Good evening, Rockville. Today is Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025. This is meeting number 05-25 of the City of Rockville Planning Commission. I am Jamie Asnosa, Chair of the Planning Commission. I am attending virtually tonight and am joined in chambers by Commissioner of Science, Alejodine, Commissioner Susan Pitman, Commissioner Erick Sulton, and Commissioner Monksoon. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in person and as you can see virtually by WebEx. Tonight's agenda includes a public hearing on annexation, petition A and X, 2023-00147. This will be followed by a work session on the Zoning Ornance R-write project. Then this will be followed by a regularly scheduled commission items. Our first agenda item is annexation petition A and X 2023-00147 to conduct a public hearing on the preliminary annexation plan for the Washington metropolitan area transit agency Womada own shady growth metro station properties and a portion of the CSX transportation incorporated property closed the public hearing record and to approve and transmit the annexation plan to the mayor and council of Rockville over to Mr. Wastelack. Thank you Mr.. Chair and members of the Commission. As you correctly stated, this is a public hearing and action on this annexation petition and plan. We are pleased to have our research manager, Minesha Tawari here, to make a brief presentation in advance of the hearing. Good evening, commissioners. Good evening, commissioners. Father Rekit, Minesha Tawari, planning and research manager for the committee planning and development and you'll be connecting about the caring on the annexation plan. Just as a little bit of background, Rockwell's comprehensive plan was adopted in August of 2021. The municipal growth element is a required element of the comprehensive plan and the state requires municipalities to identify their growth boundaries with the municipal growth element and the map that you show that you see on the screen has rockwell's maximum expansion limits as outlined. This is the has rockwell's maximum expansion limits as outlined. This is the location map of the proposed annexation area. It includes the Shady Grove metro station and both the east and the west side of the tracks. The property also includes the railroad tracks that Pomada uses to service its cars. And this map shows the Rockwell City limits and also the City of Ketusburg the City limits. So as seen in this map, the proposed annexation area meets the adjacency and adjacency requirements, which is also required by the state that the properties to be annexed should be adjacent and contiguous to the city limits. So the requirements of the annexation plan is to determine whether the annexation plan complies with the municipal growth element of the comprehensive plan. The planning commission needs to recommend a zoning for the property that will be annexed into the city and whether the proposed property proposed for annexation will be served in general by the necessary public facilities. So the preliminary annexation plan findings indicate that the annexation area is within the at least designated expansion limits. And the proposed mixed-use transit district is appropriate, zoning is appropriate for the property, and that the city has the capacity to provide public services. So as a part of the as as required by the city zoning ordinance, the applicable state, county and regional agencies were notified of the preliminary annexation plan. The public hearing notice was published as required in the Washington Post. Adjacent property owners were notified. And additional notifications were sent by Rockwell Report News Letters and other social media channels. So staff recommends that you conduct the public hearing, review testimony, close the public hearing record tonight, and finalize and transmit your pro-dani-sation plan to the Marin Council. The Marin Council must adopt the annexation plan, which is also required by the state law. And the Rockwell's zoning ordinance determines the role of the planning commission with respect to anization plan that the planning commission is required to hold a hearing and transmit the preliminary anization plan for the mayor and council so that they can adopt it and move forward with the annexation process. So, notifications were sent out as noted in the previous slide. And in the notifications, the method of testifying and the public hearing was outlined, which is shown on the slide. Who I wanted to testify could testify in person or in web extranite, email testimony to the planning commission, all the city staff, which includes me andlag, and materials related to the annexation are also posted on the city's website. So these are the next steps for the annexation. You would be conducting a public hearing tonight, and you would review the testimony and approve the preliminary annexation plan if you choose to for transmission to the mayor and council. The mayor and council is scheduled to conduct a work session on May 12th on the annexation on the annexation plan. They will receive a presentation from the city hired fiscal impact consultants on the public service related aspect of the annexation plan. And then the mayor and council will choose to move forward with the annexation, with their recommendations and the schedule is outlined as follows. The mayor and council will also have a public hearing and then once they have a public hearing they could choose to adopt the annexation resolution and once the annexation resolution is adopted the property can be a part of the city within 45 days of enactment of the annexation resolution. So with that, I would like to conclude my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. We received a testimony from two individuals so far which was in your packet. One individual was concerned about vomata's vomata's approach towards cleaning the site during icy conditions. They wanted, they wanted to know that, there were some hazardous conditions that were related to pedestrian safety. The other testimony related to a city resident who was supporting the annexation. I see what's going on. All right, the computer was on mute. So just for the text folks to know, I'm actually calling in via telephone. I see what's going on. All right, the computer was on mute. So just for the tech folks to know, I'm actually calling in via telephone. So I'll be muting the phone. So before you open it up to public testimony, do any of the commissioners have any questions and staff all need a verbal yes or no since I cannot see you. Chair, as minutes I do have one question of staff. Go ahead. All right. Thank you for the presentation. Can you just provide a little more information about this scope that the consultant I think it's next gen consultant is providing to the mayor and council. Sure. The annexation as a result of the annexation plan, it was determined that the annexation would to service the city and take care of the public safety aspect regarding to annexation. The police chief has determined based on the calls of service that they have received that they would need additional police officers. So they have recommended that with the sanitation we would be needing an addition of additional six police officers to solve the property. So we had asked the fiscal impact consultants to study the impact of the additional police officers on the city revenues and that's what they were representing to the mayor and council. All right. And so I guess it's specific to that part of kind of the adequate public facilities. They're not discussing economic development or potential use impacts just limited to the scope of the how the city might absorb that cost of additional police force. Correct. Thank you. Any other commissioners have questions and staff at this time? So I've got a follow on question to that. So, you know, in the packet, the staff kind of seems to believe that we have adequate public facilities in order to support this. But we also acknowledge that additional police officers would need to be hired in order to make it happen. Can we reconcile that real quick? Like how can we say both things are true? Well, what you're saying is that the city can be serviced as is with additional police officers and the mayor and council's role is to determine if they can find the additional six police officers as a part of their budget. So, so what you're deciding is that the annexation as is can be served by the city services. But again, we do need additional police officers because the cause of service are substantial, especially on the east side. So we need to assess what is going to cause the city to be able to provide adequate services. Okay, so we're saying not like there's no new infrastructure needs to be built. We just need to hire more people. And in that case, people are relatively easy to find. Is that the thought there? And the mayor and council approves a budget. So it's on them to decide whether they are ready to put that additional burden on the budget or not. Okay, and then in regards to the public safety and the removal of ice and snow, does that change if they become part of the city of Rockville? Does Rockville take on that burden of clearing the snow in ice or that still remains Walmata's responsibility? Typically, Walmata takes responsibility of snow removal at the properties and the city could do more to advocate for better services. But it would still remain the primary responsibility for model. Thanks for that clarification. That's all I had. Any other fellow commissioners't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I don't have questions. I do not either. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Waffle. provided public testimony from wrong, let me me know but I can't see who's in the chambers did we have anyone sign up in person? Mr. Chair you are correctly there is no one online intending to speak for this item we do have one individual in the in the Mayor Council chambers who would like to address the commission okay all. I appreciate that. Before we move forward, let me lay some ground rules for public testimony. Each individual will be allowed three minutes to provide comment on the application or the proposal. In this case, however, one representative of an organization such as an HLA or community group will be allowed up to five minutes for a presentation. Any time clarifying questions may be asked by members of the commission, please adhere to these time limits. They will be enforced. If you intend to testify for any of today's agenda items, we ask that you sign in at the front of the or the back of the room, which seems like it has already happened and once public testimony has concluded, the commission will enter into discussion and deliberation. Now, because I'm not present, Commissioner Fulton agreed that he'd help me enforce the three minute rule. So I turn it over to him as the person who will provide public testimony moves forward or comes forward. All right. Thank you chair Espinosa. I heard we have one person who signed up in advance. I would ask that person to kindly come up to the microphone and I believe Are we swearing in for a public hearing or are we not? We are not. All right. So if you signed up in advance to address the body on annexation, all right, just please start with your name and your location and we'll start the clock at three minutes for you. Sure, John Becker, I live at Americana Center across the street from the Rockville Metro station. Two brief things. One, fully support this 100 percent. Go team, go, get more land. I'm all for it. I do have one question now a little bit in the weeds. When I was looking at the map, I thought that the tracks on, I'm going to say the west, sorry, northwest side or west side of the annexate proposed annexation seemed to be outside of the jurisdiction. Now I've been looking at it tonight. So, somebody could clarify that. I just want to find out because those tracks are like three or four of them side by side. And I assume it's like an Maintenance or staging area. I just want to make sure that's included in The annexation area and hopefully I'm just not looking at it right and that's good to all I have to say Thank you all right, thank you mr. Becker. I don't want to assume what you were looking at staff Do you can you address that? About all of the tracks being in the annexation area? Is this the map you are referencing, Mr. Becker? Okay. So the way annexation works is that if the city wants to annex a property, it has to consider the entire parcel for annexation. So when you were referencing cracks, did you mean the right of way in between the east and the west side of the metro station? If I may be allowed to get up to the point of the map. Sure. Look at this right here. Those cracks are not included. They're not a part of the annexation. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Becker. Thank you. Staff, yes. No, no, that's it. It seems like there is no one else signed up for public testimony. No one else in danger. All right. Mr. D. May before we move on to discussion, unless any commissioner thinks we need to hold this item open for future public testimony, should we make a motion to close public testimony now or should we hold on that and then make you know a joint motion to close testimony and make a recommendation to Mayor and Council. What do you suggest? So different bodies do it differently. I think a motion to close the public hearing now would be most appropriate. Actually, I think that's excellent practice. So I would encourage that, but if you'd like to do something different, I think it's okay. Okay, since no one else has signed up, since we have no indication that anyone else is going to be providing any public testimony, I would ask one of my fellow commissioners to consider making a motion to close the public hearing at this time. I move to close public testimony on this proposed annexation plan. Do I have a second? I'll second that. All those in favor raise your hand, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. It appears that the motion passes unanimously. Okay. So now we move into discussion of the item loop. Any of my fellow commissioners have anything to discuss or any clarifying questions of staff? I have a question following up the the public testimony question. So if the tracks are not part of the and activation, whose responsibility to the maintenance of those tracks? The only tracks that are apart of the anti-stake, sorry about that. the only part tracks that are apart of the annexation are the metro train tracks that are within the east and the west side of the properties that also includes the CSX land, which is the CSX right away. We did have a letter of consent from, we did have to reach out to the CSX property owners to obtain a letter of consent from them because they are not a tax exam property and we were able to obtain consent from the CSX property owners to be able to annex that part of the land. But regarding the maintenance, CSX and Womata would continue to maintain their right of way. The city would not be involved in any of the maintenance. for the clarification. Any other questions or staff or anything anybody wants to discuss? Chair Espinoza, I do want to just start conversation on this. And just to be generally speaking, I guess philosophically, I'm in favor of annexation, alluding to what the speaker earlier said, available adjacent land is not necessarily a renewable commodity. I do have some concerns about the immediate impact to the city and it seems like some of the immediate and even maybe midterm benefits of this annexation are more along the intangible line, the cache of having three metro stations, which doesn't necessarily provide a tangible economic benefit to selling point, the ability to eventually annex adjacent land, which I understand is very important. But we discussed this I think two months ago when this first came up and in the past two months, things have evolved in the financial economic and construction trades. And I guess I'm not going to stand necessarily in the way, but I asked a question earlier about economic development, because I hope that the Mayeron Council seriously consider and have readily available information about the viability of getting a return on this investment if we're already having a consultant try and identify ways that we can pay for six additional police officers before it'll probably be years before we get additional funds from this. So that's my general opinion. I'd like to at least go to Mayor and Council and call out some things to consider if they're not already in their work session. Yeah I'd actually like to kind of second that. I think it's tough as a planning commission to make a recommendation on something where we don't have any information on sort of the financial implications of this annexation, none of that was covered in this proposal. And apparently that will be given at least in some form to the mayor and council but that also seems a bit cursory, right? What we hired the next gen consultants to actually analyze on our behalf. So I agree with Commissioner Fulton's assertion. I would say though that you know when we talk about you know sort of annexing land and the implications for the city in my mind it's really sort of like a generational impact and not necessarily a short-term impact. If this land doesn't get you know developed for the next decade and the grand scheme of things I don't think that you know while it'll cost the city something to maintain and provide services to this piece of land, you know, as long as it gets developed eventually, there's a positive there. We're not paying money like we're not acquiring this land for ownership. We're just annexing it. So it doesn't really have the initial investment, I'd say, is relatively poultryry aside from, you know, the work that staff's doing and all that stuff. So the return on investment actually needs to be relatively low. It can be relatively long dated. So that's kind of the way that I'm thinking about it. Although I do have a philosophical issue with recommending something we have no, we have no data on what the financial impact is going to be. No, I appreciate that before we move on into further discussion, I'd like to ask the clarification from Commissioner Fulton. I think you said to the long lines of, if the Mayor and Council at their work session, you would like to bring things up to them. I guess I'm not, wasn't clear on that. Did you mean like send memo from the planning commission or actually attend their next point? It was more along the lines of the former. I know that we we transmit a memo with our recommendation and just including, you know, our thoughts in that rather than just the blanket we approve have fun with it. Yeah, no, I understand, I understand. Keeping it open for discussion, do any other commissioners have anything they'd like to say? I would just say Commissioner Saludin said something along the lines of this is a generational acquisition and I I agree with that. This is not at all for the immediate return on investment. This is really a bigger vision for the future of Rockville. And this is really something that our kids and our grandkids will see developed. And I'm glad that we have this opportunity to annex this property. And I mean, I get it. I don't know how much building we're gonna see in the immediate future with the way conditions are now as far as tariffs on materials coming in from different countries. And we all grow aware of all that. So, but I really support this. And I think it's a really wonderful opportunity for the long term for the city. Yeah, I'd like to add, I think for me, I think the I agree to strategic move for the city in the long term. And I'm only in support of that. And the short term returns question, also acknowledge that. So maybe in our memo, we can include our both short-term concerns and the long-term support. Yeah. Okay, so at this point in the discussion, I guess I'd like a little clarification from the commissioners where they stand on transmitting a memo. My position is that I think the long-term implications of annexing the third metro station in Rockville to make sure that all three metro stations are within the city of Rockville is the long-term good idea. So I personally don't see a need to transmit a memo of laying out the planning commission's concerns, especially since this is just a recommendation and the mayor and council will obviously have similar concerns and we'll get into the discussions of police officers and budget, right? But I don't get to make motions. And so if there isn't three people to send up just a recommendation for approval without a memo, I would like a little discussion on what the memo would contain. So I guess just kind of a straw poll who would be comfortable sending this up without a memo, without listing out concerns, because I'm one of them. So I could go either way, Chair Espinoza, but I think just, I mean, honestly, Commissioner Sun said it really well that we have some short-term concerns given the financial situation are countries in right now, but we think this is a great idea for a long-term investment. And does it need a lot more? I don't know. No, I think that's a good summary of my opinion on it as well. I just, the balance, like I said, I'm in favor of it generally and philosophically. And someone who has more information than I can make the more informed decision on On the short immediate and long-term impacts No, and that's great and I can support a motion that includes you know concerns I guess where I was going that is is we should outline that first staff so they know what they'll be drafting So when we get to the appointment someone's making a motion just ensure that we outline those concerns. So for me it was really just you know we were having a discussion and that was kind of a point I just wanted to bring up. I don't necessarily think that it needs to be included in any sort of memo, just, you know, part of the discourse, right? I mean, I think that the mayor and council should and likely does also see this as, you know, generational opportunity and that the benefits may be long dated, but Rockville is going to be here for much longer than any of us will. And so, you know, in acknowledging that, I'd be good with, you know, making a recommendation or at least taking a vote on it without the inclusion of a memo highlighting our short-term concerns. No, I appreciate that. However, I do love unanimity. So, you know, if it just isn't my my outlying concerns insurance discuss I can get behind that. Unless there's anything else that anybody would like to add does anyone want to make a motion to the commission to consider? Mr. Chair before motion is made it might be helpful if I give a little bit of clarification about the action now because it's it's it's not intuitive So under state law the annexation plan which is before you tonight is it needs to be adopted by the mayor and council under our local law though You you approve it so the action tonight would be to approve assuming you're not any changes, to approve the staff annexation plan as the planning commissions final annexation plan and transmit it to the mayor and council. And then somewhat oddly, the mayor and council is then obligated to adopt whatever you approve. So all of this is technically advisory because it doesn't mean the annexation will move forward, but this is actually approval of a plan tonight. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. No, Mr. Dimae, I don't, and that's why I opened it up a little bit for discussion, right, just to make sure that we had the necessary votes to pass without making any changes. So, based on what Mr. Demy said, first off, does anybody have a question from Mr. Demy with what he just outlined? Hearing nothing, does anyone would like to make a motion approving the annexation part? Uh, Chair Spinoza, I will make the motion. I move that we approve and transmit the annexation plan. A and X two zero two three dash zero zero one four to the Mayor and Council of Rockville. I second. All those in favor raise your hand. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Seems to be unanimous unless someone tells me otherwise. with that the motion passes. Formal forward. Is there any other potential motions that anyone would like to make? Hearing none, Mr. Dumaid, did we handle that? Appropriate line. Yes. Okay. All right. Then you don't see any open item that we should potentially discuss. Approval and and Transmittle of the plan is the only thing that needed to happen tonight. Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Mr. Waffle, do you have anything to add on this item? We wanted to add a clarification on the question about the train the tracks that are within the annexation area. So, Mr. Worry, what do you say? This map that you have on this screen probably helps better understand what we were trying to state that the right of way train tracks that are a part of the annexation are those that are between the east and the west side of the station and not at the shady grow solid waste in transfer facility because the property lines for the proposed annexation are shown as in-dash red. So with that, I just wanted to Mr. Wasleck and I wanted to make sure that we had addressed your and responded to your questions appropriately. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That changes everything. I feel like we have to redo the motions now. You're okay. Anybody on the commission have anything else to add on this item before we move on. Okay, hearing nothing. The next item on our agenda is a work session on the zoning ordinance rewrite project focusing on development review process improvements fast to over to Mr. Wastelack. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. This is the first in a series of work sessions on the zoning ordinance rewrite project, which has been progressing to a point where we are soliciting feedback from the Mayor and Council as well as the commission. And so we wanted to take this opportunity to do that. We have a series of work sessions set up with the mayor and council, and as we will show you, we will be holding those same work sessions with you following the mayor and council's work sessions. The mayor and council held a work session in January of this year, talking about, primarily the comprehensive map amendment that was recommended by the comp plan and all of those zoning changes that are recommended to take place. We still owe you that work session and we will come back to you with that one very soon. More recently we held a work session with the mayor and council on the fast to process improvements and that is the one that we would like to bring to host for you this evening and so with that I think we're I have with me John Foreman the city's development services manager and he has been the lead on the fast to process improvements as opposed to our zoning consultant. John knows our process probably better than anyone on the planet and has been working and leading that process with the rest of us in support. So, John, if you wanna kick it off. So I wanted to show you what we would like to present with you, present to you this evening, namely the type of feedback that we would like to hear, and then also that the mayor and council would like to hear a little bit bit about the fast two process and then showing you how it connects to Mayor and Council focus issues and then getting into some of the primary questions and recommendations that we have as part of the fast two. So the requested feedback that we're looking for and we'll come back to these are namely into categories. We're looking primarily at the project plan process and as you know the commission reviews, project plans and makes recommendations to the mayor and council process can be arduous and take a lot of time, particularly since all the planned developments that we have if you amend a plan development you have to go through the project plan process which can take upwards of a year. So we've come up with recommendations to streamline that process. And then the other category that we're looking for feedback is for site plans. And whether some of those site plans could be approved administratively. And we got some feedback from the mayor and council on both of those categories. And so John is going to kind of walk you through that. Just a little bit about the the fast two process, which is kind of working in parallel with the Zora and will be kind of part and parcel to the zoning ordinance rewrite itself. The phase one of the fast project was completed several years ago. And namely, it was to streamline not only the Ville review process, but also the permitting process. Now, at the point of phase two where co-changes need to be made to implement the remainder of those recommendations. So just to remind you of the project timeline for the zoning ordinance rewrite project kicked off in fall of 23 and we do have a zoning consultant on board. They conducted a work session with you in the winter of 24. We've come through a couple of the kind of overall phases of the zoning ordinance re-write project, including diagnose and also calibrate. And we're actually in the kind of occasion step now when actual zoning text is being drafted by not only by our consultant but by our council, Mr. Dume. So we are at the at the red arrow that is tonight's work session. As you can see we've penciled in some other work sessions to follow in the light blue including next month when we would like to have the work session on the Comprehensive Map Amendment that I mentioned earlier. And then the others kind of follow the mayor and council's work sessions that are scheduled, including one on uses and parking and kind of a catch all at work session number four for those topics. There may be a number of those including historic preservation, et cetera, that we would need some feedback from you at that point. We expect the public release of the draft zoning ordinance and map to occur at the end of this calendar year in December. Once the mayor and council authorize for filing the what will be is only text to memo and zoning map amendment that we would bring it to you immediately to begin work sessions and of course public hearings. And our plan is for adoption of both of those items to be in the phase. We'll start in the winter of 26 and hopefully we will have a document and a map amendment adopted in late spring of 2026. So just as a reminder, the objectives of the Zor are namely to implement the comprehensive plan land use and zoning recommendations. As you know, the comp plan has some primary focus areas, including affordable housing and economic development. As you also know, the Town Center Master Plan was adopted and the Climate Action Plan as well, as well as a vision zero policies. A couple of other objectives are include incorporating the city's commitment to equity, resilience and sustainability in addition to implementing the fast two recommendations that we're discussing this evening and also to modernize and reorganize the code so that it's easily understood and accessible and also that we're incorporating the best planning practices that we can. So at this point I'm going to turn it over to John to lead you through the remainder of the slides. So excuse me, good evening everyone. As Jim said, I'm John Foreman. I haven't, I think I presented once or twice to this commission. So it's, I'm really happy to be here. I watch more or less all of your meetings on WebEx and so it's, I'm like I said, very happy to be able to present here and not just stay along at the screen and see you all do your work online. So before we get into some of the specific recommendations, I have some slides that talk about kind of how we develop this and what would end putting forward the recommendations and why they are the way that they are, that they are. And first, I want to talk about some of the mayor and council's guiding principles, specifically three, housing production and affordability, economic development and effective and efficient service delivery. These are greatly important to the mayor and council in the overall community. And we kept these in mind when forming our recommendation, starting with housing. As we know, we're in a national housing crisis. There's a shortage of units, and this is most pronounced for entry level or affordable housing. And it's especially challenging here in this region because of the Desire ability at Brockville and Washington, DC. So it's a national issue. There are a number of national strategies recommended to address it. The American Planning Association and National League of Cities developed a housing supply accelerator, which is a guidance document for recommendations to increase housing. Some of the recommendations that come out of that are streamlining processes, as well as including administrative review and decisions wherever possible. The American Planning Association goes further on guidance on administrative approvals, saying that they're more efficient, less costly, and can make projects more financially viable and predictable. So that's at the national level. Those are recommendations nationwide. Here specifically, the mayor and council at a September 16th work session, specifically to housing and and doors several similar strategies to