good evening the purpose of this evening's public airing is to accept comments on two ordinances which amended existing zoning and subdivision ordinances these proposed ordinances if adopted will create a conservation and mixed residential zoning district in a portion of the existing our one residential area this is the second hearing we have scheduled for these ordinances because there were substantial and substance changes that were made it as a result of the original public hearing the second public hearing was scheduled a variety of methods were used to advertise tonight's meeting we placed advertisements in the observer reporter on tuesday august twenty eighth and tuesday aug thirtieth on august twenty third my editor's little left his correcting me glancing up in reading placing notices on the township bulletin boards to website and cable television placards near properties in the affected areas banners across the east mcmurry road on  may act on these ordinances at our next regular scheduled council meeting september twelfth which to the best of my knowledge will be in the council chambers the purpose of tonight's meeting is to accept comments from interested parties prior to doing so there will be a brief presentation made by our staff on completion the presentation of call out those names of those people that have registered to speak we asked really it's not church guys you can all move down forward you can probably hear without microphones if you are going to speak and then ask that you come down so that we can record your name address and your voice can get picked up so everyone can hear at this point in time six names of people that signed reporter a copy of a letter from jeffrey white house or the environmental manager for the washington county planning commission indicating that they received and review the ordinance and have no comment and finally an e mail from scott in terri mitchell of two ninety eight hidden valley drive dated september sixth two thousand and sixteen asking that their property be included in the overlay  district what we would like to do in terms of tonight's meeting is to start out by giving a brief overview of the changes that were made since the last time we gathered in addition to that we wanted to talk a little bit about the planning process that got us here today so what's under discussion is the creation of an overlay zoning district and what you need to understand is that an overlay zoning district is a planning tool to create a special zone by providing additional regulation to the existing set of regulations of the underlying zone so i know that sounds a little bit confusing but what it means is that the are one zoning that everyone in town is very familiar with that provides for half acre lot remains intact what happens is these ordinances provide for a district it gets overlaid over some of those areas to provide additional options for development and the reason why that is being done it comes out of the comprehensive land use plan and it's going to talk a little bit about what that plan provides for and how we it was the valid but the idea is to promote developments that protect natural resources by preserving scenery and conservation areas it's also to provide additional housing options so that that individuals and families  all stages of life have an opportunity to live within peter's township and then the idea behind these districts these these conservation in mixed residential district is to create a sense of community because what they have in in them are things like sidewalks in public areas and parks that allow people to gather so since the last time around we listened to the comments that people had made sat with council of planning commission and a number of changes were don and the first set of changes i want to talk about are changes to the properties that will be subject to the new overlays  at the last time we gathered there was an individual lives long thompson bill rhoden pointed out that that one of the properties that was to be included was the site of elm grove park that piece of property is owned by the school district it is under was being proposed for the overlay zone was through a conventional plane and that you would travel through this conventional play and on a number of different streets and then you would pass into something that would be different and the thought was that perhaps that didn't make sense from a planing standpoint we concurred with that and what we have done is not only eliminate that property but go back to the map and look at other properties that met that set of criteria and we've also eliminated them from from the overlay zone and then finally on the far end of the township where the golf course was located off a hidden valley road we decided t forgive in its nature of its use in the its lack of access to an adequate roadway system and utilities that it probably did not make sense to include that property as well so all those properties were eliminated if you look at the map that was provided you there are some small properties that were that were added in these properties for the most part were only infill properties and properties on the edges of  areas that were going to be changed in addition to that there were a number of other changes one of the ordinance now has a section that lays out for anybody reading it what the rationale for example in the conservation residential overlay district is the other thing is that if you look at the map there are a number of parcels that are fairly small and the thought always was if they were to be developed that they would have to be combined to be developed the ordinance now says that to use the upper so the construct conservation or residential development the area has to be at least five acres so on those very small parcels they would have