PC Minutes 9-18-17

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 The Regular Meeting of the City of Dover Planning Commission was held on Monday, September 18, 2017 at 7:00 PM in the City Hall Council Chambers with Chairman Mr. Tolbert presiding. Members present were Mr. Holden, Mr. Roach, Ms. Edwards, Mr. Holt, Mr. Baldwin, Dr. Jones, Mrs. Welsh, Ms. Maucher and Mr. Tolbert. Staff members present were Mr. Dave Hugg, Mrs. Dawn Melson-Williams, Mr. Eddie Diaz and Mrs. Kristen Mullaney. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Mr. Holt moved to approve the agenda as submitted, seconded by Mrs. Welsh and the motion was unanimously carried 9-0. APPROVAL OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES OF AUGUST 21, 2017 Mr. Baldwin moved to approve the Planning Commission Meeting minutes of August 21, 2017, seconded by Mr. Holt and the motion was unanimously carried 9-0. APPROVAL OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION QUARTERLY WORKSHOP MEETING MINUTES OF AUGUST 23, 2017 Mrs. Welsh moved to approve the Planning Commission Quarterly Workshop Meeting minutes of August 23, 2017, seconded by Mr. Holt and the motion was unanimously carried 8-0 with Ms. Maucher abstaining from the vote since she did not attend the meeting. COMMUNICATIONS & REPORTS Mr. Hugg stated the Annual Meeting of the Planning Commission which would normally be held in July that would have included the election of the Chairman and Vice Chairman will be rescheduled for a future meeting upon completion of the appointment process. We are still waiting for Council’s action he believes. Mr. Hugg stated that the next Planning Commission regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, October 16, 2017 at 7:00pm in the City Council Chambers. Mr. Hugg provided an update on the regular City Council and various Committee meetings held on August 28 & 29, 2017 and September 11 & 12, 2017. Mr. Hugg stated that a lot of the items that the Planning Office has been working on are on the agenda for tonight’s meeting. He does want to indicate to the Commission that they continue the Ordinance review process. They just sent the City Clerk’s Office a proposed Ordinance to deal with adult day cares which is an area that was not covered at all in our Ordinance and turned out to be a lot more complicated than they initially thought it might be. We are taking another look at the Ordinance revisions relating to manufactured home communities in response to some concerns that were raised about a couple of the provisions from last year. They have a first draft of a Vacant Building Ordinance. This is kind of a rewrite of that Ordinance to both toughen it 1

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 some and maybe include some additional incentives on the other hand so that it’s a little more effective than it seems to be presently. Mr. Hugg stated that there is an upcoming IPA Planning course. It’s Planning 207: The Housing Demographic Realignment: Solving the Millennial Puzzle in Delaware to be held on September 29, 2017 from 9AM to Noon at the Paradee Center. If any Commissioners want to attend please contact Planning Staff in order to get registered. OPENING REMARKS CONCERNING DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS Mrs. Melson-Williams presented the audience information on policies and procedures for the meeting. OLD BUSINESS 1) Requests for Extensions of Planning Commission Approval: None 2) MI-17-06 Updated DRAFT Preliminary Land Use Services (PLUS) Memorandum of Understanding – Action on Planning Commission Recommendation for Updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Preliminary Land Use Service (PLUS). The Draft MOU document was presented and discussed at the Planning Commission Quarterly Workshop on August 23, 2017. Representatives: None Mrs. Melson-Williams stated that the Planning Commission probably remembers this from the Quarterly Workshop. They had a presentation about the Preliminary Land Use Services (PLUS) process and the current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the City has in place. At this point, they are looking to update that MOU and that was discussed at the Quarterly Workshop on August 23, 2017 but as that is not a formal meeting we do need to in this public meeting tonight have the findings of the Planning Commission in regard to that MOU. What they included in the packet for that application is actually the action form that was forwarded to the City Council’s Legislative, Finance and Administration Committee which gives the background of the MOU and the PLUS process that involves the Office of State Planning Coordination. It does give some history of the PLUS review activities in Dover since 2004. They also included the Draft Updated MOU for the PLUS process in the packet. There are some minor changes to the