increase housing here by streamlining the development review process, as well as to provide speed predictability and certainty with administrative approvals. So economic development is another guiding principle, which is really related to housing. And for economic development efficient and predictable processes are really critical to getting businesses to make an investment to locate and ultimately to get open. And we have to remember that we don't exist in a vacuum that other jurisdictions are also looking for economic development. And so we have to be competitive in terms of process. Finally, ready, the Rockville Economic Development has a strategic plan with some specific recommendations such as streamlining, opening and operating bio facilities and reducing barriers to coming to Rockville and again to have more administrative approvals. Finally, Mayor and Council will focus on efficient and effective service delivery. Some observations. Our current processes are very long. Mr. Wasleich mentioned project plans being a year that's kind of a good case scenario. Our average is 18 months from pre-application to approval of the project plan. That's not the permit. That's only the project plan part of the process. That's a very long process. Then there's a subsequent site plan which takes around seven months on average. So these are these are long time processes. Some developers have told us that the time and expense of the process limits our attractiveness. So we've taken some steps to address. We've mapped the processes. We've identified steps that are redundant or have limited value and developed recommendations to ensure that all requirements are met while maintaining transparent processes. And I'd like to note here that we really see the greatest opportunity to get to a building permit, not through the permit process itself, but through the development review process because there's these law and upfront processes. We can make improvements on permit processes and permit reviews, but there's a whole lot of potential in those 18 plus seven months to streamline those. So it's not all bad. Rockville has a lot of advantages. I want to talk about those for a minute. We have a lot of units in the pipeline. I don't need to go into detail here, but there are a lot of at various points from plan to propose to approved to under a construction, and that's projected to continue. Another advantage Raffle has is really a strong policy framework, and I want to explain what that means. There's a distinction in our work between things that are policy focused and things that are technical focused and from a city standpoint, things like the comprehensive plan, area plans, zoning ordinance and map, those are policy documents that are recommended by the staff, recommended by this body but ultimately ultimately adopted by mayor and council. And they establish kind of the big picture direction of the city as well as the regulations. When it comes to enforcing those regulations, those are more technically focused items with development review, building permits and inspections. And so typically those are, those are more of a staff function. Now sometimes as the commission knows, the commission has a role in development review. But I just wanted to set that as the overall framework because Rockville does have a very strong policy framework. There's a very recently adopted comprehensive plan that sets a very clear visionary direction and does include specific recommendations to update the zoning and increase housing supply. And the zoning ordinance rewrite, as Mr. Walsh like mentioned, is underway. And it focuses on process and improving processes, but not just process. A critical element to that is creating clear standards that address and implement the plans and address the community's needs. Once those clear standards are established, that can then allow projects that meet requirements, those requirements to proceed more quickly. So there's less ambiguity about the regulations, they're more clear, that can lead to more efficient processes later on. For example, this doesn't have to be just things that are already in place, things like eB charging, park land, those are things that are not currently addressed or addressed in a limited way in the code that can be improved upon. So that is the framework for how we got to the recommendations. I will get to the recommendations shortly. I do want to back up and talk just sort of a big picture about Fast2 and some of the work that's underway. You have in your brief book, after the staff report, there's a project charter that has action items, there's over 30 of them. And I'll touch on a few here, but I think it's important to note that the recommendations that we have tonight are a piece of that and they're very important, but there's a lot of other work going on. And this is just an example. We're working with our colleagues in the public works department to make changes to chapter 21 which is the road code to streamline the processes and provide clear regulations within that as well as to allow additional staff flexibility for very routine items to be approved at a staff level instead of at mayor and council level. We're working on creating a single point of intake for all applications, which is an online, we're thinking that as our online one-stop shop. Right now we receive applications through our website, through email, through an online permit portal. We don't take any more paper, but they come in several other kinds of ways. We have one system that will ultimately accommodate all those applications and we're continuing to move new processes into that. And we're looking, I mentioned permitting earlier, we are looking at our permitting time frames and how can we reduce those, how can we be competitive with other jurisdictions, and we restarted a quick start permit back in February. So we've been doing these things as we've been working on the zoning ordinance and other things. Some other items that we're not discussing tonight that are as part of the zoning ordinance. Re-write additional administrative approvals for things like very small subdivision plots and certain limited historic cases. More efficient review processes for changes of use when they come into us. Right now that's really important when we have new businesses tenants that come in we want to get them open. As soon as we can find that they meet our codes and our requirements. So that's going to be very helpful for businesses to open. And what we're talking about tonight are really these last two. So I just want to put in context that as important and critical as these things are there's a lot more to so this is not the entirety of the recommendations. Okay, so we're finally going to get to the recommendations. Mr. Walshle gave the overview. I'm not going to recap. I do want to note the last bullet there for all of these processes. Public notification is and we're recommending would continue to be required for any area meetings and public hearings before planning commission and mayor and council. So just to be clear we're still maintaining that as a recommendation. First we're making make a recommendation to streamline the project plan process. When we say project plans think specifically shady grove and twin report or projects of that size. We'll talk about plan development amendments next, but these are really just the largest projects that we see at the city. Mayor and Council is currently the deciding body for those and we recommend that to continue. This currently require two area meetings, one before, submittal, one after submittal. And discussing with Mayor and Council, we noted that those are typically very poorly attended and generally end up being more or less the same meeting. So there's not really a value in holding the same meeting twice. So we recommended combining those and Mayor and Council were supportive of that. We recommended removing the Planning Commission and Mayor and Council briefings. We feel like there's ample opportunity to be aware of the projects and to learn about the projects as it moves through without those briefings. We're also recommending that after the Planning Commission recommends and the Mayor and Council approves a project plan that site plans following that project plan be approved administratively by staff. I'll note too that these can be processed concurrently so long as the project plan that site plans following that project plan be approved administratively by staff. I'll note too that these could be process concurrently so long as the project plan can be approved first. And our goal with this is to make the process achievable within six months. Does it mean that all of them will hit six months? There's only so much the city controls. The applicant has a role in making changes and meeting requirements, but we want to make it at least possible for that to happen, where like I said, now it takes 18 months on average. This is just a summary of the process with what I just described. This is our current process. Believe it or not, this is a vast oversimplification of this process. There are a whole bunch of other things that happen besides this, as messy as this is. But the things to note on the very top line, there are two area meetings there as well as the briefings. So you'll see in the next slide, those are combined into one area meeting and the briefings are gone. As well as the bottom line where the chief of zoning is now the decision-maker for subsequent site plans. felt like the Planning Commission has a chance to weigh in on the overall development at the time of the project plan and then once Mayor and Councils approved it. At that point, we're confirming that what's approved or what's submitted with the site plan matches what was approved with the project plan, which is a function that staff can do. I'll know here also to all the same elements are there. So nothing's been cut out where we've really focused on removing duplication or where there's more than one step that happens more than once. OK, so the next recommendation is with streamlining plan development amendments. So there are plan development zones throughout the city and development that's different from what was approved with the plan development requires a PD amendment. So some examples you have seen recently are rock shyer and tower preserve. We recommend on this that Mayor and Council also continue to be the deciding body. Very similar recommendations, combine the two area meetings, remove the briefings. One difference though is we are recommending to let the case proceed directly to the mayor and council without a planning commission recommendation. The thought process with that is that these have already been approved for development in the past and what we're doing is amending the approval. We have various other processes where one of the things has been approved, it goes right back to the original deciding body to make an amendment to that approval. So we're following that here. So the flip side of that is that we are recommending the planning commission, um, continue to be the approval approving body for