to be combined together to be able to do this one of the concerns that was raised about is are there adequate public facilities part of the application process now requires the developer to demonstrate access to water in public sewers another thing that was added to the ordinance as a result of our own internal review was the creation of buffer zones so now the ordinance provides for greater than a twenty five foot buffer between residential property lines and agricultural areas it also requires a forty foot buffer between residential property lines and just in the streets that also clarifies that that the decision as to whether or not a piece of open space is accepted is totally at the discretion of the council there are reasons why we might want to accept some open spaces but the that is open space be usable area not just preserving things like steep slopes and items like that the conservation or residential overlay district is going to be restricted to single family attached and detached homes only prior to this included multifamily homes and then the number of options housing options that a developer will have will be tied to the size of the development so if it is less than fifty acres fifteen acres it will be all the catch single family homes if it's greater than fifteen acres it will be mix of detached and single family homes that will be permitted the ordinance goes on in this is really kind of a technical think it goes on to the fine what those means to be a single family detached in a single family attached home this this picture here illustrates what it is these types of developments are  do so what's on the left is what we would see is as a theater kind of development for in the township now what you see on the right is what this is intended to accomplish by providing a common space that can be used in conjunction with a play and and for serving sensitive areas and also providing areas where people can walk and recreate the mix residential a really district there were additional changes there as well developers now must it submit building elevations showing building materials as part of the approval process the other thing is that multi family structures with more than sixteen units must be articulated and what that means is that you can't build an apartment building that has a large part of building with this a simple straight face there has to be architecture really across the building again the available housing options in the mix residential overlay district are also going to be tied to the size of the development if it is less than fifteen acres it will be one type of home if it's greater than fifteen acres there can be two different types of homes and if it's greater than fifty fifty acres there could be three types of homes used and then finally it is again it's a kind of a technical thing the definition was clarified as to exactly what multi family homes mean we have a couple pictures of the kind of homes that you can develop they can be the single family attac like you would see in the conservation district but they also can be a home like this and this is actually a picture of of every village and that type of column would also be amenable in this area and then finally this is a drawing of what this kind of development would look like and again the idea is your your group housing units closer together and creating common area that can be used throughout with that ed thank you i thought we'd take a minute here and explain how we got to this point looking at the cover of the adopted peters township comprehensive land use plan this was a approximately fourteen month process that we went through with the township council planning commission all the residents of the community we tried to reach out and gather input from all facets of the community and like i said it was over a fourteen month process and during that process we stablished a steering committee counsel stablished a steering committee on that committee there were real estate folks there were residents there were representations from the school board with sanitary authorities all facets of the community were we tried to incorporate onto the steering committee  take a step back here and talk about what the comprehensive plan is before i get into the full process the conference a plan is a policy guy it gives council the ability to use it and making land use decisions it's it's it's not law it's not like zoning it's it's a policy guide it's a blueprint for how peter's township would like to grow over the next ten to twenty years what we're doing tonight is having a public hearing on two proposed ordinances one amend the zoning ordinance the other the subdivision and land development ordinance those are tools to help the township help council plan commission implement the comprehensive plan so this is step one in a series of changes that the township is going to be pope proposing to amend the zoning and subdivision in land regulations to kind of bring the congress a plan to life so we're in the we're in the first step of implementing the conference a plan in throughout the conference a plan process one of the themes that we heard was that we're only seeing one type of development happen in the community we're only seeing large homes on large lots we we need i want to stay here i you know my kids have left i want to be able to stay in the community and there's nowhere for them to move to these two new overlay districts mixed residential and conservation residential can provide that opportunity to diversify our housing  choice within the community i began to talk about the planning process in the end we established the first step as a steering committee after that we got into the workings of the conference a plan we we looked at the existing conditions in the community and the demographics what was