Correction of a false statement, recognition of retiring employee, establishment of personal property tax relief, a special meeting discussing: the FAR, parking, CIP and high-density housing.
Mr. Allison was delayed but did arrive after 6:30pm
Approval of Minutes for September 18, 2024 vote 7-0
*I would like to clarify a false statement that was made at the meeting regarding the Capital Improvement Plan CIP feedback not being provided to the Planning Commission PC. I personally was responsible for gathering that feedback and providing it to the PC and I did just that. Other than what was provided at our June meeting, no Council members answered my 2 email requests for additional feedback. Dr. Self Sullivan repeatedly stated that the PC was not provided Council feedback and that is false. The feedback was emailed to the PC chair, zoning administrator, and town manager. I also printed copies and handed one to the PC chair at their September meeting, I read the Council feedback out loud during their meeting and offered copies to the rest of the PC members. The PC Chair later apologized for the misunderstanding.
Council Member Liaison Reports
Schools - The new concession stand ribbon-cutting will be on Friday 10/4 5pm
Public safety - National Night Out has moved to October 29th, CBVFD will have a shrimp dinner during the bike fest.
Public Works – riverkeepers said that the recent swimming closure was not due to the sewer treatment plant. Recent reports of brown water were due to fire hydrant flushes and in the future, there will be a 24-hour notice to citizens so they will not be concerned.
CB Redevelopment and Housing Authority - They said the rescue squad may be potentially looking for a piece of property for donation or purchase. Apparently, there may be significant USDA grant funds available, but they would be required to own the property to qualify (up to 75%)
Mayor - She mentioned the candidates forum, and congratulated the police department on a recent drug bust.
Council was asked by Tom Moncure to endorse a grant application for Monroe‘s Birthplace. Vote 7-0
Recognition of Kitty Norris, 35 Years of Service & Retirement, Cooper Library Branch Manager - Congratulations!
Public Comment -
Linda Brubaker - Stated that the mayor didn’t actually apologize for defending someone that injured 2 CB police officers, joint meeting with the PC is a waste of time, the FAR is being brought up because of the mayor has property that’s not in compliance.
Kelly Woods-Vaughn - many are confused about our parking regulations, EDC recommended, minor changes, the more restrictive rules will hamper growth, consider historical structures, add shared parking, urge council to limit changes.
Alan Griffey- The FAR is important to address, currently not able to build a two-story house in Sunset Cove, average lot size in classic shores is 5000 sqft which only allows a 2000 square-foot house with no garage, recommend increasing.
Eric Nelson - Instead of using the FAR he suggested using other methods to address house size limits. Downtown Colonial Beach – Finished their application for Main Street.
Tim Trivett – there was a dedication for channel Mill Pond, started at $5M but ended up $11M (State fund). Brought up constituent concerns about dangerous intersections, example near Halls and the dragstrip. Apparently, it is very difficult to get additional stoplights and turning lanes funded through the state.
Write-ins
Joe Kelly – Support the FAR being increased, stated the small sample was not sufficient for the original determination, mentioned that a variance is costly at $5k so not a good option to get a bigger house.
Will Nuckols - a joint meeting is not really needed. Seems silly to have things like CIP included and questioned if this was a delay so that candidates would not have to vote on big ticket items like a new municipal center for $10M. Suggested some of the other topics should be postponed until we have a plan.
Resolution #34-24, Establishment of Personal Property Tax Relief Rates for Tax Year 2024, Adam Schaefer, Assistant Director of Finance - This was to approve 2024 budget years personal property tax relief 31.115%. I asked if the estimated collection is what was in the current budget. Answer was yes roughly $768k at 79%-80%. 100% collection would be $852k. Mr. Allison made a comment saying “I don’t think anyone would object to getting a 31% discount on their taxes”. To me nobody’s getting a discount on anything because we are being taxed on cars and trucks we’ve owned for years. We’re actually just taking a little less money out of their pockets. Vote 7-0
Joint meeting with the Town Council and Planning Commission -
I’m not going to speculate on motivations behind this unusual meeting, but some have suggested that it is strange that we have not passed a CIP yet. The topics were either previously decided on or lacked enough data to have a productive discussion. The format was a bit unusual and not the way I would suggest conducting a public meeting. Council, Planning Commission and staff broke out into 4 different groups to discuss the topics below. The sessions lasted about 20 minutes and one spokesperson was asked to brief out at the end. Below are the results. I was in the FAR group.
Once we were told the meeting would be held, I asked the mayor if we were going to vote to suspend Roberts rules. She said yes and council voted 7-0 to do so.
Discussion Topics
• Article 28 (Residential High Density (R-4) Zone - Currently no land in CB is zoned R4. This might include condos, duplex and other high-density housing. First, we would need to identify any areas in town that would even qualify i.e. 9th through 13th St and determine how the residents and builders could make something like this work. There were questions like infrastructure, who pays for it and how do we ensure developments meet the workforce housing needs. I asked what would something like this look like? Are we talking about something like Riverwood or 12th St apartments? Essentially there are a lot of questions to be answered before we move forward.
• Article 13 (Parking) - The spokesperson of this group said: concerns over economic development losses due to parking requirements, suggested more flexible options like shared parking, protecting historical resources, golf cart parking, uniform parking requirements for the downtown area, including Colonial and Washington Avenue. Discussion was to eliminate some prior edits and make modest edits. Next this will come back to Council for a review.
• Floor to Area Ratio in R2 District Zone - The basic determination from this group was that more information is needed. The PC had voted a year ago, not to increase the FAR but they did say they would like to address it again along with other aspects of R2 Residential zoning to take a more holistic approach. Another concern raised is that historically the FAR had not been enforced so now builders are having to comply with what they consider new rules. Concerns raised were impacts on infrastructure, larger houses, being more compatible with surrounding buildings and impacts on builders. One concern builders have raised is that including the garage in the FAR limits the house size to 1600 sqft. Concern I raised is that adding 400 extra square feet makes the house feel much bigger. Attached garages count against the FAR whereas detached garages do not so it was suggested this should be looked at. A 5,000 square-foot lot is not very big so there are limits to how much can comfortably fit on a lot that size. Increasing the FAR is something the community as a whole would need to decide. It was suggested that the best approach may be to have a round table meeting with the planning commission, citizens and the builders. Final comment was a lot to flush out which is going to take significant time.
• Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) - this is the plan that has been discussed numerous times and has essentially been called a wish list. It includes millions of dollars of items, such as sewer upgrades, new police cars and trash trucks. There are some controversial items on this plan, including a $10M municipal center. Some have accused Robin Schick and Krista Brown of trying to get this postponed so they would not have to vote on things like the $10M+ municipal center and $3M+ path to Monroe’s Birthplace. They could easily dispel this rumor publicly by saying what, if any items they would vote to remove from the CIP or if they would vote to keep everything current included. It was stated that the planning commission did not feel that they got sufficient feedback so it was not clear as to what they needed to do with the CIP that was returned by Council (As I stated earlier very minimal feedback was given). It was decided that PC will address the delinquent CIP but it probably will not be voted on by council until after the election in November (June is normally when Council approves).
• The feedback Council provided that has held the CIP for months is as follows: Not well prepared and should go back to PC, if items in 2024 are not planned they should be moved to later years, there are lines with subtitles but no year associated, source of funding are unclear, document has not been edited in the proper way. The zoning administrator, and Town attorney acknowledged that any of these edits could be made by staff and sent back to council without going through the PC.
Please email or call with questions or comments:
540-604-4335
Thank you, David for keeping us informed.