffer from the person. There's a whole lot of restrictions on saying what you can. You can't even, you also couldn't have an ordinance that says if you Proffer this will grant it, the Proffers do have to be voluntary. It's not an negotiation. So what's in front of us tonight is what we can make the motion on and either approve or deny, or can we modify it. I was going to say can they make a recommendation so say they denied the request as proffered but could they make a recommendation in their motion to town council to review or that they would approve it if it was 34 spaces. Are they able to do that? Sorry to put you on the spot. So it sounds like there may be some type of a consensus that you're comfortable with the 34 spots But that's not what's being profored. Maybe not. Well, the question was if there was If if we could agree to compromise a number of spaces and that recommendation be forwarded on somehow and that recommendation before it it on somehow. I don't like it. I'll just put it that way. Generally speaking, anything that's gonna smell too much like saying, if you give us this, we'll do that. That doesn't really go over very well. So, and also, this is also as much to protect the applicant as anybody else, because you can imagine if we torque this up and they get what they want, they're not going to challenge it. But then somebody else has an interest, will, and then all the work that the applicant's gun is going to be undone. And so, you know, it won't be about a profit or zoning amendment if it's done properly. So I'm going to, because I'm a lawyer, I'm going to advocate the more conservative option and it's you should be voting up or down on what's proper. It's in front of us. Now, we have had a very thorough conversation that's recorded online. So it sounds like that there's plenty of material out there for them to amend their proffers. But I wouldn't say that we're going to refer a list to the council with the recommendation that they do all of this type of stuff. All right. Good to you. That's helpful. Thank you. Is Brent that getting closer to your, I think, good suggestion about trying to, I don't know if just negotiating, or not negotiating? I don't know if just changing the number of spaces is really a solution or just a... I mean, the alternative might be if there's something else that we change in our code or how we think about neighborhood commercial. When I think about neighborhood commercial broadly, it's attached in some sort of walkable, parkable other businesses and residents around way that doesn't create this kind of a parking issue. So the 34, while it might sort of technically give us a way to sort of squint our eyes up and say we made this fit, I'm not sure it really solves the issue. That we're, for good reason, I understand this was sort of treated like neighborhood commercial. But it's an isolated property in terms of parking because of 54, because it's on the other side of 54 from anywhere else, any other development. And it feels like we ought to be finding a solution that doesn't create problems down the road for neighborhood commercial or B1, doesn't create a bad precedent for future people sitting here, but that actually solves the issue. And I'm not sure what that is. I don't know if there's something with zoning or how we go about how this could potentially be approved, but the lower number doesn't feel like a very good solution. I would say that could be one of those circumstances where you try to meet in the middle, really nobody wins because the applicants need a certain number of spaces. They're going to have to pay for a site plan. They're going to have to pay for everything that comes with that and if they really don't gain enough to make their business significantly better, it's sort of those things where maybe nobody wins. Yeah. I don't really have anything to say. I feel like I'm somewhat. Yeah, I don't think as you go against that. I don't think it's the kind of thing where we need more information. I don't think deferring is a helpful thing unless somebody feels like there's more information out there. I think we're just kind of in a quandary. So I'd be glad to make a motion and then we can just vote it up or down. I have one more curiosity. Just on the one map that shows the blue semi-circle Yes, Linda, I'm ready to go there too. There's a semi-circle of neighborhood commercial in the rectangle box and I was just curious if that was a intentional decision or that was an accommodation that was made to say we're going to try to leave as much open spaces we can in that square or in that rectangle. It just struck me as odd and it's always sort of I've wondered about that semicircle on that. That's a great question but that predates me so I can't speak to the implications of that. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, that's okay. It was just a curiosity but Linda. And I have a question too. Now that you've got this one up here. It's the applicant owns both properties, the properties on either side. Why can't they park make that parking? Because you can't have a primary use of a parcel of parking. That answer that parking? No. Well, use. Is that all right? And it's residential zone. It's the zone for residents. All the property is set up. And so that blue one? The one on it. So you can just park. We'd have to re-sown it. As Ms. Raglan pointed out, parking lots aren't a primary use for residential property Um, and the blue blob really was just around the footprint of the existing parking and building Right I'm trying to think about the big picture as well as the technical, right, the both the big and the small and hearing an appeal of a business owner trying to say, look, this is but good for my business. Countering that with the technicalities that were working around. I mean, Brent, you were hinting to this, right, and trying to see what we can do as a commission in terms of a recommendation. I always think of what Commissioner Dan used to say is, don't worry about it, make a recommendation. I always think of what Commissioner Dan used to say is don't worry about it, make a decision. It's gonna go before town council and they will similarly be as