happening demographically what was happening housing wise what was happening to land use wise we looked at our natural features and came up with two proposed overlay districts to try to achieve some of the goals that were set forth  this is a little picture of the slide that we went through during the conference the planning process there were there were stakeholder meetings there were workshops there were one workshop was a three day working session where we had an educational day and we had a working day and we came back and and looked at all the ideas that were brought about during that process  after all that was done there were several development scenarios that were were created by the folks who participated in those in that workshop and and two types of development for really study very closely and that was how would we grow what would the population be if we developed out under our current zone and i think that even came up at the last hearing if we would develop if we don't change any as owning and develop we are currently zoned and build out under existing learning there was a population projection of thirty four thousand three ninety nine that's if we develop under existing zoning and build out the development scenario that the conference of planned zoomed in dogs and in on was the was called the hybrid type development scenario and now that's with these overlay districts included and some other special commercial districts that we'll get to in the future but the population that that was estimated during the study of this development scenario was thirty six thousand six thirty five and i think that number at the last hearing was not accurately answered so i just wanted to give you an idea we just didn't decide yesterday that we want to create these two new overlay district this this came out of out of a long planning process that we felt that these two new overlays would help achieve some of the goals that were set forth in the plan and i just want to point out that you know how variety of housing was always a big theme throughout the conference a plan and the other thing was there are things just not working right there were seven guiding principles that came out of the plan the conference of planning effort that was promote unique activity centers and the size housing choice the diversity stay forever green built township character identity increased transportation choice and walkability and the municipal advantage in excel in education and township services everything that the township is doing in terms of moving forward we're keeping those seven guiding principles in mind and in the first step in implementing the plan is these two new overlay districts the mixed residential and the conservation residential which paul explained showed you some examples of the types of development that these two new zoning overlays are trying to achieve with that i would stop and open it back up to  council i was one of the participants in that process that we talked about with a comprehensive plan and if we didn't meet a dozen times it could have been ten significant effort and i really need to recognize the contributions that the the spectrum of the participants brought to the table we had professional people orchestrating the sessions they brought their wisdom and insi and there were a few people such as myself that were extremely skeptical with regard to changing what we were familiar with but as i said the last time we sat here i'm convinced that where  these two ordinances will take us will make peter's a better place to be we have six people that have signed up to speak at this time mr donohue would you please come to the microphone and state your name address and so you can residential as one non conforming used business there were actually two i'm not that long ago and two grandfathered home occupations fortunately for me my home occupation peters township which is midway through its thirty seventh year is one of the two grandfathered ones when it comes to new zoning regulations unfortunately same is not true for newer home occupations which have seen township regulations become increasingly restrictive over recent decades that trend definitely continues in this latest draft of new zoning regulations buried within the new ordinance an ordinance is an item which stands out the most the total elimination of any employees who are not family members living in the same house that sort of unnecessary restriction becomes especially heavy handed what it even includes family members who live in a different house that shouldn't even be legal over the years myself and my landscaping employees paid taxes to peter's township through occupational privilege tax and earned income tax apparently our township no longer wants any of those revenues from outsiders the existing ordinance allows one outside employee that's restrictive enough this new restriction on home occupations further hurt small business so i would strike the second bullet item in your new ordinance which reads quote the business show employing no employees other than family members residing in the well and  all right sir thank you we have a james herrington iron runner road tonight i attended the last meeting a few weeks ago when i left they found myself asking the question why are they doing this my wife and i moved here six and a half years ago but before we moved here we lived for twenty eight years a quarter mile from the peters township line and were very aware of this fine town and one of its attractions was the lot size there was a  e spaciousness that you found in peter's township that you didn't find in neighboring communities it was one of the big reasons why we moved here what you're considering now feels to me like you changing the rules in the middle of the game it's like moving the goal posts that have time or