Design standards manual presentation and continuance

3:56:12All right, so the remaining items um are the design standards manual supposed to be a presentation item only and then PC fifteen. Just modifications to the land development code.

3:56:30So those items staff was um going to request a con well we still want to request a continuance to the May 4th, 2023 Local Planning Agency meeting at 130 in Dade City. Um I do have uh Margaret Smith, the county engineer, and um some other team members on the on Webex to discuss the items, but basically We did meet with individual Planning

3:57:00Commission members yesterday and did get some good feedback. And we want to include as this moves through the process, but understand that it's a process, to work on language that would include the LPA or the Planning Commission as a reviewer in a notice public hearing for design standards that are not established by. By the F DOT minimum standards, or that are more stringent than the latest edition of the minimum F DOT standards. In order to do that, we

3:57:30want to move through the uh because we presented something else to the horizontal round table so we want to show the horizontal round table those changes. We also need to make modifications to Section 204, which is the Planning Commission and the Planning Commission's duties. So that so we'll have to notice that as well as we bring that forward. Again, the uh the Margaret Smith, the county engineer, is on. I believe uh Justin Grant, who's the um acting assistant

3:58:01county administrator for public public sir um I'm sorry, for the public infrastructure bat branch is on as well to provide um any comments or ask answer any questions that the LPA may have on this item.

3:58:19I ask that we have a discussion to easy. emailed to us all this morning before the meeting and I quickly emailed her back and said I would like to have a discussion. The reason I wanted to have a discussion was Gabby was near last time. She was the other technical person that they were going looking to him and so I haven't had the luxury of being able to hear his opinions on the matter. And the other thing Thing is although

3:58:50I complained at the last hearing about not being invited to the horizontal round table meeting, I did get an invite, thank you, but then I noticed that Jamie was on it, so I decided it might be a sunshine law problem if I participated, so I opted not to participate. So I'm hoping he can maybe fill me in a little bit. This is our chance to do this without violating the sunshine laws. Yeah.

3:59:15David, I g I guess first clarification on the Sunshine Law of if John and I are both in the same horizontal round table meeting

3:59:23You you really should not be discussing at even a horizontal round table a matter that could come before the Planning Commission. In this particular case, the matter is before you. So we know it's reasonably foreseeable that it's going to come before you. And so yes, I think John made the right decision in not attending the horizontal round table meeting because it it's coming before you. Okay. But to

3:59:48be clear, that last horizontal round table did not include a matter that was coming it didn't include the design standards manual. It was just a horizontal roundtable. table. Right in o as old business, but the new business that was not going to be a

4:00:01but I but I mean I think John's basic point is that he has no way of knowing What's gonna be discussed horizontal round table I mean I guess you could look at the agenda. He doesn't know what Jamie may or may not bring up at a horizontal round table and if it implicates something that's gonna come to Planning Commission, then there's a potential sunshine law problem.

4:00:20No, I just wanted clarification if it's fine.

4:00:25It's better if only one

4:00:26of you attend that meeting. I is it okay if 'cause I c there's meetings that I cannot make. Is it okay if I reach out to John and say, John, I'm not going to be at this meeting, can you be at this meeting? Yes, that that's acceptable.

4:00:37You're not talking about the substance you're not talking about the substance of what's coming forward. But that just you're just orchestrating which one of you is going to attend. Yeah.

4:00:45Okay.

4:00:45But j as a general rule I prefer that you not both attend it since a lot of what goes to Horizontal Round Table are amendments to the land envelopment code. That's right, and you said are most of the land amendments to the land envelopment code do go to the horizontal round table, so Yes, they're likely to come to Planning Commission.

4:01:04Okay. Well and that's good to know. And I I guess to to answer John's first question about

4:01:10my take on the whole design standards manual and the issue that's before us. I guess first when Denise clarified that w it was not talked about at the horizontal round table meeting, at the last horizontal round table meeting. Um in regards to the to the manual and what's here um before us again today and gonna be continued to May now, um I I did part watch the Twice actually watched the the February second hearing. Um the the first time I was on the first time I was on vacation

4:01:41and I think my wife was about to kill me 'cause I was sitting at the table watching this thing and she's like, How much longer is this gonna go on? But i irregard.