MOU from the one that is currently in place. Most significantly, it will exempt projects within the Garrison Oak Technical Park from PLUS Review unless they involve construction of buildings that total or exceed 75,000 SF in size. The MOU basically establishes the process for PLUS for all residential projects that contain 125 or more dwelling units or non-residential plans involving 75,000 SF or greater. There also is a requirement for PLUS Review if a property is located in the particular location and that is east of State Route 1 and north of South Little Creek Road. Projects in that area are required to go through PLUS. There is some other guidance given for the rezoning process. The PLUS Review process as noted in the MOU does not supersede or get the applicant out of our local process called the Development Advisory Committee. Also included in the packet was the discussion from the Quarterly Workshop Meeting which is the Draft Meeting Minutes that were adopted earlier this evening which include more detail of the discussion. 2

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 Tonight, the Planning Commission needs to take action in regards to the Draft MOU for the PLUS Review process. Dr Jones moved to approve MI-17-06 Updated DRAFT Preliminary Land Use Services (PLUS) Memorandum of Understanding, seconded by Mrs. Welsh and the motion was unanimously carried 9-0 by roll call vote. Mr. Holden voting yes; due to the discussion at the Planning Commission Workshop and it seems to be a sensible modification of the existing MOU. Mr. Roach voting yes. Ms. Edwards voting yes; based on the reasons previously stated. Mr. Holt voting yes; the discussion at the Quarterly Workshop explained a lot. Mr. Baldwin voting yes; based on the previous statements. Dr. Jones voting yes; for the previous reasons stated and her understanding as a result of the workshop is that it seems like it is going to be a seamless process and one that is beneficial to all parties. Mrs. Welsh voting yes; based on discussion at the Quarterly Workshop. Ms. Maucher voting yes; based on her review of the documents provided in the packet. Mr. Tolbert voting yes; he is in favor of anything that will facilitate the process that the applicants have to go through in getting their jobs done in Dover. NEW APPLICATIONS 1) MI-17-02 Text Amendments: Zoning Ordinance, Article 5 and Article 6 – Public Hearing and Review for Recommendation to City Council on a series of Text Amendments to the Appendix B: Zoning Ordinance, Article 5 – Supplementary Regulations and Article 6 – Off- Street Parking, Driveways and Loading Facilities. The proposed Ordinance updates various sections in order to enhance the flexibility of the code in several areas, including dumpster requirements, screening and buffer requirements (Arterial Street Buffer and Opaque Barrier), tree planting requirements, and curbing requirements. The proposed Ordinance also adds requirements for recycling to Article 5, Section 6 and rewrites Article 5, Section 18 – Sidewalk requirements to address pedestrian, bicycle and multi-modal access requirements and to allow the City to require multi-use paths instead of frontage sidewalks under specific circumstances. Ordinance #2017-12.  A copy of the Proposed Ordinance #2017-12 is available on the City’s website www.cityofdover.com under the Government Heading: Ordinances, Resolutions & Tributes. https://www.cityofdover.com/ordinances-and-resolutions The Legislative, Finance, and Administration Committee reviewed the proposed Text Amendments on August 15, 2017 and First Reading was completed before City Council on August 28, 2017. The Public Hearing and Final Reading before City Council is scheduled for October 9, 2017. Representatives: None Mr. Hugg stated that Staff has been working on a variety of improvements to our Ordinances. Some were recommended to them by local businesses and property owners, engineers and developers. A number were on a list that the Planning Staff had been putting together from time to time and waiting for the right moment. They determined as a group that they would take this in bit sized portions. What is before the Commission tonight is Phase 1 of what will be a number of Ordinance changes and amendments including the ones that he mentioned that Staff is currently working on. He thinks that it is important to make note that the intent of all of these 3