are making it out for strikes at the fifth minute when the reason why people moved here is because of your rules and now you're changing that and to me that doesn't seem right i'll leave you with this little story before i retired i have a career in broadcasting and i was lucky enough to work at a number of big radio stations w b c in boston c b s f m in new york and the reason why we moved to pittsburgh was katie j a they were all number one stations and it was an interesting korean i had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people one of the things they found out is that they went to a lot of management teams in my experience and every time a new management team would come in one of the first goals one of their first objectives was to change the rules to to to fix a number one radio station and i kept thinking myself how do you think something that really isn't broken and i would submit that the zoning laws that we're living under now the ones that i moved here six and a half years ago aren't broken so i would ask a similar question why why fix it  changed prompting the necessity to consider change i think in the twenty thirty years or so that i've lived here the developments at one point in time obviously had the ability to develop let's call it more reasonably contoured properties today the developments are moving into areas that twenty or thirty years ago no one would have thought of trying to develop into a residential plan of homes and when we try to shoehorn half acre lot into these wooden hillsides that we've done in my opinion we've not creat desirable type community that i believe we can try and achieve by preserving some of those hillside some of those wooded areas and that in the essence is what's driving my  the thing that i find interesting is that you have you see the united kingdom are ones but yet you're allowing for an overlay to go on top of the r one which essentially said change back in the box and i would suggest that i hope you haven't made a decision already i think all right thank you sir mr mclaughlin jose taylor's property from the overlay it's my understanding that in reviewing the reviewing the purposes of the overlay and the objections to it the only objection is that it does not access a major roadway however all it is adjacent to two properties that will be included in in the overlay and the major roadways can certainly be accessed through that area and therefore it would keep in purpose with the purpose of the overlay in general and the planning commission's comprehensive plan and we believe that it should be permitted it was him it was permitted initially and do not believe that the purposes of the com comprehensive plan or that a potential area of development and of the community development be excluded simply because it does not have access to a quote unquote major road in the town there are plenty of plans and what you in the township and what you access one development by going through another and that occurs very often when developments are added on to you know even if it remains the same you're still going to have the ability to the relevant single family homes and he's still going to need access through the roadways which will be going through the overlay properties and it would be essentially you're going to be doing accomplishing the same thing with no benefit to the township by allowing it to be part of the overlay properties your religion serving open space your conserving would your conserving areas and making it more of a neighborhood which is going to make it and potentially with the ability for different very housing you're going to make it more attractive which is overall the purpose of was it wasn't broke don't fix it will last say it is broken we're headed the same direction as up with sinclair among them with our taxes we've got houses seven hundred thousand lower than most people can afford in this plan i have fifteen acres with  parcel that flowed into a residential one or one just a regular or one what do you do with a piece of property is i understand his argument is that there are jason properties that are in that district and i don't see any reason i mean assuming that we do this why shouldn't he be able to access the road through the other ones that are zoned this way he potentially could and properties that we took out tonight for example if mr taylor wants to come back to plan a commission and council with a development proposal to to ask council and planning commission to be included in the overlay that that process is still available to him ok but what about if if if if this would pass the way it's traffic and he wants to and he wants to do it is there any conservation residential overlay might not make sense so i think that mr taylor's point me correctly back to the neighboring properties with  what we're saying is at some point the future is to come to us planning commission and council and and to say this is all over this is already been developed under the overlay and i want to go that way we're being that something that could be permitted at the time  of his parcels not in the overlay now corrected a sort of like a rezoning to be included in the over labor would be the requests right now he's being it's being shown and being proposed that he not being clued but he could come to us spoke was basically in my mind saying that when he moved in he moved in with a certain understanding of what the property was going to be he bought in a plan he thought this was what it would be like i think you  people two groups of people who have to be considered the residents who are objecting to this particular parcel or objecting to what you said they did not want to have a development added behind them after they had lived in the plan built in the plan with an understanding that there wouldn't be anything like