thoughtful as we have done and maybe come up with a different suggestion recommendation, but and he would speak sometimes, you shouldn't feel anyway. I don't have it's a good idea to speak sometimes. You shouldn't feel, anyway. I don't have much more to add. Should we just take it to vote and see? Well, it depends on who decides to make the motion in which way. That's what we're going to vote on, whether we're making the motion to deny the request per staff recommendation or approve it and then we would vote one way or the other on that. And I agree I don't think there's a reason to defer. I don't think we need to collect any more information but I will defer to my colleagues if there's another opinion on that. I guess I can make the motion. I moved to recommend approval resolution 24-01-03 in ordinance 2024-02. Oh, we have to close the Oh, yeah, uh, wait a minute, I lost track. Hold on. No, good reminder. Whether we close the public, I thought you did and brought it back to the commission. Yes, she closed it. You did. She's already closed it. Oh, sorry. I didn't do it in the other town. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I Miss Haye I Miss Hare I motion carries thank you all thank you so much all right that was a busy night for public hearings thank you so much you guys. Next up is our action item. 2023 Planning Commission Annual Report. Hey. Oh, the same. You got it. All right. I'm going to give Miss Raglan a break here. Thank you. Even though I have to give all credit to Miss Raglan and Miss Cornelius for their hard work and putting this together. Okay. Yeah. And our busiest meeting since I've been involved. All right. Did that work? I didn't hear it noise. Still saying the old screen. No. All right. Did that work? I didn't hear it in the voice. Why is that? Still saying the old screen. No. She does not have your light yet. Okay. Let me try the white one. She's adjusting. Is that annual report produced by you all? Or did you contract with a company? No, Ms. Raglan and Ms. Cornie. Not really. It's really well done. Yes. I shared it with some others and they said, I wonder if they were group was who did it. I'll have to say, um, fess up that I hacked a lot of what was already done by Kelly. All right. Right. They look great. Yeah. I had to do a lot of what was already done by Kelly. We're trying to spiff up our documents. This is your annual report. Not only is it a requirement that we give you an annual report. It's also fun for staff and hopefully you all to go back and see and kind of just review and highlight some of the big projects that you all worked on. I'm sure you all remember all the hard work that you put in over the past year. And so after we present this to you all and you accept it, then we will pass this on to the town council as well. And so we had a big year. I think the title of the year would be Comprehensive Plan Update. Luckily, and you know, in my 15 years here, this is last year was probably the slowest for applications, especially the last part of the year. So we were really given a reprieve in order to have enough time to release sit down and concentrate on the comprehensive plan. We're thankful for that. We're obviously out of that stage with five applications tonight to review. But here's a highlight of what we had. We only had six public hearings when we've had five tonight and we had six sessions. So 13 work sessions on the comprehensive plan to conclude those community meetings, site plans, submittles, and so those are reviewed by staff. Those are administratively reviewed. But we had seven site plans, submittles, and almost all those usually turn into construction. We have a few that were approved last year that we're still holding onto. For example, the level up dog sports were still hoping that they get started, which are understanding that when the weather clears up, they will. If cleared that. So cyclists in the middle, including re-submittals. So cyclists don't always get approved on the first time. We try to encourage them to get as much done as they can in the beginning, but 37. So again, that's on staff and by staff, I mean our principal planner. So we've one person reviewing 37 semittals throughout the year. We had five rezoning requests, two conditional use permits, zero BZA requests in the Board of Zoning Appeals. they review variances to our zoning ordinance as well as appeals to any zoning determinations. And it's been several years before COVID really since we've had a BZA case, which I think if we'd like to look at the positive on that is that we're doing something right and that our codes are kind of an alignment with our comprehensive plan, our strategic plan, and hopefully something's working there. We also do have several exception processes within the town code. For example, sidewalks, curb, and gutter, you can go to the council and get an exception. So some of those items where the BZMA have taken up cases can be done through an exception. We had nine subdivisions, again, unless it's a large project, over 50 housing units, for example, those go straight to town council for approval. Large subdivisions come to the planning commission to start with a preliminary plat. 26 pre-application meetings, which doesn't sound, maybe maybe it sounds like a lot but it really isn't a lot so we're hopeful to get those kicked back off this year that really for me as putting on my economic development hat is a good way to test the temperature of how we're doing and what's to come and so we hold those every other Wednesday here in Town Hall. We bring in all the staff from the various departments including county departments. And that helps us to figure out what our pipelines going to be. And others 26, several were repeats. So we may have talked about one application several times. They keep coming back and we're doing it again tomorrow. So text amendments, we had three. Again, once you start seeing tax amendment numbers tick up, that's probably when you're about time to go and look at your zoning ordinance and your subdivision ordinance to make sure that these new requests aren't coming because you need to review those. And so after the comprehensive plan is done, we'll