4:01:49Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But anyways I I do appreciate the the amount of effort that the county has put forth. I know Margaret's put forth and unfortunately it doesn't seem like before she's gone she's gonna be able to see this through and I know she's probably She would probably like to see this go through and and get it wrapped up. That being said, I think the contents and I I believe this is for the most part what was said at the last meeting, but Uh the contents of the design standard manual as it's written, I know it's gone through a bunch

4:02:19of vetting with the horizontal round table and various committees and and groups, work groups, etcetera. Personally I don't have a huge issue with the contents and what's contained as a whole in the design standards manual. I believe a lot of what is in the manual itself was just basically cut and paste out of the land development code. I I do at first I was I was a little taken

4:02:49aback and I didn't understand and I still don't a hundred percent understand why it there's a problem with the way it's written now and in the land development code. I know where to find it. I don't have a problem but when you start mixing things up and sometimes it's in the land development code, sometimes it's in the design standards manual Um that just becomes problematic, but hey, I I've I've got to learn new things every day, so it's just I add that to the list. I do however my biggest concern and my biggest problem with the whole process and taking things out of the land development code and the design standards

4:03:20manual. was any kind of representation or suggestion or or request to approve any modifications of that manual administratively. Um because I I I foresee and I'm sure I'm not wrong um That design standards manual is going to continue to evolve. There's things that are going to be added to that design standards manual covering other items than roads and stormwater that are contained in there now. Um there's gonna be new players involved, there's gonna be new requests, there's gonna

4:03:50be I I I've seen it, I've seen it throughout the county and various other places where You have a project that comes up on one side of the county and one project has something go wrong and all of a sudden the whole standards change for the entire county. And that causes a big problem. Um I I'm really concerned with that. I think that when this comes back to us there has to be some kind of language in there. I fully understand that if there's reference in the design standards manual that things need to be done

4:04:20per DOT standards or state standards. I I mean the county doesn't have the authority to to change what those standards require.

4:04:29Oh to be clear, we We can't have Less than

4:04:33you could have more stringent state. That's great. But the there's a whole lot of things contained in the design standards manual, even as as it's written today. that don't have anything to do with state standards and aren't governed by state standards. Um I mean there there's there's there's a laundry list of things. I mean there there's typical cross sections for roadways, there's pavement width, there's uh uh lane widths, there's I mean there's all kinds of things that aren't governed by the state standards.

4:04:58So let me just try to address that and Ms. Smith can weigh in if she wants to. What staff tried to do, they did listen they did honestly listen to the last Planning Commission meeting and understood everybody's concerns and they weren't trying to subvert the Constitution. Um I think they were.

4:05:20Transparency and efficiency. Okay, and so what staff has now proposed, and Denise kind of hinted at it, is a kind of a middle ground. Because staff has to try to get the manual to the point where if the development committee says, hey, there's a problem with one of these design standards, you need to go fix this quickly, that it can be done fairly efficiently without going through the normal land of Owen Code Amendment process, which was which requires Requires three notice public hearing. So what staff is going to propose to you when this comes back in two

4:05:50months is a middle ground which says basically if it's DOT standards, those are just sort of self-amending based on state the state minimum standards. But if it's any of the things that Jamie just mentioned, which is a county standard that's not regulated by DOT, correct, or if it's more stringent than DUT standards, those would come to the Planning Commission at a notice notice public hearing. Planning Commission would make a recommendation. And that would go to the

4:06:20board for a final approval. But the board's final approval would be by resolution which would not require two more public hearing. So basically it's a middle round, which basically says it's not gonna have to go through the full three public hearing process that a land of Elma Code amendment would, but it would still come to the Planning Commission for a recommendation before the board adopts it by final resolution, which might be on the board's consent agenda if there's no controversy. But the board, if there is controversy about it, the board can pull it from consent and have a discussion. It's