that on the other hand mr taylor has an opportunity to potentially do something different than what he has been doing in building certain size houses certain types of housing neighborhoods so the point that i heard you just say is that there's the potential for it to be rezoned if in fact he does not infringe on the existing potential for the residents in the neighborhood that he built in a different manner before correct so that's part of the question and whether or not they would really would agree that it would impact or not impact them would be part of the discussion if they came if he came forward and that would involve  and that brings me to the second part of my comment i have some reservations about the overly destructs personally i haven't lived in the township as long as many of the other council people but i agree that the the world nature of the township is our characteristic it's our personality you just said that we could petition to change any type of the property i'm concerned about making so many available as overla right away and special is specially for the mixed use because i don't understand the relationship or the mixed use compared to what you know what you what the planning process referred to as traditional neighborhoods there's supposed to be a component of walkability an ability to get to amenities and what i'm concerned about is the lack of that aspect being developed at the same time concurrently for us to allow all these overlays at one time to me is concerning because i would not want parts of this type of development occurring when then no commercial or the type of amenities you want would develop afterwards i'm concerned about how to control that so that's since you brought up the whole idea of rezoning and petitioning i would throw that out now mr taylor yes  acres i don't want to go through the aggravation of resigning a piece of property would probably take a year i'm not read the bill right now but you've got three hundred sixty acres adjoining this what do you think for single family which i planned on i have source available it has cover three hundred sixty acres does not have a cover up at the coal mines i don't think it's necessary for me to have to which i develop hundred eighty two hundred acres in old trail now and i'm only continuing what i was doing with this new plant i don't want to have to start all over again like these people one other time i read to and patio homes or townhouse duplexes i don't have the topography to accommodate that and i was told i was not in the relay district and actually i went down the next day and spoke with emily and she confirmed that i was not in the relay district last week i spoke with ed zouk the but this particular matter and i have twenty eight plus acres left i s i'm glad i came and i because i'm getting another education i look at this and it clearly says that i have to have two types of housing which i was i cannot and i don't think any developer can make that work already under a verbal agreement with a competing developer and not getting neighboring developer they already expressed a concern or thought making work i frankly if i'm including this i can't help but to look at it as a taking of some sort so museum is it easy any then the overlays in the conservation residential overlay his property is right here then just the way he's talking tells me that one need to use the overlay he can just develop under the conventional r one a underlying zoning the overlay will not be an option for him or a developer that would choose to develop and buy your property you would he would alternative if that alternative doesn't work for you you use the underlying rules which haven't changed or the way i'm reading it if i have fifteen to fifty it's only if you use the over you don't have to use the over you're still  underlying are ones zoning is still there this is just an optional way an optional zoning that a developer or a landowner could choose if you were looking at developing your acreage for in this like require all right now i am at best confused and i don't mean to be humorous i guess i have ted taylor but after ed and then i thought it was going to be done but it's a damn tailor so mr taylor who you are the spoken after ed are they different people they're different people he's done he's done alright as the name we're looking for a then taylor one thirty four golden eagle drive and if you don't know by now in a few minutes or find the relation so you know we talked about this lot we told lot of people who were here last time stay home because everything  good we can make sure that there wasn't any problems and in what i'd like to you know a break i like to bring couple points of counsel and maybe even counsel back there is that the i believe the council back there brought up saving the trees this is points of interest that you may or may not know are that that property was developed in the development in the plan as a one state law fifteen acres roughly fifteen acres people then he bought it back as a fifteen acre stable he was free and clear he bought it back for well knowing what it was brought it back now he wants to change it he wants to do it under the overlay which prevents him from having to go through really believe strongly that that should not be i understand the argument about the roads that you guys made and if the roads are through there and it's coming from another direction i mean i think the time then is to valuate it like you say i think changing it in this overlay plan is just wrong you know there's a lot of people who are against that a lot of people can spend a lot of time at soccer fields lots of signatures for sixty days less than sixty days from the election so nobody wants to have to go through that just keep it one of the is and let it go through the normal process and