the site plans that follow that PD amendment. Some of these PD amendments can be fairly general. And so, um, the site plans can be more specific and we feel like the planning commission's well equipped to approve those. Similar goal here to make these achievable within six months. This again, the PD amendment process, same as the current project plan process. And this is the proposed new process. Okay, the next couple of recommendations focused on additional administrative approvals for site plan. And I want to talk a minute here and I have some notes I want to speak from because I want to be real clear about this. We're talking about these recommendations not because of any function or action of the commission's taken. I've watched your meetings. You all do a fantastic job. You focus on the critical issues. You move things along. So this is not anything to do with any action of the commission. This is going back to those things I said in the beginning about the nationwide recommendations for additional administrative approvals, where we can establish predictability, certainty, and move things along faster. And this is also, we really try to focus on, where can we establish additional administrative approvals, where it's not going to impact neighbors or the community? And so those were the kinds of things we looked at when making this recommendation. Last thing I'll say on that line is that we've challenged ourselves with this too, where we have lots of different agencies within the city that review things, and we're looking at, does everybody need to review everything as well? So we're doing the same thing where we're looking at who's reviewing what and trying to make things as efficient as possible. So having said that, the first recommendation is to designate certain mixed use districts for cyclans to be approved administratively with some caveats. We would want this, we would recommend this only be in the most intense makes use zones that are listed there because they're near transit and existing infrastructure. The thought process, this is where the city has, through all of its plans, said growth should occur and has set a clear direction for what that growth should be. We also would recommend that this only be when the DePros development is not within 300 feet of a residential zone. So again, limiting those potential impacts to neighboring properties. I do want to know what's in red on the screen is one, further addition that was not shown to the mayor and council, that the commission could consider with this recommendation to do some sort of limit some limitations to limit this to not full redevelopments, but additions, expansions, or redevelopment up to a threshold such as 50 percent, again, where it could be ensuring that there's limited impacts to surrounding properties. I'll note this this is similar to a zoning text amendment that the mayor and council approved in 2021, but that was really only limited to small additions. So this would be going further and allowing more redevelopment in these areas. And then the fourth recommendation is similar, but it's recommending administrative site plan approval for certain types of projects. first being research and development in the MXE zone. The thought process there, again, going back to our guiding principles. This is one of the desires of the city and ready. It's an area where in the MXE zone, this is the type of development that's contemplated and that we're seeing. So we feel like moving that along through an administrative approval would be an effective way of moving these forward. And then the next batch, this is all part of recommendation for these are types of things for administrative site plan approval. These are all related to housing. And so these are for particular types of housing, whether they're providing affordable units beyond the minimum of the city. Certain types of housing where there's housing for senior adults and persons with disabilities. Small housing projects up to 19 units. And non-residential, such as office to residential conversion, similar to the project you all saw on our dens. This is particularly for the smaller projects, having the certainty of an administrative approval as well as the time savings is really critical. And so we felt like that was an effective way to promote more housing within the city. I'll note that the processes are very similar. They're still the same level of staff review for all requirements. The only difference is that the chief of zoning would be the decision maker. I'll note to that one thing we would recommend, actually I say it here, let me just get to the slide. Okay, so it's important here to recommend or to recognize that there's still opportunity for transparency and community engagement and feedback in both processes. There is still the post application area meeting, so the community would have a chance to come and provide comment as you see here on the process. There's a same and similar outcome, which is a site plan that meets all requirements. The same technical review would be done by staff. We would ensure that all the requirements are met. And also one important thing at the final bullet on note was that we would recommend that any administrative decisions be publicly posted. This is something that's not required minute or our code now, but we feel like if we do have additional administrative approvals that it's important that they be posted online or posted for transparency. One final note on the administrative site plans that the city currently does have a process that's called the Level One site plan. But in our, that's approved by staff. So you all see level two site plans. Level one is subject to seat chief of zoning approval. We went back and looked over the last five years. We've processed 20 site plans. 19 of those were level two. Only one was a level one. And we feel like that shows that there was an intention when the code was drafted to have an administrative approval process for site plans, but the way it was drawn up really kind of limits the availability of that process. So what we're trying to do here is to bring in some additional opportunity for those administrative approvals based on city priorities. So I think I have talked enough. I've said all this. I'm not going to say it again. So I'm going to skip that and jump right to the requested feedback. So we're really looking for on these four items do you support each of them? And I'll say mayor and council supported the first two so the project plan and PD amendment process the majority of the mayor and council were supportive after quite a bit of discussion and questions on those two. They were not yet comfortable with three and four on the administrative site plans. So with that we're looking to have any feedback you might have and I'm happy to answer any questions. I appreciate that and just for clarification you're not looking necessarily for any unanimity tonight, right? You're just looking for the commission's feedback in general. I think the commission's feedback in general is great. I think if we can similar to you did with the first item where you ran a straw poll, I think it's helpful for staff if we can get a sense of not just individual commissioners thoughts on things, but if we can have some sort of a consensus of the commission, unanimity is great, but really just kind of where each commissioner stands on each individual item I think would be the most helpful. No, and I appreciate that and I say that because I mean, I'm obviously stating the obvious but I think it's important for anybody who's. You know, the project approval process is a reflection of the varied values of our community. And the planning commission itself should be a reflection of the community's varied values. So I think staff tonight is going to hear, you know, a mix of opinions, potentially some commissioners like myself will have contradictory opinions on some of the recommendations, but I think you guys are going to get good feedback from my fellow commissioners. So with that, I open it up to any of them to provide any comments or questions that staff's recommendations. Thank you Chairman and I think I have some a list of questions and I can start with some clarification questions. So first is do we have an action limit of those applications? So far you said it's rendered from six months to one one and a half year. So do we have a required action limit on those applications? And second is regarding some housing units that you showed us a charge. And I see there are 460 units that have been approved for 2030 to 2040. So I wonder why we approve something that takes over 15 years to build. Yeah, just two classification questions to begin with. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll start with the first one. I'll go back to the housing chart. This is a mix of in pipeline and projected. And so what you see in the 2020 to 2030 column are the ones that that are actually the pipeline, the ones farther out are projected so those aren't actually approved, those are ones that are a projection of what we anticipate to come not based on a particular project but just based on historical trends. So I apologize that's a little unclear and the first part of the question I think was related to a timeline for action. Is that correct? Yeah, it's an action limit for certain type of application. Why that takes that long? Okay, so the reason it takes so long, there's not a reason. That's the challenge in explaining this is there are a variety of requirements that have to be met and every project in Rockville has a different individual challenge to meeting those requirements. And so what we're doing a lot of times is working with applicants to meet the forest and tree preservation ordinance, the stormwater requirements, the zoning requirements with limited space. And so there's a competition of goods is really what we run into a lot is how to meet all those requirements and make a viable project for For the development so there's a lot of back and forth in review that happens that's laid on top of the required steps that you saw with Briefings and area meetings and so the combination of those two things is is what results that long process. So just to clarify, there is no required action limit for those. Just whatever time it will take. Correct. I see. OK. Thank you. Any other preliminary questions? I guess I think it's good to get any preliminary questions out of the way so you can have a healthy discussion. So if anyone else has any preliminary questions? I have a quick question and apparently my mic's been hot for like 30 minutes. It's forming thank you for the information. I think one of the time frames you gave was approximately 18 months for a project plan sometimes as low as 12. Do you have a sense of how that compares to some of the abutting jurisdictions and municipalities to Rockville? That's one of the items we have as a fast action item is to benchmark ourselves against other jurisdictions. We're in the process of doing that. We've done some preliminary looking at Gather'sburg and Montgomery County. We've not completed the full