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 updates is to clarify the language, to make the process cleaner, to respond to what seem to be “hot button items” from some members of the development community and just to make the Ordinance more contemporary. The Commissioners have a number of documents in their packets tonight. One being a Petition to Amend Zoning Text (Report) which kind of follows through where the amendments are by section. They also have the form showing which lines and revisions of the Ordinance that Staff is recommending changing including Staff Amendment #1. As part of our process of reviewing these Ordinances, they ask the DAC members and other agencies to look at what they are proposing. The Public Works Department raised some questions about utilities and tree planting and things of that nature. You will see in the matrix in red and blue, some Staff changes that they are proposing to make the Ordinance even better from that standpoint. They also have the actual Ordinance with all of the strikeouts and add-ins so you can track where various changes have been made. If there are any technical questions, he will have Mr. Diaz respond to them since he has written most of these changes. He would urge the Planning Commission to act favorably on this first set of clarifications and revisions. Mr. Diaz stated that the areas that are proposed to be updated deal with certain buffering and screening requirements; trash requirements to include in the Zoning Ordinance requirements for recycling; updates to the way that tree planting requirements are calculated so that there is a specific area of the property that the tree planting requirements are based on; a rewrite of the section dealing with sidewalks that now deals with multi-use paths as well; a small update to the building architectural guidelines to deal with visible HVAC and utility connections; and some changes to the parking and driveway provisions in Article 6 including the reassignment of the waiver for curbing from the Planning Commission to the City Planner. Foremost all of the proposed changes is of course listed in the DAC Report. Mr. Tolbert opened a public hearing and after seeing no one wishing to speak, closed the public hearing. Mrs. Welsh asked for clarification of Section 18.3, Sub-Paragraph A; it has to do with sidewalks. The Commission seems to get a lot of questions on a lot of requests for the elimination of sidewalk. The sentence reads “where frontage sidewalk exists but does not meet the standards of Chapter 98, Article IV, sidewalks shall be re-laid to meet the standards.” Is that the applicant that would be responsible for and have the financial responsibility of that? Responding to Mrs. Welsh, Mr. Hugg stated that is correct. Mrs. Welsh stated that further down in Paragraph C, it talks about the sidewalk being designed to provide reasonable travel times and to disincentivize taking shortcuts. Can that be more specific? She is only asking that because you put in a lot of sidewalks and people will still cut across every place that there is not a sidewalk. Responding to Mrs. Welsh, Mr. Diaz stated that the Planning Commission does have an opportunity to propose an amendment to the text at this meeting. They already have Staff Amendment #1 so there could be a Planning Commissioners Amendment #1. He doesn’t know what better language would be off of the top of his head. Mrs. Welsh stated that she is not really sure that there is a better way to say that herself. She wants to know how that is determined to be set up so that this intent disincentivizes them taking 4

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 shortcuts. Responding to Mrs. Welsh, Mr. Hugg stated that the intent here is that in part of the development process, one of the things that they would look at as staff and one of the things that they would look at as the Planning Commission is if have we adequately short of figured out where people are going to probably want to go as opposed to building a nice sidewalk that takes you nowhere. He worked for the University of Delaware and at one point they were redesigning the sidewalks on the central campus (the old mall). They decided to wait about one year to see where everybody walked and then they paved all of the dirt paths. That was probably the more effective way to plan sidewalks. The intent here is to avoid sidewalks that kind of go in straight lines when really people’s mode of intended travel is going to be in some other direction. Mr. Holt questioned if all sidewalks are handicapped accessible? He knows that some of the existing sidewalks in Dover have problems. Responding to Mr. Holt, Mr. Hugg stated that the design standards for all new sidewalks which would be anything installed as part of a Development Plan have to meet the most current ADA requirements. There is also a requirement that if Building Permits are made using Federal money then the road system which includes the sidewalks and street crossing have to be to ADA Standards. He knows that the Public Works Department, as part of their annual street program also address those types of problems. Mr. Holt is correct; there are still older sidewalks in the City as in every location that are inadequate in terms of having been built in earlier times to