don't do it through an overly thank you unfortunately for you in your sixty days i don't believe any of us are up for that exist what so i think the point that mr taylor is trying to make is that whether he developed under or won the way it is now or whether he uses the overall way to be still going to have generate the same amount of know unless i misunderstood what he was is that right that's right and whether that's accurate as far as our zoning boards i don't know if my had but again and i don't believe that with regard to the comments that may have been stated to the prospective buyers with regard to the integrity this being a single fifteen acre lot that this community has any way to enforce that commitment that may made you know at that point of sale it's a property owner's right to be able to he's entitled to hold up the property them ok i that is the end of people that have asked to speak there's a lot of you out there i'll open the door to say does anybody have a hand that they want to put up so just one question about the next presidential overlay again one of your desires was to create new opportunities for various types of housing and include and that you have town town homes apartment buildings as various types i noticed the last time this was presented and i didn't have an opportunity staying make the comment that was in your subsection on the available apartment buildings you had  restriction that no apartment building could have more than twenty four units after the meeting because i didn't have the opportunity to ask the question at the meeting i'd made the comment to that an engineer i've worked with has shown me plans for some fairly attractive thirty unit apartment buildings and i was wondering what was the rationale for limiting the apartment building to twenty four units as opposed to thirty i noticed that that provision is now been tweaked you now have the provision that you can have thirty two unit apartment buildings but they must be configured as two separate towers of sixteen units a joined by a lobby and i'm just wondering again since i've seen other layouts for attractive apartment buildings what the rationale to get that granular in that specific that it must be a thirty two unit apartment with two towers of sixteen as opposed to just saying you can have apartment buildings with thirty two units and then leave it up to planning commission later when the developers actually present the plans to make sure it's an attractive building in keeping with the community well that that's back to the articulation and making it look not like one big mass of thirty two unit building it's just all part of the design criteria just to break up the mass of a building of that size is where those provisions are coming  all right there's a gentleman over here you please have you come forward to the microphone right on the edge of the boundary there right down thomas road right at the very bottom you see the long orange line yes that one that's one of the ones that it doesn't really say whether dedicated open space does not apply to all in the conservation residential that ten percent that's for the mixed residents remains resident right so it doesn't quite know that was the only question good evening my name is julie dix and i live at one fifty nine irish town road extension and i've been a resident for twenty four years and i'm just here to give voice to my reservations about this pla and i did write a letter to the r and the letter to the editor in aman ak starting out saying i can't believe i'm against something that has conservation in the title because i love conservation i love trees i love i love peter's township and so i'm here to just sort of be a speaker to say i am sort of similar to what i think of him was jim mentioned the character of our township is what i love about it and i know all of us love that about living here in this this wonderful district and i'm not here to talk about my personal property i'm not affected i don't have you know plans to build on my land or anything like that i'm here just because i'm speaking in opposition to the plan i'm thankful that i think last time the last meeting there was some uproar about poor communication about the meeting thank you for putting a sign up over the trail i don't know if that was a result i don't know but that was a result of but i'm thankful that you followed through with that and just some things that are concerning and we're going to bring in apartment buildings and a lot more homes not only is the character changing in our community the rural community that we love but the traffic just it already is difficult today i don't have to come home on valley brode i go the opposite direction at five thirty but when it's going towards be back out it goes all the way almost to the carpet tonight and you know people have to do that every night on their way home from work and that's something i'm sure they don't appreciate about having too many homes too many people with not enough for the infrastructure with the roads so i just i feel like the frontage of twenty five fifteen to twenty five feet from the road and the side  of seven and they have to ten feet just drastically changes what we love about our home here sorry to say that we can discuss this and hope you reconsider i'm happy you took some places out and i may be your considered to take more land out of this plan thank you i name is margaret smith and i live it one thirty two golden eagle drive and i just really have a question based on some comments that were made after people spoke about that one  area that you guys had indicated that mr taylor had already built multiple homes there and i was just curious if that would be able to be done before the home with you know in a state l all those in favor here at counsel ok please say i like anyone opposed