probably do a full review of those zoning and subdivision ordinances. So thank you all for your excellent attendance. So just some of the notable actions again I think the comprehensive plan was probably one of the largest we also created a zoning permit so far that's going really well Until July 1st we aren't charging on that but I think we've done a hopefully a pretty good job about educating people now that springs come on We're sending out letters to contractors who do fences and storage and such because that's usually when we start to see That type of construction so we're just trying to again get the word back out to make sure everyone knows that they need to get a permit for those types of items We participated and thank you to everyone who participated in the county's comprehensive plan Update in particular to the woodside alignment. We really appreciated your engagement to go beyond just the town planning commission, but to provide input there So the comprehensive plan and I know we're running, we've been here all night, so it has been submitted to the town council, they reviewed it last month and deferred until this month, and so they'll take that back up next Tuesday. They are discussing a couple amendments, and whatever they end up proposing and discussing, we'll make sure that that gets brought back to you so that you'll know what that is. Highly encouraged, if you're able to attend the public hearing next Tuesday at 630 Please do And a follow-up to that so our next year two years will be Taking off those items that are in the list and we'll be providing you with an implementation plan to review Excuse me in the next month or two you. Excuse me in the next month or two. I'm sorry. Excuse me. This is just a review of the comprehensive plan. I'm sorry. I'll take up the slack and continue with the conditional use permits. She takes a break.. We reviewed a cut for level of dog sports and that was again for the recreational dog facility and this was specifically to allow for overnight parking and that was approved by town council with 13 conditions. Great job. We also approved a conditional use permit for the Randolph-Macon Softball fields. Those are up and running. So we haven't gone out there. You should check those out. And so that was recommended by planning commission and approved by town council. Very sorry. No, it's all right. Flagstap conditional use permit was approved and as we may have discussed once these things are approved, they then get moved to administrative site plan review. And that's where we are with Flagstop currently and ran over the subdivisions. For on the rezoning side, we did a speculative rezoning for the HANASH property. And told her when you include the HANAVA County side, it's about 60 acres of now industrial property that we're working with the agents to market as an industrial project. We've had several users look at that site, including some data centers and battery storage operators. Along with the conditional use permit, Flagstop came and got a re-soning to open a car wash, just south of Sheets. And that's the end of the report. Was there another page? No, I think that might be it. Okay. Yeah, it was great. So that concludes the report again. A big thanks to Ms. Ragley and Ms. Cornelius for providing our information to make it look so well. And so if you all are in agreement or if there weren't any changes to be made, we'll pass this on to the town council. Please. Yes, thank you. Yeah. We'll done. Where are we going to take a formal vote? I could remember, is it all the action item? It's advisable since it's your report for you to actually make a formal motion to present it to town council as your annual report. Okay. I move that we forward the annual report as presented by the town staff to the town, the annual report of 2023 to the town council. Nice. Ms. Hay? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye. Mr. Chambers? Aye. Mr. Marell? Aye. Merrill, I miss hair. I Wish you carries All right, and so now we've got our report of committees Town Council report miss bar hard. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Well, thank you for it's been a long night Yeah, I so I want to begin by saying, good evening to you all, but also you did not know how much we really do appreciate all your hard work and your efforts. It does make our jobs so much easier. And I really do enjoy all the conversation, the discussion, the thoughtfulness is behind everything. So thank you. I just want to take a quick second, I know, nor touched upon this. Just to give you an update and where we are with the comprehensive plan. Because we decided to defer it at our last meeting, it's such an important document. And we wanted to make sure that the citizens had an opportunity to read over it, to contact us, to share concerns, or have questions answered. So that is why we defer it. And we'll be discussing it perhaps voting on it in our next meeting which is next week so again thank you for having me here this evening. It was a marathon. Thank you so much for far. Can I ask Danny Hint of volume of feedback the amount of feedback or have you received? Of course we've received feedback from folks in particular areas, you know, they're concerned obviously about what is going on in West of town. That's I think been the biggest concern. Yeah. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. We'll head nod from our fellow member out there. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Miss O'Paul, for sitting through this as well with us. Thank you. Our newly elected town council member. Thank you so much. All right, next one, directors report. Miss Amos. Back again, so I should save this for last, so I don't tear up and cry. But I'm really disappointed to share, but excited for her that Mr. Aglan has accepted a position with Guchlin County and'll be maybe after this. They're not better than us. I know, but I'm so excited for it. It's a great opportunity and it gets her closer to home. To be a planning director. What's the position? It's a principal planner as well. OK. Congratulations, but not so early. I have to also give her an immense amount of things that she hung out with us longer than she absolutely needed to. She got us through this meeting and she's going to be here a couple more weeks to set us up for the next one. So I appreciate that so very much. That's the first thing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Job well done. Yep. So, Secretary, last week held the groundbreaking and so they are under construction and should be celebrating their grand reveal and opening on March 30th. I'm sure you'll get more details on that, but you can add that to your calendar. I'm excited and you all are the first to hear this. So, I feel bad for other people I haven't told, but we just found out March 18th is the launch date for micro transit. So I feel bad for other people I haven't told. We just found out March 18th is the launch date for micro transit. And so we will hopefully over the next few weeks be getting information from GRTC so that we can get that pushed out. And if you all have any social media or friends or part of any organization that could get this information, we're really trying to get the word out. I am just thrilled to go over the numbers again. It's asalia. It's a half-hand over half-hand right go. But their numbers have really well exceeded the current expectations. I'm a little worried because they have our expectations set a lot higher than asalia's numbers. But asalia connects to a fixed route. And for those who don't know fixed route is kind of what you would usually see in like the BRT or GRTC route where it has stops with signs that it picks up at certain times every day. So the Alia route gets you to a fixed route. Unfortunately, the Ashland one right now will not, but it is our goal in the future that if you get on my car transit in Ashland, it will get you to a bus stop that could eventually get you to Richland. And so I love the numbers and I'm excited, but this is finally coming to Ashland. I'll keep you updated on that. Seize Bounty is a new restaurant at the Old Dairy Queen. So a seafood restaurant, if you haven't stopped in there, they opened in the past couple weeks. So stop in and seeing them. And then Henry Clay, elementary, part of the comprehensive plan, I didn't know if you were going to cover this. But we got the results today. And the council asked us to do more, to provide more information and do a further review on Henry Clay, elementary school. Very sorry. And we got the results. We had over 600 respondents to this online survey that was out for a week and a half less than two weeks. I think. And so we had over 400 comments and we're processing those to provide input to the town council. So as you probably knew, there's a lot of input and excitement for the elementary school. This all has to happen through the county, it's a county property. They are going to involve us because obviously we, you know, talk about the land use and the zoning of the property. So it'll be interesting to see how that conversation continues. And I'm going to stop talking. I'll show you all have any questions. I shouldn't ask you a question, but I'd love to hear about the survey results. So those will help inform that conversation with the county, I imagine. And we are definitely, yeah, we promise to share those with the county. Good. That's exciting. My medicine will often 9 o'clock. I just see what time it is. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, that's great. Nora, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. So we are basically done. I just have two quick things. I know we've been here all night. You guys, I apologize. So one, and I meant to just want to um that's okay and Lena is her name so okay thank you so much I do just want to give a shout out and a big thank you to um so top's China I don't know if anybody knew where top's China was located in the Delta-Sah dollar general they are closing and super excited for the new restaurant coming yes super excited for them and but I just wanted to give a big thank you to top's China because they were a real staple in this community for a really, really long time, you guys. And I swore up and down by their wonton soup if you didn't feel well. And just really, they were just such a cool little family. I mean, I watched their daughter, Lena, grow up basically from the time she was born, they were born until graduating from right here in town. So I really just want to extend our thank yous to them for such good stewardship in town to the family at Topstown. So the second thing was just thank you to Miss Amos for recommending the partnership for housing affordability. That's a mouthful. I know a couple of us attended, and it was super informational. So thank you. I think almost something, I won't get into this, because I know this is going to be a really long discussion. But I mean, sometimes I think I know me and Ms. Wright talked about this. That it was really eye-opening because one of the keynote speakers, it was almost like he was taking a jab sometimes at commission, because it was like like well, it's you got what anyway So I know that's a topic for another night But it talked a lot about a clue Eclutionary inclusionary zone. Excuse me and we're just a really cool night I even have a book that I'm gonna be done reading soon and I'll don't mind passing it along to anybody So that was the keynote speakers book. I feel bad. I remember it's named Richard. Richard something. Yeah, I feel bad. But anyway, that was a great night. So thank you to Miss Amos for recommending that. I was really glad I went and thank you for letting me ride with you. And that's all I have. If anybody else has anything else? No, thanks. I'll only stamp that Nora and please when you see things like that again, I'd love to know about them That was that was a wonderful. I didn't even get to stay for the The drinks and food afterwards You weren't kidding Since this is Carrie's last meeting we should spend a few more hours talking right and hanging out writing out. I'm already hit your record. I was the same. Feels like a record. Thank you. Thank you, Carrie, for record. You are wonderful. Thank you all so much. And I will close this meeting. Thank y'all. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Stuffing on your