This meeting is being recorded. All right, good evening everybody. It is December 3rd. We are here for BA-013C, an application by Trotter-5857 LLC, for a conditional use for a 20-unit age-restricted adult housing. Mr. Cole, good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Tom Cole, good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Tom Cole, on behalf of the petitioner, we're not going to put on an opening statement. So if you'd like, I can call my first witness. OK. All right, I'd call Mr. Chris Ogle. I'm ready. When you're ready, Mr. O'Hare, hearing is Amaro's way. I'm ready. Thank you very much. Do you solemnly swear or affirm unto the penalties of perjury? Did the responses given in statements made to be the truth, the whole truth, the nothing but the truth. I do. Thank you, please state your name and business address for the record. My name is Chris Ogill, I work for Benchmark Engineering. I live at 556 Richmore Street, West Mr. Maryland. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ogill. You were the engineer consultant for this conditional use petition, correct? That is correct. And how long have you worked in Howard County engineering, land use and zoning matters? Yeah, over 30 years. And you've had the opportunity to testify before the Howard County hearing examiner before correct. Now, before I get into your questions, you you prepared a pair of exhibits. Could you just describe for me what the two pages that you provided me are? The two pages, one of them is a schematic of what the building, the age restricted building is proposed to look like. It's a work in progress but is the footprint that we're going to be presenting today. And the other document that we have is a schematic of the site that is somewhat rendered for landscaping purposes and to give an idea where the building is located on the property. Madam here, an example I'd like to offer this as petitioners as they exhibit one and two. Thank you. Okay, so one is a proposed elevation. And two is proposed landscaping. Okay, so accepted. Thank you. Now, Mr. Ogle, can you generally describe the property and where it's located? The property is approximately six acres. It's its own RSC, which is residential single cluster. It's located at the intersection of Maryland Route 216 and Baltimore Avenue. And what is being requested with this conditional use? We are the petitioners proposing a 20 unit age restricted adult housing apartment building with 500 square foot community space within the building. Now for a conditional use there's general criteria and specific criteria going through the general criteria first are you familiar with Howard County's general plan, how go by design? I am. And will this condition to use being harmony with the land uses and policies of how go by design? I believe that it will. It's stated in the staff report. It states that policy, DN12, provide a range of affordable, accessible, and a develop house housing options for older adults and persons with disabilities. And then there's also an implementing action under that, as it relates to this housing, are you familiar with implementing action 3 under DN 12? Yes, which says that it encourages age restricted adult housing to build small, to medium scale housing units, to include apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and the missing middle housing. And Mr. Ogo, I've worked in the Landish and Zoning and Howard County. I know you worked on a lot of projects. Is this project actually somewhat unique in offering apartments as opposed to the villas that we're often seeing for Adir's Victor Dr. Hall's? I think it is consistent. And will the nature and intensity of this use and the size of the site in relation to the use be such that the overall intensity and scale of the use is appropriate for the site. I think it is. They're proposing 20 units on 4.12 net acres. I think that it equates to like 4.8 units per acre. And I think that if you were to use the actual zoning, which is seven dwelling units per acre, you on RSC, you would probably get 28 units. And when you say the actual zoning, I presume you're referring to the most that the petition are could apply for. That is correct. That is correct. That is correct. The age restricted adult housing criteria they could apply for up to seven dwelling units per acre. That's correct. And here it's approximately 4.8, correct? Right. And then we're preserving over 70% of the site in open space where the actual criteria is 35% for the age restricted. And then also because it is an apartment building, I presume the footprint of this age restricted at all housing is smaller than it might otherwise be for other age restricted. That is correct, and it's 20 units. What are some of the adverse impacts that generally might be associated with the age restricted at all housing? I think there really isn't a whole lot that would be associated to this project, to other ones. I think that one of the big ones would probably be the lighting. And in this case, the lighting is going to be directed away from any residential developments. But the residential developments where this house is located residential, developments are pretty far away from here and buffered from proposed landscaping and existing landscaping that's part of the open space. And so will the surrounding residential properties have adverse impacts from the proposed lighting? I don't I don't think so. Have the location, nature and height of structures, walls and fences and the nature and extent of landscaping on site been designed so that the use will not hinder or discourage development of adjacent. It has. Yes. Do the zoning regulations provide a parking requirement for a district of dollhouse? It does. This proposal requires 26 parking spaces, but we are going to provide 31 spaces. 