4:06:50a middle ground because it still gives you a chance to weigh in on it. But it also doesn't say you're the final approval authority. The bo it's also the board that's the final approval authority. So But it's a quicker process than amending the land development code because it requires land development amending the land development code requires three public hearing. So let me just give you an example of one we had recently. The development committee was really gung-ho about we need to get rid of Asbuilt's for building purposes. Is that what we got

4:07:20rid of? That as built and asbuilt requirements. And the building department agreed that it should get rid of it except for in flood hazard areas. But to the building department wanted to implement it immediately. And unfortunately, we had to say it's in your land development code. You can't just wave something that's in your land development code. You gotta go through the process to do that. So it required three public, you know, a bunch of write-up and three public hearing to do all that. If that could be done in a more streamlined process,

4:07:50maybe just one public hearing in front of the Planning Commission, that's still better than you know the full process.

4:07:58So if we're gonna do that, and I'm not necessarily opposed, then let's get all the design criteria manual. Right now it's only the things that are under the county engineers purview. There are design standards regarding parking. There are design standards regarding landscaping. And I'm with Jamie, I gotta use this code

4:08:19every day.

4:08:20It is not convenient for me to look in the code for this policy, go to the design standard manual to find this criteria. So let me let me go to the development manual to find out which tree I can put in what place. Let's house them in one place and I

4:08:41Can I just address that though real quick? Because I have some look I use Land O' Lakes every day too. I don't use it the same thing you all do, but I I'm always looking at it. And what Margaret reminded me of, and that she can speak to it too, is that there will be ninety-five percent of the people look at their code, they look at it online. They don't have a book. I mean I look at it online, everybody I know looks at it online. And so the difference with this manual is it's gonna have links in the Land O' Lakes. So when you go to Mini Code.

4:09:12It's gonna have a link, so if you click on a standard, it's gonna have a link right to the design standards manual.

4:09:19Today we have a development manual and Brad I'm not picking on you 'cause we Brad and I had this discussion earlier in the week. And in the development manual. There are Hyperloops. Every one of them's broken.

4:09:34How is that helpful?

4:09:35Well, okay, that's a tech technology issue that maybe Brad can work on. But um

4:09:46working hyperlane somehow. We're not gonna guarantee that we're not gonna have some of the same IT issues that they're gonna that they have, but we have we hyperlink from land offing the right directly into the standard. And if you're in the standards you can microblink right into the land development code. So effective you're you're basically working with one manual.

4:10:09Yeah, I mean I view it as it's not materially different than if your land development code refers to a table and you have to click on a link to get to the table. I'm not sure that's materially different than if you have to click on a link to get to a standard that's in the manual.

4:10:24Well no, it's all housed right now it's all housed in one place. It's all on Unicode. Okay, we have that land development code. It's entirely on Municode. I'm not hyperlinking back between Municode and the County's website or the utilities website. It's all in one place.

4:10:46But if the link worked.

4:10:48Maybe if the design standards were on Municode, I might feel differently about that. But if we're in a printed manual form like the old days, it may be

4:10:57really like if it but if the link from Unicode to the manual actually works. And I understand that we may have some broken links currently.

4:11:08If the link from Unicode to the manual actually works,

4:11:14How is that not any different than if it is in the land of Element Cook?

4:11:19Because

4:11:19otherwise it's right there in front of my face. And I know today we're glad to go get these. You know one of the biggest complaints I give, and I hear it from all my colleagues in engineering, I hear it from the land use attorneys. Anyone that's involved in this, I don't know who decided to change the county's website. We all knew where everything was on the website. Today we're how many months later since this website's been changed? A hundred percent I can't find a damn thing.

4:11:42That's the whole That's a whole separate issue. Correct.

4:11:46It needs to get very restore

4:11:48the old works now. I

4:11:49know. Yeah, I'm not gonna defend that 'cause I

4:11:52and I haven't talked to anybody at

4:11:53the county yet that would have a ton time doing it. Um Well if it's not broke, why are we trying to fix it?