benchmarking. So when we do, we'll have a much better answer to your question. One of the challenges with that is our project plan, it's never apples to apples with these processes. It's a little different everywhere. So we've tried to find the most comparable projects and these other jurisdictions and to see how we compare. I don't remember the specifics offhand. I think it's longer generally than comparable processes in Gatheresburg and Montgomery County. I would love to have a better answer with specifics than we will once we get finished with the benchmarking but it's a long process. Any other preliminary questions? I don't have a preliminary question. I was just going to jump in. But you have something commissioner chair. the next . . . . . . . . . . . . I have a preliminary question. I was just going to jump in. But you have something commissioner chair, Mr. Nosa? Nope, jump in. So looking at items three and four, the ones that Marin Council were uncomfortable with or not yet comfortable with. I think this really, these two things really demonstrate that tension between the buildings and the people inside the buildings. And some of these things, you know, ultimately development is not about the building, it's about the people inside them. And when I see things like housing for senior adults and persons with disabilities as something that would be less reviewed or only administratively reviewed, you know, those are our most vulnerable populations. That's a vulnerable group of people. So wouldn't we want more eyes on that instead of less? So some of these things I can understand by there was some discomfort with it. And I'm wondering what, Merent Council won, won, what were they uncomfortable with? And then to, you know, what are some, you've got one thing proposed that Marin Council didn't look at. Have you guys been talking about some other things? Like, is there a way to combine post application meetings with briefings for planning commission and Marin Council? Is there a way to combine public hearings? I don't know if that's legal. You know, are there other things we can do instead of reducing it? I mean reducing the number of times we meet without reducing the exposure to the community and Marin Council and Planning Commission. Does that make sense? So there's two questions there. I'll start with the first regarding the specific housing for senior adults. That would receive under the proposed process the same fire, life safety, critical reviews as any other project, whether it comes to the planning commission or is approved by staff, those life safety elements for those residents would be handled under those same codes in exactly the same manner. So in terms of the immediate safety of those residents, they would be protected in the same way. The planning commission really looks at the appropriateness of that development and the overall. Is it in and of itself consistent with the comforts that plan does it meet the findings for that development? And so that's a bit different from ensuring the safety of the residents which staff does for every building in the city. So I just want to make that distinction and you know we can have a discussion about should should the planning commission have a role in and making those findings for that type of a development but I just want to sure everyone that staff will review all those life safety elements whatever the process. second part of the of the question regarding, did we look at other options? We have been looking at options for this for months, years, very long time. We've had lots of discussion about how to approach this. We've had, there was some discussion about combining different other meetings and doing things differently. We landed on these recommendations, especially for the first two items for the project plan and the PD amendments, because we felt like this was the best way to maintain all the steps that were critical and to maintain the public role in the process through the area meeting and to move it through the boards and commissions in the most efficient way. And so we don't have another recommendation for that other than what we're proposing tonight because we really have looked at that a lot and tried to do a different way. And this is really the best recommendation that we have. I completely trust the staff when it comes to safety and following regulations. That's never a question. But sometimes when we speak with a developer, when they come and talk to us, we focus on like quality of life issues. And we've seen some really wonderful adjustments to developments after a conversation with Planning Commission and Merent Council. So that's why I asked that because it is to, you guys do a perfect job, you know, you're all, you know, I know I know the roads are going to be right. I know the safety and the health of the people in the buildings are going to be right. But there's a different purpose for planning commission. than administrative review. Do you know what I'm saying? We're not really an administrative review. You guys already did that when we trusted you did it. It's always in the plant and the notes from the staff. It's always great. So that's all. It's just where do we, when we're talking about vulnerable populations, and development is going to really alter the way people experience the city, is there, you know, I can see why, like I'm a little uncomfortable, obviously, with that, and it's not, you know, it has, and I love what you, thank you for saying, Prop saying, prophecy it with this isn't about you guys, you know, we're not trying to take something away from planning commission and I don't get that at all. It's just how do we keep that balance between making sure everything's technically correct, but the quality of life and the way people experience the city is also addressed when you're talking about large development and vulnerable populations. So that's all to thank you. Thank you for your response. So I'd like to jump in here and ask a question and we'd tell a little bit of discussion on it. So using recommendation four as an example. In recommendation four, there's the recommendation when it comes to conversion of office space to residential space, right? And my understanding of the recommendation is that we wouldn't have a public hearing in front of the planning commission and that there would just be area meetings where the public can talk, but that staff would approve it. Did I understand that correctly? Yes, that's correct. Okay, and so let me begin by saying, I'm fully on board on streamlining when it comes to housing and in order to get more housing, particularly in the next couple of decades where housing is an issue. So I am well for that recommendation. However, I acknowledge the tension using that as an example, knowing that, you know, I mean, we set precedent with the Planning Commission with videoing our sessions. And so folks, you know, come here to voice their opinion sometimes for, sometimes against that is recorded. You know, people can watch that, can watch their neighbors putting out the way they feel about an issue like that, which, you know, we can all acknowledge, can sometimes be a controversial issue when you convert business office space to residential. And so I just kind of want to acknowledge that tension, right, that we want to ensure people feel fully heard before a development happens in the city. Though, again, I'm for it. I'm for the recommendation and in the streamlined process. So I'll stop talking if any other of the commissioners have caution staff or anything they want to put out for discussion. Yeah, I'd like to jump in real quick. So this proposal is part of the FAS project. There was a fast one project. So presumably that diagram that showed the current process looked even more complicated and jumbled prior to the fast one process implementation. Is that accurate? So there's going to be a longer answer than yes, no. But with the fast one,, we focused on a variety of things. A lot of it was service-based. We changed how we took in plans, how we did reviews. We were paper-based. We moved online. One thing we didn't do a lot of was code revisions. So the process there actually didn't change. How we do some of the reviews and some bits and pieces of it changed internally. but the overall process, no, it's been the same since I think since the code was adopted. Mr. Wasleck. So fast one was maybe nipping at the edges. This is really more of a wholesale rewrite of the process. I am, you know, sort of piggyback on what Chair Espon is saying. I'm pro anything that would get the process simpler. I love the idea of further development in Rockville and I think it benefits more or less everybody. I think going back to what Commissioner, what Chair Espinoza was saying, there might be some differing opinions. I'll offer a differing opinion on the point that Commissioner Pittman brought up and that is, a kind of look at it a little bit of a different way, right? We, like there still will be, you know, a chance for the public to chime in on development just the way that there is slightly different than the way there is today, but the opportunity still exists. And when I think about our most vulnerable residents, in my mind, anything we can do to get them more adequately served by the city in a more expeditious manner would be good because 18 months are really long time. And that's average, right? So 18 months is the average, which means there's for every time it takes 12 months, there's a time where it takes 24. And I think that is something worthy of looking into and trying to mitigate. So the administrative bits, I think we got a supremely talented administrative team here in Rockville. I think that everyone's been very, very transparent and thorough in everything, every briefing book that I've ever received and I've been on this commission for, I don't know, year or two at this point. So I actually like this process. I've always found it a little bit weird. The, you know, we have in our briefing books, a little bit of history that often comes with these, these project plans and these, these site plans and the, the, the timeline says, but we were in front of you in 2021. Then we were in front of you again in 2022 and now it's 2024 and 2025. and like we see these projects over and over and over again. And I think it's superfluous to say the least. And so reducing the number of times we touch the project, I think is a great idea because we have a pretty lively discussion here. We get our ideas out on the table. The one thing I will say that I have concerns about is that while there is public notification built into this plan, and just the way there is today, I've always had concerns around the fact that we get very little feedback from the current public notification requirements, right? I mean, they go out, they're posted on the Ruffville report things like that. I don't know how many people watch that, and I don't know if there's a better way to do it, but there's so little feedback that we actually get from the public. And I think that's always been a concern in mind, and I think that that's an area which