25 of them will be within the building. There's a garage below on the building. So the additional six will be surface parking and that surface parking will be buffered from any of the residential developments with landscaping and the existing features of the open space. The next general criteria is that there'll be adequate and safe site distance in either directions for ingress and egress. This proposal will meet that criteria. It does. It meets the stopping site distance, which is required by Howard County. And the access to the site is also located at the intersection of an existing road, the production overlook across the street. Are there any environmental features on the site? There are quite a few environmental features on the site. There's streams, stream buffers, steep slopes, and specimen trees located on the property. And has this project been designed to minimize the impact on the environmental features on the site? It has. It's located to minimize any of the impacts to the steep slopes and the specimen trees. There are a little bit of impacts, but it's the only location that is on less impacted by that. We are not impacting any of the stream buffers. And are there any historic sites in the vicinity of the against? I don't believe there are any. I say no, there are no historic sites within 1,000 feet of the property. And the technical staff report confirmed that, correct? That is correct. Is the proposal, and now turning to the specific criteria for Adrestricted Alt Housing, is the proposal compliant with the density calculations and bulk regulations for Adrestricted Alt Housing in the RSC zone? It is. And that's depicted on the condition. It is also part of the Technical Staff Report. Does the proposal have frontage on a direct access to a collector or arterial road? It does. Bonamore Avenue is where it accesses from and that's a minor collector. And does the grading and landscaping of the site allow the proposal to blend in with the existing neighborhood? I think it does. Based on where the location of it is, it fronts 216 and everything around it other than where it fronts 216 is going to be buffered with vegetation, existing vegetation, proposed vegetation. And I think that that's consistent with the developments around the site that have open space as part of their development. And the design advisory panel has reviewed this proposal correct? That is correct. And as it relates to integration with the neighborhood, they had no negative comments correct. They did not. Is there a criterion related to apartment building length that we need to comply with? Yes, there is. The limit of the apartment buildings are to be 100 feet, 120 feet, and this building exceeds that. It's approximately 155 feet. And under the criteria, the hearing examiner can approve a length larger than 120 feet correct? That is correct. And the Design Advisory Panel, when they reviewed this, did they find that the design of the building was such that they didn't have any negative comments about the length of the building? That's correct. So excuse me for a second. You said this building has a front footage of 156? It's 155 feet. And 55, thank you. I'm Madam here, just as a note, that's one of the reasons why we provided sign of the building. Bless you to sort of indicate that it has been designed in such a way that the length of the building is not in any way jarring. It's not a blank wall, but rather there are features to create some contrast. Okay. thank you. And that leads to the next question. Mr. O'Rell, the hearing examiner has exhibit one, which shows the facade of the building. How has the building been designed such that it mitigates the visual impact of exceeding the 120 feet by 30. I think that again with the way that the building sites with the different facade, the offset facade of the building, there's no, there's no jogs but there are the different materials. And I think with all the windows and the different materials, I it breaks it up and it makes it look a little bit more pleasing Now another requirement for age restricted all housing it are Community space what amenities are proposed for this project? The requirement is It 20 square feet of amenity area per unit or a minimum of 500 square feet. Whichever is more, the petitioner is proposing 500 within the building. And is the community space compliant with the condition used criteria under the age of or housing for communities. Yes it is. How will the age restrictions be enforced for this project? There will be a condominium association that will enforce that. And will the condominium association also manage the open space and community here. Yes. Now, Mr. Ogle, the universal design features are identified in the petition and I believe also on the exhibit. One of the items that has come before the hearing examiner before that is of interest in terms of universal design features is whether or not they're elevators. Does this project have elevators providing access to the units? Yes, this will have elevators. And the units are also otherwise designed under the universal design features for those ages 65 and older. Correct. 55 and older, yes, that's correct. Correct, thank you. And is the proposal in compliance with the MIHU required for aid restrict at all costs. Yes, but the petitioner must provide at least 10% at MIHU's, which is two units, and the petitioner was going to comply with that. Thank you, Mr. Ogo. I have no further questions for this witness. I'm hearing them. I need to go back to the DAAP recommendations. Just find your response. So the DAP motion had two recommendations. One that the applicant should review the functionality of the front access drive to better allow for cars and trucks to turn around. It appears from the response that this has now been taken care of, is that correct? Yeah, we had several iterations to try to comply with their motions. They wanted to move the entrance further down. So we looked at doing that. Their concern was not having proper direction when you pull up to the drive where you have to go to the entrance or how to go into the building. So we made a couple of changes that we went through the, we didn't go through the DAP again but we went through that process. And moving, trying to move the building entrance and long as short of it as we ended up adding some additional parking spaces, surface parking spaces, up front. We couldn't get, we don't necessarily need to have handicap access to the front door, but we wanted to be able to have that ability to have that and the only way that you can do that is put the entrance back to where it was. So we had done a couple iterations moving around, but we landed on what