4:12:00What well I think uh if I if I 'cause I've spoken to Margaret at length about this. I think what she's trying to do though is create some standards that can be Change quicker.

4:12:16To react to you know, needs the needs of the development committee and the county. I mean th it's And With all due respect, I don't know that I agree with every standard going to the l to the design standards manual because I think there's a difference between technical standards to build something and an aesthetic standard. I don't think the Board of County Commissioners is going to want to delegate to the Planning Commission and staff complete authority to decide aesthetic standards. I I really don't. I

4:12:45think they should, but is the angle and the Length of a parking space, a design standard, the width, the radius of a return in a parking lot, aren't those design standards? And it and it's interesting.

4:13:03But um yeah, those are things that you know we've looked at and we've done back and forth and and we wonder what we want on on those like scanners. Those are not like staying scanners, those are those are scanners. Uh we went back and forth with the horizontal comment you all went to roof to determine which ones we would put in the manual and which ones we put in the monitoring.

4:13:29I guess the point is then let's do it all at once. If we're gonna do it, then let's Let's do it and be done with it. I don't want to have to go, well, if I want the parking standards, I've got to go to the land development code. But if I want to know the shoulder width, I've got to go to the design standard manual. And then interestingly enough, the pavement widths right now are proposed to stay resident in the land development code.

4:13:52Well

4:13:53Uh so if

4:13:54I c

4:13:54I

4:13:54I guess part of this in in Margaret maybe you can add to this because I know some of this stuff as as we're kind of working on the fly and trying to meet today's agenda, so Th there were things that got sent out and there was things that got added. I mean I I I frankly I don't even know what s what version of the developed standards of the D S M that we're talking about today. I mean I know we talked yesterday in the in the meeting that we had Um that the like shoulders and some of those issues from the

4:14:25that were brought up at the last meeting had been moved over to the design standards manual, right? I mean I I guess John uh maybe maybe this question, i if you knew if you had a traffic related standard or a stormwater related standard, you knew you had to go to the design standards manual

4:14:41Somewhat address your concern? I mean I I hear at the end of the day it'd be nice to have everything there, but is that

4:14:46Well, hey. I'm not gonna continue to be the dead horse over the thing. Like I sort of my personal opinion as a consultant who has to work with every chapter of that land development code every day would be for it to be resident in one single place. I understand their

4:15:07desire to have some agility. in making changes. Well I I I get that.

4:15:17You know I just think the whole thing needs some more thought. I don't think it's something that we need to rush into. And at the one, there's no great crisis, no emergency doing this. I think it goes without saying, maybe Margaret has a different opinion, but to me it goes without saying based on what is to chapter 363. I mean you are if you design something that connects to the county roadway system, you have to d design it. in accordance with the established minimum uniform standards. The statute's very clear about that.

4:15:49And it would seem to me that the easier thing to do, it seemed after talking with Margaret, one of the things I learned is that her biggest concern is not having to go amend the land development code every time a DOT manual gets updated. And we know, we know that the standard indices get updated every year and the specifications and so on and so forth. But all you have to do is list those in the land. Add them to the land development code, list them and say the latest edition thereof, and you're covered for any changes.

4:16:20Your your worry's going away.

4:16:22So I asked Margaret the same question, and she acknowledges that would cure that concern. But I think what she's trying to address is a different concern that for all the other standards that DOT Doesn't regulate. And if there if staff want some agility to amend a stormwater standard or a you know, uh some other stand you know, pavement of a parking pavement with her in a parking lot, there

4:16:52should be some ability to do it through a more expedited process. Still goes to the Planning Commissioner.

4:16:58Well I I hear you. But at the end of the day they've had your chance. They asked me to make comments on the manual. I told them I was going to make comments on the stormwater section. I made a whole bunch of comments on the stormwater section. And right now there's no proposal to change anything in the stormwater section. So you had your chance, you've had your chance to do these things. You're so worried about having the agility to change it so quickly. This was your chance to change whatever you wanted and bring it here and get

4:17:28it all approved. And the only thing we focused on is pretty much all some minor changes to structural numbers and They're actually kind of very innocuous things.