earlier standards or they simple don’t meet the standards at all. Any new sidewalks will definitely be compliant. Mr. Holt stated that a few years ago some of them went around town in wheelchairs to see what was available and what the difficulties really were and that was an eye-opener. Mr. Holden stated that there is a new part, Section 18.4 that talks about the potential for multi- modal paths and it provides some framework for when they would be considered but it’s not real specific. He was curious for some comments from Staff on where they felt the need was for these and how that language under Section 18.4a would be utilized. He recognizes that there may be roads through the City of Dover that if developed upon, a typical five-foot-wide sidewalk probably doesn’t handle the pedestrian traffic that we would like to route onto a safer pathway. His concern with the language as written is that developers want specificity and want to understand what their requirements are going to be. What are we looking to resolve by adding this in? Is there a way to make it a little more specific so people laying out a site might understand whether they want or the City is going to demand a five-foot-wide sidewalk or a ten- foot-wide sidewalk? Responding to Mr. Holden, Mr. Hugg stated that he thinks the intent here is to provide some flexibility to the Planning Staff. You probably recall that in a lot of the Site Plan reviews and other actions that the Planning Staff deals with, there are recommendations and there are suggestions that come from the Staff. Often, those suggestions are in these kinds of areas where meeting the actual standard maybe sufficient but not necessarily the best solution. He sees this as an opportunity if there is really an unusual circumstance to come back to the developer and say to them that they can build their standard sidewalk from Point A to Point B but because of these conditions the public safety is better served by using a ten-foot-wide multi- modal path instead of the standard sidewalk. He doesn’t know that we the specificity in the sense of saying that this would only apply in certain places. It is a subset of the 18.3 requirements which are the first requirements that a developer would be required to meet. 5

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 Mr. Holden thinks that it benefits the process on the developer’s side to understand before they even get to an initial discussion with Planning Staff how much of their site they can develop for a parking lot and a building. An additional five-foot impingement on that footprint is impactful to them. To understand when that would be applied is impactful. If there was a way to use DelDOT road classifications or the number of average daily car trips that DelDOT tracks on all of those major roads might be a threshold at which this might be required. He thinks that as often as we can provide clarity to the developer for what’s going to be required of them before they ever get to an initial discussion benefits the development activity and the rate of it that we see in the City. Responding to Mr. Holden, Mr. Hugg stated that Staff would certainly agree with Mr. Holden in concept. One of the things that they are stressing and continue to stress and where an Ordinance like this becomes most effective, is to encourage developers to come in when they first got that concept in their mind or when they first get a couple of lines on a piece of paper and talk through what they are trying to do and what they would like to achieve. Very often we see a developer who has spent a great deal of money with an engineer, come in with a plan and almost from the get go there are issues and concerns that would have easily been addressed earlier in the design stage or clearly at the DAC process. He thinks that at the same degree this sentence sends a message to developers, maybe a subtle one, that they should take the opportunities to work with Staff; it will save you time and money in the end. Dr. Jones questioned when the initial application is requested, is there a kind of introductory letter that goes along with that application or is it just the application? She is thinking that ideally an applicant should want to discuss implications of any of the regulations but if there were some type of introductory letter stating that the applicant is advised to come in for a pre-application meeting. Responding to Dr. Jones, Mr. Diaz states that we do always ask when somebody wants to come in and apply for a development application that they should come in before that to have a pre-application meeting with Staff in which they explain the process of application, the application forms and any outstanding issues with the site itself that Staff sees ideally before they have a detailed plan available. That’s when they would tell the applicant that they would probably recommend a multi-use path for the site. Mr. Hugg stated that applicants do receive a fairly complete packet of materials depending on what they are applying for. There is plenty of information already provided about the process and the opportunity for pre-application meetings. Ms. Maucher stated that she would imagine that the character of the surrounding community would give them an inclination as to whether a sidewalk or a multi-modal path would be required. If there is a ten-foot path out there and you are going to build something, you might be inclined to think that it’s going to be continued. Mr. Holden questioned where in the City that we had such paths? He can think of along Schutte Park and the North Street extension in front of Kraft Foods and Proctor and Gamble where they have an eight or ten-foot-wide path. There is the identified Capital City Trail that was done that was identified to be a path of that sort. Are there a number of other spots? Responding to Mr. Holden, Mr. Diaz stated that there are continuous multi-use trails along North Street and Forrest Avenue. One of the ones that is planned is the Senator Bikeway. That one would actually go through the center of Downtown along Fulton Street. There is another one along Saulsbury Road. 6

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 Those are the ones that immediately occur to him. Mrs. Melson-Williams stated that additionally there are segments along the Bay Road Corridor and there are starts of segments of multi-use paths in the Route 13 Corridor as well. We believe that we are seeing DelDOT move to a multi-use path in that Corridor where feasible. There are opportunities beginning north of Division Street for multi-use paths which are prescribed by the other regulatory agency as part of the process for entrance plan approval with DelDOT. Mr. Holden stated that the challenge that he sees as it is written now is that an applicant that is coming to Planning Commission for approval doesn’t know until they get here whether the Commission is going to require that or not. If he is correct in reading it, if it’s a Site Plan that has to come to the Commission per Article 10 that they make that call. He thinks that is a detriment for the sake that any “unknown” in a development plan that a developer or designer can’t really nail down up-front adds questions and questions push developers to seek areas that have greater certainty. He thinks that the Ordinance overall makes a lot of sense but he thinks that the section needs to be clarified so that you can have a really good understanding by reading it if it’s going to be required or not. Whether that’s by specific road designations, by type of road designations using DelDOT’s criteria, or by traffic count would be a great way to do that. That would be a way that could be amended as traffic increases which kind of follows the intent of the language written under Part a now. Mr. Holden moved to recommend approval to City Council for MI-17-02 Text Amendments: Zoning Ordinance, Article 5 and Article 6, contingent upon clarification of when a multi-use path will be required to make clear per the language in what cases that it would be an expected component of a project, seconded by Mr. Holt. Mrs. Melson-Williams questioned if the motion was to adopt the Ordinance #2017-12 in First Reading format and does that also include the series of items addressed in Staff Amendment #1? Responding to Mrs. Melson-Williams, Mr. Holden stated yes. The motion was amended to include the adoption of Ordinance 2017-12 in First Reading format and to include the series of items addressed in Staff Amendment #1 and the motion was carried 9-0 by roll call vote. Mr. Holden voting yes; for the reasons previously stated. Mr. Roach voting yes; he thinks that clearing up any confusion to the builders or contractors prior to getting here will be beneficial to all. Ms. Edwards voting yes; based on all reasons previously stated. Mr. Holt voting yes; for all of the reasons previously discussed. Mr. Baldwin voting yes. Dr. Jones voting yes; but would add that she is confident that Staff will tweak it to make it work. Mrs. Welsh voting yes; based on tonight’s discussion. Ms. Maucher voting yes; for reasons previously discussed and she is pleased to see cleanup of regulations for clarity and a better understanding. She is happy to have no more curb waivers. Mr. Tolbert voting yes; for obvious reasons. Like the clarity of our amendments and the way that they are worded. This discussion tonight shows how important it can be and how important clarity is and he feels confident that Staff can write the Ordinance to make them as clear as possible. Meeting adjourned at 7:45 PM. 7

CITY OF DOVER PLANNING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 Sincerely, Kristen Mullaney Secretary 8