you see today. The main access for the building is through the garage. I mean, the residents come in and go down into the garage where elevators are and handicap parking is. So, that's where the main entrance is for the residents. We couldn't put parking spaces, additional parking spaces in front of the building because parking is considered a use. And that's a use setback along the right away of 216. So we were limited of where we could put more parking. Madame Hings, Amber, can I ask a helpful follow-up question? Mr. Ogo, the DAP had also recommended reconsidering where the entrance should be on the building. Was there a design consideration that made your firm and yourself believe that moving the entrance to the side as opposed to the public entrance to the side as opposed to the front was a bad idea? Yes. I had said before that one of the issues was trying to get it to be handicap accessible. The other was it would have been a series of retaining walls to try to make that work. And it just didn't seem that it was a better option. And then also when we had disdressed preparing for this. You had said that having the door on the side of the building, looking down the hallway, that that would not be an aesthetically pleasing way to enter the building. Architecturely, correct. That's correct. So Mr. Cole, I presume you feel that your response to number two is adequate and you do not want further investigation at the SDP stage. We expected Department of Planning and Zoning that we are going to have this conversation with them. It's sort of the way these work with DAP is that it's a game of telephone where DAP says something to the petitioner and only DPCs, DPCs only sees their comments as opposed to our response. And we're confident that when we sit down with them and when we describe the design considerations for why the public enters is put where it is, why the majority of the residents and even their visitors will likely be coming up through the garage anyway. And that putting it on essentially the Catted Corner of the residents and even their visitors will likely be coming up through the garage anyway and that putting it on essentially the catacorn of the building would not be consistent with best design practices and architectural practices. So we understand DPC has highlighted that note two, but are confident that we will be able to overcome their concerns. So let me ask you this. Ordinarily, I would make outstanding debt recommendations, conditions. What is your position on this one? Well, we'd certainly welcome additional inquiry if Mr. Obo's testimony on that is not convincing. If put it this way, if that was a condition that you put on it, I do not think the developer would stop the project. I just don't think you would have the best building. I don't think that you would have the most aesthetic building. And in terms of the handicap accessibility, that has been met and addressed. This is really just about how it looks. And we think that how it looks cuts both ways and actually from our perspective cuts much more strongly against the recommendations of DAP than in favor of them. So to paraphrase, you feel that your response is adequate and it is unnecessary to make the second act recommendation a condition correct. Okay. The other question I have is I have the landscape plan which you've just submitted, which is Petitioners 2, and I have the conditional use exhibit. Somebody tell me where the six surface parking spaces are. Madam here, in the exam room, may we approach? Yeah, you. All right. Come on, this is what I got. There's three parts of the spaces here. Oh, super. Okay, all right. Thank you. That's where they, we tried to put the entrance here. Okay. But again, trying to get ahead of you. It's very steep going down into the garage. So moving through, so getting in here, here. Okay. But again, trying to get handicap. It's very steep going down into into the garage. So moving through, so getting the entrance here, it didn't work and then putting the, and then them wanting to have the additional parking spaces. So we got the parking spaces in here. We tried to move the entrance somewhere even closer up here but it didn't work. We had to push it over here because this has to be a pie so Unfortunately, I think that's where it needs to be so yeah, they're the rendering kind of yeah, I just couldn't find them Okay, great and then there's 25 spaces underneath in that Ground All right. Those are the only questions I have of this witness. Thank you. That would conclude petitioners' case. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Ogo. Thank you. I just want more questions, Mr. Ogo. You can just answer it as you're walking. Just one more question, Mr. Ove. You can just answer it as you're walking. So the elevator goes from the garage to the second floor, right? So there's three stops on the elevator. There's a two-story building on the front side. It stops at every building. Right, that's correct. Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Mr. Coles, anything further you'd like to add? Nothing further for our case in chief. OK, then. So the hearing in this matter will deem to have been concluded. Well, Madam here, examiner, I just want to make sure there are a lot of questions. Thank you so much. Is there anybody here that wishes to testify that hasn't already testified? No no, okay all right Oh So is Julie from your office? Not for mine. Okay. Let's open up Mr. Taylor and see if he wants to testify. Thank you for reminding me. Mr. Taylor, did you want to testify today? Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor. Can you hear me? Yes. Did you want to testify for this matter? No, my husband who is Mr. Taylor upstairs is speaking and I don't think he's connected. Are you Julie? Yeah I'm Julie if you can hear her voice. Okay. Do you wish to testify? No I have nothing. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you both for participating. All right. That haven't been said. The hearing this matter will deemed have been concluded. The record is closed and a decision and order will be forthcoming shortly. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you everybody for participating here tonight. This meeting is no longer being recorded.