4:17:43Because we know there's some changes that need to be made. We aren't here

4:17:53Saying that today, that's why we're asking for time. We don't expect to make any changes on the flight. The horizontal round table is involved in every change we make. Um so so that takes time as well. So that is that is not the point to to to cut out stakeholders. Um the point is to work better with stakeholders to have less of a ordinance process to go through when it when it comes to making the the required. Changes that we're going to make.

4:18:21We don't have all the stormwater changes now. If we were, we have different proposals on the table as to how to handle that currently. So I'm not saying we're, you know, today today we asked for continuance. We weren't for one, could not really needed to be just uh on here talking about because we're no, I'm just thinking that we have

4:18:46I think that's on

4:18:47Well I don't think this. be a problem if you're granting me your wish today. I mean we're just trying to

4:18:53Yeah and and may just ask you this because I think over the next couple of months You can let Margaret and well not Margaret, but that team. Um that team work through some of the stuff that may be missing from the design standards manual or that maybe needs a change in the design standards manual and work through those issues through horizontal round table. I guess is Planning Commission at least okay with the concept of how changes to the manual would be processed? Because that's

4:19:23more of a democracy political issue than it is a than it than it is a

4:19:30technical issue. Well I personally do have a problem with it because I think I mean we're joke we joke about it, but it is a democracy issue. It's an issue of re representative government. If you you know, if we wanna if we wanna be efficient, as we're saying, why don't we just make somebody king? They can make all the changes they want.

4:19:51Well uh but Chuck I wanna make sure but their their modified proposal on that issue wasn't to bypass Planning Commission.

4:19:57I know, but we don't have any authority, even if it comes here. Well

4:20:00but is

4:20:01that

4:20:01if I understand right, David, isn't it Really what we're talking about is we're going from three public hearing to two.

4:20:06To one. To one.

4:20:08Well doesn't it go doesn't it gotta be approved by the board?

4:20:10It'll go to the board by resolution, but that would not be a public hearing. The public hearing would be in front of the Planning Commission. Because what the what staff heard you say, and maybe they heard wrong, was that you wanted at least one forum where any member of the public could come and speak about their concerns with the change. I didn't hear Planning Commission say you needed th there had to be three public hearing.

4:20:36No,

4:20:36yeah.

4:20:37No, that's right.

4:20:38So staff tried to draw a compromise between Democracy and efficiency. And so they came up with the concept of one public hearing in front of the Planning Commission. And then if it get if you you make your recommendation on it and then it goes to the board and the board adopts it by resolution. The board could pull it. for discussion if they want to and and have a discussion on it. If there's so for example, what I would predict would happen is if you get thirty people to show up

4:21:08at the Planning Commission and say, This is a horrible change And Staff still pushes it forward notwithstanding you saying no to it. I'm sure the board would not say this can't stay in our consent. We have a discussion about it before we approve this. But I think what staff is trying to do is come up with some process. I think Justin called it the skinny process. Um It doesn't require them to go through three public hearing, which is potentially three to four months, before they can get

4:21:38a change to this manual process. So they're trying to say, yes you'll have a notice public hearing on it, but it'll only be one. And it'll be this body who has it. I agree with

4:21:49you. I understand. I get that. There was something Jamie said. And as someone who's spent their career doing this in this county, he spoke a truth. And I've walked, and you've been here, David, through the development, the the evolution of the land development code that we have. A lot of our land development code is an ad hoc reaction to something somebody did that a commissioner or a county administrator

4:22:19didn't like and boom, we gotta do this. And I think Jamie makes the best point as to why the ship needs to get slowed down so that we don't make reactionary decisions, that they're well thought and that we look and we think about un and there's a lot of things that have happened in this land development code that have created unintended consequences. And and you're almost making the case for me, we want the agility in case we in case something

4:22:49we gotta change really quickly. Well that's what we're actually trying to avoid.

4:22:54Thanks, David.