will be worthy of looking at maybe a little bit deeper and seeing if there's a way for us to leverage newer technologies to try to get at more engagement from the public. I think that would be good because we're all citizens here and we try to provide the citizens a point of view, but we don't have a monopoly on good ideas or questions or points of view. And so I like it being a little bit more democratic that way. Does my thoughts? Thank you. I gotta imagine Commissioner Fulton's about to jump out of his chair. So Commissioner Fulton, do you want to jump in here? We're laughing in the room because my finger is on the button. All right, so contradictory opinions incoming. But first, I guess just a clarifying question when we're talking about recommendation four, just continued here. So there's two slides on recommendation four, and then I think there's the below it, the proposed site plan process that looks more streamlined. One is planning commission approval. One is chief of zoning approval and this relates to recommendation four. Correct. This is actually recommendation three and four showing the difference between the planning commission process and the chief of zoning approval process. I don't expect you to answer this question now, Mr. Forum, but I would be curious to know what the anticipated time savings is between those two. Because it looks like the only difference is the final box. Anyhow, so yeah, I. Merer a lot of the opinions of my colleagues here. I think that we absolutely need to make this process more streamlined, more efficient and faster to use the acronym that we're talking about. I also think that there's merit in having different eyes on this. Again, not to say, like Commissioner Pittman said, I trust in staff wholly. And tangential to that is I'm going to put a lot of faith in the code that's forthcoming as part of the zoning ordinance rewrite. That to me is a critical part of this to have those guidelines in that framework in place. That's going to be the the the tracks on which this this railroad runs. But I have also been you know a community advocate and you know on different committees that have admittedly held that processes by requesting briefings and meetings with developers or applicants and pointing out things that maybe could have been a little bit better. And that's small things, like maybe a ramp instead of some stairs. But that makes a big difference. It speaks to the quality of life. So again, contradictory opinions here, as I say, I think we need to speed it up, but also we can't cut out some parts of the process. I think wherever we can maximize efficiency in the moving things forward on the front end, I'm in favor of eliminating the briefings. I think combining to one post application meeting is fine for the community, knowing that, you know. I think combining to one post application meeting is fine for the community, knowing that only two are required in certain instances, but we have seen many instances of using the Rockshar's plan. There were multiple community meetings when there were only two required by this process. In those instances where the community wants to be involved, there's more than enough, I think, opportunity to be involved. And that'll happen naturally. And so I know that I have said a lot without saying anything, but that's kind of where my thoughts are on this. Yeah, and I would love to see on the slides of Rockville's advantages that we have an efficient streamline process, and that's what gives people who are looking to do business with Rockville, the confidence to do it here instead of three miles up the road in Gathersburg or literally anywhere outside our limits in Montgomery County. It's why I asked that question about, how we compare to other folks. I want that to be our advantage. Whether we get it down to six months or whether we get it to maybe eight or nine, fine. Can I continue? Yeah, so I think I, in general, I agree with the final commissioners' opinions. I think for item one and two, I'm in full support of streamline process. And for three and four, I think here is what my thought process is. I think we are balancing the efficiency and the long-term impact. Because we are talking about building, being as architect background, I know, when you prove a building and something has been built, it has a long lasting impact, maybe 50 or 100 years. So we need to make the decision carefully in that aspect. But also, we want to accelerate the process to build building can be built faster to serve the needs, right? So, and then I'm thinking about, you mentioned about this contracts between the level one project, only one compared to the level two project, there are 19. I think there can be some space to improve there. And so far, based on the recommendations, three and four, I think the metrics are the criteria that needs to be there. And so far, based on the recommendations 3 and 4, I think the metrics were the criteria that needs to be approved administratively, were not very clear to me. I think maybe we can set a metric or something that can identify the criteria. What I know the current we have a metric system to identify which project qualifies for level 2 and what kind of product qualifies level 1. I think that's a great system. If we can incorporate this type of product into that metric system, then we have a more not quantitative way to identify which product qualifies for administrative approval. I think maybe when these further discussions are on this aspect. Another thing I'm thinking about is the technical and technology aspect of this process. One process is human interactions and community input aspect. The other aspect is how you mentioned it will be, the submission process will be through a single point of intake. And also I'm thinking can we use some advanced AI technology or something to streamline the technical review process, that portion. And also, can we provide more trainings or the information to the public to provide better examples of the satellites or something? So, on the other side, the applicants will have more information to understand what we are looking for. So I think my thinking is too aspect. One is the community input aspect, can be streamlined, the other is the technology aspect, also can be improved. Any of my fellow commissioners have any other thing for discussion before I ask staff? All right, hearing nothing. I mean, at this point, right after this robust discussion, I think staff you've heard, yes, knows sometimes always and never. So, clears mud assuming you got what you need. Almost there. I think maybe a little bit further discussion would be helpful. No, absolutely. So a question I've had is regarding the area meetings, and cutting them down from 2 to 1. Would it all be helpful to get rid of both and have a public testimony? I think the advantage of the area meeting, and especially the way it's set up here is that it's at the front of the process, is that it gives an opportunity for the community to know about the project early on, as the project's being submitted as reviews are starting. I've worked in other jurisdictions where we don't do that, and the first notice that the public gets is the planning commission meeting, and people show up to the planning commission meeting with lots of comments that staff would have loved to have heard at the beginning of the process. So I actually think the area meetings are beneficial, particularly having them early on. And I think Rockshar is a great example of one where we had a very early area meeting that had a lot of discussion and the developer worked with the community about the time it got to decision. Most of that was resolved. Most there were a number of issues there that the public had concerned about. we were able to work through with the public. So I would that's my initial feedback on the value of those area meetings and how it's a great introduction to the community for the project and as well as staff. So are there are there specific issues that you would like to throw out there to give to get a little bit more clarification from us? I think perhaps going through each of the recommendations and I think I heard some general support for one and two but maybe just going one by one and getting a sense of do we do we support this? Do we not support this? Do we need some additional discussion on any of them? Maybe just kind of going one by one. That's kind of similar to what the mayor and council did, and that's how we're able to get the direction from them. No, thank you for that. Yeah, let's do that. Just straw poll. Going item one by one, do any of my commissioners have anything on number one that they would like to discuss. If not, I'm many of my fellow commissioners are in support of the first streamlined project client process. I am. So I don't know if we can show hands or just folks can chime in verbally. Yeah, this Shion. I'm I'm I'm for it. I also support the item number one, the proposed streamline project plan process. Did I support recommendation one streamline project plan process? Yeah, this month I support the number one. All right. Number two do you support the post streamlined plan development amendment process? I'm in support of it myself. Me too. Agreed. I agree. I support. Okay, let's move on to the harder ones. Number three, do you support a provision that allows for site plans in certain zoning districts to be approved administratively? I'll say I like the zoning districts that the staff is comfortable. It's there is that we want to see more housing generally as a commission. and I understand some of the the tensions but I am for what a staff is proposing number three. Can we flip back to that slide? Can I get some clarification on 50% is that 50% by development value, by size of the project? What is 50%? What's that threshold? Is that a hard threshold? Is that what you're actually recommending during the your actual presentation you said, like some threshold like 50%. Is 50% the number you're recommending or could that change? It could change. It's based on... I thought I was going to make it all night without doing that. It's based on the fact that 50% of the site, so up to half of the site could be redeveloped, but that's not a hard line anywhere that's what that's getting at is trying to identify a threshold that's comfortable. So it's trying to set some boundaries on that. And if the commission says, we think these are areas that we need to develop, fully develop, have administrative approval over all of it, that's fine. 25% if you want to bring it down, that's still more than is allowed under this provision now, so that still could provide some benefits. So there's really no magic number about 50. And what's highlighted on this map is the overlap of both the mixed use zones and the 300 feet buffer. That's correct. And so what we did is we identified the mixed use zones and then took out the areas that were within 300 feet of residential. So it's an approximation, it'll vary depending on where the developments proposed. But this generally shows where this could be applicable. And not to get too granular, but even the stuff that's bordering the sort of the end of the city limits on the other side of shitty Grove Road, is that also 300 feet away or do we not care about the buffer since that's not part of the city of Rockville? I'm not sure that we looked at residential and adjacent communities for this map, although we could as part of a provision. So my thought is those are also our neighbors, maybe not in the city, but our neighbors sort of, existentially, I guess. So I like this as a theory. I like the idea of not being, you know, really super impactful to our neighbors. And I would maybe clean up that border area to make sure that that fits the bill as well. But other than that, I'm for this. Those neighbors, can we annex them? Joking. But then we have to give them the signature fee. Right. Commissioner Pittman, do you have any comments? I'm going to pass to Commissioner Fulton. I may come back to this. I generally in favor of recommendation three. For three and four, I would still like to have a better sense of just timing and time savings current verse expected. But I'm generally in favor of this. And I think four is where I'll have to do some more internal deliberation. I think I'm sorry, Mike. I think, Commissioner Fulton just said what's on my mind about the, just some more details about this. And then about the 50%. We a little more detail on that. Generally supportive, though, of this, with some more information. Yeah, so I think I generally support the idea of this, but as I said before, I'd like to hear more about the rationale and the criteria of determining, so this will be the level one set plan, right? So I want to understand the numbering system that related to this. Yes. So if I could offer, I think that's all very valid and fair. We've taken because we've hit so many topics, we kind of hit high level on a lot of these. We could develop this a little more and bring it back to the commission if you would like to do it that way Right before you're if you're not comfortable making this recommendation to mayor and council based on on this We could flesh this out a little bit and have a little deeper discussion that future meeting Doesn't have to be a full work session that I think it could be just a standalone item Mr. Walslet correct me if I'm getting up track here but I feel like that would be appropriate because I do think it is difficult to make our recommendation if you're not comfortable with having some of those specifics. No, that sounds appropriate. I don't know, Mr. Waffle. I guess if you have any issues with that approach. I don't. I think your agenda is concernedly accommodate revisiting this. I'd like to note for the record the commission is going to a second meeting in deeper dive discussion on the fast act to make things faster and more efficient, which is entirely to be expected given this commission. Fair enough, fair enough. Unless any other commissioners have anything to add in the recommendation three, I think staff has what it needs and they'll be bringing this one back. Now let's get to the easy one. Recommendation four. I've really in the meeting I've obviously noted the the tensions that exist surrounding this one. Though I will say that I am supportive of this recommendation as I think it'll have a huge impact in the quicker development. So I ask my fellow commissioners to weigh in on this recommendation. So I have the same concern about this, right? Generally I'm supportive, just concerned about the border areas, making sure that we're taking to account, you know, an appropriate buffer for any members we might be impacting on the other side of the border. I am definitely in support of research and development, including life sciences, that second bullet point. I am struggling with the housing. I want, because we do need to speed this up. this up. Like I am very supportive of speeding this up. I'm just not sure we're going about it quite. I don't know that there were quite very yet with how we're going about it. And I just want to say I do very much recognize we really need to do something about this that we're really by taking so long on housing, we're really running into equity issues and all kinds of things that we want to avoid and quit doing. But I want to make sure, I don't know, we all want to make sure this is done in a way that supports community. And the, you know, Rockville's got such a, we have a tight-knit community, the weave of the have the fabric for our communities very strong and so we want to make sure it stays that way. So I do have some concerns about about this and I think Commissioner Sannis said some things about setting some metrics that are a little more clear about maybe some things actually get stepped down to us a level one instead of a level two. That kind of thing. So I'd like to see a little bit more around the housing on this one. Thank you. Yeah, very similar. I think since we're already expanding this conversation out, I'll take advantage of that to say that yeah, I generally support this, I want to support it fully. I do want to see a little more information about time and savings benefit, the things that Commissioner Sun said, and honestly to give some time to my own thoughts on this, if we're gonna have a little more time to think about it. Yeah, for my standpoint, I think, this project type might include all kinds of projects, right? Maybe we can set some additional criteria like the size or something capacities to limit to a certain level and I'm in support of to approve the administrative level. So maybe need more information. I got one more question. Would it be is it reasonable to expect that we'd have that the results of that benchmarking by the time this comes back around because that's one thing that I am concerned about is that you know for chasing six months and six months is still twice as long as it takes everybody else then are we really creating any efficiency here? We're making it any easier to do business in Rockville, right? Like if we have a benchmark and we know that we're at 18 now and we only really need to be at 13 to be super competitive right well then maybe all of this doesn't need to happen right maybe just some of it needs to happen So that's I don't know if that's reasonable I hear you when you say it takes a long time, but if we could have that information when we make this decision, that would be really helpful, I think. We can definitely bring back the preliminary information that I already have and supplement it. We won't have the full benchmarking. That's a much bigger effort. but for some of these particular processes, I think we can definitely provide some context for at least like Gather's Bergen Montgomery County. I think that'd be helpful. Thanks. Yeah, just to follow that, I think I don't know the methodology of this benchmarking research, but seems like the developers already have some opinions on that wouldn't it be beneficial to also get collect some inputs from them right because that's what they want to choose where to develop right. So we have reached out to the development we have reached out to the development community several times through this process once as we were launching into FAS2. We had a roundtable with with some of our developers where we asked some pointed questions about what works well, what needs improving here, and some of the action items and the recommendations we brought forward were based on that feedback. Through this ore process, there's been some similar roundtables where there's been some of those discussions. So we have done that and we've really worked to incorporate their feedback wherever we can. That's great, thank you. So question to staff on recommendation four, since it sounds like we're gonna be seeing this again along with recommendation three for certain things to be clarified. Is there anything else on recommendation for that you'd like to tease out of us tonight to help you? I think I heard from Commissioner Pittman a distinction between the R&D being perhaps more acceptable than the housing. Please tell me if I'm misconstruing that understand your point on that actually. Can you maybe state a different way? Uh, I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure if I can say that. I'm not sure I fully understand your point on that actually. Can you maybe state a different way? I'm fine with that being an administrative process. Oh, I see. You're fine with the R&D stuff being an administrative process. More than you are fine with the lack of, you know, the rigorous review on housing. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Thanks. Okay. Anything else from staff on this item? I just want to thank you all for the time this evening. I know it was a long presentation discussion and I really do appreciate the feedback and look forward to bringing back this back to you with a little more information. No, well, we definitely appreciate you bringing uncontroversial things to us. So thank you. Moving on to our next agenda item that brings us to our regular schedule commission items. Mr. Wathleck, is there a step ways on report this evening? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Looking forward to your next meeting, which is on May 14th, three weeks from this evening. We have a project plan briefing for 41 Maryland Avenue, which is the vacant lot, or when it's developed as a parking lot, kind of across the street, across middle lane from Starbucks. And that is another, this is that same project plan where you've seen two other briefings recently that are proposed for amendments. And potentially looking at the your draft of the, or a draft of the annual report for 2024. Looking ahead to May 28th, there is one mandatory referral that will be coming forward to you. And that is a review of a city project to relocate the entrance of the senior center from Carnation Drive, well not relocate, but add a second entrance to the senior center from Goody Drive. And we're also, we've also scheduled the work session on the Conference of Map Amendment, So that should be a robust discussion as well. And that concludes my look ahead. I appreciate that any old business to discuss either Mr. Waffle or any of the fellow commissioners. Hearing none any new business. All right, hearing none, Mr. Waffle, I didn't see any minutes for approval. That's correct. That is correct. There are a couple of tests that are ready to go, but I thought they got, I thought I finished them too late for you to actually consider them tonight. So, so we'll see those next time. They appreciate that. And Mr. Waflach, any correspondence since our last meeting that you'd like us to highlight? I do not have any. All right. I appreciate that. I'd like to thank my fellow commissioners and staff dealing with me being remote tonight. I know it's not the easiest and I'd like to apologize about my informal appearance. I forgot a bag before my trip, and so I did not have business attire. So with that, is there a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Second. Ola was in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. I'm assuming that was unanimous. We are adjourned. Thank you, Rockwell. you