4:22:56I'm not disagreeing with you. I I agree with everything you all are saying. My my point is is that The compromise is trying to create a balance is There probably are some changes that everybody's in agreement with. I'll just give you the example to remove the as built requirement. Okay. If staff's in agreement, horizontal round table's in agreement, and planning commission's in agreement, everybody's in agreement, why does it have to go through three public hearing before

4:23:24the check? Well I'm gonna use that one as example. Why was there an as built requirement? You know why? Because hundreds of people came in here and said, I got this water that won't drain out from between my houses. And that's why we have the little section of land development code that says if the setback is less than seven and a half feet, you can't have the air conditioner on the side. Well that's because we had these five-foot setbacks, air conditioners in the sides, and we didn't have any as built for the for the

4:23:54grading and drainage plan that was required and all of a sudden I couldn't get to the air conditioner because my side yard was flooded and that's how all of these things got in there as some reaction to some other bad event that happened. And then we realize, oh well yeah, these things do create another burden down the road here and that sort of thing. We we sometimes I think we're too quick to make a regulation. We need to slow down, we need to think, and we have to understand that there are unintended consequences,

4:24:25a great number of times when we make a decision like that. So we have to think about that and think about what what are the possible ramifications. But one of the things you learn as an engineer is there is no quick solution and your first idea, your first attempt at implementation of your first idea always fails.

4:24:50It has to be thought about, rethought about, refined, and ultimately you get to the satisfactory answer.

4:24:59Yeah, I I don't think that even this what I'll call the skinny process is quick, to be clear. I mean it still has to go through horizontal round table and sometimes those meetings with horizontal round table, Jamie knows this last two or three or four meetings or five before all those concerns get addressed. Then staff looks at it more and Horizontal Runter looks at it more before it even gets to any to see the light of day in a public hearing. So there is

4:25:29a lot of work that goes on with most of these changes before they get even get to the Planning Commission. If if the Planning Commission thinks that all these changes should go through three public hearing, we might as well just keep them in the line of development code. Because The only the real benefit of of putting it in the design standards manual is, in my opinion, because you all are saying it's not any easier to use, so the only benefit really is it's easier to change. If

4:25:59we don't want it make it easier to change and even when everybody agrees Might as well just keep it in the land of Elma Code. That's the point.

4:26:08I think this is a pro one little nugget out there. Uh I think we're one of the two counties that doesn't have a design standards manual. And we we do get quite a few calls because I think we have engineers that are not familiar with the land development code here in Pasco County calling and ask us what the MR standards are. Um so and we get to to kind of line up with other towns. are doing to the expectations of uh you know the industry as a whole um and to just be more

4:26:38efficient and effective. I mean I think I think all of those are related to putting all the standards and all the IP um uh sheets together. I I think that that does benefit us in a long way. It may not be where do you guys think we should be today about I think I think it would be I think it would be a great thing for Pasco County to join the rest of them. industry with um you know creating that

4:27:08That's what a lot of engineers are working for. It's a general standard that they can come into your right county, go in and click on the design standards, and there

4:27:18they are.

4:27:21Uh I I'm gonna take exception with that because I design in those counties and they're miserable to work with.

4:27:28Yeah, Margaret, I I mean But personally I don't know why those counties don't all come to our way of doing it. I I do a little bit of work in those other counties and it is impossible to find all the standards 'cause they're all scattered everywhere. Um I personally I

4:27:42don't know what you might mean in Elfers.

4:27:44Well just I I underst I understand that's their goal but I I just I'm just speaking from experience. And I I I mean, don't get me wrong, there there are things, I mean, just a a standard s a standard details booklet. I I think would be extremely helpful. I know that Utilities has one. I think that would be extremely helpful. There are things in Pasco County. But I I mean, personally, and I told you this yesterday, I I don't see the system as broken now. I understand if you want to make the process easier to make modifications.

4:28:15However, I do have an issue with making it too easy to make modifications. David, for just for my clarity, the the skinny process goes to horizontal roundtable. It's going to come to us for public hearing. And then it's gonna go to the board for resolution for a yeah

4:28:34make a recommendation on it about whether you think it's good or bad.

4:28:37Okay.

4:28:38And which by the way is more than the authority you have on the land development code because, as I reminded the Planning Commission last time, if it's a land development code amendment, you're technically only supposed to be recommending whether it's consistent with the comp plan or not. So you're actually gonna have more authority over the design standards manual than you have currently for the land development code. But you make a recommendation on it and then it goes to the board. The board approves it by resolution, which is not a public.

4:29:03Okay.

4:29:05And it's definitely not too public hearing. So the changes would be approved by resolution. Board resolutions do not necessarily require a public hearing. They could just the board could approve them on a commitment.

4:29:14How does the under this scheme how does the board know what the Planning Commission's recommendation was for

4:29:23resolution? There's still an agenda memo that goes to the board. So in

4:29:27the agenda memo but

4:29:30We come up here and we read the agenda here today. That doesn't happen at the BCC level. And as I complained last time about the agenda here being three or four hundred pages and today it was eight hundred and thirty-three. I looked at one of the BOCC agendas a meeting or two ago and it was three thousand six hundred and fifty some odd pages. How do they even know that's in there?

4:29:54So I'm not sure you're giving our board enough credit. I'm gonna defend our board, okay? Um I would say every meeting there's at least three or four items that they pull from consent. So I don't think with all due respect I don't think you're giving the they are looking at I mean they're not that they may not read stuff they may not read every single word of every single item but they're at least looking to say oh well that's an item I'm concerned about I better look more into it and it and they often pull it if they have a concern. In

4:30:24the case of the design standers manual if And by the way, a lot of them watch the Planning Commission meeting too. I know. So probably watching this right now. Um If they watch a Planning Commission meeting and they see thirty people show up on a change to design seniors manual, I can pretty much bet they're gonna pull it from consent and discuss it. But if it's the change the design standards manual, not a single person shows up. You all recommend approval of it. They'll probably just leave it on the consent agenda. Why would I mean They

4:30:54have a lot of stuff on the consent agenda that's true. So I think it would be like anything else. I mean, even if it was on the public hearing agenda We make changes to the land development code that they might as well they can't be unconscient, but where there's no public discussion of them. Right, Denise? We probably have many glitch changes to the Land Development Code that because they went through horizontal round table because without any issues, because they went through Planning Commission without any issues, the Board had technically has a public hearing on them but nobody s gets up to speak.

4:31:26And they just motion to approve. And it's approved with all and almost no discussion. So I'm not sure this process is materially different because the board could still pull it from their consent agenda and have a discussion about it, if there was a controversy about it. And I I give our board enough credit that they would do that. And by the way there's nothing stopping you all from calling your board member too and saying Hey, this one I didn't like the Planning Commission. Can you pull it from consent and and discuss it?

4:31:57Well I agree. You don't have a sunshine law problem between you calling the board members. So Even if only one of you doesn't like it.

4:32:06You

4:32:06could call up your board member and say this one should be pulled from discussion.

4:32:12But I think what staff was just trying to come up with is is there a middle ground where it doesn't require three public hearing there's at least some agility for design technical design standards that maybe don't require the same public discussion as amending our sign regulations or you know What question I

4:32:31would have. Yeah.

4:32:36If we're so concerned about

4:32:39And

4:32:39why haven't we taken this opportunity to make some change? I mean other than the changes, the only changes that have been proposed I mean are truly almost innocuous. I mean I think she's got a quar extra quarter inch of asphalt on a subdivision street or something like that. Otherwise there's almost nothing changed. And that's what I'm like, well wait a minute, you're trying to create this process whereby you can change it quicker, but here's your chance to change this stuff and you you're you're spending your opportunity trying to change the system when you wanted to change criteria.

4:33:11Why don't you do it?

4:33:14Well I'm gonna let Margaret answer that question because I'm not involved in the technical what what goes into at this point and I'm not

4:33:20I'm not sure if you really understand the question, but I will tell you what we did was go through every single standard and look at them, look at them related to the DOT standards and look at them related to input from the HRT, and we we did all of that for every single

4:33:44It was a pretty major effort and it involved a lot of activity every time it was every time they expected brought up something that they were concerned about. All of the County County standard details, all of those were looked at and reviewed and brought up to the very latest standards. So there weren't they made it look like tiny tweaks, but there's a lot of tiny tweaks all through that fly coordination with the Hormonal Round Table and Input from then when they found it today wanted similar to that parking lot structural number that you brought

4:34:14up, that's a change that we made because it brought to our attention. That was the intent of this whole update. It wasn't just moving things to a manual. Every single item, every single standard that moved over was looked at. And then there was a big about which standards should stay in the code and which standards should go. There's definitely obvious standards related to ropeway and that type of thing that should definitely be bringing into the standards. However, there were some other standards

4:34:44that were, you know, we went back and forth on is this a standard that would be in this code, or is this a standard more like a code that should stay here in the code? So there's a lot of back and forth. We're talking what, two and a half years worth of back and forth with the HRT, with looking at the standards to make sure they're the latest and up to date. Yeah, I I don't think it was just a tweet here and a week there. We looked at every single standard. I think that was a major part of the effort that was major. Yes, we do have a manual that we create out of it, but

4:35:14every scanner was looked at and given an update that's needed.

4:35:26You know, as an outsider, aren't there industrial standards for s some of the items that you have to deal with?

4:35:36Industrial standards? Industrial industry. Standards standards. Oh industry standards. Well it standards. I mean so for for almost all infrastructure there is some standard, so

4:35:49Margaret's main concern was on roadways that DUT sets minimum standards that we follow. For stormwater, you know, Swift Mud sets minimum standards that we follow. But for any standard There there are probably some things that only the county sets the standard. Or sometimes the county might try to adopt standards that are more stringent than what Swift Mud or DUT may impose. So for example, on drainage, we have a drainage basis and special concern

4:36:20standards, which I suspect are more stringent than anything in SWIFT MUT. Is that accurate? Yes. Okay. So there are some standards where the county may have A desire to adopt more stringent than what the statewide standard is.

4:36:37You just picked one that's a great example. Okay, so the basins of special concern, at least in the current proposal, have been moved to the manual. And the criteria have been moved to the manual.

4:36:52That's a place I don't think I want a skinny process. And you know why? Because that affects people's land rights. They have development rights. And we're drawing a map and saying, Yeah, but if you live in the boundaries of this map, your burden is to do this. Those things should be subject to public hearing and notices and the like. Okay.

4:37:22Like I said, there It's a

4:37:28The counter argument to that is let's just say that we we all agree that something was too stringent in the drainage based on special concern standards. And everybody agrees we we went overboard, we were too reactionary, we want to reverse it and make the standard less stringent. Now you're saying you've got to go through three public hearing to do it.

4:37:50Well, I've been doing this for almost thirty years here and I other than the as tilts for the grading plans for a lot drainage, I haven't seen a bunch of re rules repealed. I keep seeing the Glandevel I think the land of the I think the list of in this county that is fifteen hundred pages and the Holy Bible is only twelve hundred. Okay. So it didn't get skinnier.

4:38:18How long is the Constitution?

4:38:24I don't

4:38:25I don't have a solution to you to all of your concerns. All I can tell you is that in my opinion, if you're gonna make changes go through three public hearing, then There's not really even any point of having the design standards, right? Because you must just y you're right that all you could do is just amend the land development code and say that DUT standards are self amending and you don't have to change your code every time D U T changes their standard.

4:38:55Staff is trying to create some agility with the t the other other technical standards. Hip, if, if. Nobody wants that agility and we all want it to go through public hearing.

4:39:10then you might as well just leave it in the line of building cook. 'Cause that's what that's the process thing. I

4:39:14I will tell you this, out of fairness and respect, I will contemplate at all during this continuance. I may still come back here with the position that I want three public hearing, but I'll give it some fair consideration and I can tell you I'm gonna go discuss it with some commissioners and see how they feel about it. Um The other reason that I wanted to have this discussion. And I have this briefly with Margaret yesterday.

4:39